Such is Life.

You push a slow breath out through your pursed lips as you connect the last strand of red thread. Sixteen. Sixteen deaths in a small town over the course of the year. Well, alright, only four confirmed. But twelve missing that you know in your gut aren’t runaways. Prostitutes have kids. Even bums have places they consider home. People don’t just disappear. You grit your teeth, running your fingers along the crimson thread to the photo of the young girl with the blue wig and the bruises mottling her neck. People don’t just disappear.

*

You clutch your folder to your chest, trying hard not to spill the coffee in your other hand as you push open Section Chief Matthew Clark’s office door. He looks up, face falling. “No.”

“I brought caffeine.”

The man twists his mouth to the side. “Two minutes.”

You thank him, placing the coffee down on his desk and opening your folder. “It’s up to sixteen now, sir.”

“Sixteen… what?”

“Deaths or disappearances that are too suspicious to be anything other than foul play.”

“You got another body?” He asks, rotating the folder and pulling the mugshot of the hooker out from its paperclip.

“Turned up in a local park. Drained of blood, throat eviscerated. Like an animal, but I don’t know any animal that wraps the kill in silk sheets after, do you?”

He raises an eyebrow. “This is… more. It isn’t nothing.”

“We’ll look into it?”

He scoffs. “Don’t push your luck. I’ll make a call down to Hemlock County, see what the sheriff over there thinks. We don’t have enough to force our way in here.”

You nod, trying not to appear too eager even though your stomach is flipping over. This is the closest you’ve come to anyone taking you seriously since the first file had crossed your desk. “I understand. And thank you, sir. Really.”

Clark purses his lips. “No promises, kid. If they don’t want our help, you have to drop it.”

You agree, though you have no intention of dropping it. You just can’t. Not after getting the letter. The letter hasn’t made its way into the official FBI folder, because if anyone got a hold of it they’d pull you from the case. Too close, too personal.

But a nine year old girl in Hemlock Grove saw you on the news and wrote you a letter. About her missing sister. About the something stalking the people of Hemlock Grove. About how everybody said her sister ran away, but that she knows her sister. People don’t just run away. They don’t just leave. You kept that letter on your bedside table, propped up the fuzzy Polaroid of the child with her chubby arms wrapped tightly around a teenager sporting a crooked grin, so the little girl and her missing sister were the first things you thought about when you woke up and the last thing before you went to sleep. And Hemlock Grove had been leaking into the seams of your dreams, recently. The town had a shimmery quality around the edges in your mind, because you’d never been there and all the photos you’d seen were of crime scenes.

You settle into bed that night with the latest case file, reading over the pertinent details. Local woman, known sex worker. Booked twice for solicitation in the past two years, of no fixed address but often seen at the Grove Motel. Body found in Kilderry Park by a dog walker at approximately 3AM. That was a strange time to walk a dog, and you make a note to follow up with the witness.

Your work phone buzzes in your nightstand, and you pull the drawer open to read the short message from Clark. Hemlock want you to take a look. Off the books, for now. Report to Sheriff Sworn at 9AM Monday.

Your heart is a jackhammer in your throat as you read and re-read the message. You had a case. You had the case. You were going to be able to look that nine year old girl in the eye and tell her somebody was listening. You were going to find her sister.

*

Hemlock Grove is a chaotic sprawl of a place. The residential areas seem to have spread out into the surrounding forest with almost no regard for proper planning, though the main part of town is made up of a swirl of concentric circular streets like the turns of a whirlpool, centered around a jagged, ugly skyscraper at the heart.

You meet Sheriff Tom Sworn outside the station. He’s sitting on the hood of his car with two Styrofoam coffee cups, and he holds one out to you before you’ve even switched off the engine in your rental. “You the FBI?”

You shrug. “Not officially, not today. You must be Sheriff Sworn.”

“My men… don’t know about this. Hell, I don’t know about this. Your chief made it sound like… do you really think we got a serial killer working outta Hemlock?”

You twist your mouth to the side, choosing your words carefully. “I wouldn’t like to say that, not without all the facts. But I think with sixteen missing or dead in under a year? You got one hell of a problem.”

You let the Sheriff do the talking when you follow him into the station. “Guys, this is a lady detective from the FBI. She’s studying small town policing for some reason or other.”

“I’ll be working vice cases, and with your recently deceased sex worker the Sheriff kindly offered me a chance to look at the case.” You offer the men a tight smile, and not a single one returns it. Good. Great.

“FBI interested in one dead hooker?” A tall, thin cop with a hooked nose and a moustache asks.

“Not the FBI. Just me. Educationally, as it’s not high-priority.” You hate the words as you say them, but it has the desired effect. The cops shoulders relax, his beady eyes assessing you and deciding you’re one of them after all. Nobody cares about dead hookers. “I promise to stay outta your way whilst you guys get the real police work done.”

This is the right thing to say, because another cop finally flashes you a grin. “Well welcome to Hemlock Grove, young lady. If there’s anything we can do to help you out, just holler.”

You reach out a hand and shake his meaty one, trying hard not to grimace at the sweat slipping off his palm and onto yours. “Actually, there was one thing. Know how I can get in touch with the person who found the body? File says a dogwalker.”

“Oh, sure. Mrs Balkay. She lives over on Flynn Street, painted her house blue last year. You can’t miss it if you drive straight round the back of the tower and hook a left.”

You glance out the window at the tower. “What exactly is that thing, anyway?”

The Sheriff ducks his head to look up at the sharp peak of the building. “The White Tower. It’s the headquarters for Godfrey Industries, big biotech company. This used to be a steel town, and the Godfrey’s owned it all. Switched around the industrial revolution and now I guess they’re a big deal in science.”

“I’ve never heard of them.” You mumble absently, wrinkling your nose. “It’s a bit… much, isn’t it?”

The Sheriff scoffs. “It’s a fucking eyesore is what it is. And it never goes out. The lights all the way up that thing, I mean. The tower’s never gone dark in forty years.”

*

You stir your tea carefully, the delicate porcelain of the cup so thin and fragile you’re terrified that the clink of the spoon against it might shatter the whole thing. Mrs Balkay watches you, sipping from her own cup as the cloud of fur masquerading as a dog rubs around your ankles. “Three AM is a strange time to walk your dog, Ma’am. If you don’t mind me saying so.”

She chuckles. “I don’t sleep much, and neither does Sissy. Do you, my love?” She coos to the dog, who skitters over to her mistress and wriggles underneath her chair. “And Sissy has explosive bowels. I walk her at all manner of strange times, if she needs to go. Don’t want her messing on my roses.”

You glance out the window to the long stretches of perfectly manicured pink and white rose bushes. “No, I suppose not. It must have been quite a shock, to find the girl.”

“Trash.” Mrs Balkay says brightly. “Street-walking trash, dear. It was going to happen sooner or later, to a woman who chooses to demean herself like that.”

You blink. “I… okay. Can you tell me about what happened before you found her?”

“Before?” Mrs Balkay frowns. “I was just walking Sissy. I was whistling, as I often do on the night walks. Keeps me from getting the jitter out so late, you know.”

“Do you remember what you were whistling? A song you know?”

The woman smiles. “Of course I do. We’ll meet again, by Vera Lynn. Do you know it?”

“I do.”

“One of my favorites. One of Sissy’s too.”

“It’s a classic. So you were whistling the song, and Sissy was about to do her business. Where abouts in the park were you? How close to the playhouse?”

“Oh, I don’t know. There was a fog that night. Eery, which is why I was whistling. And I about jumped out of my skin when he came out of the mist. I hadn’t heard his footsteps, even.”

You freeze, cup pressed to your lips. “When who came out of the mist?”

The woman shrugs, placing her cup down on the matching saucer. “Why Roman Godfrey, of course. I told the Sheriff as much.”

You scan over the report on your knee. No mention of a man at the scene. Coming out of the mist, coming from the direction of the playground. Acting strange, seemingly in a hurry. It was a huge piece of the puzzle, and it was completely absent from the report.

You thank Mrs Balkay for her time and head back to your car, already opening a search engine on your phone and typing the name Roman Godfrey.

Roman Godfrey, CEO of Godfrey Industries. A puff piece for TIME Magazine on how, as the youngest CEO in history, he’d managed to improve quarterly profits by eighteen percent in the 12 months since assuming control of the company. A pretty boy with big green eyes and a wolfish smirk. You don’t need to ask Sheriff Sworn why his name is missing from the report. You don’t need to ask for directions to the White Tower. The jut of it sticks against the sky no matter where you are in Hemlock Grove, an obnoxiously phallic symbol of the Godfrey’s influence over the town.

The Receptionist at the front desk looks you up and down before fixing a polite smile on her face. “Can I help you?”

“I’d like to speak with Mr Roman Godfrey, please.”

Her smile tightens. “Of course. You have an appointment?”

You sigh. “No. But I really need to speak with him.” You pull your credentials out of your pocket and place them discreetly on the desk. “A matter of some importance.”

The woman’s smile drops completely as she reads your badge. “You have a warrant?”

“Do I need one?” You ask, fixing a polite, false smile on your face.

“Stand down, Jane.” You look up, polite smile still in place as you meet emerald eyes. “I always have time for the police.”

You tilt your head to the side. “You find yourself in the company of law enforcement often, Mr Godfrey?”

“Roman, please.” He purrs, holding out a hand for you. You take it, feeling the hairs on your arm raise at his cool, firm grip. He wears a gaudy signet ring on one finger, and the metal of it presses sharply into your skin as he wraps his long fingers around yours. “When you’re the CEO of the biggest employer in the state, you’d be surprised how often you’re summoned for this or that.”

“Well I appreciate you taking the time for me, Mr Godfrey.”

His smile tightens just a little, the full pout of his lips thinning almost imperceptibly. “Would you mind if we had this discussion in my office?”

“Not at all.”

You follow him across the glass lobby and into an elevator. Roman presses a button for the top floor, and you reach to brace against the mirrored wall as the elevator jolts and begins its ascent.

Roman’s office is an enormous box of glass and chrome with sleek, black leather furnishings. Stylish and completely lacking personality. There are no photos on his desk, no personal effects of any kind. If you’d been presented a picture of this office at the academy, you’d have said it belonged to a sociopath. Roman leans back in his chair, offering you a seat across from him.

You perch on the edge. “What were you doing in Kilderry Park on the night Nadine Lang was murdered?”

Roman doesn’t flinch. The little smile on his face doesn’t so much as flicker. “Murdered? I thought it was an animal attack.”

“You encountered Mrs Balkay walking her dog around 3AM. What were you doing in the park at that time?”

“Weird time to walk a dog, isn’t it?” Roman asks, steepling his long fingers under his chin. “You sure she’s a reliable witness?”

“Are you saying you weren’t in Kilderry Park at 3AM on the night Nadine Lang was murdered?”

Roman hums, pushing up from his seat and coming around the desk to lean on the glass. This puts his crotch level with your face, and he knows it as he smirks down at you. “You keep saying that word. Is the FBI treating this as a murder case?” He runs a pale hand down the length of his thigh, and your eyes drop to watch the movement. There’s the slightest twinge of arousal in your core as you watch his long, graceful fingers move against the dark fabric of his pants, but you ignore it, lifting your eyes to meet his disconcertingly unblinking stare instead.

“Are you usually this uncooperative with law enforcement?”

Roman huffs a laugh, shifting his hips in a way that drags your gaze unwillingly back to his crotch and the very obvious tightening of fabric over his cock. “Law enforcement doesn’t usually look like you.”

There’s a blush creeping across your cheeks, and Roman feels his cock throb in response at all that pretty blood rushing under your skin. It was going to be so much fun, peeling your flesh from that pretty face and licking the red slick beneath. His mouth waters at just the thought, precum soaking into the front of his boxers. But he can’t. Not yet. Not until he knows everything that you know.

“Are you going to answer my questions, Mr Godfrey?” You’re still pretending you’re not affected by him, and Roman thinks that’s adorable. Pointless, but adorable.

“I like to walk at night. I’m an insomniac. Walking late at night helps clear my head. I’ve been doing it for years.”

You press your lips together. “Alright. Thank you. And when you were walking in the park, you didn’t come across the body of Nadine Lang? Or see anything suspicious.”

Roman opens his mouth, and you cut him off. “Other than Mrs Balky walking her dog at 3AM.”

Roman grins, showing too many teeth, and your heart stutters over a beat. “No, nothing. All quiet.”

“Alright. Well, thank you for your time, Mr Godfrey. I hope I can call on you again, if I have any more questions?”

Roman extends a hand to you, and you let him tug you from your chair even though you don’t need the help and you really don’t want to touch him.

“You can call on me for anything. Anytime.” He looks you up and down, his gaze appreciative and a little lecherous. “Seriously. Anytime.”

You nod curtly as you reach for the door handle. “Oh, one more thing. Can you think of any reason why your presence in the park that night might have not made it into the Sheriff’s official report?”

Roman shrugs. “Filing error, maybe? I guess you’d have to ask Tom.”

You nod, though you both know you won’t be asking Tom anything. “I’ll do that. Thank you again, Mr Godfrey.”

“Roman,” he sighs, watching your ass as you step out of the office and make your way back down to the elevator. You’ve got a nice ass, a tight, plump thing that Roman is pretty sure he could bounce a quarter off of. He wonders whether he’ll get a chance to fuck you before he has to kill you. That ass bouncing against his cock? That’d be something.

*

It’s a complete fucking fluke. You’re standing in line at the gas station on the other side of town because you’d been seized with an uncontrollable urge for a twinkie, despite having avoided the toxic cakes since you were a teenager after hearing a rumor that they sat in your gut undigested for a month. You’re looking out the window as a cherry-red vintage jaguar pulls in, and the driver honks his horn without getting out.

“Asshole,” the attendant mutters, and you offer him a sympathetic smile. “I can wait, if you need to-“

“He can wait while I ring you up. Entitled Godfrey asshole.”

That gets your attention. “Godfrey as in Roman?”

“The very same. Always expects everybody to drop everything and fall to their knees for him. Asshole.”

“I got that impression.” You mumble.

“You know a couple weeks back he came blazing in here at, oh, musta been about two in the morning. Sat in his car honking at me to come out and fill ‘er up. Really laid on the horn like I wasn’t doin anything better than runnin right out to him.”

“Two in the morning?” You ask. “What was he doing out at two in the morning?”

The man shrugs. “You know, it was the night before they found that bum dead in the storm drain. I’d say the spooky fuck had something to do with it if I thought a Godfrey would ever set foot in the sewer.”

You swallow hard, pulling your badge from your pocket and flashing it to him. “You wouldn’t happen to have tapes from that night, would you?”

Roman watches you through the glass, his knuckles white on the steering wheel as you flash your little badge at the attendant and he nods. God fucking damn, you were digging fast. Faster than he’d thought. Faster even than Olivia had thought. It wasn’t good at all; to have you scuttling about connecting him to things you had no business looking into. And Roman knew he hadn’t been careful enough. That he should have let his mother clean up the mess. But his pride had won out, and now there was a bombshell FBI agent poking at the thin veneer of human civility he’d wrapped himself in, and he was going to have to deal with it.

The attendant hands you a slim gray case, and Roman knows what it is. He feels it in his gut. You nod your head and turn, stepping out of the gas station, and Roman fixes a smile on his face as he climbs out of his car.

“Quantico!” He calls, and you turn as though you hadn’t known he was there. All a game.

“Mr Godfrey. Nice car.”

Roman shrugs modestly. “It was my dad’s. Costs about a million bucks to keep her running but I guess I’m sentimental.”

You slip the gray case into your bag as you approach. “You know you can pump it yourself.”

Roman blinks at you, his smirk slipping a little. “What?”

“Your gas. Pennsylvania state law allows self-service at gas stations. You don’t have to honk for the attendant to come out and do it for you.”

Roman blinks at you again. “I know.”

“So you just… prefer making other people work for you?”

He shakes his head. “I don’t like to get my hands dirty.”

You glance at his hands; pale, long fingers and the pulse of veins running across his knuckles and feel an unwelcome bolt of heat pulse through your core again. “I bet.”

