Alexis tips back another shot. The liquid burns down to her throat and she
gives a satisfied sigh. Her entire world keeps crashing down around her, and
there isn't a damn thing she can do about it. She leans back on her stool,
feeling drunker then she can remember being in a long time. She glances down
at a man at the far end of the bar. His spiky blonde hair is the only thing
visible. Alexis feels reckless. She hasn't felt this way in years, and she
feels the need to act on it. She springs from her seat and walks on legs
that only quake slightly to the other end of the bar. She plops down next to
the man and smiles at him. "Hey Sailor, buy a girl a drink?"

The man looks up at her with narrowed eyes. "Look, normally I'd probably be
all over you by now, but I'm just not in the mood at the moment."

Alexis shrugs. "Then I'll just hang around until you get in the moment.. or
the moodŠ or the mood in the momentŠ" Alexis begins to giggle softly, then
stops herself. Damn Stefan for bringing her to this. Drowning her sorrows in
a bar like every other woman who'd lost at love on the face of the earth.
Except she hadn't just lost the love of a manŠ She'd lost the love of the
only family she'd ever hadŠ.. As he'd said beforeŠ she was dead to him.

"You're a persistent little thing, aren't you?" Her eyes dart back to the
man, having temporarily forgotten him. One look into those gorgeous blue
eyes and it all came back to her.

"You might say that. I'm Alexis," she holds out her hand to him.

He glances at it warily before enclosing it with his own. "Scott. Please to
meetcha LexŠ. I guess."

"You'll know before the night is out," she says cryptically.

Scott looks Alexis up and down. Not bad, the part of his brain that wanted
her to go away comments. His libido had several other choice things to say,
and Scott, being mostly drunk, had no choice but to listen to his libido.
"Do you play poker?" he asks suddenly.

Alexis smiles. "Chess is more my game, but I've been known to dabble here
and there."

Scott stands up and leans over the bar, grabbing the pack of playing cards
the bartender keeps there. "You wanna play down here, or up in a room?"

Alexis bites her lower lip, trying to decide if she can take this final
step. Then she looks at him again and thinks about the big lonely bed
upstairs. Then she decides she wants to have some fun. Good old fashioned
fun, the likes of which she's never really experienced. "Let's play up in my
room," she states boldly.

Scott smiles at her. "Just to warn you here, I've got some psycho freak
tryin' to take my daughter away from me. Anyone who comes in contact with me
could be in danger."

