One Night Gamble (Jokers Wild)

by Katherine Garbera

  At that moment, Casey’s hand moved against her waist and a feather of sensation went through her entire body, pushing her concerns to the back of her mind. She tipped her head to the side and looked up at him. He smiled down at her with a wickedness in his grin that sent shivers through her.

  She leaned in closer, letting herself cling to his chest as they undulated to the music. She looked up at the sky, hoping this night would never end.

  Chapter Three

  His penthouse apartment occupied the entire top floor of the Jokers Wild Casino. The views were breathtaking. Well, she pretended it was the view she was appreciating, not the man standing next to her.

  Casey.

  Just a first name and nothing else. But she didn’t need anything more. Not tonight.

  She’d been so buttoned-up, so focused on her goals since she’d turned nineteen and realized what a mess her father had left her. Now, seven years later—lucky 7, if Casey was to be believed—she was within reach of letting go of the past.

  “Champagne?”

  She glanced over at him. He’d lost his jacket somewhere between the private elevator and the living room. His collar was open, revealing a thick gold chain with some sort of charm on it, and his hair was mussed from having her hands in it as they’d danced.

  He was charming, sexy, and he made her want to pretend, even if only for this one night, that she wasn’t Talia Spencer. She wanted to be the exotic sophisticated woman this room deserved. This man deserved.

  She shook her head. She wasn’t that woman.

  “Yes, please,” she said.

  “So polite.”

  “Manners don’t cost a thing,” she said, parroting words she’d heard from her grandmother while growing up. It was something she only did when she was nervous.

  “No, they don’t,” he said.

  She could tell she amused him, and maybe that would mean something tomorrow. But tonight, she simply saw a man who’d had too little amusement in his life. He was serious.

  She walked to the windows while he moved to get her a drink. The entire living room area had two walls that were made of plate-glass. One afforded a view of the Vegas strip, looking down toward the Bellagio. The other faced the back of the casino, showcasing the meticulously landscaped gardens and pool area.

  She really hoped she got the job working here. There was so much more to the Jokers Wild Casino than gambling. In her preliminary interview, she’d been told that they were also hiring an arts and antiquities expert to curate traveling exhibits. She wanted to be a part of this new Vegas, at least for a while. It felt like…like it was a place that was trying to pull itself away from its past. Just like she was. Reinventing itself.

  The new Vegas, with shows and high-end restaurants, appealed to her. It was different in her dad’s time, when all there was for a man to do was gamble away his paychecks, hoping for a get-rich fix that could only be found in a winning poker hand.

  She felt the brush of his breath against the back of her neck and then his lips against her nape. She turned and saw that up close, his blue eyes had tiny flecks of gray in them. He arched one eyebrow at her as she continued to study him and she noticed the tiny scar on the corner of his mouth.

  He handed her a champagne glass and her hand shook as she reached for it. There was something about this man that made her feel alive. There was no reason to be nervous. But then again, she knew that this guy wasn’t her average man.

  “To chance encounters,” he said.

  She lifted her glass and clinked it against his, then took a sip. The champagne was delicious. Easily the best she’d ever tasted.

  “Do you believe in chance?” she asked.

  “I wouldn’t be here if I didn’t,” he said. “This city is all about it.”

  Was it? Her experience said that Las Vegas was more about lost dreams. But she didn’t want to ruin tonight and end up back in her bedroom at Gran’s, alone in the same single bed she’d slept on since she was ten. Her mom had decided she couldn’t live with a gambler anymore, and had dropped her off at Gran’s house on her way out of town.

  Talia turned back to the lights of the strip. In the distance, she could just make out the fountains in front of one of the hotels, and she thought about how the only times she’d come to this part of Vegas had been for work or to try to find her dad.

  “What do you see when you look out there?” he asked.

  “Bright lights and fantasy,” she admitted. She took another sip of her champagne, determined not to ruin this night for herself.

  Her father had mentioned more than once that she could be a buzzkill. She preferred to think of herself as a realist, and maybe she would do well to remember that tonight. But she wanted…well to feel like she was twenty-six—young and free—not forty. She wanted one moment she could look back on when she was older and say she’d done something crazy. Something that wasn’t written in her bullet journal.

  She wanted Casey.

  She pivoted on her heel and moved close enough that one small step closed the gap between them. Their chests bumped against each other. He arched one eyebrow at her and the side of his mouth quirked up.

  She lifted her hand, gently touching the scar at the right side of his mouth. It was tiny—not even half an inch long—but it must have been bad because the scar looked old.

  “How did you get this?”

  “Taking a chance,” he said.

  She realized that he wanted something from her, too. Probably just sex. Not to get to know her or to talk about anything serious. She felt a twinge of disappointment, but then reminded herself that this was only for one night.

  One cray-cray night that she’d be able to tell Sami about in the morning. They’d have a laugh about it and then life would resume.

  “So not all of your gambles work out?” she said.

  “Where would the fun be in that?” he said.

  Confirmation, her gut said, that she was putting herself in the hands of a true gambler. She wanted to pretend that didn’t excite her, but her contrary disposition told her it was a lie. “No fun at all.”

