It ended the way sparring with Xanxus generally did: the room was a smoking ruin and Squalo was on his knees for her, out of breath and holding still because there was a warm muzzle resting between his eyebrows. And, of course, he was hard, but that was normal when it came to sparring, too. There was nowhere that Xanxus was more herself than in the middle of a fight, and what she was was amazing. All in all, Squalo figured that if he had to go out, doing it at her feet looking up at the sleek lines of her legs and the wildness in her eyes wasn’t a bad way to do it.

But this wasn’t going to be the day that happened. Xanxus looked him over, flicked the safety back on, and holstered her gun. “Come with me.” The command was peremptory; she gave no sign of what she was thinking. Squalo rolled to his feet, adjusted himself discreetly, and followed after her without question since she was already striding away. Not towards her quarters, he noticed, stifling faint regret, but towards her office. Oh well. Sometimes the mood to fuck took her after a good fight and sometimes it didn’t. Wasn’t his place to complain either way. They were going towards her office; maybe she’d had a breakthrough on the Cizeta job.

At the door, Xanxus waved him ahead of her. “Inside.” She still wasn’t giving him any sign of what was on her mind. That may not have been a good thing; was she annoyed that he’d managed to land a strike on her? But wounds didn’t usually bother her, and this one barely even qualified for the title—the slice across her thigh had been a clean one, hardly more than a scratch, and had already scabbed over. Squalo puzzled over the curt command as he entered her office and brought himself to rest at attention. Xanxus pulled the door closed; he thought she may have even locked it, though the tumblers were well-oiled and the click of them was soft.

She eyed him again and snorted. “Strip.”

It wasn’t worth trying to figure out what was on her mind, he decided, hastening to obey as quickly as he could make his fingers undo buttons and zippers and laces. Maybe she was in the mood after all. He wasn’t going to dare presume (though his cock did). “Boss,” he said, once he was standing naked for her.

Xanxus made a circuit around him, running her eyes from the top of his head to his bare feet. “Mm.” She pointed—at her desk? No, her chair. “Sit.”

Baffled, Squalo obeyed, easing himself down into her chair. The leather creaked as it took his weight; the seat was adjusted for her height and not his, but he didn’t complain. Not that there was anything in the world to complain about, because Xanxus was unbuttoning her shirt and letting it fall, undoing her bra and discarding it. Squalo made a sound, watching avidly as she undid her skirt and let it slither down her legs and then peeled out of her panties.

Her mouth curled; she came around the desk and pushed the papers on it aside to sit herself down in front of him. Squalo stared at her, hearing himself make another sound when she lifted a knee and planted her foot squarely on the armrest of the chair, spreading her knees wide and displaying herself. “God, Boss…”

She leaned herself back on one hand and draped the other across her thigh, running her fingers over the cut he’d given her, still looking at him, still silent. Squalo looked back, drinking in the slope of her breasts and the lushness of her body and the sheer unthinking arrogance in the tilt of her head, aching with how much he wanted her. Her mouth curled, finally. “Touch yourself.”

His breath quickened. “Yes, Boss.” He dropped a hand to his cock, fisting it.

Xanxus made an impatient sound. “So I can see.” She seemed to consider her orders a bit more and added another clarification. “Slowly. And don’t come till I tell you.”

A shudder walked down Squalo’s spine and he groaned. “Anything you say, Boss.” He spread his knees wider for her and loosened his fingers around himself, running them up and down his cock and hissing between his teeth as he slid them over the head of it. He dropped his other hand down to play with his balls, determined to give her a good show, if that was what she was after.

Her eyes rested on him, heavy as a hand, as he worked himself for her. Her color was running high again, like it always did after a sparring match, and her eyes were half-lidded and gleaming. “What goes through your head when you’re on your knees for me?”

Squalo’s cock twitched in his hand as her question reminded him of the moment barely past; he saw her eyes sharpen. “That I’m yours.” He had to string the words together carefully, thanks to how dizzy the heat running through him was making him. “That it would be a good way to go, if that’s how you wanted to end it.”

Xanxus made a soft sound, one part hunger, one part satisfaction. “Would it?”

