The stakes for a game were never this high in the history of Badlands. Bookies rolled in from other rooms to take bets on the game, holding clipboards with spreadsheets, taking names and numbers and odds. I recognized Becker and Angus, the soldiers I had treated last year, shuffling about, whispering between them as they placed their bet against me.
There was a human traffic jam outside the door to the card room, and I could barely breathe when I heard the bouncers physically pushing people away.
We both took our places in front of the dealer, whose golden nametag said Daniel. I drummed my fingers against the green felt of the table. Sam stared at me. I refused to look back at him.
“Smart move. Your club’s about to become legendary after this.” I flicked my hair behind my shoulder.
“I never let a good scandal go to waste,” he replied wryly.
“Are you really that good at math?” my voice quivered.
“Better.”
Everyone settled, and Daniel started shuffling the cards, reciting the rules of the game loud and clear. He made a show of it. First with an overhand shuffle, a riffle shuffle, then a pile shuffle. By the time he was done, the cards were thoroughly mixed, even I couldn’t deny that.
Daniel put the neat stack of cards down, glancing between Sam and me.
Sam jerked his chin toward me, deciding now was a good time to become a gentleman.
I refused to remove my gaze from the cards, splitting them into two stacks.
Why was I so hysterical? Wasn’t it my longtime wish? To marry Sam Brennan?
Oui, mon cheri, but not like this. Not as a part of another elaborate game between you two.
I withdrew my hand and indicated for Daniel to choose from the right-hand stack. We were each dealt two cards. Daniel also dealt himself a hand. One exposed, one hidden.
The first round was a quick win for me, allowing me to breathe again. I spluttered around an exhale, wondering if it was Sam’s way of making me lower my guard. The second round went to Sam, after I doubled down and lost, making my rival flash a devious smirk. The third—to me. The fourth—to Sam.
The eerie feeling everything was premeditated took root in my stomach. Perhaps Sam had intentionally made this game a close call to make people more interested. Statistically, the neatness of our wins, and losses, seemed highly unlikely. He was engineering a narrative where anything could happen, and it made me even more nervous because that meant he knew he would win.
I never lose.
Sam played against casinos and won repeatedly. The chances of him losing twice, out of four times, were slim to nonexistent.
By the time we were dealt our fifth hands, I was a sweaty pile of mess. My hair was plastered to my temples, and everything in me shook. No matter the result, I was going to be devastated.
I didn’t want his money, but marrying him right now seemed as impossible as kissing the moon good night.
“Don’t worry. I’ll make it fast and easy for you, Miss Fitzpatrick.” Sam shot me an impersonal smile as Daniel cut the cards. The whole room held its breath.
I got confused and didn’t stand with a pair of nines when Daniel’s up-card was a seven, even though Cillian had taught me to do so.
Sam split a pair of eights and aces.
Sam won.
Three to two.
Fair and square.
The whole room erupted in screams, arguments, and laughter as hands exchanged thick stacks of money. People huddled over the betting books. Others clapped Sam’s back and whistled, shaking his hand with a smug smile.
“The deal of your life, Brennan. Next stop, world domination.”
“Make sure you get your hands on those Royal Pipelines shares, man.”
“You delicate fucking genius.”
“Better take her for a test drive, eh?”
Nausea washed over me, and I gripped the edges of the table with force.
I lost.
Not only tonight but the last decade.
We were always playing a game, at least that was how it felt, and this was the pinnacle of a ten-year battle.
It didn’t matter that I wanted it. That I wished for it. That I longed for it.
Sam Brennan won me, but he didn’t earn me.
What kind of marriage would I have to a man who didn’t want to have children and hated women?
Sam ignored the congratulations, strolling the short distance to meet me, his face unreadable. Everyone stopped to see what happened next. I couldn’t blame them. I wanted to know, too. I didn’t move. Didn’t run away. The least I could do was handle the situation with dignity. A Fitzpatrick never bowed down.
Sam stopped a foot away from me.
“Well done. I knew you were a talented mathematician and blackjack player, but I still underestimated you.” I offered him my hand again, my voice quiet and resolute.
He narrowed his eyes at me, like we were enemies. Maybe we were. I never knew where we stood. He cupped my throat, angling my face up to look him in the eye. When he spoke, it was to the room, not to me, but his words were loud and clear, filling the air with poison.
