#zfic

It's all so amiable, a simple interaction, but you only realize now how rarely you've seen him talk to anyone outside of work.

It's childish, a little selfish and you decide not to dwell on it in favor of appreciating the long, easy strides he takes to reach you. Zayne's eyes crinkle at the corners when he joins you. This part of him is yours alone, one thing you allow yourself to be covetous of. When he offers a hand, you take it. The cold metal of his ring warms itself in your palm.

"Anything I should know?" he asks.

You roll your eyes and, with a long-suffering sigh, say, "Can't a hunter have a few secrets? Some things should stay between me and my dentist, don't you think?"

"Mhm," he hums, "Another cavity then, I take it."

Before you can protest, he's swiveling around to get the car door. A practiced routine, one hand over your head and the other at the small of your back, he guides you to your seat and protects you from fatal bonks upon the door frame in one smooth maneuver.

The rules of Zayne's car are simple. No feet on the dashboard, that had been a particularly effusive lecture, and no crumby snacks. The latter he broke frequently.

Once he's settled in on the driver's side, reliably checking his mirrors as always, you ask the question that's been burning on your tongue. Well, you try to ask. What comes out is less a question and more a frazzled attempt to find out as much as possible before he can start the car and send you on your way home.

"That woman you were talking to earlier was beautiful," you say. Very casually. So casually, in fact, that Zayne valiantly hides the twitch of his lips at your expertly wielded casualness.

It's not that you're jealous, though you're not so unaffected to say you never get jealous. You trust Zayne, he trusts you. That's how things work, an unwritten rule across time and space. You and Zayne will always trust each other somewhere deep down.

It doesn't stop the fact that you always feel a little unmoored when faced with his life without you. There are many, many versions of Zayne in the world, walking around in people's heads. Endless Zaynes out there locked away where you don't have access to them. This woman has one of her very own, that much is obvious.

"She's very pretty," he agrees, "I'm sure her husband thinks so as well.

Oh, he's enjoying this. Bastard.

"One of the prettiest people I've ever seen," you continue. His eyes rove over you gently.

"One of them, certainly."

Fine. He wins. You contemplate sticking your feet up on the dash just to make a point of it. Instead, you groan, cracking beneath the pressure, and slide down further in your seat. Sufficiently embarrassed, you can only dig yourself deeper.

"You're messing with me!" you protest.

"A little," he admits, threading your fingers through his across the center console, "I don't get to see you flustered often."

That's patently untrue. You make a fool of yourself in front of him on a regular schedule. You huff when he takes pity on you, bringing your fingers to his lips and pressing a soft kiss to your knuckles.

"That was Mickey," he tells you.

Ah, his ex. You know her by name, though not by face, and very little else. If you can put the right words to it, you're sure Zayne will tell you anything you want to know. Parsing the want tos from the don't want tos is the hard part. Maybe he realizes that, because he puts you out of your misery by simply asking if you'd like to hear more. You nod.

While he talks, you run your fingers along his hands between you. Echoes of a past life adorn the lines of his palm.

They met at twenty-two through a mutual friend. She was driven, something he admired, and didn't seem to mind when he spent long stretches of time hunched over medical texts. Things just worked between them. Not the most romantic thing you've ever heard, but the devotion was there.

"You loved her," you whisper. You expect the answer to sting.

"I did," he agrees. It does sting, in the blurry sort of way something can still hurt you even when you don't believe that it should. It's just as much a comfort to think of him then, not lonely and isolated but with a confidant of his very own. He could push himself too hard, too long, without someone there to stop him. Still, the sting.

His thumb squeezes softly to the tender flesh between your thumb and forefinger and he explains, "She noticed me on the way back to her car. We talked about you. Don't give me that look."

"What look?" you ask innocently. He smooths out the wrinkle of your brow with a firm knuckle. Tension seeps from your shoulders.

"That's better. Good girl," he murmurs. You lean in. Glowing. "She made me promise to be kinder to you. It was… humbling."

Well, that sparks a laugh. You shake your head.

"I can't imagine an unkind Zayne," you admit. His scoff shocks you. He's never been one to wallow, but his tone makes it clear how much he's thought over this.

"I was very ambitious. Maybe more than was sustainable," he says. He looks away, staring off at some distant past, reworking the choices that led him down a long path to this very conversation. Here he was, comforting his girlfriend in the parking lot of the dentist's office. Hopefully no regrets there. "My research is important. I never forget that. But that's not all I am, is it?"

"No, you're much more than that," you agree, "and all mine now. The textbooks can't have you all to themselves anymore."

His nod is heavy. You didn't lighten the mood, as you hoped, but he turns to you with a longing that pins you in place. He's serious about this in ways you don't fully understand yet.

"I've learned since then. Every day I want you to see that," he says, "I know what's most important to me now."

Perhaps not the time, but his stern stare always makes your thighs clench. Does devotion make people horny? You, too, know how much Zayne's time matters to people. Every stolen moment is precious to you. You take your chance, pinching his cheek between your fingers. Frustratingly perfect teeth nip back. You never meant to make him regret a former love.

Cheeks hot, emotionally raw, you flop back into your seat. There's something here you're not quite getting, but you appreciate the sentiment. At the very least, he should know his comfort worked. You waggle your eyebrows suggestively, willing to play the fool.

"I do have one last question," you say.

"Oh?"

"Was she, you know, your first?"

Sometimes he seems to forget you know all of his tells by now just as well as he knows yours. His eyes narrow and dart away, unable to commit to their counter-interrogation. Victory is sweet. He plays his cards all wrong by turning from you. You're graced with a delicious view of his pinkened ears. Oh, so bitable!

When he clears his throat sternly, you think you may swoon.

"She wasn't," he clarifies, still committed to honesty, "I had a, well, I had a friend. We met from time to time, if we were both single. He liked to say I was wound too tight."

His lips purse thoughtfully, as if remembering a particular encounter. Something twinkles in his eye when he catches sight of your hands twisting tightly on your lap. The thought isn't all bad. In fact, you can envision it near perfectly. Young Zayne, so earnest and focused, bushy brows drawn into an ever-present frown, deserved to be teased from his tension from time to time.

"He was a very generous friend," he says. You know better. He's leading you right where he wants you.

"Oh," you squeak. Fuck, you walked right into his trap. He smirks. That's all it takes. As soon as you squirm, he grasps his prize in both hands. Rather too pleased with himself, Zayne starts the car. His knuckles squeeze tight on the wheel once before returning to his usual easy grip.

"I could take you home. Or, if you'd like, I'm happy to show you what he taught me," he offers. Never once has he pressed you. You never need any pressing. It isn't possible to be too eager when it comes to Zayne.

You nod. Irritatingly safe with his favorite passenger, he doesn't look away from the road.

"What was that?"

Confidence is secondary to desire. The lie comes easily as you say, "I'm a quick learner, you know."

It turns out to be quite true. Ass up on his bed, deftly knotted ropes pulling your arms taut between your legs, you feel a heated sense of pride in your ability to keep up. At your feet, he takes time to appreciate his hard work. Clearly, he's satisfied with what's he's accomplished. He explains each knot in detail as he ties it. One restrains your chest, wrapping between your breasts and around your shoulders. More than once he's hauled you up from a knot along your back, arranging you just so. You're offered up to him like a treat, nothing more than something for him to savor. It's freeing, all thoughts flying from your head aside from the ones he himself wants to put there. You're his, mind and body, until he gives you permission not to be.

You don't need to be anything, provide anything, just lay how he likes and feel what he bids you to feel. You're beautiful like this because he tells you that you are. Red rope suits you best. You're glowing. You don't need to see it to believe it. You're doing so well, listening so well. That's all you know.

You repeat after him so diligently. You'll be good, you won't worry about unnecessary things. Not when you're all his. How silly, the way your mind keeps tripping up there. You can't help but wonder how many times he's done this before. He's quite good at it. How did he practice? On other men, women, his old friend?

You jolt when he plants one firm slap to your ass. It's not the first of the night. Your flesh is hot and throbbing, tender beneath his hand. You take it well, keening with each well earned punishment. Sometimes you can push him just enough for more, but it's a fine line to tread. You can't be bad and still get what you want, he makes sure of it.

Rather than stopping at one, as you expect, Zayne spanks you twice more. The flat of his hand catches your inner thigh, agonizingly close to where you want him most, and you cry out half words, not quite pleas.

"You're distracted," he chastises, even after you count each smack just like you're supposed to.

"Not really! I was only thinking of you," you whine. Your tone is more petulant than he usually allows. You shiver in the suspended moment, unsure of where he'll fall.

His hand dips between your legs, rough against your folds. Evol chills his skin, making you wriggle forward and away, startled by his touch only to grind right back down into it. You whimper, hoping you sound contrite enough for mercy. He's worked your cunt to sensitivity, teasing the heated flesh mercilessly with icy fingers.

Unimpressed with your answer, he rewards you with a light slap to your core. You rock forward with it. Instead of pulling back, his hand chases forward to cup you. Harshly, he spreads your wetness from entrance to clit. Earlier, he had brought you to orgasm with near perfunctory coolness, treating your pleasure as the first step in his creation. Now he uses that sensitivity to his vicious advantage. Even the slightest touch has you clenching around emptiness.

Spread open, Zayne can clearly see the way you flutter for him, eager to be filled. You only wish you could catch his expression when after all your high, needy keening, he gives in. As wet as you are, his fingers slide easily. The cold of his Evol makes his hands feel foreign, some strange object stuffing you. Only when he's worked you up, up, up does that frigid cold diffuse. His fingers have gone hot with your clenching desire. After the preternatural cold, even the usual heat of his body sears you. You're right on the edge, so desperate for it.

You wail when he stops.

"I don't recall giving you permission to come up with thoughts of your own," he says. His index finger curls at the knuckle, rubbing against your walls with just enough insistence to not be ignored. "We don't have to start over, do we?"

You squeeze your eyes shut, hot with tears. You were doing so well. Your voice comes out embarrassingly thick.

"No, no," you plead. You can't start over, not after how much time he's spent encouraging you. Guilt looms overhead in a great void. With his free hand, he pinches your hip. It's the same encouraging squeeze he gives your hand when your anxieties get the better of you. "I'm sorry, fuck, don't start over. I'll be good."

His fingers pull out of you slowly, much gentler than they entered, and it feels like punishment. Real punishment, not the fun kind from before. Now you do cry a little despite your best efforts, and you feel like an idiot all the more for it.

You want to stop. You think maybe you should. Zayne trusts you to follow the rules. You can only pleasure each other like this if you're honest, but in all of the hours you two spent in the bedroom you had never stopped him before. Had she? Would you disappoint him, unable to leave your insecurities behind long enough to appreciate the moment?

The soft snick of his pocket knife snaps you from your spiral. Your eyes fly open, sticky with tears. From between your legs you can see the blade sawing at your bindings. It shocks you how easily anger bubbles to the surface.

"I didn't even say the word!" you snap. As if in disagreement, your hands fly free from your ankles. Zayne ignores your pouting, grabbing your harness to flip you onto your back. You bounce against the mattress with an indignant gasp.

He takes stock of you slowly. Nothing on his face betrays what he's feeling. You think you might be sick. Your wrists are still bound together, laying limply on your belly with that frayed, red rope. Naked and vulnerable while he scoots to a kneel, pristine as ever at your side.

"No," he agrees, "You didn't."

He's nonplussed, one eyebrow poised, and you're sure you know this trick. He's waiting for you to choose, you think. You can be good and continue, or say your safeword and he'll clean you up sweetly. Zayne is kind. He won't even utter a word about your failure.

Maybe he can read your mind because he sighs deeply above you. His hands run gently up and down, from thigh to ribs, but instead of soothing you only bristle more. Tenderness is almost an insult. You can take it. You want to tell him so, even when you don't mean it.

"You're a good girl," he lies. You might just kick him for it. Have you ever been so on edge? He shields against your sharpness with practiced patience until the blade of your anger dulls, battering against those impenetrable walls. Tension drains from you the firmer his grip gets, starting with a tweak to your nipple and ending with a harsh grab at your chin. He holds you in place, ensuring your eyes meet his, and says, "You are my good girl, even when you're not acting like one. Do you think you can remember that?"

You blink. Stupefied, you nod. His fingers tighten against your jaw. A nod isn't an answer. You know this.

"I can wait," he says.

"I'll remember," you whisper. Zayne smiles softly. How easily you melt in the luminous light of his approval. Just when you thought you had taken the moment, irreparably shattering it to pieces, he pries it from your fingers and brings it back to you wholly.

When he lets go, you think you may fly away. That's better, isn't it? You remember who you are now. His, his, his, Grounded only by him, dragged back onto your back when he maneuvers you just right. Your ankles are slung together over one of his shoulders, squeezing your thighs together just right. One-handed, he undoes his pants enough to free his cock. You can't watch, too afraid to see physical proof of what you had done to the mood.

Hot and hard, he pushes softly between your legs. You gasp at his low, deep groan. His shaft glides along your folds, the tip peeking between the apex. This you can watch.

"So perfect," he says. Each thrust builds gradually until you're worked to wetness again, whimpering. The better you feel, the more he encourages you. He turns just so and peppers kisses to your calves and ankles. His free hand drops to your hip, gripping bruise-tight. "Tell me, what are you?"

"I'm perfect. I'm yours."

"That's right," he says, "and what else?"

"Nothing else," you promise. You mean it this time.

"Very good," he croons. In reward, he grinds against your clit. You relax, at long last, and smile at the pleasure. It's a giddy sort of high to make him happy, to feel the physical proof of it fucking against you, spreading your folds. "No more mouthing off. You're going to mind your manners, or I'll have to get the gag. You can control yourself, correct?"

Yes, you can. And you can please him even more. It's easy. His two favorite words fall sugar-sweet from your tongue, "Yes sir."

Zayne clenches his jaw around a moan. His brow furrows, always a little frustrated when control is out of reach. You know his secret, the way his cock twitches at his own irritation. One little warning slap to your ass for your cheekiness and a giggle threatens to break free. You bite your lip to lock it back in.

You think maybe you haven't gotten away with it when he forces his hips to a stop, until you feel the tip of his cock line up at your entrance. Although your legs block the view, you don't need to see it to know how tightly he holds himself. He's always a bit rough with his own body, pulling his foreskin back from the tip white-knuckled to push himself inside of you. You're greedy for him, walls tightening to hold him there forever. His smile is little more than bared teeth.

Stars blur beneath your eyelids. You never feel more centered than when Zayne sheathes himself inside of you completely. There's just enough time to appreciate the rush before he draws himself back out all the way. Your body protests, tightening and shivering, but he carries on ruthless as always.

You're good. You behave. You wait.

He acknowledges your sweetness with a wry smile. His thumb spreads you open, eyes fixed to where you're wanting.

"That's better. You're ready to listen now," he says, "I should have known you needed this. It was my fault before, I apologize. We'll clear your head this time, won't we?"

You frown. It's a twisted, guilty feeling to hear him blame himself for your lack of focus. You have to try harder, prove to him that you can learn better.

"You want to be fucked, don't you? That's what you're for, after all."

It's rare, even in moments like these, to hear him so vulgar. You writhe and whine, wishing you could will him to thrust back inside of you. If you're eager enough, maybe he will.

"Yes, please. I am, that's all I am. Yours, please," you babble. It's nonsense, but any sweet words can be the right ones, no matter how clumsily said. He huffs a laugh.

He says, "I have some questions. If you can be honest, I'll give you what you need."

"Yes, sir."

"You were distracted earlier. Explain."

You're ready to give him anything. You're not sure how to give him this. It's not what you were expecting, and the answer scatters like a puzzle. Shame coats your throat, sticking until the words can't get out. You open your mouth, desperate to please him. Still, nothing but silence. His thumb runs along your clit in lazy circles. Slow and steady like this, you believe he could wait all day.

"I'm sorry," you try, "I was thinking of her."

"Mickey."

Once set free, you can't hold back. You blurt out, "It's stupid. I don't know why. I just couldn't help it. One second I'm doing everything right, then my mind just starts wandering."

He doesn't interrupt, never changing the cadence of his hand between your legs. Just when you think you might stop, he applies pressure just so. It catches your breath. On the inhale, deep bliss. On the exhale, more words.

"What if I'm pretty, but she's prettier? What if I'm good now, but she was good then? What if I'm here, and she's in your memory, always better?"

He's silent. His thumb works you higher and higher until your brain floats away. It can't be you saying these things. How can your body feel so good, just as your emotions pummel you in rocking waves? You've said it all, you think. Now you can just throw yourself into what he offers and be free. Don't make me think about this anymore, you want to beg. You open his mouth to tell him so, but that other part of you beats you to it.

"I know it's not real. Like, of course you wouldn't do that to me, but it's like a splinter in my head. The more I try to ignore it, the more I know it's there. If I pick at it, it only goes deeper," you heave. Sorrows come as naturally as breathing. You're sure you look awful, puffy with jealous tears. Envious of a memory. It's what he wants to see. He asked for this.

Faster, he drags against your cunt. If you give him more, you'll shatter. You open your mouth anyways, expecting some new mortification to stumble from your lips, only to break on a sob. Your hips grind up into the release he offers you. You're unreal, outside of yourself and so deeply captive in your body at once, unsure of anything except the painful indulgence at your core. Your face screws up. One last thing, heavy in your chest, bound just beneath those pretty red knots.

"You loved her," you cry. It's all you can think to say, the most honest words you can offer. Let that be enough. Let that please him.

"That's it," he coos, "You're doing so well."

You shake with it. Two fingers shove inside of you, rough hands in contrast to his soft words. He murmurs honeyed praise while he fingerfucks you mercilessly. You cries work up in pitch until you're hoarse. Right upon the crest, your peak just on the horizon, everything sharpens into clarity.

You're his. That's the easiest thing for you to be. You're his, so sweet, so pretty, and you always remember your manners.

"Please," you whimper.

He hums, curls his fingers just right, and finally you come. The waves crash hard. You clench your thighs around his forearm. The flex of his tendons, the raised skin of his scars, you hold him there just to feel he's real. Wetness drips down his fingers, coating his wrist. Indulgent kisses trail from your calf, to your knees, lazily carrying whispered compliments the whole way. Each encouraging word brings upon another spasming pulse until you're spent completely and panting beneath him.

He's ever-present on your come down. Always prepared, he wipes his sticky fingers on a towel he set side, before massaging little circles into your sides. He tells you how happy he is so effusively that your eyes flutter shut just to bask in it.

Sleep lingers at the edges of your mind. It tempts you. Utterly exhausted, you nearly follow it. Distantly, you think you can hear Zayne step away, rustling around in one of the drawers. You ignore it. Soon enough he's back anyways, freeing you carefully from your bindings.

Rest, that's all you need.

Zayne intervenes. Sharply. With a tug to your ankles, he twists you back around until you're face first in the mattress and bent over the bed. Your arms are trapped, tingly beneath you, feet hanging feebly. You're utterly at his mercy.

"You'll have what I promised you," he says. A command. You squirm and whimper. It's too much, you're overwhelmed, tired, you can't take it. He reminds you otherwise. "Tell me what you are."

"Nothing. Yours."

"I do whatever I want with you."

That's right. Of course, you know that. Whatever he says, that's the truth. You're not supposed to think, so you don't. You must say yes, fuzzy as you feel, because his cock pounds into you until you're drooling into his bedset. You roll back into him. Now and again, he lands an icy-cold, open palm slap to your ass. They're few and far between, but jolt you awake. You keep count aloud for him, just like you're supposed to.

Usually, he's quiet during sex. He lets you have the mouth between you. He commands, he compliments, but he rarely truly talks. Now, his hips piston into you and all the while he vents.

