no guillotine

You clocked the man at the bar nearly as soon as you walked in; you wanted to eat him for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. You liked a man with strong, beautiful hands, and his were perfect. He wore a black leather jacket, and his palm dwarfed the Old Fashioned he drank— or was it a Manhattan? Whichever it was that came with a maraschino.

His forefinger tapped absent-mindedly on the rim of the glass. He leaned back in his chair, then leaned forward. He bounced his leg, then cracked his knuckles, then lifted his drink to his lips. It was like he was doing some kind of nervous choreography that you just couldn't land on a reason for.

You singled him out. Maybe he could tell that you did.

Now, when you sit one seat down from him and order a Nikolashka, you see him glance over at you and smirk in the mirrored backsplash.

"Classy." His voice is boyish and light. You press your lips together and turn to find him peering at you over the rim of his glass, and god help you. His eyes are like two smoldering embers.

"I'm sorry?"

"A Nikolashka. It's very… elegant. Refined." He waves his hand. You track the movement with your eyes hungrily, and you definitely catch the twitch at the corner of his mouth.

"And which are you?" you ask him mildly, "Elegant or refined?"

He gives you a slight grimace as he hisses through his teeth. "Neither." His dimples are something otherworldly, and you find yourself wanting to bite the cheek that made them.

"So, what are you, then?"

"Depends," he hums. He looks thoughtful for a moment, and then squints at you. "How do you feel about card tricks?"

Dark eyes, good hands, dimples, and card tricks. He's going to kill you. "Intrigued."

He chuckles, and sets down his glass with a quiet tap onto the mahogany bartop. Somehow, you've whittled down a spot in the middle of the busy bar where the music is dimmed, the energy is more of a steady thrum than the overall chaos around you. As you slide your drink over one space and sit beside him, you enter a bubble that encircles the two of you, alone.

This close, you see the veins on his hands, each freckle on his cheek. He is objectively beautiful, too pretty for you to look at for too long without blushing. He fishes a deck of cards out of the inside of his leather jacket, and glances at you from beneath unfairly long lashes. "You'll have to forgive me if this sucks. I'm nervous."

"Oh, don't tell me that," you mutter, then take a little sip of your drink. The alcohol wips all the moisture from your mouth. "I expect you to wow me."

"All right. No pressure there." With a little smile, he fans the cards out at you. "Pick a card, any card. Don't let me see. Here—" He claps his free hand over his eyes, then peeks between his fingers at you. "I'm not looking, I promise."

You choose from the center and tilt it towards you, careful not to catch it in the mirror behind the bar. Eight of Hearts.

"Okay, now shove it back in there."

You finally let a little giggle slip. It's absurd, like something a boy would do to impress you in high school, but it's… charming. He's charming you. Which is unexpected, at least, but never unwelcome.

He does a little flourish with the cards, impressively shuffling them in an arc, and flips over the top card of the deck before pronouncing confidently, "Is this your card?"

It is, in fact, the King of Spades. "Not a chance."

"Really? Shit." Looking confused, he pats at his breast pockets, his back pockets. "This usually works. Y'know what, check— check your back pocket?"

You nearly roll your eyes. You've been watching his hands since you sat down, and he knows it. He saw how fixated you are on them, so there's no real way he could have put anything in your pocket—

Except, there is. You pull a playing card from your left pocket, completely shocked. "How…?" It's the Eight of Hearts, but this time, there's something written on it. A phone number.

"Is that your card?"

You've actually been stunned into silence. You look at it for a long time, then at his hands, then at his pretty face, smirking coyly at you.

"Well, I guess it must be," you say, looking at him coquettishly over the top of your glass. "And what name do I write under this number?"

"Jack," he says with a grin. "Jack Wilder."

You know his name, but you can't quite put your finger on where you've heard it, yet. It's like a foggy memory, buried deep down beneath years upon years of media consumption and names of people met in passing.

"Well, Jack Wilder," you repeat, putting extra emphasis on his name. You tuck the card into your back pocket slowly, keeping your eyes trained on him. "I'll forgive you for obviously touching my ass during that trick, as long as you let me buy you another drink."

He blinks at you. "Is that meant to be some kind of punishment?"

"It depends on what you ask for."

At that, he finally laughs. He throws his head back in a sweet way, like he can't laugh without putting his whole body into it. It almost makes you feel smug as you take another sip of your drink.

After signaling for another drink, Jack turns to you. "So, what about you? Do you know any magic?" He draws out the word 'magic' like it's a joke.

You think for a moment. "The only thing I can really do is read tarot. Poorly."

"What? That's actually crazy."

"I know, it's weird, isn't it?"

"No, I mean it's crazy because I have a tarot deck. Right now." Jack reaches into his jacket pocket and pulls out another card deck, slightly bigger, and sets it on the bar in front of you. The High Priestess stares up at you from the top of the deck.

"How many card decks do you happen to have in there?" You ask with mild amusement.

"About three at any given time." He shrugs when you shoot him an incredulous look. "It's good to be prepared."

You narrow your eyes at him. "You're not some kind of card sharp, are you?"

Jack cracks a wide grin. "Why, would you hate me if I was?"

"No, I'd just be working that much harder to figure you out."

Jack presses his lips together like he's secretly pleased that you're so fascinated with him, and taps the card deck on the counter. "You could always predict my future, right?"

You snort. "Right." In spite of yourself, you pick up the deck and shuffle it with a lot less flourish than he did. "You know how to read these, I take it?"

"Not really, I just like the artwork. The deck gives me something to do with my hands." There it is, the small clue-in to his demeanor. He has to be moving, stillness doesn't suit him. When he sits still, there's a slight tremor that remains in his hands or in his leg, like he's constantly on high alert. You make a note of it as you shuffle the cards, and then set the deck on the counter, face-down.

"Knock on it three times." You watch as Jack does as he's told, his fist tapping lightly on the cards and looking almost comical in their gentility. You flip over the first card. Death, on his pale horse, stands over a battlefield. You blow out a puff of air. "Well, shit. You're dead."

Jack laughs again. "An excellent observation. You're good."

"Thank you, thank you." With a smirk, you turn over the next card. The Eight of Swords reversed. "Aha. You were holding yourself back, but you finally found your freedom from something, and now you're heading down a new path. Does that sound right?"

He rests his chin in his palm, looking vaguely impressed. "You can do magic."

