Chapter 3: The Cheetah's Lair
The warehouse swallowed him whole.
Steve pushed through a rusted door that hung off its hinges, his service weapon drawn and held low against his thigh. Rainwater dripped from the ceiling in arrhythmic spasms, each drop striking the concrete floor like a ticking clock. The place stank of decay and old machinery, the air thick enough to chew. Somewhere in the dark, a neon sign flickered—pink and green, then pink again—casting the whole space in the sickly pallor of a dying jukebox.
He'd tracked her here. Took three days of following breadcrumbs she'd left deliberately, each one a middle finger in his direction. A janitor's uniform stuffed in a dumpster behind the Gotham Museum of Antiquities. A security badge for a warehouse that had been condemned since 2009. A note on hotel stationery, folded neatly, that read: Come alone. Unless you want Diana to see what you've become.
His arm still throbbed where she'd scratched him. The wound had healed too fast, pink scar tissue forming overnight like a brand. And the dreams—fuck, the dreams hadn't stopped. Every time he closed his eyes she was there, spotted and sleek, her voice a velvet noose around his throat.
He found her in the center of the warehouse floor.
She sat on a crate like a queen on a throne, legs crossed, tail swishing lazily behind her. The neon light caught the spots on her arms, the subtle fur that ran down her spine, the way her yellow-green eyes reflected the glow like an animal's. She wore something black and tight, a bodysuit that left little to the imagination, and she was smiling.
"Steve," she said. "You came."
He raised the gun. "Don't move."
She didn't. Just tilted her head, studying him like he was a particularly interesting specimen. "You're shaking."
"I said don't move."
"I'm not moving." Her smile widened. "You are."
He looked down. His hand was trembling, the barrel of the SIG Sauer wavering despite his training, despite every instinct screaming at him to squeeze the trigger. He tried to steady it. Couldn't. His arm felt like it was made of lead, and beneath the tremble was something worse—a warmth spreading from the wound site, crawling up his shoulder, settling in his chest like a cat curling up for a nap.
"What did you do to me?" His voice came out ragged.
"I told you." She uncrossed her legs and stood in one fluid motion, and he didn't fire. Couldn't fire. "I marked you. The venom's in your blood now, Steve. It's in your head. It's rewriting things."
"Bullshit."
"Is it?" She took a step toward him. He took a step back. "Then why haven't you pulled the trigger? You've got a clean shot. Center mass. Even a terrible shot like you couldn't miss from this distance."
He wanted to argue. But she was right. His finger was on the trigger, the safety was off, and he couldn't make himself fire. Every time he tried, his brain conjured images—her mouth on his neck, her claws raking his back, the way she'd said his name in the dream with such filthy tenderness.
"You're fighting it," she said, another step. "That's good. I like that. If you gave in too easy, it wouldn't be any fun."
"Stay back."
"Or what?" Another step. She was close enough now that he could smell her—sandalwood and musk and something darker underneath, something animal. "You'll shoot me? You've had three chances, soldier boy. You're not going to do it."
His back hit a pillar. He hadn't realized he'd been retreating, but there it was—cold corrugated metal against his spine, and her, right in front of him, close enough to touch.
She reached up and closed her hand around the barrel of his gun. Gently. Almost tenderly. Then she pushed it aside, and he let her, his arm falling to his side like it had been unplugged.
"There," she breathed. "That's better."
She pressed against him.
Her body was warm. Warmer than a human's, and softer in ways that didn't make sense—the fur on her arms and shoulders had a downy quality that shouldn't exist on a creature with teeth like hers. She fit against him like she'd been designed for it, her hips aligning with his, her breasts crushing against his chest. The black bodysuit did nothing to hide the shape of her, and he could feel everything. Every curve. Every breath. The steady thrum of her heartbeat, slower than his, controlled.
"I've been thinking about you," she murmured against his jaw. "About that night. About the way you said my name."
"I didn't—"
"You did. In your dream." She laughed softly. "Oh, Steve. Did you think I wouldn't know? The venom connects us. Every time you touched yourself thinking about me, I felt it."
His face burned. Shame and arousal twisted together in his gut, inseparable.
"I felt you come," she continued, her voice dropping to a purr. "Every time. It was beautiful. The way you fought it, the way you lost. Do you have any idea how good that was for me? How wet it made me?"
"Stop."
"Make me."
She kissed him.
It wasn't gentle. It wasn't the tentative first kiss of two people feeling each other out. It was a claim, brutal and thorough, her tongue forcing its way past his lips, her sharp teeth grazing his lower lip until he tasted copper. He should have pushed her away. Should have kneed her in the stomach, broken her nose, done something—anything—to prove he was still the man Diana thought he was.
