"you only write hucklerobby to use dennis as a self-insert!" bro I do not wanna fuck michael robinavitch. I'm using robby as a self-insert because I wanna fuck dennis whitaker
summary: you, a childhood friend of victoria javadi, move back home to pittsburgh for grad school and happen to fall in love with one of her coworkers, a woman named trinity santos...
wlw ✰ female reader/trinity santos ✰ female reader ✰ victoria javadi ✰ trinity santos ✰ college life ✰ strangers to lovers ✰ fluff ✰ shy reader ✰ text messages ✰
Dennis Whitaker in little heart patterned shorts. Dennis Whitaker in blue lace panties. Dennis Whitaker in white frilly socks. Dennis Whitaker pregnant
one laundry night they definitely start discussing how many Earth-named constellations are based on Greek myths, and then that definitely brings up the Odyssey (and how it relates to their current journey to Erid), and they spend the next week or so spinning tales and having Mary read the poem aloud and Rocky makes miniatures so Grace can act it out
summary — as his favourite waitress at the only diner in town that’ll still serve him, you’re pope’s girl. doesn’t matter if you have a boyfriend, everybody in town knows you belong to andrew cody. especially your poor neighbours on the other side of your apartment’s paper thin wall. you’d usually try and be more considerate of the noise, but with your boyfriend in the trunk of his car, pope needs everybody to hear exactly what he was doing on the night of the third. for alibi purposes.
warnings — implied age gap (you're late 20s, i believe pope is at least late 30s but that's not even really mentioned at all), mentions of armed robbery, aggravated assault, etc all the stuff they do in the show, i switch between calling him pope and andrew, reader exclusively refers to him as andrew, this isn't a slow burn but the first half is build up, reader’s boyfriend is verbally, financially and physically abusive (physical isn’t shown graphically), smurf cody, slut shaming, pope gets stabbed (also not graphic), kidnapping, murder (and like lowkey torture? he’s trying to make him feel the most pain while he dies),
18+ mdni mild exhibitionism (they want the neighbours to hear), dry humping, pope almost cums in his pants lol, mentions of m!masturbation, fingering, spitting, unprotected piv (bad), sliiiight sub!pope i think? breeding kink if u squint
word count — 11.2k
note — okay listen. i've never written for pope, i've also never written smut before. i had this stupid idea and i texted two of my friends about it and they hyped me up and now i'm here. if this sucks, that's on them, alright. i sat down to write this and figured it would be like 2/3k at most, and suddenly it had been a week and this is by far the longest single chapter fic i've ever written. i have never written smut and it is honestly much harder than it looks, the things i do for shawn hatosy </3
Pope had been waiting almost forty-five minutes.
A long wait wasn’t rare at Doc’s—the service wasn’t why he came after leaving Smurf’s. The diner, wedged by the overpass, sat forty minutes from his house without traffic. Pope didn’t care for the service, the sticky tables, the flickering lights, or even the food. The eggs were too wet, the bacon too dry, the coffee bitter. The sandwiches were both soggy and stale.
Sometimes they had pie, and that was something. Not forty-minutes-out-of-your-way something. But something.
No, there was one reason that Pope found himself in the corner booth at least twice a week, and she was currently being yelled at in the kitchen.
You looked radiant, a picture-perfect idea of a pretty girl. You moved fluidly between the coffee pot, the cabinet, and the sink, like you could perform the motions with your eyes closed. You twinkled while you walked, delicate gold rings on your fingers, earrings catching the light as your head turned towards the window. Like you were made of something that came from space. You looked more tired than usual, the dark circles under your eyes more prominent than usual.
The kitchen at Doc’s was always loud, so Andrew didn’t look up from his drink when shouting began. He had come in early, while the sun was still rising, after a sleepless night spent in his mom’s kitchen listening to his brothers plan a heist. Andrew hadn’t really paid attention to them, too focused on re-running the route from Smurf’s to the diner in his mind—a drive he could make in his sleep.
The line cook at Doc’s was an asshole. That was the first thing he’d noticed after pulling off the main road into the nearly empty parking lot. Andrew had stumbled in, bloody under his jacket. A deep gash, halfheartedly bandaged days before, ached beneath his clothes. He almost collapsed into the corner booth.
Johnny had been yelling then, too. But that time, he was behind the bar countertop, following you around as you tried to tidy up. “I don’t need to be babysitting you,” he scowled, getting in your way constantly. “First it’s the fuckin’ tickets, then it’s the drinks, for fuck’s sake. I know you don’t have much in that pretty head of yours, doll, but I didn’t realise you were honest-to-god fucking stupid.” He grabbed you at the scalp, not squeezing hard enough to hurt, and gave your head a shake. “Or were you too busy whoring yourself out tonight to remember you got a fuckin’ job to do?” His hand lingered, like he was unsure of what to do with it.
“Baby-” That word had snapped Andrew right out of it. He’d been dazed for days, since he’d got nicked right near his ribs and had lost so much blood he’d been tanner in prison. The harsh words hadn’t fazed him, he was ashamed to admit, but hearing you turn and address the man so sweetly, like he hadn’t just called you a slut in front of the empty dining room.
“No, no,” He snatched a white coffee cup out of your hands. “I get it. My big girl’s gotta do her big girl job. Right, honey? You think you’re something special ‘cause old Ron said you got a nice smile?” He slammed the mug down so hard that Andrew heard it break. You jumped about half a foot in the air and seemingly went into fight or flight. You’d scampered away, pulling the bar top up where it turned into a gate to come move around the dining room. “Where the fuck do you think you’re going? I’m talking to you.” He’d called out your name, and Andrew had committed it to memory right then and there.
“I’m working, Johnny,” you’d turned around then, in a huff. Chest rising and falling, Andrew tried not to focus on the movement of your breathing. “Doing my job, like you told me.”
Johnny watched you wipe down a table and shove the chairs in haphazardly. “Yeah,” he scoffed. “Now you wanna fucking work. Remember that flashing your tits’ll only get you out of paying rent so many times, did you?”
“Hey!”
Pope hadn’t meant to shout. Hadn’t planned on drawing attention. He hated watching you be diminished by your boss and wanted to intervene. But he felt dizzy, and you looked like the kind of girl who’d rather no one witness her shame, as twisted as that was.
Both of your heads snapped to him. Johnny’s angry, yours petrified, and Andrew felt like maybe he had made things worse for you.
Pope knew he couldn’t go in too aggressively; you were already shaking your head at him, hoping desperately he wouldn’t make a scene.
“Can I order or what?” he said gruffly, pressing his hand to his side as he slumped into the booth.
He watched Johnny grip you by the arm, hiss something in your ear, and then push you toward him. You looked more shaken than hurt, embarrassed that he had seen it than sad it had happened.
With how sweet you had been to Johnny, he’d expected you to be kind of meek. Andrew had seen your type before. Small-town girl moves to her closest approximation of a big city. Too poor for San Diego, but dreams big enough to get as close as possible. Got saddled at a dead-end food service job with an ass for a boss. Didn’t need Pope white knighting for you when he just knew your boss was going to yell at you the second he left.
Instead, you came right up to him, locking your gaze with his. Like it had never even happened. “You know what you want?” You flashed him a smile, pen already poised to write down his order.
“Uh,” Pope hadn’t even glanced at the laminated menu on the table.
You snorted, covering your mouth with your notepad. “All that tough guy stuff, you didn’t even know what you wanted?” Andrew had been suffering blood loss for at least two full days by that point, but your laugh made him feel like he was floating. “How about some coffee, huh?”
He heard the kitchen door slam behind Johnny. You didn’t even look behind to where he’d stormed out. Didn’t even flinch.
“Ignore him,” you said softly, unbothered. “He’s a little bitch. Smiled at a customer too long, made him jealous.” You grinned like it was a joke—like his words were just a harmless flaw.
Andrew looked up at you. There was a red mark on your arm where Johnny had grabbed you. “So what’re you doing now then?”
You laughed again, brushing your fingertips against the arm he had resting on the table. “If you pick coffee, then I can make it right here for you, no kitchen required.”
That had sounded pretty good to him, so Andrew nodded. You beamed down at him, shoving the notepad in the front pocket of your apron. “Now, I don’t know what you heard from him.” You had jabbed your chin towards the pass to the kitchen, heat lamps basking the wall in warm golden glow. It didn’t hold a candle to you. “But I promise not to flash my tits at you.” You nabbed the menu off the table and turned back to step behind the bar countertop. “I won’t stop you from looking up my skirt, though.”
Andrew had laughed so hard he felt like he popped one of his shitty stitches.
It became routine after that. Whenever he had to pull an all-nighter, he’d stop by Doc’s and come get a cup of shitty coffee and a dose of lovely girl.
Johnny hated Pope, but you said that was normal with customers, telling him not to get a big head. Yet Johnny kept taking Pope’s money and letting him sit in the corner booth for hours. Pope always tipped big; the money was bloody, but better in your pocket than his.
He told himself that’s why he kept coming back. He wanted to help you out. You were a sweet girl. That was it.
The dining room was no longer deserted like it had been that morning. There were a few other waitresses and a few other chefs bustling around. You and Johnny seemed to always be there, though. Pope had already waved off two teenage girls who tried to take his order.
"You think you’re better than this place?”
He couldn’t hear your muffled reply, but he heard the way Johnny laughed.
“Nah,” Johnny got louder, voice deeper. “Some fucking clown tells you you’re too pretty to be holed up here and suddenly you’re too good for me?” There was the sound of metal on metal, ringing out through the diner. The other patrons all looked up, some nervously, some annoyed. “You think he likes you? Sweet little girl, always so pretty for him, huh? Letting him ogle you like that? What do you think is gonna happen, sugar? He’ll take you somewhere nice, pull you out of this shithole?”
He still couldn’t hear you, ears straining to make out words over the noise. Baby - being nice - love you.
“You know exactly how this is gonna shake down, don’t you?” Johnny lowered his voice just slightly. “He’ll fuck you, then he’ll run, and you’ll be left here asking me for a ride to work. You know that, right? I know you got nothing but rocks up there, but you can see that, surely?”
Pope couldn’t even make out your voice that time, but he figured you’d replied when Johnny laughed, roaring and cocky. “Oh, no, baby. Don’t you roll your fuckin’ eyes at me. You know exactly why I’m mad. You like me mad. You drop your fucking panties for any guy who walks in the door, and I’m meant to act like I don’t see it? No, baby, I’m not the bad guy. You do this shit on purpose. You push, and you push, and one of these days you’re gonna forget just how good you have it.”
Andrew already fucking hated Johnny, but the afternoon you’d sheepishly admitted Johnny wasn’t just your boss—he was your longtime boyfriend—made Pope’s blood boil so much that he’d almost crushed that fucking coffee cup in his hand.
“Yeah, my girl doesn’t need reminding who’s good to her, does she? Where’s your fucking attitude now, huh?” More murmurs, you sounded upset now, not soothing. “Yeah, not so fucking tough anymore. You think that fucking loser’s gonna save you-?”
Andrew heard your voice - don’t - and then dead silence. He thought for a sickening moment that Johnny had kissed you to shut you up, and that he was going to have to think about that on the drive home instead of how you’d traced the knuckle of one of his hands.
Then, you emerged. Head ducked, straight for his booth. He sat up straighter. Your chest was shaking, and this time, he didn’t have to stop himself from looking; his eyes were glued to your face.
He said your name softly, reaching a hand for you. You stopped short. “Can I get a ride?”
Your eyes were red, tears streaking thick black tracks down your cheeks. There was a mark on your collarbone. Pope was up in an instant. “I’ll fucking kill him-”
“He just grabbed me, I want to go home-”
“Just grabbed you?” He scoffed. You were both talking quietly, voices low to avoid the breakfast rush from feeding on your insides. “I’m going to fucking kill-”
“Andrew,” you snapped, “I want to go. Can I get a ride or not?”
Pope had driven you home a few times in the six months he’d been frequenting the diner. Sometimes you and Johnny would fight, and Johnny would take off without you, leaving you stranded and sheepish as you stood by the corner booth, looking like you wished the earth would swallow you.
But he’d never seen you leave without Johnny. This was new.
He handed you the fifty in his hands - the piece of pie he’d been waiting on plus tip (he wasn’t gonna let that asshole take it), and you didn’t argue, just shoving it in the pocket of your apron. You never accepted his money without a fight, usually, but that time you took it, stalking off towards where Andrew had parked his car.
“You wanna go to your place?” Andrew would never have asked, have given you any inkling you were welcome at his house, if you hadn’t looked so upset. He didn’t want you anywhere the fuck near his family - especially Smurf. She had no idea he’d been coming there three times a week for almost six months. It wasn’t any of her fucking business. Still, he wasn’t going to let his mom sink her claws into you the way she had with Julia. To maim. Not to cage, like with him.
But Andrew also knew that Johnny owned your apartment building. That was how you’d met him, apparently. At first, it had been kind of fun, you’d admitted to him one night the slight Johnny had hurled at you hadn’t been without merit. “Sometimes I couldn’t make rent that month, so I’d just have to… You know.” Pope felt like he was going to be sick. “It made me feel special, like I was in on something the other people weren’t. Then one time we had a fight and he wouldn’t get someone to fix my AC.”
Pope was going to fucking kill him, and there wasn’t anything he could think of that would stop him. He’d fantasise about the ways on the drive home some mornings, imagining the life draining out of Johnny’s eyes the way Pope had watched the life drain out of yours. Maybe he’d take a knife to him, watch his blood soak the concrete. He had a gun; he could use that. Or maybe Pope could just drag him out to the half-alley where Doc’s dumpsters were and beat the shit out of him until he was unrecognisable.
Those were second only to the other fantasies he’d have. The ones where you would find out, devastated by your boyfriend’s death, and turn to him for comfort. The ones where you’d kiss him and tell him he saved you. The ones so vivid he’d have to pull off the road and deal with it, lest he go and meet up for a job with a boner.
All of them involved your fucking boyfriend six feet under, and Pope getting the chance to show you how much better he could treat you.
Sometimes you chatted, airily telling him stories about funny customer interactions you’d had, or about something silly you’d seen on your phone. Sometimes you stayed silent. Most of the time, if Pope was driving you somewhere, it was because you and Johnny had gotten into a fight and he’d left you stranded.
“I’m gonna need to ask for your number,” you’d joked one night, standing in front of the open passenger door, bent at the waist to shove your head back in the car. “That way I can come and bug you whenever.”
Andrew would’ve handed it over without hesitation, but you’d giggled and shut the door, flouncing back up to the staircase leading to your apartment on the second floor. That afternoon, Johnny had taken your elevator pass, so Andrew dropped you off around the back. Your apartment building felt more like a motel: your front door was external, the apartment hallway served as an entryway, and a patio. He watched you bound up the stairs with the energy of someone who hadn’t worked the night shift, hauling yourself up on the railing and flashing him a beaming smile as you reached your door.
Now, you sat in silence. When Andrew pulled into the back lot of your place, you sat there, seatbelt buckled behind your back—which made Andrew nervous, but he was in no position to ask you to obey the laws of the road. “Do you want to come in?”
The closest Andrew had come to being inside your house was when he’d walked you to your door one night when it was raining. “Johnny…?”
You shook your head, still not looking at him. Your gaze was locked on your lap. That summer had been unbearable, so you’d opted for skirts rather than pants. You wore really pretty outfits a lot of the time, even if they were hidden under your apron. Floral sleeveless tops that showed off your collarbones and made him feel like a fucking teenager, practically salivating at the sight. Skirts that ended at mid-thigh, oftentimes shorter than the apron you wore tied around your waist. Your thighs were on display, and Pope had been very tastefully looking at them - you couldn’t ask him not to look, that wasn’t fair.
“He’s pulling a double,” you said, “Can’t flake out on it either, Doc’s is going under.”
That wasn’t necessarily surprising to Pope. Doc’s had a few die-hard patrons, people that he’d see multiple times a week or month. Other than that, it was usually empty. Which is why the line cook seemingly felt no shame in bullying his girlfriend in the middle of the dining room on a weekly basis.
Part of Pope felt bitter. Good. That asshole deserved it. Maybe they’d knock the building down and turn it into a Whole Foods or some shit. But most of him was thinking about you. Doc’s was your only source of income, and most of your money you got from his tips. Would you still see him if the diner closed?
He followed you up the stairs, standing guard beside you as you rifled through your bag for your keys. That was how Andrew felt about himself a lot of the time when it came to you. A guard dog. Someone to protect you, whether it was from Johnny or Smurf or guys who called you ‘darlin’ and got too close to your face at work. Not necessarily someone to keep around, but someone useful.
Your apartment looked exactly like Pope thought it would from the glimpses he caught through the windows (and the listing he’d found online) (your boyfriend had your apartment listed at all times, ready to strike if you pissed him off too bad) (Pope hadn’t mentioned it to you, but he kept it in the back of his mind always).
There were little touches that weren’t included in the estate photos he’d found online. The tack-on wallpaper you had up in the kitchen, the soft blankets you’d tossed over the couch.
“Sorry for the mess,” you sounded upset, but you had been since the diner. Pope didn’t want to think about it being his fault. What really worried him was the palpable sense of tension, as if there were too many words left unsaid hanging in the air. Pope looked back over at you, mouth open to tell you not to worry about it, but was interrupted by the look on your face. Eyebrow raised, eyes still red-rimmed from the incident in the diner, mouth curled downward. “No, stop. You’re gonna say it’s cute, or whatever, but it’s not. It’s gross, sorry. I didn’t think I’d have company today.” You seem to be in waitress mode even at home, straightening things and moving to put dishes in the sink. Pope caught sight of a dirty laundry basket and almost got lightheaded.
“Do you want something to eat or drink?” You asked, kicking the laundry basket into another room and shutting the door with your elbow. Pope couldn't shake off a sense of impending crisis; each of your movements was more hurried than usual, like a tightly wound spring ready to snap.
Pope hovered awkwardly in the living room, scraping his eyes over as much of your stuff as he could. Your chipped mugs, the 90s girl-group poster covering water-damaged walls. Your things were clearly well-loved and well-worn, but seldom maintained. You took good care of your things out of love, but not enough to stop them from breaking. Enough to keep them useful. Pope wondered if his usefulness would run out. “Is the coffee better here?”
You snorted, untying your apron and dumping it on the sofa. “I won’t spit in it?” You offer like it’s some sort of consolation prize.
Pope couldn’t stop the words stumbling out of his mouth, “Why not?”
He wanted to ask him what exactly had gone down in the kitchen, talk to you about it, tell you to dump him, do a billion things to you. There was the small problem of you finding out how much of a fucking loser he felt about you.
“Sit,” you said softly. He sat. He watched you mill around, both cleaning the kitchen and making him a cup of coffee in the same motions. When you handed him the cup, he looked up at you. It was well and truly mid-morning by that point, and the sun was filtering through the kitchen windows and hitting your face.
“You okay?” He finally asked. He didn’t want to overstep; he also felt like it wouldn’t be appreciated. Pope wanted to be something, not just another asshole who took control of your life. You’d been in a rough spot when you’d met Johnny. Pope didn’t want to be another Johnny. So, he kept his mind firmly on the task at hand and not on the fact that your bedroom was on the other side of that wall.
You looked at him, and Pope felt his stomach fall. He’d never seen you look like this before. “I want you to kill him.”
It was a burst of anger, uncharacteristic of his sweet girl. Pope couldn’t take his eyes off you, but he still felt like he’d blinked and missed you already.
“Wha-”
You rolled your eyes, kicking off your sneakers and curling up on the sofa near him. He could smell your perfume. He was going insane —you were too close—far too close for how well-behaved he was trying to be. Too far away to do the things he was trying not to think about doing.
“I’m not stupid, Andrew,” you said, rubbing your eyes. “I know who you are. I know what you do. I know your whole schtick.”
Hearing someone call his family’s incredibly lucrative and prolific crime empire a ‘schtick’ kind of snapped him out of it. “You…?”
“Like, two weeks after the first time you came in, I went to a party and someone asked if I was Pope’s girl.”
Fuck. Fuck. He’d wanted to keep you all from it. From Smurf, from the rest of his family. From Pope.
When he was with you, he didn’t have to be Pope. He didn’t have to be whatever the fuck he was, whatever people called him. Didn’t have to worry about the fucking drugs, or the heists, or all the people he’d murdered at the behest of his mom.
Being asked to take care of someone wasn’t an uncommon thing for him.
You seemed to register the worry on his face, scooching closer on your small sofa. Pope felt dizzy. “I said yes,” you admitted, cheeks warm. “I don’t know why. I just wanted him to leave me alone, and when you were brought up, he seemed to think twice about fucking with me. It was nice.”
Your earlier words played back in his head, about how it had been with Johnny at the beginning. Like being in on something that no one else was.
Andrew said your name, low and mournful, like it might be the last time.
“I’ve heard stuff,” you rushed, needing to get your point across before he cut you off and walked out of your life forever. “Stuff about the Codys- you guys. About you, Andrew. Pope. I had a little trouble picturing you as him. You’re always so nice to me, I couldn’t imagine you doing something like that.”
Good. Andrew hoped to god it stayed that way. You were the one good thing he had ever let himself have, and he barely even fucking had you. Still, it had all managed to catch up to him.
“But then I thought about it.” Your voice was quiet. If Pope strained, he could hear voices behind him, on the other side of the wall. “And I thought about it. And I kept thinking about it every time I saw you. I can’t get it out of my head.”
Pope felt his eyes sting. He was not going to cry in front of you. He’d sooner run out the door and ghost you.
“Please say something.” It was clear you had expected him to be much further on board faster than he had been.
He just sat there for a moment. Every second that went by, every tick of the clock on the mantle, every drip of the kitchen sink Johnny refused to look at, every blink of Pope’s eyes, felt like they got longer and longer between them.
