-1-

I’m not even looking for him when I see him.

He’s walking towards one of the hideous water fountains my brother had installed all over Mojave so dumbasses would stop passing out from heat exposure in the middle of the street.

Alex usually tried to blend in and keep a low profile when he was in Mojave but not today. I could see the places on his bare legs and arms where he’d unsuccessfully tried to cover his tattoos with makeup.

My eyes fall on his exposed midriff and the shorts that, when he bends over to drink from the fountain, show the bottom of his perfect ass cheeks. I hated how easily he undid me.

If my body was built to be a weapon, his was built for sin.

The car behind me honks. At some point my light had turned green. I push down my impulse to curse the driver out and jump over a lane to follow Alex down the alleyway he’d just walked down.

He doesn’t even glance at my car. It’s an copper colored Tesla LE 2099 I’d had to restore by hand. He just keeps looking dead ahead, a pair of white headphones in his ears.

I tap the horn gently to get his attention. He shakes his head slightly and keeps looking forward, self-consciously adjusting his clothes

 His clothing choice made it obvious he wasn’t  carrying a weapon---which he should have been. He could have one in his backpack but he couldn't get to it if someone was actually attacking him.

I roll down my window.

“Hey,” I shout. 

His head snaps up immediately. The little liar hadn’t even been listening to anything on the earphones.

He walks slowly toward my car and leans over the open window the same way he’d leaned over the  water fountain and fuck, I’m a goner.

I’ve known Alex Haley for a few years now and we’d been doing this being together thing since I kissed him at the Shy Cartel safehouse a year ago. Outside of Ma, he was the person I was the closest to in the entire world (which isn't saying much) and yet he still made me malfunction.

 “What are you doing in Mojave ?,” I ask.

 “…I was just checking in with Minnow,” he shrugs after a beat.

He’s lying. I can tell before the words even leave his lips.

“Are you lying to me?”

“No,” he lies. Again.

I don’t know why he’s lying but I don’t push it because lying is kind of our thing.

We always lied to each other; about what job we’d just done, where we just were, who we were just with and why. It was easier that way. We knew the basics of our chosen lifestyles, we didn’t need details.

Me ? I was just getting a drink, not breaking the right leg of a college athlete who didn’t pay back the Cartel for his chrome habit.

Or, in the case of this morning, shooting up a bar owned by the Santoro family as a warning for something or the other and then making a less than friendly visit to a former cartel member who’d decided they wanted to be a whistleblower.

“Get in the car. I’m giving you a ride home,” I say, even though he’d probably not appreciate that the whistleblower’s index finger in the preservation box in the backseat. 

I didn’t appreciate chauffeuring around the finger either, but Rias had started insisting on proof that I was doing my job. 

Alex steps back as the Tesla’s door butterflies upward, he slides inside, letting out a deep sigh at the cool air.

When the door closes he moans softly, lifting his arms behind the headrest and stretching out in the seat.

Something catches in my throat and he gives me a small half smile.

 “It’s so hot out there,” he says.

“Yeah,” is all I can manage as I put the car back in drive.

I make a U-turn and head back towards the desert that spreads between Mojave and the Sprawl--a trip I’d made hundreds a time each week at my brother's beck and call.

The paved road doesn’t start until you get 30 miles outside the sprawl and the wayfinding holograms are usually broken so it’s an  intimidating drive if you don’t know here you’re going. I’d seen plenty of dumbfucks who’d gotten lost and  then stranded because they ran out of power in the desert. 

When we get to the halfway point between Mojave and the paved highway I take my foot off the accelerator.

We’re about 20 miles east from the elevated train tracks and the view for miles is nothing but empty, undisturbed white desert. We sit in silence for a few seconds and then Alex turns to look at me.

Waiting.

“Kiss me,” I tell him.

And he does.

---

When I was 21, I booked an escort at Virtue just to see what the big deal was. It was anticlimactic and boring as fuck.

Well, except for when I opened the door to leave and found Jean, Minnow and Alan Gray waiting outside  with a bottle of champagne and jokes about my virginity. I lost control and a punch meant for Alan hit Jean by mistake. I’d regretted it immediately. When Minnow told Ma I was sure they was going to tag team kill me.

All was forgiven after a few weeks, but it was the only incident we never talked about. 

For years I’d but sex in the not for me category. I kept my desires to myself and only let them play out in my imagination.

Until him

I didn’t understand my Dominant needs until we’d had sex. I didn’t even know the word for what I wanted.

My whole life I’d been told to keep myself under control and suppress everything I felt because my cybernetics made me unpredictable. 

I worked like a dog everyday and then  watched everyone, even Alan fucking Gray rise up in the cartel without me. Rias, who’d grown more balls since our baby sister skipped town, even banned me from his meetings and trainings because he thought I’d been too "mean".

I’d come to Control pissed, ranting  to Alex because I’d been “put on leave” again for second-guessing Rias’ decisions in front of another cartel member. Somehow my satisfying but dull past experience with sex had come up.

Alex had covered his eyes with a cover and handcuffed himself to his bed. He told me I was in control now. That taste of dominance was like my own personal chrome rush ,it lit something in me that had only gotten more intense over the last year.

-2-

I roll back my car seat and Alex straddles my lap, our tongues intertwining and his hips grinding against my growing erection.

