The Christmas Gamble

by Sienna Ciles

  “What do you want to do with your presents? Do you want us to open them, or just keep them for you?” I knew Mom wanted to stay on the video chat for longer, and I was actually a little anxious to know what my family had gotten me after watching what they’d gotten each other.

  “Go ahead and open them for me, and I’ll come and get them later,” I suggested. So I watched as Mom carefully unwrapped one present after another. My sister had gotten me a pair of brand-new Isotoner slippers and a bottle of my favorite perfume, and my parents had gotten me a handful of things: a jewelry set, a pair of Christmas pajamas, a book I’d been talking about wanting to read again, and a new pair of headphones for the gym. Not a bad haul, altogether.

  I signed off of the call and put my phone away with a sigh. “I guess I’ll have to find a way to go and see them before I head back to the west coast,” I said, shrugging.

  “You could have them mail the presents to you,” Dean suggested.

  “They’re going to want to see me at least once during the holidays,” I pointed out. I turned toward him and leaned in to kiss him lightly on the lips. “You can’t keep me all to yourself, you know.”

  Dean chuckled and pulled me close to him. “I’m a greedy, greedy man,” he said, letting his hands trail all over my body in a lewd, hungry caress. “That’s how I ended up this wealthy.”

  “Well, we will see, but you wouldn’t like me if I was just another person that gave you all your own way all the time,” I pointed out, kissing him again. Within moments, things started to heat up between us, and I was definitely ready for him to take off my robe and take me back to the bedroom for a brief detour before we went on to the rest of the day’s festivities. Of course, I thought, as I rubbed up against the ridge I could already feel forming at the front of Dean’s pajama pants, I was pretty sure most of those festivities would include more sex, or at the very least, more fooling around. We could talk about a trip down to my parents’ place later, and we could make arrangements for the rest of our ending together another time. For the moment, I was happy to just be with Dean, warm and in his arms, kissing him and touching him and knowing we were going to have sex as many times as we could both stand.

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Dean

  Kayla and I both sat staring into the fireplace after we’d finished the grandiose Christmas feast I’d planned for us, not talking for a long while but just enjoying each other’s company. It was a quiet Christmas but it had been better than any other Christmas I’d ever had—at least that I could remember. Any memories I had of Natalie were out of my mind completely, and I couldn’t believe I’d ever even thought about marrying her.

  Of course, it would be a while yet before I decided whether I wanted to marry Kayla but I had a good feeling that things were going to be completely different with the woman I’d just happened to meet in the hotel bar. But I knew that we needed to have a conversation about what would happen next. Christmas was over, even if the holidays weren’t.

  “Not a bad day, everything considered,” I said, opening up the conversation.

  “No, not at all. Definitely not what I was expecting when I flew out but it was better than I could have imagined,” Kayla said. She looked at me and I decided to take the plunge.

  “I think we need to talk about where we are,” I said. “I mean, I don’t want to sound like a girl or anything, but I want us both to be on the same page.”

  “What page are you on?” Kayla crossed her arms over her chest and I saw a quick little doubtful look in her eyes.

  “I know you’re based on the west coast,” I said. “And I also know you want to do blackjack full time—go to competitions, and work your way up. Be a full professional at it.”

  “Right,” Kayla said.

  “I’m still willing to help you make that happen, whatever you need me to do,” I said.

  Kayla looked down at her hands. “I don’t want to feel like a kept woman,” she said slowly.

  “I don’t want to make you feel that way,” I told her.

  “What would you have in mind? What have you come up with as the solution?”

  I thought about it for a moment. “You can live with me if you want to. You’ll be closer to your family, and you’ll have all your expenses already taken care of,” I said. “If you want to move to Vegas, and live there, we can work something out. I can find a place for us to stay there.”

  “Don’t you have business that you have to take care of?” I chuckled.

  “Kayla, I just flew from the west coast to Montauk to spend the holidays here,” I pointed out. “Yes, I have business but it’s not the kind of business that I have to be in a particular spot at all times.”

  “So, you’d just... go wherever I needed you to be?”

  I shrugged. “I think you should come up with a plan for the first ten tournaments you want to play in. You can turn that list over to me, and I’ll pay any entry fees, get my assistant to book any tickets you need.”

  “That—that’s a lot to commit to,” Kayla said.

  “It’s a drop in a bucket,” I countered. “If you want to be based in Vegas, that’s a little more of a commitment but I can bankroll you for at least a few months.”

  “And you’ll do this just... just because you like me?” I grinned.

  “Because I like you and because I can. And you’re not under an obligation to stay in a relationship with me any longer than you want to, if that’s what you’re wondering—if you decide in, say, February that it just isn’t going to work, then any of the arrangements we’ve already made will remain in place.”

  “You’re an incredibly generous man,” Kayla said. “And I definitely don’t necessarily think I want to reject that offer.”

  “That was a convoluted little sentence,” I pointed out.

  “I just want to make sure that you don’t think that I’m just going to be with you because you can bankroll me,” Kayla said.

  “I wouldn’t be offering it if I thought that was what you were looking for,” I told her. “I’ve managed to learn from my mistakes.”