Pope had an issue. It wasn’t that he didn’t want to kill Johnny - Pope would’ve done so already if he had known you wouldn’t grieve his death like he had believed you would. But he didn’t want to be the guy you leant too heavily on and grew to resent.
"You want me to kill him?"
He’d expected you to look surprised, to tell him you hadn’t really wanted to take him up on the offer or whatever. Instead, your eyes sparkled as you nodded.
"I want him to die, Andrew." You said it so gravely, so seriously, he had no choice but to believe you. Unless you’d become an informant, which, knowing his luck, was not out of the question. “You’re a good man. You deserve to do it. I can forgive you for it.”
You wanted to do it yourself, had ever since you’d found out about the habits of the sweet, quiet man who came in and stared at you too long. But wanting to kill someone and actually killing them were two different stories. This was giving you an out. You didn’t need to rely on Johnny, on his hot and cold, on his temper.
You wanted to do it yourself, had ever since you’d found out about the habits of the sweet, quiet man who came in and stared at you too long. But wanting to kill someone and actually killing them were two different stories. This was giving you an out. You didn’t need to rely on Johnny, on his hot and cold, on his temper.
Doc’s was going under, and you’d been looking for another job. Looked at maybe going back to school. You’d been in your third year of college when you met Johnny. That was a lifetime ago.
If Johnny died, the building would be bought by Mr Carlton, the older man who owned all of the first floor and almost all of the second floor. Rent would be a little higher, but you wouldn’t have a boyfriend who could decide he wasn’t going to give you shifts while you were on your period, because if you couldn’t give him what he wanted, then why should you get what you want?
A steady source of income, maybe a future, control over your life again. Johnny had to fucking go.
And who deserved to do it more than Andrew? Sweet, sarcastic, charming, respectful, Andrew. He’d never overstepped, never once given you the ‘you deserve better’ spiel. Never once made you feel like he pitied you or judged you. Knew his place. His good behaviour deserved to be rewarded.
And so, you made a plan. He’d suggested planning it out to give you more time to chicken out, as he somewhat believed you would.
Johnny would be going out of town the month following, for a whole ten days. That meant there were ten days which nobody would notice his disappearance. Pope planned it all, how he would do it, where he would dump him, and the excuse he would give his brothers.
Baz had pulled him aside and asked if he’d gotten a girl, but Pope had stayed silent, stewing bitterly. It wasn’t out of any real interest in his life; it was out of selfishness. He’d noticed how long it had been since he’d caught Pope looking at Cath.
You quit Doc’s and started working at a coffee shop closer to your place. The hours were consistent, the pay was regular. You didn’t even care that your coworkers weren’t very nice, and you weren’t making as much in individual tips. You wanted something concrete.
You and Pope started “dating.” You suggested it as a reason you guys had been hanging out so much: if one of your neighbours squealed. All that involved was letting Andrew drive you home, letting him call you ‘baby’ in earshot of your coworkers, and letting him keep his hand on the back of your thigh for just a little too long.
Pope was paying your rent — something that annoyed you, but you couldn’t stop. Johnny had threatened to evict you when you and he split, done in a screaming match at Doc’s, surrounded by as many people as you could swing. It needed to be public and final. You’d almost been rendered homeless, but Pope had offered to reach up and spend more than the heightened rent Johnny had started enforcing. Andrew knew Johnny knew he wasn’t going to get more rent out of anybody than some sucker who wanted to fuck Johnny’s ex-girlfriend.
He spent the entire month leading up to it with his family. Made himself as available to them as he could. Told you not to call him while he was at Smurf’s, told you so softly and so sweetly they’d rip your fucking throat out that you had no choice but to listen. He forced himself into so many situations that, when the day came, they were honestly grateful for a reprieve. Nobody would be calling him that week.
Johnny was smoking a cigarette when Pope got him. Sharp and fast, a quick slash to the side under the ribs, grabbed by the hair. Kicked on the back of the knees and shoved to the ground. Some of it had been overkill. The grip Andrew had kept on Johnny’s greasy hair, almost ripping it out from how forceful he was. Zip ties to the wrists, enough shoved in the mouth that even when Johnny realised it was Pope and started yelling, only muffled groans could be heard. Nobody had been in the parking lot of Johnny’s - Pope had planned as much, but seeing it work out felt vindicating.
Not as vindicating as watching Johnny bleed out all over the tarp Pope had lined his trunk with for the occasion. His hands, the hands that had touched you in all the wrong places, were almost completely severed at the wrists. Johnny’s fingerprints would be burned off, and his teeth would be knocked out, but he wanted to wait until the bastard was dead for that part. Not to spare him the pain, but because he wanted to take his time on it without having to listen to that miserable fuck whine the entire time.
He was still alive when Pope pulled into your apartment. You’d been at work all morning and had just gotten home (Pope still felt guilty about making you take the bus, even though his car had been in use at your request). That way, when the coroners eventually examined him, if they found him too quickly, they’d get a time of death you were both well and truly accounted for.
He’d hoped he’d catch sight of one of your neighbours on the way in, had spent the past month stopping to chat to each and every one of them, so they wouldn’t think it out of the ordinary if he did it on his way up to you. The staircase, the patio, and even the parking lot were all dead.
So, he pulled out his keys and made a big show of dropping his keyring and clattering about with it before unlocking the door. “Baby?”
You were in the kitchen, still in your work clothes, looking radiantly at him. More dream than girl, Pope could’ve sworn you glowed. “Andrew,” you beamed at him, speaking a little louder than necessary. Not unnatural. “How’s Lena?”
He’d offered to take his niece out for the morning, which kept her away from Baz and gave Pope some time with her. Made for a really good alibi if someone asked him where he’d been that morning. He’d felt kind of gross for dragging the poor girl into it, but his desire to see her had won over.
“She was good,” Pope shut the front door, dropping his stuff in. “We went to the beach, got ice cream, had some lunch. She says hi.”
Lena absolutely did not say hi. Pope hadn’t let a single thing about you slip, even to her. But he liked to think that if she did know who you were, she would’ve said hi.
Pope discarded his jacket on the hook by the door. You didn’t keep your space particularly tidy, but since he’d started coming over, you had made more of an effort. Clearing room for him to keep his things, jacket on the hook, shoes on the rack, keys in the bowl. It felt so painfully domestic that Pope could almost pretend this whole thing was real.
After that first time in your place, Pope had been struck by just how much of the apartment felt like you. It wasn’t overly decorated, you didn’t make enough money to have one of those Pinterest board apartments Andrew knew you were secretly obsessed with.
But there was nothing in this apartment, even the first time he’d been inside, that indicated you had a boyfriend. At least... There hadn’t been before.
Now, Pope’s stuff was everywhere. His dishes in your sink, post-its on your fridge reminding you of when he was working or telling him when you were. One of his jackets over the back of your sofa. He was one step away from keeping a damn toothbrush in the cup with yours.
You came close to him, wrapping your arms around his neck and stretching yourself up so your mouth was right beside his ear. “Did you do it?”
Pope’s hands were pressed to your back, one of them lingering where the hem of your shirt sat, inches away from slipping his palm to lay against your bare skin. “Yeah,” he said, voice low. You squeezed him. “He’s in the car. I’ll hang out here for a while, then I’ll go dump him.”
He hadn’t told you where he’d been planning on taking Johnny. You hadn’t asked. You didn’t need to know where he was lying, just that he was rotting. That you’d never have to feel his hands on you again.
“No one saw me,” he said. He felt you frown against his neck. The two of you had been hoping at least one of your neighbours would catch sight of him organically. The building's walls were thin; you could hear people on both sides of you.
“Shit,” he felt you exhale. “We need someone to be able to validate that you’re here.”
He let his hands shift, rubbing the skin of your back gently through your top. His thumb brushed the sliver of bare skin with a featherlight touch. You didn’t move away.
The two of you stood there for a moment under the guise of thinking. There was the faint clatter of a dish being bumped into through the wall, followed by a muttered curse word.
“Maybe they could hear us doing something?” He suggested. “Like, we could talk really loud?”
You pulled back enough to see his face, but not so much that he had to let go. “What would they hear?” you asked quietly, a smile tugging the corner of your lips up.
The silence hung low in the air, filling the space and shoving the two of you closer together. You were wearing a pretty blouse and a denim skirt, straight from a morning at the coffee shop. Pope didn’t want to be the one to suggest it.
“Andy…” Your voice was soft in tone but loud enough in volume that he was pretty sure that your neighbours could hear. You’d never called him that before. Your hands moved from resting behind his neck to caressing his jaw with your thumbs.
“Hi, baby,” the words ghosted your face, barely audible. Your face split out in a grin.
“Wanna see my bedroom?”
Andrew had seen your bedroom before, but he had never been inside. He’d only ever caught glimpses when you came in or out, or through the cracked door, or on the online listing.
Your bedsheets had little daisies on them. They felt soft under his fingertips. Your duvet was bunched up towards the head of your bed. You’d shoved him inside, giggling at the absurdity as his knees hit the back of your bed.
“Okay, wait.” You bent over, desperately trying to at least half-make your bed while he was sitting on it. You weren’t actually going to fuck him, you just needed to make the neighbours think he was giving you a good time. Well, it didn’t have to be good, but it would hurt his ego a little if he couldn’t fake fuck you well.
Then, you sat down on the rumpled duvet beside him, unable to keep the grin off your face. “Okay, wait,” you said again. “Alright…”
The two of you sat there in silence for a moment before finally you let out a noise. A soft, barely-there, contented sigh.
Pope laughed.
You reached over and hit him. “Sorry, asshole, I’ve never tried to make my neighbours think I’m having sex before,” you hissed. He held his hands up in surrender, trying to take you seriously despite the situation. Andrew shifted so his legs weren’t hanging off the side of your bed, shuffling towards the head. “You do it.”
“I…” he tried. This was ridiculous. “I can’t, I’m sorry,” he was laughing so hard his shoulders were shaking, his back pressed to the headboard.
You rolled your eyes. “Oh, Andy,” you let out an exaggerated groan, snickering at him. Your voice stayed monotone, “Please, for me?”
You crawled closer to him, coming to sit right beside him.
Pope thought maybe he had died and gone to hell. He had you right there, so close to him he could smell the rosemary oil you insisted helped your hair grow. So close he could count your eyelashes if he could keep his eyes off your hands, dragging through the duvet to extend towards him.
He let out a groan, and you smiled self-satisfiedly. “Yeah?” you goaded. “You like that, Andy?”
Your voice was thick with wanting. Pope let out another noise, heat rushing to his neck. You were putting on a show, and not even for his benefit. A whine ripped itself from his chest, and the humiliation filled the cavity it left. Here he was, acting like a fucking virgin sitting with a pretty girl on her bed.
You still had that goddamn smile on your face, grinning like the Cheshire Cat. You were still moving closer, and Andrew felt frozen. He was trying so so hard, trying to behave, to not move you closer and grab any part of the expanse of skin you were seemingly haunting him by. He was trying to behave, and there you were, so close to him.
You were still giggling, even as you hauled yourself up and locked your legs on either side of his thighs. Pope’s hands were raised, hovering above your waist, not sure about the whole touching thing now that you were literally situated in his lap.
You opened your mouth, pushing a palm flat against the wall and letting out a slightly louder moan, looking him right in the eye.
Yep, definitely hell. You were settled in his lap, whining his name, gaze boring into his. He had to start thinking about geometry or baseball or something to distract himself from the fact that you were positioned right over his cock while wearing a skirt.
He was able to start on autopilot, matching your volume, throwing in a “baby” or a whine of your name every so often. He just had to keep a clear head for however long you decided sex with him would take and then wait so he could go jerk off and dump your boyfriend’s corpse. In that order.
You had one hand on his shoulder, one hand on the wall, still completely giddy from the venture. You seemed to be having a nice time, not burdened by the same hellish circumstance that he had found himself trapped in. Even more so when you shifted your hips slightly and had his cock twitch at the contact.
He felt you tense up and prepared for the anger. A slap, a spit, insults hurled. Something at least.
He couldn’t look up at your face, but unfortunately, your tits were the other closest things to his eyes. Instead, his head was turned to stare at the floral wallpaper, looking as far from your face as his head would physically turn.
“Andrew?” You whispered. He was shaking under your hands. He felt your hand move from his shoulder up his jaw, fingernails raking up his skin. You grabbed at his chin, pulling his face back up so he had to look at you. “Hey.”
This would be the last time he ever touched you, so he let his hands finally find purchase on your waist. “I’m so, fuck- I’m sorry. You can just ignore it; it’ll go away. I’m so fucking sorry, it’s not because of you.”
You pouted. “It’s not?” You rolled your hips, and Andrew felt his chest constrict. “That’s a shame.” You were moving consistently by that point, and he couldn’t figure out when you’d gotten such a mean streak.
“Fuck-” his head fell forward, forehead resting on your shoulder. “Baby, I-” he was interrupted by a whine yanked from his throat by the feeling of you grinding down on his crotch. “You… you gotta stop.”
“You want me to?” You asked innocently, pausing your movements.
Andrew lifted his head off your shoulder to look up at your face. You had never seen anyone look at you with such reverence.
Pope knew the good, moral thing to do was yes, to get you off his lap and then throw your boyfriend’s body in the ocean. What he chose to do was to lift his hips up to provide some of the friction you’d stopped giving him. “No,” he admitted. “Fuck- no. Please don’t.”
His face was still in your hand, and you gripped his chin, tipping his head back slightly. You ducked your head slowly, moving to press your mouth to his. Pope’s hands were roaming on your back, one of them finally slipping under the soft cotton of your blouse. Pope kissed like he talked, waiting for you to make the first move, but once you had, he cut himself loose. It wasn’t necessarily a good kiss; it was sloppy, mostly open-mouthed, and involved a lot of your mouth swallowing his moans.
But your brain seemed to reset, whether it was the feeling of his tongue slipping between your lips or the feeling of his erection pressing between your legs. The noises he was making, directly from his mouth to yours, were sending a buzzing feeling between your thighs.
You rolled your hips, he thrust up to meet you, and the friction set loose a high whimper that seemed to spur him on.
“Fuck,” he groaned, pulling off where he’d taken your bottom lip between his teeth. “You have no idea how much I’ve thought about this.”
He was embarrassingly close from the feeling of you grinding on him through his clothes. His hand squeezed your side, his entire body tense from the effort he was putting in to keep him from embarrassing himself. You let out a whine at the sudden move, and that had been his final straw.
Without warning, Pope wrapped a strong arm over your back and flipped you over so he was above you. You squealed at the impact, landing on your back, and the sound travelled straight to his cock. “Andrew-”
He kissed you again, his hand coming up to cup your jaw and rub soothing circles into your scalp. “Fuck, baby,” he groaned. Your legs fell apart for him to come move between them and press his chest to yours. Andrew took his free hand and stroked the back of your thigh, holding it up against his hip. “Oh, look at you.” He pulled up to take a good look at your face. Face flushed, pupils blown, and that stupid fucking smirk on your face.
The hand on your thigh loosened its grip and travelled upwards until it found its way underneath your skirt. As his palm made the connection with your damp underwear, you let out an embarrassingly high-pitched whine. “Andrew,” you shuddered against his touch.
“You want me to touch you?” he asked, voice low. You nodded, tilting your head up to try to capture his lips against yours again. “Yeah? Come on then, baby. Use your words.”
Your cheeks burned, more from annoyance than embarrassment. “Please, Andy…” That wasn’t enough for him; the most he did was press the heel of his palm firmer against your panties. “Want you to touch me,” you grumbled. Andrew knew you were miffed at not getting what you wanted without having to do what he wanted you to. You liked that he was so desperate for you, liked how he’d been hard under your touch without him even really touching you.
He pushed your panties to the side to run a finger through your folds. You whined, pushing your hips up at the brush of your clit against the pad of his finger. “Andrew,” you whimpered. He stayed by the nerve, pressing two of his fingers flat and rubbing small circles. He spent a few minutes switching up pace and pressure until he found one that you seemed to really enjoy.
Your moans went straight to his cock, but he couldn’t find it in himself to care about that when you were so warm, so wet; all other rational thought went straight out the window. “Fuck, pretty girl. Hear how fuckin’ wet you are?” He kissed the side of your mouth and moved his hand off your jaw to press it against your hand. The back of your palm pushed up against your pillow, clutched tightly in his, anchoring him there to you. He moved away from your clit and ignored the pained whimper you pressed into his cheek, instead moving his fingers to slip them inside.
You gasped at the intrusion, your free hand clawing at his back. “Fuck, Andy,” your moans were high-pitched and breathy, unlike the deep and fake noises you’d been forcing out for the benefit of the neighbours.
“Oh, pretty girl,” he groaned into your neck. You were so tight, even just around his fingers. He wanted to pay more attention to your clit, but the feeling of your hand in his was too tempting to give up. Instead, he pressed his index and middle fingers inside while brushing the nerve with his thumb. It was uncoordinated, fast, and desperate, but you were whining into his ear, clenching the back of his shirt in your free fist, and squeezing his fingers so tight he could feel precome pooling in his boxers.
“Fuck, you’re so tight,” he groaned. “How am I meant to fit in here, baby?” He cooed, crooking his fingers up to press against your spongy center with the tips of his fingers and causing you to throw your head back, open-mouthed.
Pope felt you clench around him. “Wanted this so bad,” you admitted, pulling him closer to kiss him. It was so sloppy, half your words were said directly into his open mouth. “For- fuck- months, Andrew. I k-keep thinking about you,” you bucked up into him. “Johnny would always get angry because he said you wanted to fuck me-”
“Did,” Andrew grunted, fucking you with his fingers as far in as they could go, stretching you out. He hadn’t been joking before; there was no way he’d fit. “Do.”
You ignored him, still babbling on. “And I never believed him, but I really, really hoped he was right.”
Andrew pulled his fingers out of you again, but this time you didn’t whimper. He’d been talking a big game while he was on top of you. You wanted your sweetheart back. Stopping only to shove your panties down your legs and kick them off onto the floor, you wrestled yourself back on his lap. At the feeling of your bare core against his erection, Pope groaned again. “Fuck, baby, you felt so good, so wet for me. Was that all for me?” You nodded. “Fucking bastard, has no idea what he’s giving up, does he?”
Pope did not want you back on his lap because he was pretty sure that if you started riding him again, he’d come in his pants.
You seemed pretty gleeful at the concept of that happening, though, leaning down to attach your lips to his neck. There was a wet patch on the front of his pants where your bare core met the swell of his cock. “Andrew,” you rasped, “feels so good.”
His hips stuttered, hands on the backs of your bare thighs, debating whether to move up to your ass or down to your pussy. “Baby,” he groaned. “Say you want me.”
Andrew wasn’t a virgin. He’d had girlfriends, the occasional hookup. He had never been so achingly hard in his life, and you hadn’t even really touched his cock yet.
“You want me to want you?” You cooed. “Yeah, baby? I want you,” you husked, directly into his fear. “Want you so bad, Andrew.”
He tossed his head back, hitting the wall behind your headboard. “Fuck, you feel so good.” his hands squeezed the flesh of your ass, trying to find something to keep him from busting already.
“Yeah?” you encouraged.
Andrew nodded against your mouth, eyes rolled back in his head. “Yeah, fuck, baby. You look so pretty,” he said, looking up at you through his eyelashes. You could feel yourself soaking his pants, his erection catching on your clit, and sending your head fuzzy. “So, so pretty. My pretty girl.”
You reached for his belt buckle at that, desperate to satiate the pulsing between your legs. He made no move to help you, watching through blown pupils as you undid his pants and shoved them down as far as you could with him sitting down. You’d been able to see the wet patch on his dark jeans, and you’d assumed it had been made up of entirely your arousal, evidence of how much you needed him. But seeing the dark stain of precome pooled by his erection, you realised he needed you just as much.
“Andrew,” you breathed, lusting and listless. “Can I touch you, please?”
Andrew groaned like he was in pain, nodding and nudging his face up to kiss your cheeks. “Please, baby. I’d take anything, anything you wanna do.”
You liked how he wasn’t trying to pretend he didn't want this as much as you did. You waned him so badly you ached, you could feel yourself clenching around nothing, desperate for the friction his fingers had provided. “Yeah?” He nodded. “Can you open up for me?”
Andrew opened his mouth, eyeing you as you leaned over his face and let a droplet of your spit land on his tongue. Eyes rolling back, he closed his mouth and savoured it, and that was when you decided to take the opportunity to reach into his underwear.
He was bigger than you’d expected from how unassuming he was. Andrew was a big guy, with arms so huge you wanted him to wrap them around your neck until you saw stars. But he wasn’t super tall, so you’d figured he’d gotten so jacked in prison. He hung heavily over the waistband of his boxers, and his breath hitched when he felt you wrap your impossibly soft hand around him. Now that you had him where you wanted him, everything else seemed to be in the way. His shirt was ripped from his head, the buttons of your blouse undone by shaking fingers. Andrew let his head drop forward to mouth at your covered chest, hand palming the cup of your bra on the other side.
You’d intended to tease him a little, maybe pay back the favour of his fingers, but after less than a full stroke, he was whining at you. “Please,” he gasped out, stopping his task of soaking through your bra with his spit. “I need to be inside you.” Your name slipped from his lips so desperately that you felt your walls flutter.
You reached up to cup his jaw again, keeping the pad of your thumb pressed to his chin and pushing two of your fingers against his lips. He let you in immediately, moaning around your digits and maintaining sweltering eye contact as your other hand brushed his slit with your thumb. An especially loud groan brought you back to where you were, what the goal had been.
“That’s it, baby,” you cooed. “Let the whole building hear how much you want me.”
