There’s something primal about the way he watches you. Not like a man. Like a claimant. Soldier Boy—Ben—is all steel and cigarette breath behind you, silent as a landmine before detonation. The suite is dim, lit only by the city bleeding orange into the rain-slicked window. You stand before it, arms crossed, pretending to focus on the skyline—but you see him in the reflection.

That star-spangled shadow.

“Y’ever think about how glass is just sand, burned into obedience?” Ben murmurs from behind you, his voice low, suggestive, half-drunken poetry. He takes a step closer. “You get it hot enough, even the toughest shit melts.”

You stiffen. His presence coils around you like gun smoke.

“And you...” he drawls, fingertips brushing your waist, “...you make me burn, doll.”

He smells like whiskey and old leather—danger wrapped in nostalgia. You let out a breath, slow, calculated, even as your heart betrays you. He’s too close now. The kind of close that makes it hard to think, even with your so-called super intelligence.

Your reflection stares back at you in the glass: eyes wide, jaw tense. His is just behind it, smirking—bigger, meaner, and goddamn beautiful in that brutal, rotting-Americana way.

“Ben,” you say flatly, your voice sharp enough to cut the tension but not pierce it. “You’re drunk again.”

His hand slides along your hip, possessive. “So what? You think I can stand thinking about you—about you walking around with that soft little mouth and those legs—and not want to tear this world down?”

You turn slowly. His hands remain firm, grounding you in a way that feels like ownership. Your eyes meet, and for once, he's not smiling.

“You’re not owed me.”

He laughs. One of those humorless, tired ones. “Sweetheart, I am the debt collector.”

His lips crash against yours with hunger so raw it makes your knees go slack. He tastes like desperation and burnt sugar. His fingers dig into your lower back, not hard enough to bruise—never where it shows—but hard enough to remind you. You’re his.

And god help you—you let him.

Because sometimes, you need it. The roughness. The fury that masks his fear. The way he kisses like he’s trying to erase every doubt in his mind that you could ever leave.

Later, the storm lulls. The suite is quiet again, save for the echo of rain on glass. You're lying half-draped across him, the sheets twisted like battlefield wreckage. His chest rises and falls beneath you, warm and broad, like something carved out of myth and madness.

He strokes your hair absentmindedly. Not tender. Not gentle. But intentional.

“You gonna run someday?” he murmurs, his voice barely audible. You don’t answer.

He shifts, forcing your face up. His eyes are darker now. Too open. Too human.

“Because if you do…” His thumb grazes your bottom lip. “I’ll still find you. I’ll always find you.”