Gambled Away: A Historical Romance Anthology

by Rose Lerner

  Sam made a breathless, startled noise, and her fingers went still on the next button.

  Of course it would be that easy. She hadn’t realized it would be that easy.

  “No?” he asked, halting where he was. His eyes nearly glowed as he looked at her, green almost swallowed by his wide pupils.

  “Wha—no. Yes. Keep going.” Sam made an apologetic face, or as near to one as she could manage with her whole body crying out for more. “Please. Life’s just not fair, you know,” she added, gesturing to his half-fastened shirt.

  “Ah,” he said, as much relief as revelation, and laughed again. “You’ll have your chance later, lady,” Talathan added against her neck, every word a sensuous moment of hot breath and deft lips. “Though I could manage patience, if you wish that.”

  He couldn’t lie. He could have been patient, and Sam could have undressed him, even gotten her nightgown off completely. But he was cupping her sex as he spoke, fingers curling and stroking, a little mm of appreciation leaving his throat as he felt how wet she was already. He spoke of patience while his thumb brushed against her clitoris and she lost the ability to both breathe and think for a second.

  “No,” she said, when her lungs worked again. “Patience later.”

  At that point words seemed too hard, so Sam pulled his head down and kissed him some more. That was useful in more ways than one: as he slid his fingers in and out of her, she knew she was making a steady stream of desperate noises in her throat. She could feel her body tensing, beginning the climb upwards. It wouldn’t take long.

  There was a brief moment of awkward separation, during which Sam summoned the rest of her own patience. Even Talathan couldn’t magically undo pants, it seemed. But he was back soon enough, settling against her, his erection rubbing between her thighs, maddeningly hot and firm. Then the first smooth thrust, and Sam gasped with pleasure.

  It wouldn’t be long. She wanted it to be long, wanted to savor the moment, to lie still and enjoy the fullness inside her and the weight of Talathan’s body above, but she couldn’t stay still. She couldn’t even go slowly. She wrapped her legs around his waist and buried her mouth against his shoulder again, and her hips went pistoning up to meet his, matching his pace and hurrying it.

  At least the shirt kept her from scratching his back too badly.

  And if Talathan minded the speed, he wasn’t complaining. He met her easily, his body rubbing against hers with every stroke, his own half-stifled noises of passion raising Sam’s desire almost as much as anything she was feeling. She felt his muscles flex under her hands, and the tautness that ran throughout his whole body, and she thought not long for him either.

  Then she was coming, stronger than she’d ever experienced or even thought possible: a blinding moment of climax that hit like a freight train. Sam had just enough self-control that what would have been a scream came out as a convulsive sigh.

  She managed to open her eyes again just before Talathan hit his own peak. She saw him arc upwards and back above her. The sensations inside her body blended with the image: hair spilling down his back, eyes wide and mouth open, face almost flaming with desire.

  Sam changed her mind, then: that was the moment she’d have kept.

  Part 3: End of the Line

  * * *

  She stood in front of the study door with her hands clasped behind her back. The morning light stretched long and pearly along the floor. Richards set down his pen and watched her. Outwardly, he was as sympathetic a confessor as a girl could want.

  “It’s like this, Reverend,” she started.

  The story was easy enough. Her father’s partner knew of a family that was going to get kicked off their land. It wasn’t as common in California as it was back home, but Sam would have bet people went broke out in the Golden West too. At least, when she told Richards about it, he didn’t look skeptical. He mostly didn’t look hungry either.

  “He says they’ve got two days to pay up before the public auction. But he doesn’t think they will. They’re—well, they’re not the kind of people who can lay hands on enough money that quick. He says the man’s not good at holding down a job. You know.”

  “Feckless. I’m familiar with the sort,” said Richards.

  “Right. But...you said people who repent can be saved, right? What about people who have others repent for them?”

  * * *

  After their joining, they lay on the ruffled bed while the moonlight flowed over them, neither quite awake nor asleep. The light pooled in Sam’s eyes and the hollows of her temples. Talathan watched her silently, listening to the way her breath and heartbeat blended with the other sounds of the night.

