“But it isn’t,” he said. “There are millions of possibilities.”
She supposed he had a point there. As much as she loved playing around with numbers, though, it made her brain hurt to think about sitting still for collectively ten damn hours playing cards. Even if she could play cards.
He was the returning champion for the no-limit hold ’em main event of the World Championship of Poker, and he’d told her it was ten thousand dollars to buy in to the tournament. Ten thousand dollars. More money than she’d ever had at one time in her life. Of course, he would probably turn that into a few million by the end of the week. It was incredible. She thought about Benjamin, who had never had that kind of luck in his life.
“Sometimes I think the only difference between an addict and a professional is the level of skill,” she muttered, and wondered if she had just totally offended him, but he gave a grim chuckle.
“You might be onto something there.”
“Could you quit before you lost everything?” She turned to look at him, keeping her voice low so as not to be overheard by the other first-class passengers.
His dark eyes glinted. “It’s a job. It’s never been a passion. It’s something I’m good at and I like so I stuck with it. Yes, I think I could stop any time.”
That surprised her, and she wondered if he thought that way because he’d never needed to stop like her brother did. “But there’s no reason to, huh?”
Damien shrugged. “There’s no reason to.”
“Will I get to watch you sometimes?”
“You realize it’s televised. You might be spotted in the crowd if anyone from work happens to tune in.”
“Oh. True.”
“I’ve never had someone there watching me that I know. I’m not sure I’d like it.”
“Really? Not even your brothers?”
“No. I tell them to stay away.”
A disturbing thought occurred to her. “You aren’t going to kick me out of the bedroom, are you? I’m not going to be messing with your head just by being around?” God, she was probably driving him nuts already, asking question after question.
“Hell, no. I might need to blow off steam.” A thrill went all the way to her toes, and then the plane bumped onto the runway, startling her. Aw, she’d missed watching the lights. But she would see them up close soon enough.
There were slot machines. In the fucking airport. Welcome to Las Vegas. If that didn’t tell her that she was in a gambling town, she didn’t know what would. Damien collected their luggage from the baggage claim and they descended on an escalator into what looked like a full-fledged casino. Outside at the curb was a line of taxis, SUVs, and limousines . . . and, of course, one of the latter was for them.
She’d ridden in a limo to her high school prom when she and a bunch of friends chipped in to rent one. That was about it. Damien instructed the driver to take them all the way down the Strip so she could get the full effect, and once again Emma kept her nose pressed to the glass as they rode past the Bellagio fountains and the erupting volcano at the Mirage. The Eiffel Tower replica at Paris. People milled everywhere on the streets. Lights glittered. Dreams were made and lives shattered. It was intoxicating. For a moment, she almost understood the appeal.
All the while, Damien let her admire it in peace while he texted and placed calls, apparently to other players who were coming in for the tournament. He’d made plenty of friends; as she eavesdropped on some of his conversations, it sounded as if they had dinner plans for the next four or five days. She wasn’t really looking forward to having to be social—
Her thoughts came to a clattering halt as he pressed against her from behind, his hands roaming up her thin top to cup her breasts through her bra. “Do you know how fucking hot you make me?”
“What am I doing?” she asked innocently, still watching the scenery slip past outside as his fingers tugged her bra cups down and pinched her nipples, making her mouth fall open in a moan. She cast a glance toward the front of the limo; the driver had the glass up.
“You’re breathing, Emma. That’s all it takes.”
Her eyes closed and she didn’t give much of a crap if people could see into this car or not. She wriggled her knees up on the seat, longing for his fingers to trail through the growing wetness under her tight skirt, inviting them to. Oh God, she shouldn’t let him, not in here, but . . .
His fingers remained where they were, torturing her, building the ache in her breasts and in the other places he was neglecting. Emma licked her lips, rolling her hips back so that her ass stuck out, praying he would get the hint. Though she was sure he got it. He simply loved to keep her on the edge until he was ready for her to fall.