*

You’re staying at the Grove Motel. Roman doesn’t know why it bothers him to see your little rental car parked outside such a shitty place. He doesn’t know why he’s still here either, parked across the lot in one of his jeeps and smoking his ninth consecutive cigarette. Three hookers have knocked on his window so far, and if another one tries it he’ll break her goddamn fingers for touching his car. He isn’t here for that, not tonight. He can see the fuzzy halo coming from the TV in your room, bleeding blue light out around the edges of the curtains. You’re watching the tape from the gas station, the one where a very agitated Roman Godfrey berates the gas station attendant for making him wait a minute for service. The blurry image won’t show the dark bloodstains soaked into his coat or the caking of dirt under his nails, and Roman can only hope the pixelated image doesn’t pick up the sludge of sewer run-off he’d kicked from his boots on the forecourt.

He pulls his little notebook from his breast pocket, scratching the word onto a fresh page. CCTV. He’d been making a list of things to check for, evidence to eradicate during cleanup. He should have thought about CCTV, or better filled up before he’d gone anywhere near the shanty town of homeless people under the bridge, but he hadn’t been thinking straight. The hunger had been overwhelming, tunnelling his vision to pinpricks of light focused only on the pulse of blood, and if he hadn’t gone hunting right there and then he’d have eaten a member of the household staff.

He flips the notebook back to the third page. DO NOT EAT: Relatives, household staff, Godfrey Industries employees. Children under sixteen, law enforcement or relatives of law enforcement.

The opposite page, entitled SAFE TO EAT: Homeless, hookers, pimps. Addicts, Elderly if no immediate relatives. Runaways, patients cleared by Pryce.

Roman tucks his notebook away, drumming his fingers against his pocket. Olivia would shit a bowling ball if she knew he was keeping all this in a book, but it was the only way Roman could make sense of it in his mind. Things got… clouded when he was hungry, and he was always fucking hungry. He’d been nothing but an appetite for a year now, since he’d cut his wrists and awoken as an Upir, lying in his mother’s lap.

Olivia’s pride in him had dried up real goddamn quick, as soon as the novelty wore off. As soon as he started to make mistakes, to show weaknesses. She’d returned to the harsh, cold matriarch Roman had always known her to be, and Roman had learned how to live with that now that he had nobody else at all. Because Shelley had disappeared, and Letha had died. And Peter had run away and left him, and Roman had nobody. Nobody at all.

So what if he’d killed a couple of kids from high school? So what if he’d drained that pretty college girl from the next town over? She’d squeezed her cunt around his cock so viciously his teeth had snapped down and closed around her throat all by themselves, he hadn’t been able to stop that any more than he’d been able to hold off the most violent orgasm of his life. It had been an accident, anyway.

*

You’re sipping the worst cup of coffee you’ve had in a long time, grimacing at the sharp, burnt taste of it as you flip through grainy pictures of the cemetery where a twenty year old girl had been found by the cemetery caretaker, half-buried in a hundred-year-old plot. Chipped black polish on her nails, sticking out of the ground and her fingertips eaten away by scavengers. No leads, no clues, no witnesses. She’d been at a club earlier that night, there was a stamp on her hand that had washed away in the elements but left a trace behind, visible under a blacklight.

“Sheriff, could I ask you something?”

Tom approaches, his face paling at the autopsy report in front of you. “Awful, that one.”

“The autopsy found an imprint of a logo on her hand. Did you follow up on that?”

“Sure. Belonged to a club in the city, we figured she’d met somebody there and he dumped her passing through here on his way someplace else.”

You raise an eyebrow. “Hemlock Grove isn’t on the way to anywhere else.”

Tom shrugs. “Well, we spoke to the club owner, and the guys working the door that night. They didn’t remember seeing her or anyone with her. Dead end.”

“Nothing on the CCTV?”

Tom’s eyes drop to the floor. “We didn’t ask.”

Screaming at the Sheriff will do no good, might even do harm to your precarious position here, so you shrug. “Probably a dead end.”

You step outside to make a call to the club, and try to hide your disappointment that the tapes are wiped every 30 days. You’d missed vital evidence by less than a week.

“Who shit in your lucky charms?”

You roll your eyes as you pocket your phone, turning to watch as Roman struts towards you like he owns the sidewalk. “Mr Godfrey.”

“Roman.” He reminds you, a teasing smirk on his face. “What’s up with you?”

“I just… got some disappointing news.”

“About the hooker?”

“No.”

“Anything I can do to help?”

You scoff. “You able to unwipe CCTV from a shady club in the city?”

Roman hums. “Unwipe? No. But I can probably get you access to the servers where everything is stored digitally. Which club?”

“The Red Room.”

Roman’s smirk widens as he steps forward, dipping his head close as though he’s sharing a secret. “Oh yeah. I can get you whatever you need from there, agent.”

*

Sitting beside Roman Godfrey in his cherry-red Jaguar is unnerving on account of how at ease you feel. Roman is by nature an awkward and unsettling individual, but he’s so relentlessly charming that you feel yourself sinking into a sense of security the longer you sit beside him.

“You’re young, for FBI.”

“I joined the academy straight out of college. I’ve always known what I wanted, I guess.”

“That’s good.” Roman says, shooting you a soft smile. “It must be nice.”

“You didn’t always want to be the big bad CEO of a global powerhouse?”

Roman’s smile drops, a look of regret passing over his face. “It never occurred to me that there was a choice. That’s the thing about privilege, I guess. The name opens a lot of doors, but it closes some, too.”

It’s deeper than you’d thought Roman Godfrey capable of, and it does something funny to your stomach as you press your thighs together and focus on the blur of grey outside as the car passes into the city limits. “You know the guy who owns the club, then?”

“Marty.” Roman nods. “He’s dirty, of course. But he runs a discreet establishment, and that’s important when you’ve got shareholders breathing down your neck.”

“Sounds like you’re under a lot of pressure.” You say softly, and Roman’s smile is soft and genuine as he looks at you.

“You’d know about pressure, right?” He says, his voice straining. “Solving murders.”

“Murders,” you hum. “I’m not so sure, actually.”

Roman’s head snaps to you, eyes searching your face, and you fix your expression into one of bored neutrality. “You don’t think that hooker was murdered?”

“Oh no, I think she was. But she was a hooker. Occupational hazard, isn’t it?”

Roman’s shoulders sag but his fingers tighten on the steering wheel, the leather creaking under the force. “I guess so.”

You let the silence stretch, listening to the steady in and out of his breathing. “But this girl, the one from the cemetery? Not a hooker.”

You hear it, the catch in his breath, and your stomach flips over as your heart sinks. Yeah. Yeah, Roman Godfrey’s interest in the case isn’t that of a bored millionaire or a guy trying to get his dick wet, though you’re pretty sure you could have him like that if you wanted. Roman had something to do with it. With all of it.

*

He puts his hand on your knee, and you almost jerk away from him. His palm is a warm weight against your skin, his fingers curling around the inside of your thigh as he sits too close on the small leather couch in the manager’s office at The Red Room. You steal a glance at the side of his face, but his eyes are fixed to the screen, watching the pale, flickery shape of the victim stumbling out of the front door of the club. Drunk, sure, but alone. Definitely alone.

“This clear it up for you, agent?” The club owner, Marty, asks, running his finger around the rim of his whiskey glass. Roman clinks his signet ring against his own glass, the fingers on his wandering hand kneading at the flesh of your inner thigh in a way that has your clit throbbing and your face heating.

“Sure does. Thank you for…” you swallow as Roman’s fingers drag higher, breaching the hem of your skirt. “Going out of your way to assist.”

“Yeah appreciate it, Marty.”

“Anything for my favorite Godfrey. You sticking around for another drink?” His eyes slide over you, and you press your lips together as his gaze drops to Roman’s hand disappearing under your skirt. His mouth pulls into a smirk, and you tug your legs to the side until Roman’s hand slips off your thigh.

“I can get a cab back to town.”

Roman scoffs, pushing off the couch with an obnoxious groan and tugging you up without asking. “I’ll drive you.”

“Some other time,” Marty says, eyes raking over the back of your legs as Roman pulls you towards the door. You wish you’d worn a longer skirt. Or pants. Two pairs of pants.

The moment you’re free of the oppressive, dark environment you pull away from Roman, rubbing your palm against your skirt like you can stop the tingling from where his fingers were wrapped around yours.

“I’m sorry that he couldn’t help.”

You turn, raising an eyebrow. Roman’s the picture of collected as he runs his hand back through his hair and flips open a fancy cigarette case.

“It was a long shot.”

Roman shrugs. “Well I’m sorry you wasted your time.”

You bite your lip as you watch him light his cigarette, sucking smoke into his lungs and exhaling expertly. “You okay to drive?”

Roman shrugs. “I didn’t even finish my drink.”

You hum, turning on your heel and heading for the car because watching smoke curl out from between his full, pouty lips is doing something disconcerting to your pussy and you’re not going to entertain this with the guy who is as close to a suspect as you’ve got.

You slow as you approach the car, frowning at the… wrongness of it. “Uh.. Roman?”

You feel him more than hear him, he makes surprisingly little sound on the sidewalk as he slips in beside you. “Fuck.”

The wheels are gone. All four wheels just… gone. “We should call the cops.”

Roman turns his head, the smirk on his mouth at odds with the sharp irritation in his eyes. “You are the cops.”

“I mean like… this is theft, right?”

Roman huffs, sucking hard enough on his cigarette to hollow his cheeks over the sharp bones of his face. “It’s an inconvenience, is what it is. Wheels in good condition are hard to get hold of for this car.”

“And we’re… stuck. Here.” You sigh. “Shit. I’m sorry about your car. I’d offer to pay for the wheels but…”

Roman flicks the dying stub to the ground and kicks the toe of his shoe against the concrete. “I wouldn’t accept it anyway. I’ll get someone to come pick us up, but it’ll be a while. You hungry?” His eyes rake over you, and you shiver. The man never blinks when he’s watching you. It makes you feel hot and itchy and exposed.

“I could eat.”

*

When Roman had suggested you slip into a restaurant to wait for rescue, you’d assumed quiet conversation over dinner and a chance to dig into his psyche a little. But sitting across from him while you eat and he… watches, is the most uncomfortable experience of your life. His enormous eyes drink in every bite you take, his tongue gliding over his lips as a thin drip of pink liquid slips out of the corner of your mouth. “Sorry.” You mumble, reaching for a napkin. Roman is there faster than you can fathom, his thumb dragging down over your chin before returning to his own mouth.

“You like it raw?”

“No.”

Roman smirks, leaning back in his seat. “It’s the only way to eat it. Overcooking kills the flavor.”

You cut a sticky chunk of steak off, trying not to look at the sickly blue-purple color of the inside. “You want some?” You hold your fork out, and Roman shakes his head.

“Not hungry.” But his eyes devour you, his tongue darting out to wet over his mouth again, and you feel a chill skitter down your spine.

“If it’s about the cost, we can go dutch. I’m not expecting you to pay. It’s not like this is a date.”

Something flickers on his face for a fraction of a second, there and gone so quickly you might have imagined it if not for the tightening of his smirk. You feel his foot kick against your leg, a jab hard enough to make you wince. “There are worse things you could be doing.”

“Did you just kick me?”

Roman’s smirk widens. “Of course not.”

His cock is throbbing with an actual ache as he watches you chew messily through the practically raw meat bleeding on your plate. It only gets worse at the wince of pain when his foot connects with your shin, and Roman can practically smell the blood spreading under your skin, blooming to form a bruise he’d put there. He’s definitely going to have to fuck you before he kills you. His cock will never get over it if he doesn’t.

“I think I’ll get a cab home after all.” You say, pushing your plate away and standing. There’s a flush to your cheeks and Roman can’t tell if it’s arousal or if you’re really, genuinely pissed off. And usually he wouldn’t care either way, but there’s a note burning a hole in his little book that says keep your enemies close and so he stands himself, wrapping a hand around your wrist as you try to pass him.

“Let me call a driver. It’ll be a whole lot more comfortable than the back of a cab, trust me.”

Trust him. You don’t trust Roman Godfrey, you’d be a fool to get in the car with him. “You gunna kick me again if I say no?”

Roman forces his smirk into something a little less cruel. “I was only playing.”

“We’re not five.”

Roman huffs, wriggling his fingers down your wrist to lace in your own and you suppress a shudder. “Duly noted, agent.”

Riding back to the city in the wide backseat of Roman Godfrey’s town car, one of Roman Godfrey’s town cars, is completely different from the easy ride in. Roman is agitated, bright green eyes like luminous beacons in the low lighting. And still, he never blinks. You sit as far from him as you can, pressed right up against the door, but that’s a mistake. Because when he unbuckles his seatbelt and slides across the leather, there is nowhere to go. Nowhere to go when he presses his thigh against yours, or when his fingers slide up under your skirt to graze over the front of your panties.

“Mr Godfrey, this is inappropriate.”

He hums, thumb finding the soft protrusion of your clit against the cotton and rubbing against it. “Roman,” he purrs, dipping his head to press his lips to the corner of your jaw. “It’s Roman. And we’ve had a nice time tonight, haven’t we? Dinner and a movie.”

You feel his lips turn up at his own little joke, and your stomach flips over with nausea. “This wasn’t a date. This was work. I’m work-“ you break off, your voice catching in your throat as two of Roman’s long fingers slither inside your underwear to prod against your entrance.

“You’re wet.” He mumbles, easing his thick fingers inside you as his thumb continues to rub circles against you through your underwear. “You want me bad, agent.”

FBI Academy training had been grueling and intensive, and you’d been taught how to get out of scenarios you could never imagine happening in real life. But you’re thanking the special agent that had made you run the maneuver forty times, until you had every single motion down perfectly, as you slip your cuffs from your jacket pocket and cinch one around Roman Godfrey’s wrist. The other you yank into place against the door beside you before slipping out from underneath him and climbing into the seat on the opposite side, shoving him hard as you go.

Roman yanks on the cuff, hissing at the bite of metal into his skin. “Fuck is this?”

“I’m detaining you before you get yourself arrested for sexual assault.”

Roman’s face smooths into something lifeless. “You’re detaining me? Putting me in a goddamn timeout?”

You huff, tugging on the hem of your skirt and grimacing at the feeling of arousal sticking your underwear to your pussy. “Having money and power might get you whatever you want in Hemlock Grove, Mr Godfrey. But it doesn’t get you me.”

You can’t know the challenge you’ve set him. You can’t know the game that has started, as Roman pulls against the metal cuff on his wrist just to feel the bite of the steel. He could break it easily, he could reach across the car and pull you into his lap and impale you on his cock as he rips out your throat. Tom Sworn assured him that you’re nothing. That there’s no FBI investigation, that you’re poking around and then you’ll be gone. But there’d been a little jump in his heartrate when he’d said it, when he’d lied for you.

Roman lets you think that he’s helpless, leans back in his seat and spreads his legs wide. He watches your eyes drop to his crotch, to the shameless bulge of his erection. You don’t look away, and Roman wanders his fingers against his own length, rubbing the length as he keeps his eyes fixed on your face.

“What are you doing?” Your voice is small and breathy.

“You’re a tease.”

Your head snaps up then, eyes narrowing. “I’ve never given you any reason to think that.”

Roman scoffs, fingers flicking open his fly and dragging the zipper down so he can reach into his boxers and tug his cock out. You look again, pupils blowing wide as he runs his thumb over his leaking tip. “Wearing that little skirt. That FBI approved attire, agent?”

You bristle. “I’m not working officially, Mr Godfrey. I told you that.”

“And yet,” he continues, wrapping his fist around the base of his cock and gliding his palm against himself, “you flashed your badge at me and demanded my attention.”

You feel your cheeks heat. “You’re a busy man.”

“I’m so fucking busy,” he groans, squeezing himself tightly at the tip before jerking back down, hips lifting to fuck into his hand as his head drops back against the seat. “You think I’d cancel my day to take you on a wild goddamn goose chase like this?” He hisses, releasing his cock to stick against his stomach for a moment as he lifts his hand to his face and spits into his palm. Heat builds in your core, arousal soaking your underwear, and you tilt your hips down to apply some pressure to your aching clit. “You think I’d drive you out here to help you with your stupid little case?”

You swallow. “Not a concerned citizen after all, then?”

Roman huffs a laugh as he fists his cock again, jerking harder, rougher now as his head lolls back against the headrest and he fixes his eyes on the way your hips shift forward to drag your clit against the seat. “I’m concerned that you’re chasing ghosts. Looking for shit that isn’t there.”

