by Frankie Love
His faint Irish lilt feels like the tang of a forbidden fruit because my family’s bitter rivals are the O’Malleys.
The silver ball bounces again and drops into twenty-two, then it clatters and rattles. Rolls out of place again and drops into thirty-four. Right next to seventeen. The wheel is slowing. The ball pops out again. It rolls past seventeen into twenty-five. Then back one.
And it stops. Round and round, the wheel coasts to a stop. With the ball in seventeen.
Andrea is looking moist-eyed at him now. I feel an angry jab rise in my gut. Probably magnified by the excitement. I’ve never felt jealousy like this. Not about a man.
Without thinking, I hug him.
I tell him, “I wish I’d bet bigger now.”
“Well, here’s your chance. Let it ride.”
“Who are you?”
“Tonight, I’m your Romeo.”
Chapter Three
Peter
She looks up into my face, and I feel a glow inside. My cock is pumped up so hard it aches. I want to grab hold of her, pull her to me. Fold her into my arms and never let her go.
She says, “So, you can call me Juliet. You really want to risk it all again?”
“Why not? At worst, I’ll have lost the hundred dollars that I put up on the first spin.” The glisten in her eye urges me on.
I can’t believe that I’ve run straight into her. Like she came to me. And she even picked my ‘lucky number.’ If I didn’t know better, I would become a believer in luck, as of right now.
Her voice is sweet and low. She gives me a hot look and says, “You know it’s a statistically ridiculous gamble?”
“And do you know statistics don’t mean a thing on a roulette wheel? The ball and the wheel don’t keep count. It’s exactly as likely to come up seventeen on the next spin as it was on that one.”
“I’ll tell you what, then.” Oh, she has mischief in her eyes. “Let’s play another table.”
“Okay. I’m game.” Doesn’t sound so very exciting, but finding her here is all the thrill I need.
“So,” she says, “let’s take it to another wheel. Try a casino downtown.”
I get us a car service limo. My car can stay in the Spades Royalle underground parking. This way I can give all my attention to her.
She sits close to me, deep in the leather of the back seat. “Why did you pick seventeen?”
I tell her, “It’s my lucky number.”
Her head pulls back. She narrows her eyes to look at me, “It’s not. And you don’t believe in luck, anyway.”
“I do and I don’t.” How does she know me so well? For an instant, a hole opens in the pit of my stomach. I’m afraid she’s recognized me. Then I have a moment of depression. My secret will come out sometime. She’ll hate me the moment she knows who I am. But I’m determined to give her the best time she’s ever had until then.
So I ask her, “Why did you pick seventeen?”
“Same reason. It’s my lucky number.”
I burst out laughing. “I don’t believe you, either. And I know you don’t believe in luck. Not like that, anyway.”
“What makes you so sure?” She’s leaning toward me. The girl of my dreams, my permanent obsession. Here with me in the soft cocoon of a Vegas limo. If this isn’t luck, I don’t know what is.
I say, “I’ll tell you that, but first you’ve got to tell me why it’s your lucky number.”
“Okay. I’ll tell you. But you go first.”
This could get complicated. I love her sense of fun.
I tell her, “My mom always said seventeen was her lucky number.”
Giulietta’s eyebrow lifts provocatively. She gets more beautiful the more I see her. The whole of my upper body tingles to hold her. And my cock throbs so hard, I feel like I could impregnate her from here.
“Even when I was young,” I tell her, watching amusement and mischief dance on her lips and in her eyes, “I knew that lucky numbers were like the tooth fairy. Nice, cute, and fun. But numbers are just numbers, right? But Momma said I should find a lucky number. So I told her if seventeen worked for her, it would work for me.” She’s close enough that I can smell her hair. My throat is thick and I don’t trust myself to talk anymore. I manage, “Now you?”
“Similar. I always loved numbers. A math professor told me when you say, ‘Pick a number at random,’ most people say seventeen. I liked that. And,” she looks down and to one side, then back at me. “Something… happened on my seventeenth birthday. That sealed it for me.”
Damn. Whatever it was just spiked a rod of hot, jealous anger through my stomach.
Quickly she goes on. “So. How did you know?”
“That you don’t believe in luck?” I love how much we’re in synch. “Same way you know that I don’t. You’re a numbers person. Though I’m not sure how you knew I was.” She cocks her head to one side. “Oh, wait… yeah!” I’m laughing again. It’s not funny but for some reason, it makes me laugh, how quickly we read each other. “Because I said that thing about statistics.”
“Probability.” She nods.
“Of course. You can’t really believe in luck once you know probability.”
“Except that you do.” Now she laughs.
“And so do you!”
The King Pine is the perfect destination. It’s very much an old Vegas joint. Almost quaint. The sounds are cozier, more jingles and jangles than electronic come-ons. After the gloss and glamor of Spades Royalle, the cowboy images and folksy decor make it feel like a cross between a carnival tent and a Wild West saloon.
Her face has a look of recognition as we walk in. I ask her, “Have you been here before?”
“No. Never,” she smiles up at me, “but I was reading about a casino earlier and I just realized this is the place.”
We head for the roulette wheels. A bar with music playing is off to the side of the casino floor.
