Cy

Of all the times to get your period, this had to be the worst. 

Light glints off the knife at your throat, heightening the fear wrecking your body. You can feel the sickening wetness between your legs. Too cold and too much to be anything except your monthly curse coming to plague your life. Ironic that your last moments on Earth would be accompanied by the breakthrough bleeding of an early period. How pointless. The humour of the situation isn’t lost on you, and the only thing stopping a giggle from bubbling out of your mouth is the terrifying presence before you. The grip on your arm is more than bruising; it feels harsh enough to break the bones beneath your flesh, but you don’t thrash. The icy blue eyes glaring down at you are more than capable of keeping you locked in place. Black and white outline the man’s figure, and it doesn’t take a genius to figure out who he is. 

Bullseye. 

You’d seen him on TV before, getting carried away by police, chained to the teeth like a wild animal. The cameras hadn’t done him justice. They failed to capture the broadness of his shoulders, the way his lips would stretch into a deranged grin at the sight of blood and, more importantly, how handsome he was. Only now, with his face mere inches from yours, can you see the length of his dark lashes and how they bring out the blue of his eyes in a piercing, yet breathtaking way. The shape of his lips, currently locked in a grimace, makes your heart pound with something other than fear, much to your own discomfort. The blade presses deeper, and a dribble of blood runs down your neck, staining the collar of your dress. 

“I saiiiiiid…” Bullseye leans in even closer, and you smell the heady scent of cigarette smoke and whiskey on his breath, “Where’d your client go?” 

Your client. A wealthy old man. Sweet and hardly pushy for someone with so much power in this city. It’s not something you were proud of, but between your student loans and rent, you rarely had a surplus of money and being a sugar baby wasn’t the worst gig. You could dress up nice, eat at fancy restaurants, and get held at knife point when your ‘date’ pushes you to the floor as he runs away. Another breath hits your face as Bullseye huffs impatiently, tongue sliding across his dry lips as he waits. The movement makes your knee jerk, fear mixing with a disturbing arousal.  

“I don’t know, he just took off running.” Your voice is barely a squeak, but you manage to hold it steady as the hand on your bicep squeezes slightly more, “I’m not his secretary…” 

“No shit, dollface.” Bullseye rolls his eyes back so far you’re left staring into off-white for a moment, “But I think you know something, maybe you remember where he liked to bend you over?” 

You feel your eye twitch at the crass statement, “I never fucked him, and I sure as hell don’t know where he ran off to. I was too busy picking myself up off the floor.” You mumble, half-hoping he doesn’t hear you and half-hoping he does. If the guy was going to kill you anyway, why bother to be polite? 

“Yeah, I saw!” Bullseye cracks a grin, eyes crinkling, as if remembering you getting body slammed was particularly joyous for him, “Oh well, too bad for you.” 

He yanks you closer to him as the blade slices a bit deeper, sending hot blood cascading down your neck. You cringe, eyes closing tightly, not wishing to look at the cause of your demise. Bullseye is practically pressed against you as he goes in for the kill. A hard, spandex-covered body provides stability for your shaking form. Then, he pauses. A moment passes slowly, dragging on with each audible breath that leaves your lips. The knife pulls away from your throat, the cold metal tapping against your inner thigh instead. Your undignified yelp echoes around the (now) abandoned restaurant dining hall, and you hear Bullseye let out a low chuckle. Through squinted eyes, you look at him, but his gaze is focused elsewhere. 

Bullseye’s staring at your legs, specifically, at the thin trail of blood running down your inner thigh. In the haze of panic, you think he’s started slicing at you elsewhere, intent on drawing out your agony. Upon a brief inspection of your thigh, though, there’s no evidence of a cut, but you feel your heart sink to the bottom of your stomach. Why can't you die with dignity? Were you going to die covered in period blood and actual blood? What a cosmic joke. The gloved hand holding the knife grips your knee, forcing your leg to spread out. Out of instinct, your own hand grabs onto Bullseye, attempting to stay upright as he ruins your balance. You’re both still staring at the red dribble, and you watch with morbid horror as Bullseye walks his fingers up your leg. He whistles low as they reach the hem of your dress, pinching the fabric with a creepy amount of gentleness and sliding it upwards. You feel your face burn as Bullseye slowly reveals more and more of your skin, following the trail of blood all the way to the source. He practically purrs once he finally reaches your blood-soaked panties, ripping his eyes away from your clothed cunt to give you a wink. 

“Can’t say I’ve ever had a woman have this reaction to me.” You watch as Bullseye’s tongue darts out to wet his lips again, “You know what they say… Old enough to bleed, old enough to breed.” 

You physically feel your eyebrow quirk upwards at his words, confusion and disgust battling the growing sense of dread in your guts. Before you can even think about asking if he was going to let you go, the knife is pressed against your skin again. This time, the blade is poking the junction of your thigh and hip, right by the waistband of your panties. With a flick of Bullseye’s wrist, the fabric is sliced through, and you shiver as the air wafts over your soaked sex. Your panties stay hooked on your body, hanging limply by your thigh, and the reality of what’s about to happen starts to dawn on you. Bullseye shifts his grip so he’s holding you by the flimsy strap of your dress as the knife flirts with your sternum, lining up to slice down the middle of your garment. 

“W-Wait!” The blade stops tracing the skin of your chest for a moment, and relief washes over you. 

Until you look at Bullseye’s stupidly handsome face. 

His pupils are blown wide, a heated darkness enveloping his cold irises. “What? Don’t you want to live?” 

Your eyelids flutter at the implication, and Bullseye takes advantage of your speechlessness. His hand holds your dress taut as the knife rips the dress in two, snagging your bra as it goes. Your arms come up on reflex to hold the fabric to your body, attempting to keep your dignity. It’s in vain, a simple low rumble from the man’s chest and your limbs drop, the threat of death hanging over you as he pushes the material aside. 

“Wow…” Bullseye wolf-whistles loudly and you wince, “With a body like that- hell, I’d be a hooker as well!” He laughs in your face as he appraises you, eyes greedily taking in every curve and contour of your naked and bloody frame. 

“... I’m not a hooker.” Your words fall on deaf ears as Bullseye wraps an arm around your waist, hoisting you over his shoulder with surprising strength. 

Your fingers grab at his belt, head spinning as your top half hangs upside down. Your legs kick wildly until a gloved hand smacks you on the rear. The hilt of the knife makes contact with your ass as well, and you’re not so stupid as to understand the implied threat. 

“Good girl- you sure learn fast, huh?” The pride in his voice makes your stomach flip, and not in a wholly unpleasant way. 

You watch the floor as Bullseye strides across the room, eventually stopping at one of the many tables. A shrill clanging echoes out as he swipes the cutlery and dishes from the surface, making a nice space to slam you down on. Blood seeps from the cut on your neck, dropping onto the wood as Bullseye makes himself at home between your legs. 

He’s even bigger like this. Looming over you with a sickening grin. You can clearly see the outline of his cock in his suit, hard and straining against the fabric. The wave of arousal through your body only makes you feel worse, pussy clenching around nothing as Bullseye hums thoughtfully. 

“Where do you think I should start?” Bullseye rubs his chin in mock contemplation, eyes flicking between your bloody cunt and the mess of gore at your neck. 

It takes a moment of silence before you realise he genuinely wants an answer. Your brain runs at a million miles per hour, before you shakily point towards your crotch. In your mind, the sooner it starts, the sooner it’ll be over, and maybe, he’ll let you go. 

“I’ve left you speechless? Now that is a reaction I get often- don’t worry, I’ll have that throat working again in no time.” The ‘reassuring’ smile he gives you only sends a shiver of fear down your spine. 

As if you hadn’t made a suggestion at all, Bullseye leans down, breath wafting against your neck as he breathes in deeply. His entire body vibrates as his tongue swipes over the drying blood on your collarbone, and you wish it didn’t feel so nice. The heat of his mouth is almost soothing. The soft and wide licks clean your skin, and once Bullseye reaches the cut he placed, his lips kiss at the wound, lovingly. He lets out a moan into your neck as his tongue traces the ragged edges of the cut, covering it in a thick layer of saliva. Your hands tighten into fists at your side as you fight the urge to hold his head there, to enjoy this far more than anyone should. Bullseye doesn’t notice, or perhaps, he doesn’t care. Too lost in his own perverse enjoyment of your body. He sucks at the cut, pulling more blood into his mouth like a vampire as you blink away tears, the wound stinging as it’s abused. Bullseye doesn’t pull back until his face is soaked with blood and spit, eyes tracing the bruise forming around the cut as his hand wipes the mess from his lips. 

“Fuck… you taste so sweet.” He says, drunkenly, as if he just chugged a bottle of wine rather than a cupful of your blood. 

You can’t look at him, despite how much you want to. Your eyes trace the ornate ceiling instead, a poor attempt at dissociating from the entire situation. Huge hands grabbing your waist, the feeling of fabric against your inner thighs. It fades from the forefront of your mind until you feel something hot and blunt against your pussy. Bullseye’s suit is apparently a two-piece, allowing him to free his aching cock from the bondage of spandex without exposing himself entirely. A luxury not afforded to yourself, completely bare for his viewing pleasure. Before you can stop yourself, your eyes fall to his shaft. 

It’s thick, long and throbbing. Under different circumstances, you’d be thrilled. It’s the kind of cock that even the mere memory of it would have you wet, the kind of cock that you think about late at night when the city finally sleeps. You bite your lip, half in anticipation of pain and half in anticipation of pleasure. Bullseye doesn’t move. He just keeps his cock pressed against your bloody sex. His fingers twitch on your waist, almost like he was thinking about something and hadn’t quite come to a decision yet. Your eyes find his face, and that seems to trigger him to move, but not his hips. A thumb slides over your clit, rolling the sensitive bud with careful consideration. Despite the lack of foreplay, the blood covering your sex allows for ample lubricant as he plays with your cunt. 

“Come on… I know you want to enjoy this- just like me.” Bullseye goads you, lips forming a smug grin as heat starts to radiate from your pussy, “Don’t you want to be good for me?” 

His words only make it harder to hold back the moan that wants to escape your throat. Each pass of his thumb feels better than the last, if that was even possible. Your thigh twitches as he picks up the pace, sending a wave of pleasure through your body that finally releases the noises trapped in your chest. As the first moan slips from your lips, Bullseye juts his hips forward, pushing the head of his cock into your tight hole with a groan. The sudden stretch makes you mewl, legs wrapping around his sturdy hips as he continues to press into you. 

“Taking me so well. Be honest,” Bullseye leans over you, one hand still playing with your clit as the other holds your hips steady, “This is definitely how you saw your night going, right?” You can barely focus on what he’s saying as his cock brushes against a particularly sensitive part of your anatomy.  

“I mean, letting some guy defile you for a payment,” Bullseye is practically babbling, fingers bruising your hip as your pussy swallows more and more of him, “I know the reward in this situation is your life, but let's be honest, money and life? Practically the same thing these days.” 

His hips are finally flush with yours, and you take a shuddering breath, the feeling of fullness outweighing the disgust rolling in your stomach. Bullseye barely gives you a second before he starts a punishing pace, pulling out nearly completely only to slam back into your pussy with a wet squelch. He fucks you as if he hates you. Each thrust is merciless and cruelly aimed at the most sensitive spots. Your hands find the confidence to move as he practically fucks you off the table, coming up to grab at his shoulders, if only to stay in one place. Any type of silent treatment has long since been forgotten, moans falling from your lips with such frequency that it's practically just one long, continuous stream. 

“Told you I’d get that throat working. Not so uppity now, are you, whore?” The insult only makes you clench around him, mind fully given into depravity. 

Your mouth opens to say something, maybe hurl an insult of your own, but “F-feels soooo gooood.” is all that comes out. Much to your disappointment and Bullseye’s glee. The thumb on your clit doubles its efforts again, almost like a reward for your honesty. 

An orgasm starts to build in your gut as Bullseye ruts into you, each sickeningly wet slap of skin against skin only heightening the waves of pleasure. Just as you’re about to dive off the edge and revel in oblivion, a hand squeezes tight around your throat. The grip is enough to jolt you from your haze, focusing once again on the man above you, who grins like a maniac. Bullseye’s other hand is behind your knee, forcing your legs to stay spread for him as his pace speeds up. Your moans and mewls are effectively silenced, and your breaths are laboured as your lungs struggle for oxygen, causing you to thrash beneath his heavy frame. 

“That’s it… Look me in the eye,” Even with his cowl, you can see the pink blush of exertion on his cheeks, “Wanna see your face when I come inside you.” 

You can feel his cock twitch inside you as he chokes the breath from your lungs. Bullseye’s thrusts become more and more sloppy as you shake, not from pleasure but from the lack of air. With one final, devastating slam of his hips into yours, he moans, and those pretty blue eyes roll back in his head. Despite how wet you already feel, Bullseye’s load inside you is distinct. It’s burning hot and right against your cervix, pressing nearly uncomfortably into the already sore organ. His grip on your throat finally relinquishes as his hips stop grinding into yours, and you pant, gasping for air as your lungs burn. Bullseye pulls away from you, softening cock slipping from your stretched pussy, covered in blood, slick and his own spend. 

Every part of you aches, and you hope for one stupid moment that it’s all over and he’ll finally let you go. That hope turns into mush as Bullseye drops to his knees, hands grabbing your waist and yanking you to the end of the table. You’re far too tired to care, body limp as he pushes your legs apart again. His tongue flattens against your clit, and the heat of his mouth feels searing compared to the quickly cooling fluids covering your sex. A moan works its way from your ragged throat, thighs twitching as he lavishes your pussy similarly to how he mouthed your neck earlier. Bullseye’s tongue is every bit as accurate as his fingers and cock, easily rolling your clit in a way that makes your mind hazy. Barely, you think he spells something out against your cunt, feeling the distinct shape of an ‘L’ over your swollen bud. The orgasm from before rises again with a fierce intensity, and it’s barely a minute before you’re cumming on his tongue with a pathetic cry. Bullseye is looming over you again once your eyes finally open, cool blue doing nothing to soothe the burn in your lower stomach. His mouth is covered in blood, and the sight should be horrifying, but all you can focus on is the way his lips quirk into a grin. 

“Bet I’m a better fuck than that old guy, right?” Bullseye pauses, waiting for you to answer. You don’t have the strength. “... Well, I’ll take your silence as a yes.” 

You blink at him before lifting yourself up on shaking arms. Bullseye doesn’t move as you slot your mouth over his, finally feeling those lips on your own. The taste of iron and musk makes the arousal in the pit of your stomach come to life again, your lips moving desperately against his. He doesn’t kiss you back, holding still as if he’s completely taken aback by your actions. After a few moments of a one-sided kiss, embarrassment sets in, and you pull away, avoiding his bewildered gaze. You stare at the bruises forming on your hips as Bullseye steps backward, awkwardly shuffling with his ‘pants’ as he grabs his discarded knife from the floor. 

Neither of you said anything. 

Soon enough, you’re sitting atop the table, alone and naked. Bullseye had long since left, not saying a word as he turned his back to you. Blood and cum leak from your pussy and onto the mahogany. 

Definitely the worst time to get your period. 

Dex went still. The principal kept talking beside him. Something about lockdown protocols, fire exits, parent pick-up procedures, and perhaps thanking him for the visit. Dex didn’t hear any of it. He watched the little boy rub his face with his sleeve, watched you reach into your cardigan pocket and produce a tissue because of course you had one ready, because of course you had walked through life expecting the world to hurt these precious little things and had prepared yourself to help.

“Reading slowly just means you get to spend more time with the words,” you told the boy. “That’s not a bad thing.”

The boy sniffled, and you smiled at him.

Dex felt that smile land in his cold heart, somewhere it had no business being.

It would have been easier if you were only beautiful. That would have been manageable. Uncomfortable, maybe, but manageable. Beauty was a fact. Beauty could be observed, catalogued, eventually put away. You were beautiful in a way that seemed unaware of itself, unpolished and terribly human. The cardigan sleeves falling too far over your hands, the loose strand of hair stuck to your cheek, the worn soles of your cheap flats, you smiling so easily for children who probably forgot to thank you for it.

Dex thought you were gorgeous with an alarmed resentment, as if his own body had betrayed him by noticing before his mind had given permission. Then you looked up at him.

Your eyes met his across the library, and for half a second, Dex forgot what face he was supposed to be wearing. You smiled politely, like he was just another adult in the building, not a man with a gun under his jacket teaching staff how to react in case of a school shooting.

“Hi,” you said. “Sorry, do you need the library?”

The principal brightened. “This is our librarian.”

You gave Dex your name. He repeated it silently once. Then again. Then a third time, because it felt like something he should store somewhere safe, somewhere no one else could touch.

“Special Agent Poindexter,” he said, holding out his hand.

You shook it, and your hand was warm. Dex noticed that there was a tiny paper cut near your thumb. 

You were still smiling at him. Not because he was FBI, and not because he was handsome, though he was. You smiled because you were kind.

Fuck. That’s inconvenient.

Pretty made him look, but good made him stay.

That first visit should have been the last. Dex knew that. There was no operational reason for him to return personally. The school’s safety review was a basic one. The principal had his notes, but the follow-up could have been handled by email. A junior agent could have dropped off the printed materials. Anyone could have gone.

But Dex went. That second time, he poked his head to the library, and said hi. You said hi back, right after you told two boys that no, the beanbags were not for wrestling, and yes, you were very impressed by the creativity of the attempt.

Dex couldn’t stop thinking about it for a week.

The third time, he told himself it was because the library’s rear exit needed another assessment. It was technically true. The lock was old, the corridor outside had basically no surveillance, and the staff entrance was too far from the main office. He made it seem like a legitimate concern, when really, it was a neat little justification. Dex was excellent at finding those.

You were reshelving books when he appeared in the doorway, balanced on the tips of your toes as you reached for the top shelf. The hem of your blouse lifted slightly at your waist. It was nothing indecent. Barely anything at all.

Still, his mind went briefly blank. 

He cleared his throat.

You startled, turned, and smiled. “Agent Poindexter.”

Dex liked the sound of it from you. That was inconvenient too.

“Sorry,” you added, stepping down. “Am I in the way?”

“No.”

“Good. Because if you were about to tell me my fiction section is a security risk, I might cry.”

His mouth twitched before he decided to let it. “I’ll leave fiction alone.”

“Very generous of the DOJ.” That’s when he realised you were teasing him. 

Dex looked at you and thought, you have no idea what a dangerous thing that was.

After that, the visits became a pattern.

Not obvious, because Dex was never sloppy when he could help it. He didn’t go every day. He didn’t stand outside the library staring like some lovesick idiot with no self-control. He knew how to make repeated contact look procedural. 

His supervisor barely looked up from the file the fourth time it happened. “Poindexter, you handled the school outreach last week, right?”

“Yes.”

“They’ve got some updated compliance questions. I can send Nadeem.”

Dex immediately shook his head. “I’ll take it.”

His supervisor paused, but Dex kept his face still. “I’m already familiar with the layout,” he said, and what a good excuse that was. 

The whole truth was that he had thought about you every day since the first visit. You came to him through triggers. When he saw children’s drawings in a hallway. A cardigan on a mannequin The smell of old paper. A mug with painted stars on it in a café window, because you had one on your desk.

You were good, and you were pretty, and that combination felt less like attraction and more like orientation. As if Dex had spent his whole life moving without a fixed point and then walked into a school library and found one.

So, yes, he came back to the school. And, yes, eventually, he followed you home.

The first time, he told himself it was because you were the last staff member to leave again and the car park lighting was poor, so he had to make sure you were safe. It had rained earlier, leaving the pavement slick and black. You walked out with a tote bag over one shoulder and an armful of books pressed to your chest, juggling your keys between your fingers. 

Dex sat in his car and watched until you pulled out of the lot. Then he followed. He learned the route to your apartment in fourteen minutes. He cleared that you lived in a building with a front door that did not latch unless pulled hard, that the hallway light on your floor flickered, that your window faced the street and your curtains were thin enough to turn your silhouette suggestive when you moved past them with nothing on.

He hated your building immediately. The lock was bad. The street was worse. Your neighbours were careless. The man in 2B smoked on the front steps and watched women walk past like a fucking creep. The laundry room was in the basement. The side gate did not close properly.

Dex catalogued every vulnerability, then sat in his car for twenty-three minutes after your lights went out and told himself this was a reasonable concern.

He was trained to notice risk, and you just had so much of it. You were too open, too trusting, too underpaid to live somewhere safe enough. 

He found out about the money without needing to try very hard.

He figured out your exact job title, your district, and salary ranges within twenty minutes. He knew what you could afford, what you probably couldn’t, what your grocery budget looked like if your car needed work or if the school asked you to buy supplies out of pocket again. And you did, apparently. He saw the receipts in your hand one afternoon when you came out of a discount store with construction paper, glue sticks, tissues, and children’s stickers paid for with your own money.

That bothered him more than it should have. It enraged him. Not because you were helpless. Dex didn’t think that. You were competent in the way good people often were, holding ten pieces of a room together while everyone else assumed the room simply stayed whole on its own. But you were tired and stretched thin. You loved your job, the children, the library with its peeling posters and overhandled paperbacks, but love didn’t pay rent.

I could, he thought. Dex could pay your rent without noticing. He could buy groceries without checking his account. He could fix the lock. Replace the car. Put you somewhere safe and close. That’s… a good reason to ask you out, right?

If he ever had the courage. 

By the fifth visit, you laughed when you saw him. “Again?”

Dex stopped in the library doorway, because he insisted to the bureau that some of the teachers were security risks. “Again.”

“Should I be worried about the state of our emergency preparedness?”

“No.”

“Should I be worried about you?” That caught him off-guard.  Your tone was teasing, but your eyes were warm and curious.

Should I be worried about you?

Yes, he thought. Probably.

Instead, he said, “No.”

You narrowed your eyes in mock suspicion. “I don’t know. Five visits to the school. Either we are extremely unsafe, or you really like laminated evacuation maps.”

Dex looked at the map beside your door. “It’s a good map.”

You burst out laughing.

Dex loved the sound immediately and started to memorise it so he could copy it when you made a joke. More than that, he wanted to be responsible for it. He wanted to know what your laugh sounded like in his car. In his kitchen. Against his mouth.

