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His eyes are as blue as you remember.
Even half-drowned in the bleeding neon of the club’s strobes, that ice color cuts straight through the dark. A blue that absolutely does not belong in a subterranean Berlin syndicate den.
You spot him leaning against the far end of the bar, playing the part of a weary patron nursing a drink. Would’ve been believable if his other hand wasn’t resting over his holster. You assume he’s using the mirrored wall behind the liquor bottles to track the two security details guarding the elevator.
So much for blending in.
Passing through the grind of sweaty bodies, you easily slide into the empty space beside him. Deliberately nudging his tensed arm with a manicured hand, “Buy a girl a drink?”
Leon doesn't even flinch, but you’re too familiar with his tells to miss the subtle twitch of muscle faltering under the skin of his neck. The deepening crease at the corner of his mouth gives away his exasperation. “Why am I not surprised that you’re here?”
You throw him a lazy smile. “Berlin is a lovely time of the year.”
“It's thirty degrees and pouring rain.”
“I've always been fond of the cold.”
He finally turns his head, bringing the full weight of his gaze on you. "Who holds your contract tonight? Don't tell me you suddenly grew a conscience about stolen bioweapons."
"What do you mean? I'm just a tourist taking in the nightlife."
"A tourist with a suppressed gun printing against her hip. Right."
"A girl has to protect herself in a city like this."
“From what? The people you're paid to erase?" He shifts his weight to turn completely towards you. "You're here to ruin my op.”
You scoff, as if the underground entirely revolves around the DSO's noble crusades.
When the dossier dropped in your mail forty hours ago, the mandate wasn't exactly draped in heroism. It seemed like the frantic equivalent of a corporate suit sweating through his silk collar. Some lab tech had let a synthesized parasite strain slip out the back door to be auctioned for the highest bidder, and suddenly you were flying to Europe to play exterminator.
While Leon was probably getting a patriotic briefing about securing an asset on foreign soil to save lives, the instructions given to you were pretty blunt. Retrieve the prototype, put a bullet between the broker’s eyes.
He wants to save the day, you’re here to make sure there is nothing left to save—it’s nothing new.
"I'm going to sanitize it," you correct, letting the playful lilt drop from your voice. "You want to play hero and drag the guy out in handcuffs. I’m here to make sure his brain decorates the walls."
"I can't let you do that."
"I know."
He takes a step forward, and you wonder if he realizes how close he’s standing. You can trace the harsh blue of his eyes as they fracture under the pulse of the lights, bleeding slices of violent magenta and sickly green. The color of his irises completely bottoms to midnight as you close the little to nothing space, the toe of your boot knocking against his.
“Security swap is in twelve minutes," you point out, tone entirely flat. "Which means we have a very narrow window to figure out what we're going to do with each other."
He tips his chin down. The scent of whiskey and gunpowder is intoxicatingly close. “I already know what I’m doing.”
“Yeah? What’s your big boy plan?”
“I’m going to take those guys out, secure the target, and then I’ll leave while you’re going to turn around and walk out the door."
You let out a mocking hum, sliding one hand up the solid wall of his chest. "You're hopelessly stubborn, Kennedy. Has anyone ever told you that?"
His chest tenses under your dainty fingers, but he makes no move to stop you. "Don't try to play me. I know exactly what you're doing."
“Do you?”
“You're trying to distract me.”
“Is it working?"
A heavy sound rumbles in his chest. "Not even a little."
You would believe him if he weren’t regarding you with such intensity. Your hair falls loosely over your eye with a blunt shake of your head.
"I can admit that you're exceptionally good with weapons, but you are a terrible liar."
You don't even wait for his reply. You grip his lapels and use his compromised center of gravity against him, dragging him off the bar. The club is too dark for anyone to notice as you steer him blindly away from the flashing lights, shoving him through the steel door of the maintenance hallway.
Satisfied that the narrow, concrete corridor is a complete dead zone void of security cameras, you nod, kicking the heavy deadbolt shut. “This will do.”
“We need to stop doing this.”
You wonder if he ever gets tired of reciting the exact same lie. He often does this, likes to draw his little ethical lines only to end up tearing your clothes off in discreet, cash-only motel rooms. It’s a hypocritical little dance, and frankly, the fact that he still needs to pretend he doesn't crave the collateral damage is starting to piss you off.
