Knaves by M. J. Lawless

think it’s time we got you back to your bed.”
    “ A good idea,” mumbled Hayden, thinking to himself: Wow! She’s really quite strong!
    As they staggered —or, more precisely, Hayden staggered and Eloise held him up—towards the elevator, Hayden repeated the intensely romantic mantra “don’t be sick—don’t be sick” again and again to himself. Goddamn! He couldn’t remember the last time he’d been this drunk, but as Eloise placed him against the wall of the elevator, using a hand to hold his chest still as one of her legs slid between his—in a way that didn’t seem quite as innocent an act of support as she presumably meant—he realised that not all of his body was that drunk.
    “ I should… I should get some sleep,” he muttered, suddenly guilty as he thought of Karla. “But thank you, thank you so much for helping out a chap in need.”
    “ My pleasure,” Eloise purred, her face a few inches away from his, looking up at him as her other hand seemed to slide down his stomach and lingered a moment too long on his crotch, an act which made her eyes light up. “You keep yourself… very fit,” she breathed, lifting her mouth to his ear. The smell of her perfume was overpowering.
    “ Ugh… thanks.” Hayden’s brain was a fog of confusion now. On his right shoulder, a single angel was telling him to think of Karla, while on his left a whole troupe of little demons was jumping up and down yelling a host of unspeakable suggestions. He put up a feeble defence: “So… how did you meet Valmont?”
    For a second her smile faltered then she raised a single eyebrow. “You don’t really want to know that,” she told him. “There are only two people here now who really matter.”
    This time, when she kissed him he didn ’t resist. Instead one hand slid into her dress, encountering the firm, hot resistance of those magnificent breasts as his other moved around her back, scrunching up the fabric around her taut, delicious buttock. Her mouth was hot and sensuous, her tongue a wet snake that slide and penetrated his mouth, sucking out his breath so that he could no longer think.
    Hayden didn ’t even know where he was, who he was when the lift opened and he half fell into the corridor, causing an elderly couple to gasp as Eloise followed behind, holding him up by one arm. He saw her wink at them and then drag him along. “Which room?” she hissed, biting his ear to show she meant business. Bloody hell! he thought through the fug of his brain—she really is strong.
    He vaguely told her a number and she fished inside his jacket, pushing him against the wall with the other hand and holding him in place as she retrieved his card key. Her look was triumphant, vulpine, and he had the oddest sensation as he remembered from somewhere that lupa could be the female name for a wolf. Then he remembered the videos he’d seen her in and any further attempt at resistance was lost in a sudden swelling of his manhood.
    “ She doesn’t understand me,” he said, self-pityingly. “Everything I’ve done, I do for her, but she doesn’t get me.” Shut up! Shut up! his brain screamed at his mouth. Listen to yourself! Instead, Eloise turned at him and regarded him strangely.
    “ We never do,” she replied ambiguously.
    Now the door was open and he stumbled inside, barely able to keep his feet. With one gentle push, Eloise sent him sprawling onto the sofa and stood in front of him.
    At that precise moment, as he looked up at her, Hayden had the weirdest feeling that she appeared to be some kind of Valkyrie, with large, pointed breasts and blonde hair curled up about her head. There were two parts of him, he realised, that were not completely inebriated at that point. Hayden had never really seen the point of a conscience, but one tiny part of his brain was reminding him in increasingly truculent tones that if this wasn’t necessarily wrong, it was certainly not part of his and Karla’s plan. (His brain seemed to