I make my way across the casino and head straight for the blackjack table. When I spot her, I stop a few steps back and watch her while she plays. She’s counting cards as she laughs with the table, everyone charmed by her. Her slow sweet accent seems to pull everyone in.
She keeps coming back here around every three days or so. Maybe she thinks the Golden Peacock is an easy mark, and letting her win hundreds of thousands of dollars. In truth, I’ve been on to her from the very beginning, I just didn’t care. I wanted her coming back, and I didn’t care what it cost me as she stole from my casino. Furthermore, I wanted her to be comfortable and not to feel the need to have to bring in a bank roll to hide behind, because that’s what she’d been doing that first night. I know if I see her on another man’s arm I might lose it. My obsession has grown too much now. I already see her as mine.
She plays the part of a woman who doesn’t really know what she’s doing while a high roller pays for her chips as she starts to rob us. The high roller has no idea what she’s up to. She’s probably charmed him, and he’d eaten up the idea of a night on the town with her. I could understand that, too. There wasn’t much I wouldn’t do to get close to her. For example, that night, and every night since, I made sure she went home alone. Which, oddly enough, was a room at a casino.
I had her followed that first night, and since then all I can tell is she seems to jump from hotel to hotel. I’d finally gotten her to stay here as I had a casino host offer her a suite. I had no idea how long she planned to stay, but I’d already worked out that little kink after the first week of seeing her. She had this habit of ditching her cellphone every forty-eight hours. I’d tracked one only to have it end up in a trash can. I quickly learned where she had been getting new ones. Always the same store.
I own two casinos, seven nightclubs, and God knows how many fucking restaurants, but this was my first cell store. I bought it, placing one of my own security team members at the counter, and every new phone she got had a little bonus just for me. Like I said, I already knew she was on the casino floor before Dawson walked into my office because I always knew where she was. Always.
The older gentleman on the other side of the table says something to her, making her throw her head back and laugh. Her thick blonde curls bounce with the movement. I’ve lived in Vegas my whole life. Beautiful women are everywhere. You can’t turn around without running into one, even more so when you’re as rich as I am. But now, well into my forties, women don’t seem to hold the same appeal they used to.
She’s different. She doesn’t look like any of them. She has a beauty of her own, and it’s one I’ve never seen before. Her body is lush and full of life just like her. I want to pull her curvy softness to my body and make her give me that big laugh. Feel it run through my body as her warmth molds into me. Everything about her is full. Like you could grab onto any part of her and dig in.
She’s young, too young for me. She’s barely old enough to be in the casino. I’d told myself that was why I should stay away from her. But if she wants to play with the big boys and steal from my casino, she’ll have to deal with me.
It feels like she’s woken me up from a haze I hadn’t realized I’d fallen into. I don’t know what her big plan is, but this time she might have bitten off more than she can chew. She may have been able to ditch other men easily after getting what she wanted from them, but that wouldn’t be the case with me. I’m going to lock myself so deep into her she’ll never escape.
Maybe it has something to do with the fact that everyone around me is falling in love. I’d never really thought of having a woman of my own, but now it feels like my whole body needs it. Aches for her.
It’s an ache so deep it’s starting to feel like it has no bottom to it. That all these years I’d spent building this life and working my way to the top would mean nothing if I couldn’t have her.
I stay rooted in my spot as I watch her work. Winning hand after hand after hand.
As if she feels my stare, she turns slightly, her eyes meeting mine. We both just look at one another, neither of us making another move. Her eyes roam over me like she’s sizing me up. I’ve always tried to make sure she never sees me, but time is up. I’m claiming what I want.
She could spend her days counting cards in my casino all she wants. As long as she spends her nights under me as she begs me to take her, begs me to make her mine.
The last thought knocks the air out of my lungs. I want her to be mine. Not just for a night; a night would never be enough. I haven’t even touched her and I know I’ll never get enough. There will be no sating my need for her.
She bites her lip as her eyes meet mine. I bet I was the one thing she didn’t count on.
2
Peaches
Stretching the smile bigger, I think about how all those cotillion lessons weren’t a complete waste.