by CD Reiss
“What is wrong with people? Where is the fun in that?” She looks as if she’s just eaten a rotten lemon, or swallowed a half a cup of cheap white vinegar. For a woman who seemed overwhelmed, amazed, enchanted, and even out of her depth, she is the mistress of this con game. She is the most artful of dodgers.
My lips linger at her throat, brushing the skin, tasting her as she tries to figure out who would want to sit at a poker table and not increase their risk. She tastes like a good bet, made at the right time, with a straight royal flush.
“What do you play?” I nip at the edge of her ear. “I’d like to know before I play you. I want to know how much of a risk-taker you are.”
She turns halfway, looking at me with a sultry tilt to her head. “I like blackjack, but I wouldn’t make too much of that. The hands are usually short and unsatisfying. And only a couple of cards can end the game.”
A quick upward jerk of her eyebrows punctuates the entendre, and though a minute ago I wanted to watch her play cards, all I want now is to watch her come.
I slide my fingers down her arm and grasp her hand. “The tables are open all night.”
“I might be as well.”
That just about does it for me. I’m not waiting another second. I pull her to the lift.
34
cassie
We get out on the top floor. There are six penthouse suites with doors at the far corners of the hall.
“I’ve never stayed in a penthouse,” I say.
“First time for everything,” he says as we step into the hall.
My skin misses him. The waters go still again, but they crave the rippling wake of his touch.
There’s a door at the end of the hall. He drops behind a step, watching me as I walk in front of him. I feel his gaze appreciating me, wanting me as much as I want him. The door seems so far away, and I know that once we get to it, that look will turn into his hands and his body.
When I get to the end, he’s on me from behind, pushing his body into me, his breath in my ear, his hand wrapped around my waist pressing against the fabric between my legs. “Are you ready?”
“For what?” I say playfully.
“To see the fountain from the penthouse, of course.” He waves his card in front of the lock, and it clicks open. Then reaches around me and opens the door.
He slams the door, and I turn to face him.
I’ve seen Keaton look hungry before, but framed in the hotel doorway, he looks ravenous. Feral. Like a man with a single thing on his mind. And it’s me. It’s the barrier of my clothes and his. It’s the space of the few feet between us. He looks as though he wants to tear those obstacles away and shatter them under him.
He’s frightening, but I’m not scared. Maybe I am scared, but the fear doesn’t make me want to run away. The fear makes me want to be captured.
I back up a step, and he steps forward. I realize I’m smiling. He must realize it too, because a mischievous grin spreads across his face.
From the window, I hear a boom and the first notes from an orchestra.
He unbuckles his belt and says, “That would be the show.”
I turn my back to him and walk to the floor-to-ceiling window where the sound is coming from. The suite isn’t dark, lamps are on, but I don’t see a thing yet. Just the rectangle of the window overlooking the Las Vegas strip. I feel him behind me, those eyes, that feral look that has a physical presence, and hear his belt slip around his waistband.
Down below, the fountain is huge, and the jets of water stream to the sky in sync with Brahms’ hallelujah chorus. It’s beautiful.
The water jets boom with pressure, and his body presses against mine. He takes my hands and lays them flat against the windowpane. It’s cool to the touch.
“Just stay still,” he whispers, sliding his hands along my ribcage and hooking his thumbs in my waistband. “Enjoy the show.”
I’m immobile only by his command, and I want to be. I want to watch the water fountain, and I want him to touch me as if I’m a pliant statue.
Reaching around to my front, he unbuttons my pants and pulls down the zipper. My stillness lets me feel every single brush of his fingers as he wedges his hands under my underpants and slides them to my mid thigh. I can barely breathe. He does it so slowly that I feel impatient, yet every single moment is a morsel to be savored.
I let out a whimper just as the chorus down below reaches its apex. The water drops to the surface in a mosaic of ripples and splashes. “Is it over?”
“Hardly.”
Before he’s even done speaking, another classical piece rises. I recognize it but don’t know the name. A jet of water so powerful it almost reaches the top floor makes me gasp. Or maybe it’s his hand running along my stomach and just barely touching the skin between my legs.
“My God, Keaton. I don’t think I can really watch this if you do that.”
“Believe me, there will be another show.” He slips his middle finger between my folds. I almost lose my footing, and my hands slide down the glass a few inches. “You’re pretty wet for a girl who wants to watch the fountain.”
“Yes, I —” There’s no end to the sentence, because two fingers slide from my opening to my throbbing nub and rest there.
A crowd has gathered around the fountain. They lean up against the gate on the Strip and on the hotel side. The suite is dark enough that I’m sure they can’t see us, and we are on the thirtieth floor. But I like seeing them below. I like knowing that I’m doing this and they can’t see me, but I can see them.
The skin of his dick pushes against my bottom. He’s hard, thick. There’s a brutality to his erection and how he pushes it against me that makes my eyes nearly flutter closed. The rush of blood between my legs drains the feeling from the rest of my body.
His hands run up my belly, under my bra, pushing it up until my breasts are free. He runs his hands back down and presses my lower back. “Take your bottom up, my dodger.”
