Varrick
She fit against me like a mathematical proof. Every curve aligned to every angle, her breath warming the space above my hearts, her hand splayed across my ribs.
Watching her sleep, dark hair spilled across my chest, face relaxed in a way I had never seen while she was awake, I could not summon any regret. I had come here for the Regalia. Not for this. Not for her. And yet.
Her breathing changed. That subtle shift from sleep to awareness. Her body tensed slightly, processing where she was, who she was pressed against, what had happened.
“Morning,” I said quietly.
She lifted her head, meeting my eyes. Hers were uncertain, vulnerable in a way her professional mask never allowed. “You stayed.”
“You asked me to.”
“I—” She sat up, pulling the sheet with her, suddenly conscious of her state of undress. “Last night—”
“We do not have to talk about it.”
“But we should.” She tucked hair behind her ear, that nervous gesture I had cataloged days ago. “I froze. You were—we were—and I just—”
“You were not ready.” I sat up too, not reaching for her though every instinct screamed to pull her back against me. “There is no timeline for this, Sabine.”
She looked at me, really looked, and something in her expression softened. “Most men would be frustrated.”
“I am not most men.”
“No,” she agreed. “You are not.”
Silence stretched between us. Not uncomfortable, but weighted with everything unsaid. Finally, she glanced at the chronometer.
“My shift starts in two hours.”
“We should be professional,” I said, echoing our lies from yesterday.
“We should.” She met my eyes, and we both knew the truth. “We will not.”
“No.”
She stood, still wrapped in the sheet, and gathered her uniform. “I need to shower. You should… you should probably go.”
I dressed in yesterday's clothes, aware of her watching me. When I reached the door, she called my name.
“Varrick?” I turned back. She stood in the doorway to her small bathroom, vulnerability and determination warring in her expression. “I am glad you stayed.”
The words followed me back to my suite, warming something in my chest I had not known was cold.
I told myself I was just checking the casino's patterns. Observing. Gathering intelligence. But my feet carried me to the mezzanine bar with its perfect view of her table.
She dealt with her usual efficiency. Professional. Controlled. Like last night had not happened.
Then a Mondian, drunk on cheap ambition and cheaper liquor, leaned too far over the table. He was losing badly and decided Sabine was the cause.
“You deal from the bottom, human,” he slurred, grabbing for the deck. “I saw it.”
“Sir, the cards are randomized—”
He was not listening. His attention fixed on Sabine, on her refusal to be intimidated. “Maybe you need a lesson in respect.”
Before he could do more, I was at the table. I did not break his wrist. That felt too simple. Too repetitive.
“Let me play this hand for you,” I said to the Mondian, my voice quiet but carrying. I placed a hundred thousand credit chip on the table. “Dealer's choice. I will bet against you. If you win, you take it all. If I win, you walk away from this table and never return.”
He saw the chip, the easy money. Greed won out over anger. “Fine.”
Sabine's eyes met mine. I gave her the slightest nod. She understood.
She dealt the hand. The Mondian's cards were good. A near perfect sequence. He grinned, already spending the credits in his head. My hand was trash. Utter trash.
“The algorithms on this station,” I said conversationally as I studied my worthless cards, “are based on a predictive model I designed seven years ago. They are currently in a state of cascading failure. But they still have… habits.”
I placed my bets. Not based on my cards. Based on the algorithm's flaws. I knew how it would fail. I knew the sequence of its decay.
“I predict,” I said, “that the system will misread your hand as a fold, pay out my inferior hand at a sixty to one error rate, and then attempt to correct by freezing your account.”
The Mondian laughed.
Then the table display flickered. His winning hand registered as a fold. My losing hand registered as a win. And sixty thousand credits slid into my stack. A moment later, his account icon turned red. Frozen.
He stared at the display, then at me. The color drained from his face. He had not just been beaten. He had been dismantled. His understanding of reality had been taken apart piece by piece in front of everyone.
He stumbled away from the table without a word.
The remaining players found excuses to leave soon after. Within ten minutes, I sat alone at her table.
“That was not professional,” she said, but there was a hint of a smile on her lips.
“No.”
“We agreed—”
“We lied.”
Her hands stilled. “My break is in twenty minutes.”
“I know.”
Twenty three minutes later, she walked through the staff corridor toward the break room. I waited until she had passed, then followed. She knew I was there, the slight change in her walk, the way she slowed near a supply closet door.
I reached past her, turned the handle, pulled her inside.
Darkness. The smell of cleaning supplies and spare uniforms. Her body pressed against mine in the narrow space.
“We said professional,” she whispered.
“We lied,” I repeated, then kissed her.
This time there was no hesitation. She met me with equal hunger, hands fisting in my shirt, pulling me closer. Last night had broken something open between us. There was no unknown left, just want.
I lifted her onto a shelf, her legs wrapping around my waist. Her uniform jacket hit the floor.
My hands found skin, her mouth found my throat, and rational thought evaporated.
She bit down where neck met shoulder, not hard enough to break skin, but enough to make me growl.
The sound vibrated between us, a low, primal warning.
I understood my brothers now. This instinct. This need. It was not a flaw in the system. It was the whole point of the equation.
“The way you looked at him,” she gasped against my ear. “Like he was an insect.”
“He was an inconvenience.” I pressed her harder against the shelving, feeling her arch into me. “Anyone who touches you—”
“I am not yours to protect,” she said, but her body said otherwise, pulling me closer, nails scraping down my back.
“Are you not?”
Her response was lost in another kiss, desperate and consuming. Her uniform shirt joined the jacket on the floor. My hands mapped every inch of newly exposed skin while she worked at my belt, both of us beyond caring about consequences.
Then, footsteps. Right outside.
We froze. Her legs still around me, my mouth at her throat, both of us breathing hard. The door handle rattled.
“Third time I have had to check this corridor.” Kreeg's voice, tired and annoyed. “If I find someone sleeping in here again, it is a month of sanitation duty.”
Footsteps moved away. We stayed frozen for another thirty seconds, then slowly separated. She slid down from the shelf, legs unsteady. I steadied her, hands on her waist, neither of us able to look away from each other.
In the dim light, I could see her lips swollen from kissing, marks on her throat from my mouth, her uniform destroyed. I probably looked just as wrecked.
“Tonight,” I said, voice rough. “I will book a private game. Just you dealing. Where we will not be interrupted.”
She nodded, fear and want warring in her expression. “Tonight. Level 19.”
We straightened our clothes as best we could. She left first, returning to her shift. I waited five minutes, then emerged. My mind was already on the private game. There would be no interruptions, and no stopping. The thought should have concerned me. It did not.