“Hello?”
Her voice is raspy with sleep, but hearing just that one word instantly makes me hard. Jesus Christ. I can’t remember the last time I heard something that made me hard. Vegas is a town where women let it all hang out, and even in our casino where it’s quiet and elegant, there’s not much left to the imagination. Hearing her sultry voice murmur a single word catches and hooks me.
“Hello?” This time she clears her throat, and I can tell she’s more awake. I blink, reminding myself to speak.
“Yes, sorry. This is Aaron Cortez. Your dad, Frank, asked us to call you.”
“Does he need to be picked up?” God, her voice. Something about the rasp, the slow whisper. My body tingles.
“Yes. He’s at the Cortez Casino. Do you think you can pick him up?” I would offer to have someone take him to her, but after hearing her voice, I want to see her. No, I need to see her. I need to be close to this voice. Soon.
“I’ll be there in thirty minutes.”
I start to thank her, but the line disconnects. I look over at Frank, who’s asleep in the lounge chair, and then I look at Justin. He locks eyes with me and raises an eyebrow. He knows me better than I know myself, and he knows when something is different. I can’t say it yet because I don’t want to jinx it.
We sit there for thirty-six minutes, and I know this because I check my watch every two minutes. Suddenly, I see a brunette walking in our direction, and Justin and I stand up at the same time.
She’s short, curvy, and wearing jeans and a tight, white, V-neck t-shirt. She’s got on cowboy boots, and her hair is in a big knot on top her head. She looks like she rolled out of bed. Her face is free of make-up, and she looks a little annoyed as well as embarrassed. But I swear on our casino, she’s the best-looking woman I’ve ever seen in my life. Her body is lush, and her silver eyes have frozen me in place. I’ve never seen eyes like that before. She looks like pure sex, as if she’s just gotten out from her sheets, and all I want to do is strip her bare and throw her back in them. I feel Justin tense next to me. This is it. She’s the one.
Before I can introduce myself, she speaks.
“Thank you for calling me. I’m sorry if he caused any problems. Does he owe any money?” She looks at both of us, and I realize we’re like statues staring at her.
Hearing that raspy voice sends a shiver down my spine, and I have this uncontrollable need to put her in between my brother and me and take her to the ground. Right here, right now.
Justin, however, manages to speak. “No. He’s all yours, Missus…?”
“Johnson. And it’s ‘Miss.’ There’s just me. And please call me Stella. Thank you for calling. If there are ever any problems, please don’t hesitate to call again. I would prefer we handle this privately.” She moves towards her father, making an attempt to pick him up. There’s no way her tiny body can lift him, and I wouldn’t let her if she tried.
I don’t want her to leave, but I can see she’s got an urgency about her to make this situation go away. Seeing that shakes me out of my fog, and I move to help her. “Please, allow us.” I nod to Justin and we help shoulder Frank out of the casino and into her waiting truck. Once we have him inside the cab, she goes around and jumps in.
Justin and I hustle to the other side, sensing the same thing. We can’t force her to stay, not yet, but we aren’t ready for her to go.
She cranks up the truck and puts it in gear. She’s ready to dismiss us, something women don't usually do to us, and meanwhile we are trying to keep her here.
“Is there anything else we can do for you tonight, Stella?” Saying her name and feeling it roll off my tongue is so sweet. It feels perfect. I grip the rolled-down window as if I can prevent the truck from moving.
She looks at both of us standing beside her truck, and seems to blush a little. “No. Thank you for your help.”
I would punch myself in the face right now to know what caused that blush.
Justin leans in a little, and she blushes further. “You have our number, Stella. Please don’t be a stranger.”
She doesn’t say anything, just nods her head. I reluctantly let go of the window, and she pulls away, leaving our casino and not looking back.
We stand there in the parking lot, staring at where her truck was, changed by that brief encounter. I turn to Justin, “You felt that, right?”
“Yep.”
“She’s the one we’ve been waiting on.”
He nods in agreement. “Let’s do a little digging and see what we can come up with.”
Over the next month, Stella comes in seven times to pick up her dad. Almost twice a week, Frank would show up at the casino, get blitzed, and we’d have to call her to come get him. We never complained about the money we lost, eating up the debt he made when he came in. Each time she would ask what he owed and we told her there wasn't a bill. Relief would flash across her face each time. We thought it was a fair trade to get to see Stella and be close to her. Fuck, I would have paid even more than what he lost.
Justin thought we should move slow, ask her out on a few dates, before we dropped the bomb on her about being ours and wanting to share her. The two of us learned early on we liked sharing a woman, and that one day we wanted to make that situation permanent. This is Vegas, and I’m sure you could find plenty of women willing to do that, but we wanted the one. We knew that when we found her it would hit us. For that reason, we almost never had sex. We agreed that random hook-ups, even solo ones, were unnecessary, so we decided to wait. It had been years since either of us had touched a woman, but we weren’t bothered by it. We wanted a family, and while we knew how to wrap up, we wanted to be safe rather than sorry when it came to getting the wrong woman knocked up with our kid. We wanted our family, one we had chosen. And then Stella came along. It was like our cocks had come back to life, and sex was all we could think about. We wanted inside her, wanted her at our side, her womb filled with our kid, making a family.
We tried to be relaxed about asking her out. While we knew she was the one, we didn't want to scare her by being so intense all of a sudden. First, one of us would ask, then the other. We thought maybe she’d say yes to one of us. Obviously we would both go on the date when she showed up, but we just needed her to agree. We tried to do this like gentlemen, but no matter what we did she wouldn’t accept any of our offers. After four weeks of Frank coming into The Cortez, and us begging for a date, it stopped.
It took a couple of calls, but we found out he was still pulling the same crap, just at one of Don’s casinos on the south side. He pressed his luck, and since this meant we wouldn’t see Stella anymore, something needed to change. Just like everything in life, my brother and I didn't stop until we got what we wanted, and we weren't afraid to get our hands dirty to get it. Sometimes the luck came to us, and sometimes we need to make our own.
We dug around in Frank’s business after the first night we met Stella. We needed to know everything we could about her and about him. Justin and I wanted to have information in our pocket in case we needed leverage, and it was time we pulled that out.
Frank was apparently a very loving and devoted husband, but he had some skeletons of his own in his closet before the missus passed away. It seemed around the time Stella's mom was diagnosed with cancer, Frank took up the gambling and drinking, and it only got worse after she passed.
Not only was Frank up to his ears in debt all around town, but he’d taken a few out in Stella’s name too. From what we found, she didn’t have any knowledge of it, and that made it a thousand times worse. Not only was her dad days from a set of broken legs, but so was she. He’d taken out thousands in her name, and some at some really shady casinos. Meaning if he didn't pay up soon, as in yesterday, they’d come looking for her. Justin and I wouldn’t let that happen. Ever.