The Gamble

37. Lavender

I waketo the feeling of the sheets being pulled gently from my body, their soft slide tickling, awakening my already oversensitized skin.

“Buenos días, princesa.” I hear the soft smile in his voice. Feel it pressed into the back of my hip. “Good morning, princess.”

“Mmm, sexy languages.” What an aural turn-on.

“Open your eyes.”

“Nope.” My answer is more purr as he presses a kiss to my spine.

“Tienes ojos como el cielo.”

“God, you could read the shipping forecast in Spanish, and it would get me hot.”

The breath of his smutty chuckle coasts over my skin. “We can try that later if you want.”

“Mmm. What did you just say?”

“You have beautiful eyes. Eyes like the sky. Come on, let me see them. It’s time to wake up.”

I shake my head. “I don’t want to let reality in.”

“Reality looks real good this morning.” Raif’s words sound kind of rusty as he fills his hands with my butt cheeks and squeezes, the flat of his tongue a hot press at my lower back. My breath catches, my body surging at the unexpected contact. There’s something primal in it, in his manhandling. “Good from this angle, too.” His breath is hot, his tongue wet, his fingers tighten, really tighten, as his thumbs begin to slide inward.

“Don’t even think about it.” I turn my pleasure into the pillow as I clench my bum cheeks against this onslaught, fighting not to give in.

I’m naked in the daylight. While it would be ridiculous to be coy or embarrassed after a night of being spread and examined, licked and bitten apart, kissed and held and fastened back together again, I can’t help but think this might be a step too far.

“That’s not what you said last night.”

That tone—those words. I fold the pillow around my red cheeks as I try to ignore exactly how adventurous Raif’s tongue had been. And how much I’d liked it.

“If you’re not gonna be breakfast, maybe you want to eat breakfast,” he murmurs, releasing me. “Come see what I brought.”

“What?” My head turns to the suddenly apparent sugary scent. Shafts of light cut across the room through the shutters, dust motes dancing in the air like fairy dust, and there, on the nightstand, is breakfast! The best sex of my life—the best sex of anyone’s life, I’ll bet—and breakfast in bed! Romance heroes, eat your hearts out.

“Ooh, yum!” I flip or, rather, worm my way over onto my back as Raif drops over me. He palms my shoulders and braces his thighs over my legs.

Don’t look down, don’t look down!

Of course, I do. He has black boxer briefs on, and I’m not sure if I should be relieved or disappointed.

Last night, Raif made it plain that marital rites were his due, that my body was his, and my pleasure owed to him. I lost count of orgasms around number five when he’d lifted my legs over his shoulder and pushed a pillow under my butt, making me an actual pillow princess. He bent me in shapes I never knew were possible, and our sexytimes weren’t relegated to the bed. The shower; soapy fun leading to even dirtier times. The sofa. Twice. Once bent over the arm, my hands in his, caught at the small of my back. He was insatiable, and that made me like putty in his hands.

I have no complaints. Residual flutters, yes. Aches also. I think I might’ve pulled a muscle in the abdominals I didn’t know I had.

“Morning, wife.” A grin spreads across his mouth.

“You like calling me that,” I assert, pressing my hand to his cheek, loving how he leans into it.

“I like you. I like your face.” He kisses my cheek.

“Yours isn’t bad, either.” If I had a face like his, I’d be like Narcissus and never move away from the mirror.

“I like your mouth.” He presses a kiss there, too. “And your heart.” He presses a kiss between my breasts, and I wonder if he can feel it fluttering.

“Not quite my heart,” I purr as his hands, my back arching as he frames my breasts, his tongue a wet slide across each in turn. I close my eyes as everything turns liquid inside.

“And your pussy…” he whispers hotly, his lips against my ear.

“You’re kissing the wrong place,” I whisper, biting back my smile. I sense him pull back, and I open my eyes. The looks he sends me? It’s mouthwateringly sexy, but I still preempt his move by crooking my finger under his chin.

“Your pussy is like a portal to heaven.”

“My pussy is a porthole?” I repeat like I didn’t hear him properly. For some reason, all I can hear is John Mayer singing that line in my head. They might be Raif’s words, but the tune is a crooning take on “Your Body is a Wonderland.”

Your pussy is a port-hoooole…

“Isn’t a porthole…big?” I ask, suddenly filled with dismay.

“Goddamn.” His head drops. “Portal,” he says heavily, lifting it again. “Your pussy is a portal, not a fucking porthole.”

