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Leaning on the vanity, Chloe squints at her row of nail polish and huffs. “Honey?”
From the en suite, Nadine grunts an acknowledgement. Chloe waits and, a moment later, Nadine comes out in a bra and a pair of finely pressed charcoal slacks. They’re half unzipped, the grey of Nadine’s boxer briefs peeking out.
Chloe drinks the sight of Nadine in. She opens her mouth, but Nadine cuts her a look and says, “We only have half an hour before we have to go; don’t start something you can’t finish.”
Chloe rolls her eyes. “Oh, please. When have I ever-”
“Last year, Rio, when we were an hour late to meet our contact.” Nadine walks over. She puts her warm, calloused hands on Chloe’s shoulders. “Three hours late to Sam’s birthday party. You got on a video conference with that stuffy historian unfashionably late—and I say that because-”
“Yeah, yeah, I wasn’t wearing pants. Funny girl.” Chloe waves a dismissive hand. Leans into Nadine’s front anyway. “But that hardly proves your point. On every occasion, at least one of us finished. You know, just not on time.”
Nadine snorts and then bends down to press a kiss on Chloe’s cheek. Another to her jaw. In the mirror, she sees Chloe’s eyes flutter shut, graciously accepting the affection.
“You give in too easily.”
“No,” Nadine murmurs into her skin. She smiles and pulls away. “I don’t.”
Mirthful grey eyes are already fixed on her when Nadine looks up. “So predictable,” Chloe sighs.
Nadine squeezes her shoulders. “Okay, Casanova, what did you want?”
Pouting, Chloe gestures at the table. “I can’t decide.”
Three tiny jars of nail polish are set out in an even row. Nadine presses closer, eyeballing the jars. Looks like red, dark red, and… darker red. Nadine compares the shades to that of her dress and considers the shiny gold jewellery she’ll be wearing tonight.
She must take too long because Chloe nudges her and smiles cheekily, beautifully, at her in the mirror. “Yes, love, they are, in fact, different colours.”
Nadine scoffs and points at the second bottle. “I was going to say that one.”
Chloe picks it up with a noise of approval. “All right, handsome.” She pops the polish open, pauses, and tilts her head at Nadine in the mirror. The chemical smell is sharp in Nadine’s nose. “You’d better get dressed before I decide not to bother with all this and shag your brains out instead.”
Laughing, feeling vaguely lightheaded, Nadine releases her and returns to the bathroom. Her clothes hang on the shower curtain.
She puts on her undershirt first. Then, she grabs the smaller of two sidearms off the marble counter, sliding it into the undershirt’s concealed holster. It’s attached to the torso and beneath the arm. Once that’s done, she grabs the hanger and goes back into the bedroom.
Chloe blows on her nails and doesn’t even look up when Nadine dumps the hanger on the bed.
Nadine shrugs on her white dress shirt and begins to button from the bottom up. All the while, she’s startlingly aware of the weight of Chloe’s gaze on her back, and she smirks to herself.
She intends to leave a single button popped for now, but before she can even get to the second last one, a hand reaches out to grasp at her wrist. Chloe’s other hand smooths the back of Nadine’s shirt down. She maintains contact longer than strictly necessary. The smile on Nadine’s face only gets smugger.
She cocks her head, so she can glance at Chloe over her shoulder.
“Don’t look so coy,” Chloe huffs. “You knew exactly what you were doing.”
Gently, Nadine pries her hand out of Chloe’s but leaves the button alone. She looks away with a chuckle. “I’m just getting dressed.”
Chloe makes a disbelieving sound. “You’re playing with fire, Ross. If my nails weren’t still drying, I’d have you begging by now.”
“You wish- oy! ” Chloe sticks a hand down the back of Nadine’s pants. “What-”
“Oh, relax, you buzzkill.” Nadine can almost hear the rolling of her eyes. “I’m just tucking it in for you.”
So she is. Chloe uses her unpainted hand and presses Nadine’s shirt down with surprising efficiency. The other hand finds a home on Nadine’s shoulder.
When Chloe’s done, Nadine adjusts her trousers and zips them up. When all’s said and done, she turns around so Chloe can assess her. The assessment: a solid kiss on the mouth before Nadine even registers the fact that Chloe’s leaning in.
Nadine grips at Chloe’s hips, grounding them before she forgets about the stupid auction and messes up Chloe’s updo. Chloe’s lipstick is waxy and tastes bitter. Nadine pulls back and makes a face.
Chloe just sucks in a breath and grins brightly. “That was nice.”
Nadine’s hands tighten, and she narrows her eyes. “Still leaving on time.”
