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Before you shacked up with Gotham’s juiciest vigilante (a subjective title, but one you defend anonymously online), you never thought about things like security risks. Sure, you carried pepper spray and locked your doors and never left your drink unattended at bars, but you didn’t, like, scope out exits at said bars. Hell, on your second date, the stage lighting threw sparks and you ended up disoriented and shoved into a storage space with too many people and no outside doors. Jason found you, of course, but the embarrassment burned more than any fire.
Anyway, identifying security risks isn’t your forte, but you’re pretty sure the basement laundry room is one.
“You doubting my security sweeps, sweetheart?”
You didn’t want to bother Jason with your little… hang up, but he doesn’t normally answer non-emergent messages on missions. You thought you’d get a response to your ‘will i become a statistic if i wash my socks here?’ in a few hours, not scant seconds after sending the nervous text. And he skipped right to the voice call, which in equal parts flatters and spooks you.
You huff into the speaker, unsure how you want to play this off. The laundry basket under your arm weighs considerably more than the few boxes of belongings that Jason let you move a week ago. The realization makes you feel even more ridiculous. He’s clearly already handling you with kid gloves, and here you are, being even more of a chore.
“No! It’s just preheat neuroses. You know,” you hedge, trying to set the unwieldy basket on your hip while keeping the phone to your ear. “Like last time, with the fridge.”
Three months ago, you had Jay move your kitchen appliances so you could clean behind them. It was slightly manic behavior, but he never said a word about it. He even reached up and cleaned your fan blades without the need for a step ladder, which you’re convinced is the reason that your heat started more than twelve hours early. An alpha skilled with both a gun and a dust rag? Lethal.
On the other end, Jason grunts, doubtful.
“That wasn’t a safety concern,” he points out.
His steadiness calms you enough that you take a step down from landing. It’s four floors to the basement, and with his voice in your ear, it suddenly seems doable.
“Dunno,” you say, trying to put him at ease. The last thing he needs on a mission is your anxious ponderings. Bad omega, adding to the tension. “That rat nest behind my stove was pretty hazardous to my health. Heard a Gotham rat ate a kid once.”
He doesn’t take the bait.
“What’s wrong?” he presses.
You’ve descended a floor and a half now, and the basket is slipping from your sweaty fingers. You pause and readjust.
“Hard to explain, so it’s probably bogus.” Your voice turns a bit shrill as the door on the landing below you opens and someone enters the stairwell. “I’m just jumping at shadows.”
See, this is one of those inconvenient omega things that no one warned you about prior to puberty. Some lucky people have few to no preheat symptoms and can swan through their lives feeling sane and carefree. Nurses at school said you might feel “snacky” or experience some “nerves.” They did not, at any point, say that you might become borderline agoraphobic and annoy the living hell out of your partner for a week or so every season. They didn’t mention the anti-anxiety pills you have to keep in your purse next to the emergency suppressants, for when your ancient biology thinks your laundry room has bad vibes. Sometimes your presentation has fun side effects, but mostly it just makes you twitchy.
“Talk me through it.”
You almost try a brush off comment again, but his voice is too stern. He’s doing that thing again, you think, where he lazily picks apart the threads of whatever ball of stress you’ve worked yourself into. It mainly involves him being nosy and you rambling like a lunatic.
“Smells bad,” you say, juvenile even to your own ears. “It smells like mildew and other, weird people, and I think someone might have died in there.”
If it sounds trite, it’s because it is.
“Haven’t noticed any decomposition,” Jason muses. His voice is close, and you know it’s because he’s speaking in his helmet.
“That’s because there isn’t any!” It’s embarrassing to need your hand held through something as mundane as a move, particularly with someone as capable and blasé as Jason. “It’s just the stress hormones. Happens every time.”
“Explains the cleaning.” His low teasing loosens the knot between your shoulder blades.
The ground floor landing is clear when you reach it, but by their scent, the stranger who passed through was just an ordinary beta. The smell of their soap is almost more telling than the neutral musk underneath. Beta soap is noxious.
