The Virgin Society Collection

41. How To Rob The Bank

41

HOW TO ROB THE BANK

Bridger

As Harlow places the leftovers in her fridge, she’s still beaming. Glowing, even, from talking about the new installation at Petra that she’s working on. It’s a Friday night in June, and we celebrated her first full week on the job with a special dinner ordered in. There's a slice of her favorite cake on the counter for later.

“All week long, I felt like I was using my brain and my heart at the same time,” she says.

It’s an absolute thrill to hear the genuine joy in her voice, to see her experience the pleasure of a job well done. “You’re where you belong,” I say, proud of her as I set the plates in the sink. It’s our routine from spending the last few weeks together too—nearly every night.

“After all that, who knew that I would wind up working in art?” she says, amused with her own career path as she arranges cartons on the top shelf in a tiny New York fridge.

“I guess I was wrong with my predictions back at MoMA,” I tease.

“I don’t think you were wrong,” she says, closing the fridge door, then leaning against it. I’m standing opposite her in the galley kitchen. “But hearing you say how you used your degree and how you didn’t use it actually freed me. It made me see—eventually—that I could work in the art world. Just differently than I’d imagined.”

“It’s your passion. Art is your passion. And sometimes it can be your profession too.”

“So I’m having my cake and eating it too,” she says, her eyes drifting to the slice of decadent chocolate cake, but a crease forms in her brow. “Then again, it’s just the first week. First weeks are supposed to feel good, right? Like first kisses?”

I can’t resist proving her wrong. I lean in, press a lingering, tease of a kiss to her lips. A faint sigh greets my ears. Her fingers curl around my waist.

With her melting into me, I break the kiss, tilt my head. “What were you saying about first kisses being better than tenth or one hundredth kisses?”

“I was saying research. I need more research,” she says in a breathy voice.

We conduct kissing research for another minute or two, and when we stop at last, she nods to the stack of plates in the sink. “Dishes or sex? I know you hate messes.”

“That’s a trick question.”

“So, sex then. Got it.”

I shake my head, tsking her under my breath. “Harlow, with you and me, dishes are foreplay.”

She smiles mischievously. “Is that so?”

Feeling a little cocky, a lot confident, I say, “I’ll have to roll up my sleeves to do dishes.”

I start to unbutton the cuffs of my shirt.

Her jaw drops. “Now you’re playing dirty.”

“Like, I said… foreplay ,” I say as I flick open another button. She draws a feathery breath.

“Let me do it,” she says, then turns down the lights in the kitchen. Her home is doing its own impression of dusky twilight, setting the mood.

I hold out my wrists. She unbuttons the right cuff the rest of the way, folding it up once, then another time. She moves to the left cuff, slowly freeing the metal button from its holder, then she grazes her fingers along my arm, over the ink curling around the books.

“You wore a sapphire-blue shirt the day my crush began,” she says, like she’s narrating the story of how we began.

“Yeah?” I ask, hungry for more of her tale.

“And then there was a ruby-red shirt. An emerald one. I noticed them all. I used to think about what shirt you might be wearing if I ran into you. If you came over. If there was a party.”

I’m about to say the clothes do make the man , but that’s a throwaway comment, and this is not a light moment. Instead, I say nothing. I just listen since she’s telling a story. “I noticed all these things about you last summer, Bridger. And then the day I broke my ankle,” she says, looking up at me, with so much tenderness my heart can barely handle it. “You wore purple and you carried me.”

“You were hurt. I wanted to help,” I say, truthfully. That’s all I’d thought then.

She runs her hands up my chest, eager fingers fiddling with the top button. “I thought about you that summer. I pictured you when I was in Paris. I RSVP’d to that Sweet Nothings party to see you,” she says, a hitch in her voice as emotions seem to rise up in her.

As she takes a beat, I add my own layer. “And then I looked for you on the running path. My favorite days were the ones when I saw you.”

Her eyes glint, the gears turning in her mind. “And then I asked for the internship for you,” she says.

An image of her blowing out the candle in my office, meeting my eyes, holding my gaze, taunts me. Tantalizes me.

Just knowing what she wanted is such a wicked thrill.