The thought came so suddenly that his teeth clenched.

You noticed. Your smile softened, and Dex had the devastating impression that you thought you had embarrassed him. “I’m sorry,” you said. “I didn’t mean to make fun of you.”

“You didn’t.”

“Okay.” You tilted your head. “Good.”

Good. The word followed him home.

So did you, though not physically. Not yet. But your image, your voice, the way you said his name after he told you to call him Dex, the way you remembered he took tea plain after seeing him drink it once in the staff room. The way you handed him a paper cup and said, “I made too much,” as if generosity was just something that spilled out of you naturally.

And then there were the guys around you.

He had watched a math teacher who lingered at your desk too long after school, making you laugh over some stupid story about a parent email. A divorced father at pick-up who asked whether you ever took private tutoring work and then smiled in a way Dex didn’t like. A man you met for coffee one Friday evening, two neighbourhoods over, at a café with steamed windows and terrible parking.

Dex hadn’t meant to follow you there. That was a lie.

He had followed you there because you had worn lipstick, the kind you probably put on in your rearview mirror after work, thinking no one would notice.

The date was unremarkable. The man was unremarkable. He wore a blue shirt, laughed too loudly, and checked his phone while you were talking. Dex watched from across the street with his hands still on the steering wheel and felt jealousy move through him.

The man was wrong for you.

He was careless, dull, and too impressed with himself. He made you pay for your own tea. That alone felt like a crime.

You left to do some off-the-clock work, and your date stayed. Dex waited until the man left to use the bathroom, then walked into the café and passed close enough to his table to see the phone he had left face-up beside his plate. He saw a message from someone named Laura lit the screen with a heart attached.

Dex smiled. That was useful.

The next morning, he sent an anonymous message to Laura. The following week, you didn’t see blue-shirt again.

You looked a little sad about it on Monday. Dex hated that. Then he hated the man more for making you sad. Then he told himself it was better this way.

It became easier to scare off your dates after that. All it took was an inconvenient scheduling conflict, a resurfaced truth, a gentle nudge. One man had an outstanding warrant for unpaid fines. One was married. One was simply easy to scare with the right look from the right federal agent in a parking lot.

By the sixth visit to the school, there was no reason good enough to fool anyone but himself.

A “Penultimate walkthrough,” he called it, before the final walkthrough next week. 

The principal seemed pleased, though you looked amused. “Penultimate?” you asked when Dex appeared outside the library.

“Yes.”

“Should I be honoured?”

“You should feel secure.”

“I do. The biography section has never been safer.”

He looked at you, and you smiled like you were proud of yourself. Dex couldn’t help but copy that smile back. Your expression changed when you saw it, going still for one second, like you liked him, too.

That day, he walked through the library with you while you pointed out doors and windows and places the children liked to hide during reading hour. This corner was where the overwhelmed ones went. That shelf had the books no one returned on time because they loved them too much. The lamp near the beanbag was too warm if left on all day, but you kept it anyway because the kids said it made the corner feel cozy.

“This is where they go when they need silence,” you said, gesturing toward a little space tucked behind a low shelf. A lamp. A basket of soft toys. Books with soft edges. A handmade sign that read: take a breath.

Dex looked at it.

You had made a place for children to be afraid safely. Of course you had.

“You did this?” he asked.

You shrugged, suddenly shy. “It’s not much.”

Dex looked at you. “It is.”

You met his eyes, and for a moment, the library noise faded behind you.

After that, he wanted to give you things. He wanted to give you better shoes. Better locks. A safer car. A warmer apartment. Groceries you did not buy with mental arithmetic running behind your eyes. A kitchen where your tea sat beside his coffee because it belonged there. A bed you didn’t have to assemble yourself. A life where you did not walk to your car alone. He wanted your life folded into his so completely that you never again had to stand unprotected in the world.

It was raining the day he finally asked.

The sky had turned the school windows grey, and the car park outside shone black under the streetlights. Most of the staff had already left. The corridors had emptied, and you were the last one in the library again.

Dex had lingered through a conversation with the principal he barely needed to have after the final walkthrough. He had checked the same exit twice. He had waited near the lobby until your light was the only one still glowing down the hall.

Then you came out with a tote bag sliding down your shoulder and a cardboard box of donated books pressed against your hip. Your umbrella refused to open, and you stared at it like it had stabbed you.

“Need help?”

You startled, then relaxed when you saw him. “Dex.” You laughed, breathless and embarrassed. “Do you just appear whenever I’m losing a fight?”

“Your umbrella is inside out,” he pointed out, before taking the box from you.

You tried to hold on. “I can carry that.”

“I know.”

“Then why did you take it?”

“Because it’s raining.”

You looked at him for a second, then smiled, soft and helpless and too fond for his sanity.

“Okay,” you said, as if letting him carry a box was nothing. As if it didn’t make a dark and pleased thought settle low in his chest.

He walked you to your car and put the books in the back seat. He noted the old jumper on the passenger side, the stack of overdue returns, the half-empty water bottle, the evidence of your life that was still not his.

You stood beside him under the broken umbrella, rain misting your hair.

You were gorgeous, he thought.

It struck him then in the stupidest way. No analysis or clinical separation. Just so pretty it made him feel young and strange and almost angry with himself.

“What?” you asked, smiling like you could tell he was staring.

Dex could’ve said nothing. He could have smiled, stepped back, wished you a good night, returned to his car, and come up with another reason to see you next week.

Instead, he looked at you and thought of your whole life together. Then he said it. “Have dinner with me.”

Your smile faded into surprise. The rain tapped against the broken umbrella between you. You blinked once. It wasn’t really a question, was it?  “With you?”

“Yes.”

“As in…”

“A date.”

Your cheeks warmed. Dex watched the colour rise and tilted his head.

“Oh,” you said softly. Then, after a second, you smiled. “Okay.”

Just like that, he got what he wanted. 

—

The first date was dinner at your favourite restaurant, though you couldn’t recall ever telling Dex that.

You paused outside the little place with the handwritten menu in the window, your hand tucked into the crook of his arm. “Oh,” you said, surprised. “I love this place.”

Dex looked down at you, calm as anything. “Do you?”

You laughed. “I come here all the time.”

“I didn’t know that.”

The lie was smooth, but Dex said it with such calm that you accepted it because you wanted to. So you smiled up at him and said, “Then we have similar taste.”

His eyes held on your face. “Maybe we do.”

“Maybe we belong together then,” you joked.

Dex’s brain went to a catastrophic halt.

You didn’t see it from the outside, not really. His face barely changed. Maybe his eyes went a little too still. Maybe his fingers pressed once, carefully, against your hand where it rested on his sleeve.

But inside him, his heart lit up white-hot. Belong together.

You had said it so lightly. Dex heard it like a verdict. Like the universe had leaned down and put a hand on his shoulder and said, yes, that one.

He opened the restaurant door for you and followed you inside with your words still burning through him.

You had no idea he had chosen this restaurant because he had followed you there three weeks before, parked across the street while you sat by the window with two friends and laughed over a bowl of pasta. You had no idea he had watched you order the same thing twice. You had no idea he knew which seat you liked, which dessert you split with your friend and pretended not to want more of, which route you took home afterward, how tightly you held your coat closed when the wind picked up.

But yeah, dinner was great. 

The second date was coffee because you were trying to take things slower.

He was already there when you arrived, sitting by the window with your drink waiting in front of the empty chair. Your exact order, right size, right syrup.  He claimed similar taste innocently again. 

You should have been alarmed. Instead, you chuckled and sat down.

Coffee turned into a walk. The walk turned into him standing beside your car, close enough that your shoulder brushed his sleeve. He looked at your mouth once, then back at your eyes. “Can I kiss you?”

You didn’t even answer. You just stood on your tip toes and kissed him, carefully at first. But his hand came to cup your face, so you made a hum into his mouth and felt him unravel. 

When he pulled back, his eyes were dark. You smiled, dazed. 

The third date was dinner at his apartment.

He cooked for you, because apparently Dex did everything like it was a mission and feeding you was no exception. His apartment was neat  and perfectly arranged, but then you were there with your jacket on the back of his chair and your laugh in his kitchen, and he kept looking at those little disruptions were worth you being here.

The food was good, so you smiled and pushed a little harder. “You’re very good at taking care of me.”

Dex went still, and you could’ve sworn his ears went pink. 

After dinner, you kissed him on the couch. That was all it was supposed to be: A kiss.

Yes, maybe Dex made it feel a little too deep. Maybe it was too hungry. Maybe it was a little reckless, considering this was only the third date and you weren't the kind of woman who did things like this. You didn’t tumble into a man’s bed after three dates and let your body make decisions your brain would have to defend in the morning.

Your brain was trying, to be fair. The little voices there had formed a whole committee meeting about it.

This is too fast. This is insane. You have work tomorrow. You barely know him.

Unfortunately, Dex was kissing you, open-mouthed and desperate, his hands tight on your waist, breathing against you like every second of restraint physically hurt him, and your body didn’t seem particularly interested in attending the discussion.

You climbed into his lap because there was nowhere else you wanted to be.

Dex let out a breathy moan when you settled over him,  his head tipping back against the couch. His shirt was still on, but you had already pulled half the buttons open, enough to get your hands on skin, enough to feel his chest rise under your palms every time your mouth found his again.

Your skirt was hiked high around your thighs, his fingers trembling at the hem of it.

Dex, who could easily take what he wanted, sat beneath you with his hands on your thighs and waited for you to tell him he was allowed.

You kissed him harder for it.

His mouth opened under yours immediately, wet and so eager that you felt your stomach twist. You threaded your fingers into his hair and tugged once, just to steady yourself, just to feel him closer.

Dex sighed into your mouth.

“Oh,” you whispered, breathless.

His eyes opened, fixed on you. You smiled because you understood then that Benjamin Poindexter liked being told what to do.

He wanted to be good for you. He wanted to earn every sound you made.

You shifted in his lap, and his whole body reacted. His fingers slid higher under your skirt, then stopped again.

“Dex,” you breathed.

His throat worked. “Tell me.”

You leaned down, your lips brushing his as you spoke. “Touch me.”

He obeyed so fast it made you gasp.

Your panties were pulled to the side with clumsy, shaking urgency, his pants shoved down just enough because neither of you had the patience anymore. It was filthy how desperate it was. There was no time for the bedroom, no careful undressing, no pretending this was slower than it was. It was you in his lap, his open shirt under your hands, your skirt bunched around your waist, both of you panting into each other’s mouths like you had been struck by fucking lightning.

He was so intense you expected him to take over. Because he could’ve flipped you under him. He could have pinned you to the couch and made you forget every thought you had ever had. He had the body, he had muscles, he had the skills. 

Instead, he looked at you like he needed permission to breathe. “Like that?” he breathed.

You nodded, nails dragging over his chest nodding frantically. “Don’t stop.”

He didn’t.

Dex listened like obedience was devotion, like your pleasure was a commandment, like the only thing in the world that mattered was keeping you exactly like this: skirt up, mouth open, shaking in his lap while he looked up at you like you were holy.

You knew this was too quick. You never had one night stands. Even three dates was way too quick, by your standards. 

But his hands were on your waist, his shirt was open, his breathing was breaking, and when you whispered, “Fuck, baby,” he shuddered so hard beneath you that all your remaining common sense died on the couch.

Afterward, you stayed folded against him, both of you warm and breathless, your face tucked into his neck.

Dex’s hand moved slowly up your back, careful now. 

You lifted your head enough to look at him. His hair was wrecked. His mouth was red. His eyes were softer than you had ever seen them, though there was still a frightening stillness underneath, satisfied and hungry and already too attached.

You touched his cheek. “I should probably go home.”

Dex went still.

He looked at you from beneath those dark lashes, still flushed, still breathing hard, still beautiful enough to make bad decisions feel like fate. “Stay the night,” he said, trying not to say please.

You swallowed. “I have work tomorrow.”

“I’ll drive you.”

“My things are at home.”

“You can wear something of mine.”

“I need my toothbrush.”

“I have a spare.”

A laugh slipped out of you, helpless and fond. Of course he did. 

Dex’s mouth barely moved, and it was always a smile.

He looked at you like he needed you to say yes and hated that you could tell. Like letting you leave after this would physically hurt. Like you had crawled into his lap and accidentally turned yourself into the centre of his orbit.

You should go home. Your sensible little inner committee was banging on the table now.

But Dex looked at you like he was unaware he had puppy dog eyes, and you couldn’t say no to that, right? 

So you kissed him once. “M’kay, baby,” you said.

Dex held you tighter then, giving an upbeat little whine as he peppered kisses on your collarbone.

Little did you know, there was no going back now. 

—

The next day, Dex picked you up from work, even though you hadn’t asked him to.

He had driven you that morning as promised, his hands on your waist while he kissed you goodbye like he was trying not to follow you into the school library.

You had spent the whole day after that with his shirt on, but it was terribly oversized on you. Still, you managed to make it look intentional under your blazer, tucked and adjusted just enough that no one could tell. You had pinned your hair neatly, put your librarian face on, and acted very normal. Very professional of you, honestly.

Then the final bell rang, the library emptied, and by the time you stepped out of the front entrance with your bag over your shoulder, Dex was already there, waiting by his car with a suit jacket on and badge hidden. 

You stopped mid-step. “Oh,” you said, lighting up.  Beside you, Jonathan stopped too.

Jonathan, the music teacher. Nice Jonathan. Harmless Jonathan. Jonathan who lived two streets away from you and always carried a canvas tote bag with an embarrassing number of reusable water bottles inside it. He had been walking with you because you didn’t have your car with you and he offered to drive you home because you were both headed in the same direction. 

Dex’s grip tightened around his keys.

You were still wearing his shirt, and this man wanted to take you home? Cute.

“Dex?” you called, surprised.

Dex barely spared Johnathan a glance. He came to you instead, handsome in that frightening l way, his attention fixed you that it made the other man feel like background noise.

“What are you doing here?” you asked.

“Picking you up.”

You blinked, then laughed softly. “Why?”

Because you were wearing my shirt. Because I spent all day knowing you were out of sight. Because I don’t like it when you’re not with me.

“Your car’s not here,” he said, and that was reasonable enough, right?

“Oh.” You glanced back. “Jonathan was going to offer me a ride. He lives a few blocks away, so—”

“No.” The word came out flat.

You tilted your head, confused. You tried to recover, sweet thing that you were, turning half toward the man beside you. “Dex, this is Jonathan. He’s the music teacher. Jonathan, this is—”

Dex opened the passenger door. “You’re coming with me.”

Jonathan stopped with his polite smile halfway formed.

You looked at Dex for a second, and your sensible little inner voice probably tried to say something about how this was strange. 

Then Dex looked at you, and you melted, because fuck! Some foolish, lovesick part of you found that endearing. He came all this way for me? 

“I’ll see you tomorrow, Jonathan,” you said gently.

Dex shut the passenger door after you climbed in and stood there for one extra second, hand still on the handle, the word burning through him. What did that mean?

He got into the car.

The drive started silent. You settled beside him, and Dex saw you cozy up one the corner of his eye and had to tighten both hands on the wheel.

“Tomorrow?” he asked finally.

You looked over. “Hm?”

“You said you’d see him tomorrow.”

A little smile pulled at your mouth. You leaned across the console and kissed his cheek, like you thought jealousy was cute when it came from him.

“We work together, Dex.”

Oh. Okay. Okay. That’s fine, right?

Normal boyfriends were fine with that, right?

Still.

Then, asked if you wanted to come over to his place again because he couldn’t help himself. Because having you in the passenger seat made it feel obscene to let you leave again. Because you were already dressed in his things and smelled faintly like his apartment and he couldn’t understand why the day had to end anywhere else.

You looked down at yourself and laughed. “Dex, I am literally wearing your clothes. I need to go to mine.”

He kept his expression calm, but his fingers went still on the wheel.

You noticed enough to furrow your brows. “I’ve got work stuff to do,” you said. “I’ll call soon, okay?”

He nodded. He could do that. He could be normal. He could drive you to your car and let you go back to your apartment with its bad lock and pathetic hallway light and no trace of him except the marks he had left under your clothes. He could.

He pulled up beside your car outside your building and watched you unbuckle your seatbelt. You said your goodbyes and were halfway out when he blurted out, “I love you.”

You stopped.

Fuck. Fuck! 

He had not planned it like that. Not in the car, and definitely not with you leaving. But there it was.

You turned back to him slowly.

For a second, you bit your lip in shock. 

It was quick. Too quick to say that. You’ve been going on dates for what? Two weeks? 

You supposed he’d been around the school for two months now with the outreach program. But even that didn’t really make sense, right?

So now, your inner committee was no longer holding a meeting. It was pounding on the table, screaming that this was insane, that love wasn’t supposed to arrive between a third date and a school pick-up, that normal people didn’t do this.

But Dex was looking at you like you hung the stars for him. 

So leaned back into the car and kissed him. Gently first, then deeper, because his hand found your jaw like he had been waiting for permission to touch you again since the school gates.

“I love you, too,” you whispered.

Oh. Oh.

You left before you could take it back.

Dex watched you wave from your door, hands resting on the wheel, mouth curved in a small, helpless smile he couldn’t seem to stop.

She loves me.

The thought repeated all the way home.

She loves me. She loves me. She loves me.

By the time he reached his apartment, he was still smiling.

Then he opened the door, and the smile vanished immediately because you were not there.

The apartment was exactly the same as it had been that morning, clean and perfectly ordered, but suddenly none of that mattered. The couch was empty. The kitchen was empty. The bed was empty. All those neat, controlled rooms had become useless because you weren’t inside them.

Dex stood in the doorway with his keys in his hand and felt his stomach in him turn over.

You loved him, so why were you not here?

The question sat in his head with terrible simplicity. 

You loved him. He loved you. He could take care of you. He had the space, the money, the locks, the discipline. Your apartment was unsafe. Your building was bad. Your neighbours were careless. Jonathan from music lived too close. The world kept touching you and taking from you and making you tired.

Here was safer. Here, it made sense. Here, he could see you.

The thought came fully formed before he knew to stop it.

He could go get you.

He could get in the car. Drive to your apartment. Knock. Tell you that you should change your mind. Tell you the city was unsafe. Tell you your lock was bad. Tell you to pack a bag. Tell you you belonged in his apartment. Tell you until you believed him.

If you said no, he could still bring you back.

He was stronger than you. Faster than you. He was trained. He knew exactly how to move you without hurting too badly. He could overpower you, get you inside his apartment, lock the door, hide the keys, take your phone just for a while. He’d you keep warm. Feed you. Talk to you until the panic passed. He’d do that just until you understood. Because you would understand.

You loved him, so eventually you would understand that this was not cruelty, right?  This was not punishment. This was him seeing the truth faster than you did. This was him making the hard decision because someone had to. This was him saving you from all the places that were not him.

It took him an embarrassingly long time to realise that was kidnapping.

Actually, legally, literally kidnapping.

Kidnapping. False imprisonment. Coercion. Felony. It was bad.

“Oh,” he whispered. Then, after a beat, “Shit.”

His breath went wrong. The heat in him snapped into panic so quickly he nearly staggered. He saw himself then, not as a man in love, not as someone protecting his girlfriend, but as exactly the kind of thing you would need protecting from.

No.

No, no, no.

He backed away from the door like it had opened onto a cliff.

He loved you. He loved you. He wasn’t going to make you afraid of him. He wasn’t going to put his hands on you. He wasn’t going to lock you inside his life and pretend that was the same thing as being chosen.

Even if some awful part of him wanted to. Especially because some awful part of him wanted to.

Dex went to the drawer with shaking hands and pulled out the tapes.

Dr. Eileen Mercer’s voice filled the apartment through a soft crackle of static. “Your internal compass isn’t broken, Dex. It just works better with a North Star to guide you.”

Dex sank onto the couch.

North Star.

That was what you were.

Of course you were. You, with your kind heart and your gentle voice and your stupidly good heart. You, making safe corners for children. 

He had simply made the catastrophic mistake of falling in love with the star.  Which complicated things.

Because you were supposed to guide him, not belong to him. You were supposed to be fixed above him, untouchable enough to follow. Not in his apartment. Not in his bed. Not wearing his shirt and saying I love you in his car like you had any idea what those words would do to a man like him.

Dex pressed the heels of his hands over his eyes and forced himself to breathe while the tape kept playing through the static.

The apartment was still wrong without you. His hands still shook. The need to leave and get you didn’t disappear just because he had named it correctly. The desire sat there, dark and patient, waiting for him to mistake it for devotion again. But he stayed where he was.

He stayed on the couch with his teeth clenched so hard it ached, listening to the tape like it was the only thing holding him in place.

He loved you. That had to mean something better than possession. It had to.

So Dex sat in the empty apartment and tried, breath by breath, to become the kind of man who could love his North Star without building a sky small enough to trap her.

—

Dex barely made it through the week by hearing your voice through the phone.

You were busy with the school, chaperoning a trip, dealing with children and permission slips and packed lunches and museum gift shops, so he did the good thing, the normal thing. He didn’t show up. He didn’t follow the bus route. He didn’t appear outside your apartment just because he knew you would be exhausted.

Well. Maybe he just did it once, but he didn’t even stop! He just took a quick peek around the block to make sure you got home safe. 

After that, he took it one day at a time.

At night, he lay in bed with the phone pressed to his ear and listened to you talk when you called. You told him about the children, the chaos, the little girl who tried to correct the tour guide, the boy who cried because his sandwich got crushed in his bag.

He hated that he couldn't tell if you were warm enough. Hated that you sounded exhausted and he wasn’t there to put a blanket over your shoulders or press his mouth to your temple or make the world stop asking things of you for five minutes. But he behaved.

When you said, “I’m so tired, baby,” he closed his eyes like the world wrapped a hand around his throat.

When you said, “I miss you,” he pressed his fist against his mouth until the feeling passed enough for him to answer normally.

“I miss you too.” An understatement so violent it almost made him laugh.

Then you came back to regular life, and started spending more time with him. 

And naturally, you started spending more nights at his place.

It was easy. His apartment was closer to the school. His shower was better. His fridge always had food you liked. Your tea was already in his cupboard. Your toothbrush was still in his bathroom from that first night, and the spare charger by his bed somehow became yours without either of you discussing it.

