jacksparrowlovesme - You know. Eddie in a strip club is a great idea, but I could never see it either. Still...he's pimp enough. He could pull it off. He'd be all sitting in a booth, making it rain...grinning broadly as he did it. (I've officially gone off my rocker, methinks or watched too many rap videos...although that last one is highly unlikely since I don't much care for rap...) Where was I? Who are you? Get off my lawn.
Esmeralda Smith - Congratulations! You've won the grand prize on Guess That Hockey Player! Show 'em what they won, Johnny! *Johnny points to some creepy old guy with no teeth making kissy faces* It was indeed Gordie Howe. (Seriously, I don't even like hockey, but you live here long enough you learn these things through osmosis).
Robot521 - Damn Eddie for being the theatrical one. He's just better at performing than the others and always gets the crummy (fun!) jobs.
Vi - Aw...just for you, I give you super cute face. *warms up facemaker* *pulls epic cute face* Behold, my pwecious, big, watery eyes and cute little button nose! I'm adowable!
Note: I was going to have a whole action chapter to end things at Arkham, but I thought it was pretty unnecessary. I mean, the plans would either go good or bad, so...whatever. That's how I roll. Sorry to disappoint those who were looking forward to some chaos and violence. But you might forgive me after you read this chapter.
Chapter Eleven: Now I'm Here
**Selina**
Across from her the two violent bitches that dominated Eddie's lair, eyed her with suspicious, narrowed eyes.
She coolly eyed them back, staring at them unblinkingly, waiting until they looked away first, before turning her attention back on the book of crosswords Ed had left on his desk.
She quietly filled the boxes in, purposely getting them wrong just to fuck with the Riddler.
Neither of his bimbos would tell her where he was, but neither of them made any move to do anything about her intrusion into their space, so Selina assumed Eddie had spoken with them about her.
Crossing her legs demurely, she bit down delicately on the end of the pen.
In the main showroom, the three women heard the others return and perked up.
Gradually Jervis wandered by the open door.
He was covered head to foot in a grey powder and his face was streaked with the same substance.
He was followed by the Scarecrow who roughly pushed a bound and gagged man ahead of him, finally Eddie brought up the rear, his hands full of papers and files.
Everyone was covered in the strange dust.
Selina pushed to her feet, as Eddie entered the room, his head bowed to an open file.
"What's going on?" She asked.
"Hn?" He set the files down, still reading one of interest.
"What's all that crud all over you?" She asked.
Eddie looked up with a quirked brow and took in his guard uniform. "Oh, ah…ash."
"Ash?" She drew near enough him to smell the scent of smoke and reeled back ever so. "Who's the man in chains?"
"Liddell." Eddie replied, still reading over his file.
"What's in the file?"
Looking up again, Eddie motioned behind her to his girls. "My girls, do you mind giving us a few minutes alone? Go help Scarecrow and Jervis with the prisoner."
"Sure thing, boss." The brunette said as the two henchwomen slunk out of the room.
Sitting on his desk, Eddie set the file down and eyed Selina politely.
"What's going on?" She repeated.
"We made a raid on Arkham. I wanted these files and Crane wanted Liddell."
Her eyes widened in shock. "You…raided Arkham? How? That place would take an army to get inside and…"
"We had Bane, Two-Face and Firefly at our backs. Plus I rigged some helmets with Jervis' mind control devices and we had a pretty good army after that."
"Ah…well Bane's an army unto himself, isn't he?" She furrowed her brow as Eddie touched a hand to his eyebrow and rubbed hard. "Migraine?"
"I think it's just a lack of sleep," he replied. "I'm thinking we may not need to go and see Ivy, everything I need could be here in these files. I just have to sort through them and…" he trailed off when Selina grabbed hold of his Kevlar vest and began unstrapping it. "What are you doing?"
"When was the last time you got a proper night's sleep?"
"Two or three weeks. Why?" He touched his hands to hers and tried to fend her off weakly.
She continued her attack, tossing Kevlar vest aside and beginning on his dark navy shirt. "You need sleep, Eddie. Don't worry about the files right now. You're no good to anyone running on empty."
He scowled. "And undressing me is going to help me relax?"
