Bit the Jackpot (18 page)

She should interrupt with some cutting remark, but Cara just found herself sitting there at the table in the back of the club, while the dancers moved on stage, and her face went hot. Jodi was saying exactly what she had told herself.

"No, he was thinking about your body, about hot, sweaty, nasty sex. And that's fine, because sex makes the world go round, and we get paid damn good for what we do. But some snooty bitches will look down their noses at you. The same ones who sleep their way to the top. Me, I'd rather be up front and honest about it." Jodi glanced up and down at Cara. "By the way, when are you coming back to work? You don't look hurt to me, and now with Dawn being gone, we're really shorthanded."

"I'm not sure," she managed to spit out. "Seamus?" Cheeks still hot, feeling like she'd been slapped and intentionally humiliated, Cara turned to him. "When can I go back to work?"

Part of her wanted him to say never. That it wasn't safe. That between him and her twenty grand in winnings, she should quit her job as a dancer. That he didn't like men looking at her and thinking of hot, sweaty, nasty sex.

He didn't even come remotely close to doing that. He just said, "Whenever you feel ready. It's up to you."

What happened to her supposed safety? And why, when he was finally respecting her independence, did she feel so annoyed?

"I guess I can start back tomorrow night. If that's okay with Seamus."

"That's fine," Seamus said with apparent unconcern.

Jodi laughed, gesturing for the waitress to bring her another drink. "Money and sex, Cara. That's what it's all about."

Then her laugh died out and she looked puzzled, head cocked to the side. Her fingers trembled on her empty scotch glass.

"Who was Brittany's father?" Seamus asked in a soothing, even voice.

Jodi made an indistinguishable sound from her mouth, her lips working, eyes glassy. Cara suddenly realized what was going on. Seamus was probing her mind.

It was disconcerting to watch. Jodi looked paralyzed, like a stroke victim, trapped in her own mind, spittle forming in the corner of her mouth.

"You don't remember his name? He was dark haired, dark eyed, foreign, rich… and you were jealous of your sister because she was married and didn't need a sugar daddy. He should have been yours." Seamus stopped speaking and sat back. He turned to Cara. "Damn. She doesn't remember his name. There's nothing there."

He released Jodi, who looked confused for a second. She wiped her mouth, then narrowed her eyes at Cara. "So be here tomorrow ready to shake your shit. I have to get back to work." A little unsteady, she stood up and nodded to Seamus. "Thanks for the drink."

Cara watched Jodi leave, her retreat in haste, no effort made to sway her hips and display her still firm backside the way she usually did.

"Well, that's disappointing," Seamus said. "I had hoped she'd know more identifying information. There were lots of foreign vamps running around Vegas twenty-eight years ago. It's a good town to hide in."

Only half-listening, Cara looked from Jodi to the dancers on stage. Was this all there was for her? She had always taken pride in who and what she was. At the moment, she felt nothing but a sick burning pit in her stomach that wasn't hunger. It was anger. Despite all her efforts to be independent, liberated, and totally on her own, she felt two emotions that made her squirm. Embarrassment that men watched her dance and got aroused. And love, for Seamus.

Two traps she said she'd never fall into, and yet she was sitting there caught by both ankles, strapped helpless to her emotions, conventions, and nature.

She had become a stripper to pay for school, and to prove she wasn't repressed. She was a virgin to prove she wasn't a slut. And she didn't date because she knew that if she loved a man, she would love with all of herself, and that was damn scary.

Her mother had been like that, and her mother had wound up alone.

Cara had loved Marcus and had thought he respected her, when in truth he had been having sex with everything that walked, everyone but her.

Obviously the man she had loved hadn't been the man Marcus really was.

So clearly she was just bad at relationships, and didn't
know
what she felt, because honestly, how the hell could she love Seamus? He had made her a vampire without consulting her, held her prisoner, and didn't like her choice of draperies. She shouldn't even like him, let alone love him. It didn't make any sense.

But he was also the most amazingly kind, patient, and generous man she'd ever met. He took care of Ethan's political campaign, he soothed Kelsey's nerves, from day one he had tried to make her comfortable in his apartment, and he walked her dogs without complaint.