One night a week became two. Two nights a week became most of the week.

Your laundry ended up in his machine. Your favourite cardigan stayed folded in his bedroom. Your substitute teaching papers got graded at his kitchen table while he made dinner. Your commute became easier because he drove you when he could, and when he couldn’t, he made sure your car had petrol, the tyres were checked, and the weird noise under the hood had been fixed before it became a problem.

It was dangerous, how much easier he made your life.

Dangerous because you were a school librarian on a school librarian salary, and Dex had big boy FBI paychecks and paid for groceries without mentally rearranging the rest of the month around it.

You tried to argue about that once. He looked genuinely offended.

“I should help,” you said.

“You do.”

“I mean with bills.”

“You buy supplies for children who are not yours because no one else will. Let me pay for dinner.”

That shut you up, not because it was fair. But because it was kind. Or because it sounded kind. Or because, with Dex, the difference had started to blur.

Your car made a noise; he had it checked. Your shoes wore thin; a new pair appeared by the door. You mentioned once that you were out of your favourite cereal, and the next morning there were two boxes in his cupboard.

By five months, you were barely at your own apartment.

You still paid rent. You still had mail there. Technically, you still lived there. But most nights, you went home to Dex.

Then one night, while you sat at his kitchen table grading reading logs and wearing one of his shirts under your cardigan, Dex said, “You should move in.”

You looked up. “What?”

“You should move in here.”

He said it so calmly. Like he was pointing out the weather. Like he had not been waiting weeks to say it. Like he had not already measured the space in his closet, looked up your lease date, and made sure there was room for your books.

You felt your inner committee rise from the dead.

Babe. What the fuck. Five months. Are you actually considering this? What’s wrong with you? Huh?

So you pushed back, but not very well.

“Dex,” you said, looking around his apartment. “We’ve been dating for five months.”

“I know.”

“Moving in would be very quick.”

“I know.”

But would it? You were at his kitchen table in one of his shirts, your papers stacked on his coffee table, your mug in his sink, your shoes by his door. Half your life was already there.

Suddenly, Dex leaned down and kissed you before you could keep arguing.

He did it because he had seen men do it in movies when they wanted to calm the woman they loved. 

That was how affection started with him, really.  He imitated touch. He put a hand on your waist because that was what boyfriends did. He rubbed circles over your hip because that was what loving partners did.

But then you melted under his hands and sighed into his mouth. Your fingers curled lightly into the front of his shirt.

And Dex thought, oh. So that was what it was supposed to feel like.

So after the first time, it no longer felt like pretending. It was no longer fake, no longer a costume he wore to convince you he could be normal.

He liked this. He liked the warmth beneath his palms. Liked the trusting weight of you leaning into him. Liked that touching you made him feel whole.  His thumbs kept moving in slow circles at your hips, more because he wanted to than because he remembered he was supposed to.

“I love you,” he murmured.

You closed your eyes like the words had done exactly what he hoped they would. “Dex…”

“You love me too.”

You laughed softly. “That is a terrible argument.”

“It’s my best one.”

Unfortunately, it was.

You hummed, but you were smiling now, and Dex felt his whole chest go warm.

He kissed you again, a little braver this time, still rubbing those gentle circles into your hips like he had finally found a love language that made sense in his hands.

You sighed, and he smiled against your mouth. It surprised him, even after five months, how much he wanted to be good at this. 

“Okay,” you whispered.

Dex went very still.

You opened your eyes and looked up at him, soft and doomed and already half his. “Okay, baby. I’ll move in.”

—

People got weird when you told them you had moved in with Dex.

Your friends did that careful-smile thing. Your mother went quiet on the phone before saying, “Already?” like the word had three question marks and a police report attached. One coworker just blinked at you over her mug and said, “Wow. That’s… fast.”

You kept giving the same answers. My lease was ending. His place is closer. It makes sense financially. He takes care of me.

Jonathan was the most obvious about it.

You told him in the staff room, after he was complaining about one of his classes committing recorder-based psychological warfare. “I moved in with Dex,” you said, trying to sound casual.

Slowly, he turned around. “Your fed boyfriend?”

“He has a name.”

“Agent Intense?”

“Dex.”

“Right. Your fed boyfriend.” He stared at you. “That’s so fast.”

You sighed. Here we go again. “My lease was ending.”

“You’ve known him for six months.”

“If you count his school outreach, seven actually.”

“That’s not better.”

You crossed your arms, already defensive. “He’s not bad.”

“I didn’t say bad,” he shrugged, “I think more like…  creepy.”

“Jonathan.”

“What? He once looked at me like I was trying to steal you because I offered you a ride home.”

“He’s just protective, that’s all,” you huffed.

“I’m gay.”

“I know that.”

“Does he?”

“He does now,” you said.

“Does he care?”

You opened your mouth and closed it. Because no, Dex didn’t care when you told him. Johnathan was still just another person standing between you and him, platonic or romantic or whatever. Jonathan could have been gay, married, celibate, and allergic to women, and Dex still would have watched him with that flat suspicion the second he stood too close to you.

Jonathan pointed his teaspoon at you. “Exactly.”

Your phone buzzed before you could answer.

Dex: Did you eat lunch?

You smiled and held up the phone like evidence. “See? He’s sweet.”

Jonathan looked at the message, then at you. “Sure,” he said carefully. “Sweet.”

You texted back yes, baby, and when Dex replied within seconds, Jonathan sighed. You ignored him.

After all, Dex cared. That was all.

—

The people who thought the move-in was quick were in for a treat, because one month after you moved into Dex’s apartment, he asked you to marry him in the back seat of his car.

See, you had shown up because summer holidays had made you stupid with missing him. You were bored. You had no school, no library chaos, no children asking where the glitter glue went. Just too much free time and the embarrassing realization that you had become the kind of woman who missed her boyfriend at eleven-thirty in the morning like an addict running out of nicotine patches.

So you brought him lunch and went to his workplace. That was a normal girlfriend thing, right? Except the lunch did not get opened.

Dex had barely gotten the car door shut before you were kissing him, and he had barely made it through the first breath of your mouth before his hand slid under your thigh and dragged you into his lap in the back seat.

“Dex,” you laughed into his mouth.

He made a low and lewd sound into his mouth. Then his hands were on you again, pushing your skirt up around your hips with a little too much force, a little too much need, until the seam gave with an unmistakable rip of fabric.

Dex stared at the torn fabric in his hand with the horrified focus of a man who had committed a federal offence against cotton blend. “I’ll buy you another one.”

“That is not the point,” you chuckled.

“I’ll buy you five.”

You should have been annoyed. But his eyes were black with want, and there was something so obscenely flattering about Benjamin Poindexter accidentally ruining your clothes because he needed you too badly to be careful. So you tightened your fist in his tie and pulled. “Later,” you whispered.

Dex obeyed, because liked it when you pulled him by it. He liked the pressure, the direction, the filthy little reminder that he was still half-dressed for work while you were undoing him in the back of his own car. His mouth opened under yours, hands clamped on your hips like he was trying not to lose the last piece of his mind.

Your inner committee, exhausted from the moving-in situation and still technically on unpaid leave, attempted to return to service.

Babe. This is his workplace. This is a federal garage.

Babe, your skirt is ripped.

Babe, we cannot keep replacing clothes every time this man gets horny and emotional.

Then Dex kissed down your throat and the committee immediately lost quorum.

By the time you were done and either of you remembered he had to go back inside, the windows were fogged at the edges. His hair was ruined from your hands. His tie was loose and crooked. His shirt was open at the collar, your lipstick low enough on his skin that he would need to button all the way up and pray no one noticed. His mouth was swollen. 

You sat in his lap, skirt torn and shoved badly back into place, one hand still looped lazily around his tie. “You have to go back in,” you whispered.

His forehead rested against yours. “I know.”

“You look…”

His eyes lifted to yours.

You smiled. “Compromised.”

Dex’s mouth twitched. His thumbs moved on your thighs, circling through the thin fabric of your ruined skirt.

You tugged his tie gently. “I should let you go.”

His hands tightened, only barely.

“Marry me,” he said suddenly, as if he would die if he let you leave without saying it first.

For a second, you just stared at him. Somewhere inside your head, your inner committee walked back into the room, saw the situation, and immediately considered retiring.

Babe, no. Babe, absolutely not. Babe, stand up for yourself!

“What?” you managed to choke out.

“Marry me,” Dex calmly, like the idea had been sitting in him for weeks, waiting for the right opening, and apparently the right opening was you flushed and breathless in his back seat. 

“Dex.”

“I love you.”

Oh, for fuck’s sake. Your inner committee sighed so hard the lights flickered.

“I love you,” he said again, quieter. “You love me. We already live together. It gives you legal protection. If something happens to me, you’re taken care of. If something happens to you, they call me first.”

“You are making a case,” you realised, though you shouldn't have been surprised.

He just shrugged. “I don’t see why we shouldn’t get married.”

There it was, the simple Dex logic of it: I love you. You love me. Why wouldn’t we?

It was reasonable if you ignored the fact that he was clearly halfway to losing his mind and had probably been planning this long before he said it out loud. Because sure, the practical reasons were true. But underneath all that, there was the darker, sweeter logic he kept tucked behind his teeth: If you were only his girlfriend, you could change your mind. You could wake up one morning, decide he was too much, pack a bag, and walk out before he had time to kiss you and remind you how gentle he could be when he was trying. A girlfriend could leave in one terrible conversation. A wife had to take steps.

And Dex loved steps. You’d have to go through lawyers, papers, and waiting periods. A marriage would buy him time, and time meant he could come to you, he could hold your face, and remind you that you loved him as much as he loved you. He would never hurt. But if the law could slow you down long enough for him to convince you that leaving was a mistake, Dex couldn’t help loving that, too.

He didn’t say that, though. He only looked at you with his hair mussed and his mouth ruined and said, “It makes sense.”

Your inner committee made one last brave attempt: Babe. Please. We JUST moved in.

But you banged the gavel at the head of your imaginary table and pouted. But look at him! He’s so hot! 

In the real world, Dex was looking at you like you were already his wife, like the ring was only a formality. Then he kissed you, tenderly this time.

“I love you,” he murmured against your mouth.

The committee dropped their clipboard. Fine, you win, they seemed to say, Whatever you say, handsome.

You laughed weakly into the kiss, and Dex pulled back just enough to look at you.

“What?”

You touched his face, thumb brushing over his cheekbone, and felt him lean into it like affection was still new enough to surprise him.

“Yes,” you whispered, hand tightening in his tie. “Yes, baby. I’ll marry you.”

For a second, he looked almost scared by how happy it made him. Then his arms locked around your waist and pulled you close, his face turning into your neck, breath hot and uneven against your skin.

“But you really do have to go back inside,” you whispered with a chuckle.

Dex lifted his head. He looked ruined, happy, and possessive in a way that should have made you run but somehow only made you kiss him again. “I have ten more minutes.”

You giggled and pulled him in by the tie.

Your inner committee walked directly into the sea, never to be seen again.

—

Dex let you pick the rings.

The engagement ring first, because he said you were the one wearing it, so you should love it. Then the wedding bands, including his, even though he tried to act like he didn’t care what his looked like. That lasted until you slid a simple band onto his finger in the shop and watched his whole face go still, almost overwhelmed.

A month later, you married him at the courthouse.

It was too soon for anyone around you to feel truly comfortable about it. Your family came anyway. Your friends came anyway. Even Jonathan, looking like he had accepted his role as the last remaining voice of reason, and still failing anyway. On Dex’s side, there was a couple of coworkers standing near the back in neat suits, polite and reserved, present more like witnesses than family.

Dex had no parents, no siblings, no cousins, no childhood friends with embarrassing stories. No one who could say they had known him when he was young. No one who could reassure your parents he was a good person through and through. Just coworkers, Ray congratulating him as the rest of his coworkers stood on the courthouse hallway while your side filled the room with nervous affection and badly hidden concern.

You saw the way your mother looked at him. The way your friends glanced at one another when they realised there was no one on his side who really belonged to him. It made them uneasy, and because you loved him, you rushed to explain it in your head before anyone even asked. His parents were dead. He grew up alone. It was complicated. He didn't have people the way other people had people.

You said little pieces of that aloud, as if it explained half of it away. Maybe to you, it did. Maybe that was a teeny part of the reason you kept choosing him. Dex had no one, and then he had you. But it was also tender, in its own damaged way. He stood across the room in his suit, eyes finding you every few seconds as if checking that you were still real, still walking toward him eventually. He looked alone until he looked at you.

The problem was not that Dex didn't love you. Anyone with eyes could see that he clearly did. That was half the horror, really. 

He loved you devoutly, too much for such a small courthouse. His attention followed you like a sniper scope. When someone hugged you, his eyes moved there. When Jonathan made you laugh, his face soured. When you looked at him, though, everything in him relaxed so completely that even your worried friends had to see it.

The ceremony itself was almost absurdly short, just a few legal words. A few signatures. Then came the ring that he slid on to your finger with a reverence that made your throat ache. His thumb lingered over the band once it was in place, brushing the metal like proof, like possession he was trying very hard to make gentle.

Your family saw it. Your friends saw it. Ray probably saw it too. But no one said anything anymore. They had tried to warn you. They had tried to tell you it was fast, intense, worrying. They had tried to point out all the red flags. But standing there, with Dex looking at your ring like the world had finally given him permission to keep the one good thing he had found, you knew why none of their warnings had worked.

Because you knew they were not entirely wrong. You just loved him anyway.

When Dex kissed you, it was gentle enough to make your mother cry. His hand came to your cheek, and his mouth touched yours like he was afraid of doing it wrong in front of everyone. But you felt the restraint beneath it, the hunger and devotion. The way he kissed you softly because that was what you deserved, even when every dark part of him wanted to hold on harder and bruise and mark his territory.

—

Two years later, Dex was in prison.

Jonathan tried not to say I told you so. To his credit, he really did try. He stood in your apartment after everything went public, arms folded too tightly, mouth pressed into a line while the news tore the FBI corruption apart in digestible pieces. Even family and friends looked at you like this was the ending they had feared from the start.

But you knew better.

Not because Dex was innocent. He wasn’t. You loved him too much to lie about that. He had done terrible things. There were parts of him that had always been hungry for direction, always been too easy for the wrong man to use.

And Fisk had used him perfectly.He had found every fracture in Dex and pressed his thumb into it. The instability, the need to be useful. The desperate, obsessive love Dex had for you. 

Fisk kept you in a basement beneath one of his shell properties and let the world mourn you.

That was the cruelty of it: Fisk did not need you dead. Dead was final. Dead meant there was nothing left to use. But alive, hidden in a cold and windowless place? That made you useful. That made you leverage. Fisk could keep your body locked away while giving Dex a grief designed to break him.

So Fisk staged your death. He built the lie piece by piece. He staged an accident, a fire. The reports say that the body burned beyond recognition was yours, and even had an urn with someone else’s ashes in it with your paperwork attached just in case people started asking questions.

Dex believed it, because why wouldn’t he? Fisk made sure every piece fit. Even Matt believed it for a while. Everyone did.

So when Dex found it, he carried the urn like it was alive. He thought he figured out that Fisk was manipulating him, which was correct. He thought that Fisk had killed you, which was false.

He put the ashes in the passenger seat. He drove to the hotel with one hand on the wheel and the other reaching over sometimes, hovering near the metal like it might feel lonely. He talked to it in that broken voice of his, the one he would have been humiliated for anyone living to hear. He told the urn things. He apologised. He told you he loved you.

Then Dex’s spine broke.

And you were found by the cops shortly after, alive. Bruised, starved, shaking under a blanket in the basement Fisk had buried you in, still asking for Dex before your voice had fully come back.

So when they told you he went into surgery under guard, he had fought your way into that hospital room on the only ground no one could deny: you were his wife, his next of kin, his legal family. You should be allowed in, and you eventually got what you wanted. 

During recovery, he looked wrong under hospital lights. The tubes and monitors and bandages made him look less like the terrifying thing the news kept replaying. Guards stood by the door. His wrists were shackled to the bed rails, his ankles too. You scoffed at that but couldn’t do anything about it, really. 

When his eyes opened, he came back fighting. His hands jerked against the restraints, chains snapping taut with a hard metal sound that made one of the guards shift forward.

“Don’t,” you said quickly. “Dex, don’t.”

His head turned and saw you. Suddenly, thoughts halted to a stop.

You had seen Dex angry. Jealous. Focused. You had seen him desperate in your bed and gentle in your kitchen. You had seen him worshipful, frightening, almost boyish with love.

You had never seen him look like that. Like he was staring at a ghost and trying to decide whether believing in it would kill him.

His mouth parted, but sound came out.

You stepped closer, hands trembling. “Hi, baby.”

Dex’s breath broke. “You’re alive.”

Your chest caved in. “yeah.”

“No.” His voice cracked in disbelief. “No, I saw— Fisk said—”

“I know.”

“You’re alive,” he said again, louder now, almost frantic. “You’re alive. You’re alive.”

“I’m here.”

The chains snapped tight again when he tried to reach for you. Pain tore across his nerves, but he barely seemed to feel it. His eyes stayed locked on yours,wild and terrified, like if he looked away, you would vanish and the whole nightmare would become true again.

“I thought you were dead,” he whispered.

“I know, baby.”

You moved to him before anyone could stop you. Your fingers found his hand where the shackle allowed, careful around the bruised skin. His grip closed around yours instantly, weak but desperate, like even broken he could not help trying to hold on.

Your wedding ring caught the light. It was a reminder that he was still yours, you were still his, and whatever was left of him seemed to collapse under the proof.

“You’re alive.”

—

Dex was incarcerated after he healed enough to be moved.

Not rehabilitated. Not treated. Incarcerated.

They put him in solitary confinement like that could contain him. Like isolation would ever make him better. Like locking him away from voices and faces and human contact would somehow fix a man whose worst injuries had always come from being left alone too long with his own head.

You hated it. So for three years, you fought to get your husband moved somewhere that might actually help him.

Three years of forms, lawyers, psychiatric evaluations, and rejected petitions. Three years of people looking at Benjamin Poindexter and seeing only what he had done, three years of people looking at you, Mrs. Poindexter, as if you were insane because you still loved him. Three years of explaining, again and again, that solitary confinement was not treatment. And Dex had always been dangerous when he was quiet.

Your old school library job no longer paid enough to carry the life Fisk had torn apart, so you took a better job at a public library. It's a better salary, but longer hours. More responsibility. You now had to think about staff rotas, community programmes, council meetings, difficult patrons, funding cuts, late nights under fluorescent lights while you built displays and answered emails with your wedding ring flashing every time your hands crossed the keyboard.

Every other day, you went to the prison.

Sometimes straight from work, your blazer wrinkled, your tote bag full of library paperwork, your lipstick faded from too many cups of coffee. Sometimes on your days off, when you could pretend the visit was the centre of the day instead of an activity squeezed between legal calls and grocery shopping and a life you had never wanted to live without him in it.

Dex always noticed when you were tired before you said it. He noticed when your shoes were new. He noticed when you had cut your hair, even slightly. He noticed when you had skipped lunch and lied about it. Even in prison uniform, even under the dead light of the visiting room, Dex was still your husband in all the ways that made people uncomfortable and all the ways that kept you coming back.

You told him about your days. You told him about the elderly man who came into the library every Wednesday to read the newspaper and complain about the chairs. The little girl who asked for “a book with a dragon but not a mean dragon because mean dragons have bad vibes.” The teenager who pretended not to care about poetry and then checked out three collections when his friends were not looking. You told him about staff meetings, leaky ceilings, broken printers, new shelving systems.

There were visits where he barely spoke. But even then, his eyes stayed on you. Even then, his fingers moved toward yours. Even then, when you said, “Baby,” parts of him came back to the surface.

You kept fighting because he needed help.

Then one afternoon, after three years of pushing against walls that did not move, one finally gave. The blip, after all, freed some space up. Though you really shouldn't celebrate such a tragedy, it was hard to ignore the fact that this time, it worked in your favor. That day, you carried the news into the visiting room.

His eyes moved over your face, your hands, the folder tucked beneath your arm. “What’s that?” he asked.

You smiled, biting your lip, “I have good news.”

You reached across the table. This time, they let you hold his hand. It was a small mercy. His fingers closed around yours immediately, like he could feel the tremor in you and wanted to steady it without frightening it away.

“A facility we applied to reviewed your case,” you said. “It’s looking good. The transfer is pending final approval.”

Dex didn’t move. You kept going before fear could steal the words from you.

“It’s a secure psychiatric institution. It’s not freedom, I know that. But it’s not solitary. You’d have doctors, actual treatment, scheduled therapy, medication reviews. You wouldn’t be in shackles.”

His face remained controlled, but you knew him too well. You saw the tiny shift in his breathing. 

“It’s going to be better,” you whispered. “Okay? Not perfect. Not easy. But better. You won’t be alone in a box, and we get longer visitation hours, okay?”

Dex was quiet for a long moment. Then he nodded once. “That’s good.”

Your laugh came out broken, because part of you still found that endearing. “That’s good? That’s all you have?”

His mouth almost softened, guilty at the thought of offending you. “It’s very good,” he amended.

You squeezed his hand, and for one rare second, the visiting room didn’t feel quite so much like a cage. It felt like a door opening somewhere far away.Then Dex looked up again. “But I hope my request gets approved before I get moved.”

“Request?” You blinked. “For what?”

He held your gaze with the seriousness of a man discussing nothing more important than bills. “A conjugal visit.”

For a moment, your mind simply stopped. “What?”

“A conjugal visit,” he repeated, as if you might not have heard him the first time.

You stared at him. Of course he had thought of that.

In three years of legal petitions, medical reviews, prison visits, and fighting to have him treated like a person instead of a weapon, you had somehow not allowed yourself to think about that part. About being his wife in that way still. About how long it had been since he had touched you without guards and tables and rules between you. Dex had, though.

“Dex,” you said softly, rubbing slow circles on his hand.

“What?”

“You are in solitary confinement.”

“I know.”

“You’re probably not getting approved for a conjugal visit.”

“Probably not.”

