Bw

Clark smirks, undeterred by your usual, cold demeanour. “What can I say? I’m entranced by your beauty. I don’t bank here, but I wish I did.”

You tilt your head to the side. “I’d be happy to assist you with opening an account, but you’d have to give me your name for that.”

Clark leans in, lowering his voice and glancing side to side before dropping his eyes to your mouth. “I’ll tell you. Just you. But you must promise me something in return.”

You lick your lips unconsciously, and Clark’s cock jumps in the tight confines of his pants. “I know better than to make promises to strangers.” There’s a teasing edge to your voice, and Clark can almost taste the sweet edge of victory.

“Clark. Clark Olofsson. Remember that name, pretty. You’re going to be hearing it on the news one day.”

You roll your eyes, but heat curls low in your stomach at the way he’s looking at you. “Perhaps I will, Mr Olofsson. If you’d give me your personnummer also, I could have an account opened for you, just like that.”

Clark chuckles, glancing down to where your fingers rest on the counter before sliding his own under the partition to lace with yours. “Clark Olofsson is more than a number, älskling. Come to dinner with me tonight, I’ll show you.”

Your eyes drop to Clark’s fingers, to the way the long digits engulf your smaller ones, and you swallow. “I’m not easy, Mr Olofsson. If that’s what you’re thinking you can forget it.”

Clark’s smile is wide and genuine as he releases your fingers. “I’d never think so, not for a moment. I just want to spend the evening in the company of a great beauty. You wouldn’t deny me that, would you?”

You roll your eyes even as a blush stains your cheeks. “Well no, I suppose not.”

“You know my name. And I,” Clark taps his fingers playfully on the glass in line with your nametag. “Know yours. So we’re not strangers anymore, are we?”

You smile then, despite the lingering feeling of apprehension in your gut. Clark is disarmingly charming, and more forward than anyone has ever been. You’d denied him three times in the past two weeks, and yet he’d come back again and again, undeterred. So you tell yourself it’s just to get him to go away. You tell yourself it’s just to help him move on from his strange fixation on you. But when Clark Olofsson flashes you a boyish grin and a wink, your stomach fills with butterflies and a desire that you won’t let yourself acknowledge.

*

“And you’ve been with the Handelsbanken for… how long?” Clark skewers a piece of chicken and brings it to his lips, chewing animatedly.

“Two years,” you say, cutting your meatballs into little pieces. Clark has never seen anybody do that before, and he finds it hopelessly endearing. “I’d like to manage accounts, one day.”

Clark nods. “You’re smart enough to do it.”

“Tell that to the manager.” Your voice raises in pitch, a blush staining across your cheeks as you stab aggressively at a piece of meat on your plate. “He doesn’t believe women should ever leave the checking counter. Pretty faces for the customers.” You scoff, and Clark watches this tiny display of heated rebellion with rapt attention. A way in.

“You’re much too smart for that. Smarter than him, I’d bet.”

You look up then, offering him an embarrassed but genuine smile. “You’re kind to say so, Clark.”

Clark. Clark likes the way you say his name, the lilt you put on the single syllable like a song. He watches you pop a little piece of meatball into your mouth and he considers how your lips might look stretched around his cock. It hadn’t been part of the plan, to seduce you, but then you were a pretty girl and he was Clark fucking Olofsson, so really he should have assumed it from the beginning.

“Have you ever been into the bank at night?”

You frown. “Not after work. There’s a security guard, but otherwise the place is deserted. Why would I?”

Clark shrugs. “I’ve always wondered what it’s like, behind the glass and the pretty girls.”

Your smile returns. “It isn’t so glamorous. There’s the manager’s office, a staff canteen. Oh and the vaults, of course.”

The vaults. Clark leans in. “Tell me something secret, älskling. Something only an expert would know.”

If you think the question odd, you don’t say so. Clark pours you another liberal glass of wine whilst you mull over the question. “I suppose… do you know how the vault works? I think it might be the most impressive thing in the whole building.”

Clark has to really fight to keep his smile small. You were perfection, a few glasses of wine and you’d opened exactly the door he’d hoped for. The only promise sweeter now was the warm wetness between your legs, and it wouldn’t be long at all until Clark could bury his tongue and his cock inside you.

“I assume it works as all safes do. A code, a little dial to click, click, click.” Clark cranks an imaginary knob, and your eyes light.

“No, you see! Everybody thinks so, but it’s so much more complicated than that. For one, the door itself is impossibly thick. You couldn’t drill through it with any drill ever invented.”

“What about a bomb?” Clark teases. “Stick some explosives to it and…” he leans in, his hand finding your knee under the table. “Boom.”

Slick heat pulses in your core at the touch of his fingers against your skin, but you don’t dare move a single muscle even as your heart hammers in your chest. “Wouldn’t work. Too thick.” Your words come out breathy, and Clark walks his finger down the inside of your knee, brushing against the flushec flesh of your thigh. “Plus there are hidden deadbolts, and a series of mechanical locks that work on a timer. Even with the codes, the door won’t-“ you gasp at the brush of fingers against the hot, damp cotton of your panties. “Open.”

Clark’s cock throbs against the front of his pants at the pretty blush on your cheeks and the way your eyes flutter closed at his touch. You’re wet, but he expected that. Even if the words coming out of your mouth were damn bad news, listening to you tell him about the vault is getting him hard. You’re a little bossy when you’re explaining things to him, and he’s looking forward to fucking you dumb.

“So you say the vault is essentially… uncrackable.” Clark asks, pushing your glass across the table and tapping the rim. “Drink.”

You lift the glass mechanically, taking large gulps of the wine to distract yourself from the way Clark’s fingers press and prod at the front of your underwear. Your head swims with the alcohol and the dizzying pleasure throbbing in your core, and you gasp as one of Clark’s fingers slips into the elastic of your underwear to part your folds.

“The only way in would be… through the ceiling. The managers offices above are… the ceiling is just concrete. You could drill through that.”

Clark hums. “It would take days. Not so much of an…” he dips his finger lower, testing the pad of it against your entrance before pushing inside. “In and out job.”

Your lips part around a soft moan as Clark eases into you, curling his finger back against your sensitive walls before withdrawing it and pushing in again. “Clark.”

“I’m sorry, älskling. I get carried away, when you talk to me.”

You hum, fingers gripping the edge of the table as Clark’s thumb brushes against your clit, rubbing the sensitive bud in time with the in and out of his finger. “I’m just a teller.”

“No,” Clark coos, adding a second finger and tapping your mostly-empty glass again. “You’re an important, professional woman. I bet there’s plenty of cash in your drawers, isn’t there? My responsible little girl.”

You hum again, swallowing hard. “I… s-suppose so. I have maybe fifteen or twenty thousand kronor in my drawer. Same for the other girls.”

Clark does the math as he winds you closer to your climax. “Tens of thousands of kronor, entrusted to you. You’re a hell of a woman.”

You groan as your orgasm hits, squeezing your eyes shut as your pussy clamps down around Clark’s fingers. You buck against his thumb and Clark tries to keep up the pressure on your sensitive bundle of nerves as you wriggle. “Fuck, Clark.” You whisper, and it feels dirty hearing a word like that come from the uptight, reserved teller he’d been charming for the better part of a month. Not that he’s surprised, of course. Clark Olofsson knew how to please a woman. Everybody said so.

Clark withdraws his fingers when you stop shuddering, and he sucks them into his mouth to taste the sweetness of your release before swigging the last of his wine. He’s got what he needs now, but his cock aches in his pants and he’ll be damned if he’s going home to his own hand. He’ll be goddamned if he’s going to do that.

“I need to have you, älskling.” He says, dropping a handful of bills on the table. He pushes to a stand, and your eyes drop to the prominent bulge at the front of his pants. Clark lets you look, tilting his hips towards you. He’s never been ashamed of his cock, or the times it decides to make itself known. Fucking was his goddamn right as a man, why would he pretend otherwise? It was pointless.

“I’m… I don’t usually do that. On the first date.” You chew your lip into your mouth, and Clark fights against a bolt of irritation at your sudden retreat.

“Do you usually cum at the dinner table? Or is that just for me?” Your blush darkens, spreading down the sides of your neck, and Clark rounds the table to offer you his hand. “Give yourself to me tonight, älskling. You’ll never forget it.”

Clark doesn’t invite you back to his place, and you wonder if that’s because he has a wife or because he doesn’t have any intention of calling you again. His hand slips up under your skirt as he drives to your place, and you decide you don’t much care either way with the wine dulling your cognitive processes and his fingers shooting throbs of arousal through your core. “Just you wait,” he mutters, a smirk pulling lopsidedly at his lips. “You’ve never had it like Clark Olofsson. The things I’m going to do to you.” He chuckles, fingers kneading at your thigh, and you shift against the seat.

“I’m not usually like this.”

Clark nods, hooking his fingers into your waistband from behind as you fumble to unlock your apartment door. He nuzzles against the side of your neck, pressing hot, open-mouthed kisses to the sensitive skin. Of course you’re not. You’re a good girl. They’re all good girls, until they get a taste of Clark and then they’ll do anything for him. It’s the same story all the time, and Clark doesn’t mind one bit.

You step into your apartment, Clark still attached to your neck as his fingers graze along the waistband of your panties. He detaches long enough to glance around the space, eyes flicking over framed photographs on your wall. He doesn’t need to see you posing with your parents or getting a piggy back from your brother. He doesn’t need to know you. The next part comes easier if he doesn’t, actually.

You walk quickly, leaving him in the hallway as you head into the kitchen and pour two glasses of water. “Thirsty?”

Clark grins, leaning against the kitchen counter. “For you.”

You choke on your water, and Clark bites his lip to stifle a laugh at just how awkward you are. It’s unusual. It’s cute. “That’s a line.” You say eventually, once you’ve regained your ability to breathe.

Clark shrugs. “I invented it. I’m the first person ever to say it.”

You roll your eyes, but he isn’t joking. “Alright, Clark Olofsson. You wanted to have me, and now tonight you do.” You place your glass down on the counter, trying very hard to exude a bravado you don’t feel. “The question is, what will you do with me?”

Clark’s smile widens, his eyes darkening as he crosses the distance and cups your jaw in his big hands. “I’ve been thinking about this for a long time,” he murmurs softly before closing the gap between your mouth and his. His lips are warm and silky, the plush fullness of them a welcome pressure against yours as he presses your mouth open and licks his tongue against your teeth. You open for him, a low moan vibrating out of your throat at the way he claims the kiss, holding you close and steady as his tongue tastes every inch of your mouth. Your hands lift to wrap around his neck, even though he’s much taller than you and it’s an awkward stretch to reach. You tangle your fingers into the hair at the nape of his neck and tug, and Clark releases your mouth to gasp.

“Oh, you want to play, älskling?” He teases, hands dropping from your face to your waist so he can drag your body flush with his. “You want it a little rough?”

You nod, though you can’t really imagine what rough might look like to a man like Clark. His pupils expand and you watch in real time as the green of his irises dissolves into the dark pitch of his desire before his mouth reclaims yours with a hunger that leaves you breathless. His hands drop to your ass, lifting you up and depositing you on the kitchen counter. He pushes your knees apart and moves between them, and you shuffle to the edge of the worktop and wrap your legs around his hips so the growing bulge of his erection is pressed firmly against your center. His hands are everywhere, pawing up under your shirt to grope at your breasts, dragging down the smooth skin of your back and tracing the ridges of your spine, squeezing your ass cheeks to press you firmly to him so he can rut against your core through the soaked fabric of your panties. His fingers slip into the side of your underwear and pull, exposing your wet pussy to the air. You moan, breaking the kiss to look down at the point where his hand disappears beneath your skirt.

“Are you ready for me? Are you ready for the best sex of your life?” His voice is throaty and thick with lust, and your clit throbs in response.

“Show me.” You whisper, parting your legs wider and hooking your own fingers into his belt. Clark wastes no time at all in unbuckling his belt and pulling down his zipper. He only bothers to shove his pants to his knees, the awful ache in his cock won’t allow him any more time than that. He wraps a hand around your thigh to keep you in place as he pushes into you, a deep moan rumbling out of his chest at the hot, wet tightness of you.

“Goddamn,” he chuckles. “Goddamn, älskling.”

You suck your bottom lip into your mouth, shifting and flexing against the sudden intrusion. You’re still wet from the orgasm he’d given you in the restaurant so it doesn’t exactly hurt, but you’d hoped for more buildup. Clark sets a pace right away, pulling out and thrusting back into you quickly. You brace a hand on his shoulder and watch him, devouring the look of concentrated bliss on his face as he fucks you. His nails dig into the meat of your thigh as he pins you to the counter, cock slamming into you over and over again. His free hand lifts to wrap in your hair, pulling your face close so he can kiss you messily as he moans into your mouth. His hips stutter against yours and he groans loudly against your lips. You squeeze around his cock, and he almost whimpers as he pulls out and steps backwards.

“Are you… done?”

Clark smirks. “Seems so.”

You swallow your disappointment. “Oh.”

Clark tucks his cock back into his trousers. “Did you?”

“I… no.”

Clark twists his mouth to the side. “I think you did. I felt it happen. Maybe you didn’t realize.”

This is the most ridiculous thing you’ve ever heard, but the thought of arguing the point with him makes your skin crawl. “Maybe.”

Clark pauses, fingers on his belt buckle. He rakes his eyes appreciatively over you, the mess he’s made of your hair, the way your skirt is hiked up around your hips to reveal the glistening remnants of his cum as it leaks out of you. “You’re beautiful.” He says, stepping back between your legs to cup your cheeks and kiss your mouth. “I love you.”

You do roll your eyes then, because he’s endearing and charming and so completely full of shit. “Alright, Clark.”

He scowls, pouting his bottom lip out playfully. “You don’t love me? After all that?”

You roll your eyes again, but your stomach flips over with a mix of arousal and something dangerously close to actual affection. “You’re persistent.”

Clark’s face transforms into a grin that lights up his handsome features. “I’m incorrigible.”

You wonder where he picked up the word. You wonder if he went to college, or what kind of books he liked to read. “I’ve never met anyone like you.”

Clark beams at that. “There’s only one Clark Olofsson, älskling.”

His eyes unfocus for a moment and he drops his hand to the front of his pants. “Oho, look at that. We can go again.”

You open your mouth to protest, but Clark silences you with a deep kiss as he lifts you from the counter and walks you back into the hallway.

“End of the hall,” you mumble into his mouth, and Clark carries you into your bedroom, dropping you unceremoniously on the bed before covering your body with his.

Clark Olofsson doesn’t really have much of a refractory period. A few nice words from you, and he was completely hard again. You open so easily for him, your insides slick with his cum, and Clark pushes your legs out and up, bracing your thighs against his forearms so he can slam into you harder and deeper than before.

You whine, chewing your bottom lip into ribbons at the rough pounding. Clark’s cock bumps against your cervix with every thrust, producing a dull aching pain that you’ll feel later but can’t bring yourself to care about right now. Not with the way his length brushes against your g-spot with every thrust and the fucked-out, perfect look on his pretty face.

You reach down between your bodies to rub at your own clit, and Clark’s grin is almost feral as he pulls back to watch. “That’s it.” He coos. “Cum for me. Cum on my cock, älskling.”

It doesn’t take much, not with the way he’s filling you up. You know exactly how to touch yourself to bring your orgasm to a climax, and you don’t wait for permission before tumbling over the edge. “Oh, fuck. Oh god, Clark!” You moan, fluttering around him erratically as your release washes through you.

Clark doesn’t think he’s ever seen anything quite so pretty as your face when you cum. Though the feeling of you squeezing his cock, milking every drop of his seed from him is dangerously addictive. He could get used to it. He could come back for you.

He pulls out with a wince, watching his cum ooze out of you to soak into your sheet. Clark reaches down to scoop at the mess, pushing it back into you and fucking his fingers in and out of you. You whine softly and try to shift away, but Clark keeps going until the pearly slick stays inside you. He doesn’t know why he does it, only that he wanted to see you all filled up and Clark isn’t in the business of questioning himself when he wants something.

“Are you… staying?” You ask as he’s buckling his belt for the second time that night. Clark doesn’t stay, not usually. But he looks at you and the excuse dies on his tongue. You look small and vulnerable sitting up in your bed, your flowery comforter pulled tight around your chin. Clark feels a little stab of something in his chest, and he removes his belt again and shoves his pants to the floor.

“Of course I am. You think I’d sneak away like a thief in the night?”

You shake your head and pull back the covers for him, a sweet smile on your face. “It’s been a long time since anyone’s slept over.” You say quietly.

Clark sighs, turning you onto your side and wrapping his arm around your waist. “It’s been a long time since I’ve slept over anywhere.” It’s the most honest he’s been all night, though you’re not to know it.

Clark closes his eyes at the soft snuffling of your breathing, and he presses his nose against your hair. Tomorrow he will go, and he will not look back. But tonight? Tonight he could pretend that he were a different man, a man with no grand plans and a heart to give. It wasn’t true, Clark Olofsson was destined for the biggest of things, but there was peace in pretending for a little while.

You wake to the sound of his goddamn belt clinking, and a harsh expletive as Clark trips over a book on your bedroom floor. You turn your bedside lamp on, glancing at the drawn shade. Still dark out.

“Most people sleep until the sun rises, Clark.”

He freezes, turning to you slowly like a criminal caught in the act. “I didn’t mean to wake you.”

“Sneaking out after all.”

Clark shakes his head, holding his hands up. “I have an important meeting first thing. And whilst I don’t mind that I smell like sex, the shareholders…” he trails off, and you feel your face heat.

“Oh. I mean of course. Right.”

“Last night… you were fantastic, älskling.” He says, crossing the room and bending at the waist to press a kiss to your forehead. “I won’t forget you.”

You hum. “I won’t forget you either.”

Clark’s grin is boyish and ridiculously pretty. “Of course you won’t. I’m Clark Olofsson.”

*

You groan at the agonizing burn in your ankles, shifting from one foot to the other. Your manager had suggested you could use a stool for long shifts, but he’d looked so faux-sympathetic and so smug that you’d had to decline. Fuck him and his misogynistic bullshit. Being a woman didn’t make you any less capable of doing your job. Being pregnant didn’t either, though your ankles had swollen up and your widening hips ached all the time.

“When are you going on break?” Heather whispers to you from the next counter.

“No more breaks.” You say with a pained smile. “But I’m off in an hour.”

She returns your smile with a knowing one of her own. “The last few months are the worst. Everybody says the first three, with the sickness, but the pain at the end is something else. Still, not long now, eh?”

You nod. “Not long.”

Not long until you’d get to meet your baby and spend a few blissful months learning how to be a mother. You were terrified. You couldn’t wait. There was nothing that could put a damper on that overwhelming, constant feeling of excitement. Not your shitty manager, not your swollen ankles, and certainly not thinking about the green eyes and sexy smirk of C-

“Attention, attention! Can I have your attention, ladies and gentlemen! This is a robbery!” Your head snaps up at the familiar, low voice, your stomach bottoming out as you drop to a crouch underneath your counter. You reach for the panic button under the desk, a recent addition to the bank that nobody had ever used before. You press it, and nothing happens. You lift your head just a little, just enough to see the main floor, and your eyes meet his immediately. He’s on the other side of the room, but he’s looking right at you. His eyes crinkle at the corners as he smiles, and you fight the urge to smile back at the asshole.

“Ladies, ladies.” He says, crossing the room and stopping in front of the teller furthest away from you. “I have a big sack here.” He puts a white cotton bag on the counter and winks at the woman behind the glass. “You know what to do, you’ve seen the movies. Put all the money from your register in the bag, please and thank you.”

The woman moves mechanically, emptying her reserves into his bag.

“I thank you.” He says, flashing her the grin that had once disarmed you so thoroughly before moving on to the next teller, and the next. You glance around the room, at the customers lying on the floor and the other tellers frozen at their stations. Where was the manager? Where was the fucking security guard?

You watch in horrified slow motion as Clark approaches you, and you’re forced to half-stand so you can scoop kroner notes out and shove them through the gap in the bottom of the glass.

“älskling,” he whispers.

“I’ve triggered a silent alarm.” You say in response, not meeting his eye. “The police will be on their way so you’d better get out of here.”

You don’t think anyone else can hear, but you can’t be sure.

“You did that?” He asks, and there’s genuine hurt in his voice.

Your head snaps up, eyes meeting his as you narrow yours into a glare. “Of course I did. You’re nothing to me.”

You try to ignore the awful twisting in your gut at the wounded look on his face as he turns away from you. You can’t allow yourself to feel sorry for him. Not after his disappeared without a trace, and certainly not now he’s back to rob the goddamn bank. You think back to your conversation with him over dinner, his seemingly superficial interest in the workings of the bank. You were a fucking idiot.

Clark barrels into Martin, and you curse under your breath as the aging security guard topples over and goes sprawling to the ground. He has a bad heart and you know his wife, and you’re pushing open the door into the main room without thinking about it, dropping to your knees to help the man to his feet.

Clark is about to run. He’s got a sack full of money and no interest in getting into it with some old guy in a uniform, but then you shout and you’re there and Clark’s eyes drop to the enormous swell of your stomach and his heart stops beating.

“Hey, you’re okay,” you soothe the man, rubbing your palm against his back as he huffs and puffs.

You narrow your eyes at Clark. “Look what you-“

“Mine?” The word is out, cutting you off mid-lecture, and you press your mouth into a tight line at the possessive word.

“Mine.” You snap.

Clark swallows thickly. “Älskling.”

You can’t let this happen. You can’t, certainly not with so many listening ears. “I wasn’t lying about the alarm.”

Clark looks at the hard set of your face, and the security guard who is on the verge of regaining his wits, and his shoulders sag. He drags his eyes over your pregnant belly one last time before he hoists the sack over his shoulder and runs for the door.

*

You’re expecting the knock on the door, and it comes just before midnight. You slip off your chair at the kitchen table, checking your hair in the hall mirror before you open the door and let Clark step into your apartment.

“I should have moved.”

“But then I wouldn’t have been able to find you.” Clark says this so simply, like your reason for wanting to move couldn’t possibly have anything to do with him, and you scoff.  

“Who says I wanted you to?”

Clark brushes past you and heads straight for the kitchen, leaning heavily against the counter. The sight of him there brings hot flashes of memory to your mind, of your thighs pressed open as he fucked you in that very spot. “I missed you.”

You hum, hand going absently to your stomach to rub against the fluttering you’d grown so used to.

Clark watches, his heart seized with an unpleasant longing. “Did you miss me, älskling?”

“No.”

He bites the corner of his bottom lip, and you let your eyes drink in the sight of him. His hair is longer now, sideburns too. It suits him, though you’ve never been all that into facial hair. He looks older, rougher somehow.

“It’s been seven months, Clark. Almost eight.”

Clark’s eyes drop to your stomach. “It’s mine, isn’t it?”

You shrug. “It might be.”

Clark is already shaking his head as he pushes off from the counter and crosses the room. He towers over you up close, and his hands are warm, wide weights as he presses them to your rounded stomach. “You’re a good girl. There wasn’t anyone but me. It’s mine.”

You swallow thickly. “I don’t expect anything from you, Clark.”

It hurts Clark to hear you say it, even if it’s exactly what he wanted to hear. He doesn’t want to be a father, he has no fucking idea how to do that, but it still hurts to hear it from you.

“We could get married. You know, do it all properly.”

You laugh then, you can’t help it. The thought of Clark Olofsson robbing a bank one day and marching you into a chapel the next is just too damn funny. “Be serious, Clark.”

Clark rubs over your stomach, brows furrowing into a frown. “I am. I want to do right by you.”

“You think I want to marry a criminal?”

Clark’s frown deepens. “I have rights to my child. If I want to.”

This sends a skitter of fear down your spine, but you force the feeling away and fix a condescending smirk on your face. “You want to get the authorities involved, do you?”

Clark’s forehead smooths out as his expression darkens. “Don’t threaten me, älskling. Nobody threatens Clark Olofsson.”

You hum, stepping out his grip just as the baby in your stomach begins a series of fluttering kicks. “Or what? What’s the great Clark Olofsson going to do, huh?”

It’s stupid to goad him, and you realize just how stupid as a slow, lazy smirk spreads across his face. “Give yourself to me tonight, älskling. You’ll never forget it.”

It shouldn’t work. It shouldn’t fucking work and you’ll blame months of celibacy and fucked up pregnancy hormones later. But right now, you’re dragging Clark into your bedroom by the collar of his stupid leather jacket and shoving him onto your mattress.

He huffs a laugh as he works his jeans open, tugging his half-hard cock from the confines and thumbing roughly over his tip. You straddle him, slapping at his hand until he releases his cock so you can wrap your fingers around his base and line him up with your entrance. You hadn’t bothered to put on underwear when you’d slipped your nightgown on, a shamed part of you had known this was inevitable from the moment you’d locked eyes with him earlier that day. The magnetic, poisonous pull of Clark Olofsson had you hooked.

The smirk slips from his face as his lips part on a moan, hands flying to grip at your hips as you begin to roll against him. “You used me.” You murmur, planting your hands on his chest for leverage so you can rise up and drop back down on his cock.

Clark wants to argue, but there are no thoughts in his head, nothing at all but the rounding of your belly and the swollen, heavy sight of your tits straining against your nightgown.

“You p-pumped me for information,” you groan, tilting your pelvis so your clit is dragged against the rough thatch of hair at his base. “So you could rob the fucking bank.”

Clark moans softly, his hips lifting to meet your as you quiver and clench around the thick length of him. “You got… something out of it.” He huffs.

You bark a startled laugh, lifting one hand from his chest to press to your stomach. “Sure I fucking did.”

“You want me to say I’m sorry?” Clark asks, pinning you against him as his hips snap up to fuck brutally into you. “Clark Olofsson doesn’t apologize.”

“I figured.” You moan. “I don’t care about that. I want to level the field.”

Clark isn’t sure what you mean, his brain can’t process what you’re saying even though he’s the smartest person in any room and considers himself ahead of the game in almost everything. But then you lift up off his cock and crawl up his torso, and your stomach blots out all the light in the room as you press your soaked pussy to his face. “Gunna use you, Clark.”

Clark groans, the sound coming from deep in his chest as he wedges his hands against your thighs and pushes your legs apart. You’re dripping with arousal, and he laps at your slick like a man starved. You brace your hands on the headboard, resting your weight on your knees so you don’t actually kill him as Clark’s tongue works between your folds and flicks roughly against your clit.

Clark knows you’re going to forgive him after this. He’s good at everything he tries, but he’s the fucking king at eating pussy. Love of the game, is what it is. He loves the way you taste, the sounds you make, the feeling of your thighs pressing against the sides of his head as you rock down against him. Your pussy is like wet silk, the little throbbing bud of your clit fits perfectly against his tongue as he suctions his lips around it and draws dark little whimpers from your throat. Your wetness soaks his mouth and his nose and runs down his jaw, and he moans against you as he devours every sacred inch of your delicious cunt.

“God, Clark,” you sob, grinding sloppily against his face as the coil of pleasure in your abdomen snaps with a blinding, weightless sensation. You wail as you cum, thighs squeezing the life out of him as you rock and buck against him, riding out the best orgasm of your life. Clark does his best to keep up, his tongue licking enthusiastically at you as he swallows every drop of your arousal.

His own cock is a leaking mess by the time you roll off him. “My turn?”

You laugh. “I’m not sucking your cock. My gag reflex is sensitive with the baby and I threw up about a thousand times in the first trimester.”

Clark frowns, reaching down to jerk himself in a loose fist just to relieve some of the tension. “I’ll fuck you, then. Can’t knock you up while you’re knocked up, can I?”

You groan, but you’re already parting your legs, and Clark settles between them. He presses a kiss to your stomach, hands roaming over the swollen flesh. “Does he hear his daddy?”

You roll your eyes, but the erratic kicking against your uterus suggests that the baby does like his voice. Clark’s eyes widen and he grins, kissing your stomach again. “You look so good like this, all fat with my child.”

You hook a thigh around the back of his legs. “Stop it.”

Clark laughs, bracing his arms either side of your head as he grinds his bare cock against your soaked pussy before nudging against the tight, wet heat of you. Clark buries his cock in you again, feeling the steady pulse of your muscles against his length, and he dips his head to kiss your mouth so you can taste yourself on his tongue.

It’s quick, like you knew it would be. Clark lasts just a minute, an enthusiastic minute of fast, hard thrusts. He moans your name, and you squeeze tightly around him to milk every drop of his pleasure as he shoots his load deep inside you.

He doesn’t pull out right away, resting his face in the damp crook of your neck as his sensitive cock pulses and softens. In the end you have to push him, tapping lightly at his shoulders to get him to pull out and release you.

Even as he rolls to the side, Clark wraps his arms around you and presses his lips to your temple, and you’re too tired to tell him to move away. Besides, it feels nice to be held, even if it’s just pretend. He chuckles to himself. “This makes me a motherfucker, you see?”

You roll your eyes. “You’re something else, Clark Olofsson.” You turn in his arms, fixing your eyes to his. “But you’re not a husband. And you won’t be a father, not to my child. My father was a criminal too. I guess I should have seen the signs with you. He committed insurance fraud and went to prison. It ruined us.”

Clark’s face is unreadable, a sharp line between his brows and his jaw set tightly.

“I won’t do that to my child. I won’t have them grow up with that shame.”

Clark feels an unpleasant ice in his stomach. Imagine thinking he was the same as some petty insurance fraudster? Imagine lumping him in with common criminals and worse, with shitty fathers? He is Clark Olofsson! Soon to be the most accomplished, the greatest-

“My father was a drunk.” He says. He doesn’t know where it comes from. He’s never said the words out loud. “He didn’t care about me or my mama. I wouldn’t be like that. I won’t be.”

You swallow hard at the open sincerity on his face. The mask has slipped, just for a moment, and you see the boy underneath wearing the weight of insecurity like a millstone around his neck. You lean in, pecking his lips gently. “You could be more than this, you know. If you wanted.”

Clark laughs, and the mask snaps back into place so efficiently you wonder whether you’d imagined the slip. “Of course I could. But being the best at being the best was not my thing, so I decided to be the best at being the worst.”

You smile sadly, reaching up to brush a lock of hair away from his eyes. “I’m going to see you on the news one day, aren’t I?”

Clark grins, rolling onto his back and closing his eyes. He’ll be gone when you wake up, and you won’t wonder where he went. That was the way of things. He sighs, the smile slipping from his face as he settles into his exhaustion. “You’re damn right, älskling. You’ll see my name in lights. Clark fucking Olofsson.”

You push a slow breath out through your pursed lips as you connect the last strand of red thread. Sixteen. Sixteen deaths in a small town over the course of the year. Well, alright, only four confirmed. But twelve missing that you know in your gut aren’t runaways. Prostitutes have kids. Even bums have places they consider home. People don’t just disappear. You grit your teeth, running your fingers along the crimson thread to the photo of the young girl with the blue wig and the bruises mottling her neck. People don’t just disappear.

*

You clutch your folder to your chest, trying hard not to spill the coffee in your other hand as you push open Section Chief Matthew Clark’s office door. He looks up, face falling. “No.”

“I brought caffeine.”

The man twists his mouth to the side. “Two minutes.”

You thank him, placing the coffee down on his desk and opening your folder. “It’s up to sixteen now, sir.”

“Sixteen… what?”

“Deaths or disappearances that are too suspicious to be anything other than foul play.”

“You got another body?” He asks, rotating the folder and pulling the mugshot of the hooker out from its paperclip.

“Turned up in a local park. Drained of blood, throat eviscerated. Like an animal, but I don’t know any animal that wraps the kill in silk sheets after, do you?”

He raises an eyebrow. “This is… more. It isn’t nothing.”

“We’ll look into it?”

He scoffs. “Don’t push your luck. I’ll make a call down to Hemlock County, see what the sheriff over there thinks. We don’t have enough to force our way in here.”

You nod, trying not to appear too eager even though your stomach is flipping over. This is the closest you’ve come to anyone taking you seriously since the first file had crossed your desk. “I understand. And thank you, sir. Really.”

Clark purses his lips. “No promises, kid. If they don’t want our help, you have to drop it.”

You agree, though you have no intention of dropping it. You just can’t. Not after getting the letter. The letter hasn’t made its way into the official FBI folder, because if anyone got a hold of it they’d pull you from the case. Too close, too personal.

But a nine year old girl in Hemlock Grove saw you on the news and wrote you a letter. About her missing sister. About the something stalking the people of Hemlock Grove. About how everybody said her sister ran away, but that she knows her sister. People don’t just run away. They don’t just leave. You kept that letter on your bedside table, propped up the fuzzy Polaroid of the child with her chubby arms wrapped tightly around a teenager sporting a crooked grin, so the little girl and her missing sister were the first things you thought about when you woke up and the last thing before you went to sleep. And Hemlock Grove had been leaking into the seams of your dreams, recently. The town had a shimmery quality around the edges in your mind, because you’d never been there and all the photos you’d seen were of crime scenes.

You settle into bed that night with the latest case file, reading over the pertinent details. Local woman, known sex worker. Booked twice for solicitation in the past two years, of no fixed address but often seen at the Grove Motel. Body found in Kilderry Park by a dog walker at approximately 3AM. That was a strange time to walk a dog, and you make a note to follow up with the witness.

Your work phone buzzes in your nightstand, and you pull the drawer open to read the short message from Clark. Hemlock want you to take a look. Off the books, for now. Report to Sheriff Sworn at 9AM Monday.

Your heart is a jackhammer in your throat as you read and re-read the message. You had a case. You had the case. You were going to be able to look that nine year old girl in the eye and tell her somebody was listening. You were going to find her sister.

