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His name’s Alex.
It’s at a small gathering at the warehouse that you meet him, watching from your spot at the back as he walks in behind one of your acquaintances with his hands tucked into the front pockets of the dark denim jeans hanging from his hips. He seems indifferent, perhaps slightly defensive, as he’s introduced around to the others.
You don’t blame him—the questioning soon starts. He doesn’t seem too bothered by it, merely shrugging with an air of understanding and answers as he needs to. He snorts in amusement at the mention of a wire, offering to strip if that would help his case, and the quiet laugh that bubbles from your lips immediately catches his attention.
A wash of warmth fills your chest when he meets your gaze, unashamedly holding it as the questioning continues, and your smile turns somewhat shy. He’s good looking, strikingly so—ruffled dark locks that hang over his forehead, a smattering of facial hair along his jaw and along his top lip, eyes so rich and warm you feel the effects of them stirring in your chest.
He talks of his own less than legal activities and that seems to win them over in the end, the others content with his answers and that he’s not a cop. You don’t hang around to hear the rest or join in on the conversation, instead choosing to retreat to where you usually do when they hold these little victory celebrations after a job.
It takes a short while, but you eventually get a small fire going in the old rusted oil drum out the back. You drag the lawn chair you found abandoned in the warehouse your first time here closer to the warmth and settle down, nursing your own drink slowly as the last licks of daylight fade from the sky.
“Do you mind if I join you?”
A glance over your shoulder confirms it’s the new face, with Alex standing by the back door with a small polite smile.
“Not at all,” you reply quietly, turning your attention back to the fire.
You hear the scrape of an abandoned paint drum across the gravel and watch from your peripheral as he sits himself on it, settling down next to you with a light sigh. He introduces himself, holding out a large hand and wrapping it firmly around yours when you give your name in return.
“So what do you do?” He asks quietly after a moment, sipping at his lukewarm beer and letting his gaze roll over your profile with a vague sheen of interest.
Your eyes meet his, flicking between them before falling to study the arch of his nose and the soft press of his lips. The fire warms his features, turning those hypnotic dark eyes into soft pools of honey and it’s getting increasingly harder to not drown in them.
You smile coyly, turning back to watch the flames dance in the makeshift fire pit. “Wouldn’t you like to know.”
He grins, boyish and charming. “Yeah, I would. Is that a crime?”
“Maybe,” you tease softly, chuckling quietly. “I do… a bit of this, and a bit of that.”
The low laugh you get in return sends flutters through your stomach and it’s impossible to not join in. It’s warm and comforting, the soft crackle of the fire only adding to the cosy atmosphere.
“Okay,” he yields quietly, cheeks creasing from his grin, “what do you do in your spare time?”
“You ask a lot of questions.”
He shrugs lightly, smiling around the rim of his bottle as he takes another sip. “Maybe I want to get to know you.”
You giggle quietly, cheeks flushing with heat that had nothing to do with the fire. “And why would you want to do that?”
———–—
The vivid blend of colours mix wonderfully across the canvas, exploding in your vision and coaxing your mind into tracing every little brush stroke and bump of texture. It’s bigger than what you originally thought, but that was no matter.
“Can you do it?”
Edward eyes you critically when your gaze rolls to meet his, his beady eyes narrowing in on you from under his creased frown. You weren’t too sure of how he was weaved into everything, all you knew was that he was high up in the gallery business with his hands in a few pies.
You didn’t care. You did what was requested and kept out of the ‘business’ side of it all as much as possible.
“I’ll need a closer look for the details—”
“Of course,” he nods, turning his gaze back onto the painting.
“—but it’s not my first Klimt. It’s doable.”
“‘Doable’ isn’t enough. I need absolute perfection if we’re going to go through with this. I’m not risking my name for shoddy work a preschooler could’ve done.”
You shoot him a small glare, your jaw rolling in irritation. “I know what I’m doing.”
And you do. It’s not your first rodeo. You study the artwork for most of the morning, eyes wandering over the stretch of canvas. You note where there’s texture in the paint, where there’s a rift between smooth brushstrokes, but your mind wanders.
