[looking at people younger than me] you have your whole life ahead of you [looking at people older than me] you have your whole life ahead of you [looking at myself] its over
"what if they fucked" WRONG. what if they ruined each other's lives irreparably. what if there was nothing left but a smoldering heap. what if everything that brought them together twisted and corroded and ripped them apart. and then they fucked.
They said Vaenora had been quick with her letters almost from the cradle. She scarcely remembered a time before the High Valyrian — only her uncles voice, guiding her through the old words.
She had always favored him, and in truth was much like him... He was a measured man, slow to anger & boast—unlike her father. Baelor preferred histories, laws, and the careful keeping of peace. Vaenora learned early to sit quiet at his side and listen.
"The blood of the dragon is a gift," he told her once. "But gifts may be misused." She had nodded then, young and untroubled, not understanding the weight behind the words.
Similar to her siblings, her hair was pale as moonlight. Her eyes blue, but her left held a strange, cat-sharp cast. It was something the smallfolk loved to whisper about…
Vaenora Dragon-eye, most called her. Others believed she was a bad omen. A foreshadowing of what was yet to come…
Veanora had been self-conscious of it once, when she was younger and more easily stung by careless talk.
Her brother, Aerion had only laughed when she told him. “It proves it," he'd said. "You see? We are closer to the dragons than the rest of them."
In those days, she had almost believed him.
They had been close as children — nearly inseparable. Together they devoured every dusty tale of old Valyria, whispering over half-burned histories & acting out grand conquests in the courtyard. Venora always chose a Knight. Aerion, more often than not, played the dragon.
Sometimes they would lie beneath the old tree in the inner yard, staring up through the leaves as if the sky might split open for them.
"They still exist," Aerion whispered once.
Vaenora turned her head against the grass. "How can you be so certain?"
"I feel it."
He was watching her when he said it, a strange, stern glimmer in his eyes — in a way that made something small and quiet shift in her chest.
KNOCK
KNOCK
KNOCK
The sudden noise jolted her, pulling her from her thoughts. "Come in," she called after a moment.
Finnick, one of her father's men, stepped inside.
"Princess," he said, bowing.
"Your family have returned." .
________________________
Vaenora made herself decent, smoothing her hair and straightening her gown. Excitement thrummed through her — it felt like ages since she had seen them.
Voices & laughter spilled from the other side of the door, mingling with the soft glow of the fireplace beneath it. Her stomach tightened. Nerves prickled along her spine. Before she could steady herself, Finnick swung the door open.
"Nora!"
Egg came running, full of energy and delight. Immediately she bends down, lightly cupping his soft little face. "Look at you!" She gasps in delight. "You've grown."
"He hasn't grown an inch!" Dearon protests, holding a goblet of wine. She wasn’t surprised, but still glanced over it with a faint frown.
Then a soft huff drew her eyes left.
She straightened at the sight. "Aerion," she said, smiling.
But the moment his gaze landed on her, the smile faltered.
"Sister." He acknowledged, standing from his chair. His eyes lingering a beat longer than necessary; assessing her. "You're... different," he said quietly, the words casual, but weighted with something unspoken.
The boy she had known, was gone. Vaenora forced her eyes away, hiding the flutter of unease she could not yet name.
Venora eyes then settle onto Egg; who watched with a quiet, instinctive concern.
Reaching over she runs her hand through his locks. "I suppose time changes us all," she said lightly, her voice steady. "Some more than others, it seems..."
Vaenora and Egg moved forward, passing Aerion.
Causing his gaze to linger on the curve of her back for a fraction too long. Baelor noticed, his brow tightening ever so slightly — a quiet, private worry that he did not voice.
She reached her father and asked gently, "How's Aemon faring?"
Maekar smiled, eyes softening. "So far, well. This is what he has wanted for years." He glanced at Vaenora with a faint, knowing look. "The Citadel suits him. Knowledge has always been his path, though it takes him far from us."
"And what of you?" Vaenora asked, smiling down toward her youngest brother.
"I... fare well," he muttered.
"Now the boy has no one to indulge his knightly fantasies," Aerion amusedly comments, smirking over his goblet.
"I do not," Egg protested, flustered.
Vaenora's gaze flicked to Aerion, calm and deliberate. "If I recall correctly, brother, you and I also engaged in the art of dragon-riding in our youth."
Aerion's eyes rolled. "Ah, yes. How could I forget?"
Venora smiled, taking a seat beside her father.
"So do not belittle it." Venora comments, despite the weight of his gaze.
Her father leaned back slightly in his chair, studying his daughter with that familiar, weighing gaze. "Well then," he said at last, voice roughened by travel and wine. "How has my daughter been while we were away?"
Before Vaenora could answer, her uncle spoke smoothly from across the hearth.
"Vaenora has been a delight," he said, mild and composed. "Diligent with her studies. Quite taken with the histories."
Maekar huffed.
"A delight," he repeated, one brow lifting. "Gods be good. I was afraid you'd tell me she'd taken to correcting the maesters."
There was the faintest edge of dry humor in it...
Baelor's mouth twitched.
"She is spirited," he allowed evenly. "But not unruly."
Maekar gave a low grunt, swirling the wine in his cup.
"Well. So long as she remembers she is a princess first and a scholar second."
Across the room, Aerion's mouth curved faintly.
Before the silence could stretch thin, Baelor continued. "She and Valarr have made particularly good use of the time," he said, folding his hands loosely before him. "They seem to have developed... an appreciation for one another's company."
It was spoken lightly. But the meaning slid into the room like a knife between ribs. Vaenora could feel the heat rise faintly at the back of her neck.
Across the chamber—Aerion's head snapped toward his cousin.
Slow.
Cutting.
Vaenora felt the air tighten, but her cousin did not startle...
He only set his goblet down with quiet care, as though he had expected the moment to come. "I have enjoyed my cousin's company greatly," he said evenly.
"She is... exceptional." He informs Maekar.
Aerion's fingers curled against the arm of his chair at the sound of his cousins words. But he smiles past his irritation..
"No wonder you were so pleased to take Vaenora under your wing, Uncle," Aerion insinuates.
Across the hearth, Maekar turned his head slowly toward Baelor. Not in anger; at least not yet.
Baelor did not bristle.
Did not rise.
"This was not arranged in the way you imply, Aerion," Baelor said evenly. Then turning his gaze fully to meet his brother's eyes. "But," he continued, intelligent and deliberate, "it is not without merit."
The room stilled further.
"A strengthened bond between our branches of the family would benefit us all," He states. "It keeps blood close to blood. In times such as these, that is rarely a mistake."
The words settled heavily, but Aerion is quick to erase it from his father's mind.
"Surely there is no need to decide such things too quickly. Not when she has only just returned to us."
Maekar's gaze lingered on his son in thought. He did not reply immediately, but the slow tightening of his jaw betrayed that Aerion's words had landed.
Maekar shook his head at Baelor, slow and deliberate. "We wait. " He said firmly, his voice leaving no room for argument.
- Summary: A Lannister lady promised to Prince Valarr is stolen by Aerion Targaryen, and what begins as a crime becomes a dark, ruinous love story that changes both houses forever.
- Pairing: lannister!reader/Aerion Targaryen
- Rating: Explicit 18+ (adult content will be present in the second part)
Summerhall wore its beauty like a lie told well enough to pass for courtesy. In the late afternoon light the pale stone walls took on the color of warm cream and old gold, and the long windows of the prince’s seat caught the sun in a way that made the place look softer than it was, more forgiving than any royal house had ever been. The air smelled of dry grass, horse sweat, and the drifting sweetness of late-blooming roses trained along the inner courtyards, and beyond the gardens the hills rolled out in quiet folds of green and copper beneath a sky so wide it made lesser people feel smaller than they liked. Men called Summerhall lovely because men had a habit of calling dangerous places lovely when kings had built them. It sat with its towers and bright banners and shallow courtesies as if no one had ever bled beneath a Targaryen roof, as if desire had never curdled into violence in the chambers of princes. Yet the place had that same tension all royal households possessed, that faint and constant pressure beneath the silk, the knowledge that every smile concealed a measure, every invitation a use, every feast some unspoken bargain.
Lord Damon Lannister arrived beneath crimson banners worked with the golden lion of Casterly Rock, and men looked, because men always looked when the Grey Lion appeared. Your father had earned that ugly little name in war and politics both, and wore it now with the same grim ease with which he wore his years. He was not yet old, though the silver beginning at his temples had given courtiers something new to whisper about, and he had the kind of face that had never needed beauty because force had served him better. Hard-boned, stern, broad through the chest, with the cool green eyes that had made lesser lords lose nerve halfway through a lie, he rode through the gates of Summerhall like a man doing the place a courtesy by entering it. Beside him, beneath the red-and-gold cloak chosen for the journey, you looked every inch what the court expected to see: Lord Damon’s youngest daughter, highborn, well-guarded, finely dressed, and promised upward into the royal line. A Lannister maid for Prince Valarr Targaryen was the sort of arrangement men praised as wise with their mouths while counting its advantages in silence. Blood made respectable. Gold tied closer to the throne. Another link hammered into the chain that held the great houses near enough to be useful and not quite near enough to be safe.