  The words felt like sawdust in her mouth and she realized she couldn’t pretend about this. It was interesting, because she’d been able to fake her way through so many other things. But risking her livelihood on chance wasn’t one of them.

  …

  She wasn’t the daring sort. He’d already picked that up from her comments outside the grocery store. But she was game. And he liked that.

  He was the first to admit that his threshold for boredom was low. One of the reasons he’d so often gotten into scrapes, which he’d only escaped by using his wits, was that he was impulsive. It was a trait that had never really done him much good when he gambled. But every once in a while, that impulsiveness paid off.

  Like tonight.

  She looked so determined to be here. There was some sort of electric attraction between the two of them that was burning hotly through his veins. He’d been careful to make sure she didn’t feel…well, trapped for lack of a better word. But she was here and every masculine instinct he had was screaming for him to claim her. Make her his.

  He had to be honest and admit he didn’t want to talk about his past or Vegas. It was odd that the very thing that had made him who he was, was the one thing he hated most. Yet he knew no other way to earn a living. There was no other life he knew as well as he did the life of a gambler.

  But he wasn’t thinking of that tonight. His hormones were in charge. And right now, each inhalation of breath was scented by the sweet flowery scent that had been at the nape of her neck. Her skin was soft and smooth and he wanted to explore her entire body and find out if she had any imperfections, like the scar he wore on his lip.

  It had been caused by a slap from the man who ran the first foster home his mom had dumped him at, back before Casey had learned how to bluff.

  Her mouth was perfect. Just a cute little bow shape with a full lower lip that made his own tingle with
the thought of tasting it. He lifted his hand, cupped her jaw, and then used the pad of his thumb to touch it. Her lips parted and her breath was warm against his fingers. He leaned to the side, putting his champagne flute on the glass-and-chrome sofa table, then he took hers and put it next to his.

  He leaned in and she went up on tiptoe, their noses brushing, and he almost smiled. She was a mass of energy which had intrigued him the moment he’d first set eyes on her at the grocery store. She’d moved down the aisle with such intent, such determination, it seemed like nothing could ever slow her down.

  She was like one of the powerful thunderstorms that had fascinated and scared him as a child. He wanted to claim her, keep her, tame her. At least for this night.

  He was careful as he brushed his lips against her. Feeling the arcing of electricity between them, he swallowed her surprised exclamation. Then he opened his mouth over hers and she tipped her head to allow access as his tongue slipped past her lips. She tasted of sparkling wine and woman.

  Her hand rested against his shoulder, holding on to him. He put his hand on her waist and felt the heat of her body through the fabric of her dress.

  She pulled back and looked up at him. She had a serious way of studying him that made him feel…like a fraud. Like he was in one of those cups in the shell games he used to run on the streets. Despite his trappings of success, he knew he was all illusion. That he had no substance. Most of the time, he was pretty damned sure that no one else knew it, but there was something about her that made him very aware of his shortcomings.

  He turned away from her and walked toward the large console table in the corner of the room. He heard her exhale and then the sound of her heels on the hardwood floor as she followed him. He opened the drawer in the table and took out a deck of cards. A new deck.

  He’d learned a long time ago that no one wanted to play with an old deck. There were too many risks that it might be stacked.

  That had always amused him—that anyone could believe that anything other than fate was playing the biggest cosmic con. It was always slightly perplexing to him.

  “What are you doing?”

  “Taking a chance that you’re not as against gambling as you’ve indicated.”

  She stopped a few feet from him.

  “How?”

  “Well…I want to see you naked,” he said.

  “Good. I want to see you naked.”

  He shook his head. “If you keep saying stuff like that, I’ll last about thirty seconds. I want this to last all night.”

  She chewed her lower lip between her teeth, tipping her head to the side until a strand of her hair fell forward and brushed against the side of her face. When she tucked the strand behind her ear, he noticed the multicolored stud in her ear.

  “I’m intrigued. How is playing a game going to make this last?”

  “We can let the cards decide,” he said.

  “How?” she asked again, smiling. Good. She knew that this was just a bit of fun.

  “We will each draw a card. Whoever has the highest one gets to demand a piece of clothing or a caress from the other player. Each hand will bring us closer to where we want to be.”

  She arched one eyebrow at him. “And if we’re playing for touches as well as clothing, how will we determine the winner?”

  “If we play it right, we’ll both win,” he said.

  She turned and walked back to where he’d put the champagne glasses. Then she picked them up and carried them to the large table in the foyer. His apartment had curving staircases that led up to the second floor and his bedroom. In the middle of the foyer was a large walnut table that had been inlaid with the four suits of cards in a deck. She put her glass on the large spade and set his on the heart.

  “Game on,” she said.

  He walked over to her and shuffled the deck he was holding, then placed it in the middle of the table.

  …

  He held the deck out to her and she slipped off her stiletto heels to be more comfortable, then leaned forward to take a card from the middle of the deck. The hardwood floor was smooth and cool against her bare feet, but she felt the heat in every glance that Casey gave her. He watched her in a way that no man had before.

