Every tremble and quickened breath he feels and hears.
His hand sweeps across my shoulder, along the nape of my neck, taking my hair with it and setting it on my opposite shoulder. His lips trail up my now exposed neck. “Should we gamble a little before dinner?”
I’m ready to kill him.
“Whatever you want.” My voice is embarrassingly unsteady.
He grins against me, his tongue coming out for a swipe and my nipples tighten painfully. I glance down, noticing how they went from barely noticeable to the turkey is done.
“It’s torture, isn’t it? Wanting something you can’t have,” he murmurs against me.
A shiver runs up my spine as his eyes rove up and down my body with so much heat I practically ignite into a ball of flames right here in the casino.
“I knew you were punishing me,” I accuse.
“No sweetheart. This is just foreplay. The punishment comes later.”
Oh boy.
“What’s your game?” he asks, morphing back into a carefree version of himself, his arm panned out before us. He’s serious with this.
I narrow my eyes. “I think that’s my question right now. What are you doing?”
“Enjoying the evening with you. Are you not having a pleasurable time?” Rough knuckles swipe down my arm, his thumb coming out to graze the side of my breast.
“I hate you.”
He chuckles, guiding me over to the main casino floor that is teaming with action. The lighting is muted, soft almost, aiming for luxury instead of gaudy. Even the slots aren’t the typically loud, clanging ones.
“Craps? Blackjack? Roulette?”
“Carter?”
“Hmmm. Not much of a gambler, then? Too afraid to take a chance and lose? Here.” He slides his wallet out of his back pocket and removes a stack of bills, all hundreds. “Go pick one. Place a bet. Then we’ll have dinner and talk.”
I stare at the wad of cash in his hand. He has to be joking.
“I can’t… no. I can’t do that.”
“Sure, you can. It’s just money.”
I stare into his eyes and then around the room.
“I’ve never done this before.”
“What’s your favorite number?”
I lick my lips, my heart rate jumping even higher as he stands before me, staring down into my eyes. “Eight.”
“Eight,” he parrots. “Eight it is.” Taking my hand, he walks me toward a roulette table, just as the dealer is getting ready to drop the white ball onto the moving wheel. Players are sliding different colored chips around, stacking them on various numbers.
“Carter. We can’t do this. This is crazy. No one ever wins these things. The odds are like…”
“Thirty-seven to one,” Carter supplies. “I know. But sometimes it’s worth playing even if the odds seem stacked against you. Would you rather go with black or red instead of a number? Feels like playing it safe to me, but it’s your call.”
“I…”
Carter takes my hand and thrusts the money into it. “It’s yours, Grace, and I don’t care if we win more or lose it all. Take a risk.”
Take a risk. Not something I’m particularly good at.
“Okay.” With the money crunched in my hand, I place it down on the green felt.
The dealer splays it out, counting the bills. “Changing out twelve hundred dollars.” Twelve hundred dollars?!
Suddenly a pile of chips are dropped before me, and I move quickly as the ball spins around the wheel a mile a minute, placing half the stack on eight and the other on red, hoping this will improve our odds and we’ll win something.
“No more bets,” the dealer calls out and my heart thunders in my chest. Never in my life have I been this reckless. Not with money or anything else. My parents had plenty of money, but I never felt like any of it was mine. I was always their burden. The second I hit eighteen, they were done with me, never looking back.
I know what Carter is worth. I mean, at least what their family is worth—they’re twelfth on Forbes’ list of wealthiest people in the world. The Abbot-Fritzes are insanely wealthy. Mega billionaires. But I never think of them that way. Oliver has always been Oliver and, well, Carter has always been his older brother or my attending or now my…
He steps in behind me, pressing my body back into his. Into his still hard dick that lines up so perfectly with the crease of my ass I’d moan right here if I wasn’t so goddamn nervous.
“I can’t watch.”
“Open your eyes and watch,” Carter demands, his cheek resting beside mine. “This is how I feel every time I’m with you. Heart racing, palms sweaty. You’re a bet I never know if I’ll win or lose. You push me well past my comfort zone, nearly to the point of pain. You drive me mad. Terrify me to no end. And no matter what, I always say and do the wrong thing with you. But you’re a high, Grace. A fucking high. A risk worth taking over and over again.”
Jesus. This man. “Carter.”
“I want you. I want our baby. I want it all. None of this life is worth anything to me if I don’t have you. Take the risk with me, Grace. Stay. No more running. Let’s stack the odds in our favor. I promise it’ll be worth the gamble.”
Just then the ball bounces, clicking and clacking along the numbers, jumping from one to the next. I tense up, my teeth clenching down on my bottom lip. A zing of excitement catapults through me just as the ball lands.
“Red thirty-six,” the dealer calls out and I jump up and down with a squeal, spinning around in his arms and throwing mine around his neck.
“We won. Thank God.” I laugh into him. “I was scared out of my mind.”
“But you did it anyway and look how it turned out. You won.”
I blink up at him, my heart growing so full. “I won.” I won with him.
He smirks like Satan himself. “You got lucky with that, Doctor. Don’t think that’s how the rest of the night will go for you.”
34
Last night I reached my boiling point with Grace. I couldn’t talk to her when she walked through that door. I saw it in her eyes. The fight she was ready to throw down but after spending too much time with her ignoring me, pushing me away, maintaining a distance that should never be between us in the first place. Yeah. I was done.
She fights her feelings for me—so goddamn terrified I’ll be another mistake, another heartache she has to survive when at this point, I think it’s pretty damn clear I won’t be.
She took me by surprise coming home last night, but it was too soon and too late. I couldn’t stay up all night talking and fighting with her. She needed rest, and truth be told, so did I. Words aren’t going to do it with her. I could tell her I love her. Tell her I’m in this with her. But a woman who has heard all of those things before only for them to turn out to be a lie, needs to be shown that this time, it’s real and it’s forever.
No more dancing around. No more playing games. No more pretending.
“Your table is right this way, Dr. Fritz,” the hostess says, her eyes blatantly eating me up as she shows us to the back of the restaurant.
“Thank you.”
Grace’s hand in mine tightens and I give her a squeeze before helping her into her chair.