Lovesucker
Summary: Leon meets the beautiful Ada Wong at a bar one night and becomes immediately entranced. But as they spend more nights of passion together, he begins to suspects there's more to her than what she seems. Read on AO3.
Pairing: Leon Kennedy x Ada Wong
Warnings: Blood, violence, vampires
Word Count: 15.1k words
Tags: Vampire!Ada, femdom, dom/sub undertones, loss of virginity, hurt/comfort, angst, smut, fluff, love bites, vaginal sex.
Author's Note: Best enjoyed while listening to "Lovesucker" by Haiden Henderson.
Chapter 1
“You should go talk to her.”
David nudged at Leon’s side. The rookie had spent the last several minutes staring into the gold foam of his lager, pretending he didn’t know what the others were talking about.
“You guys are probably seeing things,” he said. “She’s probably waiting on a date.”
“If she was waiting on a date,” Elliot said. “She’d be looking at the door. Instead, she’s looking right at you.”
“I’ve seen her staring at you several times,” David said. He nudged Leon’s shoulder again. “If you turn around and look, you might see it too.”
Leon clenched his teeth and dared a peek over his shoulder. The woman was seated at the corner of the bar by herself. From where she sat, Leon couldn’t see her face, but he could see the back of her inky black hair and the untouched red drink in front of her. She was dripping with leather—her jacket, her mini skirt, her gloves, her high-heeled boots that went up to the knee.
Then, for a split second, she turned her face in his direction. Leon immediately snapped his eyes back to the group.
“Come on, Leon,” Elliot said. “Since you got to Raccoon City, I haven’t seen you talk to any woman who wasn’t getting a speeding ticket.”
“I’ve only been here for a few weeks,” Leon reminded them.
“And in those weeks, every time we’ve invited you to get drinks, I haven’t seen you talk to anyone but us,” David said.
Leon couldn’t argue with that. It was common for the other RCPD officers to go out for beers after work, especially on Fridays, to boost team camaraderie or whatever Branagh said. And it was more common for guys like David and Elliot and the other boys to play wingman to each other. But whatever formative flirting experience Leon was supposed to have at his age, he missed out. Often, the other guys chatted up the girls before he had a chance to open his mouth.
The others seemed to realize this at some point, which explained why they were egging him on now.
“At least go up and say hi,” Elliot said. “That lady has been giving you back shots with her eyes all night.”
The whole table laughed, and Leon’s face turned bright red. A waitress came by with a tray full of shot glasses. David slid his across the table in front of Leon.
“Have some liquid courage,” he said. “Worst thing that could happen is she’ll say no.” He gave Leon an encouraging grin. “Not that she will. Chicks love a man in uniform.”
Leon looked at the amber drink in front of him, then back at the woman. Fuck it, might as well.
He took the shot between his fingers and then tossed it back. The other boys at the table whistled and clapped. Leon stood up, the alcohol already turning his veins warm, and he turned towards the bar. Sucking in a deep breath, he sauntered over to the counter, his heart ramming in his chest.
The woman didn’t look at him when he walked over. She swirled her red drink around on the counter. The ice had melted and she hadn’t seemed to have taken a sip. Almost like getting a drink wasn’t why she came.
Leon groped his brain for an opening line. Something David or Elliot would say. But his nervous, tottering brain couldn’t come up with anything, and he was just standing there awkwardly by her chair like a weirdo, so he just said—
“What’cha drinking?” he asked. “A Bloody Mary?”
Smooth, he thought.
The woman turned to look at him, and immediately Leon regretted every decision he made that night. She was stunning. Dark eyes and red lips framed by black hair. Leon felt like his throat had been stopped up with a cork and he couldn’t speak.
But the woman gave him a small smile.
“Actually, it’s called a poinsettia,” she said. “Triple sec, Prosecco, and cranberry juice.”
“Poinsettia,” Leon repeated. “Like the Christmas flower.”
Shut up, Leon, his brain hissed.
But the woman did not seem as deterred by his words as he was. She smiled and lifted her glass to him.
“Do you want to try it?” she asked.
Leon pursed his lips and took the glass by its stem between his fingers. He lifted the rim to his lips and was met with a strong, sweet flavor. It made his mouth pucker with just how sweet it was and left his lips a little redder.
“That’s nice,” Leon said.
This close, Leon could get a better look at the woman Her eyes were dark, almost black, and seemed to gleam like vinyl discs. Her burgundy lips matched her low cut top, and she smelled distinctly of pomegranates. She seemed a bit older than him.
“I always go for the red drinks,” she said. “They’re just better.”
“I like that stuff too,” Leon said. “But my co-workers always make fun of me if I drink anything other than a beer.” He rolled his eyes. “Girly drinks, they call them.”
The woman glanced over Leon’s shoulder at the table of cops, who were all watching the scene and whispering to each other like a table of schoolchildren.
“Those are your coworkers?” she asked.
Leon glanced back at the table, then back to her.
“Yeah,” he said.
“You’re a cop?”
Leon grinned and stood up a bit straighter.
“I am,” he beamed with pride.
The woman twisted her lips and raised an eyebrow, before returning her eyes to Leon.
“They seem lame,” she said.
Leon’s smile shrunk.
“Well,” he said. “Maybe I should arrest you for disrespecting officers.”
The woman smirked and made a hm sound.
“You can certainly try,” she said.
She elegantly took her poinsettia and took a sip from it. Leon watched how her lips closed on the glass rim.
“My name is Leon,” he said.
The woman set the glass down.
“Name’s Ada,” she said.
Ada. A name that knocked at his mouth like a fist on a door.
“Nice to meet you, Ada,” Leon said.
He heard snickering behind, and glanced over his shoulder. The other cops were whispering and giggling together like a cafeteria table of tweens. Leon’s face flushed. It was hard enough to talk to a woman alone. Being watched by the other guys just made him feel like he was the punchline to their joke.
Leon turned back to Ada, who was watching the whole thing with that bemused smirk on her face. He looked at her drink, still mostly untouched.
“Listen,” he said. He scratched the back of his head. “I don’t really want another drink…the beer here sucks, if I’m honest.”
He pursed his lips.
“There’s this place that just opened down the street. They’re an ice cream shop, but I’ve heard they’ve got the best milkshakes.” He offered Ada a small, hopeful smile. “Do you want to…take a walk with me? Let me treat you to something sweet?”
He didn’t show it, but Leon’s heart was hammering in his chest as he gaged Ada’s face for a reaction. She looked him up and down, and then smiled.
“I could go for something sweet,” she said.
Leon’s whole body immediately loosened and his face beamed.
“Great,” he said. “Let me show you.”
~
Leon held the door open for Ada as they left the bar. As she breezed past him, Leon glanced over at the RCPD table, and all the other guys were grinning and mouthing encouragement at him. David made a circle with his thumb and index finger on one hand, and fingered it with his other. Leon rolled his eyes and followed Ada outside.
Outside, the night air was chilly and Leon shivered as they started down the sidewalk.
“Are you cold?” Ada asked in a teasing tone.
Leon chuckled shyly and rubbed his arms.
“All these layers they put on our uniforms, you’d think they keep us warm,” Leon said. “Instead we just burn up when it’s hot out.”
“You poor baby,” Ada said with mock-pout.
Something about those words made Leon’s blood surge and he swallowed.
“I’d give you my jacket,” Ada said, and brushed a hand against Leon’s shoulder. “But I think it’d be too small on you.”
Leon tried not to shiver at Ada’s hand. Getting close to her felt like static electricity, like if she touched him, he’d get shocked. Or burned.
“I wouldn’t ask you to,” he said. “Especially since you’re wearing less clothes than me.”
Leon immediately regretted the words when they came out. His face burned red and his eyes widened.
“I’m so sorry,” he said. “I shouldn’t have said that, that was out of line…I didn’t mean to be weird I just…”
His stuttering was interrupted when he saw Ada press a hand to her mouth to suppress her laughter. Despite cracking up, her face was still pale, no blush to her cheeks.
“Looks like you’ll have to buy me two milkshakes to make up for it,” she said once she collected herself.
She linked her arm with his and Leon immediately relaxed.
The shop was called Jaxon’s Ice Cream and sat right at the end of the block. It wasn’t hard to find with its name glowing over the door in swirling, neon red font. The place had an old Americana theme to it. Black-and-white photos on the wall, diner-style seating, and oldies playing from a jukebox in the corner.
Leon pulled up a chair and ordered them two milkshakes—red velvet and chocolate. A waiter brought them over in two tall glasses and stared with red and white stripes.
“You like red a lot, don’t you?” Leon said. His eyes flicked between the red velvet shake and Ada’s crimson shirt.
“Every girl has a signature,” she said. “Besides, if I spilled anything red on me, it’ll blend right in.”
“Can’t argue with that.”
Leon tried not to stare too long as Ada pressed her crimson lips to the straw and took a sip. She hummed deep in her throat.
“You weren’t kidding when you said these were the best,” she said.
“I don’t mess around when it comes to dessert,” Leon said. “It’s the first spot I sought out after I moved here.”
The next hour, the two of them talked. Leon told funny stories from his first days of training (including the time he pulled over a drunk driver who thought he was Darth Vader). He tried to ask Ada questions about herself, but her answers were often short and brief (“Where are you from?” “A lot of places.” “How long have you been in Raccoon City?” “A while.” “What do you do for a living?” “I do freelance work.”)