You had known before your arrival that people would stare. Not because you were vain enough to hunger for it, nor foolish enough to enjoy it, but because a promised bride was a thing that drew eyes the way a drawn blade did. Some looked with interest, some with envy, some with the mild pity reserved for noble girls whose futures had already been portioned out for them by fathers and councils. Women assessed your dress, your carriage, the steadiness of your hands. Men assessed your face, your dowry, your womb, your usefulness. Princes assessed whatever pleased them. Such was the way of courts, and especially the way of Targaryen courts, where desire was half-discipline, half-sport, and often ended in fire. You had been dressed with care that morning by women who knew the work expected of silk and jewels. The gown was deep red, darker than Lannister crimson, almost the color of heartsblood where the light did not touch it. Gold thread ran in restrained patterns across the bodice and sleeves, not gaudy, not girlish, but rich enough to remind everyone who had come to Summerhall. Your hair had been pinned back from your face in a fashion suitable for travel and presentation both. No more softness than necessary. No invitation in it. No apology either.
When the stableboys came running to take reins and the household officers descended the steps to offer formal welcomes, your father dismounted first and let one of his men hand him down his gloves. He did not smile as Ser Arlan’s equivalent at Summerhall, some trim court knight too polished to matter, bowed and spoke of how honored the prince’s household was to receive so illustrious a guest. Your father listened with the patience of a man enduring a sermon from someone he could buy twice over and then answered in that flat, measured voice of his that carried without ever needing to rise.
“You are courteous,” Lord Damon said. “Let us hope the kitchens are as skilled as the ushers.”
The knight blinked, then laughed half a beat too late. “My lord will not be disappointed.”
“Most men eventually are,” your father replied.
You kept your face composed. It was not your task to soften him. Nothing in your life had ever suggested he wanted softening. Yet when he turned his head slightly toward you as you came down from the wheelhouse, there was the briefest change in him, not tenderness exactly, but a narrowing of attention that belonged to family and no one else. He offered his gloved hand, and you placed your fingers on it more from habit than need.
“Do not let them tire you on the first evening,” he said quietly as the servants moved around you. “Royal hospitality often means being inspected like horseflesh with better music.”
“I know the difference,” you answered.
One corner of his mouth shifted, not quite a smile. “Good.”
It was the nearest thing to affection many men ever saw from the Grey Lion, and because it was so small it meant more than an embrace from a gentler father might have. He let your hand go almost at once and returned to being Lord Damon, iron-backed and cold-eyed, while you were led with him through the stone halls of Summerhall beneath carved dragons, painted ceilings, and all the old symbols of a house that had never learned moderation because it had never had to.
Prince Valarr was not there to receive you. That was remarked upon within moments, and just as swiftly excused. He had ridden out early with retainers on some matter of estate business, or hawking, or inspection, depending on which servant was speaking and how nervous they were while saying it. No one seemed entirely certain which lie had been chosen for the hour, which told you enough to know the absence had not been planned elegantly. Your father noticed too. He said nothing until you had both been shown to the guest solar appointed for refreshment, a handsome chamber paneled in dark wood and open to a balcony overlooking the inner gardens. Wine was poured. Trays were set down. Attendants bowed and vanished. Only then did he reach for the cup without drinking and say, “Your prince should know better.”
“He may yet arrive before supper.”
“He should have been at the gate.”
You glanced out toward the gardens where the heat of the day was beginning to soften. “Perhaps he was prevented.”
“Then he should have sent a man capable of lying cleanly.”
There was no arguing with that. You had met Valarr before, enough to know him not unkind, not witless, and not entirely pleased by being made into a piece of alliance-work either. He had spoken well to you the last time, with courtesy that seemed real enough, and had not pawed at your hand like some boys did when they thought betrothal made them owners in advance. He was a prince shaped for responsibility, perhaps too much so, with a gravity that sat naturally on him. There were worse futures than being wife to such a man. That thought had not made the prospect desirable, only survivable. At court girls were praised for confusing those two things. You never had.
Your father set down his cup untouched. “This visit will be short.”
“Were you not planning that already?”
“I was planning to see whether the dragon line has mistaken good sense for breeding again.”
You looked back at him. “And if they have?”
“Then I shall remember that Lannisters have never lacked for suitors.”
That might have comforted another girl. It did not comfort you. Your father’s protection was real, but it was still the protection of a man who thought in terms of arrangement, position, and leverage before all else. If Valarr proved unsuitable, another match would come. Another house. Another bargain spoken over wine while your life sat between them like a nicely forged cup. Yet there was something in the way he said it that day, something flint-hard and immediate, which made you think that his displeasure at Valarr’s absence had turned into something more personal than insult. Not because you were a daughter to be cherished beyond reason. Your father was no sentimental fool. But because you were his, and he did not care to have what was his treated carelessly. In its way, that was near enough to love to matter.
By evening Summerhall had put itself right. Valarr returned before the sun fully dipped, windblown from riding, dressed more plainly than expected for a formal reception but handsome enough in the effortless way some men were cursed to be. He apologized to your father with the proper degree of form and to you with something closer to sincerity, and though Lord Damon accepted the apology, the air remained cool. Valarr noticed. You saw it in the slight tightening near his eyes, the way he stood a little straighter, as if already bracing beneath invisible weight. He spoke to you during supper with measured care, asking after the journey, after Casterly Rock, after books you had once mentioned and whether you still favored histories over songs. It was an intelligent thing, to remember. You gave him the courtesy of answering honestly enough. He seemed relieved by that, and perhaps almost amused by your father’s stone-faced watchfulness. Yet for all his efforts, another presence at the table spoiled the balance of the evening long before he opened his mouth.
Prince Aerion sat three places down, and if Valarr was built for duty, Aerion had been built for appetite. He was too beautiful in the way dangerous men often were, all bright edges and lazy confidence, silver-gold hair catching torchlight like polished metal, features made for admiration and improved by the knowledge that he knew it. There was cruelty in his beauty, though not the hot, stupid kind seen in drunk squires and swaggering bannermen. His was colder, more deliberate. It lived in the patience of his gaze, in the faint mockery that seemed to curl behind every expression, in the way he held still when others fidgeted, like some splendid beast deciding whether or not to bite. The first time he looked at you across the table, he did not look away quickly as courtesy required. He let the silence between glances extend just far enough to insult without announcing itself as insult, and when at last he smiled, it was not a smile of welcome. It was the look of a man finding a thing he wanted and already considering how little trouble there would be in taking it.
You felt it. Not because you were vain. Not because women imagined danger in every prince’s glance. You felt it because certain men had a way of looking at the world that stripped away every civil layer between desire and action. Aerion looked like that. As though the only true question in any matter was whether consequence amused him enough to proceed. He drank sparingly, spoke intermittently, and when he did speak, the table listened more than it wished to. He had wit, which made him worse. A cruel man with no cleverness could be endured. A cruel man with charm required careful handling and often left bodies behind him.
It was your father who answered Aerion most directly when he chose, partway through the second course, to remark upon the journey from the west.
“I am told the roads were muddy past the Mander,” Aerion said, turning his goblet by the stem rather than drinking from it. “I hope the Rock did not send so fine a lady over rough ground without complaint.”
“The roads obey no man’s preference,” Lord Damon said.
Aerion’s mouth curved. “A pity. So much in this world would be improved if it did.”
“Many have thought so. Most of them died dissatisfied.”
A few people near enough to hear lowered their eyes to their plates. Valarr took a breath, perhaps to redirect, but Aerion seemed entertained.
“I have always found dissatisfaction useful,” he said. “It sharpens ambition.”
“It also sharpens enemies,” your father replied.
Aerion looked then not at Lord Damon, but at you, as if the exchange had been for your benefit all along. “And yet some prizes are worth making enemies for.”
Valarr set down his knife with too much care. “Cousin.”
It was only one word, but it carried warning. Aerion shifted his gaze lazily toward him.
“Were we speaking of you?”
“We were speaking in my father’s hall before my promised bride,” Valarr said. “That should be enough.”
Aerion’s expression changed by less than a breath. Still, you saw it. The lightest flicker of contempt, not even hidden, simply too quick for most to name. “Then I shall endeavor to be more pious.”
Your father’s face might have been cut from old stone. “I would sooner expect the sea to dry.”
This time even Valarr could not smother the reaction around the table. A cough became a laugh somewhere farther down. Aerion let his head incline a fraction, almost bowing to the insult as though it were a compliment. But while others returned to eating, his eyes found you again, and this time the promise in them was worse for having been interrupted. Something in him had been challenged. Men like Aerion did not forget such things. They only made sport of settling them later.
After supper music was called for in the outer hall, and ladies drifted toward the carved doors in small groups while the men arranged themselves into knots of politics and performance. Your father did not hold you at his side every instant. Such obvious guarding would have fed gossip, and Damon Lannister did not indulge gossip when he could instead inspire fear. Still, he told Ser Harlan, the older of the two household knights who had come west with you, to keep within sight. You caught the order in passing and saw the knight bow. That should have been enough. In any decent place, it would have been. Summerhall, beneath torchlight and dragon banners, did not feel like a decent place. It felt like a place waiting for its true face to emerge after midnight.
Valarr approached you once the musicians began. He asked whether the journey had wearied you beyond courtesy and whether you might walk in the gallery where the air was cooler. His manner was careful, not presumptuous. You agreed, and Ser Harlan followed at a respectful distance while the two of you moved through the lantern-lit passage overlooking the court. Valarr spoke more freely away from the table. He apologized again for the poor beginning to the visit. He admitted, with a weariness that seemed older than him, that Aerion had a talent for spoiling any room he entered. He did not ask you what impression his cousin had made, perhaps because he already knew.
“I do not expect you to love this place,” Valarr said at last, hands clasped behind his back as the night breeze lifted a loose strand of your hair. “I hardly do myself on some days.”
