She goes to his bar on Wednesday nights with blood still on her knuckles more times than it's not, the thrill of the chase still signing in her bones. The tequila helps calm the fire, but the rum – the rum only fans the flame.
She doesn't say anything to him from her place tucked in the corner, just watches as he talks to the regulars and wipes down the bar top, charms the women who stare at him over the rims of their glasses with appreciative eyes and wide smiles. Sometimes he leaves with them and sometimes he doesn't, but she doesn't bother herself with the specifics. They're normal, good for him. They don't bring the same baggage she does.
Not that she's interested.
Tonight, rum appears at the edge of her little table without prompting and when she looks up in surprise, she meets his gaze – watches as his tongue glides along his bottom lip from behind the bar. She's not seen this look before, not in her three months of quiet reflection in the shadows of his surprisingly clean bar. Not even directed at the pretty girls with their shining hair with shining souls to match.
She holds eye contact as she tips it back, the burn of his eyes tracing the lines of her face almost as bad as the burn of the liquor.
Not that she's interested.
-/-
She considers skipping the next week but her mark gets in an elbow to her ribs and she's fresh out of liquor at her place. She drags her feet down the familiar alleyway after sitting too long in her empty apartment - lingers outside the door and peers through the fogged up glass of the window to spot him behind the bar.
"It isn't like you to be late, love."
She jumps, her arms automatically raised into fighting stance. Old habits die hard and all that. He just raises an eyebrow at her, tossing a too full bag of garbage into the nearest dumpster before crossing his arms and leaning across the brick wall. She drops her fists.
"Didn't realize I was late for anything."
He smirks and she finds herself wanting to trace the feel of it beneath her fingertips - see if there's just as much heat in his lips as there is in his gaze. It's been a long time since she's felt an inclination to do anything more than hit, and she closes her fist against it, nails digging into the palm of her hand.
He takes a step closer, swaying into her space.
"But who will drink me out of my finest rum if not for you, darling."
She rolls her eyes and steps forward, accepting the unspoken challenge in the jut of his hips and the hook of his thumb in his belt buckle. He smells like cleaning spray and rail liquor, his body heat pressing against her front in the cold September air. "I'm sure you can find a perfectly willing subject back inside."
His smirk widens into a grin, dimples flashing in his cheeks, and the itching in her palms turns into a twitching in her fingers.
"Ah, but perhaps the only subject - " his tongue licks along the edges of the word, teeth nipping sharply at the syllables. " - I wish to entertain is a pretty blonde lass who's been staring at me for three months now."
"I haven't - "
"Whatever you say, love," he leans back, arm reaching above her for the door. "Come inside and have a drink. I promise you can stare all you like."
She presses her palm flat against his chest, intent on throwing him off his game but only succeeding in a spark along her skin and a pull low in her gut. His skin is warm where it peeks through the open v of his button down, his heartbeat strong and erratic just beneath her fingertips. He sucks in a sharp breath through his teeth that she matches with one of her own, leaning closer until her nose runs along his jaw.
"And if I want to do more than stare?"
This time she feels his smile.
"By all means."
-/-
She sits at the bar this time, drinking all his good rum and watching as he works. She has a particular fixation on his forearms tonight, the way they stretch and flex as he rolls his cuffs up over his elbows. The way the muscles there tense and then relax as he reaches down low for glasses.
"You're staring," he sing-songs as he slides past her at the bar, wink shot over his shoulder. She hides her smirk behind her glass, gaze slipping along the line of his shoulders over the small of his back, down to wear his indecently tight jeans pull taut.
She damn well knows she's staring, and she damn well intends to do more.
After all isn't that what Ruby's always telling her - live a little. Be human, for god's sake, Emma.
She's almost forgotten what it feels like.
(To crave. The ache between her thighs and the tension pulled tight at the base of her spine. The flip in her stomach every time he passes her a new glass and his fingertips drag along her knuckles, up her arm, along the inside of her wrist.)
She doesn't move from her stool as he closes up the bar, doesn't move as his footsteps sound heavy and slow behind her, his boots scuffling along the worn wood of the floor. She doesn't move when he braces his arms on either side of her - not even when he buries his nose in her hair.
"Shall we, darling?"
She finishes her rum and slips off her stool, his arms spreading around her to accommodate the movement and his beard brushing along her shoulder. She leans forward to place her glass carefully in the sink behind the bar, tucking her hips back into his until he groans.