"I had it all figured out, you know, before you came back into my life. Everyting was under control. So foolish," he says. On a groan, a bittersweet laugh, he unwinds completely. Despite your fatigue, his honesty warms your belly, tightening in your navel. He's giving exactly what you offered him, entirely equal in his undoing.

His rolling hips grind deep and with one particularly breathy cry from you, he slows. Ignoring your whines, one arm wraps around you and yanks you up higher. Between you and the bed, he shoves the smooth head of a vibrator against your clit. Any attempts to scramble away are feeble. He flicks it on with little concern for your attempted escape.

"Too much," you cry, muffled into the duvet.

"A little more," he says, "you can take it."

You can, if he says so. Your muscles tremble, thighs twitching together. You moan low in your throat, but you know you can take it. Your tight squeeze around his cock tingles through you, head to toe.

He tells you everything. The words are hazy. Nothing quite sticks in your head. You take it all. It's the best feeling in the world, to be his.

"I thought I couldn't have you," he continues. He waited for you, wanted you. He tried to fuck you out of his system, went to his friend for just that reason. It doesn't stop there. Each truth revealed pushes him further over the precipice. He leans over you, envelops you, his breaths hot and wet between the knobs of your spine.

"He could tie me up, whip me, whatever he wanted. It didn't matter. All I could think of was how pretty you would be, how you would sound if you were mine," he grunts, "I wanted to fuck you the way he fucked me."

Oh, how you vexed him. It was clear now, in the punishing pace he kept. The vibrator is turned against you like a weapon, all while he relishes in the heat of your cunt. Your toes curl where they graze the hardwood floors. You're whimpering, babbling nothing words. It's begging, slurred little please, please, please. You only realize that when he chuckles and obliges.

He fucks you hard, just like he said he would. Each time he hits deeper, you're thrown into the vibrations with renewed fervor.

"Even when you weren't there, I only thought of you," he groans. Both accusation and admission. "I'll never let you go."

Your orgasm crashes through you, the force reverberating from you to him until he's pinning your hips down with his forearm and releasing inside of you. He comes hotly, pulsating throbs that fill you with him. You both hold there panting, searingly connected, until your shudders subside.

Spent, he flops on top of you. His body weight presses you to the mattress until you're utterly secure. He's hollowed you out just to fill you up again.

Blearily, you remember your manners.

"Thank you, sir," you muster. The slur of your words wrings a tired chuckle from him and it vibrates through your back. He whispers his own thanks into the sweaty nape of your neck. You can feel the heat of his chest through his shirt, sticky on your skin.

You giggle weakly, though you don't know what's so funny.

He rolls off you, giving you room to breath, and although you're grateful for the air you miss him immediately. You want to cling to him, crawl inside of him, not quite ready for real life to flood back into your mind. Comfortingly cool, he runs his hand up and down your arm.

"I'm happy too," he agrees with what you couldn't say. His cold fingers are featherlight. Soothing, after all the kicking and screaming on your way down. Every sweet word he offers is a balm. You did so well. You love him. You think you might say so, before you finally succumb to sleep.

Later, freshly bathed and swaddled in pyjamas, you let him rub the soreness from your lower back. He's especially gentle where the rope may have dug in, though any aches you feel are comforting in their own right. Patiently, indulgently, he compliments how well you took him. You're clay in his hands, reshaped into your own person again.

"How are you feeling?" he asks.

You wiggle happily in approval, squealing when he pinches your ass. It's truthful when you finally say, "Good. Thank you for taking care of me."

It pleases him, though he flushes at the compliment. It's always a bit harder to get him to accept your appreciation. When you look over your shoulder, you can see the way his chest has gone pink in praise. He's cleaned up as well, in his loose pyjama bottoms and nothing else. The soft tufts of his hair stick up from his shower. He's ruffled. You want to grip him, bite him, keep him always.

"I do have one last thing, though," you say. The lilting tease of your tone leads him further up your body, where he can dig his thumbs to your shoulders and watch your expression at once.

"Is that right?"

"Mhm. I've just been thinking," you say on a yawn, "She really was beautiful. Your ex."

He's too well trained to freeze up, but there's a stutter in his ministrations. He looks over your face carefully. Tired as you both are, you know he'll reassure you a million times over if you ask. Instead, you scrunch your nose in a squish-faced attempt at a wink. Close enough.

"Two for two. You have great taste, don't you?"

Now, he does pause. Laughs. Gives you a little shake for teasing him. And, of course, he agrees.

"Is it weird that I even love her a little?" you ask.

He hums thoughtfully, "That beautiful, hm? Should I be concerned?"

You prop onto your elbows, twisting to bother him properly. He leverages himself up just enough to allow it. Settled back on your hips, he immediately returns to work on your massage.

"Not like that," you say, rolling your eyes, "She's part of you too. Every person that you loved also helped to make you mine, I think. That matters."

It doesn't free you from envy, or insecurity, or whatever nasty thoughts crop up on your worst days, but it is one less shackle.

He grunts thoughtfully. You wonder if he agrees, if he thinks of people from your own past the same way. The little divot in his brow when he thinks on these things is a comfort. He'll play around, even aggravate you at times, but he listens well when it matters.

It's comical how comforting it is, the way he trails his fingers through the smattering of hair between your legs as he considers your words. He stops, flustered, at your smirk. Watching him is endlessly compelling. He's careful with his words in a way you never learned to be.

"I did love her then," he says. The sting is easier to take this time. "But I love you now. Every moment of my day, I'm loving you. When I hear a bird sing from my desk, when someone tells a bad joke, I turn to you when you're not around. I will tomorrow, next year, until I'm nothing but ashes. You consume me."

You suck in a breath, unprepared for his vulnerability, "Oh. And do you enjoy… being consumed?"

He chuckles, leaning back to think some more. Thighs pressed to yours. Always connected in the tiniest ways.

"Yes, I enjoy it quite a bit. It's rather annoying."

You laugh, curling up to give him a shove. He wrestles back, grasping your wrists and pinning them over your head. A kiss to your nose, a nip at your lips. So close together that his eyes morph into one big blur. You're sure you look them same. Cyclops gazing upon cyclops lovingly. Whatever creature you become, he's yours and you're his.

"Somebody should teach this annoyance a lesson," you whisper.

He laughs. His eyes close, banishing cyclops Zayne for now and bonking your foreheads gently together.

"I believe she's had enough lessons for the day. And her teacher could use a nap," he admits.

You giggle, "Nap granted. Tomorrow, then?"

You don't need to see his smile to know it's there. It's in his voice, his gentle hands, the warmth of his skin on yours.

He leans back against the bedframe, arms sprawled to either side across the pillows. For now, he’s content to watch. The two of you are doing just fine without his help. In one easy swing of your legs, you straddle your hunter partner’s thighs. His duvet rucks beneath you both as you slowly rock into each other. Soft sighs float from your joining kisses. 

One of her knees slides its way between you, pressing firmly to your core until it draws a blissful shudder from you.

Though a seemingly innocent readjustment, Sylus has grown familiar with your partner’s wiles. Nonetheless it’s her that whimpers at your pleasure. Always eager to please you. The sound makes you huff a laugh under your breath. Sylus’s cock twitches in his shorts. 

Only one thing sours the moment for him. Zayne looms over you both grimly, a dark shadow standing just at the foot of the bed. In their years of finding their own fun together, Sylus had learned to enjoy that dour face, but even he’s grown tired of the restraint on display. At first, he had allowed the other man to play out his gloomy routine. He orbited the two of you like you were something that couldn’t be touched. Always punishing himself for wanting what he could easily reach out and have. 

Fortunately for him, Sylus is a generous man. One lazy leg snakes out, nudging your ass with his shin. You swat at him but don’t turn his way. He smirks. 

“Greedy, aren’t we, kitten? The doctor is patiently awaiting his turn.” 

It works better than expected. Zayne’s head whips up, his frown darkening into something more severe, but before he can protest the crudity you beat him to it. Eyes fierce, you turn fully to shove at him. 

“You’re being a pig,” you snap. 

Ah, that’s it. As if you commanded it to do so, his cock hardens painfully. All it takes is that little nibble of attention to have him greedy for more. One arm reaches out to snatch you up. He pulls you into his lap, letting your legs fall to each side of his thigh. Even pinned against him, fiery with irritation, he can feel you clench against the muscle there. He keeps his forearm locked securely around your waist and presses your back to his chest. For now, this will have to do. By the end of the night, he’ll have time to coax more expressions from you. 

He presses a soothing kiss under your ear that does nothing of the sort. The little hairs there tickle his nose. He smiles privately and you elbow his ribs. 

“Patience, please. You may like what you see,” he says. Not letting you regain the upper hand, he reaches up to grip your chin. He tilts your head just slightly, directing your gaze back across the bed, then occupies himself with unclasping your bra.  

“Wait-” you start, only to be struck silent at the sight. He hums contentedly. 

Zayne, having dragged your partner to the edge of the bed, has her spread out in front of you. Her chest heaves, one nipple threatening to free itself from her lingerie. Once he’s set himself loose, Zayne’s focus is singular. He shoves her panties to the side, lingering just slightly on the dampness already there, and bares her cunt to you. She whimpers at the cold air on her wet lips. Sylus doesn’t miss the way Zayne smirks at the sound. 

For every touch to her clit, Sylus mirrors the same to your breasts. When Zayne pinches her clit between two fingers just to wring another desperate cry from your partner, he mimics it against your nipples. You whine low in your throat and try to swallow the sound. 

He chuckles, “So sweet.” 

“She is,” you agree quietly, though that isn’t what he meant. You try to regain your composure, but he knows better. When you want to shiver for him, you stiffen. Instead of softening, your fingernails dig into his arm that cages you. As soon as your hips move against his leg, so small and tentative, he pretends not to notice. He’s learned to let you think your surrender is subtle. 

It’s clear the moment Zayne realizes he has an audience. He tenses just briefly before throwing himself into it with renewed intensity. His hand goes to the back of your partner’s neck letting his fingers thread through her hair. He yanks her head back tightly until she looks up at him alone. Even in the dimly lit room, the two of you can see the way her glazed over eyes match her dopey smile. Zayne kisses that smile, the fingers between her legs finally plunging deep inside of her. The intensity with which he fucks her open is at odds with the tenderness he brushes against her lips. 

Sylus bites down on your shoulder, not letting you grow shy in sight of their softness. You’ve given up on all pretense and ride his thigh wantonly. Wetness drags against his skin. Rather than holding you back, his arm keeps you upright as you use him to pleasure yourself. You don’t try to break free, too keen to witness your partner’s undoing by Zayne’s hand. Once or twice, your head falls back and your eyes squeeze tight just to whip back up once you remember the sight you’re missing.

When her thighs begin to tremble, so do yours. Sylus drops both hands to your hips and drags you across him harshly. One of your hands reaches back to tug at his hair. He groans. With his added momentum, you fuck his leg to the rhythm of your partner’s high, tight whines. 

Zayne keeps her face firmly turned up towards him, unwilling to share even that. All of her weight leans against him, completely boneless and trusting. Inside of her, his fingers curl. To the untrained eye, he may appear indifferent, but Sylus isn’t untrained. His tie is still on, glasses perched perfectly on his nose, not even a hair where it’s not supposed to be. The only thing out of place is the bunched up roll of his sleeve. With his forearms out, his tendons flex taut as he fucks her. The slick sound of her arousal makes his jaw clench and unclench. 

You turn to look back at Sylus over your shoulder. Your panting expression is almost mischievous. 

“Watch,” you command, but his gaze doesn’t stray from your face. He watches you watch them and shivers at the pleasure. 

It’s not Zayne’s touch, nor the ceaseless hold he has on her, but the quiet praise he whispers between them that finally shatters your partner. Her orgasm has her writhing. Zayne’s pace doesn’t slow, though he watches on raptly. He loosens his grip on her hair just enough to stroke softly over her brow as she comes apart. Your eyes are glued to the needy pulses around his fingers. Her whine pitches to nearly as a squeal as her release sprays out of her, coating Zayne’s hand with her wetness. It doesn’t stop, with each throb that runs through her she soaks the duvet, wide open to her witnesses. Zayne moans, quickly dropping the hand that was just soothing her down to her knee. When she tries to clamp her thighs together, shyness catching up to her, he forces her leg back open and fucks into her harder. She whimpers and squirms, tears rolling fat down her cheeks. Even embarrassed and overstimulated, she thrusts up to meet him.

Zayne looks up to catch your eye. It’s that look that finally snaps the coil in you. Sylus helps you along as your thrusts devolve into greedy, desperate grinding. His muscles tense against you. Every shudder that runs through you makes him needier. The soft, breathy sounds you make when you come will never be enough for him. It’s as close to trusting as you get, falling back into his chest. 

Of course, he needs more. He’s never settled for less than everything. Before you’re through the aftershocks, he’s pulling his throbbing cock free. Bodily he drags you back into him, thrusting up between your legs and shuddering when he can feel your heat. Your protest is barely a formality before you’re shivering at the glide of his head against your folds. Again and again he fucks between you just to feel the way you twitch when he grazes your sensitive clit. 

Your partner whines for your attention. She’s red faced and teary eyed, kneeling under the canopy. Zayne stands at her back, stunned by the force of what he dragged from her. Not entirely without his sense, he reaches out to comfort her, only to be met with your glare. Sylus doesn’t try to stop you when you pull from his lap to go to her side. He wonders if you ache at the separation just as much as he does. 

For a moment, he fears that their fun might have reached its end. He watches the way you wipe her tears and coo. Both of your hands cup her cheeks, then you nod your head and gesture for Zayne to join you on the bed. He kneels there, somewhat awkwardly, until you roll your eyes at him over your partner's shoulder. 

Sylus was smug to think he was the one in control of this. With ease you take over, directing everyone just where you want them. 

“So pretty. You did so well,” you say quietly to the woman in front of you. Even directed at her, the soft praise makes him flush. It’s as if the room is yours, just the two of you gazing at one another. Despite the shift in atmosphere, Sylus still feels his cock jolt to attention at the sound of your voice. You press sweet little kisses to her forehead, complimenting her with each one, before your tone grows firm. 

“I know you have better manners than this. You want to thank Dr. Zayne, don’t you?” 

Eyes wide, pink rimmed from crying, your partner nods. Behind them, Zayne’s hand drops to the bulge in his slacks. He doesn’t do anything more than that, rubbing at his hardness. His cheeks go pink. 

Sylus has little need for such self control. Feeling the voyeur and indulging in it, his fingers wrap lazily around his cock. 

“Use your words, please,” you command. His grip tightens. Her response is so quick, desperate to do whatever you ask of her. 

“I do!” she insists. You smile down at her indulgently. Both of your hands bracket her hips. You turn her around to face Zayne and urge her forward. Now that she has direction, she goes easily. All her shame was quickly forgotten the moment she surrendered control to you. You stay glued to her back, only interrupting to smack Zayne’s hands away from between his legs. With one hand to her lower back, you hum approvingly at your partner’s slow touch down Zayne’s chest. 

She loosens his tie just enough to toss it aside, then sets to work on his buttons. With his collarbones exposed, Sylus can see just how flushed he’s gotten. At his sides, his hands bunch into fists with each stroke of her skin. Finally, she reaches his pants. 

Once freed, his cock juts hard and angry between his legs. The tip is wet and shiny. Just looking at it makes your partner whine. She doesn’t have to ask. You twine your fingers through her hair, directing her head down to where you know she wants it. 

“That’s it. Be good for the doctor,” is all you have to say. Unprepared for the forceful shove you give her, she kisses clumsily along his length. Zayne’s knuckles go white. Sylus is half afraid he’ll have to replace this duvet. 

She regains her bearing quickly. In one swift motion, when you know she’s prepared, you firmly guide her until she swallows him down. At once, all of you moan. 

Setting an even pace, you control the slow, deep drag of your partner’s mouth around him. Just when the bobs of her head steady in their rhythm, you push her harshly to the base of his member. Sylus fists furiously at himself, watching the curve of Zayne’s throat when he throws his head back. His Adam’s apple is prominent, trembling in response to the way she whimpers when she takes him. Sylus wants to lean in and bite it. 

Uselessly, with nothing to ground her, your partner’s hips roll against the air. You chuckle cruelly before taking pity on her. One arm wraps around her hips. You hold her up and cup a palm against her dripping cunt. 

“Next time, I’ll fuck you like this,” you say. She gasps, pushing back against the hold on her head. Her weak grind into your hand grows faster and she moans. Undeterred, you tighten your hold and force her head back where you want it. 

Zayne’s own control is slipping. He spasms, fucking up into her mouth after you nod your permission. Drool drips down the length of him, sliding between his legs. 

“Isn’t she a good girl?” you ask, this time directing your attention to Zayne. You take pride in it, every devoted suck and whine from the woman between you two only spurs you on more. “She’ll come just like this. I bet sucking your cock alone would be enough.” 

Your partner’s whole body shivers when you talk about her. The meanness in your tone makes her and Sylus both groan. His wrist twists and he fucks into his hand. At last, you seem to remember his presence. 

“And you? Where’s your manners?” you ask. He doesn’t point out the hypocrisy, that your partner dropped to her knees for Zayne but you won’t offer him the same. Instead, he tilts his head accommodatingly. 

“I’ve been very rude,” he agrees. He crawls to your back then brackets you in tightly with the others. You may control their pleasure, but he’ll have you caged in just where he wants you. Without asking, the delight of taking advantage of your impatience just too enticing, he grabs you by the hips and fucks up into you smoothly. Your walls suck him in so greedily. Both of you moan.

“Tight,” he huffs. You scoff. 

“Try to keep up.” 

That’s the only warning you give before you fuck forward and back. You spear yourself on him, making his legs tremble, and never loosen your grip on your partner’s hair. When his pace quickens inside of you, you follow along and guide her down faster around Zayne. 

Unwilling to simply be swept along, Sylus reaches up and harshly grasps one of your breasts. Your gasp rolls right through him. He hopes his fingers bruise. With his other hand, he loosely wraps finger to thumb from one pulse point to another. He doesn’t press down, just feels the way you gulp with his hand around your throat. It’s the sweetest gift of vulnerability before you rip back control and tighten around him.

An orchestra at your command, you all find a flow together quickly. Zayne’s neck has gone sweaty and pink. A strange, wistful smile lights his face then he’s reaching up towards Sylus. For a split second, he thinks Zayne means to caress him. Instead, his fingers force themselves past his lips. Sylus squeezes his eyes shut and sucks, whining from deep in his chest. The sound makes you thrust back against him harder still. 

With one little tug at your wrist, Zayne tries to warn you of what’s to come. You don’t falter, only smoothly lead your partner until her nose is pressed to the softness of his stomach. She gags, filled, before swallowing him down. Zayne’s grunts are quiet as he comes. 

When he pumps into her mouth, hitting deep into her throat, she moans. To some secret count, you let him release inside of her with one, two, three broken breaths before you yank her head back. The last pulses of his orgasm shoot from him, painting her cheeks and eyelashes in his release. Her own orgasm hits her when his cockhead pops loose, bobbing against her lips. Her tongue peeks out, catching what she can between pink lips. You look down at her fucked-dumb, cum-stained face as it twists in ecstasy and clamp down around Sylus violently. 

He should pull out. He even tries, against every tiny piece of him wishing otherwise, but you follow him back before he can. Spurred on, he pounds into you faster and sucks hard around Zayne’s fingers while you clench and unclench on his cock. The heat of your release, the slick way he slides in deeper, finally overtakes him. At once, his mind goes white. His grip on you tightens, freeing breathy whimpers from your lips, and he spills inside of you. He grinds deeply, filling you, then pulls out just enough to coat your folds. Slowly, he fucks back in. Each catch of his cockhead at your opening makes goosebumps run down your shoulders. The way he drips out of you, coating his own cock, mesmerizes him. His fingers go down to meet his length, stretching you further. In and out he goes, even when the stimulation makes an ache build in his spine. You shiver and squirm and still he manages to catch your smirk over your shoulder. His devotion pleases you. Another victory under your belt. 