His expression didn't change, but he squeezed your hand and your stomach turned over despite yourself. You leaned forward as much as the table allowed. The guard near the door shifted, but you ignored him. You kissed the edge of Dex’s mouth, brief and soft, but still enough to make his breath catch.

“Let’s focus on this, yeah?” you whispered.

His eyes stayed on yours. For a second, the hunger in him quieted, almost obedient. He nodded once. “Okay.”

Your hand stayed in his until the guard told you time was up. Dex didn’t let go until he had to.

—

He got approved. Somehow, Benjamin Poindexter got approved for a conjugal visit.

You read the notice three times in your kitchen, work bag sliding off your shoulder, lanyard still around your neck, your shoes aching from a long day on your feet. The letter was painfully plain and administrative. But it was approved nonetheless.

You stared at it until the paper blurred. “What the fuck?” you whispered.

Because there was no way. There was no reasonable, lawful way that your husband, a convicted killer, a high-risk prisoner, had been granted that kind of access.

You knew then that Dex had done something. Nothing obvious enough to get the request pulled. He might have threatened a guard. Maybe Dex had mentioned a name, a detail, some small piece of information he shouldn’t have known and let them do the rest.

You should have been horrified. Mostly, though, you pressed the paper to your mouth and laughed once, breathless and disbelieving, because all you could think was: That’s how badly he wanted me. That’s how much he loves me.

—

When the day came, you waited in the room alone.

You had done the paperwork, gone through twenty locked doors to get here. You came knowing you had a couple of hours with your husband. And for the first time in three years, there would be no table between you, no visitor chair bolted too far from his. No guards close enough to hear every word. No one telling you not to lean too far across the table when all you wanted was to touch his face.

A couple of hours was not enough. 

You smoothed your hands over your blouse, then over your skirt, then clasped them together in your lap to make yourself stop fidgeting. You had dressed too carefully without really thinking about it. You had a white blouse, a nice skirt, because Dex liked seeing you in skirts. You were wearing the cardigan you were wearing when you met him.

You stared at your wedding ring until Dex stepped inside. For a second, neither of you moved.

He looked different. That was your first thought, blunt and stupid and immediate. He looked different, because of course he did. Years had happened. Prison had happened. Surgery had happened. His hair was shorter. His jaw looked sharper. But he was also bigger.

You noticed from your previous visits, of course, but seeing him a bit closer now, it was evident. His shoulders filled out the plain prison shirt. His arms looked stronger than they had in the hospital, muscle sitting heavy under institutional fabric, like all the recovery and physical therapy and whatever routines they let him have had made him sturdier.

You blinked before you could stop yourself. What were they feeding him?

Dex’s eyes found your face first, gaze locked onto you. For one fragile second he did not look like a prisoner at all.

He looked like Dex. Your Dex. Your husband, seeing you after being forced to miss you for too long.

“Hi,” you whispered.

His mouth parted slightly. When the door closed behind him, the lock turned, and whatever restraint he had used to walk in there like a normal person vanished.

You barely got to stand before his hands were on your face and yours were on his chest, and the first kiss was so clumsy it almost made you laugh. Your noses bumped. His mouth missed yours by half an inch and caught the corner instead. You made a tiny sound, half sob and half laugh, and Dex froze like he had done something wrong.

“No,” you said quickly, already smiling through the sting in your eyes. “No, come here.”

You took his face in both hands and kissed him properly, softly at first. Then again. And again.

These were little, ridiculous kisses. The kind you had imagined giving him in every prison visit where a guard stood too close. You kissed his mouth, the corner of it, his cheek. You kissed the line beside his nose, the skin under his eye, the edge of his mouth again.

Dex stood there and let you love him, as if he couldn’t believe you still did at all.

His hands stayed at your waist, almost uncertain, like after all this time he still didn’t fully trust that he was allowed to hold you without someone telling him to stop. But the longer you kissed him, the more his fingers settled. The more his body leaned into yours. The more the tension in his shoulders slowly started to melt.

“I missed you,” you said between kisses.

Dex’s eyes closed. “I missed you, too.”

“I missed you so much.”

“I know.”

“No, you don’t.” You kissed his cheek again, because apparently now that you had started you couldn't stop. “I missed you in the kitchen. I missed you in our bed. I missed you when I had to fix the shelf myself because you would have been so annoying about doing it better.”

His mouth twitched. “You fixed a shelf?” he asked.

“I tried to.”

His eyes opened with attentive focus you had missed so badly. “What happened?”

“It’s currently leaning.”

Dex stared at you, then he laughed. It wasn’t loudly, or freely. It was small, rough, and almost startled, like his body had forgotten how to make the sound and needed you to remind it. 

You broke a little. “Oh,” you whispered, smiling like an idiot. “There you are.”

His expression changed before he leaned in and kissed you again, not clumsy this time. A kiss that said yes, here, I’m here, I came back up when you called.

His arms moved around you properly then, and fuck, he was solid.

You had expected him to feel fragile, because part of you still remembered the hospital bed, the shackles, the bruised skin around his wrists after surgery. But this Dex was heavy and strong under your hands. When your palms slid over his shoulders, you felt muscle there making your stomach drop and go hot at the same time.

Still, he stayed sweet for a little while.

You had both expected the hunger. But before that, there was Dex touching your hair like he had thought about the texture of it more than once. There was you smoothing your thumb over his cheekbone, relearning him up close. There was him pressing his face into the side of your neck and breathing in once like he had been living on memory for years and memory had never been enough.

“I missed how you smell,” he said, voice muffled against your skin.

You laughed. “That’s creepy,” you said, but smiled into his hair anyway.

Your fingers drifted to the back of his neck, then lower, over the ridge of his shoulder. You felt him shiver when your touch found the edge of the scar beneath his shirt. You paused, but he shook his head against you. “It’s okay.”

So you kept touching him gently. Through the fabric first, then at the collar where your fingers could slip just beneath. The scar was there, and Dex’s breathing changed when you traced it. Not with pain, exactly. It felt more… intimate.

“My baby,” you whispered before you could stop yourself.

His hand flexed at your hip. This time, when his mouth opened under yours, the sweetness warmed.His body crowded yours a little more. His hands moved from your waist to your back, then down again.

“You got…” You swallowed, then laughed softly because there was no graceful way to say it. “You got big.”

Dex blinked. For half a second, he looked genuinely confused. Then his eyes dropped to where your hands were spread over his chest. “Big?”

“You know what I mean.”

“I had physical therapy.”

“That is a criminal understatement.”

His mouth twitched again as you dragged your palms over his shoulders, shameless now, because you had earned this. You had earned the right to be stupid about your husband’s arms after three years of prison visits and legal calls and sleeping alone.

“You’re very…” You squeezed his bicep lightly. “Recovered.”

Dex looked at you. “You’re flirting with me.”

You shrugged, but didn’t deny it.

The sound he made was almost an arrogant chuckle.

He kissed you again, and this time there was no mistaking the heat under it. Then, his hands settled on your blouse.

Not grabbing yet, but touching the fabric at your waist, thumbs moving slowly over the buttons as if he had only just realised there was something between his hands and your skin.

You were still smiling when his eyes dropped.

Suddenly, his eyes were fixed on the small gap where one button had loosened, where the fabric had shifted just enough to reveal a flash of black lace underneath.

Dex recognised it at the same time you remembered. “Is that…”

Your face burned hot as you nodded.

It was the black teddy he had bought you for your first wedding anniversary.It was sheer lace at the cups, delicate straps, a low satin-trimmed neckline. Dex remembered the first time you tried it on. You stood at the foot of your bed, pretending not to be shy, while he sat there ruined, looking at you like his brain had briefly stopped receiving oxygen. And now, you had worn it here.

Dex’s thumb brushed the edge of your blouse, right where black lace disappeared beneath it. His eyes darkened. “You wore my anniversary gift under your blouse,” he said.

Your stomach flipped. “When you say it like that—”

“How should I say it?” He demanded, and it was a little mean. But that always did turn you on.

“I don’t know,” you whispered. “Less like you’re about to lose your mind.”

Dex looked back up at you, too focused, too hungry. “I am.”

Oh.

Your hands tightened in his shirt.

The room felt smaller after that, less like a prison facility and more like the bedroom he remembered, the one with your knees pressed into the mattress and his hands shaking at your waist because he hadn’t known a piece of lace could make wanting feel that violent.

His grip settled firmer on your hips. “You have no idea,” he murmured, mouth brushing your ear. “What you do to me.”

Your eyes fluttered shut. There he was. Your husband, touch-starved, breathing against your neck like he had waited years to find out if he could still make you tremble.

You smiled, kind and doomed all the same. “Show me.”

Oh, he had a list.

Dex was undressed before you could blink, all broad shoulders and blown pupils, moving with a focused urgency that made the sterile little room feel suddenly too small to hold him. The white walls, the bolted table, the narrow bed, the chemical-clean smell of the sheets, and none of it stood a chance against the way he looked at you.

He had been counting down to this for years. Every prison visit, every supervised touch, every night alone in a cell had led into this exact moment.

His hands were already on your blouse, quick but not careless, tearing through buttons, ripping them off with a precision that would have been funny if his breathing had not been so rough. The black teddy appeared inch by inch beneath the fabric, lace and satin and memory, and Dex looked ruined. 

First on the list: his mouth between your legs.

You understood that the second he dropped to his knees. Dex had barely gotten the teddy off before his hands were already under your skirt, gripping your thighs.

Then his mouth was on you, and every thought in your head broke apart.

“Oh,” you gasped, one hand flying to his hair, the other twisting in the clean white sheet beneath you.

Dex made a sound against you that was almost a groan, almost a laugh. His hands tightened on your thighs, holding you open for him, keeping you there like he was afraid you might disappear if he let go. He was not gentle, like he used to be. He was focused, hungry, and touch-starved enough that every reaction you gave him seemed to make him worse.

“Fuck,” he breathed against you, voice rough and ruined. “You taste so fucking sweet.”

Your whole body went hot. “Dex—”

He didn’t let you finish. His mouth returned to you, and the room became nothing but the wet heat of him, the harsh sound of his breathing, the narrow bed creaking under the way your hips moved despite yourself. The sterile little room had no right to hold something this filthy. 

He was still so good, it was unfair.

Dex had always been terrifying when he focused. When he learned something, he learned it completely. And you realised, breathless and shaking, that he remembered everything. Every place that made you gasp. Every rhythm that made your hand tighten in his hair. Every tiny, helpless sound you tried to swallow and failed.

You tried to move back once, overwhelmed, but his hands slid under you and dragged you closer with a low, possessive sound that made your stomach twist.

“No,” he murmured. “Stay.”

So you stayed while he buried himself there like he could spend hours between your thighs if time were not an issue. You stayed while his fingers dug into your skin, while his mouth made you forget the guards outside, the transfer, the years, the ugly world that had kept him from you. You stayed while he took you apart with the kind of devotion that felt less like softness and more like obsession given a mouth.

At some point, you said his name too loudly, and Dex groaned like that was the point.

Of course he wanted them to hear. Of course he wanted the men outside that locked door to know that whatever they thought they had taken from him was still his. You were still his. 

When you finally broke, Dex did not stop right away.

He held you through it palms spread over your thighs, breathing you in like the end of the world had tasted sweet and he couldn’t make himself pull away.

Only when you tugged weakly at his hair did he lift his head.

Dex looked up at you like he had just crossed the first thing off a list and still had every intention of finishing the rest.

Number two on the list should have been obvious when he suddenly looked shy. 

“Can I ask you something?” he murmured.

Your breath was still uneven. “Dex.”

His mouth pressed briefly to the inside of your knee, like he needed one more second to gather himself. “I want your mouth.”

Oh.

Your stomach flipped so hard you almost laughed. Who were you to deny this man anything? 

You slid off the bed and onto your knees in front of him, and Dex went very still.

His hand came to your cheek, careful at first, thumb brushing your skin like he needed to touch you gently before letting himself want. His breathing changed when you looked up at him. His pupils were blown wide enough to make him look almost feverish.

“Baby,” he said, voice rough.

You smiled before giving him what he asked for.

Dex’s hand stayed in your hair, not forcing, not taking. His head tipped back. His throat worked. His eyes squeezed shut and opened again because he seemed to hate missing even one second of you.

He was big in every way you remembered and worse because you had missed him.

Too much, almost. Overwhelming enough to make your eyes water, enough to make your hands press at his thighs when you needed a second, and Dex stopped immediately each time.

His hand softened in your hair. “Too much?” he rasped.

You shook your head, breathless, stubborn, and a little ruined yourself.

Dex looked like that might kill him. Then you kept going, and he fell apart beautifully.

He moaned your name like a warning, like a plea. His hand stayed on your cheek against your cheek, his thumb brushing away the wetness at the corner of your eye with such tenderness that the gesture felt obscene in context.

“You’re perfect,” he whispered, voice breaking. “Fuck, you’re perfect.”

You felt him getting close, and you wanted nothing more than feeling him down your throat, but he pulled back, stopping himself so abruptly you almost protested.

Dex stared down at you, chest heaving, eyes wild, mouth parted like he had just survived something.

You blinked up at him.

He gave a rough little laugh, almost pained. “No,” he said, voice hoarse. “Not yet.”

You smiled slowly. “Not yet?”

His gaze darkened again. He reached down, thumb brushing your lower lip, still shaking from the effort of denying himself.

“I have two more things on the list,” he reminded you, making your thighs pressed together.

Dex helped you back onto your feet with hands that weren’t quite steady, then kissed you so deeply you tasted the restraint he had forced himself to keep.

“Bed,” he murmured against your mouth.

Number three on the list was taking you from behind, of course. 

He turned you toward the bed with hands that were still shaking his mouth at your shoulder, your neck, the back of your ear. 

He moved slowly at first, because even like this, rough and ruined and half-mad with missing you, Dex was still Dex. He still listened to every breath, every shift of your body, every little sound that told him whether you were overwhelmed or wanting more. The stretch of him made your hands fist in the sheet, your body tensing around the sheer shock of having him again after so long without. His mouth pressed to your shoulder. “Breathe,” he rasped. “I’ve got you.”

He took his time even though you could feel restraint burning through him. The way he cursed softly against your skin when you finally relaxed into him, when your body remembered him properly and pulled him closer.

“Fuck,” he breathed, voice breaking. “You’re so—”

He cut himself off with his mouth against your shoulder, like the words were too much, like saying them would make him less controlled than he already was.

Then he started moving. God, he hadn’t forgotten you, so of course you were loud almost immediately.

The first sound broke out of you before you could stop it, your whole face burning. Dex’s hand tightened at your hip, and the next lewd mewl came worse. He made a low sound behind you, smug and satisfied in a way that made heat crawl up your spine.

You bit down on your own wrist, trying to muffle yourself.

His hand slid up your body and gently pulled your arm away. “No,” he said, voice rough. “I waited three years to hear you.”

Your whole body went hot. “Dex—”

“Let me hear you.”

And then he made sure you did.

He got rougher, hungrier. His body covered yours, his mouth dragging over your neck while his hands held you exactly where he wanted you. The bed creaked under you. The sheet twisted beneath your fists. Your voice filled the room because he kept pulling it out of you, again and again.

At some point, there was a knock on the door, but unfortunately Dex didn’t have enough self control to stop.

You looked over your shoulder, cheek pressed flush into the sheets.

The little window opened and a guard looked in. They were worried, you realised. You had been so fucking loud.

The humiliation should have swallowed you whole. Instead, your stomach flipped.

“You okay?” the guard called. 

You could barely speak. “Hmmph, Y-yes!” you managed.

Dex’s hand slid over your stomach, keeping you pressed back against him.

The guard moved away when he realised what he was seeing, face red.

The second the shadow disappeared, Dex’s mouth was at your ear. “You liked that.”

You shivered.

“You liked him checking,” he murmured, darker now. “Liked him hearing what I do to you.”

You should have denied it, but you could not bring yourself to lie, Dex made a rough, broken sound against your neck and moved again, deeper into the heat, rougher now because he was jealous, because some stranger had seen even a glimpse of your face like that and Dex couldn’t stand it. He kissed your shoulder hard and held you like he could erase the guard’s eyes from the room by making you forget anything existed except him.

“Mine,” he breathed. 

You answered with his name, exactly how he wanted it.

Number four on the list started with him denying you an orgasm.

That was how you knew prison had changed him.The old Dex, the one who melted when you praised him, the one who went doe-eyed and obedient under your hands, had been buried under three of whatever this was.

Dex flipped you over before you could come undone.

Your gasp broke against his mouth as your back hit the narrow mattress, the white sheet twisted beneath you, your body sore in the best, most aching way. You were already too close and he knew it. Of course he knew it. He knew your body like he had studied it for a test he refused to fail.

“Not yet,” he murmured.

You made a helpless little sound, half protest, half plea. Dex’s hand slid up your waist, and he was inside you again in no time. 

Oh. you realised, he wanted to look at you when you came. That was all. So sweet. So cute. 

But then you felt him twitch, and you realised that he was close before he did. Or maybe he knew, and he was just too far gone to care about anything else.

“Dex—” Your voice caught. “Dex, I’m not— fuck, I’m not on birth control.”

He didn’t stop completely. His whole body stuttered above yours, rhythm faltering, breath punching out of him like you had hit him in the chest.

“Hmph—fuck.” His forehead dropped against yours. “I know.”

Your eyes snapped open. “You know?”

His hand slid over your stomach, possessive, and the sound that left him was almost pained.

“I know,” he said again, rougher. “I know, baby.”

The words should have sobered you, but you loved him, and you loved that he was still above you, still shaking, still so close you could feel every tremor of restraint tearing through him.

“Dex,” you gasped.

“I thought about it,” he said, voice low and wrecked. “Every night.”

Your body went hot. His hand pressed a little firmer over your stomach, not forcing, just holding there like the thought had been living in him for years.

“You in our apartment,” he murmured, words breaking between breathless little sounds. “My wife, wearing my old shirts. Sleeping alone. Fighting for me. Sitting across from lawyers and doctors while I sit in a– hmmphh— a fuckin’ box.”

“Baby—”

“And all I could think was… fuck—all I could think was I should have left you something.”

Your breath caught so hard it almost hurt.

A baby, he meant.

A living tether. Something that would tie you to him in a way no prison door, no court order, no transfer file could undo. And sure, if you were going to leave him, you would have done it already. No court in the world would blame you for divorcing a killer. No friend, no family member, no sane person would call you cruel for walking away.

But you stayed. And fuck, somehow, staying was still not enough for Dex. He needed proof that some part of him could still belong to you permanently. 

In his mind, twisted and tender as it was, this was not a trap. It was a gift.

His eyes locked on yours, blown dark and terrifyingly attentive even through the haze.

His mouth was against yours, then your jaw, then your throat, never settling anywhere long enough to be gentle. He kept touching you like he could not decide what he needed more: your face, your waist, your hips, the heat of your body. 

“You feel that?” he rasped, voice wrecked as you squeezed him a little. “How bad you want it?”

You did want it, but you could barely answer. Every breath came out wrong, caught somewhere between a moan and his name. Your thoughts had gone useless, scattered apart by the obscene tenderness of his palm resting low and possessive like he was already imagining the seed taking root there.

“Dex—” you sighed, trying to bury your face in his ned

“No, baby.” His mouth brushed your ear, rough and hot, as he pulled your hair back gently to look into your eyes. “Don’t get… shit— shy now. Not after that. N-not after the sounds you’ve been making ‘f me.”

Your face burned, but your hands only tightened on him.

His voice dropped lower, filthier, the words breaking between harsh breaths. “My pretty girl wants something from me, huh?”

Your whole body went hot.

Dex’s palm pressed a little firmer over your stomach. “S-she wants me to leave her with something.” His breath hitched, and for a second his voice almost failed him. “Wants to walk out of here carrying more than m-my… hmm— fingerprints.”

You made a helpless sound.

“There it is,” he murmured. “You like that, fuck! You like thinking about it.”

“Dex-please—”

“Yeah?” His mouth found yours, messy and desperate, before he pulled back just enough to look at you. His pupils were blown wide, his face flushed, his control hanging by a thread he was clearly ready to let snap. “My pretty girl wants my baby, huh?”

Your breath caught so hard it hurt.

Dex saw it the way your body answered before your mouth could.

His face changed, hunger folding into something sickly sweet, almost tender in the worst possible way. “Fuck,” he whispered. “You do.”

Your eyes stung.

You hated and loved how well he knew you all the same.

“Wants something of mine when they t-take me back,” he breathed, mouth dragging along your cheek. “Something they c-can’t put in a cell. Something that— hnghhh — still has me in it.”

You were shaking now, overwhelmed and aching and so far gone that language felt like a thing happening on another planet. Dex was talking to you like he knew exactly where every dark little want lived under your skin, like he had spent three years locked away with nothing but the memory of you and all the ways he wanted to make himself permanent.

“Say it,” he murmured.

You couldn’t, not properly. Dex’s eyes darkened further.

“C-can’t even talk,” he whispered. “That’s okay. I know you.” His thumb moved slowly over your skin. “I know what my wife wants.”

Your breath broke.

His forehead pressed to yours, and for one second, under all that hunger, he was shaking with the effort to hold himself back.

“But you gotta tell me,” he said, voice raw. “Tell me no and I’ll stop.”

The restraint from him was phenomenal. Your hands slid up to his face, holding him there, forcing him to look at you while you gave him the answer.

“D-don’t you fucking dare stop,” you whispered.

“Yeah?” he asked, like he needed it again, like one yes was not enough to survive on.

“Yes–Fuck! Yes, baby.”

His mouth crashed back to yours, swallowing the rest of your answer, and the room disappeared into heat and the terrible intimacy of choosing this with him. His hand stayed over your stomach the whole time, almost reverent, like the fantasy had become real the second you let him have it.

He kept talking against your mouth, the words coming apart as badly as he was.

How good you were. How much he had missed you. How he had thought about you every night. How he wanted to leave something behind. How you would be going home with him in a way no guard could take from you.

You clung to him through it, nails catching on his shoulders, then his back, then the scar along his spine. Dex shuddered when you touched it, a broken sound leaving him before he buried his face against your neck and held you closer, closer, closer, like he could press three lost years into the space between your bodies and make them disappear.