You watch a pink dusting spread over his cheeks as he sinks his teeth into his bottom lip, hips bucking up to meet his own hand as he nears his climax, and you climb across the car to sit next to him. This close you could wrap your own hand around his and feel the hot, silky press of his cock in your palm. You could dip your head and taste the salty pearls leaking from his slit. You could do a lot of things, but you won’t. Instead you lean in, pressing your palm lightly to his throat.

Roman moans, eyes rolling back as his hand becomes a blur against his cock. “There’s a monster hunting people in Hemlock Grove, Mr Godfrey.” You say softly, letting your nails drag up the side of his throat as you press down. “I think you know that. And I think you’re concerned that I’m going to find exactly what I’m looking for.”

Roman cums with a strangled groan, thick ropes of his release painting his hand and staining the dark fabric of his pants. He squeezes around the head of his cock, milking his own cum from the twitching, sensitive tip, eyes never leaving your face. His gaze dips to your mouth, his swollen lips parting, and you lean in.

You let your mouth brush his, the barest of electric touches. “You disgust me, Roman.” You whisper against his lips. “I’m going to find where they’re buried. Every. Last. One.”

The car has slowed, you’d felt the rumbling deceleration as the driver had crossed into the town limits, and you yank the door open and roll out without sustaining much more than a grazed knee. The last thing you see is Roman’s shocked, fucked out expression as the car passes you, and you’re up and running before he has a chance to order his driver to return for you. You can see the tower from here, as you can from anywhere, and you make your way towards it, cursing Roman Godfrey and Hemlock Grove and your own stupid, traitorous cunt as you stomp through the forest on the way back to your motel.

*

Obsession. It’s a dangerous word. It’s written in his notebook, underlined. Because Roman has a problem with obsession. With latching on to things that can’t hold his weight. With drowning in how much he wants. As he sits in the motel parking lot, eyes trained on the door of your room, he feels the word like it’s etched in his own skin. His phone pings in his pocket and he pulls it out, reading the irritating You owe me message from Marty before opening the attached file.

The footage is grainy, but it’s unmistakable to anyone who has spent more than a few minutes with him. The girl stumbles out of the club and then back in again, called over by a man standing just out of frame. By luck, actually. Roman hadn’t been thinking about the cameras when he’d followed her up from the main club. He’d been thinking about the ache in his cock and the burning, roaring hunger clawing up his throat. The girl had let him hook an arm around her waist and she’d sagged against him as he dragged her away from the club. He’d looked up, searching the street for his town car, and the camera had caught the strange, reflective quality of his eyes, flashing green like a cat even in the low resolution of the CCTV camera. Roman imagines what your face would have looked like if Marty had shown you this footage, and he thinks yeah maybe he owes that piece of shit something after all.  

Obsession is a dangerous word, but Roman finds himself rationalizing the fuck out of his impulses as he scrolls through your Instagram. It had been locked down, along with your Facebook, but it hadn’t cost him more than pocket change and a phone call to get it all unlocked for him. He’s looking at your life in pixels, and his stomach twists with a jealous longing so severe he almost smashes his phone right there on the asphalt. You with your arms around friends, a big, genuine smile on your face. You with your face smooshed up against the wrinkly face of a puppy, your eyes actually sparkling with how happy you are. Roman has never seen a light as bright. He’s never wanted to extinguish something so badly. His hand is already creeping over the front of his pants again, sensitive cock stirring to life as he flicks through post after post. There are videos too, little clips of you singing karaoke at a bar in DC, and one of you sitting in a restaurant while the waitstaff serenade you for your birthday. “I hate you,” you mouth to the camera, and the man behind it laughs.

Roman grits his teeth as he slides his fingers into his boxers and squeezes the head of his cock harshly. He replays the video, cutting it just before that awful fucking laugh, until it’s you on a loop looking right at him. He can even hear the words in your voice, in his head. I hate you. I hate you. I hate you.

It’s the worst orgasm of his life, cumming around a sob and hissing at the rough friction of his boxers dragging over the wet tip of his cock. He’s thinking about the way the dead college girl looked when he rolled her into that shallow grave, about the way the dirt got stuck in the creases of her thighs. And he’s looking at you, at your pretty mouth and the way you glare at the camera. Roman wipes his hand against his thigh with a grimace and pulls his notebook out, thumbing to a clean page and writing your name at the top.

*

You’re shoved out the way as you try to step into the Sheriff’s office two days later, and you blink at the unapologetic deputy who pushed you as he barrels past. “Where’s the fire?”

Sheriff Sworn doesn’t smile as he looks up at you. “Two more missing. Pair of college kids from the city.”

You frown, feeling ice douse your stomach. “Two? At the same time?”

“I know.” Tom purses his lips. “Your boss already called. He wants you to have full access to this case, ongoing.”

“In an… official capacity?”

The Sheriff scoffs, pulling open his desk drawer and sliding a badge across to you. “No fucking feds until we have to. Consider yourself deputized, agent.”

You’re fixing the badge to your jacket when you feel the tension behind you, and you don’t need to turn around to know whose darkening the doorway. The Sheriff’s face tightens. “Mr Godfrey, how can we help you today?”

“Tom.” Roman steps into the room, his fingers brushing against your hip as he steps around you and reaches for the Sheriff’s hand. “It’s me helping you, hopefully.” Roman’s eyes slide over you, a smirk tugging at the corner of his mouth when he sees you’re wearing another short fucking skirt. “I heard about those boys.”

Your spine straightens. “How?”

Roman turns, perching on Tom’s desk with his back to the Sheriff like he isn’t even there anymore. His attention fixes on you. “Small pond. I’d like to offer a reward for any information leading to their safe return. I was thinking ten grand.”

Tom coughs, and you shoot him a pinched look with a tiny shake of your head. He clears his throat before speaking. “That’s too generous, Roman.”

“Not at all.” Roman says, eyes still fixed on you. “There’s a monster hunting people in Hemlock Grove. I just want to make sure the beast is caught and collared before we’re drowning in federal interference.”

Tom’s shoulders sag. “You’re worried the FBI will want to look into your company.”

Roman’s smirk widens, and he licks his tongue over his bottom lip. You feel your face flush, hating the visceral reaction you have to how absurdly, indecently sexual he is. You school your features into neutrality, knowing that all Tom can see is the back of Roman’s stupid head. “The FBI isn’t interested in embezzlement or fraud cases when there’s an active serial killer in town, Mr Godfrey. Your books are safe.”

Roman quirks an eyebrow at you, splaying his palms over the wide spread of his thighs. “Your cynicism wounds me, agent. I’m just a concerned citizen.”

“I’d advise against it.” You say to the Sheriff, bypassing Roman altogether.

Roman twists at the waist. “You’re the boss.”

Tom looks like he’d welcome a lightning strike to the chest. His eyes slide from Roman’s to yours and back again. “I’d be an idiot to ignore advice from the FBI, I guess.”

You nod sharply, and Roman’s smirk slips just an inch. Just enough to reveal the ripple of cold, calculated fury underneath. This is not a man used to being overruled, and Tom fights the urge to shrink at the ice in his stare.

“Suit yourselves,” Roman says pleasantly. “Walk me out, agent?”

“You know the way better than I do, Mr Godfrey.”

Roman stops in the doorway, holding the doorframe and staring at you like he’s waiting for you to change your mind. When you don’t he huffs, an unamused little laugh. “Suit your goddamn self.”

You’re sipping on a terrible cup of coffee at the makeshift desk they’ve made up for you in the bullpen when Tom Sworn steps out of his office. His face is green and ashy. “Sheriff?” You’re already getting to your feet, feeling dread settle over you at his expression.

“Man the phones, people.” He says gravely. “We’re about to get buried in shit.”

“Sheriff?” You ask again. “What’s going on?”

Tom doesn’t answer you. He clicks a button on the remote in his hand, and a thick old television mounted high on the wall flickers to life. You suck in a breath as bright green eyes bleed out of the screen. Tom cranks the volume, and you brace your hand on the edge of the table as you watch Roman Godfrey derail your entire case with the smooth, measured tone of a practiced PR pitch. “That’s right, ten thousand dollars for useful information. If you think you’ve seen the boys, even if you’re not sure, please, please call the Sheriff’s department. They’re ready and waiting to take any and all calls. All leads will be explored.”

You snap your teeth together, grinding your jaw tightly at the mocking smirk to his mouth. “Bastard.”

“Entitled Godfrey asshole.” One of the deputies says in agreement, folding his arms over his chest. “He’s going to bury us. Every crazy motherfucker in the state is gunna be calling with bogus tips.”

You narrow your eyes at him, and Roman’s smirk seems to widen as though he can see you through the screen. “I’m just a concerned citizen.” He says into the camera, and your hands curl into fists at your sides.

The phone closest to you rings, and you snatch it up. “Hemlock Grove Sheriffs Department.”

“Agent,” he purrs. “You watch my on-screen debut?”

You press your lips into a firm line to stifle a frustrated scream. “Mr Godfrey.”

“You like it?” He asks. “Watching me get you wet?”

You do groan then, a furious growl of sound that delights Roman more than he can say. “You’ve fucked us.”

“I know why you said no to my help, but I decided you’re acting against the best interests of my town. You’re overruled.”

“That isn’t how this works.” The shrill ring of a phone on the next desk makes you jump, and Roman chuckles.

“It sounds like valuable leads are about to start rolling in. You’re so fucking welcome, sweetheart.” He hangs up, pocketing his phone with a triumphant grin on his face. From where he’s standing he can see you staring at the dead phone in your hand. You slam the receiver down on the desk, and Roman is giddy.

*

His good mood lasts all of about thirty minutes. He’s leaning back in his big, black leather chair scrolling through your Instagram when the door is opened and Olivia Godfrey struts in like she owns the place.

“You got an appointment?”

Olivia raises an eyebrow at her son. “You were on the news.”

Roman smirks, forcing the easy expression onto his face even though his pulse is racing. He hadn’t considered the implications of his stunt outside of the game with you, and there’s cool murder in his mother’s eyes. “I’m staying close.”

Olivia narrows her eyes at her son, crossing the room and rounding the desk like the physical barrier isn’t even there. She pinches Roman’s chin sharply, forcing his head up. “You’re showboating. This isn’t like paying off the Sheriff to look the other way when silly cheerleaders made their accusations in high school. This is serious, Roman. The FBI are here.”

Roman grits his teeth, your face flashing in his mind. If Olivia gets her claws into you you’ll be disappeared without a trace and Roman won’t get to have you. “I’m handling it.”

Olivia scoffs. “You want to fuck her, don’t you? That’s what all this is about.”

Roman flushes, squirming in his seat under her withering glare. “She doesn’t have anything. I’m covering my tracks. Now.” He adds, swallowing thickly.

Olivia purses her lips, reaching out to card her fingers through his hair, and Roman shivers at the scrape of her nails against his scalp. “You have a week, darling.” She says softly. “Tie up your loose ends, get rid of her.” Her fingers twist and tighten in his hair until he whines. “Or I’ll do it for you. And so help me God, Roman. If I have to get my hands dirty cleaning up your shit you will pay for it dearly.”

She releases his hair and Roman slumps back in his seat, five years old and fresh from a scolding. His fingers itch to reach for her, to cling to her skirt and beg for her forgiveness and a tiny, meaningless morsel of affection, but he doesn’t do it. He watches his mother swan out of his office with burning cheeks and a sharp hurt in his chest. Your face flashes in his mind again, and he reopens the window with your Instagram page on his computer. Pretty smile, kind eyes. You’ve tagged a friend in one of your photos, and Roman clicks on her profile next. He learns about your high school boyfriend, and which subjects you liked best. He memorizes the name of your childhood pets, and wonders whether the concerning number of deceased hamsters was down to bad luck or improper care. He watches a video your dad took of you crossing the stage at your college graduation, and a simple photo of you with your arm around an older version of yourself, your mother he guesses, at your FBI Academy graduation just a few years later.

Roman catalogues every moment of your life, his hand scratching pertinent details into his notebook under the heading of your name. Your favorite food, your coffee order. The movies you saw last year that you liked enough to post about. Your political opinions, the charities you supported publicly.

There’s a tension headache brewing behind his eyes and the sun is setting low over Hemlock Grove when he finally stops, dropping his pen and lifting his hand to caress against the pixels of you on his screen. There’s a tension headache brewing behind his eyes and an awful, gnawing ache in his stomach. Because Roman has been cataloging all the things that matter to you, and he’s come to the realization that there is nothing he can do to put himself in that category. You value loyalty and kindness and selflessness in your friends. You value soft men who volunteer at animal shelters and call their grandmothers in your romantic partners. And Roman Godfrey is a lot of things, but he isn’t loyal or kind or selfless. He doesn’t know how to be.

He taps his fingers against the glass top of his desk and reads the caption on a post you’d made just a few days before your arrival in Hemlock Grove. You’re standing outside your apartment building, leaning against a fancy car that is definitely not your own, and the caption reads Fake it til you make it, baby. “Fake it til you make it, baby,” Roman repeats softly, running the tip of his finger over the slightly fuzzy image of your smile. “You want a good guy, agent? I can be a good guy.”

Roman sucks his bottom lip into his mouth, pulling out his phone and calling one of his least favorite people. “I don’t give a fuck that you’re in the middle of something. I call, you come. That’s the law of the land.”

The man on the other end says something snippy and Roman hangs up, leaning back in his chair and pretending to look out of the window at the setting sun. When there’s a knock on his door he waits a full ten seconds before standing up and crossing to it.

“Really, Roman?” Dr Johan Pryce asks as he steps into the office. “Is all this pompous nonsense necessary?”

Roman hums, reaching out to clap Dr Pryce on the shoulder. “I need a favor, Johan. A big one.”

*

Johan Pryce has been cleaning up Godfrey messes for more years than he cares to remember. It had been different under JR, of course, but Johan didn’t let himself think about JR too much. About the visionary the man had been, and the waste of his suicide. About the years since, spent at the will and whim of a volatile, spoiled Upir woman with a taste for her own reflection.

Because despite the controversial topic of his research, Johan Pryce did not like killing. He certainly did not approve of the wasting of human life for something as trivial as appetite. But Olivia Godfrey had controlled the purse strings, and she hunted women with variations on her face and her waning youth, and Johan had been commanded to clean up the mess afterwards. Creating a substance capable of satiating the Upir appetite had been a necessity designed only to free up his own time.

That Roman had so wholly embraced his own monstrous nature was decidedly a major pain in the ass. Because Roman would drink the substance by the gallon, but he would still slip out in the middle of the night to fuck and feed and leave a trail of bodies scattered across the town like so much trash. The boy-king standing in front of him does not possess one single ounce of humility over his request, and Pryce’s fingers curl into his fist with the impending promise of caving the smug prick’s face in. “Where did you bury the bodies?”

Roman scoffs. “I didn’t have time to do that. They’re at the steel mill. I know it’s mom’s favorite place to stash hers.”

Pryce presses his lips into a fine line. “And you’re certain they’re both… deceased?”

“Ohhhh, they’re deceased alright. Tore their heads off and sucked them dry like fucking juiceboxes.”

“Lovely.” Pryce says tightly. “You know, the forensic evidence is just one small part of the puzzle, Roman. I can scrub every trace of them from that mill, but the world is made up of glass eyes and red lights. Someone, somewhere would have captured you herding them into your jeep, or passing a traffic camera at just the wrong time. You need to be more careful.”

Roman hums non-committedly, but there’s a ripple of tension in his shoulders as he straightens. “I don’t know how the FBI put it together.”

“The FBI?”

“A couple of dead hookers and some runaways. Shouldn’t have raised so much as an eyebrow outside of Hemlock County.” He muses. “Unless somebody tipped them off.”

Pryce huffs an incredulous laugh. “You think I would risk Godfrey Industries, risk my projects, to squabble with you over a handful of dead unfortunates? Really, Roman.”

Roman hears the dismissal, and Johan’s heart remains steady. He isn’t lying, he didn’t bring you here. All the better, really.

“Just take care of the fucking bodies and find me a monster to pin the killings on.”

Pryce freezes. “Excuse me?”

“You heard me.” Roman spins on his heel, closing the gap between himself and Pryce in two steps. “I want the FBI out of Hemlock Grove. I want things to go back to normal. Best way for that to happen is for the police to find the monster they’ve been hunting. Sure as shit isn’t going to be me in a cage, so figure it out. Let one of your goddamn abominations out to play.”

