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Lucy paced back and forth across the stained carpet. Her heavy boots thumped against the spots where the carpet tread was little more than a memory. The sleeves of a heavy canvas shirt, tied limply around her hips, whipped to the side each time she made another sharp turn.
Cooper watched from the bed, smoking to keep himself occupied. Barely propped up against a headboard riddled with bullet holes and questionable stains.
He could have handled two minutes of the repetition. Hell, even five minutes would have been, well, not tolerable, but understandable. The girl was ten pounds of tightly-wound, shoved into a five-pound sack.
They were hunkered down in the shitty El Rey Motel on the outskirts of the Strip. Intel, trustworthy or not, said Hank MacLean was hiding in the heart of it all. Protected and dangerous.
And so close to getting a bullet right between the eyes.
The Vaultie was not handling it well. The closer they got to New Vegas, the cagier she started acting.
Just when he had managed to get some common sense to stick where the cult-talk used to be.
Now? She was skittish as all hell. If they walked into the middle of a shit-show (and honestly, what else could they expect to find?), she was going to get herself killed.
That was a problem, ‘cause you didn't kill what the Ghoul had chosen to let live.
It had been seventeen minutes on the same path. From corner to corner. All the way from the bathroom to the front door. Heel, toe, heel, toe.
Again and again and again.
“Fuckin’ hell, enough,” he snapped, his voice loud in the small space. All sharp edges that stuck to the grimy walls.
Lucy froze.
“I need ya to knock it off.”
Cooper wanted to sleep because who knew when he’d get the chance again.
He had been hoping the Vaultie would join him. Let him press her too soft skin into the too firm mattress. Show her that monsters still lurked where creature comforts existed.
Lucy cried in her sleep. Tears silently slipped down her cheek, dampening the ground beneath her. She cried less when she fell asleep with a fresh bruise, blood crusting against her skin. Soft breaths made raspy by too rough hands.
In front of him, the toe of her boot tapped impatiently against the floor. Eager to resume its march.
“What if he knows we’re here and tries to leave?”
He looked at her through half-lidded eyes. In no rush to answer, Cooper breathed out, took a long drag of his cigar, and held it. Smoke rolled around his mouth, filling every space. The payoff wasn't even half of what it used to be when his organs were one-and-done levels of fragile. Especially when he had paid too much for the brand alone. San Francisco Sunlights, what a joke.
Tap, tap, tap.
He released a cloud in her direction.
“We keep chasin’ ‘im.”
“But what—"
“Stop.”
Lucy stopped.
Cooper sat up and swung his legs over the side of the bed. His boots settled shoulder-width apart.
“Come ‘ere.”
Lucy broke free of her path to stand in front of him.
Obedience was hardwired into her. It was dangerous, it was cruel.
A better man wouldn’t see it as an opportunity.
Only his eyes moved up to look at her. Even in the dogshit lighting, she was beautiful. He hated that it was still one of the first things he noticed, but there it was. It’d been so long since he’d been surrounded by beauty.
Every time he blinked, he thought she’d disappear. Convinced this time, he’d finally tipped over the edge from man to beast. Certain that she was a mirage created to torment him in his final moments.
He’d open his eyes and she’d still be there. And then she’d open her mouth, and he was back to thinking she’d been sent to torment him.
Some of the things she said were straight out of the scripts he’d been handed. Spoken with absolute sincerity. The craziest part? She wasn’t even on their payroll.
God, she would have been a star.
That’s where she belonged, Cooper thought. Red carpets. Dark after parties. Makeup trailers and costuming departments.
Hanging off the arm of some seedy executive.
Batting those long eyelashes at someone in casting.
Fucking the producer.
Little Lucy MacLean. People would have lined up around the block for a chance to be used by her. Still would. Cooper wondered if someone would save his spot in line, say, if an urgent matter came up. Or if he had to take a leak.
Lucy stood just inches from his knees. Never touching him until the green light flashed, bright and clear. Still, the proximity sent pinpricks travelling down his legs. An addict to his core, he couldn’t handle having the sweetest chem dangled in front of him.
Clamping his cigar between his teeth, Cooper reached out and caught a handful of her shirt. He pulled her closer, and she slotted easily between his thighs. It was the permission she had been waiting for, and Lucy’s hands instinctively rose to rest on his shoulders. She smoothed the leather of his jacket lapel between her fingers in small, tight circles. Her hands shook.
“I need you ready for this,” Cooper said as his hands settled on her hips.
“I am,” she insisted.
“No, you ain’t,” he said around the head of his cigar.
“How can I convince you?”
“Stop tremblin’, fer starters.”
She let out a nervous giggle, “Oh.”
His bottom lip jutted out, releasing a cloud of smoke upwards. Lucy wrinkled her nose, but didn’t move.
He supposed it wasn’t her fault that she’d been raised to wait. It’s what they’d been bred to do. Wait for permission. For a command. A Goddamn invitation.
Her daddy had failed her by not letting her realize she was a fucking force.
Cooper hadn’t felt fatherly in a long time.
“You hate the smell,” he said. It wasn’t a question. Wasn’t the start of a discussion.
