I let out a small sigh and glanced around the table. It wasn’t the same without her here.
I was doing my best to keep my mind on the game, but it was tough when I knew that Angel was sleeping only a few hundred feet away. She would wake up and find me gone. I mean, she was far from the first woman who I’d left to wake up solo after we spent a night of hot sex together, but this time I wasn’t going it out of obliviousness or callousness. I was doing this because I was pretty sure that if I didn’t put some space between us, we were going to fall into something that neither of us wanted.
I forced myself to pay attention to the cards in my hand. Come on. I could still win this. I was doing okay today, but not as well as I had done the last time I was in. I was annoyed, distracted, my brain imprinted with the image of Angel’s bare leg dangling out of the side of the bed when I left her.
“You didn’t bring your eye candy today,” one of my fellow players had remarked. I’d shot him a look, but he hadn’t taken the hint.
“She dump you already? Tell her that I’ll double your price,” he flashed me a grin, and I found myself unable to keep my cool.
“You couldn’t come close to affording her,” I snarled, my voice lower and more threatening than I intended it to be. But it did the job. He backed off, and I didn’t hear a word about Angel the rest of the time I was there. I was playing on autopilot, and my brain kept on drifting back to her.
How long had she been hiding away in my head without me knowing about it? All I could be sure of was that as soon as I had her tied up like that, I couldn’t hold myself back. I had to have her. At first, I assumed it was some kind of twisted retribution for the times she’d had me in similar cuffs, but it soon became clear that this was so much more than that. I wanted it to be a catharsis, a reminder to her of who was in charge that we could both remember, but I lost myself to her. She tasted intoxicating: sweet and musty, a light scent that clung to my skin even as I showered in an attempt to rid myself of it—and when I entered her and felt her pussy flexing to accommodate my cock, it was like this is what I had been waiting for all along. I hadn’t given her much thought—or, at least I hadn’t—before I had seen her in this place and purchased her a few days ago, but I was being reminded with every passing second that Angel wasn’t just some asshole cop who wouldn’t leave me alone. She was brave, smart, strong, and I was fucking obsessed with her. I had to have her. I had to make her mine. And the only way I knew how to do that was to tie her to that chair and fuck her till she came so hard she could only manage a tiny gasp of pleasure.
“Breaker?” A voice snapped me from my reverie, and I looked up.
“You want another drink?” One of the waitresses who’d been all over me the night I saw Angel again had been hovering since I walked through the door, allowing her body to brush up past me whenever she did the rounds. I shrugged, downing the scotch that had been placed in front of me, on the house, a few minutes earlier.
“Go for it.”
I didn’t usually drink this heavily when I was playing, but I needed something, anything, to get my mind off the woman who wouldn’t get out of my head. Usually, I’d be happy to have slipped out of there without her noticing and would already be wondering what that waitress looked like without her panties on, but I could barely offer her a second glance. Angel, Angel, Angel. An ironic name, considering the things she liked me to do to her.
Another scotch appeared in front of me a few seconds later, and I didn’t bother glancing up as I offered my thanks to the chick who brought it to me until I noticed that everyone else around the table seemed to have tensed up notably. I twisted my head around, confused, until I found myself face–to–face with Thaddeus Bane. My stomach dropped. Oh, crap. I had only come back here today because I’d been invited and I knew it was a test of my mettle, but I hadn’t expected Thaddeus to grace me with his presence just like that.
“Good to see you again, Breaker,” he remarked, my name sounding like dirt on his tongue. I managed a deep breath and I nod in response.
“Could we get a little privacy?” Thad asked, glancing around the table. Everyone else scattered, leaving their drinks and their winnings just sitting there, abandoned. I couldn’t help but smirk at their reactions.
“What’s so funny?” Thad asked as he took a seat opposite me.
“Just that they’re all so scared of you,” I replied, forcing myself to meet his gaze. With a guy like Thad, you couldn’t back down. I had to make myself known, right here, right now. That was the only way to play this game.
“And you’re not?” He asked coolly. I shook my head.
“Should I be?”
Thaddeus didn’t reply, but he didn’t break my gaze, either. He was a big guy, wide, with a shaved head that gleamed dully in the low light around us. His suit was expensive, but his tie wasn’t. It looked old, as though it came from family. I wondered whose it was and why he wore it, but knew this was hardly the time for family reminiscing.
“I see you haven’t brought that bitch with you,” he remarked, throwing off the remark so casually that I had to fight the urge to clench my fists. I hated hearing the way the people here talked about her, like she was a thing, like she didn’t even deserve a name or a pronoun. I wondered if he was trying to figure out whether or not she was alive. He didn’t seem surprised to see me, but perhaps he thought I’d thrown her under the bus instead.
