‘Needn’t matter? So would you explain to me how I’m supposed to go to a place like Vegas and compete with hard-nosed poker players when I’ve never liked or been any good at the game?’
‘Come on, Robbie,’ she pressed, ‘where’s your fighting spirit? Do you want to get Gabrielle back, or don’t you?
‘Frank,’ she called to her boss as she reached down into the cooler cabinet for another bottle of chilled beer, flicked the lid off and pushed it across the bar to Robbie, the infectiously cunning smile still present, ‘where’s that pack of cards you and your drunken pals were using the other day?’
Frank grunted and nodded towards a cluttered shelf behind the bar, then returned to the racing pages.
Gail found the cards, opened the packet, and began to shuffle them with surprising dexterity.
‘Isn’t this all a waste of time?’ Robbie complained. ‘What chance do I stand against men like Marshall Verity? The guy’s a professional, a money man.’
‘The cards can play some strange tricks, Robbie,’ Gail said enigmatically.
‘What? Are you suggesting I cheat?’ He was incredulous. ‘Do you want me to lose the use of my legs, Gail? Or worse? You know what the guy’s like when he’s got a grudge! You’ve witnessed it first hand!’
Gail laughed, and then began to deal, her hands moving expertly until they each had five cards, face down on the bar.
Robbie picked his hand up and fanned them out, but his mind was elsewhere, not really on what they were doing: how could he, a beach bum who only ever played cards for small beer and fun, willingly enter the snake’s pit and take the biggest snake of them all on at his own game?
He was holding a running flush of hearts, but that was just luck, and there was nothing at stake.
‘So, what have you got?’ Gail asked.
‘What?’ Robbie was jerked out of his reverie.
Gail pressed on his hand and looked at the cards he was holding, smiling, but not surprised. ‘Mm, that’s a winner, Robbie,’ she said, then gathered the cards and shuffled again, the enticing swell of her breasts beneath her top quivering nicely as she did, drawing Robbie’s attention to them. ‘You’ll be a card player yet, and then you’re going to beat the pants off that bastard, Verity,’ she vowed. ‘You got to concentrate, Robbie. If you had a hand like that and bluffed well enough you couldn’t lose.’
‘Yeah?’ Robbie’s mind was still distracted by Gail’s lovely breasts and how they would feel in his hands – not that he didn’t know exactly how they felt in his hands. ‘Beginner’s luck,’ he said. ‘We could play here for the next two years solid and I’d never get a hand like that again, believe me.’
‘Maybe not in normal circumstances,’ Gail said. ‘But if you happened to have the right dealer…’ She looked at him, smiling cheekily. Then her fingers flashed as they shuffled the cards, which seemed to move of their own accord, flipping back and forth until she finally cut the pack and eased them together again into one stack.
‘Cut,’ she said, her expression now blank, unreadable, the epitome of a ‘poker face’. He cut the deck and pushed his portion towards her. Her fingers moved again, dealing the cards once more.
He picked his up and fanned them out, and could not believe what he saw. How had she done it? He had the same winning hand, but this time in diamonds.
Gail giggled. ‘When you’re dealt a hand as good as that, keep it to yourself!’
‘You know what I have?’ he asked incredulously.
‘Of course I know what you have,’ she teased airily, ‘I gave them to you, didn’t I? And I know the sequence of every card in the deck…’
‘You look glorious, my dear girl,’ Marshall Verity said to Gabrielle.
They were alone together in the dining room of his Florida mansion, sitting at opposite ends of the beautiful long table.
Although dressed casually, he was his usual immaculate self, and her outfit was elegant but simple; black leather trousers that hugged her slender hips and shapely legs like a second skin, black stilettos, and a high-necked black jersey that snugly encased her firm breasts. Her underwear was also fittingly simple; a plain black cotton bra and a matching thong, which neatly cupped her sex and cut between her buttocks, leaving them untouched in a way she knew Verity found totally beguiling.
‘Thank you,’ she said, in response to his compliment.
‘Did you deliberately dress to tempt me?’ he asked, pouring his favorite red wine into the cut crystal glass before him.
