✧

You didn’t know for sure, but you did have a feeling that this was the case. He’s so sloppy, so eager, so desperate to be good fuck for you that he keeps losing the rhythm every time you moan. Every time you roll your hips just right, his eyes go glassy.

You just smile and kiss him and say, “It’s okay, baby,” as you groan while being stretched out, “You have— ahh— n-nothing to worry about.

And he doesn’t! After all, you continue to fuck him even months later. You even make him your boyfriend, and Dex doesn’t even have to beg like he originally planned to. 

Sometimes, though, he spirals so badly during sex that you have to stop.

“Dex,” you whisper, taking his face in both hands when you notice his eyes are unfocused. “Baby, are you with me?”

He blinks up at you, dazed and ruined, his hands locked around your hips like he’s scared you’ll disappear.

“Who taught you that?”

Your breath hitched. “What?”

“That,” he says, voice raw. “The way you move your hands. The way you— fuck. Who taught you how to make me feel that good?”

Poor jealous, pathetic Dex.

You don’t answer him. You never gave him a name, never soothe him with details, never say it didn’t matter. You only kiss him until he stops asking, which of course means he has to find out for himself.

Dex, who stays late to research your past.

Dex builds a timeline. Dex finds addresses. Dex memorises faces.

And then Dex goes to work.

He knocks your exes out, ties them to a chair, and sits across from them in some dark room, gun resting loose in his hand as if this isn’t personal. 

“What did she like?”

They always thought he meant in your day-to-day life at first. “She liked— she liked coffee, I don’t—”

Dex would tilt his head, and sigh. “In bed.”

Sometimes they cry.

Dex hates that. Crying wastes time.

“What did you do in bed that she liked?” He rolls his eyes, already irritated.

Dex wouldn’t need to shout. Dex is patient. 

One of them says he remembers you liked being handcuffed.

Dex goes still, visibly enraged.

Yes, he asked for the info, but now he was seeing it. He’s imagining you in bed, trusting this stupid man with restraints, and it hits him so hard his vision narrows. Eventually, at the end of the night, he pulls the trigger.

He buys handcuffs on the way home. The first time he uses it on you, you squirm and whine. Music to DEX’s ears.

Another ex says he remembers you like blindfolds.

Dex has to look away for a second, breathing through his nose, because the image of you blindfolded for this man makes his blood boil. 

He slits his throat and buys one anyway. When he uses it on you, he’s pleased with the mess you made.

Another one says you like shower sex.

When Dex comes home that night, he's determined to test the theory of the man he just killed. You could barely get his name out before he grabs you by the wrist and pulls you into the bathroom.

He was right, Dex thinks an hour later, as he wraps a towel over you in the over-steamed shower, watching your legs wobble a little, you do like shower sex.

And then there’s the other question, the one right before he kills them. The one that proves Dex has gone fully insane.

He would crouch in front of them and ask, “How big are you?”

Imagine that from your exes’ point of view.

Bullseye has a gun between your eyes. Point blank. He’s standing there with that dead calm on his face, head tilted slightly, like this is a work meeting and not the last conversation of your life.

The man tied to the chair stares at him like he has misheard him.

Dex presses the barrel in a little closer.

“Show me with your hand.”

Fuck. Imagine having Bullseye standing over you, asking for your dick size because once, years ago, you fucked his girl before she was his girl.

The man’s hand comes up, trembling, thumb and forefinger spreading in the air.

Dex looks at it, then his eyes go cold.

“Don’t lie,” he rolls his eyes. “I’ll know.”

And no, Dex will never actually know.

It’s an empty threat. He would rather gouge his own eyes out than make them prove it. They were disgusting to him by default, because they were not him.

One ex actually started to desperately shift his tied hands to his zipper like he was actually going to show him.

Dex shot his foot.

“Ugh,” he scoffs. “No.”

That was not the point.

The point was that Dex knew men exaggerated. He knew the first measurement was ego, not truth.

So he waited and watched the answer get smaller.

Dex smiles to himself then, like the fucking psychopath he is.

Because he remembers the first time you sank down on him, breathless and squirming, nails digging into his shoulders, so pretty when you whispered, “Baby, wait— slow down, I need to adjust— ah, Dex, you’re s-so much bigger than I’m used to.”

He had believed you then because he wanted to.

Because he needed to.

Because he was a virgin and pathetic and so in love with you that one little sentence from your mouth could rearrange his entire brain chemistry. 

But now, he knows for sure you were telling the truth. He knows he is the biggest you ever had. He knows he was not just your sweet, nervous, pathetic virgin boyfriend that needed to be comforted by white lies. He knows you were not being kind.

You were being honest.

And boy, does it make him unbearable.

After all, his little extracurricular activities did wonders for his confidence!

He stops touching you like he’s asking permission to exist inside your body and starts touching you like he finally believes he belongs there. He's still needy, still pathetic in the sweetest way, but now there’s this ego in the way he pins your hips down.

He gets meaner about it, too, smug enough to murmur, “Too much?” with his mouth against your throat with a smile. “Need me to slow down, baby?”

And you smack at his chest for being arrogant, but you’d be lying if you said it didn’t turn you on.

Because he’s your Dex.

Dex, who got there last and made himself the only one that counted.

Dex, who can hold a gun to a man’s face and ask the most humiliating question imaginable.

Dex, your pretty little psychopath. 

Dex, who comes home and melts the second you kiss him, because all that proof, all that blood still means nothing compared to you cupping his face and whispering, “You’re the best I’ve ever had.”

Because he’s attentive. Because he cares more about your pleasure than his own. Because he worships you.

And Dex believes you now.

—

Instagram.

He scrolled your dm’s to see who was messaging you. It was just you and your friends sending memes and videos of cute animals back and forth. You had shown him the videos last night laying in bed.

Pinterest.

This app gave him information on things you will be asking for or dropping hints that you want. He will feign surprise when you slyly work into conversation a new pair of shoes that you saw online. And the fact that they are completely different than the dozens of pairs already in your closet.

Internet history.

can cats eat spaghetti?

This one made a smile break across his face. You liked to feed the stay cats in the alley near your apartment. You had leftover spaghetti the other night and he recalled you commenting that the cats might like it. Answer: yes but only plain noodles. No sauce. He knew that tonight you would take a plate out to them and scratch the tops of their heads as they ate.

why does my head hurt at night?

You probably needed to drink more electrolytes.

best coffee near me

That would be another thing you would be asking for - him to take you to a new cafe. Maybe he would suggest it first. You would like that.

Texts.

This app was the one that threw the reg flag for him this time. There was only one new text in your conversation log since the last time he checked your phone. A text from a Jason in your contacts.

Hey I am going to be in New York this week for work. We should catch up….

No, he did not like that one bit. The text had been received almost 12 hours ago, and you had read it but not responded. Good girl. His perfect girl. He considered deleting it and blocking the contact, but then you would notice and realize he was going through your phone. He did not want to mess with the dynamic that you two had balanced. You trusted him completely, leaving it face up on the table when you left the room, and he made sure everything was to his liking on the device. If he deleted it, the scales would shift, and then where would that leave him?

So he decided to keep the text where it was. He would check your phone more often this week to make sure no other texts from Jason came through. Any ding from the device would make his ears perk up on alert, and have his hand hovering over his pocketknife. He would probably be circling, monitoring you constantly though the week to protect the most precious resource in his life.

If you needed something from the store, he would go with you. He’d stand behind you as you stood in the grocery aisle, as you studied the boxes of granola to decide which one to get, with his massive frame blocking yours, making sure no one laid an eye on you. Or better yet, he’d tell you to stay home and he will go out to get whatever was needed from the store.

He told himself he was protecting you. That was what he called it at first, because protection sounded more legal than obsession. He told himself the neighbourhood was unsafe, that you were too trusting, that someone had to watch you and your window and the dark corners of the street beneath your building because no one else would. He told himself a lot of things, and for a while, he almost believed them. 

Then there was the box under your bed.

That fucking box.

At first, Dex didn’t know what it was. It was small and tucked away like a dirty little secret. Maybe it was something you only pulled out when you were alone. Maybe it was something you kept hidden where no one else could see. Except Dex saw everything. He had a good view after all, a couple of stories up.

One night, he saw you come home exhausted, hair messy and shoulders slumped, still in your work clothes with your face drawn in a frown, making his hands flex in the dark because he hated anything that wore you down. He was by his window, watching you with the same dead-eyed patience he would with a target. You were safe. You were home. He should have left it there.

Then you reached under the bed, pulled out the box, and opened it.

Oh.

Dex went completely still.

It was… oh, no.

You pulled out a toy. The first one was a turquoise dildo, stupid and fake and smooth, curved like it had any fucking right to be shaped for you. Dex hated it immediately. He hated the colour, hated the size, hated the shine in your hand. He fucking hated the way you looked at it like it was familiar, like it belonged in your bed, like it had earned the right to be near you. It had known you before he did.

Because no. No, no, no. No, no, no! You didn’t need that!

You didn’t need that stupid silicone. You didn’t need some fake, lifeless object inside you like it could ever understand the divinity it was touching, like it could ever deserve the warmth of your body, like it could ever know what to do with the adorable little sounds that slipped out of your mouth when you started giving in. Dex had one too. It was real and throbbing so painfully against his zipper that his vision almost blurred, but that only made the humiliation worse, because he was standing there in the dark wanting you while some stupid thing got to be held by your hand and plunged into your body without earning any of it.

He couldn’t even bring himself to touch himself. His hand twitched once toward his belt, and then stopped, fingers curling into a fist so tight his knuckles ached. It felt too insulting to you, somehow. To stand there outside your life and get himself off like a stranger when what he wanted was to be chosen, to be invited in. Touching himself would have felt like admitting defeat to the fucking fake piece of silicone, and Dex would rather splinter his hand open against glass than give that thing the satisfaction.

Then, another night, you took out something smaller. It was sleeker, more curved. Dex watched it sit in your palm, watched your thumb brush over it, watched your body settle back against the sheets like you already knew exactly what it was going to do for you. A vibrator, he realized, and the hatred came back so fast it was almost clean. 

Of course. Of fucking course there was another one. Another stupid little object pretending it could take his place, not that he had a place at all.

Dex had hands. Dex had fingers that never missed. Dex had aim so perfect and patience like a sickness. He could hit a target without thinking; he could find the weak point in anything. If he had the right to touch you, if you let him get his hands on you properly, he would learn you so thoroughly there would be nowhere left for you to hide. He would make you understand that you had never needed anything from that box. You had only needed him to finally get close enough.

That toy was nothing. Plastic garbage. An object. And Dex was still jealous.

He hated, hated, hated it until the feeling sat under his skin like a fever. He hated that it touched you without wanting you. He hated that it got inside you without worshipping you. He hated that it could make your thighs part and your breathing change without even understanding what blessing had been given.

It had no mouth, no hands, no eyes, no mind. It couldn't watch the little twitch in your lips when you tried not to make noise. It couldn’t possibly hear the difference between a sigh and a groan. It couldn't know when to slow down, when to go harder, when to hold you still and make you take what you were pretending not to need. 

Dex could. Dex would. If he had you underneath him just once, he would make sure you forgot that stupid thing had ever worked at all.

His fist curled against the brick wall beside him until his knuckles ached. He was hard and furious and breathing too quickly.

You didn’t know it yet, but you didn’t need that to get off. You needed him. It was only rational.

You needed his focus, his precise attention. You needed to be laid out beneath him and taken apart piece by piece until you understood that pleasure didn’t have to come from a lifeless object. It could come from him. It should come from him.

Then your body arched. Your mouth fell open, your fingers tightened, and the thoughts inside Dex went black.

He punched the brick wall once, hard enough to split the skin over his knuckles and damage the paint. Pain flashed hot through his hand, bright enough to cut through the jealousy for half a second, but not enough to make him look away. Nothing was enough to make him look away. Not when the toy disappeared between your thighs again, not when your head tipped back, then when your chest rose and fell beneath the thin fabric of your shirt. Dex watched with his teeth clenched and blood sliding down his fingers, consumed by a jealousy so vile it should have disgusted him.

The next day, when he thought it couldn’t possible get worse, he was proven wrong. 

The rose toy was worse.

The rose toy made him want to burn the whole world down, because what the fuck did you need that for when he had a mouth? Dex stared at it from his window with a hatred he usually reserved for threats, for guys who looked at you too long on the street, for anyone who stood too close to you in line. But this was not a person who he could threaten or scare away or hurt. It was stupid little thing that sat between your thighs and pretended to do what his tongue should have been doing.

His mouth watered. His eyes dragged over you through the window, over your parted legs and rumpled clothes and the rise and fall of your chest. He watched your chest shift with every uneven breath, watched the way your body trembled when the toy stayed right where you wanted it. 

But when did you ever stop to think about what he wanted?

He wanted to put his mouth there. He wanted to drag his tongue over every inch of you. He wanted to learn what made you gasp, what made you mewl, what made you grab his body and hold him exactly where you needed him.

He wanted to master you, and that was the only word for it. Not have. Not fuck. 

Dex wanted to know every weak spot, every angle, every sound, every ruined expression you made when pleasure got too big for your body and spilled out of you. He wanted to know how much you could take. He wanted to know how pretty you looked when you were overwhelmed. He wanted to know if you would say his name like a warning or a prayer. 

The toy didn’t deserve any of that. It had never protected you, never watched your door, never memorized your footsteps on the stairs, never wanted to crawl inside you. 

But it had touched you anyway.

By the time you were finished, the inside of Dex’s mouth was bleeding and his breathing had gone unnaturally calm. He watched you clean the toys and tuck them away, watched the box slide back beneath your bed like it hadn’t broken his heart into a million little pieces. 

After that, he hated the box like it was alive. 

By the time he actually got close to you, Dex had already hated that box for months. You never knew that when he carried your groceries upstairs, he already knew which cabinet you kept the mugs in. You never knew that when he asked if you slept well, he already knew which nights you had tossed and turned. You never knew that when he looked around your apartment for the first time,  polite and almost shy, he knew exactly what was hidden under your bed.

Then you kissed him one night outside your door, giggling because he had gone so still, because he looked like he might actually die if you didn’t kiss him right then and there. 

After that, he was yours. Or you were his. Dex didn’t really care which way you phrased it. It was the same thing.

By some miracle, he became your boyfriend. 

He hated that word, and loved it all the same, because it sounded too tame for what you had done to him. Boyfriend sounded casual, temporary. As if it was something that could end. 

Lover was a better title, he thought. It felt more whole and all-consuming. But then your friends had cringed the one time he said it, and Dex had gone so still afterward that you could almost hear him tearing himself apart over it. 

He hated the idea that he had embarrassed you, hated even more that someone else had been there to see it, until you had to cup his face and tell him no, baby, you didn’t embarrass me. I thought it was sweet. Maybe, though, we should just say boyfriend with my friends, okay? 

And because it was you asking, he said of course, baby. 

Still, nowadays, he slept in your bed more than he did his own. He stood in your kitchen in the mornings. He learned the smell of your shampoo, learned the shape of your body under his hands instead of through glass and his own sick imagination. And when you finally let him touch you properly, Dex nearly lost his mind, because he was good at it. 

Of course he was good at it. Dex had focus like a camera lens, and once that focus turned on you, there was no part of your body he didn’t want to understand.

His fingers pressed and curled and learned you with frightening speed, finding the places that made your mouth drop open, the places that made your hips lift, the places that made you grab his wrist like you wanted him to stop and keep going at the same time. His mouth was patient, devoted, mean when it needed to be. He held your thighs open like he had been waiting his whole life to prove a point, like every gasp he dragged out of you was a personal victory over the stupid little rose toy.

When your hands fisted in his hair, when your thighs shook around his head, when his name broke out of you, all breathless and helpless, Dex thought, yes. there. That was what you were supposed to sound like. 

The first time he filled you up because he’d convince you to go on the pill, your whole face changed. Dex saw your eyes go wide, saw your lips part, saw your breath catch in your throat like you hadn't expected him to feel like that. For one strange second, he looked almost startled by his own satisfaction. Then he bent over you, mouth brushing your ear, and fucked you because he could, and he was grateful for it, gasping thank you, thank you, thank you over and over again, while his face was buried in the crook of your neck.

After that, you stopped using the box.

Dex noticed the dust beginning to collect on the lid. He noticed the charger cords stayed tangled and unplugged. Now, when you were needy, you reached for him. 

And there was nothing he loved more than you pawing his shirt, his wrist, his belt, his mouth. You reached for him in the morning, half-asleep. You reached for him at night with that little impatient noise in your throat that made him coo before giving you exactly what you wanted.

Good.

That was how it should have always been.

Sometimes, when you were asleep, Dex would look at the bed frame and think about the box beneath it. He should have been satisfied, but he wasn’t, because it still existed. 

And maybe, much later, you started noticing things too. You’d see the way Dex could flick a bottle cap across the room and land it in the trash without looking. The way his hands looked natural around the knives in your kitchen. 

You knew something. You weren’t stupid.

By the time you realised he was Bullseye, it was too late. By then, you already loved him. By the time you realised there was something violently wrong with him, you didn’t care enough to leave.

And the box under your bed stayed untouched, even though Dex thought about it every day.

—

The day he finally did something about it, he came back home to your apartment after a good couple of hours of donning the Bullseye mask, being a good guy and killing at least half a dozen task force agents.

Usually, when Dex came home buzzing like that, you were there.

Usually, the second he stepped through your door with that electric stillness in his body, you would look up from the couch or the kitchen counter or the bed, take one look at his face, and your eyes would change from curious to knowing immediately. You wouldn’t ask what happened. You wouldn’t ask where he had been. You would just set down whatever was in your hands and say, “Come here, baby.”

And Dex would go to you like a starving little thing. You would let him bury his face in your neck, let him grip your hips too hard as you murmured sweet, filthy little things into his ear about how he could take it out on you, how you could handle him, how he didn’t have to hold it all in himself. 

Sometimes you made him wait. Other times, you made him ask. Most of the time you let him fuck you against the nearest wall before either of you even made it to the bedroom, because you liked him like that, wrecked and keyed up and desperate enough to turn all that focus on to you. 

But that day, you weren’t home. Earlier in the morning, you had kissed him on the cheek with your keys in your hand and said, far too sweetly, “Baby, I have overtime today.”

You’d said it like it was just a schedule change. As if you hadn’t just sentenced him to four or five extra hours all alone.

Dex had been fine then, and said okay, because a normal boyfriend would. He had watched you leave, watched the door shut behind you, watched the lock turn, and told himself he could wait. He had waited for worse things. He had discipline. He had control.

But now, control was suddenly a very stupid word.

He was still buzzing. His hands felt awake. Every little sound in the apartment was a little too overstimulating, and he needed something to distract him from it: the refrigerator humming, a pipe knocking behind the wall, traffic below, the faint settling creak of the floorboards under his boots.

He stood in the middle of your apartment and breathed.

For one insane second, Dex considered going to your workplace.

He could picture your startled little gasp when he appeared where he shouldn’t be. He’d drag you to a single-cubicle bathroom, crowd you against the sink and cover your mouth with his hand because you had laughed last time, whispering, “Dex, we shouldn’t,” while your fingers undid his belt. He remembered the first time he had done it, remembered your skirt shoved up, remembered you biting his shoulder to stay quiet, remembered how smug he had felt afterward when you had gone back to work with his handprint on your hips beneath your clothes.

He could do it again.

He almost did.

But then his eyes moved toward the bedroom. Toward the bed and the space underneath it.

That fucking box.

It was such a stupid thing to notice, such a small thing. A corner of it was barely visible in the shadow under the bed, tucked away like it had nothing to fear from him. Like it hadn’t sat there while you slept beside him, while you kissed him, while you reached for him, while you let him make you fall apart and then kept that little graveyard of old pleasures under the same bed.

Dex stared at it.

The focus in him that had been looking for you found the box instead.

Before he could think better about it, he went into your bedroom, dropped to one knee, shoved his hand under the bed, and dragged the box out hard enough that it scraped against the floor. The lid snapped open under his fingers, and the dildo was on top.

Smooth, curved, stupid, fake little thing, sitting there like a dare.

Dex picked it up, and the second it was in his hand, he felt disgusted. There. There was the problem. There was something he could actually put his hands on. This. This thing. This lifeless piece of silicone that had touched you and survived.

Not anymore.

Dex had gone to the kitchen without even realizing he’d moved, grabbed a knife he recently sharpened, and came back with his breathing shallow and even. He sat on the bedroom floor with the open box between his knees and cut into the dildo like he was gutting a fish. The silicone resisted for half a second before splitting, and that drag of the knife through something shaped to imitate what he had made heat crawl up the back of his neck.

It was satisfying, mutilating this stupidly lifeless object.

His hatred didn’t care about logic. His jealousy had never needed the thing to be alive. It had only needed the thing to have touched you. That was enough to make the destruction feel intimate, corrective, and necessary.

He cut it again. Then again. Then, the rampage took shape quickly after that.

The man who folded his shirts in your drawer and rinsed his mug after coffee and kissed your forehead when you slept in too late was gone. As far as these toys were concerned, he was Bullseye.

The blade dragged through silicone again. His hands twisted. The fake curve lost its shape. He ripped it open, ruined it, carved it into useless pieces while his breath came harder and harder through his nose and his thoughts went noisy and repetitive:

It touched you.

It touched you.

It touched you.

The smaller vibrator went next. He hated how sleek it was, how obviously designed to find something inside you that belonged to him now. He slammed it against the floor once, hard enough that the crack of plastic snapped through the room. The sound felt good, so he did it again. A piece broke off and skittered under the dresser. He grabbed the rest of it and brought it down until the casing split open and its mechanical guts spilled out like it had finally been exposed for what it was: A battery. A lie.