“It is very beautiful,” you said.
He glanced sideways at you. “That is not the same thing.”
“No.”
A faint, humorless smile touched his mouth. “You are honest. I am glad of that, though it may doom us both to discomfort.”
“Most marriages are made of worse ingredients.”
That earned something like a real laugh from him. “There speaks wisdom I did not ask for and cannot dispute.”
You turned to look into the courtyard below, where servants crossed with lamps and the fountain caught bits of reflected fire. “You need not fear I shall make scenes, my prince.”
“I fear scenes less than silences,” he said. “Scenes end. Silences settle in the walls.”
That was a strange thing for a prince to say, and because it was strange you believed it. He was not empty, this man chosen for you. Not kind enough to make the match romantic, not cruel enough to make it hateful, but human in a way that made the whole thing more difficult. It would have been easier if he were stupid or vain. Easier if he were monstrous. You might have pitied him a little if pity had not been such a useless courtly luxury.
Before you could answer, a voice drifted from the shadowed end of the gallery.
“Valarr, cousin, you grow solemn enough to age ten years in a quarter hour.”
Aerion emerged from the dark as though the dark itself had decided to take princely shape. He had shed the stiffness of formal supper somewhat, his collar unlaced slightly, his expression too easy. Ser Harlan straightened at once behind you. Valarr’s face closed.
“We were walking,” Valarr said.
“I can see that. I had not thought walking required quite so much gravity.”
“Not all men mistake vulgarity for ease.”
Aerion smiled. “And not all men mistake stiffness for virtue.”
He stopped an arm’s length away, close enough now that you could see the pale, clear strangeness of his eyes in the lantern light. Valyrian eyes. Dragon’s eyes, people sometimes said in the soft, stupid tone reserved for old blood. You thought they looked less like dragons than like bright things buried too long in ice.
“Lady Y/N,” Aerion said, inclining his head. “You must forgive us. Summerhall breeds family quarrels as orchards breed flies.”
“I had not noticed, prince.”
He laughed then, low and genuinely amused. “A neat answer. You see, Valarr, she does not bore easily. That is your good fortune.”
Valarr’s jaw hardened. “It is also no concern of yours.”
“No?” Aerion asked, and though the word was mild, it carried a private edge. “How strange. We share blood, roof, name, enemies. I had thought interest in one another’s fortunes nearly expected.”
“Interest is not always honorable,” you said before Valarr could speak again.
Aerion turned his gaze to you fully. For a moment the whole gallery seemed to narrow around that look. “Honor is a flexible song. Men sing different verses when they want the same thing.”
Ser Harlan took half a step forward. Valarr noticed and said, “That will be enough, Aerion.”
Aerion’s eyes lingered on you one heartbeat longer, then shifted away. “As you wish, cousin. I would not deprive you of moonlight and dutiful conversation.” He stepped back, smile still faintly present. “Sleep well, my lady. Summerhall has curious nights.”
He left before anyone could call him back. Yet when he was gone the space felt fouler for his having passed through it, like a room after smoke. Valarr let out a breath that might have been anger or resignation. You could not tell which had more claim.
“I am sorry,” he said.
“For him?”
“For the fact that apology does not improve anything.”
“No,” you said. “It does not.”
He looked at you then, perhaps realizing how little illusion you required. “Take care while you are here.”
It was an odd warning from a prince in his own household. More telling for that. Ser Harlan escorted you back to your chambers without delay, and when the doors were shut and barred for the night, your maid asked whether she should sleep in the adjoining room. You told her yes. Pride was a poor thing to cling to when instinct had begun to itch beneath your skin.
Night at Summerhall should have been restful. The windows stood open enough to admit a cool wind scented faintly by cypress and dry earth. The bed was large, the linens smooth, the chamber lovely in that expensive, thoughtless way royal households managed so well. Yet you did not sleep easily. You lay awake longer than you ought, listening to the castle settle itself around you. Footsteps in distant corridors. The cry of some night bird. Once, laughter from far below, brief and mean enough to belong to men who thought darkness made them invisible. At last you drifted into the thin, alert kind of sleep that never quite forgets where it is.
By dawn the unease had not left. It had only changed clothes.
The next day brought the familiar rituals of noble hosting. A morning meal. Formal courtesies. A ride proposed and then abandoned because the heat promised to rise harshly by noon. Ladies of the household with polished smiles and polished malice took pains to inquire after the west, your gowns, your sisters, your music, your faith, your opinion on this lady or that marriage. You answered with enough intelligence to discourage fools and enough restraint to avoid making enemies too quickly. Your father spent much of the morning in company with stewards, castellans, and a prince’s advisors, judging Summerhall by the things men thought too dull for notice. Grain. Levy numbers. Road repairs. Horses. A lord who intended to place his daughter into a royal line would learn the strength of the walls before admiring the tapestries. That was how Damon Lannister loved. By measuring dangers. By counting blades.
You saw Aerion only once before midday, and that from a distance in the training yard below, where he stood watching squires work with wooden swords while saying something to a knight that made the older man laugh too hard. Even at that distance he seemed to radiate some private impatience, as if the whole day were an inconvenience between him and an amusement he had not yet claimed. He looked up once, suddenly and directly, toward the gallery where you stood with two ladies examining the yard. Whether he had sensed observation or merely expected to find it, you could not say. But his gaze found yours with the same swift certainty it had at supper. One of the women beside you remarked that Prince Aerion had the old beauty of his line. You answered that beauty had never improved a bad temper. She stared, uncertain whether you jested. You let her remain uncertain.
By afternoon your father declared he would not linger indoors like a sick man merely because Summerhall’s ladies preferred shaded embroidery to the world beyond walls. He meant to inspect the outer meadows and one of the lesser hunting paths running along the edge of the prince’s lands. He invited you to accompany him if you wished air and quiet. You said yes at once. The household made mild efforts to persuade you toward safer entertainments, but Lord Damon’s presence made refusal difficult. A small party was assembled. Your father, two of his household knights, three local riders offered as guides, and yourself. The path took you beyond the sweeter-faced parts of Summerhall, out toward the dry rolling country where brush and pine met stretches of open ground and the late sun turned everything tawny.
Out there, away from banners and carved ceilings, your father seemed easier in his skin. Not softer, never that, but more real. He rode well, still, and with the unconscious authority of a man who had spent more years commanding than flattering. After a stretch of silence he glanced toward you and said, “You have been quiet.”
“I am often quiet.”
“You are thoughtful quiet today.”
You considered the path ahead, the line of it disappearing between low trees. “Do you want the court answer or the truthful one?”
“The court answer is usually a waste of my time.”
“The prince is decent,” you said. “His cousin is not.”
Lord Damon made a sound in his throat that might have been agreement. “Aerion Targaryen has the look of a man too often forgiven.”
“Yes.”
“Did he trouble you?”
“Not openly enough to make a complaint sound useful.”
Your father’s expression altered by almost nothing, but you had always known how to read the small weather of him. “Openly enough for me to be displeased?”
“Yes.”
That was all. He did not demand details. He did not soothe. He did not tell you not to fear. He simply nodded once, the way men nodded after confirming the quality of steel, and said, “Then you will not be alone again while we are here.”
“I had not been alone.”
“Not alone enough for my liking, then.”
That should have been the end of it. It would have been, perhaps, had the world remained governed by fathers and riders and visible roads. But there were men in it who preferred to act where rules thinned. Aerion Targaryen was one of them.
They returned toward Summerhall as the day began to lower itself into gold. The road curved along a stand of pines and then opened toward a small stone bridge crossing a dry runnel that only carried water in wetter seasons. The horses’ hooves struck dust, then stone, then dust again. Somewhere overhead a hawk circled slow and high. One of the local guides rode ahead, another behind. The last light had begun to lengthen shadows when the first arrow struck.
It buried itself in the throat of the horse beneath the rear guide. The beast screamed, reared, and went over sideways in a chaos of blood and legs. Men shouted at once. Another arrow hissed past so close you heard the cut of it through air before it punched into a tree trunk by your father’s shoulder. Your horse danced hard under you, panic leaping through muscle. Ser Harlan wheeled his mount across your side instinctively, sword already half out. From the trees on either side riders burst like a trap springing shut, dark-cloaked, faces covered, too disciplined to be mere brigands and too well mounted to be desperate men.
“Ride!” your father shouted, voice carrying like a hammer blow. “Ride, girl!”
He was drawing steel as he spoke, but the road had already become confusion. One of the attackers seized at your reins and your horse bolted, jerking you sideways in the saddle. Another rider slammed into Ser Harlan. Metal rang. Someone screamed. Your mare lunged forward blindly, not back toward Summerhall but down the narrower track that split from the road near the bridge. You hauled at the reins, trying to turn her, but two cloaked riders flanked you almost at once, boxing you in with terrifying efficiency. Not bandits then. Not chance. This had been laid with care.
You heard your father roaring behind you, heard the impact of combat, heard one man curse in pain and another fall. Then the track bent sharply into thicker cover and the sounds of the fight were muffled by trees and distance. Your horse had run herself half-mad. One of the riders beside you leaned over with brutal precision and caught your bridle near the bit, wrenching the mare’s head enough to force her to slow. She nearly threw you. Another closed from behind. A gloved hand seized your arm hard enough to bruise through the sleeve.
“Do not struggle,” a man’s voice said. Calm. Amused. Familiar.
Your pulse turned cold.
