Risk

by Raquel Belle

  I also found something naughty for later. Lilly’s probably going to complain when she realizes that I took it, it’s brand new, but I know she won’t really mind. She’ll just be annoyed that I found it in the first place.

  She’s always got the latest and greatest stuff and she doesn’t use things more than a couple of times. As the face of three businesses, four if you count Monte Carlo, David insists that she’s glamourous at all times. They’re Vegas’s power couple. In the time since they’ve been married, she’s steered David away from simply amassing a huge fortune to getting very active with charity work. They really do make an amazing team. They’re meant for each other. They make each other the best versions of themselves.

  It’s getting on to 7pm and still no Jack. At one point I was going to go out and look for him, but thought it would make me look silly.

  I just hope he’s okay. I can’t imagine what he must be going through. I’ve never known anyone with amnesia before. It must be so scary and confusing.

  For dinner I order us two gourmet cheeseburgers with extra, EXTRA bacon and a lobster thermidor just in case. I don’t visit Lilly all that often so I’ve got to make the trip count. I watch mindless TV while I wait.

  About thirty minutes later there’s a knock at the door. It’s the room service guy. I tip him and pull the cart in. As I do as I see Jack coming up from down the hall. I smile and wave, he does the same back. When he gets to me I hold his face and give him a kiss. It feels like I’ve been with him my whole life. Everything is just…automatic. “Long walk?” I say.

  “Yeah, well, I got to thinking and just lost track of the time. Is this dinner?” He pulls off the stainless-steel cover to reveal a plated burger and fries. “Oh, hell yeah! You read my mind, sweetheart.” He gives me a quick kiss. I feel so comfortable with him already…and it hasn’t been a full twenty-four hours yet.

  Crazy.

  “What did you get up to while I was away?” he asks.

  “Visited with Lilly for a little bit. I told her what happened this morning, about you and Pete, I left out the robbing part though,” I smile.

  “Good call,” he shoots his brow, “how about we try the table this time?”

  “Sure.” I lay everything out and then we sit down and dig in.

  “This is Goddamn amazing!” he says after taking a bite. “Anything to drink in here?”

  “Ugh, I didn’t even think, there’s a mini bar fridge over there.” I point it out.

  “Score. I’ve been drinking water from the tap.”

  I laugh.

  Jack goes over and opens it up, “Wow,” he says, “I-talian beer,” and laughs, “you want a Peroni?”

  I think about it for a moment, I honestly do because I don’t want to seem like a bummer, but I decline, “I better not. I’ve been sober for two years and last week I kind of went off the deep end. One of those might end up leading to thirty more, a bottle of whiskey and waking up in Littlefield, Arizona.” I grimace.

  “There’s juice…and water?”

  “I’ll take a juice.” He puts the beer back and brings two juices to the table. “Jack, you don’t have to do that on my account.”

  “It’s healthier.” That’s so sweet of him. He opens both bottles, hands me one and we cheers. “By the way, I saw your buddy Terry downstairs.”

  “You just bumped in to him?”

  “He just bumped in to me, on purpose.”

  “Oh no!” Terry, why? “I told him to drop it, what did he say?”

  “Let’s just say that man isn’t going to have a good night’s sleep till there’s a hundred miles between you and me.”

  Really Terry? “What the hell is his problem! I’m going to call him,” I say and reach for my phone.

  “Hey, don’t go getting mad at him,” Jack puts his hand over mine to stop me, “I get it. He’s just concerned and he has every right to be. We’re strangers to each other, Deanna. We just met this morning…and if I can be honest, I’m probably not the nicest guy in the whole world. If he told you that I’ve done some bad shit, then he’s right,” he chuckles, mirthlessly, “nothing that anybody didn’t deserve…well maybe…it’s complicated. You don’t always have the full picture. You get an order, you follow it because you have to trust in the chain of command. But in Terry’s position, I’d be thinking exactly the same thing.”

  “And what’s that?”

  “That I’m no good and you should stay as far away from me as possible.”

  My face gets hot and I feel like tears are welling up. This day has been such an emotional rollercoaster. “I don’t believe that,” I say.

