summary: after being pushed out of the fbi, manipulated and nearly killed by wilson fisk, benjamin poindexter forges a new career path. utilizing his unique talent and tapping into his darker impulses, he becomes a notorious hitman known as bullseye, employed by various members of new york’s elite. when a new client comes along with his latest target, what dex finds while looking into her causes some conflicting feelings. it makes him reconsider who his real target is, and if he’s willing to make a deal with his worst enemy to get the job done.
a/n: I had so much fun doing the locked between us series, or what most of y'all know as the offer, but I had no idea that would even become a mini series. it was just a little thing I put out for my kinktoberfest to try my hand at a new character and finally write an idea that had been in my head for months. I was absolutely blown away by how much y'all loved it, and it sparked this new little passion project.
I wanted to do something kinda similar, but switch up the storyline, which is how this new series came about. your excitement gets me excited, and this wouldn't exist without y'all. I hope you love it as much as I do. 💙
if you'd like to be notified for updates, feel free to join the taglist here!
»— anything marked with an astrik contains explicit content. minors dni.
»— all work is my own. please do not repost anywhere else without my consent.
“You remember him, don’t you? Real nice guy. Served in the Army with me back in the day? He taught you how to swing a bat when you were about yay-big.” Her dad waves his hand next to the leg of his chair. Given the estimated height, she would’ve been two or three. Obviously she doesn’t remember the guy.
—————————————————————————
summary: Hayden Ellis heads to the Pitt looking for an internship at the favor of her dad. She doesn’t find “Jack,” but she runs into a handsome man named Dr. Abbot. Sleeping with a stranger never hurt anyone, right?
wc: 15.5k
tags/tropes: that moment when you accidentally sleep with your dad’s best friend #relateable, miscommunication, strangers to lovers, one night stands but it’s unintentionally romantic, age gap that gets them both off, unashamed daddy kink, self-insert yourself as ofc
ao3 link
——
Law school was supposed to mean something. A future, helping people, serving justice, all that jazz. Or at the very least, a job.
Having a bachelor’s degree is as useless as diploma now, but some could believe the combination of one and a successfully passed bar would count for something. Right?
Clearly, it did not.
Now sixth months with said combination and Hayden Ellis has yet to get herself so much as an internship in anything remotely law related. Even her barista application fell through. Somehow, being a licensed attorney didn’t even qualify her to pour coffee.
Luckily, her parents had let her move back home since graduation. Not as luckily, the constant nagging of her childhood had returned full force.
“You know Bill? Down the street, that big guy with the uh- ya’ know, the hair all like this-“ Christian Ellis waves his hands around his head as if to mimic the awry state of said Bill’s hair. He’s sat at the breakfast table, borderline shouting his story despite the early morning hours. His constant volume set simply to ‘loud.’ It wouldn’t bug Hayden so much if not for the complete lack of sleep from the night before— and not even from anything exciting. She’d just scrolled one too many times on her phone and suddenly it was morning. Embarrassing for a twenty-five year old to say the least. “Well he has a son- or is it a step son, Janine?”
“Oh I think I remember him remarrying. Remember that young redhead? From the other ward?” Hayden’s mother chimes in, stirring her tea with one hand and finishing her crossword with the other.
“Really? Golly I thought that was his niece or something. You know that’s just wrong-“
“Finish your story for God’s sake, dad.” Hayden grumbles from the kitchen, back turned to them and attempting to cook something edible despite her parents making her act up like a teenager all over again. She really needs to move out again.
“Oh right. Well, Bill has this step-son and he’s a lawyer too and he’s just got a job up in the city.”
That perks her up. “Really?” Hayden peaks from behind her shoulder. Maybe she could network her way into so much as an internship there too if they were still looking.
“No, honey. Bill’s step-son is five. And his real son got a job in insurance.” Janine Ellis doesn’t so much as look up from her crossword as she speaks. Another opening down the drain.
Hayden rolls her eyes and goes back to the stove like nothing had happened. This was probably the fiftieth time her father had accidentally gotten her hopes up like this.
“Really? I was certain-“
“Why don’t you just call Jack?”
Jack?
Her dad rubs his hands through the remnants of his grey hair like he’d never even considered the man before. “Jack isn’t a lawyer, hon.”
Her mom writes in a new word with a smile. “No, but he’s a doctor.” She looks up over her readers and points at Hayden with her pencil. “And Hay-Hay here is trying to go into malpractice.” Then Janine shrugs like she hadn’t just name dropped Hayden’s dream speciality like it was nothing. Over the last six-months, she couldn’t secure an attorney position in so much as intellectual property if she’s begged. So the idea of her top field being just a “Jack” away ticked a spark of hope all over again.
“Who’s Jack?” Hayden tries to play casual, plating her burnt food and tossing the dishes in the sink. She’d deal with it later.
“You remember him, don’t you? Real nice guy. Served in the Army with me back in the day? He taught you how to swing a bat when you were about yay-big.” Her dad waves his hand next to the leg of his chair. Given the estimated height, she would’ve been two or three. Obviously she doesn’t remember the guy.
She says as much, minus the sass, as she takes a seat at the dinning table alongside them both.
“Oh you’ll remember him when ya see him.” Christian waves her off as he wrestles his phone out of his front pocket. He starts dialing something with squinted eyes, then reaches over and steals his wife’s readers from her face. She mildly protests with a gentle smack at his arm, but there’s a sickeningly sweet smile on their faces as she does. God, being an only child sucks. She’s just third-wheeling a married couple and calling it a family breakfast.
When the call finally dials, he presses it to his ear and goes to stand, returning the glasses to his wife before he leaves. His heavy footsteps follow him as he pushes open the sliding back door, their ancient dog rushing between his legs to the backyard as he does. “Hey, you old son of a bitch, how are ya?” Her dad’s booming voice echos past the glass doors even after he closes them behind him.
Hayden shrugs it off, going back to her horribly made breakfast once more. Probably another dead end.
Her mother’s hand reaches out from her periphery and pokes her plate with the end of her pencil. Hayden looks up, her mom’s soft face already looking back at her, wrinkled and beautiful. When had her own mom grown up on her? “Do you want me to make you some real food, baby?”
“Please God.”
—————————————————————————
The long, loud, and consistently laughing phone call her dad made to said ‘Jack’ surprisingly, wasn’t a dead end. In fact, her dad had landed her a tour of their Hospital and a brief, unofficial interview with the lawyers who worked a few floors above it all. Which in nowadays job market, was better than getting the golden ticket from that chocolate factory movie or whatever. Not that Hayden would know— the guy on the cover had scared her too much as a kid to actually watch it.
But a week later, her dad took some time off work and figured they could make a road trip out of it. Hayden was just glad she wouldn’t have to drive, so she agreed pretty easily.
It was roughly a five hour drive from Western New York to Pittsburgh, and her dad filled it with singing along to old rock music and pestering her about her love life and every other sore subject under the sun. While Hayden was eternally grateful for her glaringly middle-class upbringing, overbearing parents and all, her dad’s incessant pestering had her doubting all of that.
They’d left pretty early and made it to the Pittsburgh hospital before dinner. Her dad had so lovingly overshared every detail he could remember about his war-buddy: one of them being the fact that he was usually on night shift. Apparently he’d made an exception for today.
Though, despite driving her the whole way there, Hayden was surprised that when they arrived, he made no move to leave the car. Clearly reading the confusion, Christian shooed her out. “It’s not professional for your dad to join you in an interview. I’ll catch up with Jack another time. Just go be yourself and be smart, bug.” He finishes with a heavily pointed finger like that’ll inspire some kind of confidence in her. It doesn’t, but she melts to the nickname and her dad’s cute, old-man anecdotes. But she knows he’s right, so she waves him goodbye as he drives off to find them a hotel for the night once she’s done here.
Stepping into the waiting room is indiscernible to a zombie apocalypse. Sick people all over and crowding the space so thoroughly, she has to push through a hoard just to get to the front desk. A grumpy but nice woman gets her name and sends her back with no further instructions.
Somehow, it’s even worse back here.
Less people oddly lends to more chaos. Yelling and crying and beeping machines all over. She carefully wades through the best she can. Isn’t there supposed to be an elevator or something? Hayden finds it highly unlikely a malpractice lawyer would be this deep in the trenches of said practice.
In her wandering, Hayden gets successfully rammed right in the side by a quick movie gurney.
Embarrassingly, she ends up falling to the floor right on her ass. A small part is grateful she hadn’t fallen completely onto her back like a starfish or something— though she wouldn’t completely put that out of future possibilities for her.
“Shit- sorry, I didn’t see you there.” A rough, gravely voice says from high above her. Hayden rubs at her lower back as she glances up through the sterile white lights of the ER. The gurney scurries away, leaving an older, honestly gorgeous man standing above her. Grey hair rustled atop his head and curling around his ears, with an equally silver stubble all along his jaw. There’s wrinkles all around his eyes and mouth like he’d smiled a lot as he got older.
Hayden doesn’t know what’s wrong with her. She has a dad. A perfectly regular, healthy relationship with him, too. So why on God’s green Earth does this old man doctor have her suddenly stumbling to put words together? What sort of meet-cute bullshit is this?
Given her lack of response, the man quirks a brow at her that feels teasing and borderline flirtatious. Then, he reaches a hand down to help her up. Jesus Christ it’s really like she’d just fallen into a rom-com.
Hayden— successfully not shaking— takes the hand and lets him pull her up. She doesn’t linger on how easily he’d done so.
Hayden musters up a semblance of her usual demeanor and brushes the back of her pants off. She also doesn’t linger on how the doctor’s eyes follow her hands down South for a moment, before shooting back to her face. “No, sorry. It’s my fault. I couldn’t tell you my rights from lefts in here.”
The man chuckles easy and low, then tucks his hands in his pockets casually, like he had all the time in the world despite the chaos that surrounds them. “Don’t worry about it. Happens all the time.”
They smile at each other for moment, both a little unsure of where to go from here. Then the doctor clears his throat and speaks up again.
“Uh- where’re you headed? I could point you in the right direction, that is.” Hearing the older, solid man stumble a little over himself brings a smug little grin to her face. Maybe she’s just imagining things, but maybe he was as flustered as she was. Wishful thinking on her part, but there was no harm in flirting with a doctor she’d never see again. The chances of her getting this internship was slim to none. Might as well get something out of this trip, right?
Hayden takes an unnecessary step closer as she pulls her phone out to open the email with her directions. She excuses the proximity by tilting her phone towards him, and she revels as he takes the bait and moves in as well— close enough to peak over her shoulder at the phone. Neither of them mention that with his height on her, he didn’t need to get closer; nor how she could’ve simply read the address out loud.
He squints all old-man-like as he reads— and there must be something seriously wrong with her with how attractive it looks on him. “Oh, you’re just in the wrong floor.” He states, but doesn’t move away. Neither does Hayden, opting to look up at him from over her shoulder. It must work, because the man turns away in an hurry and waves his hand in a vague direction, then continues talking. “I can show you to the elevators, if you’d like.”
The man isn’t wearing a badge in plain enough view for Hayden to discern exactly who this could be, but given the expensive stethoscope and how proud he stands amidst the ER, she takes a guess at a high ranking doctor and runs with it. “Wow, a personal escort? What did I do to deserve the specialty treatment, doctor?” It’s as straightforward as she’d been this whole conversation and it pays off as the man’s eyes never so much as glance away from hers. It’s intoxicating, having such a presumably powerful man paying such close attention; like he’s hanging off her every word. And given the way he doesn’t correct her on the title, Hayden had assumed right.
The doctor chances a grin so smug and lopsided, she’s certain it dips into smirking territory. It looks impossibly good on him. He starts heading towards his aforementioned hand-wave direction, and Hayden is sure to follow close at his side, if only to happen upon another stare like before.
“Well, I suppose I owe you for knocking you over, don’t I?” The elevators are annoyingly close by, and Hayden can barely wrap her head around the words he’s saying with how doused in saccharine they are before they’re arriving.
“It’s gonna take a whole lot more than a walk through the ER to make it up to me, doctor. You could’ve broken my tailbone for all we know.”
He clicks the button for her and she can’t help but stare up at him. Only a couple inches taller than her, if that, but he stands so sure and steady, his presence feels leagues bigger. “Well, we wouldn’t want that, would we?”
Lord what is she doing? Flirting with a man possibly double her age on her way to an interview at this very establishment. She’s suddenly grateful her dad didn’t join her inside.
They don’t say anything as the elevator arrives and pushes its heavy doors open. Not even as she steps inside. But Hayden watches as he holds his fist against the elevator doorway, keeping it from closing but not stepping inside. It’s her turn to quirk a brow at him, and he predictably falls right for it.
He sticks a hand out between them all formal like. “Dr. Abbot.”
Hayden eyes it for a moment and makes him wait for it. Then she finally reaches back and shakes it. It’s large and warm and it engulfs her hand entirely. She ignores how her stomach drops pleasurably at the sight.
The doctor holds on for longer than needed, but she doesn’t let go either.
“Hayden.”
Their hands drop, then a flash of something crosses his eyes and suddenly he’s raking them over her again, searching for something. He looks painfully confused but Hayden can’t fathom why.
The elevator beeps, annoyed at their lingering interaction and it snaps Dr. Abbot out of it. Whatever he’d been searching for, he clearly hadn’t found, but the pinch between his brows doesn’t leave.
He pushes on. “Will I see you after?”
He doesn’t even know why she’s here. Awfully presumptuous, but it runs a thrill through her veins and it burns hot as it drips down her spine. “Maybe. When are you off?”
The elevator beeps again, long and drawn out this time.
Dr. Abbot swears, then begrudgingly removes his hand. The doors immediately begin closing. “Come find me after. I’ll make time.”
The solid metal seals shut with that, and the beautiful, greying face is gone.
Hayden giggles into her hands like she isn’t a grown woman, looking around the elevator like it’ll reveal itself as a dream. When it doesn’t, she giggles again. Despite her somewhat extensive dating and sexual history, she’d never gone older than a couple years. Her one oldest hookup had been pushing thirty, but even that was an outlier. Men and women her age were most comfortable, and she’d never understood the whole “older-men” craze. Until now. Not until that handsome, powerful doctor probably in his forties had stared her down so thoroughly, and kept her on her toes for all of a five minute conversation.
This type of thing didn’t happen to normal people, and it sure as Hell didn’t happen to Hayden. It was borderline comical how easy it’d been; to flirt and batt her eyes and promise to see him again. Suddenly, the interview of a lifetime wasn’t the thing that made her the most nervous for today— but the promise of after.
—————————————————————————
It was like Hayden had stepped into a dream the second she’d entered the hospital doors, and it only continued, all the way through into her interview.
The woman she met with, Leanne, was a sweetheart. Same age as her mom and just as kind in the eyes, she spoke like a woman who wasn’t hardened through her time as a lawyer; even amongst malpractice. It was a fantastic sign for the workplace a hospital like this offered. Maybe it was the likeness to her mother or Hayden’s genuine love and interest for the field, but they hit it off immediately.
Incredibly informal, Hayden had never had an interview like this before. They’d sat side by side on her settee, sipped the tea her assistant had brought in, and simply talking about Hayden’s life. Her upbringing, her passion for law, her time in college. Then Leanne spoke of the hospital, its staff, the environment that kept lawyers here in the face of competitors and their double turn over rates. And best of all, Leanne spoke like Hayden was already part of the team. Introducing her to staff and joking about the free cubicle near her office. Hayden was just shy of drooling at the idea of it all. At this point, she’d even beg to be taken on unpaid if that’s all they could offer her.
By the end, they’d spent almost two hours just chatting. Then, Leanne shook her hand and squeezed real tight with a knowing little wink before they parted. Like the job was already hers, Leanne left her with a promising: “You’ll hear from me real soon.”
When Hayden reached the elevators again, she was on cloud nine. And with pressing the bottom floor to the ER came the startling reminder that her dream-like day wasn’t even over yet. In fact, it’d just begun if she played her cards right.
As the heavy doors slid opened to a now familiar site of a scattering ER, it all started to buzz under her skin once more. Hayden bounced her eyes all over as she slowly stepped out. She’d barely navigated the place last time, so her chances of finding the beautiful doctor once more were miniscule.
A kind, helpful voice called out to her and she couldn’t help but follow.
“You look lost, hon.” A nurse, Dana, her badge read, had her arms crossed over the long, centralized desk to peek over at her. Hayden drew closer and darted her eyes around some more.
“Sorry, I’m just looking for someone.” She skims the place once more. Then another. Nothing.
She sighs.
What was she thinking, anyways? It’s probably for the best. She shakes her head, then takes a step back. “Never mind. Thanks-“
“Are you looking for Dr. Abbot?”
Hayden freezes. How could she possible have guessed that? Does this Dr. Abbot have women looking for him often? “What?”
Dana leans back with a smug little smile. “He told me to look out for a pretty girl, though I hadn’t expected one so young.” Hayden is sure she flushes red down to her neck. Dana pays her no mind and throws a thumb over her shoulder, already moving onto another task, but still grinning like a cheshire cat. “He’s waiting for you in the ambulance bay, hon.”