Feeling the loss of it, Sylus finally slips out of you. 

At once, you all loosen together, releasing a unified breath. You spin your partner around and let her head fall sleepily into Zayne’s lap. Unsubtly, he wipes his drool covered fingers on the bed set before he reaches down to stroke her cheek, praising her just as you had earlier. She hums at the attention, her eyes fluttering closed then she nuzzles at his softening member and presses a small kiss to his foreskin. 

Once settled, you turn to smile at Sylus properly, like he’s in on it with you. Perhaps you shared more of your control with him than he realizes. He’s all but lost his senses to you. His answering smile is fonder than you’ll ever let him verbalize. 

A Friday night. Zayne will be home late. He always is. Onychinus has too many headstrong subordinates, eager to prove themselves to the boss only to end up in the syndicate’s clinic with an annoyingly thorough doctor to look over them. It’s why Sylus is here to begin with. To blow off steam, Zayne suggested only yesterday. His ears had gone pink as he said so, but his gaze never wavered. Sylus was too on edge lately, something he knew quite well. It rippled down the hierarchy, leaving young recruits with stupid ideas of grandeur. An untenable wave of recklessness.

Though Zayne never had problems levying critiques, he wasn’t one to complain. Fine hairs at his temples were streaked with grey. Dark circles framed his eyes. It wasn’t only Sylus wound tight. A break would do everyone some good.

“Any rules?” Sylus had asked.

Zayne glanced up, the ghost of a smile on his lips, and said, “You know the rules.” 

A lifetime has passed since they last played their game. Still, the rules are simple. No permanent damage, no bystanders. Play always ends at sunrise. Plenty of time for Sylus to get a headstart. 

He begins by rifling through the bedside tables. Each drawer is meticulously organized. No condoms, but a small tube of lube is lodged in the back corner. It’s the same no-nonsense brand Zayne always used. Sylus huffs a laugh. 

It’s unclear how long he’ll have to wait. Part of him fears he’ll be here all night only for Zayne to come stumbling home exhausted with the new morning. He ignores the thought. With his face pressed to the soft silk pillow case, Sylus undoes his pants. 

The apartment is kept cool. It was always something they bickered about. Gooseflesh runs up his arms. Ignoring his half-hard cock, he draws two lubed fingers between the cleft of his ass. Each perfunctory, focused stretch open reminds him of Zayne’s easy slide. 

Sylus is by no means chaste. He finds his pleasure in handsome men and beautiful women. There’s no reason to be precious about it. Still, his thick knuckled fingers feel clumsy compared to the memory of Zayne’s. In their time apart, nobody else had breached him. He’s tight and hot, unused to the intrusion. This is just another tick on his to-do list. He wants to reach down and pleasure himself more, breathing deep the scent of Zayne’s domesticity. His free hand clenches around the headboard to stop himself from trying.  

Once properly slick and stretched, with his shaft standing ready between his legs, Sylus pulls out before he can get too greedy. Another thing they once bickered about. Carefully, he tucks himself back into his pants and rolls off the bed. He remakes the sheets nearly perfect, rucked up under his ministrations, and steps away to the adjacent bathroom. It’s the only sign of Zayne’s exhaustion. Toothpaste tube left open, a knocked over bottle of contact solution, and a dirty mirror. There sits his razor, untouched. Little cracks in Zayne’s usual routines. 

Sylus looks over his own reflection. Old. He’s gotten old. When he clawed his way to the top of Onychinus it was by the only means he knew. Force. Now he’s eye to eye with the toll that takes. New wrinkles, new scars, all signs that he lived another day. It’s something he doesn’t take for granted. To grow old was uncommon in their business. That they both managed to do so was a feat. 

He nabs Zayne’s little blue toothbrush and freshens up. Only minor preparations left to do. He returns to the bedroom with jaunty steps. One ear remains perked towards the door, waiting for the telltale sounds of keys in the lock. 

At the foot of the bed, he unhooks handcuffs from his belt. They loop easily around the leg, tucked under just enough for the glint of metal to remain unseen. Strapped to his back is the rest of his arsenal. His usual pistol sits in its holster, next to the knife that Zayne himself gifted him on the day he took over the syndicate’s operations. 

All that’s left is to wait. Something he has very little practice with these days. Sylus leans against the wall by the bedroom door, breathing slow and listening close. In his hand, he grips the knife. 

At the bedside, the clock ticks. Thirty minutes then an hour then more. What little buffer of time he gave himself now seems foolish. Sylus waits beyond fatigue. 

Just when he’s ready to give up, he hears it. Zayne’s steps are slow but determined. Certainly exhausted. He fumbles with his key ring before knocking open the door. Anticipation tingles through Sylus. There’s the thump of one shoe hitting the floor, followed by the second, only for Zayne to think better of it and shuffle to the rack. He carefully puts his things in their proper places. 

Outside, even the city has finally found sleep. Cars drive by sparingly, golden light coming and going. Every step down the hall makes Sylus tense with focus. He thought perhaps age would dull the edge. Instead, it heightens the game all the more. No longer young and stupid, half running on rage and a desperate need for control, he can savor the wait all the more.

It isn’t only him that’s honed over the years, however. As he approaches the bedroom, Zayne’s steps slow. Something is off. Sylus holds his breath.

When the door swings open, they strike at once. Zayne knows his blindspots, but Sylus wields his blade well. He slams the wall once, his bicep taking the brunt of it. His leg sweeps out, catching Zayne’s heel, and he sends them both spinning. One arm bars Zayne’s chest, the other pressing the knife tip to his throat.

“You’re lucky you’re pretty,” Sylus croons. 

Zayne’s chest rises and falls, pulse fluttering under the blade. Pretty wasn’t a lie. His lip curls in annoyance. Head to toe, he takes stock. When his eyes fall to Sylus’s leather shoes, just recently shined, he scowls. 

“I told you to come tomorrow,” he snaps. Zayne doesn’t dare move but it doesn’t dull his tongue.  Despite his cold tone, his face flushes hot. Only one foot in the game. Not quite willing to submit. Sylus leans in. His erection strains against his slacks. He rubs the rigid edge against Zayne’s hip. The prominent curve of his Adam’s apple grazes the knife as he swallows. Enticing, nearly begging to be bitten. 

“When have I ever asked permission to take what I please?” Sylus teases. He offers only one concession, kicking off his shoes. He nods, “Ready?” 

It’s the only chance he’ll get to back down. Zayne hesitates just a beat, long enough for Sylus to wonder if he pushed too hard. The defiant glint in his eye doesn’t falter, only sharpening when their gazes meet. Without even the slightest twitch to give himself away, Zayne twists to crush his shoulder against Sylus’s sternum. 

He grunts, unprepared, and falls back. The blade knicks Zayne’s cheek, before his wrist is wrenched forward. Deft fingers jab sensitive tendons, unfurling Sylus’s fingers until the knife goes skittering to the floor. Taking advantage of the momentum just enough to flip their positions, he tries to leverage Sylus back against the wall. Instead, Sylus throws the bulk of his weight into the swing. He hauls them both off their feet. They go flying to the floor in a heap. One tense arm wraps around Sylus’s head, couching his fall before his skull can crack against the hardwood. Too kind even now. Sylus will make him regret it.

He tries to roll into the impact, only to catch his shoulder in a sharp jolt. It knocks the breath from his chest. Zayne straddles his hips, pinning him to the floor. Sylus leverages himself up just enough to crush his elbow to Zayne’s jaw. His head whips. Strong hands grab Sylus by each wrist, pinning them above his head. 

Heat flares between them. Their eyes meet. At his smirk, Zayne scoffs. 

“Always so pleased with yourself. This is why we never worked,” he says. Cruel words flow forth easily for him when it comes to their past. His jaw works itself unconsciously. Never applying pressure, he locks his elbow above Sylus’s trachea. So hot and cold. 

Sylus rolls his hips. Their clothed cocks brush against each other. He doesn’t need to fake it when he moans.

“And you’re not pleased?” he asks, “It sure feels like it from here.”

Outside, rain pelts the window. Steady drops against the glass. Moonlight cuts through. It illuminates the dark, singular focus of Zayne’s glare. Sylus leans up, close enough to kiss him. He is rather pleased with himself. Ever so slightly, Zayne’s fingers loosen their grip. 

Stars burst behind his eyes when he smashes their heads together. His brow connects with the bridge of Zayne’s nose. His glasses careen off his face, startling him just enough for Sylus to buck him off. Behind his back, the cool metal of his gun grounds him. He snaps it around, aiming the barrel just between Zayne’s brow. 

“Be good for me, doctor,” Sylus croons, “No more fighting.” 

It’s hardly a request. Zayne’s hands go up slowly. His eyes flick from trigger finger, to the smile Sylus wears, down to the bulge of his slacks. On his knees, Sylus takes the lead. They go in tandem. Zayne crawls back until he hits the foot of the bed. His pinky bumps the cold curve of the handcuffs. He freezes. 

“Go on,” Sylus insists.

From behind, Zayne locks one wrist in. Sylus hums his approval before moving to assist with the second. Only once he’s fully secured does the tension leave his shoulders. Fight drains from him little by little. Sylus shimmies to his lap. With locked hips. he positions himself low at Zayne’s knees. Easier to enjoy the full view this way. The pistol trails down, caressing from temple to neck. It rests securely under his chin, tilting his face up. Pale, smooth skin exposed to explore. 

He grinds down. Zayne’s thigh is taut with muscle. It tenses under him, hard and warm. 

Twice Sylus taps the gun to Zayne’s lips. When he doesn’t open up, Sylus drives the butt to his temple. It knocks his face to the bed. Obedience is never a request.

“Out of practice?” he asks. Only then does Zayne part his lips. Whether he means to protest or acquiesce, Sylus shoves the gun between his teeth. It clacks against his canines. Zayne winces. For every thrust against Zayne’s thigh, Sylus pulls the gun in and out. Stubbornly, Zayne’s mouth hangs agape. Drool pools at the corners of his lips. 

Open palmed, Sylus delivers one full force slap to his cheek. It rings through the room. Steely green eyes follow him in the dim light. Sylus delivers one more slap, just to watch that gaze falter.

After that, Zayne’s cheeks hollow in a deep suck. He follows unspoken orders well enough. Sylus hasn’t seen the sharp line of his cheekbones like this in years. Tight pleasure suffuses him. Encouragements spill from his lips. The hand that bruised only moments before strokes up into Zayne’s hair in apology. He coils his fingers through threads of inky black. 

“Needy thing, aren’t you?” Sylus says, “All that protesting just to be a little slut when I give you something to suck on.” 

A low, animal whine builds in Zayne’s chest. The sound sends Sylus spasming. Little rolls of his hips devolve into eager pumps. Before he can get too far ahead of his own agenda, he drops his weight fully. A pink tongue flashes between Zayne’s lips. It follows the wet barrel as it slips free. Sylus groans. 

He tosses the gun away, letting it hit the bed with a bounce. Beneath him, Zayne pants. That calculating stare has gone foggy. Dazed eyes track his movements. Sylus stands, pulling his cock free and kicking off his slacks. 

Cockhead thick and throbbing, he steps forward. Zayne licks his lips in invitation. Two taps of the tip, and those lips part for him sweetly. 

“You’ve missed this,” Sylus says. 

“Wait, I can’t-”

Leveraging his knee to Zayne’s shoulder, Sylus slides his cock home. Warm wet envelops him. Zayne tries to pull back, gagging when the tip rocks to the back of his throat. Sylus grasps his chin in firm fingers. With a squeeze above his jaw, he forces Zayne’s mouth open. Fucking down and deep, he finally allows himself to let it all go. No more restraint. Each choking breath from below only spurs him on more. The pace he sets is erratic and sloppy. Zayne is just as uncoordinated. His tongue fumbles along, pressing hotly to one prominent vein. 

Starving for this. Both of them. His throat contracts, trying to adjust to the intrusion, and Sylus only tenses and pushes harder. In turn, Zayne goes slack. White, blinding pleasure takes over. It crawls from tip to spine, sending shivers down his neck. Power and control, never more delicious than when they were hard won. 

When Sylus reaches his climax, Zayne’s hips jump behind them. He thrusts up into nothing and keens in time with every throbbing wave. Sylus paints his throat in his cum. Around his jaw, his fingers flex and release with each pulse of his shaft. Moans vibrate around him, shooting right to his core. He pulls back just enough, catching his head on slick lips, to rub the final spurts against Zayne’s willing mouth. 

Sylus releases him with a grin. His thighs tremble. He drops to Zayne’s lap before his weakened knees grow too obvious. With the last of his energy, he licks Zayne’s chin, lapping up his own cum. His forehead knocks forward to the mattress just long enough to catch his breath. He wants to purr, unlock the cuffs, and pull Zayne to the bed for a proper fuck. Maybe when they were younger he could have managed it. Not worth giving up their game, as it is. Neither of them truly have what they need, as it is. 

Blindly grasping, he reaches back to rub a hand against Zayne’s neglected erection. Still hard and wanting. Just as he knew it would be. 

“Feel that? Doesn’t matter which hole I fuck, you always want it,” he groans. Zayne tosses his head away. Looking over his handiwork, Sylus is rather pleased. They’re both disheveled. Zayne’s cheek is flushed and ruddy where his hand had connected earlier. Buttons have popped loose, revealing the blushing pink across his collarbone. In a different time, a gentler time, Sylus would have licked his way across it. After that, he would make his way up, where short hairs stick to his temples. Dotted with sweat and out of breath. A job well done, and there was plenty left to do. 

Tight-gripped, he pulls Zayne’s cock free of his slacks. It slaps his navel. Dark hair sends him on a trail straight down to his waistband. With a yank, Sylus shoves his pants down over his ass. Zayne’s cock is paler, longer and thinner. It curves nicely, perfectly made to hit the most delicate places inside. Rather than treating it sweetly, coaxing it to pleasure, Sylus squeezes it between his fingers until he earns a yelp. 

Zayne hisses, “Fuck. Enough.” 

Not likely. Just to prove he heard, Sylus hums sweetly. He flips himself over until they’re back to chest. Breaths tickle his ear. 

“I’ll be gentle,” he lies. 

First he goes slow. Easy. He wets his thumb on the tip and rubs it around the head. One hand pulls back the foreskin while the other trails down the shaft. No need to rush. At his back, barely there kisses melt into licks and nibbles. Deserving of a reward. 

Unfortunately, when he’s most deserving is when Sylus most wants to deny him. His pace quickens, pumping up and down until Zayne thrusts follow into the circle of his hand. Just when he nears the edge, teeth clamping down hard enough to bruise, Sylus halts. Thumb and forefinger circle the base and squeeze. In his hands, Zayne’s member throbs uselessly. Dribbles of pre-crum spill forth. Pathetic little attempts at release. 

Zayne whines. He tilts his head just enough to nip Sylus’s earlobe. With a croon, he starts them over again. This time, Zayne’s hips follow along more tentatively. They follow each jerk of Sylus’s hand, fucking himself up. Once the pace reaches a crescendo, Sylus stops them again. The same hold to the base. Another harsh squeeze. One more lovely whimper from Zayne, followed by a string of curses. 

Two more times before he’s satisfied. Into the crook of his neck, Zayne begs for more, no more, both and neither. He demands as much as he pleads. Croons and keens. Sylus laughs and starts again. 

When he’s so sensitive his thighs twitch at the smallest touch, Sylus flicks the head. Though he’s gone softer with the teasing, his cock betrays him. With each cruel flick, it stiffens. Zayne gasps. His legs scramble and he tries to pull away. In retaliation, he gets a slap. Three sharp smacks to his length. Words fail him, only humiliated huffs. 

Bending low, Sylus hovers over his prize. Open mouthed, he lets spit pool on his tongue. Drool drips from his lips down Zayne’s length. He surges. 

Before his thrashing can dethrone Sylus, he rearranges himself more securely. Between his legs, against all odds, his own erection strains. It bobs and sways with his movements. He kneels above Zayne’s hips, lowering himself. 

The stretch is searing. Earlier, his fingers could only prepare him so much. He tortures them both with a swift thrust down. Whatever Zayne’s protestations, Sylus ignores them. Instead he fucks himself open. After a moment to adjust, he slides back up. A few pumps to situate himself. 

“Me first, then you get your turn,” he promises. Zayne’s lazy tongue gives up on words. All he can muster is a half-hearted glare. Sylus takes him by the throat. Between two fingers, he pinches each pulse point. Zayne writhes. His cock rubs deep in Sylus’s walls, a slick slide against his prostate that makes him quake.

He uses Zayne’s cock like the toy that it is. Low shallow grinds to long demanding pumps. With each pull to the tip catching tight muscle, his fingers grip harder. Zayne’s life flutters under his hands. His shaft twitches inside of him. In tandem with the roll of his hips, he cuts off Zayne’s air just long enough for his eyes to roll back. Fucking down, he releases. Each time he bottoms out, Zayne gasps. He squeezes around him ruthlessly. 

Red faced and teary eyed beneath him, Zayne is irresistible. His eyes squeeze shut. The veins along his neck bulge. A smear of blood stains his jaw, where the knife had caught him earlier. Stark white teeth worry the plush skin of his bottom lip. When had he last kissed those lips? Not once in ten years. A stray thought. One that Sylus knows better than to act on. 

Their teeth clack together. It’s clumsy. Both of them are out of practice. It still makes him groan. Hardly what you could call a kiss. More spit and hot tongues running across any exposed skin. Nothing tender. 

With his free hand, Sylus reaches down to jerk his own cock in a rough grip. He fucks them sloppily. Caught up, he barely tracks the tension of his fingers along Zayne’s neck. With this new advantage Zayne manages to get his feet under them. He leverages himself to fuck Sylus hard and senseless. No rhythm guides them, only tingling need. With no regard for the man riding him, Zayne pistons in a surge of adrenaline.

He spills inside of Sylus with one last sharp thrust. It’s wordless. Any air left in his lungs is savored. Heat splits Sylus down the center. All he can muster is tiny, sharp jolts that send Sylus bouncing in his lap. Every pulse coats him from the inside. 

Satiated, smug beyond speaking, and having properly used Sylus for his own pleasure, Zayne smirks. His tongue peeks from between his lips. Sylus’s fingers spasm around his length. 

He bares his teeth to hide his smile, “You shouldn’t have done that.” 

An empty threat. He has nothing left to hold over him. All he can do is draw a deep breath and return to their punishing pace. Zayne squirms, oversensitive, but gives up his fight. Between his own hand, the whimpers he wrings out, and Zayne’s hot cock splitting him, his relief is not far off. 

Cum dribbles down his thighs. It makes him keen, high and throaty. 

“Now who’s pleased with himself?” He hisses, before his throbbing cock sets them free. Stripes of cum shoot across Zayne’s exposed stomach. It drips from his hand, rolling down his wrist. Their earlier pretense of a kiss feels well practiced in comparison to the open mouthed pants they now offer each other. His thighs quake. Sylus gives up all need for control. He hits Zayne’s lap with a grunt. Inside of him, his cock has gone soft. It slips out wetly. Both of them are too exhausted for much else. He’s unsure how long they lay there, bundled together. Outside, the streetlights flicker. Sylus squeezes his eyes shut to ignore their insistent call. Daylight awaits. 

From behind his back, Zayne rattles the handcuffs. 

“Let me out,” he grumbles. Sylus disentangles himself and pulls off enough to look them over. 