His delicate fingers unbutton my white shirt and splay across the over deeply defined muscles of my abdomen. While his body was completely his own, mine  was sculpted from a mix of intense workouts paired with steroids, muscle enhancers and a shit ton of never-ending cybernetic work. Some of it was a necessity but most of it was cosmetic. I was only a sort of hitman but I still wanted to look intimidating.

His right hand caresses the dip in my lower back and I let out an involuntary groan at the intense sensation.

The spots that were erogenous zones on regular people’s body were directly connected to the pleasure release part of my brain by the cybernetics. When I was a teenager I learned pretty quickly  I could touch certain parts of myself and go from zero to a hundred. I didn’t know if it was a feature or bug  but I’d never told anyone about it except Alex and he used it to his advantage.

He trails soft kisses down my neck,  giving me a minute to recover. I press on his shoulder and he winces and then drops down between my knees. My right hands settles on the mass of silky blonde hair piled on the top of his head.

I gently stroke the delicate line of his cheek as he goes down on me, his tongue makes me feel like I’m about to short circuit.

“Harder,” he tells me.

He always wanted me to take it farther. To be rougher. Dirtier. Harder. To put him in real distress. He never said it, but I knew he wanted me to roleplay Kenneth Maxwell because as twisted as it was, replaying those events in his life helped him get off.

I didn’t like to play his tormentor but I also wanted to give him what he needed.

I pull the band from his hair so the mass falls down his shoulder. I roughly take a handful of it, forcefully moving his head until he’s not just gagging but choking with each thrust and I'm on the very edge.

His reaches around my waist and somehow finds my gun without looking.

“Do you want me to fuck your pretty mouth with my gun ?,” I say, trying to sound like I mean it.

He can’t respond because his mouth is otherwise occupied, I unholster the weapon and start to take out the rounds, but he covers my hands.

I push his hands away  and toss the gun aside, deciding to concentrate on my own pleasure. 

“I wanted you to leave the bullets in the gun and press it to my face.” he says after I've finished and he’s swallowed.

I reach down for his arm and pull him to sit into my lap. He very stealthily slides down his shorts, and the scrap of black lace underneath.

“I know,” I say, holding him steady by his waist and kissing him as he slowly rubs a warming lubricant on me and himself. “And I’ve told you never to touch my weapons. They’re dangerous and not toys-”

“Don’t talk down to me—"

“I’m not,  but you’re being a fucking dumbass,” I say, regretting the words the minute I say them. I didn’t like calling him names. I was losing control. “Listen to me. No one should ever put a loaded gun in your face. Not even me.”

“I trust you--”

 “Shut up. No more  talking.”

I feel his full body quiver at my order and the light slap on his hip but he still doesn’t fucking let it go.

“I know you won’t shoot me by mistake. I want you to do it.”

I wanted to give him everything he needed but I couldn’t give him this. I knew he knew what it was like to be completely powerless for real and I didn’t take it for granted that he trusted me enough to give me all the power in our relationship. He’d consented to it before I could even ask for it. But I drew the line at guns.

 “We're not having this conversation anymore. I tell you what you need,” I remind him. “Get on your hands and knees.”

“Are you mad at me?”

“Not yet. Do you want me to be ?”

He seems to consider this but doesn’t move to obey, which was rare.

He had a little bit of masochistic streak I wasn’t prepared for. Despite my chosen career I didn't take pleasure in causing him pain. I'd never hit him with a belt but if he wanted to act like a brat I was happy to put him in his place.

Alex dips his head and licks my chest,  sucking on my hard nipples and tugging lightly on the bar pierced through the right one. My balls immediately tighten.

“Lex turn aro--,” I grunt. I was right on the edge.

“No. I want to stay like this,” he says

He'd never said no to me. He didn’t want to establish a safe word so I don’t know if he’s playing at being difficult or if he wants me to get rough.

As carefully as I can, I take him around the waist and guide his body gently over the passenger seat and he lets me. I undo the loose criss cross of string at the top of his shirt  but when I turn him on his stomach  to unzip the back of the shirt he turns back around.

“I want to watch you fuck me,” he sighs softly and I almost lose it right there.

“I’m not ready to fuck you yet.”

“Don’t take my shirt off.”

“Is this thing even a shirt ?”

“We all can’t wear the cyborg uniform,” he says teasingly.

The only clothing that had ever interested me was the clothing  on his body. After years of wearing a uniform in school I’d realized it was easier to wear the same white button up, dark gray pants and brown belt. They were altered and reordered depending on how my body changed. I wore an analog gold timepiece because I liked the steady ticking sound it made. With a few exceptions, I’d been wearing the same outfit everyday for over a decade.

I turn Alex back over and slowly run the tip of my tongue down the back of his neck. I feel his entire body go rigid when I take his shirt zipper in my mouth.

“Luce…”

I pull the zipper down slowly with my teeth and he tries to turn back around but I anticipate it and hold him in place.

"Stay," I order.

“I don’t want to do it this anymore,” he says suddenly, struggling to get out of my grip.

“Too bad--”

“Luce, stop,” he says, almost in a whine trying to get away from me.

I let him go and my confusion comes out as anger.

“You don’t get to be pissed at me because I won’t shove a loaded gun down your throat or burn you with a fucking cigarette or whatever harmful shit you come up with next. I’ll take your submission but I’m never going to be a part of your rape fantasy--”

“That is not what this is about ! Take me home.”

“No,” I say reaching for him again.