Once your fingers were well and truly lubricated, you reached back down to touch his cock. “Fuck,” he let out. “You fucking tease-” he was being louder as you’d requested, but only just. He wanted people to hear, sure, but this wasn’t some type of performance.
Pope was desperately running through topics in his head - counting sheep, trying to do basic addition - anything to distract himself from the feeling of your hand running along the vein he had on the underside of his cock.
“Are you gonna fit?” You asked him, lifting yourself up to discard your skirt. Pope took the opportunity of you being out of his lap to shove his jeans down his legs, leaving himself completely bare in front of you. All you had left was your bra, and he’d be perfectly content to keep mouthing at the fabric, but you discarded that, too.
“Oh, yeah, baby,” he sighed, moving to lay you down once again against your pillows. “I’ll fit.” He brought his thumb down to brush your clit again. Your wetness was pooling between your folds, about to start leaking down onto your bed. He actually wasn’t sure, despite how turned on you were, if he would fit. He was above average, but not by much. But the way you’d clamped down around his fingers made Pope feel like maybe Johnny hadn’t been giving you very much to work with. The two of you had been together for like six years, he was pretty sure. “You were fuckin’ made for me, weren’t you?”
You nodded.
He ran his fingers down your glistening folds, collecting your juices in his hand. Andrew had half a mind to bring them to his mouth, but he wanted the first time to be straight from the source. Instead, he let you take them in your mouth, mirroring what he’d done to you. You circled one of his thick fingers with your tongue, and he knew immediately he’d made a mistake, cock jumping at the feeling. He wanted to see you with your pretty lips wrapped around him.
Despite the slick mess between your thighs, his wet fingers were able to find purchase on your clit. “See how much I want you, Andy?” you moaned, and he knew the fucking neighbours heard the groan that pushed from his chest.
The head of his cock brushed your clit, and both of you whined into the open air. You pulsed under his touch, wanting and sensitive.
He took his hand away from your clit just long enough to take hold of his cock and guide it to catch on your entrance.
You look up at him, writhing and needy, and he ducks down to kiss you. “Fucking dreamt of this,” he admits. “Every time I’d watch you leave with him, I’d imagine pulling you away, making you feel so fucking good you forget every name that isn’t mine.”
His mind drifted back ever so slightly to the almost-corpse shoved in his trunk. The two of you had been plenty loud; the whole building had probably heard. Andrew wondered if Johnny could.
“Need you so bad,” you whispered. One leg wrapped around his waist, one bent at the knee on your side, looking up at him. “So fucking bad, Andrew,” you arched your back to bring your face closer to his, and he complied, kissing you roughly as he nudged his hips forward.
He felt you tense up, reaching down to rub distractedly at your clit with one hand and your jaw with the other. “Shit,” he hissed. “You okay?”
You nodded emphatically.
Once the tip was in, he stopped, letting himself stretch you out enough that every movement doesn’t catch a vein or ridge against your walls. You were squeezing him like he owed you money, and he had to put a lot of effort into holding himself up to watch your face.
Your bottom lip was caught between your teeth, eyes half closed. Half whimpers were coming out through your mouth, one after the other, cutting off the one before. “Baby,” he cajoled. “You gotta talk to me.”
It took you a second, too overwhelmed with the stretch and the fact that Andrew Cody was in your bed, and the man you thought would be ruining your life forever was probably dead. And maybe you were dead and this was heaven, not that you’d ever be sent there after what you made him do. “So good, Andrew,” you reassured him, bringing a hand up to clench his auburn curls. “You can go more in.”
He took the opportunity to slide in further, revelling in each gasp you let out as part of his head caught on a ridge inside your pussy. “Oh my fucking god,” he grunted against your neck, certain he’d never been sucked in as completely as your cunt was doing, and he was only halfway in.
You were breathing so heavily, and Andrew kept pulling away to check on you, that by the time he bottomed out, the thick tip of his cock brushing your warm center, both of you were almost embarrassingly close.
“Fuck, pretty girl, can I move?”
You nodded. He tried to kiss you but got taken over by a full-body shudder at the feeling of pulling out, missing, and instead burying his forehead in your shoulder. The sound was downright filthy, filling your bedroom with a wet slap of his thighs kissing yours.
“Feels so good, Andrew,” you moaned, breath stuttering as he pushed back in. The thrusts were slow at first, trying to give you both something to stay grounded in. But you were so tight, and you were talking to him so sweetly, and when he pushed forward, you’d clench, and his chest would brush against your nipples, and he felt so pent up he was going to explode.
“Baby…” your name tumbled from his lips, begging and rough, out of breath. “‘M all yours. All yours, my pretty girl. Could do anything you wanted to me. Let you spit on me again.”
You could tell he was borderline asking for it at that point, so you shoved his head back down to connect to your lips, trying to collect as much spit as you could get in there. He swallowed it dutifully, along with a moan of your name.
He was on the brink, as he had been since he’d heard that first sigh from your mouth. He was grabbing at the flesh of your thighs, trying to claw desperately at something that wasn’t your fucking wall. With how hard he was squeezing, he’d probably put a hole in it and come face to face with your neighbours in their kitchen.
“Andrew,” you mewled. “Need… fuck… need you-”
“Right here?” He flicked your clit. “‘M sorry, baby, you feel so fuckin’ good.”
He could feel himself getting there, and with the amount he’d been staving it off, he knew his climax wasn’t going to be soft.
Pope started playing with your clit, trying his best to replicate the rhythm that had gotten you so worked up at the beginning. You groaned, reaching blindly for him. “That’s it, right there.”
Andrew could feel you clenching around him, the walls of your cunt fluttering in time with his thrusts. “Fuck, you feel too good.” He kissed you. “Too fucking good, baby. So fuckin’ pretty for me, hey?” He was slurring his words, completely drunk on the feeling of you taking all of him inside.
“Andy-” the gasp was stilted, your fingernails gripping into his biceps. He was pretty sure you could cut him open with your nails, and he wouldn’t feel it, all of his senses completely attached to how fucking good you felt all spread out for him.
“You close?” He asked, more smug than he had any right to be, given how near he was to finishing. You nodded, and he kissed you. Kissed you. Kissed you. Each time, he got a little more lightheaded, and each time, you let out one of those soft sighs that made his arms shake.
“What do you need?”
You directed him, moving so you were half on your side, your leg anchored at his hip, whining as he hit a new spot inside of you. It was hard to find any part to lock on to with the mess between your legs, but he was still rubbing your clit. “Come on, baby. Show me how much you want me. Need to see it.”
You took his hand back in yours, mouth missing his lips as your orgasm hit you. Pope knew the second you came around him that he didn’t have long, but he tried to draw it out of you as long as possible, fucking you through it. “That’s my girl.” The feeling was white hot and dizzying, and for a second - though you’d never tell him this, smug bastard - all you could think of was Andrew.
You lay there, letting him fuck you, squeezing his hand and his dick. He couldn’t remember ever feeling that good, still rubbing your poor sensitive clit until you brought a hand up to swat him away. “Please, Andy,” you murmured, spare hand threading through his hair. “Please.”
“Where-” his thrusts were sloppy, barely able to string a single sentence together. “Where do you want me?”
He felt an aftershock rip through you as he hit your sweet spot, your voice sounding woozy and hot. “Inside.”
He stuttered. “In-”
“Want you inside,” you assured him. “Please? Want you so bad, Andrew- baby.” You whimpered, and he sucked in a sharp breath. “Want to be yours.”
He leaned heavily into you, putting his body weight on the thigh you had clamped around his hips. He groaned your name, “Want me inside? Fuck, want to be all full of me?” The idea of that alone was enough to have him spilling inside of you, breathing you in from his spot on your neck. The sheer force of his orgasm causing him to spill down your thighs as he pushed forward one last time.
He stayed there for a while before leaving with a soft kiss to go to your bathroom. He ran a washcloth under some warm water and returned to find you right where he’d left you. You and Andrew had never discussed whether you were on the pill or not - he had to assume you were, but as he wiped your sticky thighs down gently, he couldn’t help the way his chest constricted at the sight of him leaking out of you.
You, for all your charms while he’d been fucking you silly, had fallen into a blissed-out state of rest, watching him. “You going?”
His stomach did a flip. “Yeah, baby,” he finished with the washcloth, making a note to dump it in the laundry on his way out. Once he found his clothes. You sat up on your elbows, curling your legs inward so you were less spread out, and Andrew knew without you saying it that you wanted him to kiss you. “I gotta go to work.”
You nodded, beaming at him. “Hurry back.”
He discarded the washcloth and redressed himself, you going to pee and shrugging on a t-shirt and a clean pair of panties, meeting him back by the front door. You reached up to hug him again like you had when he’d arrived, this time placing a firm kiss on the side of his mouth. “You’ll come back?”
Andrew kissed the inside of your elbow, your arm resting on his shoulder, from where it was wrapped around your neck. He kissed a trail right up to your mouth, eyes blazing into yours. “I’ll be a few hours.”
Andrew wasn’t sure if you really wanted him back that quickly. He would usually spend an afternoon here and there sitting on your sofa or at your kitchen table, the two of you talking softly. He had only been coming over to establish a pattern of behaviour.
Though he reasoned it would be odd to break the pattern right along with your ex-boyfriend’s untimely demise.
When he pulled back into the parking space in your lot reserved for your apartment several hours later and smelling like bleach, he still hadn’t been sure if you wanted him there. He’d bought a bouquet of flowers from a roadside stall on a whim, and he felt stupid unlocking your door with them.
Your beaming smile at the sight of him had helped calm his nerves somewhat, though. The soft kiss you planted on him calmed the rest.
summary: against better judgement, you send a letter to a man at folsom with very sad eyes. against even better judgement, you send letters every week for years until he stops replying one day. and against everything you know, when he shows up at your door, you invite him inside.
pairing: prison letters reader x andrew cody
word count: 12.4k
tags: reader is silly and does things i do not recommend. kids do not write letters to prisoners and fall in love with them. unless it's andrew cody obviously. lots of context no one asked for. nurse!reader, descriptions of wound (andrew cuts himself to get into your work because why wouldn't he!), descriptions of wound handling, smut (oral - f receiving and mating press and the tiniest hint of breeding). takes place in season one, but just imagine he's got season two's hair. you have to fully immerse yourself in the fact that it's andrew cody and then ask yourself—wouldn't you take him home too? it's not her fault!
author's note: here she is! thank you for the patience ♡
you honestly had signed up as a joke. the club was known through your campus to be run by a couple of bleeding hearts. no one had thought the school would approve their activities—letters to prisoners. it was a recipe for disaster.
you should have known better.
but a friend of a friend was involved, and you knew it would make your nursing school application look better, and honestly, you didn’t think anything would come of it. a couple of letters here and there. you had thought it’d be all anonymous, messages of motivation and prayers signed with a first name only.
until your friend—bleeding heart and hopeless romantic, trying to appeal to those very same qualities in you—had shown you the website. that’s when you should have realized it wasn’t just a recipe, it was going to be a disaster.
the prisoners recorded videos—thirty seconds, short and sweet. a name, a couple of sentences about them, hometown and hobbies. underneath the video you could see what they had been arrested for. only the ones who were in for petty crimes—drugs and robbery, things where no one else had really gotten hurt, were allowed to partake. that was good at least. didn’t need any murderers sending letters to pretty co-eds.
your friend picked the guy she thought was the cutest. you watched his video—he was handsome, you couldn’t deny it. but the more videos you watched, the less you wanted to write a letter. you could almost see it, the desperation behind their eyes. it seemed like every man had nefarious intent. like your prettily written letter would not be used for motivation and prayers of a better life outside.
you decided not to send one. you’d rather have an empty slot on your application than a bad feeling in your gut for the rest of the semester. it’s not like the prison was across the country—it was just a couple of hours away.
she asked you to give it one more chance, watch a couple more videos. just pick a cute one, she’d told you. when you’d made a noise of disapproval, she had rolled her eyes.
“okay, pick whoever seems the nicest, then.”
so you had.
the video had been labeled andrew cody. first degree robbery.
the man in the video had been incredibly genuine. you don’t remember exactly what he had said—just bits and pieces. you knew he was from oceanside, born and raised from the way he sounded. he said he had a lot of brothers and a sister back at home. that he spent his time working out and reading books to distract himself from how noisy it was inside. the first thing he’d do when he got out was go to the beach and listen to the waves and breathe in the clean salty air.
and deep down inside, you knew you were just as much of a bleeding heart as the rest of your friends. you had folded instantly.
but it wasn’t just that. you spent the next several nights thinking about him. sad eyes, a singular half-smile at his own joke and then a real one when he mentioned going to the beach once he was released. he’d followed it up with—not that it’ll be any time soon. that made you sad, in turn. you thought about what he was like before prison—did he smile more? was he always so sad?
you thought about a lot of things. more than whatever your friends did, telling you how they had sent their letters, flirty yet inherently professional, so as not to get in trouble with the advisor.
you took a while to send yours. first you couldn’t think of what to write—everything felt so stupid compared to what he must be going through. andrew would hardly want to hear about the mundaneness of your daily life, or the struggles of trying to get into the nursing program.
you thought about not sending a letter at all after the first few times you tried to put pen to paper.
and then you thought about how sad he must feel, how lonely and scared, how terrible it would be to see all the other prisoners get letters besides him.
so you drove to the beach. you surprisingly had more in common with andrew cody than you even realized when you selected him. there was nothing you loved more than the beach, which is why you had even picked your college to begin with. and now, four years later about to graduate, you couldn’t imagine living anywhere else.
you caught the sunrise. you brought your little notebook with you to the water after setting your bag down on the bench. the seagulls were flying around, a couple of other beach-goers walking along the border where the sand met the ocean. it was a day like any other.
there were two sides of you—a hopeless romantic inside of an inherently logical girl. one side argued how stupid it was to send letters to a stranger. the other wondered if this would be the day that changes your life. you push away the thought and focus on writing the damn thing.
you thought andrew might like if the letter smelled like the salt-water. the stupid idea felt a lot less silly when you were attempting it, bringing your notebook all the way down to the water and hovering it. a slightly bigger wave caught you by surprise, the corners getting wet where it splashed up.
cursing to yourself, you walked back to the bench with sandy feet. and then you started writing.
dear andrew, and then you paused. fuck. you got out some of the introductory stuff—your first name, that you were a nursing student. it took a while to get the rest of the page filled, until you stopped for a moment and thought about what you would tell the man with the sad eyes if he was sitting next to you.
i came to the beach to write this letter. i’m sorry if the corners are wrinkled when you get it, i almost dropped it in the water trying to get it to smell like the beach so you had a little piece of home with you. i’m not near oceanside but it’s still the pacific.
i can’t imagine how hard it must be to grow up near the water and then be so far away for so long. but at least you know it’ll always be waiting for you when you get released. they want us to write motivational things but i’m not sure how motivating it would be for you reading this letter about my silly life. so i thought i’d write about the beach instead.
it’s about seven in the morning. the weather isn’t too cold and sky is pink and orange right now. the waves were calmer an hour ago when i got here but now it’s getting more intense. there’s a couple with their dog, and another man running on the sand. i’m on a bench writing this, but i’ll walk along the water again before i leave. i would try to send you a shell but i’m sure they’d take it away. maybe sand?
i love the sound of the waves too. my school isn’t close enough to hear it, but i have one of those machines that makes the noises. it helps a lot when i’m trying to sleep. maybe you can get one when you get out too.
you fill up a page, and then another page. when you fold up the letter and slip it into the envelope, you take a couple grains of sand and drop it in there. a little piece of home for him.
then you mail the letter, and think that was that.
+
two weeks later, you get a letter in the mail. you’d heard some of the other girls had also gotten responses—some had been mildly wholesome, while others had been more along the lines of what are you wearing?
but you weren’t worried when you opened yours. andrew didn’t seem the creepy type to you, it felt more like… like he would be glad to have someone to talk to.
you read it in bed, holding an old stuffed animal tightly. his handwriting is stiff and neat, the evenness of the letters and dotted i’s and crossed t’s makes you smile. the way he wrote your name, with bleeding ink like he had pressed too hard into the paper while doing so, made you smile wider.
the first line—thanks for the sand—made you laugh.
andrew writes of the book he’s just read, how the beach you described sounds just like the one in his hometown, and a request that you tell him more about your life in the next letter. his letter isn’t as long as yours, which makes sense to you. he couldn’t have that much to write about. but the last line is what really gets you—thank you for the letter. it’s nice to talk to someone.
you blink away tears, unsure when you had started crying. you reread the letter twice over the next day and a half, deciding to head back to the beach early in the morning to write the next one.
and you’ve always been bad at this. your friends have always called you a hopeless romantic—but maybe you’re just in too deep. it was the product of having been alone for your entire life, not having the dreamy, intense love that so many of your friends had already gone through once or twice at this age. the result had manifested in how you treated the world around you. every door someone held open, every nice response, every lingering gaze could mean something more. that this could be the person, that this could be your soulmate.
you knew it was stupid. nothing could be stupider than assuming that a prisoner, for god’s sake, would be anything more than just that—a prisoner you write letters to. but your heart still beats faster each time you reread the letter, and when you think of his pretty, sad eyes and earnest expression, the urge to write another letter haunts over your entire body.
dear andrew, thank you for writing back. thank you again for writing back and not being creepy (like the responses some of my friends got). i could tell you more about my life but i really wasn’t lying—it’s pretty silly and mostly boring, but since you asked so nicely i’ll try for you. right now i’m getting ready for graduation. i bought a white dress last week. i’m waiting to hear if i got into the nursing program here. i majored in nursing so I just need to do one more year and then after that i can go work in the hospital. i’m thinking about labor and delivery since i think it would be so nice to see babies all day, but one of my friends said the emergency room is always hiring. she thinks it would toughen me up. but I’m not so sure i want to be tough. just incase all of this school talk is boring you, i’ll just tell you about my day on the condition that you'll tell me about yours. yesterday i woke up early and went on a walk. i made breakfast and went to class, and then studied in the library. my friend showed me a creepy response from one of the fellow inmates (by the way, thank you again for not being creepy.) i walked to get a chai—i don't really like coffee. and then i studied, watched the bachelor. it was terrible! my favorite contestant got sent home :(. and had dinner, then I went to sleep early because i woke up early to come to the beach today to write this for you. so i went to sleep thinking about this letter and woke up thinking about it too.
you add a little bit more about your routine this time, just so he has something to read about. you try to make yourself sound interesting where you can—but you’re really not. and you don’t want to force it, make your letters sound grand and full of lies.
you don’t know why—it’s not like you’ll ever meet him. but lying to andrew feels wrong, you guess.
stupid. you’re stupid for adding the last part—but something in your heart flutters reading the line again, because you did. andrew’s sad eyes are in your mind all the time, and you know it’s just a silly infatuation, that he’s a prisoner and you’re a random student and more likely than not, he’s not going to respond to this letter. but you still keep it in.
and so you send the letter. and what’s worse—the one you get back makes your heart swell. he says that you describe your routine so well he can almost see it happening in his head like a movie. he says that he could describe his day-to-day but that it might make you sad. you’re sure it will. he seems to know a lot about you from just a handful of letters.
you reply. he sends another. you reply. and before you can even discern what’s happened, this has been going on for the better part of a year and a half.
andrew gets all the life updates—your nursing school acceptance, how the first year goes. early morning clinicals, the mean preceptor who made your life hell for a month, the baby you got to help deliver, the cat you’re thinking about getting. and the not so great stuff—despite the nursing shortage, it seems the only available job at the hospital you like is in the emergency room.
you don’t give him names but he figures it out well enough. the program you sent the letters through was smart enough not to include the university’s name in the return address, but dumb enough to use a p.o. box in the same city. and in that city, there’s only two colleges, and only one of those has a nursing program.
these are the things he uses to figure out where you are after he gets out—not that you need to know any of that just yet.
after you get the job, the letters are stamped with the mark of the local post office. you must not know that they’re doing that, now that you can’t send the letters through the school anymore. that’s the last piece of the puzzle, figuring out which emergency room you had been working in.
he keeps those letters. they’re his sanctuary—pages and pages about your life. the highs and lows of an innocent girl who thought it would be a good idea to send letters to a prisoner. letters where you asked about him, how he was feeling, how he was doing. how much time he had left, how he thinks the next parole meeting will go, how that annoying guard has been recently. how’s your family, andrew?
if he closes his eyes, he can almost see you. you’re a faceless entity, a glowing angel with a halo hovering in his mind when he really needs you. you’re too perfect to be real—and he knows you would be outside too. if you can care this much through letters, go out of your way to send them even after you graduate, he can only imagine how you’d be if you stood in front of him.
the other students who sent letters stopped after one or two. he’s likely the only one who’s still getting them, and when someone questions who they’re from, he tells a story about his girl, waiting for him outside. a nurse—smart and pretty and devoted and who never fails to send him a weekly update. lives too far to drive up here but he’ll be there one day.
and then he gets sent to solitary.
he doesn’t like to think about it, if he can avoid it. sometimes the noises of the world get to him, brings him back to days and hours he wish he could wipe from his memory. the sound machine you recommended in your very first letter helps some. but the day he goes free, there’s only one sound he knows will calm him down—your voice, the first time he’ll get to hear it.
he has to go home first. he needs a car, the internet, a couple of phone calls to make sure he’s going to the right place.
days turn into weeks. unfortunately—very unfortunately. the only thing andrew wants is to finally see you in person, to finally hear what your voice sounds like. what color is your hair? what color are your eyes? he knows you like yellow—what would he find if he saw you? yellow hair clips? painted nails? how about your apartment? would the walls be yellow?
no, probably not. you rent. you wouldn’t do anything that wouldn’t get you your security deposit back. you’re too good for that, too safe.
yellow sheets, maybe. blankets, pillows. if he closes his eyes, he can imagine himself in it.
he tries to leave after the first job but there’s too many watchful eyes, too many moving pieces. he needs to get everything together—his truck, cash and some cards, a plausible excuse. he needs to make sure no one comes following him, needs to make sure that in his quest to come find you, he doesn’t get you tangled into the web of his family instead. he’s stuck somewhere between figuring out how to keep you safe and the realization that the safest you’ll ever be is right now, before he comes for you.
but fuck, if it doesn’t haunt him. the fact that he’s finally so close to you. that you’re a car ride away. that somewhere out there is the girl who, one day, realized another letter wouldn’t be coming.
had you cried then? been upset? wondered what had happened? bothered to find out if he was dead or freed or living without you? he hates that he couldn’t get you another letter to explain himself, but he figures explaining in person would be easier, and better. in all those years, you never once wrote him about a date or a boyfriend or anything in that realm.
the way your last few letters were, it were almost as if he was your boyfriend. (he lets the thought linger inside him for a few seconds, if that. any longer and it would possess him like a demon and he’d be rendered useless. unable to work, unable to think, unable to breathe. just him and the idea that he was that important to someone else.)
