What the Gambler Risks

by Kristina Knight

  Jase grabbed his shirttail, pulling it over his head to reveal a smooth chest, shoulders that made her mouth go dry, and a set of washboard abs that her hands itched to explore. She pulled her T-shirt over her head, glad she’d ignored the bra on her dresser when his tongue darted out over his lips. Sabrina unbuttoned her jeans, pushing them over her hips. The sandals she’d worn had fallen off at some point, probably when she’d tried to wrap her body around his at the wall. Jase kicked off his shoes and then tossed aside his jeans, leaving him wearing only a pair of gray boxer briefs.

  He crawled across the bed to her, putting one knee between hers. Sabrina reclined on her elbows, sighing as his skin slipped across hers. Jase’s hand cupped the back of her head, holding her close to him, and this time when he kissed her, she thought she might actually burn through the duvet and mattress from the heat his touch evoked.

  His erection was hot and thick against her hip, and she let her hands wander. Taking in the highs and lows of his abdomen, she flirted with the band of his boxers. She drew her thumbnail along his ribs and felt his body shiver at the touch.

  Jase settled her against the soft pillows and then explored her body, his hands burning fire along her sides, his thumb dipping erotically into her belly button, and she thought she could feel the thumping of her pulse right there between her thighs. Which was silly. She’d never felt anything like that in her life. It was just this night, this man. The fact that she’d been inadvertently abstaining from sex because of her career for too long. He dragged her panties down her legs.

  Those hazel eyes of his lit with fire as he looked at her, and Sabrina sucked in an unsteady breath.

  Okay, so there were ways to stimulate the body without coming into physical contact with the opposite sex. It wasn’t as if she hadn’t had an orgasm in several years. Being this near orgasm with another human being, though, was so much … more than getting there with a bit of mechanical help. Sabrina fisted her hands against the soft duvet.

  And the one bearing down on her, the orgasm that was building up fiercely, promised to be better than good.

  Jase kissed his way back up her body, settling his hips between hers. Sabrina wrapped her legs around his hips, and his mouth finally found her breast. His hot, slick tongue toyed with her hard nipple, sucking and biting until she thought she might lose her mind.

  She pushed her hands past the cotton of his briefs, sliding them over his hips, and he managed to wriggle out of them while keeping most of his attention focused on her breasts. He tweaked one nipple with his hand while he gently nipped the other with his mouth. Then he soothed the first with his tongue and settled in to torture the other with his hand. Sabrina reached between them to find his length, hard and long, with her hand.

  She closed her fist over him, and he sucked in an unsteady breath. A drop of liquid seeped out, and she massaged it into his length with her thumb.

  “Keep doing that, and this is going to be over way too quickly.”

  “Then we’ll just have to start it back up again,” she said, continuing to move her hand over him in a slow rhythm. She didn’t want this to be over, but she also didn’t want to stop touching him, didn’t want to stop feeling the slow burn of his skin against hers.

  Jase reached between them, and his thumb found the bundle of nerves between the slick folds of her flesh. Sabrina couldn’t breathe for a moment, could only feel the pulse between her legs building, building while his hands and mouth made her body feel wondrous things. One finger and then two slipped between her folds, and Sabrina couldn’t stop her hips from jolting upward, driving his thumb more vigorously against her clit.

  “God, oh, God.” The words slipped from her mouth as wave upon wave crashed down on her. She felt her inner muscles squeeze his fingers as the orgasm crested, and then she was floating. Absently, she realized his penis was still in her hand, but she couldn’t seem to make it move over his length. Jase pressed a kiss to her sternum, and then the base of her neck, and then those wicked lips were against hers, and all Sabrina could do was hold on while he stoked the embers of heat in her veins back to burning flame.

  He needed to be inside her. She needed to feel him there, but he withdrew. He reached over the side of the bed, drew a packet from the wallet in his jeans, and tore it open with his teeth. When he had sheathed himself, Jase pressed kiss after kiss to her belly, until it was a mass of quivering nerves, then he took her breast in his mouth, and all Sabrina could do was clutch the soft duvet cover in her fists as he pushed his fingers back into her body.

