by Dani Wyatt
I was a little surprised Cruzer had an in with this level of game, if I’m being honest. I mean, he runs his own deal, mostly numbers on big fights and sports, but I guess he’s better connected than I thought. Because here I am, getting my ass handed to me, courtesy of that little white business card I waved around at the door.
“I’m all in.” The few lonely chips I have left clatter together as I shove them across the royal-blue felt, then watch as the emotionless dealer flicks my final card in front of me.
On the outside, I’m hoping my expression hasn’t changed, because my heart is currently doing things that have me honestly quite concerned. But the truth is, I’m not sure if it’s because I’m bluffing my ass off or because Lincoln Kirk is not even trying to hide the fact that he’s been staring at me and nothing else for the last hour.
Add to that, what if my bluff doesn’t work?
I owe the house five grand. The money I brought here was a chunk of what I’ve got stashed away to pay for my master’s program at Southern Utah University. But I promised myself and my mother that I wouldn’t touch that money, for love or hate. I’ve spent three years getting my undergrad, paying for everything with my backroom poker winnings, going to classes year-round. But I’ve been accepted into the Forensics program there, and I’ve promised myself my hustling days are over once I arrive.
So, the five grand I brought with me tonight?
That’s my broken promise to my mom.
I took it out of my school fund, and I needed another five to pay the tuition bill that’s due next week. Either that or it’s bye-bye masters for another year. Or forever. Who knows.
Now I owe the house another five. I’m going headlong in the wrong direction.
Not to mention, I won’t make it another year. I can’t. This life is killing me. Just because you are good at a thing doesn’t mean it’s good for you. I want to cash out, follow my passion. The best Forensic program in the country is at Southern Utah, and I intend to get there.
Wide-open spaces.
Fresh air.
Not something I know anything about, but I want to.
My dreams are filled with images of slow drivers winding their way down a single main street. I dream of diners where the waitress with the drawn-on eyebrows and the scent that’s taken right from the Avon catalog knows your order before you sit down. Where other people walking down the street ask about your uncle Fred’s bursitis.
And every time I dream this dream about my magical new life, there’s a man there too. His face is never clear, but he’s always there. Standing behind me, a quiet strength about him, but I know who he is.
In the dream, he’s a husband.
My husband.
I didn’t ever think I’d want one of those, but apparently, my dreams have other ideas.
Some of those dreams, this poker game was going to make a reality. But now it looks like it’s going to laugh in my face and screw me six ways from Sunday, because the next five minutes turn in all the worst possible ways for my position. I’m fucked. Even my annoying eternal optimism throws in the towel.
I take a deep breath as I push my cards into the middle of the table and feel the tension break as “The Three Douches” collectively congratulate each other with sniffs and bobbing eyebrows. It’s almost surreal that the other two tables should still be going strong, oblivious to the black hole into which I’m being sucked.
“Sorry, bubblegum.” Douche number three reaches over to tousle my hair, and I jerk my head sideways. When his move is thwarted, he turns instead to high-five his buddies.
“Don’t fucking touch me. Yes, you are sorry.” I smile and nonchalantly brush my hair from my face before popping my lips. My heart is thumping as my mind races to figure out a way out of this. From the corner of my eye, I see the Walrus behind the desk, staring my way, waiting for me to leave the table.
We both know why. He’s the accountant, and I’ve got a debt to pay and no way to pay it.
Unless I dig my hole even deeper into my school fund.
There’s nowhere to run, either. No hiding from this. But I can’t stay at the table, so I hike up my panties and scoot back my chair. I’m a rat in a trap with a hungry tomcat staring me down.
With a glance toward Walrus, I watch his drooping eyelids blink—slowly, purposefully—as his lips manipulate the wet stub of the cigar that hangs between them.
Oxygen turns scarce as I forcibly lighten my steps under the menacing gaze of the Walrus.
I’m betting another “ku ku ka choo” is not apt to pass his lips this time.
“Listen. Walrus. Honey.” I lean my elbows on the desk, ass in the air, jutting out a hip.
From the black shark eyes staring back at me, my feminine wiles are going to have no effect, but it’s all I have left. What do I have to lose? “House spots me another five—I swear I’m good for it. Just a bad run. You know Cruzer, right? How ’bout just another five?”
A warmth begins to gather on the backs of my legs. It bolts upward and makes the hairs on the back of my neck stand upright.
By the time I turn around, Lincoln’s voice is already in my ears, and I feel like I’ve just thrown back a few shots of cheap tequila.
“I know Cruzer.” Lincoln Kirk’s voice could melt the habit off a nun.
He’s standing just to my right, right next my ridiculously upward placed hip. His deep-set chocolate and amber eyes take a shameless stroll up and down my body before he continues. “If you think his word is what spotted you your five G’s this evening, you’re wrong. Dropping his name now isn’t going to get you another ten. Or five. Or anything.”
“Then what will?” I force a hardness into each word, set my jaw, and muster all my defenses. I have to. Because this man is waging an all-out offensive on my senses, and I’m about to lose any control I’ve managed to salvage.