Instead, he kissed her back.
His hands found her waist. Her claws dug into his shoulders. The gun clattered to the floor, forgotten. She made a sound low in her throat, half growl and half moan, and ground her hips against his, and he was already hard, already aching, already so fucking far gone that he couldn't remember why he'd ever thought he could resist this.
"That's it," she breathed against his mouth. "I knew you wanted it. I knew you'd come for me."
"You're a monster."
"Yes." She licked the blood from his lip. "And you're going to fuck me like I am."
She pushed him down.
He hit the concrete hard, the wind knocked out of him, and by the time he could breathe again she was straddling him, her thighs clamped around his hips like a vice. The neon light flickered. Rain drummed against the roof. Somewhere outside, a siren wailed, but it was distant, irrelevant, a sound from another world.
She peeled off the bodysuit.
It came away in pieces, or maybe she just tore it—he couldn't tell, didn't care. What mattered was the skin underneath, the spotted pattern that traced down her torso and disappeared between her legs, the breasts that hung heavy and full, tipped with nipples so dark they looked almost black. She was muscular in a way that should have been off-putting, all lean power and predator grace, but his body didn't care about any of that. His body had stopped taking orders from his brain.
"Look at you," she said, working the buckle of his belt. "So hard for me. So desperate. What would Diana say if she could see you now?"
"Don't—"
"Would she cry? Would she try to kill me? Or would she just stand there, watching, the way she did in your dream?"
He grabbed her wrist. "I said don't."
She laughed. Actually laughed, throwing her head back, and the sound echoed through the warehouse like breaking glass. "Oh, Steve. You're so precious. You think you're still in control."
She yanked his pants down. His cock sprang free, hard and flushed and leaking, and she wrapped her hand around it like she owned it—and maybe she did now, maybe she had the moment her claws broke his skin. She stroked him once, twice, her grip too tight and too perfect, and he groaned through his teeth.
"You want me to stop?" she asked. "Say the word and I will."
He said nothing.
"That's what I thought."
She positioned herself over him. He could feel the heat radiating from her cunt, could smell the musk of her arousal mixing with the sandalwood and rain. She was wet. Soaking wet, actually—he could feel it slicking the tip of his cock as she pressed against him, teasing, denying.
"Please," he whispered. He hated himself for it.
"Please what?"
"Please."
She sank down on him.
He felt every inch. Every ridge and fold of her, every clench of her inner walls as she took him to the root. She was scorching inside, furnace-hot, and so fucking tight that it didn't seem physically possible. She moaned—a real moan, not the theatrical sounds she'd made before—and her claws dug deep into his chest, drawing blood.
"Fuck," she gasped. "Fuck, you feel good."
She started to move.
Not slow. Not gentle. She rode him like she was trying to break him, slamming down with each stroke hard enough to make the concrete underneath them crack. Her tail lashed behind her, curling and uncurling with each thrust. Her breasts bounced in rhythm with her hips. The neon light caught the sweat on her skin, made her look like some kind of pagan idol, terrible and beautiful and demanding worship.
"You like this?" She leaned down, her face inches from his. "You like fucking the monster?"
"Yes."
"Say it."
"Yes, I like it. God help me, I like it."
She kissed him again, biting his lip hard enough to draw more blood, and her rhythm changed—faster now, more frantic. She was chasing something, and he was just along for the ride, just a tool for her pleasure. His hips bucked up to meet her, matching her stroke for stroke, and the sound of their bodies slapping together filled the warehouse like gunfire.
"Come for me," she snarled. "Come inside me. I want to feel it."
He tried to hold back. Tried to think about Diana, about the mission, about anything other than the animal on top of him and how good she felt. But the venom had other plans. The venom wanted this. The venom had been building toward this since the moment her claws first broke his skin.
She clenched around him, a rippling squeeze that started at the base of his cock and worked its way up, and that was it. That was the end of everything he'd been holding back.
He came with a shout that echoed off the corrugated walls, his hips jerking up into her with a force that lifted them both off the ground. She rode it out, her head thrown back, her mouth open in a silent scream as her own orgasm crashed through her. Her cunt milked him dry, pulling pulse after pulse of come from somewhere deep and primal.
When it was over, she collapsed on top of him.
Her body went boneless against his chest, her breath hot and fast against his neck. The purring started immediately—a deep, rumbling vibration that resonated through her entire frame and into his bones. It was a sound that shouldn't have been comforting. Shouldn't have made him want to wrap his arms around her and hold her close.