Johan shakes his head. “My… projects are not… I don’t have a monster for you to pin your crimes on. Not in the lab. But-“ He raises his voice as Roman opens his mouth. “I have some ideas. Leave it with me, Roman. And please, please don’t eat anybody else in the meantime.”

*

Roman does not like being told what to do, and his impulse to eat somebody else is almost too strong to ignore. He’s watching the tall woman in the leopard-print skirt saunter from car to car, leaning heavy on the windows. If she approaches him, if she puts her arms on his window when he’s so obviously here for you, he’ll invite her inside and rip her heart out of her chest. What’s one more dead hooker, when Pryce was about to fix everything anyway? He’d gotten a call not fifteen minutes earlier, a tight explanation and a short list of instructions that had made him bristle with indignation. But these things came with an assurance that it would work, and so Roman had grit his teeth and agreed to it all.

The hooker is half way to his goddamn car, and Roman’s mouth fills with saliva at the thought of sinking his teeth into her when the door to your motel room opens and you step out. The hooker disappears into irrelevance the moment you do, and Roman’s vision tunnels on you. You look left and right, like there might be traffic in an almost empty parking lot, and Roman files the note away to write later. Cautious.

He waits until you’re safely in your car and pulling away before he even starts his engine, and then he backs out of his space and follows you. The hooker flips him off as the car passes, with no concept of how close she’d been to becoming minced meat, and Roman forces himself to keep his focus on your taillights to stop himself from backing up and running her the fuck over.

He pulls up opposite the police station and watches you pause at the door before shaking your head with a little smile on your face. His interest is well and truly piqued, and he’s getting out of his car and following at a safe distance until you dip into a coffee shop.

Roman doesn’t go in, but he watches from across the street. He can see you through the glass front, laughing and chatting with the barista as he makes your drink. Roman knows it’s a skinny cappuccino with a shot of caramel. He knows that you’ll put two packets of Splenda into it, and that you’ll pop the lid off to lick at the foam. His mouth waters and his cock twitches when you do that, your pink tongue curling into the cup. The words cappuccino foam are written in his notebook, and he’ll underline them as soon as he gets the chance.

You head back to the police station, and Roman waits until he’s absolutely sure you’re staying before he climbs back into his jeep and returns to the motel. The hookers swarm towards him as he gets out, but they back up at the look on his face. “Didn’t come to play, ladies.” He calls as he makes his way to your door like he belongs there. The lock gives easily with a sharp twist of his wrist, and he steps inside and closes the door. Nobody knocks, nobody questions him. It isn’t worth it.

Inside your space, Roman feels his shoulders relax even as tension pools in his gut. He’s been in this room before, he’s been serviced in this room before. The idea that he’s cum on the sheets you’re sleeping in makes his cock ache, and he lets himself indulge in the scent of your shampoo against your pillow as he climbs onto your bed and nuzzles his nose into the fabric.

He’d like to believe he’d broken into your room to look for evidence. Clues about your case, any hints that you had something on him. But Roman doesn’t really give a shit about any of that now, not with Pryce about to fix the whole damn thing. He knows that his time with you is short, that you’ll be on your way with a closed case soon enough, and he wants something. He rolls off the bed and crouches in front of your bag. You hadn’t unpacked, hadn’t planned on staying long. Roman pretends that doesn’t bother him as he slides the zipper open and sifts through your clothes until he finds a pretty pair of cotton panties. Plain black, very practical. Very you. It isn’t what he wants, but it’s something.

Your kindle rests on the bedside table, and Roman returns to lie against your pillows as he opens it and flicks through your library. “Oh, agent,” he coos to himself as he memorizes the titles of your last five reads. “You like it dirty.”

He doesn’t exactly feel like it, or at least not as much as he usually does, but Roman tugs his cock out of his jeans with a resigned sigh anyway. Too good an opportunity to pass up, to paint your pillow with his cum and have you sleep right up against it.

*

If Roman Godfrey thinks he’s got a career in espionage ahead of him, you’ll have to let him down gently. He’s too tall and too intense, you can feel his eyes on you from across the street. And maybe you lick the foam off your cappuccino like a porn star, just to make him sweat. Serves him right for trailing you like the world’s worst stalker, in fact. He leaves you alone after you reach the police station, and you slump into your chair at your makeshift desk with a sigh.

“Anything new?” You ask Tom as he approaches.

“I’d have called you if there was. Just the goddamn tipline. I’ve had to put two guys on it full time.”

You bite your lip. “Do I even need to ask if there’ve been any credible-“ You cut yourself off at the dark expression on his face. “Right. Well… I mean, I could take a shift. If it would be helpful.” Say no, say no, say no.

“That’d be a big help, agent.” Tom says, his shoulders sagging like you’ve brought him actual, physical relief. “I could send a couple guys home for some sleep.”

You think about the full seven hours you got last night, and nod with a forced smile. “It’s not a problem.”

As if on queue the phone in front of you begins to ring, and you pick it up before either of the haggard-looking cops on the desks opposite have a chance to move. “Hemlock Grove tipline.”

There’s nothing but moaning on the other end of the line, and you grimace. “Hello? Are you calling with a tip for the Sheriff? Do you need any assistance from the police department?”

The groans get higher in pitch. “Yeah, keep talking, you cop bitch,” the caller moans, his voice gravelly. “I’m almost there.”

You hang up, slamming the phone down with such force the table shakes. “Pervert.” You explain, and Tom offers you a sympathetic smile.

“Been a lot of those, I’m afraid. Public tip lines bring out the crazies.”

Hours later you’re cursing Roman Godfrey when you get a call that has your spine straightening. “There’s… I think I know what you’re hunting.”

The dull ache at your temples dissipates. “You’re calling about the missing boys?”

“No. Uh, I mean, I guess.” The man on the other end sighs. “I think there’s a… shit, I don’t know what it is. Some kind of animal. Like a bear. It’s out by the barrens.”

“The barrens?”

“You know, the storm drain where all the bums live. Under the bridge by Kilderry Park.”

“A bear, you said?”

“I sad like a bear. It’s as big as a bear, that’s all I can see. I’m not getting any closer than this.”

“It’s there now?” you ask, already getting to your feet. You glance towards Tom’s office, but the Sheriff isn’t at his desk. And the monster that’s been hunting and killing people is out there now.

“I’m lookin’ right at it.”

“Alright, okay. The-the police are on their way, sir. Do not approach the creature. Stay where you are - or get somewhere safe.”

The man hangs up, and your heart is in your throat as you run from the building and climb into your car. Your hands shake so badly you almost can’t turn the key in the ignition, but you manage it and soon the town is dissolving into the sprawl of suburbia.

*

Roman lets out a low whistle. Pryce had said he’d deliver, and Pryce had fucking delivered. The beast was at least seven foot tall standing, though it crouched like a coiled spring in the corner of the cage, its enormous yellow eyes narrowed on Roman. Whether it identified him for what he was, or merely saw him as the holder of its leash, Roman didn’t know and he didn’t much care either.

“Here doggy, doggy,” he called.

“Roman.” Pryce plasters a tight smile on his face. “You understand the risks here, don’t you? Once the cage is open, I have no way of… recalling the creature. If you get in the way, it will likely try to kill you.”

Roman hums, kicking at the bars and sending the werewolf inside into a mad frenzy. “Then I’ll snap its neck. You said nobody’s looking for him?”

“No.” Pryce tilts his head, regarding the creature. “No pack, human or otherwise. No family. It likely wouldn’t have survived long alone anyway.”

Roman nods like this means anything at all to him, and turns to pull his phone from his pocket, hovering over your name in his call log. “Show time, baby.”

*

The dirty patch of earth underneath Kilderry Bridge is aptly name. Not so much as wild grass grows in the fallow earth, and the shanty town of tents and makeshift shelters are bleached white as tombstones in the moonlight. You shiver as you shut off the engine and step out of the car. If there were a bear attacking people down here, there’d be noise, wouldn’t there? There’d be chaos. You feel a sinking sense of dread, realizing you’d ignored every single safety protocol you’d been taught in rushing down here into what was very likely a trap.

Then you hear it. A low, rough growl like the purr of a motorcycle. You turn slowly on your heel, knees buckling at the impossibly large wolf crouched just meters away. Where the fuck had it come from? How had you not heard it approaching?

You raise your hands slowly, palms up. “Okay,” you say softly. “I’m not gunna hurt you.” Absurd, to talk to this immense beast like it were a common housecat and not a monster responsible for the deaths of at least eighteen people. Though you suspected now, looking at its sharp canines and long claws, that the total is much, much higher.

The wolf leaps. You see it move through the air, see it get so much bigger as it blots out the moon above you, and then there’s a sound so loud you think your eardrums have shattered. The wolf yelps and rolls to the side, missing you completely. It staggers to its feet, massive paws thumping the earth as it turns, and there’s another sound like an explosion too close to your ears. You drop to the ground, covering your ears with your hands, and the wolf jerks in your direction before collapsing onto its side.

“You can get up now.”

You lift your head to find Roman Godfrey standing in front of you with a sleek, silver gun in his hand. And, oh. Gunfire. It was gunfire you’d heard. And you should know that. You’re a federal agent with training and even some field experience under your belt, and you should be the one holding the gun.

“You… killed it.”

Roman smirks, running a hand back through his hair. “It was gunna eat you, little red riding hood.”

You swallow thickly. “It… I mean, is that it?”

Roman quirks a brow. “You wanted it to be bigger? You wanted more monster for your-“ He’s cut off by the force of his body being thrown to the side as the wolf barrels into him, knocking him to the ground in a flail of fur and fangs.

“Roman!” But Roman has been buried under the hulking weight of the wolf, and it releases a snarl as it brings an enormous paw down against Roman’s face. You hear him scream, a wrenching, awful sound, and you scramble around to grab Roman’s gun. You don’t hesitate before pressing the muzzle to the side of the wolf’s head. It rolls one golden eye towards you, but it makes no move to attack as you squeeze the trigger and blow its brains out in a thin spray.

Roman shoves the deadweight of the wolf off himself, rolling onto his side and coughing air back into his lungs. You drop to his side, reaching to check his pulse even though you can see he’s clearly, vocally alive. But it’s process to check, so you do. Your fingers come away slick with blood.

“Roman, you’re bleeding.” You squeak.

Roman grins, blood staining his teeth. “Tis but a scratch.”

A bubble of hysteria surfaces as a high-pitched giggle, and you reach a shaking hand to cup his jaw and turn his head to the side. The gash marring the flesh of his throat is deep and long, weeping a sickly dark sludge that you know cannot be good. Roman’s face is ashen, dark circles under his eyes and a sheen of sweat on his brow. “We need to get you to a hospital.”

Roman shakes his head, wincing at the stretch of his ruined flesh. “Take me home. I’ll be fine… at home.”

“I should take you to the hospital,” you say again, fingers fluttering uselessly over the wound.

Roman’s hand wraps around your wrist, pulling your hand up and pressing his mouth to your palm. You feel the words he whispers against your skin and a shiver runs down your spine. “Take me home.”

*

Roman Godfrey lives in a mansion. You should have known that, obviously, but you’d always pictured him living in an enormous monstrosity of chrome and glass, like a bond villain. Like his office at the White Tower. But the mansion is old and warm, lavishly furnished with tapestries and drapes and oil paintings you’re sure are worth a fortune. It isn’t very Roman, but you don’t question it as he leans against you, his breath hot against the side of your neck as he gasps through the pain. “My room is… up there.”

You look up at the winding staircase with dread. “I can’t carry you, Godfrey.”

Roman huffs a laugh, tugging you past the staircase. “We have an elevator.”

Right, of course he does. Roman eases himself into the small cage, reaching a hand out for you. You feel your stomach flip with anxiety at the thought of being closed up in a little box with him, but his eyes are closing and there’s blood and dirt caked on the palm he holds out and he looks like that because of you, because he saved your life. So you take his hand and wrap an arm around his waist as he pushes a button and the elevator creaks to life.

Roman’s bedroom is a reflection of the rest of the house, with touches of Roman if you knew what to look for. A snake wrapped around a cross is painted on his door, and you raise an eyebrow at the motif. “Band logo.” He says, and you nod like you believe him even though you can’t imagine a scenario where Roman listens to death metal or whatever the fuck other band would have a logo like that.

There’s a bar in the center of the room, the top littered with expensive looking liquor bottles, and Roman makes his way there first, pouring himself three fingers of whiskey and knocking it back with a satisfied hiss.

“You got a first aid kit?”

Roman nods, pointing towards an adjoining room. “Bathroom cabinet.”

You cross the room and open onto a bathroom that’s bigger than your entire motel room. There’s a row of cabinets, and you find the first aid kit in the third one. You head back to his room, tossing it onto the bed before grabbing one of the glasses from the bar and returning to the bathroom to fill it with warm water.

When you return Roman is sitting on the bed. Well, he’s trying to. His back is pressed to the headboard, head thrown back to expose the still-leaking tear on his neck, and you swallow against a bubble of panic at just how out of your depth you are here. You’d had basic first air training at the Academy, and you knew to shove a tampon in a bullet wound, but this was different. You could see muscle and the faint, white shock of bone through the blood. This was different. “Shit, Roman.” You sink onto the mattress beside him, taking up a pillow and tugging it out of its silk case to soak the fabric in the cup of water.

“You gunna patch me up, agent?”

You shush him, pressing the soaked silk to his neck, and Roman groans. “I don’t have a fucking clue what I’m doing.”

Roman laughs then, the sound harsh and grating. “That’s reassuring.”

You remove the cloth and soak it again, the water turning murky with his blood. “I can still take you to the hospital.”

“No hospitals,” Roman mutters. You press the fabric against his neck and drag down just a little, clearing the cake of mud from the ragged edges of the scratch, and Roman whimpers. His hand drops to your thigh, fingers tightening against your flesh as he wriggles underneath you. “Where’d you learn your bedside manner, GITMO?”

You ignore him, leaning closer to inspect the fresh damage revealed as the dirt and blood is washed from his skin. “It isn’t as bad as I thought.”

Roman’s eyes roll, his fingers dragging up the inside of your leg, tracing the seam of your jeans. “Feels worse.”

You nod, dunking the silk in the water for a final time before squeezing the water over his neck to wash the last of the blood away. Roman gasps at the flooding of cooled water soaking into his shirt. “Don’t be a baby.”

He huffs, prodding the tips of his fingers against your clothed core. “Don’t you wanna help me feel better?”

He juts his bottom lip out childishly, and you roll your eyes. But your clit throbs at the thought of his long, thick fingers pushing inside of you, and you shift until his palm is pressed firmly against you. “Is it just this?” You ask, scanning over his clothed torso. “It didn’t… get you anywhere else?”

Roman shifts too, hips rolling to flash the hardening bulge in his pants. “You wanna examine the patient?”

It’s pretty privilege. Roman Godfrey doesn’t know how to act right or how to talk like a person, and yet your underwear is soaked through with arousal because he’s so goddamn pretty. His full lips quirk up into a smirk as his bicep flexes under the strain of grinding the heel of his palm against you, and his cheesy lines shouldn’t be working. But he’s so goddamn pretty that they are.

“Shut up.”

“Make me,” he teases, licking over his mouth. You lean in, brushing your lips against his as your fingers skitter down his chest and press against his erection, and Roman moans softly into your mouth.

“You sure you’re up to it?” There’s the mocking suggestion of a smile on your mouth as you pull away to watch him struggle into a seated position, and Roman feels the challenge like a bolt of adrenaline right to his cock.

It was always going to end here. Granted he’d assumed you’d be the one bleeding, but that didn’t matter much. Not with you underneath him, looking up through hooded eyes as your lips part around little gasps. Roman works a second finger into you, and your knees dig into his hips as you whimper.

“Please, Roman,” you moan, and Roman thinks your begging is the best sound he’s ever heard. He stretches his thumb up to rub at your clit, pistoning two fingers in and out of you faster, hard enough to rock you back and forth on his hand.

“I wanna taste you,” he mumbles, and you barely have time to register the shift before he’s splaying his free hand on your thigh to open you up. You feel his breath against your core, and then Roman’s thumb is replaced with his tongue as he licks a long stripe against you.

