What the Gambler Risks

by Kristina Knight

  “It’s barely eleven o’clock in the morning.”

  “So we make it lunch. Lunch is innocuous. You can keep asking me for a repayment total, and I can keep telling you no, and eventually we’ll talk about the other night because I can’t seem to get it out of my head.”

  Sabrina started to tell him no but stopped herself. She shouldn’t want to have lunch or dinner with Jase Reeves. He was everything every man her mother had ever fallen for was: handsome, rich, and carefree. Having dinner with him, giving herself more time to fall for a man who was so very wrong for her, made her just like Melinda, and she had promised herself never to be like her mother. Not in that way.

  “Everyone has to eat. Why not eat together? Share some conversation. I can give you a few gambling tips.”

  “I’m not a gambler. The other night was … an anomaly.”

  “You’re pretty good for an anomaly gambler.”

  “I grew up in Vegas. You pick things up whether you intend to or not.” Like her mother’s penchant for emotionally unavailable rich men.

  Still, Jase didn’t seem like the cold men Melinda had run off with over the years. He didn’t have the same calculating look in his eye, and he was interesting to talk to. If she gave him half a chance, he might even make her laugh. After all, that bit with his brothers in the office lobby would have been funny had it not centered on her lame excuse about mistaking a business office for a casino.

  She should go back to his office, pick up her car, and go back to Henderson. Take him at his word that he didn’t want to be paid back and pretend that chartered flight had never happened. That he really was just a Good Samaritan. A friend.

  Friends had lunch, right?

  “Okay. How about Binion’s?”

  Chapter Six

  “I haven’t been up here in ages,” Sabrina said after the waitress took their order.

  Jase took a moment to watch the activity below them. The restaurant at the top of the old Binion’s casino had one of the best views in town. Las Vegas spread out below them in all directions, neon and traffic and tourists in one direction, and the desert and residential areas in the other; it was one of his favorite places to eat when he was in town. They sat at a window table overlooking the Strip, and even at midday and without the neon lights, it was beautiful.

  Sabrina placed a linen napkin in her lap and settled into her seat. “I came here once with a friend. Birthday dinner. We’d have been about nineteen, I think.”

  “And you scammed drinks from the waiter?”

  She shook her head. “We were good girls; we didn’t even try. It was enough to be dressed up and pretending to be adults.”

  “Good girls, hmm?”

  Sabrina blushed, and he thought it was the sexiest blush he’d ever seen. “For the most part. You can’t grow up in Vegas and be completely innocent.”

  Jase tapped his wine glass to hers. “To not being completely innocent.”

  “To not being totally debauched,” she countered.

  “On that innocent front, what’s with the Vegas Virgin moniker?” She turned startled eyes to him. “I looked you up. I had no intention of never seeing you again.”

  “I hate that name.”

  “So you aren’t the last virgin in Las Vegas?”

  Sabrina rolled her eyes, and Jase chuckled. “Not since I was about seventeen and did the usual prom night thing.” She sighed. “The shock-jock who gave me the name tried a few others, but none of them stuck. I was the Frigid Desert Debutante for a couple of days, I was That Bitch a few times, I was even Slutty Sabrina once or twice, until his cohost called him out because a woman can’t be frigid and slutty at the same time. That’s when the virgin thing caught on. He said dating me—and we’d gone out twice—was like going out with a petrified virgin, and he didn’t mean petrified as in scared, he meant as in wood. The cohost said, ‘A virgin in Vegas? Who knew that was even possible?’ And the two of them ran with it from there.”

  “He sounds like a winner.”

  “He has one of the hottest shows on satellite radio.” She shrugged. “In the end, he helped to make my point that no relationship is better than a bad relationship, and that helped me sell books. I can’t be angry about it.”

  He watched her for a long moment. There was something in her eyes that caught his attention. It wasn’t pain, but there was something there that wasn’t as impartial to the Vegas Virgin thing as she claimed to be.