Blow off steam. He almost laughs. Is that what they set out to do? They’re a mess. Weapons and clothes scattered around the room. The windows above the bed are thick with steam. They smell of sweat and sex. It’s only a matter of time before Zayne will want to get up and shower. 

Sylus hums. He’ll take what contentment he can from this. His fingers trace Zayne’s jaw. Under his thumb, Zayne’s frown lines feel no different from his own.

“So bossy,” he mutters, “You’re always first to end the fun.” 

His fingers shake when he unclips the key from his belt. Zayne wiggles impatiently. Down his arms, under the bed, he undoes each wrist carefully. They’re bright red and chafed from their struggle. By Monday, Zayne will have them covered under a tightly buttoned shirt. Only Sylus will know it’s there. Every bruise, the cut he hopes will scar, little marks he’s left behind.

Hating the foolish flutter in his stomach, he stands. Ass naked in nothing but his own white shirt. Suddenly he hates their game. Before, his moodiness was always a sore spot between them. It locks his words tightly in his throat now. He would laugh just to voice them. What use is this desire, when he has everything? Even with age, it hasn’t gone away. 

Lost to his thoughts, he doesn’t notice the hand clasping around his ankle until it’s too late. Zayne yanks, tearing Sylus from his feet. Colors zip by in a blur. He hits the floor with none of the concern from earlier in the night. His head slams the hardwood, stunning him. When he blinks back the daze, Zayne sits atop him. There’s no playful grin, no easy banter, just a cool gaze honed on his target. His eyes are harsh and unreadable. Fluttering eagerness dances through Sylus’s chest.

“You didn’t think it would be that easy, did you?” Zayne asks. 

Sylus shivers. One last glance up to the remains of the night. Still some time until sunrise. 

Once he was a man grown, confident that his parents would live well in their remaining days, he carefully packed his things and made the long walk to the boundary of the forest. The lost souls of the dead, who spent night upon night pleading for him to join them, gathered to welcome his spirit among them. His self-assured steps into the fog were his final moments as a mortal man. 

That first winter morning, his parents awoke with only a letter in the place of their son, written out on finely crafted parchment. His best work. They wept, but knew better than to follow his trail.

At the mountain’s peak, with the roar of the rushing river in his ears, the god Li Shen watched on with a chill in his heart. His own nature was a mystery to him, but his duty became clear at once. He carried out that duty tirelessly. Any life ended, no matter the cause, was ushered to his domain. With single-minded devotion he led them down the river. It wasn’t his place to cast judgement, to dictate where those souls would end up, but only to stand by their side during the journey beyond. 

Something within him hardened. He promised himself he would be prepared for the day when it was his own parents who walked that path. 

When his mother’s death finally came, Li Shen’s father left peeled pears on the windowsill and prayed for her passing to be a peaceful one. It was only then, receiving his first devoted offering, that he understood what he was. The god of death, born among the living but never to be one of them again, would lead his mother on her final walk. His chest panged at the realization that he would never grow to see her crow’s feet line his eyes in his own old age. At once, he understood the true cost of his duty.

Years turned to decades, until time ceased to matter much at all. Tales of him grew alongside the village until it was a city in its own right, raising temples to house the followers of Li Shen. Their faith changed him inside and out. He watched life beget death, uninterrupted in the constant turn of the cycle, and never once intervened. Between wars and pestilence, he found contentment as the stoic guardian of the forest. 

The priests, in equal parts respect and fear, understood him to be a great beast, so a great beast he became. His teeth elongated into sharp, curved points. His hair, once carefully trimmed, grew and grew until he was covered from head to toe. In the light of the moon, his eyes glowed reflectively. God or monster, it mattered little when there was work to be done.

When he heard word, through the prayers of his most faithful, that there was to be a new sacrifice, it was the first true break in his routine in centuries. There had been offerings before, livestock brought to an altar just beneath the mountain’s shadow, but he cared little for them. Death would come for them all, no matter their attempts to appease him. 

It was rumours of a distant, dormant god in a far off land that frightened his followers. Li Shen himself was apathetic to this so-called god of retribution, so long as he never crossed into death’s domain. However, the fear that the fallen god Qin Che stoked in the hearts of the priesthood was unsettling to him.

What finally brought Li Shen down his mountain was this: the next sacrifice would be human. They thought to buy his respect by gifting him a bride. It was almost laughable. What would he do with a wife? There was no future where he wasn’t alone. 

In the snow, his hoofprints gradually lengthened until they were the clumsy, half hearted footprints of a man. He had shed his bestial skin, though it was an excruciatingly painful shift to make, and taken on the guise of a bookseller. A shiver ran down his spine when he stepped out of the fog. 

Things had changed. As a boy, he and the other children had rushed to the road when any passing merchant came through the town. Nowadays, pulling his rickety cart through the paved streets, he was nearly invisible in the flow of the crowd. That suited him well enough so long as the priesthood welcomed his presence.

Thankfully, they did. His cart was left by the gates, locked up safely from looters, and he was escorted up the long stairway leading to the temple. Inside, monks and priests mingled, though many of the young ladies looked away shyly at his approach. All were dressed in modest robes, with kidskin gloves buttoned tightly up to their elbows. He only nodded his greetings when necessary, careful to avoid any disrespect. 

The head of the library was a kind old man who was eager to speak with another who had knowledge as broad as his. Though Li Shen listened politely, his mind was elsewhere. 

Faintly, but clearly there, he could sense his bride-to-be was near. She was said to be beautiful, fair-hearted and the most devoted among the order. He had never picked out her prayers among the faithful. 

When he was at last relieved of the conversation, clutching a list of texts the library could use, he set out on his search. Free to roam, he made his way first to the gardens. They were massive, immaculately designed and well maintained with a burbling fountain in the center pond. On all sides, the towering walls around the courtyard loomed, casting an imposing shadow on the faithful. In an instant, his eyes landed on the woman he sought. 

She crouched over the water as if the very sight of it offended her. He could only catch half of her expression as she turned to look at the person at her side. A servant, perhaps. Your hands were uncovered without the gloves worn by those practicing. It was clear she was midway through a complaint. You laughed along good naturedly. 

This excursion of his had never had a true goal. He had no intention of interrupting you two. He hardly even knew what he had expected to feel upon seeing the priestess. The answer was surprisingly simple. He felt very little. Despite that, his legs carried him forward. 

At his approach, your head whipped around. You straightened up and pulled the priestess along with you, straightening her skirts before you attended to your own. It was true that she was beautiful, though the gaze she directed on him was a cold one. Her expression smoothed into glass. In his presence, she was devoid of any of the annoyed mirth she had shown to you just earlier. Up and down, she took him in, before deciding she was unimpressed. Her eyes stopped on his inkstained fingers. 

“You must be the handsome bookseller everyone’s whispering about,” she said. If this body’s long stopped heart could still beat, he was sure he would blush. 

“I brought books. The rest I’ll take as a compliment.” 

She scoffed. You giggled and nudged her with a sharp elbow. “Be nice, my lady,” you whispered under your breath. Li Shen nearly smiled, but feared what it would look like without practice. With a long-suffering sigh, the priestess tried again. 

“How may we help you, sir?” she said through gritted teeth. It was a valiant attempt at niceties.

Callously he said, “I’ve heard there’s to be a sacrifice.”

Immediately, he regretted his forwardness. Both of you stiffened and the priestess turned away. At once, she closed herself off to him again. 

“We shouldn’t speak with men from the outside,” she told him coolly. Not waiting for his response, she turned to leave. Each step was unhurried but deliberate. When she reached the threshold to the inner chambers, she paused only to seek you out. 

You remained by his side a beat longer, giving him an apologetic smile. 

“Sorry, it’s not you. She's just having a bad day,” you lied, unnecessarily kindly, “I hope you’ll come back soon. I’d love to see the books next time!” 

Just as you turned to follow after the priestess, his hand whipped out to grab yours. Flesh to flesh with another, for the first time in lifetimes. Both of you shivered. The shocked look on your face was enough for him to realize that he must be cold to the touch. His icy fingertips traced slowly along your palm as he pulled away, however inappropriate it was. Your warmth was irresistible. 

“Would you like to see them now? I’m not sure when I’ll be back next,” he said. There was still much left unanswered. If the priestess wasn’t amicable, perhaps her servant would be. 

You held your hand to your chest, one thumb idly tracing the path his fingers had taken. Perhaps he had frightened you with his impulsivity. He would blame it on this human form when he thought of it in the days to come. What else could cause his good sense to leave him so drastically?

Just when he believed he had scared you off for good, you composed yourself. It took one deep, shaken breath for you to smile again. You glanced between him by your side and the priestess that impatiently watched you from under the awning. Nervously, you nibbled your lip. This decision held more weight than he understood. 

“Wait here,” you whispered before scampering off. At the doorway, you and the priestess bickered quietly with one another just out of earshot. Even with her shoulders squared straight with pride, it was clear that she lost the argument. With a huff, she held out her arms and allowed you to unbutton each glove carefully. To his disappointment you yanked them on as you ran back over. Unlike the priestess, you skillfully buttoned them one handed.

“I lied earlier,” you said with a wink, “She definitely hates you.” 

Shocked by your frankness, he laughed. It was a creaky old excuse for laughter, coming from a man who had very little to find joy in.

“I was rude before,” he conceded. Attempting to make up for his poor manners, he gestured to the path. “After you.” 

“Not that way,” you said. With a wave, you brought him deeper into the gardens. The whole way, he could feel the gaze of the priestess burning into his back until finally you were out of sight. 

The courtyard stretched further than he had imagined. It led behind the temple, where the carefully trimmed foliage blended into untamed shrubbery. The thicket was overgrown and dense, but you traversed it easily as though you had done it a thousand times before. Whenever he believed you had reached a dead end, you squeezed between sparse bushes and confidently held branches back for him.

“I had planned to go out the same way I came in,” he said, wryly. You laughed. 

“Oh, I’m sure you did.”

After many twists and turns, the two of you broke out into a side yard. Just ahead, his cart sat untouched. Before you could go to it, he reached out with a hand to your wrist to stop you. It left him unsatisfied when he was met with only the soft leather of your glove. If he were still the shy young man he had once been, he never would have grabbed anyone the way he had grabbed you. Not only once, but twice. 

It gave him a weary sort of warmth, to think of how his mother would scold him for such a thing after so long without cause to remember her. 

“Did I overstep your oaths, seeing you like that in the gardens?” he asked carefully. 

You shrugged, “More like I understepped them.”

Your cavalier answer rankled him. He dropped your arm and narrowed his eyes. Suddenly thinking better of the whole endeavor, he took one step back. 

“My invitation wasn’t meant to cause you trouble. I haven’t even learned your name,” he said. 

You gave it without hesitation, then smirked. “Now you’re free to cause me trouble.” 

He scoffed, “Stubborn, I see.” 

“Very! Now, I promise that any trouble that may be incurred will be very worth it just to have a bit of fun,” you said insistently. Against his will, he could feel himself relenting. “It’s so stuffy in there! A break will be good for me, you know.” 

Your desperate plea, when turned on him, was very convincing. He could see now how the priestess had been defeated in your earlier argument. It felt good, strangely powerful, to be begged for something much less dire than death’s reprieve. It worked. 

At his nod, you charged ahead happily. Without a word he handed off his key ring, allowing you to open up the cart on your own. It had three major compartments, meticulously organized and packed tightly with an array of volumes. Your gloved fingers traced lightly along the spines. 

While you pored over his wares, he consulted his list. Though he supposed it didn’t matter if he fulfilled his order with the librarian, some part of him couldn’t turn his back on a job to be done. It was peaceful to carry on together, side by side without a word. The camaraderie was foreign to him. Even if today was the only taste of it he could have, he would relish in it. 

You were flipping slowly through one of the books when you finally broke the silence. It was one of his favorite volumes that you held. The spine was a deep green and shimmered slightly in the midday sun. Inside, the flora and fauna of the region were carefully detailed with meticulous diagrams. Though it couldn’t possibly contain the creatures that traversed his domain, it was comprehensive. Back on his mountain, he often flipped through his own copy in the limited free time he had. A small smile curled your lips at some of the more outlandish little animals depicted. It was that which made him understand just how small your world was.

“You never told me your name either,” you said, quietly so as not to shake the peace you had built together. 

Li Shen, he couldn’t say. I am the god of death Li Shen. I will guide you in your final moments. I will listen for your morning prayers. I will be the death of your dearest friend.

Instead, he stood there dumbly. His stupefied look made you laugh. You closed the book to focus on him wholly. Once more, you prompted him. 

“I’m Zayne,” he said finally. It came out sticky on his tongue. How strange it was to say. In one word, he mustered up the memory of a man that nobody lived to remember. Zayne the tanner’s son. Zayne who stayed up late turning hides into parchment. Zayne who never had the chance to weep at his mother’s grave. 

The glimpse of your tongue peeking pink between your teeth when you repeated it back to him sent a bolt through his stomach. In that split second, you had made him a man again. He resented you for it nearly as much as he cherished it. 

Before you could push for more, wiggling your way into breaking off new pieces of him, he changed the subject bluntly. 

“You and the head priestess are close,” he said, tone leading. 

If his abrupt shift surprised you, then you hid it well. Your attention turned back to the books, but unlike in the gardens you had softened to him now. He was beginning to believe he didn’t deserve the easy unfurling of your trust. You answered his questions without pretense. 

The two of you had grown up in the temple together. You were raised as a pair, though you readily admitted that she was the one who often excelled. No malice entered your tone, as if being a companion to the priestess alone was enough for your happiness. The fond tales of your childhood made him smile. 

“You’ll miss her,” he said. The love between you was fierce. He understood, through your lighthearted stories, that her prickly nature never truly turned your way.

You gripped your hands together tightly before you, “Forever. Desperately.” Your voice cracked on the words, “How could I live without her?” 

It wouldn’t be him that killed her, yet it would be him to carry the burden nonetheless. The burden of godhood. What a foolish thought. Unused to feeling useless, he found he handled it poorly. With no words of comfort, he was struck mute. 

Just when he opened his mouth, ready to attempt an ineffectual consolation, a voice called from above.

“Ah, good! You’re still here,” called out the librarian. He stood far enough away at the top of the steps for the both of you to be blocked from sight behind the cart. Unthinkingly, Zayne shoved you back into the bushes. He couldn’t help but smirk at the sound of your surprised squeal. 

The steady thump of the librarian’s steps was the only countdown you had. Grabbing the green bound book off his shelf, Zayne stuffed it into your hands. A wicked grin graced your lips from where you sat, flat on your ass in the shrubbery. It was a boyish feeling that came over him when he looked at you. 

“Take it and go,” he insisted. 

You shook your head, “I’m just the back-up. I can’t even read, Zayne!” 

“Take it. Think of me when you open it.”

Your eyes went wide. It pleased him to catch you off guard.

“Oh, how bold of you,” you teased. He rudely waved you away just as the librarian came around the corner. Your last words would follow him home. “Remember: the trouble was worth it!” 

You had just scurried out of sight when the librarian clapped him on the shoulder. He was good natured, offering to give Zayne a hand carrying everything back up, but his interruption had soured Zayne’s mood. 

They set their stacks into small baskets, carefully strapped to their backs for the walk back up. The librarian chattered through it all. It was altogether different from his short, quiet moments with you.  

“I do hope nobody’s been too rude. The priests get a bit squirrely with another man about,” the librarian explained, “Not that you seem the untrustworthy sort. It’s just that one of the high priestesses seems to have snuck out. I’d keep my head down while you’re in there, if I were you.” 

On the steps, Zayne’s steps faltered. He felt, bizarrely, tricked. The pieces rattled around in his head. The gloves, your argument with the head priestess, and the sneaking around all clicked together. He was the fool, taking your first appearance at face value. 

The rest of his visit to the temple was perfunctory. He dropped off his books, accepting coin that he would put into the hand of the nearest beggar. The librarian thanked him profusely, but his attention was quickly stolen by the news of the high priestess safely in the rooms. 

His thoughts were consumed by you on his lurching walk home. If those were his final moments as Zayne, he might as well savor them with the short memories he had made. 

A high priestess. One that could have easily been chosen as the sacrifice. Your self-deprecating laugh as you told him of your friend’s superior studies were suddenly cast in a new light. That they hadn’t taught you how to read, despite your rank. It was as you said before: you were the back-up.

If things had gone differently, it would be you tossed at his feet like livestock. It was unseemly of him to be relieved that it wouldn’t be. For Li Shen, all deaths must remain equal. In the few steps he had left as Zayne, something loosened in his chest. He wouldn’t look forward to the day your soul crossed into his domain, even if it meant seeing you one last time. 

The fog embraced him greedily. He had been out for far too long. Souls clamoured at him, tugging for his attention like spoiled children. Li Shen was exhausted and eager to return home, but he wouldn’t leave them to their limbo if he could help it. With gritted teeth, he began the slow, painful transition back to who he truly was. 

A crack rang through his skull as his antlers broke through bone. They protruded like a springtime bloom from the inky black growth of his hair. His thighs thickened and twisted into place until his walk evolved into a steady lope. The pulling of his skin made his vision go white. It rippled, peeling until his spine tore through with ease. Excruciating pain consumed him. 

Back in the forest, his heart began to beat again. As if he had never left at all, the god of death stalked down his well trod path to the river as the fearsome creature he was always destined to be.

The days passed. While he tended to the dead, the prayers of his faithful washed over him. They were more fervent with the sacrifice ritual just on the horizon. Despite his best attempts to close himself away, he would never be indifferent to their pleas. Many feared for themselves, that would never change, but just as many prayed for another. What reached his ears most often wasn’t selfish prayer. People wanted, above all, to alleviate the pain of the ones they loved. It would make no difference. Death was death. Unchanging and inevitable.

He caught himself, more than once, seeking out the sound of your prayers. His priestess, he couldn’t help but think. The sort of arrogance only a god could manage. Now that he knew where to look, he listened for you and the head priestess regularly. 

You both only ever prayed for one thing: each other. With a fervor and desperation he had only ever heard on the fields of war, she set aside her pride to beg the gods, any gods, to watch over you upon her death. Whether any ears but his could hear her, Li Shen didn’t know. 

He could see now why she was chosen for the ritual. Her strength of spirit was clear to him. Perhaps there was a god out there that would eagerly take her as his bride. It mattered very little. Death would take no lover. No partner could join him on this path, whether they be among the living or the dead.

Something akin to dread settled in his gut when the ritual day drew near. He caught himself more than once filled with indignation at the boastful prayers of the priesthood. They thought to placate him. They thought his regard for them was steeped in anger, just as they feared of the far off god Qin Che. 

What good was more death? It was the only thing humanity truly had in abundance. 

Though nothing would alter his course, he would give the head priestess the great respect of bearing witness. If her sacrifice was to be pointless, he could at least carry the memory of it long beyond her years. 

When the morning finally came, the forest ran icy cold. He watched, omnipresent, as the burly priests dragged all of the high priestesses to the base of his mountain. To his count, there were ten of you. Looking at you now, he couldn’t fathom how he hadn’t seen it. At your backs was the rest of the temple’s faithful, followed by city spectators amassed by the hundreds. None would cross into the fog, not if they valued the sanctity of their minds, but they drew closer than most to reach the stone altar standing before them. 

The head priestess walked in the center with her head held high. Her expression was inscrutable. All of the high priestesses were dressed in finery, wearing the deep dark blue associated with a virginal union. Perhaps once, as a very different man, that would have been the sort of thing he sought out. Now, it mattered little at all. A virgin would die just the same as any others, with their soul carried through white water at his urging. 

You didn’t attempt to match her stoicism. You wept openly. Your nose was pink in the cold winter’s wind. Desperately, your hand clutched your friend’s. It would cost you everything to let go. 