  “Yes,” the word was like a prayer on her lips, and then his mouth was against hers once more.

  Jase thrust his thick length into her, and all she could think was that if this moment never ended it would be too soon. Bliss made the edges of her vision hazy, drove her nails to score his back, and made her wrap her legs more tightly around his hips, riding another wave of orgasm with him.

  That growl sounded again, making her belly clench, and then Jase emptied himself into her.

  Jase collapsed onto the bed, his sweaty forehead resting against her shoulder, breathing heavily.

  “Sweet Jesus,” he said when he’d caught his breath.

  Sabrina wasn’t sure the deity had anything to do with what had just happened between them but, just in case, echoed the thought in her mind. Jase rolled to the side, taking her with him, and she let her legs tangle with his.

  His hand caressed her arm, and his breathing softened. Sabrina settled against his shoulder, ignoring the fact that she should get up, find her clothes, and retreat to her own room.

  Her eyelids drifted closed.

  Just for a little while, she was going to be a woman who did whatever she wanted without a thought to the consequences.

  Chapter Three

  Jase reached across the wide expanse of the bed expecting to meet soft, warm skin. Instead, he found cold, empty cotton.

  He opened one eye, hoping to see Sabrina maybe sitting on the other side of the bed or on the sofa. Nothing. He got up and opened the door to the bathroom, but it was empty, too. His gaze landed on the closet, and he rolled his eyes.

  She might be a stranger to him, but he couldn’t see the woman hiding in a closet because of a one-night stand.

  Jase ran his hand through his hair. It was better this way, anyway. He didn’t like the morning-after conversations, didn’t like making excuses as to why he needed to go home or why whoever was in his bed needed to get out of his home. Or hotel room. She’d solved that problem for him by disappearing without a trace.

  A small piece of fabric caught his eye under the askew corner of the duvet. Light pink and lacy. He picked it up. Sabrina’s undies from the night before. So maybe she’d left a tiny trace. At least he knew last night had happened and that it wasn’t a figment of his imagination.

  He tossed the garment in the little trash can beside the bed, went into the bathroom, turned on the shower, and then brushed his teeth. He could still taste her kisses on him, could still smell that light scent that seemed a part of her. A thin, red line on his rib cage caught his attention, and he turned to the side. She’d marked him.

  With gentle fingers, he touched the mark, and he knew the sizzle he felt was 100 percent a figment of his imagination. Funny, before last night his imagination had never been this real. He rinsed the toothbrush and got into the shower. Hot water pounded on his skin, but instead of the water and steam washing away Sabrina, it made him feel her more. It was as if that vanilla scent was increased by the steam, as if the pounding stream of water could score his skin the way her nails had done. He shut off the water and wrapped a towel around his waist.

  This was ridiculous. She was just a one-night stand. He didn’t get caught up in one-night stands, not that he had a lot of them. At least, he hadn’t since that night in Morocco on his twenty-first birthday. He’d woken up in an unfamiliar apartment with a strange man yelling something at him in French while the woman he remembered dancing with in the casino clu
b the night before smoked a cigarette at the window, looking bored. He’d made out the French words for wife and bastard before grabbing his Levi’s and hustling out of the apartment. The woman—he hadn’t known her name—couldn’t have cared less what was going on. The man cared too much. It was all too familiar.

  For most of his life, Jase’s father, Caleb, had chased after his mother. Helena was hooked on gambling—poker, specifically—not younger men like the woman he’d spent the night with in Morocco. Helena would do anything for her fix. Leave her children, her husband, and her home for one more game. The morning after his twenty-first birthday, as a stranger was yelling at him, Jase felt some small part of the pain he knew his father felt, and it was too much. Too raw and too real. That was the last time he left a casino with a woman, the last time he’d allowed his penis to tell his brain what—or who—to do.

