The Nightlife: Las Vegas (The Nightlife Series) (9 page)

He picked Ana’s brain to find
all her likes and dislikes of music and films.  They chatted about things that
couples usually knew about one another long before making the commitments they
had already made.

“How would you like to
accompany me to the casino after dinner?”  He invited her, knowing full well
she would accompany him to the ends of the earth if asked.

“Wherever you go, I go.  The
casino sounds good to me.”

She only had eyes for him.  Eyes
filled with a hero-worship kind of adoration.  He glanced at Kramer.  The man’s
obsession with Michelle paled in comparison to Anastasia’s fixation on him. 
Ana had committed her body and soul to his safe-keeping.  He hoped he’d be up
to the task of keeping it safe.

“And when will we make it
back to the room?”  Ana reached down between his legs, her eyes glittering with
mischief as she sent him vivid images of her mouth swallowing his cock whole. 
She wanted to serve him every day of her life, in any way she could.  The girl
radiated devotion.

Michelle distracted his focus
from Ana with her blatant proposal to Kramer.  “Would you like to see me later
this evening for a
French
lesson?”

Kramer smiled wide.  Looking to
Aaron he asked, “Do you mind if I steal her away for a little while?”

Michelle zapped him with a
psychic tag. 
“You do not mind!”

After a smirk in her
direction and a wink, he addressed Kramer.  “Of course not.  I don’t mind at
all.”

The predator wanted to reach
across the table and peel the skin off Kramer’s grinning skull.

Michelle winked back at
Aaron.  “My French lessons are one thousand per hour with a two hour minimum. 
D’accord
?”

Kramer noted Aaron’s
non-chalant glance at Michelle.  Obviously she offered
French lessons
regularly.

“Yes I think that would work
for me.  Why don’t we meet back here in an hour?”

Michelle smiled brightly and
reached across to touch Kramer’s thigh as she pecked him on the cheek
exclaiming, “
Voilà!
 How exciting!”

Anastasia finally caught on
to the situation.  She leaned into Aaron whispering.  “Michelle’s gonna give
this guy a coronary.  She’ll fuck him to death.”

He whispered back.  “One can
only hope.”

He decided to keep a very close
eye on Kramer and Michelle.  He didn’t trust Kramer.  He just didn’t know why––yet.

* * * *

Chapter 9

“I don’t trust him, there’s
something going on.  I haven’t figured it out yet, but he’s hiding something,
and it bugs me.  I don’t want you alone with him for more than an hour.”  Aaron
cautioned Michelle in their hotel room as she prepared to meet Kramer.

“
C’est Mignon
, that is so cute.  Is so sweet when you worry!”  She
kissed him on the lips cupping his face with her hands.  “I will be fine.  Don’t
worry.  And what can he hide from you?”

“I felt something there, but
he’s slippery.  He was too heavily focused on you.  The man has a dark side.  Please
be careful.”

Michelle smiled and patted
Aaron’s cheek affectionately.  “They all have a dark side, but not as dark as
mine.”  She grinned, a hint of fang showing.

Anastasia winked at Michelle.
 “I could tell he was dangerous, not like you and Aaron, but if there’s
anything I know well, its predatory men.  I’ve got a lot of experience with that,
and I know one when I see one.  Kramer’s a predator, a very slick predator.”

“Men who play with me learn
the hard way.  I am not a toy.”  Michelle winked back at Ana.

He kissed Ana on the cheek, proud
of her for trying to talk sense to Michelle.  He considered another round in
bed.  She looked so damn sexy in her new dress, and she kept touching him,
running her hands all over him.

“You want me.”  Ana rubbed on
the bulge of his crotch, picturing in her mind the wicked things she wanted to
do with it.

He smiled.  She had learned
to play the game.  She knew full well he read the imagery straight from her
thoughts.

“Would you have me beg for
it?”  She got down on her knees and unzipped his fly, running her tongue across
her lips and teeth.

His cock stiffened
immediately.  She played this game a little too well.

He cleared his throat. “We
better wait.  I know you’re still sore.  You need time to recover.  You’re
tempting me, but you can’t hide the truth.”

He watched her as she tried
her best to suppress that depraved need welling up.  She’d have to wait a
little longer to be punished.  Averting her eyes, she tried to direct her
thoughts towards something else.

“I’m not hiding.”

* * * *

Michelle thought it best to
make her escape while Aaron played with his new pet.  He’d been crowding her
lately.  His protective nature could be stifling at times.  She had almost
ceased attending her regular
dates
since they arrived in Vegas.  She itched
to play with someone new.  Kramer’s perverse nature fit nicely with her needs.

“I’m so very hungry.  I need
to feed.  Kramer will have a very good time tonight.  I don’t want to wait
another minute.  I send you a text when I’m finished.  Don’t worry.”  With that
she exited, no chance for further warnings and attempts at changing her mind.

When they met at the entrance
to the restaurant, she studied Kramer closely.  No hints of violence colored
his aura.  He showed anticipation.  She pleased him by arriving on time.  He
had a healthy measure of desire and some possessiveness, like a man preparing
to test drive an exotic sports car.  All these things were fairly typical.  She
saw nothing out of the ordinary to be concerned about.

While Kramer’s aura leaked a
little corruption, sexual perversion, lust and greed, these traits were normal
among her clientele.  This kind of man could afford and was happy to pay for
her attentions––
at her price
.  He appeared no more dangerous than any of
the wealthy customers she
dated
in New York.