When he finally came with you, he did it with your name on his mouth and his eyes fixed on yours, like he needed you to see every second of what he was giving you.

His forehead dropped to yours afterward, both of you breathing too hard.

For a while, neither of you spoke. The guards outside were silent. The room was wrecked in small damning ways: twisted sheets, scattered clothes, your blouse half on the floor, the black lace halfway off the bed.  

Dex kissed your cheek. Then your jaw. Then the corner of your mouth.“I missed you,” he whispered, and this time it sounded almost broken.

You closed your eyes and held him there. “I missed you, too.”

—

The knock came fifteen minutes later, and you hated it. “Poindexter,” a guard called, “Time.”

Dex was still against you, face buried in your neck, one arm locked around your waist like pretending not to hear it might make the door stay shut. For a second, neither of you moved. His breathing was still uneven against your skin, and your fingers were still in his hair, and the narrow bed beneath you looked absolutely ruined.

Another knock. You touched the back of his neck. “Baby.”

“I know.”

He didn’t sound like he knew. He sounded like leaving you there might kill him.

You both moved in a rush after that, half-dressed and breathless, trying to put yourselves back together before the guards came in. The sheet was twisted. Your skirt was crooked. Your blouse was missing buttons because Dex had been too impatient, so you had to clutch the fabric closed with both hands while smiling like an idiot anyway.

Then the guards stepped in. One of them looked at the bed, then at you, then at Dex. His face went carefully blank.

“Hands,” he said.

You stepped forward before Dex could turn around.

The guard sighed. “Ma’am—”

“One second,” you said.

Dex bent instantly, like he had been waiting for permission. You kissed him once. Then again. Then to his nose, because one kiss was not enough and never would be.

“I love you,” you whispered.

He looked like he might cry. “I love you, too”

Then they cuffed him.

You hated the sound of metal around his wrists. It meant the world taking him back. At the door, Dex looked over his shoulder, and you stood there still holding your blouse together, still smiling, still ruined.

The guard muttered, “Filthy animals,” as they disappeared into the hall.

Then you heard Dex chuckle, low and rough and proud. Like being filthy with you was the best thing anyone had ever called him.

You stood there for a second, and then you laughed under your breath, too.

Because you loved it. You loved being disgusting with him. Loved that the room looked wrecked. Loved that the guards knew. Loved that Dex would carry that insult back to his cell like a compliment, and that you would go home with the same stupid, shameless pride in your chest.

Filthy animals.

Yeah. You smiled to yourself, still holding your blouse together. Maybe you were.

—

You were pregnant.

You found out before the transfer, while Dex was still in prison, still waiting to be moved to the secure psychiatric facility you had spent three years fighting for. For three days, you carried the secret around yourself like a forcefield. You went to work, answered emails, helped patrons at the public library. You smiled politely at everyone while your whole body felt like it had become a locked room with a miracle inside.

When you told Dex, he knew something was different before you even sat down. His eyes went to your face, then your hands, then the way you kept pressing your palm nervously against your stomach. “What happened?”

You laughed once, shaky and soft. “Nothing bad.”

Dex didn’t relax, so you reached across the table and took his hand as much as the cuffs allowed. His fingers closed around yours immediately. “I’m pregnant.” For a second, it was like the whole visiting room lost sound. Then his eyes dropped to your stomach. “What?”

You smiled through the tears already coming. “I’m pregnant, baby.”

The chair scraped back before the guard could stop him.

Dex moved toward you on instinct, cuffed hands reaching for your face, not violent, not thinking, just desperate to touch. The chain between his wrists caught on the edge of the table, but he barely seemed to feel it. His palms found your cheeks, and then he was kissing you across the table like the whole room had disappeared.

“Poindexter,” the guard snapped.

Dex didn't hear him. Or he did, and for one dangerous second, he didn’t care.

You kissed him back, crying into his mouth, fingers gripping the front of his prison shirt because this was your husband, your baby’s father, and he was making this broken sound against your lips.

Another guard came over. “Back. Now.”

They had to pull you apart. Actually pull you apart.

They had one hand on Dex’s shoulder, another on his arm, dragging him back while his cuffed hands strained toward you and yours reached for him across the table. His eyes stayed locked on your face the whole time amazed and almost frightened by the size of what he felt.

The transfer happened not long after.

The institution was better than solitary. You reminded yourself of that every day. He had doctors now. Treatments, structure. He was not locked alone in a box anymore.

But he still was not free. He wasn’t there when your stomach first started to show, but the institution had better visitation rules than the prison, and the first time you came in visibly pregnant, Dex was allowed to touch you. His hand settled over the curve of your stomach so carefully it made your throat ache, like he was afraid the smallest wrong movement might cost him the privilege.

He wasn’t there when the baby kicked for the first time either, but later, during one of those visits, the baby kicked beneath Dex’s palm. Dex went completely still, eyes dropping to your stomach.

Still, he wasn’t there for the smaller, lonelier things. He wasn’t beside you in the maternity shop when you cried because nothing fit right and you wanted him there so badly it hurt. He should have been there making some too-serious comment about proper shoes, back support, and whether the changing room bench was structurally safe enough for you to sit on.

But even then, you told him everything. Every appointment. Every craving. Every scan. Every tiny development you could turn into words and carry to him.

Then Leonard was born. Leo, for short, named for his father.

Dex wasn’t allowed to be there.

That hurt him in a way he didn’t know how to hide. You didn’t know this, but one of the nurses told you he had become erratic after the call came through that you were in labour. Not violent, but frantic, pacing, asking the same questions over and over, trying to negotiate with people who had no authority to give him what he wanted. By the end of it, they had to force a couple pills down his throat so he could just calm down.

So when you finally called, exhausted and crying, with your son against your chest, the silence on the other end felt too careful.

“He’s here,” you whispered. “He’s here, baby.”

Dex didn’t answer right away. For a moment, all you could hear was his breathing, thin and controlled, like he was holding himself together by force. Then, very carefully, he asked, "Are you okay?”

“Yes.”

“Is he okay?”

“Yes.”

You could almost picture him sitting there, hand curled too tightly around the phone, trying to make himself calm enough to deserve hearing this.

“Tell me,” he said.

You told him Leo had blonde hair. You looked down at the baby curled against you, tiny and furious, with pale hair against his head and features that already made your chest ache because there was no denying whose child he was.

“He looks like you,” you whispered.

Dex didn’t answer right away. When he did, his voice sounded stripped bare.

“He does?”

“Yeah, baby.” You smiled through tears, touching Leo’s tiny cheek. “He looks like his father.”

Still, after weeks, then months, then years of hearing about Leo through you, Dex began to know him in fragments.

Children were not allowed inside the institution, so Leo had never met his father. Dex knew him through the stories you told him in visitation rooms, through the photographs you were allowed to bring, through the change in your voice whenever you said his name. You gave him a picture of Leo asleep with one fist tucked under his cheek. Leo with blond hair and your eyes. Leo scowling at the camera in a way that looked so much like Dex it made him go silent the first time he saw it.

But he didn’t love Leo properly yet. How could he? He had never held him. Never felt the weight of him against his chest. Never smelled his skin, never rocked him through a cry, never watched him fall asleep in his arms. Leo was still partly an idea to him, a child made real through your love before Dex could reach him with his own.

But he loved Leo, in a way, because you loved him.

That was easier. You loved that baby, so Leo mattered. Your face relaxed when you spoke about him, so Dex learned to relax around the sound of his name too. And somewhere in the darkest, neediest part of him, he thought he owed Leo his life because he made you stay.

Leo was Dex’s gift to you, because he didn’t want you to be alone. 

So Dex loved Leo in the only way he knew how at first: because Leo was yours, because Leo was his, because Leo looked like him, and because Leo kept a piece of him in your life while the rest of him was locked away. He loved him for your sake, before he knew how to love him for his own.

—

Leo was three years old when Vanessa Fisk made Dex kill Foggy Nelson.

He was three, serious-eyed, stubborn in the exact way that made your mother sigh and say, “That’s probably his father,” under her breath. Leo had Dex’s watchful stare, Dex’s unnerving ability to go quiet when he was thinking too hard. But he was still a toddler, so the quiet never lasted long. One minute he would be silently studying the wheels of a toy truck like he was investigating a crime scene, and the next he would be shrieking because his banana had “broken wrong.”

He loved dinosaurs, but only “scary ones.” He refused to wear socks that had seams in the wrong place. He called the moon “the night light” and cried once because you explained he couldn’t take it home. He had Dex’s face in miniature and your habit of talking to himself while concentrating, which meant you spent most mornings watching your tiny blond child line up toy animals on the floor and whisper, “No, no, you go there. No, you not listening.”

You were a good mother. You packed snacks. You remembered nursery forms. You cut grapes in half. You kept emergency wipes in every bag you owned. You sang the same bedtime song three times if Leo asked, even when your throat hurt and your body felt hollow from work and worry and loving a man the world had never stopped punishing.

Dex knew all of that through you. Leo liked peas this week. Leo hated peas this week. Leo asked why cats had no eyebrows. Leo threw a shoe at the wall because bedtime was, apparently, “a bad idea.” Leo had asked about Daddy again.

You and Leo had become the one fragile architecture that kept Dex going. Vanessa understood that because Vanessa Fisk understood devotion, even when it was ugly. 

So when she found out about you and Leo, it was over.

She came to Dex with ammo in her metaphorical gun.

This was no way to live, she told him, taking away the meds. Was this what he wanted? To hear about his son in secondhand stories? To let you raise a child alone while other men opened doors for you, helped carry groceries, taught Leo to kick a ball, to ride a bike, to be brave? Raising a child was hard, wasn’t it? You were young. Lonely. Exhausted. Beautiful. How long before someone else started looking less like help and more like a replacement?

Didn’t he want to be a husband? A father? Didn’t he want to come home?

Then, she gave him a photo of you at home, hair tied back, Leo on your hip. How… did she get this photo?

Then she gave him structure: Kill Foggy first. Then he could go to you and Leo.

That was the order of how it went. It was a task, a reward, a way back to the only life he still cared about. And Dex had always been most dangerous when someone took his pain and turned it into a sequence.

So he killed Foggy Nelson. And afterward, when they dragged him back into court, you wanted to see him.

Not because you excused murder. Not because Foggy didn’t matter. But because you were his wife, and you knew that Dex didn’t kill like that out of nowhere.

He wouldn’t simply go on a rampage. He didn’t wake up one day and decide he would burn every bridge that led to you. He loved you too much for that. So you came to the conclusion that someone must've reached into the most frightened part of him, and aimed him again.

You knew that, but the court didn’t care. This time, the court issued an order. It was for your son’s sake, they said. An injunction, no contact. You and Leo were not to be in the same room as Benjamin Poindexter. Not in court, not in visitation, not anywhere a judge could prevent it.

You stood very still when they told you this.

Leo was at home with your mother, probably refusing lunch because the sandwich had been cut into triangles instead of squares.

You didn’t cry. Not when the injunction was read. Not even when Dex was sentenced for the second time. You just listened. Then you got to work.

Because crying would come later, probably in the shower, probably with one hand over your mouth so Leo wouldn’t hear. But right then, there were lawyers to call, motions to file, and records to request. You knew your husband. You knew what manipulation looked like when he was the one pointed like a weapon.

And after court, you went back to Leo. He was sitting on the living room floor in dinosaur pyjamas even though it was the afternoon, blond hair sticking up at the back, one sock on and one sock missing for reasons nobody could explain. He looked up when you came in, toy stegosaurus clutched in one hand.

“Mama,” he said seriously, “Nana said no more crackers.”

You knelt in front of him, your knees cracking with the exhaustion of the day. “Your grandma is probably right.”

Leo frowned like you had betrayed him on a legal level. “I need snacks.”

“You had a snack.”

“I need more snacks.”

“You need dinner.”

He considered that, then lifted the stegosaurus. “Dino needs crackers.”

“Dino can have pretend crackers.”

Leo stared at you with Dex’s eyes. For one awful second, you almost laughed and almost cried at the same time. Instead, you reached out and smoothed his hair down. It sprang back up immediately.

“Daddy has that face too,” you whispered.

Leo blinked. “Daddy?”

You had never lied to him. You told him Daddy was away. Daddy loved him. Daddy couldn’t come home yet. All true, and yet, none of it was enough.

“Yeah,” you said softly. “Daddy.”

Leo looked down at his dinosaur, then back at you. “Daddy like dinos?”

You smiled even though your throat hurt. “I think Daddy would like whatever you like.”

Leo nodded, satisfied by that, and shoved the stegosaurus into your lap. “Then Daddy like this one. He bite.”

You held the toy carefully, like it was evidence. “Yeah,” you whispered. “He bite.”

Leo climbed into your lap after that, all knees and elbows, and you wrapped both arms around him. He smelled like shampoo and the strawberry yoghurt he had somehow gotten on his sleeve. He pressed his face into your shoulder for exactly four seconds before wriggling away again because three-year-olds loved affection on their own schedule.

You let him go. You watched him return to his line of dinosaurs, babbling to himself, head bent in concentration.

You opened your notes app and started another list: Lawyer. Injunction appeal. Facility records. Contact restrictions. Dex’s medication logs. Visitor records.

You could be heartbroken later. Right now, you were Leo’s mother. Dex’s wife. And someone had used your family to turn your husband into a weapon again.

And you were going to find out why.

—

A year later, you were watching the news while Leo played on the carpet.

Not watching, really. You were letting it sit on in the background while you moved through the living room with half your attention split into a dozen places at once. Leo’s sippy cup was on the coffee table. His toy dinosaurs were arranged in a careful little line near your foot. A postcard Johnathan had sent from the Bahamas with his boyfriend on the fridge. There was a basket of laundry on the chair you had been meaning to fold since yesterday, and your laptop sat open on the sofa beside you, full of documents, court filings, old visitor logs, psychiatric reports, and all the research you had been collecting like ammunition.

You had been working for weeks. You had names, dates, transfer notices, facility records, connections that were too neat to be coincidence. You had followed the clues until your stomach turned. Dex was going to be moved into general population, and it was not an administrative error. It was not random. It had the Fisks’ fingerprints all over it, even if she was careful enough never to leave them where a normal person could see.

After all, it hadn’t taken you long to find out about the Red Hook charter. That part had been almost laughably easy. Child’s play, really.

The public library had a stack of old municipal records tucked away in the back, half-forgotten beneath outdated notices and donation forms. Someone had slapped a label on the box years ago — NEEDS TO BE SHREDDED — and then, by some miracle of underfunded bureaucracy, no one ever had.

So you had done the one thing you could think of and sent Matt Murdock an anonymous tip. You didn't give a signature or explanation. It was just enough information to make him look where he needed to look. It was just enough to prove to him that Dex was not acting on his own.

Matt went to see him that morning. You knew because you still had someone inside the prison willing to tell you what the official channels never would. A friend, barely. A contact, more accurately. 

Then, that night, the news broke: Benjamin Poindexter had escaped from prison and attempted to assassinate the mayor.

Your husband’s name was on every channel again. Your husband’s face was dragged back into the world as a threat, a headline, a monster with a body count and no context anyone cared to say out loud.

You stood frozen in the middle of your living room, remote in hand, while the news anchor spoke over footage you could barely process. On the carpet, Leo lifted his plastic stegosaurus and made it bite the sofa cushion.

“Rawr,” he said seriously.

You looked down at him and how completely unaware he was that his father had just broken out of prison and tried to kill a man.

Leo was too busy frowning at the stegosaurus with Dex’s whole face in miniature, pale brows pulled together, mouth pressed into a stern little line. “No,” he told the dinosaur, pushing its plastic nose away from the triceratops. “No bully.”

The stegosaurus apparently disagreed, because Leo made it chomp again. Then he gasped, offended by his own storyline. “No. Bully bad.” He picked up the stegosaurus, turned it toward the triceratops, and shook it gently. “You say sorry.”

You stared at him.

Leo bumped the stegosaurus’s head carefully against the triceratops. “Sowwy,” he said in a deeper voice.

Then he made the triceratops pat the stegosaurus on the head. “Okay. Be kind now.”

Your chest tightened so hard you had to sit down.

Leo looked up. “Mama?”

“I’m okay,” you said too quickly.

He stared at you with Dex’s eyes, unconvinced.

You turned the volume down, but not off. You couldn’t make yourself turn it off. You sat there with Leo at your feet and the whole city falling apart on-screen, trying to understand the sequence. Matt’s visit. The transfer. The Fisks. Dex escaping. The mayor. None of it random. None of it was out of nowhere, and you probably were the one to set this into motion the second you gave the anonymous tip.

“Mama,” Leo said again, holding up a toy. “Dino hungry.”

“Dino is always hungry,” you whispered.

“Need snack.”

“Okay,” you said, because your voice was already too close to breaking and arguing with a four-year-old about a plastic dinosaur felt like the one thing you could actually survive. “Let me check what we have.”

You stood and crossed into the kitchen, still listening to the news. The fridge light came on cold and white across your face. You stared into it without really seeing anything: half a punnet of strawberries, Leo’s yoghurt, and Leftover pasta. A little container of cut grapes.

The news anchor said Dex’s name again. Your hand tightened around the fridge door.

You reached for Leo’s yoghurt, then stopped because he had asked for a snack for the dinosaur, not himself, and for one absurd second that distinction mattered enough to make you laugh under your breath.

Then you realised that Leo was… silent. He wasn’t babbling. He wasn’t talking to his toys. Is he okay?

Worried, you looked back into the living room.

Leo was standing in the middle of the carpet, one dinosaur clutched in his hand, his small body frozen in a way that made the back of your neck prickle.

He was waving at the window.

No. Not the window. The fire escape.

Beyond the glass, half-hidden in the dark metal lines of the fire escape, was his father.

Oh.

Little did you know, Dex had already been there for fifteen minutes.

Fifteen whole minutes of being half-hidden in the dark, one hand braced against the cold metal railing while he looked into the life he had only known through your stories. At first, he watched you, moving through the living room with the television flickering against your face, beautiful and alive, one hand absently touching your wedding ring while you tried to hold the world together through the sheer refusal to give up on him.

But when his eyes found Leo, Dex forgot how to breathe.

He knew what his son looked like from photographs. He knew he had blond hair, serious eyes, and that little frown you always said was his. But seeing Leo in person was different. It was jarring, how much he actually looked like him. Leo was now a real person to Dex, sitting cross-legged on the carpet in dinosaur pyjamas, scolding a plastic stegosaurus for biting another toy.

Dex watched Leo make the dinosaur apologise. He watched Leo say that bullying was bad. He watched his son choose kindness with no one guiding him toward it.

Oh. Leo looked like him, but he was good in a way Dex had never been able to be without help. Dex had always needed a North Star, someone outside him to point toward right when his own internal compass spun uselessly in the dark. He would always need you that way, always look to you when the world blurred at the edges and everything started to feel lost.

But Leo did not need a North Star. Leo had one inside him. Leo had a functioning moral compass in a tiny body with Dex’s face and your kindness. Dex’s focus, but not his emptiness. Dex’s intensity, but not his fracture. Dex, if someone had loved him correctly from the start.

And that was when Dex understood that he loved him. And not in the distant, complicated love he had forced himself to. Not just because Leo was yours, or because Leo was his, or because Leo had kept you tethered to him while the rest of the world tried to take him away.

Now, he loved Leo because Leo was a good version of him. Because protecting Leo suddenly felt a lot like self-preservation. Like if Dex could keep this child safe, if he could make sure the world never reached into Leo and broke the compass before it had a chance to grow, then maybe some part of himself could be saved too.

Then Leo noticed him.

Dex saw the exact second it happened. Leo’s head turned, eyes lifting past the kitchen table, past the window, to the dark shape crouched on the fire escape.

For one breathless second, Dex couldn't move. He had been caught. Not by the police. Not by guards. Not by Daredevil. By a four-year-old boy. 

Leo didn’t scream. He didn’t cry. Of course not. He was your son, too. He was brave, like you. 

He only blinked, then lifted one small hand and waved.

Because Dex didn't want to scare him, because he did not know how fathers were supposed to wave at sons they had never held, Dex lifted his hand and waved back.

That was when you noticed.

And fuck, he couldn’t wait to be in your arms again.

The second you got the window open, Dex came through it, one hand catching the frame, the other already reaching for you. The sniper rifle was still strapped across his back, cold against the warmth of your apartment.

You barely had time to say his name before his hands were on you.

He pulled you into him so quickly your feet left the floor, spinning you half across the living room with a strength that startled a laugh out of you before it broke into a sob. His arms locked around your waist, your hands flew to his shoulders, and then his mouth was on yours. The kiss was clumsy in the way only grief and longing could be clumsy. He kissed you like every locked door, every court order, every year stolen from you both had narrowed into this one second.

He tasted like blood and rain. His lip was split. One of his teeth was missing. There were stitches along his forehead and dirt at the edge of his chin, but he was here. Your husband was in your living room with his body against yours and his hands on your back like he was trying to convince himself you were not another trick his mind played against him.

“I missed you,” you breathed against his mouth.

Dex made a broken sound and kissed you again. “I missed you.”

“No, baby,” you whispered, laughing and crying at the same time as you pressed kisses to his mouth, his cheek, the corner of his cheekbones, the scar you’ve yet to trace there. “I missed you. I missed you so much.”

His forehead dropped to yours. For a second, he just held you there, eyes closed, breathing you in like he had forgotten the world. His fingers moved at your waist, not quite gripping, not quite letting go, that old helpless need in him trying so hard to be gentle and failing only because there was too much feeling in one body.

Then a small voice behind you said, “Mama?”

It went through him all at once, the way a person remembered fire after touching a flame. His hands stayed on you, but his whole body locked up, breath caught, eyes opening with a kind of fear you had never seen in him. 

Because no, Benjamin Poindexter had no defence against a four-year-old boy in dinosaur pyjamas.

Slowly, you turned in his arms to see Leo stood in the middle of the carpet with one sock missing and his stegosaurus tucked under one arm. His round little face was serious, sleepy, and curious. He looked much like Dex, it made your chest hurt, but he was smaller, untouched by every cruel thing that had made his father into a weapon.

“Mama,” Leo asked, pointing the dinosaur toward Dex, “who’s this?”

Dex’s breath hitched, you felt it under your palm.