Hayden mumbles a thanks and skirts her way out of there as quickly as possible. If she really is going to get this job, probably best as little amount of people see her run off into one of the doctors’ arms before she’s even started. Not that she’s entirely sure that’s what’s happening here— if anything’s happening at all, for that matter. But again, wishful thinking and all that jazz.
True to her word, Dr. Abbot is sat on a bench just outside the ambulance bay. He’s lazed back against the wall, all casual like and it shouldn’t be as attractive as it is. He’s tapping away somewhat angrily at his phone and has a camo backpack by his feet. Once he notices Hayden’s approach, his face splits into a grin and he pockets the device before he can send whatever charged message he’s been drafting up.
“Wasn’t sure if you were going to come.” He’s honest and it makes him infinitely hotter. She’s not sure how long he’s been out here for; long enough for the sun to begin its escape and him to doubt her arrival, and yet he’d waited.
Hayden smiles down at him where he’s sitting, and she likes how good he looks as he peers up at her. Not taking the moment to stand, as if maybe he’s enjoying the view as well. She shrugs like it’s nothing. “Wasn’t sure if I was going to either.” Lies. She’d never so much as considered the possibility of leaving without seeing him again.
His growing smirk leads her to believe he can see right through her. Hayden likes that. She likes it even more how he doesn’t call her out on it. Instead, he just stands. Huffing a bit with a creak of his knees and he throws his bag over his shoulder. “Ready to go?”
Vague. He can’t have her that easily.
Hayden crosses her arms over her chest, defiant against every bone in her body begging her to go with him without protest. “Hm. I don’t hop into cars with strangers that easily.”
Dr. Abbot tilts his head as he stares her down, the smug tilt of his mouth never escaping him. It grows now, splitting his lips as the point of his canine slips out with his grin. “Good girl.”
Hayden is sure she shudders; she’s sure he sees it— watches the shake trail down her body and devour her every minute movement.
She debates it for a moment, then lands on a consensus. “Let me call someone. Make sure they know where I’m going.” She trails off, waiting for him to pick up on her unsaid question.
He eventually catches on. “Oh. The dinner, down on 56th. I’m famished.” A well populated, good part of town. Several witnesses in case of a disappearance. Plus, that Dana woman inside had seen her face— knew she was leaving with Dr. Abbot. More so, she’d seemed confident in leaving a woman her age alone with him. That must be a good sign if not a slight assurance to her safety.
Hayden tosses all the possibilities of her potential kidnapping around in her mind and Dr. Abbot makes no move or remark to push her either way. She appreciates the space to make the decision for herself.
It pays off as she eventually nods. “Gimme a sec.” He grins, but withholds any outwardly pleased expressions for now.
Hayden steps off to the side, just outside earshot and Dr. Abbot goes as far as to turn his back to her, fiddling with his phone to offer as much privacy as possible. She dials the number for her dad and he picks up on the third ring.
“What’s up bug? Is the interview all finished?” The telling sounds of a casino pad the surroundings of his voice.
Hayden sighs. “Yeah, are you at the slots again?” Her dad always had an affinity for them. Never betting more than a few hundred bucks in a session— he always kept it safe but enjoyed it as a vacation highlight when possible. Perfect. Meant he was busy for the night if nothing else.
“Black jack is where the real money’s at, bug. Do you want me to come pick you up?” Always thoughtful, Hayden almost feels bad for lying. Then he looks over her shoulder and sees Dr. Abbot already looking at her, like he’s holding himself back.
Almost feels bad.
“Yeah no I’m okay. I actually made a friend. Figured I’d go get dinner and they can drive me to the hotel after.” Hayden half-lies.
The lack of confirmed pronoun raises no flags to the casino version of her dad. “Okay baby. I’ll send you the address to the hotel and there’s already a key at the front desk for ya.” Hayden starts to thank him and wish him good luck to hurry it along, but Christian hurries to interrupt. “Wait, wait before you go, did you end up meeting my friend Jack?”
Oh. She’d completely forgot about him to be honest. Not like she’d known what to look for anyways.
“Uh, no. Sorry. Must’ve missed him.”
Her dad swears through the speaker, somewhat blackjack related, somewhat Jack related. “Old man probably forgot the date. I’ll make sure he comes to visit us sometime.”
“Yeah sure cool, love you!” Hayden is practically bouncing to get this call over with. Thankfully, her dad is too, given the yelling in the background about winning something or other. She barely listens past his ‘love you too’ before hanging up and all but skipping back over to Dr. Abbot.
The doctor is already at attention, relaxed and properly smiling down at her now. “Now are you ready to go?” Hayden doesn’t trust herself to speak on sheer anticipation, so she just nods her head.
Dr. Abbot lays a large, steadying hand on the small of her back as he leads her through the parking lot to where he’s parked. The heat of his palm melts through her shirt like the barrier isn’t there at all. If this was just the start of their night, Hayden would do everything in her power to keep it going.
They arrive at a black truck towards the back. It’s not lifted or overly egregious, but it fits the man painfully well. He even ignores her pointed little look she gives him at the sight of it, like he knows the impression it gives. Then, all old fashioned like, he goes to her door first and holds it open for her. He goes as far as to reach his hand out, and she uses it to step up into the cab. Dr. Abbot squeezes her hand once before he lets go and shuts the door behind her. It leaves her skin tingling more than she’d like to admit.
The drive is slow going but calm. An FM radio plays softly through the speakers but neither of them pay it much attention. They don’t speak much, but it doesn’t feel awkward. If anything, it feels nice. Hayden takes the time to watch the buildings roll by as they drive. The dying sun paints the sides of tall glass buildings in warm hues as the city starts to unwind. So unlike her hometown, she takes in every detail she can along the way. Maybe Dr. Abbot watches her instead. She likes the idea.
Hayden knows the moment they arrive as the dinner sticks out like a sore thumb. All neons and rounded corners, it sits next to an overpass with a small parking lot and an oak tree three times its size jutting from the pavement out front. A testament to how old the establishment has sat there.
Dr. Abbot doesn’t let her get out of the truck herself, going as far as the lock the doors before she can even reach the handle, then unlocking it once he can open it for her.
The inside is equally quaint. Checkered floors and cracked red vinyl seats. Even a jukebox in the back. Its lights are off and presumably dead, but it’s the thought that counts.
It’s only once they slide into a booth across each other does Hayden realize he’d changed. Well, not really. Dark denim jeans in place of previous his scrub pants— but the scrub top is simply replaced by the black undershirt he’d been wearing beneath it. Probably sweaty and smelling of him, it clings to him in a way that’s borderline inappropriate for such a family establishment. Dr. Abbot catches her staring at the way it wraps around him. She doesn’t miss the smirk that crawls onto his lips.
Hayden takes the chance at regaining the upper hand. “So, is this how people went out back in your day?”
Dr. Abbot breaks into an open, genuine laugh. He rubs his hand down the side of his face like he’d been caught. “No, but it’s probably closer to mine than how your generation does it.”
Hayden lays her elbows on the table, then uses it to prop her chin up with one hand.“Yeah? You do this kinda thing with my generation often, then?”
That pulls a sputter from his throat. Hayden grins in her victory. “No! No. Never, actually.” Honesty. Given the way Dr. Abbot pinkens at the tips of his ears, it’s clear his bravado is lacking when it comes to her age.
She takes advantage of that, using the hand at her chin to twirl a forward piece of long, black hair between her fingers. The simplest trick in the book, but with the way Dr. Abbot can’t help but follow the movement, why fix what’s not broken? “Me neither.” He raises his eyebrows in shock, as if to say really? Hayden shakes her head in answer. “I usually keep to my age. Why, is that so hard to believe?”
Dr. Abbot shakes his head. Then he hesitates, and stirs his straw into the pre-placed water cup in front of them. “And what, exactly, would that age be?”
His completely lack of subtlety makes her laugh, and he smiles at the sound. This old man is borderline endearing. “I’m twenty-five.”
The small sip he’d taken in wait attempts to make its way back up, as he devolves into hearty coughs into the crook of his elbow. Hayden watches with a bemused little smile. She’d expected the reaction, if she was honest. Dr. Abbot clearly didn’t do things like this very often, either, and his coughing fit from a couple of numbers only confirms it.
“Jesus Christ I’m a predator.” Dr. Abbot finally chokes out and Hayden finds herself laughing all over again. “I’m almost twice your age, kid.”
Hayden enjoys that little tacked on name more than she’d expected in a situation like this. Maybe just because it’s him. She doesn’t speak, lets him settle down and then raises an unspoken brow at him.
He sighs. “I’m forty-seven.”
God, is she breathing?
The waitress comes by and takes their orders. She banters with Dr. Abbot like he’s a regular, which is adorable to imagine he’s a regular in a place like this. When she leaves, his attention is entirely back on her, like he’d hated to remove it for even a moment. It feels suffocating in a way Hayden can’t help but chase. She likes how much power she has over him— more so, she enjoys how little she actually does.
Hayden pokes about her food for the majority of the time, too focused on talking and laughing with the beautiful man across from her to eat much. He’s refreshing if nothing else. She can’t remember the last time she’d talk to someone for so long; so easily flowing that she forgot herself. College had been great for easy sex, but impossible to find a decent conversation. And now living at home, the only people she talked to was her parents. And despite the impossibly low bar conversationally, Dr. Abbot surpassed it by a mile.
His flirting is old school and forward. He likes to look into her eyes and tilt his head when she laughs. When their plates are long forgotten, he reaches across the table for her hand and holds it while they talk. It’s simple, yet so effective, Hayden feels lightheaded through it all.
If she was honest with herself, he didn’t have to do all this just to sleep with her. Not that she was particularly easy— no matter how she despised the term— he had her convinced the moment she stepped into his car. The wining and dinning her is just an added bonus with how badly Hayden wants to jump him.
That hum of arousal only grows the later the night gets. It’s completely dark out now, a few stars sprinkling through the fog of the city’s light pollution. Hayden knows he starts to feel it too. His hand had switched from holding hers to pressing his fingertips around her knuckles, then down her palm and padding at her wrist. He’s barely touching her, but it’s clear it’s driving them both a little crazy. She notes how Dr. Abbot’s eyes glaze over a little more every time she lets her fingers go pliant in his hold.
That’s all they need to silently convince themselves it’s time to go.
Dr. Abbot pays the bill before she even sees the check. Then he takes her by the hand once more, strong gripped but gentle touches as he guides her through the tiny parking lot back to his truck. They don’t speak much. Not even as they climb into the cab and he starts the engine. He doesn’t pull out of park.
They both hesitate.
Where does she go from here? They could do it here; though the waitress and a ticket for public indecency doesn’t sound great. She could go to his house— but no matter how much she’s come to trust the man in a short time, it’s still exactly that: a short time. She didn’t want to end up on a front page before she’d even gotten a job offer. On the flip side, does the doctor really want this? Sure, it’s fun to flirt with a twenty-something, but sex is another thing. Especially a presumed one night stand at his age. But Hayden decides: she wants this.
Wants him.
Hayden doesn’t say anything. She just lays out her hand in silent ask for his phone. Dr. Abbot’s eyebrows pinch in confusion, but he does as asked, unlocking his phone and placing it into her palm.
First, she inputs her number and texts herself. Dr. Abbot notices her screen light up from her pocket and assumes she’s done, reaching for it back, but Hayden pulls away.
Second, she types in her hotel address. She watches the screen of the truck open the route with a smile. Only then does she swing the phone back into Dr. Abbot’s outstretched hand. His expression is comical. A little shocked at her bravado, but mostly wanton. Scanning her face for any hint of apprehension— despite it very loudly being her idea— and when he finds none, his eyes darken imperceptibly. A hungry look melts like molten across his face, and he tosses the phone onto the console. Then he uses that free hand to reach across and grab her by the chin with his forefinger and thumb, jostling her a little like he’s making a show of her for himself.
Dr. Abbot watches her closely, eyes trailing every mark and freckle on her face like he’s committing her to memory. He moves his thumb from her chin and slowly swipes it across her bottom lip. The tip of his nail scrapes the corner of her mouth on its way. Hayden can’t help her lips from falling open, small and subconscious. His breath catches in his chest when she does.
When his gaze finally return to hers, there’s another question there. Doubt, maybe. That won’t do.
Hayden pushes the tip of her tongue from her mouth and lets it slide against the edge of his awaiting thumb still pressing down on her lip, then she retracts it. It’s enough to make the grown man shudder. Just barely, right at the shoulders, but she notices.
Whatever doubt had once been holding him back is miraculously gone now, and he pulls his hand from her face and down to the gearshift before she can blink. He swings the truck into reverse and high tails it onto the digital route. He’s clearly on his last straw, given how he grips the wheel so hard his knuckles turn white. It pulls a giggle from her chest.
Hayden takes her revenge for his teasing while he drives. Curled up in her seat, facing him, she reaches across the console to trail a hand down the side of his head. Twirling the grey strands with her fingers, then softly thumbing at his hairline; his temple, down to the scruff of his jaw and brushing the skin below his ear. Just whispers of a touch, barely there but enough to have his head tilting into the pressure like a dog. She pays no mind to his speeding or how heavy his chest falls as he breathes. She just sits there and enjoys him.
Her fingers go as far south as the collar of his shirt, a stray fingertip swiping just beneath it before they pull into an unfamiliar hotel lot. It must be hers given the address and the casino on the ground floor giving it away. Brave of her to bring a hookup to the same hotel her dad is at? Worse. It’s stupid. Insanely stupid. But if that’s the risk she has to take to get this man in bed with her, she’d do it ten times over.
Dr. Abbot has a hard time staying away from her, making it to her side of the car record speed. Hayden didn’t even attempt the door handle this time, she knew better than to test him right now. It’s an intoxicating idea: testing him. His hand stays appropriately sat on her waist as they enter the lobby, but she can practically feel his skin buzzing against her.
Hayden gets her key from the front desk lady who side eyes them as she does. It’s clear she’s drafting all sorts judgements on the situation before her. Hayden can barely care— too focused on the heavenly smell of cologne wafting from aside her with the close proximity.
She doesn’t mention the fact that she’s here with her dad or sharing a hotel with him. It would probably just ruin the mood. And it’s not like she’s sharing a room with him. Her dad likes to high roll when he goes out of town— in both the casino and his room. If Hayden were to guess, he’s probably got a suite on the top floor all to himself right now. She’d had to beg him to leave her in a lower floor room just to save herself some money. Six months of unemployment hadn’t left her particularly wealthy, and she refused to let her parents pay for her like a child.
That left her in the perfect scenario: a hotel room by herself, far from her father, and a perfectly handsome man with his hands on her. So Hayden simply grabs the key from the desk, says nothing of the nature of her trip, and leads the gorgeous doctor to the elevators this time.
Four floors and a silent ride up, Dr. Abbot’s hand drifts from her waist, and curls low around her hip. Then he uses his grip to pull her close, pushing his nose into the side of her hair. It’s the first real touch of the night, tangible and heavy handed. Hayden lets her head tilt back to make room for him as he presses his face down her scalp and landing behind her ear. She reaches up to grip his shoulder and bites her lip at the muscle she finds there. Her fingernails drag hard on the fabric and Dr. Abbot hisses, his breath hot against her ear. Her knees give a little to the sound.
The horrible noise of the elevator arriving breaks them apart, but just barely. Dr. Abbot’s hand sits solid on her hip and she walks impossibly quick to find her hotel room.
By the time they reach the door, the doctor has migrated to standing directly behind her, laying both hands on her hips now and gripping, hard. His face is nuzzled into the back of her neck and he’s muttering something into her hair that she can’t catch. All normal function begins to slip rapidly, and she tries five different times to get the door to unlock.
Eventually, Dr. Abbot swears behind her and pulls the card from her hand, unlocking it first try.
The green light of the hotel lock acts like a starting gun to a race. The door is slammed open and the grip on her hips spins her around, leaving her dizzy and tripping into his hold. Dr. Abbot doesn’t waste a beat, hooking her in close and then his mouth is on hers.
The first taste of his lips melts down to her core. The door swings shut behind them and somehow, he feels so much bigger than her now as he moves to devour her. It’s open and wet and their teeth bump the first few tries at finding a good angle. But when they do, Hayden has to wrap her arms atop his shoulders to maintain her balance.
It’s stupidly good. Mind-altering good. The years of experience between them become apparent now as he knows exactly how to press and angle her head exactly where he wants her. One of his hands traces up her back and lands a strong grip on the back of her neck— his hand big enough that his thumb wraps around to rub along the edge of her jaw. His tongue pushes and pulls perfectly, never too much and leaving her chasing after it each time. When he traces the side of her tongue with the tip of his own, it unintentionally releases the first noise of hers. Shaky and breathy, Dr. Abbot swallows the sound and it only drives him further.
He starts to walks her backwards and the back of her knees hit the edge of a desk and she stumbles. The kiss breaks as she catches her balance, throwing a hand behind her to steady herself on the solid surface. Hayden thought maybe he’d miscalculated where he was taking her, but when Dr. Abbot moves his mouth down to her neck in record speed, she can tell this was his plan all along.