  “I’ve never dated a Vegas Virgin before.”

  “And you’re not dating one now.”

  He wiggled his eyebrows. “I’m aware.”

  “I meant this isn’t dating. This is having lunch.”

  “We spent a night together playing poker and”—he leaned across the table—“not being virgins. You tracked me down at work; now we’re having lunch. It isn’t not dating.”

  “I tracked you down to repay you.”

  The waitress delivered their salads and Jase’s soup. “And I told you at the time repayment wasn't necessary."

  “Only a bazillionaire would think repayment for a chartered plane was unnecessary.”

  “Technically, I’m a multimillionaire, not a bazillionaire. If you added my brothers’ money to mine, along with our family ranch, though, you might reach a bazillion.”

  She pointed her finger at him. “You think you’re funny.”

  “I’ve been called charming a few times.”

  Sabrina shook her head. “That isn’t charming.”

  “You’re smiling.”

  She bit her lower lip, but her mouth still curved up. “Am not.” Sabrina dipped her fork into the dish of dressing and then stabbed a few chunks of lettuce. “I like a good salad.”

  Jase sipped at his soup. “Are too, and you’re having fun.”

  They ate in silence for a few moments. Jase watched her, enjoying the way she enjoyed her food. He’d never seen someone actually dip a fork into the salad dressing pot instead of dumping it all over the lettuce. He enjoyed just being with her, talking with her. She didn’t like the virgin nickname, and he couldn’t blame her. It was hard enough to live up to the self-help guru thing, much less be a self-help guru who was also thought of as a virgin or frigid.

  “Why self-help books?”

  “I like helping people.” She was quiet for a moment. “My mom, the other night? That’s been happening since I was little. She loves being in love, but she doesn’t know how to actually be a whole person. The first book was basically my manifesto to myself of all the things I wouldn’t do in the name of love. It kind of grew from there. Why gambling?”

  Jase considered his answer. The simple answer was that it was in his blood, but that made him sound like the addict his mother was. The hard answer was that, even with the ranch in decent shape when their father died unexpectedly, the three of them had needed money to survive. Connor was still in college, Gage in high school. Jase quit his degree program in computer programming and tried construction for a while, but money was still tight. To blow off steam one night, he played a round of cards with the guys from the construction crew and won. That game led to more games, and before he knew it, he was making more playing poker than setting drywall, so he quit.

  “I grew up in Las Vegas. What else was I going to do?”

  “Go into accounting or medical school or teaching or any of the thousands of degree programs out there. Or become a mechanic or a construction worker. Being raised in Vegas doesn’t equate to being raised to play cards.”

  “Playing cards is a lot easier than working construction, and the hours are better. It also gives me ideas for new casino games.”

  Sabrina finished her salad as the waitress brought their main courses. “Don’t you get tired of the games?”

  “Not so far.” Jase cut into his steak, and it steamed. Perfect. God, he loved Binion’s.

  They finished their meals, but Jase couldn’t stop thinking about his answers. Her answers might seem a little too rehearsed, but there was an air
of truth about them. Whereas he’d immediately gone for the flip answer. Like he’d gone for the easy money playing cards all those years ago. He didn’t regret the choice because it helped keep his family together, and at the time it felt like the only decision he could make.

  His father dead, his mother on another random poker run, and him in charge of his brothers. The three of them had needed more money than he could make by selling a few bulls or taking on construction jobs. Desperate and angry with his parents for leaving him, the sole caretaker for his younger siblings at the age of twenty, he'd made the best decision he could. By his twenty-first birthday, the one in Morocco, he was playing big-money tournaments. Money for Connor's and Gage's college tuitions was in the bank, and the ranch was faring better than expected.

  “I like playing cards, and I’m good at it. It’s as simple as that,” he said.

  Sabrina cocked her head to the side. “That doesn’t sound simple at all. How does a person learn they’re good at cards?”