“Put that ass out here like that and I’m likely to spank it,” he warned hotly in her ear, but that only doubled her need.
“Please,” she said.
“Bad girl.” He yanked one side of her skirt up, revealing one naked cheek, and gave it a glancing slap that made her bite deep into her bottom lip. The reverberations spread deep into her pussy, teasing her, driving her insane. “Do you like all these people watching you get spanked?”
“They can’t see me,” she insisted.
“Are you sure?”
“I don’t care!”
“Oh, you don’t? What if I pull my cock out and fuck you against the glass? Would you care then?”
He wouldn’t. But oh God, what if he did? Were his hands going to his belt? No, he was pulling her skirt back down. She wanted to cry, she needed him so badly, and he loved so much to torment her. “Damien,” she whimpered, crawling over into his lap. He couldn’t get her hot and leave her like this.
“Hmm?” he asked with cruel nonchalance, staring darkly up at her desperation. She slid a hand between their bodies to stroke him through his pants, finding him fiercely hard. How was he such an expert at hiding the emotional effects of his arousal when she was like a crazy woman? “I need this,” she whispered urgently, undulating against him.
“Where do you need it?”
“My pussy.” A little to the left and she could rub her clit against that rigid length . . . ah, there, but it still wouldn’t be enough. Nothing would be enough unless he took it out and put it in her. He was in no hurry to do so, both his hands gripping the seat on either side of him. Why had he touched her in the first place if he wasn’t ready to play? Damn him. He was playing.
“You can only have it where you want it least.”
Least? There was no such thing. She always wanted him everywhere, all at once. “What if I want you everywhere?”
“You only get one tonight. We’ve already ruled out your pussy. You want it there most.”
“No!”
“Tell me ‘no’ again and you won’t get it anywhere.”
Whimpering, she shoved her face into his chest, fists clenching in the collar of his shirt. He was so mean.
“We’re here,” he said, his voice rumbling through his chest beneath her ear. “Move, doll.”
She did so like a petulant child who wasn’t getting her way, even though she knew what that would probably get her when they got to the room. Her knees were weak and wobbling; her breath had yet to steady, and now she had to try to climb out of this limo like she wasn’t in a wild sexual heat. Damien emerged behind her, as smooth and unflappable as ever. Sometimes she thought she found it within herself to hate him.
The magical ride down Las Vegas Boulevard was over, but the glitz and glamour had just begun. She’d seen Caesar’s Palace in plenty of movies, but nothing prepared her for the grandeur of it when they walked into the lobby. Gold. Gold everywhere. She was sure she looked like an idiot gazing around at it all while Damien checked them in: the fountain in the middle of the gigantic room with its sculptures, the huge murals behind the registration desks—it was all too much for the eye to take in. She was in sensory overload.
And all she had to do was look at him for her brain to short-circuit. She could practically see the tension t
hrumming under his skin, so their interlude in the car hadn’t left him completely unaffected. But his expression was shuttered and she couldn’t get a read on him, if he was angry or displeased with her somehow. If someone had told her on New Year’s Eve that in a few short months she would be in Las Vegas with Damien Larson for his poker tournament, she would have asked them what they were smoking. She might have even asked for a hit. Either way, she would have told them they were fucking high.
As they were heading for the elevators, Emma suddenly and wildly wished for Liz. Her friend could’ve kept her company while he was playing all day, but Liz was back home dog-sitting Bentley for her. She didn’t want to do everything here all by herself, but she couldn’t bug Damien with her neediness right now. He had work to do, and she imagined that no matter what he said, there was a head space he needed to get himself into. Maybe she should back off—
He pinned her against the wall of the elevator as soon as the doors closed. Emma gasped and climbed him, wrapping both legs around his hips and devouring his hungry kisses with her own, meeting his sinuously thrusting tongue with hers. He caught her ass and kissed her like he was already inside her, hot and desperate, and she thrust her hips against his rock-hard cock. His fingers inched closer to the wet, aching emptiness between her legs, and she damn near screamed when the elevator began to slow.