You try hard not to preen in front of him. "Yeah? That's good to hear."

"So, pray-tell, where is this new path taking me?" He continues looking at you, chin in his hand, like he can see into your mind. You feel like every thought you have is laid out in front of him. You wonder if he can read your entire soul on your face.

You flip over the third card and set it down in front of him. The Lovers.

"I don't suppose you need me to interpret that for you," you say, meeting his eye again, your insinuation hanging in the air between you.

His gaze travels down to your lips just once, and lingers there for a long moment. You don't know it yet— and how could you? It's supposed to be a secret, he is supposed to be a secret— but you terrify him. You noticed him when he had just been trying to get away from reality for a little while, trying to forget that he's on the run, that he has to pretend to be someone he's not. He isn't supposed to be telling people his real name. He isn't supposed to be picking people up in bars and doing stupid card tricks to impress them.

You baffle him. You don't even know how right you are about him, so right that you could probably guess who he is without him telling you, given time. And, unfortunately, Jack has always been drawn to things that could easily destroy him.

Held aloft on that suspension, you don't object when he asks to close the tab.

"Bullshit."

"I swear to god! You can even google it, I won't be mad."

Your combined laughter bounces down the hallway past hotel rooms, televisions echoing beyond closed doors. Your arm slung around Jack's shoulders, he bears your weight with one arm while he carries your discarded heels with the other. When you complained about your feet hurting, he had offered to carry you from the taxi up to your room, but you declined. Even so, you appreciate the gallantry.

"That Jack Wilder— The Four Horsemen Jack Wilder— he died. I remember hearing about it." And you remember now, that's where you'd heard the name. It had been all over the news. Even if you weren't keeping up with Las Vegas magic acts, everyone has at least heard about the magicians-turned-thieves. You couldn't get away from hearing about them if you tried.

"You really don't know how easy it is to fake your own death. Here," Jack chuckles, using his free hand to dig out his wallet. "There, under the top one. My I.D."

You snatch it from him, walking blindly as he advances with you down the hall. You find several I.D.'s, each with a different name, each older than the last— but the oldest, with an address in Brooklyn, bears the name Jack Wilder.

"Cute picture." You grunt and hand the wallet back to him. Not to be duped so easily, you pull out your phone to do a quick Google search on the Horsemen. An image search or two confirms that Jack, your Jack (or so you desperately want him to be), is the Jack Wilder. The same stupidly pretty smile. The same mischeivous eyes. The same arch to his brow.

You spin around, squinting at him, flashing your phone in his face. He looks somewhat bemused, like he was fully expecting it. "Okay. So, you're back from the dead. Any explanations, or will I stay in the dark?"

"Ah… I stole a cadaver and made it have a car accident. It's not that interesting." Jack waves it off, as if it's the most normal thing in the world. "Now I'm just staying under the radar, I suppose. Only thing you can do. 'Lotta people want me, few can have me. You know how it is."

"Merritt McKinney, J. Daniel Atlas…" you read as you meander through the Wikipedia article on the Four Horsemen. "Hey, what does the J. stand for, anyways?"

"Jerk-off." He says it way too quickly for it to not be personal.

You cackle, probably a lot louder than you intended to. You lean back against the wall beside your hotel room door. "So you're telling me that you're this… this ex-David Copperfield fugitive from justice?"

"Hey, I'm not entirely out of commission yet," he insists, holding up his hands, your sparkling heels dangling from the fingers of one. "But yeah, I've been ordering pizza under the name 'Kevin' for about a year now."

"And why didn't you tell me your name is 'Kevin'?" You quirk an eyebrow at him. "Seems like if you're in hiding, it would be safer to keep up the charade."

"Maybe," Jack hums, sounding like he doesn't quite agree. "But, I'm not in the business of lying to girls I want to take home, so."

You let out a little puff of air, unsure of whether to laugh or melt before him. You aren't used to men being so candid with you. "And what if I slammed the door in your face?"

"Well, that would be pretty hard," he tells you, looking upwards like he's really mulling it over. "Considering I have your room key."

"What— hey." You feel at the inside pocket of your jacket, finding no room key-card anywhere. When you look back up at him, he has it extended between his two fingers, and swipes it through the card reader on the door. The lock beeps, and the door swings open to reveal the dimly lit room within. "Unbelievable. When did you do that?"

"In the cab."

In the cab. In the cab, when you were so busy trying not to attack his face or otherwise mount him that you were completely distracted. It must have happened sometime when you crawled into the backseat, and his hands guided you in like the gentleman he'd been, up until this point. The ghost of his touch remained on your waist, but you hadn't felt him stealing anything from your pockets.

You realize then, with only a base amount of embarrassment, that you're biting your lip just thinking about his hands on you. It takes all your strength not to pull him in and kiss him immediately, although you doubt he would object if you did.

"So," you say, leaning against the open door frame, your breathing strained from trying not to let it get too erratic. God, he's gorgeous. And it pisses you off that it effects you so deeply, but you can't help how badly you want him. You've been aching for him all evening, fantasizing about him, trying not to squirm too much at the bar or in the taxi. It's getting to be too much for you, the heat between your legs a constant, demanding presence. "You got any other tricks up your sleeve?"

"One or two."

"Will you show me?"

His grin could light up a stadium. "Sure, I can."

Down the hall somewhere, a door opens. Jack turns his head to look in the direction of the sound, and in that moment you snatch him by the collar of his grey t-shirt and yank him full-force into your hotel room. He bashes into you, tripping over the door jamb, and you kick the door shut before you both slam up against the wall.

"Whoa— easy," he chuckles, his nose bumped against yours. "I promise I'll come willingly."

"I'm counting on it."

With that you finally kiss him, tugging his lower lip between your teeth, and you hear the dull thunk of your shoes being dropped on the carpet. Everything about him surrounds you; the spice of his cologne, the warmth of his body, the taste of the alcohol he drank. His hands slide around your waist to pull you close, and this time you feel it when he slips your room key into your back pocket, tucked right against the card with his number on it— although you figure you only felt it because he let you. His hands on either side of your face, fingers in your hair, he backs you into the corner like it's the only thing he's been wanting to do since he saw you.

"You're so fucking hot," Jack breathes into your mouth, his thumb tracing along your jawline. His fingers could burn a line along your skin, like you might just wake up in the morning to find scorch marks where he touched you.