Seeing Dawn on the floor like that, having her own brief run in with a killer vampire, she realized she wanted nothing more than to stay with Seamus. Permanently.

Maybe it was shock. It had to be shock, because why else would she be thinking she loved Seamus and that she didn't want to dance anymore? It didn't make any sense to feel either one of those convictions. Yet she did.

While her entire sense of self was buckling and heaving like asphalt above an earthquake, Seamus paid their bill and patted his pocket for his car keys.

"Ready?" he asked, oblivious to her shocking revelations.

She thought she loved him. Wasn't it written on her forehead? Throbbing across her chest? How could he just stand there and not notice?

Drowning in confusion, she reached for a life jacket. Anger. "What happened to my safety? Don't you care that if I dance here tomorrow night the assassin will try to kill me again? I would be totally exposed and vulnerable."

He stared at her blankly for a second, then gave one of those male sighs that indicated he was willing to blame her behavior on PMS. "Can we talk about this in the car?"

Wrong move. She felt indignation rise with volcanic fury. "We'll talk about it now."

Seamus sat back down, eyes wary. "I figured you could have a guard—me. I don't want you to dance, but if you have to, then I'll watch you."

That slightly mollified her irrational anger. She knew she was being unreasonable, but she couldn't stop herself. She felt that if she didn't cling to her fury, she would burst into tears. "Why would you tell me to go back to work if you don't want me to?"

"Because if I told you no, you'd get mad at me. I was trying to let you make your own choice."

"By telling me to dance naked for strange men?" Maybe she did have PMS. She wasn't sure about vampiric physiology but wasn't it possible she could be having a hormonal surge of some kind? She felt on the verge of cracking, borderline hysterical.

Seamus just sat there. He didn't say a word, just sat in the chair with his hands on the table, his blue shirt turning an orangish color when the pink lights reflected off it. She couldn't read his expression.

"Well? Aren't you going to say something?"

He shook his head. "No."

"What do you mean, no? I asked you if you want me to dance naked for strange men."

His jaw twitched but he remained silent.

"Seamus!"

"I'm not answering anything because no matter what I say it will be wrong. We've done this before and this time I opt out."

Cara was stunned to realize he was right. She was being a shrew because she had decided she loved him. That made no sense.

The corner of her mouth tilted up involuntarily. "Okay, let's go home."

"Really?" He looked immeasurably relieved. He stood up and reached for her hand.

"Really." Everything suddenly made much more sense to Cara. Independence wasn't achieved by dancing naked in defiance. It was reached through respect, and Seamus respected her enough to refuse to argue with her. Enough to never press his advantage after feeding and have sex with her. Enough to let her dance, despite his concerns.

"Let's go home." So she could tell him she intended to dance only in private from then on. And show him exactly how she felt about him and those sexy blue eyes of his.

Seamus was getting good at bullet dodging. One minute Cara had been furious with him, the next she had been chattering away in the car as if nothing had happened. He wasn't sure why he was even bothering to stay standing. Maybe he should just let a bullet hit him and take him down. Hadn't he always said he wasn't going to cater to another woman's irrational whims?

Yet something made him stick to Cara. Something kept telling him that once they got solid ground beneath them, their relationship could be amazing. It already was amazing.

So when they got into the apartment, he decided they needed to be clear about what they were, what they were doing, where the future was headed. Not that Seamus knew how to approach the subject, or even how to articulate what he felt. He just did it the way that made the most sense to him. While Cara kicked off her sandals by the front door, he squared his shoulders and faced her.

"Ethan suggested you could have your own apartment. I told him no, because I don't want you to move out. Really don't want you to. But if you want to move out, I'll understand that, and I'll let you move out. I mean I won't protest or pull vampire rank or be a jerk. If you move out. If you want to."

Yeah, that was clearing things up. He sounded like a vampiric Rainman.

She just looked at him, her hair falling over her shoulder, the dogs running around her, licking at her fingers. "I don't want to move out."

"Oh, okay. Good." Seamus cleared his throat. Now what?

"Can I be honest with you?"

