Chapter 12
Oh, hell no.
In Nala’s seat, which was still clearly marked with her basket of books and half-consumed latte, was a sweet looking brunette tossing her bob about as she batted her eyelashes at Vincent. The man in question leaned back in his chair, hands folded on his stomach as he took in the woman’s words with a shit-eating grin. This piece of…
It was obvious that this strange woman was attempting to flirt with Vincent. Why? He was a good looking guy, but there were a lot of good looking guys in that room. Was he the only one who reeked of money? Nala couldn’t tell that. She didn’t know what money smelled like, outside of Vincent’s expensive cologne. The only thing she knew was that her Vincent currently had some bobble-headed hussy flirting with him.
She knew it was flirting. That much she was sure of. The woman’s fake smile basically screamed for Vincent to fuck her. The way she kept extending her hand to touch the top of his would’ve been hilarious if Nala weren’t somehow involved. This was a mating ritual she often made fun of when witnessing it out in the wild. Except now she was the doe being tossed out of the back of the hunter’s truck in favor of a bigger one. OH HELL NO.
Nala could only stare in disgust as this display went on. First the woman laughed at everything coming out of Vincent’s mouth. Then she went on to ask him about the books he was reading. “Oh, I don’t know anything about this. Giggle. It seems like it takes someone soooo smart to do it. Giggle. Oh, you own your own company? Wow, that’s amazing! Giggle.” Damnit, why did Vincent have to mention he was a business owner? Now that girl was a shark circling the lone survivor of a shipwreck. She smelled that money on this hot guy.
That was it. Nala couldn’t take it anymore.
“Hey, I’m back!” she said as peppy as possible, letting one hand snake down the front of Vincent’s sweatshirt. That’s right, smile at me, playboy! To be fair, Vincent hadn’t been flirting back, but he also hadn’t shaken this woman. One strike against him already.
“Excuse us,” the woman said, so much snot dripping from her voice that Nala had half a mind to offer her a tissue. “We were talking.”
“Oh, I saw plenty of talking back there, but I hate to tell you that you’re in my seat.”
She looked Nala up and down, attempting to decide whether or not she was a worthy adversary. Try me. Nala knew how to tango with the best of them.
“You’re kidding, right?”
Nala glanced at Vincent, who had one hand covering his mouth as he watched on. Hope you’re enjoying this. He probably was.
“I’m not kidding. You’re trying my patience. Back off.”
The woman scooted back in her chair with a loud screech, leaping to her feet and dwarfing Nala by a good few inches. “Who the hell do you think you are?”
Nala wasn’t intimidated by women taller than her. That would be ridiculous, since almost every woman was taller than her. She waltzed up to the woman, coming up only to her mouth, and put hands on hips. You think I’m gonna back down? The woman was in for a sore surprise. Much like the sore surprise she would’ve gotten on her ass had she ever gone on a date with Vincent.
“I’m his girlfriend.”
Two pairs of brows went up. The woman’s in disbelief, and Vincent’s in sheer curiosity. Nala’s, however, stayed planted where they belonged.
“Besides, trust me, honey,” Nala continued, curling her arm around Vincent’s shoulders. “You wouldn’t be able to handle what he dishes out.”
“Excuse me but…”
Nala tipped her basket over, revealing one of two books about living up the BDSM lifestyle. The woman glanced once before taking a visible step back, shrinking away as if she saw something foul and dirty. Oh, yeah, baby.
“Don’t assume so much about a person…” The woman left, mumbling about how rude Nala was. Rude? Her? That woman was the one trying to snatch another girl’s man! I make it sound like he belongs to me. Didn’t he?
“That was, uh, special.” Vincent lowered his hand and plucked the book Nala dumped out of the basket. “I didn’t know that I had a girlfriend.”
Nala sat in her seat, stinking of cheap perfume. “I didn’t know that I had a flirty boyfriend.”
“Hey, now, she’s the one who came over here and tried chatting me up. If you think for two seconds that I actually found her interesting, then you have another think coming. She was incredibly boring. I don’t go for girls like that. Because they bore me.”