  A few months later, soon after his father died, Jase had the chance to tell his mother exactly what he thought of the way she’d treated her family. She’d run off to another tournament rather than deal with the anger he’d been holding inside, and when she lost her stake within a few hours, he was the one she called to come and get her. He told her to take responsibility, that he wasn’t going to be the one running after her to pick up the pieces. Not like Caleb. Not like that angry man in Morocco.

  The next morning, Helena was dead.

  Jase rolled his shoulders and shook his head, as if that might dislodge the thoughts of his dysfunctional parents. He wasn’t like them. He wasn’t perfect, far from it, but he wasn’t broken like them.

  Over the past nine years, Jase had engaged in a string of friends-with-benefits relationships with women who felt the same way he did about getting tangled up in the emotional messes that usually followed really great sex: usually one party or the other believed good sex meant everlasting love when, in fact, it just meant good body chemistry.

  He’d had good body chemistry with Sabrina last night; he should leave it at that.

  A white piece of paper under his door caught his attention. Maybe she’d left a note.

  “Idiot, she’s not the kind of woman to leave a thank-you note for sex,” he told the man in the mirror. He picked up the piece of paper and grimaced. His checkout notice and final bill.

  Right. He was going back to Vegas today. In a couple of weeks his brother Gage and Gage’s significant other, Callie, were opening their new eco-friendly spa outside Las Vegas. He’d promised to be there for the festivities during the grand opening.

  With the efficiency born of a man who traveled for a living, Jase packed his things and then, for reasons he didn’t care to examine, he plucked the pink panties from the trash can and stuck them in one of the exterior pockets of his suitcase.

  They weren’t a trophy. He didn’t know what the panties represented, but he wasn’t going to go all freakish and start smelling them or anything. He couldn’t leave them in the hotel trash can, though. Something told him Sabrina would be embarrassed if a maid found her undies in the trash.

  He didn’t want her to be embarrassed about anything that had happened last night.

  A couple of hours later, he waited in the boarding area of the Atlantic City International Airport, watching planes take off and land. The gate attendant called his boarding section.

  “Business class includes any of the front eight rows. Take any seat you’d like. We’ll begin boarding the rest of the passengers shortly,” the pretty redhead said as she scanned his ticket. “Have a great flight to Las Vegas.”

  Jase ducked his head to enter the plane. He scanned the sections, noting both of the front rows remained empty. Good. Even in business class extra leg room was a plus. Then a blond head in the third row caught his attention. She wore green headphones, and her hair was pulled up into a ponytail instead of falling over her shoulders, but that color was familiar. So was the strong jawline, that cute, upturned nose, and that little mole at the corner of her mouth.

  Sabrina looked out the window, head resting against the back of the seat, probably watching the baggage handlers load luggage.

  Extra leg room be damned. This was going to be fun.

  • • •

  Sabrina wanted to get the hell out of Atlantic City. She’d cut the final interview short and insisted on leaving early for the airport, hoping to get a faster flight out of this town that made her do illogical, stupid, childish things.

  She was not a one-night stand kind of girl. She didn’t use sex as some kind of drug to make her forget who she was or to turn her into someone she wasn’t. She didn’t like gambling or casinos or the kind of men who looked at her body like it was some sort of pre-death feast. And yet, the night before, she’d not only stepped over the gambling line, but she’d enjoyed stepping over it. She’d not only ignored her rule of not using sex in a careless way, but she’d done so without an ounce of alcohol to blame for some decreased mental capacity.

  And she’d left her panties in a random stranger’s hotel room. When the concierge, who was bringing her breakfast order before the camera crews arrived, saw her walk of shame, she’d had to make small talk with the man. He’d been oblivious to her panty-less state, but she had been excruciatingly aware of it.

  Those were her favorite panties. La Perla and worth every penny for the nearly $500 price tag. They’d come with a matching bra and had been her first extravagant, celebratory purchase when her first book hit the best-seller list.

  Now they were gone because she’d wanted a clean getaway, and from the second she crawled from his bed, Jase had been restless in his sleep. She’d been terrified he would wake up, and she would be forced to talk to him.

