A/N: I shouldn't be doing this...but I held out long enough. I know I need to be working on CA (hey, Faberry fans...don't kill me) but my muse just smacked me in the face with this once I saw Pitch Perfect 2 and became straight Bechloe trash. So here it is, lol. The first chapter is a little short, but it's really here to set the pace for things. I've got this story mapped out to be about ten chapters long, so yeah...read and enjoy! Tell me what you think either by dropping a review here or stopping by my tumblr (cherishmimi).

BTW: Story title comes from the Ariana Grande song, "Love Me Harder".

Chapter 1

First and foremost, Beca wasn't snooping.

Despite what the circumstances may have looked like (and by circumstances, she means digging through a panty drawer that didn't exactly belong to her) she was not the type of person to go through another person's things.

Especially a person who may or may not have been her significant other.

Honestly, the fact that Beca Mitchell even had a significant other to (not) snoop on was laughable.

She wasn't exactly the most welcoming person and thanks to the charming example set by her parents, she definitely wasn't searching for 'the one'.

Not in high school when the same pathetic guys would waltz up to her (in the library or during free period where no one could see them of course) expecting the girl with too much eyeliner and no friends to fall over her feet for them, so that they could reenact their own real-life adaptation of She's All That,

And definitely not at Barden.

Well, not at first.

Thanks to her stubborn pride, Beca was dead set on only participating in that stupid acapella group long enough to please her father, before jetting off to LA to do what she had to do.

A relationship was the farthest thing from her brain.

Then came Jesse, and his movies, and before long that's exactly where Beca found herself; stuck in a real-life rom-com about a relationship that had last three-years too long.

Now in her defense, when putting together a set list for the ICCA, it seemed like a good idea. A climatic beginning to an otherwise anti-climatic relationship with a boy who looked way too much like a puppy and drank juice boxes.

(Honestly, what on earth did they have in common besides music?)

And Beca, as stubborn as she could be, committed to the whole thing (Obviously she couldn't just scrap the idea after dedicating an entire musical number to him) until she was faced with the fact that there was just no sparking whatever small fuse was left of their relationship.

She may have also realized that she had inadvertently been in love with a certain redhead the entire time.

Beca's not one hundred percent sure, but she has a good feeling that it could have been the night that they were all sitting around the campfire at that ridiculous retreat and Chloe decided to look at her with those big, outrageously beautiful blue eyes. Beca distinctly remembers her insides doing funny things when Chloe began to sing, suddenly giving her once fickle audition song a brand new meaning.

Before she knew it, she was right where she never planned on being.

At Barden, in love.

(Shit.)

Beca didn't come to that conclusion immediately however; she at first opted to play an intense game of hopscotch around the entire thing.

Well maybe not the entire thing. After all, she wasn't deaf, dumb, and blind. Chloe had spent every waking second from the moment she had set her pretty blue eyes on Beca at the activities fair making sure Beca understood just how much she was into her. (You can't get any more forward than barging in on someone in the shower.)

However, Beca had assumed Chloe only wanted her for her 'college experimentation plans', because how else would she and Chloe make sense in a relationship?

They were the exact opposite of one another, Chloe – the nicest, sexiest, most empathetic person on earth…and Beca, the socially awkward, sarcastic (self-proclaimed) asshole.

There was also the little problem Beca had with chasing great people out of her life when she felt incompetent at handling relationships.

And Beca did not want that to happen to Chloe.

As matter of fact, losing Chloe had become her biggest fear.

Chloe was different, important. Like, more important than every mix in the world and every plane ticket to LA. Chloe was one of a kind and couldn't be replaced and Beca would be pissed if she had to even attempt to replace someone so fucking special.

She was literally the light of Beca's life.

(Though she'd never be caught dead saying something so cheesy out loud.)

Cheesy or not, Chloe had seeped into Beca's bloodstream with her red hair and her emotions like a narcotic and before Beca could find time to really process it…boom. She was addicted. Hopelessly in love with Chloe with absolutely no clue what to do about it.

Of course, while Beca was factoring out all of her own ridiculous worries that seemed to exist straight out of a primetime teen dramedy, sweet-little Chloe Beale was busy being head over heels in love with her, which she later claimed to have had been from the first moment she ever heard Beca sing. (Beca often wondered if it had less to do with that and more to do with her having been in the nude.)

Chloe had also been planning her method of attack.

She was a very determined person and had always believed that anything she wanted in life was obtainable should she just invest her time and energy into obtaining it.

So it was simple. Chloe wanted Beca, badly, and she was going to have her.

And even with Beca's complete inability to tell Chloe her feelings, despite Chloe having done everything short of walking around with a t-shirt on that read "I want to bang Beca Mitchell" to let Beca know that she was interested, Chloe eventually found her moment and pounced.

