Bit the Jackpot (12 page)

Kelsey was flushed pink in the cheeks and pressing buttons with enthusiasm. "I'm up eighty-seven dollars."

Cara had lost six dollars, then had contented herself with watching the other two. "Do you all mind if I hit the poker table?"

"No." Alexis hopped off her stool. "My ass is numb anyway."

As they walked across the floor, the lights blinking and the machines merrily beeping and chiming, Cara stuck her hands in the back pockets of her jeans and bit her lip. She sensed an ally in Alexis, but she didn't want to put her on the spot.

But she needed help or she was going to go insane. Or murder Seamus. "Alexis, can I ask you something?"

"Anything. I have a little sister that I raised, you know. I can give advice on anything, even shit I know nothing about."

Cara laughed. "I want to know how to get Seamus to toss me out. If I can't leave on my own, and I can't run away, I need to convince him he doesn't want me around. How do I do that?"

She'd been thinking about it while she'd mindlessly pushed slot machine buttons and it seemed to her the only course of action available to her. Being around him was too dangerous to her mental health and sexual stability. But she didn't think she could escape past six bodyguards. A glance back at Mutt and Jeff, as she'd silently named them, convinced her of that fact. They were big guys. They could probably snap a cactus in half and not think twice about it. Add four more like them and she was trapped.

"Annoy him until he doesn't want you around, huh? Very devious. I like it. How to lose a vampire in ten days… it just might work." Alexis frowned. "There are a lot of things that annoy Sea-mus. Breaking the rules being number one. Not to mention exhibitionism. Clinging women."

Kelsey shook her head, swiveling her tiny hips as she walked in three inch heels. "He doesn't like clinging women, but he won't send you away for that. Like me. I drive him crazy, but he would never send me away. He takes care of me."

That seemed remarkably astute.

"Yikes, she's right," Alexis said with a grin. "Okay, so what is it you think Seamus likes about you? Because he obviously likes you."

Cara gave that a moment's thought. It wasn't hard to figure out. "He thinks I'm a sex goddess. He looks at me and sees a stripper. Sexual fantasy sprung to life. But I'm not a sex goddess at all. I can't even wear a bathing suit in public without feeling self-conscious. I dance only because I can do it behind a screen and pretend there's no one watching me." Except for that impromptu lap dance, which frankly hadn't gone all that well. "He looks at me and thinks sex."

"That makes sense. And it gives me an idea." Alexis stopped walking and glared at the bodyguards when they got too close. They immediately backed up. She dropped her voice down to a whisper. "They're not supposed to listen to my conversations but you never know. So what's the one thing that would really drive Seamus crazy?"

"What?" Cara whispered back.

"Commitment. A permanent relationship with a woman. Scares the shit out of him."

That made two of them. Cara felt a little deflated. "Well, I'm not going to offer him that."

"Why not? He won't take it. If you go all domestic on him, honey this, honey that, did you take out the garbage and why don't you ever buy me flowers… he'll have you out so fast your head will spin. Seamus doesn't do commitment. Period."

It made sense. "You may be on to something."

"I'm right. Vampire males are dominating and like to get their way. They're also terrified at the thought of being attached to one woman for eternity. Vampire marriage is forever, you know. It breeds relationship reticence."

"I'll give it some thought." Even pretending to be Seamus's girlfriend scared the blood out of her. What if it backfired and he actually
liked
it? They reached the poker room. "I'm not sure what to do. But first I'm going to win some money."

Seamus was a little confused. Somehow Cara, the feisty exotic dancer, the woman of his fantasies, who had orgasms while feeding from him, had morphed into a walking advertisement for
Better Homes and Undead Gardens
.

Opening his front door, he braced himself for what she might have done now. In seven days she'd managed to infuse a startling amount of pink into his apartment, from plump pillows in the living room to fluffy fuchsia towels in his bathroom. The woman was a meance with Internet access, shopping her way through half a dozen retailers online. Just tonight, after his shower, he'd found pink lint on his bollocks. It was an assault on his manhood. If his soldier friends from the First World War had ever seen him wrapped in pink, they'd have laughed their arses off.

