Bit the Jackpot (10 page)

"She was mortal, correct? Smith wasn't wrong about that, too, was he?" Donatelli turned and looked at him, his dark eyes amused. "No. I didn't see her die, though. I was chasing Kelsey."

"And she outran you?"

Ringo kept his mind tightly closed and gave a casual shrug, hands in the pockets of his linen pants. "She's older than me, and had a head start. Would you like me to pay her a surprise visit?" And kill her, was implied, though Ringo wasn't sure he could do it. He was hoping he could play a game of his own, to protect mostly himself, but Kelsey as well.

A week without feeding would be death for a vampire. At least one his young age, and addicted to drug blood. And for whatever reason, Ringo did not want to die.

"Perhaps. Let me think about it."

"Her memory's gone. She doesn't remember anything. Not me. Not anything about that night." The night Smith had shot Kelsey with a full round of bullets, then drained her entirely of blood. The night Donatelli had turned Ringo into a vampire.

"But she is under Fox's protection?"

"It looks that way. But I think the mortal woman is his true weakness. Maybe his feeding source."

"Smith says she was killed."

"Does that matter? If he had one feeding source, maybe he has another, and another. Which makes him a hypocrite. Which makes Carrick look bad. Or maybe he took this dead mortal and turned her. That wouldn't make Seamus Fox and President Carrick look very good to voters, would it?" Ringo's palms were wet with vampire sweat in his pockets, but he stood as casually as he could. Met Donatelli's eye straight on.

"You've given me something to think about, Ringo. Sit down and join me for dinner."

A snap of his finger and suddenly there was a short, curvy woman with pink cheeks and bouncy blond hair that swished over her back as she walked into the sitting area from what Ringo had thought was the bathroom. She wore a tiny miniskirt, and a lacy sleeveless top, and she carried a goblet of blood in her hands. She set it on the table and glanced at Donatelli for approval, her body leaning slightly toward him, breasts out, neck arched, pulse pumping, pumping, pumping in excitement and anticipation. Ringo could see bruising on her arms and her neck, but she still glowed with health, her eyes dilated with desire.

She was very much mortal, very clearly addicted to the pleasure of giving her blood without a glamour, to the draw of power that came from Donatelli, and the vampire sensations he could give her as he fed from her. The smell of her filled Ringo's nostrils, her warm mortal flesh dewy and loamy to his heightened vampire olfactory senses. She was plumper than he had liked women when he was alive. He'd always felt suffocated by all those curves and rolls. But as a vampire, her soft, juicy flesh appealed to him, made his mouth water and his nostrils flare.

The girl was aroused, and now so was Ringo, to his embarrassment.

"Why don't you drink this glass here first." Donatelli gestured to the goblet. "A special blend for you."

Ringo didn't need to be asked twice. He brushed past the girl, who gasped at his speed, and dropped into the chair opposite Donatelli.

"Then when you're finished with that…"

It was half gone already. He'd learned to toss it back like a shot. One, because his body craved the blood desperately, and all its soothing, lethargic properties, and two, because he was never certain it wouldn't be taken right back away from him before he could drink it.

"… why don't you and Katie spend some time together?" He nodded in the blonde's direction.

Ringo slapped the empty glass down and stared across the table at Donatelli. The blood was slipping and winding through him, easing his aches and stroking his extremities into a hot, pleasant boil. He hadn't seen this coming. It was either a trick, or he had been elevated to Donatelli's inner circle. Or perhaps it was one more way to enslave him. He'd never been allowed to feed directly from a living source before, and just the thought sent his heart racing, his fingers twitching, his dick swelling hard and eager.

He chanced a glance at Katie, curious what her reaction would be. She was pouting.

"I thought I was going to be with you tonight, Donnie."

Ringo just about swallowed his tongue. Donnie? That almost drew a laugh from him for the first time in months.

Donatelli reached for her and she sidled around the table to him. He wrapped an arm around her waist and pulled her against his side. "Don't stick your lip out like that at me or I'll bite it."

Her breath caught in obvious excitement, anticipation. "Okay."