Ada did most of the asking, and Leon did most of the answering. It made Leon feel a bit self-absorbed, but he figured she was just a private person. He was still sort-of a stranger, after all, and he didn’t want to overstep.
So, he answered any questions she had to poke him with. He told her about his family, his upbringing, why he came to Raccoon City to be a cop. He even admitted to her that he didn’t approach women at bars much.
“I can tell,” she said. “You’re not like your friends. You’re not the type to go prowling at night.”
Leon scoffed.
“I wouldn’t call it ‘prowling’” he said. “That makes it sound…”
Actually, the more he thought about it, what the other guys did seemed a bit like prowling. Especially after a few beers.
Ada chuckled. She reached across the table and patted Leon’s hand.
“Don’t worry,” she said. “I’m not one to talk. I do plenty of prowling too.”
She gave him a sweet smile and Leon swallowed hard. Ada gave his hand a squeeze.
“You seem like a decent guy, Leon,” she said. “You’re wasting that decency on being a cop.”
“How? I want to help people.”
“And so you became a cop?”
Ada snickered. Leon’s face turned the color of her milkshake. He wanted to get defensive, but some unexpected part of him liked her lightly making fun of him. Plus, he liked hearing her laugh.
Before long, the shopkeeper politely told them that the place would be closing soon. Leon and Ada slurped down the rest of their milkshakes before stepping out. Once they were back on the sidewalk, Leon’s phone alighted with a text message. David, Elliott, and the other boys had all left, and based on the text’s horrendous grammar, they were all wasted. They all wished Leon a good night with a flurry of eggplant and peach emojis that filled up the group chat.
“The other guys went home,” Leon told Ada as he slipped his phone back into his pocket. “Not much left at the bar now.”
“Well, then let’s not go back to the bar,” Ada said. She was suddenly standing very close to him. “You said so yourself, that place sucked.”
She stepped closer to him, enough that she brushed against him.
“You know,” she said. “I live a decent way from here. The subways are a bit scary at night, and the taxi drivers in this city are creeps.”
Leon stood still as she leaned closer to him with a smile.
“I'd appreciate it if you walked me home,” she said. “Just to make sure I’m safe.”
She fluttered her eyes at him and Leon felt his heart leap in his throat. His face blushed bright pink and he licked his lips trying to find a response.
“I…um…” he said.
He should say yes, right? He wanted to. It was sort of his job, wasn’t it?
Ada took Leon’s arm with one hand and laced her gloved fingers with his with the other. Her closeness did nothing to stop his racing heart.
“Come on, officer,” she purred. “You’re not going to leave a lady to walk home all alone, are you?”
Ada seemed like the last woman in Raccoon City who needed a bodyguard. But this close, Leon could smell her black cherry perfume and feel her hugging his arm between her breasts, and there wasn’t anything she could ask that he’d refuse.
“Yeah, of course,” he said. “How…far from here do you live?”
Chapter 2
Leon was slick with sweat under his shirt during the taxi ride over. Sitting this close together, Ada’s perfume was overwhelming. He wanted to bury his nose into the crook of her neck, but he was frozen where he sat.
The taxi driver was silent behind the partition glass, eyes on the road, leaving them some privacy. The window dripped with rain and the windshield wipers squeaked against the glass. Ada’s thigh was squished against Leon’s in the small space and he kept looking at her hand.
The two of them were quiet since they got in. Leon racked his brain for something to say. Could he ask to kiss her? Or was it too early for that? Leon hadn’t kissed anyone since his academy days, when a girl pulled him into one under the mistletoe during a Christmas party. He’d done this so few times he couldn’t gauge these things, and it’s not like there was some rule book to tell you.
Ada slumped her head against Leon’s shoulder. Leon sat still as possible. It felt like when a cat sat in your lap. You simply didn’t move lest you disturb them.
She squeezed his arm.
“You make a good pillow,” she teased. “Nice muscle.”
Leon swallowed and chuckled.
“Well, you can fall asleep on me if you want.”
Thank god it was dark in the taxi so she couldn’t see him blush. Ada nuzzled into his sleeve and Leon hoped they never made it to their destination. He would have been fine sitting in that back seat with her cheek to his sleeve all night..
“I like you, Leon,” Ada mumbled. “You seem like a sweetheart.”
His heart shuttered.
“I like you too,” Leon said. “You’re so…”
Beautiful. Funny. Enchanting.
“…cool.”
Ada smiled and squeezed his arm again. Then, she took off her leather gloves and zipped them into her purse. Leon saw an opportunity. He brushed his fingers over hers, and when she didn’t pull away, he gently took her hand in his.
He was struck by how cold her skin was. The air outside was early autumn, not deep winter, and the taxi was blasting warm air. But you wouldn’t know that touching Ada.
“Your hands are freezing,” Leon said.
Ada paused for a moment, then shrugged.
“The cold likes me,” she said. “Always has.”
Leon gently took her other hand and clasped them both between his. He huffed a warm breath on them and gently rubbed them together. Her skin was like ice, and no amount of breath and friction seemed to fix it.
Leon paused and looked up at her.
“Am I making it weird?” he asked.
A small smile crept on Ada’s face. She had a look on her face that he couldn’t quite read.
“No,” she said. “Not at all.”
~
Leon wasn’t sure what to expect from Ada’s apartment. She didn’t say how much she made from her “freelance” work, but he expected something classy. One of these sleek, minimalist apartments with a fridge full of wine and a digital fireplace under a flat screen TV.
Instead, Ada’s apartment looked like something from a museum. All her furniture was antique, not a single thing younger than fifty years. Oak wood cabinets, dusty trunks with locks, a bookshelf of cracked spines and yellow pages. She even had an authentic record player from the fifties sitting by her TV.
“Are you a collector?” he asked.
“You could say that,” Ada said. She stood by a table sifting through a cardboard box of vinyl records. She pulled on out and blew off the dust. She insisted Leon take off his police jacket and set it on a chair, leaving him down to a plain white T-shirt.
“This is so cool,” Leon said, running his hands along the antique coffee table. “Where do you get this stuff? Visit a lot of antique stores?”
“No. I…receive them from people.”
“Like an inheritance from your grandparents?”
Leon glanced up at Ada as she loaded the disc onto the record player. He could only see the back of her head, but he could sense her smirk.
“Sure,” she said. “You could say that.”
Before Leon could ask what she meant, the record crackled as it started to spin. A soft, jazzy melody ballooned across the room. It was the kind of music that warmed inside you, made you relax from the first notes. And made you feel a little something extra too.
“A woman of taste,” he said.
Ada smiled and turned from the record to look at him. Her eyes flicked him up and down.
“Yeah,” she said. “I’ve got good taste.”
She sauntered over and stood right in front of him. Her eyes looked intently at his face, like he had something written on him. Leon stood still and stiff as a board. Was she waiting for him to kiss her? Say something to her? His face was burning pink and without the darkness of a bar or taxi she could definitely see it.
Ada raised a gentle hand to his face. She lightly pinched his cheek and Leon could have melted right there on the carpet.
“You’ve got such pretty eyes,” she said.
Leon swallowed.
“Thank you,” he said. “Yours…you too.”
His heart was knocking at his ribs. Ada laced her fingers with Leon’s and escorted him over to sit on the couch. Leon’s heart was racing in his ribcage, so loud he worried Ada could hear it.
Despite the jokes the other cops made, Leon wasn’t completely naive. He knew that when a woman invited you over after drinks, it wasn’t typically to just listen to jazz records. But then again, maybe he was being presumptive. He couldn’t say for sure because he—
“Is it too hot in here for you?” Ada asked.
Her voice pulled Leon from his tumbling thoughts. He turned his face to look at her. She was so close he could feel the cold radiating off her skin.
“No,” he said. Ada’s apartment was warm compared to outside, where it was starting to drizzle rain, but he hadn’t noticed much.
Ada returned her hand to Leon’s cheek. Her fingertips brushed along his face and down his neck.
“Your face is burning,” she said. “And so is your neck…”
Leon froze stiff where he saw. Ada’s touch sent an electric shock down his spine despite her icy skin. She leaned her face in close and he could feel her breath against his lips. Her hand traced down to his chest and she pressed a hand right over his bicep.
“Your heart is racing,” she mumbled. “Do I make you nervous?
Leon’s tongue struggled to form words. He’d had crushes before, met people was attracted to before. But this felt different. This felt like a trance, like just looking in Ada’s eyes hypnotized him until he couldn’t resist.
He told her the truth. “Yes.”
Ada gave him a gentle smile. It was a small, pitying one. But her eyes were nearly glowing with a simmering hunger.
Leon’s heartbeat was in his ears, loud enough he really believed she could hear it. The rhythm in his chest, the pump of his blood in his veins, the sweat prickling on the back of his neck. He felt like he was under a microscope, and Ada could see and hear everything.
Ada gave him a small smile. One hand to his chest, she cupped his face with the other.
“You poor thing,” she said. “You’re bright red.”
Leon swallowed. “Your…favorite color.”
Before he could even register how unsuave his words were, Ada pressed her lips to his. She took his face in both her hands and held him close. Leon turned to putty in her hands and sunk into her touch.