But there’s something else. It’s my sixth sense that’s piqued more than any other. It’s not necessarily danger that’s running his long, icy fingers up and down the indent of my spine. I think it’s opportunity, mixed with a healthy shot of once-in-a-lifetime chance.
“How old are you?”
Lincoln’s question catches me off guard, and I hesitate for a moment. Maybe, if I’m young enough, I’m not about to get slapped around to prove a point about not borrowing money you can’t pay back.
But I don’t think that’s what this is about. The way he’s looking at me...
Something like a grunt or a chuckle rumbles from Walrus. Involuntarily, my eyes flick to him, but it doesn’t take me long to right myself. Standing as tall as my stature will allow, I trade my hip jut for a new position with my ass sitting on the front of the desk and my arms crossed over my chest.
Which also helps to hide how hard my nipples are, stopping them from telling these seasoned people-readers exactly the effect this beefy drink of top-shelf bad boy is having on me.
I lick my lips, and against my better judgment, I go with the truth. “Twenty-one.” I wait for the usual incredulous response I get when I tell someone my age, but it doesn’t come.
I figure a couple decades or so down the road, I’ll be damn happy that I look so much younger than my chronological age. Pulling out my driver’s license to prove my age is fine if I’m buying alcohol, but just to get some asshole to shut the fuck up because he doesn’t believe me gets old fast.
Lincoln’s slow nod is knowing, confident, as if the answer somehow makes sense. “Follow me. I’ll make you a deal,” he orders, then moves closer.. His hands slip into the front pockets of his black trousers, and I swear I see him adjust.
Without any other course of action, I fall into step behind him. He’s bigger than I first thought. Broad, but not gym-rat thick. The suit that pulls across his back fits him in a way that has my breath coming in little-girl gasps. When my eyes fall to his ass, an audible squeak escapes me. I don’t miss the nearly indistinguishable twitch of his head at the noise.
The five players left at my ta
ble are back into the game as we stroll by. Just another night and I’m collateral damage. I’m not even sure if I could buy back in if they would let me. But Lincoln said we’d make a deal, and making deals is a particular skill I possess in abundance.
And I’m going to do whatever I can to get back in that game, because there are only two things I suck at.
One, relationships.
Any kind. Even friendships.
But most of all, romance.
I don’t know, there’s just something about relating to another human being on a deep, intimate level that I don’t seem to grasp. I can’t do it. I’m always calculating, seeing them as another player in the great poker game of life. Wondering what they are thinking. What they are trying to get from me and how I can bluff my way out or take them for what I need. Doesn’t make for much of a mutually satisfying interaction, especially long term.
Second — and this is the big one.
I suck at losing.
Thankfully, I don’t do it often.
Because, did I mention? I fucking hate it.
So the fact that I make my living hustling at a game that is predicated upon either winning or losing, you could say it is both my greatest strength and my Achilles’ heel.
C H A P T E R T H R E E
Lincoln
By the time we’ve reached the end of the hall, the noise from the games fades into the background. As I swing open the door, we are greeted by the bright colors splashed onto the cream walls from my collection of abstract art inside my personal sanctuary here in the penthouse. Lamps throw light up and down the walls and off the plush furniture, as well as the warm wood desk and bookcases against the long wall across from the entry.
“I’m not going to fuck you.” She blurts out as I shut the office door behind us.
No, but I’m going to fuck you. Even if it’s the last thing I do in this life.
The A/C murmurs overhead as I watch her pace the perimeter of the room, and I’m eyeing her with the same intensity that a starving lion eyes a grazing gazelle. The temperature in my office is set at exactly sixty-nine degrees, never more, never less. I can be obsessive in a lot of ways, and the right temperature is one of them. But right now, that thermostat must be fucked, because I’m about to burst into flames.
Her delicate fingers touch everything as she floats along, turning her head now and then to glance at me, her stunning face taking on a calculating, cautious expression. I know she’s playing at a casual indifference, but she’s as wound up as a spring, waiting to see what I’ve got.
When she pauses to look then finger a first edition copy of The Age of Innocence on the wall of shelves, I feel it in my gut. The sound of her voice giving Mel the name of the character from that book swirls in my brain, lighting a fire inside me that will not be extinguished.
She’s the one.
That phrase isn’t something I’ve let myself think about in a long time. I believed in the idea of there being a “one” years ago. That was back when I still felt each breath and woke up with a sense of hope. The right person was out there for me, and I just had to find her.
But those kinds of ideas have been so far removed from my everyday life, I lost touch with them. Not exactly a lack of belief, but more like forgetting those lofty dreams of childhood. Reality sets in, and you deal with the day-to-day. “The one” became a kind of long-lost romantic ideal that just finally gave up and trickled out of me one day at a time.
The women I managed to date felt more like a complication for which I didn’t see the reward. Finding any real connection to someone was as elusive as rain in the Mojave.
So it went. I gave up on that gut feeling that somewhere in this world lived my other half.
But now, something tells me that as much as I wish in some ways for that feeling remain dead, I may have been too hasty in my decision.
Maybe.
Unless I’m the one getting played. Because she’s good.