“Can’t even smell you over these—people,” you gripe, half to keep the conversation going. Just hearing him is doing wonders for your peace of mind. “Even at my old place, there were always traces of you in the building.”
“That wasn’t an accident.” He doesn’t bother sounding anything but smug.
“Maybe you should work that magic here, then.” You say it like it’s a joke, but there’s an edge to your words. “You know how it is in new territory. All the non-pack smells just wigged me out worse than usual.”
That’s what the nurse said at your last physical, at least. She told you not to push yourself into going out during the late phases of your cycle—no one wants to be around omega stress hormones, a mocking voice reminds you—but this feels excessive.
Your sensitivity is actually the reason you’re finally breaking down and using the creepy basement machines. Everything smells like musty boxes and of the shady guys who helped you move. When you agreed to the temporary relocation, you thought the timing wouldn’t be an issue, but now you’re trying to nest in a stale, beige apartment with half your things still in boxes. You’re in desperate need of fresh clothes and linens.
“Most of our stuff doesn’t even smell like us right now,” you ramble. “I feel like I’m competing in a nesting Chopped challenge and the mystery ingredient is packing paper.”
You stare down the last bend in the stairwell, unsure if you should finish your conversation before descending. On the one hand, Jason’s voice is steadying, but on the other, you don’t want anyone else to hear your plaintive half of the conversation.
Jason wrenches you from your musings with his usual application of blunt force. In this case, manifesting as weaponized horniness.
“You need me to scent mark you, baby?” That dip in his voice means trouble.
You’re already so keyed up, and nervous energy is quick to shift into sharp, bright arousal.
“Jason,” you start, a faint warning in your tone.
He continues, apparently unconcerned with the fact that neither of you are behind closed doors.
“Coulda sworn I took care of that before I left.” He pauses for effect. “Cause last I remember, I left those pretty thighs spread wide and streaked with cum, but if I’ve neglected you—“
“Jason,” you hiss, flush rising. Your glands swell and itch as your whole body takes interest in the conversation. You blindly search for the phone’s volume control even though the stairwell is once again empty but for you.
“—I can come back and do it right,” he continues. “You feel abandoned, and that’s on me. Don’t lie; I can hear that omega whine in your voice.”
“No, I—“
He’s as hypnotic as he is relentless.
“It’ll be hard to feel lonely when I have you split open on my knot, though, so don’t you worry,” he croons. “M’gonna press your shoulders into that nice, big mattress I bought for you and fuck all those thoughts right out of your head. Gonna fold you over and work my knot so deep that I feel all those little omega sounds you make in my cock.”
He responds to your strangled whine with a low growl.
“Yeah, that’s it, baby, I hear you. I bet when I’m stroking your sweet little slit you won’t even remember why you’re upset. Fuck, you’ll just look up at me with those pretty eyes, begging me to mount you.” His words come faster now, obviously getting worked up himself. “You gonna present for me, baby? You gonna prop those hips up and let alpha fill you up like a good girl? Bet you’re so wet that I could take you right now, just bend you over and scruff you like a disobedient pup and pump you so—fucking—full—“
He cuts himself off, and you think he might be breathing a little heavy.
And then he hits you with a darkly amused “Does that sound good, baby?” like he didn’t just commit very specific crimes against your person.
You have to swallow twice just to croak an underwhelming “yeah.”
Silence greets you on the other line.
Your knees wobble. Your mating gland throbs. Your shorts stick to you with an uncomfortable wetness.
“Jason?” you manage when he doesn’t respond.
It takes you a long moment to realize the call has dropped.
You’re rooted in place, eyes frozen on the basement landing several feet below you. You shift on the stair, mortified. You should be glad that the signal was lost, but—
This place is absolutely cursed.
That said, if you don’t unload this basket and the industrial sized bottle of Gentle & Clean balanced precariously on top, your call won’t be the only thing dropped today.
You totter the rest of the way to the laundry, legs unsteady for reasons that have little to do with stairs.