“Oh. Good. I’m glad you clarified that.”

“I think now might be a good time to remind you I brought breakfast.”

“Yes, good call.” I shuffle up the bed until I’m half propped on the fluffy pillows.

“Did you put all this together yourself?” I know Sam isn’t in the kitchen because he’d mentioned last night that he made a new batch of pecan granola, even going as far as to say what shelf he’d left it on in the pantry. He obviously thinks I can’t fend for myself.

Yet on the nightstand is an old-fashioned wooden butler’s tray containing a breakfast assortment that looks like a sugar addict’s wet dream: a stack of Belgian waffles dusted with powdery sugar, berries, cream, or maybe ice cream, and if I’m not mistaken, a jar of homemade dulce de leche. There’s also a carafe of bright orange juice, a silver cafetiere, and a bud vase holding a sprig of lavender.

My heart returns to my chest cavity where it swells, like the Grinch’s, three sizes.

“If breakfast impresses you, princess, your bar is set way low.”

“It impresses me if you made it. Is Maria at work?”

“You think I’m not capable?”

“You’re capable of many things. Some of them I think might be illegal in some parts of the world.” I roll my lips in as though they’re parched, but I think I might still be a little fuck drunk. That’s a thing, right? “But I also remember how you couldn’t find an ice cream bowl. In your own kitchen.”

“I can use a waffle iron.”

“I bet you didn’t even know what one looked like up until this morning.”

“Wrong. As for where things are kept, Sam left everything out for me.”

“With instructions?”

“Maybe.”

Raif might not have exactly planned on breakfast in bed, but it’s still lovely to discover he’d thought of me. Of feeding me. But that’s not what I say. Because I’m me. And I just can’t help that fact.

“How can you not know where the plates are kept?” The pillow rustles as I move my head from side to side, as though thoroughly amused.

“Says the woman who was drinking champagne from a sundae dish last night.”

“Fine.” I roll my eyes. “At least I can scramble an egg.”

“I’m not interested in your egg repertoire. Give me your mouth, wife.”

So I do. His kiss is slow and sweet. A taste, not a devouring, but it still makes me dizzy.

“Your poor security detail,” I say, dragging my finger up the ladder of his abdominals. My core mirrors their contraction, though much less visibly. “I bet they’re so jealous.”

“Jealous of my waffle skills? Or the woman I have in my bed?”

“I was thinking more about your big cock. Those undies don’t exactly leave much to the imagination…”

“Ah-ah.” His hand catches my questing one, his low chuckle as dirty as the gallery’s much-abused microwave. “Come. Let’s eat before it’s cold. Then, mi amor, you can tell me more about how you enjoy my big cock.”

“Note to self,” I say as Raif moves gracefully off to the side, “cock compliments get me darling’d.”

“English might not be my first language,” he replies, propping his head on his hand, “but I know that’s a noun, not a verb. And I feel like we might’ve had a similar discussion before.”

“Really?”

“Yes, when—”

“No, not that.” I turn to face him, mirroring his position. “English isn’t your first language?” How did I not know? Because you don’t know him, obviously.

“It was the first I actively learned, but Arabic and Llanito were spoken at home. Spanish and English I learned later at school.”

“So your dad spoke to your mother in Arabic?”

“He spoke to her as little as possible.” His words seem carefully delivered as his eyes follow the path of his finger over my hip. “I didn’t really know him. My birth was… an unexpected event. He didn’t live in the country much after I was born, and he didn’t really have any impact on my life until I was a teenager.”

“Oh. I’m sorry I didn’t know that.”

“Can’t miss what you didn’t have.” His gaze lifts, but I see the lie.

“What about your sister?”

“My father married a woman from his hometown when he returned to the UK. He never married my mother, which left her in some disgrace. And dire straits. But she did her best. She cleaned houses, bars, and restaurants to keep a roof over our heads.” His eyes meet mine without giving up one hint of the thoughts behind them. “To put food on the table. To keep us in the country. There was no question of her going back to Morocco by then.”

“Wow.” What a bitch. Me, not his mother, obviously. I just assumed this was his life—that he was born into wealth and privilege. “I had no idea.”

“How could you have? I never said.”

I’m touched, though that doesn’t really cover how I feel, that he’s confiding in me now. I suppose you never really know what’s gone on in another’s life. Emotional wounds scar but not visibly.

