Chapter Text
“Chloe?! A little help here?”
“Sorry mate, you’re on your own here. I prefer my tussles with stunning badasses a bit more private.”
The woman – what had Sully called her? Ross I think – dodges Nate’s wild punch easily, sliding out of his way with the grace of flowing water and using his momentum to slam him into the nearest bookcase. Books and loose paper rain down around him as he struggles to his feet, but before Nate can get his bearings she has him up against the shelves with an arm pressed against his throat.
Chloe takes a sip from the delicate flute she picked up from a passing tray downstairs, contemplating whether she should step in before it gets out of hand. She misses what the woman named Ross says next, hearing only when Nate cries out in pain before shouting “Pocket! Back pocket, geez!”
Ross reaches around, grasping at his pockets. “Where? Which pocket is…” Taking advantage of her momentary distraction Nate slams his head forward into hers and Chloe can’t help the laugh that escapes her as they fall apart, both holding their heads with mirrored groans.
Unfortunately, Ross is quicker to recover and before Nate can protest there’s an explosive crash as he’s hurled out the window before he can so much as say “mango”.
“Oh shit, Nate! You alright mate?” Chloe rushed to lean her head out of the now broken window frame, careful not to cut herself against the shards that still stuck out. Hearing labored breathing and cursing from below and failing to see a Nate broken or dead on the rocks below was enough to reassure her that he was alright. Damn cockroaches, those Drakes.
Her thoughts are interrupted when a very strong arm grabs her and slams her face first against the wall to one side of the window.
The impact knocks some of the wind out of her, and breathlessly she says, over her shoulder, “You know if you wanted to play rough, love, all you had to do was ask.”
A chuckle answers from behind her. The woman is holding her firm, left hand an iron vice around Chloe’s own in a bar across her back, the right wrapping around Chloe’s other wrist and pinning it to the wall above her head. “Cute, now where is the crucifix?” Chloe can feel heat rising in her against her will, remembering similar positions in much more pleasurable occasions and being unable to stop the conjured vision of this amazonian woman holding her just like this whispering dirty nothings into her ear. Oddly enough, in both fantasy and real life a certain amount of delectable threatening energy was evoked.
Chloe figured Ross wouldn’t appreciate the sentiment, so pushing down her inappropriate thoughts she gave as straightforward an answer as she could. “Not sure who has it now, plan was to grab it before it even made it to the auction floor but clearly that’s all gone to shit.”
A beat. “And if I don’t believe you?”
“Mm by all means, gorgeous, you are very welcome to search me. Though I warn I’m trickier than I seem, you might want to be” Chloe grinds her hips back towards where Nadine’s firm body is pressed against her “...very thorough to make sure i'm not hiding it anywhere… secret.”
Nadine scoffs and moves away, releasing her arms. Chloe couldn’t quite tell in the dark light but – was she blushing?
* * *
A map is spread out across the top of a weapons crate Nadine hijacked to serve as a command table, cluttered with loose papers and files. Nadine had been staring at the map of the cathedral and grounds for hours, planning new routes to clear and racking her brain to find an angle she hadn’t considered yet, but her thoughts keep drifting.
Distant blasting sends tremors through the stone and shadows from the solitary exposed lightbulb strung overhead elongate and contract as it rocks back and forth on its chain.
Nadine’s hand once again strays to the files stacked to the right on her makeshift table, to one file in particular. The manila folder is thick with dry intel on professional history and personal and business associations alike, but none of the details Nadine wants. Without thinking Nadine’s fingers flip the file open again, spread out the few photos that sit front and center in the dossier. In the days after the auction Nadine found herself reviewing their opponents’ files again and again, none more so than the elusive thief. Kept coming back to look at each picture, to try to parse what this or that Mona Lisa smile meant or if the photo of the two with Nathan Drake’s arm wrapped protectively around the waist of the woman in question was simply friendly or spoke to something… more.
Eish, that’s enough, Ross.
But Nadine can’t help the memory that comes flooding back at inconvenient times, memory of that body pressed against her own, that teasing voice daring her to make a move. Her ass pressing firmly against Nadine’s front. Nadine feels her body flush with heat, just as it did that night. She’s even tempted to return to her tent to do something about the ache that rises up in her core when the door bursts open and an unruly Rafe comes in to complain, something about one of her lieutenants. Nadine quickly and covertly slides the pictures back into the file, then the file off to the side.
“Don’t worry, I’ll take care of it.”