*

Hemlock Grove is a chaotic sprawl of a place. The residential areas seem to have spread out into the surrounding forest with almost no regard for proper planning, though the main part of town is made up of a swirl of concentric circular streets like the turns of a whirlpool, centered around a jagged, ugly skyscraper at the heart.

You meet Sheriff Tom Sworn outside the station. He’s sitting on the hood of his car with two Styrofoam coffee cups, and he holds one out to you before you’ve even switched off the engine in your rental. “You the FBI?”

You shrug. “Not officially, not today. You must be Sheriff Sworn.”

“My men… don’t know about this. Hell, I don’t know about this. Your chief made it sound like… do you really think we got a serial killer working outta Hemlock?”

You twist your mouth to the side, choosing your words carefully. “I wouldn’t like to say that, not without all the facts. But I think with sixteen missing or dead in under a year? You got one hell of a problem.”

You let the Sheriff do the talking when you follow him into the station. “Guys, this is a lady detective from the FBI. She’s studying small town policing for some reason or other.”

“I’ll be working vice cases, and with your recently deceased sex worker the Sheriff kindly offered me a chance to look at the case.” You offer the men a tight smile, and not a single one returns it. Good. Great.

“FBI interested in one dead hooker?” A tall, thin cop with a hooked nose and a moustache asks.

“Not the FBI. Just me. Educationally, as it’s not high-priority.” You hate the words as you say them, but it has the desired effect. The cops shoulders relax, his beady eyes assessing you and deciding you’re one of them after all. Nobody cares about dead hookers. “I promise to stay outta your way whilst you guys get the real police work done.”

This is the right thing to say, because another cop finally flashes you a grin. “Well welcome to Hemlock Grove, young lady. If there’s anything we can do to help you out, just holler.”

You reach out a hand and shake his meaty one, trying hard not to grimace at the sweat slipping off his palm and onto yours. “Actually, there was one thing. Know how I can get in touch with the person who found the body? File says a dogwalker.”

“Oh, sure. Mrs Balkay. She lives over on Flynn Street, painted her house blue last year. You can’t miss it if you drive straight round the back of the tower and hook a left.”

You glance out the window at the tower. “What exactly is that thing, anyway?”

The Sheriff ducks his head to look up at the sharp peak of the building. “The White Tower. It’s the headquarters for Godfrey Industries, big biotech company. This used to be a steel town, and the Godfrey’s owned it all. Switched around the industrial revolution and now I guess they’re a big deal in science.”

“I’ve never heard of them.” You mumble absently, wrinkling your nose. “It’s a bit… much, isn’t it?”

The Sheriff scoffs. “It’s a fucking eyesore is what it is. And it never goes out. The lights all the way up that thing, I mean. The tower’s never gone dark in forty years.”

*

You stir your tea carefully, the delicate porcelain of the cup so thin and fragile you’re terrified that the clink of the spoon against it might shatter the whole thing. Mrs Balkay watches you, sipping from her own cup as the cloud of fur masquerading as a dog rubs around your ankles. “Three AM is a strange time to walk your dog, Ma’am. If you don’t mind me saying so.”

She chuckles. “I don’t sleep much, and neither does Sissy. Do you, my love?” She coos to the dog, who skitters over to her mistress and wriggles underneath her chair. “And Sissy has explosive bowels. I walk her at all manner of strange times, if she needs to go. Don’t want her messing on my roses.”

You glance out the window to the long stretches of perfectly manicured pink and white rose bushes. “No, I suppose not. It must have been quite a shock, to find the girl.”

“Trash.” Mrs Balkay says brightly. “Street-walking trash, dear. It was going to happen sooner or later, to a woman who chooses to demean herself like that.”

You blink. “I… okay. Can you tell me about what happened before you found her?”

“Before?” Mrs Balkay frowns. “I was just walking Sissy. I was whistling, as I often do on the night walks. Keeps me from getting the jitter out so late, you know.”

“Do you remember what you were whistling? A song you know?”

The woman smiles. “Of course I do. We’ll meet again, by Vera Lynn. Do you know it?”

“I do.”

“One of my favorites. One of Sissy’s too.”

“It’s a classic. So you were whistling the song, and Sissy was about to do her business. Where abouts in the park were you? How close to the playhouse?”

“Oh, I don’t know. There was a fog that night. Eery, which is why I was whistling. And I about jumped out of my skin when he came out of the mist. I hadn’t heard his footsteps, even.”

You freeze, cup pressed to your lips. “When who came out of the mist?”

The woman shrugs, placing her cup down on the matching saucer. “Why Roman Godfrey, of course. I told the Sheriff as much.”

You scan over the report on your knee. No mention of a man at the scene. Coming out of the mist, coming from the direction of the playground. Acting strange, seemingly in a hurry. It was a huge piece of the puzzle, and it was completely absent from the report.

You thank Mrs Balkay for her time and head back to your car, already opening a search engine on your phone and typing the name Roman Godfrey.

Roman Godfrey, CEO of Godfrey Industries. A puff piece for TIME Magazine on how, as the youngest CEO in history, he’d managed to improve quarterly profits by eighteen percent in the 12 months since assuming control of the company. A pretty boy with big green eyes and a wolfish smirk. You don’t need to ask Sheriff Sworn why his name is missing from the report. You don’t need to ask for directions to the White Tower. The jut of it sticks against the sky no matter where you are in Hemlock Grove, an obnoxiously phallic symbol of the Godfrey’s influence over the town.

The Receptionist at the front desk looks you up and down before fixing a polite smile on her face. “Can I help you?”

“I’d like to speak with Mr Roman Godfrey, please.”

Her smile tightens. “Of course. You have an appointment?”

You sigh. “No. But I really need to speak with him.” You pull your credentials out of your pocket and place them discreetly on the desk. “A matter of some importance.”

The woman’s smile drops completely as she reads your badge. “You have a warrant?”

“Do I need one?” You ask, fixing a polite, false smile on your face.

“Stand down, Jane.” You look up, polite smile still in place as you meet emerald eyes. “I always have time for the police.”

You tilt your head to the side. “You find yourself in the company of law enforcement often, Mr Godfrey?”

“Roman, please.” He purrs, holding out a hand for you. You take it, feeling the hairs on your arm raise at his cool, firm grip. He wears a gaudy signet ring on one finger, and the metal of it presses sharply into your skin as he wraps his long fingers around yours. “When you’re the CEO of the biggest employer in the state, you’d be surprised how often you’re summoned for this or that.”

“Well I appreciate you taking the time for me, Mr Godfrey.”

His smile tightens just a little, the full pout of his lips thinning almost imperceptibly. “Would you mind if we had this discussion in my office?”

“Not at all.”

You follow him across the glass lobby and into an elevator. Roman presses a button for the top floor, and you reach to brace against the mirrored wall as the elevator jolts and begins its ascent.

Roman’s office is an enormous box of glass and chrome with sleek, black leather furnishings. Stylish and completely lacking personality. There are no photos on his desk, no personal effects of any kind. If you’d been presented a picture of this office at the academy, you’d have said it belonged to a sociopath. Roman leans back in his chair, offering you a seat across from him.

You perch on the edge. “What were you doing in Kilderry Park on the night Nadine Lang was murdered?”

Roman doesn’t flinch. The little smile on his face doesn’t so much as flicker. “Murdered? I thought it was an animal attack.”

“You encountered Mrs Balkay walking her dog around 3AM. What were you doing in the park at that time?”

“Weird time to walk a dog, isn’t it?” Roman asks, steepling his long fingers under his chin. “You sure she’s a reliable witness?”

“Are you saying you weren’t in Kilderry Park at 3AM on the night Nadine Lang was murdered?”

Roman hums, pushing up from his seat and coming around the desk to lean on the glass. This puts his crotch level with your face, and he knows it as he smirks down at you. “You keep saying that word. Is the FBI treating this as a murder case?” He runs a pale hand down the length of his thigh, and your eyes drop to watch the movement. There’s the slightest twinge of arousal in your core as you watch his long, graceful fingers move against the dark fabric of his pants, but you ignore it, lifting your eyes to meet his disconcertingly unblinking stare instead.

“Are you usually this uncooperative with law enforcement?”

Roman huffs a laugh, shifting his hips in a way that drags your gaze unwillingly back to his crotch and the very obvious tightening of fabric over his cock. “Law enforcement doesn’t usually look like you.”

There’s a blush creeping across your cheeks, and Roman feels his cock throb in response at all that pretty blood rushing under your skin. It was going to be so much fun, peeling your flesh from that pretty face and licking the red slick beneath. His mouth waters at just the thought, precum soaking into the front of his boxers. But he can’t. Not yet. Not until he knows everything that you know.

“Are you going to answer my questions, Mr Godfrey?” You’re still pretending you’re not affected by him, and Roman thinks that’s adorable. Pointless, but adorable.

“I like to walk at night. I’m an insomniac. Walking late at night helps clear my head. I’ve been doing it for years.”

You press your lips together. “Alright. Thank you. And when you were walking in the park, you didn’t come across the body of Nadine Lang? Or see anything suspicious.”

Roman opens his mouth, and you cut him off. “Other than Mrs Balky walking her dog at 3AM.”

Roman grins, showing too many teeth, and your heart stutters over a beat. “No, nothing. All quiet.”

“Alright. Well, thank you for your time, Mr Godfrey. I hope I can call on you again, if I have any more questions?”

Roman extends a hand to you, and you let him tug you from your chair even though you don’t need the help and you really don’t want to touch him.

“You can call on me for anything. Anytime.” He looks you up and down, his gaze appreciative and a little lecherous. “Seriously. Anytime.”

You nod curtly as you reach for the door handle. “Oh, one more thing. Can you think of any reason why your presence in the park that night might have not made it into the Sheriff’s official report?”

Roman shrugs. “Filing error, maybe? I guess you’d have to ask Tom.”

You nod, though you both know you won’t be asking Tom anything. “I’ll do that. Thank you again, Mr Godfrey.”

“Roman,” he sighs, watching your ass as you step out of the office and make your way back down to the elevator. You’ve got a nice ass, a tight, plump thing that Roman is pretty sure he could bounce a quarter off of. He wonders whether he’ll get a chance to fuck you before he has to kill you. That ass bouncing against his cock? That’d be something.

*

It’s a complete fucking fluke. You’re standing in line at the gas station on the other side of town because you’d been seized with an uncontrollable urge for a twinkie, despite having avoided the toxic cakes since you were a teenager after hearing a rumor that they sat in your gut undigested for a month. You’re looking out the window as a cherry-red vintage jaguar pulls in, and the driver honks his horn without getting out.

“Asshole,” the attendant mutters, and you offer him a sympathetic smile. “I can wait, if you need to-“

“He can wait while I ring you up. Entitled Godfrey asshole.”

That gets your attention. “Godfrey as in Roman?”

“The very same. Always expects everybody to drop everything and fall to their knees for him. Asshole.”

“I got that impression.” You mumble.

“You know a couple weeks back he came blazing in here at, oh, musta been about two in the morning. Sat in his car honking at me to come out and fill ‘er up. Really laid on the horn like I wasn’t doin anything better than runnin right out to him.”

“Two in the morning?” You ask. “What was he doing out at two in the morning?”

The man shrugs. “You know, it was the night before they found that bum dead in the storm drain. I’d say the spooky fuck had something to do with it if I thought a Godfrey would ever set foot in the sewer.”

You swallow hard, pulling your badge from your pocket and flashing it to him. “You wouldn’t happen to have tapes from that night, would you?”

Roman watches you through the glass, his knuckles white on the steering wheel as you flash your little badge at the attendant and he nods. God fucking damn, you were digging fast. Faster than he’d thought. Faster even than Olivia had thought. It wasn’t good at all; to have you scuttling about connecting him to things you had no business looking into. And Roman knew he hadn’t been careful enough. That he should have let his mother clean up the mess. But his pride had won out, and now there was a bombshell FBI agent poking at the thin veneer of human civility he’d wrapped himself in, and he was going to have to deal with it.

The attendant hands you a slim gray case, and Roman knows what it is. He feels it in his gut. You nod your head and turn, stepping out of the gas station, and Roman fixes a smile on his face as he climbs out of his car.

“Quantico!” He calls, and you turn as though you hadn’t known he was there. All a game.

“Mr Godfrey. Nice car.”

Roman shrugs modestly. “It was my dad’s. Costs about a million bucks to keep her running but I guess I’m sentimental.”

You slip the gray case into your bag as you approach. “You know you can pump it yourself.”

Roman blinks at you, his smirk slipping a little. “What?”

“Your gas. Pennsylvania state law allows self-service at gas stations. You don’t have to honk for the attendant to come out and do it for you.”

Roman blinks at you again. “I know.”

“So you just… prefer making other people work for you?”

He shakes his head. “I don’t like to get my hands dirty.”

You glance at his hands; pale, long fingers and the pulse of veins running across his knuckles and feel an unwelcome bolt of heat pulse through your core again. “I bet.”

*

You’re staying at the Grove Motel. Roman doesn’t know why it bothers him to see your little rental car parked outside such a shitty place. He doesn’t know why he’s still here either, parked across the lot in one of his jeeps and smoking his ninth consecutive cigarette. Three hookers have knocked on his window so far, and if another one tries it he’ll break her goddamn fingers for touching his car. He isn’t here for that, not tonight. He can see the fuzzy halo coming from the TV in your room, bleeding blue light out around the edges of the curtains. You’re watching the tape from the gas station, the one where a very agitated Roman Godfrey berates the gas station attendant for making him wait a minute for service. The blurry image won’t show the dark bloodstains soaked into his coat or the caking of dirt under his nails, and Roman can only hope the pixelated image doesn’t pick up the sludge of sewer run-off he’d kicked from his boots on the forecourt.

He pulls his little notebook from his breast pocket, scratching the word onto a fresh page. CCTV. He’d been making a list of things to check for, evidence to eradicate during cleanup. He should have thought about CCTV, or better filled up before he’d gone anywhere near the shanty town of homeless people under the bridge, but he hadn’t been thinking straight. The hunger had been overwhelming, tunnelling his vision to pinpricks of light focused only on the pulse of blood, and if he hadn’t gone hunting right there and then he’d have eaten a member of the household staff.

He flips the notebook back to the third page. DO NOT EAT: Relatives, household staff, Godfrey Industries employees. Children under sixteen, law enforcement or relatives of law enforcement.

The opposite page, entitled SAFE TO EAT: Homeless, hookers, pimps. Addicts, Elderly if no immediate relatives. Runaways, patients cleared by Pryce.

Roman tucks his notebook away, drumming his fingers against his pocket. Olivia would shit a bowling ball if she knew he was keeping all this in a book, but it was the only way Roman could make sense of it in his mind. Things got… clouded when he was hungry, and he was always fucking hungry. He’d been nothing but an appetite for a year now, since he’d cut his wrists and awoken as an Upir, lying in his mother’s lap.

Olivia’s pride in him had dried up real goddamn quick, as soon as the novelty wore off. As soon as he started to make mistakes, to show weaknesses. She’d returned to the harsh, cold matriarch Roman had always known her to be, and Roman had learned how to live with that now that he had nobody else at all. Because Shelley had disappeared, and Letha had died. And Peter had run away and left him, and Roman had nobody. Nobody at all.

So what if he’d killed a couple of kids from high school? So what if he’d drained that pretty college girl from the next town over? She’d squeezed her cunt around his cock so viciously his teeth had snapped down and closed around her throat all by themselves, he hadn’t been able to stop that any more than he’d been able to hold off the most violent orgasm of his life. It had been an accident, anyway.

*

You’re sipping the worst cup of coffee you’ve had in a long time, grimacing at the sharp, burnt taste of it as you flip through grainy pictures of the cemetery where a twenty year old girl had been found by the cemetery caretaker, half-buried in a hundred-year-old plot. Chipped black polish on her nails, sticking out of the ground and her fingertips eaten away by scavengers. No leads, no clues, no witnesses. She’d been at a club earlier that night, there was a stamp on her hand that had washed away in the elements but left a trace behind, visible under a blacklight.

“Sheriff, could I ask you something?”

Tom approaches, his face paling at the autopsy report in front of you. “Awful, that one.”

“The autopsy found an imprint of a logo on her hand. Did you follow up on that?”

“Sure. Belonged to a club in the city, we figured she’d met somebody there and he dumped her passing through here on his way someplace else.”

You raise an eyebrow. “Hemlock Grove isn’t on the way to anywhere else.”

Tom shrugs. “Well, we spoke to the club owner, and the guys working the door that night. They didn’t remember seeing her or anyone with her. Dead end.”

“Nothing on the CCTV?”

Tom’s eyes drop to the floor. “We didn’t ask.”

Screaming at the Sheriff will do no good, might even do harm to your precarious position here, so you shrug. “Probably a dead end.”

You step outside to make a call to the club, and try to hide your disappointment that the tapes are wiped every 30 days. You’d missed vital evidence by less than a week.

“Who shit in your lucky charms?”

You roll your eyes as you pocket your phone, turning to watch as Roman struts towards you like he owns the sidewalk. “Mr Godfrey.”

“Roman.” He reminds you, a teasing smirk on his face. “What’s up with you?”

“I just… got some disappointing news.”

“About the hooker?”

“No.”

“Anything I can do to help?”

You scoff. “You able to unwipe CCTV from a shady club in the city?”

Roman hums. “Unwipe? No. But I can probably get you access to the servers where everything is stored digitally. Which club?”

“The Red Room.”

Roman’s smirk widens as he steps forward, dipping his head close as though he’s sharing a secret. “Oh yeah. I can get you whatever you need from there, agent.”

*

Sitting beside Roman Godfrey in his cherry-red Jaguar is unnerving on account of how at ease you feel. Roman is by nature an awkward and unsettling individual, but he’s so relentlessly charming that you feel yourself sinking into a sense of security the longer you sit beside him.

“You’re young, for FBI.”

“I joined the academy straight out of college. I’ve always known what I wanted, I guess.”

“That’s good.” Roman says, shooting you a soft smile. “It must be nice.”

“You didn’t always want to be the big bad CEO of a global powerhouse?”

Roman’s smile drops, a look of regret passing over his face. “It never occurred to me that there was a choice. That’s the thing about privilege, I guess. The name opens a lot of doors, but it closes some, too.”

It’s deeper than you’d thought Roman Godfrey capable of, and it does something funny to your stomach as you press your thighs together and focus on the blur of grey outside as the car passes into the city limits. “You know the guy who owns the club, then?”

“Marty.” Roman nods. “He’s dirty, of course. But he runs a discreet establishment, and that’s important when you’ve got shareholders breathing down your neck.”

“Sounds like you’re under a lot of pressure.” You say softly, and Roman’s smile is soft and genuine as he looks at you.

“You’d know about pressure, right?” He says, his voice straining. “Solving murders.”

“Murders,” you hum. “I’m not so sure, actually.”

Roman’s head snaps to you, eyes searching your face, and you fix your expression into one of bored neutrality. “You don’t think that hooker was murdered?”

“Oh no, I think she was. But she was a hooker. Occupational hazard, isn’t it?”

Roman’s shoulders sag but his fingers tighten on the steering wheel, the leather creaking under the force. “I guess so.”

You let the silence stretch, listening to the steady in and out of his breathing. “But this girl, the one from the cemetery? Not a hooker.”

You hear it, the catch in his breath, and your stomach flips over as your heart sinks. Yeah. Yeah, Roman Godfrey’s interest in the case isn’t that of a bored millionaire or a guy trying to get his dick wet, though you’re pretty sure you could have him like that if you wanted. Roman had something to do with it. With all of it.

*

He puts his hand on your knee, and you almost jerk away from him. His palm is a warm weight against your skin, his fingers curling around the inside of your thigh as he sits too close on the small leather couch in the manager’s office at The Red Room. You steal a glance at the side of his face, but his eyes are fixed to the screen, watching the pale, flickery shape of the victim stumbling out of the front door of the club. Drunk, sure, but alone. Definitely alone.

“This clear it up for you, agent?” The club owner, Marty, asks, running his finger around the rim of his whiskey glass. Roman clinks his signet ring against his own glass, the fingers on his wandering hand kneading at the flesh of your inner thigh in a way that has your clit throbbing and your face heating.

“Sure does. Thank you for…” you swallow as Roman’s fingers drag higher, breaching the hem of your skirt. “Going out of your way to assist.”

“Yeah appreciate it, Marty.”

“Anything for my favorite Godfrey. You sticking around for another drink?” His eyes slide over you, and you press your lips together as his gaze drops to Roman’s hand disappearing under your skirt. His mouth pulls into a smirk, and you tug your legs to the side until Roman’s hand slips off your thigh.

“I can get a cab back to town.”

Roman scoffs, pushing off the couch with an obnoxious groan and tugging you up without asking. “I’ll drive you.”

“Some other time,” Marty says, eyes raking over the back of your legs as Roman pulls you towards the door. You wish you’d worn a longer skirt. Or pants. Two pairs of pants.

The moment you’re free of the oppressive, dark environment you pull away from Roman, rubbing your palm against your skirt like you can stop the tingling from where his fingers were wrapped around yours.

“I’m sorry that he couldn’t help.”

You turn, raising an eyebrow. Roman’s the picture of collected as he runs his hand back through his hair and flips open a fancy cigarette case.

“It was a long shot.”

Roman shrugs. “Well I’m sorry you wasted your time.”

You bite your lip as you watch him light his cigarette, sucking smoke into his lungs and exhaling expertly. “You okay to drive?”

Roman shrugs. “I didn’t even finish my drink.”

You hum, turning on your heel and heading for the car because watching smoke curl out from between his full, pouty lips is doing something disconcerting to your pussy and you’re not going to entertain this with the guy who is as close to a suspect as you’ve got.

You slow as you approach the car, frowning at the… wrongness of it. “Uh.. Roman?”

You feel him more than hear him, he makes surprisingly little sound on the sidewalk as he slips in beside you. “Fuck.”

The wheels are gone. All four wheels just… gone. “We should call the cops.”

Roman turns his head, the smirk on his mouth at odds with the sharp irritation in his eyes. “You are the cops.”

“I mean like… this is theft, right?”

Roman huffs, sucking hard enough on his cigarette to hollow his cheeks over the sharp bones of his face. “It’s an inconvenience, is what it is. Wheels in good condition are hard to get hold of for this car.”

“And we’re… stuck. Here.” You sigh. “Shit. I’m sorry about your car. I’d offer to pay for the wheels but…”

Roman flicks the dying stub to the ground and kicks the toe of his shoe against the concrete. “I wouldn’t accept it anyway. I’ll get someone to come pick us up, but it’ll be a while. You hungry?” His eyes rake over you, and you shiver. The man never blinks when he’s watching you. It makes you feel hot and itchy and exposed.

“I could eat.”

*

When Roman had suggested you slip into a restaurant to wait for rescue, you’d assumed quiet conversation over dinner and a chance to dig into his psyche a little. But sitting across from him while you eat and he… watches, is the most uncomfortable experience of your life. His enormous eyes drink in every bite you take, his tongue gliding over his lips as a thin drip of pink liquid slips out of the corner of your mouth. “Sorry.” You mumble, reaching for a napkin. Roman is there faster than you can fathom, his thumb dragging down over your chin before returning to his own mouth.

“You like it raw?”

“No.”

Roman smirks, leaning back in his seat. “It’s the only way to eat it. Overcooking kills the flavor.”

You cut a sticky chunk of steak off, trying not to look at the sickly blue-purple color of the inside. “You want some?” You hold your fork out, and Roman shakes his head.

“Not hungry.” But his eyes devour you, his tongue darting out to wet over his mouth again, and you feel a chill skitter down your spine.

“If it’s about the cost, we can go dutch. I’m not expecting you to pay. It’s not like this is a date.”

Something flickers on his face for a fraction of a second, there and gone so quickly you might have imagined it if not for the tightening of his smirk. You feel his foot kick against your leg, a jab hard enough to make you wince. “There are worse things you could be doing.”

“Did you just kick me?”

Roman’s smirk widens. “Of course not.”

His cock is throbbing with an actual ache as he watches you chew messily through the practically raw meat bleeding on your plate. It only gets worse at the wince of pain when his foot connects with your shin, and Roman can practically smell the blood spreading under your skin, blooming to form a bruise he’d put there. He’s definitely going to have to fuck you before he kills you. His cock will never get over it if he doesn’t.

“I think I’ll get a cab home after all.” You say, pushing your plate away and standing. There’s a flush to your cheeks and Roman can’t tell if it’s arousal or if you’re really, genuinely pissed off. And usually he wouldn’t care either way, but there’s a note burning a hole in his little book that says keep your enemies close and so he stands himself, wrapping a hand around your wrist as you try to pass him.

“Let me call a driver. It’ll be a whole lot more comfortable than the back of a cab, trust me.”

Trust him. You don’t trust Roman Godfrey, you’d be a fool to get in the car with him. “You gunna kick me again if I say no?”

Roman forces his smirk into something a little less cruel. “I was only playing.”

“We’re not five.”

Roman huffs, wriggling his fingers down your wrist to lace in your own and you suppress a shudder. “Duly noted, agent.”

Riding back to the city in the wide backseat of Roman Godfrey’s town car, one of Roman Godfrey’s town cars, is completely different from the easy ride in. Roman is agitated, bright green eyes like luminous beacons in the low lighting. And still, he never blinks. You sit as far from him as you can, pressed right up against the door, but that’s a mistake. Because when he unbuckles his seatbelt and slides across the leather, there is nowhere to go. Nowhere to go when he presses his thigh against yours, or when his fingers slide up under your skirt to graze over the front of your panties.

“Mr Godfrey, this is inappropriate.”

He hums, thumb finding the soft protrusion of your clit against the cotton and rubbing against it. “Roman,” he purrs, dipping his head to press his lips to the corner of your jaw. “It’s Roman. And we’ve had a nice time tonight, haven’t we? Dinner and a movie.”

You feel his lips turn up at his own little joke, and your stomach flips over with nausea. “This wasn’t a date. This was work. I’m work-“ you break off, your voice catching in your throat as two of Roman’s long fingers slither inside your underwear to prod against your entrance.

“You’re wet.” He mumbles, easing his thick fingers inside you as his thumb continues to rub circles against you through your underwear. “You want me bad, agent.”

FBI Academy training had been grueling and intensive, and you’d been taught how to get out of scenarios you could never imagine happening in real life. But you’re thanking the special agent that had made you run the maneuver forty times, until you had every single motion down perfectly, as you slip your cuffs from your jacket pocket and cinch one around Roman Godfrey’s wrist. The other you yank into place against the door beside you before slipping out from underneath him and climbing into the seat on the opposite side, shoving him hard as you go.

Roman yanks on the cuff, hissing at the bite of metal into his skin. “Fuck is this?”

“I’m detaining you before you get yourself arrested for sexual assault.”

Roman’s face smooths into something lifeless. “You’re detaining me? Putting me in a goddamn timeout?”

You huff, tugging on the hem of your skirt and grimacing at the feeling of arousal sticking your underwear to your pussy. “Having money and power might get you whatever you want in Hemlock Grove, Mr Godfrey. But it doesn’t get you me.”

You can’t know the challenge you’ve set him. You can’t know the game that has started, as Roman pulls against the metal cuff on his wrist just to feel the bite of the steel. He could break it easily, he could reach across the car and pull you into his lap and impale you on his cock as he rips out your throat. Tom Sworn assured him that you’re nothing. That there’s no FBI investigation, that you’re poking around and then you’ll be gone. But there’d been a little jump in his heartrate when he’d said it, when he’d lied for you.

Roman lets you think that he’s helpless, leans back in his seat and spreads his legs wide. He watches your eyes drop to his crotch, to the shameless bulge of his erection. You don’t look away, and Roman wanders his fingers against his own length, rubbing the length as he keeps his eyes fixed on your face.

“What are you doing?” Your voice is small and breathy.

“You’re a tease.”

Your head snaps up then, eyes narrowing. “I’ve never given you any reason to think that.”

Roman scoffs, fingers flicking open his fly and dragging the zipper down so he can reach into his boxers and tug his cock out. You look again, pupils blowing wide as he runs his thumb over his leaking tip. “Wearing that little skirt. That FBI approved attire, agent?”

You bristle. “I’m not working officially, Mr Godfrey. I told you that.”

“And yet,” he continues, wrapping his fist around the base of his cock and gliding his palm against himself, “you flashed your badge at me and demanded my attention.”

You feel your cheeks heat. “You’re a busy man.”

“I’m so fucking busy,” he groans, squeezing himself tightly at the tip before jerking back down, hips lifting to fuck into his hand as his head drops back against the seat. “You think I’d cancel my day to take you on a wild goddamn goose chase like this?” He hisses, releasing his cock to stick against his stomach for a moment as he lifts his hand to his face and spits into his palm. Heat builds in your core, arousal soaking your underwear, and you tilt your hips down to apply some pressure to your aching clit. “You think I’d drive you out here to help you with your stupid little case?”

You swallow. “Not a concerned citizen after all, then?”

Roman huffs a laugh as he fists his cock again, jerking harder, rougher now as his head lolls back against the headrest and he fixes his eyes on the way your hips shift forward to drag your clit against the seat. “I’m concerned that you’re chasing ghosts. Looking for shit that isn’t there.”

You watch a pink dusting spread over his cheeks as he sinks his teeth into his bottom lip, hips bucking up to meet his own hand as he nears his climax, and you climb across the car to sit next to him. This close you could wrap your own hand around his and feel the hot, silky press of his cock in your palm. You could dip your head and taste the salty pearls leaking from his slit. You could do a lot of things, but you won’t. Instead you lean in, pressing your palm lightly to his throat.

Roman moans, eyes rolling back as his hand becomes a blur against his cock. “There’s a monster hunting people in Hemlock Grove, Mr Godfrey.” You say softly, letting your nails drag up the side of his throat as you press down. “I think you know that. And I think you’re concerned that I’m going to find exactly what I’m looking for.”

Roman cums with a strangled groan, thick ropes of his release painting his hand and staining the dark fabric of his pants. He squeezes around the head of his cock, milking his own cum from the twitching, sensitive tip, eyes never leaving your face. His gaze dips to your mouth, his swollen lips parting, and you lean in.

You let your mouth brush his, the barest of electric touches. “You disgust me, Roman.” You whisper against his lips. “I’m going to find where they’re buried. Every. Last. One.”

The car has slowed, you’d felt the rumbling deceleration as the driver had crossed into the town limits, and you yank the door open and roll out without sustaining much more than a grazed knee. The last thing you see is Roman’s shocked, fucked out expression as the car passes you, and you’re up and running before he has a chance to order his driver to return for you. You can see the tower from here, as you can from anywhere, and you make your way towards it, cursing Roman Godfrey and Hemlock Grove and your own stupid, traitorous cunt as you stomp through the forest on the way back to your motel.

*

Obsession. It’s a dangerous word. It’s written in his notebook, underlined. Because Roman has a problem with obsession. With latching on to things that can’t hold his weight. With drowning in how much he wants. As he sits in the motel parking lot, eyes trained on the door of your room, he feels the word like it’s etched in his own skin. His phone pings in his pocket and he pulls it out, reading the irritating You owe me message from Marty before opening the attached file.

The footage is grainy, but it’s unmistakable to anyone who has spent more than a few minutes with him. The girl stumbles out of the club and then back in again, called over by a man standing just out of frame. By luck, actually. Roman hadn’t been thinking about the cameras when he’d followed her up from the main club. He’d been thinking about the ache in his cock and the burning, roaring hunger clawing up his throat. The girl had let him hook an arm around her waist and she’d sagged against him as he dragged her away from the club. He’d looked up, searching the street for his town car, and the camera had caught the strange, reflective quality of his eyes, flashing green like a cat even in the low resolution of the CCTV camera. Roman imagines what your face would have looked like if Marty had shown you this footage, and he thinks yeah maybe he owes that piece of shit something after all.  

Obsession is a dangerous word, but Roman finds himself rationalizing the fuck out of his impulses as he scrolls through your Instagram. It had been locked down, along with your Facebook, but it hadn’t cost him more than pocket change and a phone call to get it all unlocked for him. He’s looking at your life in pixels, and his stomach twists with a jealous longing so severe he almost smashes his phone right there on the asphalt. You with your arms around friends, a big, genuine smile on your face. You with your face smooshed up against the wrinkly face of a puppy, your eyes actually sparkling with how happy you are. Roman has never seen a light as bright. He’s never wanted to extinguish something so badly. His hand is already creeping over the front of his pants again, sensitive cock stirring to life as he flicks through post after post. There are videos too, little clips of you singing karaoke at a bar in DC, and one of you sitting in a restaurant while the waitstaff serenade you for your birthday. “I hate you,” you mouth to the camera, and the man behind it laughs.

Roman grits his teeth as he slides his fingers into his boxers and squeezes the head of his cock harshly. He replays the video, cutting it just before that awful fucking laugh, until it’s you on a loop looking right at him. He can even hear the words in your voice, in his head. I hate you. I hate you. I hate you.

It’s the worst orgasm of his life, cumming around a sob and hissing at the rough friction of his boxers dragging over the wet tip of his cock. He’s thinking about the way the dead college girl looked when he rolled her into that shallow grave, about the way the dirt got stuck in the creases of her thighs. And he’s looking at you, at your pretty mouth and the way you glare at the camera. Roman wipes his hand against his thigh with a grimace and pulls his notebook out, thumbing to a clean page and writing your name at the top.

*

You’re shoved out the way as you try to step into the Sheriff’s office two days later, and you blink at the unapologetic deputy who pushed you as he barrels past. “Where’s the fire?”