Dex’s hand was bleeding again by then. He didn’t know if it was from the agents, the knife, the plastic, or the way he kept hitting things too hard. He didn’t care, though.

He picked up the rose toy next.

He remembered seeing it between your thighs through the window. He remembered his mouth salivating like an animal. He remembered wanting to bite through his own hand because that stupid little thing had been sitting where his mouth should have been, making you shake, making you breathe like that, ruining you without considering worship.

Dex’s fingers closed around it.

“You didn’t need this,” he muttered.

His voice sounded strange in the empty apartment.

“You had me.”

Not then, some small sane part of him might have said. Not yet. You hadn’t had him then. You hadn’t even known he was watching.

Dex ignored that thought.

He drove the knife into the gummy outer piece and tore it open. The rose came apart under his hands, the casing cracked, the wired snapped, pieces dropping into the box with the others until the whole thing looked like a little crime scene made of plastic and his own deranged need to be the only thing you ever reached for again.

The rampage didn’t make him calm.

It made him worse.

Because once he started, he couldn’t stop at the toys. He snapped cords. He ripped the satin lining out of the old box because it had held them. He crushed a bottle of silicone cleaning liquid in his fist and watched it spill slick and useless across the floor, then cursed and cleaned that part immediately because it was your floor and he was desperately trying to convince himself that he was definitely not an animal. 

By the time the box was ruined, Dex was breathing hard. The buzzing under his skin hadn’t disappeared, but it had direction now. His knuckles stung and his eyes stayed fixed on the mess in front of him with a focus so total it almost looked peaceful.

Then he gathered every broken piece.

He took the box outside behind the building, to the old metal bin near the alley where no one ever looked. He arranged the pieces, added kindling, added flame, and stood there watching as the fire caught.

The silicone melted slowly.

The dildo warped first, losing its already tattered shape, collapsing as the heat ate through it. Dex watched with his hands at his sides and felt something in his chest loosen by degrees. The vibrator casing blackened. The rose toy pieces curled and shrank into un ugly, unrecognizable puddle.

The smell was awful, chemical and bitter, crawling into the back of his throat.

Dex watched anyway. He needed to suffer through it to know he did it.

He watched until the pieces were ruined beyond saving. He watched until nothing in the bin looked like something you could have held, could have wanted, could have used. 

Only then did he go back upstairs.

Dex laughed once under his breath, not because anything was funny, but because the sound had nowhere else to go. He washed his hands in your bathroom, scrubbing blood and soot from his knuckles, cleaning under his nails with the same discipline he used after a kill. Then he dried his hands on the towel you always insisted was decorative and stood in the bedroom again.

He stared at the empty space under the bed no. There was no taking all the damage back now, not that he wanted to. But… it just felt wrong. 

Well.

Now he needed to replace the box, didn’t he?

That was what a boyfriend did after destroying his girlfriend’s private sex toy collection in a jealous, post-murder fugue state. He should replace it with something better.

There was a shop around the corner. Dex had passed it before with you and you had squeezed his hand and laughed under your breath when he looked away too quickly from the window display. It wasn’t because he was shy. Dex wasn’t shy with you anymore. He could put his mouth between your thighs and stay there until you were crying lightning and his name into the pillow, but there was something different about seeing all of it displayed in public: rows and rows of things made for people who didn’t have him.

He went anyway.

The little bell over the door chimed when he stepped inside. A woman behind the counter looked up. “Hi, let me know if you need help finding anything.”

Dex stared at her for half a second too long. “I’m fine.”

Spoiler: he wasn’t.

He walked past the first display and immediately regretted having eyes. Dildos, vibrators, and suction toys. Things in pastel colours and matte black. Things with little labels that promised intimacy from something battery-powered and dead. No. Absolutely not. He wasn’t buying you anything phallic. He wasn’t buying you anything designed to replace a tongue. He wasn’t paying money for a thing that would sit in your drawer and pretend it could do what he did.

He ignored every masturbation item with the offended dignity of a man who had, less than an hour ago, cut your dildo into pieces because it had hurt his feelings.

He wouldn’t buy you any pretty little objects that promised to “hit the right spot,” because Dex’s fingers hit the right spot. Dex’s mouth hit the right spot. Dex knew your body now, and anything that claimed it could do the same made him want to start another fire.

He moved deeper into the store, and that was when he found the restraints.

He picked up a metal pair of padded cuffs with real locks and tested the weight in his palm, expression blank. Good and sturdy. Soft enough not to hurt you unless you wanted it to. He placed them in the basket.

Then silk ties. Black, then red, then a dark blue because he imagined that one against your wrists and had to stand very still for a moment. Rope came next, the kind that would look filthy wrapped around you but would not actually hurt you. 

He found a blindfold and the thought of you wearing it made his mouth go dry. You, trusting him enough to give up sight. You, lying back and letting the world narrow down to what he was doing to you. That was good. That was right. That didn’t replace him. That made him necessary.

Into the basket.

A gag made him pause when he imagined your mouth around it and then imagined not being able to hear every little sound he worked so hard to drag out of you. He frowned at the display for a while, then chose one anyway because some nights, maybe, you would like being made quiet. Some nights, maybe, he would like the sight more than he hated losing the sounds.

Then he saw the collar.

It was not flashy, just black leather, with a small metal ring at the front. His hand closed around it as the leather bent slightly under his thumb. He pictured it at your throat. Pictured his fingers hooking under the ring to pull you close. Pictured you looking up at him with that half-angry, half-wanting expression you got when he was being too much and you liked it anyway.

Mine, he thought.

Not because he wanted to own you like an object, not exactly. Dex was too broken to make the distinction cleanly, but he knew this much: he wanted you choosing it. He wanted you holding your chin up while he fastened it around your neck. He wanted to see it on you and know you had let him put it there.

He put it in the basket.

By then, the sales assistant had started watching him with polite concern.

“Shopping for a gift?” she asked.

Dex looked down at the basket. “For my girlfriend.”

“That’s sweet,” she said, which was such a wild misunderstanding of the situation that Dex only stared at her.

“Yes,” he said finally.

Sweet. Sure.

He added a proper storage box too, black and lockable, because if he was replacing your box, he was replacing it correctly. He added massage oil after checking three labels and rejecting anything that smelled too artificial. He added a small bottle of specialised cleaner because you would complain if he didn’t, and because even in the middle of this deranged little shopping trip, Dex was still painfully, pathetically attentive to the boring practical details of loving you.

At checkout, the woman rang everything up without comment.

Dex kept his eyes forward.

He didn’t look at the wall of vibrators behind her. He didn’t look at the glossy pink boxes promising pleasure in ten different speeds, because if he looked too long, he might start thinking about the one currently melting behind your building, and if he thought about that too much, he might smile.

So he paid, took the bag, and left.

When he returned to your apartment, he arranged the new box carefully. Handcuffs tucked to the side. Rope coiled neatly. Silk ties folded. Blindfold, gag, cleaner. The collar went on top. Maybe he should’ve gotten a leash. Oh well. If you really liked it, he’ll bring you to the store and get you to choose.

Dex stared at it for a moment before he closed the lid and slid the box under the bed where the old one had been.

There.

Fixed.

Not really, of course. Not in any healthy or normal sense of the word.

But when had Dex ever been healthy or normal about you?

—

You came home tired that day

When you unlocked the door, Dex had been waiting in the kitchen, wearing one of the shirts he had slowly migrated into your drawer.

“Hi, baby,” you murmured, already smiling when you saw him.

Dex walked towards you immediately, too fast, probably. He kissed you before you could take off your coat, hands going to your waist, mouth lingering like he had been counting the hours since you left because he had. You laughed into the kiss and pushed at his chest.

“Missed me?”

“Yes,” he said, too honestly.

For a while, everything was fine. You changed out of your work clothes. Dex followed you around like a shadow, trying not to look too often at the bed. He made tea. You drank half of it. You complained about overtime, about your feet hurting, and Dex listened with a deadly seriousness most men reserved for hostage negotiations.

Then you went into the bedroom to put something away. You crouched by the bed to shove your bag out of the way, and that was when you saw the box.

A new box.

It was black, neat, expensive-looking, tucked exactly where the old one used to be.

You pulled it out slowly, already suspicious, because Dex didn’t misplace things. Dex arranged. Dex corrected. Dex replaced. When you opened the lid, you immediately saw the collar laid right on top like a dark little apology ribbon.

For a second, you said, “Oh, wow," because you genuinelyliked it.

It was gorgeous. The cuffs were padded and clearly not cheap. The silk restraints were soft. The rope was smooth, the kind that would not burn if handled properly. The collar was simple black leather, pretty in a way that made your stomach give one stupid little twist before. It was thoughtful. Dex had gone shopping with your body in mind. He had pictured your wrists. your throat, your mouth. The little sounds you made when you were overwhelmed and pretending you weren’t.

And then you remembered the empty space where your actual things should have been.

“Ummm…” You looked up. “Where’s my stuff?”

Dex stood in the doorway, too still. That was answer enough, really.

“What stuff?” he asked, badly.

You stared at him. “What?”

Because really, what the hell did he think he was gonna get away with like that?

“My old box, Dex. The one that was here. The one this is replacing.”

“You don’t use it anymore.”

You blinked. "That's not what I asked.”

Dex shifted his weight, and there was something almost innocent in the confusion on his face. Though not innocent like harmless. Dex was never harmless. He looked innocent like he genuinely couldn’t find the part of the situation where his logic had failed. You had stopped using the old toys. You had him now. He had bought you better things. Things for both of you. In his mind, he had done everything right. Why did it matter? 

“You have me,” he said, like that settled it.

You stared at him for another beat. Then your tiredness warped into irritation. “Dex. Where. Is. My. Stuff.”

His eyes flicked away.

Your stomach sank. “Did you throw it out?”

“No.”

“Did you put it in the dumpster?”

“No.”

“Please tell me you didn’t donate it.”

Dex looked appalled, like that wasn’t his modus operandi. “Of course not.”

“Then where is it?”

He hesitated and Benjamin Poindexter did not hesitate unless the answer was somehow worse than every option you had given him.

“I destroyed and burned it.”

What. The. Fuck?

For a second, you genuinely couldn’t speak.

“I…” you looked empty. “You burned it.”

His mouth tightened. “You don’t use it anymore.”

“Oh my god.” You stood up with the collar still in your hand. “I know I don't use it anymore.”

“Then why—”

“Principle, Dex!”

He frowned, and that made you want to throw the collar at his head.

“Principle,” you repeated, louder. “It was mine. I bought it. You don’t get to decide something is useless and destroy it because you personally don’t like it.”

“You don’t need them,” he said again, and he was starting to feel like a broken fucking record.

“Principle!”

“You have me.”

“Principle, Dex!”

He looked genuinely distressed now, but not because he understood. Not because he had suddenly realized that taking your things from under your bed and burning them was unhinged. He looked distressed because you were upset, because the warmth had drained out of the room and he didn’t know how to get it back without lying about the one thing he couldn’t make himself regret.

“I’m sorry,” he said quickly. A pathetic last ditch effort, really.

You laughed once. “No, you’re not.”

“I am.”

“You’re not.”

“I said,” he managed through gritted teeth, “I’m sorry.”

“You’re sorry I’m mad.”

Dex went quiet. There it was.

You watched him realize you had him cornered. His face went tense, his eyes a little too dark, his mouth pressed into a hard line. Dex was sorry you looked hurt. He was sorry your voice sounded like that. He was sorry there was a chance you might pull away from him and mean it. But he wasn’t sorry the toys were gone. If he was honest, he was relieved they were gone. He was relieved they were ash. He was relieved they could never sit under your folds again.

“Say it,” you said.

His eyes lifted to yours. “Say what?”

“That you’re not sorry you burned them.”

His throat moved.

“Dex,” you scolded.

He looked away again.

You stepped closer. “Say it.”

“I’m not sorry they’re gone,” he said at last, honest and rough.

Your anger went hot and bright. “Of course you’re not.”

“You don’t need them,” he said, almost pleading now, like if he could just explain it properly, you would understand. “You don’t. You reach for me now. You wake me up when you want something. You pull my hand between your legs. You say my name. You don’t need something fake. You don’t need something that works like—” He stopped, breath hard through his nose. “You don’t need it.”

You stared at him, stunned all over again by the sheer deranged sincerity of it. “You hated it.”

His silence answered for him.

“You hated my toys.”

“They touched you,” he said, as if that explained anything.

“They were objects.”

“They touched you,” he said again, as if he repeating it enough would make you believe.

He said it like he was naming a crime. They touched you. That was the entire case. The entire verdict. In Dex’s head, the old box was not just a box. It was proof of a life before him. Proof that your body had known pleasure without him. 

“You’re jealous of fucking objects,” you said, “Do you hear yourself?”

His mouth tightened.

“You are. Oh my god, you are so fucking jealous.”

“It was made to—” He cut himself off, eyes flashing, dark and humiliated. “You used it instead of me.”

You dragged one hand down your face. “I used it before I knew you.”

Dex swallowed then started, “Then what…”

“That still doesn’t mean you get to burn it!” you exclaimed, cutting him off.

Dex looked genuinely lost for a second, and that made the whole thing worse. He had walked himself straight into a psychosexual spiral and couldn't understand why the conclusion was not obvious to you. You belonged to yourself, yes, fine, he knew that was what he was supposed to think, and he did think that, but your pleasure had become his job, his purpose, his proof that you chose him. The old toys were obsolete. They made him imagine you alone, reaching under the bed instead of reaching for him, and even the thought made his brain go static with jealousy.

“I bought you better things,” he said, smaller now.

You looked down at the box again, then back at him.

“No,” you said. “You bought things that need you.”

He went still, because you were right.

“You bought cuffs because they need your hands. Rope because it needs you to tie it. A blindfold because it makes you important. A gag because you think would look pretty on me. A collar because—” You stopped, glancing at the leather in your hand. Dex’s eyes followed the movement immediately, hungry and ashamed. “Because you wanted to put this on me.”

His breathing changed. 

“You replaced my box with yourself,” you said in deft realisation.

Dex looked at you like you had cracked open his skull and read the ugliest scroll inside it.

“I bought things for us,” he said, but his voice had gone rough.

“You bought things that couldn’t touch me unless you were there.”

His lips parted, closed. Opened again. “I wanted to be there.”

“I know.”

“I should be there.”

“Dex.”

“It should be me.”

Dex looked almost sick, eyes fixed on you, shoulders tight. He was jealous, yes, but the jealousy had gone molten now, mixing with want and shame and the awful fear that you might still want something that wasn’t him.

Your frustration gentles for half a second. Then you remembered how fucking expensive those toys were.

“Principle,” you snapped again, because you needed the word to land in his skull. “Dex, I’m not mad because I desperately needed a vibrator. I clearly don’t. I’m mad you destroyed it.”

“I replaced it.” He had the audacity, even now.

“You replaced it with what you wanted.”

“I thought you’d like it.”

“I do like it!” you shouted, then immediately hated yourself for giving him that.

Dex’s eyes flicked to the box.

His face went blank, trying not to startle you further. “I’m sorry.”

“But you don’t regret it.”

He swallowed.

You stepped closer again, and he let you.

He could be terrifying. He could be impossible. He could turn an argument about property into an existential crisis about a lifeless object touching you before him. But when you came close, when your anger had nowhere else to go but into his space, he stayed. He let you corner him. Let you press the collar flat against his chest and watch his whole body react.

“What did you think was going to happen?” you asked, voice low now. “Honestly?”

Dex’s eyes dropped to the collar.

“You thought I was going to come home, find out you burned my things, and what? Say thank you? Let you put this around my neck?”

He looked at the leather in your hand. Then at your face.

The want in him was so obvious it was almost embarrassing.

“You did,” you said because you knew. “You thought you were going to put this on me tonight.”

His breathing went uneven.

“You were going to be all sweet and insane about it, weren’t you? You were going to touch my throat and call me yours and pretend burning my stuff was just a little misunderstanding because the new box is prettier.”

Dex said nothing.

“No,” you said.

He looked up.

“You don’t get to do that,” you told him.

Disappointment flashed behind his eyes, then confusion. Then that needy, miserable focus again, like he didn;’t know where the scene was going anymore but he still wanted to follow you there.

You stepped forward until he backed into the doorframe.

“You don’t get to burn my things and reward yourself,” you said, pressing the collar higher against his chest, up toward his neck. “You don’t get to make this about what you want.”

Dex’s throat bobbed. “What are you doing?”

You smiled but it was slightly sadistic. “What do you think?”

His eyes dropped to the collar again. For one second, he genuinely didn't understand.

Then you lifted it to his throat, and he froze.

His brain went haywire so visibly you could almost see the wires sparking behind his eyes. He had thought about that collar on you. He had probably thought about it all afternoon. He had imagined his fingers hooking beneath the ring to pull you close. He had built the whole fantasy around possession moving outward from him to you, about you wearing the thing he chose, about you looking up at him and letting him see proof that he had replaced everything in your life before him.

But now your hands were at his neck. Now the leather was against his skin. Now your fingers were brushing the vulnerable place under his jaw, and the fantasy inverted so violently he looked like he was falling into an unpredictable void of your lust.

“Oh,” he breathed.

You paused with the buckle still loose.

Dex’s eyes had gone wide and dark, his mouth parted, all his vicious certainty suddenly gone. He looked overwhelmed by the speed of his own neediness. The collar was supposed to mean you were his, in that fucked-up symbolic language he had written in his head. But with you fastening it around him, with your furious hands at his throat, with your body pinning him in place without force, it meant he was yours.

Oh. He knew the difference now.

“Oh my god,” you murmured, studying his now half-lidded eyes. “You like this.”

His lashes fluttered once.

“Dex,” you said, squeezing his cheeks together with one hand. He swallowed against the leather as you buckled it with your other hand.

The tiny click sounded obscene in the otherwise quiet room.

His eyes closed for half a second, and his whole body seemed to shudder inward. When he opened his eyes again, he looked wrecked.

“Color?” you asked. 

Oh.

“Green,” he managed. Because of course it was. 

You pretended not to be pleased as you hooked two fingers through the ring. Dex stared at your hand. You tugged once.

It was barely anything, but he followed immediately.

The sight of it made your anger burn hotter and lower at the same time. Benjamin Poindexter, following one small pull at his throat like his body had decided before his pride could argue. All that violence, all that jealousy, all that insane possessive logic. And here he was, looking at you like punishment was the only language he fully understood.

You pulled him out of the bedroom by the collar, and into the living room, where the good chairs were. 

He looked confused and turned on and miserable, which was exactly what you wanted him to be. He still didn’t fully understand the principle. Fine. You would make him understand by the end of the night.

“Strip.”

He obeyed fast.

You watched the fabric hit the floor and felt your mouth go dry despite yourself. He was all lean muscle and restrained violence, chest rising and falling. It should have been absurd. But it was also fucking unfair how good he looked, how the leather made him seem both more dangerous and more helpless, how his eyes stayed locked on you like he would do anything if you kept looking at him like that.

“Don’t look so eager,” you said.

His jaw flexed. “You put it on me.”

“You bought it.”

“For you.”

“Funny how that worked out.”

Dex’s eyes darkened.

You pushed him back into the chair by the window, the one you usually curled up in with a book. He sat because he wanted you to push him, because being handled by you was the closest thing to absolution he understood. You had the cuffs on your other hand, the ones he had imagined around your wrists, and his gaze followed them with naked hunger.

“Hands behind the chair.”

He hesitated, but because he did not want to. He hesitated because some stubborn, spiraling part of him was still stuck on the same loop, still fighting from inside his own head. He had done everything right. He had removed what you didn’t need. He had bought better things, and you were clearly using them now. Why were you still angry? Why did you still want the old ones? Why wasn’t this enough?

You leaned down, holding the collar ring between two fingers. “Dex.”

His eyes snapped to yours.

“I said hands behind the chair,” he snapped.

This time, he obeyed.

The cuffs clicked shut around his wrists one after the other. Dex tested them once, shoulders pulling tight, then went still, his chest rising hard beneath the collar. You stood in front of him with the key in your palm and watched his eyes move over you, your work clothes, your tired face, your angry mouth. He looked like being denied forgiveness was hurting him. He looked like it was making him harder to breathe.

You stepped closer, close enough that his knees bracketed your legs, close enough that he had to tilt his head back to keep looking at you. The collar put his throat on display.  You could see every swallow, every uneven breath, every tiny betrayal of his body when you touched the ring again.

“I’m not letting you go,” you said.

His lips parted.

“Not until you promise me you’ll buy me new ones.”

Dex’s face changed immediately.

“No.”

You almost laughed. “Excuse me?”

“No.”

You smiled as if he had just fallen into your trap. “Then I guess you’re not going anywhere.”

“No. No, no, no.” The words started coming faster, tumbling out of him with a desperation that made his voice crack. “No, you don’t need them. You don’t need those. You have me. I’m here. I’m right here.”

You narrowed your eyes, but your anger snagged on the way he said it. He was not being smug now. He wasn’t calm, or even really arguing anymore. His wrists pulled once against the cuffs, metal clicking behind the chair, and he looked almost startled by his own helplessness before his eyes found yours again.

“Use me,” he said.

Your stomach tightened. “Dex.”

“Use me,” he repeated, rougher now, pleading. “You don’t need them. You don’t need it. Use me. I’ll do it. I’ll be good. I’ll be so good. Just don’t make me buy you something that replaces me.”

“No one said you were replaceable,” you frowned

“You want them back.”

“Because they were mine.”

“You want them back,” he said again, like he couldn’t hear the difference. “You want them back, but I’m right here.”

