Chapter 1: Claimed in Pastel and Leather
The scent of Alexandra’s cigarette still clung to the leather of her jacket, a sharp, smoky ghost in the pastel sanctuary of Angel’s bedroom. She stood in the doorway, a silhouette of stark black against the soft glow of fairy lights strung like captured stars across the ceiling. Her boots, scuffed and heavy, seemed out of place on the plush, cream-colored rug.
Angel was at his delicate desk, a tiny brush in hand, meticulously painting the toenail of his left foot a shade called “Cotton Candy Bliss.” He jumped, a small, bird-like motion, at the sound of the door clicking shut. His dark blue eyes widened when he saw her.
“You’re back early,” he said, his voice light as the brushstroke he’d just messed up. A tiny smear of pink now decorated his big toe.
“Got bored. The party was full of idiots.” Alex’s voice was a low rasp, the gravel in it worn smooth by smoke and late nights. She shrugged off her jacket, letting it fall to the floor without a second glance. The tattoos on her arms—a mix of traditional dagger and rose motifs and more abstract, swirling shadows—seemed to move in the dim light. She wore a simple black tank top, the muscles in her shoulders and arms flexing as she stretched. “What’s with the face?”
Angel had hastily wiped the polish smear with a tissue, his cheeks flushing. “No face. I just… wasn’t expecting you.”
“Clearly.” A slow, cocky grin spread across Alex’s face. She took two long strides into the room, her presence expanding to fill every corner. The pastel trinkets on his shelves, the lace canopy over his bed, the stack of plushies in the corner—they all seemed to shrink back just a little. She stopped behind his chair. He could feel the heat of her, smell the night air and weed still tangled in her black wolf-cut. Her calloused fingers, surprisingly gentle, brushed the long, white curls off the back of his neck. “You been sitting here all cute and lonely, painting your nails and thinking about me?”
“I was doing my readings for Lit class,” Angel murmured, but he leaned back into her touch, a betraying movement he couldn’t stop.
“Bullshit.” Her laugh was a short, warm puff of air against his ear. Her hands slid from his neck down over his shoulders, feeling the soft, worn fabric of his oversized lavender hoodie. “This is what you wore all day? This big, adorable thing?”
He nodded, swallowing. Her thumbs began to make slow circles on his collarbones, right through the hoodie’s fabric. Every nerve ending there was suddenly awake.
“Lift your arms, Angel.”
“Alex…”
“C’mon. Up.”
He obeyed, a slight tremor in his limbs as he raised his arms. In one smooth motion, she gathered the hem of the hoodie and pulled it up and over his head, leaving his upper body bare. The bedroom air was cool, raising goosebumps on his skin. He kept his gaze fixed on his pastel-painted toes, feeling unbearably exposed under her predatory stare.
“Fuck,” she breathed, the word full of genuine appreciation. Her gaze was a physical weight, traveling over the delicate lines of his ribs, the toned plane of his stomach, the cinch of his waist where it flared into the curve of his hips, obscured by the waistband of a high-waisted, pale pink lace skirt. “You are a fucking vision. You know that?”
He didn’t answer. He just watched her black-booted feet step around the chair until she was in front of him. She crouched down, her knees cracking, bringing her eye-level with his lap. Her black eyes locked onto his.
“Look at you,” she said, her voice dropping to a conspiratorial growl. “All shy and pretty. Skirt’s real short, baby. Were you hoping I’d come find you?”
“No,” he whispered, but it was a lie so transparent it was almost pathetic.
“Liar.” She reached out, her fingers rough against the inside of his knee. He jerked. “Shh.” Her hand slid upward, under the lace fringe of the skirt, tracing the band of the matching panties beneath. Her touch was slow, deliberate, a mapmaker charting familiar, beloved territory. “Already a little damp, huh? Just from me taking your hoodie off. You’re so easy.”
Angel whimpered. It was a soft, broken sound that seemed to hang in the twinkling light. He was putty in her hands, and they both knew it. This was their dance. His anxiety melted under the sheer force of her certainty. She was a anchor in his fuzzy, worry-filled world, and sometimes she pulled him into deep, thrilling water.
“Stand up.”
He stood, his legs feeling less solid than they should. She rose with him, a tower of confident muscle and ink. She didn’t kiss him. She rarely started that way. Instead, she backed him up, one deliberate step at a time, until the small of his back met the cool, lilac-painted wall beside his bed.
“There,” she murmured, placing her palms flat against the wall on either side of his head, caging him in. Her body didn’t touch his, but he could feel the energy radiating from her, a static charge that made the fine hairs on his arms stand up. Her eyes drank him in—his flushed face, his heaving chest, the frantic pulse visible in the hollow of his throat. “You look so fucking pretty trembling for me, baby. All these little shakes.” One hand left the wall to trail a single finger down his sternum, over his quivering stomach, and hooked into the waistband of his skirt. “Think you can take what I’m gonna give you tonight?”
He couldn’t form words. He just looked up at her, his blue eyes wide and pleading and yes, terrified, but alight with a desperate want. He gave a tiny, jerky nod.
“Gonna need you to use your words, Angel. That pretty little voice.” She leaned in, her lips a breath away from his. “Tell me.”
“I… I can take it,” he breathed, the sound barely audible.
“You can take what?”
“I can… take what you’re going to give me.”
“Good boy.” The praise, delivered in that crude, smoky voice, sent a jolt straight through him. Finally, she closed the distance, kissing him. It wasn’t gentle. It was possession. A claiming. Her tongue swept into his mouth, tasting of mint and nicotine, and he melted against her, his hands coming up to clutch weakly at the fabric of her tank top. She kissed him until he was dizzy, until his whimpers were muffled against her lips, and then she pulled back, leaving him gasping.
