Jealous by Lena Little
1
Julian
“I repeat, the action is to you, Julian,” the dealer announces.
All body movements cease as my unblinking eyes lock in on the jaw-dropping young blonde’s legs as she descends the stairs into the underground poker game frequented by mafia miscreants and societal outcasts that have no right to be blessed with the presence of such exquisite beauty.
Her blonde locks bounce with each cautious, calculated, and awkward step she takes in her gravity-defying stilettos. My fingers loosen around my cards before jerking violently as I squeeze the hand I was dealt, as I first imagine my calloused digits gliding through her silken hair and then knifing through this princess’s mane, jerking her head back while I ravish her neck with my mouth.
And her mouth. Those ruby red lips that curl up in a forced smile. She’s beyond beautiful, but her baby blues eyes can’t disguise that she’s not happy. She’s hiding something. Immediately I promise myself to find out what’s troubling her and go to the ends of the earth to squash it into extinction.
My thighs flex, causing my body to reflexively ready to shoot up out of my chair and escort her up the stairs to the safety of the floor above. But my small, yet sudden movement, has the oversized security guards in all four corners of the room sliding a hand inside of each of their coat pockets as they shake their heads at me, reminding me that the stakes at this kind of illegal poker game are much more than just the nearly million dollar pot that’s currently up for grabs on this hand.
But all that blurs in comparison to her and her tiny little hands. The delicate digits that don’t fully wrap around the railing as she continues her descent. My eyes are drawn to her ring finger like a magnet and despite not knowing her name or anything about her, I already know what her future holds.
A ring on that finger and it’s going to be put there by me as soon as I can get out of this cellar and locate the biggest, brightest diamond in the country.
Who…is she? Why is she here?
“For the third time. The action is to you, Julian. You’ve got ten seconds to call or raise or else your hand, and your chips, are forfeited to the pot,” the dealer threatens.
“I wouldn’t do it,” a guttural voice from one of the other players across the table cautions. But I don’t know if he’s talking about the card game or referring to my obviously lingering eyes on a woman who isn’t here by chance. Surely she’s making her presence known because of someone, or worse yet…she’s with someone.
An acidic taste fills my mouth as a throaty growl slides from the back of my throat. Despite the fact that we’re all pretending to play nice here tonight, the reality is that we’re all rivals…bitter ones at that. A streak of jealousy rips through my core, threatening to rearrange every organ inside me just from the thought that someone has the one thing in this world I want more than anything else. Her.
And whoever invited this princess to our underground dungeon just signed his own death warrant. What went through the head of the idiot who brought her to the shittiest of shitty card games surrounded by horny men and other men with guns? Was the fool trying to take more years of his life today, or mine…which is really saying something considering I just finished a three-year prison sentence that must have aged me ten.
My dark orbs lock onto hers and for a split second in time that fake smile that she’s forcing turns true. And I smile back, which I didn’t even know was possible considering my facial muscles have been locked in the permanent scowl I adopted at an early age. It’s the unflinching expression that has served to protect me in the rough neighborhoods I call home and around the even rougher men, I rub elbows with.
But that smile from her, that ray of sunshine into everything dark that I am, is so pure, so innocent, and so mine. It’s in that moment I fall in love with this beautiful young woman. For the first and only time in my life, I’m off-kilter. So this is what love is, not just some made-up emotion that Hallmark uses to sell overpriced cards to women nearly every month out of the year for one reason or another. She shows me it’s no longer the farce I thought it once was. She’s just bled a rock and an emotion I didn’t know was inside me is ready to pour out, giving her the world in the process as I ready to become what I was destined to be all these years but never knew it…her protector, provider, best friend, confidant and biggest supporter.
I’m in love with this angel and no way in hell am I going to climax again until the tip of my rod is firmly pressed up against her womb, ensuring she’s the mother of the many children we’re about to start making…together.
“Ten…nine…eight…seven,” the dealer counts down.
I clench my teeth, grinding my molars at the thought that some prick thinks this girl belongs to him.
“Pot’s too big for him,” a voice snickers. “Look at his arm shake. It’s a tell.”
It’s a tell alright, but the pot’s got nothing to do with it. I want to tell the asshole that thinks this Baby Doll is his that he’s on borrowed time. And if he’s even thought of claiming her yet…
My cheeks feel like they’re on fire as my entire face pinches. Rage courses through my veins like molten lava. And if that fucker has laid a hand on what’s mine I’ll make his death that much slower, agonizing, and painful…but it could never match the pain of knowing another man has so much as ran a finger across the bare arm of what belongs to me.