He wasn’t sure what to do, and not because Ada’s mouth seemed to suck out any thoughts his brain could muster. He didn’t know what to do with his hands in his lap or his tongue in his mouth. Thankfully, Ada was happy to do most of that. She pushed Leon’s back into the couch and she smoothed a hand up his thigh. Leon’s hair stood on his and all the blood not his face rushed down between his thighs.
Then, Ada’s hand cupped his crotch. Leon whimpered against her mouth and his thighs instinctively widened open. She gently massaged his bulge, and when she moved her lips to his neck he couldn’t stop himself from moaning.
“So cute,” Ada mumbled into his neck between his kisses.
Her words made Leon’s brain melt and did nothing to help the situation between his legs, which was starting to leak. Ada licked the tip of her tongue in a circle on Leon’s burning neck, and she moaned like she was smelling a meal.
“So sweet,” she mumbled. “I could eat you up…”
Ada shifted herself on top of Leon, straddling his lap. She kissed and licked at his neck and ground down on his erection. Leon held her hips to keep her steady on top of him but every kiss sapped his strength away.
Then, Leon felt a sharp pain on his neck. He grunted and twitched away from her mouth.
“What’re you doing?” he said.
Ada sat up to look him in the face.
“Sorry,” she said. “I…bite a little when I get excited.” She gave him a cheeky smile. “I call them my love bites.”
She hooked two fingers into the front of his belt. Leon wasn’t used to feeling this way. Like a meal. Like prey on a platter. But there was something about Ada, this woman he just met, that seemed magnetic. The air and light around her was like static, like she was casting some trance over him.
She pressed her forehead to his. Her perfume, her soft breath, her eyes. Leon wanted her to keep touching him. No, that wasn’t enough. He wanted her to bury herself in his skin.
“Do you want me to stop?” she whispered.
Leon’s mind and body were hot candle wax and his cock was aching hard between his legs. There was nothing he wouldn’t let her do to him.
“No,” he said. “I like it…I just didn’t expect it—”
Ada’s lips were on his again. Rougher, more aggressive this time. Ada grunted deep her throat. The satisfied sound of a first bite. Leon wrapped his arms around her waist and held her close. Ada’s hips twitched, grinding the wet crotch of her pantyhouse down on the stain in his pants.
Then, Leon heard a metallic click. Ada’s hands found his belt buckle and began to clasp it. He gathered himself just enough to pull his mouth from hers.
“Sorry,” he said instinctively. “I...I uh…”
“Something wrong?” Ada asked. She thread her fingers through his hair, petting his scalp like a blonde puppy.
“”I’m sorry, it’s just that…” Leon groped his hazy brain for how to explain it. “I’ve never…I haven’t…”
Something crossed Ada’s eyes. She used her other hand to cup his cheek, squishing it against her palm.
“You’ve never had sex?” she asked softly.
Leon was bright red again. He closed his eyes and dropped his face. The other officers assumed he was just inexperienced. And he let them believe it, because he couldn’t admit that he hadn’t gone all the way with anyone. Saying it in front of a beautiful woman who invited him over felt especially humiliating.
Ada pressed two fingers under Leon’s chin and forced him to look up at her. The look in her eyes was soft, entrancing, and made Leon feel small yet oddly safe.
“Is this not how you want it?” she asked.
She didn’t seem bothered by this new information at all. She seemed to understand him. And her mouth…was that…a bit of drool?
Leon pursed his lips. Maybe with less alcohol and horny brain fog, he would reconsider the situation. But right now he could only think of Ada’s body weight on top of his, her doting eyes and her breathy voice. Moreover, he just wanted her to kiss him again.
He shook his head.
“No,” he said. He took her wrist and pressed her hand to his chest, just over his pumping heart. “I want it.”
A small, sympathetic smile quirked on Ada’s face. She took his face in both hands again and pressed a long, deep, sweet kiss to his mouth. She smacked thick kisses along his cheeks, his mouth, his neck that shined with her saliva. Leon tipped his head back, eyes fluttered shut, and a shuttering moan escaped his lips.
Ada’s lips and tongue returned to his neck, and he felt that sharp pain again. He grunted against the puncture. He’d seen plenty of hickey bruises, but this felt sharper than that. But this pain felt different than what he was used to. It was the pain of a heroin needle. Sharp at first, then filled him with a warm high.
Ada suckled at his neck, and Leon couldn’t even bring himself to open his eyes. He lay there as helpless as a ragdoll as she kissed and sucked at his tender flesh.
“Mmmmm…good boy,” she mumbled into his skin.
Leon smelled something weird, but before he could open his eyes to check, Ada’s hand was back on his crotch, massaging him stupid. Then she took the waist of his pants and started to tug. Leon opened his eyes and grabbed her wrist.
“Wait,” Leon whimpered.
Ada paused and lifted her head to look at him.
“Yes?” she said.
Leon was shivering and burning all over. His heart was loud enough he was sure she could hear it.
“Can we…” he stuttered. “Can we do it in a bed?”
Something about losing his virginity on a dusty couch made Leon feel a little cheap. He wanted to be on his back, her whole weight on top of him. Ada smiled and cocked her head over her shoulder.
“Through that door,” she said.
Leon took that as his cue. As Ada’s mouth returned to his, he clasped an arm around her waist and a hand under her rear. With a heave, he lifted her up off the couch and she tightened her legs around his waist. Leon kicked the door to open it.
Ada’s bedroom looked just as castle-like as the rest of her apartment. A vintage vanity missing a mirror, a dark oak bed of red sheets, old picture frames on the wall. Leon gently lowered Ada down on the bed, but she grabbed him by his shirt and pulled him down with her. In seconds she had him on his back, Leon yelped when she threw him down. The woman was stronger than she looked.
Ada stood up from the bed and reached for the zipper on the side of her leather skirt. It dropped down her legs, before joining on the floor with her shirt, pantyhose and boots Leon may as well have been tied to the bed with how still he was. He lay there like a panting dog as a leash as she stripped down to dark red underwear.
She gave him a wicked smile.
“Your turn,” she said.
Before Leon could reach for his zipper, Ada was on top of him again. She panther-crawled from the edge of the mattress until she hovered over him. Leon was bigger than her, probably stronger than her. He could have pushed her off easily. So why did he feel like prey wounded beneath a lioness?
“I’ll be gentle,” she said. “Promise.”
Leon pursed his lips and nodded. He raised his arms up and let her peel off his white undershirt White cotton gave way to golden flesh and Ada licked her lips.
“Are you sure you’ve never done this?” she asked.
Leon shook his head.
“I’ve only ever been kissed,” he said. He watched Ada toss his shirt on the floor and start unzipping his jeans. ”Never…”
Ada hooked both hands in his waistband and pulled his jeans down. His black boxers were tented by a burning erection. Leon’s face reddened worse and he squeezed his eyes shut in embarrassment.
“That’s a shame,” Ada said.
She wrapped her fingers around his bulge and Leon sucked in a breath like he’d been punched in the gut. Every nerve in his body directed at her hand. She didn’t move it, just held it in her hand like a threat.
“Hiding all of this under that ugly police uniform,” she said. “What a waste.”
Her thumb circled around his tip and Leon bit hard down on his bottom lips. His teary-eyes squeezed shut and his hands gripped the duvet.
“Fuck,” he whimpered. “Please, I…. fuck .”
Ada grinned.
“You’re so cute when you squirm,” she said.
“Ada please…it hurts really bad…I can’t…”
Leon was visibly sweating and Ada’s slender fingers were like torture instruments. His tip was dribbling ferociously, leaving a ugly stain on his boxers. Ada curled her fingers into his waistband and pulled down until Leon felt a shivering breeze on his cock. He instinctively reached down to touch it, but Ada snatched his hand away and pinned it on the headboard behind him. She looked at him with butcher knife eyes.
“You still want this?” Ada asked.
Leon’s chest rose and fell with each huffing breath. At this point he was close to cumming with his virginity intact.
He gulped and nodded.
“Yes,” he said.
“You’ll let me do what I want?” Ada hooked her thumbs into the side of her underwear and pulled down. Cold skin gave way to a pussy of lush, black hair.
“Yes, please, do whatever you want,” Leon begged. His knuckles turned white gripping the sheets while he desperately tried not to touch his cock. “Just please…please fuck me already…”
Ada smiled, and Leon swore he saw a gleam in her teeth. She took his cock in her hands, and slowly lowered herself down on him.
Velvety wet walls clasped around his length and Leon’s breath hitched. His hands immediately grabbed Ada’s hips to keep her steady on top of him. Ada smirked and licked her canine teeth as she started swerving her hips. Each one sent a sharp wave of pleasure up Leon’s shaking body.
“Fuck,” Leon croaked.
“”Does that feel good?” Ada said between breaths.
Leon couldn’t properly respond as Ada’s pussy turned his brain to soup. He lay helpless beneath her as she fucked him deeper into the mattress. The old oak bedframe creaked and squeaked beneath him the headboard thumped against the wall.
“Yes…” he squeaked.
Ada took one of his hands from his hips and smoothed it up her stomach to her breast. Leon’s breath hitched as she moved his hands where she wanted them. He shivered as his hot hand met her stony flesh. He wanted to pull her hand on top of him, warm every inch of her against him.
