Horticulture

04.

Transaction

Hisoka became aware of Pandora's mood through her absence. She was pissed. He preferred it that way and hoped she used her time underground to fix her shortcomings in preparation of a battle with him. He determined he made a stupid judgment after he caught Pandora's scent at a darkly lit bar with low temple music sung in a deep baritone oozed from the speakers.

The establishment's dark interior had several private booths aligning the wall with a red light casting an eerie glow into the cushioned seats and heavy drapes that offered patrons their privacy.

Pandora sat at the bar in front of a mosaic of bottles. Her glass half-empty and her cheeks dusted with a flush.

He took the seat beside her and watched her charming smile melt away at the sight of him. He leaned into his upturned arm, placing his chin in his hand and grinned.

"I thought I blocked you," she grumbled into her glass.

"You should try harder," he said, teasing. "You're beginning to lose your appeal."

Pandora closed her tab.

They were halfway across a street when she whirled around. "You're starting to piss me off and I know this is exactly what you want, but I'm not like you. I won't lose control so easily."

"That man at the last bar with the fractured jaw would beg to differ." Another few pushes and she was his. He could barely contain himself. His deep hunger for her, to face her, and crush her was on the verge of exploding. And he could fuck her to quell it all he wanted but he demanded a fight.

The streetlamps flooded the wide streets setting them alight. "What do you want? You had your fight and I'm not worth it—move on to someone that'll give you a proper challenge. I just want to make money and having people see you hanging around me is bad for business."

He toyed with the suggestion when he gave it to himself in meditation, but he circled back to Saar Ozwell, to his first encounter with the assassin as Peter, and the power cloaked around hers wound tight like a second skin bleeding into her an aura that tasted distinct from her own. He was missing a whole chunk of knowledge that was starting to bother him. But he figured her out more each time he found her and that was fun, like a bad habit that he revisited out of boredom because while it was terrible for his health—mental or physical—he enjoyed every bit of it. It was likely that she returned to the same locations because someone was giving her money to spend, else she would've moved on with all the big fish she boasts about.

"How much are you making?" Hisoka asked.

Pandora hid her fury, but her aura was honest when it spiked. She cursed him.

"I'm not interested in buying sex."

"So, you want to kill me?"

"Bingo," he said cheerily.

"That's not gonna work for me and you know it."

He inched forward and she arched her back until he hovered above her, his mouth inches apart. "I want to break you."

Once he shattered her, he planned to mold her into the ideal opponent.

"Fascinating," she deadpanned. "Are we done now?"

"How much are you making off the perverts?"d

Pandora pushed against his chest. "If this is part of your elaborate plan to swindle me into a deathmatch, it's not gonna work, but know that if you try to kill me, you won't live to pick another fight."

"And there would be nothing more pleasant than killing you, but you squandered your potential," Hisoka said. "Your only redeeming quality is your nen, but even that is wasted on you."

Pandora laughed. "I'll enjoy scraping you off the bottom of my shoe one day."

"Answer the question."

"A hundred," she said through gritted teeth.

"So little?"

"Thousand, a month."

He raised two fingers. "I'll give you two million now."

Pandora folded her arms over her chest and took a step back. "For?"

"To kill your lover," he said, grabbing her by the chin to raise her face to his, "and letting me fuck you again."

"A hundred million for the kill," she said.

"You're overcharging me."

"Well, I don't really like you."

"You had me fooled last I had you."

"And I want a million in restitution."

This one would bleed him dry if he let her, but he had the money to spare. "Done."

"Payment is upfront."

Pandora crowded Hisoka while he wired the money into her account and refused to let him leave until she double-checked that the sum had been added.

"I'm preparing dinner for him at eight," she said, handing him her address on a slip of paper. "He'll be dead before then."

He brought the paper to his mouth, grinning against it. "I look forward to it."

Hisoka harbored doubts. Pandora wasn't trustworthy and he'd be lying if he said that wasn't a part of her charm. Pandora had been acquainted with her lover for the last several weeks, making it probable that she had already been seeing him before they met. Her lover gave her an apartment, all expenses paid, and visited her infrequently, rotating between mistresses. He was ordinary, not like any of her long string of deviant patrons. He presumed Pandora preferred them over others as satisfying peculiar desires made more money and she wanted her luxurious lifestyle badly enough. Assassination was a lucrative job from what he gathered in his acquaintance with Illumi. There were big jobs all over the world—perhaps, Pandora was too much of a run of the mill assassin, like hundreds of others—that hired big players like the Zoldycks or the Meljanacs.

This called for a professional.

Illumi raised a hand up when he spotted Hisoka in the vicinity.

"How odd, I thought you were chasing around the Phantom Troupe leader," said Illumi.

"I took a detour." Hisoka handed him a picture of Pandora. "Ever seen this one. Seems she's in your trade."

Illumi stared at the image. "Is this the favor?"

"I want information."

"Selene Meljanac," Illumi said after a pause. "I haven't seen her around since Medora turned against the Meljanacs. The entire family absconded, but they should be roaming the continent since it's around Festival time."

Hisoka imagined Pandora's scars came out of the betrayal.