There’s a dismissive shove to his chest as you release him. You take a step back, masking the spike of adrenaline twisting in your gut with practiced indifference.
“Then go right ahead with your lame plan,” you snap, trying to feign a sudden lack of interest by shuffling away. “I’m sure there are plenty of guys on the dance floor who would love to fill in your shoes.”
It’s a cheap manipulative shot, and to your advantage, it works perfectly. You don't even make it a full step back toward the club. He uses his sheer size to overwhelm you, spinning you around and pinning your back flush against the door. A smirk of victory pulls at your mouth.
“Don't," he warns. Ducks his head slowly, mouth hovering a fraction of an inch from the pulse point at your neck. "Don’t even joke about that."
"Hmm, is America’s golden boy actually jealous?"
He ignores your jab.
“Jealousy implies I consider them competition,” he drawls. His nose brushes the line of your jaw, inhaling the sweet scent of sweat radiating off your pores. “I'm just saving some poor civilian from getting his throat cut when you get bored.”
"You make me sound so ruthless.”
“You are." He presses a kiss under your ear. “But that’s because you're predictable."
You yank his hair enough to force his gaze back up to yours. His projection is amusing when you’re staring at the most transparent man you’ve ever come across to. You can practically read the agonizing blueprint of his moral compass while he knows nothing of you other than the caliber of your favorite handgun.
You pull a condescending little face.
“I'm offended. I’d like to think I radiate some kind of mystery.”
“There's no mystery here," he retorts. You feel his hands move down your waist, long fingers digging into the plush curve of your ass. "You're wired on the adrenaline of a hit, and you're using me to quiet the noise in your head before you pull the trigger—”
He presses his obvious bulge against your belly.
“—and I let you."
The wrinkle on your nose deepens. “How incredibly noble of you, taking one for the team so I don't lose my mind."
"Don't give me too much credit." He palms the fat of your hip, slipping heavily between your parted thighs. Cups the scorching heat of your pussy. "I'm exactly where I want to be."
Your eyes flutter shut against your will. What follows is a crush of sensation, a visceral pressure that doesn't just chip at your composure but completely incinerates it, and you find yourself you’re slowly unspooling in real time, suddenly starved for the solid mass of him to keep yourself upright.
You reach out to map the lines of his biceps, span your fingers down his narrowed waist, drag your nails up the dense muscles hidden beneath his jacket. You can feel the coordinated twitch and contraction beneath his shirt as he massages you over layers of fabric.
His curse is what snaps your focus back to the overhead fixture when he slips inside your pants, touching the softness of bare skin.
“Fuck." His middle finger prods the moisture that greets him. "How are you this wet already?"
Your shoulders lift in a shrug, “Touched myself on the way here.”
Which is a blatant lie. The thought of admitting that you had practically soaked your underwear the second you saw him leaning against the bar is a defeat of power you refuse to make. His government-issued ego is already dangerous enough without handing him the satisfaction of knowing that his mere presence is enough to make you horny.
Whether he actually believes you’re wired enough to get yourself off in the back of a car before a mission, or if he simply doesn’t care, he doesn't call your bluff. He lets out a sharp exhale, pushing past loose skin to easily find your clit.
“Touched yourself like this?”
Your hips buck against his hand. The smile pressing on your cheek is infuriating.
“That’s enough,” you pant, swatting his hand away. “Just unzip your pants and pull out your cock.”
“Charming.”
He grips your elbow and harshly turns you against the door. White canines sink into the tender flesh of your bottom lip to cut off the pleased little sound lodging in your throat. Giving him the satisfaction of knowing how much you thrive on being manhandled is out of the question. Or how much you secretly lose your mind over the rough way he strips you, hands dragging your pants down to your knees in one quick impressive motion—
Smack!
“Fuck!” You screech, spine bowing reflexively. “Fucking slow down.”
“Sorry.” His palm flattens over your ass, thumb smoothing over the sharp burn of pain. “Couldn’t help myself.”
You let out an incredulous laugh. “Yeah right, you’re not sorry at all.”
