Page 7 of Gambler's Conceit
“You heard me.” He grinds his heel deeper into my balls, and I wince in pain even as my hips jerk in anticipation of more. “Why were you out there?”
“I thought it was a nice day for a walk,” I say glibly, only to be rewarded with the same discomfort. “I went…” I’d run through a story in the shower, but it had seemed more believable in my thoughts. Not so much now. “I went on vacation with a friend. We had a fight.” I try to shrug.
“Your friend left you to potentially die out in the desert?” Caleb lets out a small laugh. “You need better friends.”
“I really do,” I agree, and that part is true, at least. “I won’t be inviting him to my next birthday party.”
“Was it your birthday? Maybe we should celebrate.” Caleb finally relents and takes his foot away. He grabs my balls with his hand, but this time he only gently rolls them in his hand, soothing the pain he’d caused.
Sure. It can be my birthday.
I’d walked away from my old life—literally—and I’d been hoping to be reborn into something new… not to find more of the same.
My new date of birth might as well be the day I lost my freedom all over again.
“Yeah,” I say, biting my bottom lip as I watch him over my shoulder. “Any celebration has to be better than that.”
I’m such a liar.
“I’ll comp you a whole birthday vacation.” Caleb’s thumb pushes against my hole. “Although I suppose it’s not really comped if you’re paying me in sex.”
I bite my bottom lip as his thumb shoves inside. I almost tell him I wouldn’t know, that I’ve never been paid for sex before, but he’ll clock that for the lie it is. “You’re overpaying.”
“Or you’ve been undervaluing yourself.” He lazily turns his thumb inside me, just a hint of what’s to come. “Aren’t you lucky that I found you.”
No.
“I am,” I purr, but I consider for a second before asking, “What comes with a birthday vacation, anyway? You own a casino. Do I get free slots? Some gambling chips?”
I’ve never been to a casino before, but it can’t be that hard to win something. If I can earn some money, I can get the fuck out of here.
“It depends on how much you’re paying to stay here.” Caleb withdraws his thumb and finally gets off his chair to press his cock to my hole. “How muchareyou paying? Should I go bare?”
Not unless you want to risk getting diseased by a fucked-out whore,I almost say, biting my tongue on the words at the last second. “If that’s what you want, sure,” I tell him. It’s not like it matters to me.
Caleb pinches my ass hard enough to make me yelp. “I run a casino. I’m not dumb enough to gamble.” He gets up and moves to the nearby nightstand to grab condoms and lube. He stops in front of me on the way back, and I look up to see him scowling at me.
“I thought the house always wins,” I say, watching him.
“There are some games you don’t come out on top of,” he says. “Don’t be stupid.”
Maybe if I’d had a fucking choice about what happened with my body, I wouldn’t have beenstupid. “Sorry I ruined your fantasy,” I tell him flippantly.
He grabs my arm and forces me onto my feet, then roughly shoves me onto the bed.
I don’t know why he’s suddenly so mad, but he’s not the first angry guy to fuck me—and I doubt he’ll be the last. He’ll probably let his other men have me, too, especially now that he knows I’m easy and careless, and I doubt they’ll be as nice as Caleb was pretending to be.
I face-plant on the bed, squirming until my ass is up in the air, easily accessible to him once more. “What should I call you, anyway?” I ask, turning my head to the side on the soft sheet beneath my cheek. “Sir? Boss? Daddy?”
“How about ‘Master’?” Caleb suggests as he rolls the condom onto himself.
My blood runs cold. He’s one of those, then. A sadist, a control freak, and everything else on a little menu that promisesnothing but pain and degradation. “Sure,” I purr, hiding my distaste—and the slight, traitorous thrum of arousal that runs through me. “Anything for you, Master.”
Caleb groans, and next thing I know he’s thrusting two lubed up fingers inside me. “Pretty slut,” he whispers. “I assume you know how to relax into it, because this is all I’m giving you.”
I groan, a sound that should be soft but comes out far too ragged, far too loud in this room. My cock has started to plump up, which is probably a good thing since it’ll make this easier.
But I don’t think I like how easily his casual, careless words affect me. The familiarity of them shouldn’t be appealing—shouldn’t bearousing—but something about the way he says them…