“Buzz. Kill,” she grouches. Even so, she steps out of Nadine’s grasp. “Suspenders?”
“In your suitcase, I think.”
Chloe retrieves them for her, untangling them as she pads back. They’re black, Y-backed, and attach to Nadine’s trousers with buttons. Chloe had gifted them to her for their anniversary a few months ago, and she’s secretly pleased to finally put them to use.
Since she already has her trousers on, Chloe does up the back for her, handing a belt back to Nadine when she’s done so they can do one each. Chloe props her chin on Nadine’s shoulder, front pressed to Nadine’s back, and buttons up the right side. Nadine leaves both straps hanging loosely from her trousers in case she wants to adjust her shirt around her sidearm.
Chloe drops a featherlight kiss to one side of Nadine’s neck, gives the other side a pat, and says: “All right. Let me finish my nails, and do my makeup, and we can leave.”
She sits back down at the vanity, and Nadine spends a few moments watching as Chloe takes to her task with great focus. She holds her face so close to her nails, she almost goes cross-eyed, and her lips pucker out in concentration.
Chloe lets Nadine stare until she finishes one nail. Then, her eyes abruptly shoot up to meet Nadine’s in the mirror. An eyebrow rises pointedly. Despite herself, Nadine smiles.
Shaking her head, she goes back to the bathroom.
The shirt does indeed fall awkwardly around her sidearm. Nothing too disastrous. She tugs on the material a bit, reaches under to shove the gun farther into the holster, and re-tucks the side. After she pulls the suspenders up, she has to make some more adjustments, but she’s happy with the look.
For hair and makeup, she aims for lowkey and is finished in under ten minutes. Her mouth is red from Chloe’s lipstick, smeared more on her upper lip than lower. Experimentally, she smacks her lips a bit and cleans up the edges.
Good. She gives her reflection a nod.
At the vanity, Chloe’s awkwardly doing her eyeliner without messing up her nails.
Nadine fishes out a sock ball at random from her own suitcase and sits on the bed to tug them on. Ah, they’re the greyscale koala print socks. Her favourite. Her black Oxfords are polished to a shine and fit like a dream. For accessories—besides the gun, that is—she straps on a faux leather watch.
Done, and five minutes to spare.
She approaches the vanity and tries not to preen when Chloe stops doing her makeup just to ogle her.
“…did you have to flex on me that hard?”
“Come on,” Nadine says as she pulls another chair up, “Let me help.”
Chloe shrugs and lets Nadine pry the eyeliner away from her. She rests her chin in her palm, the picture of luxury, while Nadine finishes up for her.
There’s a smudge on the eye Chloe was working on, so Nadine licks a finger and wipes it away. Chloe subconsciously sways closer.
“Hold still,” Nadine chides.
Chloe ignores her. “Nice lipstick.”
“Don’t get any ideas.”
“You’d like them, though.”
“Ja, I would,” Nadine concedes with a smile. She caps the liner and sits back. “You’re beautiful.”
Chloe isn’t one to blush. Instead, she makes a thoughtful noise, and she looks at her own reflection and carefully moves a hair on her forehead by a millimetre. Then, she nods and says, “Pot kettle black, gorgeous.” Brat that she is, Chloe sends a heated look Nadine’s way, brushing a hand over her sheath of a dress, and just has to add: “When we get back, I’m going to wreck you.”
Nadine, on the other hand, is one to blush. And sputter.
“Too easy,” Chloe laughs and steps into her heels.
Then, she slips Nadine’s blazer over her shoulders before Nadine can lunge for it. Nadine scowls, taking her tie off the vanity and draping it around her neck.
“You can do that in the car.” Chloe clutches Nadine’s suspenders and tugs her forward.
“Now you’re in a rush?”
“Well, I have to show you off, don’t I?” Chloe says breezily, still leading.
It feels almost like they’re dancing. They slip through the room towards the entrance. Chloe swipes her purse off the side table without stopping and tucks it under her arm. Right before Chloe steps out the door, Nadine whips an arm out to halt their movement. Chloe’s body instinctively returns into Nadine’s personal space, eyes gleaming. She feels the light pressure of Chloe’s hand pulling on the strap of her suspenders.
Nadine wants to kiss her so badly.
Chloe smiles arrogantly. “Change your mind?”
Nadine gives her an equally haughty expression in return. “No,” she says and flicks the lights off. “Just environmentally conscious.”
“God, you’re such a dickhead,” Chloe says fondly.
“Pot kettle black, gorgeous.” Nadine puts her hands in her pockets and lets herself be drawn away.