Place Your Bet: A Dark Casino Romance Series, #2

By Lexy Timms

Do your worrying before you place your bet, not after the wheel stops turning…

 

One kiss.

 

That's all Farren and I shared. And I know that I shouldn't be making out with my matchmaker, the woman that I'm relying on to find me a wife, but there's something about her—about us—that I can't resist.

 

But one kiss means nothing and it's easy to put behind us, and soon, I'm back in the dating saddle again. Except the women I meet all seem to be lacking something – something I know Farren has.

 

And I can't seem to get the one woman I need to forget about out of my head...

 

A Dark Casino Romance Series

• Book 1 – High Roller
• Book 2 – Place Your Bet
• Book 3 – All or Nothing

 

• Language: English
• Publisher: Dark Shadow Publishing
• Release date: Jan 17, 2022
• ISBN: 9798201161682

Lexy Timms

"Love should be something that lasts forever, not is lost forever."  Visit USA TODAY BESTSELLING AUTHOR, LEXY TIMMS https://www.facebook.com/SavingForever *Please feel free to connect with me and share your comments. I love connecting with my readers.* Sign up for news and updates and freebies - I like spoiling my readers! http://eepurl.com/9i0vD website: www.lexytimms.com Dealing in Antique Jewelry and hanging out with her awesome hubby and three kids, Lexy Timms loves writing in her free time.  MANAGING THE BOSSES is a bestselling 10-part series dipping into the lives of Alex Reid and Jamie Connors. Can a secretary really fall for her billionaire boss?

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A Dark Casino Romance Series

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Book 1 – High Roller

Book 2 – Place Your Bet

Book 3 – All or Nothing

Place Your Bet Blurb

Do your worrying before you place your bet, not after the wheel stops turning...

ONE KISS.

That's all Farren and I shared. And I know that I shouldn't be making out with my matchmaker, the woman that I'm relying on to find me a wife, but there's something about her—about us—that I can't resist.

But one kiss means nothing and it’s easy to put behind us, and soon, I'm back in the dating saddle again. Except the women I meet all seem to be lacking something – something I know Farren has.

And I can't seem to get the one woman I need to forget about out of my head...

Contents

Find Lexy Timms:

A Dark Casino Romance Series

Place Your Bet Blurb

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Seventeen

Chapter Eighteen

Chapter Nineteen

Chapter Twenty

Chapter Twenty-One

Chapter Twenty-Two

Chapter Twenty-Three

Chapter Twenty-Four

Chapter Twenty-Five

Chapter Twenty-Six

Chapter Twenty-Seven

A Dark Casino Romance Series

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Chapter One

Farren

AT FIRST, I LET MYSELF melt into the kiss like it was the most natural thing in the world. My body, drawing into his, his hands on my waist, pulling me close to him—I could hardly stand it. The hair on the back of my neck was standing on end as I brushed my fingers over his cheek, the music swirling around us, the reality of all of this just falling away. His kiss was too good to deny. Too good to pretend that I didn’t want it, want him, want everything that came with being with him.

He deepened the kiss, his tongue in my mouth, and I felt the butterflies start to explode inside my chest. I couldn’t remember the last time I had been kissed like this, the last time that someone had made me feel as deliciously good as he was making me feel now. I wrapped my arms around him, pulling him close, and I was just about to forget about everything else and tell him to take me back to the hotel when—

Oh, sorry, some guy mumbled as he bumped into us, and the jolt seemed to pull both of us, in the same moment, out of the kiss. He pulled back from me, and when I looked into his eyes, I could see that panic had started to settle in.

Oh, shit, he muttered, and he ran a hand through his hair. I knew how he felt. Even though I wanted nothing more than to reach for him again, I knew I had to contain myself. My whole system was urging me to lean in again, go for another kiss, but I knew it would have been the worst idea ever. I couldn’t take this—couldn’t take how good it had felt when his tongue had met mine, his body pressed up close to me.

I looked down to the floor, hoping to break the spell for a moment. I needed to get out of this, get out of that place inside my head that told me I should go back for more. We were working together, for goodness’ sake, and people who worked together didn’t kiss like that, I was sure of it.