+
and then one day, a couple days after a job and after being fed up with the entire world being scared of him, he leaves to find you.
that’s just the thing—no one understands him. all his life, he’s been the unstable one, the one others are worried about, frightened of. but no one understands that there’s nothing to be afraid of.
no one, except maybe you.
so he says he’ll be back in a week, and he drives down to the hospital where you work.
he hasn’t gotten a real look at you yet. he spent the first night in the parking lot of the emergency room. he watches hordes of nurses go in and out, and no one stands out. he spends some time doing research—nurses only work three times a week.
his odds of seeing you for the rest of the time he’s in town are fifty/fifty. it feels like he should be able to pick you out from a crowd, with the way he knows you so intimately, but he can’t. he keeps an eye out for yellow water bottles or shoes or lunch bags, but he doesn’t see any for two days.
so he decides that he needs to get inside.
pope keeps a pocket knife on his person, and another one hidden in the car in case of emergencies. that’s what he uses to slice his palm open so he has an excuse to get inside. not too deep—he’s not stupid. just deep enough to need stitches, shallow enough that he can still feel all his fingers and wiggle them around.
and then he goes inside, and he waits.
each time the doors open, a different nurse steps out. some are too old, others too young. no one has anything yellow on them, or the personality that he knows could only belong to you. cheery, but serious. empathetic to a fault. you would probably cry if you saw a kid crying, just like how you used to write to andrew, telling him you had cried thinking about a patient you lost and their family, cried thinking about him alone in prison.
you’ve shed tears for him. a man you’ve never even met. he has to recognize you when he sees you. he knows he will—the two of you are bonded in more ways than one. through ink and blood and tears.
“david?” a voice calls out. so lost in his thoughts, he’d not realized the doors had opened again or the name he’d given them. he looks up, making eye contact with the nurse, his nurse, and she walks closer. “david?” the voice repeats, and he raises the non-bloody hand.
you are just like he thought you’d be. your hair is pulled back, which is a shame. he wants to see what it looks like when it’s down, what it smells like when you get close enough. pieces in the front fall out from behind your ear. his finger twitches momentarily.
and, he thinks with a pleasant sort of smugness, there is yellow—the plastic band around the stethoscope, the badge reel with a smiling cartoon on it, the pens tucked neatly in your scrub top pocket.
“hi david, i’m going to be your nurse today,” you start, looking at him in the eyes. your eyebrows furrow a little, like you’re trying to remember why this man looks so familiar—it’s not like he had expected it. his hair isn’t the same anymore, longer than the video you had seen of him. if that was your benchmark, he certainly looked somewhat different. he doesn’t fault you for not recognizing him right away. in fact, it’s better this way. “if you’re ready, i can take you back now.”
you smile at him, beautifully. a bright, wide smile, like there’s nothing in this world you’d rather do than take david back, and have a look at whatever’s bothering him. it’s genuine, it’s safe, it’s warm. how do you do it? he thinks briefly to himself, how do you make everyone feel like they’re the most important person in the world? just with a smile and a couple of sentences you must say a thousand times a shift.
andrew’s not one for many words, but his thoughts run rampant—he’s always thinking. he can’t get his brain to turn off, not now, not ever. even putting pen to paper was hard for him, even for you. but you seem to understand him, just like you did back then. without words, without talking, without touching or knowing. you just know him.
you take him to a bed behind a curtain and start rattling off a list of rehearsed questions. first name, age, date of birth. the more he says, the more you seem to get a step closer to recognizing him, but he doesn’t push it.
you come closer to the bed and gesture to his wrapped up, bleeding hand.
“may i?”
“yes. yes,” andrew says, unsure of how it’ll be to feel your hands on him for the first time. you start slowly, unpeeling the layers of gauze that he had brought with him from home as a just incase. he doesn’t flinch or wince, but you still speak up.
“i’m sorry, i know it’s not very comfortable.” you apologize without needing to, and he’s sure it’s because you want him to feel better about it. “how did this happen again?” you ask, staring at his wound closely. you’re not very far from his face. he can feel your breath even against his skin.
“accident. was cutting something.”
“well, you should be more careful, david.” his middle name has always felt foreign to him, though somehow, it doesn’t seem that way coming from your lips. andrew briefly feels like there’s nowhere else he’d rather be than here, no one else he’d rather be than david, getting his hand tended to by you.
“yeah. i should.”
“well i’m going to go ahead and get this cleaned up. just to be sure, any drug allergies?” he shakes his head. “great. we’re gonna clean it and then the doctor will be in here to stitch it up and we’ll get you on your way back home. does that sound okay?”
you look at him earnestly. as if on the off chance he said it didn’t sound okay, you’d have an answer ready to go. nothing to shame him, nothing to make him feel bad. just to comfort him and make him feel better. like there’s nothing more important than getting him back home with aid instructions for the rest of the week.
memories of your letters wash over him like a warm wave over soft sand. you’ve known from the jump that you were meant for this, but it all suddenly makes sense. how kind you are, how gentle you are with him, how you’d be with anyone.
you were meant for this, just like how you were meant for him.
“that sounds okay.”
you sit on a stool at the level of his hand. you dab with the cleaning solution and tell him you’re sorry about the sting. it’s half a dozen apologies in the short time he’s known you, and he sits and wonders, staring at your pretty hair and the undoubtedly smooth skin of your neck, that he’ll have to work you out of that habit.
you shouldn’t be apologizing for anything, much less helping people the way you do.
he stares at you while you think of another question to ask him to distract him from the pain of cleaning his wound.
and your patient is nothing if not a starer. when you got up to add something to the chart and stopped to chat with a fellow nurse and friend of yours about how long it might take the doctor to see him—calling him by his nickname, mister sliced hand in bed four—she interrupted you half way through the conversation.
“the one who’s staring at us right now?” you turned your head too quickly to see what she was talking about, and were faced with sliced-hand david, looking at you and the other nurse.
not in a creepy way, like some other past patients of yours. he’s just…looking. like he’s waiting for you to come back. his gaze doesn’t leave you, you notice. he watches your friend as though he’s watching over you.
the thought is almost… sweet.
and then you shake your head and turn around, breaking the eye contact. you have a bad habit of doing this—turning every interaction, every look into your eyes and held-open door into something more than it was.
your new friends at the hospital also call you a hopeless romantic. you knew that you were just sort of an idiot when it came to these things. it was the long-standing result of still never having been in a real relationship. you’d never felt the fireworks, never known the rom-com sort of true love and happy ending. you had never even gotten to the angst-filled third act breakup.
so maybe you were still a bit of a projector—projecting every single interaction into something more than it was. a patient with a staring problem became a man who was looking out for you, worried for you, love at first sight.
and you shake your head again. snap out of it. you had a problem, seriously.
the closest you’d even come to anything remotely related to love at first sight was the insane amount of letters you’d written to a prisoner a few years ago, and even then—
stop. it. you barely knew what the guy looked like, and yet, you found yourself wondering all the time what had happened to him. if today would finally be the day you’d find out. he could be the stranger next to you in the coffee shop. the person buying fruit next to you in the grocery store.
for all you know, he could be the next guy who walks into your life, and yet—
“you are seriously such a goner,” she says with a laugh, playfully shoving your shoulder.
“what? i-i just got lost in my thoughts.”
“a guy could blink at you and you’d be imagining your embroidered towels and baby names-”
“that is not true-”
“right, i know. you’re right. you’re just gonna hold out for mister prisoner until you’re an old lady with a bunch of cats-”
“hey! i have one cat and he is adorable, okay-”
“yeah, yeah. that’s how it always starts. one cat.”
“i’m going to go take care of my patient now.”
“don’t let him blink at you.”
you roll your eyes and make your way back to bed four, where david stares up at you with pretty, sad eyes. eyes that seem a little familiar, but it’s hour eight of twelve and you’ve taken care of half a hundred people so far. your tiredness seeps through your pores but you still smile and sit on the stool.
“sorry about that, david.”
“are you okay?” he asks, incredibly earnestly. you blink at him dumbly. once, then twice.
“yes?” you reply slowly, unsure of what he means. maybe you’re more tired than you thought. “is everything okay?”
“i saw her push you.” you blink again.
“oh. oh. no, no, she’s my friend. that was just, um-” you blank momentarily. his concern is so palpable you can feel it in the air. “-a joke. she was joking.”
“oh. okay.” david goes silent but his eyes are still on you. you decide the best course of action is to change the subject.
“so! david. this might be hard but no going in the water for at least a couple days. maybe more, depending on what the doctor says.”
“sure. can i.. can i still go sit on the beach?”
“yeah. that should be fine.” you clean out the wound further, but he doesn’t wince. “do you do that often?”
“yes. it calms me down.”
“me too. something about the sand and the waves. the air is just-”
“cleaner.” for the first time that night, david interrupts you. your eyes leave his hand to look up at his face.
“yeah,” you agree, slowly, wondering why his words feel so familiar to you. “cleaner.”
there’s a brief pause, and david doesn’t say anything. you look back down at his hand, continuing your work. but something inside of you stirs, curiosity poking and prodding at your memories. you’ve heard that before, somewhere, and even then you had thought about how no one had ever used that word to describe the ocean air before, when—
“i thought you wanted to deliver babies. do you not want to do that anymore?”
as if it was in slow motion, you retract your hands away from his. you move your head to look up at him and your jaw falls open a little—you had known david looked a little familiar, but when you had seen that thirty second video of him, his hair had been short and his skin had been a little paler, and the man sitting in front of you now—
well he wasn’t cute anymore.
he was handsome now—dark brown curls grown out. he looked like he’d spent some time in the sun, recently. his eyes—sad and pretty as they were—seemed a bit softer now. and your gaze on him made them even softer, like he was trying his best not to frighten you. how someone takes care of a skittish animal, ready to bolt at any second.
you swallow, and then bring your hands back to his, keeping the piece of soaked gauze on top of his wound gently
“i-i do. want to. this was just the only job opening when i-” you pause, sucking in a deep breath. he already knows about this—andrew. it was in one of your letters. “when i finished school.”
you feel his hand move under your touch, and then his other hand, the unwounded one, over yours. his grip isn’t tight, but it’s tense. hard. like he wants to make sure you can’t just disappear like sand between his fingers.
“i thought you might have found another job by now.”
“it-it’s hard. you get used to something and it’s hard to leave.” you pause again. there’s a million and one questions storming through your mind, but you stare into hazel eyes and they all go quiet, one by one. “you said your name is david-”
“i wanted to see if you would recognize me.”
“i’m sorry, i-”
“don’t apologize.” andrew, like his letters, speaks concisely. you should have guessed. you would send him pages just to get a few paragraphs back—and he would always say it’s because he didn’t have much to talk about, that learning about your day to day was much better than whatever he could tell you.
it was the first time your heart fluttered with the knowledge that out there, somewhere, is a man who wants to hear about your day. the closest you had ever gotten to the semblance of a real relationship. a man who cared about you, even if he never said as much. it was always clear to you, through his carefully chosen words and the things he wrote you about and how much he said he liked hearing about you.
he used to ask you questions about things from a dozen letters ago. remember to follow up after some big exam or a really hard week at work. asked you what you did to feel better. tell you what he would do to help you feel better—nothing creepy, never creepy. if you were supposed to be scared of him, you never were. he never gave you any reason to.
“are you okay?” andrew asks, and you blink yourself out of your thoughts.
“yes. yes, sorry. i just-” it’s a little ridiculous.
you’re a smart girl. you’ve always been a smart girl. you don’t do stupid things—you don’t drink yourself silly at bars and go home with random men. you don’t say yes to dates with strangers, despite how much you believe that a stranger can become a soulmate in an instant. you don’t put yourself in situations you can’t get out of.
but when it comes to andrew, you haven’t listened to a single one of your own rules. you sent him letters for ages after the other girls in your class had stopped. you had opened up about your life and wanted to learn about his life in exchange.
and despite every greater instinct, you had fallen asleep for years thinking about the day he might walk back into your life.
“did you ever get my last letter, andrew?”
you’re not even sure where the words came from—that’s the last thing you should be saying right now. how did you find me? when did you get out of prison? why are you here right now? should have all come before.
but something inside you burns, like it has for years, with the knowledge that he never sent you another letter. and you need to know why.
andrew sits up a little straighter, taking heavy breaths and staring at you. it’s the first time he’s heard you say his name, his real name. you two haven’t moved an inch, his hand still on yours. he blinks slowly at you and you don’t realize it, but you’re holding your breath.
“i did. i-i was in solitary. they don’t let you write letters there.”
“oh. i’m so sorry,” you say, and it’s second nature. you hate what andrew went through, and seeing him in front of you brings you back to the first letter you ever got back from him. how polite he was in it, how sweet the whole thing seemed. it was never meant to get this far, but it had, and you—
you are nothing if not a believer of soulmates and fate.
“that’s okay. not your fault.”
“but still. that must have been really hard.”
“i wanted to write back. i-” he stops, pulling out something from the pocket of his button-up shirt. he unfolds a piece of white notebook paper—and the breath you were holding leaves you quickly. that’s the paper you used to write him letters on.
“is that my last letter?” when andrew moves to look at you, he’s expecting it. a nervous lilt to your voice, fear in your eyes. like he’s crazy, like you’re scared.
instead he glances over hesitantly and you’re beaming up at him.
“you carry around.. my last letter?” the words come out as a smile forms on your face—pretty and genuine and sincere. you stare at him expectantly, and he doesn’t know how to respond.
“i…” the words falter. “i just wanted to ask you about it. did you, did you get that cat?”
“i did!” it comes out louder than you meant it, drawing the attention of some other nurses around you. you turn briefly, using your free hand to push the curtain so it’s closed around you two. “sorry. i did, yes. he’s so cute. i don’t have my phone or i’d show you the pictures-”
“that’s okay. you-you can show me later.”
“but i didn’t say i was getting a cat in that one. i just said i was thinking about it,” you feel breathless.
“but there was another one before that. you mentioned it then too. i figured you’d get it since you were thinking about it so much.”
“yeah. yeah, exactly.” your brain can’t seem to compute what’s going on. any fear that had been in you, if there was any of it to begin with, has completely melted away, replaced with a warm, glowing feeling in your chest, slowly spreading out to your limbs.
you had been thinking about getting a cat for ages—a thought you had mentioned to andrew maybe twice. and your justification had been just as andrew said, because you were thinking about it so much.
how did he know that?
and then the curtain opens behind you, and the doctor comes in to stitch up andrew’s hand. you have to pull away from his hand and andrew thinks you’re leaving, eyes following you and his expression shifting, but you don’t leave. you go to the cabinets to pull the supplies and help the doctor and and keep your eyes focused on the wound while his hand gets stitched up. eight stitches and not a single wince of pain or discomfort.
and though the thought makes butterflies emerge and fly around your stomach, when you finally look up at andrew, he’s been staring at you the entire time.
+
you have a tiny apartment in a shitty neighbourhood. it doesn’t feel safe at all, save for the fact that one of the houses down the street is owned by a rookie cop and his wife. there’s not that much crime, but the area inherently feels bad.
maybe it’s just that way to him—since he doesn’t want you living in a place like this.
it’s fine for now though. he’ll get you a better place soon enough. it’s by the water, and when he closes his eyes, he can hear the waves crashing on the sand. the sound alone might be enough to justify why you’d live here.
he keeps his eyes shut, just for a half dozen heartbeats, when he pulls up against your curb. he just wants to hear it before he says goodbye—it’s getting late, almost dark, and you must be exhausted. you’ve been at work all day and though you act like you’re completely fine, he knows how intense it is. there’s other letters, safely stored away, where you told him about how breaks are far and few in between, how you barely get time to drink water and eat a snack because of how busy it gets. he offered to stop and pick you up something to eat but you refused, saying you had food at home that you shouldn’t waste.
you sit in the passenger seat of his truck, staring around it as if you’re looking for some more information about it. anything would help you—half-empty drinks or gum wrappers or extra clothes in the backseat, but there’s nothing. the truck looks like he just got it yesterday, no sign of use or anything branding it as andrew’s car.
“can i walk you to your door?” you snap out of your thoughts.
okay—maybe it wasn’t the smartest idea in the world to let a virtual stranger drive you home. but when his hand was taken care of and you give him the paper instructions with way too many sample packets of antibiotic gel, all he said was that he’ll wait for you.
“wait for what?”
“to make sure you get home safely.”
and, really, what are you supposed to say to that? no, i’m good, thanks. you’d be even stupider than you already are to say that to someone who is just trying to be nice to you.
(he’s more chivalrous than any guy you’ve ever talked to, and probably more than any guy your friends have ever complained to you about. and more than that, it’d be rude to say no, especially once he realized you wait for a shoddy-at-best bus to get you home because you don’t have a car and it’s too dark to walk. he wouldn’t take no for an answer after that.)
and more than that—he waited another two hours for you to get home. every time you’d step out to bring back another patient, you’d see him, sitting there, waiting patiently for you. glancing up when the door would open to get a glimpse of you, of the small smile you shot his way before taking back whoever’s turn it was.
and he’s not a real stranger, a voice in the back of your head keeps reminding you. you’ve known him for longer than some of your coworkers have known their fiancees and husbands. and in all the time you’ve known him (meaning all the letters you’ve sent and received), you’ve never gotten a creepy word or even a fragment of a sentence that frightened you.
so you think the least you can do is let him drive you home and walk you up the two flights of stairs.
“of course. thank you, for-” your sentence gets interrupted. andrew gets out of the car and you turn to do the same, but then you see him—walking around the front of his truck, coming to your side and then opening the door for you.
oh.
your heart thuds dully in your chest at the very idea of andrew opening his car’s door for you to get out. after driving you home and politely asking to walk you up. whatever inhibitions you had melt away and you briefly think that whatever he asked of you, you’d do it in a heartbeat, no questions asked.
if that made you stupid, then so be it. you’d gladly be the stupidest girl on the planet if you get to feel whatever it was that andrew cody has made you feel for the last couple of hours.
his truck is jacked up tall, and he gives you his hand, the one without the cut, to help you get down, and you accept. he closes the door for you and lets you lead the way up the stairs.
silently, you two walk up the creaky steps together. hands brush together for all of seconds and he briefly wishes seconds lasted longer, until you’re standing in front of your door.
you’d once had a cute spring-themed wreath on the door, bought on clearance from the local store after easter, and a matching door mat. your elderly neighbor had told you to get rid of it because it was basically an invitation to criminals that a young girl lived here alone. you’re stupid, but not that stupid.
and now your front door looks barren and empty. there’s a few plants you can see from the window sill but the curtains are drawn and there’s an extra dead bolt a fellow nurse from the hospital’s husband had helped you install.
you look up silently at andrew and he looks back at you. this is it—it’s supposed to be goodbye. any normal girl would know that this is where the night needs to end, that you need to process what all of this means and if you had any friends you trusted with this information, calling them and asking what to do.
but you don’t want to call your friends, because you know what they’d say—to lock your door and get a restraining order and burn andrew’s letters, the ones you kept in a cute box under your bed and reread much too often for anyone’s comfort.
and you’re not a normal girl.
“do you want to stay for dinner?”
there’s not much to study on andrew’s expression—he keeps it stern and serious for the most part. his eyes are soft when they look at you and they soften even further when you say those words.
“yes. yes, thank you.”
you think maybe he wasn’t expecting it. you think that you weren’t expecting it either, not exactly sure where the words had come from. but you still lead andrew inside, showing him the only slightly comfortable couch you had to get delivered since you didn’t have anyone to help you lug a used one up the stairs. the squeaky door that leads to the bathroom, the tiny space you called your kitchen. your bedroom is behind a closed door and andrew stares at it when you go inside to change out of your scrubs and come back out in the kind of clothes that you sleep in.
and then he stares at the shut door even after you leave, before realizing that you’ve already made your way to the space between the living room and kitchen, a narrow expanse with a small round table and some placemats with flowers on them. you set down your backpack and take your hair out of the clip that holds it back for you at work and suddenly, he’s staring again.
it’s just a little too close to everything he’s been dreaming about for years.
“i’m really sorry. i was supposed to go grocery shopping but i hate bringing everything up-”
“don’t apologize.”
“also, i’m-i’m not really a good cook. i’m sorry-”
“i don’t think anything you make can be worse than prison food.”
“i really doubt that. you’ve never had my cooking.”
you glance back him and he meets your eyes at the same time, and you both start laughing. it’s nothing crazy—andrew didn’t seem like the kind who laughs easily anyway, but he cracks a smile and the noise is indelible—all you can think of is how you can get him to laugh again.
“do you like spaghetti?”