His kiss is frenzied, almost rushed and desperate— when you break away, gasping for air, a string of saliva connects you by the lower lip. His face is covered in your lipstick, your dark red painting a chelsea smile around his mouth.

"You have something…" You swipe your finger along the trail of lipstick, but he just grins and backs away. You don't know how you look, but you swipe your hand across your mouth for good measure.

"Is it my color?" He doesn't look too worried about the state of his appearance. He frames his face with his hands, posing at you with a sardonic smile. "Does it go with my outfit?"

"Yeah, you look real sexy," you snicker, pulling him back towards you by his jacket lapel. You watch his pupils dilate, his smile faltering for just a moment while you bring your thumbs up and wipe the makeup from his face. "You're lucky I didn't just fuck you in that disgusting bar bathroom."

"Thank god for that." His voice has gone a little bit rough, his easy-going veneer slipping as you trace your fingernail along his cheekbone. "Now I can take my time."

"Touch me," you order, leaving no room for argument.

You expect him to go directly for your waist or your chest, to weasel his hands under your shirt, to remove your bra with some kind of abracadabra, or whatever the hell he does. But, he hadn't been joking about taking his time, and you take a trembling breath when he cradles your jaw in his hand, turning your head like you're something precious, and kisses the spot just below your ear. Your eyes fall shut, and you swear that you really are melting, like he is somehow able to dismantle you with a single brush of his lips.

And then you realize that your earring is missing.

"Jack." You don't even turn your head to look at him. You would be annoyed if it wasn't a little bit hilarious.

"Sorry. Bad habit." His words come out muffled as he pulls your earring from between his lips and drops it into your outstretched palm, looking like he's been caught with his hand in the cookie jar. It glints in the light for a moment before you chuck it aside, hearing it plink somewhere on the dresser.

The placing of your hand on his belt grabs his attention. You tug him close, his hips nearly pressed up to yours, your back against the wall. In the stilted air between your faces, you hiss, "Behave."

Jack's eyelids flutter, his gaze raking over your face once, twice. "I'll try my best."

But he won't. You know that he won't, and you hate that you want him even more for it.

Jack drags his hand down, down, down, running along the curve of your breast, the dip of your waist. He traces the seam of your jeans, startling you with his boldness. You give him a tight gasp and arch against his touch, almost embarrassed with how readily you react to him. His two fingers press against your cunt through the fabric, and you moan as you part your legs for him.

"There we go," Jack whispers to you, his voice light as a feather. When you blink your eyes open, you find him searching your face, his eyebrows slanting upward. "Is this where you want me?"

His fingers split into a V, tracing slowly around the seam, bracketing the outline of your cunt. He drags upwards, avoiding all the places you want him most, and then slides down again, pressing harder. Your mouth hangs open, and you stop breathing, stop thinking, stop doing anything of substance.

"Answer me, sweetheart." His whispered inquiry passes through your foggy mind, but it's the pause of his touch that finally snaps you into a response.

"Yes— Jack, please." You're torn between wanting the upper hand and wanting to give it over to him, but from the way he has you mindless with one touch, you're not sure you ever had the upper hand to begin with.

He pops the button on your jeans without further comment, and there's a touch of his lips against your jaw, a hint of a breath on your neck, and then he dips his hand beneath your waistband. You're throbbing, aching for him and frozen under the weight of his gaze. Then the rough, calloused pads of his fingers dip into your wetness, and you both gasp at the same time.

"You can't have gotten this turned on by my dorky card tricks," Jack murmurs, his fingers tracing a delicate path through the soaking heat of your pussy. Without him even urging you, you widen your legs and push your hips against his touch.

"It's just— I— I like— fuck." You can't think straight, not when he's touching you like that. His fingers swirl around your clit with a precision that's completely debilitating, and he watches you with his eyes just inches from your face.

"'You like' what?"

Your cunt throbs at the rasp of his voice, the slow strokes of his fingers, but you can't look away from him. Not even for a second. "Your hands. I like— like your ha—"

His two fingers drive into you to the knuckle, and you cut yourself off on a whine. Jack flexes his hand, nearly pulling you away from the wall with the force of it, and your nails rake down the back of his leather jacket with a noisy ripping sound.

It's good. It's really, really good, and the sounds coming from you are obscene, the air around you already thick with tension and sweat. His eyes are focused in on you, but they're so blown out that they've gone nearly black. You bite back a moan and lurch against him, trying to meet the slow thrusts of his fingers with your hips and only meeting resistance.

"My hands," he repeats, and his voice is disarming, almost lulling. Jack tilts his head and hums low in his throat, moving so that you keep your eyes on his. You practically wither under his stare. "That's it. My hands on you, inside you. Do you think I could go deeper? Would you like that, too? Feel me, deeper."

You hear a snap somewhere in your periphery, a soft ticking in the background of your thoughts. Like the ticking of a clock, this gentle snap—snap—snap— and you realize that he's whispering to you, but it's so soft you're barely catching the words. He does drive his fingers deeper, curling them in a way that has you keening, held captive in his stare. You still hear that snapping, echoing through your head like a gentle refrain.

"What— What are you doing to me?" Beneath the tremble in your voice is a note of suspicion. You feel like you're falling into him, the space between you is electric, everything else is intangible.

"Do you know what the fun thing about hypnotism is?" Jack asks, his voice quiet, just above a whisper, now. Everything within you draws up tight at the sound of it, coiling up like a cobra ready to strike. His fingers move at a steady pace, keeping you rocking against him. The pleasure ebbs and flows like the swing of a pendulum. "I can make you cum with the snap of my fingers."

It's entirely unpredictable. He has you frozen in place, unable to really move or think, except to dig your nails into his leather jacket and accept that Jack is not like any other guy you'd ever picked up at a bar. Your voice comes out strained when you say, "That's not behaving."

"No," he agrees. "But you don't really want me to behave, do you? You want me to show you my tricks. This is number one." Jack crowds close and spread your legs wider to accomodate, until the only thing holding you up is his body. You have no choice but to let go, and trust that he won't let you fall.

"Shit— Jack." You wilt against him. Hands scrambling for something to hold onto, you find nothing but his hair, his shoulder, the wall behind you. You moan pathetically loud— so loud you're sure it can be heard on the other side of the door, but you don't really care. You don't have it in you to care about anything anymore.