The rider to your right pulled down the cloth from the lower half of his face as easily as if removing some absurd bit of court costume. Silver-gold hair clung damply at his temples from the ride. His eyes were bright with excitement.
“A pity,” Aerion said, guiding his horse nearer until your stirrups nearly touched. “I had hoped for less dust and a prettier road.”
For one stunned second you could not speak. Rage came before fear once the shock cleared. “Are you mad?”
His smile widened, not insulted in the least. “Almost certainly.”
Behind you the other riders spread out, checking the path, listening for pursuit. They were his men. Of course they were. Men who knew how to obey ugly orders cleanly.
“You attacked my father,” you said, breath tight in your chest.
“I inconvenienced him.”
“You call this inconvenience?”
“I call it necessity.” Aerion’s gaze moved over your face with a softness more obscene than open force would have been. “Had I asked politely, they would have shut you behind thicker doors.”
You yanked your arm from the hand holding it and nearly lost balance in the saddle. “You filthy bastard.”
He laughed, outright now. “There. Better. I begin to suspect you are even prettier angry.”
“You will hang for this.”
He looked toward the darkening trees and then back at you. “No. I will not.”
Such certainty in it. Such monstrous ease. You hated him for that ease more fiercely than for the ambush in that instant, because it was the ease of a man who had spent his whole life learning that consequence could always be bent around him by blood, rank, or fear.
“You think being a prince excuses this?”
“I think being a prince makes men hesitate while I am already done.”
His men shifted uneasily at that, not from conscience, but from the plainness with which he named it. You looked over your shoulder toward the direction from which you had been taken, straining for any sound of pursuit. None came. The woods were thick. Dusk was deepening. Your father was not a man easily beaten, but even Damon Lannister could not be in two places at once. Aerion followed your glance and his expression changed by a fraction, enough to show he understood exactly what you were weighing.
“If it eases you,” he said, “I gave orders not to kill him.”
“Your mercy overwhelms.”
His eyes gleamed. “Not mercy. Prudence. Killing the Grey Lion would make this untidy.”
“You think stealing his daughter will not?”
He leaned slightly closer in the saddle, as if sharing a confidence. “Untidy is not the same as impossible.”
You wished then that you had a knife hidden in your sleeve, wished for anything sharp and close. But you had come riding with your father in relative safety, not into open war. Aerion seemed to read the wish in your face, and something like approval stirred in his expression.
“Yes,” he murmured. “That is the look I hoped for.”
“You hoped to be murdered?”
“I hoped not to bore myself.”
There it was. The true heart of him laid bare in one line. Not love. Not even simple lust. Hunger fueled by vanity and the need to possess what had been named for another man. You, promised to Valarr, daughter of Damon Lannister, not easily won, not easily frightened, not looking at him with worship like some simpering court fool. Aerion had seen challenge and beauty together and, being what he was, had decided they must become his. Men like that called obsession by prettier names afterward.
He gestured, and the riders closed formation around you. “We should move. Your father is many things, but slow is not one.”
“Where are you taking me?”
“To a place where your opinions may be voiced in private rather than before half the court.”
“I would rather die.”
Aerion studied you, still infuriatingly calm. “Perhaps. But not today.”
He turned his horse. One of his men reached for your reins again and this time you slapped the hand away so hard the sound cracked in the cooling air.
“I can ride,” you said.
For the first time, something hard flashed across Aerion’s face, not anger exactly, but a recognition that force might excite you into more trouble than he wanted before nightfall. Then he smiled again, thinner now.
“So you can,” he said. “Ride, then. But understand me. If you throw yourself from the saddle or try to bolt, I will bind you like stolen game and carry you that way instead. Spare us both the indignity.”
You hated that he said it quietly. Hated more that you believed him.
So you rode.
The trees closed around the path until Summerhall and all its false grace disappeared behind shadow and distance. Pine, dry earth, stone. The smell of sweat and leather. The steady rhythm of hooves over ground that grew rougher as they pressed on into country less traveled. Above the branches the last light bled out of the sky in long red strips, then in bruised violet. No one spoke much. Aerion rode near enough that you could feel his watchfulness like heat against skin, though he did not chatter or taunt now. He had what he wanted for the moment. Men such as he were often quietest then, most dangerous when satisfied enough to think.
You sat straight in the saddle and did not let them see your fear take shape, though it lived inside you by then, cold and bright and merciless. Not the wild fear of a child seized by a monster from a story. A narrower, harder fear. The kind that begins counting. Men. Horses. Direction of the wind. Distance between riders. Whether Aerion favored his right hand or left when touching the reins. Whether the path sloped downward or eastward. Whether there would be water nearby. Whether your father had survived the ambush. Whether Valarr would pursue out of honor, humiliation, or both. Whether Aerion meant to force a marriage, a bedding, a scandal so ruinous it could not be repaired. With men like him one could not afford the softness of disbelief. One had to assume the worst and then sharpen further.
At length the path opened into a clearing where an old hunting lodge stood half-swallowed by trees, stone lower walls and timber above, isolated enough that only men who knew where to find it ever would. A few lanterns already burned. So he had prepared this too. Of course he had. Aerion swung down from his horse first and came to your side before any other man dared. He offered his hand as though receiving you at a feast.
You looked at it, then at him.
“I would sooner break my neck.”
His mouth twitched. “A stirring start to our domestic understanding.”
You gathered your skirts and dismounted without touching him, though the drop jarred your knees. He let you do it, watching all the while with that same impossible patience. Around you, his men moved with brisk efficiency, seeing to horses, posting watch, avoiding your eyes. Good. Let them avoid them. Let them remember there was a lady beneath the theft, not only a prize.
Aerion stepped closer once your feet were on the ground. Nearer now than he had been on horseback, he seemed taller, all lean heat and bright cruelty, smelling of leather, clean steel, and the last trace of court perfume not yet sweated away. He lowered his voice, so that only you would hear.
“You may scream if it comforts you,” he said. “No one within these woods loves you enough to come.”
For the first time since the ambush, your anger steadied you completely. You lifted your chin and looked straight into his face.
“They do not need to love me,” you said. “They need only hate you.”
Something in his expression sharpened at that, delighted and dangerous both. It was the look of a man who had set fire to a room and found, with pleased surprise, that one of the occupants was made of fire too.
Then he moved aside and gestured toward the lodge as if inviting you over some threshold at a wedding rather than the start of a crime. The lantern light behind him threw long shadows across the clearing. Above the trees the last of the evening died, and the dark gathered itself fully around lion’s lost daughter and the dragon prince who had decided to steal her whole from the world.
Morning came to Summerhall like an insult.
There had been no sleep worth naming inside the prince’s hall after the riders who limped back from the road told what little they knew. Word had spread first in broken pieces, in blood on leather and the shaken breathing of men too ashamed to admit how cleanly they had been outmaneuvered, then in harder shapes once Lord Damon Lannister returned with dust on his cloak, rage in his face, and one of his household knights carried behind him half-conscious and bleeding from the shoulder. The castle had changed at once. Music died. Servants ran. Lamps were brought, doors opened, guards summoned, horses demanded, names spoken with that rapidly tightening edge that turns noble alarm into political terror. By the time the moon had reached its height, everyone in Summerhall knew some version of it. Lady Y/N Lannister, youngest child of the Grey Lion, promised bride to Prince Valarr Targaryen, had been taken off the road in sight of armed men. Taken not by hedge brigands, not by outlaws, not by some nameless enemy from the woods, but by riders who moved too well and vanished too fast to be anything but commanded. The suspicion had settled quickly where it was always going to settle. On the one prince absent from the frantic search. On the one prince no one could find.
The great hall of Summerhall had seen feasts, judgments, songs, and drunken boasts enough to fill ten lesser castles, but that night it held something far colder. The torches burned low against the long carved walls, washing the dragons in restless orange light, while the household stood at a distance and pretended not to listen to every word being spoken at the high end of the chamber. Lord Damon had refused wine, refused food, refused the careful phrases of frightened courtiers who tried to speak of patience and uncertainty. He stood instead before the dais like a man hauled bodily out of battle before he had finished killing. Travel dust still marked his boots and cloak. Blood had dried at one cuff, whether his own or another’s no one could tell. His hair, gone iron-gray at the temples and gold still elsewhere, looked roughened by sweat and wind, and the hard lines of his face had tightened into something so severe that younger men could scarcely meet his eye. Those who had called him the Grey Lion in half-amused court tones before that night found little amusement left in it now.
Prince Baelor met him with all the weight and dignity expected of a man who had spent too much of his life trying to keep Targaryen tempers from becoming Targaryen disasters. He had dressed in haste but not disorder, and even in exhaustion he wore his authority in a way that quieted lesser noise around him. There was strain in his face, and something older than strain besides. The long fatigue of a man who has seen too often what pride and blood can do when given room. Beside him stood Valarr, paler than he had been at supper, his own weariness turned now into a controlled, furious shame. It was not only insult that had found him. It was the knowledge of what this meant in every direction at once. For the girl promised to him. For the father standing before him. For his house. For his cousin’s black-hearted madness if madness it proved to be. Maekar stood near them both, rigid as hammered iron, broad across the shoulders, hands clasped behind his back with enough force to whiten the knuckles. His expression was the harshest thing in the room, not because he raged most openly, but because refusal had settled across it like armor. He would not believe it. That much was plain even before he spoke.
Lord Damon did not bow as deeply as politeness demanded, and no one was fool enough to call him on it.
“My daughter was stolen off your son’s road by armed riders operating from your lands,” he said. His voice did not rise. It cut. “I want her back.”
