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"It’s just coffee," she replied. "It’s not like we’re going on an international mission."
I shook my head.
"Not right now," I replied, firmly. "We can talk to Solomon about it later today, figure out a time when we can both go out with you, but-"
"But I can’t just go out with one of you?" she asked. I shook my head. I got why she was annoyed – it likely would have been fine, but if something happened to her when she was in my care, I knew Solomon would never have been able to forgive me. Any more than I would have been able to forgive myself.
She let out a sigh, tipping her head back.
"God, I thought – I thought that you wouldn’t be so obsessive about this, since..." she began, trailing off.
"Is that why you did it?" I asked her. She stared at me, shocked.
"No, of course not!" she exclaimed, as though surprised I would even think that way. I shrugged. To me, it wasn’t that big a deal to ask. In my time as a soldier, I’d learned that people would make use of any power they could get their hands on, no matter what that looked like. No matter whether it was ethical or not. If she had used her body to earn a little more freedom, it would have made sense to me.
"You think that’s the only reason I would want to be with you?" she asked me, her voice dropping.
I didn’t reply. She hopped off the counter, staring at me, a suddenly-serious look in her eyes.
"Because you know that’s not why, right?" she continued, biting her lip. I met her gaze steadily, not saying anything. Even after everything that had happened between us, there was something...confronting about this conversation.
"I’m doing this because I...because I’m attracted to you," she confessed. "And Solomon. Not because I’m trying to play some kind of game."
"I know," I muttered, and she shook her head.
"No, I’m not sure you do," she replied. "Because if you knew that, you would never have asked me what you just asked me."
I didn’t know how things had spun so out of control, compared to the light, fun conversation we’d been having just a few moments ago. I didn’t want to turn this into some serious debate. I just wanted to relax, enjoy her company – but of course, I had come out with something that had her overthinking.
"Is that why you’re...is there something else to this for you?" she wondered aloud, gesturing between us. "Are you doing this because you...because you think you can get something out of it?"
"Of course not," I shot back. She stared up at me, a little sadly.
"You can’t blame me for asking, Alex," she pointed out. "You’re not exactly open when it comes to any of this..."
"Do I have to be?" I asked her, my voice sharper than I had intended. She gazed at me for a moment, not replying.
"You don’t have to be," she murmured. "But I’d...I’d like it if you were. I want to get to know you, Alex. I know you’ve been through something, I mean, you have to, to end up in this line of work..."
She reached out to touch my hand and I pulled it away on instinct. I wasn’t used to being spoken to like this, this kind of intimacy threw me off-guard. Sex, I could handle, but her wanting to know me? Really know me? That was something more than I had been prepared for.
She took a step back from me, giving me my distance. I could see the hurt on her face, and I didn’t know how to fix it. I wished I could just tell her what was going on in my head, but I didn’t even know where to start. If she knew the kind of person I really was, the kind of things I had done, she would never want to look me in the eye again...
"I should go," she muttered. Abandoning her coffee mug on the counter, she made her way back towards her bedroom without looking back, and a surge of frustration hit me hard. Shit! Had I just managed to fuck things up with her? Had I just managed to make a mess of things? I thought everything had been going well until I’d asked that stupid question, asked if she was doing this just to try and get something out of us...
I should have kept my stupid mouth shut. But it was way too late for that now. No, I’d said too much – and I knew there were some things you couldn’t take back.
No matter how much you might wish you were able to.
Chapter Sixteen – Solomon
"Just keep your cool," Alex muttered to me, as we headed up in the elevator to meet with Maxim again. "The last thing we want is for him to figure out what’s going on. Alright?”
"Alright," I replied, though, if I was being honest, I had a bad feeling about the way this meeting was going to go.
When Maxim had contacted us and let us know he wanted us to stop by and fill him in on how the job had been going, I’d instantly started searching for a way out of it. Some way to avoid being alone in a room with him, because I got the feeling he was going to be able to see straight through us, and catch on to what was happening behind closed doors at the apartment he paid for. And if he found that out...shit, we were in serious trouble.
And yet, despite all of that, I couldn’t find it in me to care that much about what the consequences might have been in the long run. When it felt that good to be with her, to be close to her, it was hard to give a damn about what might have come of it. I felt as though I was addicted, hooked on her in a way I couldn’t make sense of, and I couldn’t get enough, not even if I tried.