It was bait.
“I don’t think people are supposed to like it.”
“I ain’t talkin’ ‘bout people,” he pulled his hand from the soft curve of her hip—though he was loath to do it—to pluck the offending object from his mouth, holding it between them. “I was talkin’ ‘bout you.”
She bit her lip. Cooper watched the indent grow pale. He let himself remember the taste of those lips. How they gave way to pressure so easily.
“No, I don’t like it,” she said after a noticeable pause.
“So, tell me to put it out.”
Lucy said nothing. She was searching his face, looking for clues to the right answer.
“If you don’t like it, do somethin’ ‘bout it.”
She remained frozen, only her fingers working their quickening circles against his coat.
“Lucy,” he warned, his voice cool and low, “stop tremblin’ and do somethin’.”
The light above them hummed. And even though the walls of the motel were little more than studs covered in faded wallpaper, the chatter in the adjacent rooms seemed to still. There was only Cooper, the Vaultie, and the glowing foot of the cigar.
Slowly, cautiously, Lucy reached out to pinch it between her thumb and index finger.
Cooper caught her wrist, quick as a bullet. His grip was painfully tight, his expression serious. Lucy cried out as he twisted her arm away from him.
“It was your idea!” she protested, trying in vain to pull free.
“Well, you see, what we’ve got ourselves ‘ere is an impasse,” said Cooper, digging his nails into that soft, delicate skin. “’Cause what you want and what I want seem to be headin’ in two different directions. And I’m real partial to what I want.”
He moved to fit the cigar back between his teeth, and Lucy’s free hand flew to intercept it. While she was strong, her movements were born from carefully practiced routines. Easy to anticipate, easier to counter. Without much effort at all, he grabbed hold of her other wrist.
Lucy yanked and struggled. It was no use; Cooper held her fast. But he admired her gusto.
“Now yer gettin’ it, you ‘ave to take what you want.”
“I don’t want to take it,” Lucy grunted, “I want you to want to give it to me.”
“Ain’t that just like a Vaultie?” he crooned, delighted.
She stared down at him, scowling. He stared back, his smirk growing more lopsided. Nostrils flared; cheeks flushed. Anger suited her.
Something flashed in Lucy’s eyes. Determination: the destructive, unmoored kind. Gone as quick as it appeared. Oh, his little killer was in there. Biding her time.
Shame time was something they didn’t have.
Little killer, he thought, come on out and play.
“Put it out?” she said, her voice high, a little uncertain.
“You askin’ or tellin’ me?”
Lucy puffed out her chest, “Telling.”
“The hell ya are,” Cooper scoffed. “The boys yer daddy shacked up with? They ain’t askin’. And they sure as shit ain’t stoppin’ to clarify.”
She cleared her throat, trying to straighten as much as she could.
“Please either put the cigar out or give it to me so I can.”
Cooper rolled his eyes. Hers narrowed.
The act wouldn’t scare a radsquirrel. He could tell her that, but Lucy was a hands-on type of learner.
“Get on yer knees.”
“Excuse me?”
Cooper yanked her arms down, forcing Lucy to lurch forward.
“Knees,” he repeated.
Lucy didn’t appear convinced, but sank onto the carpet all the same. She’d been given an order, after all. Cooper released her wrists, and she laid them politely in her lap. One on top of the other, palms up.
Her head bowed forward, unwilling to look up at him. Cooper heard a few words muttered to the ground.
“Speak up, sweetheart.”
She looked up, “Do demands have to be spoken in five words or less?”
The mouth on her.
He wanted to bury his hand in that thick hair of hers and slam those perfect lips against the zipper of his pants. Wanted to feel her wet, warm mouth tease him through the fabric. Soaking a wet mark with that tongue where he curved to the right.
“Well?” Lucy asked. Like she had a million other things she could be doing. Like her voice didn’t quiver at the end of the short word.
“Patience,” he chided.
Lucy glowered at him. Cooper took the opportunity to puff on his cigar, making sure the foot still glowed red. Let her stew.
He reached out and brushed a lock of hair off her shoulder. Beneath, her neck was a mess of bruises. Fresh layered atop the old, a visual catalogue of restraint and irreverence in equal measures.
The fact that you couldn’t see bone? That he managed to pull himself away from a meal that decadent? Restraint worthy of veneration. When someone finally managed to put him in the ground for good, they’d canonize him.
The fact he had the gall to mark her up at all? Spoiling something the surface hadn’t gotten its cancerous hands on yet? Who the hell did he think he was, leaving her with long-lingering reminders of her mistakes? Shameful, the whole messy business.
He prayed the bruises would fade fast. So she could move on or let him cover her with new ones.
He pulled in a mouthful of smoke and leaned forward. Lucy’s head tilted expectedly, lips opening just barely. But Cooper dodged that inviting, pink mouth, angling to the left. His pocked, ruined cheek nearly touching the sweet apple of hers.
Keeping his eyes on the curve of her neck, Cooper opened his mouth. Warm, rich smoke poured out. With his lips pursed into an o, he pushed it forward.
