It's Irresistible

The next ten days, and nights, pass by without much of anything happening. Bex and Victor have their separate assignments at night, and they both start sleeping during the day. Sometimes they miss each other completely. Bex will wake up as the sun is going down to see Victor’s pajamas tossed onto the dresser, as if he left in a hurry, and that’s her only way of knowing that they slept next to each other. She has also slipped into her apartment to find Victor already in bed, and he’ll look at her for a few seconds before falling right back to sleep. The most they talk is to exchange what they’ve found, which is a whole lot of nothing.

Bex listens for two sets of chatter when she goes out, occasionally three. The whole city is on edge from the shootout at the police station, and the police department is still down a commissioner and a captain. It makes people nervous. So she listens to the criminals grumble about the cops’ warpath, and it makes her uneasy. Yes, the cops are a little vengeful at the moment, but she doesn’t want that anger to bleed over into Oswald’s leadership. Victor spends his nights looking for whoever helped the maniacs escape from Arkham, but there’s no real leads. It’s frustrating.

So she keeps an ear out for Oswald and for whoever orchestrated the Arkham escape, but she also listens for talk of a new player in town. It’s been quiet on that front as well so far, so Gavin Hawthorne is either staying out of Gotham or is good at staying hidden. She’s sure that she would hear about a long lost Hawthorne returning to Gotham, so he must not be in town. Not yet at least. (He has to come to Gotham soon, or she’ll have to hunt him down. She doesn’t want to leave the city, but she will.)

Her thoughts are interrupted by the sound of footsteps, deliberately loud and echoing, and she twists around so that she can look over the back of the couch. It’s only a little after nine at night, but she doesn’t have anywhere to be tonight. She spent two days out in the city, so she’s ready for some good sleep. She’s been trying to stay awake so that she can get her days and nights straight, so she’s going to call meeting Victor’s eyes over the back of the couch good luck. If she had gone to bed two hours ago when she originally wanted, she would have missed seeing him.

“Staying or passing through?” she asks. Nothing in the apartment had been changed when she got home, so she hadn’t been able to tell if he’d been by or not while she was gone.

“Showering and sleeping,” is his answer. It’s a good answer. One that she completely agrees with.

“I’ll be in bed when you get out.” He nods and walks off, and she listens to the sound of his fading footsteps before getting off the couch. She turns off everything in the living room and kitchen, and she drags her feet up the stairs to her bedroom. The only light is coming from the lamp on her bedside table, the blankets have already been turned down, and she can hear the shower running because the door is cracked open.

Since everything has already been taken care of, she crawls up onto the bed. The music is changed to something soft with the volume turned down before she drops the remote onto the bedside table, and she props her back up against the headboard. If she actually lays down, she’ll fall asleep before she gets to see Victor. There’s even a slight chance that she might fall asleep sitting up. Thankfully, the bathroom door opens wider only a few minutes later. She smiles as Victor comes into view, and he’s dressed in his usual pajamas. Black sweatpants and a black tee shirt. She bought them in packs.

“Is that mine?” She looks down at his question and pinches some of the dark fabric over her sternum.

“I paid for it, but I bought it for you,” she shrugs. After taking her own shower earlier, she’d grabbed one of Victor’s discarded plain black sleeping shirts to slip on. The fabric smelled like a combination of them. Like her hair products and body wash. Like gun oil and mint. It was comforting.

“Is that your way of saying that you missed me?” The lamp turns off as he’s sitting on the bed, and she holds still until he’s laying down. Once he’s comfortable, she slides down and moves over to his side. She’s wondered, more than once over the past week, if she does the same thing in her sleep when he joins her.

“No. If I missed you, I’d just say it.” He’s warm from the shower but still smells vaguely of smoke, but she decides not to ask. He would tell her if it was something important. She wraps an arm around his middle and tucks herself against his side, and she feels his arm move around to brace against her back. One hand slips under the tee shirt to grip her hip, and she rubs her cheek against his chest. “I missed you, Victor.”