He’d never talked back to me before. I feel like he’s hiding something and I don’t like it. It doesn’t take much to overpower him, I wrestle him on to his stomach and unzip the back of his shirt.

I move my hands away quickly  when I see why he didn’t want me to see his bare back. Bruises---so dark that at first I think they are smudged tattoos--are clustered on his upper back and shoulder blades.

“Who the fuck did this to you?,” I shout. I don’t mean to get so loud but I’m seeing fucking red.

“No one--I fell off the bed and I knew you’d overreact--”

“Bullshit. Don’t you  fucking lie to me.” I snap, tucking myself back into my pants and zipping them up.

I’d given bruises like that, it usually involved about 30 strokes of my cybernetic leg on sensitive skin and a broken bone or two.  His bruises were fresh, maybe a day or two. He’d probably been seeing Alan about them when I saw him in Mojave. He was smart enough to know that Alan was the only cartel doctor who I couldn't  intimidate answers out of.

“Was it a client ?,” I demand. “Did you tell Jean ?”

He just zips the shirt back up and I throw his shorts to him.

“Take me home,” he says, buckling the seatbelt.

“No,” I tell him. “We’re not going anywhere until you tell me who did that to you. I can stay out here for as long as it takes.”

I’d moded my cars so the self-driving  and GPS function didn’t work. Even if he did manage to knock me out he wouldn’t be able to operate the car.

We sit in  silence for almost 20 minutes and then I remember how stubborn we both are and that I can always cheat.

I lean back into my seat and tap into my cybernetic system. The car interior disappears and all I see is the data I have on my internal hard drive. I  patch into the hack I’d installed in Control’s security firewall. It gave me access to all of the cameras in the club. I rarely logged into it, it was mostly for collecting blackmail on high profile marks.

I log into the feed of Alex’s room and start rewinding through his day at 24 times the speed.

“LUCE STOP IT!,” Lex shouts when he realizes what I’m doing.  My vision is taken up by the rewinding recording but I can feel him hitting my arm. 

His strikes are weak and I’m on a mission.

I rewind through two days and don’t see anything I hadn’t already seen before. I didn’t make a point of watching anything he did in Control even though he’d given me permission. For most of the Control clients it wasn't about sex, it was about living on the edge of a fantasy that didn't make sense to a spectator

I quickly write a piece of code to cross reference the gaps in time when he isn’t in his room with the other cameras in the area.

“LUCE!,” he shouts to me but I’m so deep into the code  it sounds like he’s far away.

I run the code and it gives me a bunch of errors. I quickly  fix the errors, run it again and  lock on to an image from a camera on the jewelry store across the street from Control.

I see Alex walking out of the back entrance of Control in street clothes and he stupidly holds the door for a man exiting the brothel behind him. The man calls to him and they  have what appears to be a regular exchange of words but I can read lips and the man is telling Alex to undress for him so he can see all his tattoos.  When Alex says no and explains his rates, the man shoves him into the wall. Alex picks himself up and walks away from the man, flipping him off. Then the man  seems to lose his damn mind at that. He chases Alex, drags him back to the alley by his collar and then repeatedly slams his back into the alley wall.

When the prick finally stops Alex is shaking and removes his clothes for the asshole. The fucker inspects his tattoos, carefully reading them and asking him questions about them before he kisses him on the cheek, apologizes for being rough and walks away.

I’d lost some of the bloodlust I used to have as a kid but I’ve decided I’m going to kill this entitled motherfucker.

I switch screens and log into the system that tracks the IDs of anyone who enters Control and cross it with the time the man first appears so I can get his name or run a facial recognition—“

“LUCE!,” Alex shouts again but it sounds different than before. Less exasperated and more fearful.

I blink away the screens and hear a loud hum before something impacts with us and my  car is shoved violently in a circle. I look around to see Alex ducking under the passenger seat as a blue Covalcotti motorcyclist with a AK47 in hand  comes careening towards us.

***

-3-

Fuck, I should have switched out the car after I shot up that bar. 

I start the car and push the gas, driving in reserve to get away from the Santoro Family motorcycle assassins. I’d just gone to deliver a message at one of their bars as a warning after one of their dealers had been seen in Shy Cartel territory. I’d shot up a restaurant, I hadn’t killed anyone so I wasn’t expecting retaliation.

The car seems to still be running okay. I push the odometer to 150  but the Covalcotti are fast motherfuckers.

“Hold on to something ! I'm turning! Brace yourself!,” I shout at Alex who was crouching on the floor, just like I’d told him to do if something like this ever happened.

 The Covalcotti are riding five deep now and I don’t want to bring that trouble to Mojave so I head for the Sprawl. I swing the wheel all the way around, we drift in a circle and I push the wheel hard to right  so we don’t roll. The seatbelt automatically engages during the turn, stopping me from flying out the windshield during the turn.

Just as I get the car righted I hear Alex let out a scream that makes my heart stop.

“Are you okay ?”

“What the hell is this!,” he screeches.

I take a quick look and  see the small preservation box from the backseat had tumbled forward during the turn and  the severed finger was siting in his lap.

Before I can explain more bullets rain down, cracking the windshield. The windows in the Tesla are bulletproof but there was still a limit to how many shots it could take.

The Sprawl  is looming in front of us and there are now five bikes trailing me.I have a feeling there might be more waiting at the city limits. I need to lose some of these assholes. I had my own machine gun in the backseat, but I couldn’t aim while I drove and I sure as fuck didn’t trust Alex with it.

