He scanned his ego at the table to buy his chips, fully aware he wouldn’t have been setting out such a big amount if his emotions weren’t in such turmoil. It didn’t matter, though. He had plenty of money to burn, and as Horatio had pointed out, it didn’t seem like his luck could get any worse.
And it didn’t. That wasn’t to say it improved significantly either, but at least he more or less kept even, allowing him to lose himself in the thrill of random chance. Servers brought him drinks, dulling his memories of Mae. Other players moved in and out, and at one point, a young Nordic woman came and stood beside him. She placed no bet and simply watched the game unfold.
“Do you play?” Justin asked her.
She gave him a shy smile and shook her head. “No. I can’t follow the bets.”
“It’s not that hard,” he said. He generously gave her some of his chips and proceeded to explain some of the rules. She couldn’t grasp all of the strategy, but she caught enough to make some simple bets. A few paid off, and she clapped her hands in delight each time she won. It was cute.
They played for another half hour, and then the girl—who’d introduced herself as Katrin—took a step nearer him and murmured, “I actually didn’t come over here to learn to play. I came here for you. But I wouldn’t mind teaching you a few things.”
Don’t, groaned Magnus.
Justin looked down at her, and her early demureness was gone. There was a forward look in her eyes that brought back all the unfulfilled desires he’d been forced to shove away earlier. She wasn’t a tall, gorgeous ice princess, but she had pouty lips and a dress that managed to display a knockout body while modestly showing little skin. And she was blond. He’d found a mixer after all and hadn’t even had to put forth much effort.
“I’m always happy to learn new things,” he told her, just as quietly. He kept his eyes back on the table, trying not to be obvious to others.
“Some men find the things I teach…intimidating.”
“I don’t scare easily.”
You are so stupid, said Horatio.
A hot Nordic woman wants to do “intimidating” things with me, Justin retorted. What would be stupid is not taking advantage of this opportunity.
Justin nearly asked her back to his room, but memories of Mae suddenly popped back into his mind. He didn’t want to take Katrin into that bed.
“Do you have any place we could go?”
She didn’t answer right away, which only made things that much more tantalizing. He gripped his bourbon glass tightly, waiting for a response that seemed to take forever.
“You said you don’t scare easily,” she finally said. “Are you afraid of the women’s bathroom?”
Whoa. He hadn’t expected that. He’d figured she’d give him an address that they’d slip off to separately. Not that he had a problem with bathroom sex. In his younger days, when privacy hadn’t always been so easy to come by, it had been a necessary option sometimes.
“It takes more than that to scare me,” he assured her. And actually, the more he thought about spreading her legs on a bathroom counter, the more on board he was with the idea. There was just one problem. “But it might not be the most, uh, secure place—which could be an issue here.”
“Not the ones on this floor,” she said in agreement. “But there’s one in the basement for employees that doesn’t get used much. Do you see the stairs over there? There’s a service door that’ll take you down.”
She seems to know that bathroom pretty well, observed Horatio. I wonder how many men she’s held “class” for down there.
“I’ll go now,” Katrin continued. “Meet me in five minutes.”
She cashed out and, without another glance, sauntered away. Justin played a few more rounds, watching every second on the clock, and then left for the rendezvous. He had to seize a moment when no one was near the stairwell before slipping into it. They might very well have had cameras in it, but he was pretty sure that bathroom sex, while frowned upon, wasn’t actually a crime, even among castals.
The lower level was a daylight basement, and the long corridor he entered ran down to a glass door that opened out to the casino’s back property. Otherwise, there was little activity. A few servers scurried back and forth between stockrooms, but no one was down at the end that contained the restrooms. With a deep breath, he strode toward the door marked WOMEN and knocked softly when he reached it. For half a second, he had a panicked thought that Katrin might have played him and some dour Nordic matron would open the door.