You cant your hips toward him, your toes just barely skimming the carpet, but he keeps the pace slow, deliberate. He swirls his fingers around your clit, sending warmth dancing in spirals along your nerves. Your breath comes out in uneven pants, and your fingers tug on his hair just enough to make him purr, the sound absolutely lighting you up from the inside.

"Ready?" Jack whispers, and you nod without even really thinking about it. Ready for what, you're not sure, but you know you're ready for whatever he wants to give you.

He raises his hand in the air, just beside your head, and he snaps his fingers.

And you shatter.

Your cunt clenches down around the stretch of his fingers, and you yank on his collar, trying so hard and still failing to stay quiet. It pulses through you in quick succession, the tension that's been buidling in you all night finally let loose with his one command.

You've never fucking cum on command before.

Jack's hand slows to a stop, and then he withdraws while keeping himself between you and gravity. His hand lingers just at your waistband while you catch your breath, panting up at the ceiling.

"What the fuck," you wheeze in the comedown, your body still twitching against him. "You— did you really just— just hypnotize me?"

"I did." He sounds just as shocked as you are. His voice is still soft, but that cadence of wanting to lull you is gone. "Although, you're pretty agreeable when I have my hand down your pants."

Covered in sweat from head to toe, you have to shed your jacket just to take back a bit of normalcy. You huff a laugh, then level your gaze at him again. "I guess most people are?"

"I, uh— I wouldn't know. That's a relatively new trick for me." Jack gives a small exhale of disbelief, still completely taken aback. He's flushed up to his ears, his chest heaving almost as much as yours. "Was it… was that too much?"

You shake your head. It was, in fact, so unbelievably hot that you're having trouble even forming the words to express it. You grab his hand, still lingering down by your waist, and bring it to your lips. Jack follows your movements with his eyes, those eyes, his fingertips flexing slightly in your hold. You can't help yourself. You part your lips and take his fingers into your mouth, swirling your tongue around the two that had just been deep in your pussy.

"Jesus." He has the decency to look surprised— he wasn't expecting you to do that. It's almost endearing after all this; after you eyeing them all night in the bar, after him making you cum on them, making you admit your fixation. Maybe he thought you were exaggerating when you told him that you like his hands, but you were serious. You're so serious that you could spend hours just tracing his fingers with your tongue. Doesn't matter if you can taste yourself on them or not.

"Do you think you could do that to me in public?" You ask once you pull his fingers, glistening with your spit, from your mouth. You bat your lashes at him, but you feel like your blood is boiling beneath your skin. "Could you snap your fingers and make me cum in a room full of people without them even knowing?"

Jack's eyebrows shoot up. "Would you want me to?"

"Mmm." You're nodding, moving your hands up his chest and beneath his leather jacket. You meet tension when you cup his shoulders beneath the leather, and he finally shrugs the jacket off so that it lands with your discarded one on the ground. "I'd let you do anything you want to me, Jack."

His eyes dart sideways toward the bed a second before he snatches you around the waist. Jack guides you like he's dancing, his feet staggered with yours. Your shirt is forfeit— it lands somewhere across the room, and later you'll find it hanging off of the floor lamp in the corner. Rough hands meet your bare skin, flesh on flesh, nearly burning in the relief it brings you.

He kisses you and it's all teeth, visceral need punching a hole through the thin veil of restraint he'd been operating behind. The easy pace that he'd set, the quip about taking his time, has gone out the window. It's replaced with desperation and blind desire, the limits of what his patience can handle exceeded. He undoes your bra clasp with a single pinch, yanks at your jeans with a demanding huff. Your knees hit the edge of the bed and you plop down, landing on your elbows.

"God— control yourself." Your teasing falls on deaf ears; Jack is much too preoccupied with getting you out of your jeans, and your heart nearly stalls at the sight of him before you, his hands so sure as they tug your jeans down your legs, a low hum issuing from his throat as he presses a kiss to the curve of your stomach.

"Nope. Not happening, not right now." His palm smooths up your bare calf as though he's trying to map out every part of you he can get his hands on and dedicate it to memory. Jack turns his head and presses one kiss there at the plushest part of your thigh, his dark eyes watching you for your reaction. When you don't pull away or object, he parts his lips and nips at the same place he just kissed.

You sigh and run your fingers through his hair just before you snag the collar of his shirt and pull. Thankfully, he finally gets the memo and pulls it off, tossing it the way of your own shirt. His wavy hair sticks up at odd angles now, his cheeks rosy, eyes wide. He looks so sweet like this, biting his bottom lip, his gaze flicking almost nervously over your face.

But then he raises his hand and snaps his fingers.

"Fuck—ing—?!" No, not sweet. Evil. He's evil. And you're cumming again, completely untouched. All your floor muscles clamp down at the sound of his fingers snapping, and you're thrown into an orgasm. Losing your balance, falling back against the mattress while your cunt spasms, legs spread for his view. You try to close them, but he plants his hands firmly on your thighs, shoving them apart before you can manage.

"You're so gorgeous when you cum for me."

He sounds so cheeky, and you have a mind to smack him. You cover your face, shaking and groaning as the aftershocks continue to pulse through you. How the fuck did he manage it? It's not like before when he had his fingers in your pussy, you were perfectly still, just waiting for him to do something—

"Yeah, I could definitely do that to you in public," he concludes, and you hear his belt clink as he undoes it.

"You little fucker," you gasp, pulling your hands away from your face. There's no real malice in it, you're still breathless while he sheds the rest of his clothes. "You think you can— you can just wave a magic wand and make me cum like that?"

Jack snickers at you. "I thought you said I could do whatever I wanted…?"

His hips are between your legs, and for a split second, you consider letting him continue. You wouldn't mind being fucked into the mattress. But something about his voice, how cute he is even when he's being a snarky little shit, fills you with fire.

You throw your legs around his waist and tip him sideways. Jack makes a startled noise that bubbles up from the pit of his stomach, and he bounces onto the mattress beside you. It's a clumsy mess of tangled arms and legs for a moment before you throw yourself over his hips and sit on his lap, hovering above him on the bed.

"I take it back. You're getting too big for your britches."

Jack doesn't say anything, just blinks up at you and suppresses a smirk while he sucks on his teeth. You can feel his cock beneath you, resting heavy against his stomach. It's big, and so impressively hard that you're amazed he's held off as long as he has. Now, the urgency to take your clothes off makes sense.

"Don't look at me like that."

