Slowly she took the top card off the deck and put it in the discard pile. Then she turned the next card for the river. It was the jack of spades. My knees almost gave way and a long, low sigh escaped my lips. The pot was mine. Now I really did need that bourbon.
College boy stalked noisily out of the room. Ginger got out of his chair and he faced me with real warmth in his smile. He held my arm as he shook my hand. I almost teared up.
“Well played, young lady. You whipped us all fair and square.” He was still smiling as he sat back down. “Will you give us a chance to win it back?”
I managed a tight smile as I shook my head. Ginger smiled and he nodded approval. The dealer’s dark eyes twinkled as I tipped her. Then I left the gaming table, with more money than I had ever carried before, for the second time in my life as well as the second time that night.
Chapter 5
STILL BUZZING, I TOOK myself back to the bar and ordered a bourbon. I was about to pay for it when I remembered the comp coupons. In the bottom of the heavy tumbler, the bourbon swirled, dark caramel with gold and amber ripples. With a long, slow sniff of the dark, caramel fumes, my eyes closed and I took a sip from the heavy glass.
As the smoky spirit ignited on my tongue and tipped down to scorch my throat, I breathed deeply. Soon enough I could count the chips. The tally in my head made it about four thousand six hundred and some dollars. From a stake of fifteen bucks. Unbelievable.
But still a little under half way to what I needed. My muscles ached like I’d been running. I was exhilarated but weary. The half-dozen hands of poker had really drained me. There’s a reason they don’t have clocks or windows in these places, I thought. You lose yourself. You get carried away. Get careless.
If I go back into the poker room tonight, I thought, I’d be sure to get tired and goofy. The kind of luck I’d had at the craps game wasn’t likely to come again, now or at any time. It wasn’t a massive win, but it was a solid run of luck, and they don’t come often.
As the heat of the bourbon stirred me inside, I decided that I’d had a successful night and ought to quit while I was well ahead. One day would not be enough to get it done, but I had made a good enough start. The suite that Hemming Garland had comped me came back to mind.
Joel came back into mind, too but then I saw the college boy hunched over a table in the corner. An idea began to form in my mind.
I picked up the tumbler and took it over to the college boy’s table.
His lip curled as he looked up. “Happy with your haul, or are you going back to ream out some other suckers?” He had a clear, musical voice that sounded like it came from money. I thought about the casino and the neighborhood it was in. If he came from money, he’s a long way from home, I thought.
I told him, “I came to buy you a drink.”
He raised an eyebrow, “So you can see my face up close while you gloat?” There was no edge in his voice. Only in the words.
“No, just so I could catch a hot blast of your attitude.”
“All my money’s not enough for you.”
“I doubt that was all of your money. You look like you could find some more if you had to.” I watched his face. “I wonder if all of it was yours, too. You have a backer?”
“Why, are you touting your services?”
“Okay, it’s been fun.” I turned on my heel.
“No, wait.” His lips pressed together. “I come off as a jerk sometimes.”
“When are the other times?”
“Can we start again, go back to where you were going to buy me a drink? I’m Fitz. Pleased to meet you. Won’t you join me.”
The waiter came and Fitz ordered a Gibson. The waiter’s eyebrows twitched. I wanted another bourbon, but I decided against it. I might need to keep my head clear if I was going to try and get sense out of this attitude in clothes.
By tonight’s showing, I reckoned that I had the head for poker, but I was sure that I didn’t have the stamina. To make what I needed, and without counting on strokes of luck, I figured it could take two to three hours of straight play. That was more than I could be confident of.
My idea was to bankroll Fitz. Steer him to a game where he could earn better, put up some stake money and share the winnings, But, would I ever be able to work with his attitude? I watched him. With a little coaching, I thought, Fitz could play profitably. We could split the profit. If I could trust him.
The waiter brought the Gibson. Whatever it was, it was clear in a tapered glass with a little white onion on a stick. Seriously, I wondered if I could stand that much time in his company. He sipped his drink. He hadn’t thanked me for the drink, or asked my name.
He said, “Well, are you going to use my money to bankroll me?”
I stood up. “It’s been real,” I told him,
“Okay, look,” he said, “Wait, alright? I don’t win all the popularity contests. I know it. Maybe we can help each other though.”
Still standing I said, “What have you got that I need?”
“Good question. There must be something otherwise you wouldn’t have come, right?” The impression of a smile wandered across his lips. It didn’t make him look a lot better.
