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Aileen stopped in front of us and turned that sharp look on Lucas first. “I’ll take this from here.”
I was pretty sure from the way he backed off that he’d been expecting her. Always keen to shuffle out of responsibility.
“Okay.” Aileen put her hands up and started gesturing with them as she tried to put me in my place. “First of all, I’m not entirely sure if it’s illegal to receive someone else’s photos and then share them with people they weren’t initially meant for, but I’m certain it’s illegal to take photos that were never yours in the first place. So you can be absolutely sure I am going to talk to the school about this and maybe report you.”
I slipped a leaf out of the Lucas Starling Playbook for Women. “That doesn’t make any sense, Aileen. You can’t claim those photos were never mine when you let me have them in the first place.”
“Let you have.” She shook her head at me. “Axel, you utter scoundrel, that’s like saying if I leave my door unlocked I ‘let you in my house’.”
Now she was close I could see she was flushed, fired up. I’d made a low play and it had hit its mark, but she was still going to challenge me. It bothered me a little that she was such a credible opponent. There was something that felt very wrong about being on the opposite side to her on this. “In the circles I go in, if you know someone is outside the door looking to get in, then you would in fact be judged harshly for failing to protect yourself.”
“It seems like a harsh world all around.” I was surprised that she was intrigued… and annoyed when that took my mind off the presently undefined nature of her tits to have me contemplating her brain.
“I suppose it is, but realistically, this is how the entire world operates. This is just a world where we’re a lot more honest about what matters to us and what we’re willing to do to get it.” And perhaps we would be able to talk this situation through like adults after all.
“Hm.” Aileen’s eyes shifted away from my face for a second, and when they came back her face had changed. I realised Luc had wandered off, and that was what she was waiting for to really let me have it. “Okay, so distributing that fake photo of me was a really filthy move. Can you even imagine how embarrassing it is to have the whole school thinking they’ve seen me naked? Never mind what’s going to happen when Mrs. Hitchens finds out… or Ms. Miller.” She groaned. “You’ve fucked up absolutely everything for me, Axel. They’re going to call my dad in over this, I bet.”
I saw her go still after she said it. She was trying to work out if that had been a part of my plan all along.
Well, I wasn’t going to tell her anything. “If your dad is worthy of that patent he holds, he’ll figure out it’s not you. That was a fucking weak edit.”
She actually looked like she was about to cry. I realised I wanted her to hold on, to show she was stronger than the circumstances she found herself in.
I even tried to throw her a bone. “The thing that should really be bothering you about this situation is how eager everyone at Burgundy is to see your tits. I bet you never thought you were this popular.”
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I was a little surprised when she had to stifle a snort. Part of me had wanted to crack her harder, even as I was telling myself I was giving her a break. “I think the real question here is why you’re so obsessed with them.”
A bratty response I had to admire… but instead of acknowledging her balls, my business side came out to play in a way I hadn’t expected.
“Let’s both get the answer to that. Show me what you’ve really got under that shirt of yours, and I’ll forget this whole thing. You and your dad can keep your unethical patent.”
Her jaw dropped. Her cheeks bloomed red, and she put a hand up over her mouth, pretending she was just taking in the proposal, but I could tell the real purpose was to put an arm over her chest to guard against my gaze. In case I’d worked out how to look right through her clothes, perhaps.
“Are you…” Her voice was shaky, but getting stronger the further she went. “Are you seriously trying to get me to sell tawdry glimpses of my body in exchange for something neither of us even owns?”
That seemed to be exactly what I was doing. And the thing with that was… she wasn’t acting like the answer was definitely no.
This was an interesting development. She couldn’t possibly be interested in me, or she would have tried to leverage that patent rather than shutting down negotiations. It wasn’t that she cared so much about the patent she would trade anything for it, either. If she’d understood its value at all she would never have talked to me so casually about it.
Something else was in play here, and I couldn’t put a name to it. But I was going to call her bluff, keep playing this angle, because I wanted some answers.
I folded my arms. “It doesn’t have to be tawdry. We could go do it somewhere nice, I could even buy you dinner beforehand.”
“Sounds like you’re hoping for a whole lot more than a flash.” Aileen wrapped her arms around herself, maybe because it made her feel protected from me, but if that was the case she was way off base with it. I kept picturing myself striding through that distance that was still between us and unwrapping those arms from around her like a piece of clothing, then digging my fingers into that little shirt and yanking it to shreds. Tearing away anything that still stood between me and her bare skin, and knowing.
“My dear, did it occur to you that maybe I take my tawdry glimpses seriously? For some of us, a bit of pleasing the eyes is all that’s needed.”
Her shrug squeezed the tits of our present negotiation together, flashing me a glimpse of cleavage over the little dip in her shirt collar. “Well, you are part of the Internet generation.”
And the thing with the Internet was, you got to see everything. The instant you wanted it, clicked on it, there it was: spread across your screen in HQ, usually for free. If not free, you could have it for a crazy reasonable price. Tits and pussy, like pretty much everything else in the world, could be had for the right price even if you weren’t that well off.
I wasn’t sure what about Aileen could be had for a price. Not the stupid patent. A look at her body… maybe?
I stepped a little closer, so I could speak more quietly. Give myself scope for some dynamic range. “All right—what’s your sugar?”
“What?” She sounded annoyed because she didn’t understand.
