The Christmas Gamble

by Sienna Ciles

  I waited until Bethany had probably almost forgotten about the idea I’d had--or at least until she’d probably concluded I wasn’t going to do it. And then I waited a little while longer, for her to step into the bathroom attached to the ballroom, to freshen up, and I went to the DJ booth.

  “Hey, man. I need you to do me a solid,” I said. I’d brought my wallet with me, and I took out a twenty and handed it to him.

  “Anything you want,” the DJ said. He grinned, his teeth too white in his face, and I thought about the best way to do what I wanted to do--the best way to get the full effect.

  “I’m going to propose to my girl tonight,” I explained. “I want you to play ‘Umbrella’ by Rihanna, and then I’m going to come up, and just play along with me--okay?”

  “For twenty I’ll let you play it yourself if you wanted,” the DJ said, grinning again. “I’ll give you a cue just to be sure you’re ready for it. I’ll play ‘Don’t Stop the Music’ before I do ‘Umbrella’--you know it?”

  Of course I knew it. I nodded. “That’ll be perfect.” I shook his hand and ducked out of his booth before Bethany came out looking for me.

  I led her out onto the dance floor and when she wasn’t looking I caught the DJ’s eye and gave him a nod to let him know I was ready when he was. Bethany started to get tired, but I realized that just about everyone at the reunion had made their way onto the dance floor, and I wasn’t about to let her leave the center of the room when she was about to get the nail to hammer into her enemies’ coffins.

  “Let’s just do a couple more songs, okay?”

  “Okay, but you have no idea how much these shoes are hurting my feet,” she said.

  I made sure to dance up close to her, in spite of the fact that it made me remember what it was like to be with her in bed--a little too much, maybe. When I heard the first Rihanna song, my heart started beating faster. I’m almost as nervous as I would be if I was really about to propose to the woman I loved, I thought. It was a crazy idea, and I almost laughed at my own stupidity.

  Then the first couple of notes of ‘Umbrella’ came on, and I took my cue. Bethany almost screamed in delight at the song--as I knew she would--and I broke away from her.

  “No. No--fuck this,” I said, shaking my head. “This is all wrong.”

  “What?” Bethany looked at me in shock and I turned away from her, going to the DJ booth up and off to the side of the stage. I leaned in and in the corner of my eye I could see everyone else start to get shocked at what I was doing. Perfect.

  “Give me the mic,” I said. The DJ shrugged and handed it to me. “Keep the song going for another verse and chorus, okay?” He nodded and shook his head at my madness.

  I started singing along with the track, about her always having my heart and how we wouldn’t be separated. Fortunately, the mic was cordless. I hopped down off the stage and made my way to Bethany again, with her classmates making way for me. I didn’t have the best singing voice, but I made the best use of it that I could as I worked through the crowd. I stopped in front of Bethany, getting to the end of the verse and then into the chorus, and then dropped down on my knee as the DJ cut the music out.

  Bethany was standing there, looking absolutely stunned--just like I wanted.

  “Bethany baby, will you marry me?” I took the ring out of my pocket and held it up so that the people directly around us could see it.

  “Yes--yes, of course I’ll marry you, you crazy fool,” Bethany said, starting to cry as I turned off the mic and put it down to put the ring on her finger.

  The room erupted in cheers, and I stood up to kiss her, just like something out of a fairytale. I led her back with me to the DJ booth as he cheered us along with everyone else, and I gave him his microphone back.

  He turned on the mic. “Everyone, let’s make some room for these two to have a special dance to celebrate their love!”

  The people on the floor made some room for us. He re-started the Rihanna song, and I led Bethany back out onto the dance floor. We danced to the beat, and I mentally patted myself on the back for making it happen even better than Bethany could have ever expected.

  As we danced through the song, it hit me--I’d been nervous to propose to her, even falsely, because I actually liked her. Not enough to marry her, but after play-acting as her boyfriend for a few days, and the incredible sex we’d had, I’d have to have a heart of stone not to have some kind of feelings for her.

  When the song ended and we had a chance to get off the dance floor, I put my lips to her ear. “Can we go somewhere and talk for a minute?”

  Bethany looked at me and then nodded.

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Bethany

  By the time Ransom and I found a little alcove, down the hall a bit from the ballroom, I had no interest in talking to him. I threw my arms around his neck and kissed him eagerly, pressing my body against his. I had seen the faces of the people at the dance with us, and I didn’t think even one of them suspected that Ransom’s trick was a fake. They’d seen how shocked I was by the whole thing.

  “Thank you. Thank you so much for everything,” I murmured against his lips. Ransom had done better than I ever could have imagined, in every way--from being the perfect fake boyfriend, covering for my gaffes, and now the proposal that had, I was sure, convinced everyone who had been at the dance with the exception of Jess, who knew the truth, that I had a man who loved me.

  I kissed him again, and after a few moments Ransom started not just kissing me back, but he started to touch me through the material of my dress. Ever since the night before, I’d been thinking about how good it had been with him, and how much I wanted more. I knew it was stupid, but I wasn’t ready to go back to a celibate life just yet, not when I’d only just learned what it was really like to have real orgasms.