The urge call Jason back is present and loud, but a niggling voice whispers that he was only saying those things to distract you. A glance at the room says what your nose has already told you: you’re alone. The place is too small to hold any boogeymen, and it mainly smells like damp and beta soaps. There’s no good reason to waste your alpha’s time.
But if he calls you back—
You’re off-balance from the intensity of your short… conversation. Getting a midafternoon text like ‘be back 0300 - don’t wear anything you like to bed’ isn’t unusual, but Jay doesn’t generally mix your relationship with his work. He’s certainly never initiated phone sex during a mission before.
Maybe he’s gearing up for a sympathy rut? God, there’s a thought.
Your eyes flick to the dark screen of your phone as you fiddle with the washer controls. You can always test the waters with a suggestive text—
Aaand there’s no signal. Honestly, you don’t know what you expected.
You guiltily set yourself to the task of sorting your basket, a fine tremor in your fingers. Silly, heat-brained omega, can’t even do her laundry without an alpha around. Your meds are too far away to consider grabbing right now; you’re not letting your professionally violent alpha’s bath towel get snatched because you have the constitution of a nervous chihuahua. After you do your basic human tasks you can have an anxiety pill, as a treat.
The sheets and towels get separated into their own load, but you brought another, smaller bundle of lounge clothes to wash before the big day. You’re already getting tetchy about fabric textures, and soon it will be loose, comfy clothes or no clothes. All you’ve managed this morning is cotton sleep shorts and one of Jason’s wash worn tees. That’s all well and good until you need to hike back up to your apartment. Or until someone needs to wash their undies.
You can’t help but be hyperaware of your lack of bra and the bruising pulse of your scent glands, slightly swollen and sensitive under their neutralizer patches. As an omega teetering on the edge of heat, you feel barely presentable. There’s also the sinking suspicion that you have a growing wet spot on the seat of your shorts, courtesy of one Jason Todd. Your whole body throbs in reminder.
As the fill cycle sputters to life in the first machine, a sock slips between it and your second washer. If it wasn’t one of your favorites, you’d probably write it off as a loss, but it’s part of a limited edition Wonder Woman pair and you’ve already darned holes in both heels.
You bend with a huff and wriggle one sore arm in the gap. Your wrist gland protests the tight squeeze, but your fingertips brush the wad of nubby fabric, and you nudge it up a few inches. Before you can free either it or your hand, though, a shadow falls across your corner.
You shudder to a stop, eyes wide on the cement wall in front of you. You feel caught in a snare, body at a crooked angle, half your forearm caught between machines.
The air in the room grows close and static.
“Presentation Protection Services,” a welcome voice says in your ear. “Here to check on a report of omega neglect.”
Warm hands settle on your hips, and you wrench your arm free only to attach it to the newcomer’s leather jacket. It gives under your fingers, supple and hot from being on the road.
“You didn’t have to—“ you start to say, even though you’re ecstatic to see him.
Jason spins you around.
“I was on my way back when you messaged,” he says, and kisses you, hard. It’s open-mouthed and scalding, his fingers gripping your jaw in a near-bruising grip. There’s an angry kind of desperation to the way he holds you open, swallowing your little surprised sounds with a snarl.
When he tilts your head, lips leaving yours to nip along your jawline, you find your voice.
“The—laundry—” It’s not that you’re concerned about the actual task, per se, but it’s all the protest you can manage.
Jason’s mouth pauses just above your mating gland, and you swear it pulses under its patch.
He mutters something darkly unintelligible.
“N—yeah, the laundry,” he grits out, finally, in agreement. His fingers ghost over the patch and then he’s turning away, rolling his shoulders.
His agitation is palpable; the tension in his posture wavers like summer heat on asphalt.
“I lost a sock,” you say, hoping it will give you both a starting place that doesn’t involve heavy petting.
He eyes your previous predicament.
There’s no way, if you barely managed to wedge an arm in the gap, that he’ll be able to reach the lone sock. He must reach the same conclusion, because without any fanfare, he shoves the whole machine a foot to the left and picks the now fallen sock from the ground. The washer, old and thrown off-balance, gives a little protest.