“Knew it.” He sounds half asleep already, and she’s right behind him. Or possibly ahead of him. She yawns one last time before letting go and falling asleep.


Victor has always woken up instantly alert. There has never been a slow transition from sleep to wakefulness, and today is no exception. As soon as his mind switches back into consciousness, he is aware of everything around him. He can feel the too plush pillow under his head, knows his legs are twisted under the thick blanket, and realizes that a slight weight is pressing down against his stomach. Not enough pressure to alter his breathing, but it’s enough to let him know that she’s there. He knows it’s Bex, because he can smell her. Coconut and vanilla, with a little mint mixed in. She woke up and brushed her teeth before climbing back onto her bed to apparently straddle his stomach.

“Is this how you wake up all of your employees, or am I just special?” His eyes don’t open until he finishes drawling the sentence out, and he quickly assesses Bex’s appearance. Her brown hair is wild around her face, her eyes are squinted as she looks down at him, and her hands are hovering over his chest. She’s still dressed in the purple shorts and the black tee shirt she fell asleep in last night, but he can’t read the look on her face. He can’t tell what she’s thinking.

“You see me, and I see you.” A smart remark is on the tip of his tongue, and he actually has to bite down on the inside of his cheek to keep from speaking. She’s not speaking in the literal sense. He pulls his hands out from under the thick blanket slowly, so that she can see his every movement, and then moves his hands to the bottom of her shirt. (His shirt.) Her only movement is to raise her arms so that he can pull the fabric off, and he tosses it to the side without caring about where it lands.

“I see you.” His left hand moves down her right ribcage, starting with the top of the black tree inked into her skin. From there, his hand sweeps down to touch against the large scar that destroys the center of the trunk. The scar is a faded pink and about the size of his palm, but her skin turns smooth again as his hand moves down to trace over the inked roots of the tree.

“It was a sharpened pipe. One of the current wife’s bodyguards got me because I thought he was dead, and I had to cauterize it myself afterwards. No one could be trusted.” Her voice is quiet in the large room, and his thumb lightly brushes against the raised edge of the scar. He watches as her back arches, pushing her hips forward just the smallest amount, and he continues to move his hand down. The scar that runs along her right hip and slips along her pelvic bone, under her shorts, is about as thick as one of his fingers and a startling white against her tan skin. A knife wound.

“No one trusts me.” One hand settles against the center of his chest, and the slight pressure is telling him to stay still. To not move. Her other hand reaches over to touch against his left arm, and he can see her lips moving as her fingers trace the raised edges of the healed tally marks. He’s only in a pair of sweatpants and a tee shirt, both black, and he rarely lets anyone have this much access to his skin.

“I don’t have to trust you. I own you.” His eyes narrow up at her, and the weight against his chest increases. Her center presses harder against his stomach as she leans down, and the right side of her lip has healed. There’s still a line, but it’s so faint now. “Say it, Victor. Say that I own you.”

“Why is it so important that you own me?” He barely knows her; he had never even heard of her before two weeks ago, aside from the whispered legends of the assassin who took down the Hawthorne family. He wants to understand her. Needs to know how she got under his skin so fast.

“I’ve never really owned anything before. Not anything of value. Just material things.” She’s leaning so far over him now that her hair is forming a curtain around his face, but her eyes still flick around the room. “Nothing of substance. Nothing important. You’re special, Victor. Can’t you feel it? I thought I felt it the first time I looked into your eyes, but I knew for sure when we killed that guy together. We’re the same. I can be yours, but you have to be mine too.”

Their fingers had overlapped as they choked the last man to break into her first apartment, and he’d seen the look in her dark eyes. The manic joy that comes from a satisfying kill. From getting your hands dirty. She ordered him to kill for her, and he did it without hesitation. Made it extra messy, just for her. Came to her once he was done and let her take care of him. He even let her carve a new tally into his arm, which is something that he’d never allow someone else to do. Yes, there is something different about Bexley Barba. Like there’s something different about him. Her eyes are still staring down at him, but the usual brown of her eyes is just a small ring around her dilated pupils. He keeps his eyes locked with hers as he lifts his chin, and he can feel the rush of air that she expels at the movement.