Guess I was going to have to improvise.

“There’s a white bag in my trunk!,” I shout to Alex over the sound of gunfire. “Crawl through the backseat  to the trunk, kick the headlight out and roll the contents of the white bag into balls the size of a tennis ball and push it through the hole.”

“What ?,”

I repeat myself, this time with more urgency in my voice.

“Maybe you should do it--,” he starts.

“I have to drive. Do it ! NOW!”

He starts crawling through to the trunk, his slim body easily fitting through the hatch to the trunk.

Last week I’d bought a shit ton of flexible chameleon nanoplastic. I wanted to cover one of my smaller cars in it so I could potentially render it invisible during a chase, but if Alex could roll it into balls it would trip up the motorcyclists and they wouldn’t see it coming.

“DON’T GET SHOT,” I yell to him  as I hear him kicking out  the rear headlight with his sneaker.

I look into the rearview mirror and see the first Covalcotti wipe out, the blue motorcycle flies in one direction and the rider is tossed in the other. A few of the riders stop to see what took their fellow rider out while another runs into the fallen bike.

When I cross into the Sprawl there are only two riders tailing us and they are determined. I drive up on sidewalks and cut through side streets to lose them but they’re jumping their bikes over cars and taking their own shortcuts to keep up with me.

Shit.

Alex crawls back up to the front seat and he looks terrified but unhurt.

“You okay ?”

“Yes-”

“Good, get your shit and get ready to make an exit,” I tell him.

Thank fuck  he listens and quickly puts his backpack on. If it had been anyone else riding with me they would have second guessed my order or come up with their own plan that only wasted time.

I head for a parking garage in the middle of the sprawl that I knew was  under construction but that looked open from the outside.

When we’re a few feet from the parking garage entrance I open the glove compartment, take out a few detonators and set one to 60  seconds.

I pull Alex into my lap, wrap my arms around him, open the door and hurl us both out of the moving car. The moment I feel the hard concrete on my back I roll towards the parking deck, keeping him tucked under me so my body bears the brunt of the impact.

The car zooms past us, going deeper into the garage on it’s own momentum, the Covalcotti are trailing behind it, thinking I’m still driving.

“The car is going to detonate in less than a minute !,” I shout, grabbing his hand and racing towards the parking garage’s side door exit.

Once we get outside I start booking it away from the parking garage.   I can hear him struggling to keep up with me but I can’t stop to help. If the Covalcotti notices the car is empty before it implodes they’ll just come looking for me not him.

We’re 5 blocks away from the garage when I hear the explosion.

Shit, I’d really loved that car.

A/N

Okay so its more D/s than BDSM. I see this story as different than Virtue because it's not about transactional sex but two people in a consenting relationship

Part II

-1-

I slow down enough for Alex to catch up with me once we get in a Shy Cartel neighborhood. I usher him into the basement window of The Luxor. El doesn’t even blink as we speed walk through his bootleg distillery, up through the kitchen and collapse into a booth in the Luxor’s dim greasy dining room.

Alex’s eyes are wet and his  face is bright pink. I can see the frantic rise and fall of his  chest  as he fights to catch his breath. He’s hyperventilating and it looks like  he’s on the edge of a panic attack.

“Hey,” I say in what I hope is a soothing voice, taking his warm face in my hands. “We’re safe. It’s over, babe. Everything’s good. You did great.”  

 I swipe a glass of water off a nearby table.

“Drink this.”

He drinks it with shaky hands, I kneel in front of him and  rest my forehead on his knee, his hand plays with my hair. After a few minutes his color goes down and his breathing returns to normal.

“You okay ?,” I ask, wiping away the tears on his face.

“What…what did you call me before ?,” he breathes.

Fuck, what had I called him ? I fucking hated that term of endearment bullshit.

He just smirks at me and I get off my knee to slide into the booth next to him.  He eagerly comes to sit in my lap but he still seems shaken.

His lips touch mine  and my body picks up right where it left off, grabbing his ass and bringing us closer  until our chests are pressed together. He’s kissing and touching every part of me but he’s careful not touch any part of my body that would get me too aroused since we’re in public.

I make eye contact with Jenna, the bartender on duty  and hold up two fingers. She nods in understanding.

“So…that’s the kind of thing you put up with all day ?,” he asks.  

“More or less,” I admit as Jenna puts down two shots.

I reach around him and down my shot. It’s  a distilled alcohol that is basically vodka but not vodka since no Shy Cartel establishment would serve a spirit the Mjollner were known for.

“I’m sorry that I can’t be what you need,” I blurt out. “I want as much of your submission as you’re willing to give me, but I don’t like degrading you or putting your life in danger with my gun, even if it’s pretend. I can give you anything you want but that.”

Alex watches me and then leans back to take his shot, leaving half in the glass.

 “One day,” he says, tilting his head upwards to where a screen is projecting above the bar “I want you to give me that.”

I turn around to see a news story about how Attorney General Maxwell is feeling optimistic because he is in the lead of the election after his final debate. He’s at the opening of the Sprawl’s first public park with his family, cutting a ribbon and shit.

“Rigging an election is child’s play,”  I tell him. “Minnow thinks Maxwell is no longer interested in prosecuting Twyla for trying to kill him.  It’d be a bad look. We can make him lose. He’d look pathetic if he tried to blame his loss on the cartel.”

“No,” he says contemplatively. “He has to lose more than an election.”