“Anything you want from me is good, Boss.” Squalo ran his thumb over his head, back and forth. “Because it’s you.”

“Mm.” She ran her hand up her thigh and tucked it against herself, sliding her fingers between her folds. She was already wet; the sight dragged a groan out of him. “That why you get hard when we fight?”

“Sort of, Boss. Sort of not.” He couldn’t quite tear his eyes away from the slow back-and-forth of her fingers or the way she circled her clit and traced the shape of herself.

“Tell me.” Xanxus’ voice had dropped, gone husky; his cock twitched in his hand, responding to that tone. Squalo gasped and pressed his fingers against the base of it: not yet, she hadn’t given him permission yet. “What gets you so hard?”

“You, Boss,” he breathed, hearing the sound she made then. “It’s you, when you fight, there’s nothing else but you. That’s what you were made to do, and you’re so… so…”

“So…?” she prompted when he faltered, at a loss for words.

Squalo raised his eyes to hers. “Beautiful.” It was the truth, whole and perfect. “You’re beautiful, Boss.”

Xanxus stared at him; she’d stopped moving her fingers. “Beautiful.”

“Beautiful,” he repeated, because he never had lied to her and he wasn’t going to start now. “It’s the way you move and fight and how you look when you fire a gun, and your strength, and… you. It’s just you, Boss.”

She stared at him, eyes gone opaque. “You are one crazy son of a bitch.”

Squalo could feel the ice creaking beneath his feet. He shrugged at her and himself; if he had to go, having this be the last thing he ever saw wouldn’t be so bad, either. “Maybe, Boss. But I’m a happy one.”

He breathed a little easier all the same when that earned him a ghost of a smile.

Then she raised her foot and prodded his shoulder, digging her toes into it. “I didn’t give you permission to stop moving.” Squalo didn’t even know what the sound he made then was, but it made her smile again. He nodded and began running his fingers up and down again, breathless.

She watched him, holding her own fingers still, before saying, “So. Anything I want.” That was skipping right over the things that had confused her, but there weren’t any surprises there. She began stroking herself again; he had to wet his lips again. The corner of her mouth kicked up. “So that’s what you’re thinking when I’ve got you on your knees.”

It sounded like a dare; maybe it was. Maybe she wanted to see how far he was willing to go. Well, for her, he was willing to go all the way. “Sort of.”

Xanxus made a satisfied sound, like she’d expected as much. “Tell me.”

Oh, God. Squalo took a breath, steadying himself against the surge of adrenaline. “Sometimes,” he began, daring a glance at her eyes. They were dark. “Sometimes I think about you. How you stand over me. And what would happen if you decided you wanted me right there.” Dangerous territory, that; her eyes narrowed. He plunged on. “If you decided to pull me to you right there and have me put my mouth on you while I’m still on my knees, when it’s perfectly clear how completely you own me.” He couldn’t help moving his fingers faster; just talking about it conjured up the image for him, how it would feel to put his face between her thighs and taste her on his tongue while she stood over him.

Xanxus made a sound; the hardness was fading out of her eyes. He went on. “I think about how you would pull my hair to tell me what you wanted.” She was moving her fingers faster, stroking them over her clit. “How I’d still be able to smell the gun smoke, how it would be on your skin. How you would sound, whether you would want me to put my fingers in you. Whether you would let me touch myself, or if you’d tell me to keep my hands off my cock. So I think about that. Sometimes.”

Xanxus hummed something between her teeth and pushed a finger into herself. Squalo groaned, watching her. “Go on,” she said, voice low and rich, as she worked herself open right there in front of him.

“God, Boss.” Squalo swallowed, hard, and slowed his hand down lest he explode. “Okay, um.” He wet his lips. “I think… I think about what it would be like if you decided to wear one of your toys, maybe even while we fought. And how it would be if you decided to push me over and pin me under you so you could fuck me with it.” She made a low sound and slid a second finger in with the first; this seemed to be working just as well for her as it did him. Squalo kept going, the words spilling out of him. “Maybe you’d make me suck it first, just grab my head and fuck my throat to get it good and wet, before you pushed me over and pulled my ass into the air and put it in me.” She liked doing that, maybe even as much as he liked having her do it. She groaned now, listening to him describe it. “It would be so good to be on my hands and knees while you rode me, so good to have you fuck me hard, for just as long as you wanted.” He was breathless, half-giddy with the fantasy he was spinning and with his fingers on his cock, and from watching Xanxus fuck herself on her own fingers, three of them now sliding in and out of her, gleaming and wet. “I’d scream for you, Boss. And anyone could walk in and see me begging you to take me harder.”