Not entirely sure where he’s headed, Hayden leans back into her hand on the table and tosses her head to the side, bearing her neck to the man. A low, muffled groan rumbles into her skin as he takes advantage of the newfound space, and Hayden clenches her thighs tight around his hips at the sound. “Doctor Abbot-“
He bites down and she whimpers again. “Just Abbot.” He smoothes the stinging mark with his tongue, then he blows cold air onto the spit, cooling it to the point of pleasure. Jesus fuck, he was teaching her all sorts of new things about herself and they’d barely gotten started.
“Abbot.” Hayden rectifies, and it comes out broken and curled at the edges; it’s his turn to lose it now.
Abbot pulls away just enough to pull his shirt off over his head, throwing it to the side. Hayden’s quick to follow suit, without needing to be asked. Once the fabric is gone and she’s left in her bra— eternally thankful her past self for incidentally picking her best one— the look of dissolving restraint on his face makes it all worth it.
With the new expanse of skin, they take equal advantage, lips locking once more as their hands move to explore without limitation. Not that Hayden had expected much, but the fact that a man in his late forty’s could be this strong is absurd. Her fingers run up and down the ridges of his muscles; along his back and across the divots at the front. Occasionally running over faded scar tissue from all sort of wounds she couldn’t begin to understand, she can barely process it all when Abbot breaks the kiss again.
The whine that leaves her this time is needy and embarrassing, but Abbot only seems to enjoy it. Where she expect him to go back to her neck, he starts dipping South.
A hand reaches up to lay flat on her stomach, then he pushes her down to her back with it, strong and steady, she can do nothing but move where he wants her. When she looks down, Abbot is already looking up at her, mouth on her stomach collarbones and leaving wet kisses as he continues dipping lower.
Hayden reaches a hand behind herself and unclips her bra, sliding it down her arms and discarding it, before falling back flat onto the desk surface. Abbot stares down at her like she’d just explained the purpose of the universe. He doesn’t need to ask before running both of his large hands up her abdomen, before reaching up and cupping her in each hand. Hayden’s back arches up off the hard surface which only stirs him on.
Abbot looks almost drunk as he drops his head to her chest and pulls her nipple into his mouth, his hand moving to rub circles into the other. Hayden really arches now, her abs pressing up into his and she hooks her ankle around his waist. Her hips jerk up into him as he sucks and gently rubs the bud between this teeth and tongue— never biting, but making her wish he would. When he moves to the other, she chances a glance down at her chest and spots tiny bruises forming all over her breasts, with the culprit still attached to a spot that has him humming pleasurably into her skin. When she jerks her hips again, the angle finally makes contact, and the sweet, rough moan Abbot makes is enough to drive her insane.
Hayden tries for another grind, but a solid, now familiar hand holds her back down to the table, an unforgiving grip no matter how hard she tries against it. The idea that he can hold her down so easily; make her so pliable under his touch draws out a soft whine.
Abbot interrupts it as impatience— though he’s not far off— and shushes her like a whining child. Fuck, this entire thing is getting her off a lot more than she’d anticipated. Still, he gives her better than what she’d asked for.
One-handed and still holding her down, the other undoes her pants, then grips it by the front and rips it down her legs. It gets stuck on her shoes and he does her best to kick them off to let the constricting fabric fall from her feet.
Once successful, Hayden realizes she’s left only in her underwear, splayed out in a hotel room with a man double her age— who’s actively looking down at her like he wants so swallow her whole. Her thighs attempt to close, if only to get friction between her legs, but Abbot is stood steady between her knees and she can do nothing but lay there for him. Exactly how he wants her.
Abbot brushes his fingertips along her newly exposed thighs. As if every nerve ending is stood at attention, waiting for his touch. Hayden feels like a live wire.
“You good, baby?” Abbot’s voice is impossibly deeper, sitting low and graveled in his chest, which is still heaving with arousal. The sound of his voice alone has her eyelids fluttering shut, and the pet name leaves her clenching around nothing. When she cracks her eyes open, Abbot’s already looking South, right where the evidence of what he’s doing to her is dark at the surface of her panties. His hands have massaged their way up her thighs, landing right at the pelvic bone; his thumbs close in enough to brush the lace-edges of her underwear.
As if he had to physically force himself to look away, his thumbs still circle close to where she wants him. Abbot meets her gaze once more, serious and steely— then he presses his thumb down harder, with intention, and Hayden can only nod.
“Use your words.” Abbot’s voice purrs. His tone is so demeaning, her hips flex as they search for contact. The man very obviously files that information away for later.
“Please, daddy.”
An elephant’s weight of shame shoots through her at the freudian slip of a lifetime. She can feel her face go so hot, it creeps down her neck and even her collarbones go pink. Before she can ramble off every apology under the sun and scramble to return to the burn they’d been reveling in— Hayden catches a distinct whimper from the man atop her.
When she focuses her eyes back to his face, the evidence is written there. His brows are pinched in whittling self-control, and his lids are low. Even his jaw hangs loose as he looks down at her, dark and loaded.
Holy fuck.
“Is that want you want, baby?” Abbot whispers it like a secret, desperate, but no less steady and intoxicating.
Hayden has half a mind to shake her head; admit her mistake and move on. But the way her body thrums to the idea, and how badly he wants it too, she’d be an idiot to refuse. So with a shameful bite of her lip and staring down the barrel of the gun, she nods. “Yes please.”
That seems to do it.
With something suspiciously close to a growl, Abbot drags the desk chair closer with his foot and takes a seat. Then, he grips Hayden by the hips and yanks her halfway down the desk until half of her ass is hanging over the edge. And as he throws her legs up and over each shoulder, Hayden has to cover her face with her hands in nervousness. She can’t recall the last time someone had eaten her out, much less a one night stand. But as she peers down to the head between her legs, the man doesn’t so much as glance her way— as if what lay inches from his face is most important right now. Mouth slightly agape and his eyes half closed, Abbot leans in.
Hayden feels the strong bridge of his nose first, pushing and prodding into the fabric. His lips follow, tilting up and mouthing at the wet spot she’s already soaked through. The first brush of his tongue sends a shivering bolt down her shoulders and into her fingertips. Abbot groans into her at the taste and she feels it vibrate through her core.
He teases at the lace some more before he curls a hand around her thigh and uses it to yank the panties to the side— just enough to let his breath fan hot across her skin. Where he’d been teasing her all night, Hayden half expects him to make her earn it or wait for it. But as if he’d already been waiting a millennium, Abbot is on her in record time.
The head between her legs pushes in so quick, she’s sure he hurts his nose on impact, but it doesn’t slow him down in the slightest. Abbot falls nothing short of devouring her. Hayden gasps as her thighs instinctively try to pull closed, crushing Abbot’s head between them. It only spurs him on.
Tongue flat and incessant, he pushes and drags it against her clit, up and down; over and over again without mercy. No hesitation of placement or speed, he knows exactly what he’s doing, and it pulls out the most desperate moans Hayden is sure she’s ever made. Similarly, Abbot is releasing noises of his own like this is all for him and not the other way around. Panting and groaning against her, Abbot eats her like a man starved.
Hayden’s head falls back against the desk with a thud, but she can barely feel it— so much blood rushing through her ears she feels like she’s drowning on air.
“Oh fuck- ah, please-“
She’s mumbling and moaning so much it sounds borderline pornographic, but she can’t get herself to stop. For every whimper and ‘please’ and <i>’daddy’</i> earns her the most addictive twist of his tongue and a vibrating moan from his lips.
From below, without even realizing, Abbot pulls his free hand up and slips his fingers down right below his mouth. The first brush against her folds is so cold she gasps. Abbot pulls them away just as quick as they’d come and she whines. He shushes her.
“Suck.” Abbot pulls away just enough to rumble the words, drunken and slurred, then pushes his face back into her like it’d killed him to move away in the first place. His long arm does most of the heavy lifting to reach her mouth, but he has to sit up in his seat, effectively folding her knees closer to her chest. Hayden won’t admit that the burn of that stretch has her shaking for something other than pain.
The doctor’s fingers slip between her lips and they fill her mouth perfectly. Hayden grips him by the wrist and pulls them in, laying three of them flat on her tongue and she hums to the taste. Hayden makes a show of it: curling her tongue between each digit and sucking more than necessary for simply wetting a few fingers.
It doesn’t go unnoticed. Or unpunished.
Abbot pushes his fingers down deeper, padding at the entrance of her throat as he latches onto her clit completely, properly suckling at it, and it feels like a thousand volts striking through her, all the way up to her eyes. Something deep in the low of her back and the tops of her shoulders starts to build at the dual sensations, but as if he can read her mind— and she wouldn’t put it past him— Abbot pulls away on either end simultaneously.
The possibly best orgasm of her life falls away before it can even begin, and Hayden is sure she could’ve cried.
“Shh, baby. I know. Let me make it better.” Abbot mumbles into the insides of her thighs, where he’s pressing comforting kisses into her skin. Hayden, half out of her mind by now, is nodding more than necessary, like it’ll shake the empty feeling where his mouth should be from her head. But some small, probably fucked up part of her keens at the comforting tone of this voice; the way it purrs and how softly he’d spoken it, like it’s his sole job to protect her.
That thought alone is enough to calm herself back into a stupor, and Abbot takes full advantage, dragging his now dripping fingers up against her folds. Hayden’s gasp this time isn’t from the cold, but from pure anticipation. As if she’d forgotten that this little hotel-rendezvous didn’t end with edging her on a desk and leaving.
Even the simple reminder that Abbot being inside her lay just behind some stretching— Hayden forces every muscle in her body to relax and hurry up the process, right as Abbot’s first finger pushes inside. And though Hayden had expected a doctor to be good with anatomy, she hadn’t fathomed it would be this easy.
His first finger is as large and imposing as the rest, making itself familiar with the tight heat he finds inside her. Hayden hadn’t realized how wet she was until the slide of the second finger pushing inside makes a wet, squelching noise that has her incredibly embarrassed. Abbot didn’t mind one bit.
“Look at yourself, baby. So perfect and ready for me already.” Hayden peaks her eyes open and finds Abbot standing now, arm extended and flexed as he watches himself push and drag his own fingers in and out of her. Like he’s studying her, or simply intoxicated by the picture, he stares down her every twitch and whimpered reaction. He learns from each one, twisting his wrist and curling up in new ways until he finds his favorite moan of hers; then he punishingly repeats the movement to rip as many of that noise from her lips as possible.
Hayden grips the side of the desk with her hand, holding on tight as if it’ll keep herself from falling over, off the cliff of sanity and deep into deranged. But as Abbot scissors the digits, watches her enjoy the sting, Hayden is sure she won’t last much longer.
The third finger slips in alongside the others effortlessly, and Hayden has half a mind to be embarrassed and the other astonished. She’d never been stretched open so easily. Always a fumbling hand pushing down her jeans only ten minutes into making out. Her past hookups always found her a dry and a painful fit. The sheer lack of lube up to this point was enough to have Hayden reconsidering sex altogether. Was it always supposed to be like this?
Abbot chuckles deep and cocky from above her. Had she said that out loud?
Once he seems to deem her sufficiently opened up, Abbot carefully slips his fingers back out with a pathetic whine from Hayden. She watched man inspect his glistening fingers for a moment— a careful sheen dripping all the way down to his wrist— before pulling it to his mouth and licking a long stripe from his palm to his fingertips.
Hayden’s shaking by now. Perpetually riding a high that has yet to implode, Abbot does nothing but antagonize her like this and she’s certain she could finish just from watching him suck her wetness off his fingers some more; watching him groan around his own hand as he slips one into his mouth, then slowly pulling it out with a pop.
“Do you always taste this good?” A teasing, humiliating question, and Hayden shivers, then shakes her head.
“I wouldn’t know.” Her voice quivers and she barely musters the mind power to form the words. The corner of Abbot’s lips quirk and it makes all the effort worth it.
Taking the bait, Abbot lands a hand on the desk by her head, bends down by the waist, and takes her mouth with his.
The taste of herself on Abbot’s lips melds onto her own, sloppy and wet, more tongue than necessary but so incredibly dirty, it has her lightheaded. Hayden shoves her hands into his hair, holding him by the back of his head and pulling him impossibly closer, giving him no room to move or breathe anything but her. Abbot nips at her bottom lip and sucks it between his teeth— pushes the flats of their tongues together in ways that are certainly to replicate exactly what he’d done to her clit.
Hayden remembers herself amidst her shaking and grips the grey stands between her fingers and pulls. Abbot’s head effectively pulls away from her, but not without a rewarding, soft moan of his own.
Oh. She files that away for later.
Hayden holds him close but just out of reach, and whispers, “Are you going to fuck me or what, old man?”
Against the strength of her hold, Abbot pushes past it and latches his mouth right below her jaw and bites down, hard. Hayden gasps out a cry in pain, but her eyes undoubtably roll back into her head as he smoothes it over with his tongue, and blows a puff of cold air on it once again. Whatever upper hand she’d been trying to regain slips from her palms deliciously.
With his mouth right by her ear, she can hear his stuttering breath, giving away exactly how badly he wants it too. “Get on the bed like a good girl, and maybe I’ll consider it.”
Hayden takes several moments to straighten out and process his words. When she does, Abbot had already stepped out of the way to make room for her as she scrambles off the desk the best she can. Her knees are weak and shaky, but she makes it to the bed and crawls onto it. Whatever silicious pose she’d been making while on her hands and knees has Abbot grumbling swears beneath his breath before he’s crossing the room to get to her.
Hayden falls onto her back by the time he makes it to the side of the bed, staring down at her with his chest heaving and hands straining, like all he wants to do is pounce.
But he hesitates.
She looks him over for whatever is holding him back and notices his pants are still on. Assuming the culprit, she scoots forward and puts her hands on his belt. Hayden makes it as far as the first hook before he grabs her by the wrists and stops her, gentle but firm.
Hayden blinks up at him and finds the first sign of nerves there all night. Was it the age? He’d been hard since eating her out, and she can feel it now where it lays below the belt. Maybe he’d have a hard time coming later? A man lasting too long was certainly not a problem she’d faced before, but not an unwelcome one. She raked through all sorts of options, but none of them stuck out as being serious enough for the expression that sits on the doctor’s face.
Abbot sighs, reading the confusion on her face, then bites the bullet. “I’m a lower leg amputee.”
Hayden blinks.
“Okay?”
Abbot’s brows pinch together. “As in my leg is gone.”
She rolls her eyes. “Yeah I got that much, genius.” That only seems to confuse him more. Hayden switches her approach. “Does that change things for you?”
“I was going to ask you the same question.”
Hayden’s chest constricts painfully. She’d only been wondering if the amputation would change how they’d have sex; he’d wondered if it’d completely change her mind.
Instead of answering, she slowly leans in and places a kiss to the soft skin above his belt line, never breaking eye contact. She places another, then another; then five more until that strain in his shoulders releases just barely. Hayden pulls her mouth away but leaves her hands on the buckle, assumptious and charged, as if to say ‘I’m not going anywhere.’
Then, she whispers, “Would you like to take it off?” His hands freeze from where they lay on hers, but he doesn’t pull away.
Hayden meets his stare head on, letting him search every crevice of her face if it’ll display her honesty. Saying she ‘doesn’t care’ doesn’t do it justice. She does care. She cares about how it’s affecting him and how vulnerable of a question she’d just posed to him. But in the broad sense— she wishes she could shove him onto the bed and show him exactly how little a prosthetic would change how she’d ride him within an inch of his life.
Abbot, eventually, shakes his head. Hayden can’t help but pout, and Abbot finally chuckles again at that, so soft and adoring, Hayden has to shake herself out of falling into that sweet expression on his face and living in it. She’d just gotten attached to the idea of riding him— but if getting fucked into the bed was back on the table, she’d withhold her pouting, for now.
He pulls his hands away from hers and gently lays one on her cheek. Hayden rubs her face into his palm and he swipes his thumb across her cheekbone, looking down at her like a porcelain doll, admiration in his eyes. God, she really had unresolved issues if just the approving look in his eyes had her breath hitching. Abbot— the apparent all-knowing— catches it. And just like that, the consuming look in his eyes falls back into place, and Hayden can’t help but internally celebrate that he’d decided to trust her with this.
“Such a sweet girl,” Abbot purrs, swiping his thumb across her cheek again, feeling a lot more like petting this time around; like he’s awarding a good behavior. “Help me take my belt off, would you?” She’s nodding before he can finish. “Then I want you to go back to how you’d got on the bed for me.” Crawling. On her hands and knees, waiting to be taken— Hayden has to swallow the excited lump in her throat and she gets to work.
Her hands are, somehow, trembling even more on her second attempt at his belt. This time, there’s no such apprehension from the daunting figure above her. Abbot slips his hand from her face and down to her neck, thumbing at her carotid and whispering all sorts of pretty things as she works. The smooth slide of leather fills her head as she pulls it from the dark denim loops and lets it fall to the ground with a clank of the buckle. Abbot doesn’t say anything, just watches her in expectation. Waiting to see how well she’ll follow his directions.
The hair on her neck stands straight in anticipation, quivering under his heady and unrelenting stare, but she does as she’s told. Slowly, tantalizingly, she turns at the hip and braces her hands on the bed. She pulls her knees up and lets the comforter cushion her as she crawls forward, only a few inches until she’s facing the center of the bed. Then, she turns her head back and tucks her hair behind her ear to get the full, desperate look on her face across to the man still standing straight as a board behind her. He looks tightly strung; like a metal rope anchoring a cruise ship to the dock. The kind where standing too close can be deadly.