Goosebumps erupted across the blues and purples creeping up Lucy’s neck. Fine hairs rose to chase the breeze. Cooper watched her muscles strain to fight off a shiver, but Lucy’s chin jerked away as it took hold.
With his ear so close to her mouth, Cooper heard her soft exhalation as though it had been a scream.
“Feel that?” he murmured against the shell of her ear. He fought the urge to run his tongue across her peppered skin.
“Yes,” Lucy managed to force out. Her voice little more than a breath.
Cooper moved the cigar to hover above the bruise born from pulling the lowest moan free from Lucy’s very core. Its heat cast the delicate line of her neck in warm oranges. Lucy squirmed, subtly shifting to find a hint of relief. But she didn’t pull away, even as her chest rose and fell faster and faster.
“It’s somethin’ I don’t think yer ready for,” Cooper answered, pulling back. Taking the cigar with him.
Lucy leaned forward, following the warmth. Her hands grabbed Cooper’s legs above the bend of his knees.
“I am.” It was so close to pleading. Throaty, deep. Damn similar to the sounds she made when he had her flat on her back.
Cooper grinned. “Convince me.”
Fabric puckered under her grip, her hold strong and needy.
Her eyes started to search him for answers, then steadied. Warm brown glinted black.
She straightened, and Cooper felt the way her grip on his legs had changed. Lucy wasn’t begging him to stay put. Lucy was holding him in place.
Hello there, darlin’.
“No,” she said. Dangerous dark eyes held his. “You’re the one with doubts. Show me what you’re so sure I can’t handle. Convince me.”
Cooper’s heart skipped a beat. His cock jumped. Saliva flooded his mouth.
It was like staring into the night sky waiting for fireworks.
Pride and anger welled up inside him. Each competing to see which would flood his veins and poison his heart.
She was going to be unstoppable. The secret weapon holstered at his side. They could rule this pathetic excuse for a powerhouse if they wanted to.
She was a menace. A pain in his ass who thought she knew best when she barely knew what it meant to be alive.
The beautiful, deadly, foolish Vaultie.
But that was the thing about fireworks. In the end, they were nothing but flashes in the pan. Cooper watched her confidence wane. The heat dissipated from her stare, leaching down into her cheeks, now pink with apprehension. It flickered in and out, his little killer’s thirst for blood. He needed it to stay put.
Or quit wasting his Goddamn time.
Cooper’s hand shot out to grip Lucy’s face, his thumb and middle finger pushing hard enough to feel the ridges of her teeth through her cheeks. How quickly his anger won out these days. It was instant, his nearly primal desire to squeeze a little too hard, to watch her brow to knit together in pain.
He’d been a patient man, once.
It was how you gave a bitch a pill. Forced their mouth open, popped the medicine in. Work it down with two fingers flat against their throat if you had to.
Felt cruel in the moment. Definitely was from the animal’s point of view. But it was for their own good; they just didn’t know it yet.
The girl was root beer floats and drive-in movies. Sneaking out after curfew and dancing too close at the sock hop.
He wanted to fill her mouth with the taste of smoke, rot, and blood. Watch her swallow it down and ask for more. All while that damned Pip-Boy wailed.
Lucy’s mouth opened slightly, her teeth coming apart enough that his fingers fell against empty space. He pulled her in close.
“You think yer in a place to be makin’ demands?”
Lucy tried to nod, but his grip was too strong.
“Yes.” Her breath was hot against his palm.
“Why’s that?”
“Because I’m not dead yet, and you don’t listen to offers you’re not interested in.”
Cooper grinned. A wide, lecherous grin. All teeth and gums.
“What are you offerin’?”
“How’d you feel about a compromise?” she asked.
Cooper recoiled. Compromising relied on the other person not wanting to screw you over. Most people did. Meaning it was as good as losing.
The last time he compromised, he had a shitty divorce attorney and a wife out for blood. Now he had something better than a good lawyer: an inability to let people take what belonged to him.
“Depends,” he said, looking down at her hands, at skin that tasted like salt and sugar and fell away so easily under his teeth. “On the terms.”
“I was think-”
“I’ll stop ya right there, darlin’,” Cooper said. “My stick, my terms.”
“That’s not compromising.”
“Oh, you thought this was gunna be fair?”
“I thought you wanted me to do something,” she countered.
“I do.”
His fingers slid down the sharp angle of her chin, his thumb brushing against Lucy’s bottom lip. Without prompting, the tip of her tongue appeared to slip beneath his finger, pulling it into her warm, damp mouth.
Cooper made a sound in the back of his throat before he could stop it. A pained, needy little noise that he hated.
When he was done with the Vaultie, he’d pack his own mouth with cemetery dirt, pushing it down far enough to keep any more noises from thinking they had the right to be heard.
And while her tongue swirled from the calloused pad of his thumb to the smooth curve of his nail, she watched him. Like this would be the extent of it. Like she’d won through sheer willingness to play along.
So sure that no more bones could be snapped, blood shed, or hearts broken. Not when there’d already been so much of that.
No, she wasn’t ready.
But she would be.
Cooper pulled his thumb free, sliding past saliva-dampened lips. Her tongue followed the finger out before starting to recede.