“I’m yours.” He can say that to her, because it means that she’s his too. This woman, with her soft skin and ragged scars, can be his. The hand on his chest stays pressed firm against him as it moves higher, and his jaw clenches as her hand curls around his throat. Her palm is pushing against his Adam’s apple, four fingers are flush against the calm pulse in his throat, and her thumb is pushing against the edge of his jaw.

“That’s not what I told you to say.” Her voice is quiet and sing-song, and her hair tickles against his cheeks. Her thumb bends so that her nail can press into his skin, just hard enough to sting, and her knees tighten against his ribs.

“You own me.” The smile that spreads across her face is transformative. Lines appear next to her eyes as her cheeks dimple, and the tan skin of her face flushes as her nose wrinkles. She keeps her hand on his throat as she leans down to press her lips against his, and he lets his tongue flick out to touch against the dent left behind on her bottom lip before she can pull back. Her lips are dry but soft, tastes minty, and she’s looking at him like he’s something she’s never seen before.

“I’m not innocent, but I never really enjoyed it. I did what I had to. Means to an end. What if I never enjoy sex?” It’s a simple three letter word, and it shouldn’t make him react like this. Like his blood is on fire, and he’s aware of his hands gripping her hips. Gripping tight enough to bruise.

“Then we never have sex.” He’s many things, and he can admit to all of those things. A heartless killer with no remorse, but there are some lines that he will not cross. There are other ways to torture.

“I think I might be a little possessive of you. Would you really abstain just for me?” Both of her hands move up to cup his face, and her left palm is rougher than the right one. More scar tissue? He hasn’t had the time to properly examine all of her.

“I’m sure we can find other ways to entertain ourselves,” he says after a moment of thinking. Sex is just another form of release; it’s something that he experiences every time that he watches the light leave a person’s eyes.

“What if I wanted to experiment?” Her smile is mischievous at best and sadistic at worst, and he uses the hold on her hips to shift her body down his. Her eyes widen as her lips form a small “O” and a quiet gasp escapes from between her lips. “I don’t think I’m ready yet, but I’ll want to try things soon. You can be patient for me, can’t you, Victor?”

“I’m a very patient man.” His own smile bares his teeth, and her fingers tease behind his ears as she leans down again. This time her kiss is stronger, rougher, and he lets her have complete control. It goes against his nature, especially in situations like these, but he likes the way that her teeth nip at his lips. Likes the sounds she makes when her tongue dips down to taste him. Likes the little aborted thrusts of her hips.

“You are far too tempting,” she groans as she sits back up. She’s sitting on his stomach again, but she’s keeping most of her weight on her knees so that he can breathe easily. “Fix me breakfast?”

“I’ll see what I can do.” Her fingers lightly dance over the front of his throat one last time and then she’s slipping off of him. He watches the way that the strong muscles in her thighs flex as she moves off the bed before sitting up himself, and she winks at him before disappearing inside of her closet.

Victor’s going to mark this one down as his strangest wakeup call but not his least enjoyable. Here’s hoping the rest of the day goes by just as well.


“Do you have to go to Penguin’s today?” Bex asks after downing three pieces of sausage. Victor’s eyes move over to hers, and heat curls low in her stomach. It’s not a completely new sensation, but it has been a very long time since she felt genuine desire.

“No, but I have other duties to tend to. I’m more than just an attack dog.” Is that how Penguin treats him? Like something common and replaceable? Something that can be called out and then placed away until there’s need for him? She’s going to have to start taking better care of him. People like Victor are rare.

“So, what’s your plan for today?” When she agreed to take this job and Mister Carmine told her about his plan to get her Victor’s allegiance, she imagined they wouldn’t spend much time together. They each have a job to do, but she doesn’t want him away from her. She likes the way that he looks at her, the way he touches her. They’ve known each other for two weeks now, and they’ve spent most of those days together. Usually unconscious. She wants more awake time with him. Is that too much to ask?

