Page 21 of Sticky Fingers

This fucking chick is measuring me up.

Alright, if that’s the fucking game she wants to play…

“You know I know.” I can’t help stating the obvious.

“What do you know?” She furrows her brow as a full radiant smile emerges.

She’s blowing me the fuck away.

“I know it was you.”

Leaning in, I inhale deeply. I’m not sure if it’s her hair or perfume…but she fucking smells like sin.

I want to throw her on the bar right now and drive my cock home.

Shrugging, she gives me a look of feigned innocence and runs an unpainted but manicured fingertip lightly along the glass rim.

“What is it you think you know I did?” Her voice is soft but warm.

She’s definitely baiting me.

“You stole the painting. I saw you do it.” The last bit I whisper directly into her ear. It’s as small and dainty as she is, and I can just barely restrain myself from biting it.

“That’s not what I heard.” Her smile gets wider as she leans back from me a bit, putting a little more room between us. “I heard the thief was wearing a mask and that you were a little too preoccupied to stop them.”

Fucking hilarious. Like she wasn’t the one there watching me fuck the shit out of Debra.

“I admit that I was a little busy, but I never forget a body. And you, in all black, skin-tight clothing…I will never forget.” Taking another sip of my drink, I watch her shift uncomfortably in her chair.

“There are a million petite women in this city,” she says, raising an eyebrow again.

I pause for a second. What the fuck. Time to go all-in.

“Fuck the body,” I tell her. “I’ll never forget those eyes that you looked at me with.”

“Were you looking back at them?” she asks.

“I was fucking captivated, baby.”

“Are you captivated now?” She bats her eyes at me.

Leaning back in my own chair, I consider her carefully.

I don’t fucking understand the game for her, but I want to know everything.

Did she do it for the money? The excitement?

What’s the driving force for a fucking beautiful woman to go around stealing fucking Picassos?

“You realize I have a detective on my case,” I remind her, but she keeps her eyes on her drink, which she‘s now swirling along the bottom of her glass. “I have to find who did it to clear my own name.”

Looking at me sharply, she gives me an amused look. “You seem to have quite the reputation with the local law enforcement.”

I remain silent.

“Poor little cocky rich asshole,” she says with a giggle. “So used to being above the law that the one time he didn’t do something bad he gets blamed for it.”

“They probably assume that because I didn’t stop the thief, that I’m working together withher,” I say as I mimic her movements and stir the ice around in my own drink.