"I'll take that as a yes," he presses into her skin just as his palm presses into her belly, pulling her tighter into him. Half of her wants him to bend her over the bar right here, work down her jeans just enough for him to slip his fingers between her legs while she balances on her elbows - dig her fingers into the grooves of the wood until she can break them apart.
But the windows run along the entire front of the bar and she's never been much of an exhibitionist.
"You have a place?"
Plus, she really wants to see what he can do with a bed.
(Not that she's interested, she reminds herself, circling her hips into his while his mouth presses hot against the place where shoulder meets neck.)
He tugs once on her belt loop, toys with the button of her jeans.
"I have a place."
-/-
His place is the apartment just above the bar, the old stairs creaking under their combined weight as he presses her into the space just beside his door, crowding her forward with his hips against hers until he can press her chin up with his thumb and catch her lips. He tastes like the rum she was sipping on but stronger, his teeth dragging against her bottom lip when her fingers toy with the skin just above his belt buckle.
"Inside," she mutters into his neck, his thigh pressing between hers and up until she sighs at the pressure.
"You know I don't even know your name?" His hands at her hips help her start a rhythm that's just right, his teeth glinting white in the dark when she follows it. She's not usually so content to follow others but she supposes she can make an exception. "Curious, that."
"Emma," she supplies, too focused on the thrum of need coiling tight in her belly to remember one of her oldest rules. No names. No feeling .
No connections.
(Another exception.)
"Killian," he answers, hand fumbling for the door.
-/-
They don't waste time with pleasantries, stripping each other on the fumbling walk back to his room. He pauses when he sees the bruise on her ribs and the jagged cut along her hip but says nothing about it, just runs his thumb along the broken skin and kisses her harder. She's grateful for it - another way he seems to understand her without her having to say a word.
She finds herself with her back pressed into his mattress, his lips cataloging the scar on her chest.
"I'm not going to break," she whispers, frustrated with his hesitant touch. It doesn't match the way he looks at her - not one bit - like he wants to swallow her whole. That's what she wants, anyway. Not this palm skimming over the outside of her thighs and his lips brushing just so over her collarbones.
She wants to be fucked. She wants to forget.
(Forget that she has to hold herself back from pulling at his hair too tight. Forget that she can't dig her heel into the small of his back the way she wants - can't press too hard or she might shatter his spine.)
(She might not break, but he certainly will. After all, that's how these things go.)
He chuckles under his breath, rough and low as it rolls against the hollow of her throat. "Aye," he sighs, a forlorn thing as he shifts above her, hips falling deeper between her splayed thighs. He ruts against her in a smooth grind, cock dragging heavy, and she moans. His fingers tangle in her hair, rings pulling at the strands, and he sighs again when she makes another muffled noise. She always did like a little pain with her pleasure.
He pulls back and balances above her on his elbows, eyes serious in the low light of the street lamps filtering in from the outside. "You will."
-/-
She does break, with his head buried between her legs and palms holding her wide, fingers curled around her thighs and pressing her knees back into her chest. Again, later, with his cock filling her up and his teeth on her neck - his movements still hesitant against her but - fuck - still so good.
She pushes her hair out of her face when he rolls off her, landing on his back and staring at the ceiling with a slow and heavy exhale. She traces the cracks there, biting her lip against a smile when she feels his fingertips toy with the ends of her hair without thought.
"I should go."
The one rule she never breaks - she never stays the night.
(Not an exception. Not tonight.)
He turns his head. "See you next Wednesday, then?"
She doesn't make any promises.
She does, however, steal a bottle of rum on her way out the door.
-/-
"You owe me one," he says with a smile the following Wednesday, fingers clasped loosely around his tumbler and his breath warm on her cheek. He leans forward until his nose brushes her jaw, fingers running back and forth over the buttercup tattoo on the inside of her wrist. "For the rum you stole."
"I'm good for it," she says with a smile.
"Hmmm," his eyes dance in the low light, tongue pressing at the inside of his cheek. "I know you are."
He fucks her up against the bar after he locks up, around the back where the light is low enough that if someone looks through the windows, they won't be able to see her tank top pulled down beneath her breasts. Her pants around her ankles are hidden by the high oak countertops, his own sitting low around his hips. He didn't do more than unzip his jeans before bending her over, the zipper of his fly biting into the backs of her thighs.
"You wanted this, didn't you?" He breathes out against her ear, hips circling, fingertips pressing bruises into her thigh. "The last time - every time - you wanted me to have you just like this."