It snaps.
His hands land on her hips harder than they’d had all night and Hayden whimpers. His fingertips grip hard at the flesh that pad around the bone and she’s sure they’ll bruise come tomorrow. “You’re perfect, babygirl. Perfect for me. Just for me.” Abbot’s words are mumbled and strung together as he bends over atop her, kissing down her spine. He hooks his fingers under the lace panties that still remained and yanked them down her legs. Hayden can tell he’s getting desperate because he doesn’t bother to pull them all the way off of her, leaving it dangling off one leg and moving on.
She’s humming appreciatively as his hands move to sprawl up and down her sides— one crawling up and grasping at her breast, wringing another gasp from her— before falling away. Hayden picks up on the telling sound of fabric and she watches Abbot shuck the last of his clothes off from over her shoulder. At this angle, she can barely see anything at all— but she tries not to stare as he lifts a leg up onto the bed, knee landing to one side of her to brace his weight. The idea of being fucked by this gorgeous man knocks any thought of that shinny prosthetic on display to the bottom of her list of priorities.
Now undressed, Hayden can sense another wave of nerves from the man, so she pushes past all sense of embarrassment and drops her knees apart on the bed. The lower angle prompts her back to arch, her hands sliding forward to accommodate, and she’s borderline presenting herself to the man behind her. Like clockwork, the wanton pose rips the man back into focus, and Hayden almost feels smug, before she looks back again and realizes what exactly is about to enter her.
Abbot has one hand pulling her cheek apart, peering down at the wet entrance awaiting him like he’s entranced. The other is wrapped around himself, pumping slow as he leans down to spit on it, then rubbing it down his length to prep himself for her.
“Oh fuck, you’re ’gonna kill me.” Hayden rambles. He looks big enough to wrap two hands around and still have room for her lips— more terrifying, she’s not sure if her hands could even properly close around him if she tried. She tears her eyes away and hangs her head between her shoulders, internally bracing herself.
Abbot has the audacity to laugh, dark and amused as he spits on himself again. Just hearing the sound has her hands slipping more on the covers. They hadn’t even started and at this rate, Hayden isn’t sure how long she’ll be able to hold herself up.
The thought is answered as Abbot removes his hand from her ass and drags it up to the back of her neck— then he shoves her down.
Hayden falls onto the side her face with a moan, hands landing useless aside her head. Abbot holds her down, heavy with his weight as his arm sits extended and holding himself up. Hayden whines a long, needy noise at the realization that she couldn’t move if she tried. Abbot chuckles again. “Patience.” Hayden whines again, but relaxes her hips for him, back arched and knees apart, Abbot hums, pleased at the perfect picture she makes for him. “Good girl.” He holds himself at the base and enunciates the words by tapping his tip at her folds. His hips thrust forward but he slips across the wetness, simultaneously teasing her and getting them both properly slicked. It takes every muscle in her body to be patient and relax, and with Abbot holding her down, she can’t do much but submit.
She’s rewarded with Abbot finally pushing his way inside.
Hayden’s mouth falls open, as if to make room for the pressure as he sinks his way deeper. She swears she can feel him in her throat and she tenses up against her will.
Abbot groans deep in his chest as he slows to a stop, and she can feel it vibrate right through her. Hayden hadn’t even realized she was trembling until he’s comforting her again, all sweet words and shushing like he’s not sure if she can take it. “You’re okay. Doing so good for me, ‘m so proud of you baby.” His words effectively comfort her yet render her a useless, needy mess as she squeezes the tears from her eyes.
“I’m almost there, just a little bit more-“ Abbot continues rambling as he steadily begins his descent once more.
Hayden learns one thing very quickly: Abbot is a liar. A ‘little’ more is actually halfway, and Hayden only realizes as he drives himself deeper, relentless, inch after inch. She forgets to breathe, feels the sheer size of him in her chest, restrictive and imposing; he makes her take it all.
Tears finally escape and slip across her nose to the sheets when he finally bottoms out— his hips flush against her ass and a telling, whiny groan falling from Abbot’s slacked jaw. “Nng- fuck, baby you feel so good- did so good.”
Hayden’s eyes keep crying against the bed, but she feels nothing short of elated and finally fucked out. All senses abandon her and she’s almost nodding into his praise, but the strong grip of his hand on the back of her neck still holds her still and pliant beneath him. So all she can get out are the soft, illegible begging she’s only half aware that she’s saying aloud. A wet mixture of pleas and a particularly sad “Daddy,” acts as a call to action, and suddenly Abbot’s moving.
He shuffles his hips at first, testing the water, before pulling out, only a few inches at first, and slamming them back in.
Hayden cries out as the burning stretch is only amplified with how quickly he begins to fuck back into her. She’d begged him to do it, and the tiny twinges of pain only amplify the roaring heat between her temples.
A few inches of thrusting, heavy and solid, devolves into full pull outs and ramming of his hips. Each pull has her feeling empty and needy; each thrust back in fills her so full to the brim, it leaves her bumbling and choking on it. Always too empty and too full, the drag and stretch in between is equally suffocating. Hayden struggles to catch a breath, as each exhale devolves into a moan— which only breaks on its way out with every slam of his hips, leaving small ah, ah, ah’s being punched from her chest instead.
The hand holding her down never falters, only growing heavier as Abbot leans his weight into it, his other grips her hip still and holds her up as if she’d completely drop to the bed as dead weight if he let go. Hayden is sure she would, too.
Her hands grip uselessly at the comforter above her, trying to hold herself steady as each buck of his hips rocks her forward, effectively rubbing her chest up and down into the fabric and chaffing at her nipples perfectly. Hayden would never admit how thoroughly it all gets her off. How weak she feels under him; having to hold her together, forcing her into the bed, and all as she moans his name and calls him daddy if only to get a rewarding groan from the man in return.
The stinging sensations ebbs away and make room for mind-numbing pleasure. Wetter than she’s ever been, Abbot uses her like a toy, manhandling her like a paperweight and molding her like clay. And yet he is entirely focused on her, maneuvering her and angling in just the right places to make her see stars with each thrust. Whenever he hilts, Abbot grinds that impossible few centimeters closer each time, letting her clit catch on his pelvis and giving her that little bit more. Hayden feels like a case study, under the careful hands of her doctor, watching and learning from every tiny noise she releases and marking it down— then going out of his way to replicate it.
Lying there, completely helpless and at the whims of the harsh-thrusting, praise-whispering man above her, Hayden feels no build up before she’s kicked over the edge and she shatters into a million pieces.
Hayden cries out his name and remembers nothing after.
She recalls her own tears and the white, all-consuming flush of heat that drowned her as she came. Horrified, Hayden can vaguely feel the evidence of her finishing flooding down her legs and drenching Abbot’s cock— of which he only uses to his advantage, finding the newfound wetness and fucking it back into her as he keeping going, helping her ride out that high as long as possible.
Hayden goes slack in his arms and tries to remember how to move as he maintains his bruising pace inside her.
Before long, Abbot starts to slow, but Hayden moves to stop him, dragging her eyes open and looking back at him the best she can. He notices, and meets her eye with a question, still slowing.
“No, no- please don’t stop.” Hayden barely breathes out, still trying her best to bring oxygen back to her brain, much less speak. But she knew if this was going to be the one and only time she’d have this gorgeous doctor offering her life-changing sex, she would be damned if they didn’t finish what they started.
Abbot doesn’t speed up, but he doesn’t slow down either, still watching her carefully no matter how deeply her words affect him. “I don’t wanna hurt you baby.” It’s true, Though his grips on her were harsh and his rocking hips more so, Hayden was never scared.
She shakes her head the best she can into the bed, and blinks her available, watering eye up at him. Hayden is not above begging.
“Please daddy, please I’ve been so good- ah, so good you for-“ She uses the last of her strength to rock her hips back into him, a broke moan falling from her lips. The high of her orgasm has yet to fully subside, and she’d do anything to keep him so deep and full inside her. “Wan’ you inside- come inside me please, daddy-“
That punches a broken sound from Abbot’s chest, deep in his diaphragm and more revealing than he’d probably intended. She starts to double down— whine about him filling her up and all sorts of perverse images of his cum leaking out of her— before it finally breaks him.
Whatever hard moving pace he’d maintained before is abandoned in favor of quick and shallow ones at break-neck speed. Hayden almost forgets she’s being so thoroughly ran through by a man double her age with a pace that like, but she doesn’t get a chance to fully form the thought before it’s slammed out of her again.
Abbot’s hand releases her neck and tangles its way up into her hair, gripping and holding it so tight it burns, all the while forcing her face down even further into the mattress. Hayden knees fully give out now, leaving her flat on the bed and back arched the best she can into Abbot’s unforgiving grip, angling her up exactly how he wants her.
When tears start to fall again and her body thrashes against the overstimulation, Abbot doesn’t let up. “I thought this was what you wanted, baby. What happened to all that perfect little whining?” His words are mean but his tone has no bite, too focused on taking her apart to his heart’s content. Hayden cries more, then tries to say anything and everything he’d want to hear anyways. It comes out a jumbled mess.
He tugs her hair and it shuts her up again. “There we go, just take it- such a good girl, gonna let me fill you up, aren’t you.” It’s not a question, bitten out and telling of how close he’s getting. Hayden starts to roll her hips back into his thrusts the best she can with his pace. She’s rewarded with a broken little sound he’d tried to hide behind his clenched teeth.
Hayden can hear his mouth open as if he’s about to say something more, but as she bares down on him, clenching tight and perfect beneath him, only a low, drawn out whimper sound falls from his lips as he finishes deep inside of her.
A broken moan falls from her mouth as Hayden revels in the pulsing of Abbot’s cock as it pumps and fills her to the brim. Abbot is groaning above her, still shallowly thrusting into her to prolong the high he must be riding.
Once Hayden is sure he’s finished, she collapses against the bed and Abbot lets her, releasing his holds on her and rubbing the sore spots where he’d held on so tightly. The brief massage on her scalp and her hip has her humming softly.
“Perfect, so perfect, baby.” Abbot whispers into her skin, tracing chaste kisses along her shoulders and down her back. Thoroughly distracted, Abbot uses the opportunity to pull out, soft and slow. He hisses in overstimulation as he finally pulls out, and Hayden whimpers herself at the newfound emptiness awaiting her.
Abbot’s hand lands between her legs and his thumb pushes gently at her entrance. With a start, Hayden realizes he must be pushing his cum back inside of her.
Hayden halfheartedly reaches behind her and tries to swat his hand away and he laughs, his voice hoarse and rattling like stone. She’d pay to hear that sound forever.
“Let me take care of you angel.” Abbot seals it with a final kiss to the back of her neck— where she’s sure is bruising— and stands. Hayden jostles as he gets off the bed with an old man groan and he heads off in the direction of the bathroom.
With high effort, she rolls onto her back and throws her arm over her eyes. Then she just lays there and steadies her breathing the best she can before he comes back.
Jesus Christ.
<i>What the fuck?</i> Hayden took a chance on a silver fox out of pure curiosity, and now she’s not sure she can ever go back. More, how was she supposed to just up and leave after tonight?
She relaxes into the assuring thought, that at the very least, they have each other’s numbers. Now she just has to hope he’d enjoyed himself at least half as much as she did and would call her sometime— or pick up the phone when she would inevitably crave him bad enough to call first.
When Abbot returns to the room, he has a soft hand towel and an even softer look on his face. Hayden pulls her arm from her eyes and watches him approach. She notices that despite her full frontal nudity now on display, he can barely get himself to look away from her face.
Abbot takes a seat beside her on the edge of the bed and Hayden is pleased to find the towel is wet with hot water as he starts dragging it across her skin. He could’ve very easily dragged her up to the shower, but Hayden enjoys how lazy she can be right now. His gentle, unnecessarily appropriate touches as he eventually wipes his drying semen from between her legs. He doesn’t say anything of their lack of protection, and leaves what’s left inside her alone, but Hayden understands. She’d buy a plan-b in the morning.
Abbot pulls her panties back on for her, then finds her shirt on the ground to dress her in as well. They’re silent, only the whirling hotel AC filling the space, but it feels calming. Neither of them feel the need to break the peace they’ve found themselves in. Maybe they’re simply too afraid that once it broke, the night would truly have come to an end between them.
So they continue to say nothing. Even as Abbot pulls his boxers back on, Hayden doesn’t speak as she scoots further into the bed and kicks the dirty covers off, curling under the top sheet. Then, before he can put on his pants, Hayden pats the empty space beside her wordlessly.
Abbot freezes— she’d expected he would— but he eventually lets his pants fall back to the ground.
Hayden pulls the sheets aside for him and he sits down first, carefully removing the prosthetic and laying it at the bedside for later. She watches his naked back as he does so; watches his hands go down to check the site for any irritation, before he finally turns and accepts her invitation into bed.
Allotting the same curtesy as he’d given her when she was laid out naked, Hayden doesn’t look down either. She keeps her head on the pillow and her eyes on the addictive planes on his face as he slips beneath the sheet and scoots in close.
She doesn’t even realize she’s been smiling the whole time until he presses his own, cheesy grin to hers, and it’s more smile than kiss. Short and chaste, they just let their lips dust against each others before pulling away, noses bumping on the way out.
Hayden sees an odd, hesitant look in his eyes now that they’re so close. She understands it better than she realizes. Instinctively, she just tucks her head beneath his chin and curls up close to his chest. Both of them breaking all the unspoken rules of a one night stand— Abbot wraps his arms tight around her in return.
Abbot mumbles something like a, “good night,” into the top of her hair, but Hayden barely catches it before she’s dragged into a dreamless sleep.
—————————————————————————
Hayden is alone when she awakes. The light shining through the shoddy hotel curtains, she stretches into wake and her outstretched hands catch nothing but sheets. Though she’d assumed this would be the case, it stings a little more than she’s ready to admit.
The last twenty-fours have been a dream. A long drive and a perfect interview later, she’d gone and had the best sex of her life with a guy she barely knew. It wasn’t out of character for, say, a nineteen-year old Hayden. But she wasn’t nineteen anymore, landing in unfamiliar dorm rooms on a Friday night out. She’s an adult. One who’d riskily taken her chances on a random doctor who’d given her the time of day and a sultry look and that easily, she’d folded like a cheap chair.
Hayden rolls her face into the pillow and screams. Muffled and embarrassed beyond measure, she doesn’t feel any better.
The post-sex downward spiral continues as she plugs in her dead phone and hops into the shower. The hot water burns her skin red and she stays under longer than necessary. But when alls said and done, and she’s packed up her discarded clothes back into her travel bag, she feels incrementally better.
Swinging the backpack onto her shoulder and pushing her shoes back onto her feet, she grabs her phone before she leaves.
Two people had texted.
One from her dad saying he’s waiting downstairs for her. The other from an unknown number. One she’d called last night.
[unknown]: Hey, it’s Abbot. I had some early morning plans.
The first one reads. She rolls her eyes and saves the number.
[Abbot]: Not to be that creepy old guy, but I’d love to see you again.
Hayden covers her mouth with her hand and can’t help but laugh into it. She feels borderline giddy.
And then she quickly reins it in with a cough— she wouldn’t be caught slacking like that. In fact, she texts her dad that she’s on her way, then pockets it with the promise of texting him back later. Because she’s an adult, and adults don’t laugh at a simple text message and respond ASAP. Probably. She’s still figuring it out.
So with the texts still sitting heavy in her pocket and the front of her mind, she checks out of her room and meets her dad out front.
Christian Ellis is standing at the side of his car with his phone to his ear, laughing all loud and dad-like, totally unaware of the words ‘volume control.’
As Hayden approaches, he puts on a big smile but keeps going with his conversation as he side hugs her real tight with his free arm.
Then, mortifyingly, he points his finger down at her neck with a disapproving look, and Hayden shoots as far away from him as possible. Her dad makes a dramatic throw-up face but moves onto the conversation at his ear, laughing all big and loud again.
Hayden completely forgot about how thoroughly destroyed her neck must look after her little tryst with Abbot last night. When she gets into the front seat and checks in the drop-down-shade mirror, she’s no less relived to find only a few marks in favor of many.
Three dark bruises scatter her skin, but the largest falls on a prominent looking bite mark beneath her jaw. Jesus Christ she really was acting nineteen again, what is wrong with her?
Her dad takes his sweet time but eventually, he huffs and heaves his way into the driver’s side with an apology. “Sorry bug, got all caught up with Jack. Had to give him a real talking to for not meeting ya yesterday at the hospital.” With how hard he’d been laughing, she isn’t sure ‘a talking to’ is exactly what was happening, but she lets it go.
Hayden shrugs. “All’s good.”
Christian eyes her from his seat as he starts the car. “Yeah I bet. I see you made a new friend instead.”
Hayden groans like a child and shoves her red face into her hands. “Please stop. I’ll walk home.”
Her dad laughs and reaches over to ruffle her newly done hair. She quickly moves to fix it, but is eternally grateful her dad is being somewhat normal about it. “It’s fine, you’re an adult, bug. Even if I hate it.”
