What the Gambler Risks

by Kristina Knight

  In between poker-room visits, he’d had video conferences with his company’s lead designers on a few new games, but outside those brief calls, he’d done nothing but wait. Staying out of the office these past few weeks had given his employees room to set the final design on Reeves Gaming’s latest casino game, a new take on baccarat. It was their first venture outside the poker realm. They’d launched a version in the fall at the online casinos, and with those versions earning more than he’d estimated, Jase had approved the design of the physical units just before he left Vegas at the end of the year. The first prototypes would be in his office in another week, and if the in-office tests went well, a couple of casinos in Vegas and Atlantic City would be their first real-world use.

  Which meant going back to Vegas, something he usually didn’t mind. Or at least, didn’t actively avoid, as he had been doing these past few weeks. He would blame it on his brothers, Gage and Connor, but in truth it had more to do with their significant others, Callie and Miranda. He liked both women, liked seeing his brothers head over heels. However, there was something about seeing them so … domestic that brought back bad memories that he’d sworn to never think about again. Memories that made staying at the family ranch more uncomfortable than it had been after their father, Caleb, died.

  Jase wanted his brothers to be happy, but he couldn’t be a part of it. He’d seen what love did to people, how it tore them apart and left them bleeding in the desert.

  Jase was in no danger of falling under the spell of the pretty blonde across the table, but if there was a chance he could get her into his room tonight he was going to take it.

  “One more hand. Winner buys the loser a drink?”

  She tilted her water bottle toward him. “I already have a drink.”

  Jase snickered but was careful to keep the sound light and friendly. “That’s not a drink.” He lifted his glass of soda water with lime to his mouth. Most people wouldn’t consider the contents of his glass a real drink, either, but he rarely drank when he played. Alcohol and cards did not mix well in Jase’s opinion. “What do you have to lose?” he pressed.

  “We’ll see,” she said, not meeting his gaze directly, and he was 75 percent positive she was on her way to a yes.

  The dealer switched decks and then dealt the cards. Jase had random cards in his hands, but he didn’t care. The woman studied her hand, one manicured nail tapping against the cards. Considering.

  “Twenty,” she said, throwing a chip on the table.

  “Raise to forty,” Jase said, tossing two chips on the table. The best plan of attack when the cards in his hand were useless was to make her think he held something amazing. He didn’t bluff in real card games, but despite her two wins, he didn’t peg this woman as a true card player. If she were a regular player, she wouldn’t be so transparent about what she held in her hands.

  The woman blinked, and her teeth began nibbling at her lower lip.

  “Are you in?” he asked, a bit more forcefully than was necessary.

  Her finger tapped faster against the cards in her hand. “I’ll take three,” she said and slid three cards to the dealer.

  As soon as her new cards were in her hands, Jase said, “I’ll stand.” And he stacked his worthless cards with all the careless confidence he used in high-stakes games around the globe. The kind of confidence that made big-time, big-money gamblers think twice about going against him in the second betting round.

  The woman circled her index finger around her remaining green chip, considering her options. Call, take the gamble, lose, and have a drink with him. Of course, it would take a truly pitiful hand to lose to what he held. She could fold and have a drink with him. She could also call his bluff and, depending on the cards in her own hand, win. He didn’t like the thought of her winning, but if her winning at the table landed the two of them at the bar, was it really a loss for him?

  “Call,” she said, and Jase felt a wave of admiration for his opponent. Which was not good, because if she was calling she had to have something in her hand, and he had a big, fat zero. Which meant she would win. Jase didn’t like to lose, especially at poker, not even when it was a friendly game instead of a high-stakes match with thousands of dollars to lose.

  She laid down her cards: three queens, a two, and a ten.

  “Three of a kind. Nice.”

  “I was hoping for a full house.”

  “I was hoping you’d fold, so I could buy you that drink,” he said and laid his cards—all four suits, random order—on the table.

  “Nice bluff, I almost folded.”

  “If it had been a better bluff, you would have folded.” He watched her for a moment across the table. “Now you have to buy me the drink; all in all, not a bad night at the table.”

  The woman pushed back from the table, pulling the pot in the middle to her side. Jase pocketed the chips he had left in his stack. “I never agreed to that bed,” she said, and her hands stilled over the chips. Her gaze flicked to his, and despite the dim light, he saw the flush that crept over her cheeks.

  “And here I thought we were just talking about a drink. I have to tell you, I’m not the kind of guy to go off to a strange woman’s hotel room after a lousy hand of poker,” he said with mock outrage.

  “Bet. I meant bet.” She yawned, and Jase thought it had to be faked. “I guess the late hour is catching up with me.” The words were prim, but her hands shook slightly as she loaded the chips into her pockets. “Thanks for the games. It was … enlightening. I think I’m finally learning when to hold and when to fold.”

  “If only I’d learned when to walk away.”

  She chuckled when he continued using the old Kenny Rogers song as part of their conversation. “You were counting your money still sitting at the table.”

  “And now you’re going to run.”

  “I’m not running.”

  “But you haven’t agreed to that drink.”