Sheriff Sworn doesn’t smile as he looks up at you. “Two more missing. Pair of college kids from the city.”

You frown, feeling ice douse your stomach. “Two? At the same time?”

“I know.” Tom purses his lips. “Your boss already called. He wants you to have full access to this case, ongoing.”

“In an… official capacity?”

The Sheriff scoffs, pulling open his desk drawer and sliding a badge across to you. “No fucking feds until we have to. Consider yourself deputized, agent.”

You’re fixing the badge to your jacket when you feel the tension behind you, and you don’t need to turn around to know whose darkening the doorway. The Sheriff’s face tightens. “Mr Godfrey, how can we help you today?”

“Tom.” Roman steps into the room, his fingers brushing against your hip as he steps around you and reaches for the Sheriff’s hand. “It’s me helping you, hopefully.” Roman’s eyes slide over you, a smirk tugging at the corner of his mouth when he sees you’re wearing another short fucking skirt. “I heard about those boys.”

Your spine straightens. “How?”

Roman turns, perching on Tom’s desk with his back to the Sheriff like he isn’t even there anymore. His attention fixes on you. “Small pond. I’d like to offer a reward for any information leading to their safe return. I was thinking ten grand.”

Tom coughs, and you shoot him a pinched look with a tiny shake of your head. He clears his throat before speaking. “That’s too generous, Roman.”

“Not at all.” Roman says, eyes still fixed on you. “There’s a monster hunting people in Hemlock Grove. I just want to make sure the beast is caught and collared before we’re drowning in federal interference.”

Tom’s shoulders sag. “You’re worried the FBI will want to look into your company.”

Roman’s smirk widens, and he licks his tongue over his bottom lip. You feel your face flush, hating the visceral reaction you have to how absurdly, indecently sexual he is. You school your features into neutrality, knowing that all Tom can see is the back of Roman’s stupid head. “The FBI isn’t interested in embezzlement or fraud cases when there’s an active serial killer in town, Mr Godfrey. Your books are safe.”

Roman quirks an eyebrow at you, splaying his palms over the wide spread of his thighs. “Your cynicism wounds me, agent. I’m just a concerned citizen.”

“I’d advise against it.” You say to the Sheriff, bypassing Roman altogether.

Roman twists at the waist. “You’re the boss.”

Tom looks like he’d welcome a lightning strike to the chest. His eyes slide from Roman’s to yours and back again. “I’d be an idiot to ignore advice from the FBI, I guess.”

You nod sharply, and Roman’s smirk slips just an inch. Just enough to reveal the ripple of cold, calculated fury underneath. This is not a man used to being overruled, and Tom fights the urge to shrink at the ice in his stare.

“Suit yourselves,” Roman says pleasantly. “Walk me out, agent?”

“You know the way better than I do, Mr Godfrey.”

Roman stops in the doorway, holding the doorframe and staring at you like he’s waiting for you to change your mind. When you don’t he huffs, an unamused little laugh. “Suit your goddamn self.”

You’re sipping on a terrible cup of coffee at the makeshift desk they’ve made up for you in the bullpen when Tom Sworn steps out of his office. His face is green and ashy. “Sheriff?” You’re already getting to your feet, feeling dread settle over you at his expression.

“Man the phones, people.” He says gravely. “We’re about to get buried in shit.”

“Sheriff?” You ask again. “What’s going on?”

Tom doesn’t answer you. He clicks a button on the remote in his hand, and a thick old television mounted high on the wall flickers to life. You suck in a breath as bright green eyes bleed out of the screen. Tom cranks the volume, and you brace your hand on the edge of the table as you watch Roman Godfrey derail your entire case with the smooth, measured tone of a practiced PR pitch. “That’s right, ten thousand dollars for useful information. If you think you’ve seen the boys, even if you’re not sure, please, please call the Sheriff’s department. They’re ready and waiting to take any and all calls. All leads will be explored.”

You snap your teeth together, grinding your jaw tightly at the mocking smirk to his mouth. “Bastard.”

“Entitled Godfrey asshole.” One of the deputies says in agreement, folding his arms over his chest. “He’s going to bury us. Every crazy motherfucker in the state is gunna be calling with bogus tips.”

You narrow your eyes at him, and Roman’s smirk seems to widen as though he can see you through the screen. “I’m just a concerned citizen.” He says into the camera, and your hands curl into fists at your sides.

The phone closest to you rings, and you snatch it up. “Hemlock Grove Sheriffs Department.”

“Agent,” he purrs. “You watch my on-screen debut?”

You press your lips into a firm line to stifle a frustrated scream. “Mr Godfrey.”

“You like it?” He asks. “Watching me get you wet?”

You do groan then, a furious growl of sound that delights Roman more than he can say. “You’ve fucked us.”

“I know why you said no to my help, but I decided you’re acting against the best interests of my town. You’re overruled.”

“That isn’t how this works.” The shrill ring of a phone on the next desk makes you jump, and Roman chuckles.

“It sounds like valuable leads are about to start rolling in. You’re so fucking welcome, sweetheart.” He hangs up, pocketing his phone with a triumphant grin on his face. From where he’s standing he can see you staring at the dead phone in your hand. You slam the receiver down on the desk, and Roman is giddy.

*

His good mood lasts all of about thirty minutes. He’s leaning back in his big, black leather chair scrolling through your Instagram when the door is opened and Olivia Godfrey struts in like she owns the place.

“You got an appointment?”

Olivia raises an eyebrow at her son. “You were on the news.”

Roman smirks, forcing the easy expression onto his face even though his pulse is racing. He hadn’t considered the implications of his stunt outside of the game with you, and there’s cool murder in his mother’s eyes. “I’m staying close.”

Olivia narrows her eyes at her son, crossing the room and rounding the desk like the physical barrier isn’t even there. She pinches Roman’s chin sharply, forcing his head up. “You’re showboating. This isn’t like paying off the Sheriff to look the other way when silly cheerleaders made their accusations in high school. This is serious, Roman. The FBI are here.”

Roman grits his teeth, your face flashing in his mind. If Olivia gets her claws into you you’ll be disappeared without a trace and Roman won’t get to have you. “I’m handling it.”

Olivia scoffs. “You want to fuck her, don’t you? That’s what all this is about.”

Roman flushes, squirming in his seat under her withering glare. “She doesn’t have anything. I’m covering my tracks. Now.” He adds, swallowing thickly.

Olivia purses her lips, reaching out to card her fingers through his hair, and Roman shivers at the scrape of her nails against his scalp. “You have a week, darling.” She says softly. “Tie up your loose ends, get rid of her.” Her fingers twist and tighten in his hair until he whines. “Or I’ll do it for you. And so help me God, Roman. If I have to get my hands dirty cleaning up your shit you will pay for it dearly.”

She releases his hair and Roman slumps back in his seat, five years old and fresh from a scolding. His fingers itch to reach for her, to cling to her skirt and beg for her forgiveness and a tiny, meaningless morsel of affection, but he doesn’t do it. He watches his mother swan out of his office with burning cheeks and a sharp hurt in his chest. Your face flashes in his mind again, and he reopens the window with your Instagram page on his computer. Pretty smile, kind eyes. You’ve tagged a friend in one of your photos, and Roman clicks on her profile next. He learns about your high school boyfriend, and which subjects you liked best. He memorizes the name of your childhood pets, and wonders whether the concerning number of deceased hamsters was down to bad luck or improper care. He watches a video your dad took of you crossing the stage at your college graduation, and a simple photo of you with your arm around an older version of yourself, your mother he guesses, at your FBI Academy graduation just a few years later.

Roman catalogues every moment of your life, his hand scratching pertinent details into his notebook under the heading of your name. Your favorite food, your coffee order. The movies you saw last year that you liked enough to post about. Your political opinions, the charities you supported publicly.

There’s a tension headache brewing behind his eyes and the sun is setting low over Hemlock Grove when he finally stops, dropping his pen and lifting his hand to caress against the pixels of you on his screen. There’s a tension headache brewing behind his eyes and an awful, gnawing ache in his stomach. Because Roman has been cataloging all the things that matter to you, and he’s come to the realization that there is nothing he can do to put himself in that category. You value loyalty and kindness and selflessness in your friends. You value soft men who volunteer at animal shelters and call their grandmothers in your romantic partners. And Roman Godfrey is a lot of things, but he isn’t loyal or kind or selfless. He doesn’t know how to be.

He taps his fingers against the glass top of his desk and reads the caption on a post you’d made just a few days before your arrival in Hemlock Grove. You’re standing outside your apartment building, leaning against a fancy car that is definitely not your own, and the caption reads Fake it til you make it, baby. “Fake it til you make it, baby,” Roman repeats softly, running the tip of his finger over the slightly fuzzy image of your smile. “You want a good guy, agent? I can be a good guy.”

Roman sucks his bottom lip into his mouth, pulling out his phone and calling one of his least favorite people. “I don’t give a fuck that you’re in the middle of something. I call, you come. That’s the law of the land.”

The man on the other end says something snippy and Roman hangs up, leaning back in his chair and pretending to look out of the window at the setting sun. When there’s a knock on his door he waits a full ten seconds before standing up and crossing to it.

“Really, Roman?” Dr Johan Pryce asks as he steps into the office. “Is all this pompous nonsense necessary?”

Roman hums, reaching out to clap Dr Pryce on the shoulder. “I need a favor, Johan. A big one.”

*

Johan Pryce has been cleaning up Godfrey messes for more years than he cares to remember. It had been different under JR, of course, but Johan didn’t let himself think about JR too much. About the visionary the man had been, and the waste of his suicide. About the years since, spent at the will and whim of a volatile, spoiled Upir woman with a taste for her own reflection.

Because despite the controversial topic of his research, Johan Pryce did not like killing. He certainly did not approve of the wasting of human life for something as trivial as appetite. But Olivia Godfrey had controlled the purse strings, and she hunted women with variations on her face and her waning youth, and Johan had been commanded to clean up the mess afterwards. Creating a substance capable of satiating the Upir appetite had been a necessity designed only to free up his own time.

That Roman had so wholly embraced his own monstrous nature was decidedly a major pain in the ass. Because Roman would drink the substance by the gallon, but he would still slip out in the middle of the night to fuck and feed and leave a trail of bodies scattered across the town like so much trash. The boy-king standing in front of him does not possess one single ounce of humility over his request, and Pryce’s fingers curl into his fist with the impending promise of caving the smug prick’s face in. “Where did you bury the bodies?”

Roman scoffs. “I didn’t have time to do that. They’re at the steel mill. I know it’s mom’s favorite place to stash hers.”

Pryce presses his lips into a fine line. “And you’re certain they’re both… deceased?”

“Ohhhh, they’re deceased alright. Tore their heads off and sucked them dry like fucking juiceboxes.”

“Lovely.” Pryce says tightly. “You know, the forensic evidence is just one small part of the puzzle, Roman. I can scrub every trace of them from that mill, but the world is made up of glass eyes and red lights. Someone, somewhere would have captured you herding them into your jeep, or passing a traffic camera at just the wrong time. You need to be more careful.”

Roman hums non-committedly, but there’s a ripple of tension in his shoulders as he straightens. “I don’t know how the FBI put it together.”

“The FBI?”

“A couple of dead hookers and some runaways. Shouldn’t have raised so much as an eyebrow outside of Hemlock County.” He muses. “Unless somebody tipped them off.”

Pryce huffs an incredulous laugh. “You think I would risk Godfrey Industries, risk my projects, to squabble with you over a handful of dead unfortunates? Really, Roman.”

Roman hears the dismissal, and Johan’s heart remains steady. He isn’t lying, he didn’t bring you here. All the better, really.

“Just take care of the fucking bodies and find me a monster to pin the killings on.”

Pryce freezes. “Excuse me?”

“You heard me.” Roman spins on his heel, closing the gap between himself and Pryce in two steps. “I want the FBI out of Hemlock Grove. I want things to go back to normal. Best way for that to happen is for the police to find the monster they’ve been hunting. Sure as shit isn’t going to be me in a cage, so figure it out. Let one of your goddamn abominations out to play.”

Johan shakes his head. “My… projects are not… I don’t have a monster for you to pin your crimes on. Not in the lab. But-“ He raises his voice as Roman opens his mouth. “I have some ideas. Leave it with me, Roman. And please, please don’t eat anybody else in the meantime.”

*

Roman does not like being told what to do, and his impulse to eat somebody else is almost too strong to ignore. He’s watching the tall woman in the leopard-print skirt saunter from car to car, leaning heavy on the windows. If she approaches him, if she puts her arms on his window when he’s so obviously here for you, he’ll invite her inside and rip her heart out of her chest. What’s one more dead hooker, when Pryce was about to fix everything anyway? He’d gotten a call not fifteen minutes earlier, a tight explanation and a short list of instructions that had made him bristle with indignation. But these things came with an assurance that it would work, and so Roman had grit his teeth and agreed to it all.

The hooker is half way to his goddamn car, and Roman’s mouth fills with saliva at the thought of sinking his teeth into her when the door to your motel room opens and you step out. The hooker disappears into irrelevance the moment you do, and Roman’s vision tunnels on you. You look left and right, like there might be traffic in an almost empty parking lot, and Roman files the note away to write later. Cautious.

He waits until you’re safely in your car and pulling away before he even starts his engine, and then he backs out of his space and follows you. The hooker flips him off as the car passes, with no concept of how close she’d been to becoming minced meat, and Roman forces himself to keep his focus on your taillights to stop himself from backing up and running her the fuck over.

He pulls up opposite the police station and watches you pause at the door before shaking your head with a little smile on your face. His interest is well and truly piqued, and he’s getting out of his car and following at a safe distance until you dip into a coffee shop.

Roman doesn’t go in, but he watches from across the street. He can see you through the glass front, laughing and chatting with the barista as he makes your drink. Roman knows it’s a skinny cappuccino with a shot of caramel. He knows that you’ll put two packets of Splenda into it, and that you’ll pop the lid off to lick at the foam. His mouth waters and his cock twitches when you do that, your pink tongue curling into the cup. The words cappuccino foam are written in his notebook, and he’ll underline them as soon as he gets the chance.

You head back to the police station, and Roman waits until he’s absolutely sure you’re staying before he climbs back into his jeep and returns to the motel. The hookers swarm towards him as he gets out, but they back up at the look on his face. “Didn’t come to play, ladies.” He calls as he makes his way to your door like he belongs there. The lock gives easily with a sharp twist of his wrist, and he steps inside and closes the door. Nobody knocks, nobody questions him. It isn’t worth it.

Inside your space, Roman feels his shoulders relax even as tension pools in his gut. He’s been in this room before, he’s been serviced in this room before. The idea that he’s cum on the sheets you’re sleeping in makes his cock ache, and he lets himself indulge in the scent of your shampoo against your pillow as he climbs onto your bed and nuzzles his nose into the fabric.

He’d like to believe he’d broken into your room to look for evidence. Clues about your case, any hints that you had something on him. But Roman doesn’t really give a shit about any of that now, not with Pryce about to fix the whole damn thing. He knows that his time with you is short, that you’ll be on your way with a closed case soon enough, and he wants something. He rolls off the bed and crouches in front of your bag. You hadn’t unpacked, hadn’t planned on staying long. Roman pretends that doesn’t bother him as he slides the zipper open and sifts through your clothes until he finds a pretty pair of cotton panties. Plain black, very practical. Very you. It isn’t what he wants, but it’s something.

Your kindle rests on the bedside table, and Roman returns to lie against your pillows as he opens it and flicks through your library. “Oh, agent,” he coos to himself as he memorizes the titles of your last five reads. “You like it dirty.”

He doesn’t exactly feel like it, or at least not as much as he usually does, but Roman tugs his cock out of his jeans with a resigned sigh anyway. Too good an opportunity to pass up, to paint your pillow with his cum and have you sleep right up against it.

*

If Roman Godfrey thinks he’s got a career in espionage ahead of him, you’ll have to let him down gently. He’s too tall and too intense, you can feel his eyes on you from across the street. And maybe you lick the foam off your cappuccino like a porn star, just to make him sweat. Serves him right for trailing you like the world’s worst stalker, in fact. He leaves you alone after you reach the police station, and you slump into your chair at your makeshift desk with a sigh.

“Anything new?” You ask Tom as he approaches.

“I’d have called you if there was. Just the goddamn tipline. I’ve had to put two guys on it full time.”

You bite your lip. “Do I even need to ask if there’ve been any credible-“ You cut yourself off at the dark expression on his face. “Right. Well… I mean, I could take a shift. If it would be helpful.” Say no, say no, say no.

“That’d be a big help, agent.” Tom says, his shoulders sagging like you’ve brought him actual, physical relief. “I could send a couple guys home for some sleep.”

You think about the full seven hours you got last night, and nod with a forced smile. “It’s not a problem.”

As if on queue the phone in front of you begins to ring, and you pick it up before either of the haggard-looking cops on the desks opposite have a chance to move. “Hemlock Grove tipline.”

There’s nothing but moaning on the other end of the line, and you grimace. “Hello? Are you calling with a tip for the Sheriff? Do you need any assistance from the police department?”

The groans get higher in pitch. “Yeah, keep talking, you cop bitch,” the caller moans, his voice gravelly. “I’m almost there.”

You hang up, slamming the phone down with such force the table shakes. “Pervert.” You explain, and Tom offers you a sympathetic smile.

“Been a lot of those, I’m afraid. Public tip lines bring out the crazies.”

Hours later you’re cursing Roman Godfrey when you get a call that has your spine straightening. “There’s… I think I know what you’re hunting.”

The dull ache at your temples dissipates. “You’re calling about the missing boys?”

“No. Uh, I mean, I guess.” The man on the other end sighs. “I think there’s a… shit, I don’t know what it is. Some kind of animal. Like a bear. It’s out by the barrens.”

“The barrens?”

“You know, the storm drain where all the bums live. Under the bridge by Kilderry Park.”

“A bear, you said?”

“I sad like a bear. It’s as big as a bear, that’s all I can see. I’m not getting any closer than this.”

“It’s there now?” you ask, already getting to your feet. You glance towards Tom’s office, but the Sheriff isn’t at his desk. And the monster that’s been hunting and killing people is out there now.

“I’m lookin’ right at it.”

“Alright, okay. The-the police are on their way, sir. Do not approach the creature. Stay where you are - or get somewhere safe.”

The man hangs up, and your heart is in your throat as you run from the building and climb into your car. Your hands shake so badly you almost can’t turn the key in the ignition, but you manage it and soon the town is dissolving into the sprawl of suburbia.

*

Roman lets out a low whistle. Pryce had said he’d deliver, and Pryce had fucking delivered. The beast was at least seven foot tall standing, though it crouched like a coiled spring in the corner of the cage, its enormous yellow eyes narrowed on Roman. Whether it identified him for what he was, or merely saw him as the holder of its leash, Roman didn’t know and he didn’t much care either.

“Here doggy, doggy,” he called.

“Roman.” Pryce plasters a tight smile on his face. “You understand the risks here, don’t you? Once the cage is open, I have no way of… recalling the creature. If you get in the way, it will likely try to kill you.”

Roman hums, kicking at the bars and sending the werewolf inside into a mad frenzy. “Then I’ll snap its neck. You said nobody’s looking for him?”

“No.” Pryce tilts his head, regarding the creature. “No pack, human or otherwise. No family. It likely wouldn’t have survived long alone anyway.”

Roman nods like this means anything at all to him, and turns to pull his phone from his pocket, hovering over your name in his call log. “Show time, baby.”

*

The dirty patch of earth underneath Kilderry Bridge is aptly name. Not so much as wild grass grows in the fallow earth, and the shanty town of tents and makeshift shelters are bleached white as tombstones in the moonlight. You shiver as you shut off the engine and step out of the car. If there were a bear attacking people down here, there’d be noise, wouldn’t there? There’d be chaos. You feel a sinking sense of dread, realizing you’d ignored every single safety protocol you’d been taught in rushing down here into what was very likely a trap.

Then you hear it. A low, rough growl like the purr of a motorcycle. You turn slowly on your heel, knees buckling at the impossibly large wolf crouched just meters away. Where the fuck had it come from? How had you not heard it approaching?

You raise your hands slowly, palms up. “Okay,” you say softly. “I’m not gunna hurt you.” Absurd, to talk to this immense beast like it were a common housecat and not a monster responsible for the deaths of at least eighteen people. Though you suspected now, looking at its sharp canines and long claws, that the total is much, much higher.

The wolf leaps. You see it move through the air, see it get so much bigger as it blots out the moon above you, and then there’s a sound so loud you think your eardrums have shattered. The wolf yelps and rolls to the side, missing you completely. It staggers to its feet, massive paws thumping the earth as it turns, and there’s another sound like an explosion too close to your ears. You drop to the ground, covering your ears with your hands, and the wolf jerks in your direction before collapsing onto its side.

“You can get up now.”

You lift your head to find Roman Godfrey standing in front of you with a sleek, silver gun in his hand. And, oh. Gunfire. It was gunfire you’d heard. And you should know that. You’re a federal agent with training and even some field experience under your belt, and you should be the one holding the gun.

“You… killed it.”

Roman smirks, running a hand back through his hair. “It was gunna eat you, little red riding hood.”

You swallow thickly. “It… I mean, is that it?”

Roman quirks a brow. “You wanted it to be bigger? You wanted more monster for your-“ He’s cut off by the force of his body being thrown to the side as the wolf barrels into him, knocking him to the ground in a flail of fur and fangs.

“Roman!” But Roman has been buried under the hulking weight of the wolf, and it releases a snarl as it brings an enormous paw down against Roman’s face. You hear him scream, a wrenching, awful sound, and you scramble around to grab Roman’s gun. You don’t hesitate before pressing the muzzle to the side of the wolf’s head. It rolls one golden eye towards you, but it makes no move to attack as you squeeze the trigger and blow its brains out in a thin spray.

Roman shoves the deadweight of the wolf off himself, rolling onto his side and coughing air back into his lungs. You drop to his side, reaching to check his pulse even though you can see he’s clearly, vocally alive. But it’s process to check, so you do. Your fingers come away slick with blood.

“Roman, you’re bleeding.” You squeak.

Roman grins, blood staining his teeth. “Tis but a scratch.”

A bubble of hysteria surfaces as a high-pitched giggle, and you reach a shaking hand to cup his jaw and turn his head to the side. The gash marring the flesh of his throat is deep and long, weeping a sickly dark sludge that you know cannot be good. Roman’s face is ashen, dark circles under his eyes and a sheen of sweat on his brow. “We need to get you to a hospital.”

Roman shakes his head, wincing at the stretch of his ruined flesh. “Take me home. I’ll be fine… at home.”

“I should take you to the hospital,” you say again, fingers fluttering uselessly over the wound.

Roman’s hand wraps around your wrist, pulling your hand up and pressing his mouth to your palm. You feel the words he whispers against your skin and a shiver runs down your spine. “Take me home.”

*

Roman Godfrey lives in a mansion. You should have known that, obviously, but you’d always pictured him living in an enormous monstrosity of chrome and glass, like a bond villain. Like his office at the White Tower. But the mansion is old and warm, lavishly furnished with tapestries and drapes and oil paintings you’re sure are worth a fortune. It isn’t very Roman, but you don’t question it as he leans against you, his breath hot against the side of your neck as he gasps through the pain. “My room is… up there.”

You look up at the winding staircase with dread. “I can’t carry you, Godfrey.”

Roman huffs a laugh, tugging you past the staircase. “We have an elevator.”

Right, of course he does. Roman eases himself into the small cage, reaching a hand out for you. You feel your stomach flip with anxiety at the thought of being closed up in a little box with him, but his eyes are closing and there’s blood and dirt caked on the palm he holds out and he looks like that because of you, because he saved your life. So you take his hand and wrap an arm around his waist as he pushes a button and the elevator creaks to life.

Roman’s bedroom is a reflection of the rest of the house, with touches of Roman if you knew what to look for. A snake wrapped around a cross is painted on his door, and you raise an eyebrow at the motif. “Band logo.” He says, and you nod like you believe him even though you can’t imagine a scenario where Roman listens to death metal or whatever the fuck other band would have a logo like that.

There’s a bar in the center of the room, the top littered with expensive looking liquor bottles, and Roman makes his way there first, pouring himself three fingers of whiskey and knocking it back with a satisfied hiss.

“You got a first aid kit?”

Roman nods, pointing towards an adjoining room. “Bathroom cabinet.”

You cross the room and open onto a bathroom that’s bigger than your entire motel room. There’s a row of cabinets, and you find the first aid kit in the third one. You head back to his room, tossing it onto the bed before grabbing one of the glasses from the bar and returning to the bathroom to fill it with warm water.

When you return Roman is sitting on the bed. Well, he’s trying to. His back is pressed to the headboard, head thrown back to expose the still-leaking tear on his neck, and you swallow against a bubble of panic at just how out of your depth you are here. You’d had basic first air training at the Academy, and you knew to shove a tampon in a bullet wound, but this was different. You could see muscle and the faint, white shock of bone through the blood. This was different. “Shit, Roman.” You sink onto the mattress beside him, taking up a pillow and tugging it out of its silk case to soak the fabric in the cup of water.

“You gunna patch me up, agent?”

You shush him, pressing the soaked silk to his neck, and Roman groans. “I don’t have a fucking clue what I’m doing.”

Roman laughs then, the sound harsh and grating. “That’s reassuring.”

You remove the cloth and soak it again, the water turning murky with his blood. “I can still take you to the hospital.”

“No hospitals,” Roman mutters. You press the fabric against his neck and drag down just a little, clearing the cake of mud from the ragged edges of the scratch, and Roman whimpers. His hand drops to your thigh, fingers tightening against your flesh as he wriggles underneath you. “Where’d you learn your bedside manner, GITMO?”

You ignore him, leaning closer to inspect the fresh damage revealed as the dirt and blood is washed from his skin. “It isn’t as bad as I thought.”

Roman’s eyes roll, his fingers dragging up the inside of your leg, tracing the seam of your jeans. “Feels worse.”

You nod, dunking the silk in the water for a final time before squeezing the water over his neck to wash the last of the blood away. Roman gasps at the flooding of cooled water soaking into his shirt. “Don’t be a baby.”

He huffs, prodding the tips of his fingers against your clothed core. “Don’t you wanna help me feel better?”

He juts his bottom lip out childishly, and you roll your eyes. But your clit throbs at the thought of his long, thick fingers pushing inside of you, and you shift until his palm is pressed firmly against you. “Is it just this?” You ask, scanning over his clothed torso. “It didn’t… get you anywhere else?”

Roman shifts too, hips rolling to flash the hardening bulge in his pants. “You wanna examine the patient?”

It’s pretty privilege. Roman Godfrey doesn’t know how to act right or how to talk like a person, and yet your underwear is soaked through with arousal because he’s so goddamn pretty. His full lips quirk up into a smirk as his bicep flexes under the strain of grinding the heel of his palm against you, and his cheesy lines shouldn’t be working. But he’s so goddamn pretty that they are.

“Shut up.”

“Make me,” he teases, licking over his mouth. You lean in, brushing your lips against his as your fingers skitter down his chest and press against his erection, and Roman moans softly into your mouth.

“You sure you’re up to it?” There’s the mocking suggestion of a smile on your mouth as you pull away to watch him struggle into a seated position, and Roman feels the challenge like a bolt of adrenaline right to his cock.

It was always going to end here. Granted he’d assumed you’d be the one bleeding, but that didn’t matter much. Not with you underneath him, looking up through hooded eyes as your lips part around little gasps. Roman works a second finger into you, and your knees dig into his hips as you whimper.

“Please, Roman,” you moan, and Roman thinks your begging is the best sound he’s ever heard. He stretches his thumb up to rub at your clit, pistoning two fingers in and out of you faster, hard enough to rock you back and forth on his hand.

“I wanna taste you,” he mumbles, and you barely have time to register the shift before he’s splaying his free hand on your thigh to open you up. You feel his breath against your core, and then Roman’s thumb is replaced with his tongue as he licks a long stripe against you.

“Jesus fuck!” You almost shout, so immediately overwhelmed by the sensation of his mouth on you. The inside of his mouth is cooler than you’d expected it to be, and his tongue is almost rough against your sensitive, overstimulated clit, but your eyes roll back and your hips roll up anyway.

Roman moans, the vibration electric against you as he sucks your clit into his mouth and flicks his tongue lightly against it. Your hand drops to his head, lacing in his hair as you tug the strands. He looks up at you, the sight of his hungry eyes enough to send you over the edge as you cum hard against his face. Roman’s fingers fuck you through the high, curling against your most sensitive spot over and over again as he grinds his face against your soaked pussy.

Roman’s face is a mess when he finally pulls his fingers out of you and props himself up over you. You feel the hard throb of his cock pressed against you, and you can see the shine of your arousal glistening on his face. “Do you want me?”

You blink, taken aback by the question. With your cunt throbbing for him and your cum all over his face, he was asking if you want him? You reach a hand up to touch his face, rubbing your thumb over his swollen mouth. “You need me to say it?”

Roman’s eyes darken as he reaches down to line himself up with your entrance. “Guess not.” He pushes into you in one long thrust, bottoming out with a little shudder. “Fuck.”

You hum in agreement, your whole body thrumming with the sensation of being filled so completely. Roman’s cock is both thick and long, and whilst you’d assumed he was packing something considering his height and his obscene confidence, the sheer size of him steals your breath. Then he snaps his hips back and forward, fucking you open, and you let out a sound that might be a moan or a cry or some new blend of pain and lust that you’ve just invented and will be embarrassed about later.

“Too much?” Roman asks, his own voice breathless as he thrusts into you. He doesn’t slow down or ease up, so you don’t bother to answer the question.

“No.”

“Good,” he hums, dipping his head to press his lips to yours. He’s moved around so much the wound on his neck is weeping again, blood trickling down the smooth planes of his chest and dripping onto your tits. It looks phenomenal, you look phenomenal all covered in his blood like that, and Roman’s cock throbs against the tight compression of your walls. “Shit you’re tight.”

You squeeze hard around him, and Roman lets out a startled gasp. You lean up to peck his lips, the tensing of your stomach reflexively clenching your pussy even tighter, and Roman’s head drops. “I want to ride you.”

Roman’s head lifts again, a hopeful sort of hunger on his face. “What?”

“Lie down, Roman. I wanna ride you.”

Roman does not need to be told twice, but he’s glad to hear the words leave your lips again. He eases his cock out of you and rolls onto his back, shifting to get comfortable and licking over his mouth. His cock leaks where it curves against his stomach, and you rake your eyes appreciatively over him as you kneel either side of his hips and reach down to grip him around the base. “You know,” you whisper as you sink down onto his length. “I -ah,” you drop down, taking him completely, and Roman almost sobs at how fucking good it feels to be squeezed so tightly. His hands lift to your hips, pinning you to him so he can feel the pulsing press of your cervix against his sensitive head. “I thought.”

“Yeah?” Roman’s voice is strained as he finally releases you enough to let you move. You lift half off him and drop back down, impaling yourself on his full length once, twice, three times before leaning forward to press your hands into the mattress either side of his head. You begin to grind against him, tight, deep circles as you fuck yourself on his cock, and Roman is completely beside himself.

“I really thought it was you, Roman.”

Roman doesn’t bite back, he can’t with how tightly you’re gripping him and how good your tits look as you bounce on his cock. He just can’t.

“You were such a good suspect.” You groan, sucking his bottom lip into your mouth and nibbling on the plush pink flesh until he moans again. You release his lip and sit back, leveraging your weight onto your knees so you can lift up and drop down more harshly. “Textbook, actually.”

Roman hums, digging his fingers against your hips to help lift you as you ride him. “Sorry to disappoint you, agent.”

You shake your head, biting the corner of your own lip in a way that makes Roman want to flip you under him and bite clean through the meat of it.

“I’m glad it wasn’t. I’m so fucking glad. Because-“ you break off again, throwing your head back and exposing the unblemished column of your neck, and Roman’s cock twitches as his orgasm nears. “Because I wanted to fuck you the first time I saw you. And you know it-“

You reach down to cup his jaw, tilting his head to the side so you can examine the jagged claw marks on his neck. “Knowing that you’re not a fucking murderer? Shit.” You shake your head, releasing his jaw and dropping to kiss him, your hips rocking back and forth against him again. Roman decides he likes this position best of all, because maybe he can’t see your tits bouncing but he can feel the silky drag of your nipples against his chest and your pretty, flushed face is right fucking there. “So thank you, I guess.”

Roman swallows thickly, pinning your hips down so he can fuck up into you at the pace he needs to get off. “You’re thanking me?”

You nod, nuzzling against the unbroken side of his neck before sucking a piece of Roman’s flesh into your mouth and biting down. Roman cums then, sobbing your name as he shoots his load deep inside you, and you squeeze rhythmically to milk every last drop of it out of him as he jerks his hips up.

He pulls out and presses his face between your breasts, and you reach up to cradle his head against you. “You’re weird, Roman. You’re really weird.”

Roman hums against your skin, lips parting to lick at the sweat pooling between your breasts.

“But you’re not a murderer. You’re just a man.”

Roman’s mouth curls into a smile against your skin, and you shiver as his tongue licks up over the swell of your breast and he takes a nipple in his mouth. You’re met with his sharp green eyes again, sparkling with a dark amusement you don’t understand.

He releases you with a wet pop. “You don’t have to worry anymore, sweetheart.” He coos. “I killed the monster for you.”