Sorry, he murmured, and when he looked up at me again, I managed to center myself. It was a mistake, that was all, and I could admit that. Sometimes, people did crazy things, and you just had to move past it the first chance you got.

It’s okay, I replied. It was just...just the beer. And this place. And the countdown, and all of it. It didn’t mean anything.

It didn’t mean anything, he agreed at once, seemingly relieved that I was taking the same approach to this he wanted to. I could still taste his lips on mine and wished I could go back in time to experience them just for another moment, but I needed to let go.

Uh, I should... I muttered. I wasn’t even sure what I was meant to say. I was staying at his hotel, after all, so it wasn’t like I could tell him I was going home—if I did, he would know I was only doing it to avoid him, and if he knew that, he knew why. Why I was trying to get away from him. And the thought he might believe I really wanted him, that the kiss had made me that crazy, I couldn’t allow that. I was mortified just thinking about it.

Yeah, no, it’s fine, he agreed. I could tell he felt the same way I did, but we had no idea how to communicate that to one another. I searched his eyes, for something, anything I could hang on to, but I had no idea where to start, not really.

His phone buzzed, and I thanked whoever was watching over me in that moment for giving me a way out of this situation. I took a step back from him, knowing we were still too close, still closer than any professionals should have been. Hell, I wanted to just reach out and touch him again, but I knew it was just the beers talking. As soon as I got home and thought about what I was really doing here, I was going to be so embarrassed I had allowed myself to get drawn into him. All this time trying my best to make him desirable to other women, and I had managed to get my wires crossed and start crushing on him myself. It was ridiculous. He was meant to be my way out of living in a shithole apartment, not...well, whatever it was I wanted from him right now.

Is she?

I heard him say it down the phone, and I knew at once it had to be about Mia. Mia—the woman he was meant to be on an actual date with tonight, but somehow, he had ended up with me instead. Drinking together, dancing, celebrating this fake New Year in this cheesy restaurant. I should never have agreed to come out with him. Even then, even when I’d said yes, there had been a part of me that had wanted this, even if I hadn’t been able to put it into words yet.

I’ll come back and check on her, it’s okay, he continued, and he rubbed his hand over his face. I could tell he was as shaken up as I was by all of this. I was meant to be finding him a wife, not throwing myself at him personally. Hell, I wasn’t sure what had gotten into me, but I was certain I was already starting to lose control of it.

He hung up the phone and turned his attention back to me.

Sorry about that, he told me. Mia’s up and looking for me. I should...I should check on her.

You need to start taking this dating thing more seriously, I told him. I had to change the subject, get away from the shame and guilt that was wrapped up inside my head for what I had done. I had set him up with this woman, and instead, I had come down here and made out with him in the middle of the dance floor?

Yeah, I know, he replied, looking a little annoyed. He had good reason to be. It was pretty damn bold of me to come out swinging like this when I had kissed him just as much as he had kissed me.

Seriously, you can’t just take off in the middle of a date, I continued. I know she’s drunk, but she’ll remember you did this. She’ll remember, and she might tell other people...

What, like the press? he asked, sounding concerned. I shrugged.

She might, I agreed. Or she might tell her friends, who tell their friends, and then...well, every woman in the city is going to know what kind of date you are, and I doubt they’re going to want much to do with you at all.

Shit, he muttered. I felt as though I had successfully managed to shift the onus back to him. Not exactly a sweet move, or a fair one, but at least it took some of the tension out of me right now.

I need to get back to her, he remarked.

Yeah, for sure, I agreed. He had just dumped that woman back at the hotel to come out with me, and I wasn’t feeling entirely sure about how I felt on that. I needed to get my head back in the game—not obsessing over the way his mouth had felt when we had been kissing. Even though the memory was all too vivid inside my head in that moment.

I’ll see you later, right? he asked, and I nodded. But there was something I needed to say to him before he went, something I needed to be sure he knew.