“I don’t think I figured that out at the time. But just the other week, it hit me that you had,” I tell her, my hands curling tighter around her, desire ratcheting up in me.

“And what did you think?” she asks, guileless, pure innocence as she revisits the story of how we came together.

“I think I was your birthday wish,” I say, rolling the dice.

She lifts her chin, shooting me the sexiest smile. “You’re some birthday gift.” She leans into my neck, dusting her lips against my throat, kissing her way up to my jaw.

I sigh greedily, craving more of her. “You wanted to seduce me,” I murmur.

She nods against me. “Did it work?”

She damn well knows the answer. But a little show and tell never hurt.

I grab her hands, take them off my chest, then back her up and prop her on the counter. My fingers find their way into her hair as I kiss her neck, leaving a trail of hot, needy kisses along her throat.

“Mr. James,” she murmurs, and the seductive tone sends lust curling down my back.

My sexy, sweet vixen. “Say it again,” I command.

It’s risqué like this as we lean into the ten years between us. She likes those years, I’ve learned.

“Take me, Mr. James,” she says, turning me on impossibly more. “Fuck me into the mattress, Mr. James.”

Need her now. Right now.

“The bedroom is too fucking far away.”

Gripping her ass, I jerk her harder onto my cock. She digs her nails into my biceps, holding on tight as I fuck her on the kitchen counter, her skirt hiked up, her blouse undone, her tits bouncing free.

Savoring the tight heat of her body, I swivel my hips, stroke into her. “You love it like this. When I fuck you deep. Don’t you, honey?”

Frantically, she answers, urging me on with, “Harder. Deeper.”

I give her everything she wants.

Soon, my sweet, sexy girl is losing her mind. She’s grabbing the back of my neck, scratching my shoulders.

Lust barrels down my spine. But I stave off my own release. I crave hers. Her noises, her sounds, her pleasure.

Most of all, I crave her sweet, reckless, abandon. She is fearless in bed. She’s a woman who chases desire shamelessly, and who deserves it completely. And I’m the lucky man who gets to give it to her.

She’s close, so close and still, she pants out, “Please, please, please, Mr. James.”

“You’re so fucking good at begging for it,” I praise.

She shudders everywhere. “I’m begging you. Make me come.”

My circuits overheat. They sizzle. “Always. Every fucking time,” I say as I maneuver a hand between her legs, circling her clit with my thumb. She’s shaking and shuddering, then falling apart, breaking so beautifully into bliss.

My thighs shake. My cock throbs. And I’m right there with her, filling her with a soul-deep orgasm that blots away the city, the night, the time.

There’s nothing else but this ecstasy. And us.

A little later, I’m lying next to her in bed, still feeling the effects of the orgasm drug.

The side effects of her .

Absently, I run my fingers through her hair. “Where do you want to go on Sunday? Maybe we could try Brooklyn again,” I suggest, picturing the last time we were there at the gardens.

“Brooklyn,” she says, like she’s trying out the word. “That’s getting closer, isn’t it?”

She means closer to the city of course.

I kiss her bare shoulder. “Manhattan soon,” I say, hopeful, making a promise I don’t entirely know how to keep. But I want to.

“Soon,” she says, then takes a beat. “There’s so much to see in this city. Always something to discover and to uncover. I’ve never lived anyplace else, and I’m not sure I want to.”

I clear my throat. “Ahem. Are you forgetting Paris?”

She gasps in faux shock. “You’re right. How could I forget Paris? I do love it there.”

“I’ll take pictures for you when I’m there this week to remind you. I can picture you in the city of light perfectly. Wandering down some passage, ducking into a boulangerie, finding a hidden garden where there’s an art gallery.”

She hums happily, and I wonder if she’s imagining the same thing—doing that together someday. “I’m a city girl at heart,” she says, shifting to her side, propping her head in her hand. “My mom said that about me.”

I scoot up in the bed. She doesn’t talk about her mother much. When she does, I want to listen. Intently. “When did she say that?”

Harlow takes a moment to answer, like she’s weighing what to say. Then she moves away, leans toward her nightstand, and grabs something from the lower shelf. A wooden box with an unlocked latch. She flips open the top. A stack of small envelopes sits inside. “She wrote me letters when I was a kid.”

