"Her what?" Water sloshed as Mario, all six-foot-six of him, stepped out of the sunken hot tub behind the sofa where Stefan stared at the flat-screen television on the wall.
Stefan half-watched his friend's reflection in the monitor as Mario reached for a pristine Egyptian-cotton towel before collecting his half-consumed glass of wine and sauntering to Stefan's leather sofa. Stefan knew without looking that little pools of water marked Mario's footsteps across the marble and onto the cashmere carpet.
"I said, her what?" Mario parked himself on the end of the leather sofa and put his feet on the coffee table. Stefan's feet were already there in leather boots that disappeared beneath his jeans. Mario plopped his wine glass on the coffee table, slopping over a crimson drop.
Mario always drank red wine. He'd been Italian for six hundred years, he said, and couldn't break the habit. Whether he meant drinking red wine or being Italian, Stefan never knew.
Stefan gestured with his remote. "Her."
Her was a late twenty-something, tall woman with red hair scraped back in a sloppy pony-tail and wide green eyes taking in every bit of Transylvania Castle's lobby. She wore a light cotton dress good for the baking temperatures of Las Vegas in July, leaving her limbs bare, feet in sandals. She carried a duffle bag over her shoulder as she walked through the casino, heading for the check-in desk.
Mario grinned in appreciation. "So you do have taste."
Stephen took a swallow of vodka, the liquid tracing a fiery trail to his stomach, and didn't answer.
The monitor showed feed that came through the security cameras trained on the lobby and casino forty-seven floors beneath them, piped to Stefan's penthouse at his request. He could assess his guests, watch for people who shouldn't be there, and generally make sure everyone staying at his hotel was having a good time.
This particular guest interested him very much. As she moved past the Coffin Bar and out of frame, Stefan picked up the phone on the coffee table and spoke to his security team. "Give me camera three. Zoom in on the red-haired woman in the white dress."
The view changed to the clear lobby space in reception and the stream of people coming to check in, ready for their vampire fantasy weekend. The picture remained fixed a moment, then the focus widened and blurred, the camera zooming to Stefan's woman.
It caught her just as she stepped up to the reception desk and smiled at the young man behind it. Stefan's blood warmed. Her crooked smile lit her eyes as she slung her duffle bag on the marble-topped counter in front of the startled clerk and unzipped it. The way she spilled out pens, packets of tissue, books of matches, and various other jetsam was nothing short of adorable.
Stefan spoke into the phone. "Zoom closer."
The camera obeyed. Her round smiling face and locks of flyaway red hair filled the screen, the light catching the gold flecks in her green eyes.
Mario laughed. "You twisted bastard."
"Have the desk clerk send you her name," Stefan told security.
"Yes, sir." Through the phone, Stefan heard him tapping computer keys. He saw the red-haired woman smile and nod and then speak. Though there was no sound, he knew she was giving him her name.
"Meredith Black," the security man said in his ear.
"What room?"
A pause, more tapping of keys, another pause, and the security man's deep voice. "Ten twenty-two."
Mario's dark brows shot up. "Planning a midnight visit?"
Stefan spoke into the phone again. "Give her tickets to Vegas Vampires, vouchers for the restaurants and bars, and an invitation to meet me in my penthouse. I'll give her dinner."
"Yes, sir."
Stefan quietly set down the phone and returned his gaze to the screen. Mario stared at him, his long black hair dripping rivulets of water onto the leather sofa.
Then his coffee-colored eyes widened in understanding. "Oh," he said, voice subdued. "You mean it's her."
In a thousand years of existence, Stefan had never been much for slang. He preferred precise speech to Mario's idioms that changed every decade. But Americans of this century had a phrase which he thought summed things up very well. He tossed back the rest of his vodka and slid the glass across the teakwood coffee table.
"Damn straight," he said.
(Continues...)
Excerpted from Just One Sip by Jennifer Ashley Copyright © 2006 by Jennifer Ashley. Excerpted by permission.
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