"What? I'm just looking at you—" Jack shakes his head just a little bit, but he cracks a smile that turns into a laugh. He can't help it.

"Shut—" you slap your hand over his pretty mouth, making him snort, "—up." You drop your hips, and he gasps against your fingers when you grind your cunt against his cock. "It's my turn now, and I'm oh-for-two. I don't like that score."

Jack sucks in a breath through his teeth, his hips jumping at your slow glide against him. It's so wet, made worse from all his teasing, and probably so hot that it burns. He groans, grabbing at your hips with a white-knuckled grip. "Not fair. It's easier for you—"

"Right. Because forced orgasms are sooo fair." You hum low, almost allowing yourself to get lost in the feeling of your clit dragging over the ridges of his cock. You bite your lip, dipping low to press a kiss to his temple and whisper in his ear, "No more shortcuts. We're gonna do this the hard way now."

"You think hypnotism isn't hard?" His voice is so strained. Jack lifts his hand, his chest heaving while he tangles his fingers just in the ends of your hair, twisting it around them in small curls. He rocks his hips against you. "Took me a fffffucking— a year to learn that—"

"Only a year?" Your teeth graze the shell of his ear and he shudders, making a sound that should be absolutely criminal with how sexy it is. "Now you can make me cum whenever you feel like it, but I have to work for it. So fucking. Take. What I give you."

You sit up, raking your fingernails down his chest as you go. Your eyes flick down to watch red trails bloom where they'd been, goosebumps raising on his tan skin. Jack has such a nice body, covered in a thin sheen of sweat, his muscles hard and strong. You tremble on top of him, starry-eyed and nearly taken apart by the little bit of friction between you. You're soaking him, slipping along his length and so close to cumming just from rubbing yourself on his cock.

"Fuck—" Jack takes you by the hips as you lift yourself and ease him inside of you. Then, it's all you can do not to cry out towards the ceiling.

And he's up, holding you in a full-bodied embrace, his arms wrapped fully around you, his hands in your hair and on your waist. He's so deep, and his shifting around keeps sending him deeper, like he's trying to carve out a place for himself inside of you. He hisses in your ear and then… presses a kiss to your shoulder. Gentle.

You gasp once, arching into him when he rocks you a bit in his arms, sending shockwaves shooting up your spine. "You're such a goddamn gentleman."

Jack chuckles, and turns his head so that he can speak directly into your ear. "Well, do you want me to behave or not?"

The tone of his voice practically tears you in half. He's being so fucking condescending. It shouldn't turn you on the way it does, but your pussy clamps down around him and your body tenses in his arms, your eyes glued to the ceiling, your breath catching in your throat.

"Not. Got it." And then he sinks his teeth into your shoulder, where he just kissed you.

It takes you by surprise and you cry out, rolling your hips into his in earnest. There will be an imprint of his teeth on your shoulder— something to remind you for days about this, and about him. The thought consumes you, makes you needy, desperate to leave a mark on him that can compare.

Your nails claw down his back— his beautiful, gorgeous back that you can feel flex beneath your touch, now covered in the same welts you'd raised on his chest. But deeper. Harder. Something that he'll be feeling for days, whenever he takes off his shirt, whenever he lifts his arm.

Jack groans like you've punched him, holding you tight to him as though he's afraid you'll disappear. "You have no idea what you're doing to me," he mumbles, just loud enough for the words to rumble across your skin and make you shiver.

Your muscles draw up tight, your thighs locking up with the strength of it. You jolt against him. "Oh my god, Jack—"

"Are you gonna cum again?" He sounds so fucking pleased with himself. "Already?"

"No… no."

"Isn't that oh-for-three?"

"Jack, shut—" A loud moan breaks from your throat, and you snatch at his hair. You're going to cum. Shit, you didn't want to, not before he does, but it seems you can't stop the effect that he has on you.

"Noisy," Jack murmurs, and ruts his hips up into yours just to hear you do it again. "Gonna let all the neighbors know you're cumming for me?"

"They already do," you grit out. You squeeze your eyes shut while your cunt tightens down, and Jack moans into your ear. "They can fucking hear. I don't care."

"You just really—" Jack chokes on a laugh, breathless as you ride him harder, "—really want people to know I'm fucking you, huh? I can make it quicker—"

He raises his hand from your waist, but you catch it before he can snap his fingers in your ear again. You rear back and smack his hand down onto your collarbone, his thumb pressed into the dip just beside where he'd sunk his teeth in.

Oh. He looks completely fucked out. Glassy-eyed, mouth slightly open with each breath he takes. Your eyebrows tilt up slightly just at the sight, and that was the worst thing you could have done if you didn't want to cum too quickly.

Your intake of breath sounds like a sob. "You're so p-pretty—"

He gasps your name, and it's so quiet that you could have missed it if you weren't watching him, staring at his lips with every intent on kissing him. You yank him toward you with both hands, cradling him like he's the most perfect thing in the world, and you plant one on him. His hand tightens just slightly, where it rests against your throat, and you can't fucking believe it.

You cum. Just like that, with his hand on your neck, holding you in place. You moan into his lips, arch against him, and grind down like you can somehow get him deeper while your cunt spasms around his cock.

It's not fair. He can't just— he can't just make you do that by simply existing, by just looking and talking the way he does, it's not fucking fair—

"Oh, fuck." Jack tenses and rocks his hips up into you, his brows pinched together and his eyes tightly shut. He moans so beautifully, his breath sweet in your mouth, and he cums, rutting up into you as hard as he can. Your limbs feel fluid, completely spent, but he holds you to him like he can't get enough.

He doesn't let go, at first. He stays with his hand on your throat and his arm tight around your waist, crushing you against his chest while he gasps for air. His nose pressed into the crook of your neck, just where his bite mark is starting to smart. Your legs feel like jelly, but you can at least lift your hand, dig your fingers into his hair.

Peaceful. It's peaceful, is what it is. It's soft. You wouldn't have expected Jack to be the perfect balance of hard and soft, to change whichever way he fits. He's a surprise from all angles.

Finally, you collapse with him onto the bed, a jumble of boneless limbs pulled down into a sleepy stillness. Except he's not still, not entirely. In the periphery of your awareness, you feel him tracing his fingertips along your spine. He outlines little shapes across your feverish skin, listening to your breathing slow.

"You're not—" Jack begins after a moment, then pauses, and starts again. "You won't be here tomorrow."