Jason thumps it with a fist, once.
It settles.
You can only hope your sheets make it out of this unscathed.
Now that your heart is floating down from your throat, you’re embarrassed that Jason got the drop on you at all. He’s clearly fresh off his bike, his hair drenched from sweating in a helmet, and absolutely reeks of alpha pheromones. He hasn’t been in any bloody fights—today, at least—but he has that post-mission set to his shoulders that you associate with dirty gunmetal kisses and quick, hard fucks.
You squeeze your thighs together. If anything, his being here makes your need to return to the apartment even more pressing.
He’s still studying the jumbled clothes on the now crooked washer. Apparently deciding they don’t need sorting, he unlocks the lid and shoves the whole lot into the barrel.
You half extend the detergent, unsure if he’s going to step away and have you finish.
He plucks it from your loose grip instead and sets up the wash cycle without stopping to read the fading instruction sticker. When he reaches to flip the lid closed, your eyes catch on a difficult situation near his belt. One might even call it… hard. You’re pleased to see that for all his capabilities, he’s as much of a mess as you. It makes you feel possessive, makes your wrists throb with the need to scent him.
You tug at the corner of a patch, trying not to scratch.
Jay flicks his eyes to you, then caps the detergent and sets it aside.
“Why d’you have these? C’mere.” He plucks you up by the waist and deposits you on the machine that’s just begun to fill.
The metal lid is cold on your exposed skin, but welcome as the inferno that is Jason Todd crowds you, forcing you to spread your legs around the hot leather of his jacket.
“Why do I have what?” you ask on autopilot. Your brain is trying to muddle through the elation of alpha returning with the confused anxiety of still being in the goddamn laundry room. Your rational side agrees. “We should go upstairs.”
You’re sure he hears you, but he doesn’t respond, instead flipping your arm over in his grasp. He frowns, thumbing at the patch.
“Why do you need blockers here?”
“I’m three days away from my heat and I smell like it.” You say it matter-of-fact and not like you’ve been cringing over it all morning.
“Yeah,” he says, slowly.
“It’s socially unacceptable,” you insist, even though he hasn’t made any effort to argue.
He hm’s in that gravel register that always gets an inappropriate response out of you. His free hand reaches up to cup the back of your neck.
Your knees tighten at his sides.
“You taken a pill today?” His thumb presses into the fluttering pulse under your jaw.
It’s clear he means your anxiety meds, and your silence says everything.
The pain in your mating gland intensifies when his thumb lowers to trace its neutralizer patch. You can feel the tug on your skin where the gland has swollen and stressed the adhesive.
He flicks his thumb over a loose corner.
“Can I scent you, sweetheart?”
Even if you weren’t gagging for it, his voice would melt any protest.
You nod, tilting your head in submission.
Jason rumbles in wordless praise. His fingers waste no time with the patch.
Your gland gives an angry pulse the moment it hits the air, and if he didn’t immediately seal his mouth over it, you would recover it.
As it is, your hips jerk to the very edge of the washing machine.
“Ah,” is the only comment you manage.
His teeth scrape over the swollen gland, and you can only grip the collar of his jacket with paling knuckles as you try not to come on the spot.
One broad hand lifts your ass just enough to rock you into his hips and—
“Fffuck—Jason—” You’re not sure how much comes out as words and how much comes out as whine. “We’re in public.” That’s a whine.
A warning growl is all you get.
Jason scruffs you. His teeth stop just shy of piercing your neck, but the bite is punishing all the same. His hips grind into yours with a slow, single-minded purpose.
That purpose, you’re realizing, is to convince you to let him knot you in the apartment’s shared laundry room.
“We’re going to get—arrested,” you gasp.
That startles a deep bark of amusement from your partner.
“You really don’t think much of me, huh, baby?” His voice is fond, but you don’t miss the darker edge of sarcasm.
He pulls back to strip off his jacket, clearly done with overheating. Underneath, he’s wearing the usual dark tactical gear and thigh strap situation. It’s a good look, but right now it’s not doing much to hide his straining erection.