Instead, he tipped his head back and arched his back in a moan as she ripped through his virginity. After what felt to him like centuries of her using his cock, Leon felt it rising up in him and his hips twitched beneath hers. But then, Ada clamped a hand over his mouth and leaned close to his eyes.
“No,” she breathed. “Me first.”
Leon’s eyes welled with tears but he gritted his teeth. He held his breath and pushed himself up deeper inside of her. Ada sat up and arched her back and her eyes fluttered shut as she rode him through a boiling climax.
“That’s right,” she breathed. “Good boy…just like that…”
Ada’s body was cold even as her body came. But Leon didn’t have time to register it, because once she was finished, Ada sunk her nails into his shoulders and fucked him with a sadistic viciousness that made him choke. Leon’s moans turned to cries and the bed was loud enough that the building could hear them, but neither of them cared. Ada’s hands smooth up Leon’s chest and grip his throat.
“Come for me,” she hissed. Her face hovered over his and one hand threaded through his hair. “ Now .”
Leon’s back arched and he clasped her lower back. He squeezed his eyes shut, but Ada grabbed his face and forced him to look her in the eye while he came. Her sharp nails in his cheeks, her icy cold body on top of him, it was enough to make him…
Then, at that moment, as Leon was rushing over the edge and every drop of blood was in his face and neck, he felt her teeth on his neck. It was a sharp pain that made him squeak, but he didn’t fight it. Because a melting orgasm was taking over him and his hips were bucking to meet hers and nothing else existed except—
“Ada,” he gasped.
Her hips kept mercilessly fucking him even after every drop of him was gone. When she started to slow, he felt her teeth leave his neck and her tongue licked at the tender flesh she suckled. Leon felt weak all over. Like she pulled his soul right out of his body.
He was burning all over and his vision felt a bit hazy. He whimpered her name and she held his face in her hands. Before the blackness took over his eyes, she pressed her lips to his. Leon swore it tasted like copper.
~
He didn't know these woods. He didn't know anything except he was being pursued. Leon's felt pounded against the earth, his face flushed hot with panic and the icy air biting at his cheeks. He couldn't hear the footsteps behind him, but he knew they were there. He had no weapons, and his body was too weak to fight. The only thing to watch out for him now was the chilly moon that dimly lit his path.
His heart beat like a drum in his ear, warning him.
"Run. Run. Run."
~
Sunlight split the crack in the curtains and across Leon’s eyes. His mind snapped from the dream and back into the safety of a warm bed. A beam of white through the window. The smell of somewhere that wasn’t his apartment. Red sheets enveloping his naked body.
Leon rubbed his eyes and sat up. His brain was still half inside that weird-ass dream of running through the woods, pursued by something he couldn't see or hear but so certain it was there.
No more beer and milkshakes, his brain advised. Does weird things to your brain, apparently.
He could still practically feel the cold woods on his body. But when he opened his eyes and looked around, he only saw an empty, museum-like bedroom. The night before came back to him like water dripped into his head. The guys had dragged him out to beers again. There was a woman at a bar. Poinsettia. Milkshakes. A taxi.
A gorgeous woman fucking his virginity out.
Leon glanced down and saw his morning wood tenting the bedsheet. His skin flushed hot with everything that happened last night. He never imagined losing his virginity to someone he just met at a bar. He didn’t regret it, but it wasn’t what he expected after yet another night of David and Elliot dunking more whiskey onto his liver.
But he wasn’t thinking about them now. He was thinking about Ada. Her icy skin and her dark smell and her eyes that glint like knives.
Speaking of which…
Leon glanced around the room. He listened for footsteps, or a voice, or a shower running in the bathroom. Nothing.
Then, Leon noticed his belt had been looped in a circle and set on the nightstand. There was a white sticky-note on the buckle. He swiped it up and read what was written on it in elegant, red cursive.
Had to step out early. There’s bagels in the fridge. I hope you liked last night <3
Instead of a signature, there was a lipstick mark on the bottom of the note. Leon pressed it to his mouth, remembering the feel of her crimson lips smearing his.
Leon swung his legs over the side of the bed and started plucking his clothes off the floor. He dressed himself quickly, as he figured a woman like Ada wouldn’t want a man she just met lingering alone in her personal space for too long.
Once he was dressed, he stumbled to the kitchenette and opened the fridge. When Ada said there were bagels in the fridge, she didn’t specify that there were only bagels. The whole thing was empty save for a half-finished pack of them. Leon never knew anyone who let their kitchen get this empty before remembering to get groceries. What else did she eat?
You, apparently, a voice whispered in his head, and he blushed.
Just before he left, Leon caught a glimpse of himself in a mirror on the wall. Against the pale skin of his neck there was a splotch of red. He stepped closer and examined it in the glass. There were hickies, and then there was whatever this was. He could distinctly see two puncture marks from where her teeth sank and there were purple bruise patches blossoming around the side.
Leon gently pressed a finger to the wound. There was a wince of pain.
“Intense,” he mumbled.
She was intense. Ada carried herself with a graceful nonchalance, like nothing in the world could rattle her. But once he was in her bed, he felt like a prey animal being eaten up.
And he kind of liked it.
Chapter 3
When he got to work, Leon was greeted by a low whistle.
“Looks like Leon got lucky,” David said.
The other guys were gathered by David’s desk, morning brew in hand. They all seemed perfectly rested from the night, and not like they were recovering from getting the fucking of a lifetime. Leon chuckled shyly and scratched the back of his head.
“Is it obvious?” he said.
“So how’d it go?” one of the other guys asked. “Did you fuck her?”
“I, uh…” Leon started, A more accurate description would be that she fucked him. Thoroughly. “After we left we went to get milkshakes down the street. And then…she took me back to her place.”
The boys whistled and patted him in the shoulder.
“Must have been a hell of a night,” David said. He poked at his neck. “Looks like she marked her territory while she was at it.
Leon didn’t know what he was talking about at first. Then, Elliot sauntered over and tugged down Leon’s collar. Ada’s “love bite” was still visible on Leon’s neck, no matter how much Neosporin and bandages he used.
“Damn, did she try to eat you, man?” he said.
“Leave it to Leon to pick up a cannibal at a bar,” David quipped.
Leon pushed Elliot’s hand away and rubbed at the mark.
“She didn’t,” he said. “She calls them her ‘love bites.’”
All the guys fell into laughter and teasing until Branagh called them all to attention. The rest of the day, Leon fingered at the wound. It hurt to touch directly, and he considered putting another bandage on. But part of him liked the little sting of pain. Liked the memory of her red lips and perfect teeth sucking in his flesh. It sent shivers and a hot flash through him.
“So, you gonna ask her out again?” Elliot asked in the break room.
“Maybe,” Leon said as he stirred some Splenda into his coffee.
“Oh, don’t go back into pussy-mode, Leon. If she likes you, you might actually get laid a second time.”
“Is that all you care about?”
“If I had a smoke show like her riding my dick, it’d be a big reason why.” He clapped Leon’s on the shoulder. “Call her. Who knows when a guy like you is gonna get a chance with a woman like her.”
Elliot slipped out of the room before Leon even had a chance to be offended. But he had a point. Leon wasn’t great with girls, and Ada felt like the kind of person you met only once—and not just because that had been an incredible night for him.
Plus, another love bite sounded nice.
~
On his lunch break, Leon stared at Ada’s number on his phone. She’d given it to him when they were at Jaxon’s. He’d been telling her a story about getting tasered during his time at the police academy, and she insisted he send her a picture of the wound. A morbid ask, but for her he was willing to send it.
Now he still had it, and there was nothing stopping him from calling her.
Except the fear gripping his stomach.
It shouldn’t have been hard. He successfully approached her once, a phone call should be fine. They slept together. Calling wasn’t unusual right?
David suggested Leon wait a few days. Didn’t want to come off clingy.
Well, he was clingy.
He pressed the call button. It rang for several painful seconds before she picked up.
“Hello?” she said. Her voice sounded sleepy, like she just woke up from a map.
Leon sucked in a deep breath.
“Hey, Ada,” he said. “It’s Leon.”
“Leon.” She sounded surprised to hear him. “You still have my number?”
Leon froze.
“Yeah,” he said.
“Hm. I thought you’d have deleted it by now.”
Why would I delete it? Leon thought.
“Well, I…” he said. He cleared his throat. “I still have it because…I wanted to ask…”
Thank god you couldn’t see through a phone call, because Leon’s face was turning pink and it was hot in his squad car.
“There’s this fancy new place on Main Street,” he said. “Like, dress-code fancy. But I’ve heard they got the best steaks in the state, and…”
He swallowed.
“I wanted to ask if you’d have dinner with me this weekend. Or next weekend. Whatever works for you. If you want.”
He bit hard down on his lip waiting for a response. Ada was silent for a few moments and for a second Leon wondered if she hung up.
“Sure,” she said. “How does Friday sound?”
Leon released a deep sigh. His whole body lightened and a relieved smile stretched onto his face.
“Friday is perfect,” he said. “Eight?”
“Pick me up at seven fifty. See you there.”
The two hung up. Leon leaned his back in his car seat and screamed in his car.
~
Leon was ready at Ada’s apartment at 7:45pm sharp. He was wearing a deep navy suit that he hadn’t worn since graduation and held a bouquet of red roses in his hands. He was nervous but buzzing with excitement.