“You shall have every rider Summerhall can spare sent before dawn,” Baelor answered. “Searches have already gone out.”
“That is not justice. That is movement.”
“It is the beginning of justice.”
“It had better be the beginning of more than that,” Damon said, and his gaze shifted with deliberate slowness toward Maekar. “Tell me where your son is.”
The silence afterward was brief, but it pressed hard enough to be felt. Maekar’s face remained unyielding.
“No one yet knows that Aerion had any hand in this.”
Lord Damon looked at him with a kind of bleak contempt that made even nearby knights stare harder at the floor. “No. Of course not. Perhaps my daughter leapt into the saddle of her own free will and vanished into your pleasant countryside for sport.”
Valarr stepped forward then, not enough to challenge, but enough to take some of the heat before it became irrevocable. “My lord,” he said, voice steady despite the strain in it, “I give you my word that I will not stop until she is found.”
Damon’s eyes went to him, and for a fleeting instant the fury altered. Not softened. Never that. But directed differently. Valarr had at least the grace to look like a man ashamed by the house that should have protected his promised bride and did not. “Your word will be worth more when she stands before me alive and untouched.”
Valarr accepted that without flinching. “Then that is the work before us.”
Maekar made a hard sound in his throat. “You speak as if guilt were proven.”
Baelor turned slightly. “Maekar.”
But Maekar’s restraint had already begun to crack. “No. I will not condemn my son on suspicion stoked by panic and insult. Aerion is rash, arrogant, given to cruelty when crossed. I know what he is. But abducting a daughter of Casterly Rock from under her father’s guard is not the act of a sane man.”
Damon faced him squarely. “Then perhaps your son is not sane.”
The words landed like a strike. Maekar’s jaw tightened. “Take care, Lannister.”
“You tell me to take care?” Damon asked, and now, for the first time, real fire came through the iron control. “My child has vanished under your roof. Under your banners. On a road watched by your men and crossed by your blood. Your son has played at menace since the first evening and could not be found when the alarm was raised. Take care is what I shall tell you, prince, if she is not returned.”
Baelor stepped in before the thing could split wider. “Enough.” He did not shout. He did not need to. The word carried the weight of rank and long practice. “No one here profits by blindness. Nor by losing his temper before facts are gathered. Lord Damon, you have my oath as Prince of Dragonstone that this matter will be pursued without favor. If Aerion is responsible, then blood will not shield him from consequence.”
Maekar’s head turned abruptly toward his brother. “You would promise that?”
“I would promise nothing less,” Baelor said, and the steadiness in him made the hall seem to draw tighter around the line. “Because if he has done this, he has not wronged only Lord Damon. He has disgraced us all.”
Valarr spoke next, quieter, but with a force that carried its own kind of gravity. “I know my cousin. I know also what I saw at supper and in the gallery. He had fixed his attention where he had no right to place it. I dismissed it as insolence.” His mouth tightened at his own error. “I should not have.”
That made Maekar look at him sternly. “You said nothing.”
“You were there,” Valarr replied, and there was something steelier in him now than had been there the evening before. “You heard him. We all did.”
“A man’s tongue at table is not proof of abduction.”
“No,” Damon said. “But a missing daughter and a missing prince become something very close.”
The torches hissed. Somewhere at the back of the hall a servant dropped something small and metal and nearly jumped out of his skin at the sound. Baelor rubbed a hand once over his brow, the gesture brief and weary. “We will search every holdfast, hunting lodge, and outlying tower belonging to this seat. Riders have been sent to the river crossings and southern roads. Messages are being dispatched now. No one leaves these lands unnoticed.”
Damon stared at him for a long moment. “And if he has laid hands on her in a way that cannot be undone?”
No one answered at once. No answer could have been honest enough to satisfy. Baelor’s eyes darkened with the weight of the question. Valarr said nothing because there was nothing to say. Maekar’s face seemed carved from harsher stone than before.
At length Baelor said, “Then we deal with what has been done. But first we find her.”
Damon turned away from the dais before formality could force anything else from him. “Find him first,” he said. “The rest will follow.”
He did not ask permission to leave. He took it, like a man who no longer cared what courtesies belonged to another house. His boots struck the stone floor in hard, echoing beats as he strode from the hall to continue directing the search himself, and behind him the air remained scorched by the force of his fury.
Valarr watched him go with a face gone almost bloodless. It was only when the doors shut that he let out the breath he had been holding. Baelor looked at his son then, and for a moment the prince’s public calm slipped enough to reveal the father beneath it.
“You should rest for an hour before dawn,” Baelor said.
Valarr shook his head. “I will ride.”
“You will ride badly if you can no longer see.”
“I said I will ride.”
Baelor studied him, then nodded once. “Very well.”
Maekar had not moved. He still stood in the same rigid line, as if motion itself might concede too much. “This reeks of convenience,” he said. “Aerion vanishes and every eye turns to him because he is easy to suspect.”
Valarr turned to face him fully. “Easy to suspect because he made himself so.”
“He is vain and vicious, not witless.”
“No,” Valarr said. “He is not witless. That is the trouble.”
Maekar’s eyes narrowed. “Do you think he would destroy his own blood for a woman promised within the family?”
Valarr’s answer came without hesitation. “I think Aerion would set fire to a sept to warm his hands if he liked the look of the flames.”
Baelor closed his eyes for the space of a heartbeat. Not in denial. In tired recognition. “Maekar,” he said, more quietly now, “we do your son no service if we lie to ourselves. Pray we find him innocent. But do not demand that others pretend the evidence is nothing.”
Maekar’s mouth flattened into a hard line. He was a man who understood war, discipline, command. He understood sons too, in his own severe and punishing way, but not all fathers knew how to see what stood before them when pride stood in the way. “I will not condemn him without proof.”
Valarr’s reply was equally quiet. “Then go find proof.”
For the first time that night, Maekar seemed struck by something that was not anger. Perhaps because the words had come from his own son. Perhaps because they were true. He said nothing more, only turned on his heel and strode from the hall with all the force of a man carrying refusal like a shield into a battle already half lost.
Baelor remained where he was for another few moments, looking older than he had the day before. When he finally spoke, it was almost to himself. “Gods help us if it is him.”
Valarr looked toward the shut doors through which Damon had gone. “Gods help Aerion if it is.”
Elsewhere, beyond Summerhall’s walls and its gathering dread, there were no heralds, no torches in carved sconces, no courtiers pretending not to hear disaster being named. There was only the old hunting lodge hidden deep enough in the wooded rise that even daylight would have had to search for it, and within it the softer, meaner silence of stolen things.
The place had once been comfortable, perhaps even handsome in the rougher mode men favored when they wished to call themselves simple while spending lavishly. Time and disuse had thinned the pretense. Smoke had stained the beams overhead. The rushes laid fresh upon the floor could not fully hide the smell of old timber, damp stone, and the ghost of hunts long finished. One large common room occupied most of the lower level, with a hearth wide enough to roast half a stag and a table scarred by years of knives, tankards, and careless boots. A stair rose along one wall toward the narrow bedchambers above. Aerion’s men had made themselves scarce after arrival, not because they were virtuous, but because even armed retainers knew when their prince wanted privacy with his stolen prize and preferred not to be near enough to witness the details of his madness. Two remained outside on watch, one near the horses, another somewhere in the trees. Their voices carried only rarely, low and indistinct. The world beyond the lodge had gone to night sounds, insects and shifting branches and the occasional cry of something wild moving unseen through the brush.
You had refused supper at first. Aerion had not pressed with gentleness. He had simply informed you that hunger made prisoners foolish and that if you fainted from stubbornness he would still have to carry you upstairs, which he found tiresome enough in theory to dislike proving in practice. You hated him too much to give him the satisfaction of weakness. So you had eaten a little, seated at the farthest end of the table from him while a servant too frightened to meet your eyes set down bread, cheese, cold meat, and watered wine before disappearing again. Aerion ate opposite you in that infuriatingly calm fashion of his, as though the two of you were merely sharing some strangely private meal arranged by chance rather than sitting inside the aftermath of a crime. He did not force conversation on you at once. He seemed content to let the silence work until it frayed your nerves. But silence was not always a weapon only he knew how to use. You had endured enough councils, courts, and finely poisoned rooms to understand the power of giving a man nothing he could push against.
At last he leaned back in his chair and regarded you across the candlelight. He had shed his riding gloves and outer cloak. Without them he looked younger at first glance, almost less dangerous, until one noticed the expression in his eyes and remembered youth had never been a defense against ugliness of the soul. “You are very quiet for a woman who called me a filthy bastard not long ago.”
“You have already proven I judge accurately.”
He smiled. “There you are.”
You set down the cup without drinking again. “Have you decided what to do when my father finds you?”
“When he finds me, or when he is told where I have gone?”
“You sound as though those are different things.”
“They may be.” Aerion rested one forearm against the table, loose, unhurried. “Your father is formidable, but even formidable men must choose where they spend their outrage. There are ways to make a theft into a negotiation.”
“You mean a scandal into a bargain.”
“I mean the world is moved by outcome, not innocence.”
You looked at him across the candles and rough wood and wanted, for one dark clean instant, to throw the knife beside the plate straight into his throat. The wish must have crossed your face because his gaze flicked to the knife, then back to you, not frightened, not even tense. Interested.
“Do it,” he said softly.
You stared at him.
“If you mean to try, try before I grow bored with waiting.”
You did not move. The knife remained where it was.
