Must Love Vampires (16 page)

Sure enough, a moment later, she crowed, “Perfect!” and began helping Chloe strip down to her bra and undies. In five minutes flat, Chloe found herself standing in a pair of size eight, two-inch pumps—she wore sevens and would have preferred three inches, at least—and a high-waisted white gown with thin spaghetti straps and just a sprinkling of decorative beading across the front. The gown, too, was a size too large, but the other woman fixed that with a set of safety pins she pulled out of Chloe-didn’t-know-where.

“Now wait here,” the woman instructed after fiddling with her hair and attaching a lightweight veil with a pair of tiny combs.

The woman slipped out, and Chloe could hear her nextdoor,
ooh
ing and
aah
ing over Aidan’s appearance, then hustling him into—oddly enough—the staging area. Something Chloe was more than familiar with.

Chloe stood there, heart pounding, palms sweating, as she studied her reflection. She looked like a bride. Maybe not a giddy, one-hundred-percent willing bride, but she was passable enough. And she would look good in the pictures, that was for sure.

“All right, dear,” the woman said opening the door and ushering her out. “We’re ready for you.”

A moment later, “Love Me Tender”—but, of course!—began to play over hidden speakers, and a bouquet of blue and white artificial roses was thrust into her hands. She clutched them like a lifeline, squeezing until real flowers would have wilted and died.

Then the curtains were drawn back and she was shoved into the heart of the chapel, a room filled with more blue flowers, a blue carpeted aisle, and three parallel rows of short, white benches designed like church pews.

At the other end of the aisle stood Aidan, looking eerily like a young, handsome Elvis Presley. He wore a powder blue jumpsuit, open at the throat and covered with large rhinestones in various colors leading down to the wide, bellbottomed ankles. When he noticed her perusal, he winked, then adopted a very Elvis-like pose, complete with curled lip and raised eyebrow.

She couldn’t help but chuckle, and when Priscilla nudged her in the small of the back, she started down the aisle with only a twinge of trepidation. When she reached his side, Aidan took her arm and twined it with his own, then turned them both to face the minister, who was dressed in full, over-the-top, Elvis garb.

His jumpsuit was black, and stretched almost beyond endurance to cover his heavy bulk. His hair was shoe polish black and about as real as most of the boobs she danced with onstage each night.

Hers were
au naturel
, thank you, thank you very much, but most of her fellow dancers went the saline and silicone pump-up route. The largely male audience liked them, and an oversize rack was definitely easier to see from a distance. Not to mention a beacon for off-the-books tips and offerings of jewelry.

But the minster’s obvious rug was styled into a giant, glossy pompadour that would have made The King proud. All of that, added to the man’s natural flabbiness and heavy jowls, definitely put him well into the “Old Elvis” column.

He smiled widely, though, and welcomed them both to the—insert well-known Elvis drawl—Little Blue Chapel, then launched into a long, theatrical speech about love and romance and the sanctity of marriage.

Chloe’s stomach somersaulted again at the knowledge that she wasn’t going into this with the purest of motives. Not where Aidan’s feelings were concerned, anyway.

Then the questions began.
Do you take this woman . . . ?
Yadda, yadda, yadda. And Aidan answered every one with a firm, decisive, “I do.”

The minister turned to her. “Do you take this man . . . ?” Yadda—
gulp
—yadda—
gulp
—yadda—
gulp
.

She opened her mouth. Closed it. Opened it again, and the words came out.

“Yes. I mean, I do.”

And again... “I do.”

And again... “I do.”

Aidan lifted her left hand and slipped a pair of rings on her finger that she hadn’t even known he had. She would have thought he’d bought them here, tonight, since a display in the lobby area made it clear wedding bands were available for sale on the spot.

But she’d spent enough time in Vegas, enough time being wooed by men with more money than brains, to know the difference between fake gold and diamonds and the real thing. These rings—unless her eyes and the dull fluorescent lighting deceived her—were the
very
real thing, with a capital G, capital D.