“I want every single asshole who witnessed this game to go and tell their friends. And tell your friends to tell their friends. I want this to hit Cillian, Hunter, and Gerald’s ears tonight. I want this in the papers. Aisling Fitzpatrick is now mine. I won her, and she is going to be my wife. If anyone has a problem with that, he will have to go through me, and I sincerely don’t recommend it. It’s a terrible way to die.”
With that, he crashed his lips down on mine, sealing our deal with an animalistic kiss. People cheered in the background, but we paid no attention to them. I paid no attention to them, completely immersed in this thing between us, my heart soaring to the sky. Sam hoisted me up and carried me out of the card room, shouldering past dozens of men, heading straight to his office. My legs wrapped around his waist, my tongue dancing inside his mouth.
We reached the point of no return.
There were no more games to be played.
We were together.
“You will keep your word to me,” he growled into my mouth, kicking the door to his office open and slamming it shut behind us without touching the handle, his fingers digging into my behind.
“No,” I insisted breathlessly, peppering his neck with kisses. “Not until you tell me that it’s real. That I’m just not a conquest. That I mean something to you.”
“You don’t mean something to me,” he countered. “You mean everything to me. Jesus Christ, I need to get inside you before I fucking die.” He let me down, turned to his desk, and in one go wiped it clean of his laptop, ledgers, and paperwork.
He grabbed my waist roughly and turned me around to face the desk, bending me over as he hoisted my dress up, tugging my panties to the side.
“Belle is waiting for me outside,” I warned, panting hard, so wet my thighs were sticking together.
“Belle can go fuck herself. You’re mine now, and I’m celebrating our engagement in my favorite place—inside you.”
He thrust into me from behind, and the unexpectedness of it, the sheer surprise made a loud moan slip between my lips. He snaked one arm between my legs and started playing with my clit as he entered me mercilessly, picking up pace, driving me mad as he hit my G-spot again and again.
“Oh, Monster.”
“Mine.” He leaned down, brushing my hair from my ear, biting the lobe softly.
“Mine, mine, mine. Forever mine,” he chanted, moving his fingers from between my thighs, up to my breasts, kneading them. His fingers traveled north again, and he pushed them into my mouth, coated with my arousal, to stop me from moaning loudly.
“There, there, little Nix.” His breath tickled the back of my neck and my ear, sending goose bumps down my body, making me clench around him even more. “You will now have this dick on a daily basis. Starting tonight, you’ll be moving in with me. I’ll have no lip from you, Aisling. I won. You lost. Understood? Nod if you do.”
I nodded jerkily, my body quaking with an impending climax that threatened to tear through my bones. From this angle, he was so deep inside me, I felt impossibly full. I swear the man was rearranging my guts.
My fingers dug into the wood of the table, my teeth sinking into Sam’s fingers in my bid to stifle a groan. The orgasm racked through me like a tornado, ripping everything inside me in its wake. He must’ve sensed my orgasm because he, too, let go of the sliver of self-control he still possessed and began thrusting erratically, coming inside me in warm spurts, grabbing the base of my neck and pulling me to his mouth for a kiss full of tongue.
We stayed in this position for a few moments, him deep inside me, the last of his cum dripping into me. He placed a chaste kiss on the top of my head.
“Better than cigarettes,” he said dryly, his face turning cold and expressionless again, putting his mask back on now that we were done.
This time, I smiled, knowing it wasn’t personal.
“Aren’t you glad you quit?”
“No.” He pulled out slowly, massaging my butt in the process. “But I’m glad you took the bait and got lured back into Badlands. A few more weeks of being celibate and the cemeteries in Boston would be overcrowded. Now go say goodbye to your friend. You have exactly five minutes before we go back home and I fuck you all over again.” He squeezed my ass, pushing me toward the door playfully. “Make it quick and make it count, Nix.”
I was marrying a bastard.
But he was my bastard.
“I heard the news.” Belle waited for me by the bouncers, leaning on the balls of her feet, just outside the card rooms. They wouldn’t let her in. By the looks she sent them, I could tell no love was lost between her and the two burly men. “On a scale of one to Lindsay Lohan circa 2010, how drunk were you when you said yes to the bet?” she raged.