Laughing, he patted her backside. "Later, pet. First I want you to go with Mr. Ringo and let him taste how sweet you are. Then when you're finished I have a present for you."

"A present?" Apparently that was enough inducement. She moved back around the table and smiled at him. "Hi."

Ringo wanted to say no to what Donatelli was offering, but knew he wouldn't. Knew he couldn't.

"Take him to the bed, precious, and take off your clothes so he can see your pretty body."

"Okay." She pivoted again and started across the room toward the big king-size bed, already peeling off her ivory lace top.

"Better hurry," Donatelli told him with a conspiratorial smile. "She'll start without you."

Ringo knocked his chair over when he stood up, forgetting his vampire strength in his eagerness.

"Don't limit yourself to the neck, which is very cliche. Bite her wherever you like, though you might wish to know she's fond of the deviant." Donatelli took another sip from his glass.

Katie had dropped her miniskirt to the floor after the shirt, and was walking nude up the two steps to the bedroom. She glanced over her shoulder with a small, flirty smile.

"Don't take too much blood. I'm rather attached to her. I'd be mildly distraught if you killed her."

At those words, Ringo paused. He didn't want to do this. This was a mistake. This was another way for Donatelli to enslave him, hold him under his command, force him to do his dirty work.

His body screamed at him to do it, to take it, to fuck her, and suck her blood. But somewhere in his mind he protested just as loudly. He shouldn't. He already despised himself, what he had become, what he was.

Katie gave a huff of exasperation when she realized he wasn't following her. She came back down the steps, more flouncing than seductive. "Come on."

Her breasts collided with his chest, her pelvis pressed against his erection.

Then she nipped his bottom lip, and Ringo gave in to what he was, what he had become, what he'd always been.

Cara knew offering a lap dance was a calculated risk. Because she didn't really want Seamus to take her up on it. She'd never danced down on a guy in her life. Swiveling on a pole behind a screen was a whole different mind-set than swiveling on a man, and prior to Seamus, she'd never really wanted to perform the latter move. At the moment, though, she had to admit, a small part of her was tempted to do it and shock that bland look off his face. The other, more restrained part of her personality was cringing inside at the thought of having to actually go through with it.

But she had suggested it because she was angry that he had seen her as nothing more than a sex object, as a stripper. She had convinced herself that she was an artist, a dancer, a solo act hidden behind the screen, and when he'd confessed he'd wanted to have sex with her, it had made her feel cheap, degraded.

Which was stupid. She danced naked. Did she expect he would look at her and leap to the conclusion she was a genius?

She needed a vampire reality check.

Seamus needed three. Right, left, and center.

If they were stuck together, even temporarily, she didn't want to be the only one off-kilter. She had to shove him sideways as well.

"Cara?" Seamus asked her breasts.

"Yes?" She put her hands in his black hair. Even though it was short, it was thick and soft, and she couldn't help but enjoy the feel of it as she gripped.

"What are you doing?"

At the moment, she was only standing in front of him, but given the husky sound of his voice, that was enough.

"I'm waiting for your answer." Picking through his hair, she found a smooth, satin scar.

He cleared his throat. "Well, um, is there a reason you're offering… what you offered?"

"Maybe I'm fishing for a compliment. Maybe I thought you'd enjoy it." She ran her finger back and forth over the three-inch-long line again. "How did you get this scar?"

"My father dropped a scythe on my head in the barn. Nearly bled to death."

That it had happened over three hundred years earlier made her shiver. Seamus wasn't going to age. Ever. And neither was she. It was a sobering, scary thought.

"I'd enjoy it."

She shifted her gaze down to his face when his hands landed on her waist. "What?"

"I'm saying yes to your offer of a dance."

Shit. She had been positive he'd say no.

He must have seen her surprise because he gave her a slow, sensual smile that made her breath catch.

"You're a beautiful dancer, Cara. And despite what you said earlier about me not reacting to you, I pretty much only need to glance at you and I'm turned on. I'd be insane to turn down your very gracious offer."

His accent had gotten deeper with each word.

She liked the way he sounded—aroused and arrogant.