This city, his people, were they so afraid of some foreign god? Or deep down was it him they feared most? He never imagined he could feel such malice for mankind until he was watching them prepare to cut a life short in his name. 

He was proven wrong further still when it was you they took to your knees. His whole body stiffened. The head priestess gasped, but you were stunned into silence. Helplessly, you looked around, as if suddenly unsure of where you were. 

The priests went silent. A low murmur rose from the crowd gathered behind them. 

With brutish force, your hands were disentangled from hers. She held on with such strength that your glove tore off, hanging limply between her fingers. That one hand, bare and exposed to the chill, waved wildly towards the wide audience, asking for something you couldn’t find the voice for. Nobody moved to your side.  

The head priestess screamed from deep in her gut, her words lost in the swell of her rage. She was dragged away. A man, whose face would remain in Li Shen’s memory for decades to come, curled his lip and threw her over his shoulder. She pounded uselessly at his back, fists bouncing off his shoulders. 

You had finally come back to your senses, though you spoke only to yourself. If it was a prayer, even he couldn’t hear it. Your lips moved ceaselessly in unheard pleas. 

Had it been him that damned you to this fate? Was it your small rebellion, a single innocent adventure with a bookseller, that had brought this upon you? He wondered if somewhere someone more powerful than he mastered his fate. Perhaps by fixating on one of the living, death sought its due. 

Li Shen knew it was none of those things. The man Zayne could rail at destiny, but a god knew above all that death would always come with a ruthless indifference. He gripped that indifference for himself, dragging it down deep into his gut. The sight of a death, no matter how violent, no matter whose it may be, couldn’t sway him. He cleaved himself to the thought.

Duty, though often harsh, was his one loyalty to the faithful. 

Those very faithful that pulled the remaining priestesses into their mass of bodies. They held the head priestess back more with each anguished shriek. Her beautiful, cruel mask had slipped away into a hateful expression of grief. 

At the altar, they removed your other glove. Your last security stripped from you. It was their prayers that reached him, not yours. To them, you were no different from the livestock. You were a tool to serve their greater purpose. If they meant to please a god, they had fallen far short.

Behind him, trees cracked in the wind. Clouds rolled overhead. The river raced around the bend. A flock of birds broke into the skyline, screeching up at the heavens. 

First, they cut each of your palms. The blades sliced neatly through, exposing the white-pink meat of you. He thought back to his father’s careful cuts as he disemboweled a beast. Bright red blood dripped to the soil, where snowfall would soon bury it. He knew better. Your life would soak into the land, reaching him. He would taste you only once you were long gone from this world. 

With one hand across your eyes, the head priest pulled back your head. Once your neck was exposed, Li Shen finally heard your prayers. He heaved, inundated with the grasping hands of the dying. His eyes fluttered shut. It wasn’t any god that you prayed to. In your final moments, you thought of him. It was Zayne the bookseller, alongside your dearest priestess and the sweetfaced young girls of the temple that watched fearfully from the sidelines. All people you cared for. Completely laid bare, it was them that you prayed for. 

The hand that held the blade to your throat shook violently, unprepared to take a life despite how deeply the man hungered for it. The priests sickened their god. Their fear turned them to slobbering beasts, looking for prey. They would find it. 

When the ritual knife dragged from pulse to pulse, it dug deeper than necessary. Your flesh peeled back like flower petals. The crowd roared, adrenaline running through them straight to the restless souls beyond the ley line. His energy surged. The head priestess dropped to her knees, her screams gone hoarse. He heard none of it over the pained, strained gurgles of your final breaths. Your chest heaved and slowed. Blood spurted from the wound, flecking the feet of the noble priest. 

Finally, above the noise, her desperate prayer broke through to him. He realized only belatedly that he heard it through his spiritual tether just as much as her enraged, tear laden screams reached his ears. 

In equal parts, the head priestess begged him to punish them just as much as she demanded him to take you away as his bride. Death would have no bride. He could not enact her wishes. There would be neither the cruel cold cut of consequence, nor a benevolent savior swept to your side. 

Fearfully, the hands once holding her back tossed the priestess away. She wished the illest fortunes upon them, the spite in her words sending chills among those gathered. As soon as she was free she broke away. She threw herself at the head priest’s feet, spitting malice at him as she did so. Her hands stroked across your forehead, down to your cheeks, pressing her thumbs to your lips where blood ran steady. 

“Please, please,” she begged. Behind her, someone cheered. It caught among the crowd, raising them into uproar. Something inhuman in him snapped. 

Li Shen stepped from the fog. For ages to come, the tale would be told of this day. On this day, a holy day, the temple led the people astray. Down came the harsh god of the mountains. 

The thing that emerged from the forest was a monstrous beast, its eerie yellow gaze scanning across them with disgust. Some believed they saw the head priestess, lips bloodied from kisses pressed to your soiled cheeks, finally smile at the sight of his wrath. 

When he spoke, it came like a rumble from the earth. The voice of death was a grotesque one, chilling even his most faithful to the bone. A mass of fur and disjointed bones, he knelt over the near-lifeless body of their chosen sacrifice. He looked as if he meant to devour you. 

Some wept, others fainted, while many prostrated themselves in the dirt. It was only in the arms of a god that this one soul’s humanity became precious to them. All except for the priestess, who had cursed them to this happily for you. She saw what nobody else did.

One long, gnarled finger ran gently along the palm of your hand. 

He said only, “I have seen the true hubris of man this day,” then turned his back on them. A howl rose from those gathered, at once just as much a deformed creature as the god they worshipped. Some rushed to the holy followers of the temple, tearing him to the ground. Many leapt to protect the head priestess, the extent of her power unknown to them. Pandemonium broke out. Li Shen cared for it very little. 

Once back across the threshold of his domain, he moved with measured purpose. His power, fueled by the holy frenzy behind him, washed over you. He knelt to the ground. Frost gathered around him and he placed you softly into the snow. A snarl built in his throat as he looked over you. Something in him had shifted irrevocably on that day, though it would be long before he understood just how much. What could remain unchanged, now that he had brought the living into his world?

The roots of the trees broke through the soil, reaching up to hold you. He would bind you to this forest, keep your soul and body tethered to the earth far from the riverbank. Perhaps what he inflicted upon you was a cruelty, that you should remain here unchanging alongside him, but the steady prayer of the head priestess never ceased in begging him for this very act.

Once cradled in the roots, your body began to knit itself together. Your lips, which had gone pale, flushed again with life. He crouched at your side, only relaxing when you took one deep, unbroken breath. The earth freed you from its grasp, though he knew this bargain was far from over. Free to move, your body curled in on itself protectively. A low, humming sound came from deep in his chest. He scooped you into his arms. 

Against him, your heart beat a steady rhythm. Though you would tread the land of the dead, you were very much alive again. It brought him some comfort. You belonged to this place now. The only way you would leave would be down the river, dragged along with the dead. 

In time, that may be the path you chose. He told himself he wouldn’t intervene if that day eventually came. By bringing you through the fog, he had changed everything. Whether or not you would thank him for it was impossible to say. Guilt would serve you both little. 

With you nestled in his arms, he began his long trek up the mountain. Once, nearly halfway to the top, you awoke. Your eyes scrunched up in pain before fluttering open slightly. It was the only time he slowed his pace. Your gaze was groggy, but it trailed over the massive expanse of his bare chest. You wouldn’t recognize him as the man you once knew, ever so briefly. Whatever you saw made you smile nonetheless. 

He couldn’t fathom what you looked at in his face. To any eyes, he was a misshapen brute.

“Sleep,” he commanded. Despite his best efforts, his voice came out guttural. Blessedly, you could do nothing but listen. Your forehead rested in the crook of his neck with ease. 

At the peak, he looked upon the halls of his home with new eyes. Before then, he had never considered how much he had been living like a beast. His rooms were hardly fit for him, let alone a weakened human. They suited this shape and were still painstakingly organized to bring him comfort, but nobody but him could feel safe there. With time and much focus, he could shape this place as he pleased. Until then, he ripped the curtains from the window with a decisive tug and settled you into the nest of his bed. You nuzzled into his blankets naturally. Li Shen arranged the curtains around you, tucking you in further until you were a bundled mass of fabric. 

With that done, safe in the knowledge that nothing that walked this forest would harm you, he made his long journey back down the mountain. Your blood still painted his chest and throat. Once a good enough distance away that his agonized screams couldn’t wake you, he allowed his body to crack and shift. Again, for you, he would begin his deformation. He walked the rest of the way in his scarred, human body, relishing in the bite of the stones against his bare feet. His pace never faltered. When there was work to be done, his focus was single-minded. 

The clearing where the ritual was held had emptied by his arrival. Time moved strangely between his domain and the next. By his estimate, nearly a week had passed. He had ignored the desperate prayers begged upon him in that time. 

Your blood stained the earth preternaturally. It would remain there, a mark of man’s transgression against the gods. Zayne stepped over the fog and stood over it. 

It was a cold morning. So cold even he could feel it. Dew had no chance to gather, snapping frozen to the earth. Soon, true snowfall would come to the city. 

He made a slow, steady pace around the altar. Attempts had been made to destroy it, but just as many had clearly attempted to rebuild. He wasn’t sure which outcome he would have preferred, but he had intervened in the path of man enough. More than was wise.

A flash of blue caught his eye. He leaned down. Right along the ley line, your glove laid. He took it carefully. Behind him, someone gasped. He didn’t need to look to know it was her. The head priestess. She stood a good distance away, frozen in place, wearing travelling clothes and sturdy boots. Just as when they first met, she scanned over him critically. No longer concerned with mankind’s niceties, he must have looked gruesome even in his human guise. Half dressed, smattered with your blood, and holding back frenzy with scraps of self control. 

Her eyes locked on to the glove between his fingers.

“Leaving town?” He asked. She scowled. That look was nearly nostalgic to him now. 

“You’re him,” she said, something tight in her words. 

“A strange way to speak to a god.” 

She laughed bitterly, “I think our relationship has changed a little, don’t you?” 

Despite her bravado, he could see everything clearly. Her hands trembled at her sides. Beneath her eyes, dark circles sat just above hollowed cheekbones. The once proud slope of her shoulders slumped under the weight of her grief. Whether it was guilt or rage that drove her on, she remained steadfast. What more did she have to lose?

“If it’s any comfort to you, your friend is neither living or dead,” he said. 

“Some fucked up comfort.” 

In truth, he was no god of comfort. Perhaps it was better that way. Still, he had nothing better to offer her, no matter her demands and posturing. That he had granted even one mortal entry into his domain at her prayer was more than he had bent his will in all of his years. Regardless of his own feelings on the matter. 

With nothing else to say, he turned away. He hadn’t known what he would find in this wretched place, only that he needed to see it once more. Perhaps she had thought the same thing. It was a strangely human feeling, having that commonality between them. The priestess who loved you so dearly that she had never once prayed for another, bonded to her god only by their shared rage. 

Despite her pride, she threw herself after him. When her uncovered hands latched on his bare skin, he was surprised by how unaffected he was. 

“Please, wait,” she begged. He hadn’t expected her tone could grow so humbled. She dug desperately into her bag, with one hand and held him fast with the other. If he wanted to, he could easily break away. With tear rimmed eyes meeting his boldly, she pulled out a book. Green and shimmering on the cover, he knew it well. The spine was cracking where someone had opened and closed it again and again. It shook in her hands when she gave it to him. 

In return, he pressed your single blue glove into her palm. It wasn’t much, a memento from a day she may not wish to remember, but it was all he could give. Yes, he was no god of comfort.

“Leave. Find your vengeance or find your peace,” he said. There was nothing left for her here. You would never again walk among the living. 

And if I could get rid of my thoughts as easily, I would. Because after half a day of chasing them in circles, I still can't figure out who the fuck sent that goddamn note, who the fuck would write something like that—say shit like that, to me—who could possibly fucking think or know or say anything about that, or that I-I, that I—

Fuck. Fuckfuckfuckingfuck.

That sickly feeling wrenches again, hard enough to jerk me forward over the desk, face buried in my hands while my breathing shudders into something unsteady and vaguely gasping.

Fuck.

It can't be Tina.

It can't.

It should be, but it can't.

The writing's not loopy enough to be hers, and it's not slanted enough to be Verda's, and the damn thing isn't covered in nearly enough heart stickers to be from Felix. We all should know. Nate's been sighing nonstop for the past week, scraping them off every available surface in the Warehouse—except for the lacy pink one Felix managed to sneak right between Adam's shoulders.

And the glittery red one I pressed covertly to Mason's ass.

(Maybe not so covertly. Found a few hearts stuck to my underwear later when I slipped outta my jeans, and the secrets of how the fuck he pulled that off are still locked behind his smirk.)

A smile tries to pull at my lips, but the tightness in my gut warps it crooked.

Another shuddery breath.

It can't be from Adam either. If he had something to say to me, he'd just say it, preferably after he finished laying me out on the mats, all sweaty and sucking down air from another session of his gentle ass-kicking. Nate, however, would write a note to me. Has written a note to me. Has written many notes to me and still not made a dent in that stack of expensive stationary, and although the card stock was silk cream, the pigment obsidian night, and the calligraphy swooping in almost a dead ringer, I know it can't be from Nate because he would never leave a rose with his words, not the ones meant for me.

But there isn't anyone else.

There's Mason

And it can't be from him.

It's not his handwriting, to start. I think. I'm pretty sure. I've never actually seen his writing, but I can't imagine it would be anything resembling neat or careful. It's gotta be complete chicken scratch. All cramped and illegible. He's left handed too, barely patient enough to sit through a stoplight, much less give ink the time to dry, so there'd be definitely be smears, and there weren't any smears. At all. Can't be him.

Not to mention he'd never do anything like this.

Don't know why he keeps coming to mind anyway. Just because we're…

Together

—for now.

Doesn't mean he'd ever say anything like that—

He already has

(He did. He said I deserved better and I believe him, but I don't, I can't.)

—only because he'd say differently if he knew.

If he really knew.

He'd say different and I'm not gonna fucking tell him and it doesn't fucking matter anyway, it doesn't. Shine's gonna wear off soon enough. Novelty, satisfied. Boredom, returning. And at least the conversation won't be awkward, just… blunt. To the point. A first for us both, in topic, if not style.

I've never been dumped before, at least not in a romantic sense.

Another breath. Another shuddery breath.

Wonder how it's gonna feel.

(It's gonna suck.)

No fucking shit.

If it can't last, why agree to it at all?

I rub hard at my eyes, grinding palms into sockets.

If it can't last, why not tell him anyway?

Because I already fucking know! Don't need to hear it from him, don't wanna hear it from—

If it can't last, why does it matter what he thinks?

“…Stupid fucking note.”

It was nice to see it on the desk this morning

(Someone took the time, wrote it, left it in here. Someone cares.)

Someone's playing a sick fucking joke, more like.

What if it's genuine?

I scoff ragged, squeezing fingers around the back of my neck.

(Tina cares. So does Verda. The whole team, so many others, I know, and I believe them all but I don't. I can't.)

What if you didn't deserve it?

I did. I stayed and I did. My fault. Fucking stupid, like he always said.

(All Mason ever speaks is care. In a thousand different ways of touch, in silence, in lingering looks, he cares.)

What if you can be loved?

What if you can?

A brittle laugh wheezes past my lips and shoots toward something hysterical, boosted by acid burn and cloying petals and that churning, churning tightness. My shoulders hunch high around my ears while the sound pitches even higher, lungs immolated and screaming along, nails digging, cutting crescents as I shake and curl tighter, smaller, compacting into stiffness hard enough to rival diamonds, every muscle verging on a cramp and my throat is stinging and my eyes are on fire, hot, wet, and the door is closed, the blinds shut, and maybe I could just— this time— if I stayed quiet, I could—

I could—

But I don't.

I swallow once, twice, suck down, blink it away, then snap upright and get back to work. There's too much shit, not enough time.

Never enough time, not for that.

For you

(Remember to eat lunch.)

I don't.

I don't really remember talking to anyone either. Or finishing paperwork. Answering email. Clearing the inbox backlog, digital and otherwise, but the stack depletes, the numbers go down, Tina gives me shit from the doorway, and soon the peripheral lights tick off overhead in the foyer, a mop bucket rattles its rounds, darkness crept into my office at some point for a visit and now it's here to stay, just its quiet company along with the monitor blasting eye strain, clacking keys, tight shoulders, a headache, and then—

A familiar ass plops down on my desk and scares the shit out of me.

I jerk back in the chair, wheels rolling, hand over heart to keep it from pounding free and Mason looms above it all, bathed in harsh blues, deep shadows, a deeper frown, and eyes that refuse to obey the rules of any ambient illumination.

Right now? They're crinkled soft, even as they scrutinize.

He looks… worried.

When did he even open my door?

“You okay, sweetheart?”

“…Yeah,” I mutter. A lie, an obvious one, but I fight the urge to glance away and dare him to call me out anyway. “You need something, sunshine?”

A muscle in his jaw twitches. “You're late.”

“For what?”

We didn't make plans.

“Getting home.”

Fuck.

I sigh, slumping in the seat, and now I'm looking away, now I'm backing down, running a hand through my hair, mussing and tangling, just like he always does when he's uncertain.

And when the hell did I start doing that?

“Yeah, I'm still behind on shit from my vacation. I was gonna stay late tonight, try and catch up…” I explain, because Tina and I also didn't make plans this year.

(Because she's been marinating in smugness ever since I sighed and told her about the relationship. Because she dropped that shit-eating smirk earlier—that I remember, at least—dripping suggestion all over my office as she waggled her brows and winked and made obnoxious kissy faces until I shoved her out the door, but not before she told me to 'have lots of fun tonight, Alexandra.')

Sure.

“Sorry I didn't text. I… forgot.”

That tightness in my stomach does another loop, and I huff a quiet breath.

Stupid fucking note.

Mason folds his arms. “…The fuck is going on with you?”

Concern blunts the teeth of his words, not that there's any real bite. There never is, not with him, but I tense up anyway, expecting it, expecting to be ripped open.

Blood and pain.

I'd tense up no matter how he asked.

It's okay

(He's not Bobby.)

“Nothing,” I reply, folding my arms, eyes down, “just…”

It's okay

(He's not looking to hurt.)

Probably will anyway, but fuck it. I already know his answer.

Let's just get it over with.

“You didn't leave me a valentine earlier, did you?” My gaze snaps to his. “On my desk?”

Mason scoffs. “Why the hell would I do that?”

This time, it stabs instead of twists, higher up, somewhere in my chest. Something sharp instead of dull.

Disappointment? …Relief? I'm not sure.

Just that it stings.

And it's nighttime, so maybe he feels it too, and maybe that's why he unfolds his arms and shifts toward me, boot heel dangling by the bottom drawer while his voice drops to a softness that matches his accent. “What it say?”

“Nothing,” I repeat, even quieter than him. “Just someone fucking with me. It doesn't matter.”

It does

(Shouldn't lie, not to him. Don't need to. Don't want to, don't like it.)

Mason doesn't like it either, but he doesn't push it. Neither do I.

We look away from each other.

The office swelters around us, too stuffy, too small. Too silent and uncomfortable now to stay. I roll forward to save my work, then turn the computer off and Mason's already waiting for me by the door, a dark silhouette framed by distant fluorescent, my coat and bag hanging off his arms. He pulls me in while I put it all on, yanking me by lapels before abandoning them for the sweater on my lower back, the loose hair at my nape. His lips brush against mine in slow movements, soft nibbling, and he's whispering something to me with it all, with the strokes of his fingers and the circle of our chins, but I can't quite hear.

So ask

(He'll answer—and he won't lie.)

I swallow, then I do.