“I think the world of you,” you argue.
Jason tosses his jacket, unseeing, on the next washer over and shakes his head like a dog. Sweat droplets from his hair go flying, and you realize he’s mingling your combined scents in a semipublic space and—oh. He’s scent marking.
You can’t help the fluttering suspicion that this was his plan from the start.
“Hmm.” He stretches, pulling his neck side to side and popping his spine—loudly—before setting his calloused hands back on your knees. His fingers knead the muscle, sliding higher.
He taps the neutralizers on your thighs, in warning, then strips them in one, quick motion.
You gasp, but he’s already petting away the sting.
“So you say,” he continues, eyes narrowed.
You realize you may have bruised his ego.
You open your mouth to clarify, but he just pinches one of the puffy glands under the hem of your shorts with enough force to make you squeal.
He leans in, teeth at your ear.
“But now you’ve doubted my surveillance, my security—”
And then he’s on his knees, licking a stripe up the irritated skin of your inner thigh. If he notices the reflex jerk of your legs as you try to close them, he doesn’t react to it.
“—and, most heartbreakingly—”
His fingers press a firm line down the seam of your shorts.
“—you’ve doubted my talents in criminality.” He tuts, and then two of his fingers are caught in the slick seat of your pants. His grip is inexorable.
You yelp, but your bare ass is making contact with the metal machine before you can make peace with the indignity.
“Sweetheart,” he continues, pressing a kiss to the inside of your knee. “I’ve been avoiding the law since I could say ‘fuck the police.’”
He slips the shorts from your ankles and does a little twirl with them on the end of his finger.
“So, like, age two,” you squeak.
“Somethin’ like that.”
He doesn’t even acknowledge the tension in your thighs, instead staring openly as his forefinger traces a single line down your slit, pausing just over your clit.
You hold your breath.
“Look at you, holdin’ so still.” His lip curls, feral. “Not gonna let anyone else see you like this. You trust me?”
Your eyes flick to the door, then back down to his. There’s the merest blue sliver around the hungry black of his pupils.
He raises a brow, challenging.
“I trust you,” you breathe out with a whoosh, because god help you, you do.
Some of the tension leaves Jason’s shoulders. There’s a deep, approving rumble from his chest.
You expect him to lunge, to break the building tension with his usual reckless abandon, but he just tips his temple against your knee and slowly brushes circles over your clit, eyes half lidded.
You twitch.
His finger presses ever-so-slightly harder.
“Jason.”
He levels you with a Look. Even kneeling between your legs, it says, he’s the alpha. And apparently he wants more than a weak concession.
He grazes his teeth over your inner thigh again and you nearly come out of your skin. His tongue lingers on your gland, eyes dark. Challenging.
Submit.
Your pulse thunders through the places he touches, but your skin is tight and overwarm; you want some damn relief.
You fist a hand in his stupidly pretty, sweaty hair.
“Haven’t you teased me enough?” you huff.
Sitting abandoned upstairs is a perfectly nice, albeit currently sheetless, bed. You can’t help but note that your ass is numb where it touches metal, and Jason’s well-loved t-shirt isn’t doing much for your modesty, splayed out across the machine as you are.
Beneath you, the wash cycle starts in earnest.
How he’s supposed to hear possible voyeurs over it remains a mystery.
Jason doesn’t share your concerns. He holds your gaze, and his free hand falls below your eye line.
You hear a buckle unsnap, then the slow teeth of a zipper.
Your reasons for holding out grow increasingly murky.
His callouses dra-ag over your clit. They pause. Press.
“Fuck!” You can’t help but jerk, hips stuttering.
Now he knows he has you. You can see the smug little tilt of his head, the languid flick of his eyes from your increasingly desperate face to your slick cunt. The foreplay is all just a victory lap.
Jason breaches you with one finger, barely, just enough for you to feel it. He drags it in and out and in and out and in and in and in—
You hold yourself still, eyes wateringly wide, as he crooks it just—so.
There’s a glint of fang in his grin when you refuse to react.