Their last night in the Bella house, after graduation and World's, surrounded by all of their boxes as they prepared to move out to LA (together, because Chloe always planned ahead, even if that meant getting a two bedroom apartment that would end up being a waste of money) Chloe finally sighed and asked, "Beca, do I make you uncomfortable?"

Beca, who had been comfortably resting her head against Chloe's lap while slowly being lulled to sleep by the feeling of soft fingertips and the Civil Wars crooning in the background, scrunched up her eyebrows in confusion and said, "What are you talking about Chlo?"

Chloe had only smiled, staring down at Beca's closed eyes. "I'm talking about why every time you get ready to tell me that you're in love with me…you don't."

"What?"

Beca remembered how scared she felt in that moment, even as Chloe continued to smile at her, seemingly unfazed by her panic.

"I'm sorry, Beca…I'm not trying to make you uncomfortable. I just don't think I can go another day without being able to kiss you…and call you mine."

Beca had stared at Chloe in wonderment, letting the light blue hues of her eyes get bolder and brighter with hope as the short time passed. Beca didn't know what she could have said to Chloe that wouldn't have ruined the moment. So she just nodded her head slowly, in confirmation.

Chloe had only placed her palms against Beca's cheeks in response, indulging her in one of the sweetest most satisfying kisses Beca had ever shared with anyone.

When she felt Chloe's lips smile against her own, (bright and overwhelmingly happy, the way she always smiled) Beca knew.

She didn't stand a chance.

Chloe Beale was her beginning and end. She was everything Beca never knew she needed, and everything Beca swore she stood against in the world. She woke up early, she color-coded their closet, she organized the spices in the kitchen and she talked about everything.

God. She was infuriating. Beca was constantly being overtaken by Chloe's big crazy smiles filled with hopes and dreams and reassurance. She always had all of these ideas, and comfort and and oh my god, fucking support. Literal, magnificent, unwavering support that ranged from bringing Beca her lunch when she forgot it in a rush to get to work on time to waking up out of a deep sleep at three in the morning, when Beca would be knee deep in unedited mixes due in a few hours, just to listen and tell her how much she loved them. Honest to god, the girl would wear a jersey with Beca's name across the back if she could. And Beca would let her.

In conclusion, Beca would never be perfect, (though she was a whipped piece of crap) but Chloe would be. She was. And since Chloe was Beca's world, that made her world perfect. So she figured she at least owed it to herself to not screw things up.

Which brings us back to how Beca was doing that by not snooping through their (Chloe's) drawers.

Okay, so she had just finished showering with an hour to spare before she had to be at work…the first thing she needed to do was put on underwear, right?

That's where the problem lay.

Chloe was adamant on doing all of their laundry together because it was faster.

Obviously, Beca knew that was bullshit. It was just Chloe's excuse to get away with wearing some of Beca's things when she felt the need to.

So here Beca was, suffering through the task of sorting through what seemed like three hundred pairs of Chloe's underwear to find at least one pair of her own so that she could continue getting ready for work.

She could wear one of Chloe's to save time…but they were all pastel and lacy. And Beca would absolutely not be spending her entire day resisting the urge to dig into the crease of her ass.

She just didn't understand boy shorts.

So she continued to sift through the drawer, growing more and more frustrated by the second until she felt her hand bump into something. Something a little too hard to be underwear.

To tell you the truth, Beca initially got a little excited. Chloe had mentioned to her that she was looking into getting something extra for them to use in the bedroom…and despite Beca's inability to even comprehend what sexy meant, she couldn't help but be excited about Chloe surprising her with something like…that.

Sadly, Beca was mistaken. There was nothing extra beneath the panties except an old, worn, hardback book.

"I knew it." Beca muttered, smugly. She'd been teasing Chloe for some time about her book collection. Most of them were shelved in the living room, but Beca would often joke that she believed Chloe was hiding her other more mature novels somewhere, despite Chloe's insistence that she didn't read that 'trash'.

Beca shook her head, smirking, before turning the book over in her hand.

The Mistress Manual: the Good Girl's Guide to Female Dominance

At first Beca thought she had hit the actual jackpot and that this was an actual novel. Like one of those 50 Shades spin-off books or something that maybe Chloe had bought out of curiosity.

Until she opened the book.

Beca furrowed her eyebrows, scanning the table of contents quickly. There were many things jumping out at her, themes that seemed to repeat throughout the different chapter titles.

Dominance, submissive…orgasm. It seemed to be broken down into parts, as an instruction manual would be.

Beca suddenly felt her heart begin to race as she flipped through the pages, noticing how some of them were stained, maybe from food or coffee. The ink had also been marked all over. Words, sentences, even large paragraphs; all covered in bright yellow highlighter.

Beca's eyes widened as she read little notes inscribed in the corners of some of the pages, little notes written in Chloe's handwriting.