‘I’m wearing the clothes that were laid out for me on my bed,’ she explained simply, holding her glass by the stem as Verity had taught her, so that the wine did not become heated by the warmth of her hand, but remained exactly at room temperature.
‘Good,’ he said, with a satisfied nod. ‘Obedience sits charmingly on you, my dear.’
Had she not always been obedient? Taking a forkful of creamy seafood salad and lifting it to her lips she looked at him, feeling nothing but emptiness.
‘It is our anniversary next week,’ he went on, stating what she knew only too well, the date etched indelibly into her mind, ‘and tomorrow we fly to Vegas. Are you looking forward to that, my dear, and the possibility of seeing your loser of a husband again?’
No, Gabrielle was not looking forward to returning to Las Vegas and the possibility of seeing Tom again. She looked forward to very little any more. She felt numb… she felt empty.
Verity sipped his wine and looked at her over the rim of the glass. ‘Is something wrong, my dear?’ he asked. ‘Is the food not to your liking?’
Gabrielle shook her head as she ate elegantly. ‘No, it’s fine,’ she said flatly. ‘I’m fine.’
Verity studied her a little longer, then put down his wine glass and moved his chair away from the table. ‘Come here, my dear,’ he said, his delicious meal forgotten, unable to compete with the sensual beauty of Gabrielle.
Without a visible reaction or comment she placed her fork on her plate and stood, and with beautiful grace she walked the length of the table to where he sat, his legs casually parted. She needed no instructions, and sank to her knees, reached for the zipper of his trousers, feeling the waiting bulge beneath her hands as they opened them, and then she delved inside with her cool hands and eased his semi-erect penis out into the open.
‘There’s a good girl,’ he crooned, and then watched with satisfaction as her lovely face lowered and her warm, wet, soft mouth cocooned him snugly. He closed his eyes and rested a hand gently in her red hair as her head started to bob slowly up and down, and the only sound in the room was the relaxing, rhythmic sound of her suckling.
‘Yes, tomorrow we leave for Vegas…’ he repeated.
Gabrielle shuddered. Las Vegas, where it all began – where Tom had sold her, where she became the plaything of Verity and any one of the many loathsome friends he chose to give her to.
She heard the click of his lighter and smelled the fragrance of cigar smoke. The bastard! Could he belittle her any more? She was kneeling obediently between his legs, his erection filling her mouth, and he sat there casually smoking a cigar!
Chapter Sixteen
‘Free?’ Gabrielle questioned, unable to believe her ears, the amazement and hope evident in her voice. ‘You’re setting me free?’
Verity adjusted his tie and smoothed his thick dark hair as he admired his image in the mirror, a quizzical eyebrow raised. ‘Perhaps I am misleading you a little, my dear,’ he said. ‘For the day – I am allowing you a little freedom just for the day. I have noticed you’ve seemed a little distant lately, a little bored,’ he said, turning from the mirror to face her. ‘So I have very kindly arranged a special treat for you,’
Gabrielle wanted to be really excited by the prospect of a day away from Verity, but inside she also felt trepidation. What was he planning? And her concerns were fuelled by Verity himself; for the
first time since she’d known him he seemed a little edgy, a little anxious, somewhat unsure of himself. He had increased his security, and there was an air of expectancy as if he was waiting for something to happen – expecting something to happen.
‘Today, my dear,’ he said, kissing her lightly, ‘I have such a surprise for you.’
‘I know,’ she said meekly. ‘You’re setting me free.’
‘In a sense,’ he confirmed, ‘and I promise that you will enjoy every moment of it.’ He paused. ‘Right up to the last.’
‘You’re not coming with me?’ His hands smoothed upwards from her shapely hips, following the dip of her waist and up to cup her breasts. She could feel his thumbs brushing over her nipples, and despite herself, it felt good. ‘I’ll be alone?’ She could scarcely remember what it was like to be entirely alone. For the past year there had always been someone with her – Verity, his friends, the other girls.
One hand molded and squeezed her breast while the other dropped to caress her bottom, causing her to instinctively sigh softly. ‘Will you miss me, my dear?’ he asked, and she could not tell if he was teasing her or being serious. ‘You will, won’t you?’
