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“You can’t just kidnap a CEO whenever you don’t have your way,” Victoria grumbles, tugging at her restraints. They don’t budge. Her wrists are firmly cuffed to the headboard of Iris’s bed.
Iris leans down over where she lays, half sprawled and half sitting up. She’s in one of her chilly-smiley moods again, practically leering down at Victoria.
Victoria frowns back at her. Iris has always been hard for her to read given she often doesn’t say what’s on her mind, nor show what she’s really feeling.
“Oh? So was I supposed to just let you agree to a contract scam of an engagement?” Iris asks. Her smile says this is a pleasant conversation. Her eyes say they want to skewer Victoria through with icicles.
Victoria decides that Iris is definitely still pissed at her for not telling her about that. She isn’t winning any more points with Iris either for the way she had found out in the first place.
As if reading her mind, Iris continues, “Do you know what made it worse? It’s that you didn’t even tell me. I found out about your engagement from neither of the people involved in it.”
She dips a leg down onto the bed. The mattress sinks with her weight. Her knee lands perfectly in the open space between Victoria’s.
Victoria swallows, throat suddenly dry. Iris looms over her, casting a shadow over Victoria beneath the glare of the bedroom lights above. Her smile is a little too menacing.
Voice lowered, like she’s telling a secret, Iris says, “I found out because Rosalie texted Selene, and Selene told me, thinking that I already knew. Why do you think that is?”
Victoria tears her gaze away, fighting not to squirm as Iris’s knee begins to inch forward. “I’m—I’m not sure why Rosalie is texting Selene at all.”
“Everyone texts Selene,” Iris dismisses. “She is astoundingly popular. There’s a non-zero percent chance that a passing stranger you ask on the street has her number. For someone who’s not even yet graduated, she knows almost more people than you or I do.”
This is true. However, Victoria doesn’t have the time to respond because a hand cups her chin and turns her gaze back toward Iris.
She shivers as a fingernail scratches lightly along her jaw. Iris is fully on the bed now and moving in closer, like the jaws of a trap slowly clamping down around her. Scrambling for an excuse, chin gripped in a steel-like hand, she pleads, “Please let me go. I have work tomorrow.”
“I have work tomorrow, too,” Iris replies pleasantly.
“More reason to stop this so we can both go to bed early,” Victoria suggests.
“Hmm. Funny.”
Iris leans down until their noses brush, still smiling in a way that clearly says not funny. Her breath blows hotly against Victoria’s lips. She’s too close. Victoria can’t hear her own thoughts over how loud her heart is beating.
“Stop trying to run away,” Iris murmurs.
Her knee finally presses up against the apex between Victoria’s thighs. Victoria’s face burns. It takes every source of willpower in her to remain still, muscles clenched tight, so as to not instinctively shift into the firm surface that now rests against her.
Iris tuts, her smile morphing into a smirk. She releases Victoria’s chin in favor of lowering herself down, hands planted on either side of her. Victoria wonders if she’s close enough to hear the way her heart is slamming against her ribs.
“Look at you,” Iris says softly, settling almost entirely on top of her. “All tied up like this. Deserving of someone who’s been so naughty. What do you have to say for yourself?”
Victoria’s lip twitches at her word choice. “Stop talking to me like I’m a child.”
“You’re certainly acting like one. I thought it was only fair.”
Victoria frowns at her again. Iris raises an expectant brow at her in return.
She shuffles uncomfortably, restraints clinking as if in taunting reminder of her predicament when she tugs her wrists. Iris’s weight is warm and heavy atop her; it would have been almost reassuring, except for the way it keeps her firmly pinned down.
“Well?” Iris presses. So does her knee, between Victoria’s legs, until she lets out a strangled noise.
“I’m sorry! I’m sorry I didn’t tell you,” Victoria bursts out, feeling as if her ears are aflame. At Iris’s prompting hum, and another pointed shift of her knee, her voice pitches as she weakly adds, “I will—I will talk to Rosalie, to convince her to call off the engagement.”
