And quite inescapable

Lara's Journal: This may be my last entry. I cannot move. I have spent the past two hours running the gamut of earthly delights that Alex can humanly provide and I fear that hedonism may claim my life in one way or another before the day has ended. Hopefully, Winston is doing well and my **** does not pain him too much. Today, I have learned what it is like to truly eat and be stuffed and to be, in the most literal sense possible, flattened under a wall of unadulterated luxury. I have experienced more in the past two hours than I ever did previously. And I will feel every inch of it clogging my arteries for the rest of my now short but pampered life. Goodbye world.

Okay, so it was a little melodramatic, but it was her journal and she was allowed to write it how she wanted. Lara lazed in a hammocked lawn chair under a set of UV lamps on a patio that Alex called her "sunbathing suite." It was probably the only place in Russia where you could sit outside in a bikini and not fear for the longevity of your toes. In fact, despite being able to look up through the tented greenhouse glass at the overcast morning sky, Lara had a decent sweat going. Alex seemed better attuned to it, but she was also snoring heavily as she slouched deep into her seat. A mostly empty bottle of champagne still hung from her hand. It was nine in the morning, which really couldn't be emphasized enough considering the bender it looked like Alex had tried to drag Lara into. Alex's bikini had been unfastened from her chest, protesting that she didn't want tan lines. Like that, she had fallen back to sleep. Stuffed full of high-quality food and **** that could have paid college tuition. Even Lara, as one of the richest human beings alive, found the scope of it a little distasteful.

Of course, Alex probably didn't live like this every day. This was a special occasion. Alex had probably just partied herself out since Lara was here with her. Lara took her time to fill out her journal and check her messages in the downtime where Alex wasn't trying to feed her or get her drunk. It was, again, still nine in the morning. If Alex's approach to today was to be the measure of either her standard of living or Russian culture, then the second breakfast served with wine was probably a more substantial killer than heart disease.

Lara, in a conservative one-piece swimsuit, had shown "mockable" prudishness for the whirlwind of the last two hours. Alex walked around her house in her swimsuit, took meals and drinks in it, hugged her staff a little too firmly and for a little too long in it. Perhaps it was an English upbringing versus whatever Alex had gone through, but Lara wasn't much of a hugger, especially in a swimsuit. Now, lying in her hammock with her breasts hanging heavily to either side as she snored, it seemed like Alex was unafraid of her staff seeing her even fully naked, let alone in a bikini. Now, realistically, Lara could admit to being at least somewhat prudish, it wasn't something she would have denied. However, if Alex was the standard of normality a prude was to be measured against, not many people on the planet would have been anything but prudish. For all of her justifications about tan lines, Alex had made sure to only open her bikini when she had the eyes of her grounds crew. If the widowed billionaire had any shame, she definitely didn't show it when surrounded by her small militia of boytoys.

The patio door slid open and yet another handsome young man stepped through, a small boombox and basket of plastic bottles in his hands. He nodded at Lara, then looked over to Alex and sighed.

"I have told madame to fall asleep on the table if she is going to fall asleep. The hammock is hell on my knees." His voice was out of place in Russia, likely some masseuse Alex had taken with her personally.

"Is this common for her?" Lara asked, pointing at her snoring host.

"Lamentably so."

He stepped over to Alex's hammock and set the boombox down, hitting play and filling the patio with the sounds of Russian pop music, a sound which rung garishly in the ears of any non-Russian and several Russians. Lara recognized the voice of Kirkorov from a day spent lying sick in bed watching Eurovision in her teen years. Perhaps by Pavlovian conditioning, she felt like she was going to break out in hives. The masseuse saw her grimace and nodded.

"She did not arrange a massage for you, perhaps you should take this moment to slip away if you wish to keep your breakfast down."

He opened one of his bottles of oil and poured a steady stream down onto Alex's stomach. The woman grumbled happily and stirred.

"Oh Peter," She purred, half asleep, "Are you here to make the bad feelings go avay?"

"Like always, madame."