I threw myself between her arms, even though they weren’t technically open, squeezing her in a hug.
“Not drunk at all, Belle. It’s the real deal. I didn’t want to tell you because I wasn’t sure where it was going, but … we’re kind of together now.”
“Kind of? Ya think?” Belle gave me a sarcastic look, still in shock, pulling away from me while patting my shoulder to show me she wasn’t mad. “We all know where it’s going now, and let me tell you, people called your brothers, who then told their wives, who told your parents. Needless to say, no one’s happy you kept it such a secret. They’re suspecting you’ve been lovers all along. The entire ten years you’ve known each other.”
Let them think that, I thought.
In a way, it was true.
Sam and I were always lovers.
Even when we didn’t speak or touch each other at all.
That night, I went home with Sam. It was only when we entered his apartment that I realized that the place felt completely and irrevocably mine. Somewhere down the line, his place had become my home. It housed my clothes, my shoes, my toiletries, and the man I love.
Still in a daze, I walked around the living room, brushing my fingers over the minimal furniture, the bare walls; I knew there was a good chance our house was never going to have any art in it, no paintings, no beloved vintage knickknacks to fill the place with personality and warmth. I was oddly okay with that. With the loss of art in the name of love.
I was facing the window overlooking Boston’s cityscape, sparkling in the nighttime like masses of tiny stars, when I heard Sam’s voice behind me.
“Don’t turn around. Stay like that.”
I did.
Our phones were both blowing up with calls all the way from Badlands.
At first, we shoved them into my purse, but when that didn’t help, and the buzzing and lit screens kept taunting us, we turned them off completely. I was pretty sure my brothers and parents were fully intending to knock this door down any minute now, only they couldn’t because they didn’t know where Sam lived.
I found that little fact strangely liberating.
The irony of living somewhere my parents couldn’t find me, after being under their thumb for so long.
His footsteps pressed down on the floor underneath us. I felt him stop right behind my back. He took my left hand while I was still facing the window, sliding a ring onto my ring finger. My breath caught, and my heart stuttered, the unreliable monster that it was.
“Don’t look yet,” he whispered into my ear. I nodded, waiting.
He dropped a kiss to the crown of my head, and I felt dizzy with pleasure.
“Sam,” I breathed.
“Yes?” he asked, catching the zipper of my dress, sliding it down seductively.
I cleared my throat. “I want children.”
He stopped unzipping me. I found my voice again. I couldn’t not talk to him about it.
“I know you are not a fan, but I want them very much. Is this going to be a problem for us?”
Holding my breath, I waited. After a few seconds, he resumed the work of undressing me, sliding the zipper down all the way. The dress pooled at my feet like a shimmering lake of burgundy blood and glitter.
“No.” His lips skimmed the hollow of my neck. “I will give you children, if you quit your job. Do something legal, Aisling. I cannot bear the idea of something happening to you.”
I swallowed hard, closing my eyes.
My patients were so dear to me.
Their well-being, supporting them meant everything.
But he was right. If someone caught me, I’d be locked up for life.
Becoming a mother and doing something so dangerous simply didn’t go together. Especially since my future children’s father had a less than respectable job, too. Someone would have to be their anchor. The reliable parent who goes out to work and comes back every day, no matter what.
I felt my eyelids drooping.
“I’ll tell Dr. Doyle tomorrow.”
“Good girl.” He kissed my cheek, unfastening my bra. “Now take a look at your ring.”
I turned around to face him, wearing nothing but my underwear and the ring. I blinked at it. A gasp of shock and pleasure escaped me. I looked up to Sam with eyes full of tears.
“Troy gave Sparrow a ring with a blood red diamond. It reminded him of her hair. I wanted to do the same, but when I think of you, I don’t think about your hair. I think about those eyes. They taunt me. The absolute blueness of them.”
He took my hand and kissed the ring, a huge halo ring of diamonds surrounding the center stone—an emerald-cut octagon-shaped sapphire. I kissed it, too, laughing and crying at the same time.
“You were going to win all along, weren’t you?” I whispered, referring to our blackjack game. “You knew you were.”
He cupped my cheeks, pulling me to him.
“I was never going to lose you, Ash. That wasn’t in the cards, or on the table, or part of the agenda. You were always going to be mine. You had to have known that.”