His Indecent Revelations (Bound and Shackled to the Billionaire BDSM Erotic Romance) (8 page)

He knows what she’s thinking. He’s not clueless.
They said that about you but I refused to believe it . . . because I thought I’d be the one to change you . . . the one that you’d fuck more than once.

He finishes dressing. “I’ve gotta go.”

He turns to the door without saying goodbye. He doesn’t look back either. There’s no point when you’re never going to see them again.

*

Caleb is no longer in the pool room, but the brunettes are still at the bar. The short-haired one eyes him speculatively.

“Had a good time?” Sarcasm drips off her tongue.

“Better than the one you had with your friend.” He grins.

She gets down from her barstool and saunters towards him. She fingers his shirt buttons. “I’ve heard a lot about you, Brian Morton.”

“Oh yeah? All good, I hope.” He slips into his easy smile, and he can tell that she’s bedazzled. In fact, the eyes of every woman in the room are on him.

“They say you are best lay this side of Chicago. I haven’t had the chance to experience it myself. So . . . if you have enough strength left in that body of yours, maybe you and I go back to my apartment and – ”

She lets the suggestion linger.

“Maybe later. I’ve got to find my friend.”

He bends down to kiss her full on the lips – a lavishly sexual kiss that leaves no room in the imagination for what he has in mind. The brunette gasps when their lips part.

Brian smiles and leaves her standing there by the bar.

“Later,” he promises. He doesn’t miss a beat as he turns to walk out of the room.

In the next room, a poker game is going on. Spying Caleb, he goes in.

“What’re doing, Cal?” he asks.

“Sssssh.”

Caleb is at a table of five players. The dealer deals two cards facedown to each player. Brian sits back to watch. They are playing the Texas Hold’em variant of poker, with the dealer exposing five community cards which can be used by the players for the best five card combination utilizing two of their own cards.

It’s the final round of betting. The fifth community card, called the river card, has been dealt.

“Raise,” Caleb says, pushing two hundred dollars to the pile of money in the center of the table.

The man to his left sneaks a look at his two facedown cards. He grimaces.

“Fold,” he says.

“Fold,” says another man.

Caleb is left playing against a thin black man with a sparse moustache. The black man has a tic in his left eye, Brian observes. He wonders how that tic figures in bluffing.

“Call,” the black man says, pushing two hundred dollars as well into the pile.

“All right, showdown please,” the dealer says.

The black man reveals his cards. The dealer takes them to arrange them in the best five card combination out of the seven.

“Full house,” he says.

“Damn.” Caleb throws in his cards. The dealer grabs them.

“Two aces.”

Caleb is crestfallen. Brian watches as the black man seizes the entire pot of money on the table. His mind is churning.

He has just found a way to give Caleb his mother’s mortgage money.

3

“What about this one?” Cassie says. “We haven’t tried this one before.”

Sam cranes her neck to look up at the sign above the bar. ‘WOODY’S’. The multicolored oblong lights dance around the letters.

“OK,” she says dubiously.

“Oh come on, Sam, when was the last time you got laid?”

“I’m not going in there to get laid! I don’t . . .
do
things like that,” Sam almost splutters.

She catches sight of her semi-reflection in the dark panels of glass on the door. Her hair consists of unruly brown curls that just refuse to be tamed by a comb. She has pleasant features and an upturned nose. Most people consider her cute rather than pretty. Her best features are her eyes – large and baby doll blue.

She’s not someone any man would go for in a jiffy.

Cassie on the other hand is significantly attractive with her shoulder-length blonde hair and green eyes. She has the notches on her bedposts to prove it too. She’s the type of gal who would actually walk into a bar to pick someone up. Or a chatroom. She has two thousand Facebook friends to prove it too.

Cassie is already walking through the door. Sam sighs and bounds after her. Anything to get out of the cold.

The barstools are all occupied, but there is an empty table beside the bar. They seat themselves before someone else gets there. There are a couple of pool tables to the side of the room.

Sam peruses the people at the bar.

“Maybe instead of downloadable photos from the Internet, I should get a real photo of a nice-looking guy for my screensaver instead,” she remarks.

“Better still, hire an escort and take him with you.”

“I can’t do that.”

“Why not? I can lend you the moolah. Oh wait, you don’t do escorts.” Cassie signals to a passing waiter. “What does a girl have to do to get a drink around here? Two vodka martinis, please.”

A disheveled looking blonde strides out from a doorway. Her little black dress is askew with one shoulder strap off. She looks like she’s just been fucked thoroughly, but her expression is a thundercloud.

“Bastard,” she says as she storms to the bar. She glances at the bartender. “Gimme a gin. Stiff.”

“What’s the matter?” a short-haired brunette at the bar drawls.

Sam can’t help eavesdropping on their conversation.

“He says he doesn’t do encores. Was I really that bad?” laments the blonde.

The brunette throws back her head and laughs. “You must be new around here. You’ve obviously been doubly fucked by Brian Morton.”

Sam pricks up her ears.

Brian Morton?

The eighth grade thug who stole everyone’s lunch box and emptied their sandwiches on the teacher’s desk?

*

In the next room, the poker game is in full swing.

“Raise.” Caleb’s eyes glint. He pushes five hundred dollars into the pot in the middle of the table.

He could never play poker, Brian surmises. Could never keep his emotions in check. He practically wears ‘I have cards that are so huge that I’m gonna win this round and whup your asses’ on his sleeve.