“Fuckin’ stubborn as hell,” he mutters, but his touch is soft, almost petting.
And then he leans forward, eyes locked on yours, and seals his mouth over your clit.
You last long enough to suspect he’s spelling his name with the tip of his tongue, but then his teeth are there and he sucks and—
“FUCK—fuck, okay. Uncle. I give.” Anything to get him to pick up the pace. “Please, please, please—“
Finally, he stands, almost toppling you as your knees slip from his shoulders to his waist.
“Atta girl,” he croons, still stroking you to pieces.
There’s no chance to fumble or flail; he holds you upright, one hand wedged tight between you as your body jerks, startled and oversensitive. Deft fingers tweak your clit again, earning a breathless squeak. Then he’s hooking two—fuck, three—fingers into you, curling against the spot that has you lifting off of the washer and into his hand.
Between you, Jason’s cock stands out against the black of his shirt, flushed and leaking precum. His half-swollen knot is just visible over the open placket of his pants, and your whole body flushes in anxious anticipation.
You fumble for him, but he snatches your wrist even before the thought plays out.
“Please,” you moan, but he swallows it.
He’s stretching you open at this angle, the pinch and burn of his fingers absolutely divine, but nothing compares to his knot.
“God, Jay—“ you pant into his mouth. “Want you. So bad.”
Preheat hormones have you hitching your knees higher, one hand twisted up in his shirt. You rock desperately on Jason’s hand, so wet that it runs down his wrist and pools onto the lid of the wash. You can hear the slick sound of his fingers fucking into you even over the dissonant laundry cycles.
He breaks from your mouth, groaning low in his throat. His nose brushes against your temple.
“Yeah, baby,” he says. His fingers in you flex, readjust. “C’mon, I got you.”
The tension in your gut coils tighter with the new angle, and he watches your expressions with rapt attention. His own scent is thickening in the air around you, and it’s the only confirmation you need; Jason Todd is going into rut.
Correction: Jason Todd is going into rut for you.
Which is why you’re confused when he stops.
It’s so sudden that you don’t even make a sound of protest, shocked into prey stillness when he rips his hands from you. The lack of him is so abrupt that you shiver.
He cocks his head.
You hold your breath.
And then you’re up, off the wash, having not moved an inch. Jason moves you without fanfare, one hand gripping your ass with a little more force than strictly necessary.
You react on instinct, clutching at Jason’s shoulders as he crosses the room in three strides. Your legs tighten around him, hyperaware of his cock pressed between you. Your hips are tilted in such a way that as your back hits the laundry room door, Jason’s knot spreads you wide, his shaft pressed along your slick heat. A smear of precum already darkens the front of your borrowed shirt.
You’re shaking, you think, from both adrenaline and arousal.
For a tense handful of seconds, Jason looks past you, at the dinged metal door behind your head.
You don’t manage much more than a dry swallow, but his eyes zero in on you, following the sound.
“Ja—?” you start in a fraught whisper.
He kisses you then, lips soft against yours. If anything, this startles you more than a hard press of teeth.
You hum a questioning sound against his mouth.
“Relax, sweetheart,” Jason says lowly, nipping little kisses down your jaw. “I promise I’m the scariest thing down here.”
You nearly scoff at his bravado, true or not, but he hitches you higher on the door and you lose the thought entirely.
His mouth finds your mating gland and your death grip loosens into something more natural, fingers scrabbling up the nape of his neck to hold him there. There’s a moment of adjustment, a dip in your position, and then he’s dragging the head of his cock through your folds.
You don’t hear the thunk of your head hitting the door, or remember closing your eyes, but there’s a suspended moment in time where your lips split in a silent oh and Jason worries a bruise over your mating gland, his cock making hard circles on your clit.
Thankfully, Jason takes mercy on you both. He lines himself up, and your focus narrows to that one single point of heat. He gives a shallow thrust, the thick head of his cock wedging just inside you. It stings a bit, at this angle, but then your hips roll to meet his, and he slides forward another inch.
The stretch of him is a welcome relief.
The door pushing against your back, however, is less so.