He shook his head.
“No, no, let me see that pretty pink tongue, darlin’.”
Lucy—pliant, agreeable Lucy—assumed this was what compromising looked like in the Wastes. The tip of her tongue reappeared.
The rumour was that going feral felt like letting an animal take over. Reason stopped making sense. Thought after thought blinked out. Until there were only urges.
Kill, tear, eat. Fight, flee, hide.
Cooper’s jaw ached to clamp around the base of her throat.
His legs wanted to run. Far, far away.
He was prey in the body of a predator. Sitting before a predator in the body of prey.
The cigar, held abandoned between them, smouldered lazily. Thick, grey ash held suspended at the end. Cooper carefully brought his hand in front of Lucy’s sightline. Her eyes flicked down to the object before moving back up to his.
Curls of smoke reached for her tongue, and Cooper watched for her nose to crinkle. She didn’t move.
The warmth had returned to her eyes. Honeyed brown peppered with fear.
Cooper made a small tsking sound. Fear? After everything she’d been through? No, no. That wouldn’t do.
Wouldn’t do at all.
“It’s dirty business,” Cooper began casually, as though discussing an upcoming sandstorm, “the act of revenge. He took a long draw, the ash flashing yellows and oranges before dying down.
Lucy only stared.
“It changes a person,” he continued. “Sticks with you.”
With a smooth movement, Cooper angled the foot of the cigar above Lucy’s waiting tongue. Her eyes widened, but she made no effort to close her mouth, to turn away. Holding the cigar between his index and middle finger, he flicked the ash down.
Lucy’s eyebrows shot up in surprise. From the intensity of the charred taste or from the sudden heat, Cooper didn’t know. Frankly, he didn’t care. Tears sprang up at the edges of those big eyes as she struggled to adjust to the dying embers. Nails dug into his legs.
“Swallow it down,” he instructed.
Slowly, Lucy brought her tongue back into her mouth. Cooper watched the ashes spread and settle into the grooves of her taste buds before disappearing from sight. He expected her to gag, to spit the mixture at his feet.
Miss MacLean wouldn’t give him the satisfaction.
Blinking rapidly, Lucy worked the ashes down her throat. It was a struggle. Her mouth had been too dry, tight with fear, and now she was paying for it.
Swallow after swallow worked to clear her mouth. Cooper watched the tendons of her neck strain. Bruises shifted and swelled as the small lumps vanished beneath marks in the shape of his canines.
“You’ll never get that taste outta yer mouth,” Cooper told her. “Everything you eat. Everything you drink. It’ll all taste burnt and dead. It’ll be the first thing you think ‘bout in the mornin’. The last thing you think ‘bout before you go to sleep. So be sure you want it.”
He leaned forward until he could smell his smoke on her breath.
“Understand?”
“I understand,” she said quietly.
“Good girl, now show me that it's gone.”
Lucy opened wide and stuck her tongue out. Smeared and coated in grey, Cooper stared. Didn't even try to hide it.
So, when a hand flew across his peripheral view and snatched the cigar from between his fingers, he didn't see a fucking thing coming.
Cooper expected her to get up. To crush it under the toe of her boot. Rush to the bathroom, lock the door. Rinse the taste of charred men and their cigars from her mouth—as much as a girl could with irradiated water. She’d stay put till morning. He’d wake up alone.
Lucy didn’t do any of that.
Instead, she opened her hand to the ceiling, letting the cigar roll and settle in the center of her palm. A small, knowing smile broke out across her face as she presented it back to him. Her eyes blazed, the honey crystallized by the flames that licked at the edges of her pupils.
“Do you understand that I can still handle more?” she asked.
Lucy wasn’t trembling anymore.
A small tremor rippled up Cooper’s spine.
“More, hey?” He took the offered cigar back, rolling it between his fingers.
She nodded and started to lower her hand. Cooper grabbed at her fingers, keeping her hand aloft and forcing it flat. He looked down at where burnt olive met deadened grey. His own trigger finger traced the line.
He thought back to the small scar on her torso. A wedding present from a dearly departed husband. Mrs. MacLean’s first blood.
Did you taste ‘im between yer teeth, I wonder.
“You let all the boys who fuck you mark ya up?”
“Not all of them,” Lucy replied. Nothing but sincerity in her voice.
Possessiveness gnawed at his bones.
“The cousin didn’t leave any scars?”
Lucy laughed.
“Chet would probably faint if I even suggested it.”
Where his laughter grated against soft surfaces, hers pushed against the walls, filling the room to near bursting. Cooper wanted to drink the sound down. Wanted to inject it right into his bloodstream. Wanted to ball it up and keep it safe in his little tin where he kept all the things that kept him thinking Cooper’s thoughts instead of the Ghoul’s.
Wanted to see if it could stick around once everything was done and dusted.
And with her mouth still open in a smile, Cooper pressed the foot of the cigar into her skin. Down onto the curve of her wrist, where thin skin revealed blue veins. Blisters formed and burst, the skin puckering and peeling. The cigar sank into its own shallow crater.
Lucy hissed, lips curling. Her other hand clenched into a fist and slammed down onto the floor.
