Read Story: SEASON 1 EPISODE 16

Day Two moved like a roller-coaster gone berserk.

Jack was no longer concerned about Lane’s glinting, watching eyes. If the bastard hadn’t made him by now he never would. And the money rolled in a gushing stream, as if the blackjack table were having a series of blissful orgasms, and simply couldn’t stop coming.

By six that evening, Jack was already eight thousand ahead. It took a serious effort of will to lose some of it back to the house, so as not to appear too incredibly lucky. Maybe, just maybe he told himself as he sipped his double scotch and painfully dropped two hundred, they ought to stick around Reno an extra few days. What the hell, every day was twenty thou in cash, right? Two extra days, forty thousand smackers, which equaled three Caddies or even one gleaming, elegant Rolls-Royce.

He was humming cheerfully to himself and neatly stacking his gold chips in precise piles when someone gently tapped his shoulder. He glanced around, blinked his eyes, and felt a funny sickness in the pit of his stomach, like an elevator of doom rapidly descending.

It was Carol.

It took him a few seconds to recognize her. She’d lost her baby-fat and dispensed with her thick glasses. Her golden hair hung down in shimmering tresses and she wore an expensive knit dress that hugged every luscious curve of her tits and sensual ass. Her blue eyes gleamed at him, bathed in love and adoration.

“Well, hell, hi, Carol,” he said in a cracked voice. “Just lemme finish this hand and I’ll buy you a drink, okay?”

Casually, he swept up his chips, jammed them into his pockets and took her arm. He guided her toward the bar, his fingers digging brutally into her flesh.

“Goddamn you!” he hissed furiously. “I told you to wait for me, didn’t I? I told you, you dumb bitch, wait for me!”

Carol looked as if she were about to burst into team. They sat on barstools and he ordered double martinis, lighting a cigarette with shaking fingers. Ah shit. Why now, when everything was going so terrifically? His eyes blazed with wrath at her, but a sharp excitement started in his loins too, hardening his cock quickly.

Jesus, she looked fantastic! Lush, sensuous, the sultry shining-eyed knockout he’d glimpsed when he first met the plump farmer’s daughter. She’d blossomed overnight for him. And her eyes, so lustrous and huge and beautiful without those thick ugly glasses, were melting with love for him now.

“Why, Goddaminit?” he snapped.

“I… I had to be with you, darling,” she said softly, looking humble and sorry. “Please forgive me, Jack. I missed you so much. I’m so crazy about you. I just had to be here with you.”

“Yeah? Well, you can just get your ass right back to Omaha,” he said sharply, gulping his drink.

“No,” she said very softly and firmly. She shook her head sadly. “That isn’t possible, Jack. You see, we’re supposed to be married soon and I’m going to stay with you.” Her face brightened and she squeezed his hand. “But I can work along with you, honey, see? I can gamble too and we’ll have the money twice as fast!”

“Ah, shit,” he muttered, signaling the bartender for refills. “No you can’t, because it’ll take weeks for you to learn the marks, dig? Out of the question. You go back to Omaha. Now.” He paused, eyeing her luscious tits. “Tonight, I mean, hell as long as you’re out here…” He pinned lecherously and put a hand on her leg.

And then he remembered Sally.

He glanced around quickly. Across the room at her table, she was watching them, her face chalk-white, her eyes like seething coals. Quickly, Jack withdrew his fingers from Carol’s thigh, but he told himself, screw Sally, it wasn’t his fault the blonde had popped up, was it?

Carol’s voice was low, but deadly. “Jack, let’s get something straight. I’m here to stay. I’m moving in with you.” Her blue eyes locked fiercely on his, their meaning clear. “I am not going back to Omaha. I have no intention of being disappointed, Jack. Because I love you so much I’m afraid I wouldn’t be able to control myself without you. And I wouldn’t be responsible for my actions if you broke my heart.”

She casually sipped her drink while he watched her, his heart thudding against his ribs with fear. She wouldn’t! Godammit, no corn-fed, cornball from some hick town was going to tell him what to do!

“What the fuck do you mean by that?” he snapped.

“I mean,” she said calmly, “if you try to ditch me I’ll have a talk with the casino.”

“Oh.” Oh, SHIT! Oh, this hot-tittied bitch really meant business, she wasn’t bluffing. And then it would be the final ride, the vast bleak desert. He gulped his drink down desperately and signaled for refills. He searched her smooth face one more time and knew she had him by the short hairs, a girl of sheer steel!

Letting his breath out in a soft strangled moan, he nodded. “Okay,” he said hoarsely, forcing a grin. “Shit, Carol. I mean, hell, I know how you feel. You’re right. As a matter of fact,” and his grin spread slowly and easily across his face, dazzling, reeking with charm and self-assurance, “I’m damn glad you came, honey. I missed you too. Christ, I can barely wait to get you into the sack tonight,” he added in a lewd whisper.

Her eyes watched him, still baffled in love, but that funny flicker deep in their orbs once again stirred uneasiness in him.

“Now I gotta go back and get my daily quota,” he rushed on, “so here’s what you do. Just go out and fuck around, enjoy yourself, see? Come back here around eleven and we’ll hit my motel room for a few hours of, ah, stormy screwing. Now how does that sound, Carol?”

She finished her drink, got off the barstool and brushed her warm lips across his cheek. “Yes,” she whispered. “I’ll wait for you, darling. Just like you said.”

He watched her leave, her carriage proud, her ass moving in beautiful sinuous weaving, her shapely legs striding purposely. And Jack’s taut nerves, already stretched dangerously, began to quiver. Jesus shit fuck! He had to get Sally to get her stuff out of the motel room fast, explain the whole situation to her, somehow juggle the two women for the next few harrowing days, all the while worrying about Lane, about Sally’s insane jealousy, about Carol’s inscrutable eyes, about his dangerously stretched nerves. Jack suddenly wanted to break down and cry right there at the bar and beat his fists into it with maddening frustration.