  “Maybe I don’t want you thinking you’re going to get lucky just because I took a chance on a big gamble,” she said and chuckled. He walked beside her as she made her way around the outer rim of the casino floor, past the slots and Keno machines. Her head was just below his shoulder, and he estimated she was around five feet, five inches. Her hand brushed against his, heating his skin.

  “Getting lucky is exactly what gambling is all about. Despite me almost losing my shirt to you, I’ll still buy you that drink.” He didn’t want her to leave, didn’t want the night to be over, and that was odd. It was usually a simple thing to walk away from a hand of poker or a woman. But, apparently, not this woman.

  She smiled at him, and he thought it was the first real smile she’d offered since she sat down with him at the table. They crossed into a better lit area of the casino floor. Her eyes were green. A crisp, clear emerald that reminded him of Ireland and a tournament he’d played there when he first hit the poker circuit.

  “I don’t think that’s a good idea.”

  “Getting a drink is always a good idea. Especially when the drink includes a few more minutes with the beautiful woman who beat me at my favorite game.”

  “You need a new hobby.”

  “But you still want that drink,” he said.

  She shook her head. “No, I’m good.”

  “We’ve passed three chip-cashing stations, and we’re coming back up on the tables. You want that drink.”

  She stopped, and her cheeks pinkened in the casino lighting. “You’re a distraction.”

  “I could say the same about you. I don’t usually lose.”

  “Everybody loses.”

  “I lose less than most.” His shoulders straightened. Jase couldn’t help it. Playing cards was one thing in his life that remained the same. Didn’t matter what was happening with his family or the ranch or his business. A flush was a flush, a straight a straight, and a full house would always beat two pair.

  She started walking again, and this time turned toward the bank of elevators. “How do you
lose less than most?”

  “I don’t gamble.”

  The woman rolled her eyes. “We just spent the better part of two hours gambling.” She stopped before the elevators and hit the penthouse button.

  “I spent the better part of two hours studying you and playing cards. There’s a difference.”

  “So when does gambling become gambling, then, instead of just playing cards?”

  “When you lose sight of your goal. My goal was a drink with you.”

  She pressed the up arrow again. “Then you not only gambled.” She stepped into the car and pressed a button. The doors began to close. “You lost.”

  “Crap,” Jase muttered as the doors shut. He shoved his hands into the pockets of his jeans and hit the up arrow to call his own car to the casino floor. It wasn’t the worst outcome. So he’d gambled that she would back down, and lost. No big deal.

  He hit the call button again and waited.

  So he’d been hoping for a little more than a drink from the first woman in a long time to make him sit up and take notice.

  The elevator dinged its arrival.

  He’d been turned down before. No big deal. He’d just go run a mile or so on the treadmill in the casino gym, pushing any and all thoughts of the pretty blonde with the Irish eyes out of his head.

  The elevator doors slid open, but Jase was rooted to the spot.

  “Just so you know,” the woman from the table said, “this isn’t you winning whatever bet you had going with yourself. This is my choice.”

  Fire started low in his belly. “Got it.”

  “My name is Sabrina.”

  “I’m Jase.”

  “Nice to meet you,” she said as he stepped into the car. “Which floor are you on?”

  “Nineteen,” he said. She pushed the appropriate button, and the doors slid closed once more. Jase laid his mouth on hers, and his brain short-circuited.

  Chapter Two

  This was so not a great idea.

  Sabrina put her arms around Jase’s neck and gave herself over to the kiss. The second the elevator doors had closed, leaving the tall man with hazel eyes and dark hair in the vestibule, she’d regretted it. She’d felt like she had so many times when her mother left her alone in their small Las Vegas apartment or in the bowels of whatever casino she was working at the moment. As if Sabrina were worthless.

  Having sex with a perfect stranger didn’t give her worth; Sabrina wasn’t stupid. But taking something she wanted—in the form of this dangerously handsome stranger—that meant she wasn’t still the cowering, quiet, left-behind wallflower.

  Didn’t it?

  God, maybe this was a mistake.

  He deepened the kiss, teasing his tongue against the seam of her mouth. Sabrina opened for him as she burrowed her hands in the thick, brown hair at his nape.

  From the second she’d sat across from him at the poker table, she’d been aware of him. The sight of him had settled her in a way that nothing else had from the second she’d stepped off the plane early Monday morning. She’d actually begun to enjoy herself, despite the fact that she was in a casino. She’d had fun flirting a little across the table, watching his big hands on the delicate cards, and wondering what was going through his mind.

  It took less than one hand to realize he was interested in her.

  That interest had made the butterflies in her belly ratchet up their fluttering, making it harder for her to concentrate on the cards in her hands.

  He pushed her against the wall of the elevator as it flew upward to the nineteenth floor, and Sabrina wrapped one of her legs around his, reaching up on her toes to give her mouth better access to his.

  God, he was good at this.

  As long as she knew what it was about, wasn’t that enough?