“Fuck,” he growled, letting her feet down to the floor, though she only reluctantly let go of him. A laughing group of glittery college-aged girls rushed into the elevator, nearly choking her with cheap perfume. Emma glared at them murderously as every fucking one of them eyed Damien up and down. If he’d but touched her, she probably would have come, and these bitches ruined it, and if that one big-haired brunette checked out his crotch one more time, she was going to stab her in the eyeballs with her own stiletto.
Mine. Mine. Mine. The possessive rage that rose up in her almost frightened her with its intensity. He slid an arm around her waist as if he sensed it, pulling her close. The elevator stopped after a couple of floors and the girls fluttered out, trilling about a friend who’d better be ready. Emma coughed out a lungful of cloying air, and Damien laughed. When she tried to slide her arms around him and reclaim his mouth, though, he caught her wrists and pinned them to the wall. “Almost there,” he told her, trailing his lips gently down her neck.
She whimpered and tested his grip; it was iron. “I want you.”
“You’ll have me.”
But not where she needed him most, if he held to what he’d told her in the car. Why couldn’t he throw her down in a dark room and fuck her until she couldn’t see anymore? That’s all she wanted.
“If you’re pouting, Emma, you know what I’m going to do,” he murmured against the curve where neck met shoulder. It seemed to be one of his favorite places on her body, where he kissed her when he was being sweet, where he bit her when he was being rough. His teeth barely nipped her there now, and she shuddered.
The elevator eventually slowed, stopped, and opened. He grabbed her under her ass and lifted her as she gave a little shriek, not much caring who saw them or what they thought as he stalked down the hallway with her wrapped around him. This was fucking Vegas.
She gasped as he slammed her hard into a wall so he could fiddle with the key card one-handed, then cranked open the handle and staggered haphazardly inside with her as she laughed. The room was dark except for the city lights beyond massive windows, and she could tell from their width and height that this room was huge. It was the only light Damien needed to find the bed at last.
“Please fuck me, please,” she pleaded when her back met the soft mattress. The tinkling of his belt buckle as he wrenched at it was the sweetest sound she’d ever heard.
“Ask me nicely,” he ground out.
She wasn’t sure how much more nicely she could ask. “Please, I’m so wet, and I want you so much, it hurts.” Tears even pricked her eyes. She spread her legs wider, tilting her hips up for him. “It hurts.”
“Oh, now how can I resist that?” His rough hands reached under her skirt and snatched her thong to the side. “I’ll give you what you need, doll, but you’ll give me what I need later.”
“Yes! Yes, yes, yes, anything, just—” The broad head of his cock split her wide and her words were lost in babbling incoherency at the first thrust, always the one that shut her up, shut her down, made her his. She tensed on him, the pleasure of his invasion too much to bear. “Ohhhhh.”
“You are wet, aren’t you? Open your fucking legs wider, Emma, I can’t get to you.” Even as he gave the order, he pushed down on her knees, making her joints ache, shoving so deep into her she cried out. “Is this it? Is this what you needed?”
“Yes! Can I come?”
“I want you to come so many times you’re hoarse from screaming.”
There were times he didn’t have to tell her twice. This was one of them. As soon as he picked up a hard, merciless rhythm, stroking all the places in her that needed him so desperately, she was gone, ripping at the shirt he still wore and digging her nails in the hard muscle underneath, muscles that flexed with every thrust into her shaking body. He drove her through it, not relenting even when she went limp around him, sobbing when she realized she wasn’t done, wasn’t satisfied, needed more. But at least he was giving it.
“That was fast, baby girl,” he said in her ear.
“Mm-hmm.”