Nala nudged the book in his hand. “Ahem.”
“Yes, yes, she didn’t seem the type into this either.”
“That’s right.”
Vincent waggled his eyebrows as he handed the book back to his girlfriend. “But you totally do, Ms. Nazarov.”
“Mr. Lane, I will have to ask you to refrain from flirting right now. You are on probation after that event. Besides, there are children present. We can’t talk about those things until later.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
I’ll never hear that very often. Nala had to admit it sounded pretty good. He doesn’t say ma’am a lot in his life, does he? How many women did he pay respect to in his job? Surely there were female programmers… but none he would call ma’am. Clients? Did a lot of business-minded female clients come in and demand his respect? Now Nala was asking the hard questions.
Although they couldn’t talk about those things, she could certainly read about them. Nala plopped her book open, taking care to avoid any pictures that may be too obscene for public consumption. Which was most of them. Including the ones displaying the implements and general tools of the BDSM trade.
I am in way over my head. She didn’t know what most of this stuff was. Sex swings? Paddle benches? Latex body suits? Was Vincent into this stuff? She looked over at him, covertly, studying the profile of a man nose-deep in Java code, whatever that was. He looked so damn average like this, but Nala knew the truth. Deep, deep in that genius mind was a guy who got off on being rough and domineering in bed. He’s also really tender too. Two sides to the same man. Whichever one Nala needed the most could come out nearly on command. Who was really bossing who around?
Vincent pulled a pad and pen from his pocket and started jotting down notes. No wait… they were lines of code. Formulas. If he had thought ahead, he probably would’ve brought a laptop to run his experiments on. Meanwhile, Nala sat beside him, in utter awe that he could do these things so quickly.
Nala shoved aside the BDSM book. She tucked it beneath the cookbook and then bundled those in the basket so prying eyes couldn’t see. Instead, she snatched one of Vincent’s coding books and flipped to the beginning, determined to make some sense of it.
Alas, she didn’t have her sister’s analytical and scientific brain. Also alas was the fact that this book was advanced enough to start with some heavy shit. It assumes I’m level four of this. Whatever level four is. Vincent was level four. At least.
Sighing, Nala returned the book to Vincent’s basket and picked one of her novels to look at instead.
She wasn’t two pages in when Vincent leaned on his elbow and looked at her with a knot tangled in his visage. “Are you really my girlfriend now?”
Nala dropped her book in exasperation. “If you have to ask, then I guess I’m not.”
“You were jealous of that other woman, though.”
“Jealous? Ha! I knew she couldn’t handle you from the moment I saw how she was flirting. She wasn’t going to get that though. So I had to play up the jealous girlfriend to get her to buzz off. Did you have time for her?”
“Honestly? I was hoping you would get back in time to see her and get a bit roused by it.”
“Aroused?”
“I said roused. But aroused works too.”
“I don’t think so.” Nala was about as interested in that woman as she was interested in kissing one of the bearded hipster wonders wandering around the café. “Don’t flatter yourself.”
“Wouldn’t dream of it…” Vincent nudged her. “Darling.”
Now it was Nala’s turn to lean on her elbow. “You can be such a ham sometimes.”
“Says the woman who is my girlfriend one moment and totally not the next.”
“Why? Do you want me to be your girlfriend?”
Vincent continued to look at her, noncommittal. “Do you want to be my girlfriend?”
“Are you asking?”
“Pshaw.”
“Thought so.”
They went back to their separate worlds, Vincent engrossed in his notes and Nala reading about a man who was trapped in the Siberian wilderness. Yet her mind kept wandering. One moment she was staring at the spine of that BDSM book, and then the next she glanced at Vincent’s profile, wondering how deep the kink could get with him.
She didn’t think he was a lifestyler like Lucian and Robin. If anything, Vincent was into “normal” relationships until bed time. Even then, he had two speeds. Maybe three. The usual lovemaking, and then full-speed rough and binding. Nala shifted in her seat, feeling heat erupt between her and Vincent.
The spine appeared again. For some reason, her first thought wasn’t “I wonder if he’s into sex swings,” but “I wonder if he did those things with Desirée.”