***

-2-

“Now,” I say softly.

Alex’s wet body is pulled tight against mine,  his back pressing into my chest, his arms around my neck. I secure my arm tighter around his hip,  letting my hand stay between his legs while still holding him up so he doesn’t slip beneath the water.

With my other hand I push two fingers into his body  and press hard  on the sensitive spot. He tenses up and soapy water splashes out of the tub. I caress his cheek with my lips,  kissing the leather strap of the ball gag in his mouth.  He lifts the hand he has around my neck to stroke my face, leaving a trail of water.

His sudden touch makes me jolt and my leg knocks over the half empty bottle of wine that was sitting on the other end of the bathtub. I’d let my leg dangle outside of the tub because, even though I had taken my cybernetic prosthetic off, I didn’t like to leave the stump submerged in water too long.

“Don’t use your hands.” I remind him.

We’d had a mostly silent early lunch at the Luxor, him getting lost in some game, me enjoying the silence of the odd hour we were eating. That’s what I liked about him—he was okay with my need for stillness in a way most people weren’t. We didn’t go out much because I couldn’t stand too much simulation and he was the pickiest eater I’d ever met. I’m sure it had to do with his past, but I stopped pressing because his stories about Fort Pride always left me feeling raw and guilt-ridden.

After lunch I’d walked with Alex back to Control and we’d picked up mostly where we left off before the chase and had spent the last three hours in his bed. I’d gone to take a shower while he changed the sheets and then decided I needed a bath and he should join me.

 There were a lot of things I disliked about Control, but I couldn’t deny Jean’s design of the en suite bathrooms.  The freestanding tub was over 7 feet and two people could fit comfortably—although Alex told me he never let clients use his shower or bathtub.

“I’m not stopping,” I say into Alex’s ear, stroking him and thrusting my fingers into him harder.

He was good at giving  but terrible at receiving. The amount of control he had over himself was impressive. He could get right up to the edge and just stay there for hours. He rarely gave in around his clients unless they specifically asked for it because that ruined their illusion that it was all about them.

But I wasn’t a client.

He’d made me climax 13  times in the last three hours and he was going to at least once.

 “Stop holding back. Come for me like the fucking slut you are,” I growl into his ear. “Do you want me to be rough ? Is that what you want ?”

A soft moan escapes his lips and he’s suddenly fully erect.

“Is that what you like ? Answer me when I’m fucking talking to you.”

He makes a yes sound under the gag

“Sir.”

“Yes, sir,” he mumbles. It’s completely unintelligibly under the ball gag but I know what he’s saying. I’m getting hard again too, but this isn’t about me.

“Do you want it harder ?”

“Yes, sir.”

He moans and twists in my grasp and I thrust my fingers faster

“You’re body belongs to me and you never hold back. When I say come, you come. Do you understand ?”

“Yes, s-”

“Are you going to be good and come for me--”

“Ye-”

“Who does you belong to ?”

That does it. I knew that would do it. I hated saying that phrase but watching him come was the hottest thing in the world.

He makes a desperate keening noise and then his body spasms violently, he lets out a half scream, half moan against the ball gag and finishes hard in my hand. His thighs are shaking as I pull us both out the tub, he collapses against the wall in the corner as I rinse my hand under the sink.

I get a towel to dry myself off and I’m glad to see the lid was still securely on the fallen wine bottle. I pick it up and finish it off.

“Come here.”

I sit on the closed toilet lid and Alex  shakily walks towards me, kneeling in front of me. His body is still sensitive and he shivers when I carefully dry him off with the towel, blotting his hair until it’s mostly dry. I apply a thick layer of Vitamin K gel to the bruises on his back and shoulder to help them fade. I catch his reflection in the mirror as I smooth over the gel  and he cringes when I touch him.

“Do the bruises still hurt ?,” I ask, pulling the gag out of his mouth and tossing it aside.

It was the first thing I’d said to him in the last few hours that wasn’t a simple command.

“…Yes,” he admits.

I reach up and open his medicine cabinet, it’s filled with illicit drugs he keeps to sell to his clients but I find a bottle of good old fashioned Oxy. I break a pill in half, gesture for him to open his mouth and lay it on his tongue. I’m tempted to take the other half myself but I instead take a paper cigarette out of the cabinet and light it up.

It was a cliché but smoking after sex, especially sex that intense , always took the edge off for me.

“Luce, no--,” he says when I reach to pick him up

“Don’t,” I respond in a warning tone. I didn’t like when people though I couldn’t do things.

I’d carried a lot of bodies and his weight barely registers to me. I throw him across my shoulders and secure him there with my right arm as I maneuver us back to the bedroom-- I made a point at becoming decent at walking without my prosthetic so no one could take me off guard—and deposit him on his bed.

His room at Control was nice, it  had been modeled after high ranking RLA  officer quarters, but when he wasn’t working he put away all of the RLA props that gave the space it’s special sense of fucked up-ness.

 I take out one of the black garment bags pushed in the back of his closet. I’d left a few here in case I got called to a job while we were in the middle of something

I secure my leg back on, make sure it’s calibrated and then slowly get dressed.

Alex is sitting on his knees at the end of the bed, naked and fucking gorgeous as usual, his head tilted slightly down and all that beautiful  hair falling across his face. When I finish dressing I walk over, tilt his chin up and kiss him because I can. Because he lets me.