  Kayla grinned at me wryly. “So, what would you be doing, while I’m playing blackjack professionally?”

  I shrugged. “Business things that I would be doing anyway, along with occasionally cheering you on. I’d be busy—that’s something that would be a constant but I feel like you’re one of a few people who would understand that and still want to be with me for the right reasons.”

  Kayla thought about that for a moment and then sat up, picking up her glass of wine left over from dinner. “So, we would be together like a couple, for as long as we both wanted to be,” she said slowly.

  “Absolutely,” I agreed.

  “If we decided to break up, then whatever you’d already paid for would still be available to me,” she added.

  I nodded. “You would be free, and we’d just separate like regular people. I’d just consider the things I’d already paid for an investment that I’d paid into and that was redeemed by the time we were together.”

  “What else?” Kayla set her glass back down and sat back, moving a little closer to me.

  “If you wanted to get into international tournaments, we could travel there together,” I suggested. “And we could travel anyway. If you’re playing poker professionally, you’re not going to necessarily have a set schedule. We can take vacations when you want to, and get to know each other, and just live as a boyfriend and girlfriend for as long as it works between us.”

  Kayla nodded and was silent for a while, and I wondered what she was going to say to me. I wondered what she thought of my proposal. Was it too soon to suggest anything like that to her? Was I overwhelming her?

  “I think I like this proposal,” Kayla said. “But for right now, I think I just want to be with you. I think I want to enjoy the holidays and not think too far beyond that.”

  I smiled to myself and pulled her against me. That was the answer I wasn’t even aware I’d wanted to hear. I
t was the answer I’d been hoping for without knowing I’d been hoping for it: the final proof that Kayla was interested in me for all the right reasons, that she wasn’t just looking at me as some kind of cash cow.

  I kissed her, and just the same as it kept happening over the past couple of days, almost as soon as we began kissing, things began to heat up between us. We were going to have to slow down a bit or we were both going to end up getting some rather odd chafing problems in rather inconvenient places. But at that moment, all I could think about was enjoying the feeling of Kayla’s body pressed against mine, and hearing her moan for me, and knowing that she was hot for me—for me, not for my money. I picked her up and carefully got up off of the couch and carried her toward my bedroom. We’d spent the day together relaxing and luxuriating around the house after her call to her parents: soaking in the hot tub, snacking in the afternoon, watching Christmas movies, and cuddling. It was blissful, and the best way that I could think of to end the day was to make love until it was finally, officially, no longer Christmas.

  I laid her down gently in the bed and kissed her hungrily, letting my hands move over her body and taking in every inch of her. It seemed like no matter how many times I got to see Kayla naked, no matter how many times I felt her breasts in my hand or touched her soaking wet pussy, it was a revelation. It was so exactly what I wanted and needed in a woman that it was almost difficult to believe.

  I decided to take my time with her, kissing her until things heated up almost unbearably between us and then backing off just enough to cool down. I reached down between Kayla’s legs and stroked her already-wet folds, and found her sweet spot with my fingertips, rubbing it in little swirling touches until she moaned and her hips bucked. She was sensitive from all the sex we’d already had, so I kept as light a touch as possible on her, just enough to turn her on and keep her going.

  Eventually, Kayla started touching me as well, rubbing and stroking my hardening cock until I was like a stone, aching from how much I wanted her. And then we moved, Kayla on top of me with her knees on either side of my head and her head dangling above my crotch, and I buried my face against her pussy to devour her. We took turns teasing each other to the very edge of climax, working each other up until the other one was too distracted to keep the attentions they were focusing on the first and then backing off until we both recovered enough to start again.

  When we finally got to the main event, I was ready to explode. We would have to do something—eventually—about birth control, if we wanted to keep having sex the way that we were. But in the moment, I couldn’t have cared less. I slid into Kayla, feeling her pussy wrap around my cock like a glove made specifically for it, wet and hot and so good it was difficult not to come right way. We started out slow, touching and kissing, and built up the speed between us gradually, taking a few breaks even—we were both so sensitive from so much sex in such a short time that it was almost painful to stop and painful to keep going.

  Finally, we reached the point where neither of us could stand it anymore. We went at each other like animals, kissing and tasting and touching each other, moving together in a rhythm at double time. I pounded into Kayla’s tight, wet body and touched her , kissed her lips and worshipped her breasts with my mouth as she twisted and writhed underneath me, pushing her hips down to meet my thrusts. I couldn’t hold back much longer, and I was only barely able to wait until Kayla hit her climax, moaning and crying out in pleasure as she clung to me.

  I tipped over into my own orgasm, emptying into her, pounding into her for as long as I could as I swallowed down the moans that left her lips. We both kept going until neither of us could move an inch any longer, and then—spent—we both collapsed to the bed, wrapped up in each other, sweaty and slick and totally satisfied.

  “I think this is going on record as the best Christmas present I’ve ever received,” I said, when I was able to speak again.

  “I think that’s the case for me, too,” Kayla said, smiling at me breathlessly. “But I think we need to wait until maybe tomorrow morning for more sex. I’m right on the edge of getting chafed.”