He rolls to the side and closes his eyes, though his hand wanders across your stomach to rest there, a possessive weight against your skin. You listen as Roman’s breathing evens out, though it’s a long, long time before your eyes close. The last thought you have, the last unsettling, gut churning thought is a question. What the fuck was Roman Godfrey doing in the barrens tonight?

*

You wake to a crack of light like a laser beam drilling into your skull through your eye socket, and wince as you roll to the side. The breath leaks out of you like a deflating balloon at the sight of him lying beside you. In sleep, Roman Godfrey is a vision. He really is. No mocking smirk on his mouth, no unsettling, unearthly intensity in his eyes when they’re closed. His face is smooth and cherubic in sleep, the tiniest frown creasing between his brows and his hair a mess of loose, short waves against the silk of his pillow. Your eyes drop to the ugly, jagged scratch running from the corner of his jaw down his neck, and you swallow thickly at the memory of the blood and the violence and the terror of the previous night. Your fingers reach to brush against the puffy, swollen flesh bracketing the wound and Roman moans softly. The sound sends a bolt of heat through you, your clit throbbing to life at the memory of what happened after. Of Roman’s lips on yours, his tongue lapping against you. The hot, heavy weight of his cock and the stretch of it pushing inside you. You shake your head, slipping from the bed and scrambling on the floor for your jeans. A mistake. Last night had been a mistake, fueled by adrenaline and relief and gratitude. You’d been caught up in the moment, that’s all. It wouldn’t happen again. It couldn’t happen again. You tug your jeans up and button them, locating your bra and shoving it into your back pocket as you reach for your shirt. You’re scrambling to scoop up your sneakers, already reaching for his bedroom door when you see it.

The shoes drop from your hand, the doorhandle forgotten as you reach instead for the necklace resting on top of his dresser. You’d missed it last night, too caught up in blood and heat and the drowning pools of his eyes, but the silver chain and the fat, unusual pendant hanging from it is unmistakable now. You straighten, shaking fingers running carefully over the shiny face of the stone.

“G’morning,” his voice is a rumble of thick sleep, and you jump as warm arms snake around your waist and pull you against the hard muscles of his bare chest. “Sneaking out?”

You shake your head, trying to turn in his arms, but Roman is a solid weight against you. “Needed the bathroom.”

Roman hums, fingers splaying wide over your stomach before pressing harshly into your skin. “Yeah?”

Your breath stutters out of you at the pressure of his palm against your bladder. “Fuck, Roman.”

He chuckles, lips dipping to press a kiss to the top of your head before he releases the pressure on your stomach. “You wanted a souvenir?”

You shrug against him, flicking your fingers dismissively. “Just being nosey.”

“You jealous?” He coos, reaching around you to hook the delicate chain over his fingers. “You worried it’s for some other girl?”

“No.” You whisper, but your voice is gone and Roman is unconvinced. He releases your waist completely and pries the tiny clasp open, brushing your hair to the side as he fixes the necklace around your throat. The pendant drops to your sternum, and Roman’s hands slip down your body to rest on your hips as he rolls his own against your ass with a sigh.

“Do you like it?” He mumbles, lips caressing against the soft pulse point where your throat meets your collarbone.

You struggle to control your breathing as Roman’s fingers caress against your waist, slipping up under the fabric of your shirt to graze against your stomach. “I… it’s lovely. Where did you get it?”

Roman hears the stutter of your pulse, and his fingers tighten on your flesh. “It suits you. Matches your eyes.”

You hum, forcing your body to relax against him even as your brain is screaming at you to get out, to run! Run! Run! Because you’d seen that necklace before. Around the neck of a pretty teenager in a polaroid that had sat on your nightstand ever since her little sister wrote you a letter. “I should really… get going. The Sheriff will be expecting me to come in this morning.”

Roman hums against your flesh, the hand on your stomach snaking round to press into the small of your back as he bends you deliberately over the dresser. “We’ve got time.”

“Roman,” you huff as he grinds his stiff cock slowly against your ass. “Look, last night was great, I mean it really was.”

Roman grunts in response, hooking his fingers into the waistband of your jeans and yanking them down to your knees. “I can’t figure it out.” He says, pressing his palm against your hip as he nudges the head of his cock against your ass.

“Can’t-“ you suck in a shaky breath at the press of his throbbing tip against your entrance. “Figure what out?”

He pushes into you then, slowly, the stretch a pleasant burn over the residual soreness from how roughly he’d fucked you last night. “What changed. What I missed.”

You swallow, eyes shuttering closed as Roman pulls half out and pushes back in, the tight, hot grip of your pussy making him weak at the knees. “I don’t know what you mean.”

Roman hums, fingers digging into your hips as he pulls all the way out and thrusts back in with a vicious jab. His hand splays over your back, pressing you harder against the wood, and the necklace scrapes against the surface.

You watch it happen in real time, as his eyes drop to the offending silver chain. “Oh.”

“Roman,” you whisper, trying desperately to meet his eyes in the mirror even as you’re dragged back and forth harder and harder on his cock. You’re so full at this angle, the thick head of his cock pressing into your g-spot over and over with each rough thrust, and the fluttering of fear in your stomach mixes with the heat of arousal into a confusing, irresistible cocktail.

“How did you know?” He asks, breath harsh with exertion, eyes still fixed on the necklace. “How did you know it was hers?”

You squeeze hard around him and he stops moving, buried in you to the hilt. You can feel the living pulse of him right up against your cervix, and you shift your hips against the sharp edge of his dresser. “Her sister wrote me a letter,” you whisper, tears filling your eyes from the revelation and the overstimulation and the terror. “There was a picture of Lisa wearing it.”

Roman’s eyes close even as a beatific smile graces his lovely face. “Kid fucking sister.” He groans, cock pulsing and thickening inside you. He almost doesn’t want to come, even though your pussy feels like the closest thing to nirvana and he knows it’s gunna be one hell of a load. But he also knows that when he’s done this is over, that now you know what you know he can’t let you leave the house alive. “Why couldn’t you just leave it alone?” He asks softly, leaning forward to hook an arm around your sternum and drag you up against him. Your back presses flush to the soft heat of his chest, and you whimper at the sensation of this new angle as Roman pushes your hips away and pulls you back, fucking you on his cock. “I gave you the perfect monster.”

Tears spill over now, rolling down your cheeks, and Roman pulls you closer so he can lick the wet salt from your skin. “Please, Roman.” You whisper.

“It’s too late,” he sighs, free hand dropping between your legs to circle your clit. “I really tried to get you out of this, sweetheart. Gave you the performance of a fuckin lifetime.”

You don’t bother to beg, or to tell him you’ll forget the whole thing if he just lets you go. It’s a lie neither one of you needs. “What do you do with the bodies?” You ask, because if it’s the last thing you get to do on this earth you’d like to go out knowing you got to the bottom of the whole gruesome affair.

Roman’s smile is sad, and then it isn’t. The corners of his mouth seem to split open as he parts his lips, jaw popping too wide on too many fucking teeth as he licks over the side of your neck. He leans in close again, the sharp point of his nose nuzzling at the corner of your jaw with a tenderness that has you quivering around his cock as his fingers work against your clit. Then you feel it; the hot, sharp agony of all those teeth sinking into your flesh and pulling you apart like you’re made of butter.

The blood burns your skin as it soaks down your front, sticking your shirt to your tits in a way that has Roman’s cock leaking heavily against your cervix as he continues to snap his cock into you. Your ass bounces off his pubic bone in just the right way, just like he knew it would, and Roman’s tongue pushes into the ruin of bites in your neck to lave at the pulse of your blood as he feeds from you. “God,” you whisper, and you’re almost annoyed at yourself for making that the last thing you ever say as Roman’s fingers work you over the edge.

You cum hard, clit pulsing through waves as his cock brutalises you and your legs give out. Roman lets you brace against the dresser, licking gore from the sides of his mouth as he refocuses on the in and out of his cock. He dribbles pink-tinged saliva onto your ass, working the bloody slick into your skin with his thumbs, and the moan that rumbles out of him is so indulgent it ripples right through you, too. “Shit,” he groans as his cock twitches one final time and he cums with more force than he ever has before. He bites down on his own tongue to stifle a scream, and the metal of his blood mixes with yours. Roman swallows this unholy sacrament greedily, hips still jerking lightly against you as you quiver and pulse around his sensitive cock.

He pulls out of you with a slow wince, even as your body tries to lock him inside you. You can’t really control your muscles, not with your head swimming and your legs dead weights underneath you. He wraps an arm around your stomach and pulls you close, bracing under your thighs and carrying you back to his bed with a careful gentleness that makes you sob. “I don’t feel good,” you whisper, shaking fingers reaching to brush over his cheeks like you’re searching for the splits in his face that hide the monster.

“I know,” he mumbles, hands rubbing over your thighs and lingering to brush through the slick mess spilling from inside you. “Not long now.”

You sob, head falling back against his pillows. Too heavy. And too tired. You’re too fucking tired. “Roman.”

He snuggles against you, pressing his lips to yours, then lower to your cheek, your jaw, the sore, bitten flesh of your throat. “I know,” he coos against your skin. “I know, I’m here.”

You close your eyes against fresh tears as his teeth part your flesh, the blood soaking to heat your chilled skin as he groans against you. His hands roam once more, groping at your tits as he drags you back against his chest.

Roman knows he’ll be sad to see you go, but what a fucking sendoff. You’re wet and warm and clinging to him, and even though you don’t say it, even though you’re too overwhelmed with all of him to admit how much you want it, Roman knows. He knows he’s going to keep you forever. That there are no losers in the little game you’d been playing since your arrival in Hemlock Grove. He presses his stiffening bulge against your ass and his hand dips lower, finding the swollen bud of your clit as blood fills his mouth and his cock and he feels your slowing heartrate pulse a rhythm that sounds like his name.

Your head snaps forward at the feeling of a dense clod of earth ricocheting off your skull. You blink through the blinding pain, not daring to turn your head for fear that the next clod would blind you. You swipe a hand over the back of your head, your fingers coming away wet and crimson. Rocks. There are rocks in the earth. Those bastards are trying to kill you this time.

“Here, little freak!” Someone shouts. You think you recognise the voice, the nasally, mean quality of it. Maxwell St James, which means-

“You think you can outrun us?” Theo Mitchell, and Zachary Benton will be right behind them. Max and his boys had been tormenting you for almost a year now. It had started with names hissed at you in the school corridors. Freak. Loser. Loner. You’d ignored them all, held your head high like your momma taught you and pretended not to hear. It’s not like they were the only ones who’d decided you were less-than, anyway. Since your arrival in Derry, a target had been painted on your back by the unmistakable quality of otherness that followed strangers in a small town.  

When the whispering hadn’t worked, the names had changed. Bitch. Cunt. Whore. An interesting development, considering you’d never even been kissed and nobody in Derry seemed open to changing that.

You’d ignored them still, kept your nose in a book and your head in the clouds. This had enraged Maxwell and his cronies, sent them spiralling into a feral tantrum that had resulted in your first ever broken bone. Because he’d split from the group, followed you home. He’d pinned you against a wall and bent your arm back so far the bones in your wrist had splintered. You hadn’t cried. Hadn’t made so much as a sound, but the moment he released your wrist you ran, and ran, and ran.

After that, the names changed again. Slut. Psycho. Murderer. Because a five year old girl on your street had disappeared, and the only thing new in Derry was you. Dumb, scared people don’t need much to put two and two together to get five. With this new branding, you’d become a pariah. A punching bag. A scapegoat for every shitty thing that happened in Derry. And a lot of shitty things happened in Derry.

Kids went missing all the time. All through the fall, disappearing from playgrounds and street corners. Snatched in the Barrens. Seen climbing into storm drains and then never seen again. You kept your wrist cradled to your body and your head down after that.

But the pain now radiating through your skull is something different. There’s blood pouring down your back, soaking into the fabric of your shirt, and you hear a voice that is yours and not yours whisper into your head. They are going to kill you. They’re going to kill you if you don’t get underground.

There’s a culvert up ahead, the bars buckled outward from years of rust and neglect, and you don’t let yourself think about it too much before you pull the bars apart. They give with a little creak, widening the gap just enough for you to squeeze through. You scramble inside, trying not to feel the soak of the sewer on your knees as you crawl into the rotten open maw.

“Where the fuck did she go?” Theo yells, stopping just inches from the bars.

“You lost her?” Maxwell hisses. You can hear the labored pants of his breathing, and you press your lips together to stifle a whimper.

“I think she went in there.” Theo says, tapping the rusted bar with his knuckles.

“We goin in after her, Max?” Zachary asks.

Max huffs. “No. If she’s gone in there she’s a good as dead. It’ll get her.”

You swallow thickly, a chill running down your spine.

“Yeah,” Theo chuckles darkly. “It’ll eat her right up.”

“Nasty little whore.” Zachary adds.

You listen to the retreating of their footsteps and feel your heartrate slow with every passing second.

“Nasty little whore,” the darkness whispers behind you.

You yelp, your heart leaping into your throat as you lurch towards the bars. You wrap your fingers around the rusted iron, yanking hard, but the give that had existed moments before is gone now. The iron holds as firm as if it were brand new, and you tug uselessly, desperately as the darkness closes in behind you.

“Nasty little whore,” it whispers again, the words a caress against the back of your neck. “Nasty little boys.” You feel phantom fingers in your hair, and you whimper. “Yesssss,” the darkness hisses, and the phantom touch solidifies, wrapping in your hair and pulling you back into the shadows.

You scream then, a high-pitched, awful sound ripping from your throat. Your mouth is filled with cotton, wriggling, thick fabric pressing against your tongue and down your throat, and you’re spun and pinned to the filthy sewer wall. The wound on your head jars against the brick, momentarily dazing you, and you blink up at the impossible figure of a seven-foot clown. You should be scared. You know that, as you look at Its inhuman yellow eyes and Its too-wide mouth. But your brain can’t catch up with what you’re seeing, and the fear doesn’t come.

“Clown.” You mumble.

The clown tilts Its head to the side. “Whore.”

You shake your head, the bloody pulp of your hair matting against the wall. “I’m not a whore.”

The clown grins, lips splitting into a grotesque mockery of a smile. “And I am not a clown.”

“You’re going to kill me.” The words come out a little muffled, like you’re listening to your own voice through water.

“I’m going to eat you.” It whispers, leaning close. You can smell it on Its breath – decay, death and the rust of blood.

“Alright, then.”

The clown blinks. “Alright, then,” It repeats. “Aren’t you scared?”

You hum, eyes drooping. You feel warm all over, and you barely notice the gloved hand slipping around your throat and tipping your head forward. You do feel the sharp, bright pain as It prods Its fingers against the wound on your skull. You cry out, and the clown does it again, dragging Its long finger against the break in your flesh. “Oho,” It chuckles. “Close to dead. No fun. Nasty little boys.”

“Maxwell St James,” you hiss between gritted teeth. “Theo Mitchell, Zachary Benton. The nasty little boys.” The fingers caressing your head wound drop away, and you lift your head to watch the clown suck the bloodstained tips into Its mouth.

“Names. Power in names.” It licks over his lips.

“They hate me.” You swallow, forcing yourself to meet Its unsettling stare. One of Its eyes seems to drift to the side, like It can’t remember It’s supposed to be pretending to be human, and you shiver. “If you’re still… hungry. After you kill me.”

The clown dips Its head, coming so close you can feel Its breath on your mouth. “Oho,” It says again, softly. “They don’t hate you. They fear you, little whore.”

Pennywise has never been so interested in a person before. The defiant set of your jaw, the scent of your fear. The way you look at It, right at It, even as you shake with fear. Drool spills openly from the corners of Its mouth, pooling on the floor between you. Oh, to taste. To savor. To devour all that delicious fear. But the names ring out, tasting all the sweeter for the vitriol with which you utter them. The only thing tastier than fear. The conscious act of hatred.

“I want them all dead.”

Pennywise tilts Its inhuman head to the side, face bobbing on a neck like an enormous grotesque spring. “Would you kill them? Reap them?”

You swallow, raking your eyes over every awful inch of It. “No. But I would bring them to you. Offer them to you.”

“If Pennywise lets you live,” It rasps.

“Pennywise.” You repeat the name, and the clown smiles. It likes the sound of it in your mouth. Likes the roll of the syllables on your tongue. “If you let me live, I’ll bring them to you. All of them. The boys. The others.”

“Others.” It hisses.

“As many as you’d like.” You say softly. And then you lift your hand, a calculated, stupid decision. Your palm makes contact with the side of the clown’s face, the powdery greasepaint masquerading as skin flaking off in your hand. You don’t wince, don’t pull away. And when the clown doesn’t immediately bite your hand off, you lift your other hand to mirror the first, holding Its face steady. “You are feared, and so am I. Let me help you give them something to really be scared of.”

Pennywise does not need help hunting Its prey. Never has, not in a million years. But there is something so appealing, something so other about you. Pennywise wants to see what it looks like, to have you serve It. To have a creature worship It, to offer sacrifice in reverence of Its power. “You will bring the children to me.” It whispers, turning Its head to lick a salty stripe from your palm. “And you will watch as I consume them.”

You swallow, feeling a strange heat kindling low in your stomach at the wet press of Its tongue. “You want me to watch?”

Pennywise hums, rising to Its full height and pulling easily out of your grasp. “You must, you must.” It says softly, bloodstained, gloved fingers caressing over your nose and lips in a careless gesture. “Pennywise will see your insides. See how deep the rot goes, little whore.”

*

The funny thing about boys who pick on girls and call them whores is that they’re usually all too willing to follow them down dark alleyways if they think they’re gunna get their cocks sucked. Zachary Benton breathes heavily at your back, his hand wandering down to brush against your ass as you lead him deeper into the crack between two buildings on main.

“You better not fucking tell anyone about this.” He spits, even as his fingers push up under your skirt to press your underwear into the crack of your ass.

“Our secret.” You lean against the wall, crooking a finger at him, and Zachary steps closer, tongue licking over his lips as he rakes his eyes down your body. The uniform of seduction – a tight, white tee-shirt and a little black skirt with knee-high socks. Disarming. Cute.

“Dirty little secret,” comes a hiss from the darkness, and Zachary spins in time to see the clown materialize from the shadows, stepping into the light with monstrous height and spindly arms like an enormous spider. One gloved hand, the cotton pristine and white, wraps around the boy’s throat. His eyes bulge before rolling towards you, like you might help. Like you might scream, or run, or do something other than standing there watching the clown as It opens a too-wide mouth on a thousand needle teeth and latches onto Zachary’s face with a meaty squelch.

“Oh,” you mumble, blinking through a fine mist of blood as the boys features disappear into the saw-toothed tunnel where the clown-face used to be. You didn’t expect to feel bad about it, but you certainly didn’t expect to feel good, either. But the rush of adrenaline spiking through your system manifests in a low, deep throbbing, your core pulsing as your clit swells, and you press your thighs together.  

Pennywise shoves the corpse of the boy into the darkness, squirrelling it away for later consumption as It turns Its attention to you. “How did he taste?” Your voice doesn’t shake, and Pennywise smiles a slow, lazy grin that’s too wide at the corners.

“Fear.” It says softly. “And more.”

You press your thighs together more firmly, squeezing your clit under the hard pressure. “More?”

Pennywise steps closer, too tall, movements jerky as It sinks low. Not kneeling, just… sinking. “He wanted you. Wanted to put his nasty little cock inside you.”

You feel blood heat your face, and Pennywise drops his wandering eyes to your skirt. “Wanted to push his way in. In there.”

You don’t know why you do it. Why your fingers curl around the hem of your skirt and lift it. Why you let the monster with a million teeth press Its face against the soaked front of your underwear and inhale. Why your clit throbs and you soak fresh arousal at the feeling of Its slippery, wet tongue lapping over the fabric.

Pennywise makes a sound, a low, rumbling creak from deep inside Its chest. “Another, little one. Bring me another one, and we will see how you taste.”

*

It isn’t lust that motivates you, obviously. Not lust for the strange entity with the clown face. It’s a desire for revenge, when you’re yanked from the school halls by your hair and dragged kicking into the bathroom. When your head is forced into a shit-stained toilet, and you choke and gag on the putrid water as Katherine Masters and Matilda Lowther hold you down, shrieking with laughter. “This is for Zacky, you little freak!” Sarah Clarkson, the ringleader of the bitchiest clique in school hisses into your ear as you lay on the porcelain, shivering and retching putrid water. “Everybody knows you killed him.” You don’t bother to correct her. You just stare, mapping their faces into your mind and adding their names to your list.

Pennywise likes the girls. There’s more fear. Sarah pisses herself, hot liquid running down the inside of her leg as Pennywise sucks her fingers into Its mouth and bites down. It drops her, legs folding like she’s made of rubber, and turns Its attention to you. “I can smell you,” It sings, blood oozing from Its parted lips. Sarah moves then, crawling forward with her remaining hand, nails splintering against the concrete as she tries to drag herself towards the exit. But there’s nobody around, it’s long past midnight in the parking garage and the people of Derry know better than to go poking around in the dark. Even if they don’t know that they know.

You lift your foot and stamp it down on her hand, sending her sprawling as she wails in anguish. “I am a freak,” you whisper, crunching the delicate bones of her fingers under the sole of your boot. “But I have a friend.”

Pennywise feels a strange, wriggling heat in Its core, and It bristles. “Friend.” It spits, wrapping a gloved hand in your hair and pushing you to your knees. You yelp as you’re forced onto your knees and then lower, belly pressed to the concrete beside the offering you’d brought It. “No friend.”

It rips your underwear aside, pushing two rough, cotton-clad fingers into you, and your spine arches at the awful sensation of it. Pennywise feels the rip, the tearing of something soft and fleshy inside you as It pushes deeper, and the warmth in Its core throbs. “Oho,” it chortles softly. “Oh, how you bend for Pennywise. How you…” It twists, stretching Its fingers wide, “Break.”

You can do little more than press your face against the floor to stifle a scream as It fucks you roughly on Its fingers. Your blood stains Its glove, and It scents the air low and close to you. “Please,” you gasp, sinking your teeth into your bottom lip  as it curls and twists and rips you open.

You meet Sarah’s eyes, the awful realization that your position is hardly better than hers. Pennywise might not kill you today, but It could. It could anytime. “All for Pennywise,” It purrs, dropping over you and pressing Its massless weight against your back. You feel the rough drag of Its tongue over the side of your face, and you clench hard around Its fingers. “Nasty little whore,” It coos. Your body shudders through the mimic of an orgasm, clit pulsing without any real pleasure as the rough stimulation inside you comes to an end.

You drop boneless to the ground, cheek pressed to the cool concrete as Pennywise climbs over you and sets upon Its prey, breaking the girl into pieces as she screams and screams.

You bring It another girl next. Your insides hurt, and there’s blood when you pee. You don’t want to upset It again, if that’s what you did. So you bring It another girl, luring her into the sewer directly on the promise of a clue.

“You sure you saw her down here?” Katherine asks, eyes scanning the filthy walls.

“For sure. She looked… panicked. Like maybe she fell in? I don’t know. She ran from me, but she’ll probably come out for you.”

“Sarah?” Katherine calls, her voice betraying her fear. “You down here, honey?”

Her voice comes from somewhere deep, deep in the shadows. “Oh, honey.”

You can hear the edge to it, the edge of It, and you shiver as you follow the girl into the darkness.

“You’ve been gone days,” Katherine says. “Can’t believe this freak found you after-“

You shove her. You watch your hands do it, watch her go sprawling in the filthy water. She thrashes, turning over to stare at you with wide, disbelieving eyes. “What the fuck are you doing? Sarah she’s nuts, she-“

You drop to your knees, straddling the girl’s hips as you push her down. Her face disappears beneath the murky water, air bubbling up with a gurgle as she struggles against your hold.

“Oho,” Sarah’s voice slips out of the gloom. “Oho, little one has found her teeth.”

You don’t spare It a glance as you hold her down. “Can I?”

Pennywise giggles, a sound like tinkling bells. “No, no. Mine to take. All for Pennywise.”

You release your hands, climbing off the girl as her face resurfaces with a hacking gasp. “You absolute cunt!” She shrieks. “We’ll fucking kill you for this, you-“

Katherine cuts herself off, eyes travelling up the impossibly long legs in the silvery clown pants beside you. “Oh God. Oh my God.”

Pennywise leers, reaching for her. “Not your God. Hers.”

Katherine doesn’t scream. She doesn’t get the chance to scream, as Pennywise opens Its mouth wide, wide, wider. His face parts, rows of teeth shuddering open to reveal a flickering mass of light within. You’d never imagined that the inside of this creature could be beautiful, but it is. The girl goes limp in Its arms, eyes glazing over like a corpse, and Pennywise drops her to the ground like a ragdoll.

“She’s dead?”

Its face snaps back into place as It turns to look at you. “No,” Pennywise hums. “She is for later.”

You frown, swallowing around a sudden unpleasant churning of nausea. “You’re not hungry?”

Pennywise chuckles, the sound low and full of gravel. “Oho. Pennywise is hungry. Oh, yes.”

It reaches for you and you go, letting yourself be lifted easily into Its arms as It pins your back to the slick wall and tears your jeans and panties from you with a flick of Its wrist. You gasp at the dank, frigid air against your core, the sound morphing into a sob as Pennywise licks a long, slow trail from your hole up to your clit and back down again. “Oh, God.”

Pennywise laughs lightly, the sound vibrating against you as It grazes Its teeth against your clit. “Yesssss, little one. Your God. You give it to Pennywise. You give everything.”

You groan, legs shaking as It devours your core. You keep tensing, expecting the bite, the end of this game, but it doesn’t come. Pennywise eats you messily, spit sliding down your thighs and dripping into the stagnant sewer water where Katherine’s body still floats. “I’ll bring you more,” you whine. “Every last one of them.”

Pennywise dips lower, Its tongue thickening to push into your hole and writhe against the still-healing contusions on your cervix. Your clit throbs against Its nose, the sharp, red stained nub of it grazing deliciously against the sensitive bud, and your eyes roll back. “So many names. So many pieces of… shitttt,” you whine as you cum, thighs quivering around Its face as your hands fly to the tufty orange hair on Its head and tug.

Pennywise likes that, the taste of you filling Its mouth whilst your fingers pry a tiny jolt of sensation from It. Not enough to hurt, no. Impossible that you’d even consider it. But to be rough, to be possessive. That was worship. That was devotion. Pennywise laps every last drop of your release from you, tongue curling around your clit and squeezing hard enough to make you cry out before It withdraws, lowering you to the ground as gently as It can.

“You want to hurt them.” It says quietly, yellow eyes scanning you as you struggle for breath.

“Yes.”

Pennywise leans in, lips brushing yours in an almost-kiss. “Bring me a boy. Bring me one of the nasty little boys.”

Theo is smarter than Zachary had been. He isn’t interested in fucking you, and somebody had apparently seen you leading Katherine out to the barrens, so he’s not going to follow you anywhere. You have to follow him, stalking him through the streets of Derry until he finally turns to cut through the park. That’s where you get to him, throwing a rock hard enough to knock him to the ground and then hitting him again, smashing the stone into his temple until his eyes unfocus and close.

You can’t drag him out of sight, he’s got a hundred pounds on you at least. So you dip your fingers into the blood soaking his hair, smearing it into the earth and praying It will sense you.

“Bad night to be out,” a man says from behind you, and you shriek as you scuttle away from the body.

“He fell.”

The man chuckles, the sound disconcertingly familiar as he steps forward. He is It, and he is not. There’s no makeup painting his face, but the features remain the same. Too wide mouth, wandering eyes. Sharp, otherworldly features and a forehead that extends too far.

“You couldn’t wait? Eager, greedy little thing.” There’s a strange twang to his voice, an accent you can’t place.

“Who are you?”

The man cocks his head to the side.

“I mean, I know. But whose face is that?”

The man clucks his tongue. “Sharp. Smart. I stole this face a long time ago. Doesn’t matter. I can change it.”

“Don’t,” you say quickly, too quickly. “Or… I mean, I’d prefer you. The clown.”

The man’s grin splits, and he lifts his hands to claw at his face. The flesh comes away in ribbons, revealing cracked greasepaint beneath.

The man with the clown peeking through his face hauls Theo’s unconscious body over his shoulder like he weighs nothing, and your clit throbs. You walk in awkward silence, unsure where the boundaries are with this new man-version of It. You can’t possibly be expected to chat, the very notion sends a bubble of hysterical laughter to pool in your throat.

You’re saved from the dilemma the moment you step into the mouth of the sewer, and the edges of the man seem to shimmer and shake before refocusing. Pennywise is Pennywise again, taller and larger and wrapped in silver silk as he drops Theo to the ground.

“You hate him.” Pennywise whispers, lifting a gloved hand to your chin and pinching, forcing your face down to look at the body of the boy. “If we give him to you… how will you repay us? Will you kneel for Pennywise? Will you open?” You swallow thickly, reaching down to grab Theo's arm and lifting it as high as you can. “I would offer him to you. All to you.”

Pennywise feels a thrill run through Its very being. The deadlights at the center of Its universe shudder with the declaration as It dips Its head and bites clean through the boy’s fingers.

His eyes fly open, mouth opening around a scream as he thrashes in the water.

You’re not strong enough to hold him down, but Pennywise stamps harshly on his spine and there’s a gruesome pop before his limbs go slack again. Paralysed, but very much still alive. Oh, very much so. He screams, eyes wild as they fix on you.

“Please! Please, I didn’t mean it! Don’t let that thing kill me. Don’t let It-“

“I won’t,” you coo, crouching down to cup his face and rub the pads of your thumbs over his cheeks. “It won’t kill you.”

Theo moans, the pulsing heat in the stumps of his fingers burning down his arm. “No,” you coo. “It won’t kill you. It will eat you.”

The boy’s eyes go wide as you drop his face and drag his other hand up to the clown’s lips.

“You want to kill him.” Pennywise says softly, tongue licking out at the sweaty, shaking fingers against Its mouth.

“He’s yours. They’re all yours. All for you.” You mumble.

Pennywise makes a low, rumbling sound deep within Its core, and your clit throbs in response. “You would feed this boy to Pennywise. You would sacrifice every bite.”

You don’t even have to think about it. You press the fingers firmly against Its mouth, and Pennywise bites down. His yellow eyes fix on you, even as blood splashes down onto your hand and Theo screams. “Every bite of him. Every bit of me.”

The hunger, the other hunger seizes Pennywise with such a frenzy It forgets all about the dying boy. It stamps over the body and seizes you, pressing you back to the wall and pushing gloved fingers up under your skirt to graze through your slick core. “Of you.” Pennywise whispers, tongue unfurling to lick over the seam of your lips. “Oh yes. All for Pennywise.”

Being taken by Pennywise isn’t really like fucking. It doesn’t have a little pink cock, a soft length with downy hair and a salty tip. You know it could, if It wanted to. If you wanted It to. But you don’t. You want It exactly as It is. The thick, pale appendages wrap around your thighs, parting them as Its hands pin your wrists above your head. “I can smell you.” It whispers. “I can taste your fear.”

You sob, sucking in a shaking breath as It pushes inside of you. The thick, pulsing length wriggles like a living thing, caressing against your walls and finding the sensitive spongey flesh that makes your eyes roll back. “Take it. You can…” you whimper. “You can take it all.”

Pennywise chuckles, Its fingers tightening on your wrists as It leans forward to press Its painted mouth against yours. “Taste them.” It whispers against your lips. “Theo Mitchell. Nasty little boy. Taste, precious one.”

You lick your tongue against Its mouth, the iron and rust of blood coating your lips with gore, and you clench hard around the intrusion of It thrusting in and out of you.

“Oho,” Pennywise chortles. “Oho, you like it. Good. Good.”

You moan, reaching out to thumb over Its jaw, and Pennywise stills for a moment.

You cry out, hand snapping back and reaching for your own wrists where It has pinned them over your head as blood runs down your arms. Pennywise withdraws the claws that have punctured your wrist, leaning up to lap the blood from your skin. “Too close,” you whisper, a reminder to yourself more than It. Pennywise couldn’t reciprocate affection, and It would punish you for reminding It so brazenly. You clench around It again in apology, rocking back and forth against the thrusting appendage pummelling against your insides.

“More?” It whispers, slipping a thin tentacle from the bell-sleeve at Its wrist to curl around your thigh, wriggling into you beside the thicker appendage. Your eyes roll back as your mouth opens on a silent scream, and Pennywise leans forward to lick Its tongue into your mouth and taste your blissed-out agony. Deeper, deeper. It bends over you, hinging at the waist and burrowing deeper into your mouth, nipping at the meat of your cheeks until your blood leaks into Its mouth and runs down your throat. Your spine curves, curves, creaks and curves as It presses you into a new shape, a shape just for It. The hand wrapped around your throat tightens, pinning you in place as It pushes Its tongue into your throat and further, further, to lick the electric thrum of your lungs. Bliss, bliss. Agony and bliss. Pennywise has never felt, It has never experienced a closeness like it. The urge to consume is replaced with the urge to combine, to become. To draw you inside of Itself, to keep you…

There is a snap. Pennywise knows the sound, has heard the sound pounding through Its fibres like a mimicry of a heartbeat since Its first taste of flesh and sinew and bone. The sharp, clear crack of bone breaking under pressure. It releases you, long fingers unfurling around the column of your neck to reveal the mottling of bruises spreading beneath your flesh like spiderwebs.

“No.” It utters the single syllable into the darkness. You’re limp and lifeless, a protrusion of bone jutting luridly against your throat. “No, no.”

It shakes you, and you rattle back and forth, that displaced bone poking into the meat of you and sliding free. Pennywise caresses the jagged edge with a finger, pushing it lightly until it buckles and slips back into your skin. “Pennywise doesn’t want to play now.”