“It was tough,” he adds, his attention seeming to turn inward. “Things for the Moroccan community those days weren’t easy in terms of visas, which affected our stability. Also, the housing and my schooling. I was a late starter,” he offers with a sad smile. “Immigrant kids weren’t allowed a state education back then. Only private, which we couldn’t afford. But, somehow, I got a British passport. I was entitled to one by birth, but it meant tracking the asshole down first. I have no idea what that must’ve cost my mother.”

My heart gives a pang in sympathy. More than financial costs, I imagine it cost Raif’s mother her pride. I’m sure she suffered humiliation and felt inadequate as a parent when she couldn’t get her son into a school on her own. Women always bear the brunt of these very human costs.

“What was your mother’s name?”

“Hana.” His smile is soft, maybe reflective. Pained, even.

“She sounds like a strong woman.”

“Yes, I suppose she was.”

And now I suppose I know why the huge fridge is always overflowing and why mealtimes are so extravagant. What would a child who suffered insecurity ensure as a man? A haven would be my guess. The security of a permanent shelter. Or maybe even a glut of them. I guess it also goes some way to explain why his houses are dotted all over the world. Because he’s rich enough to do so, sure. Because he’s had an international upbringing, too. But maybe it’s also because he doesn’t feel at home anywhere in particular.

And then there’s Daisy, sweet, worried, little Daisy. He’d uprooted his life because he understands what instability and loss feel like.

Have I had him wrong this whole time?

“And now, just look at you,” I say, determined not to show him one ounce of pity. Pity for a man of his station and means seems ridiculous, but I feel it. I also know if the shoe was on the other foot, I’d hate any acknowledgment of that. “You’re a big ole overachiever.” For good measure, I punch him in the shoulder.

“Or product of my kind of upbringing.”

“Urgh. Therapy,” I mutter, pulling a distasteful face. “Do not recommend. Let’s drag out all the ick and talk about it ad nauseam. How is that supposed to make people feel better?”

“I wouldn’t know. I didn’t go down the therapy route.” Sitting up, he half turns and grabs the tray, pulling out the legs from under it. “It’s more a… professional learning, I guess. Sit up?”

“Yum, yes! I’m so hungry my bum is chewing the mattress.”

He gives a mildly amused headshake before placing the tray over my thighs. He gently smacks away my hand as I reach for the fork.

“Ow. Also, how do you mean? The professional learning thing?”

“People in my line of business usually make a mistake or fall into it. They then realize that they not only got away with it but they also benefited from it. Profited, usually. They get a taste for it and do it again.”

“Sounds like you’re describing a criminal.” Dipping a strawberry in the caramelly goodness, I take a bite. The hit of sugar and the milky, toffee goodness means my eyes almost roll to the back of my head. “So good,” I add, offering him the next bite.

He could add sexy strawberry eater to his CV. And maybe sexy sous chef as he empties out the fruit and douses the waffles with the dulce de leche.

“Professional learning?” I prompt when he seems to decide not to pick up the conversation thread.

“You’re sure you want to hear this?”

I nod. “Yes. Of course I do.”

“Well, others are driven by a lack of choices or education, dysfunction, or poverty. Sometimes psychological issues.” His tone is so matter-of-fact as he spoons vanilla ice cream onto the plate. “Damn. I forgot the knife.”

“Still sounds like you’re talking about the same people, the same cross section of society. Why don’t you just—” I make a spooning motion, the yummy scent making me super hungry.

He half turns again, and as he turns back, he holds something in his hand. With a click, a blade appears, and as though this were the most ordinary thing in the world, he uses a mean-looking flick knife to slice the waffles.

“Would it matter?” The color of his eyes seems more milk chocolate than bitter coffee as they meet mine. I open my mouth to respond, and because he seems to think he’s a comedian, he shovels a forkful into my mouth.

“Ha-ha,” I say, my fingers pressed over my lips. No washing machine business going on here. I chew and swallow before pulling a face. “You think you’re so funny. Stealthy, too.” I tsk. “You mean, I suppose you’d need to be if you’re a criminal.”

“I’m not exactly—”

“Yes, I remember,” I say airily. “A businessman who colors outside of the lines.”

“I have a checkered past.”

“Haven’t we all?” Did that sound bright or tart? I can’t tell. “You’re not a bad person, Raif. We’re all light and shadow, good and bad. I’d already worked out you’re a bit of a wrong ’un.”