Christian sniffles dramatically, playing the old dad card and they laugh. Then he turns the radio on and that’s that. If it’d been her mom to catch her looking like this, she’s certain she would’ve gotten a real reaming about being a lady— to which said ‘lady’ would inquire all about how Hayden had met the person and if they would be coming around the house for dinner sometime. Her dad, however, wanted to hear about it about as much as she wanted to tell him: which was a whopping zero.
They circled through the city for a while before he turned off to nearby restaurant. Chinese food or something, Hayden couldn’t really tell. Mostly, she was just confused as to why they weren’t on the freeway.
When she asked as much, her dad just parked the car and pulled the key from the ignition. “Oh shit, I forgot to tell ya. Jack’s meeting us for lunch to make up for not helping you at the hospital yesterday.
Hayden rolls her eyes but unbuckles. “He doesn’t have to do that, dad. He was probably busy. Didn’t you say he was a doctor?” Honestly, after she’d ran into Abbot in those first few minutes, she hadn’t thought of that Jack guy once. It wasn’t fair to go and bully him into lunch if she’d completely forgotten about him, too.
“Oh nonsense.” Christian waves her off as they step out and round the car. He hooks his arm around her shoulders and jostles her, messing with her endearingly. “I’m just using it as an excuse to see the sad old shit again. Always off saving people and whatnot. It won’t kill him to catch up with his best bud for once.” Hayden secedes. She could wait a few hours before heading home if it made her dad happy. Plus, maybe she could get this Jack guy to tell some real embarrassing war stories of her dad as payback.
As they step inside, Hayden realizes it’s actually a pretty fancy sushi place, which she definitely won’t be complaining about. Christian does all the hard work with the hostess and Hayden remembers her phone still sitting like a rock in her pocket— the unanswered texts. Given their wait in line, she quickly swings it out and taps on the man’s name, an unintentional smile on her face. Finally, she texts back.
[]: not to sound like an overexcited 20 yr old, but I’d really like that
Simple. Playful, maybe. Hayden has to pocket it just to stop herself from thinking too hard about it. The man had all but ripped her apart at the seams last night, so why was she so nervous just texting him back?
The hostess waves them over and she sticks close to her dad on the way to their table. Apparently Jack is already here and has a table ready for them.
When the hostess waves them to the table, Hayden keeps out of the way as her dad takes charge in yanking the figure off his phone and into a big, manly hug— the kind where they hit each other on the back all macho for no reason.
Hayden’s distracted; her phone buzzes and she goes to reach for it before her dad calls her name, still so loud. “-And I believe I’ve told you about my little Hay-Hay, right?”
Politeness winning out, Hayden leaves her phone where it is and looks up, smile on her face and ready to meet another of her dad’s boring friends-
The grey hair she’d tugged, the stubble that left burns on her thighs— Abbot is standing there, her father’s hand on his shoulder and introducing him as “Jack,” his best friend.
Like she’d just plunged head first into the Atlantic, her muscles freeze solid and for a moment, she’s sure she’s dying.
Abbot— Jack, reaches his hand out between them with great effort, a tight smile on his face but terror in his eyes. Silently screaming say nothing. Hayden hates how she’d learned to read him so easily like that.
Hand still extended, that voice that purred and told her what a good girl she was only hours prior says, “It’s nice to meet you. I’m Jack Abbot.”
Hayden barely musters the strength to shake his hand— her fingers sing in his familiar touch, and panic has flooded to her ears.
She smiles. “Hayden Ellis.”
Her father’s last name now on display— Abbot’s first name. Their hands drop like they’d been burned.
There’s real pain behind Abbot’s eyes, searching her own amidst all this confusion. She looks away, and her dad prompts them both to their seats, oblivious and starting onto a story she’s sure neither of them hear.
Sat across from each other, her father between them, Abbot pointedly ignores her in favor of laughing along to whatever her dad is saying.
Best friends.
They’ve been best friends since before Hayden was even born. He’d taught her how to swing a bat.
Pairing: Jack Abbot x Former Seattle Grace!Female Reader
Summary: Three years of a four year residency, and you’d never so much as looked sideways at any attending, in your department or otherwise. You couldn’t believe that leaving Seattle Grace was the thing that threatened to undo all that.
Or, you laughed your way through your friend's messy relationships with their attendings because you never imagined you'd have to reckon with Dr. Jack Abbot.
Warnings: This is just something I kept thinking about because I'm rewatching the early seasons of Grey's, it's not meant to take itself too seriously. A little cringy in the way the McNickname era of Grey's was. Do not think too hard about the timelines, I certainly didn't.
————————————————————————————
Three years.
You’d spent three years of your life at Seattle Grace — you never had gotten used to the addition of Mercy West to the name — where residents screwed their attendings and each other like it was a board requirement, and managed to never come even close to crossing that line.
You weren’t a surgical resident by trade, they worshipped the order and stability of the Operating Room, whereas you lived and breathed for the noise and chaos of the Emergency Room. You’d first met Meredith when she posted on the hospital’s notice boards looking for roommates.
You were the first person she agreed to let move in. She knew you in passing well enough to be sure you weren’t completely nuts, you wouldn’t be bothered by the odd hours she kept because you kept them yourself and, most importantly, she didn’t spend a full hundred plus hours a week with you already. Of course, she eventually caved and let George and Izzie move in too.
George was easy to get along with in those early days, he was kindhearted and compassionate, loyal to his friends and a favourite with his patients. Sometimes it took him a few tries to get going, to trust his usually excellent instincts, but in the end he always fought for what he thought was right.
Izzie was perpetually perky in a way that was sometimes impressive and sometimes made you want to throw something at her, but she stress baked and you stress cleaned so you often made quite the team in the kitchen in the stupid hours of the morning.
Somehow, you became the only emergency medicine resident in an inner circle of surgeons.
The surgical residents of Seattle Grace Hospital were driven, almost to the point of ridiculousness, and so when they weren’t in surgery, they were hunting for it.
They all spent their fair share of time poking about in your periphery while you were trying to treat your patients, desperately seeking something that might become surgical that they could poach before their fellow residents could. It would have been helpful always having a surgical consult on hand if they weren’t the single most competitive bunch you’d ever met. None of them more so than Cristina.
She didn’t care in the slightest how much the others liked you. She was slower to accept you, she steadfastly stood by the notion that surgery was superior to all other forms of medicine and she never let you forget it. But you didn’t go the distance in emergency medicine if you were shy and retiring so you gave as good as you got, letting her unshakeable arrogance roll off you with quick wit and dry humour.
“She’s an ER intern,” Cristina had snarked the first time she hung out at Meredith’s house and you were there. “You heard what Bailey said, they don’t know their ass from their esophagus.”
“I guess that explains why I keep sitting on my breakfast instead of eating it,” you shot back without missing a beat. “Thank God for all you surgeons to set me straight or I’d starve to death.”
You didn’t let her walk all over you, but she spent more time trolling for surgeries than anyone else and you did respect the hustle so you gave her the occasional heads up when something particularly interesting rolled in and she in turn respected that. Eventually, the jabs traded about surgeons and their God complexes and how emergency medicine was nothing but quick and dirty fixes were more habit than heat.
Alex wasn’t brought into the group voluntarily so much as he hung around until he became part of the fabric of life that you couldn’t imagine not being there. Like a stray tomcat who tried to hump anything that moved and hissed constantly like he hated everyone around him but still didn’t make any attempt to leave.
The more time you spent with them, the more you realised that you’d ended up here because the eye of the storm was your natural habitat and, much as you came to love them all, these people were nothing if not tornadoes of bad personal decisions.
The frankly insane percentage of your friends who had screwed, married or otherwise romanced their attendings became a running joke to you.
You had watched in morbid amusement as Meredith made some choices over Derek Shepherd that would have cost anyone else their career, as Cristina got involved with not one, but two different attendings. Lexi, the surprise Grey nobody was expecting to show up, was doing some kind of back and forth dance with Mark Sloan that was borderline painful to watch. Hell, even Alex had slept with Addison. Without fail, it came with blurred lines both at work and at home and messy drama that should have been more at home on a TV screen than a hospital. You often wondered how they even found time to practice medicine at all.
Three years of a four year residency, and you’d never so much as looked sideways at any attending, in your department or otherwise. You couldn’t believe that leaving Seattle Grace was the thing that threatened to undo all that.
————————————————————————————
The first blow to your ability to be at home in Seattle came with the loss of George. He rounded your little dysfunctional family out, softened the rough edges that so many of you brought to the table. He’d lost his way there for a while after his dad passed, but he was getting himself together again. Losing him was sudden and senseless. You knew life was often that way, but you’d been so unprepared for it and it tipped your entire world sideways.
Then Izzie leaving so suddenly had shaken those already unstable foundations. Getting on with Izzie had been hit or miss with you the longer you knew her. At least with the others, even Alex who could be the most infuriating person you’d ever known, you knew where you stood. Izzie had a habit of changing her mind on a dime and you often seriously disagreed with the choices she made when she let her heart rule her head. She was a huge part of all of your lives for so long, though, that her suddenly not being there felt like being cut off from a part of yourself.
It was someone who was no one to you that put the final nail in the coffin that was your time in Seattle. Gary Clark — a man whose name you hadn't even known at the time — was the one who changed everything.
The aftermath of the carnage he wrought on the hospital was clear in the turmoil it caused in every single one of you. You tried, you really did. For months, you did the therapy and all the things you were supposed to do. You got up every morning when you wanted nothing more than to disappear, you ate, slept, bathed when you were meant to, you dragged yourself into the hospital despite the dread in your stomach, but it started to feel like Seattle was haunting you. Or you were haunting it.
So you condensed your entire life down into moving boxes and hauled them across the country to a place where there wasn’t a ghost around every corner.
————————————————————————————
The first time you saw Dr. Jack Abbot, you immediately noticed how good looking he was.
PTMC’s ER wasn’t all that different from Seattle Grace’s, in the way that all ERs felt alike.
Fluorescent bulbs glared down from the ceiling in uniform rows, brightening every shadowed corner so there was nowhere to hide. The clamour of the waiting room bubbled in over the underlying hum of machines every now and then when the main door swung open, a reminder that this place slept even less than its doctors did. Underneath it all, the whisper of sneakered feet across the floor as everyone who moved through the hallways did so with purpose, only ever a heartbeat away from a flat out run to the next critical event.
Dr. Robinavitch, Robby he’d told you to call him, had been giving you the tour. It was wide and open, spiralling out in all directions from what they called the Hub, where patient boards hung, insistent and demanding, above a bank of desks topped with computers, clipboards and tablets for tracking the many patients you’d see over many hours spent inside. Each direction was named for the points on a compass, boasting a total of about two dozen rooms.
He’d walked you through them all and you tried to construct a mental map to guide you until you got your feet under you in this new place. You’d so far pressed yourself flat against the wall to avoid two gurneys being wheeled around, three laser focused nurses and a couple of med students on their way back to the locker room locked in a furious debate about something or other. It felt like coming home in a way Seattle hadn’t since well over a year ago.
Robby circled back to the Hub, introducing you to the charge nurse, Dana. She was a slim blonde woman with a look that screamed she’d never missed a trick in her life and she oozed the kind of gentle authority that told you she ran this ER far more than Robby ever had. She gave you a welcoming smile.
“And this is Dr. Abbot,” Robby said, gesturing to the man beside Dana. “He’s our night shift attending but he just loves it so much he’s here almost as much as me in the day too. Abbot, this is our new R4.”
The man in question was broad and muscled, with gentle curls speckled with silver and an intense hazel stare. As he straightened from the computer he had been leaning over, he raked those sharp eyes over you from head to toe. “It’s not often we get new blood around here at your level. You running from something or to something?”
You might not have been hooking up in on-call rooms at every convenient moment — and some seriously inconvenient ones — but you knew an attractive man when you saw one. You processed that fact silently, with a distant thought wondering if there was some factory somewhere producing all these hot attendings as some kind of cosmic test for tired, pent up residents all over the country.
“You can’t seriously be expecting me to give up all my secrets in the first thirty seconds?” You asked, meeting his assessing gaze and holding it with just a hint of mischief.
His eyes narrowed for several long moments before a slow smirk spread across his lips and Robby and Dana both laughed. “I like her,” Abbot told Robby. “She’ll hold her own just fine, I think.”
The rush of satisfaction that filled you was just the relief at having made a good impression on three of the most important people in an ER’s hierarchy. Wasn’t it?
————————————————————————————
The ease with which you settled into life in the Pitt, as it was affectionately known, was like coming up for air when you’d been seconds away from drowning. Every moment you spent there made you feel more like yourself than you had in a long time.
Confident, efficient and knowledgeable, you proved yourself a worthy addition to the team. Your new colleagues responded by making you feel incredibly welcome.
If you looked closely enough, you could find echoes of all the things you missed most about your chosen family back in Seattle right here and it was more comforting than you’d have readily admitted.
Samira Mohan’s bright and positive attitude and Mel King’s impressive recall reminded you so much of Lexi. Trinity Santos was as cutthroat, sarcastic and dedicated as Cristina. Dennis Whitaker sometimes said or did something you could so easily picture George doing that it hurt to look at him.
As much as you appreciated the reminders of where you’d come from, you were also glad for the contrast provided by the people here who didn’t remind you of anything you’d lost or left behind.
All the nursing staff, but especially Princess and Perlah, lifted the atmosphere inside the Pitt like no one else could. They missed absolutely nothing that was worth gossiping about and you’d learned it was best not to wonder too hard what they were talking about when they stood chatting to one another in rapid Tagalog.
You seemed to get on well enough with everyone.
One thing you didn’t do, though, was give a straight answer to the question of why you moved the length of the country half way through your final year of residency. It made you something of a mystery to the rest of the Pitt staff. Cassie McKay was the only person who’d stopped asking after the first time you gave her a vague non-answer. Sure and collected, she carried herself with the air of someone who knew what it was like to fear looking too far backwards.
Robby, having been the one to review your transfer application and interview you, was the one person who knew the finer details of your reason for fleeing Seattle and he pretended he didn’t know a damn thing. By the end of your first month, there was a pool going to discover the reason.
It was the worst kept secret you’d ever seen, and that was saying something. So far, guesses had included that you’d been left at the altar, that you’d been the one doing the leaving, that you’d moved to take care of a family member, that you were secretly married or secretly divorced or had a secret child.
None of them came even close to being right, and you were pretty sure they never would. So sure, in fact, that you’d eventually told them all that you knew what they were up to and you wanted in. If none of them could figure it out in the six months before you completed your residency, then you got to keep the money for yourself. Maybe by then, the thought of talking about it with people who weren’t there wouldn’t be so overwhelming.
You didn't mind, really, being the subject of all their guessing. It took your mind off the real reason. It was also pretty funny to watch them all analyse anything you said about your life before Pittsburgh for clues.
The time difference with Seattle and the fact you were all now fourth year residents made it hard to keep up with your friends there, but there was a group chat and you managed the occasional phone call. One evening, you walked out of the locker room in your street clothes and felt the attention of everyone standing by the Hub narrow onto you as you said, “Meredith, I moved to Pittsburgh, Cristina quit to bartend at Joe’s. Those are two very different things. I promise you, I’m fine.”
You had laughed as you walked out the door, watching Princess add ‘flamed out of previous program’ to the betting board and then spent your walk home regaling Meredith with the chosen pastime of your new colleagues.
It was also around the end of your first month that you’d been complaining to Samira about how hard it was to apartment hunt between shifts and that living in a hotel, especially the kind you could afford on a resident’s salary, was beginning to drive you mad. She immediately offered you her second bedroom, and you didn’t hesitate for a second before taking her up on it.
“Sold!” You’d laughed, tucking an arm through hers as you left the ER several hours later than you should have been. “But I’m still not helping you win that pool.”
It was nice to share a living space again with someone you’d come to think of as a friend. You’d missed the noise, the feeling of having someone else just exist around you. Staying in that rundown hotel had had the noise, sure, but it wasn’t the same. Dana had told you privately that she thought it was good for Samira, too.
“That girl spends entirely too much time at this hospital,” Dana had said. At your bemused look, the one that said we all do, she’d given a fond shake of the head. “You know what I mean, she never seems to have much going on outside here even when she can get away. I was worried she was gonna end up like Robby and Abbot.”
With the living situation solved, there was only one real problem remaining in your life. That problem was Jack Abbot. He was a problem because he wasn’t just attractive, he was also charming and in your experience, attendings who were both handsome and charming unraveled the lives of residents like kittens batting around balls of thread.
Your paths crossed more than you thought they would because Robby wasn’t kidding, the two of them overlapped for far more than just handover each day. Whenever you did cross, he seemed to gravitate towards you. You had to admit he was an impressive physician and a good teacher. The problem was that you found yourself luxuriating in his attention, heating up under his stare instead of shrinking away from it, enjoying when he’d step in close behind you to quietly offer corrections or worse, praise, in that low, gravelly voice of his. You’d catch yourself leaning into it before you realised what you were doing and then overcorrecting with polite distance and quick exits.
