#shockdevil

“But they didn’t. And if you don’t mind, I’d like to drown my sorrows and watch sappy movies tonight. Tomorrow, I’ll pick myself up, dust myself off, and start all over again, Shirley MacLaine.”

Yeah, it was frustrating. Five times she’d applied to grad school, and as of one fifty-two P.M that afternoon, five times she’d been denied. No one was more frustrated than Darcy. Except maybe Matt. Who just couldn’t live with the fact that he couldn’t fix it. And apparently, couldn’t live with her decision to mope tonight.

“Want me to go back to my place?” she asked. Not a threat, she’d actually go if she was bothering him. But forgive her for maybe thinking a little hanky panky was in order to boost her dopamine.

“No,” he said, sighing. “I just wish I knew how to help you.”

“I told you. Let me order pizza and eat ice cream and watch Bridget Jones. That’s how I cope. And if I’m still sad after that, we can take my pity party to the bedroom and you can totally be the boss in there.”

She would have winked, but it was Matt.

He chewed on his lip for a long moment. “Could we just take it in there to start? Hear me out before you say no…”

“Fine. Explain…” Darcy acquiesced.

“We could take the pity party in there, let me be the boss, and then I could order you pizza and you could watch Bridget Jones to wind down.  And maybe if you still need it, I’ll help you eat ice cream?”

“Hmm.” she pondered it for a long moment before answering. “Yeah, okay. I could get behind that.”

“See, now if I’m the boss, I think I’m going to be the one who gets behind,” he said with a grin.  Darcy swatted his shoulder but pulled him close for a kiss.

“Thank you, Matty.”

“No. Thank you for letting me fix it.”

“I blocked her from my mobile.”

“Oh,” Darcy failed to keep the surprise from her voice. “I… thought you two were an item. From the tone of the messages.”

“We went on one date, last Friday.”

“I know!” She’d suffered through agonies of jealousy all weekend, imagining Matt and Candi, who was probably some model-slim and pretty blonde, in bed together.

“It was terrible.”

“That I didn’t know… you didn’t say.” Not that Matt shared very much about his personal life. Anything about his personal life. Darcy only knew about the date because he’d asked her to make the dinner reservation for him.

“You’ve been pouting ever since I went out on that date. What’s up with that?”

“I have not been pouting! How would you know, anyway? You can’t see my face!” Darcy immediately kicked herself for being insensitive, but Matt only chuckled, that low, husky chuckle that had made her knees go weak the very first time she heard it.

“Darcy, Darcy. You give away everything with your voice.”

“Everything?” she said weakly. “Surely not.”

He moved around the desk with the grace of a dancer, stalking her, Darcy suddenly thought, as she backed up against the wall and he kept coming, not stopping until he was almost touching her.

“I know who you are,” Matt whispered by her ear.

“I’m Darcy Lewis, your secretary…”

“Darcy Lewis, employed by Stark Industries to pose as my secretary. Don’t even think about lying to me. You know who I am, which means you know what I can do. That I can hear your heartbeat accelerate as you open your mouth to lie to me.” One long-fingered hand came up, curved gently around her throat. “Or is your heart racing faster for another reason entirely?”

Oh shit. How long has he known I’m here to spy on him? Darcy gulped, wondering if she should panic. Daredevil was known to prefer to leave people alive… but messed up. Very messed up.

The other little problem was the way that her body was reacting to the touch of his warm hand against her skin. This close, she could see his eyes behind the tinted red lenses of his glasses, see their sightless gaze move downwards towards her breasts, where her nipples had just peaked hard, poking through the thin satin of her bra and the even thinner silk of her blouse.

“Um,” she squeaked nervously, even as her hand inched slowly around behind her, to the taser in a custom sheath at the small of her back.

A powerful hand clamped down on her wrist long before she got there, pulled it up above her head and pinned it to the wall. Matt let go of her throat to grab the other wrist, bring that hand up to join the first.

He was leaning in closer, chest brushing hers. Darcy gulped.

“What are you going to do with me?” she asked, annoyed by the way her voice sounded high and breathy but unable to help it.

“That depends.” His mouth was barely an inch from hers; Darcy parted her lips instinctively, licked them. “What would you like me to do with you?”

She moaned.

“Really.” Matt’s voice dropped low. “You’re a bad girl, Darcy. I’m going to have to punish you for spying on me… and for being jealous of Candi. I haven’t been able to think of anyone else since the moment you first strutted into my office.”

Darcy was practically melting against him with every word. Pulling her away from the wall with a quick movement, Matt half-dragged her across to the office, sitting down in his office chair and pulling her face-down across his lap. A quick hand relieved her of the taser, tossing it onto the desk before he smoothed her skirt up her thighs to reveal her bottom.

“You’re not wearing panties,” he murmured. “I knew the moment I walked in. I could smell you.”

Cheeks burning as she stared at the floor, Darcy said nothing. Knowing something of his extra-sensory abilities, she’d hoped he might do exactly that, might even do something about it.

No matter how quickly he bolted out of that alley, he knew he was going to have a visit from her again. If she was his soulmate, she’d find him.

He half expected to find her knocking on his door later that night, but she didn’t. It was actually the next morning when he’d eased into his desk at the law office, wincing a little at the pull in his backside. Karen knocked on the doorframe to announce a visitor. Darcy Lewis.

Of course, as soon as she opened her mouth, he knew who she was.

“I have a question,” she began.

“I have an answer,” he replied.

“Why were you in my courtyard last night?”

“Chasing a bad guy,” he answered lamely.

“Are you really blind?” she asked. He could sense her waving her palm in front of her, disrupting the still of the air.

“Yes.”

“Then how are you parkouring all over Hell’s Kitchen?” she hissed.

“That’s three questions.”

“I’m your soulmate, I get as many as I want,’ she countered.

“Fair,” he acquiesced.

“So answer me, how are you parkouring all over Hell’s Kitchen?”

“My other senses are heightened.”

“And? Are you enhanced?”

She was as shrewd a verbal sparring partner as he’d ever had. He reached up to loosen his tie nervously.  “And I’m enhanced.” He said that last bit more quietly.

“But they don’t know?” she asked, referring to Karen and Foggy, most likely.

“He does. She doesn’t.”

“Got it. So why are you admitting it to me?”

“You’re my soulmate. You get as many as you want.”

She was silent for a long moment. “Don’t you want to know anything about me? I could be a bad guy for all you know. I could be the person you were chasing down last night.”

“You aren’t.”

“How do you know?”

“Either you’re very good at steadying your heartbeat, or you’re not hiding anything.”

There was a spike in her heart rate for a second, but that was to be expected.

“You can hear my heart?”

He nodded. “Part of my, uh… enhancement.”

“Full disclosure, I work with Tony Stark.”

“I’ve heard of him. Iron Man?”

“Yeah.  What do you call yourself?” she asked.

“Devil of Hell’s Kitchen.”

She snorted, clearly amused. “I like that. It’s cute.”

He relaxed in his seat. “You think I’m cute?”

“Yeah, got a problem, Matthew Murdock?”

“I’ve got quite a few, actually. None of them are you.”

Matt felt her legs wrap around his waist, pulling him closer and closer until his desk creaked under her. “Darcy…” he whispered, his hands smoothing up her bare thighs. He was expecting to encounter at least a scrap of lace, but instead, he just found her.

“No panties?” he whispered, his nose bumping playfully against hers.

“Just for you,” she replied, tilting her head so their lips met.