“That means no ice, right?” Michelle said, as she stood and smoothed her mini-skirt.
She then made her way to the bar, teetering on her stilettos.
Smirking at Brad and staring him straight in the face, Remi said, “That’s right, chér.”
Later, only he and Brad remained at the table.
“You don’t have any money left, Brad. So, now what?” He glanced to the side and gave Michelle another onceover. Leaning forward on the table, he added, “How about we play for your wife? I wanna give her the night I described earlier.”
“Oh, my God!” she gasped.
“That okay with you?” Remi asked, and she nodded.
“Goddamn it, Michelle!” Brad shouted. “He’s already taken everything I own, and now you’re turning on me, too?”
“If you wanna play me to try to redeem yourself, that’s the wager.”
Chapter 3
Looking into her eyes, Remi ran his finger along Michelle’s mouth.
“I took all your husband’s money, and then I took you from him, too.”
He allowed his gaze to fall to her naked breasts, down her body, to her stomach and farther below.
“To the victor goes the spoils,” she whispered, panting.
“Mmmm… Such a pretty thing, you are,” he said, as his fingertips swirled towards her navel. When he passed it, she inhaled a sharp breath. Her bare pussy lips shone with her juices, and her scent drifted up from the delta of her thighs. “I think I’m going to like playing with you. You’ll come so easily for me, my prize for winning the hands I was dealt tonight. You were chosen for me to indulge in.”
“Remi!”
“Should I do that? Do whatever I want with my beautiful new toy? Oui ou non?” She nodded, as her breathing began to hitch higher. “Open for me, chér,” he growled, as he slid down her body. “Show me what I won.”
Michelle eased her legs apart, as he settled himself between them.
“Mmmm,” he moaned, grasping her by her calves. He pressed them back to make her knees bend. “Like that. See? That’s how I want you, and now you know.”
“Yes, Remi!”
“Do I need to restrain you, or will you stay there?” he asked, trailing a finger to her weeping channel, teasing her with just the tip. “Some of my past lovers were unable to meet my demands...” He flicked his gaze to her face. “...without help.”
“I can handle it!”
Sliding his tongue over her clit, he felt her pulse pounding through her engorged pink flesh.
“We’ll see, chér,” he murmured, before closing his lips around it.
She trembled underneath him when he sucked on her, pulling her deeper into his mouth.
“Ahh!” she cried out, grasping the iron rails of the headboard, clutching them until her knuckles were white.
“Mmmm…”
He closed his eyes, reveling in the sweet taste on his tongue. It was the second-best thing a woman could give him. The first, being her blood, of course. But since The Directive quashed feasts of the sanguinary kind, ordering vampires to limit their intake or suffer the consequences, he satisfied his other urge to the fullest to make up for it.
His cock had been hard since Michelle set his whiskey in front of him at the card table. Brad’s face had reddened in such anger that Remi thought his head might actually explode. Then again, his pat to her ass, as she swished away, didn’t help Brad’s state of mind, either.
All part of the game.
Bringing Michelle home with him? The ultimate victory, and he intended to revel in it.
Michelle thrashed her head left and right, as he increased his assault on her. Plunging two fingers inside her channel, he lifted his face to look at her, as he quickened the pace of his thrusting.
“Shift your hips up a bit and open your eyes.”
She obeyed, showing him her dilated pupils, as he continued pounding inside of her. Her large breasts, with raised erect tips, jostled with each plunge, and her breathing matched his movements in short bursts of air.
“Ahh!” she cried, as her walls clenched, and her thighs shook.
Letting go of the rails, she slapped her hands on the insides of her knees, pressing them against the mattress.
Dropping his head, he flicked the tip of his tongue over her and said, “Don’t let go.”
“Please! Remi!”
“Begging won’t help you, chér.” He withdrew his fingers, which glistened with her wetness, and wagged them at her strained face. “You’re here for my pleasure.” He dipped his head to rub her with the flat of his tongue. “For me to play with until I’m finished.” He descended again. “However long that might take. But it won’t be quick.”
“Oh! God!”
“Lucky for you, what I want right now is for you to come.”
With that, he shoved them back inside her, pummeling her at his vampire speed, as his head lowered, and he ate her with the same fervor. Cupping her ass in his hands, he moved her up and down against his face, pausing to look at her pink flesh as he licked up what she gave to him.
A moment later, her nails dug into her flesh, as she screamed out her climax. Not giving her any chance of recovery, he flipped her over onto her stomach.
“Up on your hands and knees, chér.”
She struggled to get into position, so he lifted her with one hand and grasped her hair in the other, arching her neck back with it. After taking a second to line his cock to her core, he slammed inside her in one thrust to the hilt. Using her bunched-up tresses to secure her in place, he eased himself in and out of her in an undulation of his hips to hers.
“Ahhh!”
“Oui. Nobody’s fucked you as well as I am, have they?”
“No!”
“Brad ever spread you like that, devour you, and make you scream that loudly?”
“No! Just you, Remi!”