He sounds vaguely sad about it, like he'd been hoping you'd stick around for a little while.

"No. Headed to Los Angeles tomorrow afternoon. This was just a stop-over." You sigh and curl into him, a little too exhausted by everything to even consider how you hadn't mentioned anything about it to him. You figure he just put two and two together, considering you're in a hotel room and not an apartment.

"Hm. Better get some sleep, then."

You're all too willing to take his suggestion. Just before you drift off, you feel his fingers tangle in your hair, just at the nape of your neck, twisting around and around in tight circles. Never still. Always moving.

You aren't surprised to wake up without Jack in your bed. You're only minorly disappointed, since you stupidly wished that he'd be there to say goodbye with another couple rounds. But it makes sense that he would be the type to leave without saying goodbye.

Figures. You always fall for the emotionally unavailable ones.

You are surprised, however, to be turned away by airport security while trying to get into the gate at JFK. When the TSA agent asks to see your I.D., you grab for your wallet. You don't find it in your jacket pocket, where you were sure you left it last night.

But you do find, in its place, a single playing card with a phone number on it.

"Mother fucker." In spite of your rage, while you pull out your phone to dial the number so you can get your fucking wallet back— because you fucking know he did this just to keep you in New York, just to see you again, the little shit— you can't help but smile at the words scrawled beneath it.

Jack Wilder. Here's trick number two.

You've been dropped off at the edge of a dense wood that reaches beyond your vision on both sides. You can hike around, or go straight through. Visibility is your greatest weakness, above blisters and cold nights, so you head into the woods. You don't need to stop for food or shelter; the program provides a pop-up tent and provisions for approximately a week. They don't want you dying out here.

You keep looking down at your wristband, although there's no function it serves you now. You feel like an animal though, tagged and released.

You remember in the first year, they released everyone out in the same large perimeter as a free-for-all, which caused endless issues — two women banded together and set traps for their prospective matches. Onsite safety had to intervene before the men were killed. Another case where a man discovered a woman that was not his designated match, and pursued her instead.

Now, the program is clinically consensual and safe. Designated matches are separated from others by much longer distances to avoid cross-contamination.

Hours go by, and you're still in the thick of the wood, not seeing an end ahead. It's probably smarter to pop the tent and camp while you've still got plenty of energy, but something about setting up camp before you'd eat supper feels wrong. Feels a bit like shooting a flare gun up into the sky for your match to swivel his head toward and begin scenting your trail.

He's too abstract to think much of, some faceless entity that vaguely represents a possibility of your future, but it's almost comical how your brain compartmentalizes it to focus on the hiking and camping aspect. As if you're going to emerge within a couple days, a survivor that's phased out of the program.

You stop to rest on a deadened and weak log, unzipping your bag to drink some water and eat a rations bar. Appropriately flavourless and fulfilling. The June sun is still high, although it must be closer to suppertime by now.

The only real instruction you were given was "head north," which not only prevents you from heading straight into the arms of your match on day one, but acts as some vague target to keep you moving along. Nonetheless, you head north.

You won't stumble upon another living soul at any point. This is the solo leg of the journey; the chase sequence a slow unspooling across days. You're used to isolation, even with roommates. Being outside with yourself is just the same feeling under a new sky. So, you walk in long zigzagging trails and hike and stop and pee and rest and eventually you camp.

The program packed dry soup packets that just need a mix with clean water, no heating required to turn it into a thickened broth with some freeze-dried vegetables and reactivated noodles. It's as terrible as it looks, but at least it's not raising a "soup's on" banner for your general area.

In the last week, you’ve managed to carve out some sort of existence in the house. There are bookshelves in what you assume is an office, and you’ve found titles there that help occupy your time. Sometimes you even sit on the couch in the living room, eager to escape the same four familiar walls of the bedroom. You come out for meals too, since no one has brought food to your door again, breathing through your mouth as you try to block out their scents.

It doesn’t work.

They’re everywhere.

Their scents, their bodies, even their clothes. You find shirts shoved in couch cushions, jumpers hanging over the back of kitchen chairs or the stair railings. They’re in the living room in the evenings, in the kitchen in the morning, at the table for dinner. One of them is always at breakfast, talking to you even if you don’t respond, keeping you apprised of the day.

“Johnny’s out until the afternoon, chasin’ down a lead. I’ll be here if you need something.”

“Gonna go out for groceries. D’ye need anything?”

“Simon’s on a perimeter walk. Dinnae want to scare ye, but we thought we heard something in the woods last night.”

It does scare you though. The looming threat, the fact that someone wants to kill you, is always in the back of your minding, haunting you like a bad dream. You’re afraid to step foot outside the front door, and whenever you hear them talking in low voices that abruptly stop once you enter the room, you fear the worst. They swear, again and again, that you’re safe, but the worry never goes away, it just lurks in the back of your mind, reminding you why you’re here, why you’re trapped in this house with your mates, a logical, sensible thing turned insane as you balance rational thought with instinct. Your safety is an ever changing thing, crossing lines in your head, trying to do backflips to figure out who you need protecting from.

The outside threat, or them.

Your pills aren’t working.

It’s the fourth morning in a row where you’ve swallowed your usual dosage, one suppressant, one blocker, one painkiller… and felt nothing.

No relief. No numbness.

Nothing, except for the pounding behind your eyes, the nausea crawling up the back of your throat, the never ending muscle cramps.

It’s taking a toll.

“Dove?” Johnny’s voice cuts through the static between your ears, the impossible tug of war you’re playing with yourself. They should be working. Is it because you’re too close to your alphas? Are they being overpowered? Is your body working against them, making you sicker?

Simon says your name, but you ignore him.

Is it even possible? Could their proximity override the effects of your medication? Did the doctor ever say anything about that?

A hand touches your face. It snaps you back to reality and you jerk away, shocked.

Your reaction doesn’t deter Johnny though, whose fingers are brushing across your brow.

“Ye’re warm, sweetheart. Ye feelin’ alright?” You nod, but don’t say anything, tongue heavy like wet cement in your mouth. Johnny looks down at your breakfast plate and frowns. “Ye barely ate.”

“Not hungry.” You croak. You lean away from him. He’s too close, and the urge to crawl into his arms and press your nose to his neck is overwhelming. You think it could help you, he could help you, be a balm, soothe your pain, take it away and-

Stop.