The black man raises his coal dark eyes from his cards. The space in front of the dealer is decked with four community cards to be shared amongst the players – an ace of spades, a queen of spades, a ten of diamonds and a ten of spades.

“Raise,” he says in his deep velvety voice. And slides a cool one thousand dollars to the pot.

The dealer turns to Brian. “What about you?”

Brian taps his two downturned cards. He takes in the faces of all the players at the table.

“Do you take personal checks?” he asks the dealer.

“Only if you’re good for it.”

Caleb says, “Oh, he’s good for it all right. Don’t you know who he is? He’s Brian Morton, owner and CEO of Vanguard Advertising.”

The dealer says, “Morton? As in Morton Enterprises?”

“Yeah. My uncle is the Chairman, so sue me.” Brian has never been too comfortable in revealing who he really is even though he has never hidden his family name. But in this case –

He takes out his checkbook from shirt pocket and scribbles an amount. He shoves it to the pot. The dealer picks it up and scrutinizes it. He glances at Brian.

“You serious?”

“Yeah.”

“That’s a pretty huge raise.”

“I’m confident I’ll win.” Brian flashes a grin at Caleb, who is eyeing him quizzically.

The dealer says, “Twenty thousand, gentlemen. Next round of betting, please.”

He deals the final community card, face up. It’s the nine of clubs.

The black man’s tic is more pronounced than ever.

“I’ll fold,” the dealer says.

“Fold,” the black man says.

It’s now between Brian and Caleb. They face each other from opposing sides of the table.

“Care to call?” the dealer says to Caleb.

Brian scrutinizes Caleb’s face. His best friend’s expression is simultaneously beatific and wary. It means he’s got a very good hand, Brian thinks.

Caleb raises his eyes.

“I know what you’re trying to do,” he says in a low voice.

Brian bares his teeth. “You don’t know anything.”

A glimmer of uncertainty passes through Caleb’s face. He’s calibrating the situation, as he always does.

He says, “I don’t have twenty thousand dollars.”

“I know.”

“So I should just fold.”

“But you don’t want to do that. You think you’ve got a winning hand . . . but you don’t know for sure.”

Caleb visibly swallows.

“What if I can’t pay up?”

“It doesn’t have to be just money. If you win this round, the pot money’s all yours fair and square. But if I win, you’ll have to come to work for me at the salary we agreed upon.”

Caleb stares at him for a long, long while. “Why, you sneaky bastard.”

“Sorry to disappoint you but my Mom was married to my Dad when she had me.”

“You can’t keep bailing me out like this.”

“I’m not bailing you out. I need an accounts manager to handle all the money I’m making and you’re a damned good one.”

“I work at Q-Tip. I don’t know anything about advertising.”

“Bullshit. You know everything there is about accounting. And you’re honest. People respond to that.”

They glare at each other. The side of Brian’s sensuous mouth twitches.

*

“Excuse me,” Sam says to the brunette, “I couldn’t help overhearing you. Brian Morton is here?”

“Yeah. What’s that to you?” The brunette sizes her up as though she’s competition.

“Brian Morton.” Cassie cackles. “Oh come on, Sam, there are plenty of Brian Mortons in Chicago.”

“And we were just talking about one of them,” Sam says. It’s just too uncanny. But Cassie is right. Brian Morton is probably a common name, like John Smith. “I went to school with him. He was the most awful eighth grader in the state.”

“Oh really?” The brunette leans over interestedly. “Same guy, do you think?”

*

Caleb says, “OK, I’ll bet on one condition. Twenty thousand dollars is chump change to you.”

Brian grins. “You want me to raise the ante?”

“Let me finish.” Caleb’s eyes and hands are steady. “If I lose, I come to work for you. But if you lose, I want you to add a little condition to the pot.”

Brian raises an inquiring eyebrow. “Oh?”

“Yeah. Losing a bet has gotta
mean
something to you.” Caleb’s face spreads in a slow smile. “If you lose, you’ll have to do something you normally wouldn’t do.”

“Such as?” Brian is intrigued despite himself.

“Hey, is this allowed?” the black man asks the dealer.

The dealer shrugs. “Only two players left in the game. The pot is theirs to spice up in any way they like.”

Caleb says to Brian, “I want you to perform a good deed. It’s for your own redemption and personal growth, bro.”

“That’s easy.”

“Not this one. I’m going to throw you a lifeline with God for all your misdemeanors.”

“You make my misdemeanors sound like a police charge,” Brian complains.

“Women. You fuck them and leave them, all in the same night. There are a lot of broken hearts out there, Brian.”

Brian is speechless for all of ten seconds.

“There are no broken hearts . . . none caused by me. We are all consenting adults. I don’t do promises or stupid love declarations. They all fuck me because they
want
to.”

“Yeah, but most of them want more than that. I’ve seen them. I’ve heard them.”

Brian raises his hands in mock surrender. “Well, sorry, that’s all I have to give.”

“That’s why atonement starts with you doing a good deed.” Caleb’s grin is infectious. “You’re going to have to be a
slave
to some lucky woman whom I’ll pick – out of my personal magician’s hat – for the weekend. You’re going to have to do anything she wants.”

Brian starts to laugh. “Boy, you’re rich. What if she wants nothing but sex?”

“What if she doesn’t?”

“They all want sex.”

“Then it’s your lucky weekend.”

“A whole weekend with some random woman? No way. No one’s gonna fall for that.”

“Hey, give her some credit. You’re gonna have to be her slave, that’s enticing enough . . . ”