“Did she send them to you?”

She shakes her head. “No. She’d leave them on my pillow actually. They were just little observations. Not even lessons. But thoughts about our day,” she says, running her fingers along the stack, curling at the corners from age. “Want to hear some?”

“I’d love to.”

She takes out a handful, flips through them carefully, then reads one about oranges, another about being a city girl, and one more about a day they spent at the library. My heart glows a little hearing these bits of unexpected advice, observations, or anecdotes.

Then, she puts the stack neatly in place, closes the box, and returns it to the nightstand. When she lies back down, there’s a contented look on her face.

“They make you feel connected to her,” I say.

“They do.”

“Thanks for sharing. I’m glad you have those,” I say.

“Me too,” she says, then she traces the artwork on my arm. “When did you have this done?”

I glance down at the vines that curl around a small stack of books. “After college. When I figured out what I wanted to do for a living.”

Her fingers journey down the curves of a black vine, then along the cover of one of the drawn books. “Because you love books?”

Makes sense why she’d assume that. I let others assume that. The full answer isn’t one I’ve ever given. It’s too revealing. “I’ve never told anyone before.”

She edges back a bit, like she’s giving me space to say something hard. Saying this is only hard because it makes me feel vulnerable, and I don’t like to feel that way. Vulnerability makes it hard to do my job.

“When I was younger, I played sports, as you know. But they didn’t quite do the trick in turning off all these thoughts I kept having. Worries, you know?”

“About your mom?” she asks gently.

“Yes,” I say, and I’m this close to saying I don’t have the fond memories that you do . But all she has are memories. So I don’t need to make a comparison. “I never knew if she’d show up at a game. If she’d come home drunk. If she’d stay out later than she’d promised. Sometimes, if she came home drunk, she’d ground me for no reason. Then, the next day she’d say she was sorry and didn’t mean it. She’d unground me.”

Harlow winces in sympathy. “That must have felt like being on a ship out in a storm.”

“Exactly. I didn’t realize it at the time, but I kept looking for something to… hold onto . Something that felt reliable,” I say, then drag a hand across the back of my neck. God, I hope she doesn’t think this is ridiculous. But fuck it. I push past the nerves. “I found it at the library. I found it in books. And I started spending my time there instead.”

Something dawns for her. She tilts her head, staring at me anew. “You said the day I broke my ankle that you’d stopped playing sports. Was that why?”

“I think I was always trying to escape,” I say, admitting something out loud for the first time. “First on the field. Then in stories.”

“You really love what you do,” she says, a little sad perhaps as she states the obvious. But sometimes the obvious needs to be said.

“I do,” I say, and I’m pretty sure we both know the subtext of her observation. We both know too that soon we’ll probably need to talk about what’s next for us. How long we can keep seeing each other after dark. It’s been a wonderful two weeks, but is it sustainable? Soon, we’ll need to discuss the things we weren’t ready to talk about the night I found her in the rain. Maybe this is the start of that conversation.

“I don’t want you to give it up,” she says earnestly but with a hint of a frown. She presses a kiss to one of the vines on my arm.

When she lifts her face, I run my thumb over the corner of her mouth. “I know you don’t want me to lose anything,” I say, and even though the what’s next is borderline terrifying, even though the plans I probably need to make will require a new kind of armor, I still feel a sense of calm when I’m with her.

This is what I’ve wanted my whole life. Passion and peace. But I didn’t know that until I came to know her. Can I really have it in one person? It’s wild to think that, but it feels possible with Harlow.

“Maybe there’s a way,” she adds, her tone bright.

That’s a relief to hear her say. I’ve held back from broaching the topic since the first time we did that night two weeks ago. She wasn’t ready then. Perhaps she is now. “Maybe there is,” I say.

She pulls back, studies my face. “Do you think we’ll find it?”

My heart thumps louder. Can she hear it? She has to. “I want to,” I say, laying my wishes on the line. “Do you?”

She gives me a soft nod as she returns to tracing the lines of the books. “I do. Especially because you have an art soul too.”

“Just like you.”