“…What kind of kiss was that?”

“Dunno.” He shrugs beneath my hands, breath tickling my face. “I want you to feel better.”

“Oh.”

A shadow flits behind his eyes.

“…And if he's still bothering you, I'm gonna break his fucking jaw again.”

I chuckle softly. “Pretty sure it wasn't him this time.”

“Good.” Mason nibbles another kiss, then smirks. “Might still do it anyway.”

That gets a laugh from both of us, one that sprawls into a pause, grey eyes locked to mine while our grins fade out and our breath catches on everything unspoken and nameless rushing in to take the space.

Honesty. It's what I try to speak. Trailing up from the emotional ooze, raw and sticky.

I hope he can fucking see it, hear it cry, but I wipe it off and whisper the words into shape anyway, cheeks flaming, just to be sure—

“I'm sorry, I just… I don't wanna talk about it now.”

—and he answers me with a brush of his mouth, with his tongue parting my lips, with the way he teases into me before licking deeper, the way he jerks our hips together then shoves, a knee between my thighs, my back into a wall, a door frame, a sharp corner, a low groan rumbling up his chest directly into mine and I hear it all this time, in his breathy panting at the edge of our kiss, the firmness in his fingers angling my face to his, the solid heat of his cock pressed hard against me, grinding slow while I cling tight and moan, I hear it all, but he sucks my lip in with a sharp inhale, rolls me around his mouth before releasing with a drag of teeth, and he murmurs it aloud anyway, just to be sure—

“I know, sweetheart. It's fine.”

—then he nips down hard, and it's hard not to smile, hard not to laugh, harder still not to nip that asshole right back, so I don't.

Hold back, that is.

A wide grin pulls at my lips and I whirl around suddenly before I crest the first landing, arms folded as I stand above him.

“You staring at my ass again, sunshine?”

My accusation echoes off the walls and, four steps down, he doesn't bother to pretend he wasn't. His eyes linger on my crotch for a moment, smirk slowly widening, before he flicks his gaze up to meet mine.

“Not anymore.”

He continues upward, footsteps echoing, that gaze locked unblinking on mine as he advances step by step until he stops on the one below me, eyes level with each other and our mouths only a heartbeat apart.

But he closes that distance quickly enough.

Mason's lips press against mine in lazy nibbles, slow kisses with gently scraping stubble and soft bumps of nose and even softer sighs of pleasure. His hands find their usual spot on my hips, thumbs hooked in my belt loops, long fingers curling over the curve of my ass, but not quite cupping. Not sliding down to grope or squeeze.

Maybe it's because my hands are busy cupping his face for once, now that I can easily reach.

His cheeks are warm beneath my touch, the edge of his jaw sharp in my palms, and sharper still at the back corners, where my fingers curl into him and find shifting purchase as his mouth moves against my own. I swipe my thumbs across his cheeks, through the scratch of hair and out over soft, smooth skin and the expanse of countless freckles I could easily see, if I were to open my eyes.

I do. Just to make sure they're still there.

And to enjoy the sight of them, dappled beneath those long, dark lashes.

At least, until his eyes snap open as well.

Our lips slow, coming to a still, then to a part, with a sticky kiss that echoes faintly around the stairwell too, but we don't move far. Our mouths continue to brush together, breath mingling, exhales fanning gently over swollen lips and flushed skin as we stare at each other. His eyes gleam with playfulness, grey depths warmed with amusement and want, softened with heavy lids and faint creases at the corners and…

…what I might call affection, from this vantage, now that I can easily see.

Heat floods my cheeks anew, and Mason pulls me forward by the hips and the loops until our chests bump together and then he's kissing me again. Deeper. More purposefully. Affectionately, too, in a way I can't deny.

In a way that makes my eyes squeeze shut as well, and forces a whimper from my throat, and fills my chest with so much swelling fondness that I just… ache.

I never thought all those steps we climbed back then were leading here, to this exact instant, to this particular spot, to us pressed together and swaying in a familiar embrace. And I don't want to know what else lies ahead of us, how many more embraces we have, if any, or where we might be climbing to next.

I just want to take the steps one at a time. Day by day. Hour by hour.

Moment by moment.

A callout for his staring. A kiss in a stairwell. A consideration for the advantages of terrain and isolation.

I smile against his lips.

And then an unanswered question.

I slide my hands from his cheeks, down his neck, to his shoulders, where I gently, but firmly, nudge him down a step. Mason raises a brow, but doesn't resist. Doesn't keep hold of me either, arms dropping to his sides as he falls back another step until I can see the top of his head, the part in that dark hair I mostly know by touch.

The rest of those wavy locks brush against my hands as I slide up his neck again, and press my thumbs under his jaw to tilt his head back even further. Again, he doesn't resist. Only licks his lips and swallows, eyes darkening as I lean over him.

I wonder if there's anything new he can see of me now, from his vantage, in this moment, the instant before I plunge down to capture his lips with mine.

He receives me eagerly, mouth parting quickly for my tongue and my pace. I guide the kiss and Mason follows, through deep slides together into sharp inhales, breathy turns into lip sucking and parting drags of teeth that make him growl low with pleasure, slower stretches too, softer swirls, where it's just the wet heat and the taste of us and my moans and the silent, urgent need vibrating in his throat beneath my touch.

At some point, his hands come up to skim my legs, fingertips ghosting along the backs of my thighs, but he doesn't quite take hold of me. Doesn't grab or squeeze suggestively.

Maybe it's because he's too busy enjoying my hold on him, the press of my palms against the tendons gliding and shifting in his neck, the feel of my fingers stroking over his soft skin and the prickle of recently shaved stubble, the way I find myself lingering on his pulse, circling it as it throbs hard beneath my thumbs, as he tilts his head back further to give me even better access to him.

As he bares his throat to me entirely, willingly, and without hesitation.

When I pull away to breathe, he continues to follow, rising up on his toes before our lips part with another sticky, echoing kiss. He stays there for the briefest moment afterward, at apex where we stare at each other—and where an unexpected thrill jolts electrically through my body at the sight of him like that, arched up for me, with such eagerness and raw desire. His eyes darken even more as he feels it too, into near blackness, and his hands finally tighten on my thighs, right before he drops back to his heels and glances away.

I bite my lip.

After a moment, I straighten up again, hands sliding to his shoulders once more. “Gotta say, sunshine,” my voice echoes husky and low, “I do like the view from up here.”

Mason scoffs and runs a hand through his hair, but the look in his eye remains.

“Don't get used to it, sweetheart.”

“Why not?” I tease my thumb across his lips, grinning. “You already spend most of your time beneath me.”

He snorts, cracking into a smile before he presses a wet kiss to my fingertip.

“Good point,” he replies, glancing up at me. Dark amusement glitters in his eyes now as he slides his hands to my hips again. “Can't say I don't enjoy the view from below too.”

I cup his cheeks and lean over to kiss him more, but right before we make contact, his grip tightens hard—

Mason smirks deeply.

—then he lifts me up suddenly instead.

“Shit!”

The word echoes sharply through the stairwell as my feet shoot off the ground. I wobble and grab at his forearms instinctively, heartbeat spiking wildly for a moment, but my surprise passes quickly. Then I'm just left hanging in his grasp, legs dangling free, abs tensed for balance, hips slightly above his eye level, and all with that self-satisfied fucking smirk of his blasting up at me.

I know I should probably be at least mildly annoyed from the dick swinging, the reminder that, although I may occasionally have him beat on height, he will always have me beat on strength, but…

Honestly, I'm just fucking impressed.

And a little jealous.

I always am, whenever I witness it. Fucking ridiculous vampires.

He just front raised over fifty fucking kilos like it was nothing—and he's still holding it up, perfectly motionless, at this awkward fucking angle, arms completely straight, with no trembling strain or drooping or sign of fatigue or anything other than just a goddamn beautiful and totally fucking effortlessness display of raw strength.

It took me nearly a decade to even hit fifteen in each hand, and I'm still struggling to push on to twenty.

Fuck, and the sheer mechanical load on his shoulders right now, I just—

I fold my arms and huff out a long breath that trails into a smirk.

“Well, I guess it's higher than I thought you could go.”

The words barely leave my mouth before Mason swings me up directly overhead.

I gasp and tip forward, chest plunging, legs rising, until I'm parallel with the ground, stiffened and balanced, arms extended, with my heart thundering, my ankles tightly crossed, and my mind filled with a whole new appreciation for just how fucking deep those gymnastics instincts were drilled into me as a kid. His hands lock me in place too, grip firm, thumbs digging into my hips to keep me from rotating any further.

At least, for a moment.

He grins up at me, fangs sharp and visible, then slowly starts to tilt my pelvis so my legs go higher.

My braid falls first, unfurling like the damn rope at gym class, and I'm disappointed it doesn't swing directly into his smug face. My necklace falls next, pendant smacking into my mouth and catching between my lips. My shirt tries to fall too, sliding in stutters down my back, but the front tuck holds valiantly.

Blood begins to pool and throb in my face, and my hands come down to rest on his shoulders as well. He keeps rotating me, to the point where our foreheads almost touch and our eyes lock together at a different angle and our mouths are still less than a heartbeat apart.

The grin twitching at my lips matches the widening spread of his—and we come to a simultaneous decision quickly enough.

He leans back slightly and my legs soar even higher to my whoop of joy, until I'm practically vertical.

Until he can stare directly up the neck of my shirt, too.

And from the look in his eye, I can tell he's undoing the clasp on my bra to make my breasts spill free, right before he lowers me to put his face between them. Mason rolls his lips together and groans a low noise of appreciation.

“Yeah,” he says after a moment, shifting me slightly for a better view, “you look great from down here.”

I scoff around the chain on my lips and try to give him a look, but the tomato face and the grin probably ruin it a little—

My shirt falls over my head with a soft plop.

—And so does that.

Mason's bark of laughter echoes loudly throughout the stairwell.

So does mine, slightly more muffled.

I start wobbling a little, and he quickly lowers me over his shoulder before I lose my balance. His arms curl snugly around the back of my thighs, but it isn't long before I feel him staring at my ass again. And it only takes a fraction of the time after that before one of his hands shoots up to start squeezing firm, eager handfuls of me, paired with long, appreciative strokes, and a targeted pat that makes me clench and moan softly.

He starts to climb again while he enjoys himself.

I enjoy his touch too, if not the view. Of white and grey stripes. Because he didn't bother to fix my shirt, of course. Or give me the chance to do it myself. My arms and braid sway back and forth as his footsteps echo, and I huff at the loose strands of hair tickling my face.

A pleasantly undignified half-defeat. A demonstration of shared strength and acrobatics. A question answered beyond the scope.

I smile against the necklace.

And a hand sliding fast up my back too, groping toward my bra clasp.

Fumbling, I reach over to smack his ass first. “I'll give you a wedgie,” I threaten through the shirt.

His hand retreats to my waistband, to my belt loops, where he yanks up suddenly while I squeal and kick out.

“I'll just give you more of one back,” he replies simply, shrugging beneath me.

I smack his ass again, harder.

Mason only chuckles and squeezes me tighter, nuzzling his cheek against me before pressing a lingering kiss to my thigh. Then he resumes his groping as he continues upward, carrying me with a sly smirk and deliberate slowness.

I'm just… an enraptured audience for him. An adoring mirror. A rung to higher places. A pretty doll. A trophy. An angel.

Not a person.

Certainly not someone capable of loathing his ratshit fucking guts and who has every goddamn reason to throw that punch and all the long years of practice to make it really fucking count.

I shove my hands deeper into my jacket and blow out a puff of my own, breath coming shallow against the tension winding in my chest.

That's something he almost took from me as well, now that I think about it.

My ability to fight.

He never liked how much time I spent training. Or the types of exercise I did. Said all of it was making me too bulky. Too muscular. That I was ruining my 'femininity' and 'soft, natural beauty.' That the scars were already unattractive enough, no need for hideous bruises too, and physical combat was just brutish. Barbaric. Beneath someone of my intellectual caliber. An unworthy pursuit. A waste of effort. Irresponsible, really, to let my mind rot away in favor of it. And he was just looking out for me and my best interests by pointing these things out, you know. Speaking honestly, when no one else had the courage. Taking care of me, when no one else ever had.

Showing his love, one jagged hollow-point comment at a time, jacketed in concern and fired my direction, until enough of them hit and tore through, expanding and eroding away, that little remained of me eventually other than a raw, bloody mess and the total belief in his correctness.

For a time, anyway.

Too long a time.

“Did you catch all of that, Detective Black?”

The irritated edge to his tone snaps my attention back to him immediately, if not my eyes. Alarm flares inside me for an instant, atavistic instinct surging out of dormancy on a wave of adrenaline, but I inhale slightly and let it pass.

Then I make him wait a little bit longer, blinking a few times before I focus my gaze on his.

“Not really,” I reply flatly, shrugging. “Bullshit has a real sedative effect on me.”

I force a yawn at him, something large and unapologetically open-mouthed that probably ruins my femininity too, and I try to stretch out some of that tightness from my back and body. But Bobby's eyes only crawl over me as I do, lingering on my breasts and exposed midriff before I quickly drop my arms and pull my jacket tighter.

“Why don't we continue this discussion at your apartment, then?” He leers at me, voice dipping queasily low, “And afterward, I can refresh you on all the ways I know how to keep you awake and… fully aroused.”

My face twists into an open grimace and I exhale a sharp noise of disgust. Bobby advances regardless, smirk coiling beneath a heated look, and my fingers clench into fists.

I fucking swear, if he touches me again—

But he doesn't.

He stops dead in his tracks almost immediately, gaze flicking past me, eyes narrowing, right before a hand splays warm across my lower back and I breathe in a familiar scent.

Smoke and sandalwood.

Startling me far more than the touch, for the rush of unexpected comfort it brings.

The hand slides around to my hip and Mason swings in front of me with it, blocking Bobby and everything else as he leans down with a smirk to press his lips against mine.

He deepens the kiss quickly, tongue slipping hot into my mouth, hand sliding around my back, the other up into my hair, tangling, urging me closer, until I'm on my toes, arms hooked around his neck, kissing him eagerly as we press fully together. I lose myself in him for a moment. His warmth. His welcome, pleasurable respite. His reassurance too, however unknown and unintentional, that I don't have to face Bobby alone this time.

Because I can do it alone. I have done it alone.

But having someone around just as ready to dunk that insufferable piece of shit into a nearby planter always makes enduring his presence a hell of lot more bearable.

Enjoyable, even, in some regards.

And maybe Mason agrees with me on that point, if the grin that keeps tugging at his lips is any indication.

I can't help but return it, and soon I'm shaking against him with growing, barely subdued laughter. His hands squeeze me in response, smile spreading against my mouth before he pulls back slightly, gazing down at me with half-lidded eyes heavy with desire and amusement.

“You ready to go home, sweetheart? Your ride's here.”

Mason rolls his hips forward for emphasis, sliding his hands down to cup my ass too as he grinds against me. I burst into open laughter—and I grind back, weight swaying off his neck, cheeks flushed, breath catching as well, when his eyes darken above into something more serious.

When they smolder deeply and then it suddenly is just the two of us. Embracing.

And all I can feel—all I want to feel—is him pressed against every fucking piece of me.

Until Bobby's voice slashes through the moment anyway, clipped and raised.

“Well, don't be rude, angel. Introduce me to your colleague.”

The sharpness to his tone surprises me a little. So does Mason, when he immediately whirls on Bobby.

“The fuck did you just call her?” Mason sneers. “'Angel?'”

Bobby takes a few steps back. Uncertainty flashes across his face before he recovers, ever the opportunist, eyes darting from Mason to lock on mine as he smirks again.

“You only need to take one look at her to see that,” Bobby coos, sweet as a mouthful of antifreeze and just as revolting. “She is an angel. My gorgeous muse. My inspiration—”

Something twists sharply inside of me.

A ragged scoff surges past my lips and I rush forward, whipping around Mason until I'm crowding into Bobby's face, forcing him to retreat even more. “I think 'host' is a better word, Robert,” I spit, “before I plucked you off and flicked you away like the destructive fucking parasite you are.”

Bobby's expression singes away beneath the heat of my outburst, blasted into shock. It startles me too, the force of my words. The vehemence burning my tone. The fact I'm standing in front of him like this at all, heart thundering and suddenly overwhelmed, knotting with emotion, too much of it, too intense, expanding, filling my chest, until it tangles around my throat and chokes so tight I can barely breathe, barely keep from trembling, barely hold back those hot fucking tears blurring my vision and threatening to spill down my cheeks.

Inspiration.

Something he claimed I took from him.

A word that echoed high and often against the walls and coffered ceiling of the tribunal, along with every other one of his fucking lies.

I can still hear it.

Still feel the hem of my skirt twisted around my fingers, wrinkled, stretched taut, unable to stop my hands from shaking. Still smell the musty books and ammonia, the cheap washroom soap and tang of vomit burning raw in my throat. Still taste the salt on my tongue, the steady swallow of mucus, the sobs I can't let out, not here, not now, but they just keep coming anyway, straining against a wall of clenched teeth, shuddering silent through my body while I spin inside the swirling, sickening, heartbroken disbelief that any of it's actually happening. That he's actually saying these things about me. That he actually did this to me.

That he's actually fucking trying to blame it all on me.

Like he always does.

A touch from behind draws me back, shoves out the air trapped in my lungs, then an arm slings across my shoulders and Mason pulls me in against his chest.

My hands slide upward, unthinking, unintentionally, but there they are, suddenly beneath his jacket, pressed against the warmth of his back, clutching at him while his other hand comes up to squeeze my hip. My head tips forward too, also unintentional, and trying to swerve at the last moment only lands my ear next to his heartbeat. I've felt it before, often, but… I've never actually heard it.

It pounds steady. Soothing.

Increasingly too intimate.

Like eavesdropping on something meant to be private.

I know I shouldn't stay here like this, resting above that sound, trespassing in it, taking comfort from it that isn't being offered. So I blink hard at the moisture stinging my eyes, and start swallowing the rest as quickly as I can. As quietly as I can too, trying not to sniffle. Failing not to sniffle. Cringing immediately, stiffening, about to pull away, flee, run back to the station and— I-I don't know, hide in the washroom, like it's fucking middle school again—when I hear a soft sigh I wouldn't be able to discern at any other distance either.

Then Mason pulls me in even closer. Until my ear rests flat on his chest and my eyes squeeze shut.

And a new swell of emotion finally knocks some of that moisture free.

I wipe at it immediately, roughly. Smearing it across my swollen, overly-hot cheeks.

How fucking embarrassing.

All of it.

And Bobby knows it too, high off victory and armed with a new weapon for his arsenal.

“I realize you're having a… moment,” he says, smile ghosting over the word, “but you still haven't introduced me to your colleague, Alexandra.”

Mason tenses against me and shifts above, glancing down with an intensity I can easily feel pressing on the top of my head.

“You wanna finish kicking the shit out of this asshole yourself, sweetheart?” he asks quietly, words rumbling through his chest into mine. “Or do you want me to take care of it for you?”

He keeps staring, willing me to look up at him with that heavy, insistent gaze, and eventually I do. Reluctantly. Hesitantly. Meeting those unwavering grey eyes, hard with resolve and seriousness, but also…

Soft.

Somehow.

I glance away quickly.

“Not sure.” My voice comes out hoarse around the knot in my throat, and so does the quiet, faintly amused huff that follows. “Tough fucking choice, sun—” I skid past his nickname, stiffening. Not here. “I want to, but… it might be pretty funny to see how far you can throw him.”

“He'll go as far as you fucking need. Just say the word.”