"Why am I so attracted to you?" she asked, genuinely puzzled at the same time she gave a tentative swivel of her hips, testing her balance as she spread her legs on either side of his thighs.

Seamus's fingers trailed over her waist, his eyes clouding with lust. "I don't know, but I'm just as attracted to you. And I don't believe in destiny anymore. Random, capricious things happen, and we react. Nothing happens for a reason. But that doesn't mean we can't enjoy them all the same."

The words weren't bitter or cold. Just matter-of-fact. But they made her feel unaccountably sad.

She'd never thought about destiny as irrefutable either. Her whole adult life had been spent trying to shape and mold her own future, to maintain control. It wasn't destiny that determined her actions—she did. But on the other hand, she wasn't sure she believed in total randomness either. Look at how she had tried to control her relationship with Marcus, and the awful, humiliating way it had ended. That had been two years ago, and in all that time, she had never managed to convince herself that it had been for the best that it had ended the way it had. She didn't know now why she was so attracted to this man—vampire—in front of her.

All she knew was that Seamus Fox was dangerous to her control, to everything she had worked for. All that dignity she had wrapped around herself like a blanket after she'd found out Marcus had cheated on her about nine times over.

Yet despite her fear, she wanted Seamus, desired him in a way she had never, ever wanted her ex. Her need for Seamus was exciting, sexy.

Even as she thought it, her body was warming under his stare, limbering up and relaxing. It should have felt odd to be arching her back, thrusting her breasts toward him, rocking her hips slowly, but it didn't. She wanted to feel desirable, wanted Seamus to appreciate how he had disrupted both their lives. Realize that there was something that flowed between them that had her on edge, confused, desperate.

"So this is random?" Cara brushed her chest against his as she undid the button on her pants. That was the only explanation for why she was even doing this.

"Very." Seamus moved his lips over her jaw. His fingers shoved her jeans down the second she undid the zipper.

She shimmied out of them, aware she was wearing rather ordinary stretchy seamless hot pink panties. But they covered her backside, and she needed that for the moment. "Does this feel randomly good or randomly bad?"

Heart thumping, Cara held on to Seamus's shoulders and climbed fully into his lap. Given the grunt/groan he gave, he hadn't been expecting that.

"Randomly good." And as if to prove it, he grabbed her hot pink panty—covered ass. "Cara."

"Yes?" She got some leverage and moved up and down, hips turning, back rolling, breasts giving a little bounce. He had nice, hard thighs, and she was starting to get turned on all over again. He seemed to have that kind of effect on her.

He ground his hands into her taut flesh, lifted his own hips to crash against her. "I don't know. Was I saying something?"

"I think so." Cara leaned against his shoulder, breathed hard as overwhelming need rolled over her. "Don't you remember?"

"No." He nuzzled her neck, licked her flesh.

She shivered in anticipation. He was going to bite her. She wanted him to. Bite her hard, mark her, make her have yet another orgasm. She felt greedy and excited and aware that she was different, sharper, stronger. Hornier.

"Take your panties off. Let me inside you."

The teasing tip of his fangs put pressure on her skin, distracting her. It felt so good, the rocking, the heat, the hard push of his hands on her waist, his teeth torturing a tingle of anticipation from her body.

But when he lifted her backside, began shoving down her panties, she snapped back to reality. There was something he didn't know about her, didn't understand.

"We can't."

"Why not?" He continued fighting with her underwear even as she tried to wiggle back out of his reach.

"Because I'm a virgin." She was starting to panic now. She didn't want to sleep with Seamus Fox. Not when she seemed to have no control over herself. Not when she was at the mercy of her new urges, not when she was confusing feeding with sensuality, and was clearly exhibiting some kind of bizarre infatuation for the man who had saved her from death.

Seamus stopped moving. Then he burst out laughing. "A virgin? Please."

Please what? Feeling like she'd been slapped, Cara jerked back off his lap and planted her feet firmly on the ground. "Yes, a virgin."

"If you don't want to have sex with me just yet, all you have to do is say that." Seamus shook his head, a grin still plastered on his face. "You don't have to lie."

"I am a virgin."