Despite out height difference, he we was eerily good at figuring out positions that put us on the same level When he kneeled on the elevated bed and I stood in front of it we were nearly eye to eye.

He inhales deeply and plays with the zipper on my pants, moving it up and down.

 It turns me on when he’s completely vulnerable and naked when I’m dressed. I was that fucking simple.

He’s not wearing a his prosthetic finger and I take his hand and suck on the stump where my idiot brother had cut his finger off. Not that I blamed  Rias, he had to do something to show he wasn’t to be messed with.

“Hey.” I say, jerking Alex’s chin so he looks up at me. “I don’t like it when you hold back on me.”

He kisses me harder, his hands rake roughly through my hair and a few  strands come out in his fingernails

“You have a lot of gray hair,” he smirks, tilting my head down and kissing the top of my head.

He’s trying to distract me.

The premature gray had started with my facial hair in my early 20s but was spreading to my sideburns and the tips. It was apparently genetic but my Dad had been blonde so it didn’t show as much.

“Lex--”

“I don’t mean to hold back--”

“Then why do you fucking do it ?,”

“Everything is better when you wait,” he smiles.

“Yeah ?”

“Yes….Are you mad at me ?”

“A little bit.”

 “I like it when you get angry,” he says, tugging on my shirt collar.

“I’m not angry, but I think you should be punished. What do you think ?”

“Do you care what I think ?”

I tighten my hold on  his hips, deciding what fun I’m going to have with him next  when he blinks and  his eyes stay closed a beat longer than they should. When he opens them they’re heavy lidded.

“That Oxy must have be strong.”

I should have known. Jean only dealt  the good stuff.

“I’m fine, Luce.”

“You can’t get away with that lie when your eyes are the size of dinner plates. You’re about to go sleepy bye,” I tease him.

“No, I’m not,” he says stifling a yawn.

“Too fucking bad. I’m going home.”

He deflates a little and I reluctantly take my hands off his body and turn around and take a pair of underwear from his drawer

“Can I ask you a question ?,” he asks, his voice already heavy with sleep.

“What ?”

“How are you getting back home ?”

“I can take the train.”

He grins at that because I hate the train and will likely kill someone on it. I didn’t know what it was with me and the assholes who wanted to make small talk on a god damn 45 minute train ride.

I push him on his back and when I lift his leg I notice a tattoo on his body I’d never noticed. Over the last year I thought I’d catalogued every scar and tattoos on his body but I’d missed this one. It’s small and in the small area of skin between his balls and where my cock spent the last three hours.

I look closer and recognize it as Forge Decartes’ artist tag.

I wonder if Alex even knows the tag is there. I saw him for who he was beyond that tattoos but I still fucking hated every single one of them because they hadn’t been his choice. It  both disgusted and pissed me off that his rapists had permanently marked their names on his body.

The worst parts of me sometimes want to yell at him for not fighting hard enough back then. I use to imagine setting  his body on fire and letting the ink get covered by scar tissue but the sensible part of me knew that was cruel.

“We should talk about covering some of this ink up,” I tell him, pulling the briefs over his hips. “With the laser tattoos. They don’t hurt and it looks better than trying to fade it.”

I wonder if he’ll fight me on it. But he doesn’t, he just nods his head.

“Whatever you want,” he mumbles and he already looks half-asleep

While he alluded to Maxwell a lot, he never talked about the time he  spent in a prison cell with the serial killer and tattoo artist Forge DeCartes.  One night he’d spent the night at my place and woken up the entire penthouse screaming.

Ma had tried to talk to him the next morning but he’d shut down any talk about that.

 “It’ll take time. We’ll cover them up  slowly…whenever you’re ready.”

I slip a Virtue t-shirt over his head and carefully pull his hair into a ponytail at the back of his head. I  pull him up until his head rests on my chest and the rest of his body wraps around mine.  I walk my fingers up and down his back, finishing my cigarette as his breathing evens out and he slowly falls asleep on top of me.

I could stay like this forever. The only sound I hear is the quiet tick.tick.tick of my watch. It’s comforting.

“I’m sorry about your car,” he murmurs quietly out of nowhere

“I loved that car.”

“I love you too.”

“What ?”

“I—,” he sits up, his eyes clouded in sleep. “Wait. What did you say ?,”

“Nothing,” I say, feigning nonchalance. “What…what did you say ?”

He just stares at me, his unnerving eyes taking in every inch of my face.

“I’m so tired, Luce.”

“I know. Just go to sleep,” I say pulling him back down

Within minutes he’s snoring softly, I extract his limbs from my body and carefully place him under the covers.

I break into his Syndicate to look at his schedule and set his alarm in time for him to wake up for his  next client tomorrow.

I head upstairs to the opulence and good government sanctioned whoring of Virtue  to see if I can find Alan or Minnow and convince one of them to drive me back to Mojave but none of them are around. I spot Charlotte frenetically moving around the club, but even I knew better than to get in her way when she’s busy.

-3-

A pair of dark brown eyes catch mine and my fight or flight instincts kick in.

I decide to fight and walk towards the lounge chair where Isla Haley is sitting. She’s wearing something Minnow would envy—a mini dress made entirely of pale pink sequins that clung to every thick curve  and roll on her generous body. I saw Isla at Virtue from time to time but I’d made a point to never make direct eye contact with her.

“Looking for your brother ?,” I ask her

“Ew, no! Of course not,” she grimaces taking a sip from a martini glass containing a  sweet purple drink the bar made that involved cotton candy.