  “Neither do I,” he says. He reaches over and kisses me, then sits back down and carries on with his burger.

  I fan my face and sniff away the almost tears. I just found him, why is Terry trying to ruin this for me? I try to talk and then I accidentally start crying anyway when I say, “So, how did you like the aquarium?” Suddenly I’m gushing with tears and I can’t stop. I’m sure it looks hilarious. I’m balling!

  Jack laughs, “Hey, hey,” he says, and pulls me onto his lap, “what is it?”

  “I don’t know,” I say through the tears, “this day has just been…so much.”

  “It sure has,” he laughs again. Then he kisses my cheeks, tasting my tears.

  I bury my face in his neck, “I’m sorry, it’s just…a lot, there’s a lot going on with me right now.”

  “I know darlin’, I know, me too.” He holds me tight and strokes my hair and my back till I finally get a grip. God, this is embarrassing.

  After a couple of minutes, I regain my composure. I climb off him and say, “Sorry, go on, finish your dinner.”

  “Yes, Ma’am.”

  “There’s also lobster if you want.” Jack nods. I sit back down and wipe my face with the napkins the room service left. He starts munching in to his burger. I feel like I’ve lost my appetite.

  “So, are going to tell me the story?” he asks.

  “What story?”

  “What you were doing up at that diner?”

  I have a sip of juice and eat a fry, wondering how much to tell or whether I should tell it at all, then decide…fuck it. “Me and Lilly are from Parkville, in Missouri. It’s funny how she and David met, actually.”

  “Yeah?”

  “Uh huh. She stayed there, working at my parents’ diner while she studied because she wanted to open up her own restaurant. I left before graduation. I’ve always had this feeling that I wasn’t where I was supposed to be. I worked at the diner too—growing up I mean.”

  “Okay.”

  “Anyway, I left and I bounced from place to place, seeing America, waitressing for money. Meeting people, having little adventures I guess. It’s like there’s this voice in my head that tells me what to do. I don’t know if that sounds weird?”

  “I don’t think it does. Intuition is a powerful thing. Like a sixth sense. The unconscious mind knows and can calculate certain things that the conscious mind can’t perceive…so it’s like listening to your gut. Instinct.” He takes another bite.

  “Right?” He gets it!

  “Sure.”

  “Only problem is that by the time I wound up down here after years of wandering around, that voice was getting so loud I’d started drinking to make it go away because none of what it was telling me to do sounded like what everybody else was doing. Normal people want to get an education, get married, buy a house, have kids. All I felt was that I wasn’t where I was supposed to be. I was just looking for that moment or that place and I couldn’t find it and I felt like I didn’t belong anywhere at all.” I spot some barbecue sauce at the corner of lip, so I lean over and kiss it off. “Sauce.”

  He smiles, “Thanks.”

  “Then I started gambling. At first, I’d win a grand here and there, sometimes even five or six, and it was great. But then I found out that what I really liked was losing—it’s only happened a handful of times. It was like some kind of addiction that m
ade me feel free to follow the voice, because when you have nothing, no car, no apartment, no money, no anything…you’re kind of free to follow that voice and just hit the road and reinvent yourself at the next stop. You’re free to just run. Having a ton of stuff is like a trap. You don’t own that stuff…the stuff owns you. Sure, if the opposite happened and I won big, then I’d have means and I can still follow the voice ‘coz now I don’t have to be a waitress. Either thing would’ve worked out. Big risks, you know?”

  “I think I do.”

  “Anyway, our twenty-fifth birthday came around and I had some money so I flew Lilly out here so we could celebrate it together. We came to Fortuna. I was drinking, a lot, I got pretty lucky with the slots and then I ended up in a poker game with David.”

  “Wow.”

  “Yeah, I was up $650,000 and then lost it all.”

  “Fuck me!” He puts his burger down. “You’re not kidding, are you?”

  “Not in the slightest, and then I called him a cheater and bet him double or nothing on one hand.”

  “This is a good fucking story.”