A faint laugh escaped him, not mocking exactly. Appreciative, which somehow made it worse. “No. You are not reckless. That may save us both trouble.”
“There is no us.”
“Not yet,” he said.
The answer landed between you like something alive and ugly. You pushed back your chair and stood, unwilling to sit there any longer while he used that tone, that quiet proprietary certainty, as if the shape of the future were his to name. “You took me against my will, attacked my father’s escort, and hid me in the woods like a thief. If you have any purpose beyond vanity, speak it.”
Aerion rose too, but more slowly. “Vanity is one purpose among many.”
“What are the others?”
He came around the table then, not too quickly, not cornering, but closing the distance with a confidence so ingrained it felt like its own form of violence. You held your ground because stepping back would have felt worse. He stopped an arm’s length away. Candlelight made gold out of his hair and sharpened the bones of his face into something almost inhumanly beautiful, which was perhaps the cruelest part of him. That face had likely bought him indulgence all his life, even from those who knew better. A pretty monster remained a monster, but courts loved to pretend otherwise until it was too late.
“The others,” Aerion said, “are that I saw you and could think of little else afterward. That you looked at me as if you understood what I was and did not tremble. That you were to be handed to Valarr as though the thing were already settled, as though no one might object to the arrangement except in private. That everyone in that hall behaved as if your life were a matter of signatures and nods. I disliked it.”
You almost laughed from sheer disbelief. “You disliked being denied?”
“Yes.”
“At least you are honest in your vileness.”
His eyes held yours without flinching. “Most men lie prettily. I find it tedious.”
You folded your arms, not from cold, but to keep stillness in your own body. “You speak as though this is some great romance and not a tantrum in silk and steel.”
Something quick and hard moved through his face, then settled. “Romance is for singers and fools. I wanted you. I took you.”
The words should have repulsed and nothing more. They did repulse. Yet they also did something more dangerous, because he said them without false softness, without the pious dressing men often wrapped around greed when dealing with women. He did not pretend he had rescued you. He did not speak of destiny or love at first sight like some pampered idiot out of songs. He named desire as desire, possession as possession, and in doing so he placed the ugliness plain between you rather than coating it in honey. It was monstrous. It was also difficult to dismiss as simple delusion. He knew exactly what he had done. That clarity made him more dangerous than a fool would have been.
“You are insane,” you said.
“Perhaps.” He tilted his head slightly. “Does that frighten you?”
“Yes.”
A strange look came over him then, one so brief you might have imagined it had the rest of his face not gone still around it. Satisfaction, yes, but not only that. Something like respect. “Good,” he said. “Fear means you are paying attention.”
“I was paying attention when you made a spectacle of yourself at supper.”
“And still you came riding out today.”
“With my father.”
He gave the smallest shrug. “Even lions leave cover when they think the wood belongs to them.”
That angered you enough to cut through the darker edge beneath it. “Do not speak of him as if you understand him.”
“I understand more than you think.”
“You understand nothing that matters.”
Aerion regarded you in silence for a few moments. Then, to your surprise, he stepped back. “Sit by the fire,” he said. “You are shivering.”
“I would rather stand.”
“You may do that too. But the night will grow colder, and I have no wish to watch you make yourself ill for the pleasure of defiance.”
The answer should have sounded protective. It did not. It sounded practical, which was somehow more unsettling. As if your health now mattered to him not as an act of kindness, but because damaged possessions diminished the whole. You hated that thought so much that you almost ignored the truth of your own body out of spite. The ride, the fear, the long evening, the cooling lodge. You were cold.
So you moved to the hearth, not because he had told you to, but because you chose not to freeze for a performance he did not deserve. A fire had been built there earlier, and though it had burned low, the coals still held enough heat to warm the stone lip and send dull orange pulses through the room. You stood facing it with your hands clasped before you, listening to Aerion cross to the sideboard and pour wine.
“I will not drug you,” he said, as if reading the stiffness in your shoulders. “That would spoil conversation.”
“Your standards astonish.”
He came near enough to offer the cup, but stopped before touching you. “Drink.”
You looked at it, then at him. The warmth from the hearth brushed one side of your face, and the candlelight caught the pale clarity of his eyes again. He was watching carefully, not for obedience only, but for choice. That, too, was a game to him. Every small concession examined, every refusal catalogued.
You took the cup.
His mouth curved faintly. “You see? We are capable of progress.”
You drank only enough to wet a throat gone dry from hours of anger and dust. The wine was decent, dark and a little strong. You lowered the cup. “If you think I will grow used to this, you are mistaken.”
“I think you will adapt because clever women do.”
“That is not the same thing.”
“No,” Aerion said. “It is not.”
For a while neither of you spoke. The crackle of the fire filled the intervals. Wind brushed the lodge walls. Somewhere above, one of the upper shutters shifted with a soft wooden knock. Aerion remained standing close enough that you could sense him but not so close that he crowded the space outright. It might have been courtesy in another man. In him it felt like strategy. He knew precisely how near to come before you tensed, and how far back to withdraw before tension could become panic. He was managing the distance between you as carefully as any sword-master controlled reach.
“You should sleep,” he said at last.
“I doubt I will.”
“I did not say well.”
You turned your head to look at him fully. “And where do you sleep, prince? Outside my door like a pious jailer?”
A quiet laugh. “Would that comfort you?”
“No.”
“Then I shall spare you the falsehood. There is a chamber at the end of the hall. You will have the room nearest the stair. The door locks from the outside. You may find that offensive.”
“You are learning.”
He inclined his head as if accepting praise. “I learn quickly when interested.”
You should have despised every word out of his mouth and only that. You did despise them. Yet beneath the disgust there ran another awareness you resented even more. He listened. He watched. He adjusted. Men like Valarr were safe because duty ordered them. Men like Aerion were dangerous because attention ordered them, and once fixed, that attention could feel like being held beneath a blade and a hand at once. It was not comfort. It was not tenderness. But it was not carelessness either. He had not dragged you bodily after arrival. He had not paraded triumph before his men. He had not touched you beyond what the road required. Some wretched, traitorous part of your mind noticed this not as mercy, but as the shape of the particular prison he meant to build.
He must have seen some shadow of that realization in your face because his own expression altered. The mockery thinned. What remained was quieter, more dangerous than before.
“I told you I would not bore myself,” he said. “I did not say I meant to break you in a night.”
The words made heat rise in your chest, part fury, part something more complicated and hateful because it was complicated. “You speak as though this is a hunt.”
“In some ways it is.”
“I am not prey.”
“No,” he said, and his gaze moved over you once, not leering, not soft, simply certain. “That is why I am still here listening.”
There it was again, the strange current between insult and recognition. He did not want a weeping girl. He wanted resistance because resistance proved your worth in the twisted economy of his desire. A docile captive would have disappointed him. The understanding of that made your skin crawl, but it also gave you knowledge. If he wanted strength, then weakness would not save you. If he prized wit, then silence alone would not either. You would have to survive him by being entirely yourself and using that self like a blade.
“You should have been born a hedge knight in a bad song,” you said. “Then at least your madness would have had fitting company.”
Aerion laughed softly and, to your surprise, sat down on the stone bench opposite the fire as though preparing for a more ordinary conversation. “And you should have been born a fourth son with no dowry attached. Then perhaps you would say what you liked without a dozen men deciding what it meant for alliances.”
“I say what I like now.”
“Not always.”
“No,” you admitted. “Not always.”
A flicker of satisfaction, not triumphant, more thoughtful. “There. We arrive somewhere honest again.”
You looked back into the fire because looking at him too long felt like stepping too near a cliff edge. “Do not mistake honesty for closeness.”
“Do not mistake closeness for safety,” he said.
The line settled into the room and remained there, hot as the coals, cold as the night beyond the lodge. After a time he rose, took the half-empty cup from your hand before you could decide whether to resist that small theft, and set it aside.
“You may hate me as much as you please tonight,” he said. “It will change nothing by dawn.”
“Then why say it?”
His face, lit from below by the fire, seemed briefly stranger than beauty should allow. “Because I would rather be hated clearly than tolerated falsely.”
For one terrible second you almost understood him. Not forgiven. Not pitied. Understood. A man reared in rank and indulgence until his worst nature grew sleek and fearless, yet who somehow despised hypocrisy enough to peel it from others whenever he could. A man monstrous not because he mistook himself for good, but because he saw the rot and preferred to wear it openly. That did not make him less vile. It made him harder to place among simpler villains.
He stepped away then and gestured toward the stair. “Go on. I have had the bedding changed. You need not look at me as though I mean to throw you onto straw.”
“I look at you as you deserve.”
His smile came back, faint as a knife’s glint. “Keep doing that.”
You mounted the stair without waiting for him to lead the way, aware of him following at a distance close enough to prevent anything foolish, far enough that the air between you did not feel immediately stolen. The chamber he had named for you was small but clean, with a narrow bed, a washstand, one shuttered window, and a chest too empty to be useful. The door did indeed have a lock on the outside. He did not pretend otherwise. He stood in the doorway while you took in the room.
“You will need a maid,” he said.
“I will need a horse and an open road.”
He leaned one shoulder lightly against the frame. “You are less graceful when practical needs are named.”
“I do not care to be graceful for you.”
“That is perhaps fortunate,” he murmured. “Grace is the least interesting thing about you.”
You turned quickly enough that your hair brushed your cheek. “Get out.”
For the first time since the ambush, his expression softened into something nearly human, though not gentler for it. More intimate, perhaps. More focused. “Sleep, Y/N.”