  Now he could put his arms about her; now she relaxed into him, the very last of her tension finally softening into languor.

  He knew he would want her again before dawn, hoped she would feel the same about him, and yet was content to leave that for the future. The present was there, in starlight and quiet and repletion, the moment solidifying even as it passed. He wanted for nothing.

  * * *

  The carpet parted under the toe of her shoe. Sam said, “My dad’s a good man, Reverend, he really is. But he’s a businessman. And I think maybe if he has time he’ll see the light, but Mr. Branch”—she slotted in the name of the guy Clark Gable had played in the last movie she’d seen—“made him a real good offer. And I don’t know if it’s all right, but—oh, I don’t know.”

  “Now just calm down,” said Richards. “Have a seat and tell me all about it.”

  So Sam did both. She went back to the land, as it were, and Mr. Branch, who didn’t exist but would’ve been a real slimeball if he did, a mishmash of all the slimeballs Sam had ever seen in movies or bumped into over cards, except that he wasn’t actually killing anyone. “...But he told Dad that, if he paid a quarter the price of the land now, he’ll be sure and sell the whole thing to him cheap. He knows folks, you know?”

  As she’d intended, Richards had to stop and try to follow her pronouns. Always confuse the mark about little things. It keeps them from looking too hard at the big ones. Keep the shells moving. Look at my be-yew-tiful assistant, ladies and gentlemen, focus on the sequins and the gams and you’ll never see her slip me the key to these handcuffs.

  Gradually Richards worked it through. Sam sat watching him and chewing on her lower lip. Right now, she did want him to see her sweat, so long as he didn’t know the reasons for it. She spoke again once he looked like he’d gotten the general idea, but before he’d settled into feeling confident about his knowledge. “I don’t mean to put all my problems on you like this, sir. Maybe I shouldn’t have said anything.”

  “No, no. This is my purpose: counseling God’s children when they’re in difficulties.” Richards puffed out his cheeks with a long breath. “Now, did this Mr. Branch tell you how he’d be able to sell your father the land?”

  “No,” Sam said, letting her wide eyes suggest all sorts of possibilities. “He just said he had ways.”

  “I can see why you’re troubled,” said Richards. “Oh, yes, I can see why. But you did right to talk to me. Out of curiosity, how much is the land worth?”

  “Um,” said Sam. “Twenty-eight hundred dollars, he said. He said it’d be worth twice that once Dad gets his hands on it properly—I guess maybe the people who owned it weren’t doing everything they should have. It doesn’t have oil or gold as far as I know, but it’s a good big piece of land, and not too far off from town, either. He gave me a map.”

  “But you have no ready money, child,” said Richards, solemnly. “Or would your father wire it?”

  “Oh, no. He doesn’t trust banks. But Daddy said, if I need to, I can pawn this.”

  With great apparent care, and actually taking as long as possible, she reached into her purse, pulled out a silk pouch, and from that drew a long strand that looked like captive starlight. Sam didn’t know her jewels as well as the next girl, but if there wasn’t at least a thousand bucks’ worth of ice in he
r hands, she’d eat any hat offered.

  As Richards tried not to gape, she explained, “It was Grandmama’s before she married. I brought it for fancy parties, and I thought Daddy would be awfully mad if I risked it at all—that’s why I kept it in my suitcase—but he says it’s all right this once, and I can come back with the money in a week or two and pay it off.”

  Richards nodded, slow and solemn. Sam could practically hear the adding machine before he spoke. “It’s a complicated matter. I’ll have to pray on it, you understand.”

  “Of course. Whatever you can tell me, whenever you can tell me it, I’d be real thankful.”

  Richards smiled. “I’ll see what I can do.”

  “Thank you so much. I—I think I need to lie down for a little bit.”

  * * *

  Stay around, Sam had said, returning even sated and drowsy to business.

