The oleander is a beautiful flower that represents love, destiny, and understanding. However, when consumed, this flower is incredibly toxic; even deadly.
Dahlia Davies is a college drop-out, struggling to run her father's flower shop. The bills ar...
Oops! This image does not follow our content guidelines. To continue publishing, please remove it or upload a different image.
There are some Fresh references in here, and another special guest 😏
CW:Mentions of attempted murder, human trafficking, poisoning, toxic relationships, and murder. Also CW for smut, featuring a touch of pleasure!dom!Bucky, thigh riding, bondage, choking, spitting, spanking, daddy kink, fingering, overstimulation, degradation kink, dacryphilia (sexual pleasure and arousal from crying and/or tears), a teensy bit of dom!Dahlia.
(If you don't know what a pleasure dom is, switch tabs, google it, and come back)
It's nearly pitch black as they drive to the docks. James takes the back roads to avoid being seen. They drive through the kinds of neighborhoods that Dahlia grew up in - broken windows, poor infrastructure that the city never bothers to fix because they're too busy pumping money into something else, and lots of kids scattered on the street, jumping on cars and shouting. Strangely, she feels at home here, and she's not afraid. James picked a nondescript, non-flashy, very non-James car to drive to the docks in.
He's dressed more relaxed tonight, too, in a white t-shirt with black jeans, and a pair of shiny pointed black boots. James insisted on changing before they left for the docks. His beard grown out a little, and his hair fluffy and messy. He has one hand on the steering wheel and he smokes a cigarette with the other, blowing the smoke out of the window. James only smokes when he's stressed, and he's worried the cops might mess with this new shipment. There's also the fact that there's no iPhone hookup in this shitty rental, so they have to listen to the radio. The running headline is making James nervous.
"The city of Los Angeles and the Los Angeles Police Department are mourning the death of one of their own tonight. Police Chief John Walker was found stabbed and shot in the lobby of The Whip, a popular strip club near Sunset Boulevard. It's said that Walker was investigating the premises on suspicion of human and drug trafficking. For more on the investigation, we turn to—"
James reaches over and shuts the radio dial off.
"Same shit all night and no new information," he mutters.
Dahlia can't stop staring at him. Even when he's stressed out to the maximum, he's still gorgeous. She likes to watch his jaw tick. His eyes slide over to hers.
"What?" He asks.
"Nothing."
"Peach..."
"You're just really fucking hot."
He blushes and smirks, as though he welcomes the break in the tension. She can tell he's been stressed out for most of the drive. He picked up this car from a contact who kept making eyes at Dahlia. James grabbed him by the throat and practically hissed in his face.
"You look at her one more time and I'll pluck out those pretty little eyes and make you fuckin' eat them."
She's ashamed to admit that it was more than a little exciting to see him threaten a man over her. Dahlia has never really had a guy do that before.