She gushed around his length, the sound of their joining a wet one, with some of her juices hitting his skin at the impact of his thighs to hers.
“Yes! God, yes!”
Jazz from the club below his apartment filtered up to mix with the sound of their coupling. A horn blew a strained and forlorn note, as he focused on the feel of his cock inside Michelle’s tightness, watching her response to him. Hardening further, the muscles in his thighs clenched, and he withdrew from her, as he guided her around to face him.
“I drank you, and now you’ll do the same for me.”
She nodded and opened her mouth, taking him inside, and began bobbing up and down. Michelle looked up at him wide-eyed, as she sucked him, while he watched his cock disappear and come back out tinted with the shade of her lipstick.
“Oui, chér! Oui!” he cried, as his climax hit, and his come erupted inside her warm mouth.
He had let go of her before he came, not wanting to force her to do something if she changed her mind. But she stayed where she was, licking over him until his cock softened.
Falling to the mattress, he gathered her into his arms, smoothing the wisps of hair back from her face. Her chest rose and fell with her speeding heartbeat. Remi looked out the window, as thunder rolled in the distance and lightning flashed in the sky. Squeezing her ass, he tipped her chin up.
“Go get me a whiskey.”
“Is it in the kitchen?”
He nodded, and she sat up and stretched her arms out, before standing and padding out of the room. Placing his arms behind his head, he listened to the noises of cupboards opening and closing, as Michelle searched for the liquor and glasses.
Remi hadn’t had a companion for many years. He wasn’t certain whether he would send Michelle back to Brad, like he’d begrudgingly agreed to, or hold onto her for a while. He didn’t blame her for wanting to be with him instead of that sorry excuse of a man. To him, her actions didn’t speak of disloyalty to Brad, but more the recognition of and the taking of what she wanted once she found it. Her years were short. She was smart not to waste them.
She was a sexy
thing, perfect to have on his arm when he went out gambling. If she ran off with some other guy, so be it. He wasn’t looking for love.
Turning over the decision to luck, he reached for his jacket, pulled out his deck, and began shuffling, as Michelle came back holding two tumblers filled with amber liquid.
“What’re you doing?”
“Nothing, chér.” He patted the bed. “Come here.”
“You really take your games seriously,” she said, as she climbed in beside him and handed him the glass.
“Lie on your stomach across the bed.”
“Um… okay.”
He scooted over so that her backside was in front of him and dealt two cards, placing one face down on each of her cheeks.
High on that side, she goes. Low, she stays.
Shrugging, unsure if he’d actually follow their dictate, he flipped the one on the left, revealing a ten of spades.
“Hmm…”
In his mind, he began calculating the odds of the opposite being the winner. Slim, but not impossible. More curious as to how it would play out than the bare skin in front of him, he tossed the other over.
Queen of Diamonds
Picking them up, he returned them to the deck and then smacked her behind.
“It’s done.”
Michelle sat up and took a sip of her drink.
“What is?”
“I’m keeping you a bit longer than tonight. That okay with you?”
She nodded, smiling. Leaning in towards her, he brushed her lips with his.
“I’ll take care of you. That, I promise. But don’t fall in love, chér. The cards have my heart.”
Chapter 4
One Year Later
Remi walked between the tables he’d arranged inside the extra room in his home. Each was set for four players, with the dealer’s spot in the center.
Over the years, Remi had honed his craft. After the advent of the internet, Luc started a gambling site, and Remi competed online with a vast array of poker addicts like himself, increasing his wealth a hundredfold, while learning from his few losses.
Someone with the screenname TripleAce had beaten him with ease in only a few plays, and the humiliation gnawed at him. Remi’s name had been renowned in the gaming circles for years, and though his true fans remained loyal, whispers had begun to spread that there was a newer, better competitor on the scene. Remi couldn’t let that rumor stand, so he returned to his roots, battling his own wits, relearning the lessons that had taught him the most of all.
“Here’s a blood bag, Remi,” Michelle said, as she approached from the back. “I placed an order for more. Should be here in a few days.”
“Nights,” he replied absently, staring at the cards in front of him, speculating as to whether he should raise, check, or call.
“Hmm?”
“I don’t have days. I have nights.”
Her arms wrapped around his waist, and she leaned her head against him.
“He beat you again?”
Shrugging away from her, he stacked more chips beside the closest hand.
“Oui.”
“Oh, Remi! You can’t win them all.”
Flipping to face her, he said, “Why not?”
She placed her palms on his cheeks, searching his eyes.
Her voice soft, she said, “Because nobody’s perfect. Not all the time.”
Taking her hands into his, he bent to kiss her forehead.
“I will be, chér.”
“Is Luc still planning on having his annual tournament?”
“Of course, he is.”
“Okay. I’ll make sure to wear something to attract the men’s attention.”
“Go shopping if you need to.”
“Hopefully, I’ll catch yours, too.”
Remi snorted softly, remembering the night he stole her away from her husband. They’d had pleasurable months since then, but his sole worry was that despite his warning for Michelle to not fall in love with him, she had. Though she hadn’t spoken the three words, he only had to see the gaze in her eyes, her reactions to the things he said, her desire to make him happy, to know the truth of her heart.