He set his hands down onto her torso, rubbing the oil in. Almost instantly after, Alex's lethargic arms pushed his hands down between her legs, sinking under her bikini bottom and immediately producing wet noises.

"I see the madame is very troubled today."

"Oh, Peter..." She whimpered out as his hand writhed in her bikini bottom, the other tracing small circles on the insides of her thighs.

Lara slowly rose out of her chair. The potent mixture of sounds and smells was going to be too much to deal with. She crept out through the sliding door, Peter nodding at her but not acknowledging her leaving vocally. She heard Alex's whimpers and the sound of tacky Russian pop disappear down the hallway as she crept to the gym.

Maybe Lara was a prude, if not wanting to sit in a room and listen to a friend getting fingered made her a prude. There was a certain point where it stopped being a matter of one's prudishness and more about the accuser's promiscuity. Life was a garden of earthly and spiritual delights, from good food to Russian popstars with truly horrific sideburns. One did not have to find all of the flavors of forbidden fruit desirable to be more moral or agreeable than anybody else. Lara enjoyed romantic company, just perhaps not in public. She also enjoyed exploring tombs. She had come here to do one of those two things. Getting fingered in a Russian mansion was not why she had hopped onto a plane across Europe. Though she didn't find the thought objectionable when framed with some of the help. Hell, Alex probably wasn't territorial, especially considering how more than once she'd asked the guards what they thought of Lara's body. It was oddly objectifying, but it also came from a woman who seemed just as happy as the object of some young man's affection as she was navigating high society. Alex had simply chosen a different flavor of the fruit to glut herself on, and while it was too sweet for Lara's pallette, who was Lara to judge? Well, about the same as Alex, who seemed baffled that anybody could dislike the taste. Perhaps she would get Lara to sample the fruit one way or the other before the visit was up. It was hard to say. Either way, Lara had never shared the Roman orgiastic fantasy of the men she desired as Alex seemed to. There was more of a chase to it ideally, which perhaps was its own kind of warped worldview.

The gym was lively, a couple of the men sparred on a mat in dress ranging from a full leotard to the casual wear of the indoors guard. Others worked the gauntlet of machines to work every discernable muscle as well as those that surrounded it. It seemed like the whole of the guard knew how to move in time to the gym while the mistress was out taking her luxurious nap. Perhaps then, on that same sort of restless nervous wavelength, Lara had been drawn to this same place at this same time. Perhaps she and the men were a sort of kindred spirit, it would be hard to say with the language barrier. Though, of course, it was just possible that she had enough guards that the gym was never empty.

She caught Anton's gaze, spotting one of his men as he worked an impressive squatting weight. When the man had straightened up, Anton clapped him heavily on the back and the man shoved him in return. They strutted and preened aggressively in each other's faces, smiling the entire time. Boyish, overly aggressive, a fun little ritual.

Lara walked over to them, giving the weightlifter a respectful nod. "Hello again."

"It seems you have torn away from the lady?" Anton asked, somewhat accusingly.

"Yes, she's getting a massage out on the patio and I figured I had some time to slip away."

"Ah, how much troubled is she?"

"Peter seemed to think she was quite troubled."

All of the men in earshot around her had stopped what they were doing and turned their eyes to Lara. When they heard this, all of them that understood her laughed, including Anton. Some of the others had it translated to them and they chuckled.

"Then not short massage. Have time for sparring, if interested."

"I'd be happy to show your boys the ropes, I just hope they don't cry about it when I kick their asses." Lara taunted.

Again, there was the initial round of laughs followed by the delayed post-translation chuckles. They all seemed eager to get a chance for a go.

Anton shook his head and chuckled. "All of these be-kov could do with good thrashing."

His words got a hissing, excited grumble from the men. Whatever he called them, the connotation was... odd. The mats are expanded, others being rolled out. Lara considered going to her room to get some better sparring gear, but her swimsuit wasn't that far away from a leotard. Besides, she had found men tended to get distracted by it in the moment. Something a good soldier needed to learn to not fall for. Wrap two lessons in one. She stepped onto the mat, getting the feel for the texture of it while slipping into a balanced stance. Dropping her shoulders and keeping her legs shoulder-width. The men stood around in a circle. Lara had a moment of realization that if they all charged her at once, she was completely defenseless, but they didn't. There was too much mutual respect, too much of an interest in seeing it through. There was some argument over who would go first, but eventually, a bold-faced man stepped forward and people seemed to accept him.