You almost think you’ve imagined it, that Jason bottoms out with a last, heavy thrust of his hips, and not the aborted attempt of someone trying to enter the laundry room.
Almost.
Jason, you mouth, eyes wide.
Jason props a hand on the door frame and gri-inds up into you in response.
There’s a dull “Hello?” from the other side, muffled and male.
The door bops against you again, this time held fast by the alpha pinning you to it.
“Sorry,” Jason calls out. “Maintenance.”
If he wasn’t currently balls deep in you, you wouldn’t clock him as anything but casual.
“Again?” comes the voice.
Light and love, but you need this poor man to take his dirty clothes back upstairs. You’re seven kinds of twisted up inside, and what’s worse is that the tension is starting to work in Jason’s favor; you can feel the simmer of your orgasm tip into a rolling boil.
As if reading your mind, Jason throws you a wink. He knows full well that if lawless shenanigans were a deal breaker, you wouldn’t be bouncing on his cock in a rinky Gotham basement in the first place. He also knows that you’d follow him into crazier situations just for the pleasure of his company.
Love is fucking dumb.
“Damaged water line,” Jason continues, sounding largely unconcerned. “Fuckin’ wet in here.”
His voice drops an octave at that, just to feel you squirm.
There’s some frustrated grumbling from the door, and you try to focus on the fact that there is a strange man not two feet from you and not the overwhelming sensation of being full of your alpha. You can’t help but clench up at the reminder, and it doesn’t go unnoticed.
Jason redoubles his efforts to work you onto his knot, visibly strained for the first time as he splits his attention. The door rattles lightly in its frame.
“Will it be fixed today?”
You bite down on your tongue, the urge to snap something unneighborly rising with your blood pressure.
Getting fucking railed here, do you mind?
Jason’s eyes flash with similar frustration, and when he responds, it’s with an audible growl.
“It’ll be fixed when it’s fixed,” he grits out. “Take it up—“ He punctuates this with a door-shaking thrust. “—with management.”
You won’t be held responsible for any whimpers you make at his Vigilante Voice.
There’s a shift in the room. When you lock eyes, you know that it’s just as well that you can hear the retreating stomps of your new neighbor.
Jason’s hand slips from the doorframe.
“You good?” he asks, palming your cheek.
You nod into his hand and give a shallow roll of your hips to say no, you’re not broken, and yes, he should absolutely continue.
“Course you are,” he says, and the fondness in his voice melts right into your chest.
You tuck your face up into his scent gland and he takes the hint. You settle back into a rhythm that, while less frantic than a moment ago, is brutal in its intensity. Your thighs tremble around his waist even though Jason is definitely the one doing the heavy lifting. His knot drags at you, catching and pulling at your entrance on each thrust.
“Feel you getting close,” he says in your ear. “You wanna come on my knot, baby?”
You nod into his neck, mouth watering with the desire to lay a claiming bite. You don’t trust yourself to talk.
“Okay, good girl, almost there—“ His voice gets faster, rougher. “Yeah, that’s it, spread your pretty legs a little more and let me—fuck—FUCK, yeah, that’s it—“
Your purpose is single-minded, now, his knot straining at your entrance. It nearly splits you to the point of pain, but gravity is on your side. You bear down on his next thrust, and with stinging rapture, you feel his knot lock inside you.
“So good for me,” Jason says, pressing his forehead to yours. “Gonna make it up to you.”
“Make—what—?” you pant.
But he’s still moving, the thick ache of his knot riding against the spot that has you grasping for any coherent thought.
“Meant t’ make this easy for you,” he continues. “Wanna make you feel good.”
If you could, you’d tell him he’s doing a great job.
“M’good,” you manage.
You’re stretched open on alpha’s cock; things could certainly be worse.
Jason’s chuckle sounds more out of breath than usual.
“You’re trembling,” he says. “But you’re right, baby, you are good. Cunt is—fuckin’ divine.”
He works a hand between you again and your neglected clit gives a pulse at the attention. It only takes a few slick strokes to bring you to the precipice, and your knees lock, eyes wide.