  Sabrina Michelle Smith did not sleep with strangers. She was not like her mother, who had spent the last thirty years sleeping with any gambler who seemed as if he might have the ability to take her away from her crummy, waitressing, card-dealing life.

  She closed her eyes and sighed. She could buy another pair of La Perlas. It should be simple enough to push Jase Whatever-His-Last-Name-Was into the past with her lost panties.

  Sabrina liked her life, she didn’t need to be rescued from it. And Jase was a gambler. She didn’t need that kind of craziness in her life. She needed calm, and she needed her plans, and she needed her lists. Those three things kept her life on an even keel. Men like Jase would make her life unbalanced and treacherous.

  “Is this seat saved?” A male voice interrupted her thoughts. She really didn’t want to sit with anyone, but as it was a commercial flight, she didn’t have a choice.

  “Sure,” she said, waving her hand toward the seat without opening her eyes.

  She turned up the volume on her iPod, hoping some of P!nk’s girl-power wailing would give her a different perspective on last night. Unfortunately, the lyrics to “Stupid Girls” only reinforced this new hypocrisy in her life: she’d not only had sex with a stranger, she’d done it in the guise of facing her demons. Sex had never been one of her demons. Annoyed, Sabrina flipped off the iPod and put her headphones around her neck.

  “Business or pleasure?”

  The man’s words broke through her thoughts. “What?”

  She turned to look at him and felt the blood drain from her face. He was smiling, that seal-brown hair a little too long, and the blue T-shirt and jeans a little too fitted, and it was all too surreal. What was her perfect, anonymous man from last night doing on her flight home?

  “Everybody goes to Vegas for one or the other. Which are you headed to, Sabrina?” His hazel eyes lit with his smile. Relaxed, casual.

  “I’m going home, actually. I’ve been on a business trip.” She eyed him warily. The plans she’d had to sleep all the way to Las Vegas grew dimmer. She wouldn’t be able to sleep, or put Jase the Gambler in her past, if he was sitting right beside her for the next seven hours. Already, she was feeling the heat from his leg against her own. “What are you doing here?”

  “Going home. I live in Las Vegas. Well, just outside. Kind of. I have a condo o
n the Strip, but my family owns a ranch outside town.” He cocked his head to the side. “I never expected to be sharing the plane ride home with the beautiful woman from the casino, though.”

  Sabrina rolled her eyes. “Coincidence is a funny thing.”

  “Who says this is coincidence?”

  A stabby, panicked feeling hit her chest, making it hard to breathe. Jase chuckled.

  “Don’t worry, I’m not some deranged stalker. I just meant, it’s kind of like fate intervened.”

  That made the stabby, panicked feeling even more pronounced. Sabrina didn’t believe in fate; she believed in plans. But Jase being on her plane was not part of her plan. “You mean like star-crossed lovers running into one another after a long separation or feuding families or something like that?”

  “Sure. Like fate is stepping in because you didn’t give me your number.”

  “There was a reason for that.” The reason being she’d woken at five minutes before six and panicked because she was stuck under Jase’s arm. She’d needed to get out of there without having a morning-after conversation, and she’d needed to get back to her room before the camera crews from the network arrived. He watched her as if waiting for an explanation of the reason. She couldn’t tell him any of those things, though. “I don’t believe in fate.”

  “Most women do,” he said, and she thought she detected a note of admiration in his voice. “Most women believe in all those esoteric things: fate and destiny and soul mates.”

  “I’m not most women.” And she’d seen firsthand the damage believing in fate and destiny and romantic love could do to a person. Last night hadn’t been about fated lovers or romance any more than him being on her flight was about destiny taking a hand.

  “No, you’re not.”

  “You say that like it’s a bad thing.” Last night was about facing a part of her past that continued to make her feel uncomfortable. Sleeping with Jase was an added bonus.

  The flight attendant began her takeoff speech.

  “Not at all—”