If tonight went well, maybe Ada could be more than a one-night stand. Maybe, before long, Leon will have his first real girlfriend.
Ada emerged from the front entrance of her building and Leon could have collapsed right there. A long, silky red dress with a slit up the leg and no sleeves. Black heels and pantyhose and a black clutch. And of course, her lips were bloody red.
Ada smiled as her heels clicked down the front steps.
“You didn’t have to get me flowers,” she said.
Leon was sweating under his collar and cleared his throat.
“I know red roses aren’t that original,” he said. “But I know red is your favorite, and the shop didn’t have—”
Ada shushed him by grabbing his face and planting a thick kiss on his cheek. Leon chuckled nervously before holding open the car door for her.
“Shall we?” he said.
~
Sterling’s was fancier than Leon anticipated. He knew the place was higher-end, but as soon as they stepped inside, he could smell the money. A dark place lit by chandeliers and candles. White draped tables and waiters in three-piece suits.
No doubt expensive, but hey, it’s not like he had anything else to splurge money on.
Ada took his arm while they followed the waiter to their tables. Looking around, most of the other couples there looked married or engaged. Leon even spotted a guy holding a small ring box behind his back, mumbling his proposal on his lips.
Maybe this place is too much for a second date, he thought.
But Ada didn’t seem to mind a bit. She was grinning as he pulled up a chair and her eyes glazed down the selection of red wines on the menu.
“I’m impressed, Leon,” she said. “You know the good places to eat.”
“I try my best,” he said as he took a seat. Despite the chilly atmosphere, it was hot inside the place and Leon loosened his tie knot a bit.
“Still recovering?” she asked.
Leon looked at her.
“Huh?” he said.
Ada lifted from her chair and reached across the table. She tugged down his collar and brushed her fingers along her love bite. Leon blushed.
“Oh, yeah,” he said. “Uh…I got tired of bandages. They got itchy.”
He wished he’d gotten some makeup powder from the drugstore to cover it up. His collar and tie barely did much to cover it up.
Idiot, he thought.
“Sorry about that,” Ada said. He kept gently fingering the mark. It still hurt days later, and Leon twitched to push it closer into her fingers.
“Don’t be,” Leon said. “I mean…the guys at work joke about it all the time…and I don’t mind it much.”
“Doesn’t it hurt?”
“I mean, yeah, but….” Leon licked his lips. “I don’t mind.”
Ada’s red lips curled into a smile. She sank back into her chair.
“I don’t mean to do it,” she said. “Sometimes I just…” She looked at him. “Get a little hungry.”
Ada looked at him for a long moment, like she was considering ordering him off the menu. Leon felt stripped naked in that restaurant, but he didn’t mind. A bit of light humiliation felt kind of nice when it was coming from her.
Dude, you are so far gone, David’s voice whispered in his head.
A waiter came by with a silver pitcher and filled it with glasses of ice water for them. Ada swirled her glass around on the table. The ice tinkled delicately inside.
“I’ll be honest, Leon,” she said. “I was surprised you called me back.”
“Why’s that?” he asked.
“I dunno. I’m used to hitting and quitting, and most boys don’t mind.”
Leon swallowed a sip of his water.
“Well, maybe I’m not like most boys,” he said, then he immediately cringed. “Sorry, I sound like an asshole, I just…”
I just think you’re really cool and I wanted to see you again.
“I just like you,” he said. “I know we just met, but…I like you. And I wanted to see you again is all.”
Leon dropped his eyes down to the table and pursed his lips. He didn’t look at Ada’s reaction, but he could feel his eyes boring into him. Then, she reached across the table and threaded her fingers with him. Cold fingers. Always cold.
“I don’t give my phone number out much,” she said. “I didn’t expect you to call me back, but…maybe I gave it over hoping maybe you would.” She squeezed his hand and gave him a shock to the heart. “And I’m glad I did. You’re very…. easy .”
Leon didn’t have time to ask her what she meant before a waiter approached their table. The two of them ordered sirloin steak and red wine. Leon offered to split a salad or garlic bread with her, but Ada insisted on just the meat. Leon watched her as they ate. Ada cut her meat with the precision of a surgeon, or a hunter preparing to cook a kill over a fire. Her teeth gleamed with each bite and Leon swore he saw her canines pointed.
Then, she glanced up from her plate to him. Leon quickly turned his gaze back to his wine.
“What?” she said. “What are you looking at?”
Leon blushed.
“Nothing,” he said. “I just…like watching you eat.”
Before he could kick himself under the table for saying that, Ada grinned.
‘Because you’re a pervert,” she said.
Leon’s face went redder and he glanced around to see if anyone heard her. Meanwhile, Ada just laughed at him.
“You’re so easy to mess with,” she said. “It’s cute.”
Ada tore through her steak quickly before Leon was even half-done with his. When she finished, Ada swiped a finger across the red steak juice on her plate and plopped it in her mouth. She moaned against the taste and Leon’s blood rushed between his legs.
As if she could hear it moving through his veins, Ada flicked her eyes at him. She smiled and pulled her finger from his mouth.
“No plans for dessert?” she said.
“Did you not want some?” he asked. “Because this place has a great hot fudge— errmph .”
Leon was cut short by something pressing on his crotch. Under the table, Ada pressed her high-heel shoe to Leon’ shaft. He could feel it through his trousers and he immediately hardened.
“Ada,” he said. He swallowed his half-chewed bite of steak. His eyes flickered around the whole room. No one seemed to notice, but they just might any second.
“What’s wrong, baby?” Ada teased. “You’re red in the face again.”
Her foot shifted on his crotch, pressing down just enough to hurt. The pain made Leon’s blood surged but his thighs instinctively opened more. A couple of people were shifting their eyes over. No one could see under the table and Ada looked perfectly poised where she sat. He was the one who looked like a weirdo.
“I think the wine is getting to you, Leon,” Ada said. “I think we should head home.”
Leon was sweating under his suit. He couldn’t move, because she wouldn’t let him off. And he wanted her to push down harder.
“Waiter,” he said. ”Check please.”
~
The date was shorter this time, and before long they were back in Ada’s antique apartment, and Leon was pressing her back against a wall. He didn’t realize how much he’d missed her touch until they were viciously kissing through her apartment door. Her cold skin, her dark perfume, her chuckling sighs. He’d been craving it since that first night she ravished him.
But this second time around, he wanted to pay her back for the previous night. He wanted to be the one to make her back arch. Even as he kissed Ada, Leon could feel his mouth begin to water. He wanted to taste her. He wanted her fingers in his hair.
He moved his kiss from her mouth to her cheek, then her neck, then down between her breasts. He bent his knees to lower himself down, but before they could hit the carpet, Ada stopped him.
“No,” she said.
She grabbed him by his shirt and pulled him back up to his feet.
“Oh…okay…” Leon stuttered. “Can I…ask why…”
Ada pulled Leon close to her. One hand clasped around his waist, the other around his neck. She was as out of breath as him and took a moment to answer.
“I want to feel all of you against me,” she said. She clasped his asscheek with one hand and Leon’s breath hitched. “You’re whole body. I want all of it .”
Leon didn’t argue with her. Seconds later his jeans were on the floor and he was back inside her. Ada tightened her legs around his waist as they ducked into the wall. Her nails dug into the back of his shoulder clinging to him. Her body wrapped so tight around his that he thought she might strangle him like a boa constrictor.
Then, Leon felt that prick of pain again in his neck. But he didn’t fight it this time. He fucked through the initial pain as Ada bruised his flesh again. He focused on her finger gripping the back of his hair and her perfect sighs in his ear. She could take whatever she wanted from him. She could mark him from head to toe as long as he—
“FUCK .”
He hissed it through his teeth. The second Ada finished Leon came like a shattered bottle. His bare back was sweaty and clawed up from Ada’s nails. Ada pulled her teeth from his neck, leaving two strings of saliva behind. Leon could already feel the swelling pain, but he didn’t care. All he could think of was her vice-like grip on his body, his cock, and his tongue as he repeated her name like an incantation.
“Ada…Ada…Ada…”
~
The moon seemed to have dimmed in the sky until the woods had nearly succumbed to darkness. Leon’s eyes searched everywhere for an exit, but the trees seemed to stretch on forever. His legs were tired. His body was about to give out. He was going to be eaten alive.
Then, as if nature itself had decided she had enough of him, Leon tripped on a thick root and fell face-first to the ground. He groaned against the pain and turned onto his back. Dirt filled his mouth and blades of grass speckled him all over.
Then, the moon above him was eclipsed by a silhouette. Something—someone—was hovering over him. He was too weak to run, to fight. He only lay there shivering on the cold earth as his pursuer looked down upon him.
He heard a female breath in the air. He smelled black cherries and pomegranates. He saw two pairs of glinting, sharp teeth.
~
His eyes snapped open and he sat up in bed. His heart was still pounding and his skin shivered with sweat. He felt around the bed. He was alone. Another weird dream.
Once again, he wasn’t in the woods. He had woken up in Ada’s bed again, new teeth marks in his neck, and another note telling him she wouldn’t be seeing him at breakfast.