“I’ve got to take care of my girls.” Her spine stiffens as something ugly curls under her sternum, but she knows who he’s talking about. She doesn’t know names, she doesn’t think anyone does, but she’s heard about the women that make up Victor’s team. She hasn’t thought to mention them because he hasn’t, but she can feel the large muscles in her body tensing up like she’s preparing for a fight. “You’re jealous.”

“Am not.” Her answer is instant, but it’s mostly a response to his amused tone. When she looks over at him, he’s smiling at her wide enough to show both rows of his teeth. He gets up slowly, so that she can follow his every movement, and she stays leaned back in her chair as he hovers over her. Since her hair is put up, his hands cup her cheeks and tilt her head back even more. The position would be painful if she wasn’t so focused on how close his face is to hers.

“This is only for us.” Her lips part to ask what that means, because the other women are his partners too, but he moves down before she can form a sound.

The kiss is rough but still feels controlled, and she reaches up for him on instinct as he presses her harder against the chair. Fingers curl in the material of his jacket, because he’s fully dressed in a suit, and she groans in frustration. One hand moves to grip her ponytail and pull her head back, and her desperate fingers move over his neck in an attempt to feel skin as he licks at her. His lips force hers to part so he can kiss her harder, deeper, and she digs her fingers under the back of his collar. Digs her nails in beneath the edge of the fabric so that she can leave her mark on him. His other hand is still on her face, holding her in place as he devours her, and her thighs squeeze together as heat rushes through her.

When Victor pulls back, her chest is heaving and her lips feel numb. The sensation quickly fades into something hotter, something that tingles, and her fingers are still under the back of his collar. She could kiss him again if she wanted to, and she wants to. Wants to in a way that makes her ache, but she can’t. He has other responsibilities, and it’s far too early for her to feel so possessive of him. So instead of using her hold on him to pull him back to her, instead of getting to taste him, she lets him go. She makes a note of the little bit of blood clinging to her fingertips and smiles, and Victor’s thumb presses against her bottom lip. She can barely feel the pain, and she darts her tongue out to taste the salt of his skin. It’s better than nothing.

“I think you should call me tonight.” She doesn’t have many numbers in her phone, but Victor’s is one of the few. They’d exchanged numbers during their shopping trip, just in case, and she wonders if the little nuances in his tone can be carried over a phone line. Will she be able to hear when he smiles? When his teeth are bared or when his lip curls up?

“And why is that?” His hands are stroking over her face and neck. Gentle petting. She notices when he finds the small scar behind her ear; the skin is only slightly raised, only an inch or so long and thin, but she’s learning that Victor rarely misses the little things.

“I want to try an experiment,” she says and smiles innocently up at him. It’s a smile that she learned to perfect when she was younger. Widens her eyes and lets only a little flash of her teeth show from between her swollen lips. The kiss he places against the top of her head is so gentle in comparison to the one from just moments ago, and her eyes close against the feeling.

“I’ll call you.” When her eyes open, Victor is gone and she’s alone on the patio. Now, how can she distract herself for the day?


“Are you watching the news?” Two pairs of eyes flick over to look at him, without subtlety or finesse, and Victor makes a point of turning up the TV as they continue to watch him.

“The kid likes playing dress-up,” he says in answer. It’s been a good day. A productive day. He didn’t get to kill anyone, but he feels accomplished anyway. He doesn’t like going so long without seeing his girls, and he went four days without laying eyes on them as they tracked down separate leads.

“First a cop, now a magician. Gotta hand it to him though. He’s got flair,” Bex says. The Deputy Mayor, as well as many more of Gotham’s finest, are dead. The kid, because he is a kid, shoots an apple off of a man’s head. Good aim.

“Did you call me to talk about the news?” He knows eyes are still on him, but he doesn’t care. He likes the sound of Bex’s loud laughter. If she’s watching the news, she has to be sitting on the couch. Is she all covered up or letting her bare skin slide against the leather?