That did it; Xanxus groaned, hips jerking against her own hand as she arched, eyes squeezing shut. Squalo moaned, watching her and pressing his fingers hard against the base of his cock, until she sagged against the desk, panting, fingers still tucked between her thighs. She opened her eyes again after her breathing had steadied. “That’s what you think about?”

“Sometimes, Boss.” He raised his eyes to hers. “Boss, please, I can’t—please, Boss, let me come.”

Her mouth quirked. “That what you need?” Squalo nodded, swallowing hard as she took her hand away from herself and spread her knees wider. “Come here.”

“Oh, God,” he breathed. “Yes.”

She snorted and pulled him in against her when he surged out of the chair. “You think you can fuck me?” she asked, wrapping a leg around him and closing her hand on his nape.

“Yes,” he said, nearly shaking with how much he needed her, how close she was, her body radiating heat against his.

Xanxus made a satisfied sound and reached down to guide his cock against her. “Come on and show me what you’ve got,” she said as he moaned. She gasped when he let his hips snap forward, burying himself in her. “Fuck, yeah…” She dug her nails into his nape. “C’mon, fuck me now.”

“Boss…” Squalo planted his hands on her desk and bit down on his lower lip, doing as she ordered, driving against her, hard and deep. Xanxus hissed and wrapped her legs around him, pulling him deeper and groaning as he fucked her. It was almost unbearable to be inside her after spending so long talking and touching himself; Squalo could taste blood from where he was biting down on his own lip to keep from coming too soon.

“What else?” she demanded, hoarse. “Tell me what else you think about.”

“You,” he gasped, hitching her hips against his. “Putting your hand on my chest and pushing me down. Pulling your skirt up and then riding me just like that.” He licked his thumb and got his hand between them to rub it against her clit; he was shaking with the effort of holding himself back from the edge. “You when you come, the way you sound and the way you smell and taste, how you feel around me, God, Boss, I never stop thinking about you, I belong to you, I have you ground into my bones, I—”

Xanxus arched under him, groaning as her body wrung tight on his. “Now,” she gasped. Squalo obeyed, orgasm slamming into him like a fist and knocking the breath out of him as it whited out his vision altogether.

He was draped against her when he came back down again; she was holding him up and still had her hand on his nape. Squalo hardly dared to stir against her as the words he’d babbled to her began to come back to him as his head came clear again.

“That’s what you think about?” Xanxus’ words were slow, her tone thoughtful.

Squalo stared past her shoulder to the papers strewn across her desk, contemplating his own mortality. “Yes, Boss.”

Xanxus tightened her grip on his nape. “Oh.” It could have meant anything. “Oh.”

He nodded, hardly daring to breathe.

Xanxus slid her thumb over his nape. “How long?” she asked, when he shivered.

“Since the beginning.” It was only the truth.

Xanxus hissed something between her teeth, profane, and tightened her grip when he would have pulled away—to do what, he wasn’t sure. Apologize, perhaps. “You…” she started. Squalo could count the number of times he’d heard her sound that confused on one hand and still have fingers left over.

“Me, Boss,” he agreed.

She snorted something and loosened her hand, flattening and spreading it in the space between his shoulder blades. Squalo’s breath caught in his throat when she kept going, smoothing her hand down his spine and back up again. “Boss,” he breathed, very close to trembling. She kept touching him, fingers slow against his skin, and a shudder rolled through him.

She didn’t say anything at first, just kept touching him till he was trembling against her. “You’re mine,” she said at last, curving her palm around his nape again. “Aren’t you.”

Not really a question so much as a statement, that, but it needed answering. “Yes, Boss.” Squalo wet his lips. “Heart and soul and body. Yours.”

Xanxus sucked in a breath, but didn’t say anything else.

It was a long time before she let him go.