Chapter 4
Before long, it had become a routine between them. Once a week, sometimes more than once, Ada would call Leon asking him to come see her. Soon they’d dropped the pretense of a date altogether, and Leon would drive straight to Ada’s apartment without so much as a drink or meal to prelude it.
When these calls came was a bit unpredictable, but Ada seemed considerate enough of Leon’s work schedule to only call him after hours. She’d instruct him to arrive after sundown, and every time Leon went. Even if she called him at three in the morning on a work night, or before another drink out with David and Elliot, Leon always arrived at her doorstep. And every time, she would lay him on his back or press him against a wall and have her dirty way with him, leaving another red mark on his body.
In fact, the love bites were getting a little out of hand. Sometimes Ada would suckle on a spot she left before, when she got tired of that, her teeth and lips would find somewhere new on Leon’s neck, shoulders, or chest. For a while he didn’t mind. It felt good, and a part of him liked being marked up by her. His coworkers would notice and make jabs about whatever kinky things she was doing to him.
But after a point, something started to tug at the back of Leon’s head. He noticed how Ada was never there when he woke up the next morning, always leaving a note telling him to see himself out. When they stopped getting a bite before heading home. When their visits seemed to get shorter.
It was starting to make him feel just the slightest bit…used.
The other guys on the force joked that he seemed like a “one lady kind of guy.” It may have been meant as an insult, but Leon couldn’t deny the truth of it. He got attached easily. He wasn’t wired for casualness.
Normally, Leon woke up long after Ada when they finished another night together. Every morning, she’d leave him a note politely telling him to see himself out, he’d take a bagel from her kitchen, and leave as he was told. But one day, after another night of love bites, he woke up just as she was leaving.
Leon’s eyes fluttered open, his mind still in a warm, post-sex haze, and he saw Ada sitting on the side of the bed. Her bra was back on and she pulled her underwear and pantyhose back up her legs. She then reached down to pluck her red top off the floor too.
Before she could stand up to grab her skirt, Leon quickly and instinctively grabbed her wrist. Ada was startled and snapped her head to look at him. There was a brief flash of fierceness in her eyes before she realized it was just Leon.
“You’re awake early,” she said.
“I guess this means I can say goodbye this time,” Leon said.
“Yes. Well, goodbye.”
Before Ada could lift herself from the bed, Leon gently tugged her back down.
“Ada,” he said.
Ada paused and looked at him. Her eyes flicked between Leon’s face and his hand on her wrist. Leon swallowed.
“I…um…” He licked his lips. “I was wondering if…next time we did this…if you wanted to come to my place instead.”
He bit his bottom lip and his face flushed pink.
“It doesn’t even have to be…have to be for…”
Ada smirked and raised an eyebrow.
“Sex?” she said.
“Yeah.” Leon swallowed again. “You could come and I could make you dinner. Or we could watch a movie.”
Leon's face was burning. He felt as shy as he was alone with her as he was out that first night at the bar, for reasons he couldn’t articulate considering he was naked in her bed.
Ada looked at him for a long moment, with an expression he couldn’t read. She pulled her fingers from his hand and petted the top of his head.
“You’re cute, Leon,” she said. “But it’s probably for the best if we keep things casually.”
Leon tried not to show on his face as his heart sank in his chest.
“Oh…that’s fine,” he lied. “I just thought…if you ever wanted to…”
“If I wanted to, you’d know,” Ada said. She pressed a kiss to the top of Leon’s head then sauntered to the mirror on the wall. She finished buttoning up her red silk blouse and adjusted her hair. “Trust me, Leon. It’s for your own benefit if you keep your distance from someone like me.”
Leon chuckled.
“I’m a police officer,” he said. “There’s not much I can’t handle.”
Ada flicked her gaze over her shoulder at him. She had a look in her eyes Leon couldn’t decipher. A mix of amusement with…something a bit sadder.
Ada finished adjusting herself in the mirror, swiped her purse off the vanity, then headed towards the door.
“If it’s any consolation,” she said as she left. “I don’t mind if you see other girls.”
Leon heard her heels click through the living room. The front door opened and fell shut, leaving the apartment in a cool quiet. Leon brushed his fingers over the freshest love bite she’d left on his shoulder.
“I don’t want other girls,” he mumbled.
~
He should have screamed. He should have fought. But his self-preservation had drained from his body. Leon lay helpless on the ground as the predators unhinged its jaw to swallow him whole. As it drew closer, Leon could see its face better.
No, not it. Her.
He has expected a wolf, a bear, a leopard. Instead, he was face-to-face with something that shook him even deeper.
“Ada,” he whimpered.
She was hovering over him on all fours. Her knees to his thighs and her hands clamping his wrists to the ground. In the darkness, her eyes glowed like fireflies and her teeth pricked to look at. Her nails dug into his skin, holding him down with inhuman strength. His heart sang loud in his heart and he felt her hot breath on his face before he—
“Rookie.”
Leon snapped awake and lifted his head off his desk. Branagh was standing over him, hands on his hip.
“Falling asleep on the job, again?” the chief asked.
Leon shook his head.
“No sir,” he said. “Just…sleep -y .”
“You’ve been sleepy for several weeks,” Branagh said. He pressed two hands to Leon’s desk and leaned close. “You’ve been off your game, Kennedy. I’m talking about misplaced tickets, Falling asleep in the squad car. Ford told me you drove right past two guys getting in a knockout fight on the street corner.”
Leon pursed hard down on his lips. He had no argument for his chief. The last few weeks, Leon had felt out of himself. He felt physically weaker, almost malnourished. He could barely sleep at night, and when he did, he was shaken by more dreams of Ada. More dreams of him running scared in those damn woods. He’d done everything he could to fight it. Eating better, getting more sleep, leaving himself notes. But none of it seemed to work. Something had taken over him like an affliction, and it throbbed like the love bites on his neck.
“I’m sorry, chief,” was all he could say.
“Sorry is nice, but it’s not your job,” Branagh said. He leaned a little closer, and whispered so no one else could hear him. “I don’t like to pry, Leon. But the other guys have been talking, and they told me that since a few weeks ago, you’ve been seeing a woman.”
Icy cold pooled in Leon’s stomach. He swallowed.
“I have, chief,” he said.
“I normally wouldn’t talk about something like this,” Branagh said. “But sometimes correlation does equal causation, and I have to ask…does any of this have to do with her?”
Leon’s first instinct was to get defensive. His time with Ada and his time with the RCPD were completely separate, like night and day. But his defense didn’t hold for very long. He had changed since seeing Ada. His first few weeks on the job before had been just fine. He was a good rookie. But now, he felt something akin to withdrawal when he went days without her. She was reappearing in his damn dreams. What kind of person could do that?
Leon knew that intense crushes could lead to some obsessive tendencies. But it was like she had cast some dark magic spell on him, until he only felt energized and alive around her.
“What you do on your off-time is your business, rookie,” he said. “But the second your personal life affects your work here, it becomes my problem.”
“Yes, sir.”
“So I’m not gonna tell you what to do. But if this lady-friend of yours is why you’re slipping, it may be time to ask yourself what your priorities are here: Your job, or a booty call.”
Leon felt a flare of anger at Branagh’s words. Ada wasn’t just some booty call to him.
If anything, you’re her booty call, his mind whispered.
Leon sucked in a sharp breath and let it out. He couldn’t muster an argument for Branagh. Since he started regularly seeing Ada, he’d been losing sleep even on the nights he wasn’t spending with her. He kept having those dreams. Those weird, unreadable dreams that Ada always seemed to appear in. And even as he tried to sleep more and exercise and eat enough, he felt weaker. Tired, almost malnourished, like his strength and soul had been dripping from his body for weeks.
His heart sank deep in his chest and his stomach went cold.
“You’re right, sir,” Leon said. “I’ll fix it.”
Branagh nodded.
“Good,” he said. “Cause if this gets worse, I might have to look for someone else to put at this desk.”
Branagh turned on his heels to walk away, then paused to look back at Leon.
“Oh, and another thing,” he said. He tapped his neck. “Cover those fucking hickies up. It’s hard for the others to take you seriously when you look like that.”
Leon self-consciously covered the marks on his neck. With that, the chief stepped away, leaving Leon alone. The decision hung over his head the rest of the day. If sleep didn’t distract him from work, the dreadful realization did.
Chapter 5
Leon decided to go to Ada’s place that night. It was better to get it over with before she called him up for another night over. He knew once she had him on his back, it would be harder to tell her they were done. Besides, Leon was dreading this, and he just wanted it over already.
He walked the hall until he reached the door labeled 433. He stood in front of it for several minutes, his brain racing and rehearsing whatever he was going to say. It wasn’t that complicated. Like Ada said, it wasn’t like what they had was serious. This didn’t even properly count as a breakup, did it?
But the ice cold in Leon’s stomach told him otherwise. Despite his smarter instincts, he’d fallen for Ada Wong. As hard he tried to remain detached as she was, she’d infected him, heart and mind. And now he had the arduous task of extracting her out of him.
He knocked on the door. After a moment, it opened.
It wasn’t Ada that answered.
The man at the door was at least a foot taller than Leon, towering over him enough to cast a shadow. Broad shoulders under a crisp white suit and black tie, slicked-back blonde hair, and dark sunglasses that obscured his gaze.
Leon felt his stomach drop. Maybe this was a bad time. Was he the landlord? An ex-boyfriend? God forbid, a boyfriend -boyfriend?
