Chapter 3: The Chase and the Trap
He saw her the moment he stepped onto the ledge.
It was a flash, barely a flicker at the edge of his peripheral vision — a cascade of silver hair catching the sodium glow of a streetlamp, a pale shoulder disappearing around the corner of a water tower. His heart stuttered. His hand went to his web-shooter out of pure instinct, his body tensing for a fight he knew he didn't want.
Across the street, three rooftops down, she paused. Turned. Looked back at him over her shoulder with that same insolent, knowing smile, her green eyes glittering like fractured glass.
She raised her hand. Wiggled her fingers. And then she was gone, a blur of black and white against the rain-washed sky.
Peter stood frozen on that ledge for a full three seconds, his breath fogging in the cold air, his mind screaming at him to turn around, to go back inside, to crawl into bed beside his wife and pretend he hadn't seen anything.
But his body was already moving.
He told himself it was about the necklace. He told himself he was just going to retrieve the stolen artifact, force her to return it, put an end to this whole insane game before it could do any more damage. That was the mission. That was the only reason he was launching himself off that ledge, web-line snapping through the night air, arcing across the gap between buildings with his heart hammering against his ribs.
But as he watched her leap from the edge of a rooftop, her lithe frame twisting into a perfect arc, her fingers catching the lip of a fire escape and swinging her body around with the effortless grace of a dancer — as he watched the way her hips rolled when she landed, the way her leather-clad thighs flexed as she pushed off again — he knew he was lying to himself.
And he knew she knew it too.
She led him on a chase through the bones of the city, a lethal ballet of leaps and pivots and impossible angles. Over water towers and ventilation shafts, across clotheslines and rusted fire escapes, through alleys that smelled of garbage and rain and the faint tang of cooked grease. She moved like she was born to this — like the skyline was her kingdom and he was just another trespasser, stumbling through her domain.
He followed, chasing the flash of her white hair through the gloom, his awareness shrinking until it was just him and her and the rhythm of their bodies moving through the dark.
"You're slowing down, tiger," she called back, her voice bright and teasing, carrying on the wind. "All that time in the lab making you soft?"
He gritted his teeth and pushed harder, his muscles burning as he launched himself across a gap, his fingers catching the edge of a cornice and swinging him upward. She laughed — a sound like breaking glass — and disappeared over the edge of a rooftop, landing in a silent crouch.
When he landed beside her, she was already walking away, hips swaying with deliberate, insolent grace. She didn't look back. She just raised one hand, beckoning him forward with a lazy crook of her finger.
"You want this back, don't you?" She held up her other hand, and the necklace dangled from her fingers, catching the light like a promise. "Come and get it."
She turned and sprinted across the final rooftop, a blur of black and white against the dark, and then she was gone — swallowed by the skeleton of a massive penthouse that loomed against the sky like a glass-and-steel monolith.
Peter landed on the edge of the skylight just as she disappeared through it, her laughter echoing behind her. He hesitated. One knee on the glass, one hand pressed flat against the cold, wet surface, his breath coming in ragged gasps. Through the glass, he could see her below — a figure in the warm glow of a thousand candles, her silhouette moving through the room with the fluid confidence of a cat.
He should turn around. He should go home. He should—
The memory of her thigh against his cock surged through him like a shot of adrenaline, hot and unbidden. The press of her body against his on that fire escape, the weight of her gaze, the way her voice had dropped to a low, smoky purr when she'd said his name.
Come and get it.
He dropped through the skylight.
The penthouse was a cathedral of glass and shadows. Candles flickered on every surface — on the marble mantelpiece, on the low glass coffee table, on the wrought-iron shelves that lined the walls. Their flames danced in the currents of air he'd disturbed, casting long, wavering shadows across the polished floor.
She was standing by the floor-to-ceiling windows, her back to him, a glass of red wine in her hand. She was wearing nothing but a black silk robe — a swath of glossy fabric that caught the candlelight and shimmered like oil on water, tied loosely at her waist, clinging to the curve of her hips like a second skin.
"I knew you couldn't resist," she said, not turning around.
Her voice was low, almost lazy, but there was something sharp beneath it — a glint of satisfaction, of victory.
Peter swallowed. His throat was dry. His heart was pounding.
"Give me the necklace, Felicia."
She turned, slowly, the robe shifting around her thighs. The candlelight caught the sharp angles of her face, the pale column of her throat, the hint of shadow between her collarbones. Her smile was a slash of white against the dark.
