Adam and I pushed beyond reasonable limits. We won too much, too quickly. Captured the attention of the wrong people. We didn’t stay below the radar, and now we’ve exposed ourselves. We won’t be able to stay here now. Once exposed, it’s time to move on.
I see now that there’s no point in pretending that I don’t know what he’s talking about. I’m caught, and we both know it. To continue my denial will only insult him.
“What are you going to do?”
“I’m not interested in your brother. But you… I’m very interested in you.”
Tristan Broussard is a gambling man. Maybe we can work out some kind of deal.
“Interested in me how?”
“You’ve taken a hundred thousand dollars from me that you didn’t fairly win. You as good asstolethat money from me. And now you have a debt to repay.”
I disagree. I might not have won the money fair and square through the eyes of a casino owner, but I worked for that money. Hard. It took a long time to accumulate that hundred grand. Months.
But the law is on his side. I’m actually lucky that he had me brought up here rather than just turning me over to the authorities.
“I have most of the money, but I’ll need a little time to get the rest.”
Thank God that I didn’t spend all of the money already.
“I don’t want the money back.”
What? What casino owner doesn’t want back the money that he feels was taken from him unfairly? “I don’t understand.”
He smiles. Not a smile of happiness. Not a smile of contentment. It can only be described as deep-rooted satisfaction. A smile like that coming from a man like Tristan Broussard frightens me. Mostly because I suspect that very few things bring him true satisfaction.
“I’ve decided that I’m going to keep you.”
Keep me? There aren’t a lot of ways of misinterpreting what those words could imply, but I hope like fuck that I am misunderstanding his intentions. “What do you mean?”
“I’ve decided that you’re going to be my sub until you’ve repaid your debt.”
“A substitute for what?”
“Not a substitute. A submissive.”
Submissive?Fuck. I only know of one thing that he could mean. This man must be a Dominant. A sexual deviant.
“You’re out of your mind if you think that I’m doing kinky shit with you tonight.”
“Do you really think that you could possibly repay a hundred thousand dollars with one night ofkinky shit?” He chuckles. “And I don’t recall giving you a choice.”
“This is the craziest thing that I’ve ever heard of. You don’t get to keep a human being because you decide that it’s what you want.”
“I’d love to hear what you plan to do to stop me.”
Okay. Now I’m starting to get scared. Because if anyone has enough money and power to make something like that happen, it’s Tristan Broussard.
He takes what he wants. That’s what men in his position do.
I get up and dash toward the door, but he steps between me and my only escape route. There has never been a man who resembles a brick wall more than he does in this moment. And it’s terrifying.
I’m no delicate flower. I’ve been scrapping with the best of them since I was a kid, but he towers over me by more than a foot. And he must outweigh me by at least eighty pounds. His chest, shoulders, and arms are huge. All muscle.
Dominant and overpowering.
“I will pay back every dime I took from your casino. I swear.” I hate the weakness that I hear in my voice. But I strongly suspect that he loves it.
