"Take a seat, my dove." He let go of her hand to pull a chair out for her, and as he walked away, he could feel her eyes following his every move. Once he was behind his desk, he made a show of slowly pulling his drawer open, and he could practically hear her heart start to race and her mind start to spiral.
"The only reason I'm asking you this is because I want your honest opinion," he said softly. "I know you haven't any idea how cold storage works, but you don't need to stress yourself out over it. Alright?"
Her face told him no. She was not alright. She was, in fact, already stressing over it, and yet in the end she still nodded.
"Good girl."
She looked like she was about to cry again.
"And now, I'll explain to you how it works. Alright?"
He could see she clearly wanted to say yes, but then his Sara suddenly burst to her feet and said jerkily, "I'm sorry." And then she began to pace. "You said you want me to be honest, so...okay. I'll be honest. Neither of us are angels, and obviously, there are things that we both like that aren't...mainstream."
He lowered his head, purely as a preventive measure because it was clear to him by now that fate had sent Sara Perez to fuck with his composure. He was her kidnapper, and she his captive, and apparently what they had could be simply defined as not...mainstream? Had his Sara finally started getting the knack of millennial English or was it a latent talent that only showed up when she was distressed?
Either way, it was funny as fuck.
"But there needs to be a...limit. Like, like a safe word—-"
And it kept getting funnier because someone was clearly thinking he could be as nice as Christian Grey.
"But it's more like a safe...line? And one that we should never willingly cross because it was bad?"
Sara finally stopped pacing, and her gaze turned to him in desperate appeal.
"You understand, right? Because I don't think I can ever...if there's no good reason for you to...it would just..."
Her words stumbled to a stop when she saw him reach for something inside the drawer, and when he started to take the cold storage out—-
"Oh...em...gee..."
And so he was right, after all. She talked like her age when she was nervous, and right now it was just too fucking much.
He started to laugh, and Sara stopped freaking out.
He tossed the device on the desk, and Sara's jaw dropped.
"A cold storage, ye dove of little faith," he told her silkily, "is an offline wallet for cryptocurrency tokens."
"Oh."
"It is not a means for me to hide murdered bodies," he murmured, "just like halving and exchange have nothing to do with said dead bodies." He counted the seconds after this, and he made it to three before his Sara finally connected the dots.
"You read what I wrote on my laptop?"
"I'm your kidnapper," he reminded her dryly. "And you're actually surprised I know what you're doing with a laptop I bought?"
"Oh. Um. Right."
And then she crashed to her knees without warning.
"Fuck!" Raaf leapt over his desk and was next to her on the floor in a flash. "I'm sorry," he gritted out. "I went too far. I've never even pranked anyone before, and I obviously fucking suck—-" He stopped speaking when he saw a smile wobble on Sara's lips.
"I'm fine," she assured him shakily. "It just finally hit me that you didn't do any awfully unforgivable thing—-"
"What if I had?" He had only meant to tease her, but the way she suddenly sobered up made his chest tighten.
"With hindsight, I realize now how stupid I was to jump to conclusions."
"You're brainless about a lot of things," he acknowledged.
Sara started choking.
"But not about suspecting me, considering my background—-"
"No, Raaf." She took his hand. "No."
He wanted to believe her.
"What happened to you," she said shakily, "is why you would never do anything awfully unforgivable."
"And yet I kidnapped you."
Such words were usually enough for her to take the bait, but this time—-
Sara's big, brown eyes remained steady on him.
"Not mainstream," she said with another wobbly smile, "but not awfully unforgivable."
Fuck. Fuck. Fuck.
He had never really believed her when she told him she might start falling in love with him, but now?
"I'm going to give you twenty minutes—-"
Her smile faded.
"To have a shower and put on the sluttiest lingerie you can find—-"
Because she was now letting out that part-bovine squeak of hers, a sound which should have turned him off but instead turned him on like his cock was about to go off like a fucking firecracker.
"And after that, you'll get into your bed like my obedient little dove."
Her lips parted.
"You'll wait for me until you can't wait any longer, and you'll wait and wait until you'll fall asleep. And once that happens..."