You grabbed his face, fingers firm on his jaw, and kissed him before he could say it again. It was supposed to shut him up. It did, for maybe half a second. Then Dex made a sound into your mouth, needy and broken, and started kissing you back like he was trying to climb out of his own skin. His hands flexed uselessly behind the chair. The collar pressed into your fingers when you tugged him closer, and his whole body followed the pull so immediately that heat between you legs through your anger.

You kissed him again. And again. And again, until his breathing was wrecked and his mouth was swollen and his begs had turned into a whine against your lips.

“No,” he whispered when you pulled away. “No, baby, please. Don’t make me. Don’t make me buy those. Use me. Please use me.”

“You don’t get to beg your way out of consequences.”

“I’m not,” he said, even though he absolutely was. “I’m giving you something better.”

“You are giving me a headache.”

“I’m giving you I.”

It shouldn’t have made your heart jump. It shouldn;t have made you look down at him, collared and cuffed and half out of his mind, and think that maybe the worst part was not that Dex was insane. It was that he was insane in ways that made you want to love him more

You stepped back.

Dex’s eyes followed you immediately.

“You want me to use you?” you asked.

“Yes.”

“You want to be useful?”

“Yes.”

“Then watch.”

His face changed into a flicker of confusion first, then anticipation, then frustration when you turned away from him and started unbuttoning your shirt.

Dex went silent so abruptly it almost made you smile. His eyes were locked on your fingers, on each button sliding free, on the thin strip of skin appearing beneath the fabric.

You stripped in front of him because you were angry and petty and tired of him thinking his jealousy got to be the only thing in the room. Your shirt fell to the floor. Then your trousers. Your bra. Your underwear. Dex watched every inch of you like it hurt him not to touch, his wrists straining once behind the chair before he forced himself still.

Dex’s mouth opened, as if he was getting exactly what he wanted, but then you walked to the couch and picked up one of the decorative pillows, the cotton one you usually shoved behind your back when you watched TV. 

Dex’s eyes shifted again as realization crept in.

“No,” he said.

You arched a brow.

His breathing changed. “No.”

“Oh?” You held the pillow in between your legs, watching his eyes go dark and frantic. “You don’t like this?”

“Don’t.”

“You were jealous of plastic, baby. Surely you’re not jealous of a pillow too.”

Dex made a sound that was almost a growl and almost a whine. “Don’t do that.”

“Do what?”

“Don’t make it sound stupid.”

“It is stupid.” You sank down to the floor in front of him, grinding down on the cushion keeping your eyes on him. “You burned my toys because you were jealous of objects. You’re sitting there in a collar you bought for me because you couldn’t handle a vibrator existing under my bed. And now you’re looking at this pillow like you’re going to kill it.”

His face twisted.

You had meant it to be teasing. Cruel, yes, but controlled. A punishment, a lesson, proof of how ridiculous he was being. But when you settled over the pillow and shifted your hips once, Dex’s reaction was so immediate and visceral that the room seemed to tilt around it.

He didn’t look angry anymore.

He looked distressed.

His wrists jerked against the cuffs, the chair creaking under the force, and his breath punched out of him like he had been hit. You saw his brain do the horrible thing it always did, watched him turn a pillow into another rival, another thing touching you, another thing getting what he wanted while he sat there forced to watch.

“Dex,” you said, but you moved again without thinking. 

His whole body flinched.

“No,” he choked. “No, no, no, no, please.”

You froze.

He was staring at you, eyes wet now, breath coming too fast. He wanted to obey. He wanted to be punished. He wanted to be good. But he also could not bear the sight of you taking pleasure from anything that wasn’t him, even in play, even as a punishment.

“Baby,” you said carefully, uncertain now.

Dex shook his head, almost violently. “Red.”

Oh.

Just like that, you stopped. 

Neither of you had ever used that safeword before, but you were glad he did.

You were off the pillow almost immediately, scrambling to him. 

“Oh,” you whispered. “Oh, fuck, baby, I’m sorry..”

Dex’s gaze snapped to you.

You dropped in front of him, hands going to his face first because you needed him looking at you. His skin was hot under your palms. His eyes were wet, not fully crying yet but close enough. He looked wrecked, and not playfully desperate like usual, not turned on in that cocky way he got when he thought he had pushed you into giving him what he wanted. The sight of you using anything else, even a pillow, even as a punishment, had wrecked him.

“You actually hate it,” you said softly, almost to yourself. “You actually hate seeing that.”

He nodded pathetically. “Mmmhmm.”

“You said you hated the toys,” you murmured, thumb brushing over his cheek. “I thought you were being insane. I mean, you are being insane, but I didn’t realize it was hurting you like this.”

Dex looked away, ashamed, furious, overwhelmed by being understood too clearly. You leaned in and wrapped your arms around him carefully, pressing your face into his neck. For a second, he didn't move. Then his whole body sagged into you as much as the cuffs allowed, breath trembling against your shoulder, face turning blindly toward your warmth.

“We’re done,” you said. “I’m taking these off.”

You reached behind his neck for the collar first, but the moment your fingers found the buckle, Dex jerked his head to the side.

“Dex.”

“Green,” he said quickly.

You froze.

His voice was rough and wet, the word scraping out of him like he had dragged it up from somewhere raw. “Green.”

“You just said…”

“I know, I know, but—” He swallowed hard, throat shifting against the collar. “Green as long as you use me.”

Your breath caught.

Dex looked at you then, fully, and the tears finally slipped over. His face twisted with it, like he hated himself for crying but couldn’t stop. “Not the pillow. Me. Use me. Please. I don’t want to stop if it’s me.”

“Dex.”

“I need this,” he said, and it came out so naked that it hurt. “I need to know I’m better than a piece of plastic.”

Fuck.

“Oh, baby.” You cupped his face again, thumbs catching the tears before they could reach his mouth.. “I know you are. Of course you are.”

“Then why are you still mad?”

The question came out small, almost confused. Because there it was again: the part of him that truly did not understand. The part of him that had made a perfect little equation in his head and couldn't see where it failed. If he was better, why did you care? If you had him, why did the burned things matter?

You sighed, pressing your forehead to his. “Because they were mine.”

Dex shut his eyes.

You felt him breathe, shaky and uneven.

“I’m yours, too.” he whispered.

Your whole body went still.

Fuck fuck fuck. You were going to fold again, were you?

Dex opened his eyes. Damp lashes, ruined mouth, collar snug against his throat. He looked up at you like that was the only answer he had, the only thing he knew how to offer in return. I’m yours, that could balance the scales. Like giving himself over completely should make up for taking the box from you.

You should have argued. Instead, you kissed him.

“Yes,” you whispered against his mouth. “You are.”

Dex made a broken sound, and then he was kissing you back as much as the cuffs allowed, desperate and clumsy, trying to lean into you with his wrists still locked behind the chair. His mouth tasted like salt and need. You kissed him slowly at first, grounding him, giving him something real to focus on that was not the pillow, not the old toys, not the psychosexual spiral eating itself alive inside his head.

“Color,” you murmured.

“Green,” he said instantly.

“Not because you think I’ll be mad if you say red.”

“Green,” he repeated, steadier this time. Your hand slid down to the collar ring, and his breath hitched.

You kissed him until his begging started to lose shape.

It wasn’t really words anymore, just broken little sounds against your mouth, the scrape of his breath, the helpless pull of his wrists against the cuffs every time you shifted in his lap. Dex kept trying to follow you, kept trying to give you more than his body was allowed to give. 

Your hand slipped between you, hiking in his thighs, meaning to wrap around him, to give him pleasure with your fingers. 

Dex jerked so hard the cuffs clicked behind the chair.

“No,” he gasped into your mouth.

You froze immediately. “Color?”

“Green,” he said, frantic. “So fucking green, green, I just— not like that. Please, baby, not like that.”

You pulled back enough to look at him. His eyes were wet, pupils blown black, his lips swollen from kissing. The collar sat snug around his throat, rising and falling with every shaky breath.

“Then what do you want?”

Dex swallowed, and the motion pressed against the leather. “Use me.”

Your breath caught.

He looked ashamed of how badly he needed it and too desperate to hide. “Please. I don’t want your hand. I don’t want anything else. I want you on me. I want you to take it from me. I want you to ride me. I want to be what you use.”

“Oh,” you whispered.

His whole face changed at that, like the understanding alone almost broke him.

You climbed into his lap slowly, one knee on either side of his thighs, watching him fight himself not to move. He was already hard beneath you, hot and straining, his body tense with the effort of staying still while you settled over him. His hands flexed uselessly behind the chair. He wanted to touch you so badly it looked like pain.

You took the ring of the collar between two fingers and pulled his face up to yours.

“You sure want me to take what I need from you?”

“Yes,” he breathed, almost frantic now. “Yes, baby. Please. I can do it. I can be good. I can be so good for you.”

Oh.

Then you sank down onto him, so slowly that both of you stopped breathing.

Dex’s head fell back against the chair, mouth open, the sound that left him too raw to be pretty. You felt him stretch you open inch by inch, felt the heat and weight of him filling you so completely that your own voice broke before you could stop it. You had to stop halfway down, fingers tightening around the collar ring, forehead dropping toward his as your body adjusted to his stretch.

“Fuck,” you whispered.

Dex’s eyes opened at once, glassy and wild. “Say it.”

You blinked, barely able to think. “What?”

His voice cracked. “Say I’m better.”

Your heat clenched around him. “Dex.”

“Please,” he begged. “Please, b-baby. Tell me. Tell me I’m better than it.”

You should have scolded him. You should have told him again that this wasn't the point, that you were still angry, that he did not get to turn this into another deranged little competition. But then you sank the rest of the way down, taking him fully, and Dex made a sound so broken and grateful that your whole body went hot.

“You’re better,” you breathed.

He shuddered beneath you, hard enough to make the chair creak. “Again.”

You moved your hips once, slow and deep, and his entire body strained against the cuffs. “You’re way fucking better.”

Dex’s eyes fluttered, his breathing turning ragged. “Again. Please. Again, baby, tell me again.”

So you did.

You started riding him properly, lifting yourself up and sinking back down, bouncing on his length until neither of you could pretend this wasn’t affecting your train of thought. The cuffs rattled behind the chair every time he fought the urge to grab your hips. His thighs flexed under yours, his chest rising too fast, his throat exposed beneath the collar every time you tugged the ring and made him look at you.

“You’re better,” you said, breathless, riding him harder. “You’re better than it.”

Dex groaned, loud and wrecked. “Yes. Yes, fuck, yes.”

“You’re better than the stupid, the vibrator, the rose toy.”

His face fell with pleasure and humiliation, eyes wet, mouth open like every word was going straight through him.

“Better than the box,” you panted. “Better than anything under my bed.”

“Anything,” he echoed, desperate. “Anything. Say anything.”

“You’re so needy,” you whispered, but you were not much better. You were moving faster now, chasing the way he filled you, the way he looked under you, collared and cuffed and entirely yours. “You’re so fucking jealous, baby.”

“I know,” he gasped. “I know, I’m sorry, I’m sorry, just— fuck, don’t stop.”

You grabbed his jaw and kissed him,  barely a kiss at all with the way both of you were breathing. Dex tried to follow your mouth when you pulled back. 

“Look at you,” you murmured. “You just want me to choose you, dont’cha?”

His eyes locked on yours.

You rode him harder, your voice breaking as the pleasure started making your thoughts blur. “You’re better than anything. Better than anything I could buy. Better than anything I could touch.”

Dex looked like he was going to fall apart beneath you.

“Again,” he begged. “Please, again.”

“You’re better than anything,” you gasped, fingers tight in the collar. “Or anyone.”

Dex stopped thrusting his hips up so abruptly you yelped into a halt.

You barely had time to catch your breath before his eyes opened and darkened. “Anyone?”

Your stomach dropped.

It was one word. One stupid word you had said without thinking because you were dizzy and full of him, because Dex had begged you to tell him he was better and you had.

Oh. Fuck.

“Dex,” you said carefully. “No.”

His muscles flexed. “No?”

“No. We can’t do this.”

He stared at you, still in his lap, warm and shaking from the way you had been riding him. Still close enough to feel how badly he wanted to move, how hard he was holding himself back by force alone.

“Dex,” you tried again, softer this time.

His eyes did not move from your face. “Uncuff me.”

It should have scared you, how fast he switched.

One second, he was pliant beneath you, desperate to be used. The next, his voice had gone flat and enraged, eyes narrowing like a predator. 

But it was still Dex. Your Dex. He would never hurt you.

“Color?” you asked.

“Green,” he said immediately. Then, rougher and impatient, “Uncuff me.”

Your hands were not steady when you reached for the keys, then behind him, squirming because he was still inside you, and his size wasn’t making it easy for you to jostle around like that. 

The cuffs clicked open, and for a second, he only trailed his hands up your thighs he was so gentle, rubbing circles on your sweat-slicked skin.

“I know you had someone before me,” he said.

He knew, because Dex was jealous, not delusional.

He knew you had a life before him, knew there had been men before him, had even heard your friend’s tinny voice over the phone once saying, I met your crazy ex today? while you laughed awkwardly and changed the subject too quickly. He had stood in your kitchen with his hand frozen around a mug, filing that away in some dark corner of his mind.

But knowing was one thing. Hearing you say “anyone” while he was still inside you and your hand was tight in the collar he still wore for you, was another thing entirely. 

Your face went hot. “Obviously.”

“How many?”

“Dex.”

“How many?”

You swallowed. “I’m not talking about my exes while we’re having sex.”

His hand went up to the collar ring, not to pull it off. To press your fingers there. To make sure you were holding it right.

“How many?” he asked again, and this time his voice was demanding.

You tried to climb off him. “Baby, no. You don’t want this.”

Dex moved so fast you barely registered it.

One second you were above him, the next he had you up and over his shoulder, your breath punched out of you in a shocked little yelp. The room tilted. Your hands grabbed at his back, his waist, anything. Then he was putting you down on the couch, bending you over the arm with one hand between your shoulder blades, still wearing the collar. 

“Eyes forward,” he said.

Your thighs clenched at the sound of his voice. “Dex—”

“Eyes forward.”

You hated that you listened. You that your body shivered. 

He pressed in behind you, close enough that he made your knees weak all over again. One hand slid over your hip, shaking with restraint, almost tender before it turned possessive. The other covered kept your ass up for him to line up.  “Tell me how many.”

You exhaled hard. “Three.”

Dex went silent.

Then, softly, terribly, he echoed it, “Three.”

“Before you,” you snapped, trying to sound angry even though your voice was already ruined. “Before I even knew you like this. Before us. Dex, this is stupid.”

He laughed once. It sounded broken. “Names.”

“No.”

“Full names.”

“No, I’m not giving you their full names so you can go insane and hunt them down.”

His breath hitched behind you.

Oh.

That was not the wrong thing to say. That was the worst thing to say. Because now he had pictured it. Now some awful part of him had lit up at the thought, and you felt his body go harder against yours, felt the way his grip tightened like he wanted to crawl out of his own skin.

“Fine,” he said, trying so hard to compromise. “First names.”

“You don’t want those either.”

“I do.”

“No, you don’t,” you whined, “You think you do because you’re jealous and insane and horny and trying to hurt your own feelings.”

His forehead dropped between your shoulder blades.

For one second, he just breathed there, shaking. When he spoke again, his voice was wet.

“First names,” he whispered. “And what was wrong with them.”

He knew it would hurt. Dex wasn’t confused about that. He was not so far gone that he thought hearing their names would make him feel better. He knew it would put pictures in his head he would never be able to scrape out. He knew he would imagine their hands, their mouths, their stupid little claims on you. He knew every detail you gave him would become a weapon turned inward first, he wanted you to press this emotional knife into his ribs just to see if the pain proved how much he loved you.

But that was exactly why he needed it.

Dex didn’t know how to be reassured gently. Soft comfort slid off him too easily. He needed the wound opened first. Needed to be shown the ugliest picture and survive it. It was emotional masochism dressed up as jealousy, and the sickest part was that he knew. He wanted you to hurt him with the truth so your praise would feel earned when it came after.

“Tell me,” he said again, voice breaking at the edges.

“Dex…”

“I need to know,” he said, and the desperation in it cut through you. “I need to know what they did wrong. I need to know I’m better. I need you to say it while I’m fuckin’ deep inside you, while you’re fuckin’ clenching me, baby please.”

You closed your eyes.

His mouth pressed to your back. It was almost a kiss. Almost an apology. Then he pushed into you again, and the sound that tore out of you was so loud it made your own face burn.

Dex groaned behind you, ugly and wrecked. “Tell me.”

You gripped the couch cushion, because fuck it. What the fuck did you owe them anyway?

“Finn.”

His hips snapped forward harder.

You cried out, body jolting against the couch.

Dex groaned like the name had hurt him exactly the way he wanted it to. “What was wrong with him?”

“His nails,” you gasped, already struggling to keep your voice steady. “College boyfriend. His nails were always too long and when he fingered, it hurt. I took it, but then he blamed me when I bled.”

Dex’s hand slid over your stomach, pulling you back into him, his breath breaking against your skin.

“Careless,” he repeated.

“Yes.”

“I’m not careless.”

“No,” you said quickly. “No, baby, you’re not.”

“Say I’m better.”

“You’re better.”

He thrust harder, and your answer broke apart into a moan.

“Say it properly.”

“You’re better than Finn,” you choked out. “You’re so much better than him.”

Dex shuddered and you felt it in his chest, in his grip, in the way his mouth dragged wetly over your back.

He was crying, you realised, when you felt hotlittle drops against your spine while he kept fucking you like jealousy had turned him feral. Dominant and ruined at once, giving orders while crying because he had asked for the knife and now wanted you to twist it.

“Next,” he said.

“Dex,” you moaned, shaking your head. “Please.”

“Say red and I’ll —fuck! — stop. Until then…” His fingers tightened around your hip. “Next.”

You tried to breathe. You tried to remember why this was a bad idea. You remember that you didn’t want your stupid dickhead exes in the room with you while Dex was behind you, collared, crying, and pounding into you like every name was a target he needed to hit.

“Matteo,” you managed.

Dex’s rhythm stumbled for half a second, then came back harder.

You sobbed his name.

“What was wrong with him?”

“You don’t want this one,” you managed to hiccup.

“Yes, I do.”

“No, baby. You really don’t.”

He laughed, but it wasn’t amused. He moaned again as he managed, “Tell me.”

“He was a creep,” you finally said, the words scraping out of you. “From my old job. He shared p-private pictures. With his friends.”

Dex stopped breathing, his forehead hit your back again.

“Oh,” he whispered.

It was horrible. 

You felt the tears fall faster now, sliding down your skin while his hand trembled on your waist. For all his violence, this was the part that broke him. Someone had treated you like something to pass around. Someone had treated you like you were anything less than sacred.

“Dex,” you warned softly, because you could feel him thinking.

Dex made a small, broken sound, then moved again, harder, like he could fuck the memory out of your body. You gasped, eyes rolling back. 

“He didn’t deserve to look at you,” Dex said, voice shaking.

“No,” you breathed.

“He didn’t deserve anything from you.”

“No.”

His tears kept falling, pathetic and hot against your spine, even as his body stayed rough behind yours. He had asked for this. He had wanted the wound. Now he was bleeding into it.

“Tell me I’m better,” he begged.

“You’re better than him,” you said quickly, before he could ask, before he could spiral too far away from you. “You’re better, Dex. You don’t make me feel like I’m just here to be shown off. You make me feel wanted.”

He sobbed against your back.

“Again.”

“You’re better than Matteo.”

Harder.

“You’re better than him.”

Harder.

“You’re better because you actually care if I want it,” you gasped, barely able to speak now. “Because you ask. Because you listen. Because even when you’re like this, even when you’re out of your fucking mind, you still need me to want it, too.”

Dex’s whole body jerked.

“Next,” he choked.

You shook your head, cheek pressed to the couch cushion, eyes wet now too. “Dex, I can’t.”

“Yes, you can.”

“I hate this.”

“Say red, then.”

You couldn’t bring yourself to. Because he was right. You might pretend to hate this, but fuck, you were sick. 

Sick enough for this to get you off. 

You managed a pathetic little, “g-green.”

His breath hitched, satisfied. “Thought so.”

He liked it, too. He liked it like self-punishment. Liked it because it hurt. 

“Last one,” he whispered.

You swallowed around a moan. “Colin.”

Dex’s hips snapped into you so hard you cried out.

The hand on your hip slid up to your chest, holding you back against him as he bent over you, making the most pathetic sound you had ever heard from him.

“What—hnghhh—  was wrong with Colin?”

“He was possessive,” you said, barely coherent. “But not like you.”

Dex went rigid. “Like w-what, then?”

“Shit,” you gasped. “He was controlling. Mean. He wanted to own me, but he didn’t love me. Not like you. He didn’t want to be good for me. He j-just wanted to win.”

Dex was sobbing now.

You could hear it. Feel it. His mouth was pressed to your shoulder, his breath hitching, tears smearing over your skin while his body kept driving into yours with desperate, punishing force. He had you pinned beneath him, yes. He was the one moving you, the one holding you, the one demanding answers. But the collar was still around his throat, and you now managed to trail your hand up and grab the ring. You held the fucking collar and tugged, and he was surprised he didn’t come then and there as he gasped, breaking a little more.

“I’m not him,” he said.

“No.”

“I love you.”

“I love you, t-too.”

“I’d never—” His voice cracked. “I’d never make you feel like that.”

“I know, baby.”

“Tell me.”

“You’re better than Colin.”

His rhythm faltered. “Tell me why.”

“Because you’re mine,” you moaned. “Because you— fuck!— want to be mine. Because you don’t just want to have me, you want me to choose you. You want t-to be useful. You want to be good— hmphh— to me.”

