[There's easy bait for banter, there: something sweet like you?, he could reply, offhand and easy, and maybe they'd laugh or maybe they wouldn't. But he waits a little too long, dwelling over that impulsive thought, and the window closes before he can sneak in such a sly, opportunistic remark.

Curious, really. He's not usually so sluggish with his wit. Maybe he's just caught up in the memory of Tseng draped in swaths of silk and delicate chains, melting beneath the voyeuristic eye of a camera and the slow, possessive touch of his hands.]

...That sounds great.

[— is what he says instead, not nearly so clever as he might've otherwise been, but lightly earnest in its place, and he finds he doesn't altogether regret the substitution. Darkstar, too, regards them both for a moment before walking a single slow circle around them, as if determining for herself that her master is in sufficiently good hands before trotting off elsewhere within the ornate penthouse. Particularly sharp ears might catch a distant fwump of something heavy landing on thick cushions; in Rufus's penthouse, after all, there is no furniture where D isn't allowed.]

So, that bit about prying information from your cold dead hands. Would you say getting you drunk would be an adequate start?

[It's his turn, then, to move into Tseng's orbit and lean for a kiss, aimed not to land on his mouth proper but rather just at the corner of it, tempting and plying.]

Or I could offer you value in kind, if that's more enticing a proposition.