Chapter Fifteen

The second interview took place the following evening. It was held at a gaming club that Chance had heard of but never visited. Meg was already there when Chance arrived. He found her sitting around a console with the four developers they had come to speak with. They were playing The Last of Us. It was one of Chance’s favorite games. He had the remastered version on PS4 waiting for him to play at home.

Chance took a moment to watch the group from the bar before he went over to them. As he had suspected, none of the four guys that Meg was busy laughing with were the newest recruit to X-Tech. Chance had already found a picture of him from the information Rebecca had provided, and that particular nerd was last on their list of interviews. That was a good thing. Because Chance had no idea how he was going to tell Meg that he’d discovered that the competition was on the up and up. Where the hell would he tell her he’d gotten the information from?

Meg…she looked particularly lovely tonight. Her blue hair was loose, curling around her shoulders. She wore tight khaki pants, an equally tight denim shirt, and bright green heels. Chance had dreamed about her last night. In the dream her hair had been loose. He had run his fingers through it as he’d lowered her onto his body.

He shuddered. The day apart had only increased the desire that Chance felt for her. He’d fallen asleep thinking about her. Woken up with her image dancing in his mind. He was in deep. He knew that. The only question that remained was how deep.

He wandered over to the group with that thought in mind. Meg greeted him with a cheery sort of smile. Chance smiled back. He felt the tension a moment later. She felt it, too. He knew she did.

With a slightly different sort of smile, she introduced the developers. Chance took a seat. He got the impression he was not a particularly welcome addition to their group. One of them offered him their gamepad, a slight smirk playing around his lips. Chance noted that he sat a little too closely to Meg.

Chance looked down at the gamepad. How could he possibly refuse? Twenty minutes later and Chance passed the pad back before launching into the same questions he’d asked Florence. The smirks were no more. Their answers were the same as in the previous interview. Chance knew now that they would be. This investigation was a dead end.

“Let’s go get some dinner,” he said impulsively when the group finally broke up.

Meg shot him a look. She was waving at the developers. They were all waving back. One of them, the same one who had sat a little too closely, had given her his number before he’d left. Meg had taken it. Chance told himself that it was obviously for business reasons, but he seriously doubted the developer, Billy, was thinking along the same lines. For perhaps the first time in his life, Chance was jealous. It was not a feeling he particularly liked. He couldn’t help it, though.

As the developers left, and the gamers around them kept shooting looks their way, shooting looks at Meg, Chance couldn’t help but wonder how many guys Meg had dated over the years. And, more importantly, how many were waiting in the wings hoping to be next? There was a reason Meg appealed to him. Chance suspected it was the same damn reason she appealed to practically all the other men in the room. A nerd’s fantasy come to life…

“You want to buy me dinner?” Meg asked as they approached the bar.

“Have you eaten?”

“No.”

“So, we eat,” Chance said.

“Perhaps you can tell me where you picked up your PS4 skills at the same time?” Meg asked.

He leaned against the bar. The action moved them closer together than they had been a moment ago. Meg let out an obvious and shaky breath. Excitement danced along Chance’s spine. Meg had not given any of those signals to Billy. She gave them only to him. He lifted a hand, almost to reach out and touch her. At the last minute, he realized what he was doing and why he shouldn’t be doing it.

“I’m not allowed to have a console?” he asked as he dropped his hand on the bar.

“I would have put you down more as an X-box and Grand Theft kinda guy,” she said. She lifted her own hand and placed it next to his.

“I like games that make me think,” Chance said. Did his finger actually just twitch? Twitch toward her?

“Not just video games,” Meg whispered.

“No,” he agreed. How could he not? “Not just video games.”

Silence held between them for a moment. Chance looked at their hands. So close…so close but not touching. Hell, he wanted to touch her. He wanted to touch every single part of her over and over again…

“We don’t have time for dinner,” Meg eventually said. “We have the senior management profiles to go through.”

“We can do it over dinner.”

She shook her head. “I have a board.”

“A board?”

“A profile board. I’ve laid it all out on there, Criminal Minds style. It’s back at my place.”

Her place…Chance’s body reacted to those words in the exact way that he knew it would. He shifted position. Meg smiled.

“You want us to go there?” he finally asked.

“You have a problem with that?”

“No,” Chance said quickly. “Why would I?”

Her smile widened. “You have your car?”

He nodded.

“Let’s go then.”

He was parked across the road from the gaming club. Meg spotted his car before he did. She waited there for him. Chance gestured for her to get inside. He took several deep breaths once she was out of sight. The proximity in the car was going to be a problem. He knew that. But being alone in her apartment with her? With a bed close by? Chance closed his eyes. This was going to be the hardest test so far. How many days had it been since she’d kneed him in the groin? Four? Five? Hell, it felt like forever. Either way, Chance thought it fair to say that he was fully recovered.

They made the drive in relative silence, Meg speaking only to give him directions. He parked outside of her apartment. The sky was darkening. Meg led them through the main door and up a narrow staircase to her home. Chance was more nervous than he could remember being in a very long time.

She flung the door open and flicked the lights on. She dropped her satchel on the floor next to her couch. Her heels soon followed. She seemed tiny without them. She would fit against him just right. Chance knew that. He remembered exactly how it had felt in X-Tech Towers.

He swallowed unsteadily, overwhelmed with the desire to pull her into his arms. With something that he readily accepted bordered on desperation, he cast his gaze around the apartment instead.