+
if someone had told you yesterday that this time tomorrow, andrew from your letters would be sitting across from you at your dining table, eating spaghetti that you made while rushing, looking so in place in your tiny home that your heart hurts, you think you would have passed out.
you watch him while he eats, absentmindedly swirling your own noodles on the plate, unable to focus on eating when he’s really in front of you. after countless dreams and days spent wondering what had happened to him and if he was okay and if he ever thought about you. he’s… bigger than you thought he would be. shoulders broader than you had realized from that tiny video. his mannerisms interest you more than they should—how quiet he is, but how he seems to latch onto every word when you go on and on. just like the letters, it seems he’s still a listener.
(it doesn’t help matters when he tries to clear the table and wash the dishes after—you have to wrestle the plates out of his hand and tell him to go sit down, that he can’t get his bandage wet. jostling against his iron-hard body was not on the list of things you thought you’d get to do today, and the very realization that andrew is twice as strong as you on his worst day does…things to you. things that do not need to be named or explored right now. he’s still a stranger, you try to remind yourself. no he’s not.)
but it seems that he can’t sit still. he wipes down the counter and then comes back to help you dry your yellow dishes and when you both finish up, with you still smiling at him and unsure of what excuse you can conjure to get him to stay, he finds it all by himself. you tell andrew to go sit on the couch while you finish up and he does, and when you follow him out there, he’s standing in front of it. he turns his head to look at you and then back at the couch.
your cat is perched on his usual spot, and you go over to him, scratching the top of his head between his ears and making extremely childish, stupid-sounding noises at him.
“andrew this is wardy,” you say, picking him up and bringing him closer. “he’s really friendly. i promise.”
“hello, wardy.” when he says it, you look up at him with a look he can’t find words to describe. as close to love as you can get it when it’s a technically a stranger. the way he greets your cat and helps you clean and knows more about you than some of your friends and coworkers do.
there’s no words for it. it just is.
so you sit on the couch next to andrew, your cat between the two of you, and you wait for him to tell you that he wants to leave. you flick on the television, settling for whatever silly romance movie is playing on your netflix account, sitting in the almost-silence with andrew and wondering why still, it doesn’t feel necessarily uncomfortable.
eventually andrew reaches out to pet wardy, and he curls up into his touch, settling comfortably against his forearm. (his huge, thick, veiny forearm, you think briefly, before chasing the thought away with a broom. and then another one—no wonder he had bled so much at the hospital. with veins like these.)
“this area’s not the best,” andrew says, speaking as though you need to be reminded of it, to know that he doesn’t approve.
“i know. but it’s cheap and it’s near the beach.”
“but you live alone. it’s dangerous.”
“but-” you glance over at him. he takes up most of your couch, wardy’s head resting against his thigh now, while he continues petting him. he looks over at you and it’s clear—this isn’t an argument. “you’re right. but i mean, how bad can it be? if you’re here now?”
you pause. stupidly, you’ve just revealed whatever thoughts have been rattling around in your head. like the fact that you’re assuming he’s going to be here more often, when the truth is that you have no idea if that’s true.
why would it be true? you tried, in earnest, to make sure your life never seemed anything more than it really was in your letters. but andrew drives a brand new truck and wears an expensive watch and you have absolutely no idea what he was robbing or why he was doing it—and you never asked. the assumption that just because he found you, meant that he was going to keep you was completely insane. a misgiving on your part, because surely, whatever’s waiting for him back home is better than your crappy cooking and a tiny apartment and a cat that you—
“sorry, i’m sorry. that’s such a jump. we just met. i’m so sorry, i can-” you stand up, and so does andrew.
“why are you apologizing?”
“because i just.. i don’t know.” you try to pace around your apartment but you only get a few steps away before you have to come back. “this is crazy. we’re both crazy.”
you feel it in the air before you hear him say it. it gets tenser, quieter, more serious. like what you’ve both been dreading for the last few hours is about to happen.
“do…do you want me to leave?” you turn to face him quickly.
“no! no, i don’t. that’s why this is crazy. people are going to think we’re insane. i don’t want you to go. i want you stay. i want you to tell me everything i missed in the last year and a half. i want to know what you did with my letters. i want to know-”
and when andrew reaches forward to grab your forearm—gently, not meant to hurt you—you freeze in your tracks. staring up at him, all the words in your brain, every stupid thing your friends ever told you about this make-shift relationship you had concocted in your head melting away.
“i want that too.”
“oh. well, i just thought-”
and this time, he doesn’t let you finish, leaning in for a kiss that makes your knees give out. andrew’s mouth—wet and hot and on fire—kisses you like you two were made for each other.
as cheesy as the thought feels, you swallow it and wrap your arms around his neck. it’s every stupid romance movie you’ve ever seen coming to life, your life. all because of him. he doesn’t break the kiss, not even to breathe. you feel his tongue poke into your mouth and you accept it gladly. you fall back on the couch and the movement of it makes wardy scamper off, and you move your head just for a second to see where he runs off too, but andrew doesn’t stop. he lines kisses along your cheek and your jaw until you turn back and he gets your lips again.
you feel his weight on top of you, and briefly, you wonder if you should tell him.
countless nights spent wondering what this would feel like, how he would kiss you, all the things he would do to you. you have to keep reminding yourself, you’re just a stupid girl—it’s not your fault that a few nice letters was enough to make you head over heels for the last few years.
because somewhere deep down inside, you knew. you knew that it would be like this, that it would be perfect, that it would be everything you wanted. that he would take care of you and want you as badly as you want him. your crown title of hopeless romantic had finally paid off.
another thought stirs as he keeps kissing you. it’s feverish and hot and makes you warm all over—how long it’s been since he’s had someone, how he kisses you like he’s out of practice. his mouth is so hard against yours it almost hurts, but you welcome the pain. it’s like he’s proving to you that he’s really there now, that nothing can tear him away from you.
but then he does pull away. you catch your breath, hands traveling to his face and running your fingers through his hair. andrew’s pretty eyes close and you cherish it—that you made him feel like that. he leans into your touch, head resting against your hand while you both take long, heavy breaths.
andrew leans in, pressing your foreheads together.
“i-i’ve wanted to do that,” another breath. you feel butterflies continuously emerge and flutter around your chest and your stomach, all the way down to between your legs. “since your first letter.”
and then you can’t resist—leaning back in for another hard, wet kiss. you feel him shift, strong hands on your hips, but staying firmly there, not traveling despite how much you wish they would. he’s been polite again, you think. waiting for you to give him permission.
“you can-” you start, but andrew keeps pressing kisses against your neck that make it hard to finish your sentence. “you can touch me.” you expect his hands to spread—grope and grab and tease until you’re begging for more. for him to be impatient and hungry and not stop until he’s inside of you.
“i can’t believe you’re real,” he says quietly, one hand moving up to your waist and touching the soft skin there gently. he traces up your arms and then down before intertwining his fingers with yours. you stare up at him, stupid as ever. every time you think you know anything about andrew, he proves you wrong.
“i can’t believe you are, either,” you say, tilting your head up for another kiss. a short, chaste one this time. “you’re just as nice as i knew you’d be.”
“you think i’m nice?” he asks, voice low. you nod in response, words escaping you. you settle to answer with another kiss, hands going to his shoulders to steady yourself, tugging and pulling on his bottom lip with your teeth.
you push up until he understands, and he uses two huge hands to get you into his lap, sitting up with his back against your couch. you straddle him, trying your hardest to not lose your train of thought as you realize how hard he is against you.
“i think you’re too nice,” you tease, unsure where you’re finding the confidence. under you, andrew looks spacey and flushed and all kissed out, but you don’t plan to stop. you lean in to press kisses to his cheeks and work your way to his jaw and neck. when you stop to look at him again, he looks hopelessly up at you, and you think he’s waiting again, waiting for permission to do something. “i think you’re so nice that you’re not telling me everything you’ve wanted to do to me these last few years.”
the way andrew looks up at you after you said that—god. you wish you could engrain it into your memory. you’re not someone who does this often, but you might just be good at figuring out how to get andrew to crack. he looks up with some of the hunger you’d imagined there’d be, and it makes something stir inside of you.
it feels strange to be wanted the way andrew wants you right now. you’re just not used to it, not entirely sure that you’d ever feel this way. that someone would ever make you feel this way.
your thoughts are wiped again when he pulls you into another kiss, and you deepen it, moaning into his mouth. you’re being so loud that your older neighbor might be able to hear you, but you can hardly bring yourself to care right now. andrew is quiet, like you thought he would be, but each soft grunt and heavy sigh is enough to make your entire body tingle.
you think you’re being better at staying quiet yourself when andrew scoops you up into his arms, carrying you like it’s nothing for him. you yelp loudly, forgetting everything for a second, realizing how lovely it feels to be carried by him. he leads you two to your bedroom, setting you down gently on the bed.
you stare at him, hovering above you, wondering how you’ll get to do this. how you’ll get his clothes off and watch out for his hurt hand and that you’ll finally get to feel him inside of you—when he just stops moving.
andrew looks up and around your bedroom, craning his neck to take in all of it. you’re not sure why, stuck in a position under him that forces you to just watch.
“is everything okay, andrew?” when you say his name, he turns back to stare down at you.
“yes. yes, it is. it’s just-” he pauses, looking back up and then down. the room is decorated with lots of pretty frames. there’s yellow curtains on the windows and your sheets are yellow under you too, just like he’d suspected. seeing it in real life almost sends him back to years ago—the first time he’d wondered what your bedroom looks like. the place from where you write your letters, the place you read them. “it looks just like i thought it would.”
and just like every other part of tonight, your reaction continues to surprise him. you smile and then laugh, holding onto his shoulder even tighter.
“spend a lot of time thinking about my bedroom, huh?” you tease, and he remains just as confused as ever.
you are such a conundrum. andrew thinks that he wants you so badly he can’t form a proper thought—and then the thoughts merge and blend and anger at the very idea that you’re so trusting of him. you should be more careful. you shouldn’t trust anyone how much you’re trusting him right now—inviting him inside your home, letting him into your bedroom.
and then you pull him down for another kiss and it all washes away like letters in the sand.
eventually he does pull away—though it takes an enormous amount of self control. the words you said on the couch haven’t completely left him yet and he still needs to answer you. you claw and pull at his shirt so he lets you take it off of him, you trace a hand down his chest, stopping at his heart and pressing your palm flat against him.
you’re staring, he thinks, but you’re really just admiring. taking in every detail, every scar and bruise so you can ask him about it later, moving your fingers down his abs and biting your lip while you stare daggers at his chest.
he moves away from your touch though, as sad as it makes you.
“you wanted to know everything i’ve thought about you?” andrew says, and the words make you tense up—thighs clenching, walls fluttering just from words alone. your fingers tighten around his bicep where you’ve been holding on, and you nod up at him dumbly. “can i show you?”
your head falls back onto your pillow with a thud. you nod again.
you let andrew set the pace—he peels off your clothes and you lift your hips and raise your arms in compliance. he starts with a kiss to your stomach that makes you whine, fingers leaving his skin and grabbing onto your sheets instead just to have something to hold on to.
you’re embarrassingly wet—you already know you are. it’s almost painful how badly you want him, even against better judgement that tells you that you could have, at the very least, taken things slowly.
you guess andrew just brings it out of you.
his kisses move south and you brace yourself, every muscle tensing up in anticipation. andrew is silent except for his deep breaths and somehow, with each one deeper than the last, they make your entire body shudder in anticipation. when he finally gets to your leaking cunt, you hear it. a strangled moan, sounding painful and from the depth of his chest and filled with want and need. just from looking at you. you can’t imagine what he’ll sound like when—
“this is what i thought about. this is always what i thought about.”
and then andrew licks down the length of your cunt with the flat of his tongue, and you can’t think about anything else anymore. he’s relentless, exploring you with his mouth like he’s a man starved. you can hear the noises, obscene and sloppy and wet as they are.
and then you feel it—his mouth around your clit while one finger prods at your tight opening. your back rises off the bed but he holds you down with one huge hand over your stomach. his finger slips inside you more easily than he thought it would. though you’re wetter than he imagined, he doesn’t stop teasing your clit.
your wetness coats everything—his tongue, his lips, his chin. your thighs are wet too, and he’s sure he can get your yellow sheets soaked too if he could tease you long enough. but he’s been incredibly patient all these years, unsure if he can wait any longer to get what he’s wanted.
his hand keeps you pinned down while his mouth stays on your clit and then andrew adds another finger and you thrash up against him. it’s useless against the weight of his hand holding you down, but your body moves anyways, hands wrangling into his brown curls, likely making a complete mess of them. you keep pulling and he moans between your legs and the vibration makes you thrash harder, a completely exhilarating cycle.
when he finally releases you from his grip, you think the other hand will explore up and down your body, but true to form, you’re wrong. andrew finds your hand and holds onto it, lacing your fingers with his while he keeps going.
when adds a third finger, you realize that he’s saying something against you. you can’t quite make it out with your heart thudding in your ears and how loud you’re being, but then it becomes a little clearer—
“you taste even better than i thought you would-” and you can’t stop it, the tension in your stomach winding tighter and tighter before it snaps altogether. a white hot heat washes through your body and makes you shake even harder, but andrew’s hold on you keeps you completely grounded. he works you through it, not stopping even once, not until you’re trying your hardest to pull away from him. you try to catch your breath but it’s useless. your head feels completely empty.
incoherent, you grab at andrew, murmuring something about inside, please, and he really tries to stay level headed. but one glance at your naked, writhing body and your expression while you beg for him is enough to tip him over the edge.
resisting you requires a level of self control that he doesn’t think he’ll ever be able to have.
andrew doesn’t think he’s ever had any self control when it comes to you. it’s why he did this, isn’t it? showed up at your hospital with your sweet letter folded up and somehow convinced you, without saying much of anything at all, to trust him and let him back into your life. he doesn’t even know how he did it—he can’t recall most of what he said to you. it plays in his head like a movie, like how your letters used to.
he doesn’t know what he did to deserve your trust, just knows that he’ll do whatever he has to in order to keep it forever.
andrew’s thoughts about keeping you cloud him while he lifts up your legs, manhandling your body while you squeal under him. he pushes your knees to your chest and lets your legs hang in the air while he hovers over you. all he can think about is getting inside of you—-giving you exactly what you’ve been begging for, fulfilling every fantasy he’s had about you in the last three years. the noises you’ll make. how tight and wet and warm you’ll feel around him. how you’ll look with his cum dripping out of-
“andrew, please, please,” you plead, and he’s not sure that you understand exactly what you’re asking for. it’s good that it’s him you picked for those letters, good that he’s the one who tracked you down.
someone else, well, he thinks, lining himself up with your soaking wet entrance, someone else might have had bad intentions with you. not andrew, though.
his intentions for you are only good. intentions to keep you happy and safe and move you away from this tiny apartment and make sure you get the job that you want, no matter who he has to threaten in order to do so. intentions to keep everything taken care of so the only thing you ever have to worry about again is him, just like you’d done for all those years when you wrote to him.
and as he slips inside, he knows those letters are in this bedroom somewhere, that this bed is where you read them, that these were the pretty hands that held his letters and these were the pretty eyes that read them.
you stare at him while he hovers over you, not pushing in just yet. andrew’s dick is just like the rest of him—thick and broad and so wide that you don’t know how you’ll be able to walk tomorrow. there’s veins too, just like his arms, and it’s all you can think about with him enclosed over you.
when he pushes his thick head past your fluttering walls, you make a noise like nothing he’s ever heard before. pure want and heat wrapped up with pleasure and pain. you keep begging for more but he’s not sure you can even handle it—but who is andrew to deny you?
he pushes further inside of you, now half way, and you cry out. andrew leans in to kiss you again, swallowing the noise and letting you moan against his lips.
another thrust and he’s almost all the way in. he pulls out and pushes back in, and then he starts his rhythm. your tits bounce with every thrust and he watches entranced, until his eyes go back to where you and him meet. in this position, on his knees with you folded underneath him, he can see it perfectly.
it’s enough to make him finish instantly. you look completely fucked out under him, crying out with each push of his hips.
your open your wet eyes and glance up at him. through wet lashes and blinking eyes, you get out a few words, stopped by each thrust.
“is it-” you gasp, words getting caught in your throat because andrew is so deep inside of you that you can feel him in your stomach and your chest. “is it what you imagined, andrew?”
“god, yes,” he says, and the sound is so perfect to you. it comes out broken, in the form of a gasp and a moan combined, and you want to hear it again and again. he says your name like it’s a prayer grounding him to you and you keep your arms wrapped around his neck, holding him close to you and bringing him in for another kiss. you can feel andrew’s pace start to stutter, his moans getting louder and his grip on you getting tighter. you hold his face in your hands, locking eyes again.
“inside, andrew, please, i want it inside, please, please,” and again, andrew thinks to himself, like some besotted fool, who is he to deny you? he releases whatever inhibitions he had left and fills you up with his cum—rivulets almost never ending. it leaks out around his dick, messing up your sheets and staining your thighs and making a mess of everything. he hears your heavy breaths and looks to see you smiling sweetly up at him.
and then he collapses next to you.
“hi andrew,” you say quietly next to him. your hands go to his, playing with his fingers and running the pad of your thumb over the veins on his hand. “was it how you thought it’d be?”
“it was better,” he says, breathless. you giggle and lean in to press a kiss to his cheek—and for a moment, he forgets everything. the circumstances of your introduction and the way he’d discovered you long forgotten for a few heartbeats. just you and the sound of your laugh and the promise of the future he wants with you before him.
“there’s still some things i thought about that we didn’t get to yet,” you tease, and he wonders, briefly, what he’s going to do with you.
and then you two hear it—scratching at your closed bedroom door.
“oh god,” you say, sitting up in bed.
you groan a little since your thighs are sore and it’s a wet, sticky mess between them. andrew keeps his hand on your arm and helps you sit up, and joins you in the position, like he’s preparing to help if you need something.
“warden, stop,” you say, but he doesn’t listen. you turn to andrew. “i’m gonna get him.” you try to move your legs and put weight on them, but you feel your knees buckle immediately, with andrew rushing to your side to help you back into bed.
“oh my god. you broke me.”
“i’ll get him. just-just sit down.”
andrew opens the door and picks up your cat like it’s second nature, bringing him to you on the bed before getting in right beside you. your cat is sweet but there’s not many people over at your apartment, and you worry for a moment that he won’t be nice to andrew when he wants your attention. but wardy doesn’t move from his position, staying curled up again andrew’s chest and arm, completely at ease.
“he likes you. that makes sense,” you say, smiling up at him, leaning in to pet wardy’s head.
but andrew doesn’t understand.
“warden. i thought you said his name was wardy?”
“that’s just a nickname.”
“why warden?”
“oh well. it’s silly, um-”
“tell me.”
“well, uh. well, warden is just the letters in andrew. uh, rearranged.”
“oh.”
“i’m sorry. i’m so sorry, is that creepy? i was really projecting, i guess, when i got him. i just loved your letters so much and i’ve never had a boyfriend or anything like that-”
As Titus Danforth's sugar baby, you don't know much of his secretive, wealthy lifestyle. But when he accidentally gets you pregnant with a potential Danforth heir, it's decided that you'll be joining the family. There's no manual as you're plunged into their world of extravagance and violence.
Chapter Summary: After finding out you're pregnant with his child, Titus must secure his family's approval in order to make you a unique proposal: Become the new Mrs. Danforth.
Tags/Notes: marriage before romance, established sugar relationship, also ft. ursula and daddy danforth, meeting the family, possessiveness & protectiveness, obscene wealth, predator/prey dynamic, brat!reader, piv, mating press, creampie, oral (f receiving), messy sex, edging, denial, spitting, mouth covering, titus lowkey whipped already
Content: pregnant reader, canon-typical content, a brief instance of body shaming
A/N: since I already posted most of what was initially chapter one as a teaser during my 3k celebration, i decided to be silly and give you a mega chapter one instead!
Word Count: 14.1k
Ursula Danforth slaps one perfectly manicured hand across her twin brother’s cheek. He doesn’t even flinch; he’d been expecting worse. “You’re so selfish. Stupid and useless like a child. Knocking up a sugar baby, of all things.”
Father paces across the large sitting room with a clenched jaw. Eventually, he stops in front of his son. “How dare you do this to us? Right before the most important hunt of this family’s life, too. I can’t believe you’d be so irresponsible.”
Ursula sneers, “I believe it. This is what happens when a spoiled brat grows up. Poor baby Titus always has to have everything exactly how he wants. Probably never bothered with condoms because ‘it just doesn’t feel as good, sweetheart.’”
“Don’t be so crass, Ursula,” Father spits in her direction before returning to his son. “I assume you’ve communicated that abortion isn’t an option.”
“Of course,” Titus replies, keeping it curt to avoid a verbal lashing. Or a physical one, given the tension thick in the opulent room full of blades and guns. Father demanded the conversation be moved to the innermost room of the estate when Titus told them in front of a few members of staff. This sort of thing is best discussed in private, even with the most discreet staff money can buy.
The abortion discussion had gone better than expected, considering you told him you’d be keeping it before he could even get to the ‘my family would sedate you through delivery and then discard you before they let you abort a Danforth’ thing. He’d given you a line about supporting you however you needed in order to stall you while he discussed what to do with his family. Ultimately, your fate wasn’t his decision but a collective decision for the betterment of the Danforth name.
But Titus does, admittedly, dislike the idea of abandoning you. Despite your lack of status, money, or power, he feels an…affection for you. Similar to the affection one might have for an injured bird. He’d been raised to put creatures like that out of their misery, but your only brokenness was being part of the masses. That could be improved upon. So, to advocate for you, Titus swallows hard and offers, “This may not be a bad thing. Our family needs an heir, after all.”