“I raise,” I grunt, apparently to the surprise of the entire table as my cock rises up in my pants and I feel the fabric thumping at the underside of the large oak surface. “I’m all in.”
“Have you even looked at your cards?” one of the players questions me. He’s going to catch a fist, or a bullet, too…later. What idiot looks at pictures of queens on pieces of paper when a real life queen is right in front of his eyes? But I’m not surprised. I smirk knowing these guys are more addicted to gambling than they are aware that they’re in the presence of royalty. Good. Keep their eyes off what’s mine.
The dealer scurries to count up my chips and immediately after he does, my single opponent left lifts his hand and blurts out, “I call,” as if he’s just waiting to take me to the cleaners, and make a fool of me in front of everyone. “Three of a kind,” he gloats, flipping over his cards before leaning back in his chair and crossing his arms. “Aces,” he adds adding insult to injury. Two aces dealt and one ace in the community cards, face up in the middle of the table. The probability of three of a kind in poker is about two point one percent. Add in the fact that they’re aces and those odds drop even lower, making the chances of me losing this hand, and my respect, even higher.
“That’s a good hand,” I congratulate, just before my angel glides off the last stair and makes her way over to…the dickhead trying to take the last of my money.
Placing her palms on each of his shoulders is like a white hot rod being jammed into each of my eyes. I wince and jerk my head to the side.
“What did you expect to see?” my socially unaware opponent relishes, thinking this is still about a stupid game of cards. “You think I was bluffing?”
My head snaps back and I lock eyes on my adversary, who has become the bane of my existence in more ways than even he understands.
“Just know this. I never bluff. When I see something that belongs to me I take it. Always,” I counter.
“Not tonight,” he says, reaching for the huge stack of chips in the center of the table with outstretched arms and a smug smirk on his face…one that I’m dying to wipe off with a backhand right to his mouth. I wouldn’t even need a closed fist to drop a little bitch like him.
Before the dealer can intervene and take back control of the game, my opponent pulls the jackpot to his side of the table. “Thanks for playing.” He cocks his hand like a gun, going so far as to extend his index finger and pump his thumb down and then back up as he ‘shoots’ at me with a wink of the eye.
“Oh, I’m not playing,” I threaten. “This isn’t a game to me. She’s-This,” I quickly correct, knowing I can’t get my woman if I mouth off right now and I catch a bullet in the head before I even get a chance to know her given name, although I have no plans on calling her anything other than ‘Beautiful, Angel, Princess’, and a whole other host of affectionate terms so she knows she’s in the hands, and care, of a man who worships her. “This is,” I start again, “everything.” I pause, locking eyes with this lowlife who has somehow become the luckiest man on the face of the earth but not because of money, power, or influence.
Because he has her.
“Full house,” I announce without expression, turning to the dealer who quickly flips over my cards and looks at my opponent, the host for tonight, before nodding and then shrugging.
Don Neto, my opponent, turns a shade of red I’ve never seen before banging his fists on the table. The princess takes a precautionary step back in shock at his outburst, her swift movement sending the smell of apples and honey in my direction. Even through the haze of cigar smoke, her scent finds a way to me. I just need to find a way to calm the situation because it’s scaring my Baby Girl.
I stand, my pants straining to contain my bulging erection, my visible need for her slapping the underside of the table, creating an audible thud as I get to my feet.
“How about that. The eternal bachelor with a full house. How’s that for irony?” the wisecracker at the table pops off.
“It’s not irony. It’s foreshadowing,” I promise to everyone present.
Don Neto stares at me and the adrenaline shooting through all parts of my body turns the slow pulse in my neck into a fast staccato beat. I shoot daggers right back in his direction, letting him know I’m dead serious and primed to kill despite being unarmed.
But I’m primed for a lot more than his blood on my hands. My cock is throbbing with need and my pants can’t take it much longer.
“I need to take a leak,” I announce, trying to diffuse the situation while consciously using vernacular that’s more respectful than what I would have chosen if she weren’t here. And she instinctively senses a trip to the men’s room isn’t the only thing I’m about to take.
My eyes find hers one last time, communicating to her that whatever reason she’s here, for now, ends tonight. I will save her. Make her mine.
Because she belongs to me. Always. And that starts now.