Her hands went to the button of her own black jeans. She popped it, slid the zipper down with a sharp, grating sound that seemed obscenely loud. She wasn’t undressing herself for him; she was preparing her weapon. She turned briefly to the bed, grabbing the black harness from where it lay, half-tucked under a pile of pastel pillows—a deliberate, visual shock against the lace. She stepped into it with the practiced ease of buckling a belt, adjusting the straps over her hips with a few rough tugs. The silicone appendage, a deep, matte black, hung heavy and intimidating between her legs.
Angel’s breath hitched. No matter how many times he saw it, the sight never failed to send a thrill of fear and absolute longing straight to his core. It was a part of her in these moments, an extension of her will.
She turned back to him, now even more imposing, a goddess of dark intent. She closed the space again, her body pressing his into the wall. He could feel the cool, foreign pressure of the strap against his lace-clad thigh, a promise of what was to come.
“These are so fucking cute,” she growled, her fingers playing with the lace of his panties. “Makes me wanna ruin them.” With a sharp tug, she ripped the delicate fabric down, letting it puddle around his ankles alongside his skirt. He cried out, a sound of shock that morphed into a moan as her hand found him, his small, hard length enveloped in her rough grasp. “Already so hard for me. You’re desperate.”
“Alex, please…”
“Please what? Tell me exactly.”
“Please… don’t make me wait.”
She chuckled, a dark, warm sound. “Since you asked so nice.” She released him, and he sagged against the wall, bereft. He watched, heart pounding in his ears, as she took a packet of lube from her discarded jeans pocket, tore it open with her teeth, and slicked the black silicone with a few efficient strokes. The sound was wet, clinical, and utterly erotic.
She moved back into him, using her body to turn him gently, pressing his front against the cool wall. His cheek met the lilac paint. “Hands flat,” she commanded. He splayed his fingers against the wall. She kicked his ankles wider apart with her boot. The position was exposing, vulnerable, everything he usually feared and now craved with a ferocity that scared him.
He felt the blunt, lubed head of the strap nudge against him. He tensed.
“Breathe out, Angel,” she whispered, her mouth against his shoulder blade. She bit down, not hard, but enough to make him gasp. In that moment of surprised release, she pushed forward, a slow, inexorable invasion.
A broken cry tore from his throat. It was a lot. It was always a lot. The stretch, the fullness, the sheer psychological weight of being taken by her like this. She didn’t move, letting him adjust, her body a solid, sweating wall of heat against his back. One of her hands snaked around his hip, finding him again, stroking him in time with the shallow pulses she began to make with her hips.
“There you go,” she coaxed, her voice ragged in his ear. “Taking it so good. Fuck, you feel incredible. Squeezing me so tight, baby. You gonna come for me just like this? Hmm? Pinned against your pretty wall?”
He was incoherent, a babbling stream of yes and please and her name. The duality was devastating—the harsh pressure within him, the tender, calloused hand working him from the front. The fairy lights blurred into streaks of gold in his vision. His world narrowed to the press of the wall, the smell of her sweat, the guttural sounds she was making against his skin.
Her thrusts grew longer, deeper, more powerful. The rhythm was punishing and perfect. Each drive forward pushed a choked sob from his lungs; each withdrawal left him empty and aching for more. She was everywhere, surrounding him, consuming him. His legs began to shake in earnest.
“I can’t… I’m gonna…” he gasped.
“Yeah, you are. Come on. Let me feel it.” Her hand on him moved faster, her thrusts becoming shorter, harder, aimed with precision.
It crashed over him like a wave, silent at first, a white-hot burst of sensation that locked his throat and arched his back against her. Then the sounds came, soft, high-pitched whines that didn’t sound like they could come from him. She held him through it, her own movements becoming erratic, her breath sawing in his ear as she chased her own climax against the harness, her hips stuttering against his ass until a long, low groan was wrung from her chest.
For a moment, there was only the sound of their ragged breathing and the faint hum of the laptop charger across the room. She stayed buried within him, her forehead damp against his shoulder, her body heavy and spent on his back.
Slowly, carefully, she pulled out. He winced, his body feeling strangely hollow. She turned him, his back to the wall again, and gathered him into her arms before his legs could give out. He buried his face in the crook of her neck, inhaling the scent that was uniquely Alex—smoke, cheap detergent, and sex.
She maneuvered them the few steps to the bed and collapsed onto it, pulling him down on top of her. He lay there, a boneless, trembling weight on her chest, listening to the strong, steady beat of her heart slowly return to normal. Her hands, so harsh minutes before, now stroked his hair and his back with a lazy, possessive tenderness.
After a long while, she spoke, her voice a sleepy rumble in her chest. “You’re a mess, Emberly.”
He nuzzled closer. “Your mess.”
“Damn right.” She shifted, reaching for the comforter and pulling it over them both, enveloping them in a soft, pastel cocoon. The fairy lights cast dancing shadows across her face, softening the sharp lines of her jaw and the bold black lines of her tattoos. In this light, she looked younger, almost peaceful.
Angel traced a finger over a rose inked on her bicep. “You’re staying?”
“Where the hell else would I go?” she murmured, her eyes already closed. “Go to sleep, baby. I’m not done with you yet. Morning’s gonna come real early.”
A fresh, different kind of flutter stirred in his stomach. He smiled, a small, secret thing against her skin, and let his own eyes drift shut, the promise of her threat—or was it a promise?—lingering in the warm, shared dark.