“Not under circumstances like this,” Ursula scoffs. “You should marry advantageously. Within the seven families, at least. How could you even think-”
Father raises his right hand.
Silence falls.
“You may be right, Titus. We’re long overdue for a new generation of Danforths and neither of you seem particularly close to finding anything akin to a real relationship. Your mother would be horrified.” Father drapes himself in his authentic Jacobean austere velvet armchair in the corner, beneath a grand window he’s spent hours and hours ruminating out of through the years, especially since his wife died. Without looking at his son, he asks, “This…girl of yours: Is she good stock?”
Titus considers that. He imagines how very lovely you look obediently presenting yourself for him on the hotel beds where he’s taken you multiple times a week for the last six months, gazing up at him with reverent eyes and an innocent sort of expression that doesn’t necessarily match your occupation of choice. “I’d say so. She’s young. Pretty.”
Ursula rolls her eyes. “Of course.”
Father gives her a lethal gaze. “Don’t interrupt. This is important.” His eyes turn back to his son and he asks, “Her personality?”
“Sweet,” he answers right away. That’s the first word that comes to his mind. It’s the thing he likes most about you; you’re so, so far from everyone he knows. Kind and tentative and eager to find reasons to smile. The kind of girl who brakes for pigeons. After a moment of thinking, he relents, “A bit stupid, at times, but charming. Docile. I’ve never seen her disagree with someone.”
That seems to please Father. He doesn’t like women who fight back, even his own daughter at times. He probes further, “Does she have any family?”
“She’s estranged from her parents. No siblings.”
“Good. How about education?”
“She’s getting a master’s degree.”
“In what?”
“I don’t know,” he replies with a chuckle. “Something with books, maybe. I’m not usually with her for the stimulating conversation, Father.”
“Don’t be vulgar. Does she have a criminal history? Any connections in our world?”
“No. I vetted her thoroughly before selecting her as a…companion.”
“Boring. But that could be useful in its own way.” Father thinks it over as he watches the gardeners outside tending to the hedge maze across the pond. Winter is beginning to melt off the extensive grounds and they’re preparing for the glory of spring blooms. For vibrant fresh blood, too, in the coming months with the vernal equinox and other traditional celebrations fast approaching. He asks the final question, the only one that matters: “Could she be a Danforth? Or will we have to be rid of her once the baby is born?”
Titus thinks of your laugh, your ease, your total lack of darkness. It’ll be difficult to balance the reality of his world with you, but he’s intrigued by the challenge. With a steady voice, he admits perhaps the deepest secret of this whole situation: “I’d like to keep her.”
The tension eases at that. Keeping up appearances will be best. And if there’s one thing the Danforth family does well it’s keeping up appearances.
With the first smile of the day, Father stands, embraces Titus, and announces, “We can make this work, son. We will.”
Titus stiffens at the rare show of affection, trying not to reveal that he’s pleased with the decision. That would only show a chink in his armor. He would’ve handled the other option, keeping you in the dungeon as a toy of sorts until the birth, but it’ll be better for everyone if he has a wife and his child a mother instead of a nanny. “Thank you, Father.”
“She’s going to have to move in,” Ursula tsks as she, too, gives her brother a short but earnest embrace. “We can’t take risks with the baby.”
Father adds, “And there will have to be a wedding, of course. With all the families invited.”
“A wedding?” Titus gripes, “Isn’t it enough to just-”
“No,” Father interrupts. His fingernails dig into his own palms. “Just because you started this improperly doesn’t mean you’ll continue it that way. In two months’ time, before she starts showing, we’ll have a wedding.”
“Everyone will know it’s a shotgun wedding,” Ursula points out. “Even the most asinine of our associates can manage basic addition and subtraction.”
“That’s irrelevant,” Father insists. “It’s the 21st century. The baby will be born with its mother sharing the Danforth name. Nothing else matters.” He levels his gaze at Titus. “Go and tell her. I expect to see her moving in here before the weekend’s up.”
“Yes, Father,” Titus agrees, already taking his phone from his pocket to dial you. Before leaving the room, he takes a deep breath and says once more, “Thank you. I won’t disappoint you.”
Father gives him a wink. The thought of the first baby born to the Danforth family in four decades lifts everyone’s spirits. It’ll be a good change. “Careful, or you’ll make us think you like the girl.”
He expects you to make a fuss about it. Fully prepares himself to have to drug you, tie you up, kidnap you, and make it clear you don’t actually have a choice in the matter, as distasteful as that would be to him. At the very least, he anticipates resistance. For it to take more than one brunch. Modern women want careers, don’t they? It’s part of why he’s always sworn off girlfriends and dating in the standard sense. Ever since it became relatively acceptable for the elite, he’s strongly preferred paying for the company of simple, complication-free women procured by the family lawyers. He doesn’t want a girlfriend. He wants…a pet. A well-trained companion. Something reliable and reliant. A pretty, obedient creature to recline on the couch who makes no demands and listens with rapt attention to his every order.
So he’s pleased beyond belief at your reaction to his offer, outlined to you at your favorite chichi breakfast place in one of the nicer hotels downtown.
You gaze up at him over your streaming mug and ask bluntly, “What’s the catch?”
“There isn’t one,” he lies. Smooth as butter. “I want to take care of you and the baby and I have the means to do so.”
“You’d already be doing that just by paying me at the rate you already do. With my job and your payments, I can afford a comfortable life,” you point out. “But you want me to marry you. Move in with you. So I have to assume there are rules. Catches.” You take a sip of the caffeine-free tea he’d ordered for you, savoring the spicy and citrusy notes. The ginger helps soothe your stomach. “Look, you’re obviously very wealthy. And I know you’re not rich because of something…normal, if you don’t mind the word.”
Titus snickers, “Not at all. Go on.”
“Before you made us exclusive, I’d been with a lot of secretive, rich men,” you explain slowly, “but you don’t seem like most of them.”
The waitress approaches your table. Titus rattles off quickly, clearly annoyed at the intrusion, “We’ll both do the three-course menu. I’ll have the foie gras torchon with prosciutto and figs, the filet mignon as rare as you’ll serve it, and the caviar trio in lieu of dessert.”
The order doesn’t surprise you after countless meals spent together. His food is always expensive and tastes of life cut short.
The waitress gives you a warm smile. “And for you, darling?”
“Don’t call her that,” Titus says, curt and emotionless. “She’ll have the yogurt parfait with the pistachio granola, lobster eggs Benedict, and the baked apple strudel.” Then he gives you a glance that borders on affectionate. “And I’m guessing she’d also like the gelato flight after.”
“You spoil me,” you lilt with batting eyelashes. Then you tell the waitress, “And a ginger ale, if you don’t mind. Thank you.”
As she disappears, Titus’ typically flat expression transforms into one of concern, which you haven’t seen on him often. He observes, “Ginger ale. Ginger tea. Morning sickness?”
You sigh and confirm, “That’s been the theme of week seven.”
“Seven weeks,” he muses, sounding almost wistful. “Does that mean you’ll have your first ultrasound soon?”
“Monday morning,” you tell him with a tentative smile. “You can come, if you want.”
“I will. Definitely.” Titus sits up straighter and adjusts the sleeves of his charcoal-gray button-down, a nervous habit since his custom-tailored clothes always fit perfectly on his chiseled body. “You were asking about rules. Saying I don’t seem like most men.”
“Right, yes.” You touch his hand across the table and he lets you. Titus never asks for affection, but you know he craves it. Deeply. Otherwise he would never have sought you out in the first place. Sex is cheap; companionship is priceless. While rubbing the back of his hand with your thumb, you muse aloud, “You don’t brag about your money, which means you’ve always had it. It’s just a part of you; you’ve never been without it. Your schedule has too much freedom to be a doctor, you don’t dress like a lawyer, you’re too private to be a CEO or anything you’d want to peacock about, and you’re not annoying.”
He smirks at your analysis. “What does that rule out?”
“Tech bro. Anyone who works in blockchain or AI.”
“Smart girl,” he praises with a short chuckle. “What’s your theory, then?”
“Something dark and secretive,” you tease, clearly joking with the low, spooky voice like a Halloween recording you put on. He doesn’t react like it’s a joke, though. So, more seriously, you say, “Maybe private security? Something with weapons; I know you try to be subtle, but I’ve always seen your carrying a gun.” That pleases him; you’ve already noticed his danger and didn’t flinch away. “I doubt it’s really illegal, like drugs, because you’re so clean about everything. I mean, my main point of contact the first three months was your lawyer,” you remind him with a laugh. Then you lean forward and continue, “Regardless, I can tell you have the kind of life where you’re not just going to marry and whisk away the first girl you knock up without some rules.”
Sounding amused, he sips his expensive cocktail and teases, “I can’t just want to be an honest man for the mother of my child?”
“You can, sure. But that’s not you.”
“You’re right about that,” he concedes after a moment. With a deep breath, he sits back in his chair and tells you, “I wouldn’t call them ‘rules’ so much as, perhaps, guidelines. Expectations. I won’t force anything on you. And I won’t abandon you if you go against them.”
That’s a patent lie, but he doesn’t think you’ll defy him, so he keeps it to himself.
You cross your arms over your chest. “Let’s get down to it, then, because I can imagine worse fates for this baby and me than having a rich, handsome daddy to take care of us. But I want to know what I’m getting into.”
“Very sensible. I can appreciate that.” The first round of food arrives and he gestures for you to dig in while he begins, “Your first priority would be growing a healthy pregnancy, of course. Go to all of your doctor’s appointments, follow their recommendations to the letter. You’d quit your job. Continue your classes if you’d like, but you’ll need to cut out any unnecessary stress. You’d move into the family estate; you can decorate and rearrange our building however you’d like as the lady of the house. I don’t care about things like that.”
“What do you mean by ‘the family estate’?” You give him a teasing raised eyebrow; you’re the only person he allows to look at him like that. “You live with mommy and daddy?”
“My father lives in the primary mansion on the grounds, yes. Mother is dead. There are a lot of different outbuildings along the property; it goes on forever. I don’t even know how many acres anymore; the lawyers buy up adjacent properties whenever they go for sale. We’d be in my private house, which is further back on the estate.”
“Like a guest house?”
“An eight-bedroom guest house, but yes.” Without giving you much time to process that, Titus goes on, “You’d have some social responsibilities as my wife. My mother’s passed now, so you’d be the official host when our family holds events, which we do often. You’d just have to look pretty, though, which you’re phenomenal at already.” As your cheeks warm, he assures you, “We have a whole team to handle the planning side if you aren’t interested in those sorts of things.”
You give a timid smile. “I like planning and hosting parties. It’d be nice to have some occasions to show off all the fancy dresses you’ve bought me.”
That makes him smile. Really smile. Like he can see you slotting into his life. “Good. Great. Well, you can have as much or as little involvement in our social circles as you’d like as long as you’re willing to put on one of those dresses and sit next to me adoringly when needed.”
“So far, that fits my resume to a tee.”
“And, in that vein, there are certain standards of dress and, let’s say, etiquette, for lack of a better word, that my sister can help you with getting used to.”
“You have a sister?”
“Yes. Ursula.” He toys with his fork, hovering it over the decadent spread. “I suppose we still have a lot to learn about each other.”
“I’m an open book,” you retort with a cheeky smile. “You’re the one with the secrets. I don’t even know your last name.”
“Danforth,” he says quietly. Like it’s a secret. Maybe it is. “Titus Victor Danforth.”
“Very stately name.” You wrinkle your nose a bit. “Does our baby have to have a name like that? It’s hard to imagine calling a newborn Titus Victor.”
“We’ll agree on a name like any other couple,” he chuckles. “But, for the record, I have family with much worse names than Titus.”
“Like Ursula,” you joke, earning a conspiratorial snort. You nod and drink some more of your tea as you consider everything thus far. “So I have to learn to sit pretty and do tricks. Got it. What else?”
His voice darkens and so do his hazel eyes. “The most important thing is that you’ll allow me to keep you safe and protect you. Against anyone and anything. By any means necessary.”
Your own voice drops to a whisper. “You say that like I’ll be in danger.”
“Sometimes you will be.”
Not taking it all too seriously, you check. “But you’ll always protect me? And our baby?”
He puffs up his chest and insists seriously, “With my life.”
No matter who or what tries to get in my way.
You narrow your eyes at him. “And you’ll take care of everything financially?”
“Yes.” Zero hesitation. “Always.”
You don’t doubt he can keep that promise, at least. When you take on sugar clients, you make sure to have proof of funds before agreeing to any arrangements. Titus passed that test with flying colors; you’re sure there’s incalculable wealth behind the many, many zeroes you’ve already seen. He’s always driving around in tinted luxury cars, wearing suits by $10,000-a-piece designers, handing over heavy black cards for quadruple digit dinner dates with no dobut on whether they’ll clear.
With a tiny smile, you press, “And you’ll marry me?”
“As soon as possible.”
“Can I have a real wedding?”
“Here I was thinking I’d have to convince you of that,” he laughs. Something unfamiliar is knocking around pleasantly in his ribs. “Our wedding would be very, ah, socially significant. You’ll be impressed by the guest list, I’m sure.”
“Give me a teaser.”
“Let’s just say if a bomb were dropped on it, the world’s economy would collapse.”
“Yeah, alright,” you giggle. He’s looking forward to the day you realize he’s telling the truth on that matter. “So I’d be a wife. Hm, okay.” You jokingly tap your chin and squint like you’re really thinking hard about it. “Does that mean I’ll have to cook for you?”
“Not if you don’t want to.”
“How about cleaning? Laundry? I hate doing laundry.”
“That’ll all be handled.”
“So we’ll have…servants?”
Titus can’t help but notice the way you’re already saying ‘we.’ He doesn’t mind the sound of it; you’re right where he wants you. Needs you. “We prefer to call them staff, but yes, we do.”
Curiosity piqued, you press, “How many?”
He starts running through the mental rolodex; the estate’s goings-ons don’t interest him much, so they’re at the periphery of his mind. “Full-time, on-site staff? We have three chefs – one in each house’s kitchen, of course – and an estate manager who oversees a handful of groundskeepers, gardeners, and housekeepers. There’s an incredibly effective security team. Part-time? Lawyers on retainer, naturally. And we have connections for anything you’d want. Ursula has her tennis coach and her pet pool boy. Father has his favorite mixologist and, ah, massage therapist. I’ve got my golf caddy as well. Each of us has our own driver, but you’d probably share mine a while. That’s a high-trust position; I’d want to personally hire yours for the safety of the baby. You’d also have your own personal assistant to help with whatever you need day-to-day. And you’ll be in charge of hiring out any childcare support you want, when the time comes. Nannies, tutors, those sorts of things.”
“Wow.” Your fork is stuck mid-air. “So you and your family are…rich rich.”
His lips curl up slightly. It’s nice to be around someone who isn’t used to snapping their fingers and having whatever they want in moments. Charming. “That would be a fair assessment, yes.”
Titus notices a selfish, almost cute little shimmer lighting up your eyes as you ask, “So I can have whatever I want?”
He cocks his head to the side and considers that. What it might mean to someone who didn’t grow up in the world he did. “Within reason.”
Your eyes narrow. “How about a car? Like a really ridiculous one – a neon yellow Lamborghini?”
Almost offended at the idea, he scoffs, “A car? Of course you can have a car. I thought you were going to say something ridiculous like an elephant.”
You pout and cross your arms playfully over your chest. “So you’re saying I couldn’t have an elephant if I really, really wanted one?”
Feeling indulgent beneath your delight, he sighs dramatically, “I suppose I could reopen and repurpose the stables for the mother of my child.”
“The stables?”
“My mother loved horses. We were raised on dressage but never really took to it. When she died, my sister and I-” let those wretched horses free and hunted them with arrows “-decided not to keep up the responsibility.”
“Could I have a horse?”
He almost winces at the memory of countless on-site animals becoming casualties in the family games, intentional or otherwise. Still, because it’s important, he relents, “If you want, sure. I don’t see the appeal, but you’ll have whatever hobbies make you happy and keep you occupied.”
“Don’t worry; I hate horses. Just curious.” You can tell he’s amused by your version of an interrogation, so you go on, “Will you still take me on dates?”
That puzzles him. Do you like these dates with him? He’s always assumed you just see him as a paycheck, which he doesn’t mind, but the idea of a real relationship does tantalize him to a certain extent. So he says, “If you’d like that. I do enjoy your company, after all.”
“And sex whenever I want?”
A laugh punches out of him. They’re rare from Titus, so it makes you grin, too, for a second. He rolls his eyes and nods. “Of course; that’s one of my favorite parts of your company.”
“Good. I wouldn’t want to give that up with you, considering the, ah, quality.”
Blush tinges the apples of his cheeks and you know better than to point it out. Titus has never been shy about his sexual prowess, but he also grew up in a family where it’s not acceptable to talk about those things over brunch. Titus clears his throat and checks, “What else do you want to know to decide?”
“To recap, I’ll be fed and housed and safe and spoiled beyond my wildest dreams?”
He nods, pleased. “Exactly.”
You bite your lower lip and ask, “But what if something happens to you? I’d be giving up all my independence and relying on you. I don’t want the baby’s security depending on whether or not you’re around for us.”
He doesn’t assure you that nothing will happen to him the way you’d anticipated. Instead, he admires your practicality. You can tell his life is dangerous, but you aren’t flinching. “You’ll be written quite handsomely into the family estate. Above my sister, actually, since you’ll be the mother of an heir. That’s permanent, even in the event of death or divorce.”
“An heir?” You almost choke on your food. “You’re not royalty, are you?”
He laughs, “Not in the sense you’re thinking of, certainly.”
Softer and more seriously as you consider the implications of everything said so far, you touch your lower abdomen and ask him, “Will our baby be safe?”
“Safer than you’ve ever been in your life here in the ‘real world,’” he says with actual sarcastic finger quotes. Then he squeezes your hand, meets your eyes with a new kind of warmth in his, and affirms, “I swear that nothing will ever harm our children.”
You smirk and tease, “Didn’t realize we had more than one on the way.”
He shrugs modestly. “I always liked having a sister.”
“And I always wished I had siblings.”
“Sounds like you agree.”
You let out a sharp laugh, the ridiculousness of the conversation hitting you at once. This is the kind of arrangement people agree to in the dark romances you read when you’re ovulating and here you are actually considering it for the rest of your life. After a minute of eating and thinking, you tell him, “I just have one more question.”
“Anything.”
“Will you love me, Titus?”
He takes his time thinking about the answer, which you appreciate. He isn’t just going to tell you what he thinks you want to hear. Honesty is more attractive to you than his silvering curls or glass jawline, though those definitely do it for you. Always have.
You’ve wasted a lot of time on men who lied to you, who strung you along, who took advantage of your lack of security. As strange as it may be, the thought of someone being very clear about their expectations and giving you everything in return has an appeal after all of that. You’d never have to worry about the things that currently absorb 90% of your time again.
You’ve finished your dish by the time Titus collects his response. Slowly and carefully, he lifts your hand to his lips and kisses each finger; you can’t stop the fluttering of your heart in response. Titus murmurs, “You may have to teach me how, bunny.” Gradually, he meets your eyes and offers, “If it matters, in the time we’ve known each other, I’ve already grown quite-” he struggles to find the word; you wonder if he’s ever been given ones for this variety of feelings “-fond of you. Which is unusual for me.”
A smile blooms over your lips. Relief punches Titus in the gut and he’s not so sure why. You take your hand from his and press it gingerly to his silver-scruffed cheek. “Fondness will do.”
“Are you sure about this?” Your best friend, Natalie, asks for the fiftieth time as you finish packing your suitcase. Titus had arranged for professional packers, movers, and cleaners for your entire apartment over the weekend, so all you had to do was pack for a long weekend. “It just seems a little fast to me.”
You shrug and try to brush it off, “I’ve known him for six months already.”
She balks, “As a client.”
“Well, unplanned babies tend to rush relationships,” you cut back. “It’s not like he’s a murderer or something; he’s just a rich guy who needs company. Plus, look at these pictures he sent me.”
You unlock your phone and toss it to her where she’s rifling through your closet, taking her turn to pick over it since you’re going to be switching to maternity clothes soon enough and, it seems, designer after that. Natalie scrolls through the grand Danforth estate and her mouth slowly falls open the same way yours did when Titus showed you. Water features both natural and man-made, meticulously maintained flower gardens, a hedge maze, marble sculptures around the grounds. Not to mention the interior. He’d only sent pictures of his residence on the property, which was styled minimalistically compared to the opulence elsewhere, but you could already imagine outfitting it exactly how you want.
Natalie scoffs, “Are you serious? I didn’t even know places like this still exist. Are you sure this isn’t all, like, a catfishing scheme and he’s just going to lure you into the woods and keep you chained up in a cabin or something?”
You roll your eyes and tell her, “After he made the offer, he showed me everything on his iPad. Titles, holdings, all the legal stuff. I guess his great-great-times-a-million grandparents built half the trade infrastructure in America and then used the money for real estate and investments and now they just have mega money. He told me that there are a lot of families like his that have old money managed by lawyers that’s just accruing more and more money by being in banks.”
She raises a curious eyebrow. “So he doesn’t have to work?”
“Sort of.” You try to explain to the best of your understanding, paraphrasing from the spiel Titus gave that you admittedly kind of zoned out during, “Since his dad retired, he’s got a seat on the board of basically every company in the country, so he has a lot of meetings and travels a lot.”
Natalie changes into one of your dresses and inspects herself approvingly in the mirror. “Does that mean your baby is gonna have to be a boring businessman?”
“Or boring businesswoman,” you laugh. “This one’ll be the oldest, so they’ll have responsibilities, yeah.”
“The oldest?” Her eyebrows go up again. “You and gramps are having more than one?”
“He’s not that old,” you start, a bit more exasperated now, “and he’s going to be my husband. If I want more kids, who else would I have them with?”