It was the first time he had used your given name without title. The sound of it in his mouth was wrong. Too familiar. Too deliberate. You hated the way it seemed to alter the room.
He stepped back before you could answer and closed the door. A moment later the lock clicked.
You stood motionless in the middle of the chamber, breathing hard, every part of you aware of the wood between you and the corridor, of his presence on the other side for one lingering instant before his steps finally moved away. Only then did you cross to the bed and sit because your knees had begun to tremble with exhaustion and fury both. Sleep did not come quickly. How could it? Your father was somewhere in the dark beyond these woods tearing Summerhall apart by force of will alone. Valarr was riding or readying to ride with the look of public honor turned private shame. Baelor was likely binding his house together with grim hands while Maekar clung to disbelief like a drowning man to driftwood. And here, in this absurd hidden lodge, the prince responsible had spoken to you by a fire as if the two of you stood at the opening of some wickedly private courtship.
Yet when at last you lay down, fully dressed save for your shoes, one truth remained more stubborn than the rest. He had not touched you. He had not broken through the final line simply because he could. That restraint did not redeem him. It did not make the locked door less a prison or the ambush less monstrous. But it made him legible in a different, more dangerous way. Aerion Targaryen did not want only your body under his power. He wanted your attention, your anger, your mind turning toward him whether in hatred or resistance. He wanted to be the fact that could not be ignored.
And somewhere in the black hours before dawn, while Summerhall prepared itself for pursuit and your father demanded justice from princes grown pale beneath the weight of it, you lay awake listening to the wind at the shutter and understood with a cold, lucid dread that this was why he had stolen you.
Not only because he desired you.
Because he meant to make himself impossible to forget.
ꜱᴜᴍᴍᴀʀʏ: You've found comfort in your solitary life. No one comes to visit the humble herbalist living on the town's edge who talks to her own plants. That all changed in the early morning hours of today, when your kindness betrayed you to help a suffering man on your doorstep. You let the wrong one in.
ᴡᴄ: 8.5k
ᴀ/ɴ: Haven't felt like dipping my toes into writing fanfics again since my Avatar era, which was TWO YEARS AGO!!! There are not enough fluffy Remmick fics, so I will be the first to change that. This is my official admittance into the mental hospital we call the Sinners fandom. White girls I promise you can still have your fun with this too, enjoy!
ᴡᴀʀɴɪɴɢꜱ: SLOWburn, fluff with a side of smut, a little angst i guess, dark!remmick is on vacation, you're getting overly grateful remmick instead, excessive use of the word perfect, reader is a little special, a little domesticity never hurts, yearning, vampirism, blood, biting, begging, absolutely pathetic man overload at the start, praise kink, dirty talk, fingering, cunnilingus, offscreen parental death, detailed wound care, nursing back to health, religious undertones if you squint, general affection and eroticism, amateur knowledge of herbalism pls don't kill me, excessive divider usage, i think y'all know what to expect i'm not writing out everything
There was something about this morning.
You were an early bird. Always up at the crack of dawn, finding something to pass the time with. Today was no different.
You tended to your thriving garden, proud to see how strong they were growing. Your yarrow and coneflower were blooming, almost bending over to meet your gentle touch. You complimented their petals, and you could've sworn you saw them smile.
As if to make themselves heard, your mint let off an extra potent odor, making your nose instinctively cool. You didn't let them feel left out for long.
Brushing a caressing hand over your culinary plants as you passed, you settled in front of your aloe vera. They were new arrivals to your garden and clearly feeling the love. The leaves were plump, firm, and upright. You gave them a gentle squeeze to acknowledge them and check their texture, giggling at the pricks they teased you with.
And yet, you couldn't shake the feeling that something was... off.
The mourning doves, typically cooing as if only to you, were silent.
There were no bullfrogs curiously watching you from the swamp, engaging in a one-sided staredown.
The cicadas, too, joined the other animals in this strange hush.
You shook yourself out of your unaware daze and made your way back inside your house.
It was a humble home, really.
The kind that held heat in the winter and every memory you'd ever made in the summer. The walls, painted by hand, bore the soft fingerprints of time, smudged and faded from where you leaned, laughed, or wept.
Herbs hung from the walls and ceiling, bunches of rosemary and thyme swaying idly. The scent of lavender clung to the air like it paid rent.
Your floors creaked with purpose, every step a reminder of those who walked here before you. A wood-burning stove sat snug in the corner, its black iron belly cold for now, but always ready. Your cast-iron pots gleamed with the pride of something well-used and well-loved. The shelves were lined with mason jars. Roots, tinctures, and teas you brewed with your own hands.
A worn quilt lay draped over your rocking chair, patchwork squares made from old dresses and scraps your Mama found and stitched together. The rocking chair, too, was a product of your Daddy's handiwork, and you remember all too well how excited you were to be the first person to use it.
Your Bible, which you didn't read much these days to the would-be chagrin of your parents, sat next to a leather-bound notebook, full of hand-scrawled recipes and forgotten dreams.
And even now, with the silence pressing in from outside, your home felt like it was breathing with you. Watching. Waiting. Holding space for whatever was coming.
And that's when you heard it.
It was a relentless pounding.
Fist, no, fists on wood, over and over. Wild, desperate, like a storm had taken the shape of a man and found its way to your doorstep.
You froze where you stood, one hand hovering over your table, the other reaching for nothing. The pounding didn't stop. It grew louder, faster, until it wasn't just a knock, it was a plea.
“Please!” the voice cracked. “Please, somebody help me! Please!”
A man's voice. Frantic. Wrecked.
You couldn't place it. Didn't recognize the tone, the rhythm, the panic laced inside every syllable. The man's accent was different, too. Certainly southern, but there was an unfamiliar undertone that backed his voice.
Your heart skipped. Once. Twice. Your home felt smaller, as if it was slowly, agonizingly imploding.
You glanced to the small window by the door, curtain still drawn, light slanting through it as if God's eye was watching you. You didn't move. You just listened.
“I'm beggin' you, please, open up! I don't- I don't got nowhere else!”
Something in you bristled. Not fear, not yet. But something deeper. That ancient, gut-deep knowing passed down through bloodlines. Something your Mama called a warning.
The house, for the first time in years, didn't feel like it was breathing with you.
It was holding its breath.
Your eyes were locked on the door like it might open by itself and save you the trouble.
The pounding had stopped, but the voice hadn't.
It was lower now, cracked and ragged as if supported by a throat made of gravel. “It burns, please, it burns! I c-can't- I need-”
You stepped forward, just one foot. Then another.
There wasn't fear in your body, but there was weight. Heavy weight. Like your bones knew something your mind hadn't caught up to yet.
You reached the door but didn't open it. Not yet.
Instead, you spoke, low and even. “Who are you?”
There was a pause. A very long pause.
Then... thud.
It sounded like someone had collapsed against the door.
“...Miss,” the voice came again, quieter now, hoarse like he'd been screaming for days, or just minutes in your case. “Please... I don't got long.”
You placed your hand on the doorframe, fingers brushing the edge. You didn't open it. Not yet. Just leaned in, pressed your ear close.
“...hurts,” he breathed. “It hurts.”
The pain in his voice was palpable, and you'd be lying if you said it didn't pull at your heartstrings. He sounded as if he was on the verge of death. And by all you knew, he was.
Your fingers twitched. Then, slowly, you undid the lock. The door creaked open. Just an inch. Then two.
And there he was.
Lord have mercy.
He was crumpled on your porch, face completely covered by his hands. His skin was blistering, no, boiling. Red, raw patches covered his arms and face, angry welts clawing across every inch of him the sun could reach. With each small movement, smoke came forth.
He wore a filthy wifebeater that clung to him in hatred. Loose pants, torn and streaked with mud. Neither fabric looked like it had known clean water in weeks. A gold chain hung from his neck, glinting in the same sun scorching him.
He didn't look at you at first. Instead, the begging continued. Relentlessly.
“Please... let me in. Just- just let me in.”
Then his eyes met yours. Blue, sharp, ancient.
They held a kind of agony you weren't used to seeing. Not even in death. It made you instinctively crack the door further, against your better judgment.
He clawed himself forward, but stopped just short of the doorframe.
Didn't stumble inside, didn't even try.
He just knelt there. Beseeching you.
There was something else that surprised you, too.
It wasn't the bubbling skin, or the filthy clothes, or even the way he clung to your porch like a dying man gripping the edge of heaven. It wasn't how he hissed at the sunlight or how his body stayed frozen at the threshold like the house itself had drawn a line.
It was his skin.
Pale.
A white man in Mississippi. Begging you for help.
The sight alone could've gotten you dragged out of your own house and blamed for whatever mess he brought with him. White men didn't knock. They didn't ask. They didn't plead. And they certainly never begged.
Trouble always followed a white man, especially one burned in the light.
Still, he looked up at you like you were the only thing holding him to this earth. His voice cracked again, choking despite only uttering one word. “Please...”
And despite everything, your gut, your fear, your history, you opened the door wider.
“Come in.”
The moment those two words left your lips, he collapsed forward like a string had been cut.
His body hit the floor with a sickening slap, smoke curling off his skin like meat left too long on a flame. He didn't scream this time. Just groaned, soft and guttural, as if even his pain had worn itself out.
You moved fast, the way you did when a snake bite came through your door or an infected wound that gnawed away at flesh.
“Chair,” you said, pointing to the stool near the stove. “Sit if you can. Don't touch nothin' yet.”