But he couldn't begrudge Cara a few comforts since he was essentially holding her prisoner against her will for her own safety.

Stepping tentatively into the apartment, he spotted Cara up on a footstool. She glanced over her shoulder and smiled.

"Oh, good, you're home! I need help with these curtains." She waved a lot of fabric—pink fabric—toward him.

The devil help him, she was putting pink and orange stripped curtains on his windows. "Uh… aren't those a little bright?" They were more painful than direct sunlight.

"What?" She looked puzzled. "They're cheerful. Day colors. Raspberry and orange crush."

"Well." Seamus threw his wallet on the dining room table, trying to find a tactful way to say those were the most godawful curtains he'd ever seen. Then he decided he wasn't known for his tact. "Cara, I don't like those curtains."

Her eyes went wide, limpid pools swimming with hurt. "I'm just trying to make things more cozy."

"I understand. I appreciate your effort, honestly. But can't you make things cozy with curtains that aren't ugly?" And what was the matter with his desk? Everything looked rearranged.

"You don't think I have any taste." She flounced down off the footstool, hiking up her oversized sweatpants.

Seamus hated those sweatpants. They hid every inch of her body. For the last few days, she'd worn nothing but giant sweatpants and loose T-shirts. It was starting to irritate him. He sighed and reached for the pile of mail on the table, which had been tucked into a goddamn pink letter organizer.

"I never said you don't have taste." Everything he said lately was wrong. Just completely wrong. He could say snakes slithered and she'd take it as a personal insult. The only time she wasn't pouting was when she was feeding. But even then she wouldn't let him touch her anymore. It was like… it was like… they were
married
.

God, it was as horrible as he'd always imagined. No sex and nagging twenty-four/seven.

"You implied it." She defiantly shoved the curtain onto the rod she lifted up. "Did you remember to pick up the dog food?"

Shit. "No."

She made that sound, that pissy disapproval sound that said she was so unfortunate to be saddled with an unhelpful asshole like him. It was amazing she could convey all of that with one tiny sound through tightly pursed lips, but she managed it. Even though she'd mastered the technique of closing her thoughts to him, he didn't need to hear her thoughts to know she was pissed off at him.

"I guess I'll just run out tomorrow night then and get it myself. Fritz is on the verge of starvation."

Fritz was ten pounds overweight and sleeping on the couch at the moment, gut sagging toward the floor. "I'll get it tomorrow. Sorry I forgot." Seamus went to reach for a pen to write himself a reminder note and discovered all his writing utensils had been deposited into a hot pink, swirly container with a fluffy pink feather glued to the front. "What the hell is this? I can't find a damn thing!"

"That's because I organized everything for you. Once you get used to the system, you'll see it's so much more efficient."

Seamus supposed this was his fault. He had said no to giving Cara a suite of her own. He could be all alone in his bachelor contentment if he hadn't been stubborn. But he didn't want that. Despite the pink fuzzies on his man parts. He wanted Cara. In bed and out. Only she seemed to have lost any sexual interest in him, even while feeding.

If Ethan found out Seamus was guzzling twice his normal blood allotment for the sole purpose of self-feeding Cara, he was going to hit the roof. And blow right through it.

Cara seemed to take it as a matter of course that he was supposed to feed her. Only once had she asked how he ate, and he had told her the truth—from a refrigerated blood bag. She'd tried it twice, drinking a whole bag, before crinkling her nose. "I like it warm," she'd said.

Yeah, so did he.

"More efficient. Perfect." What would be perfect would be if she'd take off her clothes and let him spread her out on this table next to the fuzzy pen holder.

Maybe he should try again. Make another move, and let her know he wanted her desperately. Had the erection to prove it. She had been interested that night of the aborted lap dance, he was sure of it.

"Cara…" He snapped the pen in his hand in half. Damn, he was so pent up and confused and off-kilter. He had no clue what he was doing. "Cara…"

"Can you take out the garbage?" she asked as she clicked the rod and the hideous vomit-inducing curtains onto the wall.

"What?" Between his lust and the blinding pink and orange, he'd had a hallucinogenic moment and hadn't heard what she'd said.

"Take out the garbage, please. It's full."