That was a scary thought. God only knew what would come out of her mouth. But he knew what was expected of him. He'd gleaned that much from twentieth-century chick flicks. "Of course. You can always be honest with me."

Even if she ripped his heart out of his chest and flung it against the wall with her words. Sure, he was cool with the whole honesty thing. He was a modern vampire, with pink lint on his nuts. He could talk about his feelings. A stake to the heart might be more pleasant, but he could do this. Honesty. Sure. He was on it.

"I really am a virgin."

That
wasn't what he expected her to say. It didn't make sense to him and he blurted out, "Are… are you sure?"

Her cheeks bloomed pink. "Yes, I'm sure! I ought to know something like that, don't you think?"

Okay, so it had been a stupid thing to say. But… she danced with no clothes on. She had a vibrator. She'd had orgasms while feeding from him. Cara was sexy, sensual. Not a virgin. Damn. A virgin?

His brain hurt. Along with another part farther south.

"Of course. But… you…" Where the hell was a speechwriter when he needed one?

"Look, I know it seems kind of ridiculous, but I never wanted to give that up to anyone, you know what I mean? I'm a control freak. I dance because I can hide behind the screen. It doesn't feel like anyone is watching me. I dance for the money, not the audience."

"But the vibrator…" Seamus wondered if that counted toward nonvirgin status, or was that a technical loophole. He was seriously intrigued by the thought that she'd gone there alone, with a battery-operated toy, never having experienced that with a man. Though why in hell had he mentioned the vibrator out loud? Way to sound like a perv.

She folded her arms across her chest and looked around nervously. "Well, I just use it, um, externally. I don't think I would know how to actually do, well, anything else."

They were a train wreck. They both sounded like a couple of twelve-year-olds looking at porn.

"I haven't had sex in two hundred years," he said, because it seemed like an appropriate time for a confession. Also, if they ever got to the sticking point—sex—he wanted her to know he was a bit out of practice.

Cara looked startled. She rubbed her toes on her opposite ankle, and pulled her T-shirt down over the waist of her jeans. "Oh, well, uh… wow. Any reason?"

"The last woman I slept with betrayed me. She had me sent to the guillotine." Seamus touched the scar on his neck.

Her eyes softened. "Oh, baby, that's horrible."

He would have thought her compassion would be embarrassing, but he kind of liked the way her fingers reached out for him. He let her touch him, run her thumb over his puckered scar. "I was Marie's lapdog, though I didn't know it at the time. I swore I wouldn't give up control to another woman ever again. I am a control freak, too."

"My last boyfriend… he said he was cool with waiting until we got married to have sex. And later I found out why he was so willing to be chivalrous—he was having sex with a handful of other women."

"Oh, sweetie, what a bastard. I'm sorry." He didn't understand a dog like that. One who turned sex into selfish rutting. "And if it makes you feel better, the woman I thought loved me was sleeping with another man, and together they had plotted my death from the beginning."

"Uh! What a bitch," Cara said, looking indignant on his behalf.

"Vampire slayer," he said.

"Oh. Yikes." She stared up at him, her body lithe and lush against his, her dark eyes wide with desire. "Since we're being honest… I want to sleep with you, but I'm afraid to give up control."

"Me, too." He wasn't sure he could trust her not to kick him in the teeth. It wasn't Cara, it was him. Ethan had told him he had trust issues, which was probably true.

"So what do we do about it?"

Seamus wrapped his arms around her waist, tensely. It felt like they were circling each other, waiting for the other to make the first move. "I don't know."

"Also since we're being honest," she said in a husky whisper. "How do you really feel about my dancing naked for other men?"

That was easy. Jealousy exploded in his gut, sick and hot. "I hate it. That's how I really feel. I want to rip every one of their faces off and shove them up their arses. I feel like knocking their damn skulls together and covering you from head to toe in fleece."

She opened her mouth.

And Seamus kissed her. He leaned down, and took her mouth with determination. The hell with this. They were going to do what they both wanted to do. And if he was going to have to sit in that club and watch her—guard her—while she danced behind that screen, he was going to be damn sure she was his first. He wanted to take her, brand her, hold her to him, make Cara and everyone else understand that she belonged at his side.