"What is your name soldier?" Lara asked as she stepped forward and shook his hand.

He seemed to have a tenuous grasp of English, but responded "Thomas."

"Right, Thomas, don't take it personally but I'm going to be pointing out what you do wrong if I pin you. That won't hurt your ego, will it?"

He nodded, then somebody explained what she had said and he shook his head sharply. "Teaching."

"Good good." Lara nodded with a smile.

She stepped over to the other side of the map and dropped back into her stance. She hadn't had a good spar with somebody in a while, but even if these guys were world-class, most of it was muscle memory and nothing more. Thomas looked at her, getting some encouragement from his mates before coming at her too loose and too tall.

Thomas came in quick, but he came in sloppy. He grappled for her shoulders, probably trying to get a hold that he could use his strength to throw her to the ground with. She ducked and hit his stomach with her shoulder. She was holding back, going even below sparring strength, it still toppled him and let her drop him on his back. Then pulled him into a simple armbar before he could get his bearings. The armbar pressed his palm against her chest, but she wrote off the brush of fingers against her breasts as dazed twitching. When he tapped against her leg, she let him go and nodded him off.

"Does anybody know what went wrong for Thomas?" She asked mostly rhetorically, when she didn't get an answer she continued. "He went in out of stance and without a plan of attack, come on now, you guys shouldn't be this green."

Thomas slunk back to the men, Lara had half-expected him to have a far more wounded ego, but it seemed like he had expected to be beaten. Odds were he had been chosen to gauge her level of expertise. The next man up would probably be one of the better fighters, low range, then high. Get a good feeling of where she was at, what level of kid gloves they needed to wear against her. They clearly didn't know who they were dealing with. That was only accentuated when an absolute beanpole came forward, his youthful face didn't leave a doubt in her mind that she was dealing with a rookie. Perhaps not low range, then high? Maybe just genuine inexperience.

She didn't even get a name out of this one before he came at her, again high and unsteady but his bullrush caught her enough by surprise that when he threw a palm punch out she only managed to avoid it with a duck. By the time she staggered back into stance, he pulled around behind her and wrapped long arms around her with wiry strength. She gritted her teeth as she felt his hand squeeze her breast through her swimsuit. Again, she could probably justify it as coincidence, but this one was a lot less likely. It also made her more suspicious of how Thomas had acted. She kicked one of her legs back and caught her ankle against his Achilles quickly and sharply as she pushed back simultaneously. Both combined managed to throw her opponent back-first to the mat, snapping his neck backward painfully. She pulled this one into another submission, one that didn't give him a chance to further grope her.

"The bull rush was a good strategy, but again, he lacked a proper plan of attack after that and then left himself **** to one of the most standard counters in the book."

She felt him tap but held it long enough to make him tap again just for good measure. Hopefully, she sent a message without having to publicly scold him.

"Come on now, surely this isn't the best you have." She said somewhat mockingly.

A stockier one came forward who called himself Marco. His face was far smugger, cherry cheeks and nose like some sort of military-garbed Santa Claus. He nodded to her but did not shake her hand. When he came, it was far more prepared and he was ducked low.

Marco came with an aggressive move into her ribcage, trying to put his shoulder where she had put hers against Thomas. It wasn't just simple imitation though, he was far looser, looking to get a hold and maintain, not drive to the ground. Lara let him in, his arms reaching around her back as she took a step back but held her base. They held in place for a second, Lara setting her hands in Marco's armpits to potentially **** them closed with hard pressure from her knuckles.

