My orgasm crashes through me with unexpected force, my back arching off the bed, his name in my mouth as pleasure floods my system. He follows immediately, his rhythm faltering as his own release hits, his frame shuddering above me as he finds his pleasure.
For one long, perfect moment, we’re connected completely. His weight carefully balanced above me, his breath hot against my neck, his cock still pulsing inside me as the last waves of pleasure fade.
Then he’s moving, careful even in the aftermath. Pulling out with a gentleness that makes my stomach flip, disposing of the condom, returning to the bed to gather me against his chest.
“That was...” he starts, then stops.
“Incredible,” I supply, my voice slightly hoarse. “Amazing. Spectacular. The best sex I’ve ever had.”
He smiles, that quick flash of teeth and the subtle gleam of a tusk. “For me too,” he says, and pulls me closer. I want more of this, of him, and fight against the sleep that’s suddenly overcoming me. He reaches for the blanket at the foot of the bed. “Get some rest,” he says, his voice gentle. “We’ve got time for more later.”
We do have time. Hours before we need to be downstairs, before the realities of the bar and the kitchen come crashing back and we become colleagues who’ve crossed a line we can’t uncross..
For now, we’re just us. Mei and Tovek.
I settle against his chest, his heartbeat steady under my ear, his hand a warm weight at the small of my back. My eyes are already closing, my body heavy with satisfaction and exhaustion. The last thing I’m aware of is his lips against my hair, the murmured “Sleep well, Chef” that follows me into dreams.
I wake to grey light and the weight of Tovek’s arm across my waist. His skin is warm. Orcs run hot. His breathing is deep and even, and for one perfect moment I let myself study the tribal scars that trace across his forearm before my brain catches up to what I’ve done.
Then I’m moving. Slipping out from under his arm with the practiced silence of someone who’s spent years sneaking out of shared apartments, grabbing my clothes from the floor, pulling on jeans and yesterday’s shirt without looking back at the bed. His boots are in the way. Massive things, easily twice the size of mine. I step over them and keep moving.
Through the apartment. Down the stairs. Out the back door into the alley where the dumpsters live, because the front entrance feels too exposed, too much like I’m making a statement.
The morning air hits my face, cool despite the lingering heat from yesterday’s pavement. New Vegas never really sleeps, but there’s a lull between the late-night crowd stumbling home andthe early risers heading to work. I turn left without thinking, away from the Strip’s main drag, and start walking.
My body aches pleasantly. Muscles used in new ways, the tenderness that comes after spectacular sex. My lips are slightly swollen, my neck probably marked with bruises I haven’t looked at yet. There’s a pleasant soreness between my legs that makes each step a reminder of exactly what I’m running from.
Not running. Walking. Thinking. Getting perspective.
The streets are familiar now, which is its own kind of irony. Six weeks ago, I was lost every time I left Pharaoh’s Palace. Now I know which alleys cut through to where, which casinos have the cleanest public restrooms, which food carts are worth the credits and which ones are serving reheated garbage. The neon signs that used to feel overwhelming now feel like landmarks. There’s the pawn shop with the broken ‘P’ that flickers like a heartbeat. There’s the massage parlor that’s definitely a front for something. There’s the dumpling cart that opens at 5 AM and sells out by 6.
Home. These streets feel like home now, in a way that makes my chest tight.
I turn right at the corner where the holographic showgirls dance in an endless loop, their smiles frozen in synthetic pleasure. The Strip is quieter here, the casinos smaller, the neon less aggressive. A few blocks more and I’ll hit the older section, where the buildings predate the magical renovation and the architecture is more Earth than alien geometry.
My phone buzzes in my pocket. I pull it out without breaking stride.
Sunny: “You alive? Call me.”
I should call her. She’d know what to do. She always does, with her talent for cutting through bullshit and naming the thing I’m most afraid of. But I’m not ready to put words to this, to make it real by saying it out loud.
I text back “Alive. Will explain later,” and keep walking.
It would be easy to call what I’m feeling desire. The want that’s been building since the kiss in the closet, since the careful neutrality of our conversations, since the moment I walked into his bar and saw him watching me with those unusual green eyes. Or attraction. The simple physical response to his frame, his capable hands, the way he says “Yes, Chef” like it means something.
But it’s more than that. More complicated, more dangerous.
I pass a casino called Lucky Dragon, its entrance flanked by LED dragons that breathe holographic fire on a timer. A drunk elf stumbles out, blinking in the early light, and nearly walks into me. I sidestep automatically, not breaking pace.
The thing I’m feeling is the kind that rises in my chest when Tovek laughs, when he concentrates, when he watches me cook with that careful attention to detail. It’s the way my skin prickles when he brushes past me in the kitchen, the way my heart rate increases when he says my name, the way my brain goes quiet when he looks at me like I matter.
It’s the thing I’ve been carefully not naming for three weeks, the thing that tipped over last night into sex so good I’m still feeling it in muscles I didn’t know I had.
My phone buzzes again. Three question marks and a skull emoji from Sunny.
I ignore it and turn down a side street where the buildings are older, the neon less bright. The synthetic cherry smell of the Strip fades, replaced by something earthier. Cooking oil and incense and the particular mustiness of buildings that have stood for decades.
Because this isn’t what I agreed to. Isn’t what I signed up for when I accepted the job, when I moved into the spare room, when I started building something real in this kitchen that isn’t mine.
