Persuasion (NSFW)
Jack kicked his bedroom door shut, loudly and dramatically, but it didn't really matter since nobody but him and Blake were allowed in the apartment.
They'd made a lot of money that night, especially given how little work they'd actually done, and they were celebrating the only way they knew how. His hands were tangled in her hair while he kissed her, leaving her no real choice but to walk backwards until she collided with his dresser. His hands dropped from her hair to her hips just long enough to hoist her up so that she could sit on the dresser and once she seemed comfortable, he pulled back and smiled, resting his forehead against hers.
“I take it you enjoyed making all that money tonight?” he mumbled, smirking. She was pawing at the buttons on his shirt, impatient. Money wasn't what was important. Blake didn't need money. Blake had money. A lot of it, in fact. It wasn't that they'd made money but, instead, how they'd made it. Tricking stupid, greedy, rich men into giving away their secrets and exploiting it for a profit? It wasn't the cash that got Blake all hot and bothered – it was the power, the fact that she was smarter than these men and better at her job than they were at theirs.
“Money means nothing to me,” she said, raking her nails across his scalp. “You know that.”
Jack raised an eyebrow.
“Really?” he mused. “Nothing? We made almost ten-grand tonight.”
“Not almost,” she said. “We made $10,527 tonight.” At that, Jack looked genuinely charmed. Blake just shrugged, unimpressed. “I've always been good with numbers.”
Sick of talking about money, Blake crashed her lips into Jack's again, pulling his body closer by the collar of his shirt. His fingers held her jaw, his other hand dragging her hips closer to the edge of the dresser. When his hand slid up the back of her dress to unhook her bra, he was pleasantly surprised to find that she'd gone without one.
“You want to know something?” he asked, both hands falling to grab her hips. Blake's gaze hardened. She could think of a few things she really wanted in that moment but to know something wasn't one of them. Still, she didn’t interrupt him. “We could make twice that much in half the time. We just need to change our objectives.”
Blake looked into his light eyes, curious but unfazed.
“Meaning?”
“Drugs,” he said pleasantly, his face illuminated by his ambition.
But Blake just rolled her eyes.
“Not interested,” she said.
Jack laughed under his breath, a low, rumbling sound that Blake found as sexy as she did annoying.
“Not interested?” he parroted, his fingers tracing the hemline of her dress. “That can't be right.”
Blake went to roll her eyes again, having reached her nightly limit of Jack's arrogance, but he chose that moment to slide both hands up her thighs and under her dress. Her breath hitched when he ran his middle finger up the front of her panties, and she hated the way her body would go along with whatever he said when her brain was so ready to battle him.
“I mean it,” she said, swallowing hard to steady to her voice. “I have absolutely no interest in getting involved with drugs. I’m honestly surprised that you do.”
“I go where the money is, baby girl,” he said lowly and a small, blue flame sparked somewhere in her back and eventually landed in the pit of her stomach. “I’m not suggesting we do drugs. I’m just saying that we throw our hats in the ring. There are people significantly less intelligent than the two of us who are making a killing selling narcotics to stupid, white business men who want to have a little fun when they leave the office.” He leaned in closer, his lips barely touching her ear. “I know how much you hate stupid, white business men, Blakey.”
“Jack, you’re not seriously considering–”
She gasped again. Jack pulled her panties down her legs in one fluid movement and tossed them towards the bed. The fingers of his left hand dug greedily into her hip, threating to leave five familiar, circular bruises embedded in her skin. The fingers of his right stayed beneath her dress, already teasing mercilessly to help emphasize his point.
“I am considering a very smart, very aggressive business model, princess,” he growled. “There are certain things that guarantee success, things that guarantee power. And I know very intimately just how much my baby girl likes power.” He smirked, no bothering to hide the intention of his words. Blake knew it – she was soaked, and it wasn’t all because of his carefully-considered ministrations. The truth was, she did like the power. She liked it a lot. “Frankly, it wouldn’t be very different from what we do know. It’s all about deceit, right? Being smarter than our targets? That’s what we’re all about, Blakey. Think about it. What changes, honestly?”
