He squeezed her butt. “I have this problem. Can’t keep my hands off you. It’s an impediment.”
“To what?”
“To learning about you.”
“It’s not like I’m a complete stranger.”
“I didn’t know if you ate meat or fish. I don’t know if you like to dance. I don’t know what kind of music you listen to, or if you play an instrument. I don’t know if your parents are alive or you have siblings.”
“You want to know those kinds of things?”
“You know all this detailed stuff about me. Your research.” It was freaky, like she was one of those superfans, but pro level. “I’ve got nothing on you that’s real outside of your work, that you’re scared of spiders, own gorgeous underwear and what a sensational fuck you are. And that isn’t anywhere near good enough.”
She unhooked her hands from his neck and pressed her palms to his chest. “There isn’t much to say about me. The critical thing is the spiders, also not that keen on insects. You’re the one with the big life.”
“I’m not buying that, Mena Grady.” Would she recognize her own words turned against her?
That yank—ow—on his chest hair said yes.
He let her go long enough to plate up and set the table on the deck. The sunset over the sea was going to be a top backdrop.
“How is this game of yours going to work?” she asked, sitting opposite him, backlit by a pinking sky.
“For everything I learn about you I earn a touch.”
She served them both salad. “Hmm. That just gives you what you want twice over. Information and sensation control. I think it should work the other way around. For every piece of information I give you, I earn a touch. I’m the one putting out here, I should get something in return.”
He could say that made him the winner twice over, but why complain when you were on a good thing? “Too easy.”
“I can touch you wherever I want, how I want, for as long as I want.”
He forked a piece of chicken. He ought to put up some sort of defense. “No stabbing, burning, disabling or maiming.” Not that she would. Shiver up his spine. Wait, would she?
“I agree. No inflicting of bodily harm and I’m not going to tie you up.” She wrinkled her nose, looked out towards the sea. “Although.”
He ran a toe up her shin. “Not on a first dirty weekend. I’m not that kind of boy.”
She whipped her head around and laughed, mouth wide. How had he ever thought she was cold? He couldn’t see any traps here. “You have to answer every question I ask to my satisfaction before you get your mitts on me.”
She frowned and filled her mouth with salmon. He amended that. “You can have one pass.”
She held up two fingers.
“I’m such a sucker. Okay, two.”
There was a lick of tension to the rest of the meal. Neither of them pointedly asking any questions. Talking about the house, the sunset, the fact she’d planned to break it off with him but packed spare underwear and a toothbrush. Complex emotions, he dug that.
He sped through a kitchen clean-up and they reconnected on the sectional, with the darkening sky outside and a single lamp inside making it intimate.
He started easy. “Did you always want to be an investment advisor?” She sat apart from him. At least three whole other people-shaped spaces away. Strategy. Jeez, might’ve screwed himself agreeing to her rules.
“No, I wanted a job where I earned good money. I never wanted to worry about not having enough for rent or being able to pay my bills. I wanted security. I wanted to have nice things.” She curled her legs up on the sofa and looked out at the stars. “I didn’t have that growing up. Only child of a single parent. Mum worked two jobs. In a café during the day and cleaning offices at night. She only works one job part-time now because she wants to, and lives in a lovely flat I pay the mortgage on in a nice neighborhood.” She brought her gaze back to him. It came with a knowing expression. “Is that a satisfactory answer?”
It knocked him sideways. It made his brain frizz with a dozen new questions and smashed his initial impression of her. Mena didn’t grow up posh and polished. The sophistication she had was earned, made, not an accident of her birth. That made her more like him than he’d ever imagined.
“Doesn’t explain why you wanted to work with money.”
“Without much supervision, I ran a bit wild. Lots of reasons to skip school. Because of that I got a real-life case study in consequences. I thought I could sail through on a good memory, but I did badly in my exams, so my options were limited. I never forgot that lesson.”
Mena running wild. That was something he needed to know more about. “What kind of wild?”
“The forging notes for the principal, climbing out of windows, minor shoplifting, underaged drinking and lots of hooking up kind. I thought I knew everything, and I was a devious and determined little witch.”
Devious and determined. He sat forward, clapping his hands to his thighs. That was the best. He didn’t care if Mena
