She was face down in the pillow, breathing. The catsuit was somewhere on the floor, torn, useless. Her hair was a wreck across the sheets. The bite mark she'd left on his shoulder had started bleeding again and the one he'd left on her neck was darkening to purple.
He was on his back beside her. Ceiling. The crack that ran from the light fixture to the wall. His heartbeat was still coming down and his side ached where the stitches had pulled during the sex and neither of them had noticed until now.
"The phone number."
Her voice was muffled by the pillow. She didn't lift her head.
"Who is she."
He looked at the ceiling. He could keep lying. He'd left Elektra out of the story in the first telling and Felicia had found the gap and pushed into it and the argument had turned into sex and the sex hadn't closed the gap. It was still there. Her face stayed in the pillow.
"Elektra. She said her name was Elektra."
"Last name."
"She didn't give one."
"What does she do."
"She kills people. She killed two Hand operatives in three seconds and the third one ran."
Felicia turned her head on the pillow. One eye visible. Green. Steady.
"Is she pretty."
"She killed two men in three seconds."
"That's not what I asked."
He looked at her. Her face was half in the pillow, her hair across her cheek, and she was asking him if the woman who'd saved his life was attractive and she was asking from a bed where the sheets were soaked and the catsuit was in pieces on the floor and neither of those facts made the question matter less.
"Yeah. She's pretty."
Felicia closed her eye. Opened it. Her jaw worked on a thought she was chewing before she let it out.
"I'm prettier."
"You're fishing."
"I'm fishing." Her lip pulled sideways. The muscle under her cheekbone tightened. She looked away and looked back. "I don't share, Troy."
"I know."
"I mean it. Whatever she is, whoever she is, I don't care that she saved your life. She gave you her number and she's pretty and she kills people and I don't share."
"Felicia."
"What."
"Come here."
He kissed her. Slow. His hand on the side of her face, thumb on her cheekbone, and he kissed her instead of making promises because he didn't have the right words and the kiss was better than the wrong ones. She kissed him back. Her mouth soft, none of the aggression from before, and she made a small sound against his lips and her hand came up and covered his on her face. This chapter was taken from g.com without permission.
She pulled him over her. On top. His weight settling between her legs. She reached between them and found his cock, half-hard, and worked him with her hand until he was stiff and she guided him to her entrance.
She was swollen. Tender from before. She guided the head in and flinched and adjusted and took another inch and her face was tight with the sensitivity but she kept pulling him in, controlling the depth with her hand on his hip. Inch by inch. Her body opening around him, wet, hot, tender, each new depth making her breath catch.
All the way in. She took her hand off his hip and put both arms around his neck and they lay there, connected, face to face on the pillow.
Lazy rhythm. He moved in small strokes, barely pulling back, just rolling his hips with the full length of him inside her. She matched him. Her hips rocking with his, the friction gentle, slow, and the wet sounds between them were quiet and steady.
Her legs came up around his waist. Her heels on his lower back. She pulled him in on each stroke, controlling the depth, and each push in made her mouth open and a breath come out, warm, against his lips.
"Mm."
His thumb found her clit. She flinched. Oversensitive from coming twice before, and he lightened the touch to barely there, a ghost of a circle, and she rocked against it.
"Gentle- yeah- like that-"
Face to face. Breathing each other's air. He could see her eyes, green, close enough to see the flecks of gold in the iris. She was looking at him and she wasn't hiding. The performance was gone. The Black Cat was gone. The smirk, the competition, the aggression. Just Felicia looking at him while he moved inside her.
His thumb circled. His hips rolled. She clenched around him on every stroke, soft, rhythmic, her body matching the pace. Her breathing was getting faster. Her hand on the back of his neck tightened.
She bit her lip. Her eyes started to close and she forced them open. She was going to cum and she was going to look at him while she did it.
"Nn- mm- right there- don't stop-"
Quiet. Against his mouth. Her body tensed under him, her legs pulling him deep, and she came with her eyes open. Looking at him. Her walls clenched in slow waves and her mouth opened and she breathed his name and her pupils dilated and she didn't look away.
He watched her face through the whole thing. Every micro-expression. The crease between her eyebrows. The way her upper lip pulled back from her teeth. The moment her eyes lost focus and then found him again and held.
He came inside her. Deep. Her legs pulling him in, her body clenching around him, and he pressed his forehead to hers and she clenched one more time and kept him there.
They lay still. Breathing.
He didn't pull out. She didn't ask him to. Her hand on the back of his neck, her thumb moving in slow circles on his skin. Her legs still around his waist, loose now, heavy.
She was on her side, facing him. He was on his back. His hand on her hip, her leg thrown over his thigh. The sheet pulled up to their waist. The bite marks on both of them darkening.
"Tell me about the Hand."
He told her. The documents. The holding companies, the personnel files, the supply chain rerouting. Silvermane's network being absorbed from the inside, folded into an organization that predated organized crime in New York by centuries.
"They're old," he said. "Ancient. And they're expanding into Silvermane's territory because they need the infrastructure. Ports, warehouses, money-laundering fronts. Whatever they're doing, it requires physical space."
"And Elektra's been watching them."
"For six months. She knows more than the documents show."
"There's more," he said.
"There's always more."
"The Hellfire Club."
Her finger stopped on his ribs.
"What about them."
"They're connected. The money trail from Silvermane's accounts goes through three layers of holding companies before it dead-ends in accounts that trace back to Hellfire Club shell corporations. Whatever the Hand is doing in New York, the Hellfire Club is funding it. Or facilitating it. Or both."
"Troy."
"Yeah."
"The Hellfire Club has telepaths. Mutants. People who can turn into diamond. People who absorb energy. People who rewrite memories for breakfast. They don't lose because they don't play fair and they don't play fair because they don't have to."
"I know."
"You know. And you're going to keep digging."
"Yeah."
She looked at him. Long. Her green eyes in the dim room, the amber city light through the window, and her face was calm and tired.
"You're going to get us killed."
She said it flat.
She lay down. Pulled his arm over her. Closed her eyes.
His phone buzzed on the nightstand. He checked it with his free hand, his other arm pinned under Felicia's body the way it always got pinned because she used his arm as a pillow and never apologized for the numbness.
System notification.
FELICIA HARDY - AFFECTION TRACKER PREVIOUS: ATTRACTED CURRENT: POSSESSIVE
He closed the phone. Put it face-down on the nightstand.
Possessive. He could have told the system that.
He looked at the back of her head. Platinum hair on his pillow. The purple mark on her neck where he'd bitten her. The line of her shoulder in the dim light.
The Hand was coming. The Hellfire Club was behind them. Elektra's number was in his head. And Felicia Hardy was possessive of a man she'd met during a burglary six weeks ago.
He pulled her closer. She made a sound in her sleep. Her hand found his and held it against her chest.
He didn't sleep for a while.