* * * *

Chapter 10

Aaron and Anastasia observed
the roulette table as it spun, the little white ball bouncing until it randomly
found its notch on black nineteen.  They watched the wheel turn over and over
and over again.  The gamblers placed their bets of stacked chips on various
numbers.

“See … they bet on the big
payout, the eight to one or seventeen to one. That’s a fool’s game.  You can’t
beat the house.  The smart game is to play with the flow of probabilities and
plan to lose three out of five bets,” he whispered into Ana’s ear.

“But how can you win if you’re
losing all the time?”  Ana puzzled.

“It’s your money management
and betting strategy that makes the probability of winning much higher.  You
bet on the same color all the time.  When you lose, keep doubling the next bet
until you win.

Her brow furrowed in
confusion.  He explained further.  “Look at the bar tracking all the bets.”  He
pointed to a vertical score bar that showed the last 20 spins of the wheel by
color and number.  “See how the red and black goes in strings of no more than
two or three in a row?  If you bet all one color, you will always win your
money back by the fourth or fifth bet.  This strategy has a ninety two percent
probability of winning.”

He demonstrated by betting
fifty on black, and the ball hit red.  He lost.  He winked at Ana and put down
a hundred in chips for another bet on black.  The stubborn little white ball
landed on red yet again.

He was unperturbed.  “Watch.” 
Putting down two hundred in chips on the same color, he won four hundred when
the little white ball finally landed on black.

He stepped away from the table
with his earnings.  “Did you count how much I lost?”

She did the math in her head
quickly and blurted out, “Three hundred fifty.”

“And how much did I win?”

“Four hundred.”

“I won fifty.  The rest was a
recoup of losses.  Each time I bet I’m betting double to regain my loss, but
the initial bet is my actual gain, fifty dollars.”

“Oookaay.”  She accepted what
he said, but was still slightly confused.

“Come on, I’ll show you how it
works with a card game.  It’s basically the same.”  He led her over to the
Baccarat tables.

“There’s only two ways to bet
in Baccarat, it’s a binary game, just like betting red or black in roulette. 
Here you bet on the
player
or the
bank
, a fifty-fifty chance of
winning.  Same exact strategy applies.”

She looked to Aaron
beseechingly, “Oh please, can I try?  That sounds so fun!”

He could never deny her.  She
held his heart strings within her smile, tugging on them with her enthusiasm.

“How about we start out with
$500?  That’s a good conservative first bet.” 

He smirked as her eyes popped
out in surprise.  He enjoyed challenging her delicate sensibilities about
money.

He sat down with her at the
table with a wink of assurance and turned to the dealer.  “What’s the maximum
bet?”

“Ten thousand.”

“Good.  Here, start with
this, and pick a side.”  He pushed five hundred dollar chips at Ana.

Ana placed her chips on
player
and promptly lost the hand to
bank
.  She glanced at him nervously,
instantly wondering if he would beat her when they returned to the hotel room. 
He smiled reassuringly and set another ten, hundred dollar chips on the table
with a single word, “Again.”

She made a second bet of a
thousand dollars on
player
, and lost to the
bank
again.  She looked
up at him with fear in her eyes and a tremble in her lower lip.  She just knew
he would hit her for losing all this money, they always did.  She’d been beaten
several times for losing-spending someone else’s money, but never as much as
$1500 at once.  It was
a lot
of money to her.

Aaron put his hand on her
shoulder calmly.  “Its fine, don’t worry.  You can do this.  One more time.” 
He dropped four, five hundred dollar chips in front of Ana and gestured for her
to continue.

Her hand trembled as she
pushed the chips forward to the
player
side of the bet for a third go
round.  The
player
won this time paying Ana four thousand dollars.  The
dealer asked, “How would you like that?”

Ana stammered, “Um … hundreds
I guess.”

As soon as the dealer slid
the chips at her, she scooped up her money and stood up quickly, ‘Thanks.”  She
backed away from the table with a massive sense of relief.  He took her into
his arms trying to calm her down.  She was almost hyperventilating.

“Oh my god!” she whispered in
his ear.

“Its fine, relax, you won. 
See I told you so.”

“Oh god I was so scared!” 
She looked wide-eyed, clinging to his arm as they walked away.

“It can be kinda intense when
you’re throwing around that much money.  We’ll stick with smaller bets next
time.”

He stopped and turned to
her.  He pulled her chin up forcing her to look him in the eyes.

“Ana, I know what you were
thinking.  Lets get something straight here, I will never ever hit you.  You
have to trust me when I say that.  I know you’ve been with men who hurt you,
but I’m not one of them.”

As he spoke he recalled how
he’d hurt her the night before, inadvertently.  “I may be a little rough in
bed, but I’m not trying to hurt you.  You understand?”

She nodded.  He clearly saw
the vivid memories in her mind, of those times before when she’d been
irresponsible with money.  She fought against the fear.  Blended into the mix
was another emotion she tried her best to hide, anticipation.  She expected to
be abused.  She tried to swallow down her depraved desires and think of
something else.

“I kinda have a way of
getting into trouble with men, especially with money.”

“That’s like saying I kinda
have a thing for drinking your blood.  You are the master of understatement
Ana.”

“I think there’s a target painted
on my face or something.  Especially here on my cheek, they always get me right
there.”  She touched her fingers to her right cheek.

He covered her fingers with
his own and pulled her hand away to kiss her cheek.  “All better now?”

Smiling brightly with wet
unshed tears she nodded yes.

“Okay.  Now it’s my turn. 
Let’s go play some poker.”

Her dirty little mind
immediately recalled the moment she’d helped to guide his cock up inside her
from behind, a vivid memory from last night.  She had a different kind of
poker
on the brain.