Mason drags his gaze away from me to stare at Bobby, eyes darkening with something deeply predatory, that intense, piercing focus of his, the one his look sharpens into whenever missions tip sideways, unblinking and controlled, but only barely. Only just holding back the violence less than a heartbeat away. Bobby flinches beneath it, squirming visibly, uncertainty and fear flickering in his own eyes as they dart rapidly across the two of us. Probably deciding whether it's worth it or not to risk staying.

Or searching for the next weak point to burrow into.

The station's exterior lights shudder on around us, bathing everything in a slowly-brightening sodium-orange glow. It makes the flowers pop, sunset colors burning warm against the night, and I nod at them, wiping the last trace of moisture from my face.

“You think I could get him in the planter? If I punched him from here?”

Mason barks out a loud laugh and squeezes me slightly. “Don't underestimate yourself, sweetheart. You could get him much further than that.”

Another flash of uncertainty passes through Bobby—then it hardens and he starts to dig.

“Thank you both so much for handing me my next story.” He puffs up straighter. “It's about government officials abusing their authority, threatening private citizens with violence. Was the corruption already infesting our police force prior to the arrival of this mysterious Agency, or does their continued, shadowy presence indicate an oppressive new era for our freedom and safety in Wayhaven?”

Bobby wields his phone at us, voice recorder no doubt running since he forced himself into my path and every attempt to move around him as I tried to leave the station.

I raise an eyebrow. “…You realize we're both private citizens too, right? Off duty. No badge,” I explain slowly, tapping the empty spot on my belt, “not working at the moment. Not representing anything.”

Mason shrugs. “I'd still threaten him if I was on duty.”

Bobby's head swivels at Mason, eyes narrowed as he smirks confidently. “Is that due to the specific nature of your job, Specialist Agent Mason?”

Mason just stares at him, unimpressed.

I remain quiet, too. Silence only encourages Bobby. Always so eager to fill it with himself.

Always so unable to hold back when there's a chance to jerk off his ego.

“Redacted surname to conceal your identity?” Bobby continues, smirk widening. “That's what I assumed, when I strangely couldn't find one anywhere. But now, after hearing your accent up close, I bet it's Greek—along with your actual given name.”

“What accent?” I blurt out.

“Yeah, I don't have an accent,” Mason agrees, in his very obvious, very lilting Greek accent.

Somehow, I manage to keep a straight face, squishing it into something that resembles a furrowed look of concern. Bobby's brow creases too, the briefest sparks of confusion and self-doubt igniting in his eyes. When they do, I clench my jaw hard.

It takes everything I have not to burst out laughing—and Mason's amused little squeeze at my hip does not help.

The crease on Bobby's brow deepens, before he blows past it and presses on. “I know you're the so-called 'interrogations expert' for Unit Bravo.”

Mason snorts.

Bobby smiles, chuckling slightly. “I find that word a bit bureaucratically euphemistic myself—interrogation—such an unassuming beige facade constructed around the ugly truth of what it actually means.” His smile sharpens. “Would you prefer to be called a 'torturer' instead?”

That actually makes Mason break into a scoffing laugh. “Would be a lot more fucking satisfying some days if that were true,” he says, smiling back even sharper. “Like right now.”

Cracks form at the edge of Bobby's smile. “Threats of violence and now threats of torture. Does your Agency condone this appalling conduct? Are all of the members of your,” his lip curls, “little team as bloodthirsty as you?”

“Yes,” Mason replies instantly.

A loud snort escapes me and I slap my hand over my mouth, trying not to laugh.

But it slips past my palm anyway, and sputters free into the night.

“Is something funny about this, Detective Black?” Bobby's sneer rolls off my title. “Because I fail to see the humor in the situation and I'm beginning to have serious reservations about your judgment and ability to serve this community—”

“Just beginning to?” I cut in, snorting again. “What was that article you wrote about me after I first got hired? Something about 'nepotistic incompetency' about to 'doom the town?'”

“It appears I was prescient as always, if this is the company you're choosing to keep. To trust.”

Bobby's expression softens and his gaze locks onto mine once more, brown eyes filling with worry, lips frowning with concern.

Or what would be worry and concern, if it came from anybody else.

“Why would this Agency need someone with a dangerous skill set like his in a small town like Wayhaven? Why would they need it so badly that they would pull an asset from halfway around the world and station him here to do it? Did you ever stop and ask yourself that, Alexandra? Or is something—someone—making you too afraid to consider it?”

Mason scoffs hard and I glance up to catch him mid-eye roll. “Tell me you've made up your mind already, sweetheart,” he mutters, jaw clenched. “This guy is begging to eat a fucking fist.”

Bobby tries to remain focused on me, but his eyes still flicker to Mason. Tension pulls on his features, revealing a glimpse of the irritation lurking beneath, right before he forces his face back into what I'm sure he believes is a powerful and irresistible look of pained affection.

“I know we've had our… difficulties in the past,” his voice snags over the word, cracking slightly for effect and I roll my eyes, “but regardless of how far apart they've forced us over the years, I want you to know that I am still here for you if you're in trouble, Alexandra. I will help you, no matter what.” He slides his hand up his chest. “I still care for you—more deeply than you know—and I always will.”

I'm not sure which scoff is louder this time—Mason's or mine.

They both blast into the night on puffs of hot breath, followed by another peal of my snorting laughter.

I glance up at Mason again after it passes, sly grin tugging at my lips. “So, I can get him past the planter. You think I could delete his bullshit recording too, with a little assistance?”

He smirks in response.

“Whatever you need.”

Mason lunges forward fluidly, beautifully, arm whipping out in a near blur to effortlessly snatch the phone away—then it's in my hands, warm and grease-crusted, before Bobby's eyes even have time to widen.

Which, they do, quickly. First in disbelief.

Then in that vacant, coiling rage I've witnessed so many times before it exploded out at me.

It always happens so fast.

The only warning I get is the sickening plummet, my stomach dropping down to anchor me on the spot, pulling that cold rush of dread along with it.

Half a decade later and I still freeze.

Bobby springs forward—

—and jerks to a stop immediately as Mason steps between us, waiting.

I stare at his back for a moment, hunched and visibly tense, even through the jacket, then I force out a sharp breath and tear my eyes away to the phone.

I stop the recording and delete it.

And…

Well…

If I've already deleted one, and already contaminated my hands with the world's grimiest fucking phone, then I'm committed—and I really ought to honor that bar of soap I'm gonna have to use up later by just deleting fucking everything while I'm here.

Bobby peers around the wall of Mason, red-faced with a severely strained smile.

“Alexandra—”

And Mason grabs him by the jaw, squeezes, and shoves him back into his spot.

“You can talk when she says you can.”

A smirk twitches at my lips, and a small twinge of satisfaction thrums in my chest. I glance back down to check his phone's settings. He's using the basic cloud sync to back everything up—which means if it's deleted here, then it's deleted from every other device linked to this account.

My smirk widens.

Good.

Well… unless he downloaded a copy of everything somewhere. I blow out a sigh.

Nothing I can do about that right now, though.

“Go ahead. Try it. Find out if you can run faster than me.”

I glance up again to see Bobby edging slightly to the side, scowl fixed on the station behind us.

Mason chuckles deeply, then adds, “Or if anyone in there actually gives a shit about what happens to you.”

He isn't wrong. I look over my shoulder, into the fluorescent light blasting through the glass panel walls. Douglas hooks over the front desk, back curved like a candy cane while he falls into his phone. It's just him in there right now, until the night shift volunteer shows up.

Well—volunteer no more. They're all paid positions now. Part time. With benefits.

And totally worth asking Rebecca to lean on the mayor as a favor to make it happen.

The sound of paper being flipped through angrily draws my attention back to Bobby—and to the small, black reporter's notebook in his hand. I raise an eyebrow as he whips out a pen too, then practically stabs the pad with it as he starts furiously scribbling. He always carried both of those things around in college, proudly tucked in his jacket pocket, but I never once saw him actually use them.

I just assumed he did it for the hipster cred.

Lips pursed, I shrug and start mass deleting his recordings. Scrolling and ticking, dragging and disappearing, fingers smearing new oily paths through the gunk on his screen with every sliding shift of movement. I resist the urge to shudder. Or worse—the instinct to wipe his phone clean on my jeans. I ignore it and power through, working quickly until, soon enough, all the recordings are gone. From the recently deleted folder, too.

I do the same for all of his notes and texts, email and voice mail, call logs and contacts. And I make sure nothing remains in the cloud storage app as well.

Good.

It won't stop him or his shitty excuse for journalism, but losing all of that data—all those jotted ideas, half-composed articles, research and years of correspondence—it should hurt. A lot. Should slow him down for a while, too.

And if not, well, there's always the option of a literal kick in the balls.

I'm about to chuck the phone back at his face when my stomach does an uneasy flip, breath snagging over it as a roll of icy needles prickle across my body.

I open up his photos instead, a moment later.

Unit Bravo feature prominently in the recent ones.

Public appearances only, at a glance, from various places around town. Felix ducking away from Mason as they enter the station together. Nate sitting at Haley's, legs folded awkwardly beneath a tiny outdoor table. Adam storming out of city hall, door slammed open and coat flared dramatically. No pictures of the Warehouse, thankfully. Or anything else implicating, as far as I can tell.

I keep scrolling back.

Through endless selfies.

A lot of them shirtless, of course. Most of them taken from places around town or the city. Some from gorgeous spots in wilderness between. At events and adventures too, all mixed in with photos of plated food and golden hour architectural shots and Bobby's arm slung around various strangers and Wayhaven elite alike, the same fake smile plastered on his face in every single image. There are pictures and video of other Wayhaven citizens too, taken from afar and up close. Covertly. Caught in the crosshair of whatever bullshit investigation he plotted against them. Just trying to go about their day, out living their lives while Bobby crept around in the bushes and painted a target on their back.

My lip curls.

And the dick pics.

So many fucking dick pics.

Who the fuck knows how many countless places those things have been shoved into unsolicited, how many people he's forced to look at them unwillingly.

Even one is too many.

I blow out a sharp breath and keep scrolling. Jumping back. Four years, five.

Until I see them.

Just a glimpse at first as I accidentally scroll past, but it's enough to recognize them, even as blurred thumbnails.

And it's enough to knock the air from my lungs, body suddenly cold except for the bile rising in my throat.

I swallow it down.

My thumb hovers above the screen for a moment, trembling slightly, before I work up the courage to scroll back.

To my nudes.

The ones he spent months badgering me into letting him take, until I finally gave in. The ones he promised me he would delete a few days later, after I told him that I really wasn't comfortable with what we did.

The ones that showed up at the tribunal too, his star witnesses, offered as proof of an inappropriate relationship that I pressured him into using my position as a teaching assistant. Last time I saw these, they were printed on handouts, glossy with toner, black bars covering my nipples and vagina to preserve my modesty while each image was studied and scrutinized by a group of men twice my age.

I blink back the sting in my eyes again.

One of the most humiliating moments of my life.

Nausea roils in my stomach and I take a deep, shuddering breath around it, the best I can, as quietly as I can, then tap over to his photo folders.

There's one with my name on it.

I open it up.

The nudes greet me there too, but so do other photos from college. Of happier moments.

Bobby and I biking together through the park. Kissing at a hockey game. Messing around in the aquarium gift shop, my hand stuffed into a shark puppet while I attack the camera. Out on dates at hole-in-the-wall hipster restaurants too, featuring impractically tall thigh-bruising stools and cherry-red lipstick and way more cleavage than I show off these days. There are even some pictures of us cuddled together and sinking into that grody, overstuffed couch, the one at that house party with the ridiculously strong edibles, where Bobby was too blazed off his ass and giggly to play devil's advocate and start pointless philosophical arguments.

I snort and flick my thumb, scrolling further. Thumbnails blur past until the roll stops.

On a picture I recognize immediately too.

I tap it open, and Bobby's face fills the screen. Mine too. Next to his. Leaning cheek-to-cheek with his arm slung around me, mountains looming over the city behind us, rocky peaks and glass towers and the deep blue water below all bathed gold and glittering in the sunset.

Bonfire night at the beach near campus.

My eyes are still slightly red in the photo. Puffy, but bright. Brimming with soft hope and joy behind slightly smeared mascara, like they hadn't been filled with silent tears less than a half-hour prior. Like I hadn't sat hunched in his kitchen chair, trembling, sick to my stomach while he yelled at me. I don't even remember about what or why, just the geometric pattern in the linoleum, his bare feet pacing back and forth across it, and then the relief that flooded through me when it all stopped.

When his arms circled around me, and he held me while I sobbed, murmuring forgiveness and promises things would be better in the future while he stroked his fingers through my hair.

My younger face smiles up at me. So happy to be in love, despite my inexperience. So happy to finally be loved, despite my glaring shortcomings as a partner and a person.

So fucking unaware of what was really happening—and how much worse it would get.

I don't blame her for not seeing it sooner. For any of it. I won't.

But, even now, the parts of me poisoned by him still echo his words anyway.

We only get what we deserve, angel.

You have no one to blame for anything but yourself.

I wipe at my eyes again with a rough drag of my sleeve—and manage to hold back the fucking sniffle this time.

Then I tap out of the folder and jump back even further in time, to the very beginning of his camera roll, and start preparing his photos for deletion.

One quick horizontal swipe to select the row, then a sharp vertical drag to make it scroll.

Back into the thicket of selfies. Of memories. Harassment.

And dick.

Every single hard-on highlighted with selection as they speed by, a blur of flesh, passing too quickly to see clearly, but still…

A forest of fucking cock.

At a certain point—little over halfway down the roll, to be specific—I can't help but mumble under my breath, “How many fucking pictures does one man need of his dick?”

Bobby shifts in the corner of my vision. “You could certainly never get enough before, and how much it… fulfilled you.”

I grimace, but keep my eyes focused on the task.

“Wouldn't brag about that too much,” I mutter, then nod at Mason. “His is bigger. And he actually makes me come, so…”

Mason cracks into the loudest fucking laugh I've ever heard from him. It slams into the building and echoes around us, deep and satisfied, so much that I have to look up and witness it. His back shakes in front of me and a grin tugs at my lips, spreading wider the longer I watch, the longer his amusement reverberates inside of me, until I'm laughing again too, with something soft and quiet of my own.

“I make you come every time, sweetheart,” he calls out, “with or without this big cock.” His voice overflows with so much smugness it almost makes me regret saying that. Though, he drops most of it from his tone quickly enough, when he snaps at Bobby, “Make sure you put that in whatever you're writing about me.”

It almost seems like Bobby will for a moment, from the way he stiffens beneath Mason's words. I snort, then the scowl on his face twists deeper before he glares over at me.

“I never took you for the type to find any appeal in such banal vulgarity.” He scoffs. “I also thought you were a little old to fall for the tired, leather jacket, chain-smoking bad boy cliché straight off a teenager's bookshelf.”

Mason scoffs harder. “No wonder this asshole never gave you any pleasure. He doesn't fucking know what you like at all.” The smirk returns. “I'm gonna have to make up for it. Start by fucking you a few extra times tonight.”

I chuckle. “Oh, you hardly needed an excuse to do that.”

“No, but I'm already making plans for it. And they involve you sitting on my face.” His voice thickens into something huskier. “It's been too long since I've tasted you.”

“You tasted me last night.”

“Too fucking long ago, like I said.” He groans slightly, in a way that makes my lips roll together. “I've been missing it all day, the feel of your thighs clenching around my head while you buck up under my tongue and scream.”

The pen cracks in Bobby's grip.

“You still getting all this? Good.”

“But to provide further edification to that quote, Bobby,” I add, as the scrolling nears the end of the roll, “I'm usually screaming his name when I do that.”

Mason laughs again while I grin.

And send every single fucking photo and video into the trash.

The phone buckles beneath the strain of the task, hanging on a frozen screen for such a long moment that I start to worry, but it eventually staggers through. We both have a much easier time, two screens over, in the recently deleted folder, when I simply press the 'delete all' button.

Then the photos are gone.

All of them.

I double-check the cloud app again to make sure, but…

They're gone.

Finally.

I inhale deeply and blow out a long breath.

“Well,” I say, glancing up at Bobby, “looks like I've got a very urgent face-sitting appointment to make.” I step forward next to Mason, patting his back. “And I wanna get railed tonight too, by the chain-smoking bad boy cliché—”

“And his big cock.”

Mason smirks.

I chuckle and roll my eyes. Hard.

“Yeah, that, so—if there's nothing else Bobby, I'm gonna go.”

Turning on my heel, I move to leave, then jerk to an exaggerated stop.

“Oh shit, almost forgot—your phone.”

He glares at me, silent for once, as I hold it out to him. Anger swirls in his eyes. Not the vacant, heated rage, but that icy calculation. Working the angles. Finding a trajectory for the incoming cruelty, the spot to strike for maximum damage. It doesn't concern me, though.

He's not gonna say anything I haven't already heard thousands of times before.

Bobby reaches out to take the phone—

—but just as he's about to grab it, I pull it away.

Then I wind up my bulky, too muscular arm and hurl it as hard as I can toward the street.

It sails high through the air, lost momentarily in the darkening sky above, until it plummets back into the glow of streetlights a block away, black speck careening toward the road before it smashes into the asphalt and bounces up, exploding into pieces on a spray of shards and a quiet, tinkling clatter.

“Whoops,” I say flatly. “Slipped. Probably should clean that thing more often.”

Mason snorts. “Nice. I would've aimed for his face.”

“I thought about that, but his skull isn't that thick.” I wipe my hands on my jeans. “It wouldn't shatter if I threw it there.”

“It would if you threw it hard enough.”

I shake my head, grinning, and Mason slings his arm over my shoulder.

We start to leave.

“Did you delete your pictures, angel?”

I freeze mid-step.

“Don't worry, I have extensive backups of those,” Bobby coos. “Treasures should be protected, after all. Kept hidden, safe, and… private.”

A cold smirk greets me when I look over to him. It sharpens as our eyes meet, and old alarm blares distantly in my ear.

“I think your colleague is right. I don't know what you like, not anymore. You've changed so much since we parted, for the worst, and I see that now. Truly.” He slams the notebook shut and secures it with a snap of elastic. “Regardless, there's still one thing I could do for you that you would enjoy—that you would absolutely love.”

“You're gonna eat shit and fuck off forever?” I scoff. “Aw, Bobby, don't threaten me with a good time.”

He snorts derisively. “You're so… disappointingly vulgar, Alexandra. Crude. Filthy. It's disgusting, really.” His eyes gleam maliciously. “That's how I know you'll be soaking wet and overjoyed later, when I show the world exactly how wide you can spread your legs—”

Mason punches him.

A hard cross.

With pivot.

Right in the jaw.

The notebook goes flying. The pen goes flying. The glasses go flying, too.

Even one of his boots flies off his foot and up into the night.

Bobby pirouettes wildly past the planter into the bushes, where he lands, bounces off, and crumples onto the sidewalk, out cold.

I stare at him for a moment, blinking, trembling, eyes roaming over his splayed form, face-down and unmoving beneath the sodium lamps and twilight. Another car drives by in the distance, and I glance back to Mason.

“You missed the planter.”

Mason shrugs, rubbing his knuckles. “Didn't wanna ruin the flowers.”

My lips purse in consideration for a moment, before I give a nod of agreement, finding no flaw in the logic.

I walk down the sidewalk to Bobby, then roll him over with my boot and into a puddle. Oops. He sprawls out limp, eyes shut, jaw misaligned, blood trickling slowly from the corner of his mouth. The sight of him like that doesn't fill me with happiness, exactly, or… much of anything really. Maybe a vague sense of satisfaction that he finally got what he fucking deserved. A futile bit of hope that it teaches him some kind of lesson.

Mostly I just feel… tired. Strangely calm. Flat.

That probably just means I get to look forward to all of this shit hitting me later.

