Page 93 of Maneater
“You don’t say.” I smile, and she returns it. “What else do you do besides flirting your way to get idiotic men to spill everything to you?”
That easy smile fades, and I worry I may have gonetoo far, asked things I shouldn’t have. Her hand lifts, a thumb caressing over my cheek before she bites her lip.
“More often than not, I put on a skin-tight dress that leaves little to the imagination and a full face of makeup and work it. I go to a party or a bar or even a fucking dog park, and I find whoever I think could give me the intel I need. Sometimes it’s our actual target; sometimes it’s their best friend, older brother, or coworker. Anyone who might know something about what I need. I flirt, charm, and work my skills, seamlessly getting them to confess something I need, and then I disappear.”
“The bar?”
She smiles then. “The bar was me brushing up on my skills. I’d just gotten off an assignment where we determined a man was hiding money from his soon-to-be ex-wife to avoid alimony.”
Rowan makes a disgusted face, further endearing him to me, and I nod. “Yup. So I went to the bar, saw that guy, and knew he was married. I have already shared all our information and my knowledge with his wife. The bartender—she’s a friend of mine—got pictures. The wife can now file her own divorce or hire the Mavens to do more of a deep dive and make her a winning case file.”
“So that was pro bono?”
She shrugs. “Sometimes I can’t help it. It’s too easy, too fun. I’ve been like this since college, stealing people’s secrets from them.”
“You said that once. That you wanted to get all of my secrets from me.”
It was when I caught her flirting with the bartender the day the pool filled with suds. When, for a split, finite second, I thought about throwing her over my shoulder and locking her in my room for the day, trying to get her out of my system.
Except now that I’ve had her, I have a sneaking suspicion I won’t be able to get herout of my system. Not for a long, long time.
“I…” She pauses, and I wait patiently for her to answer. “It’s not like that, not with you. I know…all of this is a lot. The spy stuff, the man-eater stuff.” Her face screws up adorably. “But it’s not like that with you. I swear. You’re not…a target.” I raise an eyebrow in disbelief, but she shakes her head. “Not really. I tried, trust me. I wanted to compartmentalize, but I couldn’t. Ask Rory. You have to believe me, Rowan. I swear, I?—”
Her voice goes frantic with nerves and panic, and I run a hand over her hair, trying to soothe her.
“Hey, hey,” I say, shifting to grab her chin and force her to look at me. She hesitates for a beat before her body relaxes, seeing something in my gaze that soothes her.
“I know,” I murmur. “I know, Troublemaker.” Her lips tip up. “So I’m dating the man-eater, huh?”
“We’re dating?” she asks, a self-satisfied smile on her lips. “That’s so weird. I don’t remember having that conversation with you.”
I shake my head at her, already realizing that if this stands the test of time, the way I have a gut feeling it will, this is my future. Constantly being needled about everything, a contest, a competition at every turn.
God, I can’t wait.
“I wasn’t planning to ask you, I figured it was kind of a given. But if you want, I can tie you up again and pull an answer out of you if you’d like.”
There’s contemplation in her eyes, and I let out a laugh, pulling her closer to me and pressing my lips to hers. “You need recovery time. But if that’s what I need to do to get you to agree we’re dating…” I say, my words trailing off.
She considers it for a moment longer before laughing and shaking her head. “No, no, I think you’ve earned me.”
My chest goes warm with her words. “Finally,” I say, pressing my lips to her neck. “I feel like I’ve been trying to earn you for fucking years.”
“Years?”
I shrug because who am I to deny it now?
She shifts then to get a better look at me and smiles. “Speaking of that, what was your deal with me?” She asks a question I was hoping we could avoid, but I guess it’s as good a time as ever to answer. If she puts her cards on the table, I need to do the same. “You hated me from the start, even before you moved to Hudson City. You’d see me out in college and glower at me. I didn’t get it, because we’d only ever met in passing before that.”
I sigh and take in a deep breath. “We spent a whole night together. Your twenty-first birthday,” I say, starting slow. “You were at Park Seven, and I bumped into you. We danced pretty much the whole night.”
“What?” she asks, eyes wide, confirming something I realized pretty recently: Josie doesn’t remember that night. She was obviously drunk, but I guess I’d never realized justhowdrunk.
“Yeah,” I confirm, then her brows furrow and she speaks low, almost to herself.
“Ten, twenty-four, eighteen. Your passcode.” My lips tip in a smile. I should have known it wouldn’t take long for my brilliant girl to understand.
“The day I met you,” I say. “I didn’t realize until recently, I swear. I think that day has always just stuck with me.”