Its voice dips an octave, the underlying growl of the Otherness weaving into Its words. “Enough, enough. Don’t make me punish you. Don’t make me bite.”

This should do it. You should open your eyes. Should pout your mouth at It, lick over the red of your lips and tell It you’re sorry. Show It you’re sorry, spreading your thighs to let It feast on you. But you don’t move. Not so much as a tremor.

“Come back, little one.” It murmurs, stained, gloved fingers brushing over your unseeing eyes. “Come back to Pennywise.”

Your eyes roll when your head is tipped forward, but you don’t look. You don’t see. And Pennywise tries to go back. Tries to slip from this place to that, from now to then. It knows that the fabric of time works differently for It than it does for you, but It calls to you anyway. Pennywise drops to Its knees, the silk of Its pants soaking in the filth of the low basin as It wraps an arm around your shoulders. Your head lolls back, loose as a ragdoll, but It feels no sense of pleasure in the pliancy of your body. You are gone. Your light is gone.

And perhaps there is no back, but It can keep you anyway. Lifted in Its lights, cradled above the rest. And when It emerges from the storm drain to take, it wears your face. Not your whole face, but your eyes or the soft line of your jaw or the mocking curve of your smirk. Just enough to keep your face in their minds, to keep your name whispered in the ghost stories around campfires each night as the teens of Derry gather to drink and fuck and pretend they’re not being hunted. But they are, oh they are.

Peter. James. Michael. Anna. Susie. Matilda. Maxwell, Maxwell, Maxwell. You whisper these names into Its head even now, even when you’re little more than bones resting in the bottom of Its nest. The cycle is almost over, it’s almost time to curl back into Its nest and hold the bones of your ribs close as It sleeps. But Pennywise will not go until It has taken every name on your list. It is the closest thing to devotion that It is capable of.

There’s a stack of dishes in the kitchen sink, and Bill is pretty sure the bottom layer is growing new lifeforms. He rubs a hand against the back of his head, a blush creeping up the sides of his neck as he watches you scan over the apartment.

“It’s not always like this, I-“

“I get it.” You cut across him, offering him a smile you hope is reassuring. It seems to work, a little of the tension bleeds out of the tall man standing in front of you. You’d assessed the situation within two minutes of your arrival. His shirt is rumpled, a fraying hole where a button’s missing, hanging open against his collar where the skin is stretched too tightly over bone. There are dark circles under his eyes, swollen puffy bruises making his big green eyes appear sunken. Like he isn’t sleeping, or eating, or… taking care of anything, really.

The apartment is just further proof of it, and you fight the urge to wrinkle your nose at the rotting dishes, the piles of trash and the never-ending mountains of dirty laundry covering every available surface. “Could I meet the girls?”

The ghost of a smile passes over his face. “Yes. The girls, absolutely. They’re excited to see you. You know, having a woman around again.”

You nod, following him down the hall to a bedroom with pink flower stickers all over the door. He knocks twice before opening, an endearingly polite gesture considering his daughters are three and five. “You guys ready to meet your new babysitter?”

“We’re not babies.” The older girl grumbles, pulling herself up against an enormous doll house and holding out her hand. “I’m Jess.”

“A pleasure to meet you.” You dip into a curtsey, and the girl giggles.

“And that’s Sam.”

You curtsey again, lower and grander, and Sam blushes.

“She’s going to be taking care of you whilst daddy’s at work, okay?” Bill says, his tone a million times lighter when he’s talking to the kids.

“Okay, daddy.” Jess says.

“Okay. Back to playing, now.” Bill ruffles her hair, and you follow him into the main lounge area.

“They’re great.”

Bill grins. “I know. They’re… the reason I’m getting through it. I have to be okay for them.”

You swallow, eyes travelling around the wreck of the apartment again. “You’d going good, Mr Skarsgård.”

Bill winces. “That sounds… call me Bill. Please.”

You smile. “Alright, Bill.”

“I’ll… get this place cleaned up, before you start. I can… I’ll get it sorted.”

He picks up a little pink dress that’s so caked in spaghetti sauce it practically crackles in his hand, and winces again.

“Bill.”

“Yeah.”

“I can start right now if you want.”

Bill’s eyes snap to you. “I couldn’t ask you to…”

“I can wash dishes. I can do laundry. You should let me.”

Bill swallows thickly. “I’m not paying you to clean.”

“You’re paying me to help. Let. Me.”

A pretty pink flush stains his cheeks. “It’s not usually like this.”

“Go play with the girls. I’ll get this place cleaned up, and I’ll figure something out for dinner. Okay?”

He purses his lips, eyes flitting over the chaos before fixing on you. “You’re sure?” His voice is soft, eyes searching yours.

“Yes, Bill. Go. I got this.”

Bill feels like the world’s biggest asshole as he heads back to his daughters’ room. He can hear the clattering of plates in the kitchen, and he winces. Embarrassing. Embarrassing. He should have hired a cleaning crew before he called you. He should have moved to a new apartment and burned this one to the ground. But he hadn’t expected you to be so… you. So smart, so articulate, so instantly, magnetically likeable. He hadn’t expected you to be so fucking pretty. And now you were washing mold from his dishes and handling his dirty boxers and he couldn’t be more mortified, actually.

It isn’t so hard once you get started. You bundle as much laundry as you can into sacks and haul them down to the laundry room in the basement, filling three washers at once and setting a timer on your phone before jogging back up to the apartment to start on the dishes. It’s almost therapeutic, watching the stacked pile go from dirty to clean, from chaotic to gleaming and organized. You wash and dry in batches, figuring out where things are supposed to go. You grimace at the state of the counters underneath, coating them with cleaning spray and leaving them to soak as you run down to switch the laundry into the dryers and start a second batch.

By five you’re sweaty and exhausted, but the apartment shines. The laundry is folded into piles, ready to go away in the drawers, and there’s pasta bubbling away on the stove.

You knock on the girls’ bedroom door, and Bill opens it. He’s wearing a full face of terrible, clownish makeup, and there’s a diamante crown shoved roughly into his hair. “Don’t.”

You stifle a laugh. “You look beautiful, ma’am.”

Bill rolls his eyes, reaching up to untangle the tiara from his hair. “Jess is going to be a makeup artist.”

You smirk, eying the smudgy red shadow sweeping up into his eyebrows. “She’ll be booked solid.”

Bill grins, his own eyes catching on something in your hair. He lifts his hand without thinking, plucking a little tuft of lint from your hair with gentle fingers. “Laundry?”

You swallow, taking an unconscious step back. “All done. It’s all done, actually.”

Bill shakes his head. “You can’t have possibly…” He steps out, heart clenching painfully in his chest at his clean, organized apartment. “You’re a miracle worker.”

You scoff, waving your hand in the air. “It was no big deal, really. And it’s just pasta for dinner. I think you might need to go grocery shopping.”

“I usually get a… someone does that. I mean, I assume someone does. There was always… just food in there.” He rubs his thumb over his jaw. “I probably sound pathetic.”

You shake your head. “Not at all. You sound like a guy whose having to figure it all out a little too late. That’s all.”

“Yeah.” Bill chuckles humorlessly. “Like I said. Pathetic.”

*

Bill’s watching the clock in his office. It’s only 3.30, a full two hours before his day ends, but he’s been glancing at the clock every few minutes since 3PM anyway. Because the girls have finished school, and that means you’re probably walking them home right now. Slowly, because Sam insists she’s too old for the pram now even though a snail could outpace her.

Bill had apologized to you the first time, when you mentioned it had taken an hour to walk half a mile home. But you’d grinned, glancing at his girls with open affection. “It was fun. You miss stuff when you walk too fast, don’t you?”

Bill had just blinked at you, because how was it possible that a babysitter he’d found in the classifieds could be this perfect? Bill sighs, shaking his head and forcing his eyes back to his computer. Emails, meeting requests, blah, blah, blah. His phone chimes, and he almost drops it in his haste to open the message from you.

Hey daddy, we’re making cupcakes! Hope work is good!

He opens the attachment, a smile stretching across his face at the batter-coated grins of his children and the smile on your face as you hold the camera up. Bill’s stomach flips over.

“Fuck it.” He mutters, hitting the power button on his computer. Work could wait, just this once.

You hear the sound of the door opening, and hand the piping bag to Jess as you step out into the hall. “Bill? You’re home early.”

“Oh. Uh, there was a power issue. Office closed.”

“Oh, hopefully nothing serious. You’re in time to take over with frosting, if you want.”

“Daddy’s too messy!” Jess calls from the kitchen.

“She’s right.” Bill shrugs. “No eye for detail.”

“Well, I could stay just to finish the cupcakes. Then I’ll get out of your hair, promise.”

Bill wants to tell you to stay as long as you like, to stay longer than that. But he doesn’t. He nods, offering you a shrug. “I think the girls would like it if you did.”

Bill sits at the kitchen island and watches, his stomach knotting and unknotting with a nauseating mix of longing and sadness as he watches you. You press a tiny dollop of frosting to Sam’s nose, and she giggles before smearing your cheek with it.

“You little beast!” You squeal, wiping at your face. “Daddy, aren’t you going to do something?”

Bill raises his hands in surrender. “Hey, I’m not messing with her! Don’t wanna end up with frosting on my face too, you know.”

You shake your head, handing the girls a bag of sprinkles. “Okay ladies, go crazy with this. I want so many sprinkles on those cupcakes that they’ll turn your tongues rainbow.”

You step away as the girls dissolve into hysterics, scattering colorful strands of sugar all over the counter. “I’ll clean it up before I go.”

Bill turns to look at you, biting the corner of his lip into his mouth. “No need.”

“I insist.”

He huffs a laugh, and you turn away from the girls. There’s still a smudge of frosting on your cheek, and Bill reaches towards you reflexively. “You’ve got a- just-“

His thumb makes contact with your cheek and you freeze, your breath catching in your lungs as he drags the pad of his thumb over your skin. “Got it.” His voice is barely a whisper, and your lips part on a slow exhale.

“Thanks.”

“Daddy?” Jess asks, and Bill snaps his hand back as he turns to his eldest daughter.

“What is it sweetheart?”

“Can we go play in our room while the frosting sets?”

“Of course. I’ll call you for dinner.”

Jess zips past, but Sam lingers. She climbs carefully off her stool and reaches for you, pressing her small hand to your knee. “You stay for dinner?” She asks in her quiet, lispy voice.

“Oh, I.” You glance at Bill. “I mean, I think daddy wants some time with just you tonight.”

Bill shrugs. “If you want to stay, you’d be welcome. Uh, more than welcome.”

You swallow, nodding once before leaning down to Sam’s level. “Then I’d love to stay for dinner. Thank you, Sam.”

Sam grins, patting your knee once before running off to join her sister.

“You don’t have to. I mean, don’t feel obliged to. If you have plans, or you need to get back to your boyfriend or something.”

You fight a smile at his less-than-subtle attempt at fishing. “No, no plans.”

*

After dinner, you clear the dishes whilst Bill reads the girls a story, and you’re just slipping your coat on when he closes their bedroom door and pauses. “You going?”

You shrug. “I mean, the girls are asleep. I think my duties are well and truly ended for the evening.”

Bill nods, a blush staining his cheeks. “Right, of course. That’s… of course.” He brushes past you, opening the door. “I’ll see you tomorrow.”

“If the power issue is resolved.”

“Huh?”

You raise an eyebrow. “The power issue? At your office.”

“Oh.” Bill nods. “That. Yes. If it’s resolved.” He licks his lips nervously, eyes dipping to your mouth and back up. “Thank you for staying. It was nice to just… be normal for a little while. Gets lonely.”

You’re almost through the door, one foot in the corridor, when you turn and look at him. Really look at him. The hunch of his shoulders, the set of his jaw. “Bill?”

“Hmm?”

“I could do with a drink. You got anything to drink?”

Bill’s face splits into a breathtaking smile. “I have a bottle of red that I’ve been dying to try.”

*

You’re sitting on the couch, your third glass in hand. Bill’s beside you, more relaxed than you’ve ever seen him. He laughs as he tells you about a prank he played on one of his older brother’s as a child, and his laugh is so infectious that you laugh too.

“Thank you. For this. I know you stayed out of pity.” Bill clears his throat, averting his eyes for a moment.

You drop your hand to his thigh. “I didn’t.”

His eyes fix to your hand against his black jeans, and he feels the stirring of his cock. That hadn’t happened for anyone at all in a long time, and he fidgets until you withdraw it. “A sense of duty then. If you’re fishing for a raise…”

You scoff. “You already overpay me.”

“Why are you doing it? I mean, babysitting seems like… I don’t know. A little below your skillset.”

“I used to be a private tutor. Did it for five years.”

Bill whistles. “That explains it then. Jess could barely mumble through a page of her book a month ago. Now she’s reading the whole thing to me.”

You hum. “That’s good. That’s really good.”

“Why did you stop? You obviously have a talent for it.”

You feel your face flush at the praise. “I want to teach. Not just one or two kids at a time, but whole classes. I want to find a school that really needs me, somewhere I can make a difference.”

Bill swallows. “What’s stopping you?”

“I need to be like… qualified for that. Going back to school isn’t cheap. And the family I was tutoring for have moved abroad. So I figured I’d put an ad out and see.”

“Enter… all this chaos.” Bill murmurs, sipping his wine.

You glance around the apartment affectionately. “I love it here. I love the girls. I love… everything about this job. You have a great family, Bill.”

Bill’s stomach flips over. “When do you think you’ll be… leaving us?” Me, his brain screams. When are you leaving me?

“School’s expensive.” It’s all you say, and Bill doesn’t press for more. He doesn’t want to know, actually. “When did… your wife leave?”

The silence thickens into something tangible between you.

“I’m sorry.” You say into the tension. “I shouldn’t have asked.”

“No.” Bill grits out. He’s surprised how hard it is to talk around the lump forming in his throat. “It’s okay. She’s… look, she’s great. She’s a great mom, and she gave me more chances than I probably deserved. I couldn’t see how unhappy she was until it was too late to fix it. And I have to live with that.”

“Where is she now?”

Bill shrugs, a little wine sloshing out of his glass and splashing onto the white cotton of his shirt.

“Oh, no.” You put your own glass down, fingers going automatically to his buttons. “That’ll stain if we don’t get it in to soak.”

Bill lets you work his shirt open, holding his glass aloft as you tug his arm out of the sleeve. Your fingers ghost against his bare chest as he shrugs out of the other side, and your eyes drop to drink in the lightly toned expanse of his skin. “I’ll… I’ll put it in the sink, get some dish soap on it.” You mumble, fingers still splayed against his chest.

Bill’s fingers wrap around your wrist, holding your hand against him. “I have other shirts.”

“It’ll be ruined.”

“I’ll live.” His voice has dropped low, and he shifts his hips lightly as his cock throbs against the confines of his jeans.

Your hand is on fire. Bill’s chest is a searing point against your palm, and your heart beats in your throat as he flexes his long fingers against the pulse on your wrist. “When did your wife leave?”

“It’s been eighteen months. But she’d checked out a long time before that. We both had.”

You nod slowly, letting your fingers drag lightly down his chest. Bill sucks in a breath, stomach muscles tensing as your nails tease against his skin. “When did you last…” you trail off, and Bill feels a flush of embarrassment even as his cock aches.

“Before Sam was born.”

You still, eyes darting up to his face. “Sam turns four in a month.”

“I know.” He breathes shakily, hips lifting unconsciously towards your hand as it travels lower. “Believe me, I know.”

You press your thighs together as heat pools between your legs. “Doing the babysitter’s a cliché, isn’t it?”

Bill makes a choked sound, somewhere between a laugh and a sob. He can’t quite believe this is happening, that you’re here and you’re touching him like you want him as badly as he wants you. He can’t remember exactly what it feels like to have someone touch his cock because they want to, and not because there’s a ring on their finger. “You’re not like… my twelve year old neighbor.”

You raise an eyebrow, your fingers dipping just into the waistband of his jeans. “Well I should fucking hope not.”

Bill groans, shaking his head. “I mean… fuck. I can’t think.”

You hum, reaching your free hand for his belt and tugging the buckle loose. “Then don’t think, Mr Skarsgård. Just let me take care of it.”

Bill moans, his head dropping back onto the couch. You slip your hand inside his boxers, wrapping your fingers around the hot, silky length of him. You squeeze lightly, and Bill whimpers. “Please.”

You glide your hand up, thumbing over his tip to collect the precum there before dragging your palm down his shaft. Bill’s hips lift, fucking up into your hand with sharp upward thrusts, and you commit the sight of him falling apart so easily to memory. Your eyes drift to the hall, listening for any sign that the girls might be awake, but there’s no sound aside from the little grunts and groans coming from Bill.

He’s watching you, the pretty look of concentration on your face, the way you poke your tongue out of the corner of your mouth. He wants to push your face down, to force his cock down your throat and see how pretty you look then, but he’s a gentleman first and he’d never. Not without your enthusiastic consent, anyway.

“I like your cock, Mr Skarsgård.”

Bill’s eyes roll back. “Bill.”

“I don’t think so,” you coo, twisting your wrist as you squeeze around his sensitive, leaking head. “You gunna cum for me? You remember how to?”

Bill scoffs, the sound morphing into a breathless moan as you squeeze particularly tight. “I still… fuckin…” he groans, pressing his knuckles to his mouth to stifle a loud moan. “Jerk off.”

You lick your lips, watching him writhe and struggle. “You think about me when you do?”

Bill’s eyes open, his cheeks pinking. His pupils have blown wide, the dark eating the green of his irises. He sucks his full bottom lip into his mouth, sinking his teeth into the flesh, and your mouth fills with saliva. “Yeah,” he whispers. “All the time.”

You lean in then, pressing your mouth to his and pulling his lip between your own teeth, and Bill cums with a whine that vibrates against your tongue as he paints your fist and his stomach with his release. You pull away from the kiss first, and Bill lifts his head to chase your mouth, but you’re too quick. “Isn’t that better?”

Bill hums, eyes fixing on your swollen lips. “Can I… can I get you off?” His voice is thick and slurred, and your clit throbs.

“Not tonight. I really got to get going, Bill.”

Bill again, then. He forces a shrug through his disappointment. “Some other time, then.”

*

He’s going to lose his job. His boss glances up from her desk as Bill packs his bag, and her eyes flick to the clock. 3.15. He’s been leaving early almost every day, and you don’t comment on it anymore, don’t make him come up with some fake excuse for his arrival. Instead you smirk at him, gaze heating with the promise of bedtime, and Bill’s hurrying the girls through brushing their teeth and skipping pages of their story before flipping off the lights and closing the door.

He’s going to lose his job, but it’s hard to care about that with you bent over the kitchen island. You lift your skirt, a little pleated thing so reminiscent of a schoolgirl uniform that Bill was hard almost the moment he stepped foot in the apartment. It had been annoying, hiding his erection and trying to concentrate as Jess told him about her day and Sam showed him a picture she’d drawn of the family. Of two little girls, an absurdly tall daddy, and you. Standing next to him, your hair drawn in crayon, a big smile on your face. His family. It had almost been enough to make him cry, but then you’d dropped a fork and bent over right in front of him, flashing pink cotton panties, and Bill’s mind had focused down to a single, primal hunger.

“You’re a bad girl.” He mutters, leaning forward to tug on your ponytail as his hips snap against yours. “You’re a filthy little thing.”

You moan, rolling back to meet each thrust as his cock fills you and your arousal drips onto the kitchen floor. “M’sorry, Mr Skarsgård.”

Bill groans, reaching his free hand around your hip to rub messy circles against your clit. “Yeah, you’re sorry. You wanted this, didn’t you? Putting on that little skirt, giving me a show.”

“Yes,” you whimper, sinking your teeth into your bottom lip to stifle your moans as your orgasm builds in your core.

“Fuck,” Bill spits, eyes rolling back at the way you clench and flutter around him. “You like the way I fuck you?”

Your jaw goes slack as his cock brushes against a sensitive spot inside you. “Yessss,” you hiss. Bill’s fingers tighten in your hair, his fingers pinching and circling your swollen clit as he fucks against that spot over and over.

“You like playing mommy? Like taking daddy’s cock?”

You press your lips together, clamping down hard on his cock. You know he’s just talking shit, that he babbles like this when he’s close to cumming, but the taunt does something unpleasant to your insides.

“Shit, there you go. That’s a good fucking girl,” he coos. “Cum for me. Cum on my cock.”

You push his words from your mind, fluttering your muscles around him and focusing on the delicious friction of his fingers against you as the coil of arousal snaps in your stomach and you’re flooded with waves of toe-curling pleasure.

“Fuck, fuck, fuck,” you whimper, rocking back and forth against his hand as he impales you on his cock faster, harder.

“Oh shiiii-“ He groans, the hand in your hair pushing your face against the kitchen island as he stills inside you, shooting his load deep against your cervix.

By the time you’ve recovered enough strength in your legs to push up from the counter, Bill’s already tucked his cock away. He watches you, biting his lip at the shake in your legs as you lean against the island for support.

“Did I go too hard?”

“No.” You fix the front of your shirt, smoothing your skirt down over your ass. “But… it’s just… something you said kinda bothered me.”

Bill knows what you’re going to say. “I’m sorry.”

You raise an eyebrow. “I’m not… playing mommy. That’s not what this is.”

Bill nods, swallowing thickly. “I know.”

“I get that you say shit in the heat of the moment. I know you didn’t mean it.”

Bill rocks back on his heels. “Maybe I did, though.”

“I… don’t follow.” You say slowly, feeling your stomach churn. If that’s what he thought of you, that you were trying to replace the girls’ mother… you’d quit. You’d have to.

“It’s not like I think you’re doing anything wrong.” He starts, running a hand back through his hair. “It’s more like I… wish you were. Their mom.”

It’s like all the air is sucked out of the room. Like Bill’s wrenched the air out of your lungs. “You don’t mean that.”

“I do.” Bill folds his arms across his chest. “You’re so good with them. You cook and you clean and you fuck me better than anyone else ever has. I wish I’d met you first.”

You fight the urge to laugh at the stubborn, simplistic innocence of him. “You pay me.”

“I’m not paying you to fuck me. Or to… care about me.”

“No.” You agree softly, stepping closer and tugging his arms away from his chest, bracketing them around your waist instead. “And I do care about you, Bill. And the girls, of course. But this is… this is a fantasy. I’m fulfilling a fantasy for you.”

Bill shakes his head, fingers tightening on your hips. “I’m in love with you.”

Your heart aches. “What’s my last name?”

Bill blinks at you. “What?”

“Where was I born? Are my parents still together? Do I have any pets?”

Bill shakes his head. “Why are you fighting me on this?”

You reach up and curl your fingers around the back of his neck, bringing his face to yours so you can press your lips against his. “You don’t love me, Bill. But I think you’re ready for it. To be in love again.”

Bill releases your hips to cup your face in his big hands, pressing your lips open and licking his tongue into your mouth. You sigh into it, relishing the taste of him and the warm weight of his hands on your cheeks.

You break the kiss, because you’re always the one who does. “Not with me.”

Bill frowns, tugging you back and sucking your bottom lip into his mouth. His thigh pushes up between your legs, denim grazing over your sensitive core through your soaked panties, and you whine into his mouth.

You pull away, eyes dropping to the movement of his thigh. “Why not with you?” His voice is thick and low, and he licks slowly over his lips. “You want me.”

You hum, eye fluttering shut at the friction of him dragging against your clit through the layers of fabric. “You need someone… on your level.” You gasp, and Bill takes the moment to wrap an arm around your ass and lift you onto the counter. He pushes your skirt up and slips his fingers into your underwear, pushing two long digits inside you to squelch through the mess of cum he’d left behind.

“You’re on my level. Fuck, you’re out of my league.”

“That’s…” you break off, sucking a shaking breath into your lungs. “That’s not what I mean. I… I’m not ready for you.”

Bill scoffs, curling his fingers inside you. “Feels pretty fucking ready.”

You force your eyes open, pressing your hands to his shoulders. “I don’t want to be a mother.”

Bill’s fingers freeze inside you, his cock deflating like you’d doused him in ice. “What?”

“I’m not ready to have kids. I like kids, I’m good with them. But I’m too young to even think about having my own. Or raising someone elses.”

Bill pulls his fingers out of you, fighting the urge to suck the mess off of them as he wipes his hand on his jeans. “But you love the girls.”

You nod, pressing your teeth into your lip. “They’re fantastic. And one day I hope to have my own, just like them. But that’s… years away. It’s not now. I’m going back to school, I want to travel. I’m not ready for this to be it.”

Bill flinches, stepping back. You don’t know that his wife had said almost the exact same thing to him before she walked out the door. You can’t know how much it hurts him to hear it again, right when he’d really started to believe you were his second chance. “I’m not trying to tie you down.”

You smile softly. “You can tie me up, Mr Skarsgård. But not down.”

“Is this your… formal resignation?” He asks, his voice tight as he tries very hard not to lose it.

“Do you need it to be?”

Bill considers this. “I don’t want you to go. But… I think I’m gunna get fired if I keep leaving work early and I can’t not leave early when I know you’re here.”

You nod slowly. “Then I think we need to find you a babysitter you don’t wanna fuck.”

Bill laughs, the sound harsh to his own ears. “Can I keep fucking you anyway?”

You roll your eyes. “You gunna ask me my last name?”

Bill grins. “No.”

You lean forward, hooking a finger into his waistband and tugging him closer until you can wrap your legs around his waist. “Then do your worst, Mr Skarsgård.”

~~~

It had seemed like a good idea in theory, inviting your friends over to the house to help you get ready for guests later that week, but this company was already enough to leave you exhausted of energy.

You were having some family over in just a couple of days, and you weren’t optimistic about getting the place looking presentable all on your own. You’d reached out to your neighbors, just hoping for an extra set of hands or two, but of course they told their own friends, some of whom you were only acquaintances with at best, and cleaning the house had devolved into a little party of its own.

When you have a waterside home, people will practically invite themselves.

To be fair, the two women who owned the properties closest to yours had been helpful, and a guy who lived a ways down the road waited until your kitchen looked legitimately polished before he started drinking, but he ended up asleep in an armchair instead of driving back to his own residence.

At present, you sit peering sidelong out the wide window overlooking the shoreline with your head propped up in one hand, the only one awake who hasn’t gone home or passed out on your couch or in one of your chairs.

That’s when you notice a flicker of movement along the dock below. You think it’s just a trick of the light, now that the sun has long since gone down, and the water has a funny way of bouncing its light and shadows off of every surface.

But a flash of something lighter catches your eye, and that is decidedly out of place— nothing and no one should be down in your yard at this hour of the night, and suddenly, you're alert and alarmed.

“Do you guys see that?” You blurt without even thinking about it.

Of course, your only answers are the snores and quiet breathing of the neighbors and friends who have already crashed.

“Anna?” You try, shaking the person physically closest to you, but even as you jostle her shoulder, she doesn’t rise, just mumbles in tired annoyance.

“Some help you are,” you murmur, getting up out of your own chair and slipping out the door.

A cool breeze instantly hits your face, and despite the uncertainty you’re plagued with, it’s refreshing.

The night air is quiet for a moment, save for the steady hum of the crickets, but the sound of footsteps has you reflexively turning to the right.

Sure as shit, your worst fears are confirmed as you see a figure standing on the wooden dock but, thank god, not looking in your direction. At least not yet.

You don’t have any sort of weapon on you, and for all you know, this could be an armed thief, an actual outlaw and not just a common trespasser.

Maybe this is a bad idea, you think, but oh god, the tall figure bends down to untie the boat you have fastened to the dock, and what are you supposed to do, just sit and watch while a thief steals your goddamn motorboat?

Fuck it. You hurry down the porch steps, considering shouting to announce yourself, but thinking better of it when you remember that you don’t know who it is or what they want, and you’re not trying to get yourself killed over a boat. (Even a very nice and painfully expensive one that you had saved up to buy for a long time.)

You dash down the grass to the docks, where the land cuts off and you have to descend the creaky wooden steps that’ll alert the figure— a man, if you had to guess— of your presence.

It was a miracle you didn’t trip as you’d gone so fast, but your luck was bound to run out and your footsteps make for quite some noise as you’re closing the distance between you and the unfamiliar man on your dock.

Any fear in your body immediately dissipates, however, as you see he doesn’t look like a calculating criminal, but a literal fool as he fumbles with the thick rope in his hands and nearly drops it into the water below as the sound of you startles him.

Muttering curses under his breath, the tall stranger slowly rises to his full height, regarding you as you stand at the edge of the steps with narrowed eyes.

“This…,” he searches for words, “is not what it looks like.”

“Hm,” you hum, “really now? Because from what it looks like to me, there’s a bumbling idiot on my dock trying to steal my boat.”

“No, no,” the man is nervously shaking his head, “not stealing it! I’m just, ah, borrowing it.”

“You’re borrowing it?” You raise your eyebrows skeptically.

The young man nods like he’s dead serious.

“Yes.”

“Well, in my experience, most people, oh, I don’t know, ask before they go borrowing other people’s things?” You can’t help yourself from dryly laughing at his pathetic justification.

“I’m in a hurry,” he says, like that excuses it, “I’m sorry if I didn’t stop to ask permission.”

“Fuck that logic,” you say, “you’re not borrowing any of my shit. Go bother somebody else,” and with that, you step closer to him, trying to snag the rope from out of his grip, only the young man reflexively pulls it up so your hand misses it.

It seems your sharp tongue doesn’t have the effect you expected on him, as he isn’t looking scandalized or intimidated, but he’s smiling like he’d enjoyed it.

“Ma’am,” he grins, “I am a gentleman. I never said I would borrow it without doing something for you in return. Do I look like someone who’d just run off without repaying you?”

“Yes,” you reply without hesitation.

Still, the thief is undeterred, and all he’s doing is laughing in amusement.

“Well, damn,” he murmurs, “I had to try.”

And, to your own dismay, you’re finding yourself charmed by the sound of his laughter echoing over the still water. This thief can’t know that, though, there’s not a chance you’re going to give him the satisfaction.

Outwardly, you still appear fed up with his antics as you scowl at him.

“Who the hell do you think you are?” You suddenly ask.

“Clark Olofsson,” he replies, letting the rope fall onto the wooden dock as he holds out a hand for you to take, “a pleasure.”

You shake his hand hesitantly, not sure of what to make of the strange way your heart rate picks up in your chest, as if this wasn’t the face of a thief you’d never seen before, as if you’d met before— or, less like you had met before, and more like you’d been expecting to meet him before it even happened.

Dropping his hand (he had nice hands, an appealing shape to his fingers that made your face heat, however irritatingly), you tried to shake off the weird, pointless contemplation.

You exhale.

“Clark,” you try to reel yourself in, “why exactly should I let you temporarily borrow my vessel?”

The sheer formality of your language, like this is a serious negotiation, has him grinning again.

“I need to get out of town,” he explains.

You look around the area, like anything in your immediate vicinity would actually give you answers.

“Do you think I’m an imbecile? If you’re skipping town, that seems like a reason not to give it to you.”

“Just for a few days,” he insists, raising a hand in mock-surrender, “I can come back, no problem.”

“Why do you need to leave?” Your suspicion is audible in your voice.

“I had a… very small misunderstanding,” Clark stammers, “with the local authorities.”

Great. So this is an actual criminal, standing here on your docks. (And flashing an infuriatingly cute smile at you, every chance he gets. Not really something befitting of an imposing offender.)

“And you need to lay low for a couple days,” you finish for him.

“Yeah, well—” Clark shrugs. “Yeah.”

“While I’m sympathetic to your plight,” you walk down the length of the dock, advancing towards him where he’s still positioned closer to the end of the structure, “I’m still having some trouble seeing what’s in it for me.”

“Oh,” Clark is chuckling now, “I understand. You’d make a good businesswoman,” he states, and then pauses, “are you a businesswoman?”

You laugh, honestly tempted to tell him the details of your life, but not wanting to risk it, should he get caught and rat you out to the police (with or without a boat in his possession that belongs to you).

“I’m persuasive, is what I am,” you say instead, stepping past him and brushing shoulders with Clark, who nearly trips over the rope laying beneath him in his hurry to turn around and face you, “or so I’ve been told.”

“And do you negotiate with threats, or are you motivated by reward?” He asks, and you don’t miss the way he wets his lips as he looks down at you.

“Well, that depends,” you fight to keep your voice even as you’re pretending not to be at all aroused, “what can you offer me? If only so we can say that violence was my last resort, and that you earnestly tried to reason with me first,” you tease. By the time you’re done speaking, you’ve returned to stand where you’d been before, and the rope docking the boat is caught around one of Clark’s ankles and not to mention your own, keeping you rather entwined.

Whatever. As long as he can’t make a quick getaway anymore, and you’d have more than a moment’s notice to try to stop him if he bolts.

Clark doesn’t seem to notice, or chooses to ignore this detail entirely.

“I can pay you,” he coaxes, smirking in a way that’s far too suggestive for you to ignore it.

“Pay me how?” You question, skeptically eying him.

“I can get money,” he looks serious now, offended at your insinuation that he wouldn’t actually pay you. Or at least not with anything of monetary value. He has no doubt that you’re both thinking of the other ways he could potentially pay you.

Nevertheless, he continues.

“I don’t have it now, but I can get it,” he insists, “I’ll have it when I come back.”

You bark a humorless laugh.

“When you come back? Nice try, Clark. Why would you come back to pay off your little debt to me when you could just leave and not look back?”

“Come on, now,” he slyly smiles at you again, “I’m a man of my word,” he steps closer to you, untangling one of his ankles that’s been wrapped with rope, “and how could I pass up the chance to see a pretty face like yours again?”

Your whole body tenses up.

Oh, so this is happening. His flirtation hadn’t just been in your head— he wasn’t just generally charming, he was flirting with you. You specifically.

“If you really mean that,” you start, clearing your throat before you can carry on, “well… we could both get a reward when you come back.”

“Oh? And what would that look like?” Clark grins, even as he edges backwards like he’s nervous that you’re going to try to take what you want from him right this second.

“How do you prefer it? Clothes on, clothes off…?” You suggest, stepping around him to gesture towards the motorboat. “Not in the boat, I wouldn’t particularly recommend that.”

“Anything,” Clark murmurs reverently, “whatever you want, you can have anything you want if you let me borrow it a day or two.”

Your mouth curves into a full smile now.

“Consider it done. But,” you quickly add, stepping defensively in front of your motorboat before you would even let him get in it, “I meant it when I said I wouldn’t recommend doing anything in the boat. Anything,” you grit, hoping to drive the point home, “get it dirty and I’ll kill you.”

“Yes, ma’am,” he agreeably nods, lightly chuckling again.

The moment you step out of his way, Clark bends down (he has a nice ass too, you can’t help but notice) to finish untying the last knot of rope anchoring the boat to your docks.

“I’ll be back in two, three days? It’ll be quick,” he eagerly insists, finally hopping into the vessel itself.

When you see the wide sneer on his face as he’s about to start the engine up, you bite the inside of your lip, pausing.

“Clark?” You call, before he can get very far, and he’s still just floating there.

He turns to look at you, wide-eyed when he notices how your confidence has visibly vanished.

“How do I know you won’t just, what, fuck off and leave with my boat and never come back?”

You try to focus on the issue of the motorboat, hiding the fact that never seeing Clark Olofsson’s face again would be a separate disappointment of its own.

“I told you,” he insists, tentatively smiling once more, “I can’t go too long without seeing your beauty again, now that I’ve had the pleasure of meeting you.”

“Little fucking flirt,” you snicker under your breath, but you quickly fix your gaze on him with a deadly severity. “I’m serious though, Clark. If a week goes by and you’re still not back, I’m sure my local authorities would be very interested to hear the name Clark Olofsson, not to mention a description of the vessel that he stole.”

His face falls at that.

“How could you say such a thing, sweetheart?” He asks, clearly disappointed. “Just when I thought we had come to an agreement.”

You’re almost stunned speechless at the spontaneous pet name, when usually a complete stranger calling you “sweetheart” would make you… homicidal, for lack of a better word, but when Clark did it, fuck— there was no lack of sex appeal, put it that way.

“We have,” you manage, “I just…” you sigh, trailing off without looking away from Clark.

The unspoken words “I don’t trust you” hang in the air between you both, and Clark’s brows are furrowed as he scrutinizes you from his seat in the boat, but he isn’t going to turn on the engine and speed off into the night without making sure you’re on the same page first. (No matter how much easier that might be for him.)

“Maybe I should come with you,” your eyes anxiously scan over the polished wood of your prized possession that an unmistakably concerned Clark Olofsson is still sitting in.

“No, that won’t be necessary,” he hurriedly assures you. “As I said, this will be a three day trip at most.”

You heavily exhale, shifting your gaze from the rippling waves reflecting on the white underside of the boat up to the man currently within it.

“If you’re absolutely positive you’re coming back,” you relent, taking a step away.

Clark beams.

“Without a doubt,” he declares as he finally starts the engine, “anything for a fine young lady such as yourself.”

You don’t even want to consider what kind of damage he’s already done to the boat by jumpstarting it without keys, or how he even achieved that.

Either way, he still isn’t speeding off, but allowing it to drift across the dark, quaint waves very slowly, so he has plenty of time for more reassurances in this now prolonged, awkward goodbye.

“I’ll have her back to you, still good as new!” He loudly promises, needlessly cupping his hands over his mouth before he’s even all that far away.

Your amusement is becoming harder to hide as he excitedly shouts at you while the motorboat carries him slowly, slowly towards the other end of the distant shore, so you still try to mask it with sarcasm.

“Remember what I said!” You call out to him. “You get it dirty, you're dead. Don’t you dare have an orgy on my damn boat!”

“I won’t!” Clark calls back, “a motorboat is hardly the place to organize a sex party. And trust me, I would know all the best places!”

“I’m sure that you do,” you laugh, half to yourself.

The word “slut” is on the tip of your tongue, but you don’t say it lest you piss him off and risk Clark changing his mind on the terms of your little deal.

“Be careful out there,” you’re shouting across the water instead.

Clark waves a hand, no doubt saying something else that’s supposed to be of reassurance as the waves gently rock the craft.

And you watch until the boat itself and the figure in it are hardly visible, the vessel a red and white blur drifting in the direction of the horizon.