  “Now that you know what you were missing, you’re turning into a little sex-addict,” Ransom murmured, as we got hotter and heavier.

  I giggled and cuddled up closer to him, letting my hand stray downward between us.

  “It’s a prom re-enactment, right? Someone should be fooling around in a closet somewhere,” I pointed out. I felt tipsy, but not on the punch we’d had through the evening. No, I was drunk on relief and happiness and giddiness at everything. I rubbed him lightly through his pants and Ransom moaned against my mouth, his hips starting to move in reaction. He pulled at my dress in the front, getting it up enough to be able to reach under the hem, and before too long we were fooling around seriously, getting truly hot and heavy with each other and trying to get each other more and more turned on without taking off our clothes.

  “God, I can’t wait to get you alone,” he murmured. “Come on--let’s ditch the dance and just go back to the room.”

  I shook my head and unzipped his fly, reaching in to find he had nothing underneath his pants. Perfect. I started stroking his hot, hard cock, and he found a way to get my panties off of me to start rubbing me too, and I could feel myself getting tight, getting wetter and wetter, more and more turned on.

  “Oh my god,” someone shouted, “they’re fooling around in here!”

  “Who is it?” someone else asked.

  I started to pull back and then remembered--almost too late--to tuck Ransom into his pants again, and zip up his fly. We both looked around until we spotted who’d walked in on us, and I almost started laughing right then and there, as Nadine and Katherine saw that it was me and Ransom.

  “Sorry about that, ladies,” Ransom said, grinning like a cat who finally caught the canary. “We wanted to start celebrating early.”

  The girls stared at us in shock for a moment longer and I wiped my lips, letting them think that even more had happened than what they’d walked in on. They shook their heads and scurried back to the dance, and that was when I started laughing.

  “If they had any doubts, I think they’re gone,” I said.

  Ransom pulled me to him and kissed me again.

  “Let’s go back to the
room,” he suggested, once we broke apart from each other.

  “No--we should go back to the dance, at least for a little bit,” I said. “We need to be seen being decent there before we disappear for the night.”

  Ransom looked disappointed, but he nodded agreement with my plan.

  By the time we got back into the ballroom, it was obvious that whatever Katherine and Nadine had to say about the possibility that I was paying Ransom for the job of pretending to be my boyfriend, they’d changed their tune. A few people gave me some knowing looks, and I saw one guy hold up his hand for Ransom to high-five him.

  I was embarrassed to realize that most of my classmates were finding out that I’d been caught fooling around with my fiancé, but at the same time I had to think that at least it was confirming the story I wanted them to believe. It was a total success, and I should have been completely happy--if not just from having pulled it off, then from the prospect of more sex with Ransom at the end of the night.

  But I also knew that things were going to end soon. We didn’t have anything in common, and we lived in different places--there was no way we were going to keep in touch after this. There was maybe another day or two before we both went back to our lives.

  “Attention everyone!” We all stopped dancing to look up at the stage, where one of the class officers had taken the DJ’s mic. “We just got word from the town that the roads out have been cleared, so we’ll all be able to leave on time tomorrow! The airfield is up and running, as well.”

  Everyone cheered--even me and Ransom--but it just made me sadder.

  I showed off my ring, and despite the heat simmering throughout my body, I tried to milk the time I had left at the dance. If the dance didn’t end, then it wouldn’t be the last night of the reunion, and I wouldn’t have to look ahead to a life without the pleasure that Ransom had given me in such a short time. I didn’t want to give up the thought of that--not yet. I wanted to live my pretend-life a little while longer.

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Ransom

  “Come on--there’s only like three other people here apart from the cleaning crew,” I told Bethany.

  I’d noticed that in spite of how hot and heavy we’d gotten in the closet, and how much I could tell she wanted to do more than just dance with me, she was trying to wring all the fun she could from the dance, even though it had been increasingly getting lamer the more people left.

  “I guess,” she said.

  We left the ballroom and when we got to the elevator, we were totally on our own for the ride up to the room.

  “I thought your shoes were hurting your feet and you wanted to get one more round of sex in,” I pointed out to her as we stood there.

  “I did--and they do,” she admitted. “It’s just that it hit me all at once that this was fake, and now that the roads and airport are clear, there’s nothing else. It’s over.”

  I heard her voice catch and she turned away. I was pretty sure she was trying not to cry.

  She continued, “I know it was fake, but it’s been the best relationship I’ve had, and I guess I’m just down about going back to my old single life.”

  Without even thinking, I turned her around and pulled her into my arms and kissed her. I could feel the need in Bethany’s body, almost radiating out of her, and I wanted to do something to end the sadness I could hear in her voice.

  The elevator pinged, and I broke away from her, grabbing her hand and leading her out of the little room and onto the hallway. “I need to tell you something,” I said.

  “What?” She was almost as startled by what I was doing then as she’d been when I’d proposed, and I gestured for her to wait. We got into the room and I pushed her toward the bed to sit down.

  “You wanted to know what I needed access to your files for,” I said, taking a deep breath. I poured myself a shot of vodka from the bottle and knocked it back. I hadn’t even been sure I was going to do this until I’d started talking.

