The conference lanyard was still around her neck when Megan sat down at the five-dollar blackjack table, and the man beside her tapped it gently.
“Regional Sales Summit,” he read. “Me too. Logistics breakout, room C.”
“I skipped room C,” Megan admitted.
“So did I.” He smiled, and it was a good smile, unhurried, a little crooked. “Terrence.”
The casino hotel was the mid-range kind: carpet loud enough to hum, a cocktail waitress who called everyone hon, the far-off ding of slot machines like a city of tiny bells. Megan had been married eleven years. Her husband, Dave, had texted that morning: Have fun. Like, actually have fun. You know what I mean. They had an arrangement neither of them had ever used.
She lost three hands in a row. Terrence won four. Their knees touched under the table and neither of them moved.
“You’re terrible at this,” he said fondly.
“I’m not here for cards.”
He looked at her a long moment. “What are you here for, Megan?”
She showed him the text from Dave. Then she slid her room key across the green felt. “Something to tell him about.”
Terrence read the text twice, slowly, and something lit in his eyes. “You sure you want me to be the story?”
“I picked you an hour ago,” she said. “I just needed to lose some money first.”
They didn’t make it past the ice machine alcove on the ninth floor before he kissed her, pressing her gently back against the wall, the hum of the machine filling her ears. He tasted like the whiskey he’d been nursing. His hands spanned her waist like she weighed nothing.
In the room, the curtains were open on the neon strip, pink and gold washing over the bedspread. She pulled her blouse over her head and he groaned softly at the sight of her, then took his time, kissing his way across her collarbone, her shoulder, her breasts, until she was squirming and tugging at his belt.
“Impatient,” he teased.
“Breakout session ends at four,” she said. “I have to be seen at the networking mixer.”
He laughed into her skin, then let her undress him. She stopped and stared, and he grinned, a little shy about it, which only made her want him more.
“Still sure?”
“Terrence, if you make me ask again I’ll scream.”
He laid her down at the foot of the bed and slid into her slowly, her ankles hooked around his back. She did scream, a little, into the back of her own hand. It was so much, a deep full ache that turned into pure pleasure as he started to move, and she pulled him closer by the hips, wanting every inch, wanting it harder. He gave her what she asked for. The bed knocked the wall, and somewhere in the next room a TV went louder, and she didn’t care at all.
She came looking right into his eyes, his name breaking in her throat, and he followed with a long low groan, his forehead against hers, both of them slick and laughing.
Afterward she lay across his chest in the neon light, and texted Dave a single word: Story.
The reply came in seconds: Tell me EVERYTHING tonight.
Terrence read it over her shoulder and laughed. “He sounds like a good man.”
“The best.” She kissed his jaw. “Now help me find my lanyard. We have a mixer.”
At the mixer they stood on opposite sides of the room holding warm white wine, and every time she glanced over, he was already looking back, raising his plastic cup a quarter inch. A toast to room C, the breakout session neither of them ever attended.