  He didn’t even glance at the deck as he drew a card from it. She had grown up watching her Gran and her dad play Pokeno in restaurants, and had learned from an early age that some people would bet on anything. But she’d never played high card. She’d never felt that randomness should define any of her actions.

  She glanced at her card. It was the seven of clubs. Not a great card, she thought, but out of fifty-two cards, there were only sixteen royal cards. So it wasn’t a bad draw, either.

  Casey gave nothing away as he looked at his card and then back over at her. “What do you have?”

  She wasn’t a gambler, but she knew that simply showing her card wasn’t going to be much fun. “You’ll have to give me something if you want to see it.”

  He threw his head back and laughed, and she realized that in a different life, she might have genuinely liked him and wanted something more than one night with him.

  “Fair enough. I’ll give you…my shoes,” he said.

  She shook her head. “That’s not going to get you anything except me taking a sexy sip of my drink.”

  “A sexy sip?” he asked.

  She had no idea how to drink sexy but he brought out something in her that made her feel like she was more than her normal self. And she liked it. It was as if, for this one night with him, she didn’t have to be the serious one.

  “Yeah.”

  “Well, I’m intrigued,” he said, toeing off his leather loafers and then arching his eyebrow at her.

  She tried to remember the last sexy movie she’d seen, but she hadn’t been to the theatre in more than a year. Still, Gran was fond of watching old black-and-white movies and they had a subtle way of showing flirting between men and women that she thought she could mimic.

  She lifted the champagne glass and instead of taking a sip, she ran her tongue around the edge of it, keeping eye contact with him, wishing it was the surface of his lips she was touching. They’d felt firm against hers when he’d kissed her. Their embrace had been way too short.

  She saw his pupils dilate and his nostrils flare slightly as he watched her slowly tip the glass back and take a sip. The bubbles of the sparkling wine exploded on her tongue and she closed her eyes as she swallowed. When she looked up, Casey’s gaze was focused on her. She had the feeling this game wasn’t going to last very long.

  She wanted him. Playing games was fun for a little while, but she felt empty. Right now, she wanted nothing more than to climb up that elegant staircase to his bed and get naked with him.

  “What will you give me to see my card?” she asked, the husky timbre of it surprising her. She was teasing him, but it was as much of a turn-on for her as it was for him.

  He put both hands on the table in front of him, his large palms framing either side of the heart design inlaid on the table. She wondered if he’d had enough of games as well.

  “Nothing. I’m going to show you my card.”

  She put her hands on the table, trying to mirror his stance since she felt the power of it, but when she leaned forward, her breasts shifted toward the low-cut bodice of the dress she wore. She usually was careful to keep buttoned up but as his gaze fell toward her cleavage, she realized that there was power in her body that she seldom used.

  She was usually just the cute girl who was charming and funny, making everyone like her. But now, for the first time, she felt…well, like a femme fatale. She smiled at the thought. He flipped his card over without looking at it and she found she couldn’t break his stare.

  In his gaze, she fancied that she could see everything he wanted to do with her. Her blood felt hot and heavy in her veins. Her nipples tightened against the fabric of her strapless bra and an ache started to build inside her.

  She glanced down at the card. It was t
he queen of diamonds.

  Damn.

  She flipped over her paltry seven.

  “Oh hell yes,” he said. “I’ll have your dress, my dear.”

  Her dress.

  She took her time straightening up, slowly drawing her hands back along the polished top of the table. She made sure not to break eye contact as she took two steps back from him. She reached for the zipper on the left side of the dress, fumbling for the tab just to draw out the process of removing it.

  Then she lowered it slowly—very slowly—very much aware that he held his breath as the cap sleeves slid down her shoulders and the bodice of the dress slipped away from her torso. She slowly pulled her left arm from the sleeve and then lowered the bodice of the dress a bit more to free the right one.

  She shimmied her hips as she pushed the dress down and over her thighs, and then drew her hands along her legs as she stepped out of the fabric of her dress. Straightening, she folded the dress carefully into a neat rectangle and walked around the table to hand it to him.

  Chapter Four

  He took the dress from her and lifted it to his face. It smelled of the nightclub, of spilled margaritas…and of her. He put the dress on the table behind her, knowing he’d waited as long as he could. The pale cream lingerie she wore accentuated her tan line at the top of her breasts. The creamy globes of them swelled up over the top of the bra.

  Her waist was small and narrow, her belly had a slight bump, and her legs were long, despite the fact that she wasn’t tall. She came to his breastbone, he noted, as he drew his finger down the side of her left arm and walked around behind her. She stood still and let him look his fill.

  Her neck was long and elegant, and he couldn’t resist leaning down to kiss that spot at her nape again. He nibbled his way from her neck to her shoulder and then put his hand on her waist, drawing her back against his body. He glanced over at the large framed mirror that hung on the wall and saw the two of them.

  Her eyes were half closed, and her head lowered, exposing her neck to his lips. His hands looked big against her smaller body and he splayed his fingers until his little finger touched the top of her bikini panties. He dipped his finger under the top of the fabric, feeling the soft hair that covered her mound, but drew his hand back, wanting to make this last.