“A wrong ’un,” he repeats consideringly.

“Yeah. Forcing me, a poor young girl, to marry you, the great big ogre.”

I might not know the extent of his criminality, but I’ve known all along that he is on the opposite end of the spectrum from Whit. I’m under no illusion that I’m married to a Robin Hood character. I’d bet my life there are no innocents hurt by him. Unlike some people I refuse to mention.

“An ogre.”

“A good-looking one.” I glance down, struck by a cheeky thought. “And you’re hung like one.”

“Lavender!” He laughs. And sounds shocked.

“What? Now you’re an old maid?”

“You’re welcome.” I nod decisively and open my mouth like a baby bird. And there we sit, exchanging the fork to feed each other bits of waffle and fruit and ice cream as we bare our histories. Our scars. I tell him how in love my mum and dad were. How, when he died, she fell apart and lost herself in that wave of grief. How there wasn’t enough parent for everyone, and I acted out because, according to my Whit-appointed therapist, negative attention is still attention.

I even show him my soft underbelly despite the little voice that warns me he’ll learn how weak I really am. I say how, even today, I still act out because I feel so unremarkable in the face of my siblings’ achievements. Whit and his billions and his bank, Brin and El working for him, buying fancy apartments and driving fancy cars. Dan has traveled the world and even found someone to love. Primrose is excelling at uni and wants to be a psychologist. Sure, it’s essentially because she’s as nosy as all get-out, but I also find her direction really admirable. Even Heather, in all her neurodivergent awkwardness, found love and a soft place to fall. She’s thriving at work and killing it as a wife and a mother.

“You’re anything but unremarkable.” Raif’s expression isn’t exactly soft. Maybe more exacerbated? “You own an art gallery, and you’re not even a quarter of a century old.”

“Eew! Twenty-five looms,” I mutter unhappily because compliments sometimes feel icky.

“For some of us, twenty-five is a distant memory.”

“What were you doing at that age?”

He shrugs. “Trying to stay out of jail.”

“Hashtag goals,” I say weakly as I make a ridiculous gesture, crossing two fingers over two others. “Did you manage?”

“I did. I worked construction during the day and in a casino at night. I made enough money to buy a piece of land. I built a house and sold it for a profit. Did it a couple more times, then I built a strip mall, bought a nightclub, and another. Inherited some money, bought more bars, nightclubs …”

“And the rest is history?”

“No, then my father died and left me a bucket of money, so I diversified.”

“Into art and money laundering? Oops!” I slap my hand to my mouth, eyes dancing anyway.

Another forkful is pushed my way, though I hold up my hand as, with the other, I rub my full tum.

“I have my fingers in many pies, and not all of them are strictly lawful. I run unlicensed gambling houses.”

“In Chelsea.” Where it all began.

“And some other places. The stakes are high, and the clientele requires anonymity.”

“Because it wouldn’t do for people of their standing to be seen in casinos or snorting coke off some girl’s backside?”

“You didn’t see that,” he asserts.

“Why, have you?” I almost squeak. It was just something I plucked from my imagination.

“The night we met in Chelsea was a different kind of night. No one of note there, and the poker stakes weren’t so high.”

“Three hundred thousand!” I protest.

“There are different levels of play, but my regulars gamble much deeper than that.”

“Then they’ve got problems.”

“We’ve all got problems.” A tiny smile plays on his lips. “And we all want to hide those problems from the world. They want privacy to play, in all sense of the word.”

My stomach sinks. “You’re talking about prostitution, aren’t you?” But Raif is already shaking his head.

“I don’t run drugs or girls. They’re on offer, sure. The girls are freelance but absolutely not trafficked. And the drugs, well, let’s just say I don’t smuggle, and I don’t deal. They’re just a perk. And all this is just a small portion of my empire, if you like.”

Multiple streams of income, my mind offers cynically.

“Why do you do it, then? If you’re making more money in other business, why bother?”

“Influence. Leverage. Call it what you will.”

“Blackmail?”

But he just smiles an enigmatic-looking smile.

“At least you’re self-made. Meanwhile, I’d be working in some crummy office if it weren’t for Whit’s help. The gallery is really only mine in name. Whit owns the bricks and mortar, or the shipping container, as it were. And the stock. I think that makes me some kind of nepo baby.”

“No, Lavender, that’s not true. What Whit has done for you is what families do,” he says. “What they’re supposed to do. Look after each other.” He lifts the tray away and kisses me, soft and sweet. But not without heat.