“There was something,” I told him, “but you’re so damned disagreeable, I doubt you can take ‘yes’ for an answer.”
“Why would you want to bankroll me? What can I do that you can’t?” He rubbed his chin. “You don’t look like you scare easily, so I don’t think you’re looking for protection.”
I looked at his scrawny frame, “I’d be in a sorry state if I needed your protection.”
He didn’t miss a beat, “Probably so. If one of us was going to be the muscle, it would be you.”
“You must be fighting the ladies off night and day.”
That got to him and his face puckered, “I do alright.”
When you’ve got money, perhaps, I thought.
His finger tapped his chin, “It must be to do with you being a girl,” he said, “You’ll get more attention at the table than me. You want to be able to sit in the deal, work as a team, but with me making the plays.” He sat back and took a hit off his clear drink with the onion in it.
He was nowhere near the mark, but that was okay. If that was what he wanted to think, so be it. My doubts about dealing with him hadn’t gone. I wondered how he might respond to some advice.
I watched him think for a moment, then he said, “You going to give me my money back?”
“Some of it. Maybe. Not exactly ‘give,’ though.”
“I knew there’d be a catch.”
“Look, I didn’t make you go all in with a pair of nines.”
“Trips. Three nines. Do you know how dry that fucking table has been all night? Do you know how long it took me to work up the money that you just took off me?” Like it was my fault.
I told him, “I’ll give you this for free. You need to manage your bankroll a lot tighter. When you play tight you’re not tight enough, you bet too fast and too much. And when you’re aggressive you’re not strong enough and you’re reckless.”
“Oh, do you teach Sunday school, too, ma’am?”
“Well, it really has been fun.” I stood up to leave.
“Okay, let’s make a deal.” His voice had tightened and gone up a notch. “I’ll do it. You’re right, I don’t have a stake and I need to get back into the game.” Being reasonable didn’t come naturally to him.
“You’ve got no stake at all? You blew your wad?”
“Don’t grind it in.”
I said, “I’ll put up a grand.” His eyes brightened. I told him, “What you win we’ll split sixty-forty.” His eyebrows started to move so I got it in quickly, “I get the sixty.”
“Oh, wait up, that means I’m playing like an employee.”
“I can get out of your way so you can work with one of the other backers waiting in line here.”
He looked down. Spoke into his lap. “I’ve got obligations. I’ve got to get back what I
lost tonight.”
“I’m sorry, Fitz, this isn’t going to work. Enjoy your drink and I hope you can work something out.” I stood. So did he. I shook his hand, but as I turned he tried not to let go.
I had to pull my hand away and I headed for the door. Fitz followed me. Half way there I stopped.
“Fitz, you’ve got problems to solve. So do I. They aren’t compatible.”
“You’re holding a lot more than a grand. We can both be doing a whole lot better is all I’m saying.”
“Sorry, Fitz. No.” And I left him there.
Chapter 6
OUTSIDE IN THE NIGHT, the cool air hit me and it all seemed unreal, like I had stepped out of a dream. The sky was big and black over the parking lot. A few trucks and saloons dotted the lot in the sodium light like orangey-gray gappy teeth.
Then I realized that I was still holding chips. I needed to go back in and cash up. I turned and bumped straight into Fitz.
It shouldn’t have been a surprise, it was an obvious play. He pushed me, gently at first. A rising heat in the front of his pants was uncomfortably close.
“Be reasonable, Belle.” He gave me a doggy-eyed look. Flicked his eyelids down and back up again. “We can work together, Belle,” his head cocked on one side, “We’ll make a great team.”
“Your charm and my money? Yeah, we’d be unstoppable.” I turned. His hand turned me back. All the softness had slipped out of his face. Now he just looked spiky, determined and angry.”
As I tried to shrug him off he grabbed my shoulder harder. I pushed back and his eyes narrowed as he slammed me hard against the side of a truck.
His tight, pointed eyes flicked towards my purse. My knee crashed upward into his balls. My timing was good. The lift in my thigh powered up into his groin. The apex of the swing would have been way up in his pelvis.
My angle was bad, though. He had on those stupid kind of jeans that hang low around his ass and so I connected with the inside of his thigh. All it did was hurt him enough to make him angry.
His hand moved off my shoulder to hold me by the throat and his other arm drew back. A gleaming blade flashed in his hand. My legs were trapped between his and I couldn’t get a swing.