Iris shakes her head.
“No, that's not enough. She won't agree if you just ask.”
“Then what would you have me do?” Victoria asks, resigned.
At her distress, Iris visibly softens. Real warmth returns to her eyes as she cradles Victoria’s cheek and brings their gazes to meet once more. “Let me take care of it.”
Victoria hesitates. Iris is calculating, and while Victoria doesn’t doubt her capabilities, she isn’t sure what exactly she could do to help.
“You can't kidnap another CEO—“ she starts.
“There’s only one CEO I prefer to kidnap,” Iris interrupts her, glowering.
For some inexplicable reason, this causes Victoria to blush. She fidgets. Then asks, shy, “Does that mean that you like her?”
Iris finally sits back on her haunches, mouth twitching like she’s torn between fondness and exasperation. She pokes Victoria in the side, just to watch her squirm away, ticklish, a look of betrayal and confusion on her face.
“Yes,” she answers seriously. “It’s because I like her a lot. And also because we are dating.”
Victoria beams. Her restraints are the only thing stopping her from leaning up to kiss Iris. “I like you a lot, too,” she confesses.
“I know.”
Fondness appears to win out, based on the small smile on Iris’s face. She can’t help her chuckle. She leans down for Victoria’s sake and kisses her, just to shut her up.
A few days later, Rosalie calls for a meeting with Victoria, where she promptly agrees to cancel the engagement.
Victoria leaves her office in a rather dazed state, feeling simultaneously relieved and dumbfounded. It’s an odd mixture of feelings that follows her for the rest of the day.
She goes to confront Iris about it after work.
“How did you do it,” she asks the moment Iris lets her inside the apartment. She stands after placing her heels by the door, only to startle as arms loop around her waist and pull her in close once she turns around.
Iris peers down at her, expression soft. They’re pressed close together. She’s warm and unfairly tall standing on the step above Victoria, who’s forced to look up at her.
“How did I do what?” Iris asks, like she doesn’t know.
Victoria shivers at the tickle of her breath. Her hands clutch onto Iris’s arms by instinct. “Get Rosalie to cancel the engagement.”
“Successfully,” Iris says.
“Iris.”
Iris gives her a slow, sweet smile, but Victoria knows her well enough by now to recognize the dangerous glint that’s emerged in her eyes.
“Don’t worry about it. She won’t bother you again,” Iris finally says.
“. . . Is she still alive?”
Iris gives her an exasperated look. “You saw her earlier today, didn’t you?”
Victoria nods. She supposes this is all right, then. No longer wanting to think about her cousin while with her girlfriend, she drops the rest of her questions for now.
“Just making sure.”
“First you doubt my success. Then you doubt my methods.” Iris shakes her head. “The person I’m dating truly has no faith in me.”
Victoria chuckles at her dramatics. Clutching onto Iris for balance, she leans up on her toes to leave a kiss on her cheek.
It’s well worth it, seeing the way Iris turns quiet and flushed.
“Stop hugging me while you stand on the front step all the time. I know it’s because you want to be taller,” Victoria says.
Iris shrugs, appearing nonchalant despite the pinkened quality of her cheeks. “I’m not sure what you’re talking about. I’ve always been taller than you.”
Victoria just wordlessly drags her backward until Iris is forced to concede the high ground, leaving them on level ground with each other.
Here, Victoria is pleased to see she once more stands a hair taller.
By her haughty expression and upturned nose, Iris deigns not to acknowledge her pointed argument.
Victoria bites back a smile. This is unsurprising. She changes tracks.
“Thank you,” she says with sincerity. Her solemn tone draws Iris’s eyes back to her. “You saved me from a situation I didn’t want to be in and had no control over. My life would no longer have been my own, if it weren’t for you.”
Iris tucks a strand of Victoria’s hair behind her ear, the gesture weighted with obvious care. “This isn’t something you have to thank me for. Of course I had to do something. I’d never stand to see you suffer,” she says gently.