Marco's hands groped blindly for a second before they found their target, likely one he had intended from the minute he stepped forward. He grabbed her swimsuit and yanked it up at the waist, pulling the crotch thin into a wedgie that burned the skin between her legs and the cheeks of her ass. She heard a couple of hoots and laughs behind her, but she stifled protest. She had known something like this would happen, it wasn't going to do much outside of the moment of juvenile laughter it prompted. She took a quick pair of steps back and kicked her legs out. Marco, now with his weight overcommitted as he tried to embarrass her, found himself thrown underneath the weight of her body as she dropped his chest onto the mat, landing her weight on top of him. His hands were **** up and over his shoulders far past the point of comfort. Before he could get disentangled, Lara scrambled to plant her knee above his shoulder blade and wrenched one of his arms back harshly. Even without committing to dislocating his shoulder, every second in this position was going to be agonizing. And, considering what he'd done to earn it, hopefully embarrassing. She gave his arm a few quick teases at dislocation, getting him to yelp. He tapped, but Lara held the hold for longer than she needed to.

"Marco here made two mistakes," She lectured, feigning flat disinterest as she ignored his repeated taps. "Firstly, he committed to a hold with no pin plan. Secondly, he thought that simply embarrassing an opponent would be enough to stop them."

She finally let Marco up and he grasped at his shoulder before stumbling back to his boys, who had turned to laughing at him as Lara pulled the wedgie out.

"Now, Marco got off easy, but if any of you try something like that again, I'll go through with the submission." She warned.

It seemed like nobody was willing to step up after that, though it was hard to tell if that was because her threat had scared off another dozen would-be ill-intentioned combatants or if people were really beginning to see that they wouldn't win against her. Anton had pocketed a decent handful of cash after each fight.

"Is nobody willing to bet against me anymore Anton?" She called teasingly.

He shook his head, "They realize Leonid not joking about you."

"Well that's no fun, I was just getting started too. How about I make you boys a bet of my own?"

"That would be speaking their language."

"Tell you boys what, I need to get out of here and explore the Zemlya Kurgan. There's no way that Alex is ever going to let me, but I know for certain there are some pilots and drivers on staff here. If I can beat each and every man here, you take me to the Kurgan behind Alex's back."

Anton shook his head, "Dangerous to disobey Lady Romanov. Man who does it risks more than job."

"I wouldn't make the offer if I thought there was any other way. Plus, I figure I can give some stakes that might make these boys willing to risk it."

"Like?"

"Well, considering what seems to be on your men's minds, how about if even one of you beats me, you get to pick my outfit for when I rematch all of you."

"You realize you are talking of fighting naked, most likely. If you think men will fight decently against naked woman, you are foolish."

"I could tell by how each fighter seemed more interested in groping or exposing me than properly fighting. Look, I have something I need to do. I won't make any progress without putting something on the line. If I win, I get where I need to go. And I don't plan to lose. Besides, there's no knowing for sure that the victor won't have something else in mind. Maybe he'll pick a petticoat and frock, or maybe a French Maid outfit."

Anton seemed like he wanted to reject it, but there were more than a couple of men that seemed ready to **** him at the thought.

"Fine, you understand stakes. I will not stop you, but I will not help you."

For as much as he played the straight man, Lara could tell some part of him wanted to see what would happen. He would hold himself a certain arm's length apart, as Alex's favorite, but he wasn't going to stop watching if she did lose.

"Alright then, how about you boys stop trying to hit me and hit me?"

The passion seemed renewed among the men. Again, if they all came at her at once, there was likely nothing that she or Anton could have done in the moment, but it seemed like they all had too much respect for the actual game of it. They argued again over who would go first, ultimately picking a lean but broad-shouldered man to go. Lara dropped into her stance again. She could tell by the icy look of her new challenger that he wasn't going to go light on her. His eyes were on the prize, in more ways than one.

At that moment, the steel door of the gym swung open. "Darling, darling, darling! Vat is this fighting and sveating?"

Lara felt all of the energy drain out through her body. Alexandra waddled into the gym worriedly and the men parted for her to grab Lara's arm. She seemed flushed, her hair a slightly disheveled mess after her long massage.

"Alex! I was just-"

"A lady shouldn't be fighting vith men, even if it is just for fun. Men and vomen should spoil each other."