~~~

A few days have indeed gone by, just like Clark said they would, yet you can’t help but worry about whether he’ll keep to his word.

Your family had come and gone, and throughout the duration of the event, you couldn’t keep from glancing out to the shore, half expecting to see the red and white form of your familiar boat in the distance. (You wouldn’t put it past Clark to turn up in broad daylight, he had seemed unpredictable enough. That is, if he ever decides to come back at all.)

Luckily, no one had commented on the empty space between your docks, nor on the way your eyes kept wandering away from your family members and out towards the water.

You’ve been wondering whether you had just been swindled, manipulated into letting a madman steal your property just because he had the advantage of being physically attractive, and you had been a complete and utter idiot.

Some policemen had even come knocking on your door, and that was the most unnerving part of all, the part that made the gravity of your spontaneous decision feel real.

They hadn’t said Clark’s name or anything, but they’d come sniffing because some neighbors in the area had had their houses broken into, and they wanted to know if you had seen any suspicious activity.

The knowledge shouldn’t have been surprising, but it made you uncomfortably swallow.

You lied, of course, dismissing the notion and giggling nervously like it was something ridiculous— hopefully in a manner that made you look innocent instead of adding suspicion onto yourself.

One of the men had looked out a window, no doubt observing the docks that looked like they were intentionally designed with room for a craft of some kind, and yet the space between the left and right docks sat empty.

“Have you got a boat?” The man asked.

“Yes,” you replied instantly, but as the man opened his mouth to ask the dreaded follow-up question, you went on, “I’m just letting a friend borrow it. Nobody here has reported their boats going missing, have they?” You sounded falsely concerned, looking up at the once skeptical police officer wide-eyed.

“No, not yet. Probably nothing you need to worry about,” he said.

Brushing off your gut reaction to the subtle condescension, you forced a smile.

“Still, I really appreciate your concern, sir.”

And shortly after, your underwhelming answers had got the cops to leave you alone, and you couldn’t contain the shaking sigh that escaped you when you finally closed your front door to them all.

That had been jarring, leaving you unnerved on a level you’d never before been unsettled on. The threat of getting caught in a lie and subsequently punished wasn’t an idea that you cherished.

Perhaps you should have thought things through before you’d basically let a delinquent sail off into the sunset in your boat.

Now, you’re positioned in your perch by the widest window— it’s become a bit of a habit since Clark.

Blanky looking towards the water but not really seeing it, you wonder whether it’s stupid to hope for him to return still.

To be fair, we agreed it could be three days, the pesky thought nags at your brain, as perhaps some part of your mind can discern that wallowing in your own supposed stupidity over this won’t get you anywhere.

And besides, maybe he isn’t actually allergic to subtlety, and he could be waiting until nighttime.

Yeah. Yeah, that seems plausible.

With that in mind, you sit yourself down in a chair outside, not far from the dock, where you can overlook the expanse of the water. You enjoy a good view of the sunset from there as well, but your senses are heightened and your heart beats a little faster once the light has faded and a boat could pop up anywhere within the slight fog, and at any time now, for all that you knew.

You can hardly believe it when, right on time, a familiar shape is visible floating in the foggy distance. And when you stand up, shooting out of your chair to get a better look at it, you can see the tall figure standing at the front of it, turning his head left and right, no doubt scanning the distant shore like he’s looking for the right house. Your house, you remind yourself, your dock, since he’s in your boat and still looking to see you.

That sends a thrill all through your body, but maintaining your earlier attitude matters to you, damnit, so you hastily get back into your chair, folding one of your legs over the other.

You watch as he gets the motorboat oriented in the right direction, and as the vessel itself crawls along the midnight blue waves, dragging him towards you at a painfully slow pace.

Tucking your legs closer together, you lean back, reclining further in the chair.

When Clark steers the boat closer to your docks, and it seems he’ll be in earshot again, you call out to him.

“Well, look who it is,” you yell, with practiced nonchalance.

He doesn’t immediately respond, perhaps too busy trying to tie the boat up to the dock now, if he had even heard you at all.

“Took you long enough,” you add, just for good measure.

At that, he looks up and shoots you a smile.

“Can’t rush perfection,” he distantly shouts, whatever the fuck that means.

“God,” you’re cursing under your breath as you stand up again, “son of a bitch, you wanna be vague, you wanna play games, fine, I’m great at games, I’m great at teasing,” you comment to yourself, and by the time you reach the end of your once-internal monologue, you’ve made it across the yard, and you now stand atop the steps down to the docks.

You let Clark finish fastening the boat to the left side of the dock before piping up again.

“You know,” you mention, “I was beginning to think you weren’t gonna show. Beginning to think those damn cops were right.”

“Ah,” Clark brushes it off, “I always— hey, wait, what cops?” He abruptly interrupts himself.

You bite your tongue to contain your laughter at his confused indignation.

“The ones that visited my house,” you briskly explain with a shrug, “told me you were a lying hooligan who can’t drive a boat for shit.”

Clark glares at you.

“They did not say that.”

“No, they didn’t,” you agree, “that’s just my takeaway from this whole… charade.”

He huffs, and he’s pouting a little bit.

“Come on, now,” he scoffs, “not even a little happy to see me?”

“I’m happy to see my motorboat back in one piece,” you offer as he hops out of it and onto the dock.

“Ah,” Clark is smiling again, “not a scratch on her, I swear on my life.”

“I hope you’re right, for your own sake, Mr. Olofsson,” you tease, “because I’ll be meticulously inspecting her when we’re done here.”

“Done with what?” He jokes, faux-innocently grinning at you. “All we’ve done is talk.”

“We have lots to talk about, Clark,” you insist.

He’d left you waiting for days, so now you’re going to make him wait, as long as you both can take it.

“How were your travels?”

“Huh,” he cracks up again, “uneventful. I wouldn’t describe them as travels,” he says.

“What,” you frown mockingly at him, “running from the cops isn’t fun?”

“It’s the best,” Clark said seriously, “it’s simply… some days are better than others.”

“So what, you just hid behind some bushes for two days, not interacting with any other human beings?”

“Not two days straight, that would be enough time spent in bushes even for me.”

“Shut the fuck up,” you reflexively blurt before Clark could laugh at any of his own innuendos.

(If there had been any doubt in your mind that he’s a self-proclaimed lady’s man, that erases said doubt.)

Still, he’s tittering as you walk down the steps so you’re closer to his level on the dock. But now that you are, any of the height you’d had on him that you’d enjoyed at the top of the stairs is gone, and you’re reminded of just how damn tall this man is.

All he does is smile as you peer up at him, with all the disapproval you can muster.

“Whatever, or should I say whoever you did over the course of the last couple days, you had me thinking you’d stolen my boat,” you gripe.

“Hey, now,” Clark defends himself, “I was alone for most of those two days, I didn’t have time to sleep with anyone at all.”

“You didn’t have time?” You repeat, almost breaking up into disbelieving laughter.

“Eh, why would I, anyhow? I had a better plan lined up,” he insists, and it's his turn to shrug. “Why would I go off to find someone else when I knew I’d see a fine woman in just two days’ time?”

“Oh really, now? And how would you describe this… fine woman of yours?”

“Well, she’s standing in front of me,” he notes, and in Clark’s head, it had been perfectly smooth.

But despite the fact that he doesn’t even answer your question, you forge right ahead.

“I don’t believe you. About not seeing other women, I mean,” you boldly claim, “but what’s it to me? You brought my boat back in one piece, so I think we’re just about done here.”

Clark looks offended at your implicit rejection— you hadn’t even outright stated it, just implied that you didn’t want to fuck him, even if he’d been looking forward to you doing just that for the last forty eight hours— he doesn’t get a chance to talk.

“But first,” you advance towards him, placing a hand on his shoulder and lazily letting it wander down his chest. You aren’t surprised that teasing Clark would get a reaction out of him, as he apparently doesn’t like to wait either; he’s staring intensely at your hand where it strays lower, just before you take it away.

“Recompense. Now.”

“Oh,” Clark hums with understanding, “I have that.”

You watch him reach back over into the boat, pulling out a bag that he hadn’t paid any mind to in his haste to get out of the thing and closer to you. From a compartment in it, he pulls out a wad of cash, and suddenly he’s holding out his hand to you, presenting far more than you’d expected from a petty thief.

You might have underestimated him.

Just a glance tells you that this is more money than you’d anticipated. Too much.

“I…I don’t know if I should take all this,” you warily take a step back, “where exactly did you get it?”

“I never reveal my tricks,” he smirks, “I’m too smart.”

“Bullshit,” you retort, “where did it come from?”

“Let’s say it’s the reason I also need to leave the other side of town,” he tries, “is that a sufficient explanation for you, hm?”

“Christ,” you breathe, thinking of what the police officers who’d interrogated you had actually said. “Is this really what you get from robbing houses?”

“Not just houses,” he grins.

“Never mind, I don’t even wanna know the details,” you cut him off before he can launch into any kind of story, anything that would make you change your mind. “Just… as long as no one’s going to come looking for this money and beat my ass, I’ll take it.”

Clark is happily laughing again.

“They won’t come looking for you,” he brags, “I can guarantee you that. I’m the young handsome rebel they’ll be tearing the place up to find.”

His self-satisfied remark is the last thing you can stand to hear.

“You little bitch,” you hiss, grabbing his wrist and pulling him closer the best you can.

Surprised as you jerk him closer, Clark’s eyes widen.

You swipe the cash out of his hand and pocket it, but you don’t let go with your other hand.

“Clark, you need to learn some fucking humility. You are lucky you’re attractive.”

“So you think I’m attractive?” He asks without missing a beat, sneering even as you pull on the material of his dark jacket.

“No shit,” you shoot back, “you think I would’ve let you take my boat if I didn’t think you’d come back and… repay me?”

“Why didn’t you say that right away? We could’ve done it multiple times over by now,” he suggests.

Before you can refute his claim— you haven’t been out here that long— he wriggles out of your grip.

“At least let me take this off,” he’s about to slip off his leather jacket, but you stop him, grasping him by the wrist again.

“No.”

“No?”

“No, Clark,” you spit, “you basically blueballed me for three days, I’m not going to wait anymore.”

Clark laughs with genuine mirth once more.

“Really?” He asks, unbothered by your tone.

You let go of his wrist, but not before you turn so that you’re the one closer to the edge of the dock, and you can push Clark to the ground without worrying about accidentally sending him stumbling back into the water.

And you do push him down— not into the ever-darkening waves, thank fuck— so that he’s laying on his back atop the sturdy wooden dock.

“God,” he rasps, “I like you.”

“Yeah?” Your lips tug up into an involuntary smile, in spite of how you’ve been trying to stay stern and look mad. “Maybe I like you too,” you might as well admit it.

You’re already practically sitting on him, and shit, you're only a little embarrassed to admit that just the sight of him had gotten you wet, from the moment he’d been standing on your docks again.

Convenient that you’d worn a skirt today, so that you could so easily toss your underwear off and leave them on one of the wide wooden panels without a second thought.

Clark’s already scrambling to undo his own pants, and he stutters on a groan as he sees you suddenly bare beneath your skirt for him.

You reach down to help him, sliding them down, and licking your lips once Clark has adjusted himself and his half-hard cock is on display for you.

“Yeah,” you darkly chuckle to yourself, “that’s it.”

Clark is mischievously laughing all the same, even if your forward nature has him increasingly breathless.

You’re going to leave him senseless, and he knows it.

He lays back, resting his head on the wooden panels of the dock, excitedly parting his legs to make space for you to get between them.

“How’s that?” He tilts his head up again to peer at you, the slant of another smile on his face.

“Stay down,” you tell him, “I can already see you. But yes, this is good,” you crawl up his body.

Clark holds his hands up, a playful show of further surrender, and the look on his face doesn’t falter.

“If you want what it is you came back for,” you tease, “you’ll stay still for me. Yeah, Clark?”

His chest is rising and falling noticeably quicker as you assume his excitement gets the better of him, because it can’t be nerves when he’s so eager.

“Yeah,” he nods enthusiastically. “Easy.”

Smiling in satisfaction, you once again place a hand on his chest, languidly trailing along the length of his body until you stop at his cock. You wrap your hand around him, rubbing and stroking, just for a second, listening to him audibly gasping with pleasure.

You know that voices carry at night. You just don’t really give a fuck right now.

Seeing if you can make him even louder, you swipe the precum now glistening at the head and give him a squeeze, which sure enough has him crying out.

He curses when you pull both your hands off, in one swift motion.

“I told you,” you insistently murmur, “you made me wait. Don’t be surprised if I make you do the same.”

“Hang on,” Clark shudders, maybe looking to negotiate with you as he thinks you’re going to stop touching him altogether. He’s wrong, of course.

You pull up your skirt again, line yourself up with your hands positioned on his chest as you’re all over all of a sudden, and now that he’s fully hard you have no trouble sliding onto his length.

Clark is exhaling in surprise, an unfettered sigh of pleasure leaving him as you hiss, adjusting to the not unpleasant stretch of his cock, far from minding the overwhelming press of it inside you after you’ve been empty for so goddamn long.

His hands come up to wrap around your waist, but you slap his arm away, wanting to be in control without him getting in the way.

“Sorry,” he mindlessly murmurs, and you could laugh at how thoughtless, how suddenly compliant he is.

“That’s right,” you tell him, “if you let me do this, you’re gonna like it.”

Clark groans again, unable to even feign patience as you’re still sitting over him but not even flinching, and that isn’t stimulation enough for him apparently.

You suppose he’s been good enough so far, though, so you dig your nails in to grip him and start thrusting, rolling your hips over his cock in a teasing rhythm that has him abruptly sobbing.

“Yes, yes,” he hisses out under his breath, and you yourself groan low in your throat, undeniably encouraged by the desperate sound of his words.

You slide yourself up, just as quickly dropping back down and pushing him up inside you to the hilt, and Clark gasps.

“Fuck,” he sobs, and you change the angle you’re at, grabbing his shoulders and repeating the motion until you’re properly bouncing on him, fast enough to make his head spin.

Clark’s hands reach for anything to grab onto where his arms are above his head, but he can’t exactly reach one of the poles of the dock, and so he finds his fingers harshly digging into the old wood instead.

Since he had allowed you this control, every time you slide back on his cock you can reach the spot inside you that makes your clit throb and your fists clench around the fabric in your hands— Clark doesn’t seem to mind this position either as he moans.

“Jesus Christ,” you mutter under your breath, without even slightly slowing.

“What?” Clark pants.

“Nothing, just,” you sigh, as you’re still thrusting your hips just right so that he’s perfectly deep and each hit drags you closer to orgasm, “you just really do sound like a slut,” you comment.

The name-calling doesn’t seem to bother Clark as he groans, and his eyes roll back as you only speed up.

“Yeah, you like that?” You’re openly teasing him again. “You gonna disagree with me?”

“No,” he barely manages to grit it out, “no, you're not wrong.”

“That’s what I thought,” you breathily laugh, scratching him a bit as you grasp at his shoulders.

For a moment, you allow your eyes to flutter shut, and even though that seems to make your other senses sharper, part of the pleasure is being able to watch this beautiful man writhing and moaning beneath you, watch the way his face contorts in pleasure and he gasps open-mouthed for air.

“God, you’re gorgeous,” you can’t help but muse when you look down at him again. “You might act like a slut, but you sure look good while doing it.”

Clark is crying with delight once more, and his own eyes are rolling back and shutting.

It’s only a couple more seconds of fucking him like this before he’s shouting again, and you realize he’s genuinely close now.

“Ah, ah—!” He sobs, “fuck!”

Clark is clenching his hands into fists in lieu of uselessly dragging them along the panels of the dock, now.

“Oh,” he’s moaning, “oh—” and that’s all the warning you get before Clark is already done, coming with another gasp as he fills you up, and god, normally you might not have been there yourself, but you’d already been close from your carefully angled ride atop him, and the sensation has you squeezing him, milking his orgasm until he cries out like he’s in pain at the feeling.

You can’t do anything for him, though, not as the entire world seems to have fallen away, you have no sway over what your own body does and you don’t care if you two are loud enough that unsuspecting people all the way on the other shoreline will hear your voices reverberating over the expanse of the water— you don’t give a damn that you’re outside on a dock where some neighbor could see you, no less, because damn them all to hell, it’s just you and Clark, as far as you’re concerned.

When you can register what the hell is going on again, you let go of Clark and rest your hands over the wood after you’d probably left marks on his skin.

Aside from your heavy sighs and Clark’s own labored breathing, it’s just the stillness of the cobalt water, with only an occasional early cricket chirping to break the silence.

“That,” you breathe out, “was good.”

“Worth the wait?” Clark quips.

“Don’t push it,” you counter, sitting up and pulling off of him. “I had some notes.”

“Notes?”

“Yeah. Could’ve been longer, you know,” you grab your underwear and pull them back on, unable to hide your smirk as Clark sighs in defeat instead of arguing with you.

You watch, still entranced with every movement he makes, as he fixes up his pants.

“Take it as a compliment,” you jest, “that I didn’t want it to end.”

“That,” Clark hums as he pulls himself up into a standing position, “I can live with.”

You can’t help but laugh, giddy, as you get up to join him. You do eye your motorboat, scrutinizing where Clark has tied it up to the docks, and though you were skeptical about his ability to operate the damn thing, it looks secure, and you don’t feel the need to make a show of fixing it.

You nod approvingly, quite liking the scene of your boat back in its proper place on the left, and Clark to your right, stretching himself out as he looks down into the waves that lap against the banks.

“… You know, if the cops don’t come knocking on your door again, I could lay low here for a day or so,” Clark suddenly suggests.

Instantaneously, you turn to regard him, to see if he’s kidding, but the look on his face is even, calm.

You take his hand, already inclined to lead him from the dock into your house.

“If that’s what you want,” you snicker.

“I’d like that very much,” he says, “if you’ll have me.”