Jack, meanwhile, was utterly confused by you. He enjoyed working with you, impressed by the way you looked and moved like you were never more at home than when you were in the middle of a crisis, the way you bent the mayhem to your will. Sometimes, he thought that you enjoyed working with him too. Those times when you were right there, handing him what he needed without him having to ask, making the calls he was thinking of making a split second before he made them, standing just a little taller and looking just a little more pleased with yourself when he gave you a nod or a compliment on your work. Then there were the times he worried you might actually hate him. The times when shutters came down behind your eyes, when you seemed to look through him rather than at him, when you called him ‘Dr. Abbot’ in the kind of polite, detached tone he associated with bank tellers and car salesmen and then kept as far away from him as you could until he finally left the Pitt entirely.
You didn’t create that distance with anyone else. He knew, because he watched carefully for it. You joked with the nursing staff, not once holding their gossiping against them. You’d moved in with Mohan. When you gave advice to Santos, Whitaker or Javadi, more often than not it was with good natured ribbing for the younger residents. You didn’t draw those lines with the other more senior members of staff either, Dana treated you the same motherly way she did everyone else and you let her and you clapped back at Robby as frequently as the next person.
He could have let it frustrate him, the fact that he was a grown man, a man who’d lived through combat and trauma more times than he could count, who was so very bothered that the pretty resident he felt a connection to seemed to dislike him. Instead, he decided to double down, determined to undo whatever had made you feel so uncomfortable around him.
————————————————————————————
When Jack came in for his next shift, he found you exactly where he’d expected to; sitting in front of one of the computers at the Hub, locked in on your charting. His hand slid into your peripheral vision, pushing a cardboard coffee cup — the kind from the good local coffee shop and not the hospital cafeteria — onto the desk. Your fingers slowed across the keyboard until they stilled completely and you looked at it like it had personally offended you.
“What’s that?”
“…Coffee?” Jack’s answer came out more like a question then he meant it to, because he hadn’t been expecting to have to explain a coffee cup to you. Your eyes flicked up to meet his for the briefest of seconds.
“I don’t drink coffee,” you said, nudging the cup to the side with one finger, as if it might be toxic, so you could continue your charting.
Jack didn’t call you a liar, as such, but he did say, “You’re an ER resident, you drink coffee. I’ve seen you drink coffee. It’s good coffee, it’s not poison.”
You hesitated, still watching the coffee cup like it might strike out and bite you. “At least I’d have the mercy of a quick death if it was,” you muttered. A quick death would be preferable to the slow, torturous demise that came with the inability to smother your overwhelming attraction to one of your bosses. At Jack’s furrowed brows, you pushed on. “We’re not doing this.”
“Doing what?”
“Coffee. Small talk. That’s how it starts.”
“How what starts?” Jack felt like he was losing his mind, he’d thought he couldn’t go wrong with coffee and yet he hadn’t understood half of this conversation.
“Nothing,” you snapped. “Never mind. I’m done. Bye, Dr. Abbot.” You logged out of the computer faster than you ever had before, swivelled yourself up out of the chair and were halfway down the hall before Jack knew what was happening.
He turned to Dana and Robby, both of whom had been watching the conversation unfold with confused amusement. “Did any of that make sense to either of you?”
They both shook their heads at him.
————————————————————————————
Samira was the only person outside the state of Washington who knew about your attraction to Jack, and that was only because of your bad habit of putting your phone on speaker so you could carry on with whatever you were doing when you got a chance to speak to anyone back in Seattle.
Meredith, Cristina and Lexi had all taken time out of their busy schedules to tease you mercilessly about your fall from grace and into the pits of the same inconvenient and inappropriate feelings you’d once laughed at them for. Samira, once she heard a few of the stories that made so adamantly against this nonsense, was absolutely beside herself with hilarity.
It quickly became clear that you would get exactly no moral support or useful advice, but instead plenty of mockery and requests for a picture so they could decide if you at least had good taste in attendings.
After she stopped laughing, Samira had convinced you to ease up just a little, pointing out that if you kept basically fleeing the man, someone would definitely figure out that something was amiss. So, for a good few weeks, a bit of the tension bled out of you when you crossed paths with Jack. You’d apologised for being snappy about the coffee, citing tiredness after a long shift and breathing a huge sigh of relief when he’d accepted without question.
You still caught yourself focusing on him in ways that were not helpful. Like noticing his broad shoulders, toned biceps, strong hands (he seemed to be the only person to ever make scrubs look good, what was that all about?), the way your entire body warmed when he stepped in a little closer than he needed to or how his voice occasionally raked down your spine in a way that made you shiver, but you were determined to ignore it.
You shoved it down as much as you could, and managed to work with him as effectively, if not more, as with everyone else at the Pitt. The rhythm started to make you relax around him a bit.
In the next few weeks, Lexi, in particular, had clicked with Samira over the course of a few disjointed phone calls. It wasn’t really surprising when you stopped to think about how similar they were as people and as doctors. They shared a generally sunny disposition, often seeking out a silver lining where the rest of you might approach with jaded cynicism, and their empathy and compassion seemed to have no limits. Until, apparently, it came to you.
You’d walked to work with Samira today under the bright blue skies and gently warming sunlight, and you’d actually had a pretty good feeling about the day. That was, until you were dressed in your scrubs in the locker room, putting your phone in your locker and you happened to take one last glance at your notifications. Weird, you thought, seeing a lot of hits from your group chat. As you opened them, you read on with dawning horror at what you saw.
Slamming your locker shut, phone still unlocked and gripped in your hand, you stormed onto the floor in search of Samira. When you found her checking the board, waiting for Robby to show up for rounds, you shoved the phone in her face.
“Did you do this?” You hissed the question, but you both knew you didn’t need an answer. After recently being added to your chat, she’d decided to indulge the constant requests for a picture of who the others had dubbed McHottie. Not original, but they’d been having too much fun relishing in your downfall to care about coming up with anything wittier. Except, Samira hadn’t just sent a photo, she’d sent a link to one of Javadi’s many TikToks, one where Jack had accidentally featured in the background.
She’d already seen most of the replies on her own phone before she made it to the floor, but she read them again with a grin she couldn’t suppress.
Cristina: I’m sorry, you’re working in a hospital where baby doctors make TikToks? That’s unacceptable, come home immediately.
Cristina: But bring McHottie with you, there’s always room for a silver fox.
Lexi: Damn, paging Dr. Biceps. You are so screwed.
Meredith: Stay away from elevators.
Meredith: Or don’t, the sex will probably be great.
You: You’re all enjoying this way too much.
Alex: Please, please stop adding me back into this chat or I’m gonna throw myself in front of the next ambulance I see.
“Do what?” You were still waving your phone in Samira’s grinning face when Santos sidled up beside the two of you, yanking your phone out of your grip before you could lock it. Her eyes scanned the messages, and when she was done she wore a grin to match Samira’s.
“You’re kidding me?” She asked, doing nothing to hide the mirth in her voice or eyes.
“This is a nightmare,” you declared, snatching your phone back and shoving it deep inside the pocket of your scrubs. “I’m having a nightmare and any second now I’ll wake up and never have met either of you.”
“What’s this about a nightmare?” Robby asked from behind you and any retort you might have had died on a slightly choked breath as you saw Jack right beside him.
“Doesn’t matter,” you said, shooting a glare at Santos when she tried to cover a laugh with a cough. Badly.
The morning passed as all mornings in the Pitt did; in a swirl of patient exams, ECGs, blood tests, x-rays and CT scans. You and Jack — seriously, didn’t this man ever go home? — had been treating a patient who’d been hit by a car and had just about gotten him stabilised when his spleen ruptured. You’d rushed him upstairs and had just finished handing him off for surgery.
“That was good work, quick and steady.” Such simple praise shouldn’t make you feel so pleased with yourself. You knew you were good at your job, because you worked hard to be that way. “You thinking of staying here after your residency?” He asked as you were waiting for the elevator.
“Yeah, possibly,” you shrugged, not wanting to sound like you were putting too much hope on that one option. “I kind of like it here.”
“Good. You just say the word if you want a recommendation letter.”
It wasn’t until he was inside the elevator, looking at you expectantly, that you remembered Meredith’s wise words. Stay away from elevators. You knew you had to follow them. If Seattle Grace had taught you anything, it was that you should never get onto elevators alone with attendings you’d pictured naked.
“You coming?”
“Uhh, I’m gonna take the stairs,” you said, taking a step back. Jack watched you go with a confused nod.
A couple of minutes and four flights of stairs later, you slid through the doors back into the Pitt. Whitaker and Santos watched you from in front of one of the trauma bays.
“Why didn’t you just get the elevator with Abbot?”
“Rule number one Whitaker, elevators are where self control goes to die,” you said as you passed them, never breaking stride.
“I don’t— That doesn’t even make sense!” He called after you, accompanied by Santos’ laughter.
Inside the trauma bay, snapping on gloves to begin another examination, Jack Abbot felt like every time he thought he was starting to know you, he ended up understanding less.
————————————————————————————
As time went on, Jack was starting to think he’d got it all wrong.
He’d puzzled over your words to Whitaker about self control until he’d convinced himself that your reluctance to be around him wasn’t to do with hate at all but quite the opposite. He’d started noticing the way you responded to him and forming another theory entirely.
When you were working, things were mostly normal. It was when the two of you started to stray away from the medicine where you changed. There were still a few odd moments where there was a glint in your eye like you had something to bat back at him in the midst of sarcastic banter that flowed back and forth and you still refused to get in an elevator if there wasn’t a patient between you. He was starting to wonder if you were as affected by him as he was by you and it was going to his head in ways that were borderline unhealthy.
As if the world was offering him an answer, proof that he was right, you started showing up on the night shifts. The first time he’d seen you behind the central desk at the Hub at 1 a.m., wearing your street clothes and tucked away in a corner where you wouldn’t be in Lena’s way, he’d been concerned. The current of the Pitt towed him from one patient to the next, but his eyes drifted over to you every time he crossed within sight of the Hub. You didn’t seem to be in any distress but he couldn’t fathom why you’d be there. A couple of hours passed before there was a lull and as he’d come over to check why, his worry had thawed into an emotion he knew well when it came to you; confusion. His eyes bounced across the books splayed out across the desk, the scattered pens and the scribbled notes on brightly coloured post-its.
“Are you… studying? In the Pitt, in the middle of the night?”
“Hm?” You glanced up at him. “Oh yeah,” you muttered, reading your most recent set of notes again. “I can’t focus at home, I need the noise.”
“That’s one of the weirdest things I’ve ever heard.”
You smiled a little, and Jack thought it was kind of pathetic how much it felt like victory to him. “Back in Seattle, the house I lived in was kind of like the open house where people just showed up at all hours. Now, silence kills my brain and I will not fail my boards when there’s all this chaos just going begging right here.”
“Speaking of Seattle,” he said, sliding into the stool next to you and trying to focus on anything besides the way you were absentmindedly chewing on your pen, “are you ever gonna clue us in and end the mystery behind the pool?”
When you laughed, Jack felt it all the way down to his bones. “No way,” you said, abandoning your books for now and giving him your full attention, “those guesses are way too funny. Besides, another ten weeks and that money’s all mine.”
He spent a couple of minutes with you, quizzing you on your notes as you chatted idly about hospital gossip and you told him little bits and pieces of your life in Seattle. Nothing he could use to win the pool, but more than you’d given to most other people.
Despite what everyone thought, he very much liked getting out of here after a shift, but Jack thought he could have happily spent the night there. Even with the uncomfortable chairs, the lights that were giving him a headache, and the way this place made him relive every failure he’d ever had within its walls, he thought he’d have stayed in this very spot for the rest of his life as long as you kept looking at him. Inevitably, he got pulled into a trauma call, but you were still there when he came back, armed with another coffee — hospital sourced, sadly — and a snack from the vending machine.
“I noticed you haven’t eaten anything since you’ve been sitting here,” he said by way of explanation.
“Don’t do that, don’t notice things about me.”
“Oh, it’s too late for that. You fascinate me,” Jack’s voice pitched low and he leaned his elbows on the counter above you.
“No, I don’t,” you scoffed, sliding your stool back to create some space. “You don’t even know me.”
“I know some things. I know you chew on your pen when you’re studying in a way that’s completely maddening, I know you like it when I tell you how talented you are, I know you have weird rules about elevators that I cannot begin to understand.” He laughed a little, but you could feel the slightest hint of panic sparking inside you. “I know you’re a great mentor to the med students and your patients love you. I know you love the chaos and can’t focus in the silence, I know you miss your friends in Seattle but I also know you’d never move back there. I’ve been noticing you since you got here, sweetheart.”
The panic had started to unfurl along your limbs, because it wasn’t funny any more. You might have bitched about it, but you could see why it was funny that you found him so attractive when you’d drawn so much amusement from the sexual escapades of Seattle Grace but this wasn’t that any more. This was too much like potential, too much like it could be the start of something real that would inevitably implode and drag your hard-earned career down with it before it even really began.
“Why do you do that?” Jack asked, cutting through the loaded silence. He could see it happening, the way you were forcing yourself to back away from the easy, relaxed aura that had settled between you. “Why do you shut me out when you don’t with everyone else?”
“Did you ever think maybe it’s not about you?”
————————————————————————————
A month later found medical professionals from all over the country descending on Pittsburgh for a conference. You knew that Derek and Mark were flying in as speakers and you’d made plans to catch up with them before they flew back.
It had seemed like a good idea at the time, to arrange for them to meet you at the Pitt at the end of your shift but as you approached the last hour of your shift, the hour that overlapped with Jack’s, you began to doubt. You realised there was a decent chance that would mean Jack crossing paths with them and if they behaved the part of the annoying brothers you never asked for, as they so often did, you would be just absolutely mortified.
The thought plagued you through your last case, and it was what tipped you over the edge when you felt just a little too pleased at Jack’s whispered, “Atta girl.”
As you exited the patient’s room, you turned to him with the air of someone teetering on the edge.
“Okay, this…” you gestured between the two of you, “this is not happening. Because if we do this, then yeah, it’ll be good to start with. There will be laughing and flirting and lots of great sex but then, something bad will happen. Because you’re the hot attending and I’m the resident and something bad always happens. Then the next thing you know I’m a cliché on the bathroom floor with all these feelings and a tequila hangover and my life is spiralling out of control. I refuse to become that girl over a man, any man, no matter how great he is. So I need you to stop with the hair and the voice and the noticing me and the biceps because it’s incredibly distracting!”
It was the only time you’d ever heard dead silence in the Pitt and it distantly occurred to you that you didn’t need Derek and Mark to humiliate you because you’d just done a bang up job of it all on your own.
“I’m the hot attending?” Jack asked, smirking. He looked so good when he did it that it made you a little furious.
“Seriously, that’s what you took from that? Seriously?”
“They call you McHottie,” Santos called helpfully from somewhere off to your left and you thought you might actually throttle her. Later, though, because you remained locked still under the self-satisfied gaze of Jack Abbot.
Robby called your name, and God bless him he tried so hard not to sound like he was laughing at you. “Shift’s over.” Still, you didn’t move your eyes from Jack’s. “And you’ve got visitors.”
With a sinking feeling you turned to see Derek and Mark watching with keen interest, not trying at all to seem like they weren’t laughing at you. As you stalked past them to the locker room to change, Mark called after you. “Spectacular meltdown.”
“Screw you, McSteamy.”
————————————————————————————
Derek and Mark had laughed at you all the way back to your apartment and, as you showered and changed, you seriously considered throwing them both out and ordering takeout instead of going to dinner. Eventually, you decided you’d punish them by making them take you somewhere nice and foot the bill. Goddamn surgeons. Goddamn McAssholes, it’s their bad examples that got me in this mess in the first place.
You were glad you’d gone in the end, even if the teasing hadn’t stopped entirely all evening, because it felt so good to actually see some of the people who knew you best, who’d been around for some of your lowest moments. They updated you on all the gossip from Seattle – you all agreed how relieved you were that Cristina saw sense and gave up bartending – and you told them about how much you were enjoying being in a new place and how free it made you feel. You also confided in them, between their jokes and wisecracks, that Jack was actually a good man, which made everything so much harder because you could actually see yourself being with him but not at the expense of your residency. They, in turn, reminded you that you were not Meredith or Lexi or anyone else, Jack was not them and this was not Seattle, so maybe you were overreacting just a little. You weren’t convinced, but promised to take it under advisement. If you could ever get over your embarrassment enough to speak to him again.
You made it all the way to dessert before your phone summoned you back to the hospital. A massive pile up a few miles away meant the night shift was likely about to be overwhelmed and they were calling in back up. Derek paid for your cab and you were thankful you kept a spare pair of scrubs in your locker because it meant you wouldn’t have to stop off home first.
The Pitt was full to bursting when you arrived, but everyone in it had become experts at slipping their little social interactions between their procedures, it was how they kept sane, so arriving in a nice dress and makeup didn’t go unnoticed.
Donnie wolf whistled when you passed by the Hub, followed by Mateo saying, “I feel bad for the guy who had to watch you leave, or is that for a certain night shift attending? I’ve been hearing the tension might have reached a breaking point.”
Self-consciousness prickled its way all the way up from your toes, but the laugh you gave was genuine because Mateo was too nice to be taken maliciously.