“No, I am.” He surprises you then, pressing his broad chest flush against your back as his warm lips drag across the nape of your neck. "Should've asked for your permission."
You quickly shake your head, aggressively ignoring the gentleness bleeding over your skin and his need for your consent.
You can’t do this shit.
“If I haven't put a bullet in your knee,” you bite. “You can safely assume I'm not objecting.”
“Very well.”
Smack! Smack!
You can’t stop the gasp rolling off your chest.
“How ‘bout another one?”
You purse your lips together, hoping the extra seconds of forced silence can suppress the urge to beg for that familiar pain. Begging implies you still have something soft left inside of you to break, and you find that concept almost hilariously optimistic.
It’s far more dignified to just grit your teeth.
Clearly, he’s perfectly fluent in your defiance. The sting on your sore flesh multiplies with the echoing crack of another hit. Then another—and then another. By the tenth slap, your pussy throbs pathetically.
“We don’t have—” you huff, a harsh exhale flaring your nostrils, “much time.”
“Is this your way of asking me to fuck you?”
“I’m trying to keep us on schedule," you hiss.
You hear the metallic rasp of his zipper.
“How many minutes do we have left?”
"Three," you try to snap, but the word completely shatters on the way out of your throat. The exact second his tip nudges your tight hole, your bravado starts to dissolve. "Just—fuck, Leon, do it."
He doesn’t need to be told twice.
His large hands wrap bruisingly tight around your hipbones before he drives his hips forward in one sharp thrust. And despite your history, the way he’s stretching you open still shocks the breath straight from your lungs.
But you’ve grown accustomed to it. You like the blinding pain that radiates through your core. You like the suffocating pressure of him claiming your body. And if you're being brutally honest with yourself, you’ve been looking forward to the uncompromising way he holds you down with sloppy thrusts as if he can’t help himself.
You’d be lying if it doesn’t feed your damn ego. His primal urge simply proves that beneath all his discipline, he’s just as hooked on you as you are on him. That your mutual desperation somehow outweighs the catastrophic tally of stupid decisions you’ve both made to end up in this situation.
So if you’re inevitably going to ruin yourself, you find comfort in the knowledge that he’s not far behind.
At least, it’s the only comfort to cling to when his hips start plowing into you. He violently rocks you forward, only to drag you right back to take another unforgiving plunge. The race against the ticking clock seems to have driven him genuinely insane.
You’re not complaining, of course. In fact, you tilt your head back to lean all your dead weight against his chest. You immediately feel his body shifting to wrap an arm across the front of your neck, securely keeping you in place as he fucks the life out of you.
In every sense of the word, too. The blinding light exploding behind your eyelids isn't solely from his relentless pace, but from the restriction of his bicep bearing down on your throat. You feel the muscles around your mouth twitching as your vision starts to blur, hot tears clumping your lashes.
He has you in a chokehold and you’re fucking smiling.
Granted, Leon seems to be enjoying it himself, judging by the harsh groans vibrating directly into your ear. The jarring sound fills the hallway, apart from the low pulse of music playing outside the door that has you trapped flush against him. You’re both too busy exploiting this crunch time to waste any breath talking.
Although you could argue that the lack of conversation is proportional whenever there is a lack in clothing. For two people who spend the better part of their greetings by sparring with words, you rarely ever speak when he’s sheathed deep inside you. Your little rendezvous is usually filled with obnoxiously loud grunts (his), tiny short whimpers (yours), and the occasional slapslapslap of his pelvis hitting your cunt.
The latter is currently drowning out his groans. The pitch of his heavy frame slamming your pussy is increasing so loud you’re surprised the door hasn't completely rattled off its hinges from his sheer force.
You bruise his arm with the claw of your hands, suddenly aware of the heat cresting in your belly.
It’s pretty humiliating that your orgasm is threatening to consume you less than the three minutes you’re counting, but you find no point in arguing with the inevitable. You remind yourself this is what you need, what your body has been demanding—Relief. Release.
He was right when he pointed it out before. You do use him. In every way you can, in any way he lets you. But you find no shame in weaponizing something as base as sex when it’s the quickest way to crush the adrenaline out of your blood before you’re forced to spill someone else’s.
