Poker Face (Chimera Club Stories) Page 11

  Blue and Red tried to argue, but they and their partners were escorted quickly and decisively from the gaming floor by Stacy and the other guy. White paid five hundred dollars for the ante he blew along with his load, and then there were two.

  ***

  Camille

  I was shaking all over when Brandon pulled me up into his lap and wrapped his strong arms around me. Everyone was yelling, and I had no idea what was going to happen next. I’d thought my idea might be a good distraction, but when I’d asked Tony to get the cherries and the ice I had no idea all this would be the result.

  Brandon didn’t move from his chair as two of the couples were escorted out, still arguing that I had cheated. The idea infuriated me, and I turned deeper in to Brandon to hide my rage at the accusation. “If I live a thousand years I will never ever forget tonight,” Brandon told me quietly after the yelling had stopped. “I think I need you to marry me.” I laughed into his chest. He was so funny sometimes. “No,” he whispered to me. “I mean it. I think you need to marry me. Right now. As soon as we walk out of here. Today. I want you to be my wife.”

  When I looked up at him and saw that he was serious I was thunderstruck. “You can’t be surprised. Not after the Pink Floyd, the books, the things we’ve shared, and especially not after Ace. In fact, I should have asked you that before I asked you about Ace. I’m sorry I got the order mixed up. I plead love in the extreme for messing that part up, but I meant it all.” His hand came up to tuck my hair behind my ear as he looked at me with his love for me shining in his eyes. “I don’t want another day to go by without you telling me where you put the comma. I don’t want another second of this life without you in it with me, every day for all the days that we are given, and I promise you that every minute of every one of those days will be as precious to me as you are, Camille.” I sighed and smiled.

  “That’s it. Right there.”

  “What?”

  “That’s how I imagined you would say my name. Promise me you’ll always say it like that, full of love and wonder, like it’s the best word you know?”

  “That’s the easiest promise I could ever make. Yes, always.”

  “Then yes. Yes. Today. Forever. Always.” Mrs. White sighed dreamily when I accepted his proposal, reminding me that we were not alone, and that we hadn’t won yet.

  ***

  Brandon

  I’d known that the Whites were hanging on our every word. Her with stars in her eyes, and him with a sneer on his face. I was ready to end this, and get on with the amazing life I could see stretching out before me with the woman in my arms. She had done more than her share tonight taking out half the competition, the rest was up to me. It was going to have to be a little bit dirty, but I thought it would work.

  “Ante up!” the dealer called, once I was again engaged with Camille. White had a twenty minute window before had to re-engage, and I was hoping that our circumstances would make him think he had the upper hand. All I needed now were the right cards to make it happen. When the hand was dealt I looked at my cards, and sent a silent prayer of thanks out to whatever forces were listening.

  “I can’t wait to get out of here,” I told Camille, not bothering to be quiet about it. “We can go to city hall today,” I flexed my hips hard into her. She grabbed the table in front of her to stay balanced. “Would you like that, baby?” I asked, shoving a few thousand into the pot with the back of my hand, while working to look distracted and nonchalant. “Lean up a little, baby, I need to stay in the red zone, and I want to watch that gorgeous ass of yours jiggle while I pound into you.” She glanced at me over her shoulder, sure I had lost my mind. I squeezed her arm once, as she had done to me when she was gagged that first night, and I watched comprehension bloom over her face for a second before she resumed looking uncertain and confused. I gave her another squeeze in thanks as I went on.

  When it was my turn to bet again I shoved another few thousand in and maintained my pace. I’d come hard and often all night long, I didn’t expect it to be difficult to hold back now, but I did like watching her ass jiggle and I was so in love with her that soon I found myself ready to come again. When it was my turn to bet again, I grunted in frustration at the distraction and told her in a conspiratorial tone, “Fuck this, my cards are pretty good. I don’t think he can beat them.” I went all in, and went right back to fucking her hard against the table, hoping to make him think I was too distracted to fully realize what I was doing.