Her face lights up. “Can we dance?”
Something was bound to happen to ruin the evening. I’m ready for it to be so soon, though. “I don’t really dance.” It’s a lie, and I correct myself. “Okay, I do dance. But rarely, only when I’m very drunk. And I’m certain it’s a memorably horrible sight.”
“Really?” If anything, she looks even more excited. “Could I dance for you, then?”
Oh my fucking stars, could you… “Mm? Well, if you really want to, I guess that would be all right.”
The bar with the dance floor has low light and almost no customers. Up-tempo jazzy music plays with a raw, insistent beat. I perch on a stool at one of the high, round tables at the edge of the dancing area. The floor is empty apart from a couple who dance close together in the far-off shadows, and Giulietta. My Giulietta. At least until she learns who I am.
I want to put that off as long as I can.
Watching her dance close-up is way more arousing than seeing her at a distance. As I watch her, she looks at me. She looks in my eyes, watches my body as she shakes and turns. She talks with her eyes and her face.
A cocktail waitress asks what I want. I mime, Drink? to Giulietta.
She doesn’t miss a beat, miming back, You choose. It looks like she’s blowing a kiss. She smiles and mimes again. Slow.
I tell the waitress, “Two vodkas with lime.” I could spend the rest of my life watching Giulietta dance. But my body is demanding a lot more.
Giulietta comes back when the drinks are on the table.
She leans close. “That waitress likes you.”
“Does she?”
She nods as she looks at me over her glass. “The croupier in Spades Royalle liked you, too.”
“I didn’t notice either of them.”
“Shame.” She smiles with a sparkle. “They’re both gorgeous.” She puts down her glass. “And they’ve got great taste.”
I need to tell her who I am. Get it done. If it’s the end of this, then that’s how it is, but I want to be open and honest with her. If she can’t deal with that, then I�
�m sure she won’t stick around after she learns I’ve been stalking her.
The scent of her, so close, makes me yearn like I never have before.
I turn, moving closer to her to speak.
With my lips next to her ear, I whisper, “I only want you.” I didn’t mean to be so up front. My heart pounds.
The look in her eye melts all my good intentions away. Her lips part.
I put a hand on her waist. The other on the back of her neck. Her head tips back as I take her lips with mine.
We both slip off the stools and our bodies move together. Our tongues meet.
We’re dancing. Slow, sensual, raw. Moving on the spot, deepening the kiss.
Chapter Four
Giulietta
I never want this kiss to end. My hips and my breasts are crushed against him. His body moves next to mine and I only want one thing more than this kiss. And that’s all the rest of him.
He holds me close. I feel like I’m waking up on the inside for the first time. I feel all the places where I want him. The sculpted ridges of his muscles push into my flesh and I feel him lengthen and thicken, hot against my stomach, pressed into my needy mound.
His voice is hoarse and smoky in my ear, and the heat of his breath on my neck makes me tip my head toward him.
“I want to get us a room,” he says in my ear. “So we can be alone.”
My arms are around him. I love the feeling of his strength moving inside my grip. My pelvis saws against him and I nod. I whisper back into his ear. “Yes.”
The one thing I dread is that he’ll find out who I am. The reputation of my family would chase any sensible man away.
I breathe, “There’s something I have to tell you,” and this might scare him away, too. But I have to be open about it or we’re nowhere. “I’ve never… I haven’t…”
He holds me tighter. “You don’t have to do anything you don’t want. I really want us to be alone. But we don’t have to…”
I grip him tighter. “Yes, I want to. I want to do everything. With you.” He kisses me again. Now my body is on fire. My leg hooks around his. I’m glad we’re almost in darkness here. This isn’t just dirty dancing. This is obscene. He holds my face in his hands.
“I have to tell you something, too.” He kisses me again.
Before he can speak, I tell him, “Tell me anything. But please. No names. Not tonight.”
He looks almost relieved. Then he holds me tight, with his hands moving down my back and cupping my ass. He whispers, “I’ll make it perfect for you. But I’m very fucking big.”
I smack his ass. Damn. What a fine, firm, tight ass.
“Don’t you dare lie to me.”
His face is serious, and he grips my ass as he says, “If you want to back out–”
“It’s one night, Romeo. Our moment. A moment out of time.” I want him so bad, but I don’t want to make him feel pressure. Apart from the physical kind. I want him to feel a lot of that.
I kiss him. Hard. I feel what it does to him, as he heats up and thickens against my pussy.
In the lobby, he tells the clerk, “I need a suite. Top floor. Get an ice bucket of champagne set up before we arrive.”
The big, gravel-voiced clerk nods. “Of course, sir.”
“And a can of whipped cream.”
I gasp.
In the penthouse elevator, he kisses me, fierce and hungry. I’m wrapped around his hard body, holding him. My hands slide over his pecs and his ribs. I press my tits against him. We’re wound together, my legs clamped tight around his thigh. The elevator takes us straight up into the suite.
When the bell pings and the doors slide open, I see a champagne bucket, dripping cold and waiting on a table by the window. The lights of the Las Vegas skyline spread out behind it for us.
I tell him, “This is a great view,” but I’m looking at him.
