Chapter 6: Home invasion
The steam from the shower still clung to the bathroom tiles, curling into the cooler air of the apartment. Peter Parker emerged, a towel slung low around his hips, another scrubbing at his damp hair. The domestic silence felt earned, fragile. He’d webbed up a stolen armored car earlier, took a glancing blow to the ribs that ached dully now, and all he wanted was ten minutes with the leftover chow mein and the Mets game on low.
He froze in the doorway.
Felicia sat perched on the arm of his sofa, one leg folded beneath her. She was in her human guise—a stunning woman with platinum hair and eyes a little too blue to be real—but the pose was all feline casualness. She sniffed the air, a small, playful smile on her lips. “Long night?”
“Felicia.” His voice was flat, weary. He didn’t need this. Not now. The photos on the wall, MJ in every one, seemed to watch him. “You need to leave.”
“Do I?” She unfolded herself, standing with a liquid grace that made his spider-sense hum a quiet, persistent note. Not danger, not exactly. Temptation. She took a step closer, the scent of her cutting through the steam and old takeout—wildflowers and sun-warmed fur. “You look tense, tiger. Aches and pains? I’m told I have a healing touch.”
“I’m serious.” Peter backed up, hand tightening on the towel at his waist. “Whatever this is, the answer is no. MJ’s at rehearsal. She could be back any time.”
“She won’t be.” Felicia’s smile turned knowing. “The subway has… delays. Terrible things.” Another step. The distance between them evaporated. She was close enough for him to see the subtle flecks of gold in her irises, to feel the heat radiating from her skin. “It’s just us. The hero and the… admirer.”
His pulse jumped. His senses were screaming now, a cocktail of alarm and a deep, gravitational pull. “Stop it.”
“Or what?” she whispered, her gaze dropping to his lips, then lower. “You’ll throw me out? I’d like to see you try.”
Then she let the disguise fall.
It wasn’t a dramatic shimmer. It was a relaxation, a shedding of a skin she found constricting. The platinum hair bled into the roots, becoming the pure, snow-white fur that covered her body. Her ears elongated, twitching at the tips, settling high on her head. A long, sleek tail uncoiled from behind her, swishing lazily through the air. She stood before him, fully revealed—the cat-like Darkstalker, muscles coiled under soft fur, utterly alien and breathtakingly physical.
Peter’s breath hitched. The logical part of his brain, the part that loved MJ, that fought crime, short-circuited.
And then Felicia released her pheromones.
It wasn’t a scent. It was an atmosphere. The air thickened, sweet and cloying, like crushed honeysuckle and something primal, musky—the smell of a fresh kill. It flooded his nostrils, seeped into his lungs, and went straight to his hindbrain. Every nerve ending lit up. The ache in his ribs vanished, replaced by a different, urgent throb. His towel suddenly felt painfully restrictive.
“See?” Felicia purred, the sound vibrating in his chest. “No more lies.”
Control snapped.
Peter didn’t grab her; he lunged. The superhero vanished, replaced by a man driven by raw, pheromone-fueled instinct. His mouth crashed onto hers, not a kiss but a claiming. She met his ferocity, her claws—retracted but present—digging into his bare shoulders, not to draw blood, but to hold. To anchor.
He spun her, pushing her forward until her hands were flat on the cluttered coffee table, sending a stack of comics slithering to the floor. Her back arched, the line of her spine a perfect curve beneath the fur. Her tail rose high, an invitation.
Peter’s towel hit the floor. He was painfully hard, his cock standing thick and eager. He didn’t hesitate. One hand gripped the base of her tail, not harshly, but possessively. The other guided himself to her entrance.
She was already wet, slick heat welcoming him. He drove into her in one brutal, deep thrust.
Felicia cried out, a sharp, keening sound that melted into a purring rumble. He was buried to the hilt, her tight channel stretching to accommodate him. It was overwhelming—the sensation of her, the friction of soft fur against his stomach, the alien, perfect warmth clamping around him.
He set a punishing rhythm immediately, each snap of his hips driving the table legs screeching across the floor. No finesse. No tenderness. This was fucking, pure and simple. The slap of skin and fur, their ragged breaths, the creak of the cheap furniture—it was a violent, vulgar music.
Peter’s hands roamed. One slid around her torso, palming her breast, his thumb finding a peaked nipple beneath the fur and rubbing it in rough circles. The other hand remained fisted in the fur at the base of her tail, using it for leverage to plunge deeper. He dropped his head, burying his face in the fur of her neck, inhaling her corrupted scent, tasting salt on his tongue.
“God… Felicia…” he groaned, the words mangled.
Her purr intensified, a engine of pleasure revving inside her. Her tail, which had been still, now moved, wrapping around his thigh, the tip brushing his hip in time with his thrusts. The intimacy of it, the strange, possessive caress, sent another jolt through him.
“Yes,” she hissed, pushing back against him, meeting every drive. “This is what you need. Not gentle. Not careful. This. Feel how tight I am for you? How I milk you?” Her inner muscles clenched around him in a deliberate, rippling wave, and he saw stars.
“Fuck!” he shouted, his thrusts growing erratic, desperate.
“Your wife,” Felicia gasped, her voice ragged with her own rising pleasure, “can’t fuck you like this. She can’t take you like a beast. She doesn’t have this… this wildness.” She pushed back harder, impaling herself on him. “This is what you are, under the mask. And it’s mine.”
Her words were a poison and a catalyst. The degradation, the truth in them, mixed with the pheromones and the incredible, coiling pressure in his gut. He was losing himself. The face in the photographs was a ghost.
With a final, guttural roar, Peter came. His orgasm tore through him, violent and utter. He pistoned into her, his release pumping into her depths in hot, endless spurts. His body locked, trembling, his grip on her breast and tail going rigid.
Felicia climaxed with him, a sharp, shuddering cry breaking her purr. Her channel spasmed around his still-pulsing cock, drawing every last drop from him. For a long moment, they stayed locked, connected by the most base of transactions, the apartment silent except for their heaving breaths.
Slowly, the world seeped back in. The hum of the fridge. The distant wail of a siren. The ache in his ribs, returning twofold.
Peter withdrew, stumbling back as if burned. He looked at her, at the evidence of what they’d done glistening on her fur and on him. Horror, profound and sickening, dawned on his face.
Felicia gracefully straightened. She didn’t bother with a disguise. She turned, her blue eyes meeting his, seeing the shame and conflict warring with the lingering, drug-like satisfaction. She licked a clawed finger clean, her gaze never leaving his.
“The pheromones will fade,” she said, her voice soft, almost pitying. “The memory won’t. The feeling won’t.” She stepped closer, reached out, and ran the back of a furred hand down his stricken cheek. “Midnight. The clock tower in Greenwich Village. Come to me. Let me show you what forever feels like. No more guilt. No more splitting yourself in two. Just… pleasure.”
She leaned in, kissed him once, softly, on his parted, traumatized lips. Then she moved to the window, opened it, and slipped out into the gathering dusk without a sound.
Peter stood alone in the wreckage of his living room, the scent of sex and wildflowers clinging to him. He looked at the photos of MJ, her smile now seeming like an accusation. His body still hummed with the echo of Felicia’s purr. The invitation hung in the air, more binding than any web.
Midnight. The word tolled in his mind like a funeral bell.