"Selene isn't anything like your usual targets."

"She has potential."

"There are stronger fighters in the Meljanac family."

"Like Medora?"

"Yes."

"Where can I find her?"

"You don't. She finds you."

Hisoka took Pandora's photo from Illumi. "How does she measure against you?"

"That's hard to say, I never had to fight her."

Hisoka arrived at Pandora's apartment ten minutes to the appointed time. She threw the door open and it slammed into the blue wallpapered walls. Her lover sat at the dinner table, steam rose from the pot roast in the center and the wine bottle's surface was dotted in sweat. The living room windows were wide open, the calm breeze spread the scent of spices lingering in the air, and displayed the buildings crowding the brownstone apartment where Pandora resided in a violet backdrop of faded stars against bright city lights.

He thrust a pink bottle of strawberry-flavored lube, whispering, "For your ass," on his way inside. He heard the door slide shut and the click of the lock. He grinned at her stunned lover, greeting him as if his visit were a part of the older man's plan for the evening.

"Penny, who is this?" her lover asked.

"Hisoka," she said, setting the lube on the table. Her lover stared at the bottle and back to her as she took his face in her hands. "Look at me."

"I expected to find you cleaning," said Hisoka, playful.

Worry flickered across her lover's eyes. He had good instinct. He sensed the wickedness shuddering from Hisoka in waves, radiating from him with every calm breath contracting his lungs.

Pandora caressed his face. "Some people like proof." She spoke to her lover, only him, and in the most intimate voice, the same one she used to beg for more, and repeated. "Look at me."

She snapped his neck and moved aside for his body to crumble to the floor.

Hisoka pushed her onto the table and hiked up her skirt, baring her sensitive skin to the cool evening. The plates and silverware clanged to match the rush of their actions.

He spread her open with his fingers and pressed his lips to her ear as she shifted, moaning with each thrust. "Did it turn you on?"

Pandora flinched. She would never admit it, but he felt her desire, sticky between his fingers, and in the roll of her hips that matched the rhythm of his thrusts.

He slid between her legs and she reclined, platters of untouched food smashed into the ground. He brought her to orgasm, her insides squeezed around his fingers, and her breaths became a thin string of pleasured sounds. She grabbed the ends of his hair at the base of his neck and held his gaze. He could hardly control the urge to kill her and his bloodlust pierced her, invaded her unguarded self. Fright flashed in her eyes but faded into a trance of thrill and lust.

Pandora brought him down to kiss him, her lips moved over his in equal fervor. Their teeth knocked into each other, pressing hard and deep until he felt a dull ache in his mouth. He ran his tongue across her violet lips, slipping it inside her yielding mouth. She grazed him with her canine, drawing a low groan from him, and in the flurry of movements as they sloppily tried to right their messy exchange, he left the corner of her lips bright with blood and light bruising. The deep plum of her lipstick smeared between them.

Hisoka ripped the clothes from her body after they made it to the bedroom. He flattened her back against his chest and held her, hand feeling her sternum. She rubbed her ass on his erection, writing in his arms, and he kissed the curve of her neck, tasting her sweat. He marked her skin, pushing his fingers too hard into her flesh and left impressions of his teeth around her shoulders, his erection pulsing with every wince and groan her drew out of her.

He folded her body over the edge of the bed and thrust into her. She gasped as he twisted her hair around his hand and forced her head back. He wanted to hear her. The way her voice bounced off the walls made his cock throb.

He fucked her savagely, sweat beading on his skin, fixated on the rhythms of their bodies, the slapping of their skin, the reddening of her ass with every thrust, the warm tightness of her insides gripping his dick. He traced her spine as she arched.

Her first orgasm weakened her knees, her insides spasmed, and her voice tumbled low from her lips. He released her hair and took her by the hips, riding out her orgasm while she stayed unresponsive until he felt his own climax tightening in his balls. He slowed, her insides created the perfect amount of friction to elongate his pleasure, and watched, his breaths heavy, as his cock burrowed in her until he sank as deep as he could go. She moaned in pain, her skin searing hot.

Hisoka pulled out of her slow and turned her on her back. He unconsciously licked his lips. He wanted to devour her, but not like this. Not now. She wasn't ready yet.

Moonlight spilled across her abdomen.

"I want to do it again."

Hisoka settled into a seat beside her. "Is that so?"

"I want to do it whenever I want with you."

Insatiable and fascinating as she was, this proposal didn't interest him. He frowned.

"Don't worry, your dick will lose its appeal soon enough, so this won't be a permanent arrangement."

Pandora walked to her closet to pull on a silk robe.

"Why not sweeten the deal and tell me more about yourself, Selene Meljanac?"

She turned away from the mirror. "How do you know that name?"

Hisoka shrugged.

"It's the middle of Festival. Don't say that name again. I'm just Pandora."

"Why don't you tell me about Medora?"

Pandora smirked. "You have interesting friends if you know that name."

"Is she the one that gave you those scars?"

She nodded.

"Tell me about it and I'll consider your little arrangement."

"You're a good liar, but there hasn't been a man I've fucked that hasn't wanted to be mine and you won't be the first."