"Awfully sure of yourself, aren't you?"
It's more breathless than she'd like, her voice hiccuping when his hand glides along her thigh until he can press just above where he's fucking her deep, his rings cold against her skin. She makes another helpless noise beneath her breath and he chuckles.
"You're something of an open book, love," he slows his pace and it's not enough - the feather light touch of his fingers against her clit and the too-slow slide of his cock - it's not enough and she needs more.
She uses her hands against the bar to leverage herself up and back, trying to force him to give her more - a little too forcefully because he stumbles a step backwards and grunts at the way he slips deeper inside her. For a half-second she holds her breath, unsure if she just showed her hand and fuck - now he knows - he knows, he knows -
He slams her back against the bar and presses down between her shoulder blades, pulling her hips up with his other hand until she's angled just right. She lets herself be led by him, allows her body to fold beneath the gentle pressure of his hands - and doesn't regret it for a damn moment, not when he's pounding into her with a string of muffled curses beneath his breath.
This time she breaks with her fist pressed to her mouth, the wood of his bar biting into her hips and his fingers pulling at her nipple. He brushes his lips against the back of her neck with a chuckle, carefully pulling her tank top back over her bare breasts as they try to catch their breath.
(She didn't bother with anything underneath tonight, his eyes flashing dark as she slipped off her leather at the bar. He had closed early the second she leaned over the countertop to get to the good whiskey he kept down low, his eyes focused on the swoop of her neckline and his jaw clenching tight.)
She pulls her jeans back over her hips as he does the same, hair a riot on top of his head, cheeks flushed pink. He smiles at her and it's an easy thing to smile back.
"Fancy a drink?"
-/-
It's not that she's in the habit of hiding what she is - what she can do . She just - doesn't draw attention to it. She hears the whispers. She sees the stories in the paper. There's been an edge of fear in society regarding people like her.
She sees what happens when people know - what they try and make her do. She's not interested in letting Gold have a second crack at her.
So, she keeps it to herself.
-/-
The other things, though. The other things she finds herself confiding over half-empty glasses of rum. How she was abandoned as a baby, her time in prison as a juvenile, how she's always managed to feel left behind, no matter the situation. She finds the words slipping from her lips in the quiet stillness of the bar - rum heavy on her tongue and his fingers idling with the shoelaces around her wrist.
And for him - his time in the Navy, the tattoo on the inside of his forearm, his brother lost at sea and a deadbeat father who abandoned them both - he confides in her with a self-deprecating half smile, his thumb twisting the ring on his pinky round and round.
It's the first time in a long time she hasn't felt so alone.
It's the first time in a long time she's felt anything at all.
-/-
Naturally, it all goes to shit.
-/-
She comes on a Tuesday.
It isn't easy for her to break her routine - to make their arrangement seem like more . But she had been sitting in her apartment with a half empty bottle of scotch, her mark bagged early, her mind wandering down to the bar and the way he slings a towel through his belt loops when they're especially busy - how his shoulders stretch and pull when he reaches for the mugs hanging just above the register.
("You don't have to restrict it to Wednesday's, love," tongue toying at the corner of his lips, hand splayed wide against her lower back as she pressed her face further into his pillows. "Come whenever you'd like."
"Whenever, huh?"
"Mmm, yes," hand slipping lower, over the curve of her ass, between her thighs. "Whenever.")
She slips on the green blouse that he likes, combs her fingers through her hair. She idly considers texting him to let him know she's on her way, but decides she wants to see the look on his face instead.
Especially when he gets a glimpse of black lace beneath the gauzy green material.
-/-
It's crowded when she arrives, a mass of bodies making it difficult for her to squeeze in through the front door. Killian isn't the type to host drink specials or any sort of promotions, declaring them an insult to the integrity of his precious bar. It's the most people she's ever seen in the small space, though, and she frowns as she takes in the customers jostling for drinks.
Any hope of the bar closing early tonight is clearly out of the question.
"New club across the street," he supplies from his sudden appearance at her elbow, rum already in hand. He has to shout to be heard over the noise, his fingers looping lightly through one of her belt loops when she takes the proffered glass. He turns her slightly, eyes dancing as he takes in her top. "Which is a pity, really, as it seems there's something you want."
She steps into his space, letting her lips brush over the hollow of his throat. "No chance you want to pop upstairs for a second, is there?"