“Pity kiss?” I say as it breaks.

“Yours or mine? Don’t answer that,” he adds, resuming his position next to me, sliding his hand behind me to cup the nape of my neck. “You and me, we don’t need pity.”

Another kiss now, slow, deeper. Wetter. He makes a growly sound as I work my fingers down the hard planes of his stomach. He catches my questing hand.

“Who’d pity us?” I whisper as his lips slide down my neck, and he presses my hand above my head.

“No man in the world would pity me, wife.”

I sigh, my back arching as his fingers trail up my inner thigh. “You like saying that, don’t you?” My thighs tremble as though shy to part. “My wife.”

He hooks my leg wider, exposing my most intimate parts to the daylight. He watches my face as his fingers slide inside me.

“It’s what you are, my incredible, irresistible, hot as fuck wife.”

I turn my face, burying it in the downy pillow, each compliment matched with a stroke of his fingers.

“You only say that when there are people around except…”

His thumb dips, gathering my wetness to slide it over the swollen rise of my clit.

“Except last night, I got off on you wearing my ring while you jacked me off.”

“That’s what it was all about.” How… unexpected. Weird but also lovely in a kinky, possessive kind of way. I probably wouldn’t ever mention it to anyone, let alone admit that I like that sort of thing. “Oh!” My body undulates, and he swallows my gasp in his kiss.

“Got me as hard as a pole. You know why, don’t you?”

My head thrashes against the pillow. It’ll probably look like a bird”s nest after this.

“I like how it sounds,” he says, moving over me to between my legs.

“You mean, in bed?” I whisper as he hooks my leg over his shoulder.

“Hmm,” he purrs. Everything inside me contracts at the smooth press of his crown. “Fetishizing matrimony. I like that.”

“Context is everything,” I say, my body hungry, my thoughts a little dispirited.

But then he takes my hand. My left hand, and his thumb rubs over my diamond band. “I like the way this shines when you’re touching me. It makes me feel something I can’t explain.”

“That you like sparkly hand jobs?”

“I like your sparkly hand jobs.” He begins to slide down my body.

Who am I to stop him?

“What if…” The words are a rush of hot breath between my legs. “What if I wanted to call you my wife because you are my wife.”

My stomach flips as his hand slides up the bed, his fingers threading through mine.

“Because I want you to be my wife—because you want to be my wife. For real.”

“Maybe I want you to be my husband,” I say, switching things up.

“Yours.” His tongue licks into me, and I cry out. “I like the sound of that.”

“Oh fuck.” One hand in his, the other knotting in his hair as he presses just, oh, just there.

“I want you, Lavender.” His finger lazily slides in and out of me. “I want this to be real between us, not just legal.”

“Yes… but less talking.”

“You’re legally mine already.”

“Bought and—”

“Sweetheart, I’m paying for you in all kinds of unexpected ways.”

His tongue swipes my clit, and my fingers tighten in those silky strands. I’ll make him pay.

He makes a noise of agonized pleasure, burying his mouth between my legs, his kiss hot and deep.

“I want to call you my wife,” he growls, pressing his teeth to my inner thigh. I cry out as his tongue swipes across the sting. “For I want it to mean something.”

“Like?”

“Let’s stop pretending we both don’t feel this.” His head lifts, his eyes burning with intensity. “Be with me, Lavender. Be with me because you want to be with me. Because you want me.”

“You really have lost your marbles,” I say, but I’m smiling. Maybe even crying a little as I fight the inevitable.

But then he stops.

“Rude,” I complain. I could mean his actions or the fact that he’s looming over me. His palms pressed flat by my shoulders, his cock almost where I need him. God, it’s hard to know where to look, all that muscle and tan and Raif, and those dark eyes, burning with intensity.

“Are you proposing?” I breathe, my body primed to accept his. “Only, it’s supposed to be one knee,” I add, then wonder where the sentiment came from. He’s not professing love, is he?

His expression falters a touch, and his hand brushes up the outside of my ribs. A wildfire of sensations. “The truth is, I like you more than I planned for.” His big palm cups my cheek. “I like your feistiness and your mouth. Your kindness and your wit. How you are with Daisy. How you are with me. I’d be a fucking fool to believe any of my feelings are pretend. If you want me on my knees, I’ll do it and do it right. I want you, Lavender. I’m all in.”