“Your place is exactly like I imagined it would be.”

She turned to him, hands on her hips. “You’ve been imagining my place?”

“I gave it some thought,” Chance admitted.

“In three words,” she said.

“To describe your place?” Chance looked around again. It was homey in the way that he knew his apartment was not. “Cute,” he said. “Quirky. Organized.”

“That’s how you see me?”

Sassy. Sexy. Smart. “Yes.”

“I’m not at all organized,” Meg said.

“You’re a mathematician. Of course, you are.”

She tilted her head at that. “I wonder what words I’ll use when I see your place?”

Once again, Chance imagined her there. On his couch with a gamepad in hand. In his tech room, fingers flying over the keys. In his bedroom, blue hair spread out over the pillows…

“Come on,” she said. “Let me show you the board.”

It was set up in a small nook off the side of her kitchen. There was not a lot of space. A small desk was pushed up against the wall. The board was above it. It was handwritten. The names of all his senior management team were on there. Could one of them really be responsible for all of this? Chance did not know.

“You need to get a bit closer,” Meg said.

She gestured him forward. Chance’s body practically hummed as he moved into the small space. They were right next to each other. One more step and Chance would be pressing up against her.

He wanted to do that.

He was rock hard.

He had been since the bar.

“This is what I’m thinking,” Meg began.

Did Chance pay any attention to her words? Or the descriptions she gave of his staff? The connections she suggested that he was pretty sure didn’t actually exist. Probably not. He was finding it impossible to think. Never before had he wanted to throw caution to the winds in the way that he did right now. He wanted to pull her into his arms. He wanted to finally kiss her. To feel those plump lips against his own. To hear her sigh with pleasure as their lips met and their tongues touched.

But the lies, the deception, how would she ever forgive him if he they did this with that between them?

Chance took a step back, his heart practically thumping out of his chest. Meg turned at the exact same moment and took a step forward. They bumped against each other. She reached up to steady herself. The next thing Chance knew, Meg’s arms were wrapped around his neck, and then, the kiss, the long-awaited kiss.

It was everything he had hoped for.

Everything and more.

Meg kissed him with complete abandon. There was nothing tentative about it. Nothing gentle. Chance couldn’t stop from winding his arms around her, pulling her to him, feeling her at last.

How long did the kiss go on for? Chance had no idea. When they finally pulled apart, they were both panting. He looked down at Meg. She looked back up at him, pleasure so evident in her eyes.

She was so damn pretty.

And he was such a fucking liar.

He took a step back. Their contact was broken. Meg’s gaze cleared. She shook her head.

“Don’t,” was all she said.

“I have to,” Chance whispered.

“You’re turning me down?”

How could she not realize how badly he wanted this? How badly he had wanted it from the moment they had met? “I didn’t say that.”

Meg shook her head. She crossed her arms over herself. “Well, this is awkward.”

“Meg…”

“No, it’s fine,” she said quickly. “I can take a rejection.”

Rejection? Chance would have given everything he had to have a girl like Meg kiss him when he was younger, and then some. Hell, he still would, because he was not stupid. He knew who he was, that despite the beard and the muscles, deep inside of him there was still the awkward nerd he had once been.

He moved forward, hands out, saying the first thing that came to mind. “It’s not a rejection.”

“What is it then, Chance?” she demanded.

How could he tell her? How could he be honest with her now? It was impossible! They were in too deep. Everything was a fucking tangle, and Chance couldn’t see a way out of it. Maybe if he was at home, on his own, he could treat it like a puzzle, find a way through the maze, but here, with Meg right in front of him, his brain didn’t seem to work right. Hell, he wasn’t thinking with his brain at all!

“It’s me being careful,” he eventually said.

“Why is it that you don’t strike me as the careful type?” she asked.

She took another step back. She was right against the desk now. The words of the board above her, his name right there at the top, almost seemed to mock him.

“I know you’re attracted to me, Chance,” she said. “I can feel it.” She paused. “I can see it.”

“Meg…”

“So, I’m asking myself what’s stopping you,” she continued. “What could possibly be such an issue that you’d reject me?”

What could he say? What did she want to hear? Chance rubbed a hand over his face as he tried to find an answer that would salvage whatever the hell this was between them. Because there was no question that there was something between them, and somehow, in just a handful of days, it had gone beyond X-Tech.

It was then, as he lowered his hand, that he saw it. A slight smile playing around Meg’s swollen lips. In that moment, he knew what was going on here. What she was trying to do.

He inhaled sharply, his brain making connections in the way it always had. He didn’t hesitate. How could he? He crossed the space between them and pulled her back into his arms. She came willingly even as she let out a little gasp of surprise. He felt a tremble run through her. Chance felt like fucking trembling, too. Meg had done this on purpose! She’d brought him here, knowing full well how difficult they would both find it in such an enclosed space. She’d pushed and maneuvered until she had him right where she wanted him.

“You kissed me because you’re trying to provoke a reaction,” he said, and there was no disguising the anger or the frustration in his voice.

“Isn’t that the usual reason people kiss each other?” she demanded. “To get a reaction?”

“Not that kind of reaction,” he said. “What are you trying to do here, Blue?”

“I kissed you because I wanted to,” she snapped. “Because I’ve wanted to for days. God knows why, considering.”

“Considering what?”

“Considering you’re a fucking liar, Chance,” she said, and then she kissed him again.