Chapter 92: A dirty approach

Tom looked at the panel for another second, blinked then he accepted the side mission.

The acceptance had barely settled when Sienna decided she had stayed long enough. She had gotten an answer for what she came for, so remaining in front of him while he stood there sweaty, bare-chested, and dressed in nothing but those obscene boxers was beginning to feel less like business conversation and more like a mistake she was still standing inside.

"I’ll have my team follow up with them," she said as she turned toward the doorway.

She only managed one step. Tom caught her wrist.

The contact stopped her at once. Sienna turned her head sharply, more startled than angry at first. "What are you doing?"

He did not answer with an explanation. He used the hold to draw her back, then guided her another step until her back met the wall of the hallway outside his room. Not a rough slam though, just a firm placement that took the easy exit out of her hands. Sienna’s shoulders touched the wall, and the surprise in her eyes deepened into something more wary.

"Hey."

He still didn’t reply with words. He moved in carefully, closing the space by degrees instead of all at once. Enough to keep her there. Enough to make her aware of how little distance remained between her clothes and his bare skin. For a moment he only looked at her, watching the way her composure had to be reassembled in real time.

"You already got your answer yet ou still didn’t leave like someone who was done here, so I thought you should stay and we could..." he deliberately trailed off, watching her reaction closely.

"What are you saying?" Sienna’s brows pulled together.

"I’m saying that I know what I saw." His voice stayed low, "You came up here to talk about L×L Boxers, and halfway through the conversation your eyes kept falling somewhere that had nothing to do with public relations."

A flush climbed her neck, she gulped then replied. "You’re imagining things."

"Am I?"

She tried to use irritation as cover, her chin lifting. "If this is your idea of a joke, it isn’t funny."

Tom leaned a bit closer. "Then why are you breathing like that?"

The question landed too accurately for her to answer at once. Because she *was* breathing differently. She could feel it herself, the shallow rise in her chest, the unnatural awareness of her own mouth, the way her body had gone alert in a pattern that had nothing to do with argument. He was standing too close, and he smelled of sweat and heat from the workout, and the worst part was that her body had noticed before her pride could intervene.

"I need to go," she said.

"In a minute. Maybe or maybe not..." his tone was teasing and even that made Sienna’s breath more ragged.

However, she wasn’t going to just keep standing there, proving him right. She attempted to slide out sideways. Tom shifted with her and blocked the movement with his forearm against the wall, not touching her fully yet, but leaving her caged in the narrow space. Sienna’s back pressed harder to the surface behind her. The hallway suddenly felt smaller than it was.

"This is inappropriate. We have an agreement, don’t we?" she said but the words came out thinner than she wanted.

Tom’s gaze moved over her face. "That sounds like something you’re telling yourself, not something you’re actually feeling."

"You don’t know what I feel."

"I can see some of it." Tom maintained firmly.

Before she could fire back, he closed the last inch of safe distance.

The thick outline of his cock brushed her lower stomach through her clothes. Light contact only, but the effect was immediate. Sienna stiffened from shoulder to thigh, her breath hitching hard as she could feel the shape of him against her. Her hands twitched at her sides without finding a useful action. She did not push him away. For a full second she only stood there against the wall, caught in the shock of the contact and the humiliating fact that her body had reacted before her mouth could.

Her pulse jumped.

Heat followed it. And She hated both.

Tom saw the change clearly; the locked posture, the brief parting of her lips, the way her breath rose too quickly for anger alone. That was the effect the System wanted measured.

And if a dirtier approach raised the reward, then proximity alone would not be enough.

With that thought and hunger for an increment in the reward, he lowered his hand, found the curve of her ass, and gripped it through her clothes.

Sienna gasped.

The sound escaped before she could stop it, soft and startled, pulled straight out of her by the sudden possessive pressure of his palm. Her eyes flew up to his. For a moment there was no speech ready, no cutting remark, no safe hierarchy to hide behind. There was only the wall at her back, his body in front of her, and his hand locked on her ass as if he had every right to test her reaction with it.

The System chimed.

```

[APPROACH DIRTINESS: 15%]

Base reward increased by 15%

```

Tom wasn’t contented so he squeezed again, slower this time, deliberately mapping the shape of her under his hand. Sienna’s second gasp came sharper. A visible tremor moved through her frame. Her thighs tensed and her fingers curled as if to grab his wrist, but the command to do it arrived late.

Then shame and temper crashed through the haze at the same time.

"Wh- what the heck?"

She shoved him hard in the chest. Tom allowed the break. The second the pressure came off, Sienna slipped out from the wall with her face flushed and her breathing no longer anywhere near controlled. She did not attempt another line. She did not try to reclaim the last word.

She turned and hurried down the hallway toward the stairs as if remaining one second longer would cost her more than she was willing to pay.

The System chimed at that moment;

```

[APPROACH DIRTINESS: 25%]

Base reward increased by 25%

```

A second panel opened beneath it immediately.

```

[SIDE MISSION COMPLETED]

Target reaction confirmed.

Base Reward: $200,000

Dirtiness Bonus: +25%

[TOTAL REWARD RECEIVED]

$250,000

```

A small smile tugged on his lips as Tom read the rewards, and only after that did the breath ease properly from his chest.