Cooper barely spared her a glance.
Supposedly, it wasn’t anything she couldn’t handle.
He pulled the cigar away to reveal an angry, red welt. A compromise. A permanent reminder that yes, Lucy MacLean was ready. And yes, Cooper Howard still ruined beautiful things.
Lucy stared down at it as her breathing evened, then up at him. He searched her face for hate. Searched it again.
She fucking smiled at him, white teeth flashing.
“I’m going to kiss you now, is that alright?”
Cooper wanted to nod. But his body wouldn't let him.
He was too angry, too proud.
And she was still asking.
So, he took, because she wouldn't. Cooper reached up to cradle the back of her neck. Anticipation flooded Lucy's face before realizing she wasn't being pulled up for a kiss, but roughly forward against Cooper’s groin.
Even still, he watched her body relax. Lucy’s tongue licked a long, slow path up his clothed erection while her shoulders dropped. Her hands crawled up his open thighs as her spine rounded.
He'd snagged himself a real strange bedfellow, this Vault-Tec stooge with a hankering towards violence.
Don’t, he warned himself.
She wasn't his.
She was a cult member with Daddy issues.
He just happened to have a belt and a heavy-handed approach to making sure lessons were learned.
Her fingers cleared through belts and bandoliers, finding buttons and zippers below. She knew her way around ammunition like she knew her way around a cock, both histories he knew far too much about. After setting their precious cargo carefully beside her, she pulled him free, angry and weeping.
Lucy teased his crown, circling it with ash-infused saliva. Her lips stayed tipped upwards in a smile, even as she took him fully into her mouth. Cooper could feel the grit wearing against his skin.
And while her words remained passive, Lucy’s movements were anything but. Her mouth explored the length of him, squeezing and hollowing as she swallowed him deeper and deeper. Desire burned hot in Cooper’s belly with each inch she took.
A seedy motel room, a beautiful girl, and a washed-up actor. He was such a cliché.
Small, breathy puffs punctuated deep, controlled breathing from Cooper. She was a vocal little thing, letting him know when she discovered every new texture and taste. It would probably be the death of him.
And her hands. Fuck. They roamed his body, clawing at whatever they could find. Digging into the meat of his thighs. Scratching against the fabric, dipping down and skimming the top of his ass, following the line of his hips back to his stomach.
Cooper squeezed his eyes shut, determined not to let any more traitorous sounds make themselves known.
Then he felt himself hit the back of her throat. Felt the way her heartbeat quickened as she cut off her own air supply. Counted the seconds she held him against her soft palette.
One. Two. Three.
Lucy gagged at the same time Cooper moaned. The noise low and regretful. She pulled herself off and replaced her mouth with her hand. Her soft, strong hand worked the saliva and precum into his ruined skin.
The part of Cooper that had been alive for two hundred long years tried to convince him to put an end to all this. It was crazy, trusting a person he had wronged so wholly.
He reminded himself that he’d survived being between Lucy’s teeth before.
The real danger? His skin might learn to crave it. And wasn’t that just great, more longing to hollow him out as the years crept by.
Say what you wanted about the bombs, at least they were fast.
Besides, if she bit down, she’d be taking.
The thought of her marking him up again sent his hips bucking up into her hand. He needed the threat, the promise. Destruction at her hands and mouth. Cooper reached blindly out to push her back onto him, but Lucy was already bowing forward.
Hand and mouth working in tandem to keep him enveloped in blinding heat, Lucy met every upward thrust without resistance. She let him push further and further, her own moans growing louder and louder.
Cooper’s hands were in her hair. Petting, pulling. Combing his fingers through strands that used to shine in the moonlight. His fingers clenched into a fist, catching her hair at the roots. A muffled little yelp would break the silence of slick skin against slick skin, and he’d let go. Switch to using his fingertips to scratch lightly against her scalp, flexing his fingers and watching how Lucy kept pace even as tears welled along her lashline.
They sparkled, like the droplets of saliva gathering at the corners of her stretched mouth.
He was against her throat again, and Lucy was swallowing. Pressure roiled up from every corner of Cooper’s body. Her wet eyes flashed dangerously, and he felt her teeth come to rest against his skin. Cooper groaned. His hands stilled in her hair, wanting her next move to be hers and hers alone.
And because she was heartless, weaned on a diet of venom and vitriol, Lucy let go.
She pulled his cock from her mouth. While her hand worked long, twisting strokes up and down, Lucy lay her cheek against his clothed thigh. She looked up at him, her face half hidden behind her hand, busy squeezing him just right.
Somewhere deep down and hard to reach, a rift split him in two. It was the pressure of her hand and the softness of her cheek.
And while he was wondering how many more fissures his body could take before it came apart at the seams, Cooper finally took notice that a new and exciting game danced behind her eyes. Something beyond his coaxing, goading, and burning.
And definitely something he had no control over.
What he did have control over–for now–was the way Lucy was practically squirming between his legs. So that’s what he chose to focus on.
“Sweet little killer,” Cooper said, trailing her cheekbone with his thumb. His nail dragged against her skin. A thin, pale line traced behind. “Tell me whatcha need.”