Two fingers traced up and down her slit as he spoke, light, shallow strokes that ignited something fierce at the base of her spine. He was good with his fingers – patient, precise, purposeful – and that had always been Blake’s weakness. He teased her entrance with the pad of his fingers, enough to make her hungry and needy but not enough to provide any semblance of relief. His touch was gentle and calculated, making damn sure to touch everywhere but where Blake actually needed him.
He was good.
But Blake was better, and she was damn stubborn.
“Not interested,” she said, exhaling a shaky breath that she’d been holding like a knot in her chest. “I’m okay with partaking in a lot of shady bullshit, Jack, but this? This is not one of them. No drugs. No, thank you.”
Jack smiled.
“I’m just trying to take care of you, princess.”
He punctuated that sentence by sliding one long finger inside of her, and Blake couldn’t stop the broken cry that left her lips. He pumped her with an infuriating slowness, waiting until her hips were rising impatiently off of the dresser to add a second finger, and Blake bit her tongue to keep from making another embarrassing sound. He was trying to prove a point and she wasn’t having it. Blake considered herself to be a rational person and she’d compromise on a lot of things, especially for Jack.
But not this.
“I’m not interested,” she gritted out, her arms coming to hang loosely around his neck. Her breaths were jagged, unpredictable. Jack grinned at the effect he had on her, proud of himself. Blake was an enigma, a challenge, a tough nut to crack. But he could always get to her. “I can promise you, Jack, I’ll never be interested in this.”
“Oh yeah?” he whispered, his tone daring. With his thumb, he circled her clit – once, twice, three times – then stopped. Blake cried out again, an honest-to-goodness moan that made her cheeks burn red and her legs wrap tighter around his waist. “What if I say you don’t get to finish until you agree with me?” He did it again – once, twice, three times – and Blake threw her head back, first to whimper and then to laugh.
Vanilla, missionary sex? That had never been her thing. Even as a teenager, alone in her room, she was never one for straightforward touches and instant gratification. She’d mastered edging by eleventh grade and if Jack thought he could get her to fold by withholding an orgasm? He was out of his arrogant, overly-ambitious, overpriced-coffee-drinking mind.
“Good try, handsome,” she gasped, her fingers pulling at a handful of his blonde hair. “You could leave me like this for the next twenty-four hours and I’m still not going to change my mind.” With her other hand, she squeezed his jaw and pulled him in for a long kiss. When she’d had her fill, she pushed him away, looked him dead in the eyes and said, “No drugs. Not now, not ever.”
Jack didn’t react for a good twenty seconds. He tried very hard, and ultimately failed at, hiding his smile and eventually said, “This conversation isn’t over, Blakey.”
“Yes, Jack,” she said. “It is.” He bit the inside of his cheek, annoyed but painfully turned on. Nobody challenged him quite like Blake Downey. Nobody could drive him this crazy. “Now,” she said sharply, her hips rising slightly to meet his touch, “you going to finish what you started? Because if you’re not, let me go so that I can.”
He licked his lips, trying to think of something biting to say back, but eventually settled on kissing her forehead.
“Get on the bed,” he told her, lifting her off the dresser.
She gave him a mock salute before turning to head towards the bed, her hips swinging victoriously as she ignored the steady, demanding ache between her legs.
“Whatever you say, asshole.”
Blake woke up far too early the next morning.
She was freezing.
The apartment was always cold since Jack seemed to enjoy living his life like meat hanging in a freezer, but Blake was still naked and the chill that shot up her spine at 8 AM was enough to pull her from dreamland.
She crawled out of bed, dragging the sheets with her, and searched until she found clean underwear and one of Jack’s NYU sweatshirts. Leaving the sheets in the hallway, she wandered to the kitchen where Jack was not only awake but dressed and making breakfast.