"Make me."
She set the wine glass down on the mantel and walked toward him, her bare feet silent on the polished floor. The silk of her robe whispered against her skin with every step, flowing around her like a living thing.
Peter stood his ground. He held her gaze, his jaw tight, his fists clenched at his sides. He could feel his chest heaving, feel the sweat cooling on his skin, feel his body humming with a tension that had nothing to do with the chase.
She stopped when she was close enough to touch. Close enough that he could smell her — rain and jasmine and something dark and heady that made his head swim. She reached up, slow, deliberate, and pressed her hand flat against his chest, over the spider emblem, her fingers spreading against the spandex.
"You know," she murmured, "for a man who's supposed to be so smart, you really don't learn, do you?"
"I don't—" His voice cracked. He cleared his throat. "I don't want this."
"Liar." she breathed, the word soft as a kiss.
She leaned in, her lips brushing the shell of his ear, her breath warm against his neck. Her free hand slid down his chest, trailing over the ridges of his abdomen, down, down, until her fingertips found the growing bulge in his suit.
"Every time I touch you," she whispered, "you get harder. Every time I look at you, you get weaker. You tell yourself you're here for the necklace, but we both know the truth, don't we?"
Her hand closed around him, the fabric of his suit straining against the pressure of her grip. He hissed through his teeth, his hips jerking involuntarily toward her touch.
"You're here because you couldn't stay away."
She pulled back, looking up at him with those glittering green eyes, and slowly — almost teasingly — she unzipped his suit.
The sound was obscene in the quiet room, a long, slow rasp of metal teeth parting. She reached inside, her fingers brushing the waistband of his briefs, and then her hand was wrapped around him — bare skin on bare skin, warm and sure and impossibly good.
"Christ," Peter gasped, his eyes squeezing shut.
"Shh." Her thumb stroked the length of him, slow and deliberate, gliding through the moisture beading at his tip. "Let me take care of this."
She dropped to her knees in front of him, the silk of her robe pooling around her thighs, her silver hair falling forward to brush his hips. She looked up at him, her lips parted, her eyes half-lidded, and then her mouth closed around him.
---
The heat of her tongue was a revelation. She engulfed him slowly, inch by inch, her mouth stretching around his girth, her lips sealing tight against his shaft. She made a low sound in her throat — a hum of satisfaction — and the vibration traveled through him like an electric current.
"Fuck," he breathed, his head falling back, his hands finding her hair — the silver strands like silk between his fingers.
She pulled back, letting him slide nearly out of her mouth, and then pushed forward again, taking him deeper, her tongue swirling around the crown of his cock in a slow, deliberate spiral. Her hand wrapped around the base, pumping in counterpoint to the movement of her mouth, stroking him with a rhythm that made his hips buck helplessly.
She was a master with her mouth. She knew exactly how hard to suck, exactly how fast to move, exactly when to pause and flick her tongue against the sensitive ridge beneath the head of his cock, drawing a low groan from his throat.
"That's it," she murmured, pulling back just far enough to speak, her lips slick with spit, her cheeks flushed. "Don't hold back, baby. I want to taste you."
She took him in her mouth again, all the way to the root, her nose brushing the dark curls at his base. She swallowed around him, her throat constricting in a tight, rhythmic pulse that made his knees buckle.
Peter gripped her hair, his hips moving in a desperate, uncoordinated rhythm, his breath coming in short, ragged gasps. He could feel the pressure building at the base of his spine, hot and urgent and unstoppable.
"Felicia, I'm gonna—"
She didn't pull away. She looked up at him, her green eyes meeting his, and she took him deeper, her hand stroking him faster, her tongue working him with a ferocity that stole his breath.
He came with a raw, torn cry, his body arching, his hands clenching in her hair as he flooded her mouth. She swallowed around him, her throat working as she took every drop, her eyes never leaving his, her lips curving into a smile around his cock as he shuddered and shook.
When she finally released him, she sat back on her heels, wiping her mouth with the back of her hand, looking up at him with a satisfied, predatory grin.
"See?" she said, her voice rough. "I told you you couldn't resist."
Peter staggered backward, his chest heaving, his legs barely holding him up. He was shaking. His whole body was shaking. He felt shell-shocked, hollowed out, as if she'd reached inside him and pulled out something he'd never known was there.