  He watched for a long time, so long that I wasn’t sure I could maintain my pace and not come. I was sweating and cursing behind her, praying she wouldn’t come because I didn’t think I could take it without blowing my wad and my hand. Subtly, my beautiful woman shifted her body, allowing me to only slightly penetrate her, no matter how fast my hips moved. It was just what I needed to hold out, but it looked like I was going to go any second now.

  White took the bait, going all in. Camille sat back, taking me all in, and holding still. The dealer called for a show of hands. White smirked at me, and turned over a club straight flush. It was the second highest hand he could get, and he was sure he’d beaten me.

  I smiled at him, and showed him my hearts. My royal flush of hearts, to be precise. The only hand that could beat his. “You cheating son of a bitch!” he yelled, tossing Mrs. White off his lap onto the floor before he flipped the table over and came for me. I moved faster than I knew I could, putting Camille behind me and stepping up to meet him. I’d wanted to beat his ass all night. Before I could connect Stacy and the other guy stepped in and took him down to the ground in a hold that looked painful and effective. I still wanted to stomp his face in, but Camille was pulling at my arm.

  “Congratulations to you both,” Meenan said, stepping between me and White, while directing us to the door. “Please return to your room and dress. Someone will be around to collect you in a few minutes to take you home.” I picked up our robes and took Camille’s hand in mine.

  When we got back to the room and tried to dress we found our clothes ripped to shreds. I remembered doing it, but it seemed like a lifetime ago, instead of hours since it had happened. We kept our robes on, and sat together with our hands in entwined waiting.

  When the knock came it was the guy I didn’t know. “If you’re ready I will take you home now,” he said to Camille.

  “No fucking way,” I told him stepping up ready to fight him if I had to. “We go together from now on.” The big guy raised his hands in surrender, and held the door open for us. Stacy was waiting in the hall.

  “You going to his place or yours?” the other guy asked Camille, probably just to piss me off.

  “Mine,” I snapped.

  “I need clothes,” she reminded me.

  “You can wear something of mine until we get yours.” As far as I was concerned this matter was settled. Stacy took the wheel with the other guy riding shotgun. I kept my arm around Camille holding her to me tightly as we sped through the night. When the car stopped, we got out and stood in front of my building.

  “You live here?” she asked, looking up at the twenty story apartment complex well known to be the most expensive place to live in all of High Point.

  “Actually, I own it.” Her head turned to me slowly, her eyes wide.

  “Luuucy,” she said, in a pretty fair impression of Ricky Ricardo. “You got some esplaining to do.”

  Epilogue- Three years later

  Brandon

  “Camille Davies.” When her name was called I watched my heavily pregnant wife waddle across the stage to receive her degree. Her smile was radiant, and still did insane things to the beat of my heart.

  “See Mama,” I whispered to Ace, and put his little hands together to clap.

  “MAMA!” he screamed out loudly, his high pitched toddler voice cutting through the din like a knife. She turned to wave at him before leaving the stage. “MAMA!” he called again, struggling to get down and run to her.

  “No, Ace. Stay with Daddy. We�
��ll go see Mama in a few minutes.” The twos were as terrible as the books had promised, but he was my little Ace. Whenever I thought of him and how he had come to be everything inside me turned to jelly on fire. I dug around in my pocket looking for something to distract him, and found that my perfect wife had snuck a bag of cheese crackers in there before we left home. “Here, look, Ace. Crackers!” I shook the bag, and like magic he stopped struggling to escape me, and held out his little hand.

  “Quackers!” he yelled, demanding some right now. He reminded me more than a little of myself in those moments. Maybe I still had some growing up to do, too.

  When Camille found us, we were both covered in crumbs, but still looking quite proud of ourselves. “My goodness, you two are a mess,” she scolded, sounding more amused than disappointed. “Are you ready to go?”

  “Go!” Ace yelled, always thrilled with the idea of a car ride. “DC!” he yelled again, causing Camille to eye me suspiciously. I’d introduced Ace to the music of ACDC a few weeks ago when we were having a guy’s day out. That was all he wanted to listen to now when we were in the car. He seemed especially fond of Thunderstruck, yelling, “Pay gin, pay gin,” when the song ended.

  “I thought that was a guy thing, just between us,” I told my son as he continued to chant DC and bounce in my arms excitedly.