“I had a feeling you’d be up early,” he said from the stove, not bothering to turn around. His hair was messy but his outfit was sharp – a green sweater and tight, grey jeans. He always looked good. Even in the morning. Even hungover. Even asleep. Blake had never met someone who could look that good all the time. She found it annoying but she she also never wanted it to stop.
“You’re cooking?” she asked.
“Yes,” he said. “French toast. For you.”
“For me?”
He nodded. A minute later, he was turning around, offering a plate of bread, fruit and syrup to Blake who had taken her seat at the table.
“You want orange juice?”
Blake didn’t answer his question.
“Since when do you make me breakfast?” she asked.
Jack shrugged, already getting the juice from the fridge. He reached for her favorite Texans glass and started pouring.
“Think of it as a peace offering,” he said. He glanced up, gave her a small but genuine smile, and slid the glass across the table. “Or an apology. For last night.”
Blake snorted.
“I came four times last night,” she reminded him, lifting her fork and poking at a strawberry. “That wasn’t a peace offering?”
Jack’s eyes, and his ego, twinkled with pride.
“Baby, that’s just a typical Monday night at Jack Swanson’s,” he teased. He ran a hand through his hair and then said, in a much more serious tone of voice, “I didn’t want you to feel like I was pressuring you into anything, that I was trying to force you to go along with my ideas. That wasn’t my angle. I did want you to consider it but everything after that was just–”
“–fun?” Blake finished, and Jack laughed.
“Fun,” he confirmed. “So, to make sure you knew that I was truly apologetic…” He gestured at the food in front of her. “Breakfast.”
“Thank you,” she said. “But, in the future, orgasms will always say I’m sorry better than breakfast.”
Jack smirked.
“Thanks for the tip.”
“Speaking of which,” she said, wiping syrup from the corner of her mouth with her sleeve, “I am fucking exhausted. I’m eating this and then going back to bed. Do we have a job today?”
“Not until later tonight,” he said, leaning against the counter. “You rest. I’ve got some things to do today and then we’ll get ready together after dinner.”
Blake looked up at him curiously.
“You working without me?” she asked, but Jack shook his head.
“It’s not business,” he said. “I’ve got errands to run and then I’m going to visit my brother.”
Blake took a bite of her breakfast and her stomach growled in appreciation. With all of the commotion the night before, she’d forgotten to eat dinner. She figured it was a good thing she could sustain herself on vodka shots and adrenaline.
“When do I get to meet your brother?” she asked, moving all of her hair onto one shoulder. She looked soft like this, sleepy and messy and wearing his sweatshirt. Jack’s heart squeezed a little at the sudden realization that she was actually his.
“I wasn’t under the impression that you wanted to meet him,” he said. “When can I meet your family?”
Blake laughed out loud, completely humorless.
“Never,” she said and took another bite. “Definitively never.”
Jack grinned, folded his arms over his chest and said, “Fair enough. My brother wanted to see Wicked next weekend. Ever see it?” Blake shook her head. “I’ll get three tickets then. Richie will like you.”
“Why would he like me?” she asked, chewing.
Because you’re beautiful. Because you’re honest. Because you’re tough. Because you’re brilliant. Because you’re funny. Because you’re…
Jack shrugged.
“Just a hunch,” he said, and then he checked his watch. “I’ve got to get going. You going to be alright here by yourself?”
“I’m going to be asleep,” she said. “This is good French toast, by the way.”
Jack seemed pleased by this. He pushed himself off the counter, walked towards Blake and pressed a kiss to her forehead.
“If you’re going to snoop,” he began but she cut him off.
“I’m not going to snoop,” she protested indignantly.
“You are,” he said. “And the only thing worth snooping for is the safe in my closet. If you can guess the code, you’ve earned the right to snoop. Enjoy all my secrets.” He kissed her again. “Have a good nap, Blakey. I’ll be back.”
“Bye,” she said softly, watching over her shoulder as he grabbed his wallet off the table by the door and headed out into the streets of New York. Her heart swelled a little. She hated to admit this but… she missed him. He’d just left and she missed him. Shaking her head, Blake took another bite and mumbled, “Asshole.”