For a moment, you couldn’t answer. You had imagined this introduction a hundred different ways over the years. Maybe in a supervised visitation room. Or through a phone call. Maybe one day in some future where paperwork finally gave way and Leo was old enough to understand more than he should have to. You had not imagined Dex standing in your apartment with a rifle on his back, blood at his mouth, wanted by half the city, looking down at his son like the universe had placed his missing pieces in a boy that looked like a mirror.

You swallowed.“Leo,” you said softly, voice shaking. “This is Daddy.”

Dex inhaled like the word had gone straight through him.

Leo blinked up at him. “Hi daddy,” he repeated, testing the shape of it.

Dex was still trying to keep himself held together with force and habit and whatever discipline had survived. But a foreign emotion moved across him as you felt your own eyes fill again.

“Hi, Leo,” he whispered. His voice was wrecked.

Leo studied him with the grave suspicion of a child encountering an adult who looked both interesting and badly assembled. His eyes moved over Dex’s face. Then his little brows pulled together.

“Your teeth is missing,” Leo said.

You made a small sound, half laugh, half sob.

Dex blinked at him. “What?”

Leo took one step closer, stegosaurus still tucked under his arm like backup. “Your teeth is missing. Are you okay?”

And that was what broke him.

Not the years he had lost. Not even the word Daddy, though that had nearly taken his knees out. It was the concern in his son’s voice, the immediate, unprompted softness. The way Leo saw something wrong and, instead of flinching from him, asked if he was okay.

Dex lowered himself slowly to one knee, as if sudden movement might shatter the moment.

The rifle shifted against his back, so violently out of place beside your son’s little bare foot on the carpet. Dex seemed to realise it too. His hand moved as if to take it off, then stopped, uncertain, afraid to do anything too fast with Leo so close.

“I’m okay,” Dex said carefully.

Leo looked unconvinced. “Mama has plasters.”

Dex looked up at you.Your hand went to your mouth, and you cried properly then, because Leo had no idea what he was offering. No idea that his father had come through the window carrying a weapon and a history no child should have to understand. No idea that asking about a missing tooth and suggesting a plaster was the kindest thing anyone had said to Dex all year.

Dex looked back at him, and saw a person. A tiny person with Dex’s hair and Dex’s nose and Dex’s mouth, but he was human, in the way he never was. He was kind.

Leo was everything Dex had wanted to be and never knew how. Leo was a good version of him.

For the first time in Dex’s life, he looked at someone smaller than him and thought, with stunned humility, that he might have something to learn.

From his son, his better self.

Leo tilted his head. “You want Dino?”

Dex looked at the stegosaurus like it was sacred.

Then he held out both hands, slowly, carefully, letting Leo decide.

Leo stepped closer and placed the dinosaur into his palms.

Dex took it as if it weighed more than the rifle on his back. As if this battered little plastic toy had more power to undo him than any weapon ever made.

“Thank you,” he whispered.

Leo nodded, satisfied by the manners, then moved closer. His small hand lifted and patted Dex’s cheek, not quite where the scar was, gentle in the imprecise way of toddlers trying their best.

Dex’s eyes snapped to yours. There was panic there. Wonder. A silent, helpless question: What do I do?

You sank down beside them, one hand on Leo’s back, the other reaching for Dex’s face.  “You’re doing okay,” you whispered.

Leo patted him again, then leaned forward and, with the sudden trust only children could offer, pressed himself into Dex’s chest.

Dex stopped breathing. Then, slowly, so slowly it made your heart ache, his arms came around your son.

Leo fit against him like he had always belonged there, his same-colored hair tucked beneath Dex’s chin. Dex held him as if the whole room might punish him for wanting it too much, as if any wrong movement would prove he didn;t deserve this.

You watched his hand spread carefully over Leo’s back. The same hand that had hurt people. The same hand that had held weapons. That same hand that now shook from the effort of touching his son gently enough.

Leo looked up from Dex’s chest. “Are you cold?”

Dex swallowed. “A little.”

Leo considered that, then turned to you. “Mama, Daddy need blanket.”

You laughed through tears. “Yeah,” you whispered. “Maybe he does.”

Dex closed his eyes.

His face bent toward Leo’s hair, and for a second he didn’t quite kiss him, He only breathed there, close enough to smell the child he had made and never held. Shampoo. Crackers. Life. His son smelled like life.

When Dex opened his eyes again, they were wet. He looked at you over Leo’s head, and the room seemed to fold around the three of you. 

“I missed everything,” he whispered.

You moved closer, pressing your forehead to his shoulder, one hand covering his where it rested on Leo’s back. “You’re here now.”

It was not enough, you both knew that. It was nowhere near enough.

But Leo wriggled in Dex’s arms and said, “Daddy, Dino hungry,” with the complete seriousness of a child who had accepted this new adult into his world and immediately assigned him responsibilities.

Dex looked down at him. Then at the dinosaur. Then back at you, for instruction. You tilted your chin like, go on.

“What does Dino eat?” he managed.

Leo gasped, scandalised that his own father didn’t know. “Crackers.”

Dex looked at you, and you nodded, so he also nodded, “Okay.”

Dex knew now that he was meant to love Leo because Leo was his second chance in miniature. 

And Leo had no idea his father would burn the world to keep him safe. Because in the end, that's what makes him a good man, right?

—end.

Extra note : I keep getting distracted from my Dex x reader / ex!Bucky fic, but I promise it’s on its way. In the meantime, my immediate thought after writing this is a sequel where Reader and Dex finds out Leo has powers (is a mutant) and that’s why Dex starts killing anti-vigilante task force. Because he wants to protect his son. (No promises, but let me know if anyone’s interested!)

Leo loved that Daddy loved Mommy. That was not the problem.

Honestly, Leo thought it made perfect sense. Mommy was amazing. Mommy smelled like books and soap and the cotton she wore to the library. Mommy knew where the plasters were, remembered which dinosaur was which, and always did the voices properly during bedtime stories. Mommy could tell when Leo was sad.

So, of course Daddy loved Mommy. Obviously. 

Daddy loving Mommy was not confusing. But Daddy being attached to Mommy like a very large, very serious sticker was the confusing part.

Because since Daddy had come home, he had been very… clingy (he learned that word from your best friend, Uncle Jonathan). Leo noticed it immediately. Daddy stood too close to Mommy in the kitchen. Daddy followed Mommy down the hall when you went to get laundry. Daddy held on to Mommy’s waist whenever she walked past him, like he had to check she was still real. Daddy kissed Mommy’s forehead. Daddy kissed Mommy’s hand. Daddy kissed Mommy’s shoulder when she was making coffee, which made Mommy say, “Dex,” in that voice that meant you were pretending to be annoyed but were actually not annoyed at all.

And at night, Daddy was worse.

At night, when Leo was supposed to be asleep, Daddy slept in Mommy’s bed. Apparently it was also Daddy’s bed now, but Leo wasn’t ready to accept that.

And Daddy didn’t just sleep beside Mommy, but he was practically glued to Mommy!

Leo had seen it from the hallway more than once, when he was supposed to be asleep across the hall. You would be propped against the pillows, reading under the warm gold light of the bedside lamp, and Dex would be wrapped around your waist like he had been hired to keep you from floating away. His face would be half-buried against your chest, one arm heavy over your stomach, mouth pressing sleepy little kisses to your collarbone every few minutes.

You let him do it. You even smiled when he did, because you loved it.

Sometimes you put your fingers in his hair and scratched gently, and Daddy would go so still that Leo knew he liked it very much.

Leo understood affection. Leo understood love.

Leo didn’t understand, though, why Daddy was allowed to sleep with Mommy every night when Leo had to sleep by himself.

Because Leo had a room. Mommy had a room. Rabbit had a place in the dollhouse. The dinosaurs had their chest. Mommy’s library books went in her tote bag, even when you sometimes forgot three of them on the kitchen table. Shoes went by the door.

Everything had a place.

Except Daddy, apparently. Daddy’s place was just wherever Mommy was. He didn’t even have his own room!

This bothered Leo for days.

Not in a jealous way. More in a sad, practical way. Everyone needed a place. So one afternoon, Leo marched into the guest bedroom that had slowly become your office, pointed at the pull-out sofa bed and your desk, and announced, “Daddy, this can be your room.”

Dex looked up from where he had been fixing the loose hinge on the door. “My room?”

Leo nodded, very seriously. “You need one.”

Dex glanced toward the hallway, where you were making tea in the kitchen, then back at Leo. He looked confused. “I… have a room.”

Leo frowned. “Where?”

Dex said it like it was obvious. “With your mom.”

Leo went completely still. His little face folded into pure confusion. “With Mommy?”

Dex’s mouth twitched. “Yes.”

Leo stared at him like Daddy had just explained the laws of the universe incorrectly.“But that’s Mommy’s room.”

“It’s our room.”

Leo blinked.

You appeared in the doorway with two mugs just in time to watch your son’s entire worldview collapse.

Leo looked at you. Then at Dex. Then back at you.

“Mommy shares her room?”

You bit your lip.

Dex, unhelpfully, looked deeply pleased with himself, smug despite the fact that his competition was literally his own son. “Yes,” he said. “With me.”

Leo’s mouth opened. For once in his tiny life, he had no argument ready. He didn’t even know people could share rooms!

One night, though, when the apartment had gone dark, Leo climbed out of bed with his blanket dragging behind him and tiptoed down the hall. His night-light had been on, but the corner near the wardrobe still looked too shadowy, and Rabbit had fallen off the bed twice, which is probably a bad sign.

Your bedroom door was half-open.

Inside, you were trying to read.

Keyword trying, because Dex was not helping.

He was curled around you beneath the blanket, his arm around your waist, his cheek pressed against your chest. Every time your eyes moved back to the page, his mouth brushed against your skin in a lazy little kiss, like he couldn’t help himself.

“Dex,” you murmured, the book still open in one hand. “You’re distracting me.”

His voice came muffled against your skin. “Hmm.”

“I am trying to read.”

“So read.”

You lowered the book.

Dex lifted his head just enough to look at you, and Leo saw that gentle thing happen to Daddy’s face again. The thing that only happened around Mommy. Leo decided this was very sweet.

Unfortunately, Leo was also a very rule-oriented kid, so he also found it very hypocritical.

“Mommy?”

Dex went still immediately.

You looked toward the door, your eyebrows furrowing. “What is it, sweetheart?”

Leo stood in the doorway in his pyjamas, clutching his blanket with both hands. “I’m scared of the dark. Can you come sleep with me?”

Your eyes changed from curious into sympathetic. It meant Leo already knew you were about to say something disappointing and feel bad about it later.

“Oh, baby,” you said. “You’re getting bigger now. You need to try sleeping by yourself, okay? Being independent is important.”

Leo stared at you. It was very close to his father’s death stare when his eyes moved, very slowly, To Dex.

Dex, who was still wrapped around your waist.

Dex, whose face was still half-buried against your akin.

Dex, who had made no attempt to move, explain himself, or pretend he was not clinging to you for dear life.

Leo frowned. “But Daddy’s bigger than me.”

You froze. Dex’s eyes finally opened properly.

Leo pointed at him, deeply offended by the hypocrisy happening in front of him. “He should be independent first!”

What followed in the next few seconds was terrible, perfect silence.

Then you made a laugh-like sound into your hand, trying to hide it but failing. 

Dex lifted his head slowly. Leo stood his ground.

He had Dex’s stubborn little mouth. Dex’s serious eyes. Dex’s absolute confidence when he believed he was right.

And unfortunately, he was right.

“Leo,” you said carefully, trying very hard to remain a responsible parent. “Daddy is…”

You looked down at Dex. Your husband looked up at you, daring you to finish that sentence.

You couldn’t.

Because what were you supposed to say?

Daddy spent seven years missing Mommy?

Daddy has attachment issues?

Daddy is a six-foot fugitive who becomes emotionally unstable if Mommy is too far away?

Daddy is emotionally dependent but we’re working on it?

Leo blinked at you, waiting for an answer, but your husband beat you to it. 

“I am independent,” Dex defended himself, clearing his throat.

Leo’s eyebrows pulled together. “You’re holding Mommy.”

Dex looked down at his own arm around your waist as if discovering it there for the first time, because at this point, it was muscle memory. Then, he looked back at Leo.

“I’m protecting her.”

You chuckled, and Dex shot you a look, almost a pout.

Leo didn’t look convinced. “From what?”

Dex opened his mouth, but nothing came out.

You bit your lip to stop a laugh

That was when Leo knew he had found weakness.

He stepped farther into the room, dragging his blanket behind him like a tiny judge entering court. “There’s no bad guys in here.”

Dex’s face went serious. “There could be.”

You smacked his shoulder lightly. “Don’t scare him.”

Dex rolled his eyes, because he knew his son. “I couldn’t if I wanted to.”

Leo climbed onto the end of the bed without permission, still frowning at his father, which was funny, because it just looked like Dex and mini-Dex having the world's cutest standoff.

“If Daddy can sleep with Mommy because he’s scared of bad guys,” Leo said, “then I can sleep with Mommy because I’m scared of the dark.”

You stared at him. Dex stared at him.

Leo stared back, deeply satisfied with his own logic. It was, unfortunately, airtight.

Your resolve lasted maybe half a second. “Oh, sweetheart,” you sighed, already defeated. “Fine. I’ll come with you.”

Leo’s face lit up immediately.

You pulled the blanket back and started to climb out of bed. Dex, because he was your husband, moved at the same time. He was already sitting up, hair mussed, expression serious, one hand reaching for the edge of the blanket like it was obvious that he was coming, too.

Leo noticed, and his little smile vanished.

“No.”

You paused halfway out of bed, with one foot on the floor.

Dex looked at his son. “No?”

Leo tightened his grip around your hand and stood very straight, blanket dragging behind him like a tiny king issuing a royal decree. “Daddy can’t come.”

Dex blinked. You pressed your lips together.

“Why not?” Dex asked, and there was just enough offence in his voice to keep you amused.

Leo frowned at him, still deeply wounded by the audacity. “Because Daddy needs to practice to sleep by himself.”

You turned your face away because if you looked at Dex, you were going to laugh.

Dex stared at Leo.

Leo stared back with the calm, righteous confidence of someone who had caught a grown man breaking his own rule.

“I can sleep by myself,” Dex said, eyebrows furrowing.

Leo’s eyes dropped very pointedly to your side of the bed, where Dex had been wrapped around you two seconds ago. “You don’t.”

You made a small, helpless sound.

Leo tugged your hand, already pulling you toward the door. “Come on, Mommy.”

You let him lead you, biting your lip so hard it hurt.

Dex stayed in bed, visibly offended, the blanket pooled around his waist, looking like an assassin who had just been grounded by his four-year-old. As a result, he scoffed.

It was small, but Leo heard it.

“Daddy,” Leo said, scandalised.

Dex stared at him. “What?”

“That was rude.”

Dex closed his eyes.

For a second, you thought he might actually argue. Dex liked arguing when he thought he was right, and Dex almost always thought he was right. But then he looked at you, and the annoyance in his face tamed into something much more helpless.

Leo saw it.

Daddy loved Mommy so much. Leo liked that Daddy loved Mommy.

He did.

It made the house feel cozy.

But rules were rules.

“It’s one night, baby,” you said softly.

Dex’s teeth clenched.

He didn’t  like it, that much obvious.

But Leo was watching him with solemn expectation, and Dex had been trying very hard to be good at fatherhood. Good at breakfast. Good at bedtime. Good at not moving the dinosaur chest even though he clearly still wanted to. Good at letting Leo win small things because he was his son. 

So Dex exhaled through his nose. “Fine.”

Leo brightened.

Dex pointed lightly at him. “But Mommy comes back after you fall asleep.”

Leo frowned. “No. Mommy sleeps in my bed.”

Dex’s expression went flat.

“All night?” Dex asked, very annoyed now.

Leo nodded. “All night.”

Dex looked at you like betrayal had entered the marriage.

You smiled sweetly. “It’s only fair.”

“Hmmm,” Dex sighed.

“Yes,” Leo said. “Because Daddy is learning.”

Dex looked deeply unimpressed. Still, he leaned across the bed and kissed your temple. His mouth lingered against your skin, warm and reluctant, his hand coming up to cup your cheek like he was already annoyed about missing you from two rooms away.

Leo sighed loudly. Dex looked at him.

“You kiss Mommy a lot,” Leo said.

You laughed for real then.

Dex’s mouth twitched. “I’m married to her.”

Leo considered that.

“Does married mean Daddy is always cuddling mommy?”

Dex shook his head, trying to wrap around why his son was so argumentative about you. Oh right. He was his son. “No.”

Leo looked at you. “I think yes.”

Dex opened his mouth, but you reached over and patted his cheek.

“Don’t argue with him,” you said, still smiling. “He’s already won.”

Dex looked offended, but he kissed your palm anyway.

Then he leaned down and rested one large hand on top of Leo’s head. “Be good,” he said, even though he knew Leo was already a very good kid. 

Leo nodded. “Be brave.”

Dex breath hitched. 

Leo repeated very seriously, “Be brave, Daddy.”

Dex looked at him for a long moment, and then his voice went smaller. “I’ll try.”

So you carried Leo back to his room, even though he was big enough to walk, because sometimes being scared of the dark meant you got carried. His room smelled like clean laundry, picture books, and plastic dinosaurs. The night-light cast amber stars over the walls, and the dinosaur chest sat at the foot of the bed, exactly where Leo wanted it.

You curled yourself around him in his little bed as best you could. It was too small for you, so your knees bent awkwardly and one foot stuck out from under the blanket, but Leo looked pleased.

Your arm went over his tummy.

“Mommy?” he whispered.

“Yes, sweetheart?”

“Daddy loves you a lot.”

Your hand moved slowly through his hair. “Yes,” you whispered. “He does.”

“He kisses you all the time.”

You smiled in the dark. “I noticed.”

“Is that because married?”

You were quiet for a second. Then you said, “Partly.”

Leo thought about that.

“Does Daddy get scared when you’re not there?”

Your hand paused only briefly, but he felt it. To avoid thinking too much, you kissed his forehead.

“Sometimes.”

“But he’s big.”

“Yes.”

“And he has to learn.”

You laughed into his hair. “Yes. Apparently he does.”

Leo nodded, satisfied.

For a while, there was only the hum of the apartment and the faint noise of New York outside the window. Leo’s eyes grew heavy. Your hand kept moving gently through his hair until sleep pulled him under.

At some point, you fell asleep, too.

You meant to wait until Leo was settled and then secretly go back to your room. You really did. But Leo was warm, the bed was soft enough, and the apartment was silent. Your eyes closed for just a second.

Before you knew it, pale morning light was slipping through the curtains.

Leo woke first.

For a moment, he only blinked at the light on the wall. Then he noticed you still curled awkwardly around him, asleep with one arm across his middle.

Then, he noticed your hand.

It had slipped over the edge of the bed sometime in the night and… someone was holding it.

Leo lifted his head.

Daddy was on the floor.

Dex was asleep beside Leo’s bed, back against the wall, one knee bent, one arm resting on the mattress. His fingers were tangled gently with yours. He must’ve come into his room sometime in the night, found your hand, and fell asleep. 

He hadn’t climbed into the bed.

So, while he may have tried to stay in his own room, he had definitely not slept by himself.

Leo stared.

Dex looked different asleep. Still serious somehow, but softer around the mouth. His black T-shirt was wrinkled. His hair was messy. He looked uncomfortable on the floor, but he was holding Mommy’s hand like it was the only place his hand belonged.

Leo looked at you. Still asleep. He looked at Daddy again. Still asleep.

Then Leo slowly reached for Stegosaurus.

He lifted it close to his mouth so he could whisper without waking either of you.

“Daddy is not independent,” Leo told it.

Stegosaurus, wisely, didn’t argue.

Leo nodded to himself. Then, after a moment, he added very softly,

“But he’s learning.”

—end.

Being Selina Kyle's niece and having been raised by her since your father died and your mother well, let's not talk about her made you pick up some of the thief's habits.

Among them, your incredible ability to drive anyone crazy with jokes and trials.

Now, unfortunately, Kyle had to leave town on a mission to rob a rich man's house.

And after the accident that occurred with flames the last time she left you alone in the apartment we won't talk about that either, Selina had the brilliant idea of leaving you at Wayne Manor for a few days.

Of course, she doesn't tell Bruce that the reason for her trip was a robbery, even though he probably already guessed that.

Yes, you argued with Selina that you were already an adult, that you could take care of yourself!

But she rolled her eyes, muttering something like, “You're 18 and you barely know how to cook pasta without burning it.”

Come on! That only happened once!

You know you can't argue with your aunt, so you accept being dragged to Wayne Manor.

You've been there for two days now, and it's the same as always.

Bruce disappears, Damian snubs you every time he sees you, and Tim — your favorite target for jokes — is in his room.

You're tired of it. How can you not tease your not-so-favorite person?

Marching into Tim's room like a soldier about to deliver a final blow, the mischievous smile on your face already betrays your intention.

You don't knock on the door, you just push it open forcefully—and are surprised to find that he hasn't locked it.

Tim doesn't even need to look up from his computer to know who it is. He leans back, swiveling his chair to face you.

“Timmy!” Your cheerful, fake tone is enough to make him push his glasses up on his head, pinch the bridge of his nose, and take a deep breath.

You throw yourself onto the edge of his bed, sitting down and crossing your legs as you pick up one of his books and leaf through it half-heartedly.

“So...” you begin, your eyes lifting from the pages to meet his eyes, “Have you found a hole to stick your dick in yet?”

“Don't say it like that!” Tim groans, throwing his head back and snatching the book from your hands. “You know I already have.”

Yes, you know. You know Tim hasn't been a virgin for a few years now, but it's so funny to see him get annoyed when you tease him!

“Come on.” You try to take the book back, only to give up seconds later when he puts it on the table. “Tell me the truth. Now that you're in college, all you care about is studying, studying, and studying... no parties or hot sorority girls.”

Tim doesn't take the bait, giving you a shrug and turning his chair toward the table, going back to work on his latest science project. “Some of us value intelligence.”

“I'm smart!”

“Smart for stealing.”

You pout at his statement, rising with a soft “tum,” like a petulant child. “I have more skills than that, but you... I bet you don't even know where the clitoris is.”