“Jesus fuck!” You almost shout, so immediately overwhelmed by the sensation of his mouth on you. The inside of his mouth is cooler than you’d expected it to be, and his tongue is almost rough against your sensitive, overstimulated clit, but your eyes roll back and your hips roll up anyway.

Roman moans, the vibration electric against you as he sucks your clit into his mouth and flicks his tongue lightly against it. Your hand drops to his head, lacing in his hair as you tug the strands. He looks up at you, the sight of his hungry eyes enough to send you over the edge as you cum hard against his face. Roman’s fingers fuck you through the high, curling against your most sensitive spot over and over again as he grinds his face against your soaked pussy.

Roman’s face is a mess when he finally pulls his fingers out of you and props himself up over you. You feel the hard throb of his cock pressed against you, and you can see the shine of your arousal glistening on his face. “Do you want me?”

You blink, taken aback by the question. With your cunt throbbing for him and your cum all over his face, he was asking if you want him? You reach a hand up to touch his face, rubbing your thumb over his swollen mouth. “You need me to say it?”

Roman’s eyes darken as he reaches down to line himself up with your entrance. “Guess not.” He pushes into you in one long thrust, bottoming out with a little shudder. “Fuck.”

You hum in agreement, your whole body thrumming with the sensation of being filled so completely. Roman’s cock is both thick and long, and whilst you’d assumed he was packing something considering his height and his obscene confidence, the sheer size of him steals your breath. Then he snaps his hips back and forward, fucking you open, and you let out a sound that might be a moan or a cry or some new blend of pain and lust that you’ve just invented and will be embarrassed about later.

“Too much?” Roman asks, his own voice breathless as he thrusts into you. He doesn’t slow down or ease up, so you don’t bother to answer the question.

“No.”

“Good,” he hums, dipping his head to press his lips to yours. He’s moved around so much the wound on his neck is weeping again, blood trickling down the smooth planes of his chest and dripping onto your tits. It looks phenomenal, you look phenomenal all covered in his blood like that, and Roman’s cock throbs against the tight compression of your walls. “Shit you’re tight.”

You squeeze hard around him, and Roman lets out a startled gasp. You lean up to peck his lips, the tensing of your stomach reflexively clenching your pussy even tighter, and Roman’s head drops. “I want to ride you.”

Roman’s head lifts again, a hopeful sort of hunger on his face. “What?”

“Lie down, Roman. I wanna ride you.”

Roman does not need to be told twice, but he’s glad to hear the words leave your lips again. He eases his cock out of you and rolls onto his back, shifting to get comfortable and licking over his mouth. His cock leaks where it curves against his stomach, and you rake your eyes appreciatively over him as you kneel either side of his hips and reach down to grip him around the base. “You know,” you whisper as you sink down onto his length. “I -ah,” you drop down, taking him completely, and Roman almost sobs at how fucking good it feels to be squeezed so tightly. His hands lift to your hips, pinning you to him so he can feel the pulsing press of your cervix against his sensitive head. “I thought.”

“Yeah?” Roman’s voice is strained as he finally releases you enough to let you move. You lift half off him and drop back down, impaling yourself on his full length once, twice, three times before leaning forward to press your hands into the mattress either side of his head. You begin to grind against him, tight, deep circles as you fuck yourself on his cock, and Roman is completely beside himself.

“I really thought it was you, Roman.”

Roman doesn’t bite back, he can’t with how tightly you’re gripping him and how good your tits look as you bounce on his cock. He just can’t.

“You were such a good suspect.” You groan, sucking his bottom lip into your mouth and nibbling on the plush pink flesh until he moans again. You release his lip and sit back, leveraging your weight onto your knees so you can lift up and drop down more harshly. “Textbook, actually.”

Roman hums, digging his fingers against your hips to help lift you as you ride him. “Sorry to disappoint you, agent.”

You shake your head, biting the corner of your own lip in a way that makes Roman want to flip you under him and bite clean through the meat of it.

“I’m glad it wasn’t. I’m so fucking glad. Because-“ you break off again, throwing your head back and exposing the unblemished column of your neck, and Roman’s cock twitches as his orgasm nears. “Because I wanted to fuck you the first time I saw you. And you know it-“

You reach down to cup his jaw, tilting his head to the side so you can examine the jagged claw marks on his neck. “Knowing that you’re not a fucking murderer? Shit.” You shake your head, releasing his jaw and dropping to kiss him, your hips rocking back and forth against him again. Roman decides he likes this position best of all, because maybe he can’t see your tits bouncing but he can feel the silky drag of your nipples against his chest and your pretty, flushed face is right fucking there. “So thank you, I guess.”

Roman swallows thickly, pinning your hips down so he can fuck up into you at the pace he needs to get off. “You’re thanking me?”

You nod, nuzzling against the unbroken side of his neck before sucking a piece of Roman’s flesh into your mouth and biting down. Roman cums then, sobbing your name as he shoots his load deep inside you, and you squeeze rhythmically to milk every last drop of it out of him as he jerks his hips up.

He pulls out and presses his face between your breasts, and you reach up to cradle his head against you. “You’re weird, Roman. You’re really weird.”

Roman hums against your skin, lips parting to lick at the sweat pooling between your breasts.

“But you’re not a murderer. You’re just a man.”

Roman’s mouth curls into a smile against your skin, and you shiver as his tongue licks up over the swell of your breast and he takes a nipple in his mouth. You’re met with his sharp green eyes again, sparkling with a dark amusement you don’t understand.

He releases you with a wet pop. “You don’t have to worry anymore, sweetheart.” He coos. “I killed the monster for you.”

He rolls to the side and closes his eyes, though his hand wanders across your stomach to rest there, a possessive weight against your skin. You listen as Roman’s breathing evens out, though it’s a long, long time before your eyes close. The last thought you have, the last unsettling, gut churning thought is a question. What the fuck was Roman Godfrey doing in the barrens tonight?

*

You wake to a crack of light like a laser beam drilling into your skull through your eye socket, and wince as you roll to the side. The breath leaks out of you like a deflating balloon at the sight of him lying beside you. In sleep, Roman Godfrey is a vision. He really is. No mocking smirk on his mouth, no unsettling, unearthly intensity in his eyes when they’re closed. His face is smooth and cherubic in sleep, the tiniest frown creasing between his brows and his hair a mess of loose, short waves against the silk of his pillow. Your eyes drop to the ugly, jagged scratch running from the corner of his jaw down his neck, and you swallow thickly at the memory of the blood and the violence and the terror of the previous night. Your fingers reach to brush against the puffy, swollen flesh bracketing the wound and Roman moans softly. The sound sends a bolt of heat through you, your clit throbbing to life at the memory of what happened after. Of Roman’s lips on yours, his tongue lapping against you. The hot, heavy weight of his cock and the stretch of it pushing inside you. You shake your head, slipping from the bed and scrambling on the floor for your jeans. A mistake. Last night had been a mistake, fueled by adrenaline and relief and gratitude. You’d been caught up in the moment, that’s all. It wouldn’t happen again. It couldn’t happen again. You tug your jeans up and button them, locating your bra and shoving it into your back pocket as you reach for your shirt. You’re scrambling to scoop up your sneakers, already reaching for his bedroom door when you see it.

The shoes drop from your hand, the doorhandle forgotten as you reach instead for the necklace resting on top of his dresser. You’d missed it last night, too caught up in blood and heat and the drowning pools of his eyes, but the silver chain and the fat, unusual pendant hanging from it is unmistakable now. You straighten, shaking fingers running carefully over the shiny face of the stone.

“G’morning,” his voice is a rumble of thick sleep, and you jump as warm arms snake around your waist and pull you against the hard muscles of his bare chest. “Sneaking out?”

You shake your head, trying to turn in his arms, but Roman is a solid weight against you. “Needed the bathroom.”

Roman hums, fingers splaying wide over your stomach before pressing harshly into your skin. “Yeah?”

Your breath stutters out of you at the pressure of his palm against your bladder. “Fuck, Roman.”

He chuckles, lips dipping to press a kiss to the top of your head before he releases the pressure on your stomach. “You wanted a souvenir?”

You shrug against him, flicking your fingers dismissively. “Just being nosey.”

“You jealous?” He coos, reaching around you to hook the delicate chain over his fingers. “You worried it’s for some other girl?”

“No.” You whisper, but your voice is gone and Roman is unconvinced. He releases your waist completely and pries the tiny clasp open, brushing your hair to the side as he fixes the necklace around your throat. The pendant drops to your sternum, and Roman’s hands slip down your body to rest on your hips as he rolls his own against your ass with a sigh.

“Do you like it?” He mumbles, lips caressing against the soft pulse point where your throat meets your collarbone.

You struggle to control your breathing as Roman’s fingers caress against your waist, slipping up under the fabric of your shirt to graze against your stomach. “I… it’s lovely. Where did you get it?”

Roman hears the stutter of your pulse, and his fingers tighten on your flesh. “It suits you. Matches your eyes.”

You hum, forcing your body to relax against him even as your brain is screaming at you to get out, to run! Run! Run! Because you’d seen that necklace before. Around the neck of a pretty teenager in a polaroid that had sat on your nightstand ever since her little sister wrote you a letter. “I should really… get going. The Sheriff will be expecting me to come in this morning.”

Roman hums against your flesh, the hand on your stomach snaking round to press into the small of your back as he bends you deliberately over the dresser. “We’ve got time.”

“Roman,” you huff as he grinds his stiff cock slowly against your ass. “Look, last night was great, I mean it really was.”

Roman grunts in response, hooking his fingers into the waistband of your jeans and yanking them down to your knees. “I can’t figure it out.” He says, pressing his palm against your hip as he nudges the head of his cock against your ass.

“Can’t-“ you suck in a shaky breath at the press of his throbbing tip against your entrance. “Figure what out?”

He pushes into you then, slowly, the stretch a pleasant burn over the residual soreness from how roughly he’d fucked you last night. “What changed. What I missed.”

You swallow, eyes shuttering closed as Roman pulls half out and pushes back in, the tight, hot grip of your pussy making him weak at the knees. “I don’t know what you mean.”

Roman hums, fingers digging into your hips as he pulls all the way out and thrusts back in with a vicious jab. His hand splays over your back, pressing you harder against the wood, and the necklace scrapes against the surface.

You watch it happen in real time, as his eyes drop to the offending silver chain. “Oh.”

“Roman,” you whisper, trying desperately to meet his eyes in the mirror even as you’re dragged back and forth harder and harder on his cock. You’re so full at this angle, the thick head of his cock pressing into your g-spot over and over with each rough thrust, and the fluttering of fear in your stomach mixes with the heat of arousal into a confusing, irresistible cocktail.

“How did you know?” He asks, breath harsh with exertion, eyes still fixed on the necklace. “How did you know it was hers?”

You squeeze hard around him and he stops moving, buried in you to the hilt. You can feel the living pulse of him right up against your cervix, and you shift your hips against the sharp edge of his dresser. “Her sister wrote me a letter,” you whisper, tears filling your eyes from the revelation and the overstimulation and the terror. “There was a picture of Lisa wearing it.”

Roman’s eyes close even as a beatific smile graces his lovely face. “Kid fucking sister.” He groans, cock pulsing and thickening inside you. He almost doesn’t want to come, even though your pussy feels like the closest thing to nirvana and he knows it’s gunna be one hell of a load. But he also knows that when he’s done this is over, that now you know what you know he can’t let you leave the house alive. “Why couldn’t you just leave it alone?” He asks softly, leaning forward to hook an arm around your sternum and drag you up against him. Your back presses flush to the soft heat of his chest, and you whimper at the sensation of this new angle as Roman pushes your hips away and pulls you back, fucking you on his cock. “I gave you the perfect monster.”

Tears spill over now, rolling down your cheeks, and Roman pulls you closer so he can lick the wet salt from your skin. “Please, Roman.” You whisper.

“It’s too late,” he sighs, free hand dropping between your legs to circle your clit. “I really tried to get you out of this, sweetheart. Gave you the performance of a fuckin lifetime.”

You don’t bother to beg, or to tell him you’ll forget the whole thing if he just lets you go. It’s a lie neither one of you needs. “What do you do with the bodies?” You ask, because if it’s the last thing you get to do on this earth you’d like to go out knowing you got to the bottom of the whole gruesome affair.

Roman’s smile is sad, and then it isn’t. The corners of his mouth seem to split open as he parts his lips, jaw popping too wide on too many fucking teeth as he licks over the side of your neck. He leans in close again, the sharp point of his nose nuzzling at the corner of your jaw with a tenderness that has you quivering around his cock as his fingers work against your clit. Then you feel it; the hot, sharp agony of all those teeth sinking into your flesh and pulling you apart like you’re made of butter.

The blood burns your skin as it soaks down your front, sticking your shirt to your tits in a way that has Roman’s cock leaking heavily against your cervix as he continues to snap his cock into you. Your ass bounces off his pubic bone in just the right way, just like he knew it would, and Roman’s tongue pushes into the ruin of bites in your neck to lave at the pulse of your blood as he feeds from you. “God,” you whisper, and you’re almost annoyed at yourself for making that the last thing you ever say as Roman’s fingers work you over the edge.

You cum hard, clit pulsing through waves as his cock brutalises you and your legs give out. Roman lets you brace against the dresser, licking gore from the sides of his mouth as he refocuses on the in and out of his cock. He dribbles pink-tinged saliva onto your ass, working the bloody slick into your skin with his thumbs, and the moan that rumbles out of him is so indulgent it ripples right through you, too. “Shit,” he groans as his cock twitches one final time and he cums with more force than he ever has before. He bites down on his own tongue to stifle a scream, and the metal of his blood mixes with yours. Roman swallows this unholy sacrament greedily, hips still jerking lightly against you as you quiver and pulse around his sensitive cock.

He pulls out of you with a slow wince, even as your body tries to lock him inside you. You can’t really control your muscles, not with your head swimming and your legs dead weights underneath you. He wraps an arm around your stomach and pulls you close, bracing under your thighs and carrying you back to his bed with a careful gentleness that makes you sob. “I don’t feel good,” you whisper, shaking fingers reaching to brush over his cheeks like you’re searching for the splits in his face that hide the monster.

“I know,” he mumbles, hands rubbing over your thighs and lingering to brush through the slick mess spilling from inside you. “Not long now.”

You sob, head falling back against his pillows. Too heavy. And too tired. You’re too fucking tired. “Roman.”

He snuggles against you, pressing his lips to yours, then lower to your cheek, your jaw, the sore, bitten flesh of your throat. “I know,” he coos against your skin. “I know, I’m here.”

You close your eyes against fresh tears as his teeth part your flesh, the blood soaking to heat your chilled skin as he groans against you. His hands roam once more, groping at your tits as he drags you back against his chest.

Roman knows he’ll be sad to see you go, but what a fucking sendoff. You’re wet and warm and clinging to him, and even though you don’t say it, even though you’re too overwhelmed with all of him to admit how much you want it, Roman knows. He knows he’s going to keep you forever. That there are no losers in the little game you’d been playing since your arrival in Hemlock Grove. He presses his stiffening bulge against your ass and his hand dips lower, finding the swollen bud of your clit as blood fills his mouth and his cock and he feels your slowing heartrate pulse a rhythm that sounds like his name.

Your head snaps forward at the feeling of a dense clod of earth ricocheting off your skull. You blink through the blinding pain, not daring to turn your head for fear that the next clod would blind you. You swipe a hand over the back of your head, your fingers coming away wet and crimson. Rocks. There are rocks in the earth. Those bastards are trying to kill you this time.

“Here, little freak!” Someone shouts. You think you recognise the voice, the nasally, mean quality of it. Maxwell St James, which means-

“You think you can outrun us?” Theo Mitchell, and Zachary Benton will be right behind them. Max and his boys had been tormenting you for almost a year now. It had started with names hissed at you in the school corridors. Freak. Loser. Loner. You’d ignored them all, held your head high like your momma taught you and pretended not to hear. It’s not like they were the only ones who’d decided you were less-than, anyway. Since your arrival in Derry, a target had been painted on your back by the unmistakable quality of otherness that followed strangers in a small town.  

When the whispering hadn’t worked, the names had changed. Bitch. Cunt. Whore. An interesting development, considering you’d never even been kissed and nobody in Derry seemed open to changing that.