I do what he asks, watching the water explode with the rhythms, exposing myself to him. I feel as though I’m begging. And when he pulls my thighs apart until I move my feet, I feel as though my pleas have been heard.
“Are you ready?” He runs the head of his dick along my wet seam.
I jerk toward him as if that will make him enter me sooner. I should know better by now.
“Please.” I don’t know if I sound as needy as I feel, but if I do, he ignores me.
“I’m a patient man,” he says, running his hands all over me, letting his thumbs fall into my crack as they make their way along my upper thighs, slowly, maddeningly, until I groan with frustration. “This is quite a lovely piece. Beethoven. ‘Ode to Joy.’ Do you see how they’ve programmed the fountain to go slowly higher as the piece gets more intense?”
He slides two fingers into me. This satisfies nothing. It makes my anticipation even greater.
“Yes.” Yes to everything. I can barely keep my eyes open. My head drops when he strokes my inside wall. With his other hand, he pulls my hair back gently yet forcefully until I’m looking out the window again.
“You’re so beautiful when you’re like this. You, hovering between two worlds. Your mind doesn’t know whether to pay attention to what you’re seeing or what you’re feeling. One has to win. Which one is it going to be?”
“Feeling. I’d say feeling, in about five minutes.”
The music swirls. The jets of water fly upward, and as they hit a finale, he enters me.
When I cry out, it’s not in pain or pleasure. It’s the anticipation leaving my body all at once.
He presses his hands against mine, pushing them against the glass, which is no longer cold but warm from my touch. He thrusts powerfully and slowly. Every movement is calculated. Another concerto rises from the speakers, and like the fountain that is programmed to explode with the rhythm, so is his rhythm programmed to my body.
The music rises again, but I can barely hear it. The jets of water have turned into a blur an
d my attention can only focus on one thing. Him. The way our bodies slam together. The way my orgasm is about to take over my entire body. He finds my clit and rubs it for three strokes before my toes curl, my back arches, and a long, hoarse vowel spirals from my throat.
A million miles away, his voice says, “yes,yes,yes,” in a drumbeat of affirmation.
He pulls out, and I’m left empty and wanting. His hands on my hips push forward left and toward him right, turning me around. My hands leave the glass reluctantly, because he told me to leave them there, and when I’m facing him with his shirt half open, his pants around his ankles and his fist around his cock, I see his hunger yet again.
He pushes toward me, and with my back pressed against the newly cold glass, he spurts onto my belly, leaving a warm trail of thick pleasure.
Below us, the music falls, dies, and the last jets of water drop to the pool’s surface with a splash. The crowd applauds, and Keaton and I catch our breath.
He puts his elbow on the window behind me and runs his fingers over my hair. His hand drifts to my waist, through the semen he has left on me, spreading it over my belly. Marking me with it.
He moves his hand downward again and lays four wet fingers over me. “You make me want to come inside you.”
“I told you I was on birth control.”
His hand runs over me from back to front. “I know.”
I wait for him to continue, but no more reason is forthcoming. He slips three fingers inside me and I suck breath through my teeth. I don’t know how I’m still standing. Maybe he’s holding me up. But when he presses all of those fingers against my nub again, I lose all feeling in my legs and fall into his arms, sliding to the floor. He guides me to a chair. I fall over the arm of it, sideways, legs spread—one over the back of the chair with one set of curled toes leveraging against the floor—as he brings me to orgasm again.
I can’t move. Can’t think. I can barely get myself to a more comfortable position as he stands over me, one hand up with his wetness and mine glinting in the flashing lights of the Las Vegas strip.
He kneels by the chair, that mischievous smile back in spades, and puts his thumb to his lips and sucks it clean. I open my mouth just a little and flick my tongue over my bottom lip. He reads my mind and puts two fingers in my mouth. I suck us off him.
“You are a filthy little girl.” He removes his fingers. “Let me get you washed up.”
With that, he gathers me in his arms and lifts me.
I put my arms around his neck. I can finally see the room, with its flower arrangements, plush furniture, mirrors, and fireplace. He carries me into the bathroom, popping on the light with his elbow. The tile is glistening white, there are four sinks, a deep bathtub, a glass-enclosed shower, and Keaton Bridge.
My Keaton. Whatever his name is or where he’s really from, for this weekend, he is mine, secrets and all.
I sigh softly.
35
keaton
I get my money’s worth out of the penthouse by fucking her in every room, on every piece of furniture. I tell her about the fog in London (it’s real) and the law that allows pregnant women to have a wee in a policeman’s hat (that’s false). I feed her room-service strawberries, and she washes my hair in the bath.
She is foggy weather, when the air gets so close you can feel it around you like a skin. She is the crowds flowing around Trafalgar Square with their own purpose and predictability that is comforting. She is the smell of the sea air unexpectedly coming from the south, bringing the sting of salt to the city. She is an unexpected reminder of where I stand in the world.
She’s none of those things. She’s not even British. She’s an American woman through and through. She probably wears American flag underwear as she eats apple pie on July 4th.