You can see his body stiffen as you approach, placing your hands on his shoulders and lowering your head to whisper in his ear, “I can give you some lessons if you want.”

He resists the urge to curse at you, pulling his head away from yours and moving his chair closer to the edge of the table. “Get out of here.”

You cross your arms, cursing under your breath when you realize you're not going to get any reaction from him. Then your heels turn and you walk out the door.

Day five.

You're starting to think Selina organized this just to torture you.

The house is silent, and you can't even steal some expensive drink from Wayne's cellar because Alfred is now your babysitter.

Fortunately, some heartthrob event is happening tonight, Bruce and Damian are out. Alfred also took the day off.

So it's just you... and Tim.

Your body is stretched out on the giant sofa in the living room as you sit as if you own the place, the bowl resting on your stomach is now empty of cereal, and the show on TV — “Friends” — is already making you yawn.

You can feel the weight of a body sinking down beside you and place the bowl on the coffee table, narrowing your eyes when you realize that Tim has approached you voluntarily.

You both remain silent for a good ten seconds before you cross your arms, licking your lips before turning to face him suspiciously. “Okay, what's going on?”

He shrugs, his eyes moving from the TV to you and back to the TV. “Nothing.”

“Right, and I'm the Pope,” you scoff, before unable to resist teasing him. “Changed your mind about my lessons?”

This time, Tim can't hold back and turns, moving closer to you until your faces are inches apart. “Maybe I should teach you to shut up.”

“Oh, yeah?” You bite your lower lip, your fingers running over his chest covered by his sweatshirt. “And how do you plan to do that, Timmy?”

He doesn't answer, well, not verbally. But his lips meet yours.

He doesn't give you time to process the act, one hand is on your waist while the other wraps around the back of your neck, pulling you onto his lap as he deepens the kiss.

It's sloppy, it's fast, and it's drools a lot. You both fight for dominance, but you end up giving in with a soft moan when his hand, which was previously on your waist, slides up inside your shirt, his fingers touching your nipples.

He smiles against your lips, pulling away and resting his head on the back of the sofa. “Did you just need a kiss to shut up?”

It's strange to see Tim so relaxed, but you're not going to complain, you like this version of him.

“Well,” you rest your hands on his shoulders for support, your hips moving against his lap, “you know how to kiss, but that doesn't prove you know how to fuck.”

His eyes roam over your body, his fingers sloppily squeezing your waist.

“Do you want proof?”

He doesn't give you time to answer, laying you back on the couch with a quick movement.

“Jesus,” you lean on your elbows, your shirt riding up a little. “You really know a thing or two, don't you, weakling?”

You gasp softly, and you would never admit it, but you even blush when you watch Tim settle himself between your legs and pull down your pajama shorts.

He laughs when he realizes you're not wearing anything underneath. “Waiting for visitors?” Tim teases.

“She doesn't like to be suffocated,” you retort, looking away.

“Sure, of course,” he puts his hands between your legs, opening them a little more. “Awww, but you're already wet?” He teases you, running two fingers between your folds.

His touch is light, unhurried, he admires the way your liquid sticks to his fingers.

You moan impatiently, you would never say this out loud, but you are longing for his touch. “Tim, damn it...”

“Be patient,” he says, his breath brushing against your clitoris.

The room is hot, the background noise is imperceptible to your ears, and you can only focus on Tim.

After teasing you for a few moments, his lips finally find your nerve bundle, running his tongue over it and sucking gently.

“Oh, damn!” Your fingers grip his hair, pulling it as your hips lift to meet his face.

You can feel his soft laughter against your skin before he goes back to sucking you, his middle finger rubbing your entrance before slowly entering.

“Tim... holy shit... that feels so good.”

You moan, clutching the sofa upholstery.

His other hand supports the base of your spine, keeping your hips raised.

His finger begins to move, his rhythm slow at first, but soon faster and more precise as he bends his finger repeatedly inside you.

And it's too much.

Your legs tremble, locking around Tim's head, you squeeze his hair too hard as you feel the wave of pleasure coming. Your lower back arches and the sounds that come out of you are desperate moans, which fade into sobs.

When your back hits the couch, you can finally breathe again, albeit gasping for air. You open your still-shaky legs and let go of his hair, running your fingers across your face.

He smiles at you victoriously, kissing the corner of your left thigh before bringing the finger that was inside you to his mouth, sucking on it before releasing it with an obscene noise.

“Aw...” he laughs at your state, resting his head on your belly. “Was that too much for you?”

Your fingers return to his now messy hair, tangling themselves in it as you close your eyes, feeling the demands of the fog. “Shut up, weakling.”

Sorry if there are any typos or cohesion errors, English is not my first language :(

shane took what he wanted when he wanted, that was something you learned very early on with him. it's not like it was an issue to you, you loved him. a lot. more than you needed to, because he wasn't going to take this relationship anywhere with you and he made that clear. you still stayed. you stayed and you waited for him to change his mind one day.

he made you feel small and not in the physical sense. he made you feel inadequate. you were only there for one thing in his eyes and he made that very apparent.

"why're you calling me, old man? i didn't even know you knew how to work a phone." you teased, earning a low grumble from the other side of the phone. "yeah yeah. when can you come over." it wasn't a question and he didn't even seem excited. it was a an appointment to him. "i ain't a prostitute, ya'know that right?" you bite back this time and he scoffs in response.

"yeah, i would hope not. no one else touchin' my girl but me." he says it in a low, possessive tone that makes your throat suddenly go dry. he knows what to say to get you to feel feeble, he knew what to do when you got a little too comfortable talking back. what hurts the most is that you didn't even know if he meant what he was saying, or if you were even considered "his girl".

"whatever, shane. put your stupid hunting shit on and go to our usual spot. i'll be there soon." you end the conversation there, hanging up before he can smart mouth you again. you were gonna prove to him, prove to yourself, that he's not the only one that can take what he wants.

you move slow. every footstep counts. every noise you make by stepping on the corroded nature is one more thing that could make him aware of you. he hates being caught off guard. that's when you see him in the distance, the familiar greying hair and withered clothes from years of wearing it over and over. you felt your mouth fill up with drool as you tightened your grip on the rope you have in your pocket.

he's fiddling with his pocket knife as he's leaned up against a tree. slowly, you make your way to him. he's got no reason to suspect you would do this to him because he holds you to such a low standard.

"hey, shane."

for someone trained to counter stuff like this, he doesn't even react fast enough to you, assumingly because he doesn't see you as a threat. he's grunting as you tie his wrists to the back of the tree nice and tight so he can feel it. "the fuck are you doin'?" he thrashes in protest, a string of curses falling from his mouth. you shush him as you sink onto his lap, placing your hands on his chest and moving them down to feel him up.

you can't help but giggle before you press your lips to his, shutting him up as he kisses you back instantaneously. "of course you'd fold for some pussy. bet you didn't think i'd be able to rough you up like this." you say, pulling away as you unbutton your shirt, giving him a good eyeful of your chest. he swallows, not nervously, he swallows like he's starving.

"you're into some sick shit." he's not giving you the satisfaction of singing your praises out loud but you can see that he's hard, maybe that counts for something. you take out your pocket knife, ripping his shirt off. he was undoubtedly yours right now. yours to take. "i'm just here to take what i want, when i want. someone i know taught me that." he rolls his eyes at your comment. he lets you destroy the fabric of his shirt, shaking his head as you finish tearing it all off. "gonna have to buy me a new shirt."

you ignore him as you discard your knife somewhere into the woods to fetch later, taking his already hard cock into your hand and stroking it. "im into some sick shit but you're harder than you've ever been, ain't that say somethin'?" he can't help but whimper pathetically into your touch, ignoring your remark once again as he tries to break his restraints. "un-fuckin-tie me so i can fu- ahn, touch you." there he goes, demanding and never asking. it pisses you off so much that you slap him in the face with your free hand.

"good for you, princess. can only land a hit when i'm all vulnerable for you like this." he taunts you because he knows it'll egg you on, further giving him what he wants from you. you're too embarrassingly wet that you don't even care to try and keep up the performance as you line your entrance up with his cock, sinking down slowly. usually he would be the one doing it, slamming it in and bottoming out inside of you in one thrust.

he's groaning and cursing under his breath, loving the feeling of your tight cunt and hating the fact that he can't have his way with you. "fuckin' takin' too long, shit," you ignore him as you bottom out on his cock, noticing he's only throbbing bigger and bigger. you can feel him deep in your tummy and it makes you let out a breathless moan.

"'s it, let it out, let me watch how you work my cock, good fuckin' girl." you don't try to act strong anymore, his words making you let go as you bounce messily on his lap, he's watching you as he bites his lip so hard that there's blood starting to run down his chin. he looked so handsome like this, sat and restrained as you use him to make yourself feel good. you swore he liked it too.

"needed to prove myself t' you, make you see how - ahnn, strong i am" he smirks at your pathetic confession. "workin' me so fuckin' good- shit, thass'it, attagirl." he praises you as you become a mess on his cock, feeling your release build up in your stomach and making your clit throb. "go-nna fuckin' cum, fuck, yes" you babbled, not being able to notice him breaking out of the rope until he pins you to the ground.

"yeah, really thought you could keep me like that? huh?" he grunts, gripping your hips so hard that he's gonna imprint his fingers onto your skin. you don't fight it, you don't try to tell him no, you want this. as fucked up as it is, a little part of you wanted him to overpower you and put you in your place.

he's abusing your walls as he thrusts in and out of you, a calloused hand making its way to your neck and squeezing it. he's not going to be playing nice with you, like he ever did, even though you proved yourself. "pathetic fuckin' girl. take my cock, gonna fuck you into the ground." the way he's saying it through gritted teeth, pace never faltering on your wet cunt only pushes you closer to your finish.

If you could, you'd have already screamed at Shane Maguire. Alas, there was too many people in the damn party your father decided to throw last minute.

It is early June and the wind blowing through your childhood bedroom is cold, enough to push you to wear the ugly but warm cardigan you found somewhere in the house.

The crack on the floor behind the closed door makes you turn around like a deer in the headlights, but you quickly remember you no longer are the teenager who used to smoke in secret. If your parents didn't like a smoker in the house you'd gladly stay the rest of the holiday on a hotel somewhere else.

The cigarette burns your fingertips, as if it's on your parents side, and you hiss. You throw the butts in the ashtray.

"I thought I'd find you here," murmurs the voice you least wanted to hear.

"Don't act like this is normal, Maguire." The deep breath do little to calm you. "In fact, if you could just leave my room, that'd be great."

"So you don't mind if I stay in the house?"

The malice in his tone isn't lost to you, it is ignored. You don't dare face him either, that is, until the door banged so loudly you chastise him.

"Sorry, angel. Don't you want your father to know I'm here?"

"You know damn well why that is. Don't play coy now."

Shane is so close now the smell of him infects everything, stronger than the nicotine. The glint coloring his eyes is not unfamiliar to you, but it's a danger you can't afford to get trapped by.

The things left unsaid burn more than the actual words could. The windowsill hits hard against your back when you step back. The ashtray makes a loud thud when it finds the lawn all the way down — you jump.

"Fuck."

"It's okay, angel." His arms surround you, feeling the texture of the ugly cardigan on your hip and back. "Your parents already moved to the front porch."

Fighting him previously proved to be useless, so you do the next dumb thing. Shane smiles when your hands find his nape.

"What are you doing here, Shane?" You yank his hair, pulling him close. "We had an agreement — not to make our life miserable. You're not supposed to come to my house!"

"Ow! Keep your claws away!" He grab your wrists in his hands and you fight him despite yourself. It is too attempting.

"Let go of me first!"

"No!" he hiss into your mouth. The hold he has in you is steady, you fighting did nothing but bring you closer. "I didn't come to your house. I haven't been there since last spring, as you may remember. I'm at my friend's."

"You know what I meant."

"Will you stop it? I'll let go"

"You've proven you can't let go of me."

He groans and you feel the humming deep in his chest, but let go.

"Dammit."

"Shane," you try to reason. "Please. This is futile. You know we can't."

And yet…, he thought, noticing you failed to step away from him. Your warmth still burns his skin.

"You're right," he allows, for your sake. "I can't keep away from you. I don't want to. And the agreement was to keep away to not make us suffer."

In the end, it was you whom broke the distance and kissed him.

But it was him who pulled you closer still to him. Him who deepened the kiss. Him who lifted your skirt all the way up.

"Shane. C'mon," you push his chest, turn your face. But there's no real fight in your tone and he catches it.

"Don't worry," he smile between kisses in your cheek and neck. "Let me take care of you."

He pushes you up into the windowsill and you gasp. The fucker uses the opportunity to kiss you again, working his tongue on your open mouth. You're way too docile when he have his lips on you — at the back of your mind you make note to at least try to resist his ministrations the next time. Then he buries his hand on your hair and yank it — his revenge, you know — and you're putty on his hand.

He lower his kisses to your neck.

The thought of someone leaving the kitchen to walk the garden makes you shiver for all the wrong reasons and you beg Shane to hurry. But in truth you trust him not to expose you like this, he knows you are in a tight spot professionally and the party is but a ploy to launch your entry into a firm. There is important people present, your future defends on it.

All the more reasons this excites you.

The whine around his name that leaves your mouth is entirely involuntary when he squeezes your ass and thrust hard against your center.

"God, angel. I bet you're soaked," he whispers in your neck. He bite down hard, then kisses lazily in apology. "You weren't this needy the first time. Did you miss me?"

Your back arches. If you opened your eyes, you'd see your favorite constellation above you. You were too entertained with the feeling of his dexterous fingers against your pantyhose to care for anything else.

You almost lose the cue to answer him.

"Will you just fuck me already?" you squeeze him tighter, pressing your face on his chest. "You know we don't have much time."

"Oh, still bratty. That I remember."

You chuckle.

"You're right, though." He rips a hole in your pantyhose. "No time to play."

You help him out of his jeans, the belts clinking a lovely sound.

"You'll have to be quiet. Can you manage?"

"Yes," you whine. "Please, Shane. Just… hurry."

"As you wish, pretty girl. Take a deep breath."

Then he is inside you, all of his glorious length in one thrust — you are wet enough to make it go in smoothly.

The first moan was inevitable, you could only hope the following is muffled by his thick sweater.

If you had feared falling down before, it is in the past now. The grip Shane has on your back and nape is unmovable and he pulls you closer at each thrust of his hip. You cling unto his neck for life and moan with abandon. He too lets out groans of pleasure, but is ultimately better at keeping it down.

The party is still going downstairs but you can't help it. It had been too long since you last saw him. He smells the same as before, bark and musk and something entirely him — it leaves you inebriated. The wide of him fills you perfectly, the stretch makes you all the more wetter and eager. And he haven't shut up, whispering such filthy in that raspy tone you adored.

Then he pushes you against the wall, his dick somehow managing to go deeper than before. You have to bite your lip to hold the obscene moan threatening to fall off.

"Shane," you beg. Your leg work as a lock on his back, keep you secure in place. "Shane."

"I know, angel. I know. I'm close too."

He hips pistons unto you, reaching that special spot with accuracy, the noise maddening.

"Where do you want me?"

"Inside."

Shane groans at that. Its not like you have time to clean up after. And you want to keep him inside for longer.

Just the thought of it — of going back to the guests with the remains of him in you, smelling of his perfume — do the trick. You look up, chasing his lips, and ride the feeling the best you can, humping him as much as the thigh grip on your hips allow. The pantyhose is drenched in your fluids, Shane's cock fucks into you slower than before, erratically.

Soon enough, Shane is kissing and biting and moaning in union with you. His cock is so deep inside you. Having his arms around you gives a feeling of comfort and security.

You don't want to let go. You swallow it all.

"You're squeezing me so hard, angel"

"Daddy."

"Oh, baby, I know." He don't let go of you right away; instead, he allows you to have your moment and keep his dick inside of you. He kisses you cheek, petting your disheveled hair. "How do you feel now?"

"Better," you clear your throat. "Thank you, Shane."

"Don't thank me yet, angel." He uncross your legs and set you down. Legs wobbly.

"What do you mean?" You lean on him for support. Still vulnerable. Still pliable.

"I love you, angel. I'm not letting anyone take you away from me."

"I love you too, Shane," you smile, hugging his frame.

With his face buried in your hair, he takes a deep breath of you. Hugs you closer.

"Your parents saw us from the garden."

A/N: Before you ask, yes, I really meant to say it was cold in June. I imagine most readers are from the Northern Hemisphere (considering this fic is written in english)and it's spring for you guys, but here in the Southern Hemisphere it's autumn and it's cold. I know that Shane lives in the United States and all that, but since it's fiction (and such a small detail) I took this liberty. It's really not that big of a deal, probably no one took notice, but I wanted to clarify.

It's not your dream job — far from it, actually — but the pay is decent, and if you manage to flash a sweet smile convincingly enough to the right clients, the tips can be pretty consistent.

After a relatively long drive from the secluded ranch you managed to buy from a man who didn't ask many questions when you asked to pay upfront with cash, you park your beat-up sedan in front of the diner.

As you walk in you flash a smile to the few regulars you recognize, and you great your coworker behind the counter — a young girl too sweet for her own good.

"Morning!" she replies with a smile of her own, despite the fact that's way to early for someone to look this joyous.

After exchanging a few niceties, you tie your apron and officially begin your shift. It's the same routine as usual: go up to tables, take orders, and refill cups with coffee that you know for sure tastes like shit.

But then, just like clockwork, at exactly the same time as every day you work the morning shift, your favorite costumer walks in.

He's older and unfairly attractive, with his broad shoulders and graying blond hair. Like usual, he sits at a booth far from the windows and he picks up the menu, carefully studying it, despite always ordering the same thing.

"Good morning, Tony! What can I get you today?"

You take out your notepad from the pocket of your apron, and let the pen hover over the blank page, waiting for his answer.

"I'll have a banana milkshake," he replies, looking up at you with a controlled smile, making a shiver run down your spine.

There's nothing unusual about him. He's polite, always thanks you when you get him his order, and tips way too much considering he always gets the same banana milkshake.

But there's something in the way you feel his eyes following you whenever he's in the diner that makes you feel naked — like he knows what you're so desperately trying to hide.

Still, you keep on the facade you use whenever you're interacting with other people, especially costumers, and leave to make his banana milkshake.

His gaze burns on the back of your head, and your hands tremble slightly as you pour the milk in the blender. You try to sneak a glance in his general direction, but when your eyes land on his figure, he's already looking somewhere else.

After, the routine resumes as usual. He drinks his milkshake, you give him his check, and he leaves a generous tip before walking out of the diner.

In the past, you tried imagining what his life outside might look like. Where does he work? Does he live nearby? Does he have someone waiting for him at home?

Questions like this usually leave you feeling uneasy and unsatisfied when you realize that you'll probably never know the answer.

Later that night, desperately trying to push further away any thoughts about Tony, you decide to call Chris over.

He's a nice guy. Definitely not the love of your life, but a pleasant enough distraction from your previous life.

You met him a few weeks ago at the diner, and when he shyly asked for your number — after pushing the initial instinct to give him the wrong one — you left it written on his check.

After that first encounter, he brought you on many dates, but still, you never got past first base, and he, like a gentleman, never pushed further.

Tonight, though, things are going to change.

At 8 pm sharp, you hear the doorbell ring, and when you open your door, you find him still in uniform, holding a gorgeous bouquet of flowers.

"Sorry, I just got off work. I would have changed, but I didn't want to be late, and-" you press your lips against his, muffling the rest of his apology.

Truth be told, at first the fact that he's a cop made you nervous. You worried he would look into your past and find out what made you run away. Instead, he seemingly believed every word that came out of your mouth when you told him your made-up background story, and it made you more inclined to keep seeing him. At least, until he realizes that everything you told him, even your name, is a lie.

"Don't worry about it," you mumble against his lips. "I'm pretty sure I've got some clothes that could fit you. Now, come in."

You take his free hand in yours and drag him past the threshold, closing the door behind him.

Then, after putting the bouquet in a vase, you walk towards your bedroom, looking at him over your shoulder, silently inviting him to follow you. Like a siren luring in an unfortunate mariner.

He seems to take the bait, and gladly follows you. Men are so predictable.

"Here, let me see if I can find some sweats," you say, looking inside your closet.

In the meantime, Chris stands awkwardly near the door, looking so out of place in your bedroom.

As you rummage through the few clothes that you brought with you, he takes off his holster and places it on your nightstand, making it land on the wooden surface with a loud thud.

The cold night air enters the room through your open window, moving the blinds in an almost hypnotic way, catching Chris' attention.

Then, he freezes.

You turn around in that exact moment, holding a pair of oversized sweats in your hands, and furrow your brown when you see him looking attentively at a distant point outside your window.

"What is it?"

"I think I saw something."

You let out a giggle, taking a step closer to his unmoving body.

"I live near the woods. It was probably just an animal."

You can see it in his eyes that he's not convinced, so you lay the sweats on your bed and place your hands on his chest.

"Come on. Let's get you out of this uniform, officer," you whisper near his ear, before placing a languid kiss on his jaw.

It turns out to be a good enough distraction. His gaze shifts in your direction, and his hands immediately find your hips, pulling you closer to his body.

You push him on the bed, and then straddle him, before moving your hands on his shoulder and leaving a trail of kisses from his jaw down to his neck.

His back is pressed near the window, making it possible for you to see some movement near a couple of trees outside your house.

Before you can think about your next move, a knife slices the air, landing on the opposite wall. You let out a scream, as Chris moves your body and lunges towards the gun on your nightstand. He then fires two shoots in the general direction of the attacker. But it's too late. He's gone.

Your heart is beating so fast in your chest that you're pretty sure Chris can hear it as well. He has something more urgent to think about though.

Blood is running down his left arm, soaking his uniform. The wound is pretty close to the spot where your hand was just a few moments ago, and yet, you're unharmed.

Did the attacker miss, or were you never the target?

"Shit," Chris says, as he tries to apply some pressure on the cut.

"Wait, let me help you."

You raise from the bed and run to your bathroom, where you keep your first aid kit. Once you're back in the bedroom, you help him take off his uniform, and as you begin to disinfect the wound, Chris breaks the silence.

