Laurel's eyes had narrowed, her jaw set at an angle that was trying very hard to look angry instead of something else entirely. Jack Kadere noticed, and smiled.
"Do you have a crush on me?"
"What? No—of course I don't." Laurel's composure cracked instantly. She waved a hand between herself and Jack, then turned to Felicity with wide, frantic eyes, shaking her head. "We were talking about Oliver. How did this become about you?"
Felicity pressed her lips together and said nothing.
"When did I ever like you?" Laurel rounded on Jack, voice climbing. "What kind of—"
"No?" Jack shrugged, the picture of wounded innocence. He let a beat of deliberate disappointment settle across his face. "So... you don't like me?"
"I—"
Laurel wanted to say it. The denial was right there, shaped and ready: No. I don't like you. Four words. Simple. But they lodged somewhere between her throat and her teeth, and nothing came out.
She didn't even know when this had started. Was it during training, when Jack corrected her stance with hands that lingered a half-second too long? Was it during the months he'd been missing, when his absence carved a shape she couldn't stop noticing? Or was it simpler than that—hearing his name every day in the basement, analyzing his movements, tracing his history, talking about him until he'd become a permanent fixture in her head without her permission?
Jack Kadere was the Birds of Prey's favorite subject. Every time his name came up, Laurel told herself she felt nothing unusual. When Felicity returned from Central City with fresh intel on him, Laurel had been excited—finally, a lead on the killer. That was all.
But then Jack had kissed Felicity. Pulled her in. And something inside Laurel's chest had shifted hard enough that she couldn't pretend anymore. Whatever she felt about him wasn't simple. It hadn't been simple for a while.
Jack's low, deliberate laughter cut through her spiral.
Laurel's stomach dropped. She'd been standing there, frozen, silent, face completely readable—and Felicity was watching all of it. She opened her mouth to salvage something, anything, but Jack was already moving. The Speed Force crackled to life around him. He grabbed the body bag containing Harrison Wells's corpse and slung it over one shoulder.
"I'm leaving." He was already halfway to the door, red energy licking up his legs. "Felicity—keep a close eye on her. She definitely likes me."
His laugh echoed off the basement walls. Red light flared, and he was gone.
Laurel stood rooted to the spot, blinking, her eyes dangerously wet.
"He set me up," she said to Felicity, her voice thick with fury.
Felicity's expression hovered somewhere between sympathy and amusement. "Did he, though? Maybe I really should be keeping a closer eye on you."
"Felicity!"
Laurel threw herself at Felicity, and they tumbled into each other—half-wrestling, half-shoving, Laurel burning with embarrassment and Felicity laughing despite herself.
Did Laurel like Jack Kadere? She knew the answer. Felicity had probably guessed it months ago. As for Jack—whether he knew or didn't was beside the point. He'd never needed a woman to like him back before making himself at home in her life. That wasn't how he operated.
---
Jack dropped Harrison Wells's body bag in the room adjacent to Thea Queen's, propping it against the far wall where the moonlight through the curtains fell across the black zipper in a pale stripe. Then he flashed back.
The moment he sat down on the edge of the bed, Thea leaned in close, nose practically touching his collar.
"You went to see women again." She sniffed twice, theatrically. "Two different perfumes. Was it the Birds of Prey?" Her eyes lit up. "Is that why the Huntress has beef with them? Because of you? I heard there's like three or four of them—did you seriously hook up with all of—"
"Mind your business, kid."
"You call me a kid but you put on an X-rated show right in front of me earlier?" Thea pulled back, arms crossed, eyebrow raised. "Come on. The Birds of Prey and the Huntress are basically urban legends in Starling City. How'd you end up tangled with all of them?"
Most people in Starling City wrote off the vigilante rumors. Thea Queen was not most people. She'd grown up rich, reckless, and bored behind a curfew that kept her locked indoors while masked women fought crime on the rooftops. She didn't care about justice. She cared that it was cool.
Jack looked at her—the eagerness practically vibrating off her, the gossip-hungry gleam in her eyes—and lay back flat on the mattress. Then he reached up, hooked an arm around her waist, and pulled her down on top of him.
Thea landed against his chest with a soft thud. She didn't flinch, didn't pull away. Her chin propped on his sternum, she looked up at him.
"What are you doing?"
"Two options," Jack said. "Shut up, lie here, be my pillow. Tomorrow I take you to Central City. Or—I send you to sleep next door."
"Next door?" Thea scoffed. "You think I'm afraid to sleep alone? I'm not twelve."
"Good to know. Before I came back, I left a corpse in that room. Dead about fifteen years. If you're not scared—" He shifted as if to sit up.
Thea's arms clamped around his torso. "Don't." She pressed her face into his shirt. "Fine. I'll shut up. I'm not going in there."
Jack settled back, one hand resting on the curve of her ass. He gave it a light, teasing pat. "Who's taking advantage of whom here?"
"That'd be you," Thea said, lifting her chin. "Obviously."
Their faces were close. Close enough that she could feel the warmth rolling off his skin, could hear his heartbeat steady and unhurried beneath her palms. Her own pulse was doing something significantly less composed.