“Jesus, you’re really serious about this, aren’t you?”
“You’re here pilfering my closet, aren’t you?” The intercom buzzes by the door and you tell her, “Finish up; that’s my ride.”
“Is that him? Mr. Moneybags?”
You peek out the window and see the dark-tinted black Rolls-Royce idling in front of the door. The white-gloved, black-capped chauffeur who’s driven you around a handful of times before stands by the passenger side with his hands linked in front of himself. You mutter, “No, it’s his driver.”
“His driver? Damn.” Natalie takes the things she wants off their hangers and starts to walk you out. “When do I get to meet this guy, anyway?”
The two of you take the stairs together and you suggest, “At the wedding, I guess. Two months or so.”
Natalie scoffs and shakes her head. “Two months to plan a bachelorette party for a pregnant bride.” She squeezes you into a tight, warm hug. “It’s a challenge, but I’m up to it.”
“I know you are,” you giggle. “I can have the driver drop you off somewhere, if you want. I’m sure Titus wouldn’t mind.”
“No, thanks; I’ve got a job interview right up the street.”
Natalie insists on bringing your suitcase down the stairs, setting it on the stoop and scampering away before she has to ‘pretend to be fancy in front of one of your servants.’ As she disappears around the nearest corner, you wave and smile at the driver, hopping off the raised entry to meet him by the road. “Hi, Chip, thanks for coming to get me.”
“Good morning,” he says warmly. He hefts your luggage easily into the trunk and assures, “It’s no trouble at all, Mrs. Danforth.” At your curious look, he explains before you can question, “Master Danforth instructed all the household staff to refer to you with your new title so you get used to hearing it.”
You raise your eyebrows. “Master Danforth?”
Chip cracks a rare conspiratorial smile. “The usual title for the eldest son while his father is still alive. His father is Sir Danforth, but I’m sure you’ll call him Father like Titus and Ursula do.” He opens up the back door for you and assures, “It’s a lot to get used to, but you can ask any of the staff for help with anything.”
You slide onto the smooth leather, lowering the partition between the driver and the back, which Titus never does. As the car leaves the city and starts the winding path into the countryside, you glance at Chip and pose, “I’ve wanted to ask before, but now that I’m gonna be family I think I’m allowed to know: How much do the Danforths pay you?”
Surprised by your frankness, he just laughs, “More than enough.”
“C’mon, you can tell me,” you lilt like you’re doing a heist together. “I can dig it up anyway; Titus says I get free rein of the whole property.”
“Really?” Chip chuckles under his breath. “You must be awfully special to him.”
“What makes you say that?”
“Not even Miss Danforth has full access to the entire estate. Their father mainly stays in the front house these days, too,” he explains, “so Titus must think highly of you to allow you unsupervised access.”
You joke, “Or he’s lying to make me feel safe and thinks I won’t meddle.”
Chip glances at you in the rear view mirror, no joking in his expression. “That’s also a possibility.”
You chew on that for a second and then press, “That doesn’t mean you get out of answering me, by the way. If I’m marrying into a family where the staff are underpaid, then-”
Chip almost wheezes out a laugh, caught off guard by the assumption. “I suppose I shouldn’t let you think that about your future husband.” He takes a long breath and explains, “Discretion is expensive. Security is expensive. And loyalty is priceless. I’ve worked for this family since Titus started high school and needed his own driver. Most of the staff have been with the Danforths for a decade or more. I’m sure the hiring process for your personal employees will be rigorous – background checks, security clearances. My starting salary was $80,000. By year ten, that had doubled. I’ve never had to ask for a raise; my salary just gets silently adjusted at the start of the year. Especially since Titus took over the family’s management, their generosity has been staggering. If you include all the above and beyond benefits – he pays for my daughter’s private school tuition outright, covered every penny when my wife went through chemo a few years back – and the bonuses, it has to be about a quarter million by now.”
You let out a low whistle. “Jesus.”
“Security all makes twice that,” he goes on as he pulls the car off the main road through a massive automated iron gate. Your skin prickles at the knowledge of getting closer. The view is shrouded by thick trees, making the whole estate feel hidden. “Trust me: You’re surrounded by the most loyal, discreet staff in the world.”
You huff out half a laugh. “Should that make me less nervous?”
“Nothing to be nervous about,” he lies lightly.
As the car finally breaks through the trees, the magnificent grounds come into view and the air leaves your lungs. You press your forehead to the glass to get a better view of the property. At the base of the grand front house with its storied old stone and hand-carved Grecian details being devoured by brilliant green ivy, you see the unmistakable shape of Titus in one of his usual charcoal gray suits, strong and broad in a soldier’s stance. He’s waiting at the bottom of a staircase which opens onto a large half-circle drive that reminds you of something out of The Princess Diaries. A man you recognize as a member of his security detail flanks him; you’ve only spotted him at the periphery before, lingering at the entrances of the restaurants Titus takes you to or waiting in the lobby of hotels. He makes a point of being unnoticeable, but you make a point of rarely letting your guard down.
You hear the gate shutting behind you, a thud instead of a click. Deep. Final.
Stopping the car a few feet from Titus, Chip slides out, opens your door, and smiles earnestly. “Welcome home, Mrs. Danforth.”
The moment you’re out of the car, Titus is lifting his arm for you to slip into, which you do.
“Hello, darling.” Titus loops his hand around your lower back and pulls you close enough to smell his brisk, masculine aftershave. He plants a chaste, claiming kiss to your forehead and then holds your chin between his thumb and forefinger. “How are you feeling?”
“Good. Nervous,” you tell him sheepishly. Before he can jump on that, though, you add, “Nausea hasn’t been too bad today.”
He nods slowly, examining your expression carefully. “I’m glad. Let me know if that changes; you can have whatever you want whenever you want now that you’re here.”
“I’m still waiting on my elephant,” you reply lightly, leaning up onto your toes to kiss him.
He hadn’t been planning to let you kiss him in front of any staff, but he’s pathologically unable to resist you when you look so soft and so ready to submit to his plans for you. Your wide eyes are longing for reassurance, for steadiness, for him to produce the scaffolding of your new life together. When you step back down, he cradles your face and teases, “All in due time, princess.”
Then Titus gestures for his bodyguard to step forward. Up close, you can see pockmark scars over all the skin visible around his dark sunglasses and black-on-black suit. There’s also a feathery brown bruise on his jaw and you can’t help but wonder if he got it in the line of fire, so to speak. Titus introduces, “Smith, my personal security detail, will be yours while I hire a new one.”
You cut him a sideways look. “You don’t need your own security detail in the meantime?”
He gives you a cocky, handsome smirk in return. God, he’s devastatingly beautiful when he’s like that. The ruler of his domain. “I can handle myself, bunny.”
You needle, “Then why have one in the first place?”
“I like to be underestimated,” he replies easily. Not wanting to let you dwell on the implications of that, Titus continues, “Smith will check any and every room before you go into it and then remain stationed by the nearest door. He’ll also do some personal training with you on the family security protocols to make sure you’re prepared.”
You swallow hard and nod, extending your hand toward the bodyguard. “Good to meet you.”
Smith glances at Titus, who nods briefly. Only then does the security guard shake your hand – once, firm, quick. More scars over his knuckles. “It’s an honor, ma’am.”
You gesture between them with a suspiciously pointed finger. “What was that?”
A smirk flickers on Titus’ mouth. You’re too observant for your own good and he hates how much he likes it. So he explains honestly, “Nobody is allowed to touch you without my permission.”
You narrow your eyes. “And if I give them my own permission?”
You can’t.
My word is law.
A chill goes down your spine at the possessive darkness in his eyes. You might have your own security guard now, but there’s a level of safety above that, one that only comes from being under the protective wing of Titus’ unyielding power.
Titus chews on his response a moment and then amends, “Male staff are not allowed to touch you unless it’s an emergency.”
You tsk and tease, “Jealous, jealous.”
“You really shouldn’t talk to me like that,” he admonishes, but you know it’s more of a contradictory plea. Titus craves being challenged as much as he hates it. He can’t tolerate it in business or from family in case it’s perceived as weakness, so he yearns for it from you, the one person who has no desire to actually challenge him. With a shake of his head, Titus dismisses Chip and then says, “I’ll give you a tour of the central grounds and our home. Then I have to go out on business for the afternoon before dinner with my sister and Father in the main house. In the meantime you can get settled and play.”
You laugh, “Play?”
“Whatever it is you want to do to entertain yourself,” he replies with a hand wave and a shrug. “Explore the grounds, interrogate the staff, snoop around all the places you shouldn’t.”
You offer a small conspiratorial smile. “Sounds good to me.”
Then Titus does something new and unexpected: He threads his fingers through yours. You get the sense that he’s practicing behaving like a normal, convincing couple. But you still notice that his palm is slightly clammy. Nervous. Titus Danforth gets nervous about holding a pretty girl’s hand for the first time. Cute.
For half an hour, he guides you around the few acres of land that sit between the three main houses, which are in a U formation. There’s a hedge maze that he warns you not to go into unless you have a few hours to kill, a drone to map it out from above, or a helicopter on standby. Then a tennis court (“you can page our trainer from the gate”) and a pool that’s half inside and half outside (“heated, of course, with a hot tub attached”). At the center of it all sits a series of fountains with emotive sculptures captured in such vibrance you’d believe they come alive at night.
“The tableau of Artemis and Actaeon,” Titus explains as he points out the features – a beautiful nude woman in a righteous stance with a bow raised, a muscular stag fleeing, a hoard of gnashing dogs tight on its heels. “Actaeon wandered away from his companions and found the virgin goddess Artemis bathing when she didn’t want to be seen. To punish him for breaking the boundary between the mortal and the divine, she turned him into a deer and sent his own dogs after him.”
You study the series of sculptures, water running down features like blood, and ask softly, “And your family liked that story enough for this whole water tribute thing?”
Titus chuckles and explains, “Artemis is sort of the Danforth version of a patron saint.” His hand drags slowly, pointedly down the center of your back until you shiver. “Goddess of the hunt. She’s a good omen for the family.”
“Goddess of the hunt,” you repeat curiously. “Interesting.”
He raises an eyebrow and starts to lead you toward the second largest house on the left side of the property. “Is it?”
You snicker and match step with him. “Most families go for, y’know, saints of unity, love, that sort of stuff.”
“She’s also the patron and protector of women and children,” Titus adds on the walk through the rose garden that leads to your new home. “And she chooses when to bring wellness or illness. She’s a good woman to have in your corner.”
You give him a coy sideways glance and muse, “I’ll try not to piss off her statue, as then. I want to stay on the good side of anyone who’s going to protect me and TJ.”
“TJ?”
“Oh, yeah, the baby,” you giggle far too adorably to be allowed on the deathly quiet Danforth Estate. “I’ve been calling him Titus Jr. in my head to try to get used to all of this.”
Something you haven’t seen before glitters in his eyes at the comment. “You think it’ll be a boy?”
“It’s too early for me to even think it’s real,” you reply with a soft laugh. “I can’t believe we’re going to actually hear the heartbeat on Monday.”
“I can’t wait.” He gives your hip a little squeeze that feels much more relationship-y than he usually gets. Then he gestures proudly at a large swath of empty land. “Welcome to the final stop of our tour before the house.”
“It’s, um, lovely,” you offer as you gaze at the undeveloped ground, parts of it divided up with unintelligible spray paint marks. “I’ve always wanted a half acre of empty space. My dream.”
“It’s going to be a space for the children,” he explains with something close to softness in his voice. Like he’s scared you’ll reject the sweet idea from a man you know mostly to be harsh, biting. “I thought…Well, I thought it might be nice for them to have a playground, a splash pad, those sorts of things. The property isn’t very child-friendly; there hasn’t been a baby here in more than forty years now. Time to change that.”
Your heart grows about three sizes at the thought. Titus isn’t just inviting you into his life; he’s carving out space for your shared future. “If you didn’t have anything to play with here at home, what did you and Ursula do for fun as kids?”
“We didn’t have fun,” he almost scoffs. You can tell the memories behind the sound are painful but far away, like reaching through a broken chain link fence. If he pulls back, the pain will become real. “My parents were-” Titus searches for the right word a while before deciding on one that’s close enough“-severe. Dour, often. They thought children should be trained and disciplined, not raised. Father thinks the idea of cherishing a child is the same as spoiling them.”
You shrug and give his hand an affirming squeeze. “I guess they got what they wanted; you’re successful, clearly. Driven, strong, powerful.”
“But not fulfilled,” he murmurs, only loud enough for you to hear. He wouldn’t want the staff knowing his feelings. He takes his hand and rubs your back almost absently, like a nervous habit. With a sideways glance, he labors out, “I think being a parent should be about giving your children more than you got. But I got everything. Always. So what can I give to my children, who will have more than they’ll ever need?”
“A space to play,” you finish for him. You lean up on your toes and plant a kiss on his scruff, unable to conceal the smile that comes at Titus talking about fatherhood so softly. “You’re going to be a great dad.”
He blinks hard a few times. His organs feel like they’re in the wrong order, but it’s not unpleasant. Winding his fingers with yours once more, he almost smiles. “You really think so?”
“Wouldn’t have agreed to all of this-” you gesture to the ridiculous property all around “-if I didn’t. I’d kind of figured being the softie would be my job, but I’m happy to share the load.”
Titus downright pouts. “I am not a softie.”
You nod toward the grass and lilt, “The evidence to the contrary is pretty compelling, sweet pea.”
“That’s too far,” he sighs, suppressing a laugh, “even for you, my little terror.”
As you approach Titus’ house – your house – Smith steps out in front and opens up the ornate wooden door. There’s a golden, roaring lion’s head knocker that clicks slightly as the door swings open to reveal the marble foyer. No amount of pictures Titus texted you could do the place justice. Every detail is strikingly opulent from the golden chandeliers and Italian marble checkerboard floors to the sheer embroidered curtains and high ceilings.
The only thing you don’t love is, well, Titus’s taste. You wrinkle your nose as he shows you through the sitting room and dining room. “You really like black and gray, don’t you?”
He watches you inspect his living space. It’s been a very, very long time since he’s had a woman here. At home. “They match everything. It’s easy.”
“I guess,” you mutter, running your hand over a black leather couch that’s smooth and cool beneath your fingers. You point out, “It’s a little cold for a family. I can’t really imagine a baby toddling around, can you?”
“No,” he replies honestly, “but that’s why I have you. I’d like you to change it all so it’s…warmer. Hire a designer or pick out everything for yourself, whatever makes you happiest.”
As your eyes rove along the under-decorated hallway toward the living wing, already imagining how you might redesign the space, you ask him, “And how would I do that? Will you give me a check or something?”
Titus rolls his eyes and laughs. “A check would imply a budget and supervision; I don’t want any part in it unless you truly think my input would be valuable.”
“That’s hot,” you laugh. “More men should act like that.”
He hums, amused, and then reaches into his jacket, removes a sleek wallet, and hands you a heavy black card. The Black Card, you realize as you stare down at the centurion engraved on dark steel. “That card is yours for whatever you like. You’re already an authorized user on the account; I had the legal team take care of that. It auto-pays every month and I won’t even look at it, so I better not catch you overthinking your spending habits.”
“Ooh la la,” you say, taking the card from him and turning it over in your hand. You’re more than familiar with money, even his money, but it’s never been yours to spend however and whenever you want. No budget, no restrictions, no instructions. It feels almost like getting your first car; that shitbox meant freedom. Your eyes go to his and you ask, “What’s the limit?”
Opening up one of several bedroom doors, he tells you like it isn’t even interesting, “It’s NPSL.” You swallow hard. No Preset Spending Limit. Before leading you inside, he turns around and gives you a mischievous smile. “In fact, there’s a minimum. To maintain our status with the company, you’ll need to spend $350,000 a year on that card.” He smirks at your open-mouthed shock and muses, all cocky and coy, and touches the tip of your nose affectionately. “Can you do that for me, princess?”
“Are you joking?”
“I don’t joke often.”
You balk, “What would I even spend that kind of money on?”
He laughs out loud. “Ursula could spend that much in an hour; I’m sure you’ll find something. For example, where have you always wanted to buy jewelry from?”
You bite your lower lip and reply, “Tiffany.”
“Right, of course. I got you those earrings for Christmas,” he remembers fondly, especially fond of the mind-numbing orgasm you’d ridden out of him wearing nothing but said diamond earrings. “Any time you want, you can take your cute little ass downtown to the shop and get everything else from that collection. Better yet,” he goes on, taking his phone from his pocket and sending a few texts, “I’ll get an appointment for you at their flagship in New York and you can use your fun new card on some first-class tickets for you and a friend and buy out the damn store just to show off.” Before you can roll your eyes and scoff out a response, he presses his index finger to your lips, kisses your forehead, and coos, “You’re filthy rotten rich now, kitten, you’ll have to discover ways to act like it. Now, may I continue my tour?”
You give him a giggly mock salute. “Yes, sir.”
He debates jumping on it but bites his tongue, trying to keep a modicum of self-control with his regular staff lingering nearby. So he takes a breath and leads you through the open door into a vast, relatively blank bedroom, leaving Smith stationed outside. He tells you, “Until we’re married, you’ll stay here in one of the guest rooms. Anything else would be inappropriate.”
You nudge him with your hip, a little too confident. “Inappropriate like all the kinky premarital sex we’ve already had?”
In response, Titus grabs you hard by the waist, flipping you around and pushing you against the nearest wall, hand behind your head. There’s a caution to his touch, though, and it steals your breath away. He’s certain not to be too rough with you. He cups your face in one large hand and studies your features intently. Your eyes widen as you look up into his stoic hazels, finding something dark and unreadable in them.
And then he kisses you. Deep, serious, claiming. Your knees go weak as he presses the curve of your spine, pulling you as close as possible to his body. It feels like a warning more than an act of affection. When he pulls back, he gently touches the tip of your nose with his pointer finger, drawing out a smile, and tuts, “You’re going to have to learn not to talk like that in front of others. It’s bad form.”
“No sex jokes in front of the posh folk,” you tease with a serious nod. “Got it.”
“Good girl.”
“You shouldn’t call me that if you want me to behave.” With embarrassingly warm butterflies taking flight in your stomach, you push out your lower lip and give him your best puppy dog eyes. “I really have to sleep alone?” You wrap your arms around the back of his neck, leaning your weight on him. “In an unfamiliar place?” You drag your lips up his rough neck and suck his sensitive skin, smiling to yourself when he draws in a sharp and wanting hiss. “With my big strong fiancé all the way across the house?”
Titus gives a low chuckle, looking at you like a puzzle. He traces his finger up your neck and along your jaw until he reaches your chin, tilting it upward. He turns your face from side to side, examining you, and you shiver from the intensity. His lip twitches at the corner. “Would you really prefer to sleep in bed with me? Why?”
You take his hand in yours and guide it down to your hip. His other hand instinctively follows and they roam around to your ass, which you arch out to be more enticing. He follows by squeezing your flesh and grunting softly under his breath. You ruck your hands up beneath his shirt and rake your fingernails over his abs until you feel him tremble ever so slightly. On your toes, you whisper against his ear, “I get cold at night.”
Titus sucks in a sharp breath when you take his earlobe between your teeth and nibble ever so slightly. He leans his head back and groans, “Mmm. You’re too powerful for your own good.”
“Just powerful enough.” Then you nibble your lower lip, avert your eyes, and add bashfully, “And I might need you.”
His brows furrow in genuine confusion. “Need me? For what?”
You shrug and try not to sound too vulnerable. “I mean, I’m pregnant. What if I wake up and something’s wrong?”
Titus sets his jaw, considering that. He brushes his thumb over your cheek and studies one of the many emotions he doesn’t have much experience with: Worry. Lowering his voice, he assures you, “Nothing’s going to go wrong. Not if I can help it.”
With a sad little smile, you reply, “Money can buy a lot of things, but it can’t stop me from being scared of complications. Or worse. I don’t want to have to wonder where you are if I wake up afraid.”
At that, he nods solemnly, takes your hand, and starts leading you to the opposite wing of the house. He may not experience anxieties like that, but he understands that his job is to quell yours. “Come on, then; I’ll show you our bedroom. Don’t tell Father; he wouldn’t understand.”
Your eyes narrow. “Will you get in trouble if he finds out?”
“Yes,” he says with a dark humor in his tone and a glint in his eyes. “He’d put me in time out and take away all my favorite toys.” He’d have one hour to hunt me while I remain unarmed. Titus presses a kiss to the center of your forehead. “Don’t worry, bunny; I can handle myself. Handling you is what I’m worried about.”
As he pushes open a set of opulent double doors, you poke his firm shoulder and protest, “I’m a perfect angel.”
“Precisely my concern.” As you step into the suite, he raises a silent hand to stop Smith from following. Closing the doors, Titus strides to where you’re admiring the space, wide eyes greedy over the California king, the floor-to-ceiling windows with grand velvet curtains, the massive his and hers closets. “I know it’s plain right now; I don’t have much of an eye for taste – except in women, of course.”
You smack him lightly on the arm. “Flatterer.”
His deeply ingrained instincts urge him to flip your arm around, pin it behind your back, twist you into submission. But then you smile at him and it’s so warm and open and trusting and earnest that he almost smiles back. “Only for you.”
“I’m sure that’s not true.” You traipse into the adjoining bathroom suite and gawk at the oversized soaking tub, practically its own pool with jets and a head rest, and add, “I get the impression you have to flatter a lot of people in your world.”
“They have to flatter me,” he corrects. You feel his hand on your back and catch sight of him watching you in the large mirror above the double vanity sinks. His first finger trails up your spine and he smiles when you shiver. “And soon they’ll have to flatter you, too.”
