A/N: I’m so obsessed with this verse. Hope you enjoy it! Xx
Summary: They call it a ‘gift,’ but Emma Swan has only ever seen it as a burden and a trap. She’s never been a big fan of having an assigned soulmate, especially one predetermined by a silly little mark, so she’s spent her whole life avoiding finding him, throwing herself into work and dating at whim. It’s worked for her well enough, until the one day it doesn’t, and Emma is forced to come to terms with the fact that try as she might to run away from her destiny, it always finds a way to catch up. (Soulmate Tattoo/Futuristic AU)
Words: 2,771 | Rating: M | Tumblr: Ch. 1 | ao3
.
.
Emma’s never been above using her feminine wiles on the job, and she’s certainly not above using them now. Throughout the night, she’s basically taken all of her cues from Killian. So when he smiles at her, she smiles in turn, ducking her head briefly as if a bit shy. When he buys her another drink, she accepts, turning in the stool to angle her body towards his, inviting him into her space. When he grows bolder, openly flirting and scooting himself closer to her, she giggles accordingly and touches her hand to his shoulder, allowing it to slowly trail down the length of his arm.
And when he kisses her, leaning across the very little space left between them, naturally, she kisses back.
She’s not expecting to get knocked sideways by it, though, and she’s certainly not expecting her body’s immediate reaction to it either – the way attraction flares to life under her skin, surging through her veins like liquid gold and lighting her up from the inside.
Holy shit but the man can kiss. He touches her nowhere else, save for where their mouths are fused – the scruff of his chin rubbing against hers and his nose pressing into her check – yet she feels as if she’s already dove headfirst into trouble. Drowning in complete sensation and desire, with no urge whatsoever to escape and resurface to reason.
It’s a frightening realization.
Not to mention dangerous. She can’t afford to allow herself to get swept up in the moment. If things were different, were he just a man and she just a woman looking to fulfill the most basic of human instincts for a night, it would be easier to give in. But things aren’t different, she’s a hunter and he just happens to be her prey. It’s all business, really, but the heady, thrilling combination of the forbiddenness of the moment and the risk of allowing him so close is almost too tempting to resist.
Her hands reach up to grasp at the lapels of his jacket, not to draw him nearer (or so her mind says, her body might disagree), but to steady herself against the assault of his lips – lips that are soft despite the demand of his mouth. She needs to keep her mind clear, damn it, so she tries to think ahead, tries to plan for the next step. Where they go from here, when she makes her move, combat strategies, escape routes…everything she’s been trained for.
But then he tilts his head, deepening the kiss and slipping his tongue past her lips and into her mouth. It pulls an involuntary sigh from her, echoing the tug of want in her belly, and fuck, he’s certainly not making it easy for her.
It’s even worse once he gets her outside, how her head spins when he backs her into the wall and presses his body against hers. How his mouth moves, aggressive and eager and so incredibly thorough that it steals her breath. His hands are everywhere, gripping her hips and sliding up her sides, grazing her breasts before tangling in her curls. It’s overwhelming.
“My place?” she offers when they break apart, gulping down air to calm her racing heart and attempt to eliminate the fog that’s settled around her brain.
Killian shakes his head, “Mine,” and there’s something possessive in the way that he says it, the way that he swoops in for one more taste of her lips.
She’s not happy about going back to his place but it is something that she anticipated might happen. They’d never located it so the layout is unfamiliar – floor plan, exit points, security – and that puts her at a really big disadvantage. She can already hear David’s protests and chastising voice in her mind, but she’s also worked in more dire straits before, against bigger targets, and she’s confident enough in herself to know that it’s nothing she couldn’t get out of if she ran into some trouble.
It still puts her on edge, though, but she nods anyway, offering him what she hopes appears to be an eager smile. She giggles when he pushes away and takes her hand in his, tugging her behind him as he quickly makes his way towards where his hover car is parked.
—–
His place, surprisingly, is located right near the water, a penthouse condo of a high-rise building with floor-to-ceiling glass windows, just on the outskirts of Storybrooke. Her brows pinch together in confusion and it puts her back up a little bit as they begin to make the climb.
What is the Union’s most wanted man doing living out in the open?
She was expecting some place more isolated, more out of sight. Like somewhere in the middle of the forest with secret tunnel entrances and Level Ten security – armed guards, cameras, laser fences, and the like.