It’s why you allow the next few seconds to simply slip away, deciding to revel in the sensation of his fingers rubbing your puffy clit. You thaw in his arm, feeling your spine liquefy the second he tightens his hold around your neck. Gasping a large drag of oxygen, you weakly push your hips back to meet his.
The next few thrusts have you genuinely whining, a keening noise scraped from the bottom of your throat. But you couldn't care less when he's hitting deep enough to completely hollow you out while bruising your insides.
You finally cum with a fierce arch of your back. Eyes rolling, legs violently shaking. Your ears are also frantically ringing, the muffled club bass fighting a losing battle against the deafening roar of your own heart that you barely make out his harsh voice asking if you were still on the pill.
You hope he understands your ratification because your words are garbled by the drool spilling past your mouth.
The warmth oozing inside your cunt tells you that he does. You feel his grip loosening around your shoulder, but he keeps his weight clamped tight against your ass. His breath tickles the sweat on your neck as he slowly rides out the hammering thud of his heart against your spine.
“You okay?”
You wince when he pulls out, feeling uncomfortably sticky. “Fine.”
“You should clean yourself up.”
“Don’t have time.”
You try to yank your pants back up before he catches your wrist. “Wait."
He pulls out a dark handkerchief from his pocket. You let out a dry huff, "You seriously bring that everywhere with you?”
"Pays to be prepared," he deadpans, and to your absolute horror, his hand reaches between your thighs.
You awkwardly shift on your feet.
“Give me that! I’ll do it—"
“Hold still.”
He leans in, then, presses the soft cloth right against the swollen flesh of your pussy.
Fucking hell.
Stripping away your pride for the sake of a quick, violent release was one thing. Standing here shivering while the government's top agent carefully wipes your bodily fluids with a pocket square is a completely different kind of humiliation.
Pulling a long, measured breath through your nostrils, you force yourself to count to three. You fall back blindly on your training, relying on the strict mental protocols drilled into you for when you’re being cornered.
But three seconds isn't nearly enough to wash away the lingering burn of his touch, the foreign exchange of concern.
You retreat into reciting the core rules of engagement instead. To reclaim compromised ground and re-establish the primary objective—if only to remind your scrambled brain that there's an actual mission going on out there, and you didn't infiltrate a guarded club solely for a hookup.
You quickly twist out of his hold, masking your deeply flustered state by dressing yourself, blatantly ignoring the rustle of fabric and the dull clink of his belt. Securing the weapon threatening to fall out of your holster, you step away from his imposing frame, wrenching the door open.
The music is god-awful loud, people are grinding against each other, and you breathe a sigh of relief when a fast scan confirms your numbers. The path to the elevator tucked at the edge of the room is completely wide open. No guards, no big-muscled brutes.
You cut a quick stride towards it with Leon trailing behind.
Then stop five steps away. Because the hulking shape hunched over the elevator is the literal definition of a brute. The grotesque back of a creature with a rotten mouth shifts as it stealthily rips a human throat out in the shadows, looking like a starved hound cracking open a fresh kill.
Your belly plummets when you spot a blood-soaked radio hanging uselessly from a mangled shoulder mic.
“You’ve got to be kidding me,” Leon barbs under his breath, drawing out his gun.
“Is that one of the guards?”
“That’s both of them,” he replies, “the big guy is making a meal out of his friend.”
“Shit.”
You swallow hard against the bile rising in your throat. The fact that a man can undergo a full biological mutation into a cannibalistic nightmare in a twelve-minute window is so fucked up.
What the hell is in this sample?
Your paycheck for this mission isn't nearly high enough for the mess you just brought yourself into. The creature violently snaps its former partner's spine, and every instinct screams that you have less than seconds before it tears out the entire building.
Leon clearly thinks the same. He squares his shoulders, steps past you, and pulls the trigger. For a split second, the dance floor freezes.
Then everyone starts screaming.
The building is shaking from the terrified people thrashing around, but the creature barely registers the chaos when his focus is solely on Leon. The bullet buried in the dense meat of its shoulder only seems to piss it off.
