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Paloma begins at the top button, her fingers working their way down Bond’s broad chest. Mere centimeters separate them now. Bond’s had actual lovers with less enthusiasm than this, he thinks, and Paloma is beautiful, extremely beautiful. He finds himself leaning, drawn in, a hand curled around her delicate arm.
“Paloma. Don’t you think we ought to get to know each other first, before we—?” Bond’s low purr is cut off as she recoils. Her hands abandon the buttons on his shirt as if they have scalded her.
“Ah, no—no, sorry, I’m sorry,” she fumbles, flashing a perfect, apologetic smile.
Every pretty shade of embarrassment plays out across her face.
She reaches into the crevice of wine boxes and unfurls a suit that has been hidden for him, presenting it with a flourish that is just short of a ta da. Bond grins, good-natured in the face of stunning rejection.
“Should I take that personally?” he asks, pulling his jacket off as she watches, unflinching, while he undresses in front of her.
“I wouldn't," she says, anxiety tightening her smile at the corners. "But I know men's egos, and they usually do anyway.”
Bond doesn’t know what to make of that. It’s against any man’s good sense of self-preservation to ask, but he has always been a reckless risk-taker, and he is curious.
“I can take a no," he says, smoothly finishing the work that she started and peeling off the shirt. "Wouldn't expect past-their-life-expectancy agents to be your type anyway.”
Paloma chews her bottom lip. She has no mask, no poker face whatsoever. Bond knows that look, and it is not directed at his naked chest. She’s deciding something important, choosing if she wants to tell the truth.
“I don't have a type." Truth it is.
In another life, Bond might have asked her if that was a challenge, and he might have taken it as one, even if it wasn't. But not this life.
“None at all?”
“It’s. . .not to my taste.”
“Oh,” he answers lightly. "Nothing casual, then? Just romantic partners."
The hard stare of Paloma's eyes answers no.
"Oh," Bond repeats, the tone higher with quaint realization. The quiet of the wine cellar seems louder now. He is over-aware of the dust swirling through the air, and the faint scent of the damp, cool air. He takes the silence to consider, to wonder if maybe he's misunderstood her somehow. He decides that no, he has not misunderstood anything, or else she would have already clarified. No type it is.
Paloma tries for indifference, but Bond reads the set of her bare shoulders and the rigid line of her mouth. She’s bracing, ready to go on the defense if needed, anticipating questions, accusations, doubt. Even without fully comprehending it, Bond instinctively understands why. She waits for him to tell her that it's a pity or a waste. That she would make someone very happy, at only the small price of compromising something fundamental about herself. She waits to be asked about her past or the prospects of her future. She does not trust him with the information, but she refuses to hide it. Truth made monumental only by how mundane and inconsequential it should be. The pair regard each other in the quiet lull.
Finally, Bond smiles, “You know, that doesn’t mean you can’t be judgmental.” She blinks a few times before she catches his meaning and, blushing again, turns away from him so he can undress in privacy. Clearly, it was not the answer she expected. Bond shakes his head to himself.
Between the rustle of fabric, the tension bleeds out a little. It's a strange and foreign thing to him, perhaps, but not so odd in general. He doesn't press, and he doesn't doubt her sincerity. That she might have worried what he thought gives him a smile. He's been turned down by women before, though this one's reasoning is a first. But then, it takes all kinds.
Though there is one question, just one, that Bond cannot shake. Paloma is beautiful, and Bond knows all too well that the CIA is weaponizing that beauty, setting it loose upon the weak men eager to trust a pretty face and long legs. They'd be fools not to.
Bond is adjusting his cufflinks as he asks,
“Paloma, what if the mission demands it?”
“Then it demands it,” she says, peeking over her shoulder with a smug glance. “But this one doesn’t.”
Bond grins back. “Quite right.”