She pulled Lara out of the gym, Lara gave up resisting her quite quickly. The guards disappeared with bitter looks and even more bitter laughs behind the metal doors.

"Alex, I'm not some little girl."

"I know dear, but men only know one language. They fight like they love and they love like they fight."

Lara paused, "What do you mean by that Alex?"

Alex looked around, then leaned in and almost whispered. Her voice lost a lot of the joyful edge it usually carried. "If a man doesn't vin, you hurt his pride. No matter how small the battle. Love is the same, a man vill accepts a stalemate so long as he thinks he is in charge, but never a loss. Give a man victories, no matter how small, and he stays vere he vins. If he never vins, he either find somevere else to vin, or vorse, never leaves."

"Alex, what are you talking about?"

"My first husband, ven he took me out to the finest opera money could buy as a date and I did not open my legs, he became obsessed. He did not vin, so he spent everything he could to vin me. By the time I relented to him, he vas a far poorer man than he had been ven he started. If I had let him vin, opened my legs after the opera, I could have had him and his money. Then, before I found my second husband, I almost married a fine diplomat from England. Do you remember ven I vas visiting once every few veeks? I read him wrong, didn't let him vin because I thought he vas different, but he found somebody else. My first mistake vas not letting him vin, my second vas thinking any man vorked differently."

"I'm not sure I agree with your worldview, Alex."

"Vat matters most in this vorld is timing, Lara darling. A small victory at the perfect moment is vorth far more than a large victory too late or too early. You shouldn't open your legs for everyone, just the right people at the right time. Love is var."

They rounded a corner and entered a bathing room with a sauna attached. An attendant was waiting just inside the door and Alex walked in and slipped out of her bikini top, pretending not to notice him. When it was off and she tossed it onto the bench near him, she made a show of being embarrassed and covering her chest.

"Oh sorry Barry dear," She purred, her voice back to the ditzy tone she employed usually. "Could you give Lara and us some privacy? Lara doesn't like ven men see her in her natural element. Perhaps you could go pass down the order to start lunch?"

Judging by his hesitation, leaving his post was something he didn't usually do. Either out of misguided green rule adhesion or stubbornness. Either way, he eventually relented, leading Alex to slide out of her bottoms and gesture at Lara.

"Carrot and stick darling. You veild powerful veapons but balk ven you should use the carrot."

Lara looked around like more guards were going to come bursting out of the walls, but relented and slipped out of her suit to join Alex under a set of wall-mounted showerheads. "I think viewing the world as nothing but carrot and stick is dangerous."

"Vell of course darling, but that's not your real issue vith how I treat my men, is it?" She looked suddenly at Lara with cutting scrutiny. Somehow, it made Lara feel naked twice over.

"I suppose I think it's all very showy." She admitted.

"Vat could you mean darling?"

"The overt promiscuity and the baby doll act, isn't it a little transparent?"

"Ah, but you are more paranoid than most people Lara, many people see vat they vant to."

"And those that don't?"

"If nobody saw through it, I vouldn't ever need to act on it. Let a man think he's see through it, then ven he's in bed show him just how much you lose control vith him. Ven you quiver for his touch, he thinks he vins. He thinks he sees the strings of all the puppets vith his face between my legs. Like if I fired him, he vould have some horrible **** against me. Valk naked and you hide nothing."

Lara slid into the bath beside her, settling onto a step in the warm tub as a small mountain range of bubbles rose around her. It was easy, for a moment, to forget what she was here for and melt. Of course, that was the problem. It was hard to fully shake the feeling of the things she wasn't getting done, but the smell of lavender as bubbles crept up her stomach did its best. Alex lazed beside her, stretching out in the tub and sliding down so that her head barely poked out of the water, disappearing in bubbles. For a while, she sat in silence, though occasionally Alex would hum some of the tunes Lara could recognize from the boombox. The silence was broken by the door swinging open without warning and the man she had called Barry barging in unannounced. Lara quickly threw her arm around her chest and pulled the bubbles close around her. Alex saw this and sighed.

"Dama, lunch is finished. Bring up?" He sputtered.