It’s like he just knows.
He calls you when you’re leaving the gallery. Alex. Your heart flies when his voice melts into your ear. He asks where you are and it turns out he’s in the area.
“What a happy coincidence,” you giggle.
Coffee turns into dinner, and then another, and then a lunch. Soon he’s all you think about and you love it. He’s different, he’s wonderful. You talk for hours. He’s sweet, attentive. He admits to not knowing much about art, but he listens when you ramble, asking questions and seemingly soaking up every word you say. He’s got a bad history with love, but it hasn’t weakened his heart.
His hand curls around yours one evening wandering around the park and that’s it for you—you’re smitten. The soft motion of his thumb rubbing across the back of your hand makes you giddy. Your stomach flips, your heart jumps in your chest. He kisses you under the warm hue of the streetlight, lips soft and sweet and it’s just wonderful.
———–—
“So you paint,” he murmurs one night after a late dinner, hand smoothing over the rough surface of the canvas before crowding you against your desk. “What do you paint?”
“Anything they want me to,” you reply softly, heart wild as his nose traces yours.
“You don’t choose?”
“No,” you sigh as his lips press against the soft skin below your jawline, “it’s all up to the dealer—they organise everything. I’m just the painter.”
“You’re not ‘just’ anything.”
You weaken at the firm press of his lips, your knees buckling as his mouth works against yours and steals any remaining thoughts from your mind. He consumes you, his hand cupping your throat just below the line of your jaw and the feel of his calloused palm against your skin sendings a ripple of heat throughout your body.
It gets messy; teeth clashing as mouths get hungrier and hands get wilder, ripping at clothes and tugging at fabric until it frees skin to the cool air of your studio.
He fucks you on your desk, large rough hands sliding and groping greedily along your body as he brings you to the edge again and again and again. Fingers, mouth, cock—he gives it all to you and you can only hold on and take it, his name the only coherent word that falls from your lips. Paint smears along your skin as you move with his thrusts, paintbrushes clatter to the floor in your desperation to have him closer and closer still.
You both admire the mess when you eventually part on the floor, skin flushed and slick with sweat. It’s pure destruction, and it has you both chuckling softly. His fingers trace your spine after he coaxes you into his side and you study the half smeared handprints over your desk and the small traces of paint that’s dried on his skin.
It’s your favourite artwork.
Your fingers ghost the soft skin under his eyes when you look up at him, brushing up and over his nose before tracing around his lips in a soft curiosity. He watches you through half lidded eyes, raising his own fingers to brush across your temple and your heart thunders against your chest.
“You’re trouble,” you breathe, chest warming with the way his eyes flicker across your face before coming back to meet yours.
“You’re beautiful.”
———–—
He’s everything. It all happens so naturally, so effortlessly, falling into place as if it were meant to be.
You say it when you’re in the shower one day. It’s all slick soapy skin and bubbles and tender caresses. He holds you close under the hot spray, arms wrapped around your body as steam curls up to the ceiling. You press back into his chest with a low hum of content, tilting your head just enough for him to kiss along your throat.
It bubbles past your lips with an ease—
“I think I love you.”
He exhales into your shoulder, curved nose brushing along your throat as his arms tighten around you. “I think I love you, too.”
And suddenly you feel free.
It’s strangely scary, nerve wracking… exhilarating.
You kiss him, pouring everything you feel into it and he responds just as strongly. Tears sting your eyes and fall freely down your cheeks, and he brushes them away with the rough pads of his thumbs before backing you up into the wall. The tiles are ice against your back but your front relishes in the heat of his body as it presses against yours.
He breathes it into you, the words so sweet and tender against your lips. I love you.
He seals it with a kiss, and then another, and makes love to you all afternoon, losing himself in your body and drowning you in his devotion.
You tell him everything, because why wouldn’t you? Dropping out of art school, drowning in bills and debt and medical costs—it all became too much and you just needed a break, just something to get ahead and out of the deepening hole you were stuck in.
They had found you and asked for a one time thing—you didn’t think twice. One time turned into two, and then four, and now every other month.
