His hotel room was dark except for the lonely bedside lamp.
The man's room should have been pitch black like it had been for the past six nights he had retreated from the tables to his solitude. The bustle of the place was getting to him, constant sounds and events making him restless.
He closed the door slowly, turning slightly towards the hallway as he did so.
She was already here. Lying on his bed after hacking her way in through her extensive list of contacts and bribes he had seen her wield in the casino.
"This is not your room."
"No."
She had the same evening gown on from his first night here; it clashed against the murky red bedspread she lounged on. Her black high heels neatly arranged by the door.
John took his own shoes off, stepping onto the carpet and by some insecurity checked his appearance from the mirror, all under her languid gaze.
"Four thousand, five hundred, and twenty-nine."
He knew what she referred to. The amount of money he had made with the initial bet, and the loan shark interest rate she used to calculate her share.
He turned to look at her.
They had been playing for the past six days and were both winning. For hours end they had picked cards and thrown in chips, and sat by the same table, reading each other's' facial expression and posture. She was the analytical type. A person who could play unpredictably for a certain amount of time before always calling it even, counting odds and memorizing cards to secure her back without a shiver of concern on her face. He played to his strengths, and despite many preposterous moves, always winning the original chip back.
She had been outwardly unfazed by his luck but nonetheless keen to watch his moves, extending her successful prediction making to analyze him.
He walked to the side of the bed.
To him, she looked like a royal. But there was the melancholic undertone of insignificance she gave to the heavy pendant on her neck, the solid rings on her fingers and wrists, the way her black hair, dramatic eye makeup, and red lipstick were not there to show-off but as simple statements of her nature.
She turned to her side and grasped his hand to take the leather-banded watch out of his wrist and put it on the night-stand. For the whole week, she had been his invitation letter to every room and table he had walked to, coldly eyeing down anyone who dared to mutter he was alien to this world.
She leaned back against the pillows without breaking the eye-contact.
He moved after her to keep their closeness.
The man's face bore no emotion, and for an eternity they just stared at each other.
What struck him was her serenity. He had been in this situation many times before, women coming to him, doting him, but diverting their gaze when he made himself reachable, ultimately not prepared to face him.
Cortana raised her hand and let her fingers feel the almost invisible stubble underneath the man's chin. She could nearly feel every single hair with her slow grazing, not to mention the swallow that told her just how much the stoic man in front of her was affected by her touch.
An easy amusement passed through her lips. "Eleven thousand. And seven hundred."
She was just throwing him numbers, raising the debt to sums he wouldn't be able to pay even with his luck any time soon, wishing to keep him here with his sense of obligation. Still, John relinquished himself to the feeling her carefully pronounced words stirred inside him, and the sensation her fingers produced on his unprotected skin.
A strangled noise escaped from his throat.
John's other leg was already on the bed, and he leaned forward, his weight now on his upper body, distributed evenly on his arms on either side of Cortana's head.
He answered to her small grin with his own.
Later, it would be argued many times over whether it had been the woman who reached up to kiss his lower lip, or the man dropping his head to kiss her. What they would later agree on was the way her teeth nibbled his lower lip to respond the way his left hand brushed first her calves and then her thighs.
Cortana wrapped her hands behind John's neck, opening her legs more as he pushed the hem of the gown out the way.
Amidst the electricity running through every cell in her body, she figured they could recede to one of the family villas she had inherited. Come out only when necessary, and move from room to room to satisfy his nomad spirit. Majority of the rooms had no furniture, apart from the few grand pianos and bookshelves that had been covered with big white sheets a long time ago — but the way John was guiding her hands towards the headboard with his other hand, and grazing her lower stomach and moving downwards with the other, she was quite convinced they could go on for years with the floor and the walls being the only surfaces to conquer.
A/N: I wrote what?