He looked down at her — this woman kneeling on the floor before him, her robe half-open, her lips swollen and slick — and he knew, with a cold, sinking certainty that had nothing to do with sex, that he was in serious trouble.
"Give me the necklace," he said, his voice barely a whisper.
Felicia rose to her feet, slow and fluid, her hands sliding up his chest as she stood. She pressed herself against him, her hips finding the soft, spent weight of him through his suit, and she leaned in to kiss his jaw, his cheek, the corner of his mouth.
"No," she murmured against his lips. "But you're welcome to stay for a drink."
Peter closed his eyes. The candles flickered. The rain pattered against the glass.
And he stayed.
The candles guttered in a draft from nowhere, their flames bending toward her like supplicants. She watched him with that half-lidded gaze, her fingers toying with the sash of her robe while the silk parted to reveal the pale plane of her stomach, the shadowed hollow between her thighs.
"Drink first," she said, already moving toward a crystal decanter on the sideboard. "You look like you need it."
He didn't want a drink. He wanted to leave. He wanted to find his web-shooters and launch himself through that skylight and never look back. But his feet carried him forward anyway, following the sway of her hips through the candlelit room until he was standing beside her, close enough to feel the heat radiating off her skin.
She poured two glasses of something amber and dark, handed him one. Her fingers brushed his as he took it, deliberate and lingering.
"You're tense," she observed, taking a sip of her own. "All that guilt building up in your shoulders. I can practically see it."
"I'm not—"
"You are." She stepped closer, her free hand coming up to rest on his chest again, over his heart. "You're standing in my penthouse, your wife asleep in your bed, and you just let me swallow every last drop of your come. And now you're trying to figure out how to feel bad enough to make it okay."
Peter's jaw tightened. "You don't know what I feel."
"Honey." She laughed, low and rich. "I've known you for ten years. I know exactly what you feel. I'm the only one you've never had to pretend with."
She took the glass from his hand, set it on the sideboard next to hers, and turned to face him fully. The robe had slipped off one shoulder, exposing the pale curve of her breast, the nipple already taut against the cool air.
"You don't want a drink, Peter," she said softly. "You want to forget. Just for a little while. You want to stop being Spider-Man, stop being the husband, stop being the good guy who always does the right thing and gets nothing in return."
Her fingers found the zipper of his suit again, already half-open from before. She pulled it down, slow, inch by inch, until the fabric gaped open to reveal his chest, his stomach, the dark trail of hair disappearing below his waist.
"Let me help you forget."
He should have stopped her. He should have grabbed her wrist, stepped back, said no. He'd said no before — a hundred times, a thousand times, every time she'd come at him with that wicked smile and those hungry eyes.
But his body was already betraying him, his cock stirring again, thickening against the fabric of his briefs. She noticed. Of course she noticed. Her smile widened, catlike and knowing, and she pushed the suit off his shoulders, letting it fall to the floor in a pool of red and blue.
"God, you're beautiful," she breathed, her eyes roaming over his bare chest, the lean lines of his torso, the way his muscles tensed and flexed beneath her gaze. "All that power wrapped up in all that guilt. It's intoxicating."
She stepped back, just far enough to untie her sash. The robe fell open, then slid off her shoulders, dropping to the floor in a whisper of silk.
She was naked underneath. Of course she was. She stood before him with no shame, no hesitation, her body gilded by candlelight — breasts full and high, nipples dark and hard, the curve of her waist flaring into hips that were made for grabbing, for holding, for taking. The triangle of hair between her thighs was silver-white, neatly trimmed, gleaming with the faint sheen of her arousal.
"See something you like?" she asked, her voice a low purr.
Peter couldn't speak. His mouth was dry, his heart pounding, his cock straining against his briefs so hard it was almost painful.
She walked toward him slowly, savoring the moment, her hips rolling with each step. She stopped when her body was flush against his, her nipples dragging across his chest, her thighs brushing against the hard line of his erection through the thin cotton.
"Let me take care of this," she murmured, and her fingers hooked into the waistband of his briefs.
She pushed them down, and his cock sprang free — thick, flushed, already leaking a bead of moisture at the tip. She looked at it, her tongue darting out to wet her lips, and then she wrapped her fingers around the base and stroked him once, slow and deliberate.
"Mm." She pressed her palm flat against his length, feeling the heat and weight of him. "You're even bigger when you're hard for me."
He made a sound — a strangled groan, barely human — and she laughed, soft and wicked.
"Don't worry, tiger. I'm going to take such good care of you."