You’d ignored them still, kept your nose in a book and your head in the clouds. This had enraged Maxwell and his cronies, sent them spiralling into a feral tantrum that had resulted in your first ever broken bone. Because he’d split from the group, followed you home. He’d pinned you against a wall and bent your arm back so far the bones in your wrist had splintered. You hadn’t cried. Hadn’t made so much as a sound, but the moment he released your wrist you ran, and ran, and ran.

After that, the names changed again. Slut. Psycho. Murderer. Because a five year old girl on your street had disappeared, and the only thing new in Derry was you. Dumb, scared people don’t need much to put two and two together to get five. With this new branding, you’d become a pariah. A punching bag. A scapegoat for every shitty thing that happened in Derry. And a lot of shitty things happened in Derry.

Kids went missing all the time. All through the fall, disappearing from playgrounds and street corners. Snatched in the Barrens. Seen climbing into storm drains and then never seen again. You kept your wrist cradled to your body and your head down after that.

But the pain now radiating through your skull is something different. There’s blood pouring down your back, soaking into the fabric of your shirt, and you hear a voice that is yours and not yours whisper into your head. They are going to kill you. They’re going to kill you if you don’t get underground.

There’s a culvert up ahead, the bars buckled outward from years of rust and neglect, and you don’t let yourself think about it too much before you pull the bars apart. They give with a little creak, widening the gap just enough for you to squeeze through. You scramble inside, trying not to feel the soak of the sewer on your knees as you crawl into the rotten open maw.

“Where the fuck did she go?” Theo yells, stopping just inches from the bars.

“You lost her?” Maxwell hisses. You can hear the labored pants of his breathing, and you press your lips together to stifle a whimper.

“I think she went in there.” Theo says, tapping the rusted bar with his knuckles.

“We goin in after her, Max?” Zachary asks.

Max huffs. “No. If she’s gone in there she’s a good as dead. It’ll get her.”

You swallow thickly, a chill running down your spine.

“Yeah,” Theo chuckles darkly. “It’ll eat her right up.”

“Nasty little whore.” Zachary adds.

You listen to the retreating of their footsteps and feel your heartrate slow with every passing second.

“Nasty little whore,” the darkness whispers behind you.

You yelp, your heart leaping into your throat as you lurch towards the bars. You wrap your fingers around the rusted iron, yanking hard, but the give that had existed moments before is gone now. The iron holds as firm as if it were brand new, and you tug uselessly, desperately as the darkness closes in behind you.

“Nasty little whore,” it whispers again, the words a caress against the back of your neck. “Nasty little boys.” You feel phantom fingers in your hair, and you whimper. “Yesssss,” the darkness hisses, and the phantom touch solidifies, wrapping in your hair and pulling you back into the shadows.

You scream then, a high-pitched, awful sound ripping from your throat. Your mouth is filled with cotton, wriggling, thick fabric pressing against your tongue and down your throat, and you’re spun and pinned to the filthy sewer wall. The wound on your head jars against the brick, momentarily dazing you, and you blink up at the impossible figure of a seven-foot clown. You should be scared. You know that, as you look at Its inhuman yellow eyes and Its too-wide mouth. But your brain can’t catch up with what you’re seeing, and the fear doesn’t come.

“Clown.” You mumble.

The clown tilts Its head to the side. “Whore.”

You shake your head, the bloody pulp of your hair matting against the wall. “I’m not a whore.”

The clown grins, lips splitting into a grotesque mockery of a smile. “And I am not a clown.”

“You’re going to kill me.” The words come out a little muffled, like you’re listening to your own voice through water.

“I’m going to eat you.” It whispers, leaning close. You can smell it on Its breath – decay, death and the rust of blood.

“Alright, then.”

The clown blinks. “Alright, then,” It repeats. “Aren’t you scared?”

You hum, eyes drooping. You feel warm all over, and you barely notice the gloved hand slipping around your throat and tipping your head forward. You do feel the sharp, bright pain as It prods Its fingers against the wound on your skull. You cry out, and the clown does it again, dragging Its long finger against the break in your flesh. “Oho,” It chuckles. “Close to dead. No fun. Nasty little boys.”

“Maxwell St James,” you hiss between gritted teeth. “Theo Mitchell, Zachary Benton. The nasty little boys.” The fingers caressing your head wound drop away, and you lift your head to watch the clown suck the bloodstained tips into Its mouth.

“Names. Power in names.” It licks over his lips.

“They hate me.” You swallow, forcing yourself to meet Its unsettling stare. One of Its eyes seems to drift to the side, like It can’t remember It’s supposed to be pretending to be human, and you shiver. “If you’re still… hungry. After you kill me.”

The clown dips Its head, coming so close you can feel Its breath on your mouth. “Oho,” It says again, softly. “They don’t hate you. They fear you, little whore.”

Pennywise has never been so interested in a person before. The defiant set of your jaw, the scent of your fear. The way you look at It, right at It, even as you shake with fear. Drool spills openly from the corners of Its mouth, pooling on the floor between you. Oh, to taste. To savor. To devour all that delicious fear. But the names ring out, tasting all the sweeter for the vitriol with which you utter them. The only thing tastier than fear. The conscious act of hatred.

“I want them all dead.”

Pennywise tilts Its inhuman head to the side, face bobbing on a neck like an enormous grotesque spring. “Would you kill them? Reap them?”

You swallow, raking your eyes over every awful inch of It. “No. But I would bring them to you. Offer them to you.”

“If Pennywise lets you live,” It rasps.

“Pennywise.” You repeat the name, and the clown smiles. It likes the sound of it in your mouth. Likes the roll of the syllables on your tongue. “If you let me live, I’ll bring them to you. All of them. The boys. The others.”

“Others.” It hisses.

“As many as you’d like.” You say softly. And then you lift your hand, a calculated, stupid decision. Your palm makes contact with the side of the clown’s face, the powdery greasepaint masquerading as skin flaking off in your hand. You don’t wince, don’t pull away. And when the clown doesn’t immediately bite your hand off, you lift your other hand to mirror the first, holding Its face steady. “You are feared, and so am I. Let me help you give them something to really be scared of.”

Pennywise does not need help hunting Its prey. Never has, not in a million years. But there is something so appealing, something so other about you. Pennywise wants to see what it looks like, to have you serve It. To have a creature worship It, to offer sacrifice in reverence of Its power. “You will bring the children to me.” It whispers, turning Its head to lick a salty stripe from your palm. “And you will watch as I consume them.”

You swallow, feeling a strange heat kindling low in your stomach at the wet press of Its tongue. “You want me to watch?”

Pennywise hums, rising to Its full height and pulling easily out of your grasp. “You must, you must.” It says softly, bloodstained, gloved fingers caressing over your nose and lips in a careless gesture. “Pennywise will see your insides. See how deep the rot goes, little whore.”

*

The funny thing about boys who pick on girls and call them whores is that they’re usually all too willing to follow them down dark alleyways if they think they’re gunna get their cocks sucked. Zachary Benton breathes heavily at your back, his hand wandering down to brush against your ass as you lead him deeper into the crack between two buildings on main.

“You better not fucking tell anyone about this.” He spits, even as his fingers push up under your skirt to press your underwear into the crack of your ass.

“Our secret.” You lean against the wall, crooking a finger at him, and Zachary steps closer, tongue licking over his lips as he rakes his eyes down your body. The uniform of seduction – a tight, white tee-shirt and a little black skirt with knee-high socks. Disarming. Cute.

“Dirty little secret,” comes a hiss from the darkness, and Zachary spins in time to see the clown materialize from the shadows, stepping into the light with monstrous height and spindly arms like an enormous spider. One gloved hand, the cotton pristine and white, wraps around the boy’s throat. His eyes bulge before rolling towards you, like you might help. Like you might scream, or run, or do something other than standing there watching the clown as It opens a too-wide mouth on a thousand needle teeth and latches onto Zachary’s face with a meaty squelch.

“Oh,” you mumble, blinking through a fine mist of blood as the boys features disappear into the saw-toothed tunnel where the clown-face used to be. You didn’t expect to feel bad about it, but you certainly didn’t expect to feel good, either. But the rush of adrenaline spiking through your system manifests in a low, deep throbbing, your core pulsing as your clit swells, and you press your thighs together.  

Pennywise shoves the corpse of the boy into the darkness, squirrelling it away for later consumption as It turns Its attention to you. “How did he taste?” Your voice doesn’t shake, and Pennywise smiles a slow, lazy grin that’s too wide at the corners.

“Fear.” It says softly. “And more.”

You press your thighs together more firmly, squeezing your clit under the hard pressure. “More?”

Pennywise steps closer, too tall, movements jerky as It sinks low. Not kneeling, just… sinking. “He wanted you. Wanted to put his nasty little cock inside you.”

You feel blood heat your face, and Pennywise drops his wandering eyes to your skirt. “Wanted to push his way in. In there.”

You don’t know why you do it. Why your fingers curl around the hem of your skirt and lift it. Why you let the monster with a million teeth press Its face against the soaked front of your underwear and inhale. Why your clit throbs and you soak fresh arousal at the feeling of Its slippery, wet tongue lapping over the fabric.

Pennywise makes a sound, a low, rumbling creak from deep inside Its chest. “Another, little one. Bring me another one, and we will see how you taste.”

*

It isn’t lust that motivates you, obviously. Not lust for the strange entity with the clown face. It’s a desire for revenge, when you’re yanked from the school halls by your hair and dragged kicking into the bathroom. When your head is forced into a shit-stained toilet, and you choke and gag on the putrid water as Katherine Masters and Matilda Lowther hold you down, shrieking with laughter. “This is for Zacky, you little freak!” Sarah Clarkson, the ringleader of the bitchiest clique in school hisses into your ear as you lay on the porcelain, shivering and retching putrid water. “Everybody knows you killed him.” You don’t bother to correct her. You just stare, mapping their faces into your mind and adding their names to your list.

Pennywise likes the girls. There’s more fear. Sarah pisses herself, hot liquid running down the inside of her leg as Pennywise sucks her fingers into Its mouth and bites down. It drops her, legs folding like she’s made of rubber, and turns Its attention to you. “I can smell you,” It sings, blood oozing from Its parted lips. Sarah moves then, crawling forward with her remaining hand, nails splintering against the concrete as she tries to drag herself towards the exit. But there’s nobody around, it’s long past midnight in the parking garage and the people of Derry know better than to go poking around in the dark. Even if they don’t know that they know.

You lift your foot and stamp it down on her hand, sending her sprawling as she wails in anguish. “I am a freak,” you whisper, crunching the delicate bones of her fingers under the sole of your boot. “But I have a friend.”

Pennywise feels a strange, wriggling heat in Its core, and It bristles. “Friend.” It spits, wrapping a gloved hand in your hair and pushing you to your knees. You yelp as you’re forced onto your knees and then lower, belly pressed to the concrete beside the offering you’d brought It. “No friend.”

It rips your underwear aside, pushing two rough, cotton-clad fingers into you, and your spine arches at the awful sensation of it. Pennywise feels the rip, the tearing of something soft and fleshy inside you as It pushes deeper, and the warmth in Its core throbs. “Oho,” it chortles softly. “Oh, how you bend for Pennywise. How you…” It twists, stretching Its fingers wide, “Break.”

You can do little more than press your face against the floor to stifle a scream as It fucks you roughly on Its fingers. Your blood stains Its glove, and It scents the air low and close to you. “Please,” you gasp, sinking your teeth into your bottom lip  as it curls and twists and rips you open.

You meet Sarah’s eyes, the awful realization that your position is hardly better than hers. Pennywise might not kill you today, but It could. It could anytime. “All for Pennywise,” It purrs, dropping over you and pressing Its massless weight against your back. You feel the rough drag of Its tongue over the side of your face, and you clench hard around Its fingers. “Nasty little whore,” It coos. Your body shudders through the mimic of an orgasm, clit pulsing without any real pleasure as the rough stimulation inside you comes to an end.

You drop boneless to the ground, cheek pressed to the cool concrete as Pennywise climbs over you and sets upon Its prey, breaking the girl into pieces as she screams and screams.

You bring It another girl next. Your insides hurt, and there’s blood when you pee. You don’t want to upset It again, if that’s what you did. So you bring It another girl, luring her into the sewer directly on the promise of a clue.

“You sure you saw her down here?” Katherine asks, eyes scanning the filthy walls.

“For sure. She looked… panicked. Like maybe she fell in? I don’t know. She ran from me, but she’ll probably come out for you.”

“Sarah?” Katherine calls, her voice betraying her fear. “You down here, honey?”

Her voice comes from somewhere deep, deep in the shadows. “Oh, honey.”

You can hear the edge to it, the edge of It, and you shiver as you follow the girl into the darkness.

“You’ve been gone days,” Katherine says. “Can’t believe this freak found you after-“

You shove her. You watch your hands do it, watch her go sprawling in the filthy water. She thrashes, turning over to stare at you with wide, disbelieving eyes. “What the fuck are you doing? Sarah she’s nuts, she-“

You drop to your knees, straddling the girl’s hips as you push her down. Her face disappears beneath the murky water, air bubbling up with a gurgle as she struggles against your hold.

“Oho,” Sarah’s voice slips out of the gloom. “Oho, little one has found her teeth.”

You don’t spare It a glance as you hold her down. “Can I?”

Pennywise giggles, a sound like tinkling bells. “No, no. Mine to take. All for Pennywise.”

You release your hands, climbing off the girl as her face resurfaces with a hacking gasp. “You absolute cunt!” She shrieks. “We’ll fucking kill you for this, you-“

Katherine cuts herself off, eyes travelling up the impossibly long legs in the silvery clown pants beside you. “Oh God. Oh my God.”

Pennywise leers, reaching for her. “Not your God. Hers.”

Katherine doesn’t scream. She doesn’t get the chance to scream, as Pennywise opens Its mouth wide, wide, wider. His face parts, rows of teeth shuddering open to reveal a flickering mass of light within. You’d never imagined that the inside of this creature could be beautiful, but it is. The girl goes limp in Its arms, eyes glazing over like a corpse, and Pennywise drops her to the ground like a ragdoll.

“She’s dead?”

Its face snaps back into place as It turns to look at you. “No,” Pennywise hums. “She is for later.”

You frown, swallowing around a sudden unpleasant churning of nausea. “You’re not hungry?”

Pennywise chuckles, the sound low and full of gravel. “Oho. Pennywise is hungry. Oh, yes.”

It reaches for you and you go, letting yourself be lifted easily into Its arms as It pins your back to the slick wall and tears your jeans and panties from you with a flick of Its wrist. You gasp at the dank, frigid air against your core, the sound morphing into a sob as Pennywise licks a long, slow trail from your hole up to your clit and back down again. “Oh, God.”

Pennywise laughs lightly, the sound vibrating against you as It grazes Its teeth against your clit. “Yesssss, little one. Your God. You give it to Pennywise. You give everything.”

You groan, legs shaking as It devours your core. You keep tensing, expecting the bite, the end of this game, but it doesn’t come. Pennywise eats you messily, spit sliding down your thighs and dripping into the stagnant sewer water where Katherine’s body still floats. “I’ll bring you more,” you whine. “Every last one of them.”

Pennywise dips lower, Its tongue thickening to push into your hole and writhe against the still-healing contusions on your cervix. Your clit throbs against Its nose, the sharp, red stained nub of it grazing deliciously against the sensitive bud, and your eyes roll back. “So many names. So many pieces of… shitttt,” you whine as you cum, thighs quivering around Its face as your hands fly to the tufty orange hair on Its head and tug.

Pennywise likes that, the taste of you filling Its mouth whilst your fingers pry a tiny jolt of sensation from It. Not enough to hurt, no. Impossible that you’d even consider it. But to be rough, to be possessive. That was worship. That was devotion. Pennywise laps every last drop of your release from you, tongue curling around your clit and squeezing hard enough to make you cry out before It withdraws, lowering you to the ground as gently as It can.

“You want to hurt them.” It says quietly, yellow eyes scanning you as you struggle for breath.

“Yes.”

Pennywise leans in, lips brushing yours in an almost-kiss. “Bring me a boy. Bring me one of the nasty little boys.”

