The Poker King Returns novel · Chapter 3 of 24

Chapter 3: Heads Up

At 3 am Pamela plays Cade heads up in the closed card room and the game ends on the felt; at dawn the Wren's biggest regulars cancel.

He did not touch the deck.

"Not here," Cade said. "A real table."

At three in the morning the Wren was dark except for the green lamps over the poker room.

Bea had sent the last drunk home at two and locked the front doors without asking me a single question.

She had only put a hand on my arm and said, "Go easy on the boy, kid. Or don't."

Now the room smelled like old felt and spilled whiskey.

Six tables stood in rows, covered in green cloth gone pale at the edges where thousands of elbows had rested.

Cade took the dealer's seat at table one, and I took the player's.

He shuffled once.

The cards moved in his long hands, and I forgot to be angry for almost a full second.

"Heads up," he said. "Five hundred dollars in chips each. Texas hold 'em."

"What are we playing for?"

"Whatever you say."

I thought about it.

"Truth," I said. "The loser answers anything."

"Deal."

He dealt me two cards and himself two.

I looked at mine.

A seven and a nine of hearts.

I played them badly on purpose, to see what he would do.

He did nothing at all.

He sat there with a face like a closed door and flicked a chip into the middle.

By the turn I had lost three hundred dollars.

By the river I had lost the rest.

"Ask," he said.

"Why did you stay?"

"Because you knocked on my window."

"That's not an answer."

He leaned back in the chair.

"I hadn't eaten in two days.

"Nobody in four months had looked at my face without wanting something from it."

He stopped.

"I stayed because you were the first person who didn't want anything."

My chest hurt.

I took the cards, shuffled them, and dealt again.

I won the second hand, which was an accident, and he told me so.

"You're wrong," I said. "I read you."

"What did you read?"

"You scratch your beard when you've got nothing."

"I do not."

"You just did."

He smiled, finally, slow and real, and my heart did something stupid.

"Ask," I said.

"Do you touch that ring when you're lying or when you want me?"

My hand was at my collarbone.

I had not known it.

It was my mother's thin gold ring, on a chain, and my fingers had closed around it.

"Both," I said.

The cards sat between us.

Neither of us picked them up.

"I hate that you lied to me," I said.

"I know."

"I hate that I want you anyway."

He stood.

I stood.

The table was between us and then it was not, because I walked around it and pulled him down by the vest.

His mouth was hot and tasted of coffee and anger and two years of wanting.

He kissed me back so hard that my spine hit the edge of table one.

"Pamela," he said against my lips.

"Don't talk."

I pushed his vest off his shoulders and tore at the buttons of his shirt.

He was lean and hard under it, with a scar across his ribs I had never seen.

I put my mouth on it.

His hands went into my braid and pulled it loose, and I made a sound I had never made on this floor.

"Lock the door," I said.

"It's locked."

"Then shut up."

He lifted me onto the table with his hands under my thighs, and the chips scattered across the felt.

I opened my knees and pulled him in against me.

I could feel him through his trousers, thick and hard against the seam of my jeans, and I rubbed myself on him until he groaned.

"Take them off," I said. "Take everything off."

He did it fast, my boots, my jeans, my underwear.

Cold air hit the wet inside my thighs.

He knelt in front of the table like he was in church.

He kissed the inside of my knee and then higher, and then his mouth was on my pussy, hot and slow.

I grabbed the edge of the felt and bit my lip so hard I tasted blood.

His tongue found my clit and stayed there, flat and patient.

He had spent years reading faces, and now he read mine.

When I jerked, he did it again.

When I swore, he did it harder.

"Cade," I gasped. "Cade, I'm going to."

"Do it."

I came with my fingers in his hair and my heels on his shoulders.

I was loud enough that the dark room gave my voice back to me.

He didn't stop until I shoved him away.

I dragged him up by the collar and unbuckled his belt myself.

His cock was heavy and hot in my hand, and he shut his eyes when I stroked it.

"You're mine tonight," I said. "You owe me two years."

"I'm yours," he said roughly.

I pulled him between my legs and guided him in.

He pushed deep in one slow thrust, and I felt every inch of it stretch me.

We both stopped breathing.

Then I wrapped my legs around his hips and said, "Fuck me."

He did.

He fucked me on the dealer's table with the lamps swinging above us and the felt rubbing my back raw.

I held on to his shoulders and met every stroke.

He was ruthless and exact, the way he had been with the man on the casino floor, and I loved it.

I came again when he reached between us and pressed his thumb on my clit.

My cunt clenched around him and he swore.

"Pamela."

"Come in me."

He buried his face in my neck and came with a long shuddering groan, spilling hot and deep inside me.

We stayed there, damp and shaking, his forehead against mine.

My phone buzzed on the felt beside my head.

I ignored it.

It buzzed again.

Cade lifted his head and read the screen over my shoulder.

"It's Bea," I said.

I opened the message.

All three of our biggest regulars had cancelled their Saturday seats.

Every one of them said the same thing: Mr. Kray had bought their markers at midnight.

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