You nearly bumped into Jack leaving a trauma room as you walked by, ducking your head and hoping he hadn’t heard Mateo because one nightmarish encounter with him was enough for one day. His eyes trailed you as you dodged around him and into the locker room. His feet followed without conscious thought.
He leaned in the doorway as you dug your scrubs out of your locker. “You look…. are you trying to kill me, sweetheart?”
Your hands paused on the zipper of your dress, and you cast a look at him over your shoulder. “I already told you we’re not doing this. Do you not listen?”
“I do, when people mean what they say.” Jack moved behind you close enough that you could feel his breath falling hot against the back of your neck. “What I heard wasn’t that you don’t want to, but that you’re scared of what happens if you do.” His hands brushed your hair over your shoulder so he could reach the zip of your dress himself. “You’re worried about your residency? Fine. It’s what, six weeks to your boards?” He dragged the zipper down slowly, the back of his knuckles scorching against the line of your spine as he spoke, voice rough and full of promise. “I haven’t wanted to date anyone in a long while, I can wait six weeks.”
As soon as your dress was unzipped, Jack turned on his heel and returned to the Pitt, as if he hadn’t left you there with your heart racing, back thrumming where his bare skin had touched yours and desire glittering in your veins.
He might be able to wait but suddenly, you weren’t so sure you could.
Summary: You and Jack had history; years of working together, you the resident and he the doctor. You had an unspoken thing between you two that never came to fruition. You left for a fellowship in California and now you're back three years later.
A/N: definitely some inaccuracies with medical procedures and med school stuff
The Pitt Masterlist
You've been in the Emergency Department for two out of three years of residency. At first, you felt like maybe you made the wrong choice, that you weren't meant for the ED. But then you got put on nights and working with Jack changed everything.
While the night shift had its own difficulties that differed from the day shift, it was a fun, wild ride.
"Nightcrawlers? Seriously?" You'd snorted at Jack when you were on your first shift with him.
He just shrugged, "Night Time Degenerates was a mouthful and not as fun." That got you laughing and you swore you saw Jack's eyes twinkled.
That shift was a whirlwind. You stuck by Jack's side a majority of the shift, watching how he initiated care, performed on traumas, provide bedside manner, etc. He was amazing at his job and you enjoyed watching him whenever you could. Hence your now given nickname 'Specs' short for 'Spectator'.
You'll admit that you became Jack's shadow. Sure, you'd take on separate cases here and there, but, no matter what, you two always ended up together.
There'd been an ongoing bet since you two first started. You found it hidden behind a calendar in Ahmad's office: Abbot & Spec's Relationship
He'll confess after her first year. $40
She'll remain oblivious and they'll never get together $20
FWB $50
She confesses, but nothing ever happens $20
Different sticky notes with different predictions about your "relationship" with Jack. You never mention it to him, you couldn't. Because it was clear to everyone that there was something between you two. You felt it. You saw it. But you never acted on it. Neither did he. Honestly, how could you? He's an attending. You're a resident. That can't happen. Ever.
Even if your heart wanted it to.
_________________
The sliding doors to the ambulance bay whoosh open and a gurney is getting rolled in. Jack immediately helps push the groaning patient, "Lena, what's open?"
"Trauma three!" She replies as she points towards the room.
"Specs, with me!" Jack calls out and you look up from your charting. You rush out of the rolling chair and follow Jack into Trauma Three. The patient, a man around his thirties, is groaning in and out of consciousness.
"Weak carotid, but it's there!" you hear Samira call out. You help Jack to robe up, fingers working quick on tying the strings behind his back. He then helps you into a robe, you both just moving with each other in sync.
Once you both are ready, you step up, "Let's do this," you say in unison. You look at him with a smile, he smiles back at you and winks before calling out orders.
You're swift with handing him the instruments he needs. Your hands are steady when you assist with a chest tube. The patient has lost a lot of blood and Samira is working hard on getting that blood back in him.
"Clamp!"
You and Jack don't exchange many words unless it's instruction or quick praise. You feel like you've been holding your breath this entire time and now you get to breathe again.
The patient was stable. You almost lost him twice, but with you and Jack, he was brought back. Now he can live to say that he almost died on the table.
"Good shit as always, Specs," Jack winks and holds out his fist.
You bump him, "Dynamic Duo strikes again!" The staff in your proximity chuckle and shake their heads, used to your guys' behavior.
You're bouncing on your feet and Jack arches a brow at you, "You good?"
You shrug, "Have some extra energy tonight. Told Shen to add another shot of espresso to my drink tonight."
"Jesus," he attending shakes his head, "You trying to give yourself a heart attack or something?"
"If I did have one, I know you'd be able to reverse it," you shoot him a wink and he snorts. You giggle, "I feel like I've grown accustomed to my usual dose of caffeine! I'm trying to test my endurance now. See if I become quicker and efficient with my care!"
Jack crosses his arms over his chest and shakes his head, "You can't rely on just caffeine. You also need proper rest."
You mimic his pose, "Crazy coming from you! Mister 'Golf and Pickleball Didn't Work Out for Me So I'm A SWAT Medic in My Free Time'!"
Jack drops his arms and murmurs, "Touche."
You grin at him, "Exactly."
"I just want you to take care of yourself."
"I appreciate it, but I'll be fine! Besides, I promise I won't go over board on the caffeine," you swipe up your Dunkin' cup from the counter and take a long sip, keeping eye contact with Jack.
He just reluctantly sighs, "Go check on your patients."
You give him a salute, setting your coffee down and practically skip to a patient's room.
__________
You've joined Shen in triage since the waiting room really started piling up. As you're overlooking the vitals of a patient, your breath hitches. Your heart feels like its pounding hard against your chest.
You quickly read off your patient's blood pressure and then hand them off to Shen, "Sorry, I'll be right back."
He looks at you concerned, "You okay?"
"Yeah, just need a moment!" you rush out of the room and towards the stairwell, unaware of the pair of eyes following you.
You climb up a few steps and them collapse. You cradle your head in your hands, trying to let out steady deep breaths. Your heart is now pounding so hard and fast you can feel it in your ears.
"Fuck, fuck, fuck," you murmur to yourself.
You're not alone for long, the door to the stairwell opening and boots stomping up to you, "Hey, what happened? Are you okay?" you hear his voice above the pounding, a warm hand lays on your shoulder.
You shake your head, "You were right. Too much caffeine. Heart's racing." You don't look up at him, scared to see his disappointed expression. Your avoidance means you don't see his eyes filled with worry and concern.
You feel him place two fingers on your neck, checking your pulse. You hear him hum, "Your heart rate is definitely elevated. Having trouble breathing?" You nod.
He sits at the steps below you and he cups your face, raising your head to look at him. He has a calculated look in his eyes, "Breathe with me," he takes a deep breath in and then exhales through his mouth. You copy him, "Good. Again with me. In....out."
One hand still on your face while the other moves to your wrist. You're not sure how long you're there for, but your eyes never waver from his. You get lost in him, in his touch, his stare, his voice.
"Is it slowing down?" he asks.
"Yeah," you whisper, suddenly aware of how close his face to his.
"Good," You see his eyes glance to your lips and you think he's going to go for it, but then he pulls away and stands with a grunt, "Go drink some water. Grab a snack and rest for a bit in the break room," he holds his hand out to you.
You grab it, standing as he pulls you up, "Jack-"
"Don't fight me on it, sweetheart. Just sit out for twenty minutes, please. Then you can come back."
"Okay," you nod and let out a sigh, "Sorry. That was all so...dumb. I shouldn't have added that extra shot."
He shrugs, "Now you know your limits. Don't push yourself, especially when you know your body can't take it."
He grunts again as he makes his way down the stairs, there's a wince as he walks to the door. He opens it and holds it open for you.
You nod at his leg, "You should take your own advice."
His lips twitch, "Do as I say, not as I do." He lets you enter the ED first and he's following you like a guard dog.
You immediately head to the break room and take a seat. Jack comes in a minute later with your water bottle and a protein bar.
"Twenty minutes. That's all I ask."
"I hear you...thanks."
"Of course." He stands in silence, making sure you drink some water. When you unwrap the protein bar and take a bite, he's satisfied on leaving you alone, "Find me when you're done."
"Will do," you give him a salute and watch him leave the room.
You slump in your seat with a groan. Your attraction to the man is becoming too much. Things have gotten too personal with him. You've gotten too comfortable with each other.
But your residency is almost over and...you'll be leaving for your fellowship in California soon after and, hopefully, you'll be able to Jack Abbot out of your system.
➻ pairing: MMA Fighter!Andrew “Pope” Cody x female!Reader
➻ summary: the week before a fight night is the most stressful for Andrew- he just needs control over something in his life
➻ warnings: 18+ MDNI, smut, thigh riding, fingering, anal fingering, nipple play, mention of masturbation (female), begging, dry humping, mentioning of weight cut/diets for fighting, stressed Andrew, mention of hunger, abstinence
➻ author’s note: idk i had this little idea about thigh riding Andrew and it just spiraled from there-
You weren’t trying to entice him- you knew better than to mess with Andrew’s concentration and focus like that. You were nothing if not a supportive girlfriend to your MMA champion of a boyfriend.
You made him his meals- breakfast, lunch, and dinner, with snacks included, based on the diet that his trainer provided for you both. The week leading up to a fight night was the worst for his diet and mental health- because that’s when his cut would start. His usual meals were cut in half or replaced by a protein shake altogether. Andrew even measured how much water he drank because by Friday he had to lose 10 pounds to make weight. The first day of his cut would be fine- he’d wake up before the sun even peeked through your windows and go to the bathroom to weigh himself before texting the weight to his coach. He stretched- did nothing to promote strength anymore so much as to promote sweating and get his movements down to a science before his fight.
You would find him shadow boxing outside in the heat- eyes closed so he can get the motions right in his head while you made breakfast. Andrew went from almost 4,000 calories down to maybe 1,500 just to maintain his energy- his breakfast was now egg whites and fruit with black coffee 6 oz., you watched him pour it into the measuring cup beforehand. After breakfast it was back to training while you made sure hotel and flight was booked properly- that cars were rented and interviews were scheduled while you watched him jump rope for nearly 15 minutes straight before practicing his footwork. His coach said he was using too much force- too much tension so Andrew was making sure he stayed on the balls of his feet to preserve his energy and strength if the fight went too long.
It was maybe two days of that routine until his cut started. Anger and sleep deprivation started to set in. Andrew was mentally drained- he was hungry, dehydrated, and deprived. Because another thing his coach believed in?
Abstinence.
No big distractions the week of a fight. You would field all his calls and appointments, you would handle the business and make sure nothing stressed him that wasn’t dire until the actual fight night. You wouldn’t even kiss him. Not even a peck before bed because you knew if Andrew had a taste then he’d breakdown and inhale you for as long as he could. You almost had to sleep in the guest bedroom a few times because you’d feel him at your back in the middle of the night and somewhere between grinding in his sleep or you moving around in yours- he got hard. Painfully so and sometimes he was so pent up that you’d feel his hips press into your ass for some relief and you would have to pull away. Force yourself from him because you were just as needy and desperate.
Cold showers for both of you would help. Andrew’s was spent letting the icy water rain down on his sore muscles- achy body desperate for some relief but his coach would tell him to not even jerk off before a fight. That was just as bad as sex. The pent up testosterone and anger would be fuel for Andrew- it would become the driving force and power that would help him win. Cumming would help him relax and the last thing he needed was his star athlete relaxing before a fight. But you didn’t have the same rules- you would spend your freezing showers biting your fist and using your fingers to rub your clit and help dull the ache in your pussy. But it never helped. You would cum- panting and shaking but all you would want was Andrew to be the one who made you cum.
What’s worse was that Andrew could tell- maybe it was to torture himself more on his end but Andrew knew the look you had. When you’d watch him come back from his jog dripping with sweat- the way you would bite your lip and how your eyes would hungrily stare at him while you watched the beads of sweat drip down his chest and melt into the waistband of his shorts. When you’d sit by the pool and listen to the way he would grunt while holding a plank until failure- heavy breathing through his nostrils and soft grunts that sound similar to the way he did when he was on top of you. Sliding between your pussy and forcing your leg a little higher up his torso to get the angle that makes you see stars just right. Andrew knew the look you had- so he followed you after you said you were going to shower. Stood outside of the door and listened to the little whimpers you bit back while you attempted to quell the need you had for him.
God it was fucking torture. But Andrew couldn’t touch you. Right? You knew better than to ruin his fight over being a horny bitch for your boyfriend- but Andrew didn’t want you to suffer along with him. He wasn’t fucking selfish, if anything- Andrew was a fucking giver and maybe that was the worst part about denying yourself the pleasure of his touch during fight week. He left you more than satisfied. And it was torture to Andrew- that he couldn’t fuck you but- he could still bring you pleasure even if he couldn’t stuff you full of his cock and feel the way you clench and spasm around him when you cum. It was fucking torture for the both of you and Andrew wasn’t going to let you suffer any longer when the fight was still days away and he knew he’d be sore and bruised and bloody after that you’d be too scared to touch him- but he saw the way you bit your lip and how your leg shook with anxiety and pent up sexual frustration while you both sat and watched his opponent’s last few fights on opposite ends of the couch.
God you wanted to slap him- how fucking dare he walk around in nothing but his boxer briefs that hugged his thighs so well. That showed you the swell of his ass that you wanted to bite and gave you an uninhibited view of his soft dick that was still fucking huge and made you clench around nothing when he passed by to sit and watch along with you. From the corner of your eyes you saw how wide he sat- how this thick fucking thighs took up the entire end of the couch and the ripple of his abs moving like waves every fucking time he took a breath. The stress ball in his fist was clenched within an inch of its life from how hard Andrew worked to keep himself concentrated on the tv but dammit he could feel you watching him. The way you bit your lip and finally you stood with a pathetic excuse of- “I’m gonna take a shower,” so you could rub your pussy and cum but his heavy hand grabbed your wrist to stop you.
“C’mere,” he grunts- tugging you into his lap with no effort at all while you’re left dazed. Gasping his name and struggling to get out of his hold because you know what he’s doing- you know what he wants. Pathetic little whimpers of his name followed along with ‘we can’t’ or ‘baby wait’ while he ignores your halfhearted attempts to pull away from him- because the second you were in his lap? The second you felt his cock stiffen underneath you from the way you wriggled and moved about? You melted. Moaned pathetically into the hot air while Andrew nipped and licked at your neck- heavy hands that were sore and bruised pawed at your body. “You need this,” it was simple. Andrew knew you needed to cum. Andrew didn’t care if he couldn’t cum. Andrew wanted you to cum. “Been so good for me sweetheart,” doing everything you can to keep him healthy and keep him on track- maintaining his schedule and sanity while neglecting yourself. Taking care of him- reminding him to take his vitamins and even measuring out water for him and making his meals and not eating in front of him because you knew how hard it was for him to eat plainly while you got to eat what you wanted.
“Let me take care of you,” he keeps cutting you off- silencing your protests with his slightly chapped lips and swallowing your whimpers with his tongue against yours. God it felt so fucking good- his rough hands dragging your shirt up so he can lick and suck at your chest with needy until you start to grind in his lap. Your clothed pussy catches his hard-on just right- rubbing against him to relieve yourself of the ache and you could feel how thick and stuff he got with only a few minutes of kissing and touching you. Twin groans breaking the kiss- tongues no longer tangled together but you continue panting in each other’s mouths before you try to pull away. You can’t- you’ll make him cum like this- you know how stressed he is and when you try and tell Andrew that you’re fine and you can wait another week or two he’s already manhandling you onto one of his deliciously thick thighs.
“Ride,” it’s a command- Andrew isn’t asking you anymore. He’s not waiting for you to ask permission or waiting for you to leave the bed late at night for you to stuff your fingers into your pussy and give yourself a pathetic orgasm that won’t stop the burn between your thighs. Andrew wants you to take it from him- to grind your covered pussy over the thick quad muscles of this thighs and give yourself whatever pleasure you want since he can’t fuck you the way you deserve.
“Andrew- b-baby no I-” you’re sputtering- shaking your head because you need to deny yourself the pleasure and he shuts you up with two strong hands grabbing your hips to drag you up the meat of his thigh. “Fuck!” You probably scream it in his ear but the way your panties rub against your needy pussy lips felt too fucking good and Andrew was moaning- panting right alongside you. Your pleasure was his pleasure- he unfortunately got off on you getting off and- god this was bad. This could go bad so fast but you were weak- useless to stop him from manhandling you up and down his leg. Your warm pussy was intoxicating to him- he swears he could already feel your wetness seeping from your panties and onto his skin but even more perfect was the way you whined his name. Little broken and choked off gasps of “ah~ Andrew!” into the tiny space between you both.
“Please baby- I need you to cum,” it was like he was living vicariously through your orgasm- mumbling against your chest before his lips wrapped around your nipple to suck and scrape his teeth against. He should’ve taken your panties off first- should have rid you of all your clothes before forcing you to grind on his thigh like this so he could feel your wet folds catch the soft waves of his muscles. Both of your arms grab onto Andrew- one hand threading through his soft curls to pull and grab onto while the other claws at his back. The wide expanse of his shoulders getting attacked by your nails and there’s no way he’d be able to tell his coach that you didn’t do it- no way to deny that he wasn’t between your perfect thighs when the evidence was on his body but god he couldn’t give less of a fuck that he does now.
