God, I think about her mouth.
Soft and warm and surprised. She made this sound when I kissed her, barely audible, but I felt it. A small, helpless sound that went straight to my cock and hasn't left since. I'm hard now, lying in the dark, which is pathetic, except I can't bring myself to care.
I don't sleep.
I lie there for six hours, thinking about her, and when thin gray light starts bleeding under the curtains, I give up on sleep entirely and get in the shower. Cold water, because I'm apparently punishing myself, and I stand under it until my muscles stop aching and my head is somewhat clear.
Somewhat.
My cock is still firmly in the Ruby camp regardless of what my head decides.
I dress, make coffee I barely taste, and sit at my kitchen table as the casino below me slowly comes to life. I can hear it through the floor. The distant machinery starting up, the cleaning crew finishing their overnight work, the early shift staff arriving.
Ruby's shift starts at two.
I check the clock. It's seven-fourteen in the morning. I'm counting hours. Like a teenager. Like someone who's never wanted anything before and doesn't know what to do with the wanting.
I pick up my phone twice to call Pope. Put it down both times. This isn't a conversation that happens over the phone. Pope deserves more than that, and so does what I'm asking him.
Because I have to ask him. Have to be straight with him before I do anything else, before I take another step toward her.
That's the thing I've been circling around all night. The decision that was probably made the moment I kissed her, or maybe the moment she handed me those napkins with shaking hands, looking at me like she expected the worst and was bracing for it.
I want to pursue this. Whatever this is. However insane that sounds given that I met her yesterday and I've spent eight years convinced I wasn't built for anything beyond brief encounters and necessary distance.
But Pope told me explicitly, last night, standing in this very building, to keep my distance from her. His office, his words, his direct order. *Keep your distance from Ruby unless she's in actual danger.* He was clear. I said I understood.
And then I gave her a ride, fought another man in her defense, went up to her room, and kissed her.
I've directly defied my president, the man who saved my life, and I need to own that before anything else.
I drain my coffee, grab my cut, and head downstairs.
Pope's an early riser, always has been. He's usually in his office by seven-thirty, working through club business before the casino gets busy.
Sure enough, when I knock on his office door at seven-forty, his voice comes through immediately.
"It's open."
He looks up when I walk in, takes one look at my face, and his expression changes into something assessing. He doesn't reach for the coffee pot. Doesn't offer me a seat. Just leans back in his chair with his arms crossed and the look of a man who already suspects this conversation isn't going to be simple.
"Sit down," he says.
I sit.
He’s older but he wears it the way some men do, like time made him denser rather than weaker. Hair pulled back, reading glasses pushed up on his forehead, his Steel Sinners cut worn over a plain white t-shirt. He looks like someone's father until you look at his eyes, which have seen the kind of things that leave marks no amount of time fully erases.
He knows those marks when he sees them. That's why he stopped for me on that curb eight years ago.
"You look like shit," he says.
"Didn't sleep."
He waits. Pope's always been good at waiting. It's one of the things that makes him an effective president. He doesn't fill silences, he lets other people fill them, and people reveal more than they intend to.
I've always respected that about him. Right now it's annoying as hell.
"I went to the Desert Rose last night," I say. "After my shift."