I’ve been drifting too long. I’m fed up with drifting. It’s that irritation that brought me here. It’s that discomfort that led me to the ambassador’s office to assure him I was ready for something different.
“I want to gamble,” she says on our last morning. “Do we have time before the flight?” She’s fully dressed in a flowing skirt that seems quite unlike her. I like this new, casual look. Will I ever get a chance to truly know all of the ways she can be?
I zip my bag closed. “You don’t want to give this bed another workout?”
She slips her arms around my waist and looks up at me. “I’m sore.”
“Giving up, are you?” I kiss her temple. I’ll kiss anyplace I can reach. “Never took you for a quitter.”
“I’ll teach you how to count cards.”
“You count cards?”
“For blackjack. I know how, but I’m not great at it.” She pulls away. “Come on. Let’s have a couple of hours of dumb fun.”
Gambling is money wasted on manufactured risk, but I want to see her in the bright lights, doing something I can’t imagine her doing. I want to revel in her competence and unexpected skill.
A call comes in, and though I’ve ignored my phone all weekend, I take it from my pocket and check the caller as she rests her head on my shoulder.
It’s the ambassador.
“I have to take this.” I hold it up with the glass facing me so she can’t see.
“Do you want to meet downstairs?”
“Sure thing.” I tap her backside. “Don’t talk to anyone. This place is loaded with hustlers and scammers.”
“I can handle it.” She sticks her tongue out and slings her bag over her shoulder.
I tap the phone to answer it as I watch her go. It occurs to me that this could be a mistake. I shouldn’t let her out of my sight. But nobody knows we’re here, and she’s a federal agent for fuck’s sake.
“Hello?” The ambassador’s voice comes from the phone.
I’d forgotten I answered it. Now I have to deal with time and the fact that it’s slipping away from me. “I’m here.”
“I’d ask you if you’re having a good time, but I don’t give a toss.”
“Fancy that.”
“There’s been some chatter. I don’t want to alarm you, but I want your caution.”
I sit up straight, foot on the floor, leg tense so I can bolt if I need to.
“Kaos says he’s coming after you personally. Got on a plane, apparently.”
I’m heading for the exit before he even finishes. “When?” Jamming feet into shoes.
“This morning.”
“Where did he say he was going?” I’m out the door. Down the hall. Shoes softly shushing on the carpet. The lift is light-years away.
“He didn’t,” the ambassador says with not a single ounce of shame. “You should go, and not back to California. Certainly not back to Barrington.”
I slap the button for the fourth time. Why don’t these fucking lifts show you what floor they’re on so a bloke can get on the stairs if he needs to? Fucking Yanks.
I hang up as the lift arrives. He can just bugger off. If this is how he’s going to manage my transition, then maybe I should just transition my own fucking self.
In the two minutes it takes to get to the casino level, I’m painfully aware of the fact that I let Cassie walk out of that room without me. Fucking stupid. So easy to get careless when I feel comfortable. She’s making me soft. I liked it, but now I hate it.
The casino that delighted me because it delighted her is now a cacophony of lights, sounds, smells, vying for my attention. But Cassie isn’t at the blackjack tables she promised she’d be at. I text her.
—Where are you?—
I clutch my phone at my side and wait for the buzz while I scan the casino. It’s designed so you can’t see across it. If you could see across it, you’d know how to get the fuck out. But the twists and turns are devised to create smaller spaces that loop passers-by into machine-lined corners and dead ends. I can’t see across the room. I can’t see past the next bank of glitzy machines. I don’t know where she is and my phone isn’t buzzing. I look at it. No message. No surprise. The signal sucks.
It’s intentional. It shuts out the world. Casinos are big Faraday cages.
I could be walking in the opposite direction. I check the blackjack tables, but there are blackjack tables everywhere. I check the poker tables for the low-risk gambler, but she’s not there either.
Finally, a message comes in.
—I don’t know—
The text is like a cold spear through my gut. She doesn’t know. Does that mean she doesn’t know which end of the casino she’s in? Couldn’t blame her for that. Does it mean she’s been led away? Or taken away?
I call her, but the lines won’t connect. I text again.
—What do you mean you don’t
know? What are you close to?—
I continue scanning the casino. I walk from one end to the other, considering the possibility he knows I’m here, calculating the distance from McCarren to the Strip, how long it takes to park, whether he was a passenger on a chartered flight which means he would just have to get from the plane into a car, or if he flew the plane himself which means he’d have to park it, check in.
If he landed thirty minutes ago, he could be here by now. He could be in my room, looking for me. I hope he is. One, because I’m not there. But mostly because she’s not there.
I walk from the bar to the other bar, from one stairway to another. I’m losing patience. I send another text.
—Cassie?—
The cold spear through me expands, turning my body rigid and cracking my heart.
36
cassie
I decide to hold off on blackjack until Keaton comes down. Wandering around, I sit at a poker table. I buy some chips and nod at the other two players at the table, a couple in their fifties. He’s wearing a cowboy hat and bolero. She’s in a Vegas sweatshirt and hairspray. They smile and nod. Nice people. I don’t feel bad when I win the first hand.