Did that make you a bad person then? Does all of this make you a bad person now? You suppose it does. What you do is highly illegal, and you know that. It’s not that you set out to do it, choosing a life of crime from the get go.
It just happened.
You couldn’t complain, the money was great. You were always paid very well for your replicas and forged works. Some of the numbers wired into your account made your head spin. You’ll get out one day—you want the picket fence.
They’re all over the world, you tell him—the paintings. London, Paris, Venice, Prague. Your paintings… but no one will ever know that.
Where do the originals go? The question dissolves into your skin as his fingers circle aimlessly over your stomach and hips.
A shrug is his answer. You don’t know the details—you never bother to ask. Some of the more wealthier population pay obscene amounts of money to own the originals themselves, choosing to bypass the battle of the auctions and the stuffy galleries and museums and instead organise through middle men to steal and swap over the paintings before anyone even blinks an eye.
“You’d be surprised,” you say quietly, your own fingers combing through his hair softly, “to know just how many originals have been swapped over the years. It happens all over the world.”
He listens long into the night, his eyes following each curve of your body as his fingers glide over your skin. You love that he asks questions, that he seems so interested in what you have to say. You feel heard, seen. It’s so vastly different to your previous relationships and it has your heart beating just that little bit faster in your chest. He wants to know everything, and you’re more than happy to provide.
You feel it in your bones. This is home. This is what peace feels like, regardless of whatever happens outside the walls of your bedroom. You’d finally found it and it was all yours.
———–—
It happens on a Wednesday.
They barge in, drowning in their dark blue jackets and flashing their fancy badges to any who care to look. You don’t get the chance to react, or even speak. The metal feels like ice around your wrists as they cuff you and lead you out into the waiting SUV, their words nothing but a muted hum as your mind spins.
It starts to lightly rain and your eyes are drawn to the little paths the drops make as they slide down the glass of the window. People and cars and buildings—they flash past at a dizzying rate, creating a dull ache in your temples that does nothing to aid in the nervous lump building at the back of your throat.
Deny. Deny. Deny.
You know nothing. They have nothing.
Everything will be fine… but then it’s not.
His name’s not Alex.
It’s Marcus.
Marcus.
Your world falls apart in the space of sixty seconds. Everything you knew—your peace, your comfort, your home—it crumbles around you, leaving you shattered, vulnerable and alone. The life you lived, the life you had grown to adore… it wasn’t real. The man you had given your heart to, practically offered up on a silver platter after all but voluntarily ripping it from your chest yourself, he doesn’t exist.
He never did.
He’s a stranger. You don’t know this man. He looks like him, smells like him. He talks like him, walks like him, drums his fingers on the table like him… but he’s not him. The memories you have of him, of Alex, kissing along your skin, of laughing against your lips, of talking about art and being unlucky in love… they’re suddenly tainted by this—this stranger. He doesn’t know you. You don’t know him.
It’s cowardly, but you take the offered deal at the reassurance of your attorney. She’s gentle with you, soft in her words and actions, and you wonder if it’s because she knows you were strung along like a little puppet tangled in strings. How much did she know about it all? How much did anyone know about it?
“Think of yourself, of your future. You don’t owe those people anything,” she says when it’s just the two of you.
And it’s true. It’s not like they’re your friends—it’s just business. You were almost certain they’d have no issue sharing your name if the roles were reversed, and so you talk. You sit across from him, refusing to look his way for a single second, and talk to keep your mind from shutting down.
You give every name and painting and gallery you know. You scribble over pieces of paper, you give descriptions of the very few ‘buyers’ you’ve seen in person. You give vehicle descriptions and addresses. He and his partner take it all, and in the end, they thank you for your help.
It’s cold. He doesn’t look back at you.
Special Agent Marcus Pike.
It’s unfamiliar and cutting and agonising. It leaves a foul taste in your mouth. It makes you physically ill.
You vomit back in the holding cell, hands clutching the chilled metal of the small toilet and heaving and choking until your throat feels like it’s been torn to shreds. The tears arrive without mercy, flowing down your cheeks with seemingly no end. The sobs hurt. A tightness develops in your chest, ever so slowly squeezing until it feels like your lungs could hold nothing and you’re left struggling to inhale a proper breath.