Without her makeup, Thea's face was all clean angles—the slight prominence of her nose bridge, the narrow slope of her cheeks, a jawline that still carried the softness of her early twenties. Her green eyes flickered between Jack's, and the bravado she wore like armor thinned just enough to let something else through: shyness. Curiosity. The faintest tremor in her lower lip.
"Want to try something better than getting high?" Jack's voice dropped low, his breath warm against her mouth.
Thea made a sound—barely audible, more vibration than voice—and her eyes drifted shut.
Jack closed the distance.
The kiss started slow. His mouth moved over hers with the same unhurried confidence he brought to everything, tongue tracing her lower lip until she opened for him. She tasted like the cheap wine they'd been drinking earlier—tart, sweet underneath. Her fingers curled into his shirt, pulling, and he rolled them both until she was on her back beneath him, her dark hair fanning across the pillow.
He peeled her top off in one motion. Her body was slight—narrow waist, small breasts that fit in his palms, ribs visible when she arched up into his hands. Her skin was warm and smooth, goosebumped where the cool air hit. Jack's mouth traced from her jaw down the side of her throat, teeth scraping over her pulse, and Thea's breath hitched audibly.
"Nnh—"
Maybe it was the recklessness she'd been born with. Maybe watching Jack and Helena tear into each other earlier had cracked something open inside her. Either way, Thea didn't hesitate. She pulled at his shirt, yanked it over his head, and her hands ran flat across his chest and stomach with the kind of bold curiosity that had no room for embarrassment.
Jack's belt clinked open. Thea helped—fumbling with the zipper, shoving denim down his hips until she could wrap her fingers around his cock. He was thick enough that her hand didn't quite close, the shaft hot against her palm, already stiff and heavy. She stroked once, twice, felt it twitch against her grip, and her breathing went shallow.
Jack tugged her shorts down her legs and tossed them off the bed. His hand slid between her thighs—she was already slick, wet enough that two fingers pressed inside her with only the slightest resistance. Thea's hips bucked, a sharp gasp punching out of her.
"Ahh—wait—"
He didn't wait. His thumb found her clit and circled it while his fingers curled, and Thea grabbed his wrist with both hands—not pulling him away, just holding on. Her thighs clenched around his hand, her stomach trembling.
When he pulled his fingers free and lined himself up, Thea's legs parted wider on instinct. He pressed in slowly—the first inch drawing a long, shaking "mnnnhh" from her throat, her nails biting into his shoulders. She was tight, small-framed, her body gripping him with a heat that bordered on painful. Jack fed himself deeper in controlled increments, letting her adjust, and Thea's mouth fell open against his collarbone, panting in short, ragged bursts.
"Hhh—oh god—"
He bottomed out and held still. Thea's chest heaved against his, her heartbeat hammering so hard he could feel it through her ribs. Then she shifted her hips—a tentative roll, testing—and the friction pulled a low groan from both of them.
Jack started moving.
For all her slight build, Thea took it. Her hips rose to meet each thrust, finding a rhythm faster than he'd expected—unpolished, eager, her body learning the motion by doing rather than thinking. The room filled with the wet sound of skin, the creak of the bed frame, and Thea's voice breaking apart in pieces.
"Ah—ah—ahhn—"
She wasn't quiet about it. Every shift in angle drew something new out of her—a moan, a choked breath, a sharp cry when he drove deeper and hit the right spot. Her legs locked around his waist, heels pressing into the small of his back, and she buried her face in his neck. The smell of sweat and sex layered over the fading traces of the two perfumes still clinging to his skin.
Jack picked up the pace. Thea's cries came faster, higher, her fingers raking red lines down his back. She arched hard beneath him, her entire body drawn tight as a bowstring, and the sound she made when she came apart was ragged and raw—"aaahhn, fuck—" her voice cracking on the second syllable, thighs shaking, inner walls clenching around his cock in rhythmic spasms.
He fucked her through it, didn't slow down, and Thea whimpered against his throat—overwhelmed, overstimulated, but refusing to tap out. Her hips kept moving, smaller now, trembling, and she whispered something incoherent against his skin that might have been more or might have been please.
Jack finished deep inside her, his hips flush against hers, a low grunt pressed into her hair. Thea shuddered at the warmth, her body going slack beneath him, chest heaving, damp hair stuck to her temples.
For a long time, neither of them moved. The only sound was breathing—hers ragged, his steady.
Thea finally lifted one arm and pointed weakly at the inside of her own forearm, where goosebumps still stood in sharp relief.
"I think I get it now," she said, voice hoarse. "Why the Huntress hates you but won't leave." She let her arm drop. "This is worse than being drunk."
Jack's expression didn't change. "I think you should go take a bath."
"Give me a minute," Thea murmured, eyes already half-closed.
She lay there for nearly half an hour before peeling herself off the mattress. When she stood, her legs had the same unsteady wobble that Helena's had—the same careful, bow-legged walk toward the bathroom door.
The water ran for a long time. When Thea finally came back, her skin flushed pink from the heat, she crawled under the covers, burrowed into the curve of Jack's body, and fell asleep with her face pressed against his chest.