She smirked wickedly. "Shut up and get your shirt off."
"I really don't know where you're going with this…but I'm in no position to refuse."
Snatching off his sunglasses, she flung them onto a chair across the room. "Where's your bed?"
Eddie extended a long leg and kicked his oxford against the arm of an old sofa. "It pulls out."
Leaving Eddie to undress himself, she pulled the sofa out and found the blankets all folded and crushed up inside the pullout. Locking the door, she removed her cowl and smiled at Eddie from across the room.
He sat on his desk, shirtless and pensive.
"Get on the bed," she ordered.
Quietly he obeyed.
"Face down," she purred, joining him.
"You're not going to execute me, are you?" He inquired.
She smirked and straddled the backs of his thighs, pulling her gloves off carefully and laying them aside.
"Relax," she whispered, bare hands gripping his shoulders.
His lean, muscles were bunched up, but she began to work them loose with firm pressure.
"I think when Liddell comes around from his…"
"Shh," she cut him off. "Quiet. No more business talk, Ed."
"It's Edward, actually." He mumbled into the pull out's lumpy mattress.
Selina had to admit, rubbing Eddie down as she was, was kind of thrilling.
In her short life she had many sexual encounters, but for some reason the forbidden nature of touching the Riddler turned her on. Maybe it was because he was always very careful about keeping his distance from people, she never approached him with as much determination as she would any other man in the underworld. One didn't just touch the Riddler, the Riddler touched you when he felt it necessary.
It could have also been the fact that he was so vulnerable beneath her that turned her on a little. She always loved willing prey.
Beneath her skilled hands, Eddie groaned a little.
They both tensed again at the sound.
Images flooded Selina's mind. Things she had never thought of before came into her brain. Eddie beneath her, Eddie inside her, Eddie all around her, groaning. She thought of that smile of his, shining down on her in the dark of night, in the warmth of a bed. His smile. The one thing that truly terrified her about him, because it had so many shades to it. It was madness, glee, charm, wit and danger. It could be both deadly and child-like.
Steeling herself, she pushed those thoughts out of her head and powered on, massaging him into a blissful state. Leaning down, she whispered. "Get some sleep, Ed."
"I'd love to, but those files."
"Can wait for a few hours."
She ran her hands down his pale back until they bumped against the belt on his pants, before they slipped back up.
Eddie wasn't hairy like most men. From what she saw of him, he was likened to a twelve year old boy when it came to body hair, but she didn't mind. She did like a slightly hairy chest to rub against when in the throes of passion, but one dealt with what one was given.
Selina shook her head. She was thinking wicked things again and the Riddler was off limits. She vowed never to involve herself with him of all people. He would enjoy it too much and that wasn't what Selina Kyle did. She tormented men, she tortured Eddie especially. She was the only one who could take him down a peg and never seem to get in trouble for it.
Oh, he killed better men than her for words that were far more tactful as she would have uttered to him, but for some reason she always got away with a jab at his intellect or his supreme being.
"If I promise to lay here with you, Ed, will you promise me you'll get some sleep?"
He pushed up as far as he could go with her riding him and angled his head to glower at her. "Not really. I'd sleep lighter thinking you were about to garrotte me at my most beautiful."
"Don't you trust me?" She inquired.
He wriggled and squirmed until he was on his back, looking up at her. "No." He replied simply, brow furrowed. "In fact, I'm getting highly suspicious of your treatment of me lately." He pushed up onto his elbows, bringing his bare chest in contact with the front of her suit and her breasts beneath the PVC.
"I'm not trying to kill you." She said.
"No, but you're up to something, aren't you?"
Scoffing, she glanced away. "Have you ever known me to kill a man when he's defenseless?"
Eddie pinched the bridge of his nose.
He looked so fragile.
Selina had never seen him in that state. Looking so tired and lifeless.
It took a lot of strength for him to refrain from a chemical dependency to fight the withdrawal symptoms, she knew this and she admired him for it.
Eddie sighed heavily. "Riddle me this, kitten." He said softly. "What does a man do when he craves something dangerous, something he can never have that's always just out of reach?"
She quietly approached the bed, easing down onto the side opposite of him. "We'll get you a cure." She said.