Exceptionally good.
And for the first time in longer than I can remember, I’m not sure I’m better.
“You’ve read it,” I tell her as her fingers caress the binding of the book.
It’s not a question, and in that second, the sparkle of something in her eyes tells me she feels this connection too. Like a live wire humming between us. Set to shock the dead parts of us both with a voltage neither of us expected.
And now, to remove any lingering doubt about what’s going on here, she’s still touching that fucking book.
Where she got her goddamned fake name.
I make my way from where I’ve been standing to admire her from a new angle. To be closer to her, close enough to feel her presence disrupting my world. My cock aches inside my pants. There will be no relief in this life unless it comes from her, but right now, it’s not my needs that are on my mind. It’s hers.
When I’m so near that I can see her pulse rhythmically moving under the creamy flesh at the nape of her neck, so near that I catch a hint of her arousal on the air, I stop. Reaching across the small space that separates us, I set the tip of my index finger at the base of her throat and watch as she freezes at the contact.
Her breath is quick, shallow. I feel it pulsating beneath my touch. “Have you?” She swallows then finishes. “Read it?” She whispers the last words, moving from my touch like a swan, spinning elegantly a quarter turn back and forth on her heels as she pulls the book out an inch, then slips it back into place.
“It frightened him—” My voice deepens as I quote my favorite passage from the book, my eyes noting the slow dilation then tightening of her pupils as I speak “—to think what must have gone to the making of her eyes.” I enunciate each word slowly, taking in all the history in her eyes as I repeat the words I’ve read so many times.
We stand frozen in that moment, reading one another in a way that leaves the calculations of the games we play behind. I note the slight change in her breathing. The way her shoulders drop and she blinks slowly as if savoring each word.
“How about a wager?” I say as I close the few inches left between us. Her body now facing me, feeling the hardness grow with every step as her scent swirls in my head and I think of how she will taste the first time she fills my mouth with her cum.
Because she will. I’d bet my life on it.
My question darkens the brilliant green of those magnificent eyes, but she’s on the hook; I just need to reel her in.
“What makes you think I’m the betting type?” Her sarcastic question is followed by a smile that curls into those lips. Lips that were born to ring my cock, and my balls tighten, ready on a hair trigger.
“Educated guess.” I let my words fall heavy as I square my body in front of hers, shift my shoulders back. Her fingertips finally leave the gold-embossed spine of The Age of Innocence to pinch away a lock of hair that’s caught in her eyelashes.
The heat between us is palpable, and her demeanor shifts. She reminds me of a cat. Half dozing on the windowsill in the sunlight; however, as asleep as she may seem, she still hears and sees everything. Her playful flirtation takes on a more businesslike tone as she speaks.
“Listen, I already said I’m not fucking you, and I meant that. Mean that,” she adds hastily. “Second, I owe the house five grand. It’s no big deal. Spot me another five, and I’ll earn yours back before you know it, and then some for me.”
“You’re in no position to dictate terms.” My fingers replace hers on that errant strand of golden hair, and I see the soft shudder that reverberates in her shoulders. “But I don’t need you to fuck me. So you don’t need to worry about that. What I need you to do...”
I scoot my feet forward, the front of my suit coat now just brushing against the points of her tits. We’re so close I can smell the hint of Cherry Coke on her breath, an overlay to her natural scent that sits somewhere between strawberries and lust. She’s driving me to the brink of my own sanity, and I love every moment of it. Her bright red lips, offset by her flawless
pale skin, have me entranced.
I haven’t been this alive in years.
“What do you need me to do?” Her voice is distracted, her hands moving to the buttons on the arms of my suit, twisting them so the light catches in the dark edges as I shift my weight, bringing one leg to nudge my knee between her soft thighs.
A shiver draws a line down my back as she opens her legs to me. She’s mine. All mine. The hard muscles in the top of my thigh push forward, my leg moving up into the space between her legs as my lust turns into a battalion of warring need.
“Tell me your real name,” I growl.
I bring my hands to her face, settling the fingertips against the pink of her cheeks, dancing them across her skin as if the heat there burns me. Slowly, her own hands hook around my wrists, coming along for the ride, keeping her connection to me as I rub my leg back and forth between hers.
“That’s it?” she whispers. “Tell you my name, and you’ll forgive my marker?” She opens her mouth to continue, but I shift two fingers to cover her lips. I don’t want it so easy.
“That’s only part of it. I have more terms in order to relieve you of the debt completely.”
The blush on her cheeks spreads to her neck and colors her chest as her breath falters. She begins to rock as her hips betray her. Pretending to be simply adjusting herself, she gently sways back and forth against my leg. Her need for the very thing I want is growing as the vibration between us nears the point of no return.
I drop my fingers to pinch her chin as she speaks.
“And what...are your other terms?” Her voice shakes on a lower tone as she barely gets the words out, having to clear her throat mid-sentence.
I lean in, my fingers leaving her lips to push her hair behind her ear. My lips trace down over the roundness of her cheek. I linger there for a moment before sliding to within a hairsbreadth of the corner of her mouth, until I feel her breath stop in anticipation.