“I…” Leon said. He cleared his throat. “I’m here to speak to Ada Wong?”
Suddenly, a wicked smile curled onto the man’s face, revealing two glinting, canine teeth.
“You’re the blood bag,” he said.
Before Leon could even ask what he meant, the man grabbed him by the front of his uniform and hoisted him off the ground.
“Hey!” Leon barked. “You’re manhandling an officer of the law—”
The man tossed Leon inside the apartment and the rookie landed on the carpet with a hard thud. Leon groaned in pain and the man shut the door behind them.
“Are you…Ada’s boyfriend or something?” Leon said. “Listen, I had no idea she was taken, I thought—”
The man grabbed Leon again and lifted him up high. Whoever this guy was, his size and strength was unbelievable. Almost inhuman.
“It seems to me like you’re the boyfriend,” the man growled in Leon’s face. Saliva pattered on Leon’s face and he winced against the man’s fowl, coppery breath. “..I’m something much bigger to her.”
The man opened his mouth wide, and Leon’s eyes widened as his two canine teeth elongated and sharpened like a sabertooth’s. His eyes glowed red just behind his glasses and Leon’s heart dropped. He began kicking and struggling to escape the man’s grasp. Why the fuck did he leave his gun and taser back at the station?
“Please,” Leon begged. “I came here to break up with her…I’ll never talk to her again, I swear—”
The man pulled Leon’s face right to his and growled.
“You think I care about that bitch? ” he snarled.
He unhinged his jaw wide, wider than any human should’ve been able to. His breath was hot and wet, and Leon closed his eyes shut as he embraced for a painful, bloody death.
“Wesker.”
A female voice hissed from the doorway, and Leon immediately recognized it. He opened his eyes to a slit. The man now called Wesker turned over his shoulder to look at her. The lock on the door had been cracked open and Ada stood there with an icy look on her face.
Wesker grinned.
“Never liked sharing, did you Ada?” he said.
“Not with this one,” Ada said.
She took a few cautious steps into the room. That’s when Leon saw the gleam in her hand: A stake made of silver, with a crucifix engraved in its side. Ada clasped it in a leather-gloved hand.
“Leave him alone, Wesker,” Ada said. “He’s just some guy. He has nothing to do with either of us.”
“Nothing to do?” he said. He turned to Leon with a diabolical smile and tugged down the front of the rookie’s shirt. “These bruises say otherwise.”
“If you’re so damn hungry, you’ve got a whole city to pick from. I’ve already taken plenty from him, there’s not much left for you.”
Wesker narrowed his eyes and looked closer at Leon’s markings.
“No venom in these bites,” he said, then turned to look at Ada again. “If he’s so special, why haven’t you turned him?”
Leon had no idea what either of them were talking about. Left of what? Turning? Venom?
“He’s better than us,” Ada said. There was a stroke of sadness to her tone. “He’s too good to be one of us.”
“Too good,” Wesker spat. He turned a wicked smile onto Leon. “Too good just means it’ll be all the more delicious once he’s ruined. Wouldn’t you agree, Ada? You’ve done it to hundreds before.”
“Weaker, I’m serious.” Ada approached closer, gripping the stake tight in her hand. “Put him down, or I’ll have to get ugly.”
“Please do.” Wesker leaned his smile so close to Leon’s face he could taste his sweat. “Show your favorite blood bag the monster you really are.”
Leon winced at the smell of Wesker’s breath. The towering man licked his lips and Leon saw a glimpse of his thin, forked tongue. He pulled Leon closer and bared his mouth of shark-like teeth.
“WESKER, NO!” Ada screamed.
She darted at him, and Wesker threw Leon at her with a startling force. Leon crashed into Ada and the two of them collided against the apartment door. Leon moaned at the pain exploding across his body. Bruises, broken bones, blood.
“It’s been a long time, Ada,” Wesker said. He stood over them both with their towering force oa giant. “Maybe one last meal together before we go.”
Ada gritted her teeth and held Leon close.
“You’re not touching him again, Wesker,” she hissed. Through his blurry vision, Leon saw her eyes glow and her canine teeth glint. “This one is mine. Just mine , this time.”
Ada rose to her feet and stood between Wesker and Leon on the floor. Leon watched as Ada threw herself on Wesker, silver stake in her hand. Wesker grabbed her wrist mid-air and threw her against another wall.
“Ada!” Leon tried to cry, but his voice was weak. I needed to get back on his feet, needed to fight and save. But one shift of his weight and a flurry of pain filled him everywhere. He was battered all over, bleeding onto the floor.
Ada recovered herself, but not before Wesker could kick the stake into another room and hurl himself at her. Leon helplessly watched the two of them fight from the ground. This wasn;t two people fighting. They were like animals. Teeth and claws, growls and snarls, like a lion and pantheress battling for prey in the wild.
Ada’s eyes glowed. Her teeth were elongated just like Wesker’s. She didn’t look…human.
Because she isn’t, Leon realized with creeping horror. She isn’t human…
Leon moaned as her love bites on his body flared. He felt the life force drain from his body. His blood trickled from his wounds and his bruises slowly throbbed. This was it.
Leon had imagined his death many times before. Gunned down in a police shootout, falling from a great height while chasing a robber, giving out from a career of wounds. All in the name of trying to protect this city. Instead, he would go out lying on his lover’s carpet, body and heart broken in tandem.
His vision blackened and the sounds of Ada and Wesker fighting dulled to incomprehensible noise. Soon, he couldn’t see Ada again. He surrendered, grateful that she was the last thing he’d ever see.
Chapter 6
Leon was aching when he woke up. His eyes fluttered open with a groan. Pain rippled up and down his body. But he could feel his chest rise and fall with his lungs. He felt a plush mattress under his weight. He was alive.
And then the memory of the smell hit his nose. Saliva and copper. A pair of red glowing eyes. Ada throwing herself atop a man who wasn’t human.
Ada.
Leon’s eyes snapped open. He tried to sit up in bed, but he immediately regretted it when a shockwave of pain alighted his whole back. He grunted against the pain and collapsed back down.
He was stripped down to his boxers. His body was plastered with bandages that were curtsy brown from blood bleeding through. He could feel bruises swelling across his flesh.
Then, he heard footsteps. Clicking, high-heeled footsteps. He lifted his face to the doorway just as Ada showed up. His mind immediately flashed to her attacking Wesker. Glowing eyes, teeth like an animal’s. The fight he only caught glimpses of was brutal. Feral.
And yet she didn’t have a simple wound or blemish all over her.
Ada held a tall glass of ice water in her hand.
“You need to drink this,” she said. “You’ve been out for hours. You’re probably severely dehydrated.”
Ada took one step into the room, and Leon immediately stiffened in bed. He grabbed a vase off the bedside table and held it up in a defense stance, ready to throw it.
He gritted his teeth, but the vase still trembled in his hand.
“You’re…” he stuttered. “You’re a vampire…”
Ada didn’t seem perturbed. She raised an eyebrow and cock her head.
“You’re fast,” she said. “Most people have a few layers of denial before they get to that.”
Ada sauntered over to the side of the bed. Leon couldn’t bring himself to throw the vase (for what good that would do) so he froze in place and watched Ada set the water down on the bedside table.
“You probably have a lot of questions,” Ada said, she looked down at Leon on the bed, a strangely somber look in her eyes. “I never meant for you to see any of this. To know about any of this.”
“Well…I did,” Leon said. He lowered the vase down. “Who the hell was that guy?”
Ada leaned her back against the wall, arms crossed. For the first time since Leon met her, she seemed stump. Loss for where to begin.
“Albert Wesker,” she said. Her tone was soft, like uttering his name might summon him again. “He was the one who…turned me.”
She bit her lip and looked at the floor. It was strange to see Ada this way. So shaken, so… frightened.
Leon remembered Wesker’s long teeth, his surging, hungry eyes.
“He was an old employee of mine,” Ada continued. Her gaze was distant, like she wasn’t speaking to Leon. “He said I was good at what I did. A little too good for him to let me go.”
Ada swiped the thought away like it was a bug. She looked at Leon again.
“I got away from him two centuries ago,” she said. “I thought I left him for good. I thought he gave up trying to find me.”
A thick silence lay between them. Outside, it started to storm, pattering against the window. Lightning lit the window and a soft, distant thunder rumbled.
“Where is he now?” Leon asked.
“The only place I can assure he won’t come back from,” Ada said. “In pieces. In the sewer.”
Leon’s stomach chilled at the image.
“If I had known he was in Raccoon City,” she said. Her voice just about warbled. “I wouldn’t have gotten close to you. Or anyone.”
Leon looked at her for a long moment. He looked at the bandages, seeping with blood. He imagined her wrapping them around him, smelling the blood, gritting her fangs to keep them from sinking.
“I should call an ambulance,” Ada said. “After I patched you up, I still needed to get rid of Wesker before anyone showed up.”
She reached into her pocket to pull out her phone, but Leon stopped her.
“Wait,” he said.
Ada paused, and lowered her phone back into her pocket. Leon pursed his lips.
“Blood bag,” he said. “Wesker called me a blood bag.”
The word sent something cold across Ada, colder than even her. She grit her teeth together and dragged her gaze to look Leon in the eye.