  Jase considered that. She didn’t need to know how he’d played against Helena so she wouldn’t leave, but he didn’t want to lie.

  “My mother was a poker player. Addict, really,” he said, not knowing why he was telling her this over a lunch of steak and chicken and salad. He barely knew her. “I wanted to keep her from playing, so I would bet her that if I won the hand, she would stay with us. I usually won.”

  “And you kept her out of the casinos?” Sabrina’s hand rubbed against his on the table.

  Jase grimaced. “She was a bad gambler, but she must have been a great liar because I always believed, right up until she walked out the door, that this time she wouldn’t go.”

  “I’m sorry,” she said after a while.

  “It all worked out. She made me a better poker player. I turned poker into a nice living, and that nice living funded my other games.” He shrugged. “No complaints.”

  The waitress stopped at the table to ask if they wanted dessert. Jase looked to Sabrina, who shook her head. “Just the check,” he said.

  The waitress returned with the check, but Sabrina picked it up before he could. “My treat, since you won’t let me repay you for the charter.” Once the waitress returned with Sabrina’s credit card, they took the elevator to the gaming floor.

  “Which ones are yours?” she asked.

  Jase pointed out a few video poker games and several others that included other card games. “We’re launching a series of non-card games this winter. Starting out just here in Vegas, and if they play well, we’ll go international.”

  Sabrina paused beside a blackjack game. She slid a bill into the slot. “How do you come up with these?”

  The game’s computer dealt the cards. Two nines turned up in her hand. “You should split those,” he advised. She did, and got a two and another nine.

  “Split again?”

  He shook his head. “You only split once. I’d hold the double nines and hit on the nine and the two.”

  She made the appropriate call, and the computer dealt her an ace. Sabrina squealed. “Twenty-one! I win!”

  Jase sat beside her and slid a bill into the next machine. They played a few hands, each winning more than they lost. When Sabrina’s winnings passed the $50 mark, she cashed out to watch him. Jase hit the next hand with a ten and a king and cashed out forty.

  “Do you want to walk some more?”

  She nodded. They made their way back down Fremont, meandering to the Stratosphere and Circus Circus as they talked about growing up in Las Vegas. She’d attended school on the north side of the city, and he’d attended a smaller, rural school. They each had some of the same favorite places, though, including Fremont and a local burger joint just off the Strip.

  It struck Jase that they had probably been in the same places at the same time on multiple occasions, but it had taken them each going to Atlantic City for work to meet. Life was weird.

  They walked and talked until the sun began to set in the west. He should make some excuse to cut the day short, because if he didn’t, he knew what was going to happen. He was going to take the Vegas Virgin home. He knew she wasn’t a virgin, and she didn’t pretend to be, but there was something clean about Sabrina that left him feeling … not.

  Jase didn’t want the night to end. He didn’t want Sabrina to go back to her life and him back to his. He wanted to keep talking with her, walking with her. He liked the man he was with her. His hand found hers in the growing darkness, and she didn’t pull away. Together, they continued down the Strip, past Caesars and MGM, watching the other people on the street. The card-flippers were back at work, and so were a few costumed impersonators. The fountains at the Bellagio shot into the air, and music filled the street around them.

  “Let’s watch,” Sabrina said, pulling him toward the crowd gathered at the railing.

  The fountains danced, but while Sabrina’s focus was on the show, his focus was on her.

  It was probably from not enough sleep while he knocked around Atlantic City, coupled with the long travel hours the day before. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d slept through the night. Lately, he’d been spending more time at the tables than in his bed.

  This morning he’d wanted to track her down just so he could leave her wanting more. Tonight, he didn’t want to leave. He wanted more. The thought made him nervous. Excited.

  “Jase,” Sabrina said, her voice so quiet in the crowd that he had to lean forward to hear her. “I don’t want to go home.”