We’re going back to normal after this, okay? I told him. Like it never happened at all. We’re going to continue working together as professionals. Right?

Right, he agreed, and he looked relieved to hear those words out of my mouth. Honestly, I wanted nothing more than to pull him back in for another kiss, but I knew it would have been a mistake. One kiss, we could put down to just being overtaken by the moment, but another...another, and it would start to be a pattern, and I knew I couldn’t let that happen.

He turned to leave, and I retreated to our booth to continue with the beer I had left there a few minutes ago. How could so much change in such a tiny window of time? It didn’t make sense how I had been able to let that happen. I had promised myself I was going to play entirely professional in all the time we were together, in case he saw through my scheme and worked out  I was anything but a matchmaker in real life.

And instead, I had thrown myself at him the first chance I’d gotten. First time we had been anywhere but a totally professional setting, I had been unable to keep my hands off him. I needed to get control of myself, remind myself why I was doing this.

Well. For tonight, I just planned to drink myself into enough of a hole that I could forget about this entirely. I knew the chances of me being able to get away with something like this were slim, but if I just walked back into his office the next day like nothing had happened, maybe I could convince him this was just a mistake.

Or I could say I had been testing him out for the women I was going to set him up with. Making sure I could truly recommend him in a way that mattered. I could at least attest to the fact that he was a good kisser now, and that had to count for something, didn’t it...?

I felt like I was losing my mind. I knew I couldn’t justify what had happened between us from a professional standpoint, but I was trying to—because if I didn’t, I would have to quit this job out of sheer humiliation, and I wasn’t sure I could stand to go through with that. I needed the money more than anything, and if I lost this job, then I would have to admit it had been nothing but my own fault that had put me there, and I didn’t want to let that happen.

I finished up my beer, looked at his across the table from me, and wondered how insane I would look if I picked it up and started drinking that, too. I needed to forget that tonight had ever happened, that I had managed to screw up another date of his so badly that he’d decided to kiss me, instead. I prayed I would be able to get through to him and convince him that we needed to forget that had ever happened between us.

He was back with Mia by now, no doubt, and I was sure he was already regretting letting me anywhere near him. I wasn’t his type, I knew that—he had laid it out to me pretty clearly the kind of woman he was into, and I knew I didn’t fit into that mold, not one little bit.

But somehow when he had been kissing me, none of that had mattered. None of it. When he had kissed me, the way he had felt as he pulled me against him, I knew that he wanted me. If I had leaned over and whispered in his ear that I wanted him to take me back to his room and fuck me six ways till Tuesday, he would have done it in an instant, no hesitation.

Some part of me wished I had, that I had taken up the chance to feel him in all the ways I wanted to, just to make sure I got it all out of my system. I knew there was no way I could deny how good it had felt, and that next time I saw him, I would be thinking about everything he could have done to me given the chance.

Ugh. I needed to forget about all of it, forget it had ever happened. That’s what I had told him, and that’s what I intended to stick to. No matter how tempting it might have been to call him right now, ask him to pick up where we had left off, I had to focus on my work.

My work. That was what I had gotten involved with him for, wasn’t it? The job. I needed to keep that at the front of my mind from here on out, not let anything distract me, no matter how tempting it might have been.

No matter how much I wished I could kiss him again, right this instant.

Chapter Two

Vance

AS I STALKED BACK TO the hotel, I tried to work out what the fuck I had just done. What kind of mess had I managed to land myself in, and just how in holy hell was I meant to get out of it?

Mia was waiting for me back at the hotel, and I was starting to wonder if I could find some way to get out of seeing her. I didn’t want to have to deal with her, not right now, not with everything else going on. Not with the memory of that kiss still so fresh in my mind, still so pressing in my head.

What the fuck had I been thinking, kissing her like that? I knew I was potentially fucking up more than just our working relationship, acting so out of hand that way, but when she had kissed me on the cheek, some part of me hadn’t been able to resist her any longer. I wanted to taste her, wanted to know what it was that this woman who promised to make everything right for me had going on inside her head. I wanted to know why she had stayed single when she clearly had so