"I'd like much more than a second," he answers, tilting his chin up and letting her press an easy kiss to the side of his neck. His hand at her waist tightens and she can feel the noise in the back of his throat, the way it rumbles low in his chest.
A crash sounds from the opposite end of the bar followed by a raucous round of shouting. Killian sighs and she leans back from where she's pressed against him, grinning wide.
"Maybe I'll just take care of myself," she slips her leather off her shoulders, watching as his gaze lingers on the swell of her breasts through the transparent green material. "You ever get that lock fixed on your - "
"Five minutes," he cuts her off. "Meet me out back, yeah?"
"You think I'm the type of woman to be fucked in an alley?"
"I think, darling, that you're the type of woman to enjoy my fingers bringing you to completion," her stomach flips at the gravel in his tone, how his eyes flash dark. "However you can have them."
"Okay," she mutters, licking at her bottom lip and watching his dimples flash in his cheeks. "Five minutes."
-/-
The cool air is a relief against the flush in her cheeks - the tops of her breasts - the chaos from the bar muffled as the door closes behind her. A thrum of arousal pulls low in her gut as she imagines him pressing her up against the brick, sliding his hand into her jeans and finding her slick and hot.
He was right. She does love his fingers.
(His hair, too. How he bites down on his lower lip when she wraps her legs high around his waist. The way his fingers trace over her spine, after. His mouth and the way his bottom lip drags against her skin.)
She's interrupted from her musings by the sound of heavy footfalls at the entrance to the alley, her posture immediately tensing as three men appear in the darkness. They're not overly large or menacing, but she doesn't like the look in their eyes as they slowly come into the dim glow of the streetlight.
It's one she recognizes.
("Come now, dearie. Do as I say.")
"We've been waiting for you," the one in the middle starts, voice pitched with a thread of ill intent. The other two move to flank her as she presses her back against the brick, surface rough against her shoulder blades. "He wants a word with you."
There's no question to the he in reference.
"He can come himself," she spits. She always knew he would come for her, she just didn't think it would be this soon. She lit the fire, after all, to kill him. His survival was not exactly according to plan. "Or is he still recovering from his little accident?"
She must be getting sloppy. It's the only explanation. That, or -
She sucks in a gasping breath, eyes blown wide.
Or he's set a trap for her.
"Grab her," the man intones, and the two men shuffling at his sides immediately surge forward. It's easy enough to disarm the both of them when she doesn't have to hold back on her strength - snapping the first guy's arm clean in half before dislocating the shoulder of the other. They both howl in pain but she can't seem to stop herself, blood roaring in her ears as she drives her knee into the one bent at the waist, arm clutched to his chest.
It's the click of the gun that stops her, metal cold against the back of her head.
She raises her hands slowly as she pulls herself back, watching as the men grovel at her feet. "You don't want to do this," she begins. "He's controlling you. You can fight it."
"I - I can't." The gun presses to the base of her skull with more force and she winces. She may be able to outrun most things, but a bullet is not one of them. "You know I can't. You need to come with me."
"I can't," she whispers back, hands clenching into fists. "You know I can't."
"Then I'll make you."
The gun pulls away from her just as the back entrance to the bar swings open, Killian sauntering through, tongue licking at his bottom lip and shirt unbuttoned low. She takes advantage of the distraction and turns on the spot, driving her foot down on the man's instep and grasping the arm that holds the gun. It only takes the slightest pressure from her fingertips for the snap of his wrist, the gun falling into her outstretched hand. It's difficult to maintain her grip when her hands are shaking so bad, but she manages, knocking the man unconscious by slamming his face into the wall.
She feels bad for hurting someone not in control, but he did hold a gun to her head.
"Swan?"
Killian, however.
She doesn't feel so bad training the gun on him.
He holds his hands up immediately, both palms facing out, blue eyes wide and confused. "Emma, what's going on?" His eyes dart to the bodies at her feet and he takes a step towards her. "Are you alright?"
"Stay where you are," she straightens her hold on the gun. It's no coincidence that he told her to meet her outside just as Gold's men were coming down the alley. It's no coincidence that Gold managed to find her so quickly. She rarely indulges in habitual behavior and Killian - well, Killian has become one hell of a habit. "Don't move."
"What's happened? I don't - " He shakes his head, eyes once again fixed on the bodies on the ground. "I don't understand."
"I do. I understand perfectly," her hand shakes on the gun but she ignores it in favor of the burning in her eyes. Stupid. She was so stupid. "You work for him, don't you?"