  She was known as the last (supposed) virgin in Vegas, thanks to a particularly outspoken radio shock-jock who had crowned her an ice queen because of her books’ focus on women taking control in relationships. Sabrina had met him at a club, and he’d seemed so normal that she gave him her phone number. He’d called at least ten times within the next couple of days, and finally she’d agreed to a date with him. Two, actually, and that was enough. She’d dumped him and his misogynistic ways, and then had to get a new phone number because he wouldn’t leave her alone. He’d taken to calling her the Vegas Virgin every time he talked about her—which had happened a lot after their initial breakup but now only happened when one of his new girlfriends had enough and broke up with him.

  Oh, if he could see her now. Making out with a stranger in an elevator was so not what a virgin—even a Vegas virgin—would do.

  Besides, she hadn’t been an actual virgin since she went behind the bleachers with Michael Morrissey in the eleventh grade.

  The elevator dinged, signaling their arrival at Jase’s floor. He drew back from her.

  “This is my stop,” he said, and the green in his hazel eyes seemed to glisten against the flecks of brown. Sabrina’s mouth went dry, and she took a deep breath.

  “I think I’d like it to be my stop, too,” she said.

  A slow smile spread across Jase’s face, and his pupils dilated. Sabrina couldn’t stop her own answering smile. She was doing this. Maybe she wouldn’t advise her readers to confront their demons in quite this way, but then, who was to say her readers didn’t read the words on those pages and do exactly this same thing?

  “I don’t have any documentation with me, because I really don’t do this sort of thing, but I do have a clean bill of health,” she blurted out. And if that wasn’t enough to kill the mood, Sabrina wasn’t sure what would do it.

  Jase took her hand and began walking with her down the hallway. “And you have no reason to believe me, the man you just met in a poker game, but ditto.” Apparently, the adult STI talk wasn’t the sex-killer she remembered it to be.

  She didn’t date a lot, which was probably why this part of the first sexual encounter always felt awkward to her. Maybe she needed to get out more; not in a one-night-stand way, but in a relationship way. She had avoided relationships after the incident with Sid the Shock Jock, and then her books really took off, and she’d told herself she didn’t have time for a man, too. Which was silly. The right man wouldn’t infringe on her time, he would add value to it.

  Plus, she knew what she wanted in a relationship. Sexual chemistry, check. Intelligent conversation, check-check. Similar beliefs and taste in movies and music, check-check-check.

  The hot, out-of-control feelings she was having toward Jase were nice but not mandatory. And, if she were being totally honest, not the kind of thing she was looking for in a long-term relationship. She’d seen enough shrapnel from the implosion of her mother’s passionate affairs to never want that kind of rubble in her own life.

  He paused before a door, twisted his keyed wristband, and the lock buzzed open. “I also have protection. Just so we’re clear.”

  “Okay, then.” She stepped inside with him, surprised at the similarities between the rooms. His suite didn’t have a full sitting room or kitchen like her penthouse did, but a smaller version of the suede sofa sat before a huge television. The massive bed against the wall was made up with similar duvets, and a mound of pillows beckoned, just as the pillows on her bed had beckoned when she arrived that morning.

  He stepped closer to her and pulled her body against his. She’d never felt anything as solid as his tall, muscular figure against hers. Then his lips were on hers, his hands hot, seeming to burn through the thin cotton of her T-shirt, and Sabrina decided to just stop thinking. Thinking was going to run her right out of his hotel room, and there was no place less inviting at this particular moment than her room, one floor up. All she wanted was to keep kissing him. To feel his skin against hers. To see just how defined was the body she’d been lusting after for the last couple of hours.

  Jase’s hands cupped her face, and he speared his tongue into her mouth. Sabrina met the rush, liking the fierceness in his kiss. He growled, and
she liked that sound even more. It sent a skittering of awareness up her spine. She’d have to figure out how to make him do that again.

  He pushed her back against the wall, and she could feel his erection hard against her belly. She pulled his shirt from his jeans, allowing her hands to roam over the ridges of his abdomen. His wicked mouth found the sensitive spot just below her ear, and Sabrina forgot to breathe. Her head slammed back against the wall, but she didn’t care about the pain, she just wanted more of this moment.

  More of Jase’s hands and lips on her. More of the heat of him surrounding her.

  More, more, more.

  She wrapped her legs around his hips, but still it wasn’t enough.

  His hand slid under the soft fabric of her shirt, pushing the heat between them higher. Her stomach muscles clenched as he caressed the soft skin of her lower back while his mouth continued to devour her. He kissed his way down her neck to her clavicle. Sabrina’s hands found his shoulders and squeezed, trying to push her body higher against the wall, wanting his mouth and hands on her breasts.

  Instead, his hand found her core, and despite the layer of denim between his flesh and hers, Sabrina felt her pulse skyrocket.

  “This isn’t going to work against a wall,” he said, his voice as unsteady as her body felt.

  “You’re doing just fine.” He needed to keep touching her, needed to push her harder against the wall.

  But his hand left her core, and Jase lifted her from the wall, walking her across the room. She pressed her lips to his, buried her hands in all that seal-brown hair, and then giggled when he tossed her onto the big bed as if she were a doll.