The half-torn body is dropped to the floor with a wet slap before it launches itself, clearing the short distance with unnatural speed. Over two hundred pounds of mutated muscle slam into Leon with enough force to rattle his teeth. He chokes on a gasp as the hard concrete of a pillar hits his back.
Bloody claws tear through the fabric of his jacket, desperately lunging for his throat.
He violently throws an elbow, fights for every single inch of space with all the strength he can muster until he finally wrestles his arm free, forcing his barrel directly into the soft tissue right beneath its jaw.
Two concussive blasts blow out the back of its skull. The putrid stench of rot and rusted copper hits the air as dark blood paints the tiles and his shoulder. Instantly dropping the dead weight at his boots, he quickly scans through the panicked strobe of lights in search of you. He finds you standing right in front of the elevator doors, back facing towards him with a bright red keycard in your possession.
He notices the master override right away—the only piece of encrypted plastic in this entire godforsaken building capable of calling that specific car. The exact card that he was exclusively issued during the mission briefing.
His free hand instinctively slaps against the inner breast pocket of his jacket. He pats it once, twice. It’s completely empty.
He furiously stalks towards you, “What the hell are you doing?”
“My job,” you reply flatly, sliding the stolen card through the scanner. The pad instantly chimes a cheerful green. “And finishing it before this block gets firebombed by your people.”
“So you’re really going to put a bullet into the guy?”
“Between his eyes, specifically.”
He tries to reach for you. “I can’t let you do that.”
You swivel sharply on your heel, gun snapping up with practiced speed to level squarely towards his chest. He freezes, eyes narrowing to dangerous slits as he stares down your weapon.
“I'm not asking for permission. Stay out of my way."
“No,” he argues. “Killing him should be the last thing you consider doing right now.”
“Oh be realistic, what makes you think he hasn’t already turned into one of those things?”
“That’s the problem! If the entire basement is crawling with them, you’re walking into suicide and I’m not letting you do that.”
Your grip tightens around your gun.
There’s exactly one step between you, his chest expanding and deflating as he completely disregards the loaded barrel aimed at his heart.
You don't know how to translate the look in his eyes. Reading Leon has always been a language of tells, of colors divergent depending on his composure. There’s the bright flash of cobalt when you catch him off guard. There’s the sharp scrutiny of pale blue when he questions your choices. You even know the darken twilight when he ruthlessly fucks you.
This one is an agonizing blue. Crushed glass and ozone, a glacial blue clouded by faint swirls of smoke. No less intense, of course, perhaps even to a higher degree. The way he’s regarding you has gravity to it, and it feels heavy on your chest, pinning you exactly in place with nothing more than his attention.
You realize it’s the same look that slips across his face whenever he decides something is worth protecting. The same stubborn focus that makes him throw himself headfirst into situations any reasonable person would run from—now aimed at you. Like you’re actually important, worth keeping alive when half the time you don't even have the will to exist.
The thought is laughable, really, because of the possibility that he might genuinely believe it. That somewhere along the way he looked at your messy life and arrived at a conclusion so wildly at odds with your own, a verdict he recklessly conjured just from all the measly encounters you both share.
Dangerous is your own verdict. Seems so precarious, as if he’d mistaken your hunger for sex as anything else.
You choose to use his faith in humanity against him instead, knowing he’s too deeply wired to protect.
"Look around you,” you snap. “There’s a handful of people stuck in a stampede. If the virus spreads, they’re all gonna die."
You physically watch him tense at your words. The elevator doors hiss open, and you take a step back.
"Evacuate them. You can't save us both."
You know you’ve won your battle when his shoulders slump. There’s a slow exhale of defeat when he drops his head, hands falling numbly to his sides. “Promise me you’ll make it out alive.”
“Leon.”
“Promise me.”
The metal panels begin to slide shut. There's a good foot of air separating you.
Ten inches. Nine.
He calls out your name when you meet him with silence.
Six inches. Four.
He shouts your name again. You’re thrown off by the sudden urgency in his voice, slowly lowering your gun, “I promise.”
His head finches in a nod, and you catch the way he’s staring at you, eyes blown wide and glassy. Reminds you of the heavy slate of a sky right before a downpour.
Two inches.
None.
You wonder if you’ll return to that shade of blue.