“Oh, I’ll have you,” you’re already teasing him again, and judging by the low chuckle in the back of his throat, you can tell that this is going to be a good long night before either of you get a wink of sleep.

~~~

Tagging: @soap-bucket-9540, @scarletpresencescythe, and @thedevotchka whose own Clark fic motivated me to get my ass in gear and share my writing for him ahah.

“It would be… detrimental to his progress.” You say carefully, trying to keep your voice level and your face expressionless.

“In your opinion.”

You suck in a breath, pushing your fingers against the edge of your desk to stop the shaking in your hands. They were pulling Eric off your patient list. You’d rescinded the request, but it didn’t matter. The decision had been made. “He’s given me six new names. Dates, everything. He’s opening up.”

“Alright.” Your boss leans in, and the man beside her shifts uncomfortably in his seat. “Cards on the table, doctor. We don’t really care whether Mr Draven makes progress here or not. The state pay for his room, and we’re to keep him locked up until he can be released or not, as the case may be.”

You frown, feeling your face heat. “That isn’t what I signed up for, I want to help.”

She raises an eyebrow, her glasses slipping down her nose. “Oh, I know very well how much you’ve been helping Mr Draven.”

Your stomach flips over and bottoms out, and your pulse is a thunder in your throat. “I don’t know what you-“

“Cut the bullshit.” She spits in a clipped tone. The man beside her glances over before his eyes return to the papers on his lap. “There are cameras everywhere. An orderly on your floor grew suspicious and we checked the logs. It’s over.” She sits back, taking a deep breath. “You’re a good doctor, and lord knows we’re short on those around here. I don’t want to fire you, not over misconduct with one patient. But I will if you don’t sit down, shut up and let me handle this before it becomes a PR nightmare.”

You press your lips together, nodding your head curtly. You’re not going to argue, not when they have evidence. Not when you do deserve to be fired. And not when getting fired would mean never seeing Eric again. “I understand. I… regret my actions. It won’t happen again.”

“No, it won’t.” She sighs. “You’re getting off lightly here. Really lightly. Don’t make me regret it.”

You watch as they stand, and the man’s fingers are wrapped around the doorhandle when you blurt- “who is taking his case? Just so I can, you know, pass on my notes.”

She frowns, and the man clears his throat. “Dr Ramirez. He’s good with… harder cases.”

You swallow. Dr Ramirez is good with harder cases because he’s a fucking sadist. Your boy won’t last five minutes with him. No, no, no.

You’re still arguing with yourself as you swipe into his cell. All pretence of waiting for him to fasten his cuffs is gone, and he rises to a stand the moment you step inside. “This is a surp-“

“Stop.” You say, holding up your hand. Because if he comes close, if he touches you, you’ll melt into him or you’ll take his clothes off and there isn’t time for that right now. “They’re pulling you from my patient list.”

Eric freezes, his face solidifying to stone. “I thought you took it back.”

“I did. They… they know. About me and you. About all the things I’ve… they know.”

Eric swallows. “You getting fired?” He feels his own guts roil at the thought, the thought of not seeing you anymore and the worse thought of having to start all this over again with another doctor when he’s so close to getting what he wants.

“No.” You huff a laugh. “Short on doctors, can’t afford to lose me as long as I promise never to do it again.”

“You don’t have any patients as hot as me.” Eric smirks, and you roll your eyes.

“I’m not staying. I can’t.”

A muscle in his jaw ticks as he crosses to you, pinning you back against the door. This is the only corner of the room the camera doesn’t cover, and Eric hooks his hands around your thighs and lifts you until your core is pressed to his crotch. You wrap your legs around his hips and thread your fingers into his hair. “You have to stay. You said you wouldn’t leave me.” His voice is a low murmur as he nuzzles his nose against the side of your throat, and you swallow hard.

“I’m not… that isn’t what I meant. I won’t be able to stay, with the suspicion. Not after you’re gone, considering our… relationship.”

Eric freezes, pulling away to search your face. “When I’m gone?”

“You said if I switched you to another doctor you’d never say another word, right?”

“Right.” Eric presses his cock against you, grinding soft, slow circles of his hips into your core.

“And…” you gasp at the feeling, your eyes briefly fluttering closed. “And when I left for a week you stopped eating and drinking. If I go away for good, you’ll die, won’t you?”

“I’ll kill myself,” Eric whispers into your throat, licking up the length of your neck and nipping your earlobe into his mouth. His cock is stirring to life against you, thickening right up against your most sensitive part as he ruts against you.

“And all those families… all those names will go with you. All over… what? The hospital not wanting a PR nightmare?”

“It’d be a waste,” he mumbles, a rumble of sound against your skin.

You can feel the dampness in your underwear now, and you tighten your fingers in his hair as you pull his face away from your neck. “If I break you out of here, do you swear you won’t hurt anybody else? Ever.”

Eric hums. “If that’s really what you want, then I’ll swear it. If it’s really what you want.”

You chew your bottom lip into your mouth. It would be so much easier to focus if he wasn’t grinding his cock against you like that. “Why wouldn’t it be what I want?”

He tilts his head to the side, releasing one of your legs and wiggling his fingers into the elastic waistband of your skirt. Your breath hitches at the feeling of his long digits prodding against the front of your underwear, and then he slips the fabric to the side and drags through your folds. “I killed the worst of the worst. Took out the trashed, cleaned up the streets.” His voice is liquid silk as he dips his fingers lower, circling your entrance to gather the arousal leaking out of you before dragging up to your clit and rubbing over the swelling bundle of nerves. “Child molesters. Wife beaters. Lowest of the low.”

You whimper as the rough callouses on his fingers drag against you, your nails digging hard into his hair as you cling to him. “That doesn’t make it…”

“Right?” He whispers, dropping again to your entrance and pushing two fingers into your heat. “I think it does. I think you know it does, too. You’re drawn to me because you understand me, doc.”

You feel a sob bubble up between your lips as his fingers push deep into you, curling back against the spongy sensitive flesh of your walls. “You can’t just kill people.”

“I can.” He coos, tugging almost out of you before pushing back in. He sets a slow, deep pace, pinning you to the wall with his body as he fucks you with his fingers. “I did it for a really long time. Helped a lot of people, you can’t deny that.”

You want to deny it. You really want to tell him no. Insist that he be different if he wants to be free. But he’s right. He’s fucking right that you don’t mourn a single one of his victims. That the police hadn’t been there for you when your husband had kicked you down the stairs over a text message from an old school friend, or when he’d slammed your hand in the car door for standing too close to one of his work buddies at the office Christmas party. That a vigilante cleaning up the trash was sometimes exactly the kind of justice people needed. That Eric had been terrifyingly good at it. “It’s dangerous.”

“Aww, doc.” He teases, stretching his hand so he can press his thumb against your clit as his fingers speed up. “You worrying about me already?”

“You got…” you break off around a moan as Eric hits your g-spot over and over again, your clit throbbing on the brink of release against the pressure of his thumb. “You got caught before. I’d go down with you… If you got caught again.”

“Look at me.” His tone is stern now, and you force your eyes to focus on his even as his fingers unravel you. “I would never. If I get caught, I’m on my own. I would never let you go down for my crimes. Never.”

You bite your lip as you cum, clamping down on his fingers and jerking against his thumb as your body fights for friction and your release rolls through you. Eric dips his head and presses his lips to your own, absorbing the cries and whines and moans you make as you ride his hand.

He pulls out of you carefully, extracting his hand from your skirt and licking your release off his fingers. “I hope that was okay.”

You hum, dropping your head back against the wall. “When we get out of here… I’m going to ruin you.”

Eric smirks, even as his cock leaks in his scrubs. “You won’t be my doctor out there you know. Maybe I’ll be the one tying you to the bed.”

You blush, and the colour is so pretty against your skin that Eric has to cup your cheeks and kiss you again and again until you’re both dizzy.

It had been too easy. Much, much too easy to get to this point. Eric lies on his bed looking up at the water-stained ceiling in his cell for the last time. The first night he’d been thrown in here he’d resigned himself to thinking of it as a tomb. Killing Harrison Slaney had felt necessary, and Eric didn’t regret it. When a perfect moment falls into your lap like that, you don’t just ignore it, do you? He was a self-proclaimed child molester and a murderer to boot, and it had been only logical to ram the thin edge of his metal lunch tray into the guy’s neck until he was, for all intents and purposes, decapitated.

Eric had known it would cost him; and cost him it had. His own private room in his own private wing. He hadn’t seen another patient in years. And that was okay, it was a fitting end to his mission. He hadn’t thought about anything as dumb as escape until he’d met you. Until the jolt of recognition that had bolted him to his seat as he stared into your nervous eyes and seen the way you rounded in on yourself. He knew those mannerisms, and he knew what they meant. And from there it had been too easy. Much, much too easy to lure you in, to give you just enough to make you think you were fixing him. To offer you his body and let you take what you wanted. It didn’t matter to him, anyway. And it’s not like you weren’t pretty. It’s not like he didn’t want you. It’s just that Eric wanted freedom so, so much more.

He doesn’t know exactly when the sun sets, because he doesn’t have a window. But he does know that dinner comes around that time, and the tray is pushed through his door just a couple of hours later. He takes it, sliding it onto the desk and picking at the greyish lumps of stew as he waits.

Your heart is a jackhammer threatening to burst right out of your ribcage as you tuck a clean uniform into your jacket. Your eyes dart side to side, but the corridor is deserted. It’s too early for the day staff to be leaving, and too early for the night staff to arrive. The perfect time to slip into the staff room and take these clothes. No one would question a doctor and an orderly walking the halls together. Your legs shake so badly it’s a wonder you’re even upright as you make your way towards his cell. Your keycard will be restricted soon, and you can only pray it hasn’t already been done as you press it to the door and wait for the green light. To your relief the locking mechanism clicks open, and you slip inside.

Eric rises from his bed, licking over his lips as he scans you up and down, and you feel your face heat under his scrutiny. “You okay?”

“Fine.” You whisper, not trusting your voice as you tug the clothes out from your jacket and toss them to him.

Eric raises an eyebrow, opening up the pants. “What size do you think I wear, doc?”

You roll your eyes. “There wasn’t much choice. Just hurry up, Draven.”

He smirks as he tugs his scrubs down, and you swallow hard at the sight of his bare ass before he pulls his new pants up and cinches the drawstrings as tight as they’ll go. The shirt hangs off his broad frame, and you steal glances at his inked flesh as fastens the buttons with nimble fingers. He isn’t shaking, but he notices how badly you are.

“Hey,” he says softly, stepping close to cup your cheek. “It’s gunna be alright. I’ll get us out of here.” You nod, tensing as Eric’s fingers brush against your keycard. “Are you sure you want to do this? I could take the card, tie you to the chair. You wouldn’t be blamed.”

You shake your head, wrapping your fingers around the card and unclipping it from your coat. “People know me. We’ll slip out easier if I’m with you.” And you’re right, and Eric feels a fluttering in his stomach that might be affection as much as it’s guilt. 

Eric’s hand engulfs your own completely and your stomach flips over as he pushes open the door and steps out first. He looks back, and you wonder for one terrifying second if he’s going to push you back inside and make a run for it, but he doesn’t. He smiles, a soft, sweet, genuine smile, and then he tugs you through into the corridor.

Even though you’re leading, Eric remains just a little in front of you as you make your way through the winding, nondescript halls. Eric’s private cell is buried deep in the heart of the building, and your heart feels like it might spontaneously explode as you round every corner. But there’s nobody. Fate or God or whatever must be on your side, because you don’t encounter a single other person until you’re practically at the loading door. You glance at Eric, who nods sharply, and you swipe your keycard against the last door. Nothing happens. No green light.

“What’s wrong?” He hisses.

“I… I don’t know. I guess I don’t have access here.”

“You don’t know?”

“I’ve never tried to get out this way, why would I?”

“Why would you plan our route to include a door you didn’t know whether you could open?” Eric’s voice breaks through the whisper, frustration leaking into his tone, and you flinch.

“I’m sorry. I’m-“

“No, no, no, hey.” Eric soothes, tugging his hand from yours to lay his palms on your shoulders. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to snap. It’s not your fault, you’ve done so good, doc.”

You hum, blinking against tears. You’re about to open your mouth, when you hear a lilting whistle. You know the tune, because you’ve been forced to listen to it on and off for months, every time you visited Eric. “I can fix this.” You say, eyes wide. “Orderlies have access. Hide.”

Eric doesn’t have a chance to protest before you’re darting away, and the whistling stops. “Oh, hey doc.” The orderly from Eric’s floor frowns at you. “You lost?”

“No. I mean, a little.” You force a laugh, and he blinks. “If I tell you a secret, can  you keep it between us?” You dip your voice, and the man grins.

“Well, sure.”

“I’m a bit of a smoker. Not always, but when I’m stressed. And Draven’s been stressing me out. I’m so glad I’m dumping him from my rota, though I’ll be sad not to see you around.”

The man smirks at you, letting his eyes trail over your body. “Well maybe I’ll take you for a drink off the clock some time.”

You force yourself to nod and to not recoil as he steps closer. “That the secret?”

“Well, the smoking,” you say with a chuckle. “I was trying to get out the back door so I could grab a cigarette.”

“Restricted access, authorised personnel only.” The man says with a wink. “But I could get you out there. I’m authorised.”

You widen your eyes, closing the distance to touch his forearm. “You’d do that for me? Oh, thank you so much. Really, you’re a lifesaver.”

The man’s face flushes. “You know, I always thought you and Draven… I don’t know. That there was something weird going on. You acted like you cared about him or something.”

“Did I?” You ask, eyes slipping involuntarily back towards the shadows at the side of the corridor, wondering if he can hear.

“Glad to hear you’re not into that. Spooky fucker.”

“He’s not. I mean, he’s my patient. I know him better.” Why are you arguing? Why are you defending him when this creep is about ten seconds away from handing over his keycard?

The man pauses, tilting his head. “When do you wanna get that drink?”

“I don’t know. Soon.” You say with a tight smile.

The man isn’t smiling back anymore. He steps forward, crowding you against the wall, inches from the keypad. “What are you playin’ at, doctor?”

“Nothing,” you whisper, lifting your hands to push lightly at his chest. He doesn’t budge, not an inch.

“It isn’t nice to tease. Lead a guy on cuz you wear the fancy white coat and make the fancy doctor money. Not nice at all.”

“I’m not… I wasn’t, I’m just not in a place to date at the moment. It isn’t anything to do with you.”

“I thought you were a nice girl.” He says softly, one hand slipping inside your coat to caress his fingers up your side and around the curve of your breast.

“Please don’t,” you whisper.

His hand closes roughly around your breast and squeezes, and you yelp at the sharp pressure. Then his eyes go wide as a tattooed arm wraps around his neck and drags him back, and he’s thrown to the floor.

“I knew it.” Eric seethes, shoulders squared for a challenge as he sneers down at the man. “I knew you were a piece of shit.” The man’s eyes widen, darting from Eric to you.

“You’re gunna go to fuckin jail.” He spits, voice pitchy with panic. “You can’t let him out, what are you-“

He doesn’t get any further than that. Eric brings his foot down on the man’s throat, and there’s a sickening, awful crunch as his windpipe is crushed. His eyes bulge wide as his face turns purple, a visceral gurgling sound bubbling out of his ruined throat as Eric spins to you and cups your face. “He hurt you?”

You shake your head, feeling your stomach roll with nausea. “We have to… help him… Eric, we need to call for help.”

“Shh,” he coos, dipping his head to press his lips to your forehead before pushing you against the wall. “I’ll take care of it.”

Your legs give out when Eric crouches beside the man’s head and presses his fingers against his cheeks, forcing his mouth open. “Not so cocky now, are you?” He murmurs softly. He collects a wad of saliva in his cheek and spits it, splattering against the man’s face. “Fucking pervert piece of shit.” He says, just as softly. He cracks his knuckles, the sound loud enough to carry over the orderlies awful choking, before driving his fist into the man’s face. His nose explodes in a mist of blood and cartilage, and the man makes a strangled moaning sound as he bites down on his own tongue. Blood and spit dribble from the corner of his mouth, soaking into the toe of Eric’s shoe. He rises to a stand, scraping the mess onto the man’s leg. “You’re a fucking animal.” Eric says, before he lifts his foot and brings it down to stamp on the orderlies face over and over and over again.

He crouches again to listen to the last few rattling breaths before the man’s chest goes still, and then he unclips his keycard. He’s almost forgotten you, in the midst of completing another cleansing. But when he turns he freezes, the sight of you curled in on yourself against the wall momentarily seizing around his heart. “Oh.”

“Don’t.” You whisper without lifting your head from your arms. You can’t look at him now. You can’t see what he is.

You feel the shift in the air and smell the awful metal of blood as he crouches in front of you. “We have to go, doc. There are cameras down here, someone will come.”

“I’m not going anywhere with you.”

Eric swallows hard, reaching for your arm and tugging it away from your knees. You jerk back like he’s hit you, scrambling against the wall behind you. And Eric does feel bad about it, but he has to get you out of here and to safety before he can even think about making it up to you. So he pushes to a stand and pins you against the wall with his hips, cupping your face in both hands and forcing you to look at him.

His face is a mess, a patchwork of congealing blood. “It’s me and you, doc. We leave together. He was right, you stay here and you’ll go away for helping me. Maybe even accessory.”

You swallow, tears spilling from your eyes as you look at him. “You didn’t have to kill him. You said you’d try to-“

“No, I didn’t.” Eric says softly. “I never promised you anything. Maybe you forgot that when you were cumming all over my hand, huh?”

You swallow against fresh nausea at the memory, feeling the sticky traces of blood on Eric’s fingers against your face. “I thought you were getting better. That I was helping you.”

Eric hums, dipping his head to press his bloody mouth to yours. You try to pull away, but there’s nowhere to go with him holding you still. “I’d have to be sick to get better, wouldn’t I? And I’m not sick. I’m just cleaning up. That’s what I’ve always done.” His words are a deep, poisonous murmur against your lips as his hand travels down to cup you through your skirt. He can still feel the residual heat from where he’d made you cum, and the stiff patch of your arousal against the front of your panties. “I do what I do,” he whispers, short nails grazing against your clit through the fabric, “and you want me anyway.”

You close your eyes, your body betraying you as fresh arousal rushes south to swell in your clit. Eric presses his lips to the corner of your jaw before nuzzling his nose against your throat, and you feel the smear of blood transferring to your skin, staining you with the evidence of exactly what kind of monster you were falling for.

“And you should be grateful, shouldn’t you?” He hums, hooking around the side of your underwear to press a testing finger against your clit. Your breath hitches, the slickness already soaking your pussy coating his finger. “God, so wet for me. Even after all that,” he mumbles, slipping down to circle your hole and collect the fresh slick.

“Why would I… I’m helping you.” You gasp.

“He cried when he died. On his knees. Cried like a fucking coward. Pissed his pants. Those white ones he wore to golf in. Made a real mess. Real pathetic.”

You freeze, your muscles seizing on Eric’s finger as he slowly pushes it inside you. “What are you-“

“Please, I have a family. That’s what he said.”

Your eyes roll back as Eric adds a second finger, and your head drops back against the hard wall behind you as he curls his fingers back against your sensitive walls.

“No, you don’t, I said. You got a wife you almost killed and a brother who never calls you. His face.” Eric huffs a laugh against your throat, licking the mess of blood from your skin. “You know what he offered me?”

You can do little more than whine, praying the awful, delicious torture of his fingers and his tongue and his closeness will end soon.

“He said, if I let him go, I could have his wife. That she was a bitch and a whore but she had a cunt to die for.”

You clamp down on his fingers then, muscles spasming unconsciously as Eric’s thumb stretches up to rub at your clit.

“Scumbags have offered me all sorts of things.” Eric continues, pulling away from your throat to look into your eyes. “Money, drugs, the kids they're abusing. This was the first one to offer me his wife.”

You shake your head, blinking against fresh tears. “Why are you telling me this, Eric?”

“You need a name.”

“I don’t…. we can talk about it later. I’ll come with you, I swear! We have to-“

“Transactional, doc.” He says softly. “You come with me, I’ll give you a name.”

“I don’t-“ your eyes lose focus as his fingers curl against your g-spot, perfectly timed with the rough, precise stimulation of his thumb against your clit. “I’m gunna cum.”

“Yeah, you are. Cum for me. I’ve got you. Your turn to be good for me, sweetheart.” You lose control of your muscles altogether as your orgasm hits, and Eric uses his free hand to pin your shoulder to the wall and hold you upright as you roll your hips down against his hand.

“He never deserved you.” Eric says gently, withdrawing his fingers carefully and lifting them to brush over your lips. “I wanted to make sure he’d never touch you again.”

His mouth replaces his fingers, licking against your lips and grazing your tongue with his own. “And I did.”

You feel his words ghost over your mouth and sink into your skin, the truth of them seeping into your bloodstream. Eric Draven had killed your husband. He’d known who you were the moment you stepped foot in his cell for the first time.

There is a clattering cacophony of sound approaching, heavy footfalls and raised voices. Eric pulls back, eyes searching yours. “It’s now or never, sweetheart. You coming with me?”

You swallow, wrapping your fingers around his and pulling his hands from your face as Eric swipes the keycard against the wall and drags you out into the open air.

*

“Hold still.” You grumble, sucking in your stomach to get away from the hot press of his mouth as you hover over him. You’re finally getting the hang of tying knots in the silk tight enough to actually keep him bound, but he takes… liberties with you if you can’t get him pinned down quickly enough. “Can you move?” You ask, and he flexes his wrists.

“Not really, baby.” There’s a smirk on his face, and you can’t wait to wipe it off. “I’m at your mercy.”

“Yeah,” you hum, crawling up his body and sitting over the hard bulge in his boxers. “How does it feel.”

He laughs. “Not usually the position I’m in, admittedly.”

You hum again, rocking gently against his erection as your own heat kindles in your core. “You prefer to do the tying up, don’t you?”

He moans, hands yanking at the restraints. “You got no idea. Jesus, you look good up there.”

“I’m not too old for you?” You purr.

He frowns. “Old? You’re not old, baby. Where’d you get an idea like that?”

“Would you prefer it if I cried? Begged you to stop? That what gets you off?” You’re still rocking against him, but you’re not looking at him anymore. You’re looking past him, over his head to where Eric stands in the doorway, watching.

“What are you talkin about?” The man asks, tugging at his restraints again. “I’m not into this anymore. Untie me.”

“Were any of those little girls into it?” You ask softly, reaching down to wrap your fist around his erection and squeeze. “They beg you to untie them?”

“I don’t know who the fuck you think I am but I swear to God if you don’t let me go right now you’re gunna be in for a world of hurt, I know powerful fucking people.” He spits, jerking up like he can buck you off. You pin your knees further into the mattress, and tilt your head to the side.

“You remember my name?”

“Your name?” The man scoffs. “I don’t give a shit what you call yourself, you’re a cheap fuckin whore on a power trip with-“

“You remember their names?” You cut him off squeezing his cock so hard he groans in pain.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” He cries. “Let me fucking go.”

“You wanna refresh his memory?” You ask, and the man’s head cranes around to watch as Eric steps into the room.

“Oh what the fuck is this? I don’t do guys I’m not a fuckin-“

“Marcie Richards. 9. Lucy Thomas, 9. Jessica Stone, 8.”

The man goes very still, listening to the names of his victims rattled off in Eric’s careful, quiet tone. “What is this?”

You lean forward, digging your nails into the meat of his cock through his boxers until he whines. “Your day of reckoning. I want you to meet my boyfriend. You can call him karma.”

You slip off his lap and Eric wraps his arm around your waist, pulling you in for a kiss. “You did good, sweetheart. You staying to watch?”

You hum, looking over the man. “No. But you’ll find me afterwards.”

Eric parts your lips with his, grazing his tongue against yours before releasing you with a light tap to your ass.

You watch him approach the bed, watch the thin silvery blade slip free from his palm, and close the door on the man’s first real scream.

Killing him takes longer than Eric would usually allow, but the piece of shit hadn’t admitted to a damn thing. Not for a long, long time. Not until he was more pulverized meat than man. Eric kicks aside a wet scattering of fingers and toes as he shrugs out of his soaked shirt and pushes the door open with the toe of his boot.

You’re sprawled out on the bed like an angel, still wearing nothing but the black lace teddy and matching thong you’d put on to lure the latest monster on Eric’s ever growing list. Your eyes are closed and there’s a little crease between your brows, and Eric feels guilty for leaving you lonely and waiting for so long. He thumbs his sweats and boxers down, using the fabric to wipe up the worst of the blood on his bare arms before he crawls onto the bed and pushes your legs apart.

You stir a little, but you don’t wake as Eric carefully pushes the lace of your thong to the side and inhales deeply against your hot, wet pussy. His cock is already half hard from the kill, and it throbs insistently at the heady, rich of scent of you as he breathes you in. You moan softly, and Eric looks up to check if you’re still sleeping. Your eyes are still closed, the little line between your brows still too deep. He dips his head again, sticking out his tongue to trace the little swollen nub of your clit. You’d gone to sleep aching for him, and he intended to make it better right fucking now.

Eric braces his large hands on the soft flesh of your thighs as he parts them, licking against you from your entrance up to your clit, his saliva mingling with your arousal until you’re dripping onto the mattress below.

You whimper and try to close your legs against the sensation, but he holds you firmly open as he sucks your clit into his mouth and laves his tongue against the sensitive bud. Eric moans against you, sending vibrations right to your core, and your eyes open as they roll back and your hand drops to stroke against the short black hair on his head. You thread your fingers into it and tug, and Eric looks up at you. He doesn’t release your clit from his mouth, but he closes one eye in a wink as he sucks hard against you, and your hips roll up against his face as you press him harder against your pussy. “You’re late,” you groan.

He releases your clit, kissing it over and over before he rests his head on your inner thigh. “Got carried away. Got more names though. All of them.”

You bite your bottom lip into your mouth, fisting his hair harder to push him back against you. “Good boy. Such a… fuckin…” you break off as your orgasm begins to roll through you, pleasure rippling through your core as your empty body clenches around nothing.

Eric knows you’re right on the edge, and he sinks two long fingers into you, feeling the flutter of your muscles around the digits as he curls them back against your most sensitive spot. The move is your undoing and you cum with a strangled moan of his name, spine arching off the bed as you grind up against his face and Eric coaxes every drop of your orgasm out of you.

Eric pulls away when he’s certain he’s licked every last inch of you clean, and he wipes his slick face on the back of his arm, smearing his chin with blood.

“You make a mess?”  You ask, and Eric bites his bottom lip.

“I got carried away.”

You hum, pushing up and beckoning him onto the bed. Your eyes scan the streaky gore on his arms and the deep red stain on his fingers, and you shudder at the thought of those fingers inside you. “You need me to supervise your showers, Draven?”

His eyes darken at the memory, at the reminder of where you’d both been just a few short months ago. “I got a better idea.” His tone is low and dangerous, and you press your thighs together as Eric climbs off the bed and wraps a loose hand around your throat. “You wanna clean me up, doc?”

You let him roll you onto your back, let him drape your head over the edge of the bed to stretch out the column of your throat. You relax into it as Eric pushes his cock into your mouth, closing your eyes against the sting as he wraps his fingers in your hair and pins you in place. The fat head of his cock pushes into your throat with a stretching burn, and you feel tears spring to your eyes to drip onto the carpet below as he snaps his hips against your face. You’d expected he’d do this, as he did almost any time you reminded him of his imprisonment.

“I’ve got you,” he coos, releasing your hair to rub his thumb over the bulge of his own cock in your throat. “You’re mine. This is mine.” You hum around his length, hollowing your cheeks to suction around him as you press your tongue flat, feeling the pulse of the thick vein on the underside of his cock. “Knew the first time I saw you. The first time.” He groans. “Walking out of the ER, looking around for that piece of shit. Looking so lost.”

You sob around his cock, and the hand in your hair strokes against your scalp. “But then that guy tried to touch your ass and you tore him a goddamn new one.” Eric huffs, his cock throbbing with the memory of your defiant scowl as you shoved him away. “You still had your fire. And now look at you.” His tone is almost reverent, even as you gag and choke on his cock, drool pooling on the floor beneath your head. “Saving people from all that… all that… shit,” he groans, pulling out of your mouth.

He climbs back onto the bed, slick cock bobbing against his stomach as he wraps his hands around your ankles and tugs you back underneath him. “Making the wrong things right. Cleaning up the streets.” He pushes your thighs apart and enters you in one long thrust, bottoming out with a groan as he drops over you. You cling to his back, nails leaving sharp crescents in the ink painted across his skin, and Eric moans as he fucks into you roughly.

“Love you, Eric,” you whisper, eyes rolling back as you clamp down hard on his cock. You’re not a doctor anymore. You’ve traded your title and your name and your whole life for motels and burner phones and blood. But looking up at him, your green eyed avenging angel, and feeling his cock throb inside you and his mouth whispering praise against your lips, you can’t bring yourself to regret a single minute of it.

The buzzer on the wall screeches, and you wince. You hear that awful sound three or four times a day, yet it never fails to get under your skin. But despite how much you hate the sound, you’d never, ever consider entering the room without pressing the button. The light above the door goes green, and you swipe your keycard over the lock to release the mechanism.

He’s sitting at the little wooden desk in his cell, glaring at a charcoal sketch in front of him. That glare transfers to you as his head lifts. “I was in the middle of something.”

You roll your eyes at him. Grumpy today, then. “Lunch is at the same time each day, Draven.”

He sighs, tapping his fingers against his thigh. The thick leather straps on his wrists creak as he twists to watch you make a lap of his cell. “It’s the same thing every day, too.” He mumbles, eyes tracking you as you lift his pillow and fold back his sheets.

“What would you want if you could pick something else?” You ask, dropping to your knees to check under his bed.

Eric snorts. “Like my last meal? Morbid, doc.”

“Humor me.” You mutter, half crawling under to retrieve a thin stack of papers he’d tucked under the slats of the bed.

You hear the clinking of the chains binding him to the seat, and you know he’s looking at your ass as you wriggle out and turn to him, still on your knees.

There’s heat in the way he watches you now, and his tongue swipes out unconsciously to lick over his bottom lip. “And I thought you trusted me.”

You give him an exasperated look, glancing down at the papers. “Trust goes both ways, Draven. Do we need to go through these?”

Eric hums noncommittedly, and you perch on the edge of his bed to flick through the stack of sketches. Eric isn’t allowed pencils, just blunt charcoal and waxy crayons, but his art is brutally beautiful. When you’d started working with him he hadn’t even been allowed that, but you’d watched him trace patterns in the dust on the cell of his floor and seen potential for building a rapport. It had worked, incredibly well. He’d gone from saying nothing at all in two years to drawing his victims and talking you through each one. Eight families with closure, so far.

“I haven’t seen this guy before.” You say, finger ghosting over the broken body splattered against a sidewalk in a vacant parking lot.

“Edward Howard.” Eric says, shrugging his shoulders. “He killed his first wife and beat his second so bad she had a standing reservation at the ER.”

You swallow, forcing your face into an expression of neutrality before looking up at him. “You pushed him off the top of the garage?”

Eric’s smirk is sinfully unrepentant. “He jumped.”

“Why would he do that?”

“Maybe he realized he needed to atone for being a piece of shit.”

You raise an eyebrow at him, and Eric rolls his eyes. “Or maybe I’d already cut his balls off and he chose the cowards way out.”

You feel like your throat is closing, but you can’t let him see. Eric is a master manipulator, and over the eleven months you’d spent getting to know him, he’d learned you, too.

“When was this?”

Eric’s smirk drops, and he shifts in his seat, the leather straps around his ankles creaking in protest. “July 18th, 2009.”

A full six years earlier than the current earliest victim.

Eric knows this information is landing, he can see the way your eyes widen just slightly as you do the math in your head. Yeah, sweetheart. There are so many more than you know. More than you can comprehend.

“And this happened… at the start? Was he the first?”

“Strawberries.” Eric says, and your brow furrows. “My last meal, or whatever. I’d like strawberries.”

You suck your bottom lip into your mouth, and Eric tracks the movement. He feels the stirring in his cock at the thoughtful, scrunched up look on your face, and he tries to think about something else but everything leads back around to you again. It’s not like he can cover himself, with his arms and legs bound to the chair. He glances down just once and yep, the prominent jab of his thickening cock is outlined against his thin scrubs.

“We don’t execute people in here,” you remind him with a sigh. “I’m going to have to take these you know.”

Eric shrugs. “I figured.”

“And we’ll contact Mr Howard’s widow, once we verify your account.”

“I’m sure she’ll be fucking heartbroken.” Eric deadpans.

You press your lips into a tight line, because you don’t know what to say that won’t sound like you’re agreeing with him. Encouraging him. Because you’ve thought about what it would be like to get that call, to find out that your husband isn’t just missing but dead, and you’re not sure you could bring yourself to shed a tear. Not with the ache in your ribs every time you breathe in, despite the breaks healing years ago. Not with the way you look over your shoulder every time you leave the house, just in case.

The buzzer sounds again, and you jump. You always jump, Eric notices. Not just at the loud sounds, but anything unexpected. He’s seen it before, he knows the signs of abuse. He’d made it his mission to see.

“Lunch.” You say with a tight smile, crossing to the hatch in the door as it opens and a tray is pushed through.

“He giving you trouble?” The guard on the other side asks. Eric leans as far back in his chair as he can, but he can’t see the man’s face. He sees the way your shoulders straighten, though.

“Not at all. We’re having a good day.”

The man scoffs. “Right, a good day with Hannibal Lecter is still a bad day anywhere else.” He laughs, but you don’t, and Eric feels his stomach tighten.

“It’s getting cold.”

“So let it, that piece of shit doesn’t deserve-“

“See you later.”

You turn abruptly, tray in hand, and Eric watches you return to his desk and place the tray in front of him. “Sorry.”

Eric hums, scanning the plain white rice, the plain white chicken, the greyish green peas that are the furthest thing from fresh he’s ever seen. “Don’t be.”

You look him over, chewing your bottom lip. “I’ll see you in a couple of hours.”

Eric glances at his plate and back at you. “If you stay I’ll tell you about another one.”

Your breath catches in your throat. He’s never asked this before. It’s against protocol. “You need to eat.”

Eric drops his eyes to the soft plastic fork and twists his mouth to the side. “I’m not against you feeding me.”

You scoff, because you’re definitely not supposed to do that, but the thought of him talking to you, properly and unprompted… it could be the breakthrough you’d been praying for. The one you’d been promising the board, the proof you needed that Eric Draven was far from irredeemable.

“You’ll give me a name?” You ask tightly, and Eric smiles.

“I’ll give you his social security number, if you want it.”

You perch on the edge of the desk because there’s no second chair in his room. Nobody visits him and he’s not allowed in the rec room anymore anyway. You skewer boiled chicken on the fork as best you can, but the prongs buckle against the meat. “No silverware in here.” He says. “I just use my fingers usually.”

You swallow as you pick up a chunk of meat, holding it carefully towards him. “If you bite me, I won’t come back.” Eric nods, though you both know it isn’t true. Coming back to him is your job after all. Eric’s tongue brushes against your fingertips as he takes the chicken into his mouth, and you feel a bolt of arousal jolt through you so strongly you jerk you hand back like he did bite you. He chews slowly, swallowing with a grimace.

“Martin Johnson. November 6th, 2010. Child molester, thought he was meeting a ten year old girl in the playground behind the multiplex on 2nd.”

You feel your eyes go wide as your mouth falls open. “I remember that case.”

Eric draws his bottom lip through his teeth. “Unsolved, until now. Brilliant work, doc.”

You shake your head, plucking another piece of chicken from his plate and holding it to his lips. Eric accepts it gently, tongue licking against your fingers again. “They couldn’t identify him for weeks.”

Eric hums as he chews, and you don’t miss the way his pupils dilate. Though whether that’s the taste of your fingers in his mouth or the memory of what he did to Martin Johnson, you’re not sure. “He confessed to a whole lot worse than meeting up with kids for sex, before he died.”

“They had to remove the slide. Never replaced it.” Your voice comes out as little more than a whisper.

“He had it coming. If he’d told you what he told me, you’d understand.” You say nothing, because you understand anyway. Not that you could smash a man’s face against a metal slide so hard and so repeatedly that you pulverise his skull and shatter all his teeth, but you could still agree that he’d deserved it.

“Is this a… formal confession?”

Eric smirks. “Does it matter? He’s still dead and I’m in here for the rest of my life.”

You want to tell him that it’s not necessarily true. That the criminally insane can be rehabilitated if you can prove he’s not sick anymore. But he’s too smart to know something like that and not try to manipulate you, so you say nothing.

“Is the chicken any good? I’ve always wondered.”

Eric scoffs. “Not sure it can legally be called chicken, doc.” He says. “Try it.”

You pluck a piece from his tray and eat it, the dampness from Eric’s mouth still on your fingers. You let your own tongue trace the slick of his saliva, and Eric shifts in his seat as he watches you chew.

“Oh.” You mumble. The meat in your mouth tastes like ammonia, and you desperately want to spit it out. But that isn’t what’s diverted your attention. Your eyes have dropped into his lap, to the prominent bulge of his cock straining against his scrubs.

“Bad, right?” Eric asks, his eyes tracing over the way your lip curls back in disgust so he can draw it later. But you don’t look at him, and Eric follows your sight line to his crotch. “Oh.”

“The chicken is bad.” You force the words out, even though your throat is closing and you can feel the prickling of heat on your face as you blush.

Eric shifts again, the fabric of his scrubs dragging against his sensitive tip, and he lets out a little hiss. “And this is… bad, right?” He asks, eyes darting from his own cock to your face.

“That’s… a perfectly natural bodily function,” you breathe, trying to ignore the throb of arousal in your core as your clit swells. You press your thighs together hard, desperate for stimulation, and Eric’s breath hitches.

“You don’t mind, doc?” He asks softly. “I’d cover it up or do something about it, but-“ he lifts his hands, the chains clinking against the legs of his chair as he reaches the limit of the lengths.

“You really like the shitty chicken, or-“ You break off, wriggling a little against the desk. You don’t mean to. You really, really don’t.

Eric licks his lips. “Best I ever had.”

You should leave. You should tell him he’s being inappropriate and leave him to eat his own lunch. Instead you watch, disgusted, as you pick up another piece and push it between his lips. This time you don’t withdraw right away, and Eric sucks your fingers against the hot, wet muscle of his tongue as slick arousal soaks your underwear.

*