“Yes,” she said. “It’s what Wesker and I have done for centuries. It’s what most of us do. We pick out someone in a crowd. Or more often, we wait for someone to pick us. We take them home, we feed…and then we send them back.”
Ada spoke in a tone of solemn matter-of-fact. Like she was trying to resist the horror she heard coming from her mouth.
“That was my plan,” she said. “I only meant to feed from you once. That first night you approached me at the bar.” Her eyes grazed the floor. “But then you called me again and…I was selfish. And I saw you again.”
“Why?” Leon asked.
“I didn’t expect to hear from you again. Most people don’t.”
“But why did you?”
It took Ada a long moment to answer him,
“Like I said, I was selfish,” she said. “Becoming one of us will do that to you.” She pursed her lips. “I wanted to see you again.”
Leon stared at her. His mind was racing with too many questions for him to pin down.
“I kept feeding, because I needed to,” she continued. “But I did it, so I could tell myself that’s all it was. Convenient blood. No need to go hunting. Risk discovery, or finding no one willing. I told myself that was why.”
Ada stepped away from the wall and sauntered to the bed.
“I told myself it would be temporary,” she said. “Our little tête-à-tête would run its course. It would pass. And if it wasn’t for Wesker, that’s what I like to think I would have done.”
Ada sat down on the side of the bed. Despite Leon’s fear, despite the horror that crept up his body like a blush, he wished she would reach down and touch him.
Then, like she could read his thoughts, Ada gently touched the wound on his neck. Leon slightly winced but didn’t push her away.
“Your body would heal,” she said. “And then we would go our separate ways and forget each other.”
Leon just stared at her for a long moment.
“How the hell was I supposed to forget you?”
Ada made a noise between a chuckle and a scoff.
“You would,” she said. She gave him a soft look. “You’re handsome and kind and…you’ll find another girl in no time.”
“I don’t want some other girl.”
Leon clasped a hand over Ada’s. He hated how much like a petulant child he sounded but he couldn’t help it. He was tired of pretending.
He swallowed to compose himself, but his hands still trembled.
“You kept seeing me,” he said. “You didn’t need blood from me. You could have anyone in this city. But you came back to me.”
Ada pursed her lips.
“That’s why I never went to your place,” she said. “If I was going to keep seeing you, I didn’t want to draw anyone like... him closer to you.”
“You…wanted to protect me.”
“I wanted to make sure there was nothing I needed to protect you from in the first place.” Her gaze darkened. “And look where that got you.”
Leon’s heart twisted and surged in his chest. He clasped Ada’s hand between his and squeezed with white knuckles.
“It brought me back to you,” he said.
“You could’ve died.”
“And then what?” Leon’s eyes were watery but defiant. “And then what?”
Ada looked at Leon.
“Would you let me die?” he said. “Or would you…”
He pressed Ada’s hand down on his chest, over one of the bandages that held together a bleeding bruise. He winced against the pain but locked his eyes on hers. Ada quickly moved her hand away.
“You don’t know what you’re asking for,” she said.
“I’m asking to stay with you,” he said. “Whatever that looks like.”
“Leon, the bond between a maker and their fledgling is an intense one. It’s innate. Biological. It can take years, centuries , to break it. I only got away from Wesker seventy years ago.”
“Right, some vampire bullshit shouldn’t tie me to you,” Leon said. “Instead, I’ll just be stuck to you on my own. I’ll spend the rest of my short, little life looking for you everywhere. I’ll think about you all the time. I’ll be searching for you and never find you again.”
Leon felt something kicking up his throat. He swallowed and squeezed his hands to compose himself.
“Ada, I’m probably gonna be fired from the RCPD anyway,” he said. “And it’ll only get worse once you’re gone. I’m done with it. And maybe this is a mistake but…dammit, it’s my risk to take. If I’m gonna set my life on fire, I’ll do it taking a chance on you.”
His grip on her hand softened. His fingers brushed down her palm.
“I’m sure after what Wesker did, you think everyone should have a choice in this, right?” he said. “Well, this is my choice. And I’m choosing you.”
Ada looked at him for a long time, with a soft gaze. Maybe this was insane, maybe it was all part of some kind of vampiric hypnosis. The start of that bond. The flower-like smell that lured honeybees into a Venus flytrap.
But Leon didn’t care. He forced himself to sit up in bed, grunting against the sharp shoots of pain. He slid his fingers under the bandage plastered over his pec, and with a gritted groan in his throat, peeled it off his flesh. Ada watched as Leon’s bloody wound, a gnawing gash that still trickled with blood. Leon saw the tip of her tongue escape her lips and lick them.
“I know you want it,” he said to her. Like it was a dare. “Take all of it. As much as you want. I won’t stop you.”
The smell filled Ada’s nose, and that humanity that had been hanging by a thread—that warmth that Leon had inadvertently reigned in her—was flashed away by a feral flare. Her mouth watered at the sight of his bleeding flesh. That old, familiar craving, for blood and flesh, for sex and skin, began to override her.
She moved closer to him, crawling in that panther-like way of hers, until she was hovering over Leon. Like a wild cat pinning a deer to the ground. Leon lay still and watched Ada’s teeth glint with new sharpness.
“Please,” he said. “Please, Ada. I want it.”
It took all of Ada’s willpower not to tear him to pieces. Instead, she cupped the back of Leon’s head, brought her lips to his chest wound, and sunk her teeth inside.
Time would pass, and Leon would never quite find the words to describe the sensation. A sharp pain, sharp enough to rattle one’s teeth, as her fangs grazed his bones. He clasped an arm around her back as she purred into his flesh.
She took her time draining, swallowing every large gulp of red his body would offer. The pain throbbed like a heartbeat, and soon, it was all Leon could feel as his own heart slowed and his vision went hazy.
But between the pain, there was a sublime burst of ecstasy. A pleasure so alien and distinct, better and so different from the came that came from sex. Leon tipped his head back and moaned with each melting push.
“Fuck,” he moaned. “Fuck, it hurts…”
And it felt amazing. Better than any drug a human could make. Leon gripped Ada close and pushed his chest into her teeth so she could sink her teeth deeper. With no discretion needed, Ada was ravenous. She feasted on him in a way he hadn’t with another human in centuries. She didn’t realize just how much she’d been drip-feeding herself for centuries until Leon gave himself to her.
She growled and groaned into his flesh. Before long, the heat from his blood began to cool with the red of his body. His moan of pain and ecstasy turned to soft whimpers. He was getting close to completion. The point of no return was quickly approaching.
Then Leon made a high-pitched noise, and it made Ada’s own body surged. She gripped his body tight enough to leave more bruises.
As Leon’s sounds ceased, Ada retracted her gleaming teeth from his body. She grabbed some scissors off the bedside table, the one she used to cute the bandages, and lit her wrist. Black blood trickled from her flesh and she held it over his lips.
“Drink,” she ordered. “If you still want it.”
Leon was impossibly weak, weaker than he’d ever been. But he parted his trembling lips and let Ada drip her blood into his mouth. It tasted coppery as he expected. Brought back memories of split lips and nosebleeds. But then a new flavor emerged. He couldn’t compare it to anything else in the world, and he never would.
Ada pressed a fresh bandage to Leon’s chest before patching up her own. Her blood darkened her skin down her arm and stained her blouse. She sat there with him in the minutes that passed as the venom reached every vein Leon’s body had.
He was in and out of consciousness. Flashes of dreams, flashes of wakefulness. Leon could feel himself drain until he was cold. All the while, his tongue swished the blood around in his mouth and savored it.
~
Leon didn’t know what time it was when he fully awoke. Maybe it was the same night, maybe it was many nights later. But he opened his eyes and it was dark out the window and Ada Wong was still by his side. She pressed a hand to his.
“It’s over now,” she said. “How do you feel?”
Leon could feel her hand on his, feeling now heat transfer from himself to her. His veins felt heavy inside him, thicker with something that wasn’t blood. He sat up tentatively in bed. No more pain.
“Different,” he said.
“It’s an adjustment,” Ada said. “But you’ll have plenty of time to make it.”
Ada had Leon’s white undershirt in her hand. When she handed over to him, he grabbed her wrist and pulled her into a kiss. They melted together on the bed, kissing and licking, like they couldn’t decide whether to fuck each other or eat each other.
Ada broke the kiss first. She pressed her forehead to Leon’s and held his gaze.
“You need to feed,” she said softly. “If you go too long after turning, you might actually die this time.”
Ada pulled herself from Leon’s arms and stood up from the bed. Leon watched her approach the window, open it, then lift a leg to stand up on the sill. The full moon alighted her body in a pale silhouette. Ada glanced over her shoulder at Leon and cocked her head.
“Come on,” she said. “It’s my turn to treat you to dinner.”
With that, Ada leapt from the window and Leon rushed over. He dropped his eyes down, down many stories to the ground, and saw a spot of Ada’s red blouse below. She looked up at him, gave him a wave, and took off down the rain-watered street.
After days of emancipated weakness, Leon suddenly felt a surge inside. Rising in him like an electric current sparking to life. His body was bone cold, but something even faster had replaced his heartbeat. He was more than alive. He was resurrected.
With a hungry smile on his lips, Leon licked his tongue against his sharpened teeth, and dropped down into the dark.