Alex got up out of the tub purposefully, letting the sudsy water drip down off of her naked body. She stepped over toward Barry and set her hand on his shoulder.

"Barry dear, ve have a guest. Miss Croft does not like it ven people barge in unannounced, okay?"

Barry nodded, then half-bowed as he apologized. Alex's other hand deftly went to his waistband and detached the keyring from his belt, holding them up in front of his face.

"Bring it up darling, and knock this time."

His face twisted in embarrassment and he quickly ducked out of the room. Alex locked the door behind him.

"Sorry about that darling, ven one of them misbehaves, I take their keys. It is rare for me to punish one like that."

"So much for all carrot and no stick," Lara smirked back.

Alex set the keys in the pocket of the smaller of two bathrobes hanging on the wall. "I never said such a thing darling. Merely that ven the training has been done right, you can use both the same vay. The keys unlock the liquor cabinet for one, but they also unlock all of the doors that have locks on them. It means if you lose your keys, you need somebody else vith you nearly constantly. Shows you are not trusted vith these privileges."

"I'm sorry, all of the doors?"

"Not all of them, darling. If it puts your mind at ease, the only people vith the keys to your room are you, me, and dear Anton. Is that to your liking?"

Lara bit her tongue, she didn't love the idea of anybody but her having that particular key. She supposed she trusted Anton, honestly probably more than Alex. Instead of saying that, she simply replied with "That's fine."

Alex nodded and patted her shoulder as she sat on the edge of the bath. "Good good. Since you are the one Barry offended, I gave you his keys. You may give them back ven you feel his lesson is learned."

Lara suddenly realized that she hadn't been given a set of keys before, but she didn't mention it. If Alex knew, she also knew what she was doing. If Alex didn't, no need to remind her and risk losing the keys.

There was an almost shamefully quiet knock on the door and Alex got up and walked her way over, jiggling as she went. She opened the door just enough to take the dishes in, shielding Lara with her body and the door. She accepted a tray of food and a bowl with a pair of iced champagne bottles in it. She thanked whoever was outside, giving them a decent show in the process of turning and bending with each tray, then shut and locked the door. She quickly grabbed a foldable stand that she set in the center of the tub, which held the dishes out of even the highest point of the bubble line but still well within reach.

"Now come, no more dark talk, I have been saving this bottle for years."

***

Lunch was taken slowly in the tub, each bite matched by one or more drinks of the champagne. In this situation, it was a lot harder to resist Alex's pressure to indulge than it had been in the morning and on the move. By the time they had finished the plate of hors d'oeuvres, itself impressively stacked enough to challenge the term, both were giggling happily in the tub. For the first time since arriving, Lara properly forgot what she had come for, even if just for a moment. One of the walls had opened into a massive screen with a press of a button. It had initially been set to NTB, which seemed to be a news channel. Alex changed it to a movie with English subtitles, but they weren't really paying attention either way. They rambled on to each other over the movie, laughing and enjoying their time together. Perhaps Lara had been selfish. It had been years since she'd really hung out with Alex, she had no idea how lonely Alex potentially was. It was fun, maybe that mattered than some tomb or whatever she had come for.

Eventually, Alex sighed. "I am sorry darling, but I am afraid I slept quite poorly last night. Perhaps I shall take something of a nap before dinner? If I do not vake in time, vill you be okay eating alone?"

"It's fine Alex, perhaps I should get some sleep myself. I am ever so slightly jetlagged."

Alex tutted and pinched Lara's cheeks, then got up and slid into her bathrobe. She helped Lara into hers, giving her ass a cheeky little pinch as she did. Lara giggled and pushed her lightly in return. Alex made a show of toppling and leaned against Lara's shoulder, sighing contentedly.

"You should move in vith me, darling."

Lara helped her to the door and unlocked it, slipping them outside and catching the eyes of some guards who were trying not to look like they were waiting for them. Alex giggled and slid her bathrobe open, flashing one of her breasts at them.

"But what will I tell Winston?" Lara replied, even tipsy herself she was a little more even-keeled and helped pull Alex along.

Alex scoffed, "One day you'll find a man you can be yourself around, if it's an old man like that, so be it."