Lucy only looked at him from beneath long eyelashes. Another smile threatened the edges of her lips.
And because Lucy wouldn't take, Cooper gave. He moved his leg between Lucy’s knees. Her thighs parted, making room for him.
Lifting his foot, the toe of his boot settled on her lower stomach. He dug the heel into the soft mound above her pubic bone. The spur caught the light. The metal shone. Like her tears, like the spittle. It rested dangerously against the seam of zipper disappearing between her legs.
Lucy looked down, her smile growing. Cooper pressed, grounding himself against her core.
Slowly, she rolled her hips into the weight of his boot. The tips of the spur pressed against her clothed, tender flesh. Lucy released a small whimper. But she refused to do more than rock in place.
“More?” whispered Lucy.
A reminder. A challenge. Another fucking question.
“Lucy,” he said, a lilt to his words, “a mouth fulla ash to remind you and yer still havin’ trouble rememberin’ the Goddamn lesson?”
His leg straightened, fast and hard. Lucy went sprawling backwards, barely able to catch herself.
Cooper was on her in a second. His hands tore at her shirt, the work pants, the boots. It all fell to the floor.
Lucy’s new clothes—new to her—were much easier to remove than that damned suit had been. Though there’d been fun in that too. Getting her all worked up, but not letting her paw at the zipper. The suit, designed for lies, not comfort, kept most sensations dulled.
Not for him, though. He could still feel the hard shape of her nipples, the warmth between her legs.
God, she got so frustrated. But even still, she’d wait for him to drag the metal teeth apart.
Even now, Lucy waited. Helping wherever she could, but always finishing the movement. Slipping her bra off the other arm. Wriggling out of her socks after Cooper pulled her boots off.
Left bare against a carpet that should have sent a good girl running for the exit, Lucy looked at him with longing.
Cooper, likewise, was hungry. He searched across goose pebbled flesh to find an unclaimed spot, eager to taste soft peach fuzz and sunburnt freckles. His mouth found the peak of her shoulder. Lucy’s heartbeat sped up, Cooper could feel her holding her breath.
Once his teeth were buried in her skin, she exhaled. Her ragged wail nearly as sweet as the thick liquid coating his mouth.
His hand moved down her body like her blood down his throat. Along the soft line of her stomach, made hard by too few meals and full days of walking. Down between her thighs, through coarse curls.
There was a time when Cooper would have taken things slow. To pet and tease and savour. But savouring was for the well-fed. The satiated. So he pushed and breached. His dirty, blood-stained fingers pressing against the softest parts of her.
He'd auditioned for Macbeth back when he was trying to be taken seriously. Was told he didn't sell the roll.
Some pretty boy got the gig, and two centuries later Cooper couldn’t get the gore out from under his nails.
Will all great Neptune’s ocean wash this blood
Clean from my hand? No, this my hand will rather…
My hand will rather…
Will rather….
But the words were gone. If they were ever there at all.
All that was left was Lucy MacLean and the way her breath hitched when he curled his fingers. Pumping them in and out, feeling the way she bore down on him.
Lucy reached above her head, trying to curl her fingers into the short tread of the carpet. Her back arched, grinding herself against his hold.
Cooper followed the curve of her body, from her perky tits arching skyward to the tendons in her arms as she braced herself. Each long line framed by a different path.
On her left wrist, the Vault-Tec symbol embossed in cold metal.
On the right, his mark. The burn angry and red.
Only one of them was able to be removed.
“More,” begged Lucy.
“Sounds an awful lot like another question, sweetheart,” Cooper answered.
The idea of stopping altogether crossed his mind. Waiting out the waiter. But that really put a damper on his night’s activities.
And he was real partial to what he wanted.
“Please, Mister,” Lucy whined.
“Give me one first, darlin’.”
She smiled up at the ceiling. A compromise.
Cooper kept working his fingers into her, the pace unhurried. Lucy’s hips slowly started to meet each thrust, desperation making her movements sloppy.
He swatted at her inner thigh, the sound sharp and the slap landing directly atop a bruise in the shape of his incisors.
Lucy bucked against his hand, crying out.
“Keep still.”
Her legs fell open to either side of him in submission.
With nothing to do but focus on the sting of her skin and the growing pleasure between her legs, Cooper felt Lucy begin to flutter around his fingers.
“Oh, oh—” she breathed.
With an overwhelming need to watch her shatter, Cooper slid his thumb up to her clit. Cooper knew very few things about Lucy. To him, she was made up of assumptions and one-sided conversations. But he knew that when he touched her like that, she was a goner.
And go she did. Only a few deep circles around the small bud had her thighs clenching around his hand.
Lucy usually came still as a board, every muscle seized. As though urging the orgasm on, afraid it would disappear. He felt her tighten, watched her legs close in on him.
“Easy, girl,” he said, placing his free hand on her knee, pushing it back towards the floor. “Keep still.”
Maybe one day he could work his thumbs into the knots, loosening them with gentle touches and soothing words.
Maybe.
Until then, she would come as she was told.
Without the tension, Lucy’s orgasm seemed softer. She lay still, her breathing slowing, her eyes drooping closed.