"Who said I was talking about the drugs?" He asked, looking at her with sharp blue eyes that sliced through the dim room.
Selina frowned. She felt the bed tilting under her ass as though the world were shifting. Edward Nygma was a narcissist, he didn't see anything past his own nose sometimes, and he sure as hell never noticed anyone. But if she was reading his puzzling statement properly…
"Whatever you need," she said softly, "I'll try my best to give it to you."
What the hell did you just say, Lina?
Eddie tilted his head, pondering her words.
She could see his genius mind working at the speed of light and slowly, purposefully eased back onto the bed, arching her back seductively.
Her heart beat furiously and her breaths came out in shallow little hitches. Never in her life had she envisioned this sort of scene with the Riddler. Two-Face, Bane, hell even the Joker, but never with the Riddler.
He wasn't her type. Eddie was egomaniacal and nerdy, full of theatrics and cornball jokes and generally she never even thought of him as a man.
But the Riddler in the room with her was beaten and busted, left in a limbo state by some drugs that had been pumped into his system in Arkham. He was just submissive enough to appeal to her twisted sense of dominant sexuality.
The rush of how out of her league she felt seducing Edward Nygma was enough to make her light headed and she loved it.
Playing with the loop of her zipper, she waited Eddie's decision.
A man as smart as him would be weighing all his options and she saw that in his drawn face.
Selina smirked darkly and tugged her zipper down a little. "Most men wouldn't take so long debating whether or not they were going to ravish me." She said.
Touching a hand to his chin, he eyed her coolly, but said nothing.
"Well," she said after a few more minutes of awkward silence. Pushing into a sitting position, she prepared to leave. "I have better things that I could be doing with my time." It wasn't until she had her hands on her thighs and was somewhere between sitting and a standing position that she noticed his gloved hand had crawled halfway across the bed towards her.
She watched it slide back quickly and Edward stood as well.
He gave her a dismissive glance, before moving across the room to his desk. "Who needs sleep. I've heard men have survived on less." He growled, snatching up a shirt on his way past a file cabinet.
Selina stared at the spot where his hand had made the brave journey towards her with an eerie feeling of a missed opportunity. She had expected Edward Nygma to move so quickly and sure when it came to the chance for sex, that she thought he was spurning her advances and she jumped the gun in getting up. Never had she thought the Riddler would need a moment or two to work up the courage to approach her.
Zipping herself up with only a bit of shame now that the moment had passed, she sighed and collected her gloves and cowl. "Look, you don't need me anymore, Ed. You have Tweedledee and Tweedledum to help you. I'll be around."
"Hm." He replied, shuffling through his papers.
She nodded as though expecting that sort of rebuke and opened the door.
On her way out of the dealership, she came across the Scarecrow, standing in the shadows of a pillar, his burlap mask in one hand, his hair sticking up sweaty and tousled from it.
In his hand he held a pipe, puffing away at it calmly.
Quietly she approached him.
"I didn't know you smoked."
He blew out a puff of rancid smoke into her face and she waved it away quickly. "Ah, you finally got around to that brick of weed, hm?"
Crane chuckled darkly. "It seems to help."
"Whatever works. And, hey, at least it's not heroin."
Narrowing his pale eyes at her, Crane stooped his towering frame over enough to peer down at her. "We're both terrible at small talk. Get to the point."
"You know pot is supposed to mellow you, right?"
"I am mellow." He replied gruffly.
Touching his upper arm, she leaned in, eyeing the hall were the offices were. "I'm worried about Eddie."
Exhaling a plume of smoke elegantly, Crane smirked. "You don't care about anyone beyond yourself, so I know you're lying."
"Yeah, I'm a real bitch, Jon." She snarled, grabbing his arm and pulling him down closer to her. "Look, just keep an eye on him for me. Please?"
Biting daintily on the end of his pipe, Crane pondered this.
"He's pushing himself too hard." She went on.
"He's a grown man, Selina. He'll be fine."
Giving him a long, pointed look, Selina touched a hand to his cheek. "Do us all a favour, Jon. Give yourself a shave. You're beginning to look like a lumberjack." She purred, moving off towards the door.