No, he'd heard that. He'd just assumed he had misheard because he didn't give two shits about the garbage. He was horny, damn it. "Sure, I can take out the garbage."

"Oh, and when I was ordering the new comforter online for the bedroom, I noticed you have very boring checks to pay your bills. So I ordered you fun new ones. Betty Boop. They're adorable."

Seamus dropped the pen shards. Took a deep breath. It didn't matter if his name was printed on the same piece of paper as a cartoon bimbo. Really. It didn't. It's not like the opposition was going to get ahold of them. Oh, bloody hell. What if their political opponents got ahold of them? And why was she picking through his financial papers? Seamus rubbed his forehead.

"You know what? I'm going to bed."
Come with me, come with me
, he projected. If he could just get Cara out of her clothes, it would make the curtains seem so much less horrible, he was sure.

"I'll come with you," she said. "Hanging these was harder than I thought."

And he'd just stood there and watched her finish the job. Nice. He went to her, took her hand. Lied through his teeth. "It looks good. Cheerful."

"You think so?"

No. "Yes. Definitely."

She leaned against his arm. "Thanks. It makes it so much easier to be a prisoner knowing I can decorate."

Was that guilt stabbing right through his heart?

"Just a little while longer, Cara, I promise. Until we figure out a few things."

"What things?"

"Don't worry about it." He didn't know where to start, and didn't want to scare her. "And you know a lot more now about vampires than you did a week ago."

"I know all about the laws, all about Ethan's political platform, all about half-blood vampires, but I don't know anything about you."

Cara had told him about her family, about her father leaving, her mother dying, and he felt compassion that her life hadn't been an easy one. But what was there to say about himself? His mortal family had only been his father, and he could barely even remember what his father looked like. "Yes, you do know about me. Irish farmer. Told you that." Seamus tugged her hand so they headed toward the bedroom. He didn't want to talk about himself. He wanted to take Cara to bed.

"What I don't know is who she was."

Seamus stopped walking. "What do you mean?"

"The woman who hurt you."

His fists clenched involuntarily and he squeezed Cara's hand. Was she reading his mind? He could have sworn all his thoughts had been closed to her. "I don't know what you're talking about. There was no woman."

"There had to be someone because you hold back."

This is where he really had no clue what women wanted. "Hold back?" She was the one who had nixed sex. "Come on, Cara, let's not do this. We're getting along here, things are fine. We were total strangers ten days ago and now we're living together and it's working out just fine. Don't make things complicated."

She studied him for a second, then shrugged. "Okay. Sorry."

Well, that was very unsatisfying. Seamus tugged off his shirt and pitched it toward the laundry hamper in his closet. It fell on the floor and he ignored it. He shucked his pants and went in to the bathroom in his boxers and brushed his teeth. When he came back into the room, Cara had picked up his clothes and deposited them in the hamper. She brushed past him into the bathroom, still wearing those damn sweatpants.

He got into bed, punched his pillow six or eight times, and flopped back. Something was wrong here, only he didn't know what it was. Fritz jumped up on the bed, turned three times, and lay down right next to Seamus. Right where he'd prefer Cara to lie.

"Get down, dog," he said in annoyance.

Fritz ignored him and stretched out his snout so that wet nose was touching the back of Seamus's shoulders. Seamus scooted over to the edge of the mattress to get away from the slimy touch. From the floor, Satan gave a frantic orchestra of yips and whines.

"What?" Seamus stared at him, willing him to lie down and die. It didn't work. Satan just turned up the volume.

"What's the matter with Mr. Spock?" Cara called from the bathroom.

"He wants on the bed."

"Can you pick him up, Seamus? He hates being left out."

Seamus counted to three. Thought about taking yoga. Decided it would be better to take up boxing. "Sure." Leaning over, he grabbed the fat Chihuahua with one hand and hauled him straight up. "It's not because I like you," he told Satan. "It's because I like Cara."

Satan wiggled free, scrambled over Fritz's back, and settled on Cara's pillow. Served her right. Seamus rolled onto his back.

One of the cats leaped onto the foot of the bed and sat on his right foot, crushing it. Seamus yanked his foot out from under cat ass. "Damn it."