  And when Talathan had unthinkingly replied gladly, she’d hesitated, and her face had been hidden from him. Then she’d laughed quietly against his chest and shaken her head. No, she’d said, she’d meant in the morning; she might need him close at hand any time, probably from nine or so onward.

  So he’d gone and eaten at dawn, at the diner where the waitress was rapidly becoming used to him; in a land where no sane man believed in creatures other than human, one who looked human enough could pass, it seemed. He’d listened to the radio and read the paper while the city of men woke around him.

  He was discovering in himself a liking for all such matters. Never before had he stayed so long; his tasks had always been straightforward.

  Never before had he wanted so much to remain longer.

  In the tree, Talathan had watched the maids come and go. One had eyed the pillows, perhaps spying a dark hair on the white linen, and had frowned, but a look toward the window had reminded her of the three-story drop to the ground. She’d shaken her head and gone on with her tasks.

  He waited longer: for the maids to leave, then until Sam entered, locking the door behind her. Excitement blazed across her face like the flight of the evening stars; every speck of her moved with purpose. She smiled at him when she opened the window, a predator’s smile from a pretty mortal girl, and Talathan felt like the world lay at his feet.

  “The timing’s going to be tight,” she whispered. “Five to one says after lunch, ten to one right before. But if he buys in, I’ll want to give him the goods right then. It’ll look fishy otherwise.”

  “A fate to be devoutly avoided.”

  “Damn straight.” She opened one drawer of the desk and took out paper and a pen. From another, she removed a book bound in white leather, with a cross on the front.

  * * *

  Twelve o’clock passed. Twelve thirty. Sam told Mrs. Richards about playing the flute in the high school band, changing the names when appropriate. She wound her hair around her index finger.

  One.

  She listed to Mrs. Richards describe her daughters’ weddings. Of course, the things of this earth would soon pass away, but it was fine to take pleasure in so holy an occasion as a wedding, Mrs. Richards said. Sam watched the sun hoist itself higher in the sky.

  She wondered if she could have faked being sick for an hour longer, invited Talathan back in, and managed to be completely silent. She crossed her legs, uncrossed them, then remembered she was supposed to be ladylike and folded them again at the ankles.

  One thirty: lunch. Baked chicken and mashed potatoes, salad and tomato soup. Sam could barely eat. That was all right, that went with the act, except it felt lousy. She chewed a bite of chicken over and over before she could swallow.

  The past couple days, her hardest job of acting had been ignoring the mahogany and silver, the china and cut glass: the Richardses ate in more style than anyone she’d ever seen outside movies, even back when things had been better at home, but she was supposed to be used to that. Sam had wanted to gawk, and hadn’t let herself. That afternoon it wasn’t a problem.

  Finally, after dessert, Richards exchanged a knowing glance with his wife, then asked Sam to join him in his office.

  * * *

  “Thanks,” Sam had whispered, when Talathan was at the window once more. “You’re really—thanks.”

  She’d leaned forward and caught herself at the last moment, unsure and off balance, so he’d put an arm around her and kissed her: once, lightly, sweetly.

  When he’d pulled back, Sam had searched his face, then smiled again. This time, there’d been neither tension nor triumph in it, but a softer sort of pleasure, and surprise at whatever she’d found. “Huh,” she’d said, and put a hand up to his jaw, fingers light against his skin.

  “Could I stop time…” Talathan had begun.

  She’d laughed and shaken her head. “You aren’t kidding, pal,” she’d breathed in reply, but glanced at the door. “But unless you can, you’d better go.”

  That he had, not without kissing her again.

  Sitting cross-legged on an empty crate in a long-disused room, Talathan closed his eyes and smiled in reminiscence.

  * * *

  “I’ve given your problem plenty of thought and prayer, and I believe the Lord has told me of a solution,” said Richards.

  “Really?”

  Sam listened like she’d done before: hands behind her back, face rapt and nervous, just a schoolgirl a couple years past her prime. Richards was standing this time. He stood closer than Sam would have liked, in fact. She still got no sense of lechery from him, but she could smell hair oil and sweat. The combination wasn’t Chanel Number 5.

