His hands drop to my behind and he squeezes me hard. “No.”
I frown. “No?”
“No. I am not getting married in a seedy Vegas chapel by fucking Elvis.”
My shoulders slump in disappointment.
“We will get married in a traditional wedding. Somewhere that is…” He pauses as he thinks of the appropriate wording. “Nice. I hate fucking Vegas and you deserve better than a shotgun wedding.”
I smile softly.
He kisses me and as the heat from his lips permeates through my body, I feel myself hover above the floor.
I deserve better. He’s right, I do. I forget that myself sometimes. I’m so in love with this man.
I love the way he makes me feel and I’m totally addicted to the buzz I get from his touch. Our relationship is unconventional, but somehow this is the most normal I have ever felt in my life. It’s weird how it’s turned out, but for as long as I can remember, all I wanted was a normal, happy life with my soul mate, and it turns out that I just needed unconventional and to be kidnapped to find him. Who knew it was this simple?
The elevator doors open, and we are greeted by a security guard as he steps in our path, effectively blocking our way.
“Minimum ten thousand dollar bets on this floor,” he announces coldly.
“Yes, of course.” Stace smiles casually as if it’s lunch money. Shit, ten thousand dollars. That’s exuberant. I better get this right or we could drop fifty grand in five minutes. I will be doing the gambling tonight while Stace tries to find Wesley Snipes. I still can’t believe this guy actually calls himself that. It’s kind of ridiculous, if you ask me.
I glance around at the glamorous people buried deep in their own world, hardly looking up from the tables. This is hard-core. I’ve never seen anything like it, from their clothes, to their shoes, to the young gorgeous women with old sleazy men. Everyone smells of money and security guards line the wall. Waiters are walking around with trays of food and drinks. It all seems to be on the house up here. This is like another world.
Stace smiles and takes my hand and we casually stroll around and look at all of the tables. There is Poker, Roulette, various card dealers at tables playing a wide assortment of games. The air is thick with smoke and clearly the universal occupational health and safety guidelines don’t apply to high rollers. Large lounges sat in pairs line the perimeter, and the whole back wall is a giant fish tank complete with huge sharks and tropical fish. It’s like a James Bond movie. I smirk to myself. Wow, isn’t this something? People are laying chips everywhere like candy-chips that are at least ten thousand dollars each. The room has an entitled feel to it. Everyone in here clearly thinks they are a somebody.
Maybe they are?
Stace walks over to the cashier booth “I would like fifty thousand dollars worth of chips, please.”
She smiles and slides five chips across the table.
I look at the five puny chips on the table. Is that it? Holy shit, that is it. Fifty thousand dollars in five freaking chips. You have got to be kidding me? Stace smiles and takes his five chips and passes them to me. “Where do you want to play, darling?” he asks.
I look at him blankly. I have never even been to the casino before, why on Earth is he trusting me to do the gambling?
“Umm.” I look around at all of the tables as I try to locate something that I have at least seen before. Shit, how do I act like this is normal for us? Cards with important looking men playing, what looks like, a large hopscotch kind of thing, and people are throwing dice and seeing what they land on. Over in the far corner is a roulette table. Ah, I know this game, sort of. I have seen it in movies.
“Roulette?” I smile sweetly.
He takes my hand and leads me over to the Roulette table. A beautiful, older brunette woman is playing, and she is accompanied by a much younger looking, handsome man. He is sitting on the stool next to her and has his hand on her leg. They are both dressed to the nines and she is laughing out loud with the table cheering her on.
Sugar momma.
We stand for a moment and watch. “Thirty-two,” she asserts and claps her hands together in excitement as it spins. The ball goes around and around, and I hold my breath as we wait for it to land. The ball bounces a few times and then finally lands on number eleven. The table all laugh and sigh and she snaps her fingers in disappointment. “Again.” She smiles to the dealer.
My eyes drop to the pile of betting chips in front of her and I count. Twenty. Holy shit. She is betting with two hundred thousand dollars.
What is wrong with these people?
I am brought back to the present as Stace squeezes my hand, and I drop my head and smile bashfully. I wonder what my facial expression just revealed to everyone surrounding us. This is so far from the life I had, some days I couldn’t even afford credit on my phone and would have to wait until payday to top it up. She goes again and Stace puts two chips on the table amongst the others. Oh crap, now I have to do it. Stace wraps his arm around me and smiles as he kisses my temple from behind. He knows damn well that I’m disgusted at this money wastage.