  I smile. “My collateral didn’t amount to shit, so he said the only way he’d play the next hand is if I wagered Lilly. I’m sure he expected we’d just walk away. But she agreed and the voice told me to do it.”

  “Holy shit.” He’s rivetted.

  “Well, I lost. Lilly had to spend seven days with David…and they fell in love.”

  “That…is incredible.”

  “They didn’t tell each other though. I think that was maybe my fault. Around about that time I was really going off the deep-end and I got in trouble at another casino. David agreed to pay off my marker if I agreed to go to rehab, all expenses paid. He gave me a month to decide. Eventually it got to a point where…well, it got really bad. So, I did it, I went to rehab.”

  “Oh shit.”

  “When it was over I moved in with Lilly back in Parkville.”

  “And then?”

  “About a month after that David set up a big surprise for Lilly and brought her back here to propose, but gangsters kidnapped her from the airport and held her for ransom. That’s why he was angry with me this morning. He thought people could’ve done the same thing to me. He wasn’t wrong.”

  “Last week when I came to visit I was just looking at their perfect lives and I still felt empty. I’d tried to go back to school, I was taking online classes and stuff, working at my folks’ diner. But it didn’t feel like me. It felt like I was doing it for everyone else so that they would be happy and not worry about me. I was miserable. I wasn’t where I was supposed to be. I looked at David and Lilly and thought, why DON’T I want that? What’s wrong with me? Why am I like this? What am I searching for?”

  “No one expected me to do it, not after two years being clean. I walked over to a bar on the strip after having dinner with David and Lilly, I had a drink and then a few hours later I wound up in a poker game with Chuck Schafer. I didn’t realize it at the time, but probably the only reason I got in there is because he knew who I was and he knew that David and Lilly would pay the tab. They played me.”

  “Fuck,” he’s in disbelief.

  “Things were going well for a while but then that old habit kicked in—I started taking bigger and bigger risks—and when I got $400k in the hole, he took my phone and kicked me out. I came back here, threw whatever I had left in a bag and got on a bus. I got off at Littlefield, walked for a while and sort of stumbled onto the diner. Jimmy was opening up and he took a shot on me. I was there for a week. And this morning, I met you.”

  “Holy Christ,” Jack gets up and pulls me with him. He puts his arms around me and kisses me like he fucking means it. “You’re my kind of woman, Deanna Madison.”

  “Yeah?” I say. I feel myself smiling.

  “Hell yeah.”

  “So, you’re in to crazy chicks huh?” I laugh.

  “You’re not crazy, Deanna. You’ve got heart. And you’ve got balls!”

  “Just metaphorical ones I hope!”

  Chapter Nine

  Jack

  I’ve seen a lot of things in my life and I’ve heard a lot of way out stories, but that…that’s right up there on the greatest hits list. As far as I can tell, the only thing wrong with Deanna is that she’s a free spirit—and there’s nothing wrong with that at all, it’s just who she is.

  Some people want stability, safety and certainty…and some people want to live by their wits and roll the dice and experience life to the full. Some people are willing to risk it all for the big win. That’s who Deanna is, and that’s who I am.

  Lilly might be the one with all the money, but I can guarantee that Deanna has experienced more of life than Lilly ever will. I’m not saying that in a bad way…it’s just the way it is. They’re opposites. Some people want to lay down roots…some people want to be carried by the wind.

  Something tells me that if you airdropped Deanna onto a remote village in the outskirts of nowhere, she’d drive back in to town a week later in a gold-plated Mercedes Benz. She’s feisty…and capable. This girl is no deer in the headlights.

  After dinner I told her I was going to take a quick shower before bed. She told me she’d have a surprise for me when I got out. When I step in to the bedroom—just a towel around me—the lights are dimmed for that certain mood. I walk to the foot of the bed so I can take in the view for all its splendor.

  Deanna is propped up on the pillows looking like a meal, arms out to either side, her long legs extended in front of her with the ankles crossed. She’s wearing some kind of red, lacy, decorative bra and panties. It’s quite elaborate. I want to lick and taste every part of her. She’s exquisite.