“Never saw a better one.” His voice is thick and low and his eyes smolder at me like hot coals.
My neck stretches and I moan as he holds my breasts. His huge hands are strong and sure. I stretch up, pushing myself into his grasp, dragging my aching pussy along his thigh and against the bone of his pelvis.
He’s a couple of years older than me. About twenty-six, I’m guessing. His hard, throbbing swell burns against the soft inside of my thigh. My knees shake as I rub against him.
We don’t even know each other’s names, though. How perfect is that? Eventually my father will force me to marry someone I don’t love. I want a choice in who gets my body first. And I want to give myself to Romeo.
He holds my neck in one hand and squeezes my ass in the other. We pull each other closer. The elevator bell dings again.
Our eyes pop open and we laugh as the doors start to close. We haven’t even stepped out of the car.
He slams his hand against the side of one door. They reverse, sliding open again.
We’re laughing and shaking as he pulls me up to his face, nose to nose. “Would you like to go down to the lobby again?”
“I loved the ride, and I’m getting fond of being in the car. But let’s explore our nighttime accommodation.”
His eyebrow lifts. “Our den of sin?”
I trace his collar. Plant a soft kiss on his neck and grind my pussy against his thigh. “Our suite of depravity, I’m hoping.”
We step into the room, clinging together, moving like a four-legged creature. And he says he doesn’t dance. My perfect Romeo. I hope we’ll have the time to fix that. I wonder how long I can keep up the deception, how long I can keep him from knowing who I really am.
Now will have to be enough time. No past, no future. This moment, these hours are probably all that we’ll have. I pull myself into the present. Block out the rest. Throw a tarp over my family’s evil reputation and bloody deeds. Forget yesterday and tomorrow. Enjoy this time with my Romeo.
My voice skips as I ask him, “The whipped cream…?”
“It’s optional.” He shrugs with a trace of a grin. “But I really would like to eat it. Off you.” He has a look in his eye like he wants to eat me, too. And I wouldn’t mind a bit.
He pulls up my shirt, tosses it aside. I slide my hands over the front of his body. Scrape my nails down to where his pants stretch out in front. Holding him, tracing the impossible length and shape of him, my fingers tremble. All my nerves buzz with excitement.
His eyes hold me and I feel him exploring me inside and out.
I keep the memory of those eyes by the pool as far to the back of my mind as I can. I know nothing would splash cold water over the moment as fast as me talking about another man, but until now, that was the biggest moment in my life.
Stroking his cock, I know this is the biggest moment. I’m ready to stop thinking and let go. Tip back my head, stretch my back. Give myself over to whatever plans and desires he has. I have enough ideas of my own, and I know that his plans and mine are going to fit together like a hand in a tight velvet glove.
To bring myself here completely, I look in his eyes and then concentrate on his cock. My eyes go wide, my jaw drops.
I gasp. “Oh, my God.” My breath shudders as I wrap my hand around him through his clothes. “You’re fucking huge!”
Chapter Five
Peter
I’m pumped, ready to burst. Fired up to full pressure, like a steam train with all the brakes on hard. All the strength and discipline I have feels like it won’t be enough to hold me back. My body is ready to race, pent up and eager to surge.
If I let myself go, I’ll wreck her. Destroy her. I’ve watched her for so long now, and I’ve thought about her all the time I wasn’t watching her. My pulse thumps. Her hands are greedy, grasping and squeezing my cock.
As we kiss, she rubs me. Hard. I feel trembles in her arms and her shoulders.
I kiss and stroke her neck, and I pull back to watch her eyes as I unbutton her shirt. She wants this. I can tell by the hungry spark in her face, the sharp need in her breath as things heat up.
As I take hold of her breast, she moans. As I unfasten the front hook of her bra, I’m pulsing with need. Her tits spill out for me. Soft, full, virgin breasts made to knead and suck. Nipples ready to harden between my lips. Thickening for my teeth to graze.
In her clothes, even simple jeans and a tee-shirt, she looked to be in beautiful shape. She stirred me, even from a distance. But out of her shirt, she’s perfect. Her breasts are heavy enough to have a thrilling bounce, round and firm enough to be heaven to hold.
She’s frantic to undo the buttons on my shirt. Nibbling on my ear, she makes little moans as her hands explore my skin. After she tugs my shirt out of my pants, she gasps and her hands flatten on my abs.
“That ‘v,’ it’s…” Her eyes roll and her fingers slip down beneath my waistband. “Oh. My. God.” She slides her fingertips down my flesh, inside my shorts, tripping down the front of my pelvis.
Her eyes lock on mine as I open her jeans. Our mouths meet and I pull her lip, nipping it between my teeth.
I am determined. I will make this perfect for her. No matter how much pent-up need I’m feeling, I’ll hold it all back. My most vivid fantasies were never as electric as this.
Her hands fly all over my body, and she moans as I squeeze and kiss her breasts.
“Romeo!” she sighs as she squirms. “My Romeo.”
I’m going to learn her body, her wants, her pressure and pleasure points. Find what she needs and fill her with it. I’ll be the fastest study ever. I have an overpowering urge to make her mine completely.