  “Now, this might sound a little strange, but I want you to keep putting your faith in me and the Lord, and just hear me out,” said Richards, stooping a little so he could look into her eyes. “I think I should hold that necklace for you and give you the money. And then you should give me the deed.”

  Now it was time for a stunned look.

  He saw it and explained. “I’ll take better care of the necklace than a—well, than the sort of man who runs a pawnshop, of course. Besides, this way we’ll meet this fellow’s deadline and give your daddy a chance to think it over, perhaps talk it over too. If he decides he doesn’t want the land, I can always turn it to a greater purpose.”

  “Oh,” said Sam, her mouth big and round. She did the toe-shoe number on the floor again. “That’s generous of you, really kind, but—maybe I should talk it over with my father first, shouldn’t I?”

  “Ordinarily I’d say so, of course. But,” Richards lifted a hand, “you mentioned that you were operating on this Branch fellow’s schedule, yes? And if he’s made that offer to your father, you can’t be sure he hasn’t made it to other people, people who wouldn’t have you to steer them toward the path of righteousness.”

  The wooden floor was pale beneath her feet. Sam traced the grains with her eyes, then looked up, frowning, “You mean to say—”

  “I mean to say there might not be time to waste.”

  * * *

  The sun was setting when Richards’s car once more approached 401 Ventura. Even from his height, Talathan could see the light turn Sam’s hair to flame; alas, he could also see Richards get out of the car and take her arm. He and Sam both had expected such a development, though they’d both hoped it wouldn’t come to pass. It was why he stood where he did.

  He could imagine them below. He thought that the desk sentry would challenge them, as Sam had said she’d done to her; when he heard footsteps on the stairs, he knew that the woman had earned her pay and given directions to “Mr. Branch, third floor.”

  Through the door, which they would see as polished wood with a clouded glass front, Talathan heard the priest speak. “Why don’t I wait out here? It might be better for your father to hear about this from us, and I don’t know if you trust him not to pick up the phone and tattle if he sees me in there with you.”

  “Oh, I hadn’t thought of that—but you’re right. I’d want to break this to Daddy the right way.”

  Then came Sam sl
ipping into the office, her face lit as before with energy, though she rolled her eyes. Talathan denied himself the impulse to take her into his arms, cursed the new mortal fashion for glass doors, even opaque ones, and murmured, “I could leave him unconscious now. Or dead, as you prefer.”

  “No,” she said firmly, though still under her breath. “That’ll bring the cops down on us like a sack of bricks—and it’d have them looking for us everywhere we went.” Another moment of hesitation crossed her delicate, mobile face, but she moved on before Talathan could decipher its meaning, thrusting a full envelope toward him. “It’s all here.”

  “What, then?”

  She took the land deed from his hand. “Meet me at my window about ten. And hope we can get out of there in two hours.”

  * * *

  “I can’t believe I’m actually doing this,” said Sam.

  She spoke under her breath, but Talathan heard easily; he could only smile in return, not wanting to risk raising his voice.

  “Oh well. Works for Alcatraz, I hear,” she said. Leaning even further out her open window, she tossed a white object to where Talathan crouched in the tree: one end of the sheet from her bed, now twisted and knotted into a passable rope.

  Passable for their needs, at any rate. He wouldn’t have trusted it over great distances or to bear even the weight of a grown man, but tonight it would do. Talathan caught the sheet and tied the end around a thick branch a short distance below where he sat. After one final tug on the knot, he descended the tree himself, no great feat even in his proper shape, and stood watching the window.

  All he could see for a few minutes was a blank yellow square of light with the bedsheet rope trailing out of it. Sam’s head and hands gradually emerged, and then the rest of her, until she crouched on the windowsill, grasping the rope. She glanced down briefly and met Talathan’s eyes. Then, closing her own eyes, she pushed herself off and hung in midair, feet dangling in their high-heeled shoes, the hot wind blowing her blue-and-white skirt up to expose the tops of her stockings. The view would have been most enjoyable in any other situation.