“Are you ?,” she asks warily, with an arched brown.

“I just dropped him off.”

Her face pinches into one of disgust and she shakes her head.

“Don’t give me details.”

She knew her brother worked in a restricted area of Virtue and she could probably guess why but that’s all she let herself know.

 “Want me to see if I can get you another drink on the house ?,” I offer. I didn’t know much about Virtue, but I knew the alcohol costs were negligible.

“You don’t have to pretend to be nice to me,” she bites back, rolling her eyes.

Isla didn’t bullshit around and I liked that about her.

“Actually, I do. I care about Lex--”

“And you think I don’t ?”

I hadn’t meant it like that, but actually I kind of did.

I liked that Alex knew what it was like to have bastard siblings but unlike my siblings his acted like bastards.

 Isla may not be the psychopath Harlow Haley had been but I didn’t understand how she just left him to suffer all those years and not even tried to get answers from the RLA. If I’d gone a year without hearing from Twyla or Rias I’d go to hell and back to get answers.

“That’s obviously not what I meant--,”

“You know, not that anyone ever asks me ,but I hate what happened to my brother. I really do, but it may have been the best thing for him.”

“Are you fucking kidding me ?,” I say louder than I mean to and catch Charlotte’s attention from across the room.

Charlotte gives me a warning glare, nothing gives her more life than kicking me out of Virtue for every little outburst or drunken brawl.

“Listen, you see how cute  Alex is now, you can only imagine how he was when he younger,” Isla says draining her glass. “He was like a cute wittle bunny wabbit and do you know what happens to defenseless cute wittle bunny wabbits ?”

“I don’t have time for this--”

“They get ripped apart and eaten by predators,” she says putting her glass down. “Or they get taken home as pets and put in cages for people to fawn over them. My mother and grandmother ? Protected him all his life. For years. Harlow and the army of  assholes were like tier one predators. But the RLA ? They went to fucking town ripping him apart. And it was awful, I’m sure. But atleast now he knows how to fight for himself and survive in this fucked up world.”

“Whatever helps you sleep at night--”

“And then comes you,” she says loudly. “And you’re just going to coddle  and  protect him all over again.”

“You don’t know me. There are some battles only I can fight--”

“Right,” she nods over enthusiastically. “Whatever makes you feel good and fuels your masculinity and keeps your kink or whatever going--”

“That’s not why I do it --”

 “Then why else ?, Why are you bothering being nice to me ? ”

I don’t answer and she arches her eyebrow all the way up.

“Isla, sweetheart, our table is ready,” a smooth male voice says from the corner.

I turn to see Vincent, one of Jean’s newer escorts. He had the build of an athlete and wore a well fitted suit, in his hand he held another cotton candy drink for Isla.

 I didn’t know him as well as I knew a few of the others, but if what Jean mentioned in my presence the other day is true, Isla is going to be in a much better mood tomorrow. He completely ignores me, which I think was part of the orientation Charlotte gives new escorts.

Isla gives me a slight nod and then walks off arm in arm with Vincent towards the dining room.

I shake off the encounter and go back to finding a ride home.

I open my cybernetic system to see if Ma is in the city and can give me a lift but I pause at the screen waiting for me.

The search I’d started before our run in with the Covalcotti had completed and I had a positive ID on the man who’d roughed up Alex.

Isla was wrong about me. I didn’t have to slay every dragon for him or be his protector. I knew he wasn’t completely defenseless.

But.

Just this once.

 

***

-4-

Decker Wilson’s property is in one of those multi-million dollar mansions in Fellowship Square—a planned community built by the Federation in the ruins of what used to be mostly gang territory. The house were elaborate, big and showy.

I borrow (fine, steal) a car from a lot and code a  fake identity to get pass the community’s gate.

Wilson’s house is glass and geometric like every rich asshole’s house but I’ll give it to him that the shimmering oil spill texture on the black frame is pretty cool. A quick search of he and his wife’s syndicates showed they were both out of the house so I walk inside and give myself a tour.

It’s an amazing house, tastefully decorated with natural flowers. It’s not too showy or garish.

I pause when I see that there are rooms for children.  One is for a little girl, who clearly had princess aspirations and the other one for a baby

I do a quick canvas of the kids’ rooms, tossing all their shit out the window.

My outfit of choice makes it easy for me to blend in in neighborhoods like these, so I sit on a bench in the neighborhood's designated greenspace until I see Wilson’s Mercedes S-Class. It’s a nice car but the engine sounds like it’s not being taken care of.

Before Wilson can even turn the engine all the way off, I’m at his passenger side. I open the door of the car and recline in the passenger seat.

“What the fuck!,” the man yelps when he sees me.

I override the Mercedes’ system and lock the doors just as he goes for them.

“Where were you two nights ago ?,” I ask him

“Are you cop ?”

He jumps when I project a video of him at Control with the McQuillan Triplets, roleplaying as their pervy Uncle.

“That was supposed to be confidential, I’m fucking suing that son of--,” he barks, trying to sound like he isn’t freaked the fuck out.

“You’re right. It is confidential. You can sue the club later.” I say.

People loved to say that they were going to sue but they forget it means they have to admit they’d been at Control, what they did there,  and how much they’d paid for it. Jean had never really approved of me blackmailing some of his Control clients but he shouldn’t have made it so easy to break into his system.

 “But also, you broke your contract,” I remind him.

