Gameboard of the Gods (Age of X, #1)(132)

“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.

But it was Katrin who answered, with a sly smile on her lips and fervor in her eyes. She beckoned him in and locked the door. For a moment, he was a little thrown off by the bathroom. First of all, it was a lot bigger than he’d expected. Everything in it was aqua blue, from the paint to the satin-covered chair near the entrance to the two faux-marble stalls. Soft violin music was piped in from unseen speakers, and everything smelled like freesias. Justin wasn’t sure if this was a castal thing or some secret of women’s restrooms he’d never known about. It kind of took away from the kinky element of everything, but that was a concern easily forgotten.

Katrin wasted no time in pushing him against a wall and kissing him with an almost ferocious intensity. Her mouth tasted like rum and strawberries, and her teeth nipped at his lips. He moved his hands down her hips and pulled one of her legs up, bending it so that he could slide his hand up the back of her thigh. Her skin was sleek and soft, and the fabric of her dress yielded easily as he pushed it up. Yearning flooded him as she ground her body against his, giving him one of those rare moments where the continuous spinning of his mind stilled and gave in to instinct and emotion.

He still held high hopes of getting her onto the counter and wasn’t really picky about which way she faced. But when he tried to move her in that direction, she pushed back, her hands resting on his chest to keep him pinned against the wall. Maybe this was part of what “intimidating” meant. It reminded him a little uneasily of Mae’s dominance, and he hoped this would have a happier outcome.

It didn’t.

He had Katrin’s underwear partway off when he felt the wire against his neck.

The kissing also abruptly stopped, and when he opened his eyes, he saw that the ferociously passionate look on her face had simply become ferocious. He tried to speak, but the words were choked off as the wire bit into his flesh. With a strength born out of sheer terror, he pushed back against her and managed to momentarily escape the wire. Katrin surged toward him again with remarkable strength, but he dodged in a way that kept his neck from strangulation. He managed to wriggle away and grabbed the first weapon he could find: a ceramic vase filled with freesias. With no thoughts of chivalry, he swung it toward her and managed to clip the side of her head. It slowed her for a moment, and then, improbably, she came at him again and hardly seemed fazed at all.

Ironically, he found he was the one backed up against the counter. He swung the vase again, managing to keep a small distance between him and that wire while he frantically tried to figure out what to do. Offense wasn’t really his style, but staying on the defense didn’t seem like it would get him anywhere. He advanced forward as he wielded the vase, allowing him a little progress until she knocked it out of his hands. It fell to the ground and smashed into pieces. He kicked out at her and managed to hit her leg, but much like the vase, it only seemed to annoy her.