  “Well hello there, Jackhammer,” she says, and gives me a devilish grin. I don’t know much about lingerie, but I know she looks delicious in that combo. It’s strange, you know what’s underneath…but…maybe it’s like an aperitif before you eat. I feel the smile on my face growing.

  “This is like Christmas morning,” I say.

  “You like it?” She uncrosses her legs and moves into the splits so I can get a better look at her cleavage, turns to the side, jumps to her knees and wiggles her butt.

  “I love it.” Her hair draped over her shoulders like that, the outfit—not to mention the elasticity of her body…wow. She’s absolutely fucking stunning.

  “Then come unwrap your present,” she calls me with her finger.

  I move toward her intent on tearing the material away like gift wrap. I think she realizes because as I reach for her she quickly bounces away.

  “NO,” she screams with her eyes wide. Then she laughs, “It’s expensive!”

  I’m in stitches with laughter. She’s so animated. “Okay, why don’t you take it off and I’ll just watch?”

  “Okay.” She smiles and picks up her phone, taps something on the screen and sound fills the room from speakers hidden in the walls.

  It takes a little while to kick in but then I recognize the song as Viva Las Vegas – by ZZ Top.

  She uses the bed as her stage. My eyes are glued to her as she dances for me. I honestly just want to pounce on her but from the look on her face, she’s having way too much fun. She’s so fucking sexy. She moves with grace but she’s raunchy at the same time. I’m surprised I haven’t passed out because the blood in my body is flowing in only one direction…to my rock-hard cock. She’s got a ton of moves and she’s very athletic. I whistle and clap my hands.

  She responds by shimmying out of her panties and gently kicking them to me. I grab them, take a whiff and drop them on the couch in the corner. Delectable. She undoes the bra and does a move where she wiggles out of it and tosses it at me with both hands. She’s timed everything to the song perfectly. As it ends, she drops onto her butt at the end of the bed, bounces, does a back-roll and comes up in the position of a tiger on its claws with her hair falling all over her face.

  She does a growly purring noise, “RRRRRR.”

  We bot
h laugh. I know I’ve had a huge smile on my face the whole time. This is the most fun I’ve had with anyone in years. I really think I’m falling for Deanna.

  Too bad this is my last night with her. Better make it count. I call her to me with a finger and she crawls forward. I put a finger on her chin and lift her face to mine. I kiss her. It’s slow at first and then her hunger takes over. She sucks on my tongue the way she likes. I move to her neck, then to her breasts, tasting every inch of her on my way.

  “Jack,” she pants. “Oh, Jack. Don’t stop.”

  I move back to her mouth to kiss her. “If I could do this forever, I would,” and then I realize I’ve said too much. She says nothing back. I push her down and grab her calves, running my face over them. They’re like silk.

  I kiss, lick and nip my way to her center. She’s perfect. She’s everything a man could dream of and more. I put her legs over my shoulders and go for her pussy. She’s so fucking wet. I drink from her. Eating her cunt is like tasting honey from the source.

  “Jack!”

  I pay no attention.

  Her hips rise. Her breathing quickens. I look up and see the mounds of her breasts rising and falling. “Jack! Jack! Yes, yes, yes!”

  I play with her clit and keep tongue fucking her. She grinds her pussy into my face.

  “Oh God! Oh God, Jack! I’m coming! I’m coming!” Her thighs are going to close around my face but I hold them apart and keep going.

  “FUCK! FUCK! JACK!” Her body tenses more than I’ve ever felt and she shakes. I keep going. She cries out. She’s vibrating now. She lets out a long scream. “OH MY GOD!”

  Her hips seem to move involuntarily, like someone else is controlling her body. She shudders and moans. “JACK!” She pushes at my head furiously.

  I pull away from her. Another spasm and a twitch and she clenches up. She rolls to her side like she’s got nothing left in her.

  “You okay?” I smile.

  Her breathing is heavy. When she speaks, it’s like she’s spent…almost in pain. “What in the ever-loving fuck did you just do to me? My brain is…” she takes a breath and curls up, “I need a second,” she laughs. “Shush.”