He takes another step closer but she counters with one step back, steadying her aim. She bites the inside of her cheek, tasting copper just as a tear rolls down the apple of her cheek. She hates feeling like this.
Weak.
Out of control.
Used.
"Did he tell you to fuck me?" She hates how her voice shakes. How small she sounds. "Or was that just a liberty you took?"
Most of all she hates how she can't pull the trigger.
"Emma - "
She doesn't wait for an explanation, dropping the gun with an anguished noise she can hardly mask. There's a fire escape just above her, and she has more than enough emotion to draw on to propel herself up.
Once she hits the flat of the roof, she does what she always does.
She runs.
-/-
Gold started his collection three years before she even knew who he was. She heard his name, of course - terrified whispers of it in the underbelly of the city. The truly frightened ones refused to call him by name - some bullshit about it summoning him. Letting him know where they were.
She tried to avoid him altogether.
Bringing people with abilities under control was his special power, slowly and carefully building an army of brainless zombies (brainless powerful zombies) to do his bidding. He had a dream to own the city, or something. Bring the people to their knees.
Whatever it was, she wasn't interested.
She told him as much when he found her and failed to bring her under the same control.
A genetic quirk, maybe. An implication of her own powers. Sheer, dumb luck. Whatever it was, she didn't wait for him to figure it out. As soon as he failed to work his magic, she tackled him to the floor - took a bullet to her thigh from one of his bodyguards for the pleasure of it. Two broken ribs, a bullet wound, a dislocated shoulder, and four ( three, apparently) bodies later, she set fire to his grand mansion.
She thought that was the end of it.
She was wrong.
-/-
She thought Killian was different.
Wrong again.
-/-
It hurts the most on Wednesdays.
-/-
She's always used liquor to dull her senses, but it's lost it's appeal after everything that's happened. It's nearly two weeks after the incident in the alleyway before she can even consider the bottle of rum stashed in the cabinet above the fridge - two weeks of hyper vigilance and serious consideration of leaving the city altogether.
But she's stubborn, and she's sure there's no place else in the world that makes grilled cheese quite like Granny.
(There's no place else that feels like home.)
So when he breaks into her apartment slash office, she blames her delayed reaction and casual indifference on the haze of liquor settled over her shoulders.
They stare at each other in tense stillness - him framed in the doorway of her shit apartment, black leather jacket over worn flannel. Her with her feet up on her desk, half-empty bottle held between thumb and forefinger as she swings it back and forth. She could smash the bottle and make a weapon of it. She could also keep drinking.
The latter wins out.
"How'd you find me?"
He looks pointedly at the door - Emma Swan, Bail Bonds written in thick, black lettering. "You're not a difficult woman to find, love."
"If you intend to take me to him, I suggest you just kill me instead," she pulls deep from the bottle, watching him as he rocks back on his heels. He looks good in her space - all disheveled hair and bright eyes.
"I don't wish to kill you, lass," he sighs, shutting the door carefully behind him. He shifts his hand into his back pocket and pulls out the switchblade he uses to pop particularly stubborn bottle caps, flicking it open with his thumb in a smooth, well-practiced movement. She arches an eyebrow and takes another sip.
"That explains the knife, then."
He rolls his eyes along with his shoulders, shifting his leather off and draping it carefully over the back of a chair. Placing the blade between his clenched teeth to hold it steady, he rolls the cuffs of his sleeves until they're above his elbows, then begins to unbutton his shirt.
She slips her feet from the desk, her subdued anger roaring back tenfold.
"If you think you can just swing by for an easy fuck, after all you've done, you've got another thing - "
"About two years ago, I met a remarkable woman," he interrupts. "Brave, brilliant, terrified. Her name was Milah, but you already know how that story goes." Shirt open, he resumes his methodical flick of the blade. Open and shut. Open and shut. "It turns out Milah was in fact married to a despicable man. A man who had some very compelling means of persuasion."
She blinks, a lead weight settling in her stomach. "Gold."
He smiles, but there's no humor in it. "Aye. Gold." He takes a step closer and she takes one back, her legs hitting the chair she abandoned. "You see, I told you she died, but I never mentioned how. Gold discovered us, discovered how I was attempting to help her flee, and he - " Here he stops. Swallows hard. "He made me watch as he killed her."
"I - "
"He pulled out her heart and crushed it to dust in front of me, and then compelled me to act his slave for the following year and a half."