She pushed him backward until his knees hit the edge of a low leather ottoman. He fell onto it, sitting, his hands braced on the cushion behind him, his cock standing rigid and aching in the open air.
Felicia knelt between his thighs, silver hair cascading over her shoulders, her lips parted, her eyes fixed on him like he was the most delicious thing she'd ever seen. She leaned in, her breath warm against his shaft, and pressed a slow, lingering kiss to the side of his cock.
"God," she breathed. "I've been dreaming about this. About getting you alone, getting you hard, getting you inside me." She ran her tongue along the underside of his shaft, from base to tip, slow and wet. "I've been dreaming about the sounds you'd make when you finally let go."
She took him in her mouth, and this time it was different. Slower. Deeper. A deliberate, torturous pace that made every nerve in his body scream. She worked him with her tongue and her lips and her hands, pulling him to the edge of his climax and then backing off, teasing him, drawing it out until he was shaking with need.
"Please," he gasped, the word torn from him before he could stop it.
She pulled back, her lips slick, her eyes gleaming. "Please what?"
"Please—I need—"
"You need what?" She stroked him again, slow, her thumb circling the swollen head. "Tell me what you want, Peter."
"You." His voice was raw, desperate. "I want to be inside you."
Her smile was a slash of triumph. "Then take me."
She rose to her feet and backed toward the low bed that dominated the far corner of the room — a massive platform covered in dark silk, scattered with pillows, lit by more candles. She climbed onto it, on her hands and knees, and looked back at him over her shoulder.
"Come here, tiger," she purred, and she reached back to spread herself open — a slow, deliberate gesture that exposed every intimate fold of her, wet and glistening and waiting for him.
Peter crossed the room in three strides.
He climbed onto the bed behind her, his hands finding her hips, his cock pressing against her slick, hot entrance. She moaned, pushing back against him, trying to take him inside, but he held her steady, teasing her with just the pressure of his tip.
"Not yet," he said, his voice low and rough. "I want to hear you ask for it."
She looked back at him, her green eyes blazing. "Fuck me, Peter. Put your cock inside me and fuck me until I can't think straight."
He slammed into her.
She cried out — a sharp, broken sound of pleasure and surprise — as he buried himself to the hilt, the wet heat of her gripping him like a fist. He paused for a moment, his forehead pressed against her shoulder blade, his breath ragged, feeling her pulse around him.
"God," he groaned. "You feel—"
"I know," she gasped. "Now move."
He moved.
He fucked her hard, with a rhythm born of desperation, his hips slapping against her ass with each thrust. She met him stroke for stroke, her body arching, her fingers clawing at the silk beneath her, her moans filling the candlelit room.
"That's it," she hissed. "Fuck, yes, that's it. Don't hold back. Use me."
He pulled out and flipped her onto her back before she could protest, spreading her legs wide as he drove back into her, deeper this time, hitting that spot inside her that made her eyes roll back. She wrapped her legs around his waist, her nails raking down his back, and he fucked her like a man possessed.
"Look at you," she breathed, her voice ragged. "So desperate. So hungry. You try so hard to be good, but you need this, don't you? You need to be bad."
He didn't answer. He couldn't. All he could do was thrust, over and over, losing himself in the wet heat of her body, in the sound of her moans and the feel of her nails and the desperate, filthy need that had been building inside him for years.
"I'm close," she gasped, her body tightening around him. "Don't stop. Please don't stop—"
He slammed into her, harder, faster, and she came with a scream that was half pleasure, half relief, her body convulsing around his cock in wave after wave of release. The feeling of her clenching around him was too much, and he followed her over the edge, burying his face in her neck as he came with a raw, torn cry, spilling himself deep inside her.
They lay there for a long moment, tangled together, breathless and slick with sweat. The candles flickered. The rain pattered against the glass. Somewhere in the distance, a car horn blared.
Peter pulled out slowly, the sound obscene, and rolled onto his back beside her. He stared at the ceiling, his chest heaving, his mind a wreck of shame and satisfaction and something he couldn't name.
Felicia propped herself up on one elbow, looking down at him with a soft, satisfied smile. She reached out and traced a finger down his chest, through the sweat, over his heart.
"See?" she murmured. "No guilt. No obligations. Just this." She leaned in and kissed him, slow and deep, tasting herself on his lips. "You're going to become addicted to this cat's pussy, Peter. I promise you that."
He closed his eyes.
He didn't argue.