“No. I actually called to ask how your day went, but I got a little distracted by the massacre. You know, with the right teacher, this kid could be something incredible.” Her voice is quiet, curious, and his fingers clench around the phone. He doesn’t have time to babysit a budding serial killer.

“My day was fine. How was yours?” Now he can definitely feel the questioning stares, but he makes a point of not looking over at his girls. He has to keep Bex a secret; no one can know that she’s in Gotham. Not until she says so. A deep groan comes through the tinny speaker, but it pales in comparison to the sound she made this morning. He wants to hear that sound again.

“It was so boring! Maybe I should get a cat, or a hit list. Isn’t there an assassin club in town? I can do a few jobs on the side, right?” She’s restless. A part of him has wondered if she continued killing after leaving Gotham, after she completed her revenge, and he has his answer now.

“Thought you wanted to lay low?” Her laugh is quieter this time, a little deeper, and then she sighs.

“Are you saying you don’t have faith in me, Victor? I’m a good assassin. Quick. Quiet. Clean.” She ticks off the last three like she’s reading from a grocery list, and he remembers the look of the first apartment she tried to live in. Sees the puddles and streaks across the walls. Remembers the dirt that clung to her that first day from burying bodies. He’ll give her quick and quiet, but she hasn’t sold him on clean yet. “Did you hear that man’s speech? The knocked out guy?”

“New billionaire in town?” He would rather think about Bex dancing around drying puddles of blood on the floor, but he’s focused on the TV again now.

“That’s the one. Did he sound off to you? He sounded off to me.” She doesn’t sound worried, so he’s not worried.

“Want to look into him?” Her hum is quiet and barely audible, and he wants to feel her weight against his side. It’s almost annoying how attached he’s become in such a short amount of time. Almost.

“No. I don—Oh, look, he’s getting up.” They watch together as the billionaire stands up and then stabs the rampaging kid in the neck, and something is off. The news isn’t picking up the sound, but Victor can see the man’s lips moving. He’s speaking to the kid, but he can’t tell what he’s saying. “I take it back. He might be worth looking into, later. I’m going out tomorrow night, so I’ll need to prepare tomorrow. I want to hear if there’s any chatter about Gavin Hawthorne. You’re free to do whatever you want, but I want you to call me if there’s any problems with Oswald.”

“Are you saying goodnight? I thought we were going to experiment?” He can hear the taunt in his own voice but doesn’t apologize for it, and Bex’s laugh is nearly breathless this time. He stores the information in a box carefully labeled with her name before focusing intently on her response.

“Who says I haven’t already? Goodnight, Victor.” Before he can reply, the call goes silent. She said goodnight and then hung up on him. He returns his phone to a pocket lining the inside of his jacket, and he finally allows his eyes to move to the other side of the room. They’re not looking at him, not anymore, but he can see the faint smiles on their faces.

“Got somethin’ you wanna talk about?”

“No.” His answer ends the conversation immediately, but he knows it’ll be brought up again. For now though, Bex is all his.


The next day is just as boring as the day before, but Bex at least gets to feel the anticipation of her upcoming night. Even if she doesn’t learn anything useful or gets to put an end to someone, she’ll still be out of the house. That’s good enough for her, because she’s never liked being cooped up. Her mother used to scold her all the time for running around outside and getting her clothes dirty. (There was also that time when she was stuck in a tight, dark space. Trapped. Scared. She doesn’t like that feeling, and she’s willing to do whatever it takes to never feel that way again.)

By the time night rolls around, she’s fully dressed and ready to go out. It’s too bad that the night is a complete disappointment. She didn’t think it was possible, but the city is even more on edge after the killings at the Hospital Gala. Maybe it’s because the Deputy Mayor is dead and the actual Mayor is MIA. The few, somewhat, decent citizens of Gotham are locked away inside their homes. The criminals of Gotham are quiet and subdued, on edge, and no one is talking. There’s whispers, but that’s it. She calls it quits by one and returns home, and she doesn’t hide her sigh as she walks into her empty bedroom. She was hoping Victor would be here.

