"What am I to you."

"Everything." The word came out without thought, which meant it was true. "You’re the first thing I think about when I wake up. You’re the standard I measure everyone else against. You’re the reason I want to be number one, because what’s the point of standing at the top if you’re not standing next to me."

"That’s, hahh." Her voice cracked. "That’s embarrassing. You can’t just say things like that."

"I can say whatever I want. I’m the class representative now."

"Oh my god." She pulled back far enough to punch my shoulder, hard, and there was the Sloane I knew, fire and violence and emotion expressed through impact. "You’re making jokes. I’m having a crisis and you’re making jokes."

"The joke is how I cope."

"Cope better."

"Make me."

She kissed me again.

This one was different. Angry. Hungry. Her teeth caught my lower lip, not gentle, and when I hissed she swallowed the sound with a satisfaction that pulsed through the bond like electricity. Her hands found my shoulders and pushed, backing me toward her bed, and I let her push because Sloane needed to feel in control and I needed her to have it.

The backs of my knees hit the mattress. I sat. She followed me down, straddling my lap, the dress riding up her thighs as she settled her weight against me.

"You’re mine." She said it against my mouth, fierce, claiming. "Whatever happens with her, with anyone, you’re mine first. Say it."

"I’m yours first."

"Again."

"I’m yours first."

"Nnh." She rolled her hips, grinding down against me, and the friction pulled a sound from both of us. "I can feel her on you. The vanilla. It’s, hahh, it’s making me crazy."

"Good crazy or bad crazy."

"Both." She ground down again, harder, the friction deliberate and devastating. Her head fell back, exposing the line of her throat, pink hair cascading over her shoulders in a wave that caught the lamplight. "I want to burn that smell off you. Replace it with me. Make you forget anyone else exists. Make you forget what she smells like. What she looks like. Make it so every time you close your eyes all you see is me."

The possessiveness in her voice sent heat straight through me.

"Then do it."

Her eyes snapped to mine. The blue was almost gone, swallowed by pupil, and what remained was wild with want.

"You don’t get to tell me what to do." She rocked against me in a rhythm that was definitely not accidental, slow and grinding and perfectly calculated to make me lose my mind. "I tell you. That’s how this works. That’s how we work. I’ve waited nine years for this. I’m in charge."

"Yes ma’am."

"Don’t, nngh, don’t call me that." The words came out strangled. She rolled her hips again, harder, and I felt her shudder against me. "Makes me sound like my mother."

"What should I call you."

"Sloane. Just Sloane." Her hands found the hem of my shirt and yanked upward. I raised my arms, let her strip it off me, and then her palms were flat against my chest, fingers splaying across muscle that months of System-enforced training had built from almost nothing.

She traced the lines of my shoulders, my ribs, mapping the changes with a focus that felt clinical and hungry at the same time.

"See something you like?"

"Shut, mmph!"

I kissed her mid-sentence because I could. Because the bond told me exactly how much she wanted me to. Her protest dissolved into a moan, and then her hands were working at my belt, clumsy, frustrated, finally succeeding, and then her hand wrapped around me and everything else went quiet.

"Haaahh." The sound came from deep in my chest. "Sloane."

"Mine." She stroked, slow, possessive. "Say it again."

"Yours."

"Louder."

"Yours, nnh, fuck."

She grinned. It was the expression she wore when she was winning at something, competitive and sharp and devastatingly attractive on a face that had no business looking this good.

"Good boy."

The words hit me somewhere primal. She felt the effect through the bond and her grin widened.

"Oh." Her hand moved faster. "You like that."

"Don’t, hahh, don’t push it."

"Or what."

I showed her what.

My hands found her hips and flipped us, pinning her to the mattress with my weight, and the startled sound she made was everything I wanted to hear. Her legs wrapped around my waist automatically, the dress bunched at her hips, and I could feel how ready she was through the thin barrier of her underwear.

"Lukas." Her voice had gone breathy, the aggression cracking. "I was, I was in charge."

"You were." I ground down against her, slow, deliberate. "Now I am."

"That’s not, haaahh, that’s not fair."

"Nothing about me is fair." I found the spot on her neck that made her boneless and kissed it, licked it, bit down gently, and the moan she made vibrated through her entire body. "You chose me anyway."

"I chose, nngh, I chose you before you were like this." Her hips moved against mine, desperate, seeking friction. "Before the System. Before you got, hahh, confident."

"Do you regret it."

"No." The word came out instantly, without thought. "Never. I’d choose you again. Every time. Even knowing, mmph, even knowing about her, about anyone, I’d choose you."

Something cracked in my chest. The sincerity of it. The complete certainty.

The Heroine Bond Resonance pulsed. Sloane’s gauge had been locked at a minimum of ninety percent since we’d crossed the hundred-percent threshold, impossible to lower through minor conflicts, and right now it felt like it was trying to climb higher than the maximum the System allowed.

"I love you." The words came out of her like a confession, like something she’d been holding back all evening. "I hate that I love you this much. I hate that you can do whatever you want and I’ll still be here. But I love you. And I need you to, nnh, I need you to make me forget about the vanilla."

I looked down at her. Pink hair spread across the pillow. Blue eyes dark with want. The black dress twisted, straps sliding off her shoulders, chest heaving.

"Yeah," I said. "I can do that."