Dex sobbed so hard his hips stuttered.

“Yes,” he gasped. “Yes, fuck, yes.”

“You’re better than all of them.”

“Again.”

“You’re better than Finn.”

He groaned.

“Better than Matteo.”

His grip tightened.

“Better than Colin.”

He started breaking, cracks building through him in these beautiful little fractures. Your pleasure was already rising too fast, your thighs trembling, your voice gone thin and helpless beneath him.

“Dex!” you cried.

“I know,” he whispered, frantic and wet. “I know, baby. I know. I’ve got you. Tell me again.”

“You’re better,” you sobbed. “You’re better than anyone. Anything, Dex, anyone.”

He came with your hand fisted in his collar.

The pull of it dragged a sound out of him that was almost a sob and almost your name, his whole body folding over yours as he spilled into you, shaking so hard you felt it everywhere. You could hear the broken relief in his voice as he kept whispering yours, yours, yours like he could make himself believe it if he said it enough.

That was what tipped you over, when your orgasm hit so hard your whole body seized beneath him.

You cried out into the couch, fingers yanking the collar ring without meaning to, and Dex choked behind you, shuddering again like the pull had gone straight through him. Pleasure tore through you in waves, hot and blinding, your legs trembling, your voice breaking on his name until it didn’t even sound like a word anymore.

Dex held you through it, crying into your back like he was the one who had been ruined.

When it finally ebbed, he stayed folded over you, his mouth pressed between your shoulder blades, breath ragged. Your hand was still caught in the ring of the collar.

For a long moment, neither of you moved.

The couch was too small for both of you, but Dex made it work because Dex always made himself fit wherever you needed him. 

His body was still trembling in little aftershocks, but the violent edge had burned out of him. What remained was his mouth against your shoulder, his hand spread over your stomach, his thumb moving in slow, soothing circles like he was trying to apologize through touch before words.

You could feel the little ring of the collar cool against your wrist when his head dipped and nuzzled into the space between your neck and shoulder. 

Fifteen minutes later.He wasn’t crying anymore. His lashes were damp, his breathing uneven, but he had settled down. 

“I’m sorry,” he whispered, though he still wasn’t sure for what.

You were too boneless to answer properly. Your whole body felt heavy and melted into the cushions, your skin still humming everywhere he had touched you. You only reached back, clumsy and tired, and found his hand.

Only then did you realise that it was red from how hard he was pulling at the handcuffs. Because despite the fuzzy liner, it was still metal underneath.

Dex threaded his fingers through yours immediately. That was answer enough for him.

He kissed your shoulder again. Then the back of your neck. Then your cheek when you turned your head just slightly. 

These were small, careful kisses. Sweet, almost shy.

His voice stayed low when he spoke again. “I’ll be good.”

You closed your eyes.

The jealousy had calmed, but he still needed to be chosen. 

Dex held you like service. Like worship. Like if he could keep you warm enough and safe enough, maybe it would balance out everything else he was.

His hand slid over your side, checking without asking. He smoothed your skin gently over your hip and your thigh. His mouth touched the back of your shoulder, and his breath relaxed when you relaxed into him instead of pulling away.

You should have been angry.

You were angry, maybe, somewhere far away. Obviously, there were things to say later. Things about boundaries and consequences and the fact that Benjamin Poindexter could not solve every insecurity by turning it into sex so absolute it felt like a salvation. 

But right now, Dex was curled around you like a guard dog who had been allowed into bed after making a big mistake, and you couldn’t bring yourself to bring it up.

His big arms were careful around your body, face pressed to your skin. The collar still snug at his throat because he had not asked you to take it off, because maybe he liked the reminder that even when he got like that, he was still yours.

Your fingers brushed the ring lazily.

Dex melted immediately.

“Oh, what the hell,” you mumbled with a hazy smile, mostly into the couch cushion. “I don’t need those toys anyway.”

Dex tried not to look smug, but you felt it. 

You knew what that little hitch of breath meant, the way his mouth pressed to your shoulder and stayed there, hiding whatever painfully pleased expression had crossed his face. 

You didn't have the strength to scold him for it.

He kissed your shoulder again, grateful this time.

Still, you knew you had just signed a death warrant for Finn, Matteo, and Collin.

You hadn’t given Dex their full names, but Dex had heard enough. He could find people with less. He had found you, hadn’t he? 

You knew they were as good as dead. And if Dex could destroy and burn your old toys with that much passion, you couldn’t imagine what he would do to living men who had actually hurt you. Whatever came for them would not be quick or merciful. You knew that.

You shouldn’t want that.

On principle, you shouldn’t want that.

On the principle that you were better than them, that you were obviously morally superior, that you should not want three men dead just because they had once made you feel small, even if they deserved it.

But then Dex nuzzled closer in his devotion. His lips brushed your shoulder, and even half-conscious, he murmured your name like a prayer. His hand slipped over your stomach, protective now, his thumb moving in small circles like he was still trying to soothe you from your last.

You looked down at him and thought, I hope you make them beg.

Oh, principles.

Who needed those anyway?

—end.

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every thrust lands with striking precision, your whole body jolting beneath him at each slam of his hips against yours. pleasure hits you so strong it creates a deep pressure just below your navel, your mouth slackening to release sounds that seem foreign coming out of your own mouth. you're sure your entire fucking neighborhood can hear you at this point.

"dex—dex! if you keep—oh my fucking god—we'll have to stop—" you all but yelp, hands flying in an attempt to steady yourself. they land across his back, nails digging into skin with enough force to draw blood.

"no! no no no, sweetheart," dex urges, eyes snapping open to find yours. "i'll go slow then. i'll make it good for you. like this—" the change in pace is deliberate, instantly allowing you room to breathe again once he's no longer pounding into that sensitive spot over and over again. "you like it like this? let me make you feel good, please."

you know it'll give you only a few minutes before dex starts to get lost in it again, but you can't really deny him anything when he looks this desperate—this eager to please you. so you will yourself to nod, even as your head feels much lighter than it probably should, your face contorting into what you're sure is the most dumb, fucked out expression to ever grace your features.

you sat curled beneath a blanket, one leg tucked underneath you, a book resting open in your lap. your apartment felt unusually warm compared to the weather outside. a small lamp glowed beside the couch, casting pools of amber light across the room along with some scented candles you lit.

you'd showered less than half an hour ago. your hair was still slightly damp, the ends leaving faint wet marks against the oversized t-shirt you'd thrown on afterward. the warmth from the shower lingered on your skin, making the apartment feel even cozier than usual.

it should have been the perfect night for reading, except you kept rereading the same page because your mind kept drifting. your neighbor. the man from across the hall. you didn't even know his name. all you had were brief encounters in hallways, shared elevator rides, nods of acknowledgement.

you stared down at the page. reading the same sentence for the fourth time and giving up. with a sigh, you lowered the book onto your chest. outside, headlights passed below your window. your thoughts wandered again.

you wondered if he was home, if he was awake, if he ever noticed you watching him the same way you noticed him watching you. you wondered what his voice sounded like. whether it was as sharp as his stare. whether he even knew how much space he'd started taking up inside your head. the thought made you smile at yourself.

this was getting embarrassing. you were imagining a man you'd never even spoken to.

you were just beginning to convince yourself to return to your book when three firm knocks sounded at your door. the sound startled you enough that you nearly dropped it. you sat up immediately, blinking toward the hallway. at almost midnight, you certainly weren't expecting visitors. another knock followed a few seconds later.

setting the book aside, you stood from the couch and crossed the apartment. the wooden floor felt cool beneath your bare feet as you approached the door. through the peephole you could only make out the dark shape of someone standing in the hallway.

curiosity got the better of you. you unlocked the door and pulled it open.

oh.

standing on the other side was the very man you'd been thinking about for the last twenty minutes. rainwater darkened the shoulders of his black jacket, suggesting he'd only recently come inside. his expression remained unreadable, but his eyes settled on yours almost immediately, familiar and unnervingly intense.

then he lifted one hand - dangling from his fingers was a set of keys. for a second, you simply stared at the keys in his hand, then recognition hit.

"oh my god."

you immediately reached for them, relief washing through you. "i've been looking for these all evening."

his gaze followed the movement of your hand. "figured."

your fingers brushed as you took them from him. it wasn't even enough to properly qualify as touching, but you still felt it. a brief spark of awareness that made you strangely conscious of how close he was standing. you glanced down at the familiar keychain attached to the ring and laughed softly.

"seriously, thank you. I thought I'd somehow lost them outside."

"found them in the lobby," he said. "you dropped them earlier."

you looked back up at him.

"and you remembered they were mine?"

"I've seen you carrying them."

the answer should have felt completely normal. instead, it made your stomach tighten. neither of you seemed eager to break eye contact. the hallway suddenly felt much smaller than usual.

you became acutely aware that you were standing in your doorway looking freshly showered and probably staring at him like an idiot. you cleared your throat.

"well." your fingers tightened around the keys. "I definitely owe you one..."

"tony." he specified. you introduced yourself in exchange.

tony... the name doesn't suit him that much, you thought to yourself.

"tony!"

his eyebrow lifted slightly. his gaze remained on you for a moment before shifting away. only then did you properly notice the state he was in.

his dark jacket was soaked through. rainwater clung to the fabric and dripped occasionally onto the hallway floor. his hair was damp too, slightly darker than usual, with a few strands falling forward.

you frowned. "jesus. it's pouring out there."

he glanced over his shoulder toward the building entrance at the end of the hallway. "yeah."

"you got caught in it?"

"something like that."

the man looked like he'd walked through a hurricane.

"something like that doesn't explain why you look like you swam home."

that earned a faint twitch at the corner of his mouth. you felt oddly proud of yourself.

"well, my apartment building has terrible timing too."

"how so?"

he looked back at you.

"no hot water."

you blinked. "what?"

"pipe burst." he said it casually. "and maintenance won't be here until tomorrow."

you stared. "you're kidding."

"wish I was."

you looked at him. then at the rainwater practically dripping off him. then back at him. a few seconds passed. no, don't even think about it.

"you can use my shower."

the words left your mouth before you could think about them. immediately afterward your brain caught up.

right. great. amazing.

you had just invited the attractive stranger you'd been obsessing over for months into your apartment to shower. excellent. very normal.

his eyebrows lifted slightly, looking skeptical. "your shower..."

you cleared your throat.

"I mean-" too late. you were already flustered. there was no recovering now. "I have hot water. you don't. that's the entire thought process."

"that's reassuring."

"don't make it weird."

his expression remained perfectly neutral. "I wasn't."

"you were thinking about it."

for a second you thought he might refuse, you expected him to. he seemed like the kind of person who rarely accepted help from anyone. his eyes drifted past you into the apartment. then his gaze returned to yours.

"you sure?" he asked, his question coming out quieter than you expected.

you nodded. "yeah."

finally he sighed through his nose. almost like he was giving in to something. "okay."

you blinked. "okay?"

"okay."

you hadn't actually planned for him to agree. now you were the one standing there staring. his eyes narrowed slightly. amused.

"you're the one that offered."

"I know, I just-" you stopped. because there was absolutely no way to finish that sentence without embarrassing yourself. he waited. "come in" you pointed toward your apartment.

the smile that appeared this time was small. brief but definitely real. you stepped aside and he finally crossed the threshold into your apartment. the scent of rain followed him inside.

you closed the door behind him and suddenly became painfully aware that your mysterious neighbour was standing in your living room. the same living room where you'd spent the last twenty minutes thinking about him. unfortunately, your brain chose that exact moment to remind you of this fact.

you immediately walked into the side of the couch. the impact echoed through the room. fuckkkk, that hurt. you closed your eyes from the pain and tried to ignore what just happened, pretending you were okay.

"I saw that."

of course he did. you rubbed your knee.

"no you didn't."

"pretty sure I did."

"well, as your host, I'm asking you to respect my privacy."

another laugh. somehow, hearing it while he stood dripping rainwater onto your floor made the entire evening feel a little unreal. you laughed alongside him.

you guided him to the bathroom - brought him towels and whatever men's clothing you had. the ones you usually bought to wear at home.

"If you need anything else let me know, tony!"

he thanked you and locked the door, turning the shower on. dex immediately started inspecting the whole place: what brand toothpaste and soap you use, what does your laundry detergent smell like, what scented shower gels do you have. he didn't forget to open some drawers and noticed a few pads and tampons laying around, as well as some razors and first aid kit.

after checking everything out, dex finally stepped into the shower. he didn't mind your haircare and skincare products - he thought they smelled sweet, just like you. he couldn't stop sheepishly smiling the whole time. like he finally got what he wanted without even trying too much - if we don't include the fact that he stole your lost keys earlier the day, and a few months of eye-fucking you two had.

after around 15 minutes, tony was out of your bathroom, dressed in your home clothes. he looked so unbelievably hot right now, hair still wet and messy, clothes a little too tight for his broad figure, his cheeks were pinkish and you could smell your signature scent across the living room.

"everything alright?" you peeked your head up from the couch.

"yep, I guess you don't owe me anymore" he smiled. "you're good". tony started walking over to you, the couch dipping at his weight. fuck, he looked so sexy manspreading right on your couch, drying his hair with one hand, his biceps flexing. this can't be real, you thought to yourself.

you were staring. it was becoming a genuine problem.

“you keep looking at me like that and I'm gonna start thinking I’ve got shampoo left in my hair.”

your eyes immediately snapped upward, face feeling warm. “you probably do.”

“wow.”

“check.”

tony dropped the towel onto his shoulder and patted around his head dramatically. after a few seconds of searching, he held up absolutely nothing.

“false accusation. I expect an apology.”

“you’ll survive.”

“barely.”

you rolled your eyes and tried focusing on the random movie playing on the tv because your extremely handsome neighbor looked like he had just walked out of a magazine cover to you. meanwhile, he was sitting on your couch wearing sweatpants that were definitely too small for him and a hoodie that looked like it was losing a battle against his shoulders.

it wasn’t fair.

“you know,” he said after a moment, “this is actually kind of weird.”

“you showering at my place?”

“that too. mostly the fact that your entire apartment smells like vanilla.”

“and?”

“and now I smell like vanilla too."

you laughed.

he looked offended. “I'm serious.”

“that’s your problem?” you rolled your eyes.

"pretty much, I've got a reputation to maintain" you stared at him. he stared back. then both of you lost it. the tension dissolved instantly.

“that’s the dumbest thing I've ever heard,” you managed between laughs.

“thank you.”

“that wasn’t a compliment.”

“I’ll take what I can get.”

the laughter lingered for a second before fading away. the movie continued playing in the background, filling the apartment with distant dialogue and music neither of you were paying attention to anymore. somehow, the silence that settled between you felt different now. heavier.

tony leaned back into the couch, one arm stretched across the backrest. his head tilted slightly as he looked at the television, but you got the feeling he wasn't watching it either. you tried to focus on the screen. but every time you glanced over, he was still there - wearing your clothes, still smelling like vanilla and your shampoo, still taking up way too much space in your apartment and somehow making it feel smaller.

the realization made your stomach twist. because this wasn't normal. neighbors didn't usually end up sitting on each other's couches at midnight wearing borrowed clothes and they definitely didn't make it this hard to breathe. you swallowed and looked away.

"okay, what is it?" tony asked.

"what?" your head snapped toward him.

"you keep looking at me." his voice was quieter now - not teasing, just stating a fact.

heat crawled up your neck. "you're sitting in my apartment."

tony's jaw tightened slightly. just enough for you to notice. then his eyes dropped to the oversized sleeve hanging over your hand, to your bare legs tucked underneath you on the couch. then back up again, slowly. your breath caught. his expression changed for half a second. something unreadable flashing across his face before disappearing just as quickly.

it was the first time since you'd seen him that he looked uncertain.

"you should stop looking at me like that," he said quietly.

your pulse skipped. "like what?"

his eyes held yours for a second.

"you know exactly like what."

the air seemed to leave the room. you couldn't think of a single response, avoiding eye contact. your eyes dropped to the floor, then to the sleeve hanging over your hand, anywhere except him. meanwhile, tony didn't move. his gaze stayed exactly where it was, steady and impossible to ignore even without looking directly at him.

you could feel it lingering, feel the weight of the silence stretching between you. the room hadn't changed, the tv was still playing somewhere in the background, but everything else seemed distant, drowned out by the simple fact that neither of you had laughed your way out of this one.

when you finally risked a glance back up, his eyes were still on you. not challenging, not teasing - just watching. there was something unusually unguarded about him now, as if he'd forgotten to hide whatever was running through his mind. the silence settled heavily between you, charged with all the things neither of you seemed willing to say out loud.

all you knew was that your heart was beating hard enough to make it difficult to think. the space between you suddenly felt much smaller than it had a few minutes ago, despite neither of you changing position. tony's gaze dropped briefly to your lips before returning to your eyes.

the movement was subtle and impossible to miss. for the first time all evening, he looked genuinely conflicted. like he was arguing with himself, like part of him had already made a decision and the other part was trying to stop it.

"this is a bad idea," he said quietly. the words sounded more like a warning to himself than to you.

you swallowed. "then why aren't you leaving?"

for a moment, he just looked at you. then something in his expression softened.

"I don't want to." the answer barely came out above a whisper. somehow the distance between you disappeared. tony leaned forward slowly, giving you every opportunity to pull away, every opportunity to break the moment if you wanted to. when you didn't, his eyes flickered between yours one last time.

his hand came to rest against the couch beside you, close enough to make your pulse jump. close enough that you could feel the warmth of him. the air felt impossibly still. then he tilted his head slightly and closed the remaining distance.

It started off as hesitant at first, like he was unsure of it but soon enough tony leaned in closer, deepening the kiss. his hand came up to hold the side of your face - fingers brushing over your jaw. you could feel his desperation with the way he was kissing, it wasn't rough but passionate. his hand went down to hold your throat, softly squeezing it.

you felt yourself getting hotter every second, feeling goosebumps all over your body. you tried to break the kiss to take a breath but tony held it firmly, not letting it go. he pushed his tongue back into you, exploring every part of your mouth.

slowly both of his hands went down to hold your waist, pushing you closer. you used this chance to straddle his lap and he gladly let you. you felt the hardened bulge between your legs immediately, softly groaning at the feeling of him. tony squeezed your waist and pushed you to his chest, your arms wrapped around his neck.

the kiss got intense in matter of seconds, it wasn't innocent anymore. both of you were breathing loudly, holding each other impossibly close. you could feel yourself getting wet, pussy pulsing right on his lap. you decided to grind on him out of desperation.

"fuck" tony grunted loudly and pushed his head back on the couch. he started to push his hips up to feel you deeper. you moaned softly at the new sensation, your clit feeling the friction between layers of clothes. tony's hands moved to grab your ass and push you down on him again. you grabbed the back of his hair out of pleasure and hid your face in the crook of his neck.

tony's voice was low and rough, grunting from time to time. he started leaving kisses on your jaw, going down lower and biting your neck, softly sucking on it. his hands now trailed back up to slide under your shirt. he cupped and squeezed your breasts and twisted one of your nipples.

your moans started to progressively get louder, desperately grinding your clothed pussy on his sweatpants. you felt yourself getting closer, the friction, sensation and heat between your legs getting difficult to handle. you couldn't keep your composure anymore. neither could tony.

"am I making you feel good, pretty girl?" he smiled, whispering in your ear and gently biting it before going back on your throat. "come on, you're almost there, baby".

the praise made your walls flutter around nothing, the emptiness felt frustrating. you felt yourself getting impossibly close to cumming from just rubbing your clit on his bulge.

"fuck, fuck, fuck" the orgasm came crushing down on you. your back arched at the feeling, eyes and head rolling back, exposing your neck to the man under you. he didn't miss the chance to plant lingering kisses all over your throat.

"good girl" tony pushed himself up on you once again to ride out your pleasure and moved your body against him with force. he grabbed your face and kissed you rough and desperately, biting your lower lip.

his fingers tangled in your hair as the kiss turned filthy again - wet and deep and messy. every bite of his teeth sent sparks down your spine. then suddenly he pulled back just enough to yank off his shirt in one rough motion. the dim light caught every hard line of his chest filled with the scars.

without a word, tony lifted you effortlessly into him and pinned you beneath him on the couch cushion. his mouth found yours again but it wasn't gentle anymore.

tony’s hands slid under your shirt, pushing it up slowly - his lips never leaving yours as he kissed you through every movement. when the fabric was halfway off, he broke the kiss just to pull it completely over your head. the second cool air hit your bare skin, goosebumps erupted but tony warmed you fast with his mouth trailing down your neck.

his teeth grazed one shoulder before his tongue dipped into the hollow of your collarbone. each kiss grew hotter, needier, like he couldn’t get enough of you.

he reached behind to unhook your bra that stood in his way without hesitation - impatient but careful not to hurt you.

"you're perfect, sweetheart" he whispered against your bare skin.

tony kissed down your stomach, slow and deliberate - each press of his lips a promise. when he reached the waistband of your shorts, he paused. his fingers hooked into the fabric and peeled them down over your hips with torturous slowness. you could feel every brush of his knuckles against sensitive skin.

his soft lips pressed a kiss through thin panties that were already damp from everything before this moment ever started happening at all.

with one hand holding onto your thigh to keep you spread for him, he dragged those same panties down slowly - revealing everything inch by inch under dim living room light filtering through curtains.

the moment your panties were gone, he lowered his head and licked long, slow, deliberate - right through the center of your folds. a full-body shiver tore through you at the contact.

"tony!" you moaned out loud as your head fell back out of pleasure.

he did it again. then again. each stroke was different - teasing one side with his tongue while sucking gently on sensitive skin. his mouth sealed over your clit and sucked hard.