"Winston and I aren't like that Alex," Lara grunted, trying to pull Alex's bathrobe closed again while the older woman grabbed her arm like a drunken child.

"Then vy so closed up? I've seen married vomen less afraid to be seen naked."

"I'm hardly a virgin dear, It's just... embarrassing when it's a man and not somebody like you."

Alex suddenly lurched with surprising speed and control and wrenched open the front of Lara's bathrobe. She pulled the folds to either side and bore Lara's breasts to a pair of guards walking past. Lara took a moment to process what was happening before she strained against Alex's hands to close her robe again.

"Alex!"

"Come ooooooon! You vaste your looks if nobody sees you!"

Lara managed to toss Alex away and pull her robe shut, the guards in the corridor hurried along quietly. Alex stumbled back and landed on the floor, her already barely-on robe falling around her shoulders. She blinked heavily a few times.

"Oooh, the hall is spinning more than I thought." She mumbled.

Lara took a moment to steel herself. She wanted to be mad, but her rational mind told her that she was fine, that it was a harmless thing, even if it embarrassed her. Alex was just drunk, tired, and ...eccentric. She wasn't trying to offend.

Lara offered her a hand, "You ought to lose your keys for that."

Alex let Lara pull her up and pressed her chest back against Lara's arm. She didn't try anything else funny, but if she noticed that she was wearing her bathrobe as more of a cummerbund, she didn't try to fix it.

"Sorry darling," She giggled.

"You're an absolute menace, Alex."

Alex simply giggled.

Lara dropped Alex off at her palatial room before ducking back to hers to catch up on her emails. When she got a knock on her door and a man with a tray of cooked meats arrived, she nodded and thanked him. She pecked at it a bit, but she had already eaten more today than she usually did in three days. It was hard to deny the quality, but she just wasn't very hungry. When she went to change into a pair of pajamas that Alex had set out for her, the jingle of keys in her pocket snapped her to attention. It had been some time since Alex had gone to her room, would she get a better chance than this to walk around the manor withour her again? She slid into a pair of silk pajamas Alex had provided. As they were likely ones Alex had worn years ago, they were too short but hung like tents around the waist and chest. Lara slipped the key into her breast pocket and slipped out of the room. It wasn't late enough for the house to be sleeping, but most of the men were probably eating.

Lara slunk down the hall to Alex's room, probably best to check before she did anything else. She placed her hand quietly on the knob, but before she could even check the lock she found the door swinging open softly. She heard soft noises coming from the inside.

"Go back while you still can."

Her rational brain told her she was where she shouldn't be, but curiosity got the better of her and she peeped in.

Alex was laying in bed, eyes closed and hands between the sheets. A distinctly human-sized lump was at her waist.

"Anton, pah-jall-istah!" She whimpered.

Lara could hear the wet sounds of somebody's mouth moving under the sheets. Lara felt a hot flash dance through her body, unable to stop herself from picturing what was happening under the sheets. She pulled back slowly from the door, the sounds of Alex's moans lingering in the air and seeming to keep her from leaving.

One of the guards walked past her, nodding casually. She almost jumped out of her skin and her face turned beet red. He looked at her quizzically, then poked his head in the door. He looked back at Lara with a smirk before stepping in. She heard his boots tread over to the bed before the shuffling of cloth.

"Ahhhh, Adrian." Alex's voice came softly. "You- *GLUCK*!"

Lara heard the sounds of Alex purring around what couldn't be anything but Adrian casually using her throat. Again, Lara couldn't help but picture what was happening inside the room. This time, however, she managed to pull herself away and slink off down the hall before she was tempted to look again. She slipped back into her room and locked the door, muttering to herself. She fell asleep looking at her door, uncertain if she trusted what Alex had said.

She woke early again the next morning, her body seemingly unwilling to rise after the sun did. Surprisingly, she found an email from Alex in her inbox.

"Sorry about yesterday, got a little carried away. Going into town later today, let me know if you want to come along. If not, find Anton and tell him to take care of you for the day. No fighting! ~A"