Page 103 of Skin In the Game (The BlackWater)

“What? Where?”

“To dinner and then I’m going to fuck your brains out after.” He stated.

She rolled her eyes. The same old Cole was back but somehow the thought of it was already making her wet.

Cole had picked a sushi restaurant walking distance from China Town but far enough to not be inundated with tourists. It was quiet, sleek and obviously expensive.

Maddie had put on a short black lace dress with spaghetti straps that emphasised how great her legs were and she teamed them with a pair of flat ballet pumps, hoping to persuade him to at least walk a bit of the way back after even if it was too far to walk the whole way back to his.

He looked at her as they walked with a strange expression and she felt nervous. He’d never taken her out, never done anything with her outside her apartment or his house and somehow it felt like it was changing, that whatever the dynamic between them was, it was altering slightly and while she wasn’t frightened by it per se she realised she was frightened of if it all went south. If she somehow fucked up and ruined it.

He took her hand almost subconsciously in his, intwining his fingers with hers and she looked down from where they now hung back up to his face with more than an inquisitive look.

“Fuck off Maddie.” He muttered and she let out a small laugh but said nothing.

He picked the food and the wine and she sat waiting, silent, excited because she bloody loved sushi. In China she ate so much of it mainly because it was cheap or at least way cheaper than in the U.K. but back in England not only was it usually overpriced it was bad too and the wasabi didn’t have any heat to it.

The waiter laid the platters out and Maddie felt her eyes widening at it all. Cole watched her amused and then let her go first. She didn’t need telling twice, picking up her chopsticks and started tucking in.

“You’re good with those.” He said and she laughed.

“Is that a compliment from Cole Black?” She teased and he rolled his eyes.

“I compliment you all the time Maddie.” He stated.

“No you don’t.” She replied.

“What about when I’m fucking you?” He said.

“Urgh that doesn’t count.”

“Sure it does.” He smiled.

She shook her head and looked back at the chopsticks in her hand. “I should be good after four years in China anyway.”

“What was it like?” He asked.

She frowned. “You want to talk about China? Now?”

“Not the work, the living.” He replied.

“I didn’t really live much to be honest. I was a workaholic. But the food was good and I got to see a lot of the country.” She said.

“Where was your favourite place?” He asked.

She shrugged. “Maybe Harbin. They have an ice festival every year and they literally build a whole city out of ice that you can walk through. They put lights in and it’s pretty hard to describe but cool to see. And then the Great Wall obviously, there’s a whole section out by TianJin that the tourists don’t know about and you can hide out and camp there.”

“Your pronunciation is good.”

“Of what?” She asked.

“The places.”

She shrugged again. “I learnt Mandarin. I can speak pretty good, enough for every day and I can read the basics.”

“That wasn’t in your file.” He stated.

“Why, would you have seen that as a sign of my fraternisation too?” She teased.

He laughed. “I wanted to beat your arse so badly that day.”

“I could tell.” She said.

He narrowed his eyes.

“What?” She asked but he didn’t reply except to eat more sushi.

They got a taxi back despite Maddie’s attempts to make him walk part of it.

He opened the front door, holding it open for her and for some reason she got a rush of butterflies in her stomach. She put her bag down, kicked her shoes off and went to the kitchen to get a bottle from the wine rack, bending down to reach the one she wanted.

He slipped his hands up under her skirt caressing her arse and she gasped before turning around.

“Seriously?” She said.

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