“Do it again.” His hand flattened low on her belly and his thumb began circling her clit, pitching her back to those ecstatic heights too fast; her mind couldn’t catch up with her body. He fucked her like she was a ragdoll and she loved it, living up to her nickname. On her back. On her stomach. Up on her knees. Back to her back, one leg shoved to the sky, one cast carelessly to the side while he buried himself to the hilt and punished her with the force of his thrusts.
“I never can get deep enough in you,” he rasped in her ear. And she could never get him deep enough, even though he bottomed out in her, even though she felt him reshaping her every time he took her. Her pussy fluttered and clenched around him, and he groaned, feeling it. “Come on, baby girl. You want it, take it. Take it.”
“Yes,” she whimpered, the tiny word broken by his relentless drive into her body. There was nowhere to go but into the murky depths below her, pulling her down, threatening to pin her there and drown her. She let him push her, fear and passion making her weak, until she floated somewhere outside of their straining bodies. All she could feel was him, consuming her, burning any resolve she might have left to ashes, leaving her nothing but an empty vessel he could fill with whatever he pleased. It was divine. It was terrifying. Her safe word floated at the edges of her consciousness, her one remaining lifeline that would get him to stop and let her find herself again, but her fourth—fifth?—orgasm roared through her and it flitted away like a butterfly before she could enclose it in her fist. She could hardly feel anymore. She wasn’t herself anymore. Everything was him.
When she finally floated back down to herself, she was in his arms. Her skin tingled all over, little electric zings gradually bringing feeling back into her limbs, and that was good, because she could feel him holding her now, stroking her hair, speaking softly to her.
“There she is,” he murmured as her eyes slid open, dropping a kiss to her forehead. Warmth suffused her. She snuggled closer into him. “I have to be so careful with you.”
Careful? Why? She couldn’t be bothered to ask. This was so nice, like being a child again, held and comforted and taken care of. He even had the blanket pulled around her, rocking her slightly. “Can you speak to me?” he asked, tipping her chin up a little. It was still so dark, but she managed to find his eyes because the Vegas lights were glinting in them. Yes, yes, that’s where she was. Vegas. Hotel. Big windows.
“Hi,” she said, and he chuckled, letting her go back to her warm, floaty place to try to stitch together the fractured pieces of herself. But he kept talking, bringing her back to him every time sh
e tried to drift away. Kept touching her, massaging her hands and arms and legs and even her feet.
She could feel her heart beating again, though surely it had never stopped or she wouldn’t be here. Her lungs expanded with air. She opened her eyes and managed to keep them that way, staring at the darkness around her and his darker shadow above. “Damien?”
“Easy. Don’t try to sit up yet.”
She lifted a hand to her head. “God, what did you do to me?” Had she passed out? Had the man actually fucked her to unconsciousness?
“You went far, far away, sweetie. Are you thirsty? You do need to drink. Don’t move, I’ll sit you up.”
She let herself be maneuvered onto a mountain of pillows, and only then did he go and turn on a dim lamp across the room so that she wasn’t blinded by sudden bright light. Resting with her eyes closed, she licked her dry lips and waited for him to bring her a glass of water, only opening them again when she felt his weight settle on the bed beside her. He held the glass to her lips, and she drank, wanting to gulp it though he only allowed her sips. Her arms felt too heavy to move.
Once the glass was empty, he set it aside and took her hand, just looking at her for a moment. “Remember when I explained about no longer being able to make decisions about your safety?”
“Yes.” It seemed like forever ago, even though it had only been around a week.
“I have to be diligent about recognizing it and pulling you back. But I’ve never had it happen so fast.”
He didn’t sound happy about it. She thought she understood why that was. “Could it be because I’m . . .” Emma drew a deep breath, terror and elation warring for dominance in her chest. “Because I’m having feelings for you?”
Any other time, any other place, she might not have been able to force those words out. But here, far away from home and everything else she knew, there was no room for anything but brutal honesty. He’d told her once that there was no room for denial either. And so the words came effortlessly, as naturally as breathing or the next beat of her heart.
The most horrifying thing was that she knew he would give that honesty back to her.