Having noted the modernity of the tower, her trained eyes narrow in thought. She’ll have the hotel security to contend with now, probably state-of-the-art, as well as his own he’s most likely implemented in the penthouse. If things go south and she gets made, she could very well be trapped in the building with no more than a vocal command for lockdown.
She sighs quietly and tries not to think about the glaring looks she’ll get from David when she checks in with him in half an hour over video conference, and the ‘dad tone’ he’ll no doubt use on her upon hearing how the capture went down. At least he’ll get good scolding practice for when Leo grows up.
Killian lowers easily onto the landing pad floating outside of the penthouse entrance, and the minute the car door flips up to open, she is met by a small, white, round droid – no bigger than a golf ball – that flutters about in an almost fidgety manner. Her heart leaps into her throat when she recognizes it as a Scanner, a security droid meant to check for the presence of weapons, and all she can think of are the shrinking pods she’d put her duffles in before she’d stuck the tablet sized capsules in her clutch.
Thankfully, he waves off the droid before it can begin the scanning process, walking around to her side and holding his hand out for her to take. His smirk tilts up his lips but it does nothing to ease the bit of anxiety that’s settled in her body at such a close call. She returns his smile and slides her palm over his, fingers curling around his hand the same moment his do.
Emma notes when he fails to lock the car, glancing behind her as they start towards the entrance of the penthouse and she presses her lips together to conceal her smirk. It will save her the trouble of having to do a manual override on the vehicle later, which in turn will allow for a faster departure once she gets him secured for transport. Or just for herself if she needs the escape cushion. She also notices that the suspension bridge between the pad and the doors is about one hundred feet. It would take her less an ten seconds to sprint across it if need be, which isn’t bad, but when every second counts, she would prefer a much closer getaway site. Oh well, she’ll make do.
She does a quick scan of the exterior, pleased to see no human guards anywhere near the pad or up ahead blocking the entrance, but she knows better than to assume he has none. If she can find his security control room, she might have a better gage of what exactly she’s up against. The only problem is that she needs to incapacitate him first before she can locate it.
The glass doors leading into the penthouse slide open when they trip the sensor, and they barely close behind her before he whirls on her, moving into her space and crushing his mouth to hers. He’s faster than she anticipated and it catches her off guard. Most things rarely do, so that’s saying a lot.
She hasn’t even been able to properly assess her surroundings now that she’s inside, has no clue if he does in fact have security on this floor, on the floor below them, or patrolling the roof. Has no idea where the main entrance is or the elevators are, if the master bedroom sits facing north, if he’s got cameras or where his weapons are concealed. She’s flying almost completely blind and right now her only ‘safe’ point of exit is the way they came.
He turns them, backing her into the nearest wall so he can brace her against it while he kisses her like he means to devour her. Her arms automatically circle around his neck, and her breath hitches when she feels his hands slip beneath her skirt, body trembling as his fingertips drag along her thighs and burn a path up, up, up on her skin until they brush along the edges of her panties. She groans into his mouth, practically clawing at his back in an attempt to get closer to him and shit. Holy shit.
She can’t think over the persistence of his mouth and his hands on her flesh. She’s spiraling out of control, acting absolutely insane, but it’s never been like this before, all this raging heat and passion and attraction. Not just with a target, but with anyone in general. It’s impossible, but when she kisses him, she feels like she’s been kissing him her whole life.
He gives her a moment’s reprieve, thank god, tearing his mouth from hers to kiss a path down her neck and rake his teeth across her collarbone. Her knees nearly buckle at that, and she reaches up, tangling her fingers in the thick, dark strands of his hair and holding him to her while her eyes focus on the room.
Breathe, Emma. Concentrate.
But then his tongue snakes out, tracing the neckline of her dress and dipping below the material to taste, and effectively annihilating every thought in her head. She swears when he does it again, head thumping back against the door as her eyes flutter close.
Fuck.
She has to make her move, now, before things get too far out of control and she does something stupid. Like sleep with him.
It’s a split-second decision, but he’s left her with no choice. She tightens her fingers in his hair, jerking his head away from her so it sends him stumbling backwards. She intends to give him her best right hook, and is thoroughly surprised when he grabs onto her wrist and twists in her hold so he can yank on her arm. He spins her around in an offensive move, bending her arm behind her and using her momentum to slam her into the wall.
Almost like he’d been expecting it.