“If they have to suck up to you, and you have to suck up to me,” you muse, turning around into his arms, “does that make me the boss of the whole world?”
Titus cradles your face in one hand. His expression is completely and totally confident as he tells you, “I spent the first thirty years of my life watching my mother snap her fingers-” he punctuates it with a click of his own “-and get whatever she wanted from whoever she was speaking to. She commanded attention, power, money. Everyone listened when she spoke. She was the only woman – person – my father ever acquiesced to or listened to. Nobody on earth has more power than Mrs. Danforth,” he finishes, pressing a kiss to your forehead, “and very soon that will be you.”
For a second, you’re breathless, taking in the intensity simmering in his eyes. Then you avert your gaze a second, swallow hard, and look back at him with your usual mischief. “Mommy issues much?”
Rolling his eyes dramatically, Titus swats your ass and laughs, “Father is going to hate you.”
With a raised eyebrow, you needle him, “You say that like it might actually be a good thing.”
Titus confirms, “Being hated by my father is always a badge of honor. He can’t stand me.” Then he takes your hand, leads you back to the bedroom, and sits you down on the ottoman at the foot of the bed. “Now, I have to leave for some business before I introduce you to the family tonight, but I do have one thing I need to give you in the meantime.”
“A welcome home gift?”
“Something like that,” he replies, walking over to his bedside table and removing a black velvet box. He kneels in front of you, your legs on either side of his shoulders, and your heart starts to pound. As he opens it to reveal the ridiculous ring inside, he begins, “Now, bunny, if you want a proper proposal with a string quartet or a sunset on the beach, I’ll do that, but for-”
“Titus, shut up,” you whisper. “Is this…for me?”
Your eyes are glued to the ring. You’ve never seen anything like it. Clearly it’s an antique piece; the metalwork and stones have been meticulously maintained and show a high level of craftsmanship. The large center diamond is black – an almost surreal color, both drawing light in and flinging it out, seeming at once opaque and transparent from different angles – and surrounded by a halo of small pearls and diamonds set in fine platinum. It’s not eye-catching so much as jaw-dropping.
Your heartbeat thuds and whooshes in your ears as Titus removes the ring from the box and takes your left hand in his. You splay your fingers to give him better access.
“My great grandfather had it made for his wife and my mother held onto it for me to give to mine, not that she believed I’d ever find one. It won’t be the most expensive piece in your collection, but it’s the most precious and rare to our family name.” Titus slides it onto your finger and then kisses the skin just above it, his lips softer than you’ve ever felt. He holds your hand in his and urges. “I never want to see you without it.”
“I should take it off to shower and sleep,” you point out absently, still staring at the ring. You flick your eyes up to his. “And I assume you’d still like to see me those times.”
“I’m going to have to start punishing you for all this flirting, you know.”
You raise an eyebrow. “Is that a promise?”
He shakes his head and lets out a sharp, amused breath. “Oh, you’re in for it now.”
In the next breath, Titus smirks and lifts you easily, tossing you up onto the bed. As you shriek out a laugh, the plush fabric and thick mattress catch you like a cartoon cloud. Titus pounces on you like a panther while you’re still getting your bearings, hiking your skirt up around your waist and yanking your panties down hard enough to rip the elastic. You don’t complain; for every pair of your underwear he’s ruined, Titus has always gifted you five more from nicer shops.
His fingers circle your clit hard and fast, working you up frantically, and you know exactly what his game is. It’s one he plays often and well. You’ve got no choice but to enjoy the expert way he touches you, months of knowing how to get you off and bring you down painstakingly memorized.
Then, as you expect, the very moment your walls start to clamp down, Titus stops all touch and slaps your clit hard. The sting rockets up your spine and you gasp. Your thighs shake and he laughs at your mewling.
Before you can even start to think , he pulls his shirt off, casts it aside, and crawls onto the bed next to you. Then his middle two fingers are on your clit again and his lips lock onto yours and you’re moaning and whining and hoping, hoping, hoping he won’t-
He slaps your clit once more and you nearly knee him with the force of your body’s reaction. He stills your leg with a smirk and coos, “Careful, princess, you’ll pull a muscle. Can’t have that.”
You challenge him with narrow eyes. “Then how about you pin me down and fuck me so I don’t squirm?”
“So goddamn greedy,” he huffs. “You’re lucky I’m in a good mood today.”
“I wonder whose fault that is.”
You watch, mouth watering, as he takes off his belt and slacks. You even notice the brief hesitation as the leather belt runs over his fingers; you’ve been known to beg for a whipping with it on more than one occasion. But he’s being gentle with you – for Titus, at least. He returns to you on the bed with a wolfish gaze, spreading your legs apart and admiring you for long enough to make your breath hitch. When you feel the tip of his swollen cock nudging at your entrance, it’s with a toe-curling gentility that makes your body sensitive.
Titus always thrusts into you agonizingly slow, no matter how worked up either of you are. He savors the little flutters and twitches that come with filling your pretty cunt millimeter by breathless millimeter. Once he’s seated inside of you, feeling the way your hips instinctively roll back into his and how your cunt is clamping onto him like it needs reassurance, Titus presses his thumb to your lower lip and orders, “Beg.”
And even though you’re having to actively hold back from squirming and moaning, you know he loves the chase, so you grip his curls tight and reply, “Why should I?”
“God, you fucking brat.” He spits on your face and you lick it off your lips, never dropping his eyes that trace your movements. “If you won’t beg for what you want, then I expect you to stay there and take whatever I give you.”
Your eyes widen in a mix of lust and fear, right on the primal line that Titus so loves to play with. One of his hands goes down to cover your mouth. There’s a millisecond where his eyes flick up to yours, asking permission, and it’s gone as soon as you give an imperceptible nod. When you and Titus fuck, your minds run parallel to one another; the same temptations and ideas call both your attention.
Once his salty, heavy palm is clamping your mouth shut, Titus fucks you like he needs. Your pleasure becomes entirely secondary to him; he only touches your clit because it amuses him to watch you squirm and kick and writhe, unable to speak or moan or do much of anything besides take it.
When he hikes your legs higher, working you into a full mating press that lets him fuck you hard and deep, your eyes roll back and your moans turn into squeaks. His thumb continues its strumming on your clit as you start to shake from pleasure. He purrs, “There we go.”
And then he cums.
Unannounced, unplanned, unrepentant. He pulls out and gives your thigh an affectionate pat.
You grab his hand and wail, “No, no, no no no nonono! Titus!”
He lifts your fingers to his lips and kisses each one softly, “Didn’t I say this was a punishment? You have to learn to behave yourself.”
You lean back, raise your arms above your head so that your tits are on beautiful display, and look up at him like an innocent, needy puppy. After a beat of charged silence where his eyes ravish your body, you say the one word you’re always careful to withhold from him until the right moment: “Please.”
Above the bed like a god, Titus gazes down at you, panting and disheveled and leaking his cum. He tsks and sighs, “How am I supposed to punish you when you take me so well?” Then he drops to his knees, hooks his arms beneath your legs, and tugs you to the end of the bed as if you weigh nothing. “When you’ve done everything I’ve asked without complaint?” He slides two fingers into your sopping cunt, curling them toward himself and grinning when you arch your back and whine out in pleasure. He nips your inner thighs with his teeth and rests his free hand on your lower abdomen, over your womb. Leaning toward your wrecked pussy, he murmurs at last, “When you’re carrying my child? I couldn’t possibly deny you.”
And he descends on your swollen, aching clit. The taste of his own cum mixed with your juices drives him wild. The taste of his ownership. After all the edging, you’re mere moments from tumbling over the precipice.
He doesn’t make you wait any longer.
He growls into your cunt as you spasm around his fingers, the orgasm burning up your spine and boiling beneath your cheeks. Your back arches and he refuses to let you stop cumming, keeping his tongue just as firm and fast as you punch into overstimulation. It’s so good it borders on painful and that’s what he loves the most. The moment when you cry out his name and try to push his shoulders back because it’s just too much and only he can finally release you.
Your chest heaves as you collapse back onto the bed. Titus slowly withdraws his fingers from your pussy and licks them clean, drunk on the taste of the two of you becoming one. You can’t talk or think as you rest the back of your hand on your forehead to cool it down. After a few moments of breathing, you smirk up at him and tease, “I knew you’d cave, you big softie.”
He kneels over you again. “I assure you it was completely selfish; making you cum strokes my ego.”
“Mhmm. Whatever you say.”
Titus tuts out a chuckle and checks his watch before swearing under his breath. After a searing kiss that gives you the sense he wants nothing more than to start a second round, Titus sighs, “Three hours as my live-in trophy wife and you’re already making me late.”
You nip his collarbone. “Bite me.”
“Don’t tempt me.” He holds your chin and orders gently, “Ask Chip to take you downtown. Designer district. Buy an outfit that makes you feel perfect and be home in time for dinner at six.”
At 5:58, Titus knocks on the door of his own home with a bouquet of white roses. He can already imagine you rolling your eyes at his display before Smith opens up the door on your behalf. Titus is pleased to see that you let him open it without argument, already beginning to accept having others watch out for you.
You step into the moonlight and Titus hands off the flowers to Smith, who falls back behind you. For a moment, Titus is at a loss for words. You’ve always made a point of dressing up and looking beautiful for him; that’s a part of your arrangement, a part of the business of being a professional sugar baby. He’s even paid for you to get plenty of lovely pieces to add to your wardrobe.
But this?
You’ve spent the handful of hours since he left (and attended several excruciating meetings) pampering yourself into a state more akin to divinity than humanity. He may not have the eye for fashion that his sister does, but he can easily identify the trappings of a woman feeling confident about herself: Freshly French-tipped nails, sleek high heels with a thin strap around your ankle, makeup subtle and feminine. The burgundy halter dress hugs your curves, the silk crepe just structured enough to be formal but swinging enough to be sweet and flirty.
He wants to devour you.
And when he kisses you hello, he makes it obvious, dipping you far backwards and gripping your hip like it owes him money. He can feel the designer quality of the dress, soft as butter, under his fingertips. Then he rakes his hands up your thighs and growls against your ears, “I’m not going to be able to keep my hands off you in the one situation where I absolutely have to.”
You give him a modest twirl and ask, “You really like it?”
With his hand on your lower back, Titus guides you toward the main house and purrs, sounding both proud and possessive, “You look perfectly at home in luxury, kitten.”
You try to quell your nerves as you walk up the marble steps to the back entrance of the home, where Smith opens the large glass doors to usher you both inside. Unlike Titus’ – and your, you have to keep reminding yourself – house, the main house is opulently designed, drenched in old-school grandeur. Everything is antique, hundreds of years old, in dark woods and rich silks. It’s more like walking through a museum than a home.
When Titus brings you into the grand dining room, you can see just how well his father and sister match the decor. Thin, severe, expensive. His sister is drop-dead gorgeous in a very ‘90s leading lady way while his father has the sort of face and demeanor usually reserved for stereotypical evil wizards or vampire counts. Titus has to push you into their eyeline when you find yourself shrinking beneath their stares.
Mr. Danforth and Ursula both stand to greet you but don’t move otherwise. Titus takes a deep breath and announces, “Father, Ursula, I’d like to introduce the future Mrs. Danforth.”
Father offers you his hand first, but you’re clearly not supposed to shake it, so you just present your own. He lifts your hand to his lips and kisses your skin softly. “How lovely to finally make your acquaintance. My son has sung your praises extensively.”
“That’s very sweet.” You bite your tongue despite how easy it would be to tease Titus because you know for a fact he never would’ve mentioned you to them at all if it weren’t for the baby. You stick with a polite albeit slightly stiff, “Mr. Danforth, it’s an honor to meet you.”
Titus’ gentle, affirmative pat to your arm almost makes you laugh – the situation is too weird for words – but you still hold back. It’s a truly herculean effort not to point out how otherworldly this whole thing is. You haven’t exactly met people who just reek of power and status, their presence so effortlessly commanding that you want to laugh so you don’t cry or hide.
Then it’s Ursula’s turn with you. She doesn’t shake hands, doesn’t hug, doesn’t even speak for a solid thirty seconds. You can feel Ursula’s eyes on every inch of you, dissecting and analyizing. It’s like she’s trying to see through your skin or maybe telepathically peel it off your bones. You’re holding your breath until she finally says, “You’re very pretty.”
“Thank you.” Swallowing hard, you force a wobbly smile and tell her, “You look stunning, exactly like I expected from how your brother talks about your fashion sense.”
She waves her hand dismissively. “Please; Titus wouldn’t know fashion sense if I smacked him over the head with it. And I’ve tried.” Before you can try to come up with any possible response, she gestures to your dress and asks, “Where is this little number from? It looks appropriately expensive for the occasion. A gift from our Titus, I assume?”
“Um, yes, he sent me shopping today.”
She gives you a pitying sort of smile and squeezes your forearm in a way that feels truly predatory. “He’s always so generous with his playthings.”
Titus clears his throat. “Ursula.”
“I’m just teasing,” she laughs without any humor. Then her narrowed eyes return to you. “Really, though, where did you find a dress like this in our dingy little city?”
You smooth out the fabric and tell her, “It’s, um, it’s Yves Saint Laurent.”
“Looks like something I would wear.”
You try on a soft, self-deprecating laugh. “I told Chip to take me somewhere you would shop.”
“Maybe I’ll go and pick one up in my size,” she muses, still scanning your body for every flaw, which you’re suddenly painfully aware of, coming up with brand new insecurities every second her focus moves. “I’d ask to borrow it, but yours would drown me.”
Titus cuts her off sharply, “That’s enough.”
She pouts at her brother. “Don’t be so sensitive, ducky; I’m sure she can-”
“No.” You’ve never heard Titus’ voice as stone cold and commanding as when he tells her, an order and a punishment, “Never speak down to her. Never.”
Ursula rolls her eyes and plops herself dramatically in one of the oversized dining chairs. She pouts and says, “Fatherhood is already making you so boring. Now I’m going to have to weaponize her against you so I have someone to complain with about how boring you are. Sigh.”
And dinner goes just about like that.
Mr. Danforth unabashedly interrogates you about your life, your family, your history. Ursula critiques your answers. Titus snaps at them both when they push too far. You just try to hold onto your fork and sneak bites of decadent food in between the family bickering. You can tell there’s a kind of affection entirely foreign to you in the way they jab and dodge each other’s barbs. The way rich people talk to each other – all subtext and speed – is surreal to listen to. Eyes rolled about memories in St. Barts and arguments over clients in Aspen; it’s like they’re speaking a different language from the one you learned growing up.
By the time you’ve finished pretending to like flan because you’re terrified of being rude, they seem to have hashed out all their regular arguments, everyone beyond ready to leave the rest alone. Titus can tell you’re getting overwhelmed by their equally intense presences fighting for dominance, so he slides his hand protectively onto your knee and announces, “I think we’ve kept my fiancée awake late enough, haven’t we?”
Ursula pouts, leaning across the table and snatching your left hand into hers for examination. “You already gave her mother’s ring and I missed the grand proposal? How tragically unromantic.”
Father sighs, “They’re doing things a touch out of order, darling.”
“I wouldn’t want an extravagant proposal anyway,” you manage to squeak out. “A nice private moment between the two of us was perfect.”
“Ah, so she’s the one making you boring,” Ursula laughs. Then she lowers her gaze and adds, “If you don’t like extravagance, you may be marrying into the wrong family. Your wedding guest list is already 250 people long.”
“I’m definitely looking forward to all of it,” you assure as you desperately try not to sound either meek or ungrateful, “but Titus is being kind enough to ease me into the waters. Trust me: The beautiful estate and stunning, personal ring made as much of a statement as any proposal.”
Father smirks at you with a pleased satisfaction that seems to surprise Titus and his sister. “What a diplomatic response. My daughter will be lucky to learn from your decorum.”
As Titus stifles a laugh, Ursula stands up dramatically from the table and reminds him, “I’m literally a diplomat, Father. Try telling the people of Monaco that I’m anything but diplomatic when I personally broke ground on the country’s latest arts center.”
“That was for optics,” Titus cuts back, adding under this breath, “unlike my work in Geneva.”
Ursula brandishes her knife like she might really use it on him, making you gasp gently under your breath, and that’s when Father officially clears his throat and stands with a curt, “I think that’s enough family time for one night.”
“I completely agree,” Titus replies, rolling his shoulders before he stands up. After pulling your chair out and guiding you to your feet, he says, “We’ll see you both at the Governor’s Ball on Saturday.”
Titus shakes his father’s hand at the end of dinner and, once again, you have to remind yourself not to tease him. Thankfully, it’s a surgical extraction from there and Titus has you walking back toward your house in no time.
After Titus dismisses Smith for the night and arms the extensive home security system, he meets you in the primary bathroom, where you’re unclasping your jewelry and examining yourself in the mirror. Titus must’ve had someone on staff put away your things because your bedtime skincare routine is laid out on the countertop. Before reaching for any of it, you bite your lip and ask Titus, “Be honest: Did I do okay?”
He comes up behind you, slipping his strong arms around your waist. “You did great. I’m only sorry Ursula was so very-” he struggles to find the right word “-Ursula.”
“I expected worse,” you tell him with half a smile. “I didn’t expect you to stand up for me, though. To your sister.”
“Ursula is the family the universe gave me. She’s my best friend and my closest confidant – and she’s a nightmare. A hellion.” Titus kisses your forehead and gently touches your stomach. “You’re the family I’m choosing. That means you come first, button. I’m not going to have my children watch their father sit idly by while their mother is insulted. I’m practicing setting a good example.”
You stand up on your toes and kiss him on the cheek. “Thank you.”
Titus runs his hands up your spine and fiddles with the halter tie at the back of your neck. “Now let’s get you out of this very lovely dress so you can sleep. Do you need a back rub? Some ginger tea?”
You raise an eyebrow as you slowly take out your cleanser and reusable cotton rounds. “Are those real offers or are you teasing me?”
“Real offers. From either a masseuse I can have here in fifteen minutes and our chef or from me personally.” He tugs the dress down your body, guides you to step out of it, and discards it in the bathroom hamper like you didn’t pay $3,200 for it a few hours ago. “No funny business, just relaxation and rest, especially well earned after spending a few hours with my family.”
“I could probably tolerate a foot rub before bed,” you giggle as he kisses across the tops of your shoulders.
“Go on, then.” He strips off his own shirt and makes quick work of his belt and slacks, too. Looking deliciously sturdy in just his black boxer briefs, he leans against the bathroom doorframe and says. “Finish getting un-ready and come lie down with me, princess. I’ll make sure to get you nice and relaxed before bed.”
“You want me to do my whole bedtime routine topless?”
“I’ll grab you something from your closet,” he offers, frowning a little because he admittedly does like the idea of watching you traipsing around with your tits out. When he returns with a tank top and silky shorts, he notices you still haven’t started taking off your full face of makeup. Too knowingly, he strolls into the bathroom with the pajamas and asks, all low and teasing, “Are you nervous to take off your makeup in front of me?”
You toy with the damp cloth, studying him in the mirror, and admit, “A little. And not just the makeup.”
He crosses his arms over his chest and laughs, “I’ve seen you naked, kitty.”
You scoff, “Naked and made up with at minimum highlighter and mascara. Or in very manicured outfits.”
He offers, “I’ve also seen you in pajamas before.”
“Lingerie,” you correct. “You don’t really think I sleep in slutty little negligees and teddies, do you?”
“A man can dream.”
“Well, if you hadn’t noticed, typically you rip those off me, fuck me unconscious, and then leave before my actual bedtime routine,” you reply, poking him in his hard chest. As you tug on the tank top and shorts, you go on, “I usually wake up around midnight, get room service on your tab, and sleep in my ugly sweats since you never spend the night.”
Clearly amused by the whole thing, he presses, “Are you worried I’ll rescind my proposal to the mother of my child because you aren’t a model in your sleep?”
“I don’t know!” You huff and glare at him, knowing full well you’re being hormonally dramatic now. “This is all very new to me, Titus. I have to wear a four-figure dress to dinner and go to the fucking Governor’s Ball, I guess, but I still have to be me at bedtime? All while figuring out how to be your fiancée and not just your sugar baby? It’s weird.”
Titus closes the space between you, each step stern and confident. He takes the makeup removal pad and cleanser from you, gently lathers the cloth, and starts to work it over your face without saying a word. Titus says the most when he's silent. Right away, you melt beneath his touch. His totally sturdy gaze. Quietly, he relents, “It’s a lot. I know that. You don’t have to come to the big social events right away; we can start smaller than the fucking Governor’s Ball.” He smiles when you crack one of your own. “If you aren’t ready to jump right into being my wife, there are plenty of other bedrooms you can stay in and have your own space.”
“I don’t want my own space,” you whisper back. “I’m just scared of taking up too much of yours, I guess. Or not fitting into your life the way you expect. Of being Mrs. Danforth correctly. Not looking expensive enough or beautiful enough or-”
“Quiet now,” he interrupts, words harsh and clear but tone nothing but warm. “Do you know what I want from Mrs. Danforth?” Titus finishes wiping your face of its mask and then examines your products and selects your moisturizer. He massages it into your face and neck with fingers so tender you could cry. When he’s finished, he holds your face in one large hand and murmurs, “I want you to sit by my side and sleep in my arms. You. We have the rest of our lives to work out the details.”
For the first time, you feel the real you slip out in front of Titus. No flirting, no pushing, no hiding. All you can manage to whisper is, “Thank you.”
He gives you a soft kiss and then goes on, quiet but urgent. “As for worrying about your appearance, you have never been lovelier to me than you are right now,” leading you to the bed and sitting you down with your feet in his lap, he finishes, “because you’re mine. And that’s the most perfect thing you can be.”
areudirty
germansingergirl
snowghoul
2087
dailybridgerton
turnnoffyourmind
gamechangershow