Stace points over to the corner with his chin and pretends to kiss my ear.
“There he is,” he whispers.
I glance over to the lounges in the corner and see a man who is sitting with a woman. I try to hide my smile, but I can’t. He is just as I imagined. Red hair and geeky, but dressed in cool rap clothes that don’t suit him at all.
“Back in a sec,” Stace whispers in my ear with a kiss to my cheek.
I nod, distracted by sugar momma and her boy scout who just had a huge tongue kiss in front of everyone when she won.
Ew, God, some people are such show ponies.
I watch Stace approach the man across the club. He shakes his hand and they begin talking. My concentration goes back to the table and I watch as sugar momma loses a cool fifty grand. Another man seems to be cleaning up, though.
A waiter approaches and she smiles as she takes the champagne from his tray. “I’m out.” She smiles in her toffee accent.
The dealer nods to me.
Huh, me? Oh crap. “Okay.” I smile as I pretend to know what the hell I’m doing. Umm. I nervously look around at the numbers. What the heck number should I pick?
“Umm.”
The table all wait for my answer. Oh shit.
“Ten, please,” I announce.
My heart starts to race and I watch the wheel spin around and around until, unbelievably, it lands on ten.
“You win.” The dealer smiles.
Really?
I jump up and down in excitement and clap my hands like a child. “Again.” I laugh. I put my chip on number eight.
The dealers have to do a shift change, and as we wait, Stace comes up and wraps his arm around me as I sit on the stool. “Hope you have your vows written?” he whispers in my ear.
My eyes flicker up to him over my shoulder.
He smiles sexily. “Let’s find that chapel, Mrs. Mac. I don’t think I want to wait for another day.”
My eyes search his and he grins and shrugs.
“Won’t hurt to have two weddings, I suppose.”
“Oh my God.” My anxious eyes flicker back to the dealer as a stupid smile covers my face. Hurry up woman! Is he serious? She spins the wheel, but my mind is far from stupid Roulette. It goes around and around for forever as we wait and then bounces onto twenty.
“I’m sorry.” The dealer smiles. “Again?” she asks the table.
“No, thanks,” I reply. I couldn’t care less about this stupid game.
I’m getting married. Tonight!
Stace takes me by the hand and we walk straight out of the high rollers room without looking back. “What happened?” I whisper.
“We have to be at his office first thing in the morning. He can have them done by 2pm. He was actually a decent guy.”
My eyes widen as we get into the elevator. “Oh my God, that’s fantastic,” I whisper excitedly.
He kisses me and his lips hover over mine. “This time tomorrow night, we’ll be on our way out of here.”
I smile against his lips, knowing things are going work out.
“Are you sure you want to get married now?” I ask as he wraps his large arms around me.
“Uh-huh.” He smiles as my hand wraps around his shoulders.
“Why tonight?” I ask. “What’s different?”
“Because who knows what tomorrow holds,” he whispers. “Live in the moment, remember? Sometimes I forget to.”
He smiles down on me and, at this moment, I know he wants this as much as I do. “We have to go back and get our passports from the room. We need three pieces of identification.”
“Okay.” The elevator enters onto the main floor and we walk through the area and then catch another elevator up to our room. Stace has my pinned to the wall with his pelvis and my arms held over my head.
“Stop it.” I giggle. “I don’t want you to have a raging hard on in my wedding photos.”
“Why not? It’s a promise of what’s to come.” He smirks.
We walk down the corridor and see a commotion way up ahead in the hallway with a few men coming in and out of a room. Stace’s face drops.
“What?” I frown.
“That’s our room.”
“Huh?”
I glance up and see the door just open, and one of Stace’s shoes holding the door open.
“Who is in our room?” I whisper.
A man appears in a dark suit distracted as he talks to another man and they stop in the doorway for a moment to discuss something. They seem to be talking to someone else in the room.
Oh my God, they’ve found us.
Stace turns us and we start to speed walk down the corridor in the opposite direction.
“Hey, you!” a man calls. “Stop right there!”
“Don’t run, keep walking,” Stace replies calmly. “Just keep walking.”