"sweeter than I imagined," tony groaned im your pussy, completely lost in your pleasure.

you gasped so loud it turned into a moan that echoed off the walls. tony growled against you and doubled down immediately: tongue swirling fast now while two fingers slid deep inside without asking permission. they curled just right inside you as he sucked relentlessly.

his fingers, which had been moving slowly at first, suddenly picked up speed - thrusting deeper and faster inside you while his thumb replaced his mouth for a split second to rub tight circles over your clit then he dove back in with force. it was relentless - curving those two digits just right every time they plunged deep. the heel of his hand pressed lightly against your pelvis, adding subtle pressure that made everything feel even more intense

you could hear him breathing heavy through it all - low groans vibrating against sensitive. each sharp inhale from him told you he was getting off on every sound spilling out of your lips

"please don't stop, please" you chanted his name like a prayer as you came apart instantly, your orgasm hit like a lightning strike fast and overwhelming. the way you came from tony’s mouth was messy.

fingers clenched around tony’s hair as waves of pleasure ripped through you. your back arched off the couch cushions and your hands fisted hard in his hair, pulling slightly without meaning to.

"there you go" tony didn’t stop. not even when he felt you shaking under him. he kept sucking gently now instead of aggressively - drawing out every last pulse until it became almost too much. sensitive and overstimulated.

finally, tony slowly pulled back - lips glistening in the low light, then crawled up over you. without hesitation or warning he crashed his mouth into you, kissing messy and deep with all that pent-up hunger still burning inside him.

his sweatpants thudded softly as it hit the floor. he didn’t hesitate when he finally peeled off his boxer briefs - freeing himself completely. hard, thick and aching for attention. you almost drooled at the sight. he kicked everything aside without looking and climbed back onto the couch with you - skin on skin this time. warmth everywhere.

tony hovered over you for a breath - just looking. your lips were swollen from kissing, your chest rising and falling fast. the room was quiet except for both of your breathing. heavy with want. he lined himself up slowly - tip pressing right where it mattered most and paused again, waiting, checking if you were okay with this. when you nodded and arched into him, he pushed forward slowly.

inch by inch, stretching gently as his body slid inside yours, heat meeting heat in the most intimate way possible.

"fuuuuck, baby, so tight f'me" his jaw clenched hard, eyes squeezing shut briefly from how good it felt.

the slow, careful pace didn’t last long. once tony was fully inside - buried deep where you were warm and tight around him. his hips jerked forward instinctively, driving himself deeper with a low groan that rumbled through his chest. the rhythm started steady at first, then faster and harder.

"eyes on me, baby" each thrust made the couch creak beneath you both. tony’s breathing turned ragged, mouth falling open as pleasure overwhelmed every nerve. without warning, one hand shot up and wrapped loosely around your throat. just enough pressure to make your pulse jump under his palm. then he pinned both of your wrists above your head with one strong grip.

"fuck, feels so good" you moaned against his lips.

"oh yeah? you like how I fuck you, baby?" tony teased.

the pleasure was building too fast, like a wave about to crash. every snap of tony’s hips sent electric shocks through your core, each movement perfectly calculated to drag the most intense sensations out of you. his voice alone - low and teasing made your stomach flip.

"tony, please" you could feel him everywhere - the heat of his skin against yours where sweat-slicked bodies pressed together; the way muscles in arms flexed as he held himself up over you.

"please what, baby" he repeated slowly, voice dripping with false innocence like he hadn't just wrecked you seconds ago. his hips gave a tiny roll - not enough to give real relief; just a cruel little tease of movement. he saw it in your face immediately: that perfect mix of desperation and neediness. "use your words," he murmured against your neck, lips brushing skin between syllables.

"please, tony, wanna cum on your cock, please" your voice came out breathless, wrecked already. tony’s expression shifted. the playful teasing vanished in an instant, replaced by something far darker and hungrier. his pupils dilated further; his jaw tightened with sudden intensity.

without warning, he slammed back into you - harder this time. no slow buildup now; just raw force as his hips with renewed aggression. the couch creaked violently beneath you both like it might actually break from how rough and fast things got all of a sudden.

a groan ripped from tony’s chest at the feeling - the way you clenched around him so perfectly. "fuck!" your third orgasm hit like a tidal wave, unexpected and overwhelming, eyes rolling back to the back of your skull. one second tony was pounding into you with that perfect rhythm, the next your whole body clenched around him - walls fluttering as pleasure erupted through every nerve ending.

you gasped his name. he felt the way you squeezed him so tight and that was all he needed. his thrusts turned erratic. desperate. losing their control fast as his own release barreled toward him.

a few more rough pumps and he buried himself deep inside you and came hard - body tensing above yours like a coiled spring finally snapping. heat flooded between you both in waves. the second his orgasm peaked, tony collapsed onto you - heavy but careful not to crush you completely.

his lips found yours in a messy, desperate kiss. when he pulled back, neither of you got very far. his forehead nearly brushed yours. for a second, he simply stared at you, breathing unevenly.

your breath was still coming in slow, shaky waves - post-orgasm haze thick around your mind as you looked around the room. the tv had been playing some late-night news segment after the movie ended - volume low, background noise. neither of you really paid attention before. but then you glanced at it, eyes half-lided, mind floaty.

Benjamin Poindexter. Also known as, Dex - Bullseye. a headline flashed. there was a live shot of him brutally attacking the police - his figure was tall, broad shoulders, that confident stride you’d recognize anywhere. then they showed a mugshot of his face without the mask: dark eyes, sharp jawline, face filled with scars that were still red.

your stomach dropped. tony saw the second your eyes widened - that specific kind of panic, the sharp inhale that wasn’t pleasure-related and the way your whole body locked up. he turned his head slowly toward the tv. without hesitation dex reached for the remote and hit mute first, then power-off button right after.

the room plunged into silence the second the screen went black - no more news, just suffocating stillness. dex’s movements were precise, calculated; even now, there was something terrifyingly methodical about him.

he turned to face you fully. the dim light from your bedside lamp caught his profile - the same scars you’d seen on tv moments ago now in real life: jagged across his cheekbone, a thin line over his eyebrow. His expression wasn’t angry, but it wasn’t calm either.

the silence felt fragile now, stretched so tightly that even the smallest movement seemed capable of breaking it. dex's gaze lingered on yours before drifting toward the dark window across the room. his shoulders had gone rigid.

"I should go," he said eventually.

whatever had been there moments ago was gone. the guarded expression had returned, settling over him like armor. his jaw tightened as he looked toward the door instead of at you.

"tony?"

"dex." he corrected. closing his eyes briefly. that single hesitation told you more than anything else could have.

when he finally stood, the apartment felt strangely empty despite the fact that he was still there. every movement seemed deliberate, controlled, like he was forcing himself to leave before something happened that he couldn't take back.

"thanks for letting me use the shower," he said quietly.

you rose from the couch too. his eyes met yours then. and you saw something dangerously close to the truth. whatever it was, it scared him. the silence stretched. then he gave a small shake of his head.

"goodnight."

his hand remained on the handle. his back to you.

"for what it's worth," he said quietly, "I'm really glad you opened the door tonight."

the door clicked shut behind him, and you stood there staring at it long after he was gone. the apartment suddenly felt too quiet.

slowly, you sank back onto the couch, your mind replaying every conversation, every look, every pause that had lasted a second too long. beneath the shock and confusion, you couldn't figure out what had happened. the pieces were all there, yet none of them seemed to fit together, leaving you with more questions than answers.

Worse, Lord Daniels looks at you as though you are already his property. Not a woman with thoughts, wants, or a heart of your own, but rather just a pretty vessel meant to warm his bed, bear his heir, and behave while doing it.

And god forbid you have hobbies! He treats your love of plants like a defect, like a girlish little habit he intends to prune out of you after the wedding.

So when you try to make your father understand that you cannot marry Lord Daniels, he does not listen. He calls you a selfish bitch.

You get into a screaming match with him after that. You tell him he is selling you off. He tells you that you are ruining your own future.

By the time you start crying, you’re running out of the house. 

You are not running forever, of course. You are not foolish enough to think you could survive alone outside your father’s house, let alone in the wild.

You just need space from your family.

So you run into the woods behind the estate, skirts damp, gloves dirtied, face hot with rage, needing only to be alone for a little while.

And that is where you meet Lord Poindexter.

Every woman in Mayfair knows of him but none of them truly knows him. Your mother once said he was “a fine match, of course,” then immediately followed it with, “Though there is something rather severe about him.”

Severe is one word. Dangerous is better.

He is hunting alone when he finds you, rifle in hand, coat across his shoulders. He frightens you, a little.

But then he lowers the rifle the moment he sees your tears. “My lady.”

“Your Grace.”

His eyes move over you, like he is cataloguing every sign of distress and deciding who must be punished for it.

You should curtsy and leave. Instead, you talk.

You tell him about Lord Daniels. About your father. About marriage without love. You tell him you would rather disappear into the woods than be handed over to a man who thinks your hobby is an inconvenience.

“I think I would like to marry a man who knows the difference between a daisy and a dahlia,” you say, bitterly.

That earns you another almost-smile. “Daisies,” he says.

“What?”

“You like daisies?”

You blink, thrown by the gentle edge of the question.

“Yes,” you say. “My favourite, in fact. They are not grand, but they survive almost anywhere. People overlook them because they are common, but I think that is rather unfair.”

Dex looks at you. He looks and looks and looks.

“My lady,” he says finally, “I do not think Lord Daniels deserves you.”

Your breath catches in the cold air. “You hardly know me, Your Grace.”

His eyes do not move away from yours. “Not yet.”

Hello?????

What the hell do you mean, Lord Poindexter? 

Because what is that? Who says that in the woods to a crying viscount’s daughter he has known for less than an hour? A madman, maybe. A loaded pistol in human form.

He escorts you to the threshold of your home, kisses your gloved fingers before he leaves, and you spend the whole night staring at your ceiling and thinking about him  like an idiot.

The next morning, Lord Daniels is dead because he had been challenged to a duel. 

Apparently, he has been shot through the heart at dawn by Lord Poindexter.

Oh, Lady Whistledown is frothing at the mouth.

The entire ton becomes rabid, because even the scribe doesn’t know why the Duke of Arrowhead challenged him to a duel. Some say Daniels owed him money. Some say Daniels insulted him at cards. Some say there was an argument over hunting rights. The men insist it must have been something respectable and masculine, because God forbid a duke shoot another lord over a girl he met weeping in the woods the day before.

But you know Dex loaded that pistol for you.

By afternoon tea, Lord Poindexter comes calling, telling your father that he would like to court his daughter.

He brought the biggest bouquet of daisies you had ever seen.

Your father grinds his teeth and hesitates, because Lord Poindexter has just killed your intended.

But also…

He is a duke.

A rich duke.

A handsome duke.

A rich, handsome duke who has come calling with flowers for your mother’s daughter, who, as your mother very gently reminds your father, has not exactly been cooperative with any of the men your father has presented to her.

So eventually, he is allowed into the drawing room.

Your father looks like he is swallowing a knife. Your mother looks like she is watching a scandal unfold in real time. 

And Dex looks only at you. He gives you the daisies like the dead man between you is merely an unfortunate scheduling matter.

From there, it snowballs.

Lord Benjamin Poindexter becomes devoted to you in a way that makes every ballroom feel like a crime scene waiting to happen.

He appears at social events he would once have avoided. He stands at the edge of every room in black gloves, watching you like the rest of the ton is background noise. He asks you to dance, and people are speechless, because the Duke of Arrowhead famously does not dance at balls.

Except now he does.

With you, and only you.

He is not charming with anyone else, though. Other ladies still try to speak to him (again, handsome, rich, duke). They flutter their lashes and smile and ask about his estate, his hunting, his views on town.

He gives them nothing.

Then you walk up and mention that your new fern cutting is struggling, and suddenly this man is leaning in like you have declared war on France.

“What kind of fern?”

“Maidenhair.”

“How much light does it need?”

And you talk and talk and talk, and the other ladies stare because this is not the Duke of Arrowhead they know. This man remembers the layout of your greenhouse, even when he claims he has never been there. He remembers the variety of your roses. He knows the shade your orchids prefer. 

He remembers everything.

And God help every Lord who even attempts to talk to you.

A lord compliments your figure too boldly?

Duel, shot through the head.

A viscount laughs about Lord Daniels and your “unfortunate effect on men”?

Duel, shot in the bowels and bled to death.

A gentleman grips your waist too hard at a ball, and you come crying to Dex because you feel ruined?

Duel. Shot through the liver at dawn so he feels the pain as the light drains from his eyes. 

There are dead lords behind you now. Injured lords. Ruined lords. Men leaving London for their “health.” Men avoiding your side of the ballroom as though you are cursed.

And maybe you should be horrified.

But there is a terrible and satisfying feeling curling inside you every time Dex’s eyes tunnel across a room because another man has made a pathetic attempt to court you.

You feel… flattered. 

Your mother is like, “He cannot continue challenging every gentleman who causes you discomfort.”

Your father is like, “He is making you impossible to marry.”

And you are like…

Is he?

Or is he making me impossible to marry to anyone but him?

Because Dex is not stupid.

He knows what this does. Every duel ties your name tighter to his. Society begins to understand your honour as his territory, your reputation as his concern. 

He wants the whole ton to know that touching you, wanting you, and embarrassing you comes with consequences.

Yes, he wants you ruined if ruined means no one else can have you. And the night Dex actually ruins you, it happens at Lord Ashcombe’s ball.

Ashcombe has been secretly admiring you all season like a man too stupid to notice the bodies piling up behind him. He asks for a dance with you and says it would be rude to refuse the host.

And you know Dex is watching.

Usually, you would say no. But today, you were feeling particularly brave and you wanted to test the limits of Dex’s affections. So you say yes.

Dex becomes murderously jealous almost immediately. 

Dex watches Ashcombe’s hand settle at your waist and crushes the wine glass in his hands. You smile and pretend not to hear the shatter. 

The moment the dance ends, Dex pulls you out to the garden and corners you there. 

The wisteria hangs heavy overhead, purple and soft and romantic in the most damning way. The music from the ballroom is muffled behind glass. Your heart is still racing from the dance, from the thrill of knowing you provoked him and he came exactly as you knew he would.

“What was that?” He demanded. 

And you pout, because apparently you have lost all sense of self-preservation. “Perhaps I am tired of waiting for a proposal.”

His jaw tightens. “You think I will not ask?”

“You have not even asked my father for my hand.”

And oh.

Oh, that wounded him. “I will.”

See, you don’t understand that yet. Dex is not delaying because he doubts his love for you. He is delaying because he is who he is. Because in his head, before he asks your father and puts the ring on your finger, he must clear the field.

He must eliminate every man who wants you and every lord who thinks he still has a chance.

And yes, that is deranged, but he enjoys hunting his romantic rivals for sport. He loves the fact that he gets to prove, again and again, that wanting you is dangerous unless you are him.

But then you ask with sad lashes, “How do I know you’re not lying, Your Grace?”

And Dex goes very still.

Then he kisses you.

His hands are on you at once, crushing your silk dress, dragging you closer. He kisses you like he is furious you ever doubted him. Like your mouth is the only argument he needs. 

You should stop him.

You could.

You do not.

Instead, you kiss him back and sigh a triumphant yes, knowing no other man will have you now. 

Eventually his hands bunches up your skirts and rips your undergarments. You gave a breathless little panic gasp, knowing no lady should let a man touch her like this before marriage.

Dex turns you carefully, presses you forward until he bends you over the garden wall, one gloved hand braced beside yours, the other holding you at the waist like he is both keeping you steady and making a claim.

“You want to know,” he murmurs, voice rough against your ear, “what husbands and wives do?”

Your breath catches.

“I need to hear you say it, Your Grace,” he says. Dex’s mouth brushes the shell of your ear, and you know that is not your title yet. You do not have a duchy. But it is the title you will take if he marries you.

When, you remind yourself, not if.

“Y-yes, Your Grace,” you managed.

“That’s my good girl,” he breathes, gloved hand tightening at your waist.

So Dex fucks you there beneath the wisteria, with the ballroom glowing behind the windows and your fingers trembling against old stone. He takes you, letting you adjust to his size as he ruins you completely and makes you understand exactly what he means to give to you once you are his wife.

He talks to you through it in that low voice, telling you this is what he will give you on your wedding night, and every night after, telling you he would not ruin you if he did not intend to keep you, telling you no other man will ever know you like this because no other man will live long enough to try.

You hate that it works.

You hate that every possessive word goes through you like fire. You hate that you believe him most when he is like this.

And when you fall apart for him, he holds you and kisses your temple through it, ever so gentle. 

He destroys your reputation with the tenderness of a man arranging flowers.

By the time it is over, your legs are unsteady, your mouth is swollen, your skirts are a scandal, and Dex is still pressed close behind you.

Then, you turn your head and see Lord Ashcombe at the edge of the path.

He looks pale and absolutely destroyed by what he has walked in on.

You glanced at Dex in a panic, but he is just casually buckling up his trousers and smiling. 

That's when you realised that Dex wanted you two to get caught.

He knew Ashcombe slipped into this part of the garden to smoke, that’s why he dragged you here, of all places! This was a trap. This was the hunting for sport he loved so much.

This was Dex proving his love in the most deranged way possible: by ruining you just enough to make Ashcombe understand he had already lost.

Dex adjusts your skirts while challenging him to a duel for your honour. 

By dawn, Ashcombe is dead. 

Lady Whistledown is frothing at the mouth.

By noon, Dex comes calling again with more daisies.

Your mother sits down very slowly. Your father says no when Dex asks for your hand.

Dex only raised an eyebrow like it was a minor obstacle.

So he leaves and comes back with a deed. He has bought you the largest greenhouse in the country. 

A scandalous duke with dead men in his wake gives you a kingdom of flowers and expects your father to keep saying no?

Please.

Your father’s protests are running thin. Your reputation is half-shredded. Your mother is exhausted. The ton already speaks of you as though you are his. Men no longer ask for your hand because they enjoy having all their organs where they are.

So finally, your father agrees.

Dex proposes in the garden with daisies everywhere, because of course he does. Because the man is unwell and romantic and terrifying and yours.

He kneels in the dirt like a duke who has never cared less about being a duke.

And you say yes with your whole stupid romantic heart.

Lady Whistledown writes of speculation like the ink has been laced with laudanum. Your mother cries. Your father looks like he’s biting through bullets. The remaining eligible men of London quietly celebrate surviving the season.

And Dex looks at you at the altar like every dead lord was simply the road he took to reach you.

You wanted a love match? 

Congratulations.

You got a love match with a body count.

—

“!? LOHEN?? ”

Your voice booms throughout the whole house, causing Lohen to raise a confused brow before setting aside his newly brewed cup of coffee to face you over the kitchen counter.

“Oh? You're finally here.” Lohen hums in a singsong tone, ignoring your currently confused state. He folds his arms over the counter and slightly bending over surface, exposing even more of his already exposed chest to your frightened eyes. “What a shame that I can't accompany you to the training grounds today. My presence is required elsewhere to keep the new recruits on their toes. Grandmaster’s orders and all.”

Lohen's words go in one ear before going out the other ear. Every ounce of your dying attention trails down from his open chest to the black vest hugging his figure tightly like hands pressing into skin, tightly shaping his lithe, agile body that had grown some muscle from that long five year expedition he went on. The long, dark belt wrapped around his small waist nearly made you gasp like a scandalised maiden. Is it normal for someone to be jealous of a belt? Is it also normal to want to replace said belt with your own hands around his waist? Please? Pretty please?

“I can hear you, you know?”

The smirk on Lohen's face widens as your jaw drops onto the floor. While you scramble to find the words to excuse your leering gaze pointed towards at your own vice captain, Lohen lifts himself off the counter and waltzes in your direction, keeping his eyes on you to pin you in your spot (as if you can go anywhere when your jaw is still on the floor).

Oh my archons he's coming here. He's swaying his hips while coming over here. Surely it's illegal for a man to look so dangerous and seductive at the same time right? Right??

Slowly, gradually, he makes his way to you and lifts your chin up with one hand. His long fingers, no longer restrained by his old gloves, carefully trace your jawline with reverence, leaving a path of lingering warmth of your flushed face that looks ready to explode at any moment. How delicate they look— these fingers that have ended countless lives are now cradling your face like a priceless jewel, taking care of you with hands that have held more weapons more preciously than any precious gemstone.

“Look at you. Even without being able to read your thoughts, I can still hear you as clear as day~”

Lohen leans in closer and brushes his mouth against your earlobe. His lips are dry, the consequences of always being exposed to the cold air out in the wild without taking proper care of them— yet that doesn’t stop him from blowing hot air into your ear. He laughs when you jump in surprise and uses his other hand to pin you in place, roughly squeezing your shoulder to keep you from running away.

“Tell me. What part of my body excites you the most? Is it my chest? My waist? My hands?” He muses. “If you tell me, I might let you have a taste of me before we leave. How does that sound?”

You choke, too taken aback to say a word. Why did he have to make it sound so dirty when nothing was going to happen!?

“Vice cap—”

You barely manage to get his title out before Lohen's lips are on you, silencing every sentence that you had fought to piece together.

Turns out, the air in his lungs aren’t the only thing hot inside of his body. His tongue (the same one you've seen used to snap back at your shared comrades with cold remarks) finds an opening past your lips and leaves a blazing path in its wake, claiming your mouth with the same dominance he shows on the battlefield. With a tilt of his head, he pushes himself deeper inside you, keeping you on your toes as he fights his way into your self conciousness, forcefully filling your thoughts with him and only him with his kisses.