Pain blooms in her shoulder where she’d taken the brunt of the shove and she swears once more, trapped between him and the wall.
“Who the bloody hell are you?” he hisses, lips close to her ear.
Emma grits her teeth. Damn it. She’s been made and she’s very, very much not in the mood for it. Instead of answering, she hooks her leg around his, using it as leverage and abruptly sending her weight backwards to catch him off balance. They go down in a tangle of limbs and she can hear the breath whoosh out of him as he takes the brunt of the fall.
A scuffle ensues and they tear apart the penthouse, the desire ignited between them forgotten in a fierce need to survive. He’s resilient, and obviously well-versed in combat, able to predict her offensive maneuvers and countering with ones of his own. She switches tactics, fakes him out with a flamboyant fan-kick before head-butting him squarely in the face and knocking him unconscious.
She’ll have to remember to thank David for teaching her that one.
She stands panting heavily over him, hands on her knees while she bends over at the waist and sucks air into her lungs. It’s amazing, and she’s not entirely sure how she’s managed it, but she’s still got one of her heels on. She laughs under her breath and toes it off before straightening and staring at him. He’d been a fierce opponent, probably one of the best she’s ever fought, not that she would tell him.
A quick look around the room shows the destruction they’d left in the wake of their altercation – broken glass everywhere, chairs upturned, trinkets scattered on the ground, a coffee table split in half. They’d really done a number on the place, which is a shame because it’s a gorgeous penthouse and- oh no. Shit. She’d forgotten about the possibility of security.
Her ears strain against the silence, fully expecting an army of guards to burst in through the doors at any moment, and her whole body tenses in anticipation. But the penthouse remains quiet save for her labored breathing, and as the seconds tick by, it appears that not a single soul has been alerted to their little scuffle.
Huh. It’s incredibly strange, but if no one is coming, she has no time to worry about it anymore. She’s got to get a move on it, Killian will only be unconscious for so long, and by the time he wakes, she wants to be on their way to the capital of the Union already.
Absentmindedly, she wipes a trickle of blood from her chin with the back of her hand, wincing against the ache from the split lip she’d gotten when she had underestimated his flexibility and taken an elbow to the mouth. She assesses the rest of her body, paying close attention to where it feels the most pain. Nothing seems too bad or out of the ordinary, just some sore muscles and scrapes and bruises that couldn’t be avoided.
But really, what’s a little discomfort in exchange for ten million dollars and an early retirement?
She huffs out a relieved sigh then gets to work. She’s got a lot to do and they’ve got a long way to travel, and with the price of the bounty on his head, it’s safer for her to get him off of her hands as soon as possible.
With her heart rate finally slowing down, she bends over to grasp his arms, intending to drag him somewhere she can handcuff him while she checks in with David and makes arrangements for transport. Plus, she has to extract her duffles from the shrinking pods, change, and arm herself with weapons.
Now that he’s in her possession, she wants to make sure he stays that way.
She’s dragged him about three feet when she happens to glance down and immediately spots it on his hip – the dark, curling blemish revealed by his ridden up t-shirt. It makes her stagger back, makes the room spin as her eyes go wide and disbelieving. The sight of it is a stronger blow than anything he could have physically dealt her and her stomach bottoms out.
For the first time in her life, she thinks she’s going to pass out.
“No,” she shakes her head, eyes unwavering on the symbol marring his skin. Her fist presses tight against the knot that’s twisted itself beneath her breastbone. “No, it can’t be.”
But it is, clear as day, identical to the one on her wrist. Before she’d had it altered anyway.
To her complete and utter dismay, Killian Jones isn’t just the most wanted man in the realm with a hefty price on his head, he’s her goddamn soulmate too.
The call comes in then, a distinct buzzing sound that interrupts her meltdown, and Emma backs away to retrieve her clutch from where she’d dropped it by the wall when he’d first pounced on her. God, it explains so much – her response to him, the attraction between them. Her stomach clenches again, and she has to brace her back against the wall to keep upright. She pulls a thin, clear, business card-sized device out, and presses her finger against it to accept the call. David’s face flashes across the screen, his expression hard and worried.
“You missed your check-in time, where the hell have you been?” he says.
“Busy,” she snaps back.
“Well, you’re about to be even busier. We have a problem.”
Emma’s eyes flicker to Killian’s still form just a few feet away. “Yeah, no shit.”
Fin