Hopefully, not with the force of a proper punch thrown by a vampire.

I nudge Bobby with my toe a few times. “You didn't… kill him, right?”

Mason steps next to me, passing over the notebook before he folds his arms.

“He'll live. For now.”

“Hm. Probably won't be eating solid food for a while, though.”

Mason snorts. “Or talking.”

I grin slightly, then unzip my bag, exchanging the notebook for my keys.

We stand above Bobby for a few moments, long enough for me to finally notice the faint rise and fall of his chest. And the water soaking into the ass of his jeans, insult to fucking injury. It looks like he fucking shit himself.

So, of course, that's what makes me start laughing.

Hard. Then uncontrollably. To the point where I buckle over on myself and my stomach begins to hurts and my eyes fill with tears again.

Crude and vulgar, indeed.

I don't know how long I stand there cackling, but eventually Mason nudges me. And when I unfurl to glance at him, he nods toward the end of the sidewalk, to the short set of stairs leading down to the parking lot.

And to Ennis springing up them, bundled in a puffy coat, hands jammed in pockets and on time to relieve Douglas.

They pause for a moment at the top, staring as us, then at Bobby—but they don't seem very surprised.

I raise an eyebrow.

“What happened?” they ask, walking over.

I shrug. “Ah, I dunno. Just found him like this.”

Mason grunts in agreement.

My gaze wanders toward Bobby. “Looks like he might've… got punched in the face.”

Ennis glances down the sidewalk, eyes moving from boot, to glasses, to pen, to Bobby, and finally back up to us, to my swollen cheeks and watery eyes and barely-subdued grin twitching next to the flat disinterest on Mason's face.

Their eyebrow raises too, gaze twinkling with something subdued of their own. “What a shame. I'll call an ambulance.”

“Thanks.” I smile.

“Have a good night, Detective.” Ennis smiles in return, then moves to head into the station. As they pass Mason, they nod slightly—and Mason returns it, just as faintly.

My lips purse, but I don't question it either.

Add it to the pile of shit about to bury me tomorrow.

All I want to do right now is head home. Collapse into bed. Burrow into a duvet.

To that end, I sling the backpack over my shoulder again and jog down the steps into the parking lot. Mason follows, falling into step with me, and I can see it lurking in the corner of my eye, sudden and blindingly bright. And I can feel it too, radiating off him.

A smirk to end all fucking smirks and the biggest regret of my evening.

Possibly of the rest of my year too—and beyond—because I am never gonna hear the end of it from him.

I blow out a breath and roll my eyes. “Oh, wipe that smug fucking look off your face. I only said all that shit to piss him off.”

“No,” the smirk widens insufferably, “you didn't.”

I huff, trying not to grin as I unlock the driver's door. “Well, don't let it go to your head—either of them.”

His hands slide over my hips from behind.

“Way too late for that, sweetheart,” he whispers against my ear.

The backpack slips from my shoulder, down my arm, and he's already spinning me around before it hits the asphalt with a soft thump. The keys follow, a jangling clatter, bumped out of the lock by my ass when he presses in to kiss me. Our hands find familiar places, favored purchase, his icy and insistent, burrowing beneath the warmth of my braid, cold fingers curled around my neck and scalp while his other hand splays out across my lower back and sneaks under my jacket, my sweater, tugging up my undershirt too, until I'm arching away from what's coming, into him, nowhere to go, nothing to do but squeal protests into the heat of his mouth as the frigid chill radiates closer.

Then presses directly against my skin.

His new favorite thing to do since the weather turned cold.

A violent shiver rips up my spine and I growl against his lips. He just smirks between kisses and glides his hand higher to make it happen again.

“Oh, that's fucking it, asshole,” I nip at his lower lip and suck it into my mouth, “I'm gonna knit you those damn mittens now, the ones with the huge pom-poms.”

Mason groans into me and shifts his hand again, forcing another shiver.

“Don't need 'em when I have you.”

I start to grumble something in response, but it's lost, pulled into a noise of pleasure when he deepens the kiss. Then it spreads into a smirk of my own, when I slip my fingers through his hair, down the collar of his jacket, and drag out a shiver from the warmth of his neck too.

He growls into me, pins my hips to the car with his, cold metal crushed against my ass while that cold touch circles around to my stomach.

And back and forth it goes.

Two jerks stealing warmth and trying to make each other shiver, with frosty fingers and nips of teeth and strokes in the right places, pressed and building heat regardless.

At least, until he unexpectedly leans away—and I unthinkingly follow.

Our lips stick together briefly before they part, releasing a breathy exhale from mine that brushes over the lingering moisture on his.

Mason shivers again as he draws back to look at me.

Desire smolders in that half-lidded gaze, but it's warm and deep. Embers instead of flame. Intense and unwavering, but gentle. Quiet. Strangely soft again.

And… searching.

For something.

My gaze drops away from it, to his chest, hands sliding down there as well, over worn leather warm from my body. Uncertainty makes me swallow and shift. I don't know what he's trying to see. Or hopes to find. But it does bring to mind something I really should've said to him as soon as Bobby hit the concrete.

“Thanks, by the way. For helping me deal with him.” I bite my lip. “…For staying.”

“I go where you go, sweetheart, you know that.” His thumb swipes across my cheek to tuck strands of loose hair behind my ear. “But I think you would've done just fine without the help.”

I shrug. “Yeah, maybe. But…”

Silence hangs on the end of my sentence as the words tangle into a knot. I don't quite know how to explain what it means to even have someone's help. To have someone do that for me, look out for me. And with no reservation, no judgment, no knowledge of the situation. No question either, just—

What it means that someone would think I'm worth any of that. Worth standing up for at all.

Even just as a teammate. Even just temporarily.

What it means to have someone—

I huff out a breath and smile faintly.

It doesn't matter. Mason wouldn't give a shit about my explanations regardless, even if I had them.

“Thanks anyway,” I say finally, patting his jacket a few times before I slide my hands away.

He catches one before it can fall. Holds it near his chest, cradling me there in his grasp, in shared warmth, fingers curled around the back of my hand while his thumb strokes something so soft against my palm it's almost imperceptible.

“You okay?”

I raise an eyebrow, smile pulling into a smirk as I give him a wink. “I'll be on time for my appointment, sunshine, don't worry.”

He raises his eyebrow too, frowning slightly. “That's not what I'm worried about.”

And that's… not what I expected him to say.

My smirk falters slightly as he stares at me, brow furrowing.

I glance away again.

“Well, I'll be ready for the mission tomorrow too.” I grip his hand in return, shaking it back and forth slightly while I grin. “I can even run properly again. No more sad, limping horse gallop.”

Mason blows out a sharp breath and forces our hands still. “That's not what I'm asking about, sweetheart. Stop ducking around the question.”

“Ducking around what, exactly? I answered you.”

“You were crying earlier. Twice.”

His jaw tenses, like maybe the words are knotting on his tongue too, and he can't quite unravel an explanation either.

I look away before he does, heat burning my face, and I'm suddenly too aware of the blood throbbing in my ears and throat, the pulsation across my cheeks and down my arms, the heartbeat driving it all, the hard, heavy thrum pounding against the wall of my chest.

It's loud for me. At this distance, it must be almost deafening for him.

“I felt it,” he murmurs, voice almost lost when the beat spikes. “Even before I touched you. Could've felt it coming off you from how far away you threw that fucking phone.”

I don't say anything in response. Don't even breathe, really.

“Anger and fear.”

My back stiffens.

“Pain.” His hand tightens around mine, thumb rubbing erratic circles around my palm while the wind rustles the last leaves in the trees and a siren plays in the distance. “A lot of it, Alex…”

I wonder if he felt the sudden tightness clawing up my chest and into my throat. The shallow breaths around it. The overwhelming sting in my eyes, in my nose.

I wonder if he feels it right now.

And how invasive it must seem at this distance.

“Yeah, well…” My voice is thick again. Hoarse. I swallow around it and force an exhale. “It's just old stuff. Nothing to worry about. Nothing that matters.”

I'm not sure whether the words are meant more for him—or for me.

Either way, he doesn't respond. Or move. Or do anything other than stare down at me with that heavy gaze of his.

I was wrong, too.

About my biggest regret of the evening.

I've… fantasized about it for so long, ever since I stepped into the hallway outside that final tribunal, air warm from the early afternoon light spilling in through the glass, shaking uncontrollably, too sick and too overwhelmed to even feel relief, especially not when he exited out the other set of doors and called my name down the corridor, in that exact same tone as all of his forgiveness and fucking lies.

I stormed away instead.

Kept walking. Ended up collapsed under a tree somewhere across campus, near the water. Slumped against the bark, exhausted and aching everywhere. Covered in grass stains with runs in my stockings and gashes in my palms. Nail marks. From clenched fists.

And the bitter, incandescent fury—for him and for me—that I hadn't blazed down that hallway and struck my name from his mouth.

That I didn't follow him to the parking lot, stalking from behind before I curled my hand into his hair, twisted, and smashed his head against the car door. That I never cracked my books across his temple whenever he cornered me on campus afterward. Or that I never stomped down the stairs and planted my foot into his chest, sent him flying off our porch and into the rose bushes every time his fucking voice drifted up through the window before my roommates told him to fuck off. Or that I didn't slam him face first into the fucking produce when he sidled up next to me at the grocery store a few months after I returned to Wayhaven.

Or that I've fucking failed to do any of the other countless fucking things I've thought of doing to him since, every fucking time, as he's sneered comments at me and stalked me around town and haunted me through his headlines.

And after all of that, after everything he's done, everything he continues to do, when I finally decide to let it out, to come at him, guns blazing, tonight of all fucking nights, I just—

Trip over my own feet.

Just stumble forward, wide-eyed into a dead stand, and let him insult me.

Again.

All that time and distance and training and fantasizing…

And the only thing I could do was freeze up and cry.

Like I never left his kitchen.

The siren blares in the distance, long whines stretching closer, and the fingers at my nape curl into my scalp, tugging slightly, gently, encouraging me to glance up.

His brow is still furrowed when I do. Eyes still soft. Quiet. Gorgeous, really, that endless and intense grey.

Now that I actually stop to look.

Mason leans down and kisses me again.

Not with his usual passionate eagerness. Or barely restrained desire.

It's still deep and intense. Urgent. But… slow.

Soft.

Somehow.

Just like his eyes.

And just as unfamiliar.

I return it anyway, lips moving to a strange rhythm, longer slides of tongue and breathy inhales, quiet groans and stubble scratching lightly against my chin as the siren gets louder.

His thumb swipes across my cheek too, and he squeezes my hand, shifts it, shifts us, brushing my fingers over cold leather and even colder hardware, until they bump into the tab of his zipper and remain. I grab it, freezing metal between my thumb and forefinger and, as soon as I do, he pulls our hands down. Down the bumpy track, teeth clicking and slowly parting, one at a time, a long descent, to the hitch at the end, the slight catch at terminus, before his jacket falls open and the tab jangles free and the heat of his body rolls out to me, strong enough to feel even through my layers.

He drags his thumb across my palm next as we continue to kiss, a hooped stroke curving at apex into a dull scrape of nail, right before his fingers lace between mine and open my hand. Then he spreads me against his stomach and presses flat. His hand splays atop mine, fingers still twined, blanketing me between his touch and the thin fabric of his shirt, the rolling planes of his abs and the hair that shifts slightly beneath on every draw of his breath. He pushes upward after a moment, rumpling cloth, dragging wrinkles, sliding us up his body to the growing siren, louder and louder, up through the center of his chest when we suddenly circle back slightly.

Until we stop above his heart.

It pounds faster than I heard earlier, but still the same.

Steady. Soothing.

Beating directly into my grasp as he holds me there.

The siren surrounds us. Deafening, but… distant.

I'm more enveloped in the heat of his touch and heartbeat, the way it thrums into me joining mine, reverberating around each comforting inhale of smoke and sandalwood, echoing back against the solid warmth of his body, the needy movement of our mouths and lips, the taste of his tongue and every urgent, unspoken word he's saying to me right now.

I press closer to hear better, raise up on my toes, open my hand even wider, until my skin stretches over my palm and my knuckles ache. He groans softly, fingers tightening on my neck and hand, encouraging, drawing me toward him.

Closer. So much closer.

And at this distance, it almost sounds like—

The siren cuts out with abrupt sharpness, startlingly fast, and ringing silence screams in my ears instead.

—nothing.

I pull back from the kiss with a breathy gasp, drop my heels with even heavier breathing, and open my eyes, catching his for the briefest instant before I tear them away.

Red lights flash across the parking lot and I look toward them eagerly. Doors open and slam shut on the ambulance as the responders emerge from it and jog up the stairs with their kits. My heartbeat thunders in my ears now, dissonant with the beat under my palm, but they still occasionally align and match.

Still find a rhythm together.

I swallow and slide my hand out from beneath his.

It was just a kiss.

“We should go,” I murmur.

A long moment passes before he moves, before his fingers squeeze at my nape so gently that it's probably just an errant twitch, then Mason pulls away and bends over to pick up my keys and bag. He holds the former out to me, and my hand curls around them without looking.

It was just something to get me back in the mood.

I turn to get in the car. Unlock the door for him. Sit while he climbs in with a slam. Click the seat belt, press the clutch, and start the engine.

Just something to make me eager—

As we pull out of the station driveway, the responders carry a stretcher up the stairs in the rearview.

Something to keep me wanting—

The streetlights and recent rain make the road hard to follow, the lines difficult to see.

And squirming in my seat—

But I've traveled this route frequently, often enough to navigate it under any condition.

—on the long drive back to my apartment.

Even with my eyes shut.

I turn off the tree-lined street onto the main road through town, bare boughs arching above giving way to painted brick, gas lamps, and a buzz of Friday night activity.

A field of brake lights and billowing exhaust choke the intersection by the Square, and we roll to a stop in the middle of it at a red light. Rush hour traffic, such as it exists in Wayhaven, from the shift change at the sawmill and last minute groceries and excited dinner plans. Normally, I time things to miss all of this, but…

I glance at Mason out of the corner of my eye. He slouches in the passenger seat, pack tucked between his thighs, one hand resting on it as he stares out the side window, cheek on fist, seemingly lost in thought. The quality of silence rolling off him feels more contemplative than usual, anyway.

But I'm probably just imagining that, too.

I force my attention back out the window, to the bustle of people on the sidewalk, the movement of shopping bags and takeout, dogs on leashes and children on shoulders, groups clumped together and spilling out of the entrances to bars and restaurants, and then to the rain, when it starts to patter against the roof and windshield.

I'm just… rattled. Too many old memories. Too many wounds not nearly as healed as I thought.

And way too much fucking Bobby.

Then again, that could be said about any amount of him.

The light changes, but we miss it and have to wait for another. At the front of the line, at least.

I stop in front of the cross walk, absently wiggling the stick in neutral before I take my foot off the clutch. Raindrops continue to rapidly accumulate on the glass, each one glowing with reflection, covering the windshield in a sea of bright red droplets.

Hard to see the pedestrians beyond it, laughing loudly and smiling as they hurry through the headlights. Not that it matters at the moment, because I'm stopped. Because I can't keep focused on them anyway. Because they're a world away from the two of us and the quiet in this car filled with the sound of everything I didn't hear.

And the look in his eye I can't get out of my mind either.

The raw glimpse I saw before I turned away.

The impossible name for it.

That softness.

The steering wheel creaks under my grip as I stare hard into the red.

Care.

The droplets on the windows flash green.

Then a drip rolls down my ass, and I finally notice the wet smear between my thighs. My eyes flutter open and I suppress a groan.

Of course we didn't grab a washcloth first either.

I really need to stuff a bunch of them in the nightstand. I don't know why I haven't yet. Not like this is our first encounter with… overflow.

A whole lot of overflow.

Shit.

Mason plants a breathy kiss to my neck and pushes up on his elbows, but I clench my legs around him so he can't move further. He raises a brow, lazy smile on his face, and despite the impending disaster, I can't help but grin back when our eyes meet.

“We've got a real leaky situation here, sunshine,” I inform him.

He smirks. “That so?”

“It's like a dam ready to burst down there. Or a geyser. Maybe one of those fancy fountains with the light show and the music.” I bite my lip and try not to laugh. Laughing will only make it worse. “Either way, you gotta get me to the bathroom quick because it's about to go off.”

He chuckles deeply and, of course, that just makes it squeeze out even more. Well, ooze out, really. Slick. Hot. Trailing a messy tickle down my ass cheek. I lock my ankles around him even tighter.

“That is not helping,” I protest, even as my laugh starts breaking free.

Mason scoops me up as I shake against him, hands cradling my ass, chin resting on my shoulder, cock still buried hot and solidly within me. He lingers at the edge of the bed for a moment, then says, “Don't think anything's gonna help much at this point.”

When he moves away, I catch a glimpse of what he means. Specifically, the surprisingly large wet spot spread dark across the light grey sheets.

Normally, the sheer volume required for something like that might impress me. And I'd probably voice that amazement too. Maybe even give him a good job and a slow clap.

Instead, I only blow out a grumbling breath because I just changed those fucking sheets.

“You're sleeping in that tonight,” I announce, matter-of-fact.

His scoff ruffles my hair. “The hell I am, sweetheart. It's on your side.”

“It's your wet spot.”

Mason scoffs again, louder this time. It echoes against the tile as he steps into the tub, followed quickly by our soft grunts and a final roll of pleasure when he pulls out. A rush of wetness comes too, pun intended, streaking down my thighs to splatter in thumping drips between my feet.

We both glance down at it, the sharp tang of semen rising up to meet us. I purse my lips and he makes a noise. Acknowledgment or admiration for himself, I can't quite tell.

“Shit, you weren't wrong,” he finally mutters, swiping a hand through his hair.

Another laugh sputters out of me. Although, thankfully, not much else sputters out with it.

Mason watches me for a moment, the smirk curling at his lips the only warning I get before he suddenly draws his finger up the slick crease of my cunt, pressing into me slightly as he does. His touch catches on my clit for a brief, pleasurable moment at the top, then his fingertip flicks free and a hot arc of overstimulation jolts through my core.

“Fuck!” I hiss and instinctively curl away, shooting him a look.

Which only gets me the full smirk in response.

“You were pretty fucking soaked too, hot honey,” he adds, voice dipping low as he bends just enough to brush his lips against my ear. “So it's our wet spot, not just mine.”

Then he pulls away and smears some of our wetness across the tip of my nose for emphasis.

I tilt my head, eyes narrowed, and stare up at him. Watch his smirk widen as he gazes back and sucks that same finger deep into his mouth. And when he pulls it out with a lewd pop, I lunge, swiping out to grab his cock in revenge, but he's already swerving away too fast and gone from the bathroom, a smug fucking chuckle echoing in his wake.

The bastard.

Huffing, I wipe at my nose and squat in front of the faucet. Turn it on. Cold water rumbles out loudly at first, but eventually warms enough for me to soap up and clean the slick mess from myself. By the time I finish, towel off, and return to the bedroom, the duvet and pillows sit in a pile on the floor—and a new fitted sheet covers the mattress. A top sheet flutters toward it too, as Mason fluffs it out and lets it fall to the bed.

Down the hallway, the washing machine chugs away happily.

A smile pulls at my lips, paired with a swell of fondness in my chest as I watch him start to tuck the corners. I savor it for a brief moment.

Then I smack his ass before I leap onto the bed and sprawl out.

Mason glares at me as the sheet pulls untucked, but I ignore it and grin up at him, folding my arms behind my head.

“You need some help getting cleaned up too?” I ask, winking.

He tosses the sheet away and moves to the foot of the bed, staring down at me. Dark amusement and desire play across his features.

And the smirk emerges too—right before he grabs me by the ankles and pulls me toward him.