“Yeah, she’s passed out upstairs,” I flashed him a grin. “Guess I wore her out.”
“Impressive,” he cocked his eyebrow. “I heard there was some trouble over at your place last night.”
“There was a break–in,” I replied, hackles raised. Both of us were dancing around the point, and I didn’t want to be the one to call him out on it.
“Shame,” he shot back calmly. “Bad neighborhood, though. I guess that’s what you can expect.”
“I guess so,” I nodded glancing down at my cards where I’d laid them on them table.
“Both of you were alright, though?” He confirmed, running a hand over his cropped hair.
“Yeah, both of us were fine,” I nodded, daring him to push me any further on the subject. Instead, he asked something that took me by surprise.
“Angel’s her name, right?”
“Yeah,” I nodded. “Why?”
“I was doing a bit of research into her,” he shrugged. “Thought the name sounded familiar. It’s not the first dealings her family have had with us, you know.”
“What do you mean?” I wrinkled up my nose. I would have heard about it if Angel had been tied to this lot before, because I would have used it to try and ruin her career, of course. This was news to me.
“Her father was a cop too,” Thad went on, and he eyed me interestedly as he recounted the story. I stayed quiet, letting him continue. “He worked with the undercover unit so he was away from home a lot, but everyone loved his daughter. You can find that out from anyone he worked with. They’ll tell you.”
“What happened to him?” I noticed that he was referring to Angel’s father in the past tense.
“He’s dead. Died on the way to her ballet rehearsal.” The son of a bitch was grinning as he said the cold words. My teeth were on edge.
“How?”
“Car accident.” A small smile played at the corner of his lips, as though he was amused by the story his was recounting. There was a small glint in his eye, and I knew that he wasn’t telling me this just because.
I swallowed heavily, trying to figure out what his game plan was here.
“Richard Greer, taken too soon,” he shook his head. “They say that’s why she became a cop, you know.”
“Why?”
“Because she sure as shit wasn’t going to be a ballet dancer after that!” He laughed, as if delivering the punchline to a fantastic joke. I clasped my hands in front of me, around my drink, and took a sip. I needed to get my head on straight, need to figure out what he was playing at by telling me all of this. I had no idea what the end–game was here, but it had to be something. Thaddeus Bane hadn’t done something just for the fun of it without a twenty–something girl in his bed for at least a decade, that was for certain.
He paused for a moment, his tongue darting out to moisten his lips as he waited for me to follow up with another question. I had no idea what to say next. I was still trying to get my head around this situation in the first place.
“I know who killed him,” Thad spread his hands wide as he spoke, shuffling some of the cards that had been abandoned on the table.
“What the fuck? I thought you said he died in a car accident?” I furrowed my brow at once.
“He did,” Thad confirmed, his voice soothing. “But I know why.”
“Why?” I leaned forward at once, my heart beating out of my chest. I didn’t know why he was telling me this, but I had to know more. Had to know now. Maybe that was why Angel didn’t run when I told her about Thaddeus, and that I wanted to bring him down–maybe she saw a chance to do something her father hadn’t, a way to make him proud despite his absence.
Thaddeus leaned back and clasped his hands behind his head. He looked as if he was in his element, taking total control of the situation and not giving much of a damn about my reaction or my feelings on the matter.
“How much are you willing to gamble for it?” His voice was cool and smooth. I stared at him for a moment, blinking.
“What the fuck are you talking about?” I snapped. The words came out harsher that I intended them to, and Thad’s face flashed with annoyance briefly at my insolence before returning to its previous state of cat–like satisfaction.
“You heard me,” Thad replied. “And I’m not in the habit of repeating myself.”
“For the truth about who killed her father?” I raised my eyebrows. “I’m afraid I’m not that invested in her.”
“Think about the cash you could get from the cops if you delivered the truth about one of their own, though,” he pointed out. I would let him talk himself into this corner, and then I could find out what he was he wanted from me.
“I suppose…” I trailed off, as though I was considering the offer. “You did give me Angel, and I’ve had, uh, a lot of fun with her since she arrived.”
“Good,” he grinned widely. “Then you agree.”
“Tell me what you want,” I shrugged. Maybe he wanted me to work at the club, a full–time card shark? Maybe it was just cash he wanted, or the opportunity to get rid of me for good. Whatever I was expecting out of his mouth, it wasn’t what actually came out next. He sat back in his seat and stared at me, his eyes blazing with satisfaction, and finally delivered the killer blow.
“I want a night with Angel. No questions asked, no holds barred. And then you’ll get what you want.”