Beca shook her head, shifting through the pages and gasping as realization settled in further. There were more inscriptions, pages bent, things circled.

Beca snapped the book shut suddenly, as if she had just been caught with her hand in the cookie jar. Feeling nervous, she ran a trembling hand through her wet hair and paused.

Beca wasn't snooping through Chloe's things…because she didn't need to. She knew Chloe, she understood her ways.

When she went for something, she completely went for it. Beca knew that. That was Chloe, as stated before.

Which is why, when Beca made the conscious decision to reach into the drawer and pull all of the underwear out, dropping them onto the top of the dresser…she wasn't surprised to find more books.

Handbooks, journals, guides...all piled on top of one another about this…stuff.

And when Beca flipped through those? They were in the same state as the other, marked and highlighted and annotated. Beca shook her head in a state of utter disbelief.

Chloe was doing research.

On BDSM.

And judging by one, Coming Out: How to Tell Your Partner You're a Dom, it wasn't for shits and giggles.

Chloe was into this stuff…like, really into it. And she was reading up on it, had been reading up on it for a while if the state of these books spoke towards anything.

Okay. So some things weren't making sense.

Chloe hadn't mentioned anything even remotely kinky to Beca…and usually Chloe was a very open lover. She was a tease, and had no problem telling Beca exactly what she wanted (good lord, that girl had a mouth on her) so it just didn't make sense that she would be stuffing all of her…inner desires away in a drawer.

Beca sorted through the drawer, shaking her head as more books continued to come into view (honestly how deep was this thing?) reasoning that maybe Chloe had assumed Beca wouldn't be comfortable with any of this. It wasn't too far fetched, considering Chloe would never do anything that made Beca uncomfortable.

Once they had begun dating, Chloe had made it extremely clear to Beca that she never wanted to make her feel awkward in any situation (despite Beca's insistence that she was just naturally awkward). Chloe was so serious about it, that she insisted on not sleeping with Beca for the first two months of their relationship, and opted to actually court her as if they were in a 1950's sitcom. ("I just know how you are about sex and I don't want to push you into something you're not ready for. When the time is right, it'll happen.")

So out of her fear of scaring Beca, it did make sense that Chloe would hide her inner…(Dominant? Domme?) whatever.

Right now, Beca didn't feel scared…Beca actually didn't know how she felt. On one hand, this all seemed unsurprising. Chloe Beale with a fetish, sounded almost natural on paper. Especially if you knew the girl. Chloe was incredibly sexy. She knew how to instantly make Beca's knees weak, be it with words or touches or kisses…she was the epitome of suggestive.

But this wasn't a fetish; this wasn't a fantasy. This was a lifestyle that Chloe seemed to be extremely interested in, and had been for a while. And that was the part that caught Beca off guard.

Her sweet, blue-eyed Chloe had been walking around with this secret, this desire to be Dominant. It was a little hard for Beca to believe.

Sure she got her way with Beca, knowing the tricks of the trade to make her cave to most of her needs, but she knew that Beca was doing that out of love and not to…to serve her.

Didn't she?

Or was that a part of what she really wanted?

That thought jerked Beca back to reality, and she immediately began to tuck all of the books back into the drawer, making the decision to forget she ever found anything when she happened to take a quick glance at one, The Sexually Dominant Woman: A Workbook for Nervous Beginners, and caught sight of something poking out beneath the flap.

Reaching for the book, Beca pulled it apart and couldn't stop her mouth from falling open and going a little dry.

There, dangling in the crease of the open book was a collar.

A collar.

Beca reached for it, dropping the book to the ground in the process.

It was skinny, black, and warm to the touch. Beca laced it between her fingers, her eyes completely transfixed on the piece of leather. It was as if she was completely mesmerized by the sight of it. As if it made the entire situation a reality. The glint of the little D ring shined up at her and Beca swallowed, a sudden image of soft hands wrapping the collar around her neck. Fingers slipping the leather through the buckle, tilting her chin back…staring down at her.

Chloe, staring down at her, grinning.

Chloe owning her.

"Beca, I left my bag on the-" The sweet voice floated through the doorway before cutting off in a gasp.

There Chloe was, standing in the doorway. Her eyes were locked on Beca, who was still holding the collar between her fingers and trying to suppress the sudden curiosity burning erotically inside of her at the confirmation of Chloe's desires. At what it all meant.

Beca looked up at Chloe and for the first time since their actual first time making love…saw fear beneath her usually confident blue hues.

"Jesus Christ, Chlo…" Beca choked out, still clutching the collar, but now looking at Chloe. Looking to Chloe, for answers.

Chloe chewed on her bottom lip for a moment, before bracing her hands out in front of her, as if to steady her self against the situation.

She took a deep breath, before pursing her lips and nodding the way she always did when preparing a speech.

"Okay. We need to talk."