You shoot to your feet. The movement is too swift, too sudden and you sway, your lack of balance automatically moving Johnny forward, his hands on your arms, holding you steady. “Whoa, easy. Ye alright? Do ye need to lay down?”

“I don’t know.” You look away, trying to hide from their gazes, Johnny’s bright and concerned, Simon’s dark and focused. Two walls closing in on you, squeezing you from both sides.

“Maybe ye should go back to bed, try to get some sleep. Or do ye want to lay on the couch?” You shake your head.

“No, no… I’ll go back to bed. I’m probably just tired.” An obvious lie, but you can’t admit to them how badly you’re hurting. Your pride won’t allow it.

“Alright…” Johnny says as his hand slowly moves from just above your elbow to your back. “Let’s go get ye comfortable.” You stiffen, try to pull away but his touch stays firm, grounded at the base of your spine like an anchor, steering you towards the stairs.

You look over your shoulder before taking the first one. You’re not sure why, something pulls you, some sort of gravity, your eyes finding Johnny’s, and then Simon’s behind him. A foul yearning ricochets through your soul, your body, a desire unlike anything you’ve ever felt spreading through your blood.

An infection.

They made you sick.

They’re making you sick, still. Somehow.

Buried deep, the want burns, begs you to lean in, to give up, to give yourself over. To fall into their mercy and their attempts to soothe you, to let them have you. It takes considerable effort to fight it. To gnash your teeth together and refuse to let it out.

You hold your breath all the way up the stairs, letting the fire grow in your lungs until you reach your bedroom, head swimming as you collapse into the mattress. You should tell him to leave, but you can’t. The effort would be too much.

“Jus’ rest.” Johnny murmurs, back of his hand pressing to your forehead again as he brings your blankets up to your chin. “I’ll check on ye in a bit.” You scowl.

“I’m fine. Just tired.” You bite out before rolling onto your side, staring straight ahead at the wall. He sighs as he stands, shakes his head.

“If ye say so.”

You’re full of restless energy when you wake up.

It’s after sunset, the only light in your room coming from the small lamp that’s on your bedside table, hazy yellow light spilling out from behind the shade.

You feel a bit better, more clear headed, but there’s this… unsteadiness under your skin, something volatile and turbulent trying to get out. Your chest feels too tight, your hands are trembling.

Anxiety, you think. Has to be. You’re not immune to it, have plenty of experience with stomach twisting worry, though it’s never felt like this. It’s a new manifestation, a new way of your body worrying, fixating.

The blankets you’re hidden under are too heavy now, constricting, and you sit up, glancing around, looking for something that may have triggered your discomfort.

There’s nothing, except for the empty bedroom.

The bedroom that’s too large, too open.

It’s problem needing to be fixed, and you know what to do.

You pull the mountain of pillows apart, stacking them in misshapen rows around the edge of the bed, effectively creating a wall between you and the door. All the blankets come next, the extra ones, the weighted one, folded and then unfolded, arranged so each hem is ready to be pulled up over your face at any time to hide you from the world. You reorganize too many times, unable to stop yourself from pulling them around the center of the bed, bundling them up into cozy little groups, ready to be laid in, or on, however you want. You rifle through your duffel, looking for more clothes, comfy pants and shirts, their cotton lengths or fleece insides bringing you a tiny bit of peace as you shove them between edges. The bed is smaller now, and you’re enclosed like a castle sitting inside formidable walls. Tucked away. Safe.

But it still doesn’t feel right.

That feeling in your body, the one stretching and straining in your bones, twisting you from the inside out, hasn’t gone away.

You eye the lamp.

It’s too high, you decide. Too tall. It needs to be on the ground, and you place on the carpet at the corner of your bed, just next to the table so the warm yellow glow is somewhat muted.

Better, but still not right.

Maybe it’s the scent. Everything smells like clean laundry, all the blankets and pillows bearing the same lavender, freshly washed smell, the one that you get from the expensive detergent.

Nothing smells like you except for your clothes.

You grab at a blanket and work the edge of it over your wrists, your neck, your face, doing the same over and over with the others. You rub your face on all the pillows, breathing them in as deep as you can, trying to figure out if the contact is making a difference, or if it’s a fruitless endeavor.

It should work.

It should.

You look around. Up. Down. Eyes dragging from each corner to the next, looking for an offender. A reason.

The closet catches your eye.

Maybe it’s too big, you wonder. Maybe the room is too large, too much. Overwhelming.

You crawl off the mattress on hands and knees, shaking hands reaching for the closet door.

It’s dark in here. Nearly empty, but you can fix that. Easily.

You drag everything you’ve assembled on the bed to the floor, pulling it inside the closet piece by piece, lining the walls with pillows, arranging the blankets so they’re perfect for burrowing, snuggling.

Still not completely right, but better. Something is still off, but this is safer, darker. Everything you need.

You’re not sure how long you’ve been buried in the mountain of your own creation when the bedroom door opens.

Could be hours. Could be minutes. Time is a little blurry.

Everything is a little blurry, if you’re honest.

The pounding in your head has returned, a small headache that grew between your temples until it was beating like a drum, forcing your eyes closed, pushing you deeper into your pile of softness. It soothes you somehow, makes things feel not as terrible.

You stay there, curled up, when the door creaks. When there’s a silent pause, and then footsteps, and you don’t move when the closet is opened, the small amount of light at the back of the alpha causing you to wince.

Simon.

Sea salt and leather floods the space, and you realize with dread it’s a part of what you’ve been missing, that itchy, anxious feeling under your skin partially calming as steps closer.

His knees crack as he crouches, lowers himself in front of you, without a word. The silence settles like a tightrope, too dangerous for you to walk, to speak. You watch him inspect you, the closet, the blankets and pillows, watch the calculation unfold in real time.

“This is nice,” he murmurs, running a hand over some of the blankets, “bit small for your nest though.” The horror is immediate. Is that what this is? Is that what you’ve done? It has all the markings of nesting, all the telltale signs, but for some reason, you can't see it. You've nested before, but it's never felt like this. 

No. You’re not nesting. You just needed to get comfortable. The room was too big, too open to them.

“It’s not a nest.” You growl, instinctively pulling a blanket up to your neck. “I was just… I needed to get out of bed.” He cocks his head.