Gabrielle said nothing, trying to divorce herself from the sensations he was creating between her thighs, not wanting to accept that her body still responded to him.
‘But no,’ he went on, ‘you will not be alone. I have arranged a companion for you. Come, the car is waiting.’ He then released her and they left his suite and the hotel, the anonymous black car with tinted windows waiting at the front with its engine running.
‘Take her to the airfield,’ Verity ordered the driver, who held a rear door open for her to get in. ‘You know the one.’
Gabrielle did not recognize the man driving the car; she had not seen him working for Verity before. She sat in the back, and the car pulled away from the hotel and edged into the stream of traffic.
‘Am I leaving Vegas?’ she asked the driver as they edged forward along the busy street, but he ignored her. It was as if he hadn’t heard her speak. He did not even lift his eyes to look at her in the rear-view mirror. There was something intimidating about his silence, and about the way he totally disregarded her, as though she was not even there.
‘Where are you taking me?’ she asked, her voice quavering with the concerns that were increasing by the second, making her feel quite frightened. ‘Please, tell me where we’re going.’
‘Didn’t you hear what the boss said?’ he snapped at last, but the sound of his voice did little to reassure her. ‘I’m taking you to the airfield.’
Then they fell into silence again, but it was not long before the car turned towards the desert, and the mountains that lay beyond. After several more minutes the car turned off that road onto a rough and narrow track. It was all very puzzling, and very worrying.
Eventually the narrow track widened and the car stopped at the edge of a bleak airfield. There were several small planes scattered about the tarmac, but one in particular caught Gabrielle’s eye as she peered out of the car windows at them. It was a two-seater, and its single propeller was spinning rapidly, ready for takeoff.
As the driver got out and opened the rear door for her a girl, a black girl who Gabrielle thought was familiar, waved at her, beckoning Gabrielle to join her, dipping down under the wing with a fetching smile lighting up her face.
Then Gabrielle noticed the driver getting back in the limo. ‘Wait,’ she called to him as his door closed, then tapped on his window with her knuckles. ‘What am I doing here? How am I supposed to get back to the hotel? You can’t just leave me here. Please, you can’t.’
But the driver just laughed at her through the tinted glass and reversed the car in readiness to drive back down the track, and then he could not resist a comment at her expense and lowered the window.
‘This car is no hearse,’ he called to her. ‘You just have a nice day now, d’you here?’ And then the car moved forward and he was gone in a cloud of dust, leaving Gabrielle standing there, utterly bewildered.
She shuddered. What did he mean by that? What on earth was going on? Eyes wide with anxiety she turned and looked, questioningly, at the black girl who was walking towards her.
‘Hi, I’m Gina Campbell,’ the girl said warmly. ‘We’ve not spoken before, although of course I’ve seen you around back in Florida. Mr Verity has instructed me to teach you how to fly.’
‘Teach me how to fly?’ Gabrielle was stunned. ‘You are going to teach me how to fly?’ She looked at the little plane. ‘In that thing?’
Gina nodded enthusiastically. ‘And we’ll make it a bit of a sightseeing trip, too.’
‘A sightseeing trip?’ Gabrielle was totally bemused, and felt sick with apprehension. Verity was up to something – she just knew he was. ‘What’s he up to, Gina?’ she could not help but ask.
‘Up to?’ the girl looked genuinely puzzled by the question. ‘He’s not up to anything. He taught me how to fly when he knew I was getting a little bored with things, so I guess he’s being kind enough to do the same for you.
‘And we’ll be flying over the Grand Canyon,’ she went on, her enthusiasm restored, dismissing Gabrielle’s conspiracy theory. ‘Won’t that be something?’
Gabrielle didn’t answer, but followed Gina to the little plane. Maybe her fears were groundless and Verity really did want to give her a change of activity and a change of scenery.
Strapped in the cramped cockpit Gabrielle looked at the bewildering array of instruments on the panel in front of her, but before she had a chance to ask what each one was for the plane started to taxi the short distance towards the runway.
