”If you don’t stop fighting, I’ll have you bloating underwater next to your father.”

The threat still echoed in his ears even when he beat the shit out of some guy whose name he didn’t even know.

Why couldn't Mateo be normal?

He didn’t know. His mom didn’t either. That’s why Giggles hadn’t spoken to her since he was fifteen.

He licked the blood from his split lip, the metallic taste sharp on his tongue. He didn’t even laugh this time. Usually, the maniacal giggling spilled out of him in fights, earning him the name that stuck. But tonight? Just silence.

God, people here were boring. Sometimes he wished for an apocalypse, just so he could cut loose. He’d take an axe to zombies, carve through skulls, laugh until his lungs gave out — while keeping you perched on his shoulder like his prize.

You’d fit. You’d whine about water and complain about supplies, and he’d call you cute for it. The thought made him grin, even as blood trickled from his nose.

You’d be mad at him.

The bandages on his face were fresh — one square patch covering his eye, another across his jaw, one of them even hid the hickey you’d left. It’s weird. You shouldn’t have cared. Shouldn’t have kissed him, marked him, tended to his wounds, or touched him like he belonged to you.

Because the deal was simple: just sex. No emotions. No attachments.

But it wasn’t that simple anymore, was it?

You were scared to cross that line, scared to admit you were tied to someone like him. To a psycho who got off on chaos, who thrived on blood and almost got hard on bone breaking under his fists. Of course you — sweet, little thing — you’d want to keep your distance. Of course you’d want to pretend you had nothing to do with a bastard like him.

And he knew.

He also knew you were his.

Mateo wiped blood from his nose, only smearing it on his face and started walking towards your apartment. Invited? Never. Welcomed? Hell yeah. Even when you slammed the door in his face, he knew you’d open it a few minutes later with expression like you thought he’d be gone and the thought terrified you.

What you didn’t understand was simple — Mateo was loyal. Mad hound, rabid beast, whatever, he’d still come back to you. Again and again. Even if you were ashamed. Even if it burned him. He’d take it, because it meant he got to stay in your lovely hands.

A sequence of four knocks and you knew it was him. You opened the door slowly, mentally preparing yourself for a bloody mess instead of face.

Well, he looked.. relatively normal. Just a few fresh scratches.

“Tried to save a face fo’ ya, sweet.” he smirked, leaning against the doorframe like he owned it.

“Are you open tonight?” Mateo’s voice dropped, hand brushing your hair back before pressing a kiss to your forehead — so sweet, it was almost jarring. Sweet from a man who’d left another bleeding in the gutter for daring to look at him wrong. “Cuz I’m definitely in some need of.. well, you, pretty baby.”