The gold of the bands was traditional yellow, polished to a high gleam, while the diamond of the surprise engagement ring was not only gigantic—three carats was her best, on-the-spot guesstimate—but clear as a summer’s day and sparkling in every one of its four million princess-cut facets.

Chloe swallowed hard. If the vows hadn’t scared her enough and made reality sink in with a bone-deep chill, this certainly did the trick. This was not some cheap wedding set picked up on the fly at some—ha!—all-night chapel on The Strip. Money had gone into these. Big money, along with time and thought and emotional consideration.

Oh, God.

Once the rings were fit snugly on her hand, Aidan smiled and gave her fingers an encouraging squeeze. She hoped he didn’t notice how cold they were, or realize that the iciness was
not
due entirely to typical bridal jitters.

Then he held out a matching band, the masculine version of her own. Her free hand shook as she took it from him and placed it on his left ring finger.

The reverend pronounced them husband and wife, invited the groom to kiss his bride, and the deal was done. Solidly, legally, irrevocably done.

As Aidan leaned in to brush his mouth against hers, she took a deep breath and let it out slowly. It was over. Everything had gone exactly as planned. No bumps, no kinks, no one running in at the last minute to scream their objections.

And now she was officially the wife of one of the richest men in Nevada. She was Mrs. Aidan Raines.

Two

He was married. Aidan couldn’t believe it.

Everything had gone off without a hitch, too, which surprised him no little bit. He’d held his breath the whole time, waiting for Sebastian to burst through the curtained doorway and call a halt to the entire ceremony.

His brother’s stance was that he was being foolish, rushing into something with a woman he’d known for only a month. But if anyone should understand that time was relative, it was Sebastian. They had been around for hundreds of years, been
through
things together that most mortal siblings couldn’t even fathom.

But Aidan knew his own heart, and his heart was telling him that Chloe was the woman for him. She was beautiful, and smart, and funny . . . and the fact that she looked freaking amazing both in her Lust costumes and out didn’t hurt, either.

Sebastian was too stern, too wrapped up in making money and keeping their identities as vampires a secret. He needed to loosen up a bit. Maybe find a woman of his own that he could open up to, snuggle down with, and
not
zap with his vampire mojo as soon as they were finished doing the nasty.

But who was he kidding? Sebastian was too set in his ways to lighten up enough to really get to know a woman. To fall in love.

Aidan, he was happy to say, was not. He loved love. Chloe was the first woman he’d really fallen for in the last couple decades, but before meeting her, he’d still sowed his fair share of wild oats and been open to getting to know as many lovelies as possible. And in a town like Las Vegas, there were almost too many to count.

Blondes, brunettes, redheads. Leggy, busty, bootylicious. He’d always been a very open-minded guy, and didn’t have a preference. He liked them all.

But Chloe . . . ah, his beautiful Chloe put them all to shame. It hadn’t been her tits, her ass, or her high kicks that had caught his attention that first night he’d watched her perform at Lust. It had been her smile and the youthful exuberance glittering in her violet eyes.

People—especially performers—aged fast in Sin City. Hard living just didn’t sit well with human beings. But from the moment he’d met her, it had been obvious to Aidan that Chloe loved her job and loved life.

For someone like him, who had been there, done that in just about every way possible for centuries, she was a breath of fresh air, and it hadn’t taken him long to realize he wanted to spend the rest of his life (such as it was) with her.

No, he hadn’t yet confessed to her that he was a vampire. He should have, he knew, but he was a little unsure of the dating protocol where something that monumental was concerned.

First date—kiss on the cheek. Second date, kiss on the lips. Third date, full French and a little over-the-shirt action. Fifth date, hot, sweaty monkey sex, if both parties were willing. Was it the eighth date when he was safe to say, “Hey, hon, I forgot to mention that I’m a vampire. I drink blood, can’t go out in the sun, and when we sixty-nine, it’s all I can do not to bite you in the femoral artery.”

Eighth, twelfth, two hundred and second . . . He just hadn’t worked up to it yet.

But it wouldn’t matter. She loved him, and now they were hitched.