The blade darted at my face. It stopped an inch from my nose. His head snapped backwards. An arm, covered in black leather, whipped around his throat. Fitz’s hips jerked forward and he collapsed backward and down to the ground.
A broad figure stood in front of me, his feet either side of Fitz’s head. Black shades, black hair, black jacket. The man I saw when I entered the casino. Dark voice. “You okay?”
My breath was still churning and my heart banged in my chest. I couldn’t speak but I nodded. Fitz began to lift his head. My rescuer lifted his foot and held it over Fitz’s nose.
“Stay exactly where you are, runt.”
Fitz didn’t move.
Then the man said to me, “Come back in and let me get you a drink. You can sit a moment. Get yourself together.” I peered at the shades. He lowered his head to look at me across the top of them. He held a big hand towards me, palm up like old-fashion chivalry.
“Laurent,” he said and a trace of a smile pulled at the corners of his lips.
As I took the hand he offered I managed to say, “Belle.”
He said, “You got the right name,” and the honeyed tone reminded me of Daddy. Not something I wanted to be reminded of right then, but it was reassuring somehow.
I stepped over Fitz. Before we left him there, Laurent asked, “You psychic, runt?”
Fitz’s head shook.
“Shame. Coz any time I see you again, I’m liable to bend your neck a notch further, you get me?”
Fitz nodded. Once. “So it would behoove you to know where I’m going to be.” Fitz’s lips stretched tight and his eyes crinkled. Laurent said, “You best stay home indoors the next decade or so.” Then his boot pressed down on Fitz’s nose.
Chapter 7
“I SAW HIM COME after you.”
Laurent got me settled into a booth in the quietest part of the bar. His scent made me almost pant. He looked to me like a kingpin mobster. I couldn’t think why he spent his time on me. I thought it must have been for the fun of slamming Fitz to the ground.
I told him what had happened. And about how I tried to recruit Fitz as a poker partner.
“You’d already wiped the craps table, I heard.” His voice set off sparks inside of me, “Then you stole a big pot from Declan in the poker room.” One black eyebrow lifted. I couldn’t tell if he was laughing at me or if he was genuinely impressed.
He stretched back in the booth and I saw the impression in the front of his pants. “You’re a goddamn hurricane. You played poker much before?”
“In a casino? This is my first time.”
“You made close to five grand out of sand, your first time in a gaming room and you’re trying to buy a player?” His head shook slowly. “Hellhound on your trail? You only got two days to live or something?”
At that moment I wanted to tell him the whole story. Tell him about Daddy and Spinal and the money but I held back.
“I need some money and I don’t have a lot of time to get it.”
“So you walked into a casino to get it.” My stomach dropped as his brown eyes held me. His voice thickened as he said, “You got some balls, little girl.”
My hips fidgeted. My panties were soaked. Nobody had called me ‘Little girl’ for a very long time. I hadn’t imagined that anyone was likely to, either. I wouldn’t have expected it to have the effect on me that it had.
“How much more do you need?” he spoke quietly and his tone was almost gentle.
“Five thousand four hundred.”
“Let’s make it six and a half. Or maybe seven.”
“That’s very kind of you, but I’m not interested in a loan.”
“You sure are feisty.” His eyes sparkled “I’m not talking about a loan. Well, not one that I make to you.” I thought, Oh, no. All this and he’s going to try and con me? Shoot me now.
“Same deal you offered the runt,” I was melting in his voice, “Same terms, whatever they were.” I took a deep breath.
“I come into the poker room with the money.”
His eyebrows lifted. He said, “Whatever you say. You look to me like you need a rest before you get any more of that table action.”
“I’ve got a comp for a suite,” I told him.
The way he said, “Oh.” I nearly came right there.
Chapter 8
THE SUITE WAS BIGGER and nicer than I expected, although when I discovered that the thick curtains were hung over a blank wall just to give the false impression of a window, it made me feel kind of claustrophobic.
First he showed me how to set the combination on the room safe, then he left me while I stashed all my chips inside and locked it.
Laurent stood in the middle of the room. He’d brought the tumbler of bourbon and a bottle. Broad and brooding, his eyes blazed. After the night that I’d had, I only wished that a smoking hot guy like him would give it up for a curvy girl in need.
Laurent: Devil's Hand – A reverse harem MC romance (Steel Riders Book 4) Page 3