It takes her a long couple of minutes, and several ill-fated attempts to scratch the gentle tingle away from her neck, to realize that Nikola has had his magnetic powers long enough to absolutely perfect them. She's wearing those long, hang-down earrings - and by the time she's tilted her head to scratch uncomfortably at the line of her jaw for the third time, frowning at Will as he speaks, she's realized that the bastard is playing games again, and determined that these earrings, too, are something she will not be wearing while Nikola is around.
"Magnus?" Will questions, brows furrowed at her.
"I'm fine," she supplies quickly, eyes locking on Will for a brief moment before her gaze shifts, more or less inconspicuously, to Nikola, scolding him with the barest twinge of her lips. He's smirking at her - but Nikola is always smirking. It's the way he parts his lips, that look of subtle amusement suddenly morphing into toothy delight, then lifts his brows suggestively, that makes Will shake his head in bewilderment.
"Right. I'll just..."
"Let me know what you find," Helen replies without waiting for Will to finish. He's so accustomed to such interactions after five years that he merely shrugs, gesturing helplessly at nothing while he wanders off, Helen immediately spinning to march off in the opposite direction.
She knows he's following before he ever asks: "Do you like my new trick?"
"Hardly appropriate behavior, Nikola," she snaps, but she's not angry. Oh, annoyed, of course, but she gets so stiff when she's angry; her hips still glide fluidly back and forth in that skirt of hers, accented by the pumps she so loves to wear.
He wonders briefly, as he often has, whether she prefers heels because she likes to set herself above those around her physically as well as intellectually, but he's much too preoccupied envisioning the buttons down the front of her blouse and sliding one carefully out of its loop to think about such things for too long.
"Oh, honestly," she comments in aggravation, quickly refastening the button as she walks.
But Nikola is no better than a child, and with Helen, repeating the same old patterns never seems to get boring. He's unfastened the same button three times, Helen's annoyance obviously mounting each time, before she finally gives up. He chuckles with satisfaction.
She's just opened the door to her office only seconds later when something tightens around her chest, and she is suddenly aware that he has more than perfected this talent of his: he's a goddamned prodigy.
"Nikola!"
But riling Helen up has always had its benefits, and Nikola's swept into the room behind her, shutting the door behind them and pinning her against it all within the next breath, still grinning broadly, as amused with himself as ever. And honestly, he hardly has to brush his lips against her neck in that very spot, just below her jaw, where he'd been playing with the earrings a bare couple of minutes before, to turn whatever ill-will governs her to his favor. It's hardly worth the effort to growl out a quiet "Bastard," as one deft hand explores an already-freed breast, his mouth moving with equal mastery from throat, to clavicle, to the upper regions of her breasts, where he's nibbling playfully at those precious freckles of hers as if they're something that can be removed from her pale flesh. It's about the time that he gets there, while she's wrapping one arm around his shoulders, pushing her fingers through his hair, that she remembers Will, and abnormals, and Sanctuaries, and reports, and prays to god that Will's task takes a good, long while to resolve.