But it did. God help him, it did.
"That was..." She trailed off, nuzzling his jaw.
"Don't."
"Don't what?"
"Don't act like this is something it's not."
She purred louder. "What is it, then, Steve? What is this?"
He closed his eyes. She was still on top of him, still impaled on him, still squeezing him with little internal pulses that kept his cock hard and ready inside her. The purring vibrated through his entire body—through his chest, through his gut, through his still-twitching cock—and every second of it made him want more.
"It's fucked up," he said finally.
"That's one word for it." She propped herself up on her elbows, looking down at him with those yellow-green eyes. "I can think of others."
"I hate you."
"But your body loves this." She rolled her hips, a slow, luxuriant movement that made him gasp. "Your body loves me."
"Shut up."
She did it again. Slower this time, a lazy undulation that ground her clit against his pubic bone and sent sparks shooting up his spine. He was still sensitive from his orgasm, so sensitive that every movement was almost too much—but the venom in his blood turned "too much" into "not enough."
"Do you feel that?" she murmured. "That ache? That hunger?"
His hands found her hips. He meant to push her away. Instead, he pulled her closer.
"Soon this craving is going to change your mind." She started to ride him again. Slow, this time. Almost gentle. Each stroke was a velvet torture, dragging every nerve ending to the surface. "Soon you're going to love me more than Diana."
"Never."
"Mmm." She leaned down and pressed his face between her breasts. Soft fur against his cheeks. Warm skin against his lips. The musk of her was overwhelming—sandalwood and sex and something darker, something that bypassed his brain entirely and spoke directly to the base of his spine.
"Breathe," she whispered. "Just breathe."
He should have fought. Should have thrown her off, run to the door, put a bullet in his own head if that's what it took to stop this.
Instead, he breathed.
The musk filled his lungs. The purring vibrated through his skull. Her cunt gripped him, teased him, worked him with a rhythm that was somehow both cruel and tender. He wasn't coming anymore—not yet—but he wasn't not coming either. He was suspended in some perpetual state of arousal, unable to reach release but unwilling to stop trying.
"You're mine now," she purred against his hair. "You just don't know it yet."
His hips moved on their own. Matching her rhythm. Seeking the friction that would push him over the edge again.
"That's it," she said. "That's my good soldier."
He hated the words. Hated the way they made his chest swell, the way his cock twitched inside her.
Most of all, he hated that he didn't want her to stop.
The rain kept falling. The neon kept flickering. And somewhere in the back of his mind, in the last corner of his brain that was still his own, Steve realized he wasn't going to kill her tonight.
He wasn't sure he was ever going to kill her again.
That thought was followed by another, darker one. One that felt like a betrayal of everything he'd ever been.
He wanted to see her again tomorrow.
Her purring deepened, as if she'd heard it. As if she could smell the shift in him, the moment the venom tipped the scales from resistance to acceptance.
"Good boy," she murmured.
And deep in his chest, something that had been fighting and clawing and screaming finally went quiet.
The quiet wasn't peace.
It was surrender.
Barbara felt the shift before he did. She felt it in the way his fingers loosened on her hips, no longer gripping like he was trying to hold onto something that might slip away. She felt it in the way his breathing changed, deep and even against her chest. And she felt it in the way his cock twitched inside her, still rigid and needy despite the mess he'd already made.
"There he is," she murmured.
Steve didn't answer. His eyes were closed, his jaw slack. He looked like a man who'd stopped pretending he wasn't drowning.
She sat up slowly, keeping him buried to the root, and looked down at his face. Sweat beaded on his forehead. The scratches she'd left on his chest wept thin lines of blood, and she leaned down to lick one clean. He shuddered.
"You're not fighting anymore," she said. "I can taste it."
"I'm tired."
"Liar." She rolled her hips and watched his face contort. "You're not tired. You're hungry."
His hands found her thighs. They stayed there, resting, thumbs tracing idle patterns on her spotted skin. He wasn't pushing her away. He wasn't pulling her closer. He was just... touching. Like he'd forgotten how to do anything else.
"You want to know something?" She leaned forward, her tits brushing his chest. "I've been watching you for months. Before the heist. Before the trap. I sat in cafes across from your apartment and watched you make coffee in the morning. I saw the way you looked at her."
"Don't."
"She'd come over, and you'd light up like a fucking Christmas tree." Barbara's voice dropped, sharp and bitter. "And I'd sit there with my cold coffee, thinking about how it should've been me. How I should've been the one making you smile like that."