I show him the video of him attacking Alex, I’d blurred Alex’s face out for my own piece of mind. There was a specific clause about clients not hurting escorts they hadn’t paid for.

“I-I-I don’t remember that—I was drunk—it happens to us all--fuck--.”

“I don’t get drunk.” I say even though I was maybe a little drunk now. “But if this ever happens again I will come right back here, blow your wife’s fucking head off and then  let you decide which of your two children gets to live as an orphan before drowning you in your family’s still warm blood. Do you understand ?”

He goes stock still and looks at me with pure fear. I wouldn’t do any of what I said but the sicker and more specific I made the threat the better they  seemed to work.

“Do you understand ?,” I repeat taking out my gun. “Or do you want a demonstration ? You can speak can’t you ?”

“Y-y-yeah, okay,” he says. “I’m sorry, okay ? It won’t happen again.”

I smile at him and it disorients him, just like it should.

I unlock the door, get out of the car and walk back to my stolen car. I hear him hurry towards his house and I quickly press the detonator in my pocket. Before he can reach his front door his precious house explodes and bursts into flames, taking everything he owns with it.

***

If people weren’t so afraid of me I’d probably catch more shit for living with my mother most of my life.

I’d moved back  in with her  after I finished at Arkham because it was familiar. Then I stayed to make up for lost time with Rias,  then it was because Lachlan died and I wanted  be there for Twyla, then Rayne got sick and I wanted to be there.

But now Twyla had finally spread her wings and Rias had enough of my shit so I was honestly just staying because I didn’t know how to be on my own.

I drive the stolen car back to the Hydra’s penthouse in Mojave and make a plan to actually return this car at some point tomorrow.

Ma’s sitting on the couch, talking and drinking a bottle of wine with Rias while the TV plays faintly in the background. I hate how much seeing her like that hurt me. I always walked in on her having a meal or late night talk with Rais or Twyla. She was close with them in a way we’d never been.

 When I was a teenager  she was constantly policing me and reminding me of my place.  Hell, we’d argued and fought so much she’s shipped me off to boarding school.  

“Luce, come have a slice of this cake Ivy’s newest beau made,” Ma calls to me as the garage door closes behind me.

I walk into the living room and as I sit down on the loveseat, Rias stands.  His dark hair is wet and he’s wearing  bright orange plaid pajama shorts and a tank top. He looks like my kid brother who I want to give a hard time and tease, but the dark look on his face reminds me of a pissed off Rayne Washington.

“I’ve got homework,” Rias says and then turns to me. “Luce, I know you’re mad at me for…whatever it is this week, but do you always have to be so reckless?”

I don’t know exactly which reckless event of mine he is referring to but I’m not letting him know that.

“Fuck off--”

“You’ll never change, I’m the one who has to answer for your stunts now--”

“My stunts ?,” I argue. “I do exactly what you---actually, let’s be real here—what Minnow asks of me every time. What you think is me being reckless is me dealing with the fallout from your choices--”

“Boys, enough.” Ma cuts in, exasperated. She’s not even yelling because she never yells at Rias. “We’re not doing this tonight.  As soon as we’re in this house all that other shit gets left behind until tomorrow.”

“Fine,” Rias  says heading for the stairs.

 “Zacharias,” Ma says in a soft voice I don’t fucking recognize from my childhood. “Luce just got here. Would it kill you boys to spend some time together ?”

“Probably,” I venture.

“My college professors are expecting a lot out of me,” Rias says, a little haughtily. “ I can’t just blow school off if I want to make Dad proud.”

He kisses Ma on the cheek and heads upstairs without giving me a second look.

My baby brother was changing. It wasn’t just that he’d gotten more comfortable with cartel stuff but I knew he thought he was better than me because he was going to college. I’d gotten into fucking Stanford but he was too young to remember that and I didn’t tell him because I didn’t have shit to prove to him.

 “Fuck it, may as well have another,” Ma says using a butter knife to saw two misshapen hunks out of the yellow cake in the shape of a glossy lemon. She puts the uneven slice on disposable plates and hands one to me.

She settles back into the couch, watching some documentary that was on the television. She seemed content…she always seemed content these days. She’d basically retired and put all her focus on Rias’ well being. She hadn’t had a kill since killing Lachlan’s killer a few years ago.

“How do you do it ?,” I ask her, picking at the cake, not sure if I was ready to tread into this water.

“Do what ?”

“I don’t know. Dad. Rayne. Lachlan...”

She drops her lemon custard covered fork onto the pristine white couch, clearly stunned I’m me asking a question that isn’t why don’t you leave me the fuck alone.

“How do I do what, exactly  ?,” she asks carefully.

“You loved them, right ? How can you keep letting yourself love people knowing exactly how  it feels when it ends ?”

She purses her lips together.

“Luce…do you love someone ?”

I open mouth and then close it.

Yes. Fuck. I love him so much and it fucking scares me.

“I don’t know,” I shrug but she sees through my bullshit.

Alex had stayed over at the house but we made a point of always being platonic. Never touching or really making eye contact in front of my family.

“Rias is a little wrong,” Ma says. “It’s okay to  be a little reckless. Love can be reckless and you just have to hold on to it for as long and as hard as you can.”

The End

A/N

That's all she wrote! I just wanted to write something fluffy adjacent for Haley. I am actually drafting two more Vice short stories but up next we'll be tackling this (clicky clicky).