Open and shut. Open and shut.
"I did terrible things, Emma. Things I do my best to forget every day of my life. But giving Gold your whereabouts was not one of them. I can assure you that. In fact, I think you'll find - " He finally stills the flick of the switchblade, flipping it up and directing the point of it neatly at his arm. She's felt how sharp it is. Knicked her thumb once or twice on it playing bar games three whiskeys deep. She bites her tongue as he presses it into his skin, clenches her hands against the urge to reach out. She shouldn't still care. After everything, she shouldn't still want .
He presses it deep and drags up, nothing but a thin, white line of pressure evidence of the blade on his skin.
He looks up to meet her gaze. She gapes at him.
"I think you'll find we're quite alike, after all."
He steps closer as she sputters, the toes of his boots pressed neatly to her own. She had been so concerned with masking her own powers, she didn't even think to look for signs of his own. Still, she's hesitant to believe that he didn't sell her out to Gold. Especially if he has powers of his own and an axe to grind with the man.
A man awfully partial to making deals.
He passes her the blade and cups his hand around hers, guiding the point to just above his heart. He helps her press it into his skin. "There's only one place my skin can be cut. Just above my heart. Seems I've always felt a bit too much for my own good." A half smile pulls at his lips. "I didn't betray you to Gold and I won't. I've told no one else of what I saw in the alley and I won't. It's up to you what we become, Emma" He winces when she digs the knife in with the twitch of her hand, a drop of blood welling beneath the point.
"What are you saying?"
"I didn't think I was capable of - of feeling something again. After Milah," he drops his hand from hers and allows her full control of the blade over his heart. "That is until I met you."
She's been in this position before. Opened her heart to someone only to have them throw it back in her face. Trusted someone to think of her first only to be - to be left behind. She sucks in a ragged breath through her teeth.
"Look at me, love." His eyes are blue and wide, eyelashes thick against his cheeks. He tilts his head and smiles at her softly. "Have I told you a lie?"
She gnaws on her bottom lip. There's no way he knows that's one of her powers - the ability to decipher truth from deception. It's always a little bit clouded where her emotions are concerned, but she can see it just as well with him. Just as she's always been able to see it with him.
(Rum shared under muted lights. His fingers soft in her hair. His lips against her forehead, the nape of her neck. Whispered pleas to stay, just one night, love. )
Her mind quiets, heart beating madly in her chest.
"No," she drops the blade between them and fists her hands in his hair instead, hauling him against her. "You haven't."
-/-
The plaster cracks when she presses him against the wall, bits of ceiling raining down and catching in his hair in flecks of white. He groans loud and rough when she pushes his arms back, tangling her fingers with his and anchoring his hands to the wall.
"Strength," he grunts into her mouth, pressing his hips forward. He skin doesn't break when she bites down hard on his bottom lip, tugging at the plump flesh. His bones don't crack when she squeezes his fingers tight. "Flight. Tell me love, what else is it that you can do?"
She slides her hands down his arms to his hips, thumbs grazing the warm skin of his chest as she goes. She's always been the one to do the breaking and for once - with him - it's not a concern.
She smiles.
"Why don't you find out?"
-/-
She fucks him hard into her bed, hands pressed to his chest as she rides his cock. He feels delicious inside her - thick and perfect - eyes heavy as he watches her move above him. He moves to sit up but she presses him forcefully back, a breathless chuckle slipping from her lips as he huffs in frustration.
"Perhaps," he manages as she slows the roll of her hips, grinding her clit against the hair low on his navel. "Perhaps I shouldn't have confessed my rather durable nature."
She picks up the pace again, rising high on her knees to slam back down.
His head tilts back with his groan, the muscle in his jaw jumping as he clenches his teeth.
"Or perhaps not."
-/-
After, they lay sprawled across her sheets, the rickety fan in the corner not nearly strong enough to temper the heat still crawling over her skin. She'll have bruises on her shoulder in the morning from his teeth, on her hips from the press of his fingertips. His hand idles with her hair as she lets her pulse slow, the tangled strands slipping through his fingers.
"What do we do now?" He whispers, bringing her hand between them to brush his lips to her knuckles.
There's still so much for them to discuss - so many of her own feelings to untangle. She doesn't know how to label their relationship. Isn't sure she really wants to.
But there is one thing she knows she wants.
She shifts onto her side, meeting his gaze in the muted light.
"We kill him."