  “Is there something I need to know about the musical education Ace is receiving?” she asked me, huffing a little as she walked beside me to the car. She was due in a couple of weeks, and had worried that she would miss graduation if our little girl decided to come early. We still hadn’t settled on a name for her, and were constantly trying to one up each other with one ridiculous suggestion after the next. We were running out of time though, and had to get serious about it soon.

  “Not at all. I’m teaching him about the classics.”

  “Mozart, Beethoven, Tchaikovsky?”

  “Those are good, too.” She laughed, holding on to my arm as we crossed the parking lot.

  “Right, so that means ACDC, Pink Floyd, and The National?”

  “He needs to understand the culture of his father.”

  “Yes, he should know his father is from an alien world.” I stopped raising an eyebrow in mock horror.

  “I knew it! You did have an encounter you didn’t tell me about! How did you ever persuade your alien prince to let you go? I hear those deals are usually for life.”

  “I told him he had to let me wear my eyepatch, or it was a deal breaker.”

  “And he let you go?”

  “Yep.”

  “The fool.”

  ***

  Camille

  After Ace went down for the night Brandon read me to sleep. I was up a couple of hours later when our daughter started doing the Samba on my bladder. His long arms welcomed me back to bed, and settled us against him. He was still mostly asleep, but his big hand kept rubbing my belly while he rested his head next to mine. He breathed out my name, “Camille,” and put me so at ease that I was drifting off again within minutes. When I woke up like clockwork needing to pee again, I found my husband leaning over me whispering to our daughter.

  “We haven’t found a name for you yet, princess. We joke about it a lot, but I think we want it to be just right.” She kicked against his hand, almost like she heard him. “Do you have any ideas, princess?” He pressed his ear to my belly, and got a foot to the face for his trouble. “No, I don’t think Jefferson is a good name for my little girl.”

  “Annalise,” I said in the dark, part of me knowing that was what I’d wanted all along.

  “After your mother.” She’d passed away a year into our marriage. It still broke my heart that she never knew how happy I was.

  “And Miranda, after yours.”

  “No, I want her named after the woman who holds my entire world in her hands. Annalise Camille Davies.” It was perfect, just like the man who’d said it. I sighed, feeling my eyes tear up.

  “She’ll be heartbreaker.”

  “Yes, I expect she will take after me.” His teasing was sharp and sweet, and made me think of all the ways I could show him how much he meant to me.

  “I hope so,” I told him, my voice cracking as my pregnancy hormones turned me into a weeping fountain again. “I hope she has your heart, and a piece of your soul to keep her warm as she makes her way in the world.”

  “And your bravery, and beauty,” he told me, shifting up in the bed to hold me in his arms.

  “And my taste in music,” I added. He sighed dramatically.

  “Well, no one is perfect, but I’ll still love her because she’s mine, and because she’s yours.”

  “I don’t deserve you,” I whispered in the dark, on the verge of full blown sobbing. I’d told him as much as pale words could what a difference he’d made in my life, but they never got close to the depth of my love for him.

  “I know,” he sighed again, “But the important thing is that you keep trying.” He kissed me tenderly, wiping my cheeks with his thumb. “Shall I read to you some more until you fall asleep again?”

  “If you do, I don’t think I’ll be able to keep my hands off you.” The light clicked on over my head, his long arm easily reaching the lamp.

  “No sacrifice is too great for you, my love.” he said smiling down at me, his hair sticking up a little where he’d slept on it, making my heart ache with tenderness for the impossibly beautiful man whose insides were more than a match for his handsome face. “Pass me the book, and let’s get started.”

  The End

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  Special Thanks

  First to be Queen Beta, Kathy. You are amazing and wonderful, and I owe you more than I could ever repay in thousand lifetimes. Your patience and support have helped give me the courage to write.

  And for the lovely soundtrack in my head as I wrote this story:

  Enigma- Sadness Part 1

  Pink Floyd- Comfortably Numb

  The National- I Need My Girl

  David O’Dowda- All Alone

  AC/DC- Thunderstruck

  And thank you, dear reader, for spending your time with me here. I hope you had as great a time reading this as I did writing it for you! –Cybill Cain