Why else would she stay with him? For his attentiveness as a lover? He was skilled, but that wasn’t likely. His sexual appetite was close to insatiable, and he always made sure she came until she was limp, exhausted, and utterly spent before he was done. At times, he had to resort to the use of restraints, tying her spread to the bed or securing her arms and legs in a swing that hung in the corner of his bedroom, in order to fuck her until he was satisfied.
“My divorce is final.”
Some nights, she sported bruises, wearing clothes around the house that would show them, like a badge of honor, until they faded. Her humanity left her too fragile to keep up with him, but he gave her points for trying. In the instances when he’d lost control, close to breaking her, he fed her some of his blood to reinvigorate and heal her. And not once had she complained. She gave herself to him just as she had their first night, to be his plaything and do with whatever he desired.
Michelle held a special place in his heart.
“Remi?”
But as much as he wished he could return her feelings, considering her total devotion to him, he didn’t love her. He wouldn’t let her go, though. He’d consulted the cards many times since that first night, a sporadic ritual she knew he performed, and stay had always won.
“I’ll get you a whiskey,” she whispered, as she wandered away.
He swiveled to watch her retreating figure, her head downcast, as he sank his fangs into the plastic, drinking its contents until it was empty and crushed in his fist. After she rounded the corner, he resumed running different scenarios in his mind of how best to play each hand.
Chapter 5
New Orleans
Sophie landed on the ground, trying to catch the breath that had been knocked out of her from the two-story drop. The knot in the sheets she so carefully tied together to make her escape had unraveled after she lowered herself down about half way, and she counted herself lucky that she hadn’t hit her head in the fall. As she looked up, the tattered cloth blowing in the wind seemed to wave at her, unrepentant in its betrayal.
Rolling to her side and curling into a ball, she hoped the pain in her ankle didn’t mean it was broken. If it was, she was dead.
She lay there hidden in the bushes, listening for the footfalls of Gregor’s security detail coming to find her and take her back. Glancing at the watch she’d swiped from Gregor’s nightstand, she saw that the shift change would be in five more minutes. That would give her enough time to sneak her way onto the street and melt into the tourist crowds in the French Quarter a few blocks away.
That was as far as she’d planned, since with no money, no phone, and no relatives who would help her, she was going to have to rely on her pickpocketing skills to get enough money for food and transportation away from New Orleans.
After spying the backpack she’d tossed out the window ahead of her, she scanned her surroundings, trying to control her breaths, which were coming at a frantic pace. The bag contained the sparsest of her belongings, since most of her things had been taken away from her upon her arrival at the estate. Gone were the keys to her apartment and car, her driver’s license, and her credit cards. The most heart-wrenching and irreplaceable loss was the amethyst ring her grandmother had given to her days before her passing.
Calm down, or you’re gonna ruin everything!
Gravel crunched a few feet away from her, and she stopped breathing, praying in her head for whoever it was not to look up at the open window. Peering through the brush, Sophie saw the boots of the guard she most feared—Hans. Terrified tremors ran through her, and she squeezed her legs together, hoping her bladder wouldn’t empty itself.
An older vampire, he was able to walk in the low morning rays, but only for a minute or so before the sun rose higher in the sky. He was also Gregor’s enforcer and right hand, deliver
ing humans to his boss nightly to be drained dry. She’d witnessed Hans rip the heads off the shoulders of a few, laughing as the blood spurted into the air, raining down and gathering into pools on the marble floor.
As she remembered that he could have preternatural gifts, she thought, Oh, God! My heartbeat! He’ll hear it!
But then the smell of burning flesh wafted over, and he trod across the lawn and stepped back into the house. The latch clicked behind him, and all was quiet.
Is this a trick? Is he waiting for me to make a move, so he can grab me?
That thought made her wait longer than the few minutes during the changing of the guard. The insanity of what she was doing, trying to escape from her captor, and the consequences should she be caught, immobilized her.
As she waited, she racked her brain for who could possibly help her. She couldn’t go to the police. Gregor had many of them on his payroll, and those who weren’t would laugh her out of the station for reporting the crimes of a vampire. And most news journalists would write her off as insane, since supernaturals were well known and accepted and weren’t seen as criminals or killers. Most had gone out of their way to assure the public and officials that they were not a threat and merely wanted to exist alongside humans in the city they loved.
Knowing that, Gregor had built a reputation as a benefactor to local charities, helping the homeless and battered women. But Sophie had witnessed his true character, a drastic contradiction to his public persona, and she chided herself for believing all of his deceptions.
He claimed to have saved her from the streets, where she’d danced for dollars and sold herself for even more. In actuality, he’d taken her freedom and brought her into a living Hell that was much worse than anything she had experienced before.
“You’re my lucky charm, Sophie,” she recalled him saying that night, as he gathered all the chips from the table. He tossed a few of them to her, and she snatched them up, clutching them to her chest, while he laughed. “You have nothing to fear from me.”
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