She leans in. Victoria’s eyes close automatically, thinking Iris is going in for a kiss, only for a warm breath to blow across her now exposed ear. She shivers in surprise, eyes flying open, but it’s already too late; Iris has her wrapped close in her arms again, lips brushing the shell of her ear.
She whispers, voice dropping, “Besides, you’re mine. I won’t accept being second to anyone else in your life. In fact—I’ll eliminate all competitors.”
Her teeth clamp around Victoria’s ear and gently bite down. Victoria frantically brings a hand up to muffle her noises, helpless as Iris steers them backward to press against the wall.
They’re still in the entryway right by the door. But with the way Iris is beginning to pull apart her shirt collar, Victoria knows they won’t make it to the bedroom.
The week after, Selene suggests they go on a double date.
They end up going to a familiar cafe and picking a table away by the corner. Selene and Eleanor sit on one side, huddled together over the menu and quietly discussing their orders.
Iris and Victoria sit across from them. Victoria has her head leaned against Iris’s shoulder, a public display of affection Iris might have found peculiar if she hadn’t known it was out of drowsiness and exhaustion.
It’s Victoria’s day off from a densely packed schedule. She’s still tired from work. But Iris takes the opportunity as it is; she selfishly indulges in Victoria’s lowered guard to hold her hand beneath the table, thumb stroking back and forth over her knuckles.
Even after they’ve placed their orders, Victoria makes no move to shift away.
Iris is humming without realizing it. Her happiness must be that apparent, because Selene glances between the two of them before flashing Iris a grin.
Iris knows she must be feeling smug, and pleased with herself. Selene was the one who helped introduce them to each other again, long after Iris thought it’d be the last time she saw Victoria.
“Xuejie, you're in a really good mood today,” Selene teases.
“I think it's because she killed someone and successfully hid the body,” Victoria mumbles sleepily before Iris can reply.
Iris sighs. “Is that how you think I solve all my problems? Kidnapping and murder?”
Victoria hums like she actually has to think about it. Iris would pinch her if they weren’t holding hands. After a moment, Victoria says, “I haven't heard news from my ex-fiance in days. I’m convinced she’s gone missing.”
“Ex-fiance?” Eleanor echoes quietly in the background.
“Long story,” Selene tells her.
Iris hates to do it, but she pulls away to look Victoria in the eye.
She asks, rather charged, “Why are you still communicating with your ex-fiance?”
Victoria blinks, more from confusion than drowsiness. “She keeps texting me. We’re not engaged anymore, so I thought I'd just respond. Is it wrong to?”
“Victoria. Give me your phone later,” Iris says flatly. She is going to go through her contact list and block everyone who’s ever even attempted to ask Victoria out.
Victoria nods. At least she’s obedient. Then she hesitates, brows furrowing. “You never answered. Did you have a hand in . . . ?”
Iris gives what Victoria has described as her “angry smile.” She leans in, mouth curving sharply. “What would you do? What does it say about you then that you’re openly dating a serial killer?”
“That I have killer taste,” Victoria says.
Iris stares at her.
Selene is covering her mouth and trying not to laugh, but a choked noise still spills out. Eleanor looks at them both with her eyebrows raised high.
Victoria has a small smile on her face. She’s clearly failing to hide how proud she is of her joke.
“You . . . silly flirt,” Iris murmurs at last, helpless with fondness. She really decided to be with someone this corny.
Victoria’s smile stretches into a grin.
A waiter eventually arrives with their orders, and soon they’re digging in. While Selene and Eleanor are preoccupied with feeding each other, Iris leans into Victoria’s side and moves her hand down to curl around her thigh.
Her fingers tease menacingly along the sensitive inner skin there. She whispers in Victoria’s ear, “I'm getting you back for your comments later.”
Victoria shivers against her, twitching from sensitivity. She’s as bad at hiding how flustered she immediately becomes, face heating up.
“I—I look forward to that,” she stammers.