He’d managed to keep his fangs hidden from her—even though simply being near her got him hard as a spike, which brought his fangs out even faster than desperate hunger—as well as his need for liquid sustenance and aversion to sunlight. Not terribly difficult when she worked nights and most of the time they were together was spent horizontally. Or vertically, but also bare-ass naked.

Other than going for drinks at Dante’s, the Inferno’s most popular on-site cocktail bar, after a show, he didn’t think he’d ever actually taken her out for a meal or to a movie.

Hmm, he should probably rectify that now that they were man and wife. Men did things with their wives other than boinking twenty-four/seven, didn’t they? He might even have to take her shopping and hold her purse while she tried stuff on.

Shifting a glance to where Chloe sat beside him, he reached across the Spider’s console to take her hand—her left hand, the one with his rings adorning her slim finger. She lifted her head and offered him a soft smile, and it was all he could do not to pull over, drag her onto his lap, and take her right then and there.

They were back on The Strip, headed in the opposite direction as to when he’d first picked her up. He zipped past his brother’s casino without a second glance.

He had a suite of rooms there, just like Sebastian, but had never taken Chloe to them. They were too close to his brother’s, too risky. The last thing he needed while in the middle of an intimate and X-rated seduction was to have his brother burst in, lecturing about what a mistake he was making spending time with a lowly showgirl—and a mortal one, to boot.

So instead, he was taking her to his
other
place. He didn’t think Sebastian knew about it, but that didn’t mean he couldn’t find out in the blink of an eye.

Still, Aidan thought it would be a safe enough spot for them to stay for a while.

A few minutes later, he steered his Ferrari into the underground parking garage of The Heights, his very own upscale apartment building. His brother might think he was capricious, needing to be taken care of and watched over like a green adolescent, but he wasn’t entirely dependent or without business acumen. He’d learned enough from Sebastian, at least, to put away a little money of his own and actually build this place from the ground up.

Which was how he’d managed to design an extra-large living space
under
the underground garage. It was just as luxurious as any of the other apartments the building had to offer—maybe even more so, since he was the one holding the purse strings—but with zero risk of sunlight entering, and special key cards and fingerprint authorization required to get inside.

Easing into his reserved space, he let go of Chloe’s hand so he could turn off the engine and pocket the keys. Then he went around the rear of the car to open her door and help her out. The wind had blown her long, chestnut hair in all directions, making her look as though she’d just been thoroughly tumbled. It made him want to tumble her, right here in the parking garage.

He could do it, too. There was no one around. The place was completely deserted, and if anyone did show up, he’d know it long before they got close enough to see anything.

Moving in, grinning like an idiot, he crowded her, backing her up against the Spider’s front side panel. She leaned away at first, almost nervously, as though trying to avoid him. Then she shook her head and smiled, lifting her hands to his shoulders.

Bodies pressed together from chest to thigh, he brushed her nose with his, and then settled in for a long, hot, wet kiss. This was the kiss he’d wanted to give her back at the Little Blue Chapel, right after the preacher had told him he could kiss his bride. He’d wanted to sweep her back over his arm and taste her, eat her, devour her. Only their audience of Grampa Elvis and Grandma Priscilla had precluded the consummation of their marriage right then and there.

But they didn’t have an audience now. They were all alone, with nothing to stop him from taking her the way he wanted.

Deepening the kiss, he bent her backwards, tugging the hem of her snug black T-shirt from the waistband of her jeans so he could feel the warm, smooth skin of her abdomen. Running his palms up her ribcage, he cupped her breasts through the lacy material of her bra.

She moaned, and for the first time began to actively kiss him back. Her own hands went to his belt, unbuckling the thin length of expensive leather, but not pulling it free of its loops. Instead, she undid the top of his slacks, her knuckles brushing the tip of his straining erection.

His hips arched toward her touch, but before he could make contact a second time, she took her hands away, going to work on the buttons of his shirt. She had it open in a matter of seconds, pushing the sides apart to stroke his bare chest.

It was all he could do not to whimper. Grasping her waist, he lifted her onto the car’s hood, nudging her knees apart and stepping between them. He pressed his hard-on into the notch of her thighs. Even through the layers of their clothing, he could feel her heat, the pulse of her longing.