"Who the fuck was that? He had a fucking- A fucking mask, and he-" his tone is understandably panicked, and his mind was clearly running a hundred miles an hour.

"Was that one of your exes?"

The question sounds so absurd you almost laugh, but decide that now is probably not the right moment.

"If that's your ex you should probably own a pistol, you know that?"

You blame his rambling to the adrenaline that's probably running through his veins right now, and keep cleaning him up.

It doesn't take you long to stop the bleeding. The cut is actually not that deep, but it doesn't seem to ease his mind. On the contrary.

As soon as you finish securing the sterile gauze over the wound, he grabs his things and almost runs to the door, mumbling something about calling you tomorrow.

He does offer you to spend the night at his apartment, but when you decline he doesn't try too hard to change your mind, instead getting in his car and driving away as if someone were chasing him.

When you go back to your room, for some reason unknown to you, you don't feel scared or threatened.

Your eyes land on the knife, still plugged in the drywall. You walk closer and pull it out, the weight feeling oddly comforting in your hands.

There's some of Chris' blood on it, so you wipe it on your sleep shorts, before hiding it in your underwear drawer.

And in that moment you think: it was never meant for you. It was meant for him only.

The next morning, when you check your phone, you don't find any missed calls from Chris. You think that what happened last night must have scared him away for good, and, weirdly enough, it gives you a strange sense of relief.

Throughout the rest of the day you keep occasionally checking your phone, mostly because it feels like the right think to do, not because you're actually concerned.

You should be worried. Maybe you should try to reach out. Go to his apartment, even. But you never do.

Instead, you go back to your house and slip in the shower, trying to wash away the smell of fried bacon and burned coffee that always lingers on you after you leave the diner.

Once you're done, you realize you've forgotten your towel, leaving you no option but to walk completely naked to your bedroom, leaving a trail of wet footprints on the floorboards.

The blinds in your bedroom are open — as they usually are — but now, for the first time since you moved in this house, you feel a pair of eyes on you.

A shiver runs down your spine, but you do nothing to cover yourself or close the curtains, because there's something familiar about this feeling.

You brush it off, instead applying lotion over your damp body, before finally putting on your clean pj's and going to bed.

Next time you're at the diner, something strange happens.

Tony walks in at the same time as usual, he sits at his usual booth, and he orders the same banana milkshake.

Nothing is out of the ordinary. Except this time the way his gaze follows you feels warmer than usual, and just as you're about to pour the drink inside the glass, the realization suddenly dawns on you.

Tony's the one who has been looking at you through your window. And he's probably the one who threw that knife at Chris.

You remain frozen on your spot until another waitress squeezes past you, reminding you that you're still in a public place. And he's in the same room as you.

You swallow hard enough to make noise, before pouring some whipped cream over the milkshake, grabbing a straw and walking up to Tony's table.

"Here you go," you said placing the glass down on the table, praying he didn't notice the way your voice wavered.

"Thank you, ma'am," he replies, reaching for his milkshake and accidentally brushing your fingers with his.

You immediately move your hand as if you got burned, and without saying anything else you walk away, busying yourself with other costumers.

His gaze, though, weights heavier than it ever has today, and you can't breath properly until he leaves.

The drive home after your shift is silent — you don't even turn on the radio — but that's fine, because your thoughts make enough noise on their own.

The road that usually seems never ending, today feels uncharacteristically short. Even after turning off the engine, you remain seated inside your car.

Your skin is prickling with a feeling similar to anxiety, but not quite.

Excitement, that's what it it.

Despite the rational part of your brain telling you that you should feel scared, that you might be in danger, and that Chris' radio silence might have been caused by something quiet dark, you can't help but hope Tony will be outside your window, watching you.

So you walk inside your home.

Everything's silent. The only sound that can be heard is the low buzz of your fridge. Despite that, you have a feeling you're not alone.

"Tony? Is that you?" and after a moment. "Is that even your real name?"

Then, from a dark corner, a broad figure emerges. Despite the tactical gear and the mask covering everything beside his eyes, you know immediately that the figure that has been inhabiting the shadows near you for longer than you might expect is none other than your favorite costumer.

"Hi, Tony," you great him, your voice just above a whisper. "Or you wanna tell me your real name?"

For a moment you're met with silence, so long that you begin to wonder whether you got it all wrong and there's an actual stranger in your house. Your heartbeat begins to raise, until he speak.

"Benjamin."

"Hi, Benjamin."

You stand there, staring at each other, until you take a step forward in his direction.

"So it was you, uh? How long have you been watching me?" you ask, but there's no real malice, or anger in your voice. Just plain curiosity.

"Ever since I first met you."

It's weird, you would have expected him to be unwavering, sure of himself. Terrifying, even.

Instead, he sounds almost ashamed, making it difficult for you to believe that he's the same man that threw a knife at your date the other night.

You take another step forward, never moving your gaze from his masked face.

"Are you going to show me you pretty face or not?"

He lets out a sharp exhale, sounding like he just got punched. Experiencing first hand the power your words have over him makes you feel almost high.

When he doesn't make a move to take off his mask, you raise your hands to his neck and do it yourself.

The moonlight shines over his messy locks, and the scar on his cheek catches the light just right, making you want to lick it.

Instead, you let the mask drop on the floor, and begin lightly scratching his chest over his suit, your touch featherlight, almost imperceptible.

"So, you watched me for weeks. What was I doing?"

The way his expression shifts and the tips of his ears redden slightly make your lips curl into a smug smile.

You can see his gloves hands clenching at his sides, almost like he's making an active effort not to reach out. Like he's waiting for your permission.

"You were reading, mostly. Sometimes you would watch a movie, if you were not too tired. Most of the times you were too exhausted to do anything. Other times-" and he stops, his face burning.

You tilt your head, confused by what he might be referring to, until you realize.

"What? What was I doing?"

Silence.

"Touching yourself."

Your grin widens, and your hands shift from his chest to his hair.

"Hm, and how did that make you feel, uh? Did it turn you on? Did you wish you could replace my fingers with yours?"

As you ask him these filthy questions, you tug his hair. Hard.

In response, he lets out a low moan, and his hands fly to your hips, mostly trying to ground himself.

"P-Please..."

The word comes out almost uncertain from his mouth, making your lips curl in amusement.

How the tables have turned. How did he go from being your stalker to begging you to let him touch you?

"Please, what?"

"Let me make you feel good."

His voice is strained, almost as if he were in physical pain.

"You really think you can do that?" you ask mockingly.

He nods, looking so eager to please.

You don't offer him a response. Instead you start walking to your bedroom — the same bedroom he has been spying for weeks — and you don't have to look back to know he's following you.

The mattress sinks under your weight as your sit on it. Benjamin doesn't hesitate before falling on his knees, right in front of you.

He starts soft, gently kissing your knuckles. Then he starts traveling higher, his lips caressing the soft skin of your arms, making your eyes flutter closed.

He then places his hands on either side of your body, steadying himself as he kisses your neck. He keeps getting closer to his final destination, grazing your jaw, your cheeks, and finally your lips.

At first the kiss is soft and tender, until you wrap your arms around his neck and pull him closer. This seems to be enough of an invitation for him.

The kiss turns hungry, almost desperate. You can feel the weight of his body over yours as he lays you down on the bed. But you don't stay in this position for long.

Taking him by surprise, you flip him over — but you have the suspicion he's right where he wants to be, underneath you.

His hands begin exploring your body, and your own move back to his hair, burying your fingers in his graying locks.

Underneath the layers of his tactical gear, you can feel him getting progressively harder. All it takes is you grinding your hips over his bulge to get another moan out of him.

You keep moving, chasing friction with his clothed cock, trying to ease the heath between your legs.

Surprisingly, he's the first one to break the kiss.

"Please, can I taste you?"

He sounds so desperate you can feel your panties getting even more wet than before.

In response, you take off your pants and your underwear in one go, but when you move to lay on the bed, he stops you. Instead, he moves your hips higher up, near his face.

Without a warning, he pushes you down on his face. Your hands immediately travel back to his hair, tugging them as you let out a high pitched moan.

At first, he drags his tongue from you needy hole to your clit, before laying a kiss on the bundle of nerves.

His movements are unsure at first, like he's trying to memorize the shape of you. Then, when you start grinding on his face, he seems to gain more confidence, and begins to eat you out like a man starved.

Even though you're completely lost in your pleasure, you can feel him moaning and whispering praises into your cunt.

Things like "you taste so good," and, "you're so perfect."

But the closer you get to your release, the darker his words get.

"Ain't no man allowed in your bedroom except for me," or, "he couldn't have made you feel this good," or simply, "you're mine."

The possessiveness in his voice is enough to make you reach your orgasm, holding onto him like an anchor.

The sound of your release paired with the way to keep pulling his hair — hard enough to sting — is enough make him cum untouched in his pants.

After catching your breath, you move from Benjamin's face and roll over, laying by his side.

He moves as well, resting his head in your lap and wrapping his arms around your waist, holding you so tight that you think he might be afraid that you're going to disappear at any moment.

A moment of silence passes between the two of you.

"Benjamin?"

"Mhm?"

"What happened to Chris?"

"I killed him."

A/N: This was the fic! Reblogs and comments are always appreciated, even if it's criticism (as long as it's constructive). I love talking with you angels, so my dms and inbox are always open!

All the love, Anna ♡

“When’s the last time you got laid?”

Instantly your hand stilled, and your inked thoughts came to an incomplete halt on the page of your notebook. Lifting your head, you locked eyes with your patient, who was already watching you with a hint of mirth in his eyes.

“Excuse me?”

“You seem tense, Doc. Doesn’t seem like you’re doing much to relax-”

“This session is for you, Mr. Poindexter, not the other way around.”

Benjamin let out a quiet chuckle while leaning back in his chair, the chains connected to the cuffs around his wrists rattling. 

“Sweetheart, I’ve told you my favorite ways to kill people. I think we’re way past formalities.” 

He’d gone through several psychiatrists already. It was mandatory for his sentence, but he’d refused to participate. He was already in prison, and he had no delusion they would ever let him out. What could they really do if he just sat there and ignored everyone they assigned to him? 

The entire time he’d been here at Riker’s Island, that’s exactly what he’d done. Every time someone new was brought in, Benjamin would sit there silently, sometimes barely blinking, and just stare them down. He never said a word. Until you.

You were lucky number thirteen.

You’d been made aware of Benjamin’s refusal to participate in therapy prior to being assigned to him. You had expected to have the same experience as your colleagues. But for some reason, he was different with you. He did talk to you. Sort of. He could be incredibly evasive, and sometimes he made comments just to see if they’d provoke a reaction, but he would participate just enough to keep seeing you and you hadn’t been able to figure out why. It was as puzzling to you as it was to everyone else. 

Letting out a deep exhale through your nose, you gripped your pen and continued to write.

“I’d appreciate if you focused-”

“Little hard to do when you look like that, Doc.”

His blue eyes wandered appreciatively over the half of your body he could see sitting across from you, and a wicked smirk stretched across his mouth when he met your gaze again. His remark caught your attention. You weren’t wearing anything out of the norm. It was a dress you’d worn in a session with him before. He’d never made a comment on it before, or on your appearance, until now. 

All of a sudden, a lightning strike of clarity cracked through the clouds of mystery that surrounded him, illuminating an epiphany that made you feel stupid for not considering it before. Pausing your notetaking once again, you lifted your head to look at him, tilting your head to the side as you narrowed your eyes in suspicion.

“Are you only participating in these sessions because you desire me sexually?" 

Benjamin pursed his lips faintly with a casual shrug, that smug smirk of his never fading.

“If you’re asking if I wanna fuck your brains out, then…yeah.”

He’d never been anything but blunt and shameless the entire time you’d been around him, so you weren’t sure why that cavalier comment affected you the way it did, but it sparked something within you that made your cheeks feel warm. Attempting to appear nonchalant, you calmly set your pen down in your notebook and leaned back in your chair while holding eye contact with him.

“So that’s why you’ve been so well behaved.”

“Good boys get rewarded.”

“You’re not exactly a good boy, Benjamin.”

“Oh, but I can be.”

He didn’t bother to hide the hunger that darkened his eyes considerably, and it was audible in the sudden huskiness of his voice. He leaned in closer until his forearms were resting on the desk, loosely gesturing around with his hand, making the chains rattle again.

“See? A little good behavior, a little cooperation, and now we’re alone. No cameras, no nosy guards, no two way mirrors. Total privacy.”

Because of his cooperation, and decent behavior, he’d been given a few more privileges. The big cuff that covered both of his hands was reduced to just cuffs around his wrists. No more guard supervision was required, they now waited outside. And recently, your sessions were able to be moved to an office instead of an interrogation room.

Everything started to fall into place, and his revelation made you let out a scoff of disbelief. He’d planned this.

“And what exactly was your end goal, here? You thought you could just talk me into sleeping with you?”

Benjamin let out an amused laugh, his lips spreading into a tooth bearing grin.

“You don’t strike me as someone who can be talked into anything, Doc. I thought making an offer would be more realistic.”

“An offer.”

Your voice was dry as you repeated his words, sounding as uninterested as you looked.

He stared at you for a moment silently, and for some reason the intensity of his eye contact made something twist in your stomach. The ticking of the clock on the wall suddenly sounded louder, like it was right by your ear, a clandestine countdown you weren’t privy to. He didn’t look away, and you couldn’t. It was like you were stuck in some silent staring contest.

“Let me eat you out.”

Of all the things you expected to come out of his mouth, that was not one of them. Your shocked surprise must have shown on your face, because he smirked as he leaned in closer and dropped his voice to an intimate whisper.

“C’mon, Doc. It’s a mutually beneficial offer. You get to relax, I get to taste you.”

A dry incredulous laugh bubbled up in your throat, and you couldn’t keep it from escaping. Arching one of your brows, you crossed your arms over your chest.

“You really expect me to believe you’ve been playing the long game just to go down on me?”

“It’s not just for you. Like I said, it’s mutually beneficial.”

You couldn’t believe it. He was serious. As far as you could tell, he was actually serious. Very rarely did you find yourself speechless, but you genuinely had no idea how to respond to that. There was the entirely plausible idea that he was fucking with you, just to see how you’d react. He didn’t exactly have many opportunities for entertainment, and being in solitary confinement, you were the only person he “socialized” with.

Letting out a deep exhale through your nose, you attempted to redirect the conversation.

“Benjamin-”

“Again with the formalities. How many times I gotta ask you to call me Dex?”

“Nicknames are generally reserved for friends.”

“We could be friends. We could be very good friends, sweetheart.”

Leaning back in his chair casually, he clenched and unclenched his fists, making the metal of the chains connected to his handcuffs rattle once again. 

“Look, I’ve been in prison for a while now, sweetheart. Certain needs I can take care of with a little imagination, but not that one. And I really miss pussy.”

You were supposed to be getting the conversation back on track and make him focus on the session. You should’ve threatened to end it early for how inappropriate he was being. But when he’d clenched and unclenched his fists, it had made his biceps flex, and you unexpectedly noticed just how taut the orange jumpsuit was over his arms and broad shoulders. Had he always been so…big?

“C’mon, Doc. I’ve been good, don’t I deserve something sweet? I promise I’ll make you come. You know I never miss a target.”

Flashing you a wink, Dex’s wicked smirk stretched wide across his mouth once again. That should’ve been the end of the conversation. You should’ve ended it before, honestly. But you’d been curious, and now your curiosity had put you in a confusing situation, because you should be getting up and calling the guards to come take him. But you didn’t. And he noticed. 

“You’re considering it.”

“I am not-”

“You didn’t say no. You’re not walking out. You don’t even look offended or disgusted. As a matter of fact you look…interested.”

This time when he let his eyes wander over you with evident lust, you felt a shiver that straightened your spine despite there not being a draft in the room, and your skin prickled in response. He slowly tilted his head to the side, and it would’ve been menacing if he was threatening to harm you instead of offering to pleasure you.

“When’s the last time someone made you come with just their tongue?”

The heat that bloomed in your cheeks betrayed your silence, and his brows lifted, amusement breaking through the clouds of desire in his eyes as his words dripped with mock sympathy.

“Oh…no one ever has. Now that is a crime, Doc.”

A part of you felt ashamed for being attracted to him. You knew what he was, what he had done. Your brain was screaming at you for even entertaining the thought, for looking at him in anything but repulsion. But the guilt and shame that should’ve settled in your gut and made your skin burn was nowhere to be found. In its place was heat born from reckless curiosity, a carnal chemical demand, and a youthful thrill of doing something you weren't supposed to.

All at once you felt like a teenager again, sneaking out for the first time to meet up with someone you weren’t allowed to be with. What the hell was wrong with you? This was your patient, and he was a dangerous and violent criminal. This wasn’t just crossing a professional boundary, it was crossing a moral one too. But why did it feel so…exciting? Why did it have you pressing your thighs together and your body buzzing with anticipation?

Why did you want it?

“I won’t hurt you.”

His voice interrupted the flurry of conflicting thoughts and feelings he’d shaken up. He was still staring intently at you, but his smirk had faded into a more serious expression. There was a conviction in his voice that made you feel like he meant it. 

“I don’t know that.”

“Trust me, Doc. You’re the last person I want to harm.”

Holding your gaze, he leaned forward again, dropping his voice to that intimate husky whisper that had a flame of desire igniting in your lower belly.

“It can be our little secret. You don’t have to take the handcuffs off. I won’t even touch you if you don’t want me to. All you have to do is come sit in front of me, take off your panties, and spread those pretty legs for me.”

You glanced at the closed door. It wasn’t locked. Anyone could come in unannounced, and that would be the end of your career. That should’ve been the moment the logical side of your brain took over and made you walk out. But instead you glanced over at the clock, noting that you had twenty minutes left with Dex, and your eyes fell on him again. The tension between you was like a dense invisible fog that made it almost difficult to breathe. He didn’t say a word, he just stared you down with his offer dangling in the silence. 

You weren’t sure if it was even a conscious decision when you stood. It was like you were bewitched, your body moving of its own accord. Dex tracked you with his intense stare like a predator as you floated around your desk. He leaned back in the chair and spread his legs wide for you to fit between, and he eyed the hem of your dress hungrily. As you hauled yourself up onto the edge of your desk, you realized you’d never been this near to him before. He was even bigger up close.

He licked his lips as he watched you hike up your dress. Your fingers were trembling as you lifted your hips slightly to slip your lacy panties down your legs. When you slowly spread your thighs, Dex inhaled sharply, and his gaze zeroed in on your glistening cunt. 

“Goddamn, Doc. You’ve been holdin’ out on me.”

He didn’t hesitate to lean in, dragging his tongue languidly through your drenched pussy, letting out a groan as he savored your taste. The warmth of his eager tongue and the vibration from his groan made your eyes flutter, and you gripped the edge of the desk with a soft whimper. 

“I’ve been thinkin’ about how good you’d taste, how pretty you’d be.”

He took his time, taking another slow lick before turning his head slightly to gently nip at your inner thigh, earning another whimper from you. His pupils were completely dilated when he looked up at you from between your thighs.

“But I gotta tell you, sweetheart, the real thing is so much fucking better.”

Immediately his tongue found your clit, giving it a few swift flicks before suctioning his lips around it, and your eyes nearly rolled as you dipped your head back, your hand instinctively flying down to grip at his hair. He growled when you tugged at his roots, and the obscene sound of slurping was the only noise that combated your breathy panting and moans. The metal chains connected to his cuffs were cold against the backs of your thighs, digging into your skin in a way that was sure to leave indented evidence.

“Oh God-”

It was a subconscious reaction when you started to roll your hips, but he didn’t seem to mind that you were essentially riding his face. He groaned against your pussy, his tongue spreading you open and slipping inside you while you grinded your clit against his nose and clamped your thighs around his head. 

You hadn’t realized you’d grabbed onto one of his cuffed hands until you felt him interlace your fingers together and squeeze your hand, a silent gesture of encouragement. You tried to be mindful of the fact that there were guards outside, but God it just felt so good. Dex was tearing noises from you that you’d never heard yourself make, and he made you feel things that only a battery operated toy had ever been able to conjure.

“Fuck…Dex…”

He pulled away just for a moment to glance up at you and growl out a command.

“Let me touch you.”

You were nodding fervently in an instant, and Dex hooked his hands under the backs of your knees to pull your legs over his broad shoulders. His reach was limited by the handcuffs, and the metal was biting into his skin as he pushed the boundaries of his restraints to be able to touch you, but he didn’t stop. One of his hands firmly gripped your thigh, and with his other he slipped two of his fingers inside you right as he wrapped his lips around your clit again.

Your mouth dropped open in a silent scream when his skilled fingers swiftly found that special spot inside you, stroking it in a ‘come hither’ motion while pumping his digits and suckling at your clit. Both of your hands were now tangled in his hair, and your thighs had started to quiver around his head while your breathing was reduced to choppy, staccato gasps. 

“Oh fuck oh fuck oh fuck-”

Dex grunted at how roughly you tugged at his hair, tightening his grip on your trembling thigh. He was fingering you faster and harder, flicking his tongue over your clit like a metronome at high speed. When his teeth just barely grazed over your sensitive bundle of nerves, you completely shattered.  

By the time you climaxed on his tongue, you were practically hugging his head between your shaking thighs, hunched over as a wave of raw pleasure cascaded throughout your body, leaving a tingling feeling of bliss behind. One of your hands had let go of his hair to clamp your own hand over your mouth to muffle a euphoric cry that was accompanied by wrecked whimpers as Dex kept licking your pussy, drawing out your orgasm, swirling his tongue like he was collecting sweet cream dripping down an ice cream cone.

“Dex…fuck…please-”

You begged for mercy with a whine as you pushed at his head, trying to escape his delectable torment. He still had his lips wrapped around your swollen clit, and the hum he let out that vibrated against the hyper sensitive bundle of nerves felt like getting shocked with a jolt. He chuckled against your core at how your body jerked in response. Releasing your clit with a soft pop, he finally leaned back to look up at you with a glistening grin. The lower half of his face coated in your wetness, and when he licked his lips, his eyes were almost as hazy as your own.

“I told you, Doc. I never miss.”

tags: @strawberrycheesecake262 @blueberrystarr

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