‘Were – were you bought by Verity too?’ she suddenly blurted, unable to suppress the question.
Gina stiffened and looked wistful, her brown eyes looking straight ahead. ‘I don’t know what made my Sonny do it,’ she said. ‘I thought he loved me – would always love me.’
‘Was Sonny your husband?’ asked Gabrielle. ‘Did he sell you?’ But Gina said no more, and the grim set of her jaw told Gabrielle that she was not prepared to say any more.
‘It was the same with me,’ she went on, taking Gina’s silence as confirmation that he was and he had – just like Tom.
Soon they were lifting off the runway and despite her other worries Gabrielle found the takeoff totally exhilarating, and once they were airborne over the desert she began to actually relax and enjoy herself for the first time in months, feeling free, a great weight lifted from her shoulders. In no time they were way out in the rocky, dusty wilds of Nevada, and the small plane was still climbing.
‘Now for the start of your first flying lesson,’ Gina said.
Gabrielle frowned. ‘Can’t I just sit here and enjoy the views?’ she said. ‘I’m not sure that I want to learn how to fly.’
‘I have to follow Mr Verity’s orders,’ said Gina. ‘He wants me to teach you, so that’s what I’m going to do.
‘Now, on the floor there are the pedals,’ Gina started. ‘The front part of the pedals are brakes and the parts nearest to you are the rudders. Press the front of the left-hand pedal very gently.’
Gabrielle did as she was told and immediately the plane turned to the left, its nose dipping slightly. Gabrielle screamed with the shock of the movement, but Gina laughed and righted the plane to a steady course. ‘Look straight ahead,’ she said calmly, pointing. ‘Isn’t that the most magnificent sight you’ve ever seen?’
Trying to steady her breathing and slow her heartbeat, Gabrielle followed Gina’s finger and gasped. It was the Grand Canyon, a spine-tingling wonder.
‘Over two hundred and seventy miles long, and a mile deep,’ supplied Gina, as though she was a tour guide. She pointed over to the west. ‘And over there is the Hoover Dam. Built in nineteen thirty-one… quite an achievement in those days.’
They flew on, neither
of them speaking, the only sound the drone of the little engine, then after a while Gina pointed along the canyon. ‘We’ll go down in a minute and cruise along it,’ she said. The little plane’s engine roared as the girl made it swoop and dip over the rocky terrain, until Gabrielle wasn’t sure whether she still had a stomach.
‘The wheel in front of you is also a control,’ Gina said, recommencing the lesson. ‘Pull it back and the plane goes up, and push it forward and the plane goes down.’
The plane soared upwards as Gabrielle gripped the wheel fiercely. ‘Hey!’ warned Gina. ‘Slowly… gently.’ The plane dipped down and straightened up over the canyon as Gabrielle followed her tutor’s instructions, and she warmed to the task, relaxing and thoroughly enjoying herself.
‘Is that good?’ asked Gina, smiling at her. ‘Are you having fun?’
The plane dipped down into the canyon and Gabrielle, her senses peaked, felt that the sandstone walls were closing in on her, that the rocky floor was coming up to meet the swooping undercarriage – then she froze and Gina screamed as there was a horrible metallic bang and the plane lurched down to the left.
‘No,’ she whispered instinctively, knowing something was wrong as Gina fought the controls, her limited experience not enough to correct the terrifying plummet into the canyon. ‘No…!’
Then she screamed in horror as the left wingtip brushed an outcrop and the plane juddered, although miraculously there appeared to be no immediate damage.
Gina was desperately trying to steady and right the plane, but it was now swooping from side to side, out of control. The left wingtip, suffering from the glancing impact with the outcrop after all, and the door on Gina’s side were wrenched off, the fragile material being torn to shreds and cascading down into the deep ravines that flashed past beneath the stricken plane.
There was a horrifying noise and a bone-wrenching impact, and then Gabrielle realised she was alone in what was left of the plane, which had come to a juddering standstill at a frightening angle, its nose broken and dipped into the ground. There was a strong smell of fuel and Gabrielle knew she had to get out quick.
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