Jason chases your orgasm like it held up a Gotham bank. It comes crashing around you both, and if he wasn’t nearly there himself, you’re sure you wrenched it from him with sheer force. He groans long and low into your shoulder, hips flush to yours.
Your lower muscles flutter and clench, earning yourself a tired ass squeeze. You can feel his aftershocks, too, and the rush of cum that’s slowed to the occasional trickle. You’re too full to possibly be comfortable, and hot as asphalt in July, but you haven’t been this calm in days.
You tip your face into his and smile, exhausted.
“Those heat hormones hitting?” Jason asks.
He eases you both from the door and sets you on the nearest, vacant, dryer. It jostles you both a bit uncomfortably, pulling at his knot, but you’ve gone all but boneless.
“You still with me?”
Your grin must be truly dopey, because his voice has shades of concern.
“Still here,” you agree. “In the fucking laundry room.”
You start laughing then, and your comment must have actual comedic merit, or else Jason is just as sex drunk as you. His laugh—his real, true laugh—is a sound you hear very rarely.
Jason fucking howls.
“In the—fucking—hahaha—“ When he catches his breath, he adds, “You really hate it here, huh?”
You’re not sure if he means the laundry room or the apartment building at large, but—
“It’s growing on me.” You shrug.
His smirk is knowing.
“Is it now?” He leans in, crowding you in a teasing alpha display. This despite, you know, literally being inside you. “Why the change of heart?”
You bare your neck in submission, too tired to even play at dominance.
He kisses your mating gland in agreement.
“Well,” you say. “First, you made a lot of promises on the phone, and I intend to hold you to them.”
Jason tilts his head, clearly interested.
You plow on before he can open his mouth.
“And second—” You look to the door. “—I think we owe someone an anonymous fruit basket.”
This earns you an affectionately incredulous look.
“Sweetheart, no one in Gotham knows what a fruit basket is.” He holds your wrists, rubbing along your glands in familiar scenting behavior. “And if they do, they wouldn’t trust an anonymous one.”
He has a point, but—
“What would you do?”
“Me?” He gestures to himself, as if there’s some confusion. “I’d say we’ve christened the basement and call it good. One man inconvenienced is a good day in Gotham.”
“Spoken like a native,” you say, wry. You glance over your shoulder. “How long on the machines?”
Jason doesn’t even check. “We’re not waiting.”
“We’re—wait, we’re not?”
His thumbs press into your wrist glands, massaging outward in little circles.
“I told you I’m the scariest thing in this basement,” he chides. “And now a geriatric, scent blind beta could tell you that I marked my omega here.”
You’re not too proud to admit the little thrill that goes through you at that. And if your things are safe from all but the most foolhardy—
“Race you up?”
Your voice is entirely innocent, but the implication is clear; no alpha can resist a good chase.
Jason brackets you again.
“We’re still tied together, and you want to throw down a gauntlet like that?” he asks, almost menacing.
You tense around him, eyes narrowed.
“Loser has to put the fitted sheet on later,” you say, driving a hard bargain.
Jason raises a brow.
“Winner makes good on his promises,” he says.
“That’s not—” you protest, but he’s already pulling out of you with a wet squelch.
It’s so sudden and downright rude that you gape in shock.
Your shorts hit you in the face.
“C’mon, I have a race to win.” Jason stacks your empty basket on top of your washers. “And you’re the prize. Chop chop.”
You stick rubbery limbs through the legs of your shorts, muttering something dark about romance being dead. When you pull them up, Jason grabs you by the drawstring and reels you in.
Instead of pulling you in for a kiss, he just studies you.
“You look better,” he says seriously.
“You mean I look well-fucked,” you say.
Lord only knows what marks you’re sporting. Not to mention your smell. If you thought you were potent earlier…
“That too,” he agrees.
And then, because he’s unrepentant, he scoops you up.
“Loser has to take her anxiety meds,” Jason says, and slaps your ass for good measure.
As far as consolation prizes go, you seem to have hit the jackpot.