Theo is smarter than Zachary had been. He isn’t interested in fucking you, and somebody had apparently seen you leading Katherine out to the barrens, so he’s not going to follow you anywhere. You have to follow him, stalking him through the streets of Derry until he finally turns to cut through the park. That’s where you get to him, throwing a rock hard enough to knock him to the ground and then hitting him again, smashing the stone into his temple until his eyes unfocus and close.

You can’t drag him out of sight, he’s got a hundred pounds on you at least. So you dip your fingers into the blood soaking his hair, smearing it into the earth and praying It will sense you.

“Bad night to be out,” a man says from behind you, and you shriek as you scuttle away from the body.

“He fell.”

The man chuckles, the sound disconcertingly familiar as he steps forward. He is It, and he is not. There’s no makeup painting his face, but the features remain the same. Too wide mouth, wandering eyes. Sharp, otherworldly features and a forehead that extends too far.

“You couldn’t wait? Eager, greedy little thing.” There’s a strange twang to his voice, an accent you can’t place.

“Who are you?”

The man cocks his head to the side.

“I mean, I know. But whose face is that?”

The man clucks his tongue. “Sharp. Smart. I stole this face a long time ago. Doesn’t matter. I can change it.”

“Don’t,” you say quickly, too quickly. “Or… I mean, I’d prefer you. The clown.”

The man’s grin splits, and he lifts his hands to claw at his face. The flesh comes away in ribbons, revealing cracked greasepaint beneath.

The man with the clown peeking through his face hauls Theo’s unconscious body over his shoulder like he weighs nothing, and your clit throbs. You walk in awkward silence, unsure where the boundaries are with this new man-version of It. You can’t possibly be expected to chat, the very notion sends a bubble of hysterical laughter to pool in your throat.

You’re saved from the dilemma the moment you step into the mouth of the sewer, and the edges of the man seem to shimmer and shake before refocusing. Pennywise is Pennywise again, taller and larger and wrapped in silver silk as he drops Theo to the ground.

“You hate him.” Pennywise whispers, lifting a gloved hand to your chin and pinching, forcing your face down to look at the body of the boy. “If we give him to you… how will you repay us? Will you kneel for Pennywise? Will you open?” You swallow thickly, reaching down to grab Theo's arm and lifting it as high as you can. “I would offer him to you. All to you.”

Pennywise feels a thrill run through Its very being. The deadlights at the center of Its universe shudder with the declaration as It dips Its head and bites clean through the boy’s fingers.

His eyes fly open, mouth opening around a scream as he thrashes in the water.

You’re not strong enough to hold him down, but Pennywise stamps harshly on his spine and there’s a gruesome pop before his limbs go slack again. Paralysed, but very much still alive. Oh, very much so. He screams, eyes wild as they fix on you.

“Please! Please, I didn’t mean it! Don’t let that thing kill me. Don’t let It-“

“I won’t,” you coo, crouching down to cup his face and rub the pads of your thumbs over his cheeks. “It won’t kill you.”

Theo moans, the pulsing heat in the stumps of his fingers burning down his arm. “No,” you coo. “It won’t kill you. It will eat you.”

The boy’s eyes go wide as you drop his face and drag his other hand up to the clown’s lips.

“You want to kill him.” Pennywise says softly, tongue licking out at the sweaty, shaking fingers against Its mouth.

“He’s yours. They’re all yours. All for you.” You mumble.

Pennywise makes a low, rumbling sound deep within Its core, and your clit throbs in response. “You would feed this boy to Pennywise. You would sacrifice every bite.”

You don’t even have to think about it. You press the fingers firmly against Its mouth, and Pennywise bites down. His yellow eyes fix on you, even as blood splashes down onto your hand and Theo screams. “Every bite of him. Every bit of me.”

The hunger, the other hunger seizes Pennywise with such a frenzy It forgets all about the dying boy. It stamps over the body and seizes you, pressing you back to the wall and pushing gloved fingers up under your skirt to graze through your slick core. “Of you.” Pennywise whispers, tongue unfurling to lick over the seam of your lips. “Oh yes. All for Pennywise.”

Being taken by Pennywise isn’t really like fucking. It doesn’t have a little pink cock, a soft length with downy hair and a salty tip. You know it could, if It wanted to. If you wanted It to. But you don’t. You want It exactly as It is. The thick, pale appendages wrap around your thighs, parting them as Its hands pin your wrists above your head. “I can smell you.” It whispers. “I can taste your fear.”

You sob, sucking in a shaking breath as It pushes inside of you. The thick, pulsing length wriggles like a living thing, caressing against your walls and finding the sensitive spongey flesh that makes your eyes roll back. “Take it. You can…” you whimper. “You can take it all.”

Pennywise chuckles, Its fingers tightening on your wrists as It leans forward to press Its painted mouth against yours. “Taste them.” It whispers against your lips. “Theo Mitchell. Nasty little boy. Taste, precious one.”

You lick your tongue against Its mouth, the iron and rust of blood coating your lips with gore, and you clench hard around the intrusion of It thrusting in and out of you.

“Oho,” Pennywise chortles. “Oho, you like it. Good. Good.”

You moan, reaching out to thumb over Its jaw, and Pennywise stills for a moment.

You cry out, hand snapping back and reaching for your own wrists where It has pinned them over your head as blood runs down your arms. Pennywise withdraws the claws that have punctured your wrist, leaning up to lap the blood from your skin. “Too close,” you whisper, a reminder to yourself more than It. Pennywise couldn’t reciprocate affection, and It would punish you for reminding It so brazenly. You clench around It again in apology, rocking back and forth against the thrusting appendage pummelling against your insides.

“More?” It whispers, slipping a thin tentacle from the bell-sleeve at Its wrist to curl around your thigh, wriggling into you beside the thicker appendage. Your eyes roll back as your mouth opens on a silent scream, and Pennywise leans forward to lick Its tongue into your mouth and taste your blissed-out agony. Deeper, deeper. It bends over you, hinging at the waist and burrowing deeper into your mouth, nipping at the meat of your cheeks until your blood leaks into Its mouth and runs down your throat. Your spine curves, curves, creaks and curves as It presses you into a new shape, a shape just for It. The hand wrapped around your throat tightens, pinning you in place as It pushes Its tongue into your throat and further, further, to lick the electric thrum of your lungs. Bliss, bliss. Agony and bliss. Pennywise has never felt, It has never experienced a closeness like it. The urge to consume is replaced with the urge to combine, to become. To draw you inside of Itself, to keep you…

There is a snap. Pennywise knows the sound, has heard the sound pounding through Its fibres like a mimicry of a heartbeat since Its first taste of flesh and sinew and bone. The sharp, clear crack of bone breaking under pressure. It releases you, long fingers unfurling around the column of your neck to reveal the mottling of bruises spreading beneath your flesh like spiderwebs.

“No.” It utters the single syllable into the darkness. You’re limp and lifeless, a protrusion of bone jutting luridly against your throat. “No, no.”

It shakes you, and you rattle back and forth, that displaced bone poking into the meat of you and sliding free. Pennywise caresses the jagged edge with a finger, pushing it lightly until it buckles and slips back into your skin. “Pennywise doesn’t want to play now.”

Its voice dips an octave, the underlying growl of the Otherness weaving into Its words. “Enough, enough. Don’t make me punish you. Don’t make me bite.”

This should do it. You should open your eyes. Should pout your mouth at It, lick over the red of your lips and tell It you’re sorry. Show It you’re sorry, spreading your thighs to let It feast on you. But you don’t move. Not so much as a tremor.

“Come back, little one.” It murmurs, stained, gloved fingers brushing over your unseeing eyes. “Come back to Pennywise.”

Your eyes roll when your head is tipped forward, but you don’t look. You don’t see. And Pennywise tries to go back. Tries to slip from this place to that, from now to then. It knows that the fabric of time works differently for It than it does for you, but It calls to you anyway. Pennywise drops to Its knees, the silk of Its pants soaking in the filth of the low basin as It wraps an arm around your shoulders. Your head lolls back, loose as a ragdoll, but It feels no sense of pleasure in the pliancy of your body. You are gone. Your light is gone.

And perhaps there is no back, but It can keep you anyway. Lifted in Its lights, cradled above the rest. And when It emerges from the storm drain to take, it wears your face. Not your whole face, but your eyes or the soft line of your jaw or the mocking curve of your smirk. Just enough to keep your face in their minds, to keep your name whispered in the ghost stories around campfires each night as the teens of Derry gather to drink and fuck and pretend they’re not being hunted. But they are, oh they are.

Peter. James. Michael. Anna. Susie. Matilda. Maxwell, Maxwell, Maxwell. You whisper these names into Its head even now, even when you’re little more than bones resting in the bottom of Its nest. The cycle is almost over, it’s almost time to curl back into Its nest and hold the bones of your ribs close as It sleeps. But Pennywise will not go until It has taken every name on your list. It is the closest thing to devotion that It is capable of.

There’s a stack of dishes in the kitchen sink, and Bill is pretty sure the bottom layer is growing new lifeforms. He rubs a hand against the back of his head, a blush creeping up the sides of his neck as he watches you scan over the apartment.

“It’s not always like this, I-“

“I get it.” You cut across him, offering him a smile you hope is reassuring. It seems to work, a little of the tension bleeds out of the tall man standing in front of you. You’d assessed the situation within two minutes of your arrival. His shirt is rumpled, a fraying hole where a button’s missing, hanging open against his collar where the skin is stretched too tightly over bone. There are dark circles under his eyes, swollen puffy bruises making his big green eyes appear sunken. Like he isn’t sleeping, or eating, or… taking care of anything, really.

The apartment is just further proof of it, and you fight the urge to wrinkle your nose at the rotting dishes, the piles of trash and the never-ending mountains of dirty laundry covering every available surface. “Could I meet the girls?”

The ghost of a smile passes over his face. “Yes. The girls, absolutely. They’re excited to see you. You know, having a woman around again.”

You nod, following him down the hall to a bedroom with pink flower stickers all over the door. He knocks twice before opening, an endearingly polite gesture considering his daughters are three and five. “You guys ready to meet your new babysitter?”

“We’re not babies.” The older girl grumbles, pulling herself up against an enormous doll house and holding out her hand. “I’m Jess.”

“A pleasure to meet you.” You dip into a curtsey, and the girl giggles.

“And that’s Sam.”

You curtsey again, lower and grander, and Sam blushes.

“She’s going to be taking care of you whilst daddy’s at work, okay?” Bill says, his tone a million times lighter when he’s talking to the kids.

“Okay, daddy.” Jess says.

“Okay. Back to playing, now.” Bill ruffles her hair, and you follow him into the main lounge area.

“They’re great.”

Bill grins. “I know. They’re… the reason I’m getting through it. I have to be okay for them.”

You swallow, eyes travelling around the wreck of the apartment again. “You’d going good, Mr Skarsgård.”

Bill winces. “That sounds… call me Bill. Please.”

You smile. “Alright, Bill.”

“I’ll… get this place cleaned up, before you start. I can… I’ll get it sorted.”

He picks up a little pink dress that’s so caked in spaghetti sauce it practically crackles in his hand, and winces again.

“Bill.”

“Yeah.”

“I can start right now if you want.”

Bill’s eyes snap to you. “I couldn’t ask you to…”

“I can wash dishes. I can do laundry. You should let me.”

Bill swallows thickly. “I’m not paying you to clean.”

“You’re paying me to help. Let. Me.”

A pretty pink flush stains his cheeks. “It’s not usually like this.”

“Go play with the girls. I’ll get this place cleaned up, and I’ll figure something out for dinner. Okay?”

He purses his lips, eyes flitting over the chaos before fixing on you. “You’re sure?” His voice is soft, eyes searching yours.

“Yes, Bill. Go. I got this.”

Bill feels like the world’s biggest asshole as he heads back to his daughters’ room. He can hear the clattering of plates in the kitchen, and he winces. Embarrassing. Embarrassing. He should have hired a cleaning crew before he called you. He should have moved to a new apartment and burned this one to the ground. But he hadn’t expected you to be so… you. So smart, so articulate, so instantly, magnetically likeable. He hadn’t expected you to be so fucking pretty. And now you were washing mold from his dishes and handling his dirty boxers and he couldn’t be more mortified, actually.

It isn’t so hard once you get started. You bundle as much laundry as you can into sacks and haul them down to the laundry room in the basement, filling three washers at once and setting a timer on your phone before jogging back up to the apartment to start on the dishes. It’s almost therapeutic, watching the stacked pile go from dirty to clean, from chaotic to gleaming and organized. You wash and dry in batches, figuring out where things are supposed to go. You grimace at the state of the counters underneath, coating them with cleaning spray and leaving them to soak as you run down to switch the laundry into the dryers and start a second batch.

By five you’re sweaty and exhausted, but the apartment shines. The laundry is folded into piles, ready to go away in the drawers, and there’s pasta bubbling away on the stove.

You knock on the girls’ bedroom door, and Bill opens it. He’s wearing a full face of terrible, clownish makeup, and there’s a diamante crown shoved roughly into his hair. “Don’t.”

You stifle a laugh. “You look beautiful, ma’am.”

Bill rolls his eyes, reaching up to untangle the tiara from his hair. “Jess is going to be a makeup artist.”

You smirk, eying the smudgy red shadow sweeping up into his eyebrows. “She’ll be booked solid.”

Bill grins, his own eyes catching on something in your hair. He lifts his hand without thinking, plucking a little tuft of lint from your hair with gentle fingers. “Laundry?”

You swallow, taking an unconscious step back. “All done. It’s all done, actually.”

Bill shakes his head. “You can’t have possibly…” He steps out, heart clenching painfully in his chest at his clean, organized apartment. “You’re a miracle worker.”

You scoff, waving your hand in the air. “It was no big deal, really. And it’s just pasta for dinner. I think you might need to go grocery shopping.”

“I usually get a… someone does that. I mean, I assume someone does. There was always… just food in there.” He rubs his thumb over his jaw. “I probably sound pathetic.”

You shake your head. “Not at all. You sound like a guy whose having to figure it all out a little too late. That’s all.”

“Yeah.” Bill chuckles humorlessly. “Like I said. Pathetic.”

*

Bill’s watching the clock in his office. It’s only 3.30, a full two hours before his day ends, but he’s been glancing at the clock every few minutes since 3PM anyway. Because the girls have finished school, and that means you’re probably walking them home right now. Slowly, because Sam insists she’s too old for the pram now even though a snail could outpace her.

Bill had apologized to you the first time, when you mentioned it had taken an hour to walk half a mile home. But you’d grinned, glancing at his girls with open affection. “It was fun. You miss stuff when you walk too fast, don’t you?”

Bill had just blinked at you, because how was it possible that a babysitter he’d found in the classifieds could be this perfect? Bill sighs, shaking his head and forcing his eyes back to his computer. Emails, meeting requests, blah, blah, blah. His phone chimes, and he almost drops it in his haste to open the message from you.

Hey daddy, we’re making cupcakes! Hope work is good!

He opens the attachment, a smile stretching across his face at the batter-coated grins of his children and the smile on your face as you hold the camera up. Bill’s stomach flips over.

“Fuck it.” He mutters, hitting the power button on his computer. Work could wait, just this once.

You hear the sound of the door opening, and hand the piping bag to Jess as you step out into the hall. “Bill? You’re home early.”

“Oh. Uh, there was a power issue. Office closed.”

“Oh, hopefully nothing serious. You’re in time to take over with frosting, if you want.”

“Daddy’s too messy!” Jess calls from the kitchen.

“She’s right.” Bill shrugs. “No eye for detail.”

“Well, I could stay just to finish the cupcakes. Then I’ll get out of your hair, promise.”

Bill wants to tell you to stay as long as you like, to stay longer than that. But he doesn’t. He nods, offering you a shrug. “I think the girls would like it if you did.”

Bill sits at the kitchen island and watches, his stomach knotting and unknotting with a nauseating mix of longing and sadness as he watches you. You press a tiny dollop of frosting to Sam’s nose, and she giggles before smearing your cheek with it.

“You little beast!” You squeal, wiping at your face. “Daddy, aren’t you going to do something?”

Bill raises his hands in surrender. “Hey, I’m not messing with her! Don’t wanna end up with frosting on my face too, you know.”

You shake your head, handing the girls a bag of sprinkles. “Okay ladies, go crazy with this. I want so many sprinkles on those cupcakes that they’ll turn your tongues rainbow.”