The sight of her reflection makes her stomach knot up, but she’s careful as she pulls off the dark red wig. The dark strands had bobbed around her face, so much shorter than her actual hair, and she slowly looks at the rest of her appearance. The dark blue dress has long sleeves and keeps her covered up from her thighs to her throat, and the boots she’s wearing keep her covered from the tops of her thighs to her toes. Gloves hide her hands, so her face is the only skin showing. Makeup makes her look paler than her naturally tan complexion, and contacts make her eyes look bright blue. She’s a stranger to her own eyes.

Twenty minutes later, she’s in the shower and slowly starting to feel more like herself. Her hair is down and tickles just under her shoulder blades, and she can see herself in a way that few ever have. She isn’t ashamed of her body, but any of the marks can be identifiers. Her scars and tattoos, all combined, are quite distinctive. So when she ventures out into the world, she has to be someone else. It’s how she’s always done things, so why does it bother her so much now? She has never wanted recognition, for anything, but she’s starting to get this urge to be seen.

“You see me, and I see you.”

Victor sees her. It’s more than just the physical, although it’s nice to be seen that way as well. Especially by someone who sees her scars and understands just how much she sacrificed to do what she did. Victor sees the marks and knows what she endured, and he respects her for it. She can feel his respect every time his hands touch against her skin, and it’s a heady feeling. It’s more than that though. He can see who she really is, even when she tries to hide it. She’s not sure how to classify herself; she was born normal, average, but something in her psyche shifted after her mother died. She knows that murder is wrong, but she doesn’t feel remorse for the lives she’s taken. She’s even enjoyed some of the kills, especially Nathan’s. She likes the planning and execution of a good assassination, and she’s kept herself away from everyone. Until Victor. Because he can see her. He’s like her, he understands her, and she didn’t even realize she was looking for someone similar to her until she found him.

Did Mister Carmine know? He’s known her his entire life and worked closely with Victor for over a decade, so did he see the similarities between them and just know that they could work together? Has Victor been looking for someone like her too? The shower turns off while she’s still deep in thought, and she pulls on her small pile of pajamas while feeling distracted. Purple shorts. Baggy black tee shirt. Since her hair is wet, she pins it up behind her before walking into her bedroom. She pauses with one knee on the bed as her neck prickles, because she’s not alone.

“Are you real?” She loves it when he drawls his words out. Makes the syllables stretch. It gives every word a little more weight, more meaning. With a careful twist, she sits on the bed with her feet hanging over the side and looks at her bookcase. The only light is coming from the bedside lamp, so she can barely see Victor’s outline.

“I was the last time I checked. Why do you ask?” Victor’s footsteps are silent as he walks over to her, and she tips her head back so that she can keep meeting his eyes. He’s standing close enough to touch, but he’s keeping himself away from her. Why?

“Two weeks, and I missed you after leaving yesterday morning. I don’t miss anyone.” Oh, so this is new for him too. It’s good to know that she’s not alone in all of this. She reaches out for his hands and then frowns when she feels leather instead of skin. No fair.

“We’ll figure it out tomorrow. Tonight, we’re going to sleep. Agreed?” The way his jaw clenches causes shadows to appear over his cheeks, and she moves her hand to his jacket.

Victor is silent as she undresses him, button by button, but she can feel his eyes on her. The weapons holstered on him are placed on the bedside table, but she lets his clothes fall to the floor. That’s something to be dealt with tomorrow too. She kneels between him and the bed so that she can remove his boots and socks, and she’s impressed that he can walk so quietly in the heavy footwear. Once he’s nearly stripped completely down, leaving only a pair of black boxer briefs on, she grabs his hand and pulls him onto the bed behind her. By the time she has the music turned on and the lamp turned off, he’s lying down and waiting for her. She knows he’s waiting for her because his arms immediately pull her to him, and she curls into him.