It’s a violation of everything you’ve worked so hard for. Sitting in your office, bringing up the camera feed to his room for the tenth time that morning. Just to watch him. Eric sits at his desk like he always does, sketching with broad, harsh strokes of charcoal across the paper. He slips over the boundaries, marking the metal surface with patchy smudges of black, and you lean in to squint at the design. It’s another person, surrounded by something you can’t identify in the jumble of pixels. He shoves abruptly away from the desk and you jump even though you can’t hear the screech of the chair legs against concrete. He paces the small room, crossing from one end to the other in just a couple of seconds each time. Too big for his cage. Too restless. As if in agreement Eric shrugs his shirt off and drops to the floor, the muscles in his back flexing as he runs through sets of push-ups. You should turn the feed off. You should at least look away, check your emails or drink the coffee that’s cooling beside you. You shouldn’t reach down under your desk to rub against your clit through your panties and the thin membrane of your tights. You think about his mouth, the flick of his tongue against your fingers, and you have to sink your teeth into your bottom lip to suppress a moan as your blood rushes south and the persistent dull throb between your legs intensifies.

It’s like he knows. Like he can sense you or smell you from across the building, because Eric pushes up off the floor and sinks down onto the edge of his bed, tugging his scrubs down to his knees and wrapping a fist around his half-hard cock. You slip your fingers into your panties now, desperate for more as the grainy Eric on your screen works his shaft, twisting his wrist over the head and tilting his face back to expose the inked flesh of his neck. His eyes find the camera and fix there, and Eric pretends the little blinking light means you’re watching him. It’s easier to find his release that way, thinking you’re there. That it isn’t wasted. Because this isn’t what does it for Eric. His hormones aren’t in control of his urges, never have been. He likes scars and bruises and breaks. He likes screaming and he likes the little slides of blood he kept as trophies, one for every victim. He’d read it in a book sometime and liked the idea, and there was something real satisfying about keeping all those little traces. Something thrilling about keeping the keys to his freedom in a little box under his floorboards.

You cum with a strangled little moan, your eyes closing just for a second before you force them back open in time to watch Eric finish, cock twitching in his fist as spurts of cum paint his toned stomach and soak into the fabric of his scrubs. He rubs his hand on his sheet and huffs a sigh, tucking his cock away and rolling onto his back to take a nap before your lunchtime visit.

Buzzer, wince, wait. Green light, swipe, beep.

The mechanism in the door clicks, and you push it open. Eric’s at his desk as usual, ankles and wrists shackled to the seat. He cocks his head to the side as he scans you over. Your cheeks are flushed and there’s a glassiness to your eyes that sends a rush of blood to his cock and all he can think about is getting your fingers in his mouth so he can see if he’s right.

“Mr Draven.”

“Doc.”

“I hope you’ve had a good moanin-morning.” You stammer, feeling your cheeks heat.

Eric’s mouth curves into a smirk as your eyes drop immediately to the little stain on the waistband of his scrubs. Oh yeah, you were watching him.

“Keeping busy, you know.” He drawls, leaning back in his chair. The chains clink against the chair legs, and his hands jerk to a stop half-way to the table.

“I hear you’ve been making trouble for the orderlies.”

Eric hums. “Me? Trouble? I’m good as gold.”

You purse your lips, fighting a smile. Eric is ridiculously charming when he’s in a good mood, and you suppose relieving some… tension this morning had helped.

“You stamped on the attendants foot so hard you shattered his cuboid and three metatarsals.”

Eric scoffs. “I thought he was wearing work boots. He should have been, right?”

You don’t concede the point, though he’s right. The orderly should have been wearing facility-issued boots, thick leather with steel toecaps. He’d been in his own trainers because he’d been running late that morning. An unfortunate series of coincidences, you hoped.

“Well, they’re refusing to work with you anymore.”

Eric hums. “I’m heartbroken.”

You perch on the edge of his desk, momentarily forgetting your room checks. “That means no rec time, no showering. Nothing outside of this room, until the board can figure out how to manage the situation.”

Eric feels his stomach drop out at that. He’d expected punishment, sure. Maybe some further restrictions on his already limited freedoms. But total isolation, in this room? That was the worst case scenario.

“Why can’t you do it?”

You blink at him. “I’m a doctor.”

“Right.” Eric leans forward, his hands snapping against the restraints before he drops them to his lap again. “You’re my doctor. Getting to see the sun every now and then… and fucking hygiene are important factors in my mental health, aren’t they?”

You swallow. “Your care outside of this room isn’t-“

“Answer the question.”

Your head snaps up, eyes focusing on the tight set of Eric’s jaw. “Yes, they’re important.”

Eric’s face softens into a smile. “Right. So you could do it, couldn’t you? Escort me outside, escort me to the showers. I’d be so grateful. Grateful enough to give you more names.”

“They’d never allow it… not after the violent outburst with the orderly.”

Eric tsks his tongue. “He had it coming. The things he was saying? Vile. Really vile shit. I’d never hurt you.”

You look into his eyes, his wide, sincere, beautiful green eyes, and you believe him. “I’ll talk to the board. Plead the case.”

Eric slumps back into his seat, offering you a genuine smile. “Lifesaver, doc. You really are.”

You push off the desk and cross the room, checking under his pillow and between his sheets before dropping to your knees to check under the bed. You hear the clinking of his chains as Eric turns in his seat to watch, and you stick your ass out a little further than necessary as you crawl underneath.

There’s nothing at all stashed between the slats, and you’re only a little disappointed. But then you pause, eyes fixing on the milky smear against his bedsheet, inches from your face. Don’t do it. Don’t fucking do it, you disgusting little- Your tongue presses to the stain, soaking the fabric and tasting the salt of Eric’s cum, and you let out a tiny, strangled moan of pleasure.

Eric watches the dip of your head, and he can all but hear the wet scrape of your tongue. His cock responds immediately, thickening and pulsing to strain against his scrubs as he imagines what your tongue would feel like licking against his sensitive tip. It’s been a really long time since anyone’s touched him. A really long time since he’s even wanted anyone to. But at the way you press your thighs together, on your knees in your little black pencil skirt as you lick his cum from his sheets? Eric feels something like desire stirring in his gut.

*

Approval takes three days. You make the request, and the ward manager stares at you like you’ve grown a second head, but he pushes it through. The lead psychiatrist calls you into her office and asks you if you’re absolutely sure, and you hear Eric’s voice in your head as you parrot his words to the doctor. Detrimental to his mental health, the progress you’ve been making, the trust you’ve built. You’d signed a liability waiver, and that had been enough. The hospital were still recruiting for new orderlies, but even at a good rate of pay people just didn’t want to work with criminal lunatics. You yourself had been on the verge of quitting when you’d been assigned to Eric Draven. The first time you’d seen him, the huge, wide set of his shoulders hunched in like he could will himself to disappear and the steady stillness in his big green eyes, you’d torn up your resignation letter and locked in. You could save this one. Just this one.

Eric stands under the spray of hot water, feeling the tension leak out of his shoulders and swirl towards the drain, and he thinks about how far you had to stick your neck out to get him here. You’d shrugged it off, telling him it had been a meeting and some paperwork, but Eric knew differently. He knew what he was and what people thought he was, and the fact that you were standing on the other side of the door right now, supervising his shower like a minimum wage worker meant something. It meant he was getting somewhere.

“Doc?” He calls, and he waits until he hears the grate of the slot in the door dragging open before he turns, so you get a real good look at all of him. Your eyes meet his, and your pupils have blows wide in a way that makes Eric’s cock stir to life.

“Everything okay?”

Eric hums, stepping out from under the water to approach the door. He licks his lips, and your gaze dips to watch. “I’d usually use this time to… uh, relieve certain impulses.”

Your brows knit before your eyes go wide. “You mean… the bodily function of…”

“My cock is so fucking hard,” Eric whispers, bracing one hand against the door and letting his eyes flutter closed. “I don’t wanna make you uncomfortable.”

You swallow, a little choked sound loosing from your throat. “I’m not… it’s… perfectly natural. Healthy, even.” Eric can hear the dip in your tone, the thickening in your voice as you get wet thinking about him, and he wonders how often you’ve watched the camera in his room. He should start jerking off more often, to make sure you catch it.

“It hurts,” he moans, and you squeeze your eyes shut and your thighs together.

“Then you should… relieve the tension. I’ll give you some privacy.”

Eric shakes his head. “Could you just… I just need a little help. Just a tiny bit.”

“I can’t come in there. And it wouldn’t be appropriate for me to do-“

Your words are cut off by the press of Eric’s hand through the slot in the door. “It’d help, doc.” He murmurs.

You glance at the deserted corridor either side of you, before you step closer and brush your lips against his fingertips.

Eric exhales shakily. “Spit.” The word shocks through you as you gather saliva on your tongue and spit into his palm. Eric withdraws his hand without another word, and your knees buckle at the soft moan and the wet, slick sound of him wrapping his hand around his length as he starts to pump himself in a loose fist.

“I should close this,” you whisper.

Eric whimpers, sucking his bottom lip into his mouth. “Don’t.”

“It isn’t… I shouldn’t watch you, it’s-“

“So don’t just watch.” Eric’s breath is coming out choppy, his words little more than moans. “Touch yourself.”

Your heart stutters over the words, even as your clit throbs with an arousal that borders on pain at his words and the throaty, deep sound of them. “I can’t, that’s completely-“

“You don’t want to?”

You shake your head. “It isn’t…”

“I watched you lick my cum from my bedsheets. You watch me on the- fuck,” he hisses, forcing his fingers to release his cock. He’s too close to cumming, and he can’t until you’re doing the same. Eric releases a shaky breath through pursed lips. “You watch me on the cameras. I know you do.”

“It’s my job to observe you.” Your own voice sounds reedy and far away, like you’re lightheaded. You suppose that’s true, considering all the blood in your body seems to have pooled in your core.

“You touch yourself when you watch me. I can tell.”

Your eyes snap to his, but there’s no judgement in his stare. Just hunger. Open, carnal hunger in the enormous pools of green and black. “I shouldn’t.”

“Fuck, doc,” Eric groans, running the calloused pad of his thumb over the sensitive head of his cock. “I’m so fucking hard for you. Please.”

You groan, fingers fumbling with the front of your skirt as you push your hand into your underwear and part your soaked folds. “Shit,” you whisper.

Eric’s smirk is smug as he squeezes the base of his cock, watching your eyes flutter closed. He can hear the sound of your slickness, even over the shower and the combined panting of your breathing. “Look at me, doc.”

Your eyes open reluctantly, pupils already expanding as you succumb to the pleasure of your own fingers rubbing electric circles against your swollen clit. “This is wrong,” you whimper, though your fingers only speed up, your hips jerking unconsciously.

“I’m wrong,” Eric moans, sinking his teeth into his bottom lip as his orgasm nears. He can feel the familiar tightening in his balls, though the thrill of you watching seems to heighten his arousal. “You’re… making it better.”

You whine at that, and Eric catalogues the information away for later. You get off on being told what a good doctor you are, though by all counts it seemed like you were a pretty fucking unethical one.

“Oh god,” you whisper, eyes fixing on his. “I’m gunna cum.”

Eric groans, quickening his pace until his fist is a blur against his shaft. “Cum for me, doc.” The guttural sound of his voice and him commanding you tips you over the edge and you cum with a writhing, unbearable pleasure, fingers seizing against your clit as you ride through the waves of your orgasm.

“God, Eric,” you moan, and Eric feels the tightness unravel in one, long stroke as he cums, painting the door and the tiled floor with his own release.

You drag your fingers out of your underwear and smear them over the front of your skirt, glancing back to find Eric still watching you. You can’t see all of him, but you know he’s finished. There’s a pretty pink flush to his cheeks, and his shoulders rise and fall like he’s worked out. The post-nut clarity hits with overwhelming shame, and you take a deliberate step back. “Finish your shower. I mean, clean up. Five minutes.”

Eric frows, feeling the space between you thicken into something that wasn’t there a moment ago, and he wonders if he’s fucked it up by pushing you too soon. He scrubs the evidence of the act from his skin and shuts off the shower, wrapping a thin, rough towel around his waist before returning to the door and knocking.

You reappear, and Eric realises you never closed the hatch. Maybe you watched him finish the shower. By the blush still staining your cheeks and the way you don’t quite look him in the eye, Eric thinks maybe you did. “I’m done.”

“You’re not dressed.” Your words are clipped and cool, and Eric swallows against a lump of something he can’t name cloying in his throat.

“I don’t have clean scrubs, they keep them in the closet out there.”

Your brows scrunch up. “Oh.”

You disappear from view, and Eric feels goosebumps break out across his back in the chilly, damp air as he waits. Your eyes reappear, and you lift a bundle up to show him. “I can’t… you have to open the door.” Eric keeps his tone low and calm, even though he’s starting to feel some type of way about how you’re acting. Like you regret it. And he can’t have that. He just can’t.

“Shit.” You mumble to yourself as you reach for the door. Eric’s hand wraps around your wrist and tugs hard, and you’re dragged over the threshold and into the steamy shower room with a gasp. “You can’t touch me, you promised you’d-“

Eric cuts you off as he lifts your hand to his face, examining your fingers where they’re curled protectively against your palm. It occurs to him that this is the first time he’s ever touched you, with his own hands. Your skin is warm and soft under his, and he can feel the thrum of your blood against his fingers through the thin membrane of your wrist. He lifts coaxes your fingers apart and sucks them into his mouth, swirling his tongue against the digits. There’s the faintest taste to them, but it’s been so long since Eric has been with a woman that he can’t really remember what pussy tastes like. Your mouth drops open as you watch him, and he can tell by the way your eyes darken that he’s got the right hand, at least.

He sucks hard enough to hollow his cheeks over the sharp plains of his cheekbones, before letting you pull your hand back. “Jacob Michael Smith. Connecticut, April 24th, 2012.” He speaks softly, his words ghosting against your damp fingers, and you shiver as you commit them to memory. Another name, a reward for your participation in… whatever the hell this is.

You don’t speak at all as you escort him back to his room, and Eric doesn’t push you. He lets you rechain his hands and feet together, even though you put the cuffs on too tight at the metal cuts into his skin.

*

Eric doesn’t know what to expect the next time he sees you, and the anxiety of not knowing thrums in his blood like the drugs he no longer has access to. He hears the buzzer and reaches for the chains wrapped neatly around the legs of the chair, clicking them into place on the leather cuffs around his ankles and wrists. The light above the door goes green, and the door opens.

You pause in the entrance, eyes scanning the corridor behind you like you’re considering chickening out. “Hey.” He says very deliberately, offering you a smile. Your shoulders drop a little, and you return the greeting with a tight smile of your own.

“How are we doing today?”

Eric shrugs. “Same old, doc.”

You step into the room, and Eric watches with relief as you settle into the space, into the routine of checking under his bed and sliding your fingers over his sheets and under his pillow. “I want to try something different with you today.”

Eric swallows, trying very hard not to think about all the things he wants to try with you. “Sounds interesting.”

You suck the corner of your bottom lip into your mouth, and Eric’s cock throbs. “You respond well to a… transactional dynamic. I was doing some research, and I think we could come to an arrangement.”

Eric’s cock actually twitches at your words. Were you suggesting… “You get me off, I give you a name?”

You choke on nothing, a series of unintelligible half-protests spilling from your pretty lips. “That is… not what I meant. At all.”

Eric lets his thighs spread wide, leaning back in his seat. “What else could you offer me? You got sway in here, but you can’t get my sentence reduced. I know that much.”

You tug a paper bag out of your jacket, and Eric cocks his head to the side as you glance up at the security camera. “Nobody watches that feed but you,” Eric teases.

Your face flushes as you unwrap the bag, but the smirk drops from his face at the sight of the contents. A plastic punnet of bright red strawberries. Eric feels something dangerously close to emotion threatening to choke him. “These were a bitch to get in here.” You say softly, smiling as you pry open the lid and pluck a plump berry from the container. “You want one?”

Eric nods, licking over his lips as his mouth waters. It had been years since he’d eaten anything sweet and fresh. You hold the strawberry out, and he wraps his lips around it, biting into the tart flesh with a squelch of sticky red juice. Flavour explodes on his tongue, an overwhelming, delicious cacophony of sugar and sharpness, and Eric moans.

You ignore the sick throb in your core as you watch him, focusing instead on the actual, unbridled satisfaction on his face as he chews. “Harrison Slaney.”

You frown, because the name isn’t new to you. “That doesn’t count, we knew about that one.”

“You don’t know why.” He hums, a thin line of juice running from the corner of his mouth. His tongue licks out at it, but he can’t catch it all before it reaches his chin to drip down onto his thigh. “Fuck.”

You hum, leaning over to swipe the liquid from his jaw. “Okay, tell me why.”

“He was in here for arson, right? Burned down that house and said the devil made him do it.”

You nod.

“Yeah. Well, the little boy in that house? The littlest one? He’d been abusing him for months. Snatching him on his way home from school and dragging him out to the woods, said he’d kill his parents if he told. Guy set that fire to tie up loose ends after he was done with him.”

You wobble on the desk, feeling nausea rise in your throat. You’d evaluated that patient. Only once, only initially, but you hadn’t had even the slightest reason to suspect he was this kind of monster.

“He told you that?”

“He told another guy. I overhead. People forget I’m there, most times.”

You scan his long torso, even folded into the chair. You found it hard to believe anyone could forget he’s there, considering your eyes wander to him unconsciously every five seconds.

“Do you feel like… why do you think it’s your job to kill these people?”

Eric presses his lips into a thin line. “Because nobody else will do it. Cops are incompetent, and it’s always the people that can’t defend themselves that end up victims. I’m big. I’m strong. Why shouldn’t it be me, instead of them? It’s justice. I’m… I’m karma.”

You hate how much sense he’s making. You hate how warmth is pooling in your stomach, something more complicated and much more dangerous than lust.

“Tell me about how you were caught.”

One side of Eric’s mouth lifts into a smirk. “Transactional, doc.”

You roll your eyes but can’t suppress a smile of your own as you press another strawberry to his lips. Eric lets you press it there for a moment, eyes meeting yours in a challenge. “Open, Draven. Be a good boy.”

His pupils expand rapidly as he parts his lips and bites into the plush flesh. He hums, eyes closing for a moment, and you take the chance to really look at his face. It’s easier to take in the other details when he’s not looking at you. The very fine lines around his eyes, the sharp point of his nose. The perfect, swollen rosebuds of his lips. The little tattoos, the delicate ones on his face and the thicker lines snaking into the collar of his scrubs. Pretty, pretty boy.

“Eric.” He mumbles, and you snap out of your daze to raise an eyebrow at him. “Draven.”

“Now that really doesn’t count.”

“I know. I just… I want you to call me Eric. “Nobody else. Just you.”

You nod your head gently, though you can feel the tingle of blood rushing to your cheeks. Somehow that’s more intimate than anything else he’s ever said to you. “I still need a name, Eric.”

Eric swallows hard. He knew hearing his name on your lips would make him feel a type of way, but he wasn’t prepared for just how much it impacted him. His stomach flips over, giddy, like he’s a teenager with a crush and not a criminal with a plan. It’s so fucking stupid, and he reaches out to kick the leg of the table hard enough to make you jump. You do, the unexpected shock of the sound sending you toppling off the edge and sprawling into his lap with a little yelp.

Eric’s hands lift to catch you, bracketing around your hips and pinning you to his lap. You’re about to thank him, when you realise he shouldn’t have been able to catch you. It’s like it happens in slow motion, looking down to see the leather straps around his wrists, and the chains curled uselessly on the floor.

“Charles Billingham.” Eric breathes, his thumbs rubbing circles against your hipbones. “January 1st, 2013. Philadelphia.”

You blink at him, and he digs his thumbs against you harder. “Breathe, doc.”

You drag in a shaking breath, exhaling harshly. Eric’s lips part like he’s tasting the air from your lungs, and you feel the telltale twitch of his cock beneath you. “You’re not in the… how did you…”

“Paul Marshall. October 12th, 2011. Jersey.”

“You shouldn’t be able to… how did you…”

Eric lifts his hands to your waist, dragging his long fingers up your ribs and grazing over the curves of your breasts. “Sam Worthington. December 25th, upstate New York.”

“Why are you… I haven’t even given you the strawberries.” You whisper, and Eric huffs a laugh.

“You’re giving me more right now by not pushing the panic button.”

You freeze. Patients aren’t supposed to know that staff even have those, little discreet switches on the sides of their keycards that will trigger a silent alarm. But Eric’s right, you hadn’t pushed yours. You hadn’t even considered it.

“How long have you been able to get out of those?”

Eric sighs. “Since the first day they installed them. Shitty installation. Shitty mechanisms.”

You can barely hear your own voice as your mind tries to make sense of this information. “So you’ve… never been restrained? The whole time I’ve been coming here?”

Eric shrugs. “You were never in any danger. You’re not… nobody good is ever in any danger with me.”

Good? You want to scream at him. You don’t know anything about me!

“I have to tell- you can’t be allowed to-“

Eric’s hands cup the sides of your neck, tilting your head down to his as he drags you closer and presses his lips to your own.

The chaos of panic in your head fizzles into hot, white static at the feeling of his lips on yours. He tastes like strawberries, and you rock forward against the hard bulge in his scrubs as his fingers lace into your hair and tug with enough force to make you whine into his mouth.

Eric moans, the sound vibrating through your lips and shooting straight down to your core, and you feel the slick of arousal as you soak your panties, rocking against his cock as he thrusts upwards to meet you.

Eric pulls your head back enough to disconnect your mouths, his tongue licking over your bottom lip. “You feel so fucking good,” he mumbles, dropping one hand to your hip to help you drag back and forth against his cock. It’s the closest he’s been to anyone touching him in longer than he can remember and precum beads on his tip and soaks into his scrubs as he ruts up against the soft heat of you.

“God,” you whisper, hips snapping frantically against him as you chase the edge of your orgasm. “I’m gunna… God,” you groan as your release washes through you, the drag of your slick cotton panties against your clit and the rough feeling of Eric’s fingers on your skin tumbling you over the edge as you jerk and whimper and wriggle on his lap.

Eric feels his own orgasm hit moments later, watching you fall apart and feeling the hot pulsing of your pussy against him. Your release soaks through to his scrubs, and the scent of you and the damp warmth against his cock has him shooting his load into his scrubs, coating his own crotch in sticky cum as he pins you against his lap and grinds up against you.

You’re gasping, fingers balled tightly in the fabric of his collar, chest rising and falling erratically. You look so small and so vulnerable like that. Eric releases his hold on your hip, resting his palm against your back instead. He leans forward to brush his lips against yours, relishing in the soft, hot silk of your mouth. “You’re safe, doc,” he whispers against your lips, and the words break through the complete haze of lust to settle in your gut. Doc. You’re his doctor. He’s a patient. This is unethical. This is dangerous. This is wrong.

You rip your mouth away from his, shoving against his chest as you tumble from his lap and stagger towards the door. Eric frowns, big green eyes bewildered as he watches you fumble for your keycard, but he doesn’t get up. He could! Your brain screams to you. “This isn’t- this can’t happen. You can’t- I’ll… shit,” you stammer as your card finally swipes the keypad and the door clicks. You push against it, your eyes never leaving him. The last thing you see before you slip into the corridor is his face, cheeks flushed and eyes wounded, and it’s the only thing you see every time you close your own eyes for a week.

*

Eric thinks he might be in hell. Being what he is, he’s used to pain. Used to expecting nothing but pain and shit and blood. Used to seeing the worst in people, up close and personal. Getting caught was almost a relief, an excuse to hold up his hands and say sorry, world, Eric Draven’s outta commission. He’d been ready to fade into nothing, been ready to welcome it, when you’d walked into his cell with your tense smile and your pretty eyes and spoken to him like he were a person and not a shadow. He hadn’t eaten a single strawberry after you’d left, and they sit rotting under his bed like a physical manifestation of how badly he’s killed his one little spark of hope. Because it had been days, and you hadn’t come back. One of the duty doctors had visited to administer meds and conduct room checks, and that had been all. No rec time, no showers. No orderlies willing to do anything more than shove his food through the slot in the door and slam it closed. Usually before he managed to get to it, so he was forced to pick through scraps on the floor after the tray toppled through the hatch. He didn’t have the energy to work out, and the smudgy charcoal sketches of you that he kept under his pillow made his stomach clench in a way he wasn’t even remotely interested in exploring.

By day six, Eric decides he’s done. Done with all of it, actually. His food comes three times a day, and he watches the trays clatter to the ground, one on top of another. It takes two more days for somebody to notice and come to clear it up, and Eric puts on the cuffs and connects the chains like it means anything.

The orderly that enters doesn’t look scared, and Eric wonders with a little jolt whether you hadn’t told on him.

“Expecting the good doctor?” The orderly asks with a sneer.

Eric says nothing. He knows better than to run his mouth when he’s so weak he can barely lift his head.

“You not talking to me?” The orderly coos, stepping closer. His boot squelches in a rancid puddle of decaying meat and he gags. “You’re a fucking animal, Draven.” He steps closer, lifting his boot to drag the smear of rotten food against Eric’s shin. “I’m surprised it took her this long to throw in the towel with you. Irredeemable. We all told her as much.”

Eric glares at the scratched surface of his desk, and still he says nothing.

“Not so cocky when you’re all tied up, are you?” The orderly leans down, big greasy face far too fucking close, and Eric flinches. “Fucking pervert piece of shit,” he spits, the saliva misting over Eric’s face moments before the meaty fist connects with his mouth.

Eric’s head is rocked back by the force, the sheer surprise of it. He just manages to keep his hands by his sides, and the orderly steps back, hocking a foaming wad of spit onto Eric’s thigh. “They don’t pay us enough to deal with you psychos.”

Eric’s fingers itch to wipe the remnants of the man’s spittle from his face, but he holds himself perfectly still as the orderly scoops up the worst of the mess on the floor and stacks his trays. “Better start eating, Draven. Or they’ll put you in the hospital wing and hook you up to a feeding tube. Nasty business.”

Eric doesn’t know whether your office is in the hospital wing, but the thought that it might be, that him ending up in a bed there would bring you out of hiding is somewhat cheering even as his vision goes spotty and his stomach aches like its eating itself.

*

Eric hears the buzzer, and he rolls his head to the side to watch the red light blink. He’s too weak to move, couldn’t haul himself into the chair to fix his sham restraints in place even if he wanted to. He frowns when the light turns green anyway, expecting orderlies to pour in and drag him to the hospital wing for force feeding.

“This isn’t how you get my attention, Eric.” Your voice is low and melodic, and Eric feels every word vibrate through him as you step into the room. At the sight of him your brows pinch, concern written in every line of your face. “Oh, God. When did you stop eating?”

Eric thinks he shrugs, but he isn’t completely sure. He opens his mouth, but his tongue is a wedge of sandpaper against his teeth and his throat is raw.

You cross the room, dropping to your knees beside his bed and pressing your cool hand to his forehead. “Shit, Eric. What the hell did you do?”

Eric wants to snap, but the words that rattle out of him are weak. “What did you do?”

“I took a vacation.” You whisper. “I needed… some clarity. Away from here.”

If he had the strength, Eric thinks he might throttle you. So he’s glad he’s too weak to move, actually. “You left me.”

You purse your lips. “I didn’t leave you. This is… my job. Other doctors would have covered my patients.”

Eric chokes out a laugh. “I’m more. This is more than that.”

You swallow around a lump. This is exactly what you were trying to get away from. The unhealthy, intense dynamic that had grown between you and Eric Draven. The bond that threatened everything you’d worked so hard to build.

“So you just stopped eating, huh?”

Eric thinks he shrugs, but he’s too weak to know for sure.

“What’s that…” you disappear from beside him, and Eric’s fingers grasp uselessly at nothing as you dip under the bed and retrieve the moulded punnet of strawberries. “Eric.” You sigh.

“I owe you more names.”

“You don’t owe me anything. I shouldn’t have made it into a game. It wasn’t professional. I… I’ve been doing some thinking, and-“

“I wanna play another game.” Eric whispers through chapped lips.

“No.”

“You tell me things about yourself. Not big things, just… like… trivia. And I’ll eat. Drink, whatever.”

You purse your lips as you look at the glassiness in his eyes and the severe way his flesh is drawn over his bones. “Just for today, Draven.”

Eric winces as you help him sit up, and you press the buzzer on the wall, waiting for the hatch to open. “Hey, doc. You enjoy your vacay?” Eric grits his teeth at the sound of the voice, the familiarity with which he speaks to you.

“It was good to get outside of this place. I need a couple of bottles of water and some food. Something basic, like… toast? Can we do toast? Or crackers?”

Eric’s stomach gurgles at even the suggestion of food.

“Assume you’ll clear the budget for it.”

“You know I will, wouldn’t wanna get you in trouble.” Eric hates the teasing edge to your words, but when you turn back to look at him you roll your eyes and the churning in his guts stops. You’re playing the game, that’s all.

You jump when the hatch reopens, and the orderlies meaty paw shoves three water bottles through. “Asshole finally gunna stop being suicidal?”

“Working on it.” You say tightly, taking the bottles under your arm and reaching for the tray of toast. You look at the dry, burnt slices and grimace. “No butter? Jelly? I think… I mean I’m not sure he’ll be able to swallow this, is all.”

The orderly dips his head to look at you, and you offer him what you hope is a friendly smile. “I’ll see what we got. For you.”

The orderly does manage to procure a handful of sachets of strawberry jelly, and you squeeze them onto the toast, smoothing it out with your finger. Eric watches with a knot in his stomach at the care, the consideration for him. It really had been hell, being away from you.

“You have… any pets growing up?”

You crack the lid on a water bottle and hand it to him. Eric’s hands shake badly as he brings it to his lips and takes a few gulps. His throat protests as he swallows, but he pushes through the pain because you’re watching him.

“One cat, one dog. Toast.”

Eric takes a slice and licks tentatively at the jelly before taking a small bite. The toast is like ash in his mouth, but the jelly helps. He takes another sip of water unprompted, and you smile.

“First CD you ever bought.”

“Uhh… I don’t know, actually. I could only afford singles, I don’t think the memory of which came first stuck.”

Eric hums, taking another bite of the toast. With the water soothing his throat it’s becoming easier to swallow, and his stomach screams at him to devour every single fucking thing he can get his hands on.

“Siblings?”

“This is… not trivia.” You warn, and Eric takes a sip of water to mask the sting he feels at you reasserting the boundary.

“Favourite movie.”

You smile softly. “Am I basic if I say Titanic?”

Eric smirks. “Yes.”

He’s finishing the last mouthful of toast, two empty bottles already crumpled on the floor and the third almost finished when you detonate the bomb. “I’m switching you to another doctor.”

Eric’s vision tunnels as you ramble on, spounting nonsense about healthy boundaries and professional treatment.

“No.”

You sigh. “Eric, please. It’s for the best.”

“No. You can’t. You can’t.”

“I can.” Your mouth sets into a hard line. “It’s my decision. I’m in charge.”

Eric feels panic welling up, and he switches tactic. He reaches for your hand, bringing it to his face and pressing his nose against your palm. “Please. Please don’t leave me.”

Your lips wobble, and Eric presses his lips to your wrist, tongue gliding out to trace the pulse of the vein beneath your skin. “I’ll be good. I swear. I’ll give you names. I’ll take the meds. I’ll do anything, I’ll do every fucking thing.”

“Eric,” you whisper, feeling your stomach knot and unknot.

“I’ll be good.” He trails kisses up your palm and over your fingers, curling your hand into a fist and kissing your knuckles. “I’ll be your good boy.”

“I’m not healthy for you. I can’t be… you deserve a doctor who can respect the professional-“

“If you leave I’ll never speak again. I’ll never say another word. I swear it.”

His face hardens, and you realise with a sinking sense of inevitability that he isn’t bluffing. A man like Eric doesn’t bluff.

“You can’t… blackmail me into treating you.” You whisper.

Eric make a frustrated sound in the back of his throat. “It’s not blackmail. I’m just fucking telling you. I won’t work with another doctor. You’re it for me.”

“We don’t… We’d built a rapport, a sense of trust. You were lying the whole time, Eric. You have me second-guessing everything you’ve ever told me.”

“I didn’t lie.”

“You let me feed you. You could have used your hands the whole time.”

“I could have hurt you. Could have stolen your keycard and escaped but I didn’t, did I? I wouldn’t do anything to hurt you. Ever.”

You believe him, deep in your bones. But the balance of power has shifted, and you don’t know how to make it shift back.

“Anything.” Eric breathes. “I’d do anything to earn your trust back.” The soft, pleading edge to his voice sends a bolt of arousal through you.

“If I told you I can’t feel safe with you unrestrained?”

“Call the orderlies. Have them cuff me or tie me to the chair or whatever. I don’t care, I’ll do it.” There is wide sincerity in his eyes, a desperate eagerness to fix things, and you suck your bottom lip into your mouth.

In the time since you’d started these games, Eric had given up more names than he had in the months prior. Even if it was unethical, if playing with him closed cases and brought closure to more families, it was justified, wasn’t it?

You’re not sure you care, as you rake your eyes over his face and down his toned stomach, rippling under the thin material of his scrubs. “If I… tied you up myself. You’d be okay with that?”

Eric’s mouth goes dry, his cock twitching at the thought. “I trust you.”

Your legs shake as you push off the edge of his bed and collect the leather bands from beside his chair. The chains aren’t even connected to the goddamn floor, just looped around the chairlegs. If you’d looked at them just a little closer, you’d have seen that they were practically useless.

Eric’s watching you from the bed, his cock already tenting in the loose fabric of his scrubs. You notice, your eyes darkening as you turn the cuffs over in your hands. “How do these work, then?”

Eric hums, reaching for you. You hand him a cuff, and he leans down to wrap it around his ankle. “The release for the chain is here, on the top. Took me less than an hour to realise I could just…” he flicks his long finger against the mechanism and it pops open.

“That’s the worst design I’ve ever seen in my life.”

“I guess the board were on a budget.” Eric says with a smirk. “But if you put them on me the other way round, I can’t reach the release.”

You twist the cuff around, bracketing his wrist. “You can’t?”

Eric strains his fingers, but there’s no way to reach around to the release catch. “I’m stuck.”

You nod, fixing the other cuff to his wrist and then his ankles. “So now if I secure these to your bed…” you mumble to yourself as you pry open the end of the chain-links and tighten them over the railing at the bottom of the bed. You secure the other end to the cuff, and straighten. “You can’t get out?”

Eric tugs his leg, flexing his ankle this way and that. “Nope. Tight.” His voice drops an octave on the word, his breath hitching in his throat as his cock twitches.

“Good,” you mutter as you round the bed, securing his other ankle and then moving on to his wrists. “To the sides, or above your head?” You whisper.

“However you want,” he says quietly. You close your eyes briefly as a wave of arousal throbs through you, before lifting his wrist above his head and securing him to the headboard. His muscles bulge and strain at this angle, tattoos standing out against the hard flesh, and his pupils have blown wide as he wriggles against the restraints. “Okay. Shit, I really can’t move.”

You swallow, eyes raking over his bound form and committing every sinful inch of him to memory. “You like it?”

Eric groans, hips lifting off the bed as his cock throbs and leaks against the front of his scrubs. “Shit. Yeah, I like it. I’m… fucking hard.”

You hum, perching on the edge of the bed and ghosting your fingers over his erection. “I like you like this. I feel… in control.”

Eric whimpers at the way you touch him, bucking hopefully against your hand. “You’re in control. I’m… yours. I’m at your mercy. Whatever you want, doc.”

“Whatever I want,” you whisper, wrapping your hand around the outline of his shaft through his scrubs. “Loaded offer, Draven.”

Eric groans, eyes rolling back at the pressure of your fingers wrapped around him. “Please. I’ll give you names, I’ll give you whatever you- shit,” he hisses as you dip your hand beneath his waistband and rub over his slit, massaging his precum into the sensitive head of his cock.

“Whatever I want, right.” You coo, tugging his cock out of his scrubs and wrapping your fist around his length to pump him slowly. “Because you want to be good for me, right? My best patient? My best boy?”

Eric whines, hips bucking into your hand to fuck himself in the loose circle of your fist as you fumble with the waistband of your own pants. “Shit,” he whimpers, eyes fixed to your hand as you shove your soaked panties aside and circle your own clit with two fingers. “That’s… you’re so hot.”

You sigh, chasing the delicious friction of your fingers against yourself as you jerk your hand up and down his length. You pull your fingers out of your underwear and lean over, pressing them to Eric’s lips. “What was it you asked me, before? Hmm?”

Eric can only stare at you. He can’t think about anything other than the blinding pleasure of your hand on his cock and the tight, crushing feeling of the restraints pinning him to the bed.

“Spit, Eric.” You coo. He does, letting a thin stream of saliva slick over your fingers. You smile, holding his gaze as you shove your hand back into your underwear and use his spit to glide against your clit.

“That,” he gasps, eyes losing focus as you rub your thumb over his frenulum, massaging the sensitive spot. “Please.”

“You want to cum for me?” You murmur, squeezing his length harder as you pick up the pace.

“If it’s what you want.” He whispers, eyes wide and shining with tears as his hips buck.

“I do want.” You twist your wrist as you roll over the head of his cock, and Eric actually does cry out then. He’s had nothing but his own goddamn hand in years, and that had suited him just fine. But your hand, you looking at him as you brought him to the edge? It was too much. Eric whines as his release builds, cock throbbing and twitching as-

You remove your hand from him completely, and Eric’s eyes open in shock as his brows furrow and his bottom lip juts out in a pout. “Why did you stop?”

You hum, your other hand still working in your underwear, and Eric’s eyes drop to that point, mouth falling open. “Oh.”

“Me first,” you whisper.

“I wish I could… fuck,” Eric groans, straining against his restraints. “Wish I could touch you.”

“Yeah? Tell me.” You grit out, fingers circling your clit erratically as your orgasm nears.

“Wanna touch you. Wanna use my fingers. My tongue. Bet you taste so good. Fuckin strawberries,” he groans, cock twitching with the aching need to cum.

“Shit. Yeah. If you weren’t all… tied up for me,” you moan. “Fuck, Eric. I’m gunna cum. I’m gunna-“ you break off with a cry as your orgasm washes over you, grinding desperately into your own palm as you twitch through the waves of pleasure.

“That was… fuck. Please,” he whines, and you sigh as you withdraw your soaked fingers and lean over to press them against his lips.

“Suck.”

Eric draws your fingers into his mouth, laving his tongue between the slick digits to swallow down every last trace of your release. He moans at the taste, at the hot, sweet and bitter taste of you, and his eyes roll back as his cock twitches for a final time before shooting thick ropes of cum over his stomach.

Eric drops boneless to the bed, tongue running desperately over his lips to collect the last traces of your arousal where you dragged your fingers out of his mouth. You dip your head to peck his lips, tasting yourself on his tongue.

“Get some rest,” you sigh, pressing a kiss to his sweaty forehead. “I have notes to write up, forms to fill out. Some difficult phone calls to make. I’d already promised you to another doctor whose practically foaming at the mouth to get time with you. He’s gunna be pissed.” 

Eric can’t bring himself to feel sorry for you, not with the taste of your release in his mouth and your admission that you’d tried to trade him away like a fucking Pokémon card.

*

You’re sitting at your desk writing up notes and trying very hard to not bring up the camera feed to Eric’s room when there’s a light tap at your door.

“Come in!” You call.

You straighten at the sight of the lead psychiatrist, and you feel your heart drop into your stomach at the sight of the very official, suit-clad man standing next to her. “Do you have a minute? We need to discuss a patient of yours.”

You don’t need her to clarify. There’s only one patient she could be talking about, so you gesture for them to enter the room. She sits opposite you with a sigh. “We need to talk about your relationship with Eric Draven.”