It’s a lie. It was all a lie. Everything he said, everything he did, everything he made you feel—it was empty. It was nothing.
———–—
It’s not home. It’s not comfortable. There’s no peace, no calm. You miss your apartment; your books, your art. You miss cooking. You miss walking to the coffee shop. You miss freedom. The cell feels like it’s shrinking every time you walk back into it. It’s cold, vacant and tiny, but it’s what you deserve.
Oh how the mighty have fallen.
A sudden slam against the bars startles you from picking at the skin around your nails, and you look up to the guard standing there.
“Up. You got a visitor.”
Your face twists in confusion. “What?”
There must be a mistake. You don’t get visitors—you don’t have anyone. You’re curious right up until you enter the visiting room, and then you want to turn right back around and go back to bed.
It’s him.
You can tell immediately, despite him facing away from you. You hate that you know him just by the broad shoulders and ruffled dark hair. Why is he here? What more could he possibly want? He sits straighter in his seat when you pass him.
“Special Agent Pike,” you greet quietly, a subtle bite to your words.
You seat yourself opposite him, not missing the way his eyes study the loose beige jumpsuit on you as you settle in the seat. He looks good. What an asshole.
“How are you?”
You ignore the question, eyes narrowing. “What are you doing here?”
He swallows, tongue peaking out to run along his lower lip as he thinks over his answer. “I wanted to explain.”
A snort rips from your throat and you cross your arms across your chest in defence. “There’s nothing to explain. You did your job—you got the bad guys. That’s all there was to it, right?”
Silence, and then he sighs.
“I’m sorry it got as far as it did. It was never—” he swallows, eyes falling to the table, “I should never have let it happen. I’m sorry.”
He’s sorry?
“You said you loved me,” you snarl lowly, eyes unfocused as they stare through the metal table in front of you before they flash to his face. “What kind of sick human being does that? Lies about that?”
He gets defensive, his own eyes narrowing and posture straightening in his seat. “What kind of human being participates in an illegal underground art—”
“Oh please,” your harsh scoff of sarcastic amusement cuts him off. “That’s different and you fucking know it. You—you made a fool out of me. You took my love—my love—and you made me a fucking idiot! You played me, you strung me along for months… what you did—it was cruel.”
It hurts.
It hurts and you hate it. You fight to keep your emotionless mask, stubbornly refusing to drop your fury filled gaze from his.
“You knew. You knew I wanted out,” you mutter brokenly, fighting to keep the tremble of your bottom lip at bay. “I loved Alex. I wanted Alex… god Marcus, we talked about kids! A house. A future. You let me build up this… this fantasy. You made it with me! And then I find out he never existed. He was a lie. His love was a lie. All of it—it wasn’t real. At least I know what I am. You? You’re a monster.”
He doesn’t reject your words. He sits quietly, and he takes it all without a flicker of emotion. A part of you wants him to talk, to explain why. Surely you’re owed that much? He could at least tell you why. Why you? Why was it you? Did you seem desperate? Lonely? Were you an easy target? What? What was it?
You know you won’t get your answers.
“I’m done here. Leave—now.”
It takes a moment for the words to settle, but he eventually nods, giving a quiet okay and standing. You don’t want to look at him. You can’t. Seeing him again bought it all crashing back and you feel the threat of cries choking your throat.
He doesn’t walk away immediately, and you watch from your peripheral as he taps a finger on the table, almost in deliberation, and then ever so quietly—
“I lied about a lot of things, but I didn’t lie about that.”
A sob bubbles from your lips before you can stop it. You bite it back, pressing your lips tightly together and desperately trying to fend off the tears building in your eyes. They fall anyway, and it’s then you find the slightest bit of strength to look at him.
“Don’t you ever come back here. I don’t want to see you again. Ever.”
His jaw rolls, and then he nods. “Understood.”
He walks away, and you watch him go, heart finally shattering completely in your chest when he takes one final look at you over his shoulder.