She wanted to ask him, but knew that now was not the time or place. Vincent was trying to enjoy his day off. To ask him such a thing would surely ruin it. Nala didn’t want to be responsible for that.
As the hour wound down, Vincent suggested they take their purchases up front and move on. Nala was happy to, deciding to keep the cookbook and put the BDSM books away. She also put the travel book away. Some of the novels followed her home, all thanks to Vincent’s generous credit card.
He put his arm around her waist as they left, like he always touched her whenever they went to The Aviary. At first it made Nala uncomfortable… and then she realized she liked it. As if she were his bird riding high on his perch.
The car idled as they waited for traffic to let up enough to leave. Nala stared at her bag of books. I don’t have those BDSM books because I can look that stuff up online. “I had fun today,” she said. “I know there’s still dinner, but…”
“But what? The day is hardly over. The sun is only starting to go down now.”
“I know, but…”
“Buuuuut?”
Nala knew she had to look him in the eye when she said it. That was about as easy as admitting what she wanted to say in the first place.
“I think I wanna be your girlfriend. Your real girlfriend.”
Vincent’s gaze held hers, neither of them faltering. What is he thinking? No, she didn’t want to know. It was probably salacious. As salacious as her thoughts? Who knew anymore.
“Nala…” He glanced at the steering wheel and then back at her, his tongue punching the inside of his cheek. “If you’re my girlfriend, not every day is going to be like this. A lot of days, yeah, but most will be… different. You have to be able to handle that.”
A big enough gap passed. Vincent decided to not pull out into traffic yet – he was still invested in how Nala would react.
She was prepared for that. So she put on the most serious face she could muster without looking too scary. Not easy. Not that she thought Vincent was easily frightened. Let alone of her.
“I know. Don’t underestimate me, sir.” She let that word sizzle off her tongue like an exquisite hiss. It had the desired effect: Vincent sat up to attention in his seat, his breathing heavier than it had been all day. “I can take whatever you throw at me. In fact, I rather wish you would show me how wild you can get.” She glanced out the window and saw a happy family pass by on the sidewalk. “Not here, obviously. At home.”
“Obviously.” Much to Nala’s surprise, Vincent’s voice adopted that decadent growl. Whoa, slow down there underwear. It wasn’t time to get that wet yet.
“You would have to really try to freak me out.” She slipped her hand between his thighs. Vincent watched her move toward his cock, but when she got too close, he took her hand and plopped it between them.
“Let’s get dinner,” he said, almost cheerfully. “I know the place.”
Nala had to force the smile on her face. “All right.”
Vincent pulled out of their parking space and said nothing more on the subject.
***
Dinner was sushi and ice cream for dessert. Although Nala knew how to use chopsticks, she wasn’t super great at it, requesting her new boyfriend to help her get the hang of sticking two pieces of wood between her fingers and making a go of feeding herself. Luckily, Vincent minded her complete lack of taste buds and kept the spicy and sour stuff away from her. I’ll get him with this Russian cookbook. It was big enough to be a weapon, anyway.
Vincent started driving them home once they were done with dinner. The traffic had finally dispersed, giving them a clear berth all the way to his loft.
He parked in his space but did not move. This was becoming more and more common in Nala’s life. What’s he gonna say now? Did she even wanna know?
“Wait here for ten minutes after I go in,” he said, voice deep. “When the time is up, I want you to go into the loft and kneel in the living room. Take off your sweatshirt and put your hands on your head. The moment you step into that room?” Vincent sent her a look that said he was not joking, whatever he was about to say. “You have to obey every single thing I say until the sun comes up again.” He tossed his sunglasses onto his dash and opened his car door. “We’ll see if you can handle being my girlfriend. We’ll see if Nala and Nightingale really are different.”
He got out of the car and unlocked the door to his stairwell. Nala was left in her seat, absolutely gob smacked.
Gob smacked, and bristling with anticipation.
You asked for it, shithead. No matter how hard Vincent was on her tonight, Nala was guaranteed to be even harder.