Alexis shrugs a shoulder carelessly. "I've got a psycho woman trying to kill
me - So we're pretty much in the same boat. We might as well rock it
together." She stands and offers him a hand. He takes it and they both head
upstairs.

~~~~~~~~~~~

"Damnit, you're cheating! I know you have to be cheating!" Scott grumbles,
staring at his hand.

Alexis smiles a small little smile. "I'm not cheating. I'm bluffing. Well.
Your bet."

Scott taps his fingers nervously on the table. Finally he throws his cards
to the table. "Fold," he mutters.

Alexis smiles smugly. "Thank you very much." She raises her eyebrows at him.
"Go on."

Scott rolls his eyes. "Fine. A deal's a deal." Scott peels off his shirt,
and tosses it to the pile which already contained his socks, shoes, belt and
pants.

Alexis crosses her legs underneath the table, staring down at the small pile
which contained her shoes and stockings. Looking down at her own body, she
realized she couldn't afford to lose much more, or she'd be in the same boat
as Scott. And she was having much too much fun laughing at him to join him.
"Very impressive," Alexis whistles as she looks Scott up and down.

"Yea, yea. Shut up and deal the next hand, babe."

A few moments later Alexis lets out a giant sigh. Scott smirks. "Well Lexie,
I guess you'd better get strippin'."

His smirk infuriates her to the point of boldness. She realizes she'd always
despised women who teased. Women who used sex as a weapon against men.
Alexis was about to become something she'd always despisedŠ..

Scott inclines his head as he watches her hands snake down her body. He
hears a slight rustling sound underneath the table. A few seconds later, her
hand pops up on top of the table, holding up a pair of navy blue lace
panties. She gives him a few seconds to stare at them, then casually tosses
them on the growing pile of their clothing. "Your deal, *babe*," she says in
a low husky tone.

Scott feels his entire body tighten in reaction to her. OkayŠ So he wanted
this woman he met a few hours ago.. There was nothing wrong with thatŠ. He
just had to seize the moment, and take herŠ Looking at the way she was
looking at him, he doubted she'd mindŠ but what if she did? "Five card stud.
Nothing wild."

Alexis looks down at her hand. All five cards were dealt. She had four
hearts showing. She looks up at Scott. "Ready?"

"No. Wait a minute." Scott wraps his fingers on the table. "Let's make this
a little bit more interesting."

Alexis' eyes widen slightly. "We're playing strip poker, I don't see how it
could get much more interesting," she responds dryly.

"This is the last hand. If I win, you have to make love with me all night
long." He stares at her intensely, those blue eyes piercing her own.

"What do I get if I win?" she asks in that same husky tone.

He narrows his eyes at her. "What do you want?"

Alexis' tongue darts out to lick her lips. "If you win, I'll make love to
you all night. But if I win, you have to make love to me all night long.
Deal?"

Scott swallows deeply. "Deal," he croaks.

Rather then playing out the hand, Scott tosses his cards onto the pile of
clothes and reaches across the table, grabbing Alexis' wrists. He walks
around the table and brings her body against him, the cards crushed between
their bodies. "Is this your idea of folding?" Alexis murmurs.

"Yea," Scott replies gruffly, crushing his mouth against hers. Their tongues
dual back and forth as they inch their way to the bed, neither willing to
give up the iron grip they had on one another. Alexis falls back on the bed
and stares up at Scott.

"All right thenŠ You folded. Strip for me," she waggles her eyebrows at him.

Scott chuckles. "All I have on right now is my boxers. It ain't gonna be
much of a show LexieŠ"

"I'll be the judge of that," she murmurs, propping her head on her hands to
watch him.

A little self conscious at her single minded focus on him, Scott hooks his
thumbs underneath the waist band of his boxers and shoves them to the
ground. "Happy?" he asks sarcastically.

"Yes," Alexis nods, with a smile on her face. "Now come here."

Scott walks to her until his knees touch the end of the bed. Alexis rises
onto her knees on the bed and loops her arms around his neck. She pulls his
mouth down to hers, kissing him slowly, languidly. Scott's hands roam her
back, finding the zipper on her dress and slowly inching it down. He undoes
the clasp on her bra, and strips both her dress and bra from her body in one
fell swoop. He breaks their kiss and moves away from her to study her body.
He smiles approvingly at her.

"Very nice," he murmurs. He walks closer to her and gives her shoulders a
small push, causing her to fall back on the bed. He climbs up next to her
and begins running his index finger lightly along her body. "Very, very
nice," he clarifies with raised brows. He brings his finger up to circle
around her nipple, watching in fascination as it tightened. His mouth
follows his finger, his tongue darting out to circle the puckered tip. Her
little murmur of encouragement causes his lips to close around her nipple
and suck, gently. Her hands move to his head, her fingers tunneling through