“Maybe that’s why we’re good together,” she says with hope in her eyes—the same hope I feel when I’m with her.

“There are a million little reasons we’re good together. You worship coffee, you like my shirts, you love the gifts I give you…”

“You send me photos of your day. You have great taste in music. You forgot to do the dishes when I distracted you with sex.”

I laugh as she busts me. “You did distract me.” Then I turn more serious, brushing some strands of hair from her face. “There are a few big reasons too,” I say, cracking open the conversation. I don’t want to hold back any longer with her. I want to find a way. I want her to know how I feel.

“What are the big ones?”

Now that we’re here though, I don’t entirely know how to say you fill the empty spaces inside me without also saying when the hell do you want me to tell your father ? I don’t want to push her without a plan, but I’ll make one if she’s ready. I press a kiss to her shoulder. “You make me stronger. You make me better. And you make me happy,” I say, starting that way, laying out the stakes.

She wraps her leg around mine, our calves curling together as she whispers, “And you see me for who I am.”

I run my thumb along her chin. “I want to keep seeing you…for who you are,” I say, with all its implications.

Then, screw implications .

There are metaphors and there are words. Clear, direct, meaningful. We both know what’s happening. We’re both adults.

I brush a kiss to her lips then pull back, feeling bold and ridiculously happy even before I say, “I’m in love with you.”

Then I’m happier to have said it.

Her breath catches. The look in her eyes is incandescent. They shine with tears, but really, emotion. “I’m so in love with you.”

I feel free. I feel unwound . I feel like I’m exactly where I should be, no matter how risky our choices are.

I only feel rightness. Truth. Possibility.

And a new kind of joy. I know we’ll find a way.

I gaze down at her ankle, staring a little longer than usual at her scar, remembering the day she had me sign her pink cast. “I have another reason we’re good together.”

“Tell me,” she says eagerly.

“How about I show you?”

She’s lounging on her couch in a tank top and panties, the chocolate cake on a plate in her lap, her feet across my thighs. As she takes a bite, I dip the brush into a bottle of mint green nail polish and spread it across her big toe, then her middle toe, then her little toe.

She offers me a bite from her fork, and I take it.

Then I switch to lavender nail polish, painting the other nails in alternating colors just like they were painted on the day after her bike accident.

When I’m done, I blow on the polish. “Skittles toes.”

Harlow sets down the unfinished slice of cake on the table, then looks at her toes, then me. “I love my Skittles toes,” she says, a touch breathless.

She’s not talking about the pedicure. “I love spending nights with you, Harlow,” I tell her, returning to the topic.

Her eyes lock with mine. “It’s my favorite part of the day too,” she says.

The nights are wonderful, but I’m hungry for days too. “I want them both,” I say.

“Me too,” she says with emotion in her eyes.

I need to make a plan. Stat.

The tickets for the Un-Gentleman are for tomorrow. I take a deep, fortifying breath. “Maybe tomorrow night will give us an idea of how hard it’ll be,” I suggest, carefully, ever so carefully, opening the topic.

“When we go to the theater with them?” she asks. “What do you mean?”

I’m still working through the details. “Maybe we can just see how he is with us.”

“With us together?” she squeaks.

“Not like this,” I say, shaking my head as I gesture to us on the couch. “More like…we can feel him out. Try to get a sense of how he reacts to the two of us. Next to each other. Walking down the aisle to the seats together.” Then, an idea flashes, fully formed. I’m a genius. “We could even arrive together.”

“Oh! Like we shared a car?” she asks, enthused.

“Exactly. We both live on the east side of the city. It makes sense.”

“So we went together to the show,” she adds. “This is like subliminal messaging.”

“Exactly. We can test the waters that way,” I say, and this feels smart.

Strategic.

Her clever grin widens. “We could even ask Vivian to take a picture of us,” she suggests, getting in on the planning too. That’s my brilliant woman.

“Yes. We’ll get some data.”

“Do some research.”

“And we’ll get a better sense of how he’ll handle… things .”

“And then, for how to do it eventually,” she adds, and I can hear the excitement in her voice.

The eagerness.

The determination.

We’re a team, we’re in love, and we’re planning perfectly for how we’re going to pull off this great heist.