“Atta girl.” Cooper brought his fingers to his mouth. She tasted like her laugh sounded.
Like something not meant for him.
With her eyes still closed, Cooper yanked his clothes off with little fanfare. The hotel room’s lighting was shit, but it was still a whole hell of a lot brighter than moonlight. Lucy was free to realize he was a monster, but Cooper preferred it happen when his cock wasn’t out.
He hooked his hands under Lucy’s bent knees, holding her open. She was a glistening mess, swollen and ready for him. Her eyes were open now, watching him.
If there was a prettier sight, Cooper hadn't seen it. Guess there was something to the shitty El Rey lighting.
Cooper vibrated with the anticipation of it all. It churned low in his stomach, the need morphing into something aching and empty. His insides always twisting themselves into knots when he stared down the barrel of a hit.
Then there was nothing except the push. Sinking fast and hard.
Lucy’s mouth dropped open as her body was denied the chance to adjust.
“Don’t stop,” she whimpered, “I can handle it.”
Cooper answered by driving her knees closer to the floor, his hips coming flush with the curve of her ass.
She was hot and wet and tight. Perfect, like it was every time. Like she was every time.
From the tips of her toes to her open, inviting face. Half taken up by that ridiculous smile. Ridiculous because a killer was trying to reach up into her stomach, yet there it was. Painfully genuine, dangerously light.
It—her smile, her cunt, her sincerity—enticed and infuriated and killed him. Every time.
So the dead man from Hollywood fucked the living girl from underground. Rough, fast, and uncaring. She took him so well, Cooper almost couldn’t stand it.
He thought about slowing only once, momentarily losing himself in the way she dragged against him. Forgetting for a second he was starving, mistaking the hot pressure for being satisfied. Lucy wouldn’t have it. Her legs wrapped around his waist, feet hooking behind his back. Muscular calves pulled him near, kept him deep.
“Little killer,” he moaned aloud.
Closer, she was getting closer to taking.
The beautiful, deadly, good Vaultie.
Cooper’s fingers were buried into the meat of her hips. Ten white crescent moons. Lucy’s moans took on a pained lilt, but it only made him grip harder.
It was loud, the unmistakable sound of their bodies coming together again and again. He knew they’d get some real nasty looks from the other guests come morning.
Fuck ‘em. Put any one of them in his place and see if they could pass up an opportunity as sweet.
None of them had any idea how un-fucking-believable it felt to be between Lucy’s legs. Trapped against her skin, usually so cool, now holding his body’s heat.
He pushed her against the carpet with each snap of his hips, watching red creep over Lucy’s shoulders as rug burn bloomed across her bruised body.
Would her daddy recognize her when he was done with her?
Would she?
“They’ll ‘ave no idea what hit ‘em,” Cooper murmured.
He bent over her, head dipping to smell and taste and devour. Cooper’s teeth caught her breast, his tongue laving the crest of her nipple. Lucy hummed.
His mouth explored, on the hunt for more blood, flesh, and whimpers. He earned them all, each more delicious than the last.
The taste made his head swim, the sounds went straight to his cock. It was dizzying, having her invade his every sense.
Slowly, teeth fell behind chapped lips. His tongue stopped chasing the blood that gathered between her cleavage. He was doing little more than tracing her, his mouth ghosting across whatever he could reach. Committing every bit to memory.
Memories were a tricky thing. They could warp. Fade. Disappear entirely.
The real good ones, though? They tended to stick around. Sometimes that wasn't the blessing you thought it was.
As good as he felt buried in her soaking cunt, Cooper didn't think that was what would keep him awake at night.
Cooper Howard was a man meant to be forgotten. The memories that stuck for Lucy MacLean wouldn’t include him. He'd be deep in cuts that refused to heal. In the yellow edges of a purple bruise. Settled in ugly scar tissue.
That would have to be enough.
And, for now, he had this.
“You’ll be a Goddamn sight to see,” he whispered. “Nothin’ will stand in yer way. If you really want it.” Lucy’s eyes flew open. They found his immediately. Dark, deadly, and sure. Alight with a fire that blazed like it could never be extinguished.
That fire was going to burn everything in its path.
Well, shit, Cooper hadn’t been thinking big-picture at all.
Lucy was smart. She didn’t need to learn a lesson twice.
Lucy could take. Would when he had given enough.
Forget having her holstered safely at his side. Like anyone would be able to contain a wildfire. He’d barely be able to keep up.
Cooper thought himself a pretty sure-footed man. Now that he was teetering at the edge of that stare? He wasn’t so certain.
She was still smiling. All pointy white and flashing canines. A predator in every sense.
His little killer was going to turn him into nothing more than flesh caught between her teeth. But dammit if his skin didn’t need the sharp edges of that smile.
Nails dug into the meat of his neck, and she was pulling him down, down. Finally taking.
The kiss was all teeth and grit. Her tongue and its fine layer of ash pushed into his mouth without hesitation. It loosened a choked noise from Cooper, there was no stopping it. She tasted like a freshly dug grave. A cremation. Like him.
Smoke.
Rot.