  “Okay, so you need to tell me about that?” she asked.

  I poured another shot for myself--and after looking to confirm she wanted one too, I poured one for Bethany. We both knocked back our liquor and I felt a little less nervous.

  “I think you know Ransom isn’t my real name,” I started. “It’s not the name I was born with and it isn’t even the name I had until a good...maybe five or so years ago.”

  “I kind of figured it was some kind of moniker you made legal,” Bethany said.

  “I wanted to get into your agency’s system to find out who my birth parents were,” he said. “I still have a birth father, alive nearby. But what I really want to tell you is that I was born Patrick Cartwright. And then, when I was about three or four, I became Patrick Nolan.”

  Bethany’s eyes widened. “Patrick Nolan?”

  I nodded. “My adoptive parents were Janice and Raymond Nolan.”

  “But they’re from here--that would mean…” Bethany shook her head. “Did they send you to private school or something?”

  “Eventually they did,” I replied with a wry grin. “Before that they sent me to the public school, hoping that would keep my life as normal as possible. I was about two years ahead of you, but I remember you, Bethany.”

  “You remember me?” Her voice was incredulous.

  “You were a freshman, and I was a junior, but I remember seeing you around campus,” I said.

  Bethany shook her head again. “You’re lying,” she said.

  “I’m telling the truth. I remember you. I remember you performing at the talent show that year--I hadn’t wanted to go, but one of my friends was playing in a band and I felt like I had to.”

  “If you remember, then what did I perform?” She raised an eyebrow and I smiled again.

  “You did a song. ‘Dear Prudence.’ I think it was your friend Jess on guitar?”

  Bethany’s eyes widened again and she just stared at me for a moment.

  “You--you were really there,” she said, not quite turning it into a question.

  “I was there. I saw you.” I took a deep breath. “Look, I told you that to tell you this. I actually kind of like you. Not enough to be engaged right now, but I like you a lot, Beth.”

  “You do?”

  “Of course I do, you idiot,” I said with a laugh. “You’re gorgeous and smart and if you ever decide to go into crime, you could run a multinational syndicate without breaking a sweat--you have that much nerve.”

  “I don’t know about that,” Bethany countered.

  “You could,” I insisted. “On top of that, I can’t believe that there isn’t a single guy in your life who hasn’t taken the time to make you come. God--do you know how great you are when you’re turned on? Do you have any idea how big of a thrill it is to feel you shaking because you’re all sexed up and feeling so good you can’t stand it?”

  I put the shot glass down and moved to kiss her. She didn’t even hesitate to kiss me back.

  “I didn’t really think about it,” she said absently when she had a moment to breathe.

  “Making you come is like...like winning a prize,” I told her. My hands started moving over her body, and I remembered that neither of us had managed to finish during our little closet tryst. But I had to finish what I was saying, first.

  “Winning a prize, that’s original,” Bethany said sarcastically.

  I kissed her again, trying to keep my head above water long enough to get out what I wanted to say.

  “If you don’t want to go back to being single, don’t,” I told her when I broke away from her lips. “You know about my parents--I inherited their money. I don’t have any real job to do. I could come with you back to the city and we could see if there’s something between us. Something real.”

  I’d said what I wanted to say, but I didn’t want her to answer--not just yet. I kissed her again and started teasing her. I managed to get her dress off of her, and she started stripping me, distracted for the moment by what was going on between us. I
wanted to blow her mind before I gave her a chance to think about what I’d said.

  I didn’t even have to think about how to go at it anymore; the two times we’d already hooked up were enough to teach me what she liked, so I got down to it, worshipping her tits with my mouth and stroking and rubbing her as soon as I thought she was ready for it. We pawed at each other like animals, getting more and more worked up, and before too long, I had Bethany moaning, writhing underneath me as I fingered her hard and fast.

  I got her to the edge in what I considered to be record time, and then she pushed my hand away. “You’re way ahead of me on points,” she said breathlessly.

  “What?”

  “I want to get you off,” she clarified.

  I laughed. I was so hard I was aching, so I was in no position to say no. I let her do what she wanted, lying back on the bed as she worked her way down from my mouth to my cock, taking her sweet time until I was sure she was setting me up for the worst case of blue balls in the history of medical science. But she wasn’t, of course.

  The feeling of her mouth on my cock was amazing, just like it had been the other times she’d gone down on me. How could any guy get pleasure like that from her and not want to make her come as hard and as often as possible? I had to struggle to hold back as she sucked and licked and moaned around my cock, getting herself turned on by getting me closer and closer to orgasm.

  It was my turn to stop her, and I pulled her face up to mine to kiss her. “I think we should both enjoy it, this time,” I said. Bethany looked confused for a moment and then nodded, and I had the supreme pleasure of feeling her tight, hot, wet folds wrapping around my throbbing cock, taking me inch by inch.

  We moved together like we’d been made for each other, and I made myself hold back as I felt the tension mounting in Bethany’s body. I knew it would take a while--I knew that even if I’d figured out the Konami Code of her body, it was not an instant win, but a marathon, and I was more than happy to run it again.