  Chapter Seven

  It didn’t take long enough to get to Jase’s condo. Leave it to a bazillionaire to live right on the Strip, in a building that used key cards like the hotels used. Sabrina swallowed. She wasn’t going to back out, not now. She’d told herself she was going after Jase to pay him back; she admitted now that she’d gone after him just so she could see him again.

  He opened the door, and she gasped. Mahogany floors, leather furniture, and a view most of the casinos would kill for. Floor-to-ceiling windows let the neon of Las Vegas into the living area. She could see the big hotels and resorts and far, far below, little blips that she knew were tourists walking along the street. During the day, she thought she could probably see into the desert or maybe the mountains.

  Jase came up behind her, putting his arms around her waist as he kissed her neck. Sabrina turned in his arms, and her mouth met his.

  She didn’t care that this was stupid. She already knew that having sex with Jase was like no other sex she’d had, but getting involved with him … that was dangerous. Having sex with him again would make it so much harder to go back to being the woman who always did the right things.

  Letting a gambler like Jase in, even one who insisted he wasn’t a gambler, was definitely wrong. Oh, but his hands on her body felt so incredibly right.

  Right now, making life harder for Future Sabrina wasn’t nearly as important as being with Jase in the present. Not when his mouth was doing amazing things to that spot beneath her ear, and not when his hand was hot on the small of her back.

  Most of all, she liked the way she felt with Jase. Like maybe her books were right, and women could have it all. They could have the good sex and the fun relationships and the job and the life they wanted. God, she wanted all of it.

  She wanted the satisfaction of a night spent in the arms of a man who made her feel things she hadn’t known she could feel. She didn’t care that he was the wrong type of guy for her or that his past and her present couldn’t mesh. She liked the man she saw before her; he was more than a gambler, and even if liking him a little too much practically scared the La Perla off of her, she was going with it.

  “It’s a good thing you went looking for old Mr. Binion today,” he said, a smile on his face.

  Sabrina shrugged. “So I lied.” She wrapped her arms around Jase’s neck, reached up on her tiptoes, and took his lips with hers. He reached under her legs, lifting her against his chest, and began walking down the hall, never taking his mouth from h
ers. He was too good at this, but she didn’t care how many women he’d brought to his love shack on the Strip. All she cared about was having more of him.

  When the backs of her legs hit the silky duvet, Sabrina sank onto the comfortable mattress. Jase rested one knee between her legs as he followed her down, down, until her head rested on a small pillow.

  “Sabrina,” he said quietly as his hands played with the sensitized skin of her lower abdomen. His gaze caught hers, and for a moment it seemed as if time would stop. She could only look into his clear, green eyes and wonder what he was thinking. Then, his mouth descended on hers, and time seemed to speed back up.

  His hands were on her belly, then one hand over her breast. She grasped the hem of his shirt, pulling it over his head. A light mat of hair covered his chest, tapering down to a V that disappeared beneath his jeans. The button at his waist was next, and when she’d loosened it, Sabrina took his length in her hand, liking the feel of him, hot and hard in her hand.

  “Now that you’ve got me here, Miss Smith, what is it that you want to do with me?” he asked, grinning at her.

  “Whatever I want,” she replied and pushed her hands against his shoulders so that he lay on his back. She lay atop him for a while, their legs tangled, chest to chest, pressing little kisses along his collarbone, the way he’d done that night in Atlantic City. His hands explored her, and she let her fingers walk down through the light smattering of his chest hair. She felt his abdomen tense when her hand passed his belly button, and when she wrapped her hand around his length again, he growled. Sabrina grinned. She didn’t want the moment to end, that was definite, but she also liked the idea that she had power over this big, strong man.

  He watched her for a long moment. Slowly, he clasped his hands behind his head. “I can handle it,” he said. “You take the wheel.”

  Sabrina grinned at him. “Don’t you mean the staff?” she asked, drawing her hand slowly over his length once more. Jase’s pupils darkened, and his slow breath whistled as he inhaled.