“Like that- just like that pretty girl,” he can feel the way your thighs clench- how you’re already so fucking close with the way your breathing gets shorter and the way you can barely finish saying his name without cutting yourself off to moan. “Please baby- little more okay?” Muffled- mumbled into your skin before he resumes licking your other nipple into his warm mouth. Every drag of your cunt across his thigh sends electricity straight through your body- your clit catching the fabric of your underwear perfectly and you’re so fucking close. You just- god you felt so fucking empty. Pussy clenching around your own wetness and nothing else while your body moves itself back and forth- Andrew tensing his thigh to give you a little more to use for your own selfish gain. Every roll of your hips and scrape of his teeth give you just that much more and you’re about to beg him to fuck you until you finally feel his hand at your hip slide down to grab the meat of your ass before going lower. The tips of his thick fingers just barely brushing at your entrance-
One more grind- maybe you even try go a little too far but you desperately need to sink back onto Andrew’s fingers that tease at your wetness. He wants you to use him- wiggling his digits a little with every glide of your pussy until finally you go back just a little more and you whimper when he’s finally inside you. “That’s it,” like it’s what he wanted all along- like it makes him feel better to feel how wet and fucking needy you were for him. Such a good girl- neglecting yourself for him? “Better?” Almost sounding condescending- taken to fucking you with his fingers now because the feeling has you already riding a high that you can’t even keep rolling your hips anymore. You feel it- blinding heat and pleasure bubbling up with every drag of his thick fingers through your leaking pussy.
“Keep going,” his lips dragging along your jaw- biting your skin because he knows you’re close and he wants to feel you cum. Your sweet pussy juices drip down his hands- loud wetness making the room sound fucking nasty and all it does is encourage Andrew to use his thumb to circle around the right hole of your ass. His other hand continues forcing your hips to roll over his thigh- your clit dragging back and forth and when you tighten around his fingers you all but cry out when you finally cum after he runs again that perfect spot inside you.
“Yes! Andrew- fuck!” Finally- you’re cumming- your body gives into the pleasure he’s forcing onto you. But he doesn’t stop- if anything- Andrew is drunk off your body. He’s high off the way you sound and feel- how your skin tastes and he needs more. “W-wait! Andrew-” standing with you in his arms- tongue back in your mouth to silence your pleas. He needs to taste your pussy- he needs to bury his tongue inside you and hopefully he can go back to concentrating on his fight this week.
Summary: It’s an unwritten rule in life that after every prolonged period of hardship and uncertainty, there is going to be a period when you experience quantum leaps across multiple areas of your life. The only requirement is that you don’t give up on yourself. Jack Abbot never expected to see you again in any version of his reality…his late wife’s best friend. Especially not in his emergency department after a freak accident.
Summary: You surprise Jack in a soft baby blue number.
Words: 2780
Warning: Age Gap (Mid 30s/Early 50s), Sensual and Sexual Themes/Suggestive Tone
Authors Note: *NAWING AT THE BARS OF MY ENCLOSURE* Buckle up because this one is steamy!!! 🤪🫣 I’ve had this written so so so long ago. When I saw the gif and saw the look he gave (THE UP DOWN STARE GAHHH), the idea came about. I've had this written and saved in the dafts since october of last year GAHHHH. Those of you wondering what was in the black paper bag from Black Friday part…here ya go LOL. Enjoy - Ryn
SOL | MASTERLIST
You catch your reflection in the mirror, cheeks warm, pulse hammering in your ears. Nervous doesn’t even begin to cover it, you’re terrified. The light baby blue babydoll lingerie feels impossibly soft against your skin, unfamiliar in a way that makes your stomach flutter. It’s Jack’s favorite color, and somehow knowing that only makes your nerves spike higher.
You’ve taken the time to doll yourself up, hair softly curled, makeup just enough to make your eyes stand out, lips slightly glossy.
You shift slightly, tugging at the delicate fabric as if trying to make it feel more like armor than vulnerability. The reflection staring back at you is a mix of confidence and uncertainty, and you wonder, when he sees you, will he see both?
You smooth your hands down the sheer fabric, forcing a smile that doesn’t quite reach your eyes. “Okay,” you whisper to yourself, “you can do this! It’s just Jack. Jack who makes you laugh. Jack who loves you. Jack who looks at you like you hung the moon.”
But your pulse won’t slow. You’ve never done anything like this before. You’ve never worn something so intimate, so revealing, so deliberately sexy. The thought of stepping out, seeing his face when he looks at you, makes your heart pound against your ribs.
You take one more breath, fingers tightening around the door handle. “Okay,” you murmur again. “Here goes nothing.”
You exhale, open the door, and pad softly down the hallway toward the garage. The faint scent of oil and metal grows stronger with each step, mixing with the steady rhythm of classic rock humming low from the radio.
Through the open door, you see Jack, bent over the hood of his truck, sleeves pushed up, forearms streaked with grease. The late afternoon Sun spills across his shoulders, catching in his hair as he works.
You hover just inside the doorway, out of sight from the street. The garage door is open, but from where you’re standing, no one passing by could see you, not with the truck angled the way it is. It’s your small bubble of privacy hidden in plain view.
He doesn’t notice you at first, too lost in the task in front of him. The clink of a wrench, the soft scrape of metal, the quiet hum under his breath. Then he hears the soft creak of the door.
“Beautiful, can you pass me the—”
He looks, mid-sentence.
The rest of the words die on his lips as his eyes land on you. For a long, silent heartbeat, he just stares, lingering over you as if memorizing every detail.
Jack doesn’t say anything at first. He straightens slowly, eyes never leaving you, and reaches for the rag on the workbench. The movement is almost mechanical, wiping his grease-stained hands one slow drag at a time like he needs to make sure this is real before he dares to speak.
He lets out a slow breath, the kind that seems to steady him against a force he didn’t expect.
“God…” His voice is low, almost a whisper. His eyes widen, flicking down and back up in a slow, stunned sweep that makes your skin hum. His breath catches faintly, like he wasn’t prepared for you to look like that, like he’s not entirely sure he’s awake.
Jack blinks, swallows hard, but doesn’t look away. His jaw tightens, the muscle ticking as if he’s fighting the urge to say or do something he might not be able to take back.
“H-hi,” you stutter out.
“Hey,” he says quietly, still wiping his hands with the rag, his movements slower now. He doesn’t step closer, doesn’t say anything else, just watches you, waiting. It’s like he knows you need to make the first move.
You shift under his gaze, heart pounding, suddenly aware of every inch of sheer fabric clinging to your skin. The confidence you had in front of the mirror starts to crumble.
His silence only makes you second-guess yourself further, twisting your confidence into something fragile and uncertain. The quiet between you feels heavier than words, and suddenly you wonder if what seemed daring in the mirror now looks… wrong to him.
“This was a dumb idea,” you mumble, crossing your arms instinctively over your chest as heat floods your cheeks. “I feel absolutely ridiculous… in this.”
The baby-blue babydoll that had seemed flirty and playful before now feels far too revealing, thin straps slipping off your shoulders, the hem brushing high against your thighs, and the sheer fabric doing little to hide the rapid rise and fall of your breathing.
Jack’s brow furrows, just slightly. He drops the rag on the workbench and takes a slow step toward you, careful, like he’s afraid to spook you.
This was new territory for both of you. You and Jack had been intimate before, closely, physically, but lingerie had never been part of your dynamic. Never something you’d worn just for him, just the two of you. The thought of exposing this side of yourself, letting him see you like this, made your pulse spike, and yet there was a strange thrill in the vulnerability, the trust in uncharted territory.
“Hey,” he says softly, stepping closer but not too close, like he knows you might bolt if he does. “Don’t do that.”
“Do what?” you mutter, still avoiding his eyes, arms hugging yourself tighter.
He gestures vaguely toward you, to the way you’re folding in on yourself. “That. Acting like you’ve got something to be embarrassed about.”
He chuckles softly, a low, warm sound. “Why are you hiding? It’s nothing I haven’t seen before.”
“I… I don’t know,” you whisper, voice shaky. “It’s… different. Wearing this for you.”
He exhales softly and takes another small step, slow enough for you to stop him if you want. “Let me see you.”
Your fingers hesitate at your elbows, unsure, trembling just a little. But the way he’s looking at you steady, patient, almost aching, pulls something loose inside your chest.
You uncross your arms slowly.
His breath leaves him in a quiet, stunned rush. He doesn’t touch you, doesn’t even try, but his hands flex at his sides like he’s fighting the instinct to reach for you.
“Jesus…” he murmurs, the word barely audible, almost reverent. His gaze sweeps over you again, slower this time, lingering on the curve of the lace, the dip of the straps, the exposed skin underneath, the parts of you you’re trying, and failing, not to shy away from.
His voice gentles even more, the teasing stripped away. “You look… incredible.”
He tilts his head, studying you like he’s memorizing every line and curve.
“When did you get this?”
“Black Friday shopping…”
He lets out a low sound half laugh, half ache. “So this is why you told me to stay put?” His eyes flick to you, then back again, wide with disbelief and something brighter. “This is what was in that black bag?”
You nod.
He shakes his head slowly, a breathless, almost disbelieving smile tugging at his mouth. “You’re kidding…” His eyes lift to yours and then drift back down again “You’ve had this the whole time, and now you decide to—” He breaks off, swallowing hard, his voice rough with a mix of awe and want. “—wear it?”
You nod, cheeks warm. “I just thought it might be nice. Something different. For me… and for you.”
You nod, still not looking up, heat creeping into your cheeks. “ I bought it,” you admit softly, fingers fidgeting with the fabric. “Because I wanted to feel good in my own skin.” You hesitate, then add, quieter, “But… also for you. I thought maybe it would be something you’d like.”
You shake your head, embarrassed, wishing you could disappear for a second. “It’s silly, I know.”
He swallows, his gaze never leaving yours. “It’s not silly,” he says softly, voice low but steady, like he’s trying to anchor you. “Not even a little.”
“I wasn’t expecting—” He stops himself, clears his throat. “I mean, damn, you knocked the wind out of me.”
He steps closer, close enough that you can feel the heat radiating from him. His hand hovers near your arm, not quite touching, giving you just enough space to breathe while still making you acutely aware of him. “Thank you,” he murmurs, almost reverently. “For thinking of me. I appreciate it…”
Your heart hammers in your chest. “Do… Do you like it?” you ask, voice barely above a whisper.
He blinks, genuinely caught off guard that you’d even ask. “Do I—” He cuts himself off, a soft huff of a laugh leaving him. A faint smile curves at the corner of his mouth as his eyes drift over you again, gentler now. “Yeah. Yeah, I do…more than you can imagine.”
His voice drops, warmer, almost reverent. “And blue,” he murmurs, almost to himself, “my favorite color. You could’ve worn anything—hell, you could’ve worn one of my old shirts and I’d still be standing here thinking the same thing.”
You feel your chest tighten at that, warmth flooding through you. “What’s that?” you ask, voice barely a whisper.
“That I’m completely gone for you,” he says simply, like it’s the most obvious thing in the world.
He steps a fraction closer, and the air between you seems to pulse. “That you… look incredible. Just… you. Every part of you,” he says, voice low, reverent, a quiet intensity behind every word.
Jack’s voice drops low, almost tentative. “Can I… touch you?” he asks, like he’s afraid the question itself might scare you off.
Your breath catches. You look up at him, his hand hovering midair, his expression careful, waiting. He isn’t assuming, isn’t pushing, just asking.
You nod once, slow. “Y-yes,” you whisper.
He starts to move, then hesitates, glancing down at his hands, still faintly streaked with grease despite the rag. A quiet, sheepish smile tugs at his mouth. “I should probably wash up first,” he murmurs.
You shake your head before he can step back. “N-no. It’s okay,” you say softly, your voice steady now, sure. “I don’t care.”
For a moment, he just looks at you, eyes searching, like he’s trying to decide if you really mean it. The tension in his shoulders eases just a fraction. His fingertips brush against your arm first, feather-light like he’s giving you a chance to change your mind. Then a little firmer, tracing down until his hand settles against your skin, grounding you both.
His thumb grazes the edge of your strap, which has slipped off your shoulder, and he fixes it gently, an excuse, maybe, or just something to do with his hands while the air hums quietly between you.
You exhale, a soft sound that feels more like release than words.
His hands find your hips, warm and steady, grounding you when everything inside feels unsteady. He pulls you a little closer, not demanding, just waiting, giving you the space to pull away if you need to.
“Okay?” he asks quietly, his breath brushing against your temple.
You nod, the word catching in your throat before it can form. “Yes,” you whisper, though your heart is beating so fast you’re sure he can feel it.
Jack studies you for a long moment, his eyes searching your face, making sure. When he finally speaks again, his voice is even softer. “You’re sure?”
You nod again, this time a little firmer. “I’m sure.”
Something in his shoulders eases at that, the faint tension melting away. He lets out a quiet breath, thumb brushing along your hip bone like he’s memorizing the shape of you.
Then, without a word, he leans in closer. His lips press softly to the side of your neck, a gentle, lingering kiss that sends a shiver through you. You sigh, breathless, tilting your head slightly, caught between surprise and desire, heart hammering as the warmth of him presses closer, slow and deliberate.
“Beautiful,” he murmurs, almost to himself, his voice low and reverent. “God… you’ve got no idea what this does to me,” he murmurs, voice thick, almost a whisper. “You, here, like this…”
The words make your pulse skip, the nerves still there but dulled by the warmth in his voice, the care. You tilt your chin up slightly, meeting his gaze at last.
“Show me,” you whisper.
He exhales, a low, almost frustrated sound. “I… need to wash up first,” he says, voice rough, as if reluctant to break the moment.
“Jack,” you whine softly, tugging at his shirt, the heat and frustration coiling in your chest. “Don’t. Please… don’t.”
He groans, running a hand through his curls, shaking his head with a wry smile. “Beautiful… I’m not gonna be with you if I’m all greasy and sweaty from working on the truck” he says, voice low but teasing, the tension between you still humming in the air. His eyes softening just a fraction. “Come on… you deserve better than that.”
You pout, tugging at his shirt again, frustration and mischief in your eyes. “Jack… come on, not yet… Just for a minute? Please?”
He exhales, giving in with a slow, reluctant smirk. “Okay, fine. A minute—then we’re going inside. I’m gonna shower first… and then we’ll continue.”
Before you can react, he scoops you up effortlessly, and you squeal, the sudden movement sending a jolt straight through you. He carries you across the garage, swiping tools off the workbench in a careless clatter before setting you down gently on it, like you’re something precious despite the rough urgency in his movements.
He steps between your legs, close enough that you feel the heat of him, the air between you crackling. His hands settle at your waist, thumbs pressing in. Then his mouth is on yours fierce, hungry, unrelenting. The kiss steals your breath, leaves you dizzy, the world narrowing to nothing but him.
“Jack—” you gasp, pulling back just enough to breathe. “The garage door is open. Someone could see us—”
He pulls away just enough to grin, eyes dark and amused. “Relax. You really think anyone’s paying attention? Because I’m pretty sure the only one losing focus here is you.”
“You realize you’re sabotaging your minute of fun? You’re wasting time,” he teases, glancing exaggeratedly at his watch, clicking his tongue. “Your minute’s almost—”
You cut him off, grabbing the front of his shirt and kissing him again, messy and unapologetic. He laughs against your mouth, quickly turning into a low groan as his hands tighten at your waist. Your hands grip his shoulders, pulling him closer, the kiss deepening, urgent.
He breaks the kiss just for a moment, forehead resting against yours, breath mingling with yours. His eyes roam over your face, memorizing every expression. “God… you have no idea how much I want you right now,” he murmurs, voice low and rough.
A shiver runs through you. “Then don’t… don’t stop,” you whisper.
The straps of your lingerie slip again. You reach instinctively to take it off but his hands catch your wrists gently. “No,” he breathes, a little laugh tangled with a quiet groan. “Hey… don’t. I expect this to stay on. I want continue to admire you in it more later.”
You hesitate, breath catching, then nod. “Okay,” you whisper.
“yeah,” he murmurs, eyes dragging over you, unhurried and appreciative. “You got all dressed up for me. Leave it on.”
He grins against your lips before capturing your mouth again, hands roaming gently but insistently along your sides, each touch sending sparks through you.
His hand tightens slightly at your waist. “Okay… time’s up,” he murmurs, low and teasing. “I said a minute—now we go inside. Shower first, then we’ll finish this properly.”
“Jack…” you whisper, voice trembling.
“I’ll be quick, I promise,” he murmurs, pressing one last lingering kiss to your mouth. You sigh against him, breathless, heart hammering, fingers brushing lightly along his arms.
“Inside,” you say softly, eyes daring him. “And if you take your sweet time in that shower, I’m holding it against you.”
He laughs, smirking. “Don’t worry. I know better than to keep you waiting.”
Before you can react, he grabs your hand as you hop down from the workbench. Together, you rush inside, hearts racing, hands intertwined. The tension lingers, electric and promising, as the garage door closes behind you.
izzy806
prguitarman
ellievsbear
baratheonpilled
snowghoul
2087
theartofmadeline
