Author's Notes: See? I can write het. It just turns out like this.

The first time they screw, it’s in a supply closet where anybody could walk in on them. Amber comes on hard and fast, determined to win this game. She will do anything to win. And Taub takes her eagerly, greedily, because sex is sex. He doesn’t mind when her fingernails—perfectly manicured and sharp—dig into his shoulders, making bloody crescent moons as she tries not to moan in pleasure. For Amber, control is everything. She is in control of this. And as she leaves the closet, she leaves Taub in the dark, fumbling around in search of his pants.

The second time they screw, it’s in an on-call room. On a bed. Amber lets Taub take the top this time, lets him lick her stomach and fondle her breasts, and she doesn’t care. Neither does he. Yesterday, she found out that he cheated on his wife a long time ago. Amber doesn’t mind being the second, because she hates Taub. But she wants to win the game, so she grits her teeth and thrusts her body upward. She wonders if he ever fucked his wife as hard as he’s fucking her right now.

The third time, Taub tries to talk to her beforehand. He tells her that he can’t get into a relationship. Amber tells him that she isn’t in this because she thinks he’s sexy, that she’d screw Cuddy if it meant she got to keep her job, and Taub just nods and takes off his shirt. They fuck each other in the morgue. Amber knows that there are dead bodies around, and even though she doesn’t believe in ghosts, she can feel their failures surrounding her, suffocating her, and she can’t hold back a scream as Taub goes deeper into her, penetrating her very soul. She grips his shoulders as tears slide down her face, and she hopes that House will come in. If he sees them together, she’ll be interesting. She’ll be able to win the game.

The fourth time is better than the last. It’s in a supply closet again, where Amber hopes House will come in and see her fucking Taub like her life depends on it. Taub is still clueless. As he unsnaps her bra, Amber wonders if he thinks that she’d doing this because she wants the sex. Or maybe he’s having marital problems. She thinks that maybe, he just doesn’t care why. Sex is sex, he said, and she can’t become anything more to him. Which is fine with her. Why should she care? When House finds out about this—because he is House, he finds out about everything—she will win. And then nothing else will matter.

The fifth time it happens, Amber feels the pressure. House is closing in on his final decision. There are only five left now, and she needs to be the one to win. She isn’t pretty like Thirteen, or funny like Kutner, and she isn’t religious like Cole. She just wants to win. Taub just wants sex. And this time, the sex is more brutal than anything she’s had before in her life because they’re both so desperate. They grab each other and roll around, fighting for the top, biting and sucking and moaning until Amber feels her hands wrapped around Taub’s neck, strangling him. His face is tinged blue. The idea is so horrifying to her that she forgets about the game and leaves before she knows what she’s doing. Taub has bruises around his neck for a week.

The sixth time, she has been fired. She has lost. The game is over. As she stares at Taub, she tells herself that she let him fuck her for nothing. She surrendered her body to him, let him take and take and never have to give, and it was all for nothing. House never knew what she’d done for this job, and she feels like if she only told him, he would change his mind. Maybe if he saw her pinned against the wall of a supply closet, saw Taub ravaging her body in on a rickety bunk bed, saw her crying on the floor of the morgue, saw her hands wrapped around Taub’s neck as she choked the life out of him, she would have won. She would have been picked.

But she has lost. And strangely enough, as she looks over to a grinning Taub, she does not feel angry. She does not feel sad. She does not even feel jealous.

As soon as they are out of the room, she and Taub go to the on-call room and fuck each other like there’s no tomorrow.