“Tch, not enough…”

Lohen pulls away and clicks his tongue for a brief moment before sealing his lips on top of yours again. This time, he pushes your body to the closest wall and crushes you between it and his body, letting you feel the thin belts dangling loosely around his thighs and his thigh strap all digging into your flesh at once. The rough manuever causes strands of his teal blue hair to fall out of his hair, brushing against your face like a paintbrush drawing on a blank canvas.

A sane person might call this feeling overwhelming but none of you can truly be called sane right now. Not when one of you is currently battling with the forces of gravity to pull you inside of him, while the other of you is letting him do it.

He doesn't give you time to breathe, doesn't want to. His hands grip your hands with the force of a bow with its string pulled, pressing you against the wall until you are squeezed to his body as tightly as possible like the belt you were oh so jealous of. He doesn't even try to pull away with his head starts to feel dizzy from the lack of air. The exhilaration and excitement pushes him to take more, take everything that belongs to you and keep it for himself.

It doesn't come as a surprise to anyone when you showed up to the orientation late with a few bright hickies blooming on your neck.

【Bonus】

“So, why are you dressed like that!?”

You finally manage to ask the one question you have been dying to know.

While you frantically try to find your lost clothing scattered all across his floor, Lohen leisurely buttons up the few buttons on his shirt while humming.

“Like I said, grandmaster's orders. Instead of greeting the new recruits like everyone else, I've been tasked with testing the new recruits. To ensure that they don't pose a threat to the knights nor Mondstadt. ”

“... Did he also ask you to dress in your old adventurer’s clothes, or was that a decision you made on your own?”

“Hm, who knows~ But if I had earlier known that you liked this outfit so much, I would've worn them in front of you much sooner.”

“Please don't. I'm begging you.”

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. And underneath that, there was the thing he did not say. 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 forthe 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 dorm but unfortunately Dex did not 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 your own 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!)

Tucked away from the others, it feels like Javier and you are in your own little world. Branched off from the weight of life. This is your own small earth with the campfire as your sun and rum as your rivers. It definitely has been flowing in streams. You got this bottle from the money of your first stagecoach robbery you did the other day. You planned and directed the entire job by yourself. Raising your arm, you hold it out to him.

Javier takes it, stares at it for a second before bringing the glass to his lips. As you watch his throat bob each time he swallows, you let your mind drift to certain places. You’ve had your eyes on him for a long time now. How could you not? He’s so devastatingly handsome when his fingers dance across the strings of his guitar or when his singing carries through camp. Or when the blade of his knife seemingly flies over his hand whenever he shows off at five finger fillet.

Form the pale lines adorning his skin, markings from blades that nicked him back when he fled his home to the pristine shine of his shoes. Some of the others make fun of him for being so meticulous regarding his appearance, but you like it. It gives him an air of pride like an exotic bird or perhaps a wild stallion that refuses to be broken in.

“Aren’t you tired?”, you ask and tilt your head to the side. His eyes briefly flicker in your direction.

“No. Are you?”

“A bit, but I don’t want to go to bed just yet.” The hour might be late, but the night is still young for you. After all, how often does it happen that you end up completely alone with the man who has taken residence in your mind? The alcohol’s heat travels down from your chest to your lower stomach.

As he fishes out a white box from his pocket and tucks a cigarette between his lips, you wonder how it must feel to be in that spot. You like to imagine his lips to be soft and warm, perhaps a little wet from his tongue darting out to brush over them. When he holds the box out to you, you curl your own lips.

“Do you want one?”, he asks and you don’t miss the sliver of urgency swaying in his tone. It’s like he wants you to take it. Emboldened by the rum, you shift closer until your shoulders are nearly touching and pinch the cigarette in his mouth between your fingers. When you slowly pull it out to take a puff from it, you believe to detect a hint of his taste lingering on it. But maybe it’s just wishful thinking.

“Thank you.”, you murmur and watch his throat bob again.

As you hand it back to him, he gapes at it dumbfounded for a hot minute before shoving the stick back into his mouth. A flush creeps up into his face and spreads over his cheeks. Judging by the way his eyebrows are drawn together, one might think that he’s upset over your forwardness. If it only wasn’t for the subtle twitch of the corners of his mouth to indicate his delight.

“You know what? I feel like we don’t spend enough time together.”, you point out, which is not entirely true. The two of you are always together, whether it be late at night by the campfire or early in the morning while sipping at your coffee.

The girls know of your fascination or crush or however your want to call it and something tells you that he does too. Just the other day, you told Karen how much you enjoy watching and hearing him play and he’s been following you around with his guitar ever since. That’s when you figured that he must have overheard the conversation. That and Javier isn’t exactly subtle with his advances.

He’s brass and loud, puffing out his chest and flaunting his feathers like a peacock. You’ve seen it before whenever he tries to woo a lady at some saloon or bar and you always chuckle over it. Until he directed all of it at you and that’s when the laughter ceased, because shit. You’re kind of into it. It went from giggling to chewing on your lower lip while imagining that loud, proud voice turning into a moan and groan.

“You’re so right.”, he hastily answers and you stifle a huff. Knowing him, you could suggest diving naked into a frozen lake and he’d agree.

Raising the bottle, you go to take another sip when you spill some of the rum over your chin. You may have miscalculated the distance or missed the target entirely. Either way, it’s stupid. Perhaps you should lay off the liquor for a few seconds. You’re not downright drunk, but feeling fuzzy enough to qualify as tipsy. The dark liquid rolls down your throat and you catch a few drops with your thumb before they can vanish into the valley between your breasts.

Bringing the thumb up to your mouth, you suck the rum off it and catch Javier’s gaze. His eyes have definitely followed the pearls that had traveled down your skin and now he’s absolutely transfixed on the digit between your lips. Smooth for sure isn’t a word you’d use to describe him. Still, pride swells inside your chest at the reaction you’re tearing out of him.

“I’m bored.”, you declare and panic washes over his face.

“What?”, he stammers and laughs. “Is there anything I can help with?”

Rolling your eyes with such force that it leaves them sore, you wonder whether you should start walking around with a sign around your neck that says ‘I have the hots for you, idiot’.

“Well, that really depends.”, you say. Your frustration has oddly enough gone by unnoticed.

“On what?”

“If you want to find a quiet spot with me.”

The words hang in the air for an agonizingly long time. You start to feel like you perhaps misread all the signs and that Javier isn’t interested in you at all. Suddenly, he flicks the cigarette into the fire and takes your hand. Relief shoots through your body at the response and the certainty behind it. Standing up, you quietly lead him to where the wagons are parked.

They’re off to the side and since they’re so far away from everything important like Mr. Pearson’s makeshift kitchen and Herr Strauss’ medical supplies, nobody has their tent set up nearby. Hidden behind one of the wagons, you lean your back against the wood and chew on the inside of your cheek to avoid the goofy grin that is threatening to spread. It’s been so long since you’ve been with another person, let alone felt the touch that wasn’t purely platonic.

Javier stands in front of you, both hands kind of dangling helplessly by his sides as if he’s still unsure whether you’re genuine with your suggestion.

“Is that how you bed all your women? Just standing there and gawking?”, you tease between giggles and he clears his throat.

“No!”, he protests and as if to proof a point, grabs handfuls of your waist. His fingers dig into the fabric of your blouse and you imagine his fingers moving over you like they do over his guitar. Quick and nimble. Patience running thin, you let your own palms wander across his chest and stomach. Even under the layer of his shirt and vest, you can tell that he works hard. All those jobs that Dutch sends him out on must have done something to him.

One hand travels upward, over the curve of his neck and his soft jaw. Stubbles tickle the tips of your fingers and you curl a loose hair strand around it. Both your mouths hang open in silent anticipation and partly because dealing with the tension is an effort in and of itself. Your chests are heaving from doing absolutely nothing at all.

“Javier.”, you whisper, his name rolling over your tongue like exquisite wine. It leaves your mouth as a breath and he sucks it right in. Next thing you know, his lips collide with yours and you lose yourself in a whirlwind of heat and desire. His tongue slides past your lips and brushes over your own. He tastes of the rum that you shared and the spices that Miss Grimshaw had snuck into the stew.

Your teeth clash occasionally and you trap his lower lip in between them. As you give it a soft tug, you steal a groan from his throat. Growing bolder from the sound, you bite down harsher and you feel his hands tremble over your body.

“Mierda.”, he hisses, grabs your chin and push your head to the side. Your cheek is pressed against the wagon as he dips his head to leave a trail of open-mouthed kisses along your jaw and neck. The tip of his tongue grazes over your skin, licking up any remaining rum that you had accidentally spilled over yourself.

Both of you are moving clumsily. The kisses are wet and sloppy, more as if you’re trying to devour one another instead of catching a taste. You’re past the stage of developing an appetite. Now you’re just fucking starving. Javier’s hands grab fistfuls of your blouse and with one strong pull, the buttons give in under the strain. Fabric tears and some of the stitches come loose. Majority of the buttons are still attached, but some of the less lucky ones were sent flying onto the ground.

A gasp leaves your lungs as the cold night air hits your exposed breasts. He clasps a hand over the tender skin and gives it a firm squeeze. The brashness of his action should have left you in outrage. After all, this is your favorite blouse. But it only feeds the ache between your legs and giving you the sense as if your body is melting away in that spot.

His tongue finds your hardened nipples, swirling around and pressing into them. While he’s busy kissing one, his thumb is playing with the other. Pinched gently between his fingers, he tugs and squeezes, playing you like an instrument. Heat rolls over your body. Your blood is on fire. Flames are dancing underneath your skin, leaving you dizzy and yearning.

The hair on his mustache tickles your skin as his mouth sweeps down your stomach and he drops to his knees. As his hands grip the rim of your skirt to hike it up, your own shoot forward to stop him by his wrists.

“What is it?”, he asks, concern swimming in his voice.

“I didn’t wash off today.”, you point out and wrinkle your nose. What is he going to think when he lifts your skirt and is greeted with the smell of sweat?

Something flashes in his eyes when you mention your situation. Wild and hungry. His hand vanishes underneath the fabric and slides up your leg. When she reaches the delicate skin inside your thighs, you can tell that he can feel your wetness already. And when he’s at your damp bloomers, a smile spreads on his lips.

“I’ll do anything.”, he murmurs as his fingers weasel their way into your underwear and brush over your dripping folds. When he pulls the hand back, you can only stare in awe as he brings them up to his mouth to lick them clean. His gaze flickers in your direction, as if to ask silently for permission. When you nod, his head disappears underneath the skirt and he slowly lets your bloomers fall down to pool around your ankles.

Next thing you know, your leg is thrown over his shoulder and you press yourself against the wagon for balance. Your breath gets caught in your throat and you momentarily forget how to breathe from all the anticipation. The only thing you know is that he’s close. You can tell so from his hot breath hitting your skin and his beard brushing over the thick curls between your legs.

Then two fingers part your folds and a shaky moan leaves him. It takes all your willpower not to grab him by the back of his neck and grind against his face. As much as you’d like to ride that pretty nose of his, you’re letting him take the pace with this one. Something wet touches you then. His tongue. Its tip is probing and prying at your entrance, before pressing flat against your cunt and running along it. He repeats the motion a few times, always pulling back right before he gets to your clit.

Desire clouds your mind, leaving it heavier than the alcohol did. You’re not tipsy on the rum anymore. Now you’re just drunk on whatever Javier is doing down there. Your chest rises and falls rapidly, accompanied by soft whimpers. Eyes closed shut, you spread your arms in search for an edge or handle. Anything you can hold on to. Finally, his tongue flicks over your clit that is slightly swollen from arousal.

Stars explode behind your eyelids and you quickly clasp a hand over your mouth to muffle whatever noise is forcing its way out of you. Javier repeats the motion. The part of him that was so keen on teasing and torturing you has disappeared into thin air. He’s equally as hungry and impatient, lapping at your pussy like a madman. Sometimes there’s a rhythm to it and other times there isn’t.

During one of the latter of the two, you frantically hike up your own skirt until his hair is somewhat exposed and you bury your fingers in the dark, thick locks. Holding him tight in your grasp, you nudge him closer to your throbbing core. It tears a low, filthy moan out of him. His own hands have an iron grip on your thighs as if you’re the one keeping him steady instead of the other way around.

“Yes.”, he groans against your cunt. “Please, ride my face. Oh, please.”

His tongue is sticking out, having completely given up on trying to find a somewhat steady pattern. You grind your clit over it, occasionally missing your mark and gliding over his nose instead. Most of your weight is on his shoulder, otherwise you’d slide down the wagon and topple onto the ground. On second thought, you don’t think that you’d mind it if he decides to ravish you on the forest floor.

Whatever drop he can catch, he’s drinking it up. Drinking you up. With one arm firmly wrapped around your thigh right next to his head, he takes his free hand to reach out for you. Through your desperate thrusts, he somehow manages to find your folds without accidentally scratching you and slides a finger in. The second one follows shortly after, practically being sucked up along.

Curling them up, the tips are pressing against your g-spot and your movements falter. Seizing the brief break, his tongue flicks over your clit once more while he pumps his fingers in and out of you in sync. They stretch your walls and vanish inside you all the way up to his knuckles. Something wet runs along your leg and seeps into your shoe. It’s a shame that he’s hidden between your legs this way. You would have loved to watch him at work, see the flush over his cheeks and your wetness coat his face,

“I’m so close.”, you alert him, but you’re not certain that he heard you. He continues his assault on your sensitive nerves and flesh. The orgasm Javier draws out of your is devastating. All strength flees out of your muscles at once and you have to grip onto the edges of the wagon for dear life to not collapse right then and there.

A strangled gasp passes your lips and your eyes are open wide. Hips spasming, you try to pull away, but his tongue is still lapping at your clit. He’s relentless as he eats you out, while his fingers massage your g-spot with a vigor you’ve never seen a man do before. White dots dance in your vision from the overstimulation and the knot that just loosened in your stomach tightens again. It’s as hard as iron and your body is as tense as a drawn bowstring.

The second orgasm feels like a brick to the face. It knocks the air out of your lungs and you sink. Knees unable to keep you upright, they buckle and that’s the only reason he stops. Lips letting go of your clit with a squelching plop, his arms shoot forward to steady you. Your breath leaves your mouth in gusts of clouds. When his head appears again from underneath your skirt, he’s a mess.

The skin around his lips is glistening in the dim moonlight, his mustache and goatee are completely drenched and his hair resembles more a bird’s nest. His eyes are on fire, almost gleaming in the darkness. While still holding onto you, he stands back up on his feet and his lips find yours. The kiss is a little slower to allow you catch your breath again.

Your eyes roll to the back of your skull when you taste yourself on his tongue. His mouth is slick from both you and his saliva that is escaping from out the corner and rolling along your jaw. Pushing your body against his, you feel him hard against your lower stomach. Lust still pumps through your veins and you pull at the waistband of his pants.

Javier immediately understands and his hands fly down to unbuckle his belt. As he works on the buttons of his pants, you relax against the solid wood behind you and kick the bloomers out of the way that are still hanging at your ankle. Dirt covers the white fabric, staining it in dark specks, but you push that thought to the side. Hiking up your skirt again, Javier positions himself between your legs.

One of them is up again, wrapped around his waist and he holds it almost the same as before. As he draws closer, you feel his tip brushing over the damp skin on the inside of your thighs. Reaching for the base of his cock, you let your fingers glide over the curls surrounding it. They’re thick, yet at the same time so soft. Holding onto his shaft, you guide him to your core that is beginning to ache with need again.

Javier slides in with ease, stretching your walls more than you could have ever expected. More than you could have ever hoped for. A shaky breath pushes out of him and he draws his brows together. Focus is edged into his features as if he’s fighting the urge to cum right then and there. Snaking both arms around his neck, you plant a kiss on the corner of his mouth before sinking your teeth into his lower lips once more.

“I need you.”, you whisper into his ear with a sultry voice. If he does finish before starting, you’re not going to be upset. On the contrary, it would be a compliment. “I need you so much.”

He whines in response and buries his face into the crook of your neck. Sweat coats his forehead, smearing it over your shoulder, but you don’t mind. You’re quite sweaty yourself.

“Thank you.”, he stutters breathlessly.

Before you can even think about asking what exactly he’s thanking you for, he pulls out only to push himself back in. Veins drag along your walls. You feel each and everyone of them. The pace is agonizingly slow, but deep enough that you keep any pleas to speed things up to yourself. Having never caught a glimpse of the length between his legs, you always guessed him to be average at most.

How wrong you had been. It feels like he’s splitting you in half. With each thrust, his tip kisses your cervix, though it feels more like he’s reaching all the way up to your throat. You feel the stretch deep within you, feel how his length caresses your g-spot amongst many other sensitive spots that you had no idea even existed.

Every now and then he stops in the middle of it, trembling and panting. The attempts at composure last longer each time. The first few only took a couple of seconds, but now you get the sense that whole minutes are passing. Your hands drag over his shoulders and slip around his waist to his back. Burying your fingers into the vest, you yank him closer into your body. Breasts pressed against his chest, you’re certain that he can feel your nipples through his clothes.

The action has driven his cock deeper into you. The smack of wet skin on wet skin must have been heard throughout the entire camp. Luckily everyone is asleep.

“You feel so good.”, you coo into his ear and a quiver runs through his muscles. You had no idea that he’d be so responsive to praise.

“Thank you.”, he mumbles into your neck. His voice cracks at the end.

“Yes, that’s it. Right there. Oh, Javier, you’re so good.”

Each compliment dropping from your lips has him speed up. By the tenth or so, he’s fucking you in earnest. His hips snap forward like an animal heat, driving his cock into you relentlessly. The pleasure has you both tense and loose. With your back arched and head tipped backwards, Javier seizes the access. His mouth is over your throat, sucking, licking and biting. It’ll definitely leave marks for everyone to see the next day.

The grip he has on your thigh is bruising, but you barely even notice. You’re too focused chasing your orgasm as his thrusts shake your body like an earthquake. The pace is set is rough and punishing, abusing your throbbing cunt over and over. It’s the best you’ve ever felt.

“Keep going just like this.”, you moan, feeling yourself dance on the edge of a knife.

Whatever answer Javier wants to say is being muffled by your skin. His teeth bore deeper into your flesh, sending a stinging pain through your veins and that is all you need. As the spot that he’s biting burns as if someone put out a cigarette it, his tip is hitting a particularly sensitive spot inside you. The third orgasm of the night washes over you like a bucket of ice-cold water.

It’s both agony and bliss. You feel as if you’re feeling into an endless pit, but at the same time lifted high into the sky. When you clench around his cock, quivering, Javier follows you over the edge right after. Hot ropes of cum shoot into your cunt and he still rolls his hips forward as if to make sure that not a single drop goes to waste.

Some of it manages to leak out and run down both your legs like white pearls. For the longest time, the two of you remain frozen in this position and you can feel him turn soft inside you. When he finally finds the strength to pull out, you feel awfully empty. More of his semen follows, falling onto the ground with a splat.

The night lies completely silent, aside from your heavy breathing and you brush some of the hair strands out of his face that are sticking to his sweaty forehead. The scent of forbidden sex fills the air, clinging to your bodies and clothes. Javier mumbles more words of gratitude as he plants a trail of kisses over the side of your face.

“You’re so beautiful.”, he murmurs. “Oh, thank you. Thank you so much.”

His included.

You’re good at your job. It was one of the many first things he noticed about you, and it made his ears perk up whenever you spoke and the hair on the back of his neck stand to attention.

Like whatever words rolled off your tongue was something he’d want to know, something he needed to know because missing it felt detrimental.

Whatever world you were brought into, clearly far too young, has shaped you into a person who completely understood objective. The cold hard truth of it in the unconventional, and more importantly how necessary it is.

And yet somehow, after he’d come back from something terrible and wretched in nature yet as easy as breathing, disgustingly normal for him with blood still splattered on his suit - you’d have a soft smile. Gentle, like reality held no meaning and the diner is going to close in an hour and you still have to be up for three hours so come with me Dex!

You’d drag him by his jacket like he’s a puppy who can’t be let off the leash too long or he’ll do something you don’t have enough money to pay for.

And he’d follow like he didn’t just end someone’s life hours before, and yet somehow he still deserved to have your hand on him and your late night grin beaming towards him in the midnight streets of New York.

Your energy is like a vortex of something that wants to peel away at him, pick at his brain and settle yourself between matter. He doesn’t get it. In a lot of ways it frustrates him, makes his skin itch a little because people aren’t just like that.

They don’t ask you how you’re feeling when you’ve still got fresh blood on your hands, or steal sips of your coffee and pretend they don’t see you subtly lick the edge of the cup where their mouth just was.

And yet, he felt the buzz in his brain start.

It started as a hum in the back of his skull, and yeah of course it was nice to go out for for breakfast at three A.M with a beautiful woman and chat business that always turned into talking about what movie you’d watched recently and how it changed your life.

And then he’d start talking about a mixtape that meant everything to him when he was nine and had no one but the boys in the orphanage who thought he was a fucking freak to talk about it with.

All because you asked what his favorite song is since he’s always wearing those ancient headphones, and maybe it was the faux compartmentalized safety box that he’d put you in that made it so easy.

Second arm to his boss, to a job he needs because structure had become wonky and he couldn’t have that. Not now, not after everything.

The hum quickly became a horrible, gluttonous, deafening roar.

He had, and still has no rational explanation. He knows the basics, he’s a man, and you’re you and you’re in close proximities and it is literally your job to make sure he is alive and well and every cog in the machine is well oiled.

So at his big age he should be able to differentiate between your professional and personal relationship. You meant something to Charles that wasn’t quite like a daughter, but something close and too parental in nature for Dex to understand anyways. He didn’t know what that even meant.