his hair as he speeds up the pressure with his mouth. He turns his attention
to her other breast, his hands moving down her ribs to rest at her hips. His
mouth abandons her breasts entirely, following the path his hands just took.
His tongue circles around her navel, then moves to lick at her abdomen, and
dance lightly over her thighs. Hooking his arms underneath her thighs, Scott
raises her up to his mouth. His tongue moves lightly over her clitoris, then
dips down to taste her briefly. Her hands tighten in his hair at the first
contact, and her soft moans are music to his ears. She tightens her hands in
his hair and begins dragging his head up to her mouth.

"Enough, ScottŠ.. PleaseŠ" Her tongue swirls around the outer shell of his
ear as her whispered pleas reach him.

Sucking in a breath, Scott nips at her jaw line. "But I'm not done playing
yet LexŠ.. Wasn't the deal that I'd make love to you? I'm just trying to
keep up my end of the--"

Alexis crushes his mouth to hers and sucks his lower lip between her teeth.
"ScottŠ" Alexis begins on a pang, "I swear on everything you hold dear, if
you don't use this," her hand runs down his chest to cup his arousal, "right
now, not even God will be able to prevent the things I will do to you."

Needing no further encouragement, Scott pushes inside her in one hard
thrust. She gasps his name and wraps her legs around his hips. "Better?" he
grits out in a whisper next to her ear.

"Yes," Alexis hisses as her nails alternately clutch and dig at his neck and
shoulders.

She matches him thrust for thrust as he moves in and out of her. Alexis lets
go of him and brings her hands to her sides to clutch at the sheets. Scott
moves his own hands to cover hers, stilling their movements. He threads his
fingers through hers and kisses her, quick fleeting kisses again and again.
Letting go of her hands, he moves his palms down her sides to her hips. He
holds onto them as he pushes himself harder into her. He brings his mouth to
her chin, licking away a bead of salt that had been about to drip. Feeling
her beginning to tighten around him, Scott increases the pressure and speed
of his thrusts, feeling her hips surge up to meet him each time. He feels
the pressure build inside him, craving release, needing the pleasureŠ.. He
vaguely hears her scream out his name in ecstasy a moment before he lets
himself fall over that edge with her. He lets out a long groan and collapses
on top of her, his head buried in the pillow behind her.

Alexis takes a few deep breathes, her fingers running lazy circles down
Scott's back. She supposed she should tell him to move off her, but it felt
so damn good like this... It had been awhile since she'd held anyone like
thisŠ She admitted to herself that she missed it. She then became aware of a
small pain under her hip. "Ow," she exclaims.

Scott rolls off her immediately and props his head up on his elbow. "What?
What's wrong?" he asks, concerned.

Alexis raises her hip up, and brings out a playing card. "This was digging
into my hip."

Amused, Scott takes the card from her hands. "The Queen of Hearts?  How
appropriate."

Alexis narrows her eyes at him, then spots something. She reaches out and
snags a playing card from under his elbow. "Ha!" she snickers. "Look at
this."

Scott snatches the card from her hand and rolls his eyes. "Naturally. The
Joker."

Alexis begins to laugh and lays down against the pillows. Scott joins her
and wraps an arm around her middle. He rests his chin on her shoulder gently
and stares at her. Alexis glances at him out of the corner of her eye.
"What?" she asks warily.

He shrugs a shoulder. "Just thinking how lucky I was to have chosen the Port
Charles Grille to get drunk at."

Alexis smiles at him. "I was just thinking the very same thing." She runs a
hand down his jaw. "My life is so complicatedŠ.. But I really needed thisŠ
Just toŠ To have someŠ"

"Fun?" Scott asks, amused with her.

"Exactly! Fun!" Alexis replies, taking him seriously. "I haven't really had
any funŠ. WellŠ Ever."

"That's too bad. But I know what you mean. It's beenŠ months since I've had
fun." Scott places a kiss on her shoulder. "I guess we're good for each
other. Maybe when my life settles down someŠ. I could give you a call?"
Scott offers, half question. "Maybe we could tryŠ. Hell, I don't know, Gin?
Black jack? Old Maid?"

Alexis smiles at him. "I think I'd like that," she says almost wistfully.

A long comfortable silence settled over the room while they held one
another. Alexis finally breaks it. "I've had a thought."

Scott's eyebrows raise dubiously. "Will wonders never cease."

"No need to be insulting," Alexis admonishes. "At any rate, back to my
thought - You're the jester, are you not?"

"Joker."

"Same thing. Anyway, you're the jester, and I'm the QueenŠ. Is it not the
responsibility of the court jester to keep the Queen entertained?" Alexis
asks, running her fingernails lightly down his arm.

Scott nods his head. "Yea, I believe that was how it worked." He places an
elbow on either side of her head and levers his body above hers. "May I
entertain you, M'lady?" he asks in a husky voice.

A muffled "Mmmhmmm," was Alexis' only response.