Big Shot(5)
She took another drink of her cocktail, then pulled one of the cherries out of her glass and set it on her tongue. He watched as her lips closed around the fruit, and she plucked it off the stem and chewed as she pushed her glass toward him.
“Would you like my cherry?” she asked, her tone oh-so-innocent while the seductive curve to her lips was anything but angelic. “It’s very sweet and juicy.”
Somewhere along the way, they’d gone from talking about work to alluding to sex and her goddamn juicy cherry, and now he couldn’t get that dirty image out of his brain, or the thought of what said cherry would taste like on his tongue.
It wasn’t the first time Natalie had playfully enticed him. Despite the current frenemy relationship they had going on, she’d flirted with him in varying degrees since she was fifteen. He’d been eighteen that first time, but knowing her since she was five years old, he’d watched her grow from a skinny, awkward tomboy to a beautiful, curvy girl who had starred in his teenage fantasies and was responsible for more than few of his wet dreams. At fifteen, she’d been cute and had worn her infatuation for him on her sleeve. But now, at age twenty-six, she seemed to take great pleasure in toying with him, as if she enjoyed tying him up in f*cking knots. As if she was curious to see just how far she could push him before he’d break.
There were times when he’d been so damn close to giving in, but thoughts of his friendship with her brother, and their business partnership, were always like a douse of cold water to bring him back to his senses. It didn’t matter that his pulsing dick was begging to taste her cherry, Wes wouldn’t touch her with a ten-foot pole, because he was pretty damn sure Connor would use that same pole to shove it up his ass for defiling his sister when Wes was a guy who had a little black book of f*ck buddies, and a woman like Natalie did not fall into that category.
Not now. Not ever.
But it didn’t stop him from flirting back, because that, at least, was fairly harmless. “I’m sure your cherry is delicious, but I’m going to have to pass.” Unfortunately.
“Your loss.” A smile kicked up the edges of her mouth as she went ahead and ate the second cherry herself, then chased it down with a sip of her cocktail. “You know, you’re making it way too easy to steal those sales from you. It’s like taking candy from a baby.”
He nearly choked on a drink of his beer. “I’m making it easy?” Was she f*cking serious?
She rested her chin in her hand, the impish sparkle in her eyes taunting him. “You know, it’s like you’ve lost your Midas touch. Or maybe you just don’t want to admit that I’ve got more finesse in brokering a deal than you do. I know that’s got to hurt,” she said in a soothing tone that was totally fake.
A muscle in his jaw twitched with the effort it took to hold back his own grin. “I’ll never admit it, because there’s no way you have more expertise in this luxury real estate market than I do,” he countered easily. “This has been my playground for over six years, whereas you’re just getting your feet wet. Today’s sale was nothing more than you having the right client at the right time with the right property. Pure and simple luck.”
She gave her head a small shake. “Don’t be such a poor loser, Sinclair.” She reached across the table and patted the back of his hand in a placating manner. “Maybe next time you’ll manage to come through for your client . . . if I don’t sell the listing first.”
Next time, there was no f*cking way he was going to lose, and he was suddenly willing to gamble his reputation on it just to prove his point. She started to pull her hand back, but he grabbed her delicate wrist to stop her retreat, which caused her lips to part on a startled gasp and her widened gaze to shoot straight up to his. Ahhh, that definitely caught her attention, as well as threw her off guard. And finally gave him the upper hand. Perfect.
“You willing to bet on that, Minx?” he asked, trading in her old nickname for a newer, more appropriate one, considering just how impudent she’d become. He skimmed his thumb across the pulse point on the inside of her wrist and could have sworn he saw her shiver at his sensual touch.
He let go of her hand, and she quickly pulled it back to her side of the table. He saw a glimpse of that heated awareness that always seemed to simmer between them—hotter and brighter now that he’d stoked the fires a bit—but in the next moment, she tossed her hair back and was all sass again.
“So, you want to bet that you’ll sell a listing before I do?” she asked, her voice surprisingly steady.
“Yep,” he confirmed as he sat back in his chair and rubbed his fingers along the condensation on his bottle of beer. “Unless, of course, you think these recent sales were all just a fluke and you don’t want to take that risk.”
“You’re kidding me, right? The month isn’t even over, and I’ve managed to ‘steal’ not one, not two, but three listings right out from under you,” she pointed out, sounding too gleeful with her success. “The way I see things, the odds are quickly stacking in my favor, not yours.”
Jesus, she was so f*cking hot when she was all fired up. And that made him think of all that blazing energy erupting between them in the bedroom. He was certain the push-pull friction they’d been engaging in for years now would coalesce into the wildest, steamiest, tear-each-other’s-clothes-off frenemy sex in the history of f*cking. Or at least in his history of f*cking.