“It’s not? Sure looks like one to me.” Dismay burns in your blood, and your scent turns sour. Distressed. “It’s okay,” he soothes immediately, “you did good, dove. It’s a good nest.” He’s speaking to your biology, your hindbrain, and your omega preens, the instinct inside of you lighting up at the praise. It’s like a knife in your heart, this betrayal of your sense, and the horror only grows as you start to purr, the light vibration coming from beneath your ribs earning you a small smile from your alpha.

Stop.

Stopstopstopstop please stop-

The purring gets louder. Your stomach tosses, bile burning in the back of your throat, but you can’t stop it. You’re paralyzed, immobile, two factions fighting for control, and you can’t do anything but lay there as his hand comes to rest on your ankle, thumb pressing in, down, working against you in a slow circle. “Such a good omega.”

That snaps you out of it.

The praising of your designation is always something that has disgusted you. It’s dehumanizing, reduces you to a role, a biological factor and nothing more. An omega is the same as any omega, when it comes down to it. All driven by need, by instinct, preening and purring and desperate for knots and bites. Animals done to their bones. 

You won't let that become who you are. You can't. 

You kick his hand away and scoot back, deeper into the corner. The purring and pride has vanished, and in its place is a black rooted, snarled mess of fear and anger and pain. There’s a moment where you think he’s going to tighten his grip and hold on, but it doesn’t last. He stands instead, looks down as he towers over you.

“Dinner’s ready.” You shake your head.

“I’m not hungry.” It’s not true. You woke up with an appetite, and even with this situation, this confusion, the anxiety, the pain, everything, it’s still there.

“You need to eat.” You’re about to refuse again, but his eyes narrow. “Do you need me to bring you downstairs myself?” He will, you know it. You don’t doubt he will drag you out of this closet and down the stairs.

“N-no.” You hate the stammer, the proof in it. How it exposes you, shows how scared you are, how unsure. How this entire situation has changed you, took your life and dumped it upside down.

“C’mon then.” He extends his hand, and the part of you that’s growing out of control tries to take it. Your arm twitches, moves like it’s being played by a puppeteer. It’s only once your fingertips almost brush his that you yank back with a scowl. He chuckles. “Suit yourself.” He’s not leaving, not until you’re out of the closet, and you know that. He could force you, bark at you, drag you out. He’s got you pinned to the ropes, no choice but to do as he says, so you reluctantly crawl forward on your hands and knees, unsteady as you start to stand from being curled up all day.

You give the closet one last look before you close the bedroom door, its dark mouth beckoning you, waiting patiently.

For the past five years, June has passed by uneventfully as any other month. You watch the announcement of newly matched couples, rarely recognizing the names but curious to see who ended up with who nonetheless. Your favourite barista got matched last year with some astrophysics grad student. You were happy for her and while you never asked her about it, you noted the new smile on her face when she poured your coffee.

You've registered on the website before the spring deadline, per the mandate, and clicked the usual drop-down selection:

I am not currently interested in PURSUING a match with another registrant for this calendar year.

And the next:

My current status as of the time and date of registration is VIABLE.

—

In mid-April, you have one (1) new message waiting in your inbox.

From: [email protected] Subject: Registrant 7840184492 — Match Pending — Confirmation Required

Dear Above-Noted Registrant, Please find your pending match details below for the current calendar year. Registrant 2605266261 Your confirmation is required no later than 11:59 p.m. on May 1. In order to confirm this match, please follow the link below. Failure to respond to the pending match may result in legal action. Do not reply to this message.

It's not sitting in your junk mail. It wasn't flagged as spam. You do a few cursory searches online to backtrace the email address; it's as legitimate as they come. Your stomach squeezes tight. There must be a mistake of some kind that's been made.

Hoping your laptop isn't infected with malware as a result, you click on the confirmation link, and sure enough, it does bring you to an official government landing page for the match. You've never seen this page before, never needed to.

It's an approximation of an inbox. You have one (1) pending match that you can view. You wonder about the people who have many matches to review.

Registrant 2605266261 Age: 34 Gender: Male Occupation: Government Salary: Full-Time Debts Outstanding: None Dependents: None

You wrack your brain; you don't know any viable 34-year old men at all. Your male friends have either aged out of the match, 35 and up, or are in committed relationships. You definitely don't know any that have such good jobs.

After speaking with a chatbot in the bottom-right corner of the screen, you've determined that this is not a clerical error. And after the first year of the program, there are no more jokes or pranks made in the system.

You are viable. You have been since you turned 30. Your status hasn't changed once in that time, although you did believe you were close to changing it to NONVIABLE a few years ago. Your friends were so happy for you and you thought you might actually be able to change your drop-down selection for once that spring. The man felt bad about it after, wrote you a long email that expressed he didn't think you'd take it so seriously and he shouldn't have led you on like he did when he didn't have any plans to change his own status.

Same cycle every year: everyone gets excited in the spring, hopeful for a match. Tentative relationships that might've burgeoned get tossed to the side for the hopes of a 'designated' match instead. You never know who might choose you, so there "could always be someone better out there" hangs over your head.

If a match doesn't bear fruit, everyone goes on a frenzy to couple up casually to make themselves feel better. You fuck and hang out. Until the next spring.

If you're lucky, you get matched early.

If you're unlucky, which you are, you remain viable for the entirety of the five years. A humiliation ritual by now.

And now, just as you're ready to be phased out, a pending match. You can obviously choose to decline; that option has been at play since the third year of the program. However, it's complicated and per your friends, becomes a big hassle.

You live with two others, which is your only possibility for housing. A match would mean a designated house: a freestanding house. You appreciate that this pending match doesn't have any debts to his name, which is not something that your registration details can say.

So, why would this man choose you? If not an administrative error or some confusingly elaborate prank, why you?

And who is he to you? He could be an acquaintance that met you at a bar. Anyone that you've run into or been introduced to at any point. A year's worth of possibilities branching out before you and no particular direction to run in. Maybe more, if they, for some reason, are willing to risk waiting that long or failed a match previously.

This is someone who did, intentionally and with a minimum level of effort, choose you to match with, knowing what it entails.

The worst case scenario is that the match is deemed a failure. Unmatched participants get a single column of their names printed out, so that wouldn't be much fun, but…it's the last year.

Click the confirm button below to confirm the pending match. If selected, further details will be relayed to your e-mail address on file shortly.

What do you have to lose, really? Your dignity or pride? Those were gone after your first viable year.