"Screw you, man." He tried and failed to keep a straight face, reclipping paperwork into a three-ring binder and shutting it with a soft thwap. "You know what, whatever. Wait for her to text you, don't fucking wait, I don't care. But the job is done here, so it’s now or never. I'm going home now to jerk off about something, I guess. Are you coming?"
"You want me to come jerk off with you?"
Pike's patience with me was next level but he had his limits. He pressed the button on the console and the computer powered down like a jet cooling its engines. Then he was out of the desk chair and shouldering past me and into the lobby of the bank. I spun with him, pinching the bridge of my nose. We were done with the installation, and if I walked out that door with Pike I’d pretty much never have the chance to talk to her organically again. He was making my decision for me.
Natalia looked up for the first time, watched him traipse by with the binder under his arm and the car keys swinging aroundhis fingers, and glanced in my direction. We locked eyes for a long second before hers shot back down to her screen.
That small gesture was a glimmer of hope, the tiniest opening of an invitation. I weighed the options quickly, deciding not to hit my pillow later asking myself what-ifs. Swiping my phone off the desk, I slid it into my back pocket and hustled in Frankie's direction, catching him before he pushed out the door. "Be out in a few minutes," I told him. I tilted my head toward the front desk and he smirked back, saluting me with two fingers to his forehead.
But then Pike looked past me. "He's a good guy, I promise. You make him nervous, so you have an advantage anyway." I turned and Natalia was watching us again, a shadow of a smirk lifting her lips.
“Yeah, yeah, see ya, Pike.” I cleared my throat. “Hey, I heard if you use your left hand it actually feels like someone else is doing the job,” I hissed under my breath.
His laughter trailed off as the glass doors waved open and thud shut behind me, leaving me and her mostly alone. A shy, albeit smug grin lit up Natalia Russo’s face.
"Do I make you nervous?" she asked quietly. Something pinched the inside of my chest, hearing her voice for the first time. Soft yet deep, it matched her dark hair and the shade of her lipstick. It felt familiar in the way that déjà vu does, like maybe I’d heard it in a dream before, and forced me to imagine all the other alluring pieces of her there were to uncover.
"Most pretty things do." I shrugged, blasé. "Probably because I was never allowed around the china plates as a kid. But I'm learning to be gentler."
Her nose scrunched in the most adorable way, all of her features coming together and kissing at the center of her face. Then she slid the keyboard in front of her to the side, propping her arms on the desk. "Gentle is boring."
That was a whisper tossed into the loaded space between us. My eyebrows knitted together and then relaxed. Either she was flirting with me or I was deeply confused and now mistakenly aroused. Her pupils danced forward and back; the ring around them was a brown like toffee. "Now that I see you up close I guess it makes sense. There's something in those eyes that makes me think you like getting in a little bit of trouble.”
On cue her eyelashes met the topmost part of her lids and it felt like she was telling me to look right through her. To find a secret hidden somewhere. "Thank you for the coffee," she said. I hadn’t been able to stop staring and she knew it too, because I felt the teasing sureness in her next words before she even said them. "Little cold once I got here though, if I'm being honest."
God, I loved a brat. She was more and more my type by the second. And I liked that I’d made her comfortable enough to take a playful shot at me. It made me more confident in my gutsy reply.
"You know, it's really good right out of bed first thing in the morning."
Her blinks slowed, and my smile followed hers, all the way to my ears. We were both enjoying whatever this little thing was. She wouldn't be entertaining it if she wasn't interested.
"You're inviting me over for a slumber party?"
"I was just buying you a coffee, sweetheart. You're the one talking about slumber parties."
She laughed then. It was so quiet and short-lived and she closed her hand over her mouth like she'd get in trouble for it. But that sound was even more perfect than her voice, bubbling up to a higher pitch before tapering off. Whoever made her self-conscious of that laugh was a son of a bitch because I was yearning to hear it again.
Natalia's face returned to neutral and she shot a glance behind her, to the rooms where her coworkers sat. A guy in hismid-twenties with a thin tie and a too-tight dress shirt watched us curiously, with a crooked nametag on that said “Andy.” Her expression soured and I stared at him until he turned back around. Yeah, I’d say Natalia Russo fucking hated her job. She pulled her cardigan across her chest and folded her arms.
"Am I going to get you in trouble?"
"Possibly," she said. “But I don’t really care. Let them fire me.” Her long, French-tipped nails tugged at a loose thread on her sleeve.
“Who needs a job anyway?” I shrugged.
There was a little caddy with a pair of scissors on her desk. I reached for them slowly, asking for permission and curling the fingers of my other hand toward her arm. She lifted it hesitantly, curiously, and watched me snip the yarn.
"Aren't I a little young for you?"
"I don't know. You haven't told me how old you are yet."
"Twenty-five."
I blew out a breath and counted the lights on the ceiling. "How's your relationship with your father?"
"Terrible."
"Then I think we'll be just fine."