You step away as the girls dissolve into hysterics, scattering colorful strands of sugar all over the counter. “I’ll clean it up before I go.”

Bill turns to look at you, biting the corner of his lip into his mouth. “No need.”

“I insist.”

He huffs a laugh, and you turn away from the girls. There’s still a smudge of frosting on your cheek, and Bill reaches towards you reflexively. “You’ve got a- just-“

His thumb makes contact with your cheek and you freeze, your breath catching in your lungs as he drags the pad of his thumb over your skin. “Got it.” His voice is barely a whisper, and your lips part on a slow exhale.

“Thanks.”

“Daddy?” Jess asks, and Bill snaps his hand back as he turns to his eldest daughter.

“What is it sweetheart?”

“Can we go play in our room while the frosting sets?”

“Of course. I’ll call you for dinner.”

Jess zips past, but Sam lingers. She climbs carefully off her stool and reaches for you, pressing her small hand to your knee. “You stay for dinner?” She asks in her quiet, lispy voice.

“Oh, I.” You glance at Bill. “I mean, I think daddy wants some time with just you tonight.”

Bill shrugs. “If you want to stay, you’d be welcome. Uh, more than welcome.”

You swallow, nodding once before leaning down to Sam’s level. “Then I’d love to stay for dinner. Thank you, Sam.”

Sam grins, patting your knee once before running off to join her sister.

“You don’t have to. I mean, don’t feel obliged to. If you have plans, or you need to get back to your boyfriend or something.”

You fight a smile at his less-than-subtle attempt at fishing. “No, no plans.”

*

After dinner, you clear the dishes whilst Bill reads the girls a story, and you’re just slipping your coat on when he closes their bedroom door and pauses. “You going?”

You shrug. “I mean, the girls are asleep. I think my duties are well and truly ended for the evening.”

Bill nods, a blush staining his cheeks. “Right, of course. That’s… of course.” He brushes past you, opening the door. “I’ll see you tomorrow.”

“If the power issue is resolved.”

“Huh?”

You raise an eyebrow. “The power issue? At your office.”

“Oh.” Bill nods. “That. Yes. If it’s resolved.” He licks his lips nervously, eyes dipping to your mouth and back up. “Thank you for staying. It was nice to just… be normal for a little while. Gets lonely.”

You’re almost through the door, one foot in the corridor, when you turn and look at him. Really look at him. The hunch of his shoulders, the set of his jaw. “Bill?”

“Hmm?”

“I could do with a drink. You got anything to drink?”

Bill’s face splits into a breathtaking smile. “I have a bottle of red that I’ve been dying to try.”

*

You’re sitting on the couch, your third glass in hand. Bill’s beside you, more relaxed than you’ve ever seen him. He laughs as he tells you about a prank he played on one of his older brother’s as a child, and his laugh is so infectious that you laugh too.

“Thank you. For this. I know you stayed out of pity.” Bill clears his throat, averting his eyes for a moment.

You drop your hand to his thigh. “I didn’t.”

His eyes fix to your hand against his black jeans, and he feels the stirring of his cock. That hadn’t happened for anyone at all in a long time, and he fidgets until you withdraw it. “A sense of duty then. If you’re fishing for a raise…”

You scoff. “You already overpay me.”

“Why are you doing it? I mean, babysitting seems like… I don’t know. A little below your skillset.”

“I used to be a private tutor. Did it for five years.”

Bill whistles. “That explains it then. Jess could barely mumble through a page of her book a month ago. Now she’s reading the whole thing to me.”

You hum. “That’s good. That’s really good.”

“Why did you stop? You obviously have a talent for it.”

You feel your face flush at the praise. “I want to teach. Not just one or two kids at a time, but whole classes. I want to find a school that really needs me, somewhere I can make a difference.”

Bill swallows. “What’s stopping you?”

“I need to be like… qualified for that. Going back to school isn’t cheap. And the family I was tutoring for have moved abroad. So I figured I’d put an ad out and see.”

“Enter… all this chaos.” Bill murmurs, sipping his wine.

You glance around the apartment affectionately. “I love it here. I love the girls. I love… everything about this job. You have a great family, Bill.”

Bill’s stomach flips over. “When do you think you’ll be… leaving us?” Me, his brain screams. When are you leaving me?

“School’s expensive.” It’s all you say, and Bill doesn’t press for more. He doesn’t want to know, actually. “When did… your wife leave?”

The silence thickens into something tangible between you.

“I’m sorry.” You say into the tension. “I shouldn’t have asked.”

“No.” Bill grits out. He’s surprised how hard it is to talk around the lump forming in his throat. “It’s okay. She’s… look, she’s great. She’s a great mom, and she gave me more chances than I probably deserved. I couldn’t see how unhappy she was until it was too late to fix it. And I have to live with that.”

“Where is she now?”

Bill shrugs, a little wine sloshing out of his glass and splashing onto the white cotton of his shirt.

“Oh, no.” You put your own glass down, fingers going automatically to his buttons. “That’ll stain if we don’t get it in to soak.”

Bill lets you work his shirt open, holding his glass aloft as you tug his arm out of the sleeve. Your fingers ghost against his bare chest as he shrugs out of the other side, and your eyes drop to drink in the lightly toned expanse of his skin. “I’ll… I’ll put it in the sink, get some dish soap on it.” You mumble, fingers still splayed against his chest.

Bill’s fingers wrap around your wrist, holding your hand against him. “I have other shirts.”

“It’ll be ruined.”

“I’ll live.” His voice has dropped low, and he shifts his hips lightly as his cock throbs against the confines of his jeans.

Your hand is on fire. Bill’s chest is a searing point against your palm, and your heart beats in your throat as he flexes his long fingers against the pulse on your wrist. “When did your wife leave?”

“It’s been eighteen months. But she’d checked out a long time before that. We both had.”

You nod slowly, letting your fingers drag lightly down his chest. Bill sucks in a breath, stomach muscles tensing as your nails tease against his skin. “When did you last…” you trail off, and Bill feels a flush of embarrassment even as his cock aches.

“Before Sam was born.”

You still, eyes darting up to his face. “Sam turns four in a month.”

“I know.” He breathes shakily, hips lifting unconsciously towards your hand as it travels lower. “Believe me, I know.”

You press your thighs together as heat pools between your legs. “Doing the babysitter’s a cliché, isn’t it?”

Bill makes a choked sound, somewhere between a laugh and a sob. He can’t quite believe this is happening, that you’re here and you’re touching him like you want him as badly as he wants you. He can’t remember exactly what it feels like to have someone touch his cock because they want to, and not because there’s a ring on their finger. “You’re not like… my twelve year old neighbor.”

You raise an eyebrow, your fingers dipping just into the waistband of his jeans. “Well I should fucking hope not.”

Bill groans, shaking his head. “I mean… fuck. I can’t think.”

You hum, reaching your free hand for his belt and tugging the buckle loose. “Then don’t think, Mr Skarsgård. Just let me take care of it.”

Bill moans, his head dropping back onto the couch. You slip your hand inside his boxers, wrapping your fingers around the hot, silky length of him. You squeeze lightly, and Bill whimpers. “Please.”

You glide your hand up, thumbing over his tip to collect the precum there before dragging your palm down his shaft. Bill’s hips lift, fucking up into your hand with sharp upward thrusts, and you commit the sight of him falling apart so easily to memory. Your eyes drift to the hall, listening for any sign that the girls might be awake, but there’s no sound aside from the little grunts and groans coming from Bill.

He’s watching you, the pretty look of concentration on your face, the way you poke your tongue out of the corner of your mouth. He wants to push your face down, to force his cock down your throat and see how pretty you look then, but he’s a gentleman first and he’d never. Not without your enthusiastic consent, anyway.

“I like your cock, Mr Skarsgård.”

Bill’s eyes roll back. “Bill.”

“I don’t think so,” you coo, twisting your wrist as you squeeze around his sensitive, leaking head. “You gunna cum for me? You remember how to?”

Bill scoffs, the sound morphing into a breathless moan as you squeeze particularly tight. “I still… fuckin…” he groans, pressing his knuckles to his mouth to stifle a loud moan. “Jerk off.”

You lick your lips, watching him writhe and struggle. “You think about me when you do?”

Bill’s eyes open, his cheeks pinking. His pupils have blown wide, the dark eating the green of his irises. He sucks his full bottom lip into his mouth, sinking his teeth into the flesh, and your mouth fills with saliva. “Yeah,” he whispers. “All the time.”

You lean in then, pressing your mouth to his and pulling his lip between your own teeth, and Bill cums with a whine that vibrates against your tongue as he paints your fist and his stomach with his release. You pull away from the kiss first, and Bill lifts his head to chase your mouth, but you’re too quick. “Isn’t that better?”

Bill hums, eyes fixing on your swollen lips. “Can I… can I get you off?” His voice is thick and slurred, and your clit throbs.

“Not tonight. I really got to get going, Bill.”

Bill again, then. He forces a shrug through his disappointment. “Some other time, then.”

*

He’s going to lose his job. His boss glances up from her desk as Bill packs his bag, and her eyes flick to the clock. 3.15. He’s been leaving early almost every day, and you don’t comment on it anymore, don’t make him come up with some fake excuse for his arrival. Instead you smirk at him, gaze heating with the promise of bedtime, and Bill’s hurrying the girls through brushing their teeth and skipping pages of their story before flipping off the lights and closing the door.

He’s going to lose his job, but it’s hard to care about that with you bent over the kitchen island. You lift your skirt, a little pleated thing so reminiscent of a schoolgirl uniform that Bill was hard almost the moment he stepped foot in the apartment. It had been annoying, hiding his erection and trying to concentrate as Jess told him about her day and Sam showed him a picture she’d drawn of the family. Of two little girls, an absurdly tall daddy, and you. Standing next to him, your hair drawn in crayon, a big smile on your face. His family. It had almost been enough to make him cry, but then you’d dropped a fork and bent over right in front of him, flashing pink cotton panties, and Bill’s mind had focused down to a single, primal hunger.

“You’re a bad girl.” He mutters, leaning forward to tug on your ponytail as his hips snap against yours. “You’re a filthy little thing.”

You moan, rolling back to meet each thrust as his cock fills you and your arousal drips onto the kitchen floor. “M’sorry, Mr Skarsgård.”

Bill groans, reaching his free hand around your hip to rub messy circles against your clit. “Yeah, you’re sorry. You wanted this, didn’t you? Putting on that little skirt, giving me a show.”

“Yes,” you whimper, sinking your teeth into your bottom lip to stifle your moans as your orgasm builds in your core.

“Fuck,” Bill spits, eyes rolling back at the way you clench and flutter around him. “You like the way I fuck you?”

Your jaw goes slack as his cock brushes against a sensitive spot inside you. “Yessss,” you hiss. Bill’s fingers tighten in your hair, his fingers pinching and circling your swollen clit as he fucks against that spot over and over.

“You like playing mommy? Like taking daddy’s cock?”

You press your lips together, clamping down hard on his cock. You know he’s just talking shit, that he babbles like this when he’s close to cumming, but the taunt does something unpleasant to your insides.

“Shit, there you go. That’s a good fucking girl,” he coos. “Cum for me. Cum on my cock.”

You push his words from your mind, fluttering your muscles around him and focusing on the delicious friction of his fingers against you as the coil of arousal snaps in your stomach and you’re flooded with waves of toe-curling pleasure.

“Fuck, fuck, fuck,” you whimper, rocking back and forth against his hand as he impales you on his cock faster, harder.

“Oh shiiii-“ He groans, the hand in your hair pushing your face against the kitchen island as he stills inside you, shooting his load deep against your cervix.

By the time you’ve recovered enough strength in your legs to push up from the counter, Bill’s already tucked his cock away. He watches you, biting his lip at the shake in your legs as you lean against the island for support.

“Did I go too hard?”

“No.” You fix the front of your shirt, smoothing your skirt down over your ass. “But… it’s just… something you said kinda bothered me.”

Bill knows what you’re going to say. “I’m sorry.”

You raise an eyebrow. “I’m not… playing mommy. That’s not what this is.”

Bill nods, swallowing thickly. “I know.”

“I get that you say shit in the heat of the moment. I know you didn’t mean it.”

Bill rocks back on his heels. “Maybe I did, though.”

“I… don’t follow.” You say slowly, feeling your stomach churn. If that’s what he thought of you, that you were trying to replace the girls’ mother… you’d quit. You’d have to.

“It’s not like I think you’re doing anything wrong.” He starts, running a hand back through his hair. “It’s more like I… wish you were. Their mom.”

It’s like all the air is sucked out of the room. Like Bill’s wrenched the air out of your lungs. “You don’t mean that.”

“I do.” Bill folds his arms across his chest. “You’re so good with them. You cook and you clean and you fuck me better than anyone else ever has. I wish I’d met you first.”

You fight the urge to laugh at the stubborn, simplistic innocence of him. “You pay me.”

“I’m not paying you to fuck me. Or to… care about me.”

“No.” You agree softly, stepping closer and tugging his arms away from his chest, bracketing them around your waist instead. “And I do care about you, Bill. And the girls, of course. But this is… this is a fantasy. I’m fulfilling a fantasy for you.”

Bill shakes his head, fingers tightening on your hips. “I’m in love with you.”

Your heart aches. “What’s my last name?”

Bill blinks at you. “What?”

“Where was I born? Are my parents still together? Do I have any pets?”

Bill shakes his head. “Why are you fighting me on this?”

You reach up and curl your fingers around the back of his neck, bringing his face to yours so you can press your lips against his. “You don’t love me, Bill. But I think you’re ready for it. To be in love again.”

Bill releases your hips to cup your face in his big hands, pressing your lips open and licking his tongue into your mouth. You sigh into it, relishing the taste of him and the warm weight of his hands on your cheeks.

You break the kiss, because you’re always the one who does. “Not with me.”

Bill frowns, tugging you back and sucking your bottom lip into his mouth. His thigh pushes up between your legs, denim grazing over your sensitive core through your soaked panties, and you whine into his mouth.

You pull away, eyes dropping to the movement of his thigh. “Why not with you?” His voice is thick and low, and he licks slowly over his lips. “You want me.”

You hum, eye fluttering shut at the friction of him dragging against your clit through the layers of fabric. “You need someone… on your level.” You gasp, and Bill takes the moment to wrap an arm around your ass and lift you onto the counter. He pushes your skirt up and slips his fingers into your underwear, pushing two long digits inside you to squelch through the mess of cum he’d left behind.

“You’re on my level. Fuck, you’re out of my league.”

“That’s…” you break off, sucking a shaking breath into your lungs. “That’s not what I mean. I… I’m not ready for you.”

Bill scoffs, curling his fingers inside you. “Feels pretty fucking ready.”

You force your eyes open, pressing your hands to his shoulders. “I don’t want to be a mother.”

Bill’s fingers freeze inside you, his cock deflating like you’d doused him in ice. “What?”

“I’m not ready to have kids. I like kids, I’m good with them. But I’m too young to even think about having my own. Or raising someone elses.”

Bill pulls his fingers out of you, fighting the urge to suck the mess off of them as he wipes his hand on his jeans. “But you love the girls.”

You nod, pressing your teeth into your lip. “They’re fantastic. And one day I hope to have my own, just like them. But that’s… years away. It’s not now. I’m going back to school, I want to travel. I’m not ready for this to be it.”

Bill flinches, stepping back. You don’t know that his wife had said almost the exact same thing to him before she walked out the door. You can’t know how much it hurts him to hear it again, right when he’d really started to believe you were his second chance. “I’m not trying to tie you down.”

You smile softly. “You can tie me up, Mr Skarsgård. But not down.”

“Is this your… formal resignation?” He asks, his voice tight as he tries very hard not to lose it.

“Do you need it to be?”

Bill considers this. “I don’t want you to go. But… I think I’m gunna get fired if I keep leaving work early and I can’t not leave early when I know you’re here.”

You nod slowly. “Then I think we need to find you a babysitter you don’t wanna fuck.”

Bill laughs, the sound harsh to his own ears. “Can I keep fucking you anyway?”

You roll your eyes. “You gunna ask me my last name?”

Bill grins. “No.”

You lean forward, hooking a finger into his waistband and tugging him closer until you can wrap your legs around his waist. “Then do your worst, Mr Skarsgård.”