But Dex has never had a crush.

The word feels so fucking juvenile in his head, something from a life he’s never had and never will have. He has never felt love. Real, true, honest to god love.

He only knows the intensity of something under his skin, something that festers and writhes and aches inside of him. It crawls through veins and tendons and muscle and the framework in his spine and it beckons him.

So it did not take long for you to fester within him. To spread to every thought that wasn’t about his next hit or organizing his weaponry. Even doing the dishes, he wondered what you were doing in that exact moment.

Brushing your hair, your teeth? Were you still asleep and wrapped in your covers that he envied because they get to be bunched between your arms and legs and against your stomach?

You even seeped into the mundane everyday parts of life like something divine and real. When he did his laundry he thought of what you wore to bed and what soap you used and how you smell.

When he made his bed he thought about what your weight would feel like against his mattress, how your frame would ruffle the duvet and he’d be okay with it. And how the springs might creak when he crawls on top of you and kisses your sternum and makes a mess out of the softness between your legs.

Fuck.

He could lie and say he tried to fight it, but he’s more than grown now. He can take accountability. He’s just exercising a little free will, and he’s not hurting anyone, really.

No, this is the most devotional, wholehearted and earnest thing that he’s done in a very long time.

Your room is filled with your scent and he’s bathed in the glow of it like a wash of fresh air. His hands started shaking as soon as he walked in and felt surrounded by you, his belly hot and he really didn’t know what to do with himself with such an opportune moment.

His head went fuzzy, and his thoughts didn’t make sense anymore.

He scoped everything like forgetting would mean death. Your shaggy rug at the foot of your bed, your desk and the half open books and messy papers scattered everywhere. Your laptop still open and your chair rolled away like you got up and never sat back down.

Your bed is softer than his, and fluffy blankets surround your bedposts and there is no creaking of the springs when he sits himself down. You don’t make it in the morning like he does because the covers are still thrown from your spot and crumpled, pillow still indented with the shape of your head.

His fingertips graze the pink fabric and it lights something dangerous and hot inside of him very very quickly.

First it’s his palm on the sheets cause he wants to know if he can feel even the ghost of your heat when you lied here, and then his knees are on the mattress and god you really do smell so sweet, and then his face is in your pillow and he’s inhaling like a mad man.

He lets out a guttural groan, the blood rushing to his head as fast as it is to his dick and in the haze of it all he feels his hips buck unconsciously. Like his subconscious felt your insides too just then.

He doesn’t think about it. He can’t, or he’ll dwell and convince himself that he’s better than this. And he doesn’t want to be.

He just flips himself around, thick fingers fumbling with his belt buckle with all the trembling, and when he’s unbuckled he doesn’t even pull his pants down all the way to his knees before reaching for his weeping cock from the fold in his briefs.

He lets out a sigh of relief when the cool air from your overhead fan hits it, propping himself up on one elbow and letting his thick thighs part a little further. His feet are touching the ground, heavy boots scrunching your rug underneath their rubber soles.

He’s so hard it hurts, the tip is pink and leaking dribbles of iridescent precum down the thick of his veiny shaft.

His hand is as hot as his manhood when he wraps his thick fingers around himself and tugs with a dirty smirk and a half chuckle of disbelief that he’s so pent up. He hasn’t cum in months, and now this is happening.

“Fuck.”

He breathes out, hamstrings tightening along with his abdomen when the callouses tucked inside his fingers graze his sensitive mushroom head.

It’s dirty, and he feels like a teenager all over again because he’s staring at all of your stuff and is envious of everything that’s ever gotten to see you in your most human version.

He’s blushing at the thought of laying on the same bed you do.

He writhes his hips into his hand, pants like a dog in heat. He’s started getting a bit too messy, precum soaking into his underwear at this base. He’s still in a lustful haze when he’s looking off to his right and sees a haphazard piece of clothing that’s barely hanging off of your bed.

He twists his torso and grabs it like it owes him money. It’s inside out but he sees flashes of the white lettering on the front of the green fabric and he moans out loud. It’s one of your favorite tee shirts, you wear it to work at least three times a week and you’ve worn it on your after hours restaurant runs too.

He shoves it to his face, and if he’d done it any harder he’d break his nose but he doesn’t care. The smell of you after a shower and a night of sleep fills his senses, clouds him like a rainstorm and he’s so lost, so deep in it now so quickly.

He whimpers into the fabric, rocks his hips and the sound of his own arousal leaking out of him and being used as lube while he touches himself fills the room. He’s dragging his hand from his tip all the way down, and his head is just images of what you might feel like pulsing around him.

What it would be like if you were here right now on top of him, spread open on his thick lap and taking him to the hilt. Insides all battered and soft and sensitive. Crying his name over and over again. Getting him wet and messy and sticky.

“Fuuuuuck, baby fuck.”

It’s incoherent with your shirt pressed to his nose and mouth, at least that’s what Dex would be thinking if he had any thoughts other than your cunt and the shape of your mouth and the feeling of your cervix.

You’re honestly astonished he hasn’t heard you yet. He’s one of the best you guys have, so perceptive it’s almost superhuman and his reflexes are some of the best you’ve ever seen.

You, however, are quieter. Clearly. And it’s endearing, to see him through the crack in the door and understand almost immediately that he is the human embodiment of starvation and desperation.

It makes you gasp, because he’s so big and dressed in all black in your frilly room and the juxtaposition makes your insides throb. Of course it’s also the sounds he’s making, they’re whiny and loud your his whole hand is wrapped across his mouth with your shirt directly underneath.

It’s seeing a version of him that you never even fathomed would come to life. You didn’t even know it was this serious for him despite the fact that you knew his gaze lingered on you longer than normal during interactions.

Your heart feels like it’s going to leap out of your chest and onto the floor with a loud, squelchy thump.

You’re not disturbed, and that’s the most concerning part. But you’ve read up on his file over a hundred times now, of course. You know he’s not…conventional in his proclivities. You know he’s suffered, that it’s altered him permanently.

And you’ve spent time with him in the outside world, away from the murder and secrecy of your work life. You know what a real smile looks like when it spreads across his broad mouth, what a genuine satisfied hum sounds like when he takes a sip of his drink and it’s the right balance of milk and sugar.

And maybe you’ve always had a soft spot for the fucked up ones. For the ones that need to latch onto someone so badly they’d hang on until their fingers bleed. Because all you know how to do is help.

However, you can’t think too much about it right now when you’re distracted by how pretty his dick looks in his big hand and how neatly shaven he is or how his greying hair is getting long and you want to run your hands through it and tuck it behind his ears.

You just know you have to open your bedroom door all the way, so your hands find the cold knob and you’re pushing it open with a tepid step.

Dex stills, everything locking into place all at once. A series of thoughts run through his head very quickly, almost too fast for him to decide on one.

Ultimately, you didn’t break the door down. Or barge in with a gun aimed at his forehead although he’d kind of like that. In fact, you’re looking at him in a way that makes his balls tighten and his manhood twitch in his hold unconsciously. His body is just responding.

It’s not so much shock, or surprise or disgust. It’s like you’re curious, utterly transfixed by what’s taking place despite the fact that he’s staring dead at you and is slowly lowering your shirt to his lap over his erection and his cheeks and neck couldn’t be more beet red under any other circumstances.

“I have cameras, you know.”

Your voice hits him like a punch to the gut, he has to stop himself from doubling over a little because the taboo nature of the scenario is really fucking doing it for him and where someone normal would feel humiliation, Dex feels thrilled.

He’s been caught, and more so, he’s been surveilled while he thought he was being incognito and expertly smart about breaking and entering.

He looks like something scary and hungry right now, you can see his cock bobbing under your shirt where it’s covering him. He’s still panting, hair a little slick with sweat and you wanna lick the bead that trickles over his forehead and down the sharp bridge of his nose.

He looks like a person. Not a case file, not a weapon, not Bullseye. Just a man. And it makes you squeeze your thighs together when his eyes rake over you like he’s not ashamed of what he’s doing right now.

“You saw me come in?”

He asks, and his voice is rough like it has the permission to be when he’s pleasuring himself in your room. Completely wired and completely fucked. He licks his lips without thinking.

And now you’re advancing towards him, and you gently kick the door shut with the heel of your boot and he thinks he might spontaneously combust when it closes with a thud. He watches you like every step means something prophetic.

“I wanna know something,” You ignore his question, and he swallows so hard you hear it. He lets out a soft grunt of surprise when you’re finally so close he can map out details in your expression and feel your body heat in rivelets.

Your eyes are innocent and sparkling, head cocked a little.

You’re enjoying this.

Dex controls the cocky smirk threatening to spread on his face. He adjusts himself because he’s so sensitive and so unbelievably pent up and of course you’d have to be, well, like this.

Looking at him with saucers for eyes, breathing heavy.

“Yeah? What’s that?”

He asks, and now his heart is in his throat because you’re kneeling beside him on the bed, situating one foot under your bum and your weight dips him towards you a little and fuck. He’s ruining your shirt.

“You didn’t even go for my underwear drawer,”

You reach out and touch his face with your middle finger, grazing the scar on his cheek before tracing his jaw and chin. Then you’re pushing his hair back from his eyes and everything in his body starts vibrating.

He’s done something good. He must have, to earn this.

“you just saw a shirt I wear almost everyday and started touching yourself.”

Your hand doesn’t leave his face. It lingers and sears him, if he could see himself it’d be a sore sight. He’s molding himself to the curve of your palm and makes no effort to deny anything you’re saying.

“Thats kind of pathetic, Dex. Keep going.”

It’s a miracle he doesn’t cum from that alone. Nothing in his fantasies, nothing he’s fisted his cock to in the shower or humped his fucking mattress to could ever have conjured a sweeter vision than what’s in front of him.

He stutters when he speaks, trembling all over again with excitement and desire. Somewhere tucked away far and deep, he’s also nervous.

But you asked him nicely, and he can see your pulse thudding and feel how you’re starting to lean into him. He jumps a little when you reach out and pull your shirt off of the protrusion underneath it because it drags against him.

“You know I have cameras, Dex.”

Your breath is against the side of his face and he closes his eyes to savor it as he wraps his hand around the base of his shaft again. The goosebumps on his skin are tingling, and his blood is starting to swoosh inside his ears.

“You wanted me to watch. So move your hand, hmm?”

He couldn’t stop himself if he tried. He gives himself a long stroke because doing anything else seems futile and useless and everything that could matter is happening right now.

His forearm is thick and strong and you watch how everything flexes and relaxes with each drag.

“Yes ma’am.” It’s said sarcastically, teasing at the end and yet his voice cracks a little when he says it.

He’s been caught, and you’re here beside him encouraging him with your voice and hands. What more could he reduce himself to?

He’s so beautiful it hurts. You’ll be angry at him later, maybe say some stuff that would humiliate and degrade a regular person and mean nothing to him. You just can’t get over how palpable your presence is to him, how intensely it’s influencing him.

All that strength, and brute and broadness and he’s nothing but this blushing, stuttering mess who’s jerking off with you whispering in his ear.

You grip his jaw with little to no force, and predictably he offers you his neck with his head lolling to the left a bit. The sound that leaves him is guttural and nasty and honest. His whole body jerks at the contact too, but you’re distracted by the taste of his skin.

You get caught up sooner than you expected yourself to. You’re mouthing at his throat, his jaw, his ear lobes. And you can hear the sounds coming from between his legs, sloppy and wet and it’s all him. Not to mention he is practically a lit wire under your touch.

You catch his thick wrist in your hand and the tendons flex harshly in your light grip. He looks over at you and now you’re low lidded gaze to barely restrained lust, noses brushing. You let the air between your mouths burn with the need to vanish.

You swat his hand away and he listens silently, fists your bedsheets instead and god, his pupils completely blow out when your grip replaces his.

“Fuck.”

You let him whimper it into your mouth, swallowing it with your lips against his and there are too many pleasurable sensations at once. His brain is completely empty, not capable of any other thoughts. He tries to use his free hand to touch you, but you shove it to the side and he knows he needs to behave.

He pouts and it’s earnest disappointment, but it doesn’t linger for long.

His tongue is explorative, finding yours immediately like he’s thought about kissing you over a thousand times.

Cause he has.

And he’s so reactive in your palm, you feel his pulse through the veins and he’s twitching with each pass of your teeth over his bottom lip and your nose brushing against his.

“Thought about this for so long.”

He confesses it like it hurts, and you finally move your hand and his pretty hazel eyes roll back. You already miss it, his overawe gaze, and so you grip his thick throat just enough to grab his attention and fuck it does.

“Did you? You’re unbelievable, look at you Dex.”

You’re toying with him now. With his emotions. It seems that anything you say will dial him up to ten and it’s riveting. Your grip on his throat tightens just a little, Adam’s apple bobbing underneath your palm and his pulse fluttering like a moth underneath his flesh.

He looks at you with watery eyes, like everything is burning hot where embarrassment should be. Where shame should be. You lick his open mouth, taunting him despite the slickness between your thighs and the blossoming heat in your gut.

“When did you think about doing this? Tell me the truth, I know you can do it.”

He scrunches his eyebrows together when you start palming the tip of his velvety cock, focusing on the sensitive underside while trying to draw out a response. You tangle your free hand in his hair now, tugging. He makes a pathetic sound through his nose.

“A w-week after I met you, fuck slow down.”

He’s genuinely overwhelmed. You can’t believe it. He’s more capable of submission than you thought, more attuned to your movements and your voice than what seems possible for not having an intimate connection until now.

His scar twists everytime his mouth quirks from your hand stroking him, crows feet crinkling by his eyes.

You tug his head back by his scalp, kiss his throat again and this time you let your teeth graze the surface. Just testing the waters, and his stomach convulses.

You remove your hand and he could really cry. But you can feel that perhaps that was going to do him in, and he’d spill all over his lap and make a mess of your sheets and you just don’t want it to be over yet and neither does he and you both know that.

Shouldn’t he know how much you’ve thought of this too? How many nights you’ve touched yourself to the thought of him? How you came home the moment you saw him on your cameras?

“Please, goddamit.”

He curses, clenches his jaw and he’s only confused for a second whenever you bring your cupped hand up to his mouth. He meets your eye and you nod, he spits at once, and then your palm is back over him with the hot saliva coating his length.

He smirks again because you let out a small gasp you didn’t think he’d notice, his lovesick eyes wondering how your lips could be so kiss bitten and swollen already, how you’re doing so good at trying not to act like this isn’t working you up so bad you’re leaking and aching just like he is.

“You’re so big, I always knew you were.”

His head starts throbbing, you’re getting dangerously sweet on him. Now you’re focused on his cock, switching to the sight between his legs and then his face because you don’t know which one you’d rather admire.

And your body has gotten so close you might as well be on his lap now, your tits against his bicep and your knees knocking his hips. He wants to lift your skirt and bury himself between your thighs, to know what your face looks like when you’re getting fucked by him.

“You’ve thought about it too.”

You just smile at his musing, and it’s sweet and familiar and it’s the version of you that he knows so well and he surges forward to kiss you again. You’re receptive, suckling the bottom and using your grip on the hair at his nape as leverage.

It’s sloppy, wet and loud and he groans down your throat. Your stroking has picked up its pace, focused on the tip where that hot stickiness leaks and lavishing his shaft ever so often. You’ve now thrown a leg over his thigh, pulling it towards you and effectively spreading them apart further.

“Of course I have, look at you. You might never know how much I’ve really thought about you.”

You breathe it out, and his heart feels like it’s grown three sizes, like it’s being mutated in real time. It might be at risk for swelling so badly it bursts from behind his ribs.

He’d chuckle in disbelief if he weren’t ruined, gutted from the inside out.

And now you’re kissing all over his face, his sharp nose, the creases in his forehead and neck. You’re hot to the touch, almost as hot as he is and your movements are full of tremble like you’re forgetting you initially started in a position of control.

He wants you to get lost like he is. He wants you to not be able to control yourself, to have no lingering thoughts about anything other than him and his body and his mouth and how heavy he is in your grasp.

He wants you to consume him, wholly and completely.

His eyes are closed so all he feels is you crawling on top of him and he bucks his hips instinctually, the heat between your legs just above his left knee as you straddle it firmly.

It’s thick, meaty and the rough material of these black cargos he’s wearing bumps right against your clit through the fabric of your panties.

He wants to feel your naked hips underneath where your skirt has risen up around your soft waist, and your breasts in his palm and how your nipples would feel rubbing against his skin.

He feels you right here on his thigh and yet he knows that he wouldn’t risk moving a muscle without your permission as to not end what’s happening.

When you start rutting yourself on the fabric, though, dragging yourself all the way up and then down over his knee, he has to grab your hand and stop you from pumping him for a second

“Just a second…please.” He asks, and you oblige him only because he looks so pretty. God.

“Using your manners, good job Dex.”

You say it like you’re genuinely proud and his eyes flutter shut as you fight his hand and start stroking him again. He grits his teeth, jaw clenched so tight it could shatter but he is surrendering in a way he’s never surrendered before.

And you’re not lost on it. No, you’re good at reading people too. You can see how the praise colors him in a blanket of warmth and lust and lightheadedness.

But now your clit is throbbing and you feel yourself leaking into your panties, the fabric is sticking to you and drags wet heat against your slit whenever you grind against his thigh.

The sight is just too much for you. Everything is clinging to him, every muscle and ridge and scar. And he is so pliable, so heavy on your fingertips that you don’t know what to do with the reality of it all.

Your hips surge forward again, and a sigh so soft leaves your mouth that he hopes he can hear that sound forever. It’s an immediate realization, a blinding sensation. He sees you with so much clarity.

“You’re so fucking pretty.”

It comes out dazed and it takes you by surprise because you didn’t expect to ever hear the word pretty come out of his mouth. And for everything he is, all the horror and all the hurt and all the misunderstanding, honesty slips out of him like loose teeth when he’s around you.

He’s pliant when you pull him to your mouth, and the kiss is raw now because you let him grab your face and his hands feel better against you than your thoughts previously cojurned in half asleep daydreams. They’re big and rough and his fingers are eager just to feel your soft cheeks, the curve of your nose.

His mouth is vicious and his tongue is greedy, and he’s making little plaintive cries in the back of his throat like your lips might be his immediate demise and he’s thankful for it, grateful for it.

“More, give me more.”

You say it like a demand but your voice is thin and weak and he just bucks his strong hips to readjust before using two hands under your ass to slide you over the shaft of his cock.

You’re planted with his length directly against your covered slit and it’s heavy and hot and twitches against you when your body recognizes what’s touching you. Who it belongs to. What situation you’ve gotten yourself into and you know you won’t refuse him. That he can’t refuse you.

Your thighs squeeze together, trapped by his broad waist in between them. You feel him everywhere already, the push and pull. Not to mention you’re sticky where he’s bobbing against you, and his chest couldn’t be more prominent through his shirt when he’s heaving like he is.

“Whatever you want. Take it from me. I’m yours, fuuuuuck f-fuck are you-“

He’s never felt anything like it, the softness of your slit and how you could be so syrupy and wet already, seeping and covering his pink tip in your essence. You’re so hot between your legs it’s making him lightheaded.

And he really is stunned in place. His body reacts for him, stomach tensing and torso attempting to grind up into you and the worst part is that you let him. That you’re allowing any of this.

Because now it’s made a home in him, not just the scrunch of your nose when something makes you laugh, genuinely laugh, or the skin by your fingers that you’ve chewed off, or your cunt rutting against him.

He’s already not the same, whatever infatuation he had is now dangerous and heady and sifting through his head like it’s trying to find ways to make it stop because he really needs this job.

Unfortunately, he needs you more.

Because now he’s gripping your hips and prying his arm underneath your ass to pull your panties to the side and you’re caged against him with the air knocked out of your lungs. He’s solid and strong and you’re clumsy when you reach between your bodies to grab his cock and shove it past your silken slit.

You lift yourself by the knees, and then lower yourself and he’s completely seated inside of you with one exhale and maybe if it were anyone else you’d be embarrassed about the noise that leaves you.

“Oh god, fuck.” You whimper it out, and he trembles. The stretch is severe.

You cling onto his shoulders and he’s so hyper aware of the pouting of your lips and the scrunch between your brows, your eyes closing like you’re savoring him. He’s should feel guilty for his thoughts, for how insatiable and miserable he’ll make you if you ever try to leave because you’re fluttering around his cock and he’s kissing your cervix.

“Take your time, not going anywhere.”

He encourages, and you don’t really know what to do with yourself because minutes ago you thought you had your head on straight, that you knew how to navigate all of this and all of, well, him.

But he’s big and throbbing against your gummy walls and you didn’t think you could ever feel so full of someone. It’s incredible how he can become Dex so quickly, not the new hire or the assassin or the anti hero or the mercenary.

He’s greying hair and scarred skin and rushing blood beneath you. And when your arms fasten themselves tighter around his freckled neck, he drags himself out slowly, savoring the syrupy glide before pushing himself back in to the hilt.

You melt against him further, body weakening with the intensity and he smiles to himself, satisfied and sanguine at your disarming. At how your hips couldn’t be more loose on top of him, with all that tension and tightness right where he’s disappearing inside of and your voice all gooey and soft now in his ear.

God, he couldn’t have dreamed it would go like this.

“You’re p-perverted for breaking in.”

You taunt him while he begins pistoning himself inside of you, hiccuping each syllable. The sound of your wetness is as loud as his jerking off was, a terribly gut wrenching sound that makes his possessiveness that much worse.

And your words, they shouldn’t make him shudder and convulse the way they do but you’re saying it while he’s fucking you and you just can’t really blame him.