She looks soft in sleep. Her dark hair is still pinned back, away from her face, so he can see her easier. Her cheek is pressed against his chest, and he can feel every warm exhale against his bare skin. One arm is curled under her pillow, and the other is stretched across his stomach and wrapped around his side. He can feel smooth fingertips pressing just under his back, and her legs are tangled around his under the blanket. He can feel soft skin and raised scar tissue all down her legs, from under her knees to her ankles, and he has one hand resting against the knife scar over her right hip.

“Your staring is distracting.” Nothing about her has changed; her face still looks impassive in sleep, so it’s almost easy to believe that he just imagined her voice. Blunt nails are lightly pressing against his back instead of skin, so he knows she’s awake.

“Ready to talk now?” he asks instead of responding to her original statement. Her body stirs as she stretches and arches against him, but she doesn’t open her eyes.

“I’ve been on my own since I was sixteen. Or eleven, because the foster system isn’t very good at keeping tabs on anyone. After the Hawthorne family, I knew I was different. Even the few assassins I’ve met over the years think that there’s something different about me; I could see it in their eyes whenever they saw my work. You don’t look at me like that. You get it. You understand me, don’t you, Victor? You understand that killing isn’t just what I do. It’s who I am. Because it’s who you are too.”

Her eyes are still closed, and her fingers are tracing circles over his ribs. Small loops, large ones. Over and over with no clear pattern as she speaks, and it helps him relax against the mattress. Yes, he understands her. She has to kill. Not as a compulsion, like some people think, but because that’s just who she is. It’s one of the reasons why he kills. It’s just who he is now, and he doesn’t see the point in denying that part of himself. Bex’s cheek nuzzles against him, and he tightens the grip he has on her hip.

“My family was normal; my parents loved each other, and they gave me everything a child could ask for. They were rich but kind, and they died in a boating accident when I was fifteen. Their wealth meant I received a caretaker after their deaths, until I emancipated myself at sixteen. The same year that I graduated high school. I didn’t have a purpose in life, so a year later I was prepared to end it all. I was only one step away when a bum tried to rob me, and I killed him. The first kill always has the most clarity, doesn’t it?”

“My first was Hawthorne’s retired maid. It was easier than I expected, and killing her let me know that I was on the right path,” Bex quietly agrees.

“I was sitting outside on my steps the next morning when the paper was delivered, and the headline was about the massacre of Don Falcone’s staff. Tracking down the man who killed them wasn’t difficult, and Don Falcone hired me to work for him after I showed up with the man’s head. Said he could tell that I had a bright future.” It’s a happy memory for him. Don Falcone had been careful with him at first, until he’d honed his skills and instincts, but the man had faith in him. Maybe he still does.

“But you’ve been alone too, haven’t you?” He’s had his girls for the past couple of years, and there were others before them. He’s taught them and continues to teach them, but Bex is on his level. Or above it, if they go by body count alone.

“Something like that.” Her hum is quiet, and her eyes finally open. Average brown, neither light nor dark, meets his.

“We can make this complicated, or we can keep it simple. We’re together, and we’re honest with each other. I’m yours, and you’re mine. What else is there to discuss?” Her voice is quiet, but he can hear the quiet demand to her tone. He’s not sure if he can form a romantic attachment to anyone, but the thought of Bexley with anyone else makes him feel more homicidal than usual. Maybe it’s more obsession and possessiveness than anything else, but it’s enough for him.

“Together. Deal.” She moves quickly, so that she’s lying peacefully beside him one moment and straddling his stomach a moment later. Her smile is wide and dimples her cheeks, and her hands are warm against his chest as she braces herself over him.

“Together. I like the sound of that.” Her fingertips are pressing down against his collarbones, and her hair is wild around the both of them as she leans down. “Does that mean you’re all mine today?”

“Depends. What do you have planned?” Her smile shifts into something a little less innocent, and he’s surprised at the rush of heat he feels buzzing in his veins.

“Breakfast, for starters. I’m starving.”