  “We’ll stick to kissing and cuddling until then,” I promised. “And tomorrow, we’ll go to the grocery store and get something healthy to eat instead of all this feasting.”

  “Salads!” she proclaimed. “Salads and cold-pressed juice, or something like that.”

  I laughed with her and pulled her close to me in the darkening gloom of my bedroom.

  “And we’ll take a nice long, hot, proper bath and get each other completely clean, and then get completely dirty in this bed once again,” I suggested.

  Kayla murmured a wordless approval of that plan and kissed me, and I couldn’t think of anything in the world that I could possibly have to make me any happier than I was in that moment.

  Epilogue

  Kayla

  “Mom! Listen to me for a minute, will you?” I shook my head, looking over at Dean as he handed off our luggage to the porter who would load it onto the plane.

  “I’m just so excited, Kay-bear,” Mom said, chattering away in my ear. I wanted to get off the phone with her as quickly as possible; I wanted to get to the best part of my Christmas holiday with the man I loved.

  “Just make sure that you’re at the right airport at the right time, and make sure everyone has everything they need. The presents are already at the cabin,” I explained.

  “I will make sure everyone gets there on time, don’t worry,” Mom said.

  I looked around again and pulled my coat a little tighter around myself. It was the one-year anniversary of the first time that Dean and I had met, and he’d already given me one of his gifts—the trip was a big part of it—and I would get the second part of it when we arrived. I had an inkling of what it would be but I didn’t know for sure.

  “Okay, well, Dean and I are getting on the plane now and we’ll see you tomorrow,” I told my mother. I got off the phone as quickly as I possibly could, and shoved my phone into my purse to ignore it for the next few hours.

  “Are you sure you wouldn’t rather have our little vacation to ourselves?” he asked.

  “If I did two Christmases in a row away from the family, everyone would hate me,” I replied. I hadn’t wanted to spend Christmas with my family much more than I had the previous year; but at least I was going to have the advantage of being the one to host it. Dean had helped me to set it up: we were going to be there early, to spend a night by ourselves to celebrate our anniversary, and then we’d have a big family Christmas together with my parents and sister and niece, on the mountains in Colorado. Skiing and ice skating and all of the normal festivities for three days, which was about as long as I wanted to be around my family.

  In the year since we’d gotten together, it had become clearer and clearer to me that Dean was so much more than I had ever gotten from any man I’d been with before him. He’d been as good as his word: I’d come up with a list of ten tournaments I’d wanted to play in, and he’d made them happen for me. We’d gone to the first few together and he’d cheered me on, and I’d gone to a few on my own while Dean took care of business.

  We’d gotten into a routine, where we traveled together or apart from each other as we liked. I kept my money from the tournaments I won or placed in and used it to fund more competition entries. Dean and I got temporary apartments if we wanted to stay somewhere for longer than a week but we came back to the house in Montauk at least one week out of every month, and we’d spent most of a month there in July—going to parties, taking care of business on both of our ends.

  It was a strangely satisfying life that I had tumbled into, and I had to admit that it was a far cry from what I’d expected to have with Brandon, or what I’d expected even when I’d left him. I had the stability and security of Dean’s money—even if I never really counted on it, not completely—and I had the freedom of not having a job to hold me down, and doing what I wanted, traveling where I liked. I was planning on expanding my comp
etition practice in the next year—we’d talked about me going to international competitions finally.

  We were in our seats, waiting for takeoff, and Kathy brought us each a glass of champagne. “It’s good to see the two of you again,” she said, smiling at both of us.

  “You’re sure you haven’t gotten tired of us yet?” I loved having Kathy work with us on our flights. I’d worked with other steward when Dean and I needed to fly somewhere, and Kathy wasn’t available but they just weren’t the same.

  “Never. You two are my favorite clients,” Kathy told me.

  “I suspect she’s just glad to have another woman on the flights with her,” Dean joked.

  “Well, that’s not entirely untrue,” Kathy said. “But Dean was one of my favorites before, and now that you’re a package deal, I’m always glad to fly out with you.” She left us alone and I looked at Dean. I had a strong suspicion I knew what he was going to give me when we got to Colorado but I didn’t know for sure.

  “I was just thinking, I have another present for you—maybe I should give you one of them before we take off,” Dean said, meeting my gaze.

  “Are you a mind reader or something?” I shook my head in disbelief.

  “If I was then you wouldn’t have won the room that first night,” Dean said. He reached into his blazer pocket and took out a small, velvet-covered box. “But I think I’ve already lost the element of surprise, so I might as well take care of doing this now.” He rose from his seat and dropped down onto one knee next to me. “Kayla Matthews, will you marry me?” He opened the box and showed me the ring inside. It was absolutely stunning: a diamond, cut into the card suit shape, bordered with two black stones of some kind, set in gold.

  “That is a hell of a ring,” I said. I looked from it to him and smiled. “And of course, I’ll marry you.” He rose up and kissed me, and I knew that as wonderful as my last Christmas had been with Dean, my next Christmas—and all of the ones after it—would be even better. I let him put the ring on me, and I couldn’t wait for us to get to Colorado, and get to be alone together, to show him how very glad I was that we’d managed to beat the odds.