Your fingers are holding onto the back of shirt so tight, your cheek planted against the nook of his jaw and shoulder. You’re putty in his arms, and they’re tighter by the minute in their hold on your middle.

His hips are so powerful, and you wish you could think about how bad of an idea this is. You wish you could break yourself out of your fucked out stupor, but you didn’t know he’d fuck you this good. You didn’t know that he’d be so deep inside you’re sure you’ll be able to feel him tomorrow.

“I know shhh, I know,”

he grunts it against your hair, starts searching for the skin of your neck. He just hovers there with parted lips and a red face and that hot wetness hugging him with each thrust.

“but l-look at us, you feel so goooood fuck, look how it turned out, yeah?”

He sounds dirty, menacingly nasty in what he’s saying and how he’s saying it and most of all how true it is. You love it, it’s terrible that you love it and yet you were buzzing with excitement when you checked your cameras and saw his big frame sauntering in.

The wet squelching sounds between your legs intensify, and somewhere between the grind of your hips and your teeth against his neck you’re crying his name.

“Dexxxx, ohhhh my g-god, baby.”

His hips genuinely stutter and his stomach starts fluttering, you feel him tense and relax three times over and his torso grinds into you a bit harsher than before.

He never thought he’d hear you call him that, and he’s glad you can’t see his face because his expression is so fucked.

That word is reserved for people who care about each other. For people in love. For people who can say soft things and not feel ridiculous and out of place or like they don’t deserve to hear it at all.

“Don’t stop, j-just don’t stop please.” You beg petulantly, hands rubbing his broad back, ignoring the way his pace has faltered and he’s softly panting in your ear.

He laughs, and it’s short lived and airy but you feel it in his chest. He grinds himself deep and unfairly into you, pushing you down on him while he’s fucking up into you. He feels the blunt ends of your nails leaving crescent moons in his skin.

“W-why would I stop? I can’t, I can’t.”

It’s true, he can’t fathom it. The thought doesn’t even seem feasible right now. You’re so tight, squeezing around him and he can feel your heartbeat inside of you. Rocks you against him sturdy and hard.

It feels like forever, with him pounding himself into you and your insides being bullied. In reality it’s only about five minutes, and you’ve been sucking on the side of his neck and his earlobe and he’s balls deep - writhing his hips.

Your clit is being rubbed by his pubic mound and you feel so much intensely deep pressure from his thick cock inside you that you’re sure you’re gonna burst. You’ve started pulsing too, milking him for everything he’s got.

He really didn’t know that he could feel things this intensely that aren’t anger or despair.

It starts unraveling when you take yourself out of the crook of his neck and meet his face. He swears he sees a little drool seeping from the corner of your mouth, and you’re looking at him like he’s a completely new person.

Or maybe he’d just never noticed it before, because he was too wrapped up in noticing you. And the idea of you noticing him too felt unrealistic.

But no, no it’s real and happening and you’ve got both hands on his cheeks and your nose is against his, your hips swiveling on top of him and your pussy making a mess on his lap that he’d frame if it were practical to do so.

“It’s all mine now, right?”

You kiss his mouth when you say it, and then your hand is splayed against the broadness of his flexing chest and you’re shoving him back until he’s lying down on your mattress, staring at you with so much devotion it’s scary.

You readjust while he’s still inside of you, leaning over to kiss him again and he knows he’s going to finish in this position. He’s already hiked his feet up on the bed to fuck you good and hard and he hates that his boots are on your pretty covers but he’ll wash them for you.

“I’m yours. My dick is yours. Everything. Take it, just like tha-a-at.”

He’s whining and blotchy, and the strain in his throat makes you double over because you feel the white hot tension move in your stomach when his cock curves into the deepest parts of you.

You want it to be true, all of it, and the physical reality is too much for you to handle.

You shove your face in his neck because you don’t want him to see how completely ruined you look when you cum. No, everything is shaking and you’re trying to close your legs and the tingling and throbbing is working its way through you like a virus that’s got to fever you first.

“O-ohhh god, Dex m’cumming.”

You slur it and he thinks he might pass out because he can feel it happening. He squeezes you harder than he has the whole night, holds your wriggling body firm against his frame when he starts delivering his last round of thrusts into your cunt.

It’s trying to push him out, it’s contracting around his cock and kissing it and weeping for it. He’s never been so high off of anything he’s done to another human being. Not even the most rectified kills have felt like this.

“Oh f-fuck, gonna fill you all the way up, mmfuck, you’ll take all of it honey, yeah yeah yeah.”

He sounds delusional and dizzy, he’s past the point of trying to sound nice or sweet because his balls are tightening where they’re still tucked in his briefs and he has to practice restraint like he’s never known so that he doesn’t crush you in his arms accidentally.

You put your tongue in his mouth when you feel the staccato thrusts, the immediate heat that swells in the space between your walls as he pumps his seed into you. And he’s moaning like he’s hurt, mmm’s and ooohhhhh’s and his teeth on full display like a wild animal from the curling of his lip.

You let your mouth linger on his while he’s twitching and you’re still pulsing.

His hands find your face, and he sloppily makes out with you, almost casually if it weren’t for the tremors in his wrists or the scrunch of his brows or the way he’s keeping himself inside of you while his cock softens.

He’s happy. He realizes that’s the emotion he’s feeling when you look him in the eyes again, and your face still hasn’t changed from that soft and frowny pleasure contorted look quite yet.

You don’t want it to end either.

You’re sobering up, and the ache still isn’t going away. You’ve completely crossed a line that has sent you into a realm you won’t come back from - because now he won’t ever be the same to you.

You know what he tastes like, what he sounds in your ear when he feels good, what he’s truly capable of when he’s got your body in his hands.

“Stay.” You don’t ask, just state it plainly like it’s already decided.

It crushes him from the inside out. It’s too much of a good thing that he’s never gotten and if he didn’t work with you everyday he’d think you were being cruel, offering him such a sweet thing.

Don’t you know it’ll make it worse? That now he’ll be in here every waking moment he’s not working? That he will memorize every part of your life that you think others will never notice?

“Really?”

He asks, and you don’t expect him to sound so small after all of that. To look so pitiful and blushed crimson and spent now, with blonde hair sticking to his forehead.

You nod, kissing his nose and his hands are smoothing over your shoulders, down your arms and over your back. Explorative and greedy and you arch into them.

“You can help me put my window lock back in place, creep.”

You stood in front of your mirror adjusting the lace-up straps of your floral-patterned sundress for what had to be the tenth time before sighing softly at yourself.

Karen would never let you live this down if she could see the nervous state of you now.

Your fingers brushed absentmindedly over the soulmate mark resting on your collarbone. The skin there felt warm today. Not burning, not aching, just warm like it was reacting to your nerves and excitement.

Sighing softly, you stepped away from the bedroom mirror and grabbed your bag just as a knock sounded at your apartment door.

Your heartbeat stumbled immediately.

Early. Of course he was early. 

A small smile tugged at your mouth before you could stop it. Crossing the apartment, you opened the door to find Dex standing there holding a small terracotta pot carefully in one hand.

For a moment neither of you spoke, and annoyingly your breath caught slightly at the sight of him because he looked good wearing a black shirt, dark jacket, and his hair neater than usual. Like he’d actually spent time getting ready.

Stupidly good, you thought to yourself. 

But then the realisation that Dex had dressed up for you made warmth spread low in your chest and stomach.

His eyes moved slowly over you before settling on your face. His expression softened instantly. “You look pretty.”

Heat flushed your cheeks as the honesty in his voice hit harder than any flirting would’ve.

“Thank you,” you said softly before glancing at the plant in his hands. “What’s that?”

Dex immediately held it out toward you. “Lemon balm.”

Your eyebrows lifted slightly as you carefully took the pot from him.

“Lemon balm? Most people give roses.”

“You use it constantly, and you don’t like roses.”

Of course he noticed that. Your fingers brushed gently against the soft green leaves as warmth spread through your chest.

“It helps with anxiety and sleep,” he continued quietly. “And headaches.”

You looked back up at him slowly. “Nobody remembers the things I use at the apothecary.”

Dex’s expression barely changed. “I do.”

God, that shouldn’t affect you as much as it did.

Stepping aside, you let him into the apartment while trying very hard to ignore how warm your face suddenly felt.

“You’re early,” you said, setting the plant carefully beside the window.

“I know.”

“You know most people usually pretend not to be eager.”

“I wasn’t pretending.”

You laughed softly before you could stop yourself.

Dex immediately looked at you, focusing like your laugh was a bottle of liquid gold. It did strange things to your heartbeat.

“You’re staring again,” you muttered, grabbing your cardigan.

“I like looking at you.”

“You say things like that very casually.”

“They’re true.”

You shook your head softly despite smiling as you walked toward the door.

“Come on before I decide not to go.”

Dex opened the door for you immediately. “You won’t.”

The confidence in his voice should’ve annoyed you, but instead it made your chest warm. Because for the first time in months, you didn’t want to run from this, from him.

⠈⠂⠄⠄⠂⠁⠁⠂⠄⠄⠂⠁⠁⠂⠄⠄⠂⠁⠁⠂⠄

The park he took you to was beautiful.

Quiet enough that the city noise faded into a distant hum, trees swaying gently in the warm afternoon breeze as sunlight filtered through the leaves.

You stared at the picnic setup in front of you before slowly looking at Dex.

“…You brought an actual blanket.”

“Yes.”

“And three containers of food.”

“Yes.”

“And backup utensils.”

“Yes.”

You blinked at him. “Dex.”

“What?” The way he tilted his head was awfully like a lost puppy.

A laugh escaped you. “A backup fork?”

“You dropped yours once at the diner and refused to use it afterwards.”

Your chest warmed again because, of course, he knew that too.

Dex watched your face carefully. “You think it’s excessive.”

“I think it’s a little adorable.” The word slipped out accidentally.

Dex froze, actually froze, before a Cheshire-like smile spread across his face. You felt heat immediately crawl into your cheeks.

“Well,” you muttered, sitting down quickly on the blanket. “Now I regret saying that.”

Dex slowly sat beside you. “You called me adorable.”

“Don’t make it weird.”

“You think I’m adorable.”

“Oh my God.”

The quiet amusement in his voice made you laugh again, and something in Dex’s expression softened so quickly at the sound that your heart nearly betrayed you entirely.

Oh, it’s scary how easy this feels, you thought to yourself, how easy he feels despite how dangerous he is. 

You pushed the thought away as Dex opened one of the containers, and your eyes widened slightly.

“You got food from Pop’s Corner Deli?”

“You like their sandwiches.”

“You noticed that?”

“You buy lunch there every Thursday.”

You stared at him.

Dex paused slightly. “…Was that strange?”

“No,” you said honestly. “Just very…observant.”

“I observe you a lot.”

The blunt honesty nearly made you choke on your drink, and Dex immediately handed you a napkin.

“You okay?” He asked, rubbing your back. 

You snorted softly.

“You cannot say things like that so casually.”

“They’re true.”

There it was again, that impossible honesty that made your heart flutter. Honesty that wasn’t fake or a game. It was honesty that was just Dex, and it was becoming your favorite version of him.

That realisation settled quite nicely inside your chest.

The two of you spent the next hour talking more easily than you expected as Dex asked questions constantly, and not the shallow ones people ask when they’re just being polite, but real ones. 

“What was your favorite book as a kid?”

“The original Fear Street series by R. L. Stine.”

“What made you start working at the clinic?”

“Extra money. I was a poor mid-twenties girl.”

“Do you like healing people?”

“Yes, but it’s tiring sometimes.”

“Do you ever wish you’d left New York?”

“Yes, I have always wanted to travel.”

“What makes you happiest?”

“Plants and chocolate-covered strawberries.”

Nobody had ever asked you questions like they actually wanted to know the answers before, yet Dex listened to each one like it mattered. Like you mattered.

“You ask a lot of questions,” you said eventually, leaning back on your hands as the breeze lifted strands of your hair.

Dex looked completely unashamed. “I like hearing you talk.”

Your stomach fluttered annoyingly at how straightforward he always was.

“Well,” you said carefully, “then it’s your turn.”

His eyebrows lifted slightly.

“What? You think you can interrogate me for an entire afternoon without answering questions yourself?” You smiled. 

A small smile tugged at the corner of his mouth. “Interrogate?”

“You literally asked me what my favourite childhood book was.”

“That’s important information.”

You laughed softly. “Okay then, Poindexter. Favourite movie.”

He answered immediately. “The Empire Strikes Back.”

You blinked. “Really?”

“Yes.”

“You like Star Wars?”

“You sound surprised.”

“You don’t exactly give off sci-fi fan energy.”

“What energy do I give off?”

You opened your mouth, paused, then grinned. “Serial killer documentaries.”

Dex snorted quietly into his drink.

Actually snorted.

You stared at him in mild shock. “Was that a laugh?”

“No.”

“That was definitely a laugh.”

“It wasn’t.”

“You just made a noise.”

Dex looked deeply offended. “I make noises all the time.”

“That sounded worse than what I meant.” You laughed.

His eyes flickered with amusement as more laughter escaped before you could stop it.

God, it was dangerous how easy he was becoming.

“How about you?” he asked after a moment. “Favourite movie.”

You hummed thoughtfully. “I’m not sure.”

Dex tilted his head slightly. “Why?”

“I’m more of a TV series girl instead of a movie girl.”

“Really?”

“I mean, I’ll watch a movie if it interests me, but I like shows more.” You move from leaning back on your hands to your elbows.

“Well, then, what’s your favourite TV show?”

“Supernatural.”

“Why?” Dex asks, passing you another sandwich.

“Because it’s about two cool brothers hunting monsters like demons and vampires.” You say while taking a bite from the sandwich.

“You like that?” 

“Yes.” 

“I can tell.”

You kicked his foot lightly on the blanket.

Dex looked down at where your shoe touched his before glancing back up at you with something unbearably soft in his expression. Like even that smallest touch meant something to him.

Maybe it did.

“You know,” you said after a moment, “you’re much calmer than I expected.”

His expression shifted slightly at that. “Disappointed?”

“No.” Your answer came instantly. “Just surprised.”

Dex looked away briefly toward the trees swaying overhead. “You make it quiet.”

Your heartbeat stumbled softly. “What does that mean?”

“When I’m around other people…” He paused carefully, like he was trying to explain something he normally kept locked away. “Everything feels loud and irritating. But with you it doesn’t.”

The honesty in his voice settled warmly deep inside your chest.

You looked down at your hands for a moment before quietly asking, “Is that why you keep finding me?”

“Yes, and because you’re mine.”

Another honest, certain answer that no longer made panic claw up your throat. Instead it made warmth spread through you slowly.

A comfortable silence settled afterward as the two of you kept eating, sunlight warming your skin while distant laughter drifted through the park.

Then your eyes narrowed slightly as you watched Dex effortlessly toss a grape upward before catching it in his mouth without even looking.

“Oh, absolutely not.”

Dex glanced at you innocently. “What?”

“That sharpshooter nonsense doesn’t count.” You say, pointing at him.

“It was a grape.”

“You’re showing off.”

“I wasn’t trying to.”

“That makes it worse.”

A smug look of satisfaction flickered briefly across his face before he picked up another grape and held it out toward you.

“Try.”

You narrowed your eyes suspiciously before taking it. “I’m going to regret this.”

“Probably.” He smirked. 

You tossed the grape upward, tracking it carefully with your eyes, only for it to bounce directly off your forehead.

Dex stared at you for half a second before laughing quietly into his hand.

Actually laughing.

Your jaw dropped. “You’re laughing at me.”

“You hit yourself.”

“You distracted me!”

“I didn’t say anything.”

“You have distracting energy.”

That only made him laugh harder and louder this time, and the sound made your heart race in your chest as a wonderfully warm feeling spread across your body.

And suddenly all you could think was, Oh, I’m in trouble, as you found yourself relaxing without realising it. Laughing easier, talking more, teasing him.

“You definitely practiced this date.” You said popping a grape in your mouth. 

Dex looked offended with another sandwich raised halfway towards his mouth. 

“I did not practice.”

“You absolutely practiced.”

“I planned.”

“You researched parks, didn’t you?”

“…Maybe.”

You laughed again.

“I knew it.”

“It’s a quiet area,” he defended immediately. “Minimal noise, minimal people, fewer interruptions.”

“You sound like you’re planning a kidnapping or something.” You teased. 

“I wanted it to go well.”

The quiet sincerity in his voice made your stomach flutter softly because suddenly you could see it so clearly. The careful planning, the attentiveness, the nervousness hidden beneath every decision.

This mattered to him. A lot. But it also mattered a lot to you too.

The buzzing of a bumblebee flying near the picnic blanket is what broke your thoughts as you instinctively leaned back slightly so you wouldn’t accidentally hurt it.

Dex noticed immediately, and without a word he carefully cupped his hands around it before standing and walking several feet away before letting it go near the flowers.

When he returned, you stared at him quietly with your chest twisting pleasantly.

“What?” He asked. 

“You moved the bee.”

“You didn’t want it hurt.” The simplicity of his answer made your heartbeat stumble hard enough to nicely ache.

Because nobody besides Matt noticed things like that. They didn’t pay attention to tiny reactions from you, but Dex always did.

Always.

“You’re staring now,” he said quietly.

You smiled before reaching over and fixing the collar of his shirt slightly where it had folded inward. Dex immediately went still beneath your touch, his eyes now fixed on your face.

Your fingers lingered against his collar for a second too long, but neither of you moved away as the air between you shifted softly into something warmer. More intimate.

Your hand slowly slid from his collar down his arm before resting lightly over his hand on the blanket. Dex inhaled sharply enough that you noticed before his fingers immediately intertwined carefully with yours. Like he’d wanted to do it for hours.

And honestly? So had you.

The soulmate bond tingled warmly beneath your skin. But for once it wasn’t the thing overwhelming you.

It was him.

The way he looked at you, the way he listened, the way he noticed everything about you, and the way he touched you like you were something precious. 

“You’re quiet,” Dex murmured softly.

You looked down at your joined hands.

“Just thinking.”

“About?”

You glanced back up at him slowly. “This is nice.”

Something almost unbearably soft and relaxed crossed his face.

“Yes,” he agreed quietly. “It is.”

And God, you liked this, liked him. Not just the bond, not just the attention.

Him.

The realisation settled strangely peacefully inside your chest. There was no panic, no guilt. Just truth.

Hours slipped by far too quickly after that.

You walked through quieter trails together afterwards, shoulders brushing as the sun slowly dipped lower across the city skyline. At some point your shoulder started aching faintly from the colder evenings and overworking yourself at the clinic earlier that week.

You hadn’t even realised you were rubbing it until Dex’s hand gently caught your wrist.

“Come here.”

Before you could ask what he meant, he stepped behind you and rested his hands carefully against your shoulders. Warmth spread slowly through the aching muscle as he gently massaged it.

Your eyes fluttered shut immediately. “Oh.”

“Tense?” he asked quietly.

“Very.” 

His thumbs worked carefully against the knot of pain near your scar. Not pressing too hard, not rushing, just steady but gentle circular motions.

“You take care of everyone else,” he murmured softly behind you. “Someone should take care of you too.”

Your chest tightened painfully because maybe that was the problem. Ever since your dad died all those years ago, it had only been you and Matt, but it had been years since you two had gotten separate apartments. 

You leaned back slightly into his warmth before realising what you were doing, and Dex immediately stilled before slowly wrapping his arms around your shoulders, testing to see if you would push him away or not. 

His breath caught quietly behind you as you slowly relaxed against him fully, but neither of you spoke for a moment. The parks noise drifted softly around you as the sun painted everything a soft gold.

His arms felt safe…and warm…and peaceful.

You hadn’t realised how badly you needed something peaceful until now. Eventually Dex’s hands slid carefully down your arms before he stepped beside you again.

His fingers brushed yours once. Twice. Then paused before you reached for his hand first.

Dex looked at you immediately, something vulnerable flickering through his eyes before softening into your affection.

And for the first time, you didn’t look away from it. From him. 

⠈⠂⠄⠄⠂⠁⠁⠂⠄⠄⠂⠁⠁⠂⠄⠄⠂⠁⠁⠂⠄

By the time Dex walked you back to your apartment building, the sky had darkened into soft blues and blacks.

Neither of you seemed particularly eager for the night to end as you stood awkwardly near the entrance for a moment before laughing softly at yourself.

“This is the part where normal people say goodbye.”

Dex tilted his head slightly. “You want normal?”

You thought about it honestly, then smiled. “No.”

Something satisfied flickered across his expression, and you gathered that neither did he. The realisation should’ve scared you, but instead it felt strangely right for the two of you.

Dex stepped slightly closer. Close enough that you could feel warmth radiating from him as his eyes searched your face carefully.

“Did you enjoy yourself?”

The fact he sounded genuinely uncertain made your chest ache softly. So instead of answering, you reached up and kissed his cheek gently. Right on the scar. 

Dex froze completely as your lips lingered there for a few seconds before you pulled back slightly.

“Yes,” you whispered honestly. “I really did.”

Something in Dex’s expression nearly took your breath away because for once it held no trace of obsession or possession. It was just happiness. Real, genuine happiness.

His hand lifted slowly toward your face before stopping near your cheek, like he was still giving you room to pull away. You didn’t as his thumb brushed softly across your skin.

Then he leaned down and pressed the gentlest kiss against your forehead, and your stomach fluttered as your chest warmed. 

“Goodnight, baby,” he murmured quietly.

You smiled. “Goodnight, Dex.”

He waited until you got inside the building before finally turning to leave, and later that night, curled beneath your blankets and lying there in the darkness replaying his soft smiles, careful hands, and the look on his face when you kissed his cheek, you finally stopped trying to deny what your heart already knew.

You wanted this. You wanted him.