Steve opened his eyes. They were wet at the corners, though whether from sweat or tears she couldn't tell.
"You could've just asked me out," he said. "Before all this. Before the claws and the venom and the..."
"Would you have said yes?"
He didn't answer.
Barbara laughed, but it came out cracked. "That's what I thought. Good little Steve Trevor, loyal to the end. Never looks at another woman when Diana's in the room."
"You don't know me."
"I know everything." She started to move again, rocking against him with a slow grind that made them both hiss. "You think I don't? I know your social security number. I know about the sister in Boston you haven't called in three years. I know you still sleep on the left side of the bed because your ex-wife used to sleep on the right."
"Stop."
"I know your o-face." She smirked. "You showed me earlier."
"You're insane."
"Probably." She planted her hands on his chest and rode him in earnest now, steady strokes that built a rhythm between them. "Doesn't change the fact that you're going to come for me again. And this time, I want you to look at me while it happens."
His hips rose to meet her, instinct overriding reason. The slap of skin on skin echoed through the warehouse, punctuated by the rain and the distant wail of sirens outside. Somewhere in the city, Diana was probably looking for him. Probably worried.
Barbara didn't care.
She wanted Diana to find them like this. Wanted her to see the way Steve's hands moved to Barbara's ass, gripping hard. Wanted her to hear the sounds he was making—grunts that bordered on whimpers, the kind of noises that came from somewhere primal and honest.
"You're close," she said.
"I didn't stop."
"No. You didn't."
She watched his face as she sped up. The furrow between his brows. The way his lips parted. The tendons in his neck standing out like ropes as he started to lose control all over again.
"That's it," she purred. "Don't hold back. Not for me. Never for me."
He tried to speak—she saw his mouth form the shape of a word—but nothing came out. Because she'd leaned forward and pressed his face into her cleavage, smothering him in soft fur and warm skin and the scent of her. The same scent she knew was already rewiring his brain. The same scent that would live in his nostrils long after this moment ended.
"Breathe," she whispered. "That's all you have to do. Just breathe and let it happen."
He was so fucking hard inside her. She could feel every inch of him, every throb and pulse, every twitch that signaled he was teetering on the edge. She squeezed around him, clenching with muscles she'd learned to control since the ritual—muscles no human had, muscles designed to milk and hold.
"Come on, soldier," she said. "Give it to me."
His hands tightened on her ass. His breathing stopped. And then he came.
Not like before. Before had been sharp and bright, a quick burn that left him panting. This was different. This was the kind of orgasm that started at the base of the spine and traveled outward like a volcanic eruption. His entire body locked up beneath her, muscles going rigid, back arching off the concrete. He made a sound—something between a scream and a sob—that was muffled against her chest.
The come pumped out of him in hot floods, filling her, spilling past where they were joined and dripping down her thighs. She rode it out, milking every last pulse, her own climax triggering at the feeling of him letting go completely.
But he didn't stop.
His hips kept jerking, kept pumping, even after his seed was spent. His body didn't know how to quit. Didn't know how to process pleasure that bordered on pain. His hands went slack on her ass. His arms fell to the concrete with hollow thuds. And still his cock twitched inside her, still he came, dry now, nothing left to give but the convulsing of muscles that didn't understand the word 'enough'.
"Shh," Barbara whispered. "Shh, it's okay. Let go. I've got you."
His eyes rolled back. His mouth went slack. His entire body quivered like an engine winding down.
And then he went still.
Barbara held him there, his face buried between her breasts, his cock still lodged inside her, still growing soft inch by inch. His breathing had slowed to something shallow and even, the rhythm of a man who'd passed out from sheer sensory overload.
She stayed on top of him for a long moment, watching the rise and fall of his chest, listening to the rain drumming against the warehouse roof. The neon light flickered off and on, off and on, painting them both in alternating shades of pink and green.
"That's it," she whispered, stroking his hair with a gentleness that would have surprised anyone who knew her. "That's my good little soldier."
He didn't stir. Didn't whimper. Just lay there, unconscious and trustful, like a cat sleeping in a sunbeam.
"Become addicted to my scent." She pressed her nose to his crown, inhaling deeply, letting his smell—sweat and want and that lingering trace of something that was just him—fill her lungs. "I'll be the only thing you can breathe."
She traced a claw along his jaw, careful not to scratch, watching the way his body didn't flinch. Already conditioned. Already hers.
"By the time Diana finds you," she said, "you won't even remember why you loved her."
She stayed there for another hour, long after the rain stopped and the neon died. Just watching him sleep. Just waiting for him to wake up wanting.