“After a pit stop, yeah.”
“Where?”
“Noodz,” I answered matter-of-factly.
“Erm… Come again?”
“Hole-in-the-wall ramen joint at the end of the grub strip.”
“That is not what I thought you were going to say.”
“I know. Batman would never walk into a place called Noodz. It wouldn’t look great for his mightier than thou image.”
“Is that what you think of me?”
With more honesty than I’d intended, I answered, “I don’t know what tothink of you yet.” I studied his profile without shame as he drove. Stubble he hadn’t had the last time we met darkened his jaw, and his chestnut locks were swept astray. He looked exhausted. “It’s really not your duty to chauffeur me. I was born with a ‘don’t fuck with me’ label on my forehead.”
I regretted the words before they even fell out of my mouth, but that didn’t stop me from saying them. Perhaps it was a test to gauge whether or not saving me was something he felt obligated to do. Could he see that I couldn’t even save myself?
Joe scoffed, his smile a touch too cynical for my liking. “Our first encounter was you pushed against the wall surrounded by rapists. I could hardly, in good conscience, let you walk home in the dark. Besides,” he added as I inhaled sharply to protest. “I don’t mind. I was headed home, and your place is on the way.”
“I see.”
“More than that, though,” he continued, his voice more gentle and a touch shy. “If it’s not too soon to say, I… I enjoy your company, Dany.”
The colors of the city drifted through my peripheral. They all dimmed, fading away to grey with each quiet admission.
“There’s something about your ragged edges that lights a fire to the straight line I’ve lived my whole life.” Tension flexed in his temple, cutting the line of his jaw in deeply masculine angles that sent my heart tripping. The steering wheel creaked from his white knuckled grip as he swerved into a darkened, narrow alley.
The SUV clicked into park before Joe swiveled in his seat. His features were no longer soft. The intensity with which he stared at me covered my skin in goosebumps. It was like a switch flipped in his demeanor. Gone was the gentleman, and in his place was a man capable of savagery.
“I can’t get you out of my head, Dany. You’re driving me fucking crazy, day in and day out. My thoughts are consumed by your snarky mouth and the devilry I know it’s capable of.”
A heated flush crept up my neck, deepening with every erratic pulse through my veins. The tension grew like a wild fire between us. Fog covered every window making sure we were really and truly alone in this space.
“I’ve tried to be a gentleman. Told myself that you were nearly abused in that alley and I had no business asking for anything other than what you were willing to give. I don’t know what it is about you–“ he stopped short, and I found myself hanging on the very air he breathed.
When I was human, I was deserving of someone like Joe. His chivalry would have been the perfect compliment to my Suzy Homemaker Dreams.
I wasn’t that Dany anymore, though.
Death had claimed my soul, stealing away all of the sunshine and humanity I’d been made of before. This Dany was willing to drag Joe to hell alongside her.
“You know that Catwoman was the villain, don’t you?” I said through a breathy whisper. “That she and Bruce could never be together because she was everything he stood against. A dark, forbidden love. Star-crossed.”
“And yet he never ceased to tempt the dark.”
I was across the console before either of us had a chance to reconsider. Joe moaned into my mouth and I swallowed them greedily, my hands running through his rain-soaked hair in a desperate attempt to bring him closer. To drown myself in him so I could forget that I existed.
Callouses scraped against my skin as Joe’s hands roved over my body. My hips fit perfectly in the wide expanse of his palms, and the way his fingers dug into my lower back had me arching into him for more. Joe moved with expertise, using his grip to set the tempo between us and grinding our hips together in perfect unison. Each thrust was tailored to my pleasure, the straining bulge of his cock pressing first at the bottom of my pussy and then dragging torturously up and over my swollen clit.
I broke our kiss and threw my head back, angling my hips downward in hopes he would thrust harder.
“Fuck,” I groaned and clung to his shoulders. “I thought Batman was supposed to be a virgin.”
Joe latched onto my nipple through the thin fabric of my shirt. He laughed deep in his belly, the sound vibrating through every pulsating nerve waiting to shatter inside of me.
“He may be a hero, Dany, but he is a man.” Joe’s teeth sank into the tender flesh around my nipple. The sting rippled straight down to my clit. “A man has needs.”
