“Joint?” she asked hopefully.
“Not the one.”
She made a let’s-go motion with her finger. “Aaaand . . . we’re walking.”
He chuckled and fell into step beside her. “Come on. It’s been a shit week. We’re off the clock and I, for one, would like to talk about anything else but this hacker.”
“So you choose this topic?”
“We may as well joke about it at this point. And really, you said blow. How could I resist? I’d lose my smartass card if I passed that one up.”
She kept her face forward as they strolled down the empty hallway. “I’m making a mental note to refrain from using the word in any of our conversations going forward since apparently you’re thirteen.”
The words were so formal, so devoid of any hint of humor that a laugh tumbled out of him. “Fine. Shall we go down in the elevator, then?”
She sent him a narrow-eyed look that was all faded freckles and wrinkled nose. “I take it back—you’re twelve.”
“Probably. But I find it interesting that our unconventional first introduction is still making you blush. I wonder why that is, Benning.”
She stiffened a bit at that. “I am not blushing.”
He reached out and tapped her cheek. “You totally are.”
“Ugh, maybe it’s because I’m a nice, professional person. And it’s natural to feel awkward about seeing someone you work with in a compromising position.”
“Believe me, I wasn’t compromised,” he said wryly.
Her lips clamped together at that, the pink in her cheeks darkening.
“And I get the feeling you’re not that nice. Nice girls don’t become hackers. Nice girls don’t join games like Hayven.” They passed the abandoned front desk and he punched the button for the elevator. “Where’s the fun in nice?”
She cocked her head. “No offense, but you don’t know anything about me.”
He turned to her and gave a little nod of acquiescence. “Fair enough. Let’s fix that, then. We should grab dinner.”
Her eyebrows went up, genuine surprise on her face. “You want to go to dinner?”
“Why not? Have you eaten yet?”
“I had a bag of Cheetos from the vending machine.”
“Very nutritious. That doesn’t count. Come on. There’s a great Mexican place down the block. Good tacos and cheap beer. Five-minute walk. Let’s do something besides work.”
The way she was looking at him said she was trying to figure him out. What was his angle? This woman obviously didn’t go into anything without analyzing. But he forced his expression into a neutral one. Truth was, yes, he needed a break from all this, and he needed to eat. But he’d be lying if he said his intentions were entirely based in practicality. It’d been a long damn time since a woman had intrigued him like this. Cora said she liked puzzles. Well, he did too.
And he was ready to unravel Ms. Benning.
—
Cora had no idea what she was doing. She’d had every intention of going home tonight and collapsing into bed. Of locking herself in her place behind the dead bolts and reconnecting with Dmitry before bedtime now that the messaging system was back up. But somehow on a random Friday night, she found herself sitting in a loud, divey, Mexican restaurant with her second beer in her hand and a ridiculously gorgeous CEO across from her.
Ren had ordered them a street-taco sampler, so they were working their way through that, but he’d been asking her questions along the way and offering anecdotes of his own. She couldn’t figure him out. Sometimes he was flirty and funny, other times serious and focused on work. And she knew of his intimidating dominant side—which she was most definitely not thinking about because that would be very unprofessional. But since they’d arrived at the restaurant, he’d been nothing but friendly and gregarious. Relaxed. Hell, maybe he wanted her as his bro.
Ugh.
He talked a lot and jumped from topic to topic—a little manic—but that was kind of a relief for her. She liked when someone else drove the conversation and she could sit back and listen. It allowed her to catch her breath and get her bearings with new people.
“So you’ve been drawing since you were little?” she asked in between bites of food. He’d been telling her about how he got into designing games and how he’d drawn all the set pieces and the looks of the characters in Hayven.