Blood.
To taste himself in her mouth was to question how dead he truly was.
Lucy broke the kiss, and Cooper felt the words unsaid hang between them.
Is this alright?
And the answer was yes. Yes, of course. If this was compromising, he could do it.
And no. God, no. It was going to ruin everything.
But Lucy didn't ask, so Cooper didn't answer.
The Pip-Boy started to wail. Warning her or him, Cooper didn’t know.
It was spot on, though. Because, fuck, he was falling. Down, down into that spot dug out just for him. Beneath the cross without a name.
Even as Lucy nipped at his jawline, Cooper was convinced she was going to disappear. He’d be sprawled at the bottom of an empty grave. She’d be at the top, looking down, ready to start shovelling fresh dirt down onto him.
Maybe she’d dig him up once a year. Use him for all the things good ol’ Vault boys didn’t know about. Then leave him, letting her body heal and forget. Keep living until the itch got too strong.
He’d let her do it, too. Sure, he'd put up a halfhearted fight on his way back into the ground. Punch and kick, scratch and bite. But his heart wouldn't be in it.
No, it'd be in her hands. Safely kept until the next time.
He braced his forearms on either side of her head. He crushed her close to him, feeling the way her body fit against him, how her arms snaked around his neck. She should fear him. Should hate him. He hated her, at the beginning. Wanted to hate her even now.
God, that’d be simpler.
Lucy bit at his bottom lip. Pulled it taut and loosened another moan from deep within. She caught it in her open mouth, sealing their lips together to keep the rest of the noises to herself. In turn, Lucy made a soft mewling noise. And smiled.
It tasted good, her smile. Better than good, but Cooper had stopped recognizing the subtleties of pleasure. Not beyond the artificial highs that Jet and vodka could provide. Those were ‘sucker punch’ levels of bliss that could be relied on. Sold and purchased.
He realized, with the air leaving his lungs all at once, he could probably rely on Lucy. Because he sure as shit couldn’t sell her.
Finally, they were able to slow. Her heartbeat, his rhythm. It still wasn't tender, but there was kissing and there were teeth. There was taking and taking and taking. All his walls, all her worries.
Cooper turned his head in the lasso of her arms, coming face to face with the burn against her right wrist. Gently, he laid his lips against it. The skin was still fiery and puffy, the edges ragged.
He ran his tongue over the mark; it tasted like smoke. Lucy whimpered. Cooper came, pressing the mark to his smile.
Rolling off, Cooper settled with the patchy carpet against his back. His lips hummed with the warmth of her skin, and he didn’t want to swallow in case he washed away the taste of her mouth.
Lucy shifted to her side, tucking her arm under her head. Cooper could feel her eyes on him, even if he refused to do anything except stare at the ceiling.
“More?” he asked, unsure if he had anything left to offer.
She laughed. “More?”
“Ain’t nothin’ you can’t handle.”
He felt her inch closer. “I’ve convinced you? It’s that easy?”
“That was easy fer you, was it? Must not have been tryin’ hard enough.”
Lucy didn’t respond right away. Cooper snuck a glance. Noticed a strand of hair had stuck to her shoulder, glued to blood gone tacky.
“Let’s move to the bed,” she finally suggested, pushing onto her knees.
“I don’t know if I’ve got round two in me yet, darlin’.”
Lucy rolled her eyes and stood.
“I’m moving to the bed. Join or don’t.”
She almost sold it too, before offering him a hand. “But I’d like it if you did.”
Cooper scowled but took it all the same.
“Remember, five words or less.”
Lucy sat on the bed, scooting back to make room. Her movements barely made a dent in the too-firm mattress. She held up her hand, five fingers spread wide.
“Get on the bed.” With each word, she put a finger down. She was left with her pinky pointing upwards. “Please,” she said with triumph, closing her fist.
Cooper crawled towards her. There was no fear in her eyes. It was probably all in his.
Lucy let him hold her close. She tucked herself against his front, easily fitting beneath his chin. Her body cool and still.
Cooper Howard was trembling.
Fucked. He was fucked.
By his beautiful, deadly, capable Vaultie.
And goddamn if he didn’t want to give her everything.
He was at the front of the queue; it was his turn to be used. And he found himself not minding one bit.
Because even if she threw him away at the end of it all, she’d have her rotten finger and burned skin to remember him by. She could press her lips to the spot on her wrist and remember the way he felt. There was no erasing that.
Lucy nudged her knee between his thighs. She’d wake up in the night sweating, but wouldn’t let go. He’d bet on it.
“We’re ready,” Lucy whispered against his chest.
Cooper nodded.
She was ready. He was terrified. A startled filly in the face of a fierce rider. And though he thought himself to be broken long ago, he realized that, without his knowledge or permission, he had been slowly growing back together.
It was unfair. It was hell. There was no compromising with life and its cruel sense of humour. Because not only was he being stitched together piece by piece, he now had something to lose.
Son of a bitch.
He could, and probably would, lose her.
In the meantime, he would lose himself in those dark, burnt honey eyes.
And if he reached out a hand from the bottom of that stare, she would take it.
Of that he was convinced.