He tried. Lord, he tried. Arms trembling like saplings in the wind, he dragged himself up bit by bit. Sat slumped, head down, that glistening gold chain now dull against his blistered chest.
You were already gathering. Mortar and pestle. Clean rags. A sharp knife for cutting fresh aloe straight from the stalk. The herb practically hummed in your hand, full and green and ready.
“It's like you're burnin' from the inside,” you muttered under your breath, though you didn't try hard to be inaudible. “Not just sun-sick.”
You sliced through a thick leaf, watching the gel ooze out like honey, thick and cool. You grabbed the peppermint oil next, then yarrow for the swelling, and comfrey for the sores. You didn't pause. Didn't ask questions.
Not yet.
“Strip that shirt off,” you said, not unkind, but firm. “Let me see what I'm workin' with.”
He didn't argue; clearly didn't have the strength. Just nodded, weakly peeling the ruined fabric from his body. Skin came with it in some places. You winced but didn't let it show.
You dipped your fingers in the aloe and started to work.
The gel clung to your skin, cool and thick. It spread easily across his shoulder, where the burns had bloomed the worst. Red turned near-black, skin puckered and peeling like old bark.
His muscles twitched under your touch, lean and long, the kind of frame that had seen many hard years but held strong through all of them. One that had moved. Run, maybe. Fought, more likely.
You didn't flinch when you reached the boils on his neck. They pulsed like tiny hearts, angry and hot, and the gold chain pressed into one of them. You worked around it with care, fingers sure and slow, your breath steady as you hummed under your breath. It was one of Mama's songs.
“Easy now,” you said, pressing a damp cloth against a split on his rib. “Aloe's drawin' the fire out. You'll feel a sting.”
He nodded faintly, lips cracked and dry.
You could hear the strain in his breath. Short, sharp, like every inhale had to fight through a thousand splinters.
“I'll get you water.”
You rose and moved to the basin. Poured from the cool jug you kept shaded on the windowsill. Found a clean tin cup and filled it to the brim, watching the water catch the light as you turned.
When you pressed it into his hand, his fingers barely curled around it. Still, he drank like a man who hadn't seen a drop in weeks. The water spilled over his lips, soaked his chest, but he didn't stop until it was gone.
“More?”
He shook his head, just once, leaning back against the wall behind the stool. You could see the tension leave his shoulders piece by piece, breath slowing, eyes half-lidded now.
You returned to his chest. Worked in a fresh layer of aloe with a touch of peppermint oil, just enough to cool the heat curled beneath the skin.
Every now and then, he made a sound. Low, not quite a word, but not quite a groan either. You didn't ask for stories. Didn't pry for the answers you desperately needed.
There'd be time for that.
For now, you just tended to what you could touch.
“Thank you,” he said, voice like gravel wet from rain.
It came out quietly, but it settled in the room all the same. You were just finishing the last bit of aloe, smoothing it across his lower side where the burns were thinner, more tender. His skin jumped under your fingertips, but he didn't pull away.
“Mm,” you replied, washing your hands in the basin beside you. “I don't do this for gratitude. I do it 'cause somebody needed it.”
You picked up on the way his eyes followed you. Slow, deliberate, like he was trying to memorize the way you moved. Or maybe just remind himself he was still here.
You dried your hands on the edge of your apron, glancing out the window. Morning was still hanging on, soft and gold through the cypress trees. The world hadn't turned upside down, even if it felt like it should've.
“You eaten?” you asked, already turning toward the stove. “Ain't no point in mendin' skin if your belly's hollow.”
He blinked, surprised, as if the idea of a meal hadn't crossed his mind.
“No. I don't think so, at least,” he admitted, scratching lightly at the side of his neck where a fresh scab was forming. “Think I forgot what that feels like.”
You gave a little laugh, not mocking, just gentle.
“Well,” you opened your pantry. “I don't forget how to feed a body. Burned up or not.”
You made your way to the stove, brushing past the dried bundles of thyme and safe hanging from the walls, the scent of them catching in the air. You could feel his eyes on you, though he tried, and failed, not to make it obvious.
The pan sizzled to life as you dropped in a pat of butter. You reached for the cornmeal, then the basket of eggs you’d gathered just yesterday. Behind you, he shifted in the stool, the wood creaking beneath him, but he didn’t move much more than that.
“Ya always up this early?” he asked, voice a little clearer now, a languid drawl present in each word.
“Always. Plants don't wait on nobody, and neither does the sun.”
You didn't turn when you said it, but you could feel him smiling behind you. Not wide. Just a small pull at the corners, like his face was trying to remember how to shape one.
The grits bubbled thick and soft, and you stirred them slow, adding salt, pepper, and a touch of dried rosemary.
“You can rest here a while,” you said, finally glancing over your shoulder. “Ain't nobody gonna bother you way out here.”
Again, your eyes met his.
And for a long breath, neither of you looked away.
It wasn't just the quiet of the room that wrapped around you; it was the weight of his stare. Steady and slow, like he was memorizing the shape of your face. His gaze drifted just enough to trace your cheekbones, your nose, your lips, your curls, then returned to your eyes, almost bashful in how bold he'd been.
He blinked first. Let out a low breath, maybe a sigh. Maybe something else.
“I believe you,” his voice was quieter now, but somehow firmer. “'Bout nobody botherin' me here.”
A pause.
“Ya got a way about you. Like the world listens to you, not the other way 'round.”
You didn’t know what to say to that, so you didn’t try to say much. Just turned back to the pan and scooped the grits into a wooden bowl, set two fried eggs on top, sprinkled a little salt, a little pepper, a touch of dill.
You brought it over and set it on the small table near his stool, then filled another tin cup with water and placed it beside the bowl.
“Eat,” you said, soft but sure. “Still got hours left in the morning, and you’ll need strength to face ’em.”
He looked at the food, then at you, then back at the food, then at you again.
And this time, when he smiled, it showed teeth.
You noticed it, not all at once, but enough to make your breath catch.
They were white, strikingly so for a man who looked half-melted an hour ago. Clean, but... off. His canines were just a touch too long, too pointed, like they'd been honed on something harder, no, more precise, than meat. Not cartoonish, not obvious, but sharp in a way your eyes couldn't unsee once they caught the right angle of them in the light.
Predator's teeth, hidden behind a beggar's smile.
But you said nothing.
Just tucked that little detail away, same as you did with the tone of a bird's call. Not fear, just curiosity. Observation.
And when he took another bite, careful not to scrape his lip, you could tell he knew you'd seen.
But he didn’t flinch.
Didn’t lie.
Just chewed slow, and said nothing.
He took another bite, slower this time. Chewed. Swallowed. Ran his tongue briefly over those sharp canines like he was trying to smooth them down before speaking.
Then, without looking up:
“Do you live out here all on your own?”
The question was soft, careful, but it hung heavy in the air between you. Heavier than it had any right to.
You could feel his eyes on you again before you met them, like his gaze had weight, heat, shape. When you finally did look, he wasn’t just curious. He was studying you, the kind of look a man gives a locked door he’s dying to open.
You tilted your head.
“I do,” you said simply, but there was something warm curling in your belly as you said it. Not shame. Not pride. Just a quiet truth you suddenly wanted him to understand. “Ain’t been nothin’ wrong with my own company.”
His fingers, resting beside the bowl, twitched just slightly, like he might reach for something. Maybe the cup, maybe something less easy to explain, but thought better of it.
“That don’t surprise me,” he said, voice low now, almost reverent. “Ya seem like you belong to yourself.”
That stirred something in you.
You didn’t smile, not fully, but your eyes softened, and you found yourself watching the curve of his jaw, the healed patches of skin just under his collarbone, the rise and fall of his chest now that he was breathing easier.
He shifted in his seat, eyes still on you, but with a touch more caution now, like he was stepping somewhere sacred.
“How'd you come to live on your own?” he asked. His tone was light, but the words carried something behind them. “'S not every day I meet a woman flyin' solo. Not out here, anyhow.”
He added it quickly, before you could bristle, his hand lifting, palm open, like he meant no offense.
“I mean that with respect,” he said, voice warm and sincere. “Truth be told, it’s a rare strength. I just… wondered what kind of road leads a woman like you to a place like this.”
You caught it. The way his eyes lingered on your hands, then your ring finger, bare as the rest. The question wasn’t just about how you lived.
It was about who you lived without.
You set your elbows on the table, leaning in just a touch, chin tilted like you were deciding how much of your truth he’d earned.
“My Mama and Daddy left me this place when they passed. Wasn't much of a question after that.”
He nodded like he understood more than you’d said. Maybe he did.
“I’m sorry to hear it.” he murmured empathetically, letting silence fall.
But the silence that followed felt different now.
Less like strangers making room for each other.
More like something in the air had shifted, tilted ever so slightly in your direction.
He looked down at his empty plate for a moment, fingers brushing crumbs that weren't really there. Then, something passed over his face. Not shame exactly, but close. Worse.
A furrow crept into his brow as he let out a low sigh, rubbed the back of his neck, and muttered, “Well, hell.”
You blinked.
He looked back up at you, face caught somewhere between apology and self-reproach, the edge of his accent rounding his words.
“Here I am, half-burned 'n beggin' on your porch like a fool, takin' your food, your kindness, 'n I never even asked your name.”
He exhaled, clearly bothered by it, his mouth pulling tight at the corners. “That's rude. I was raised better'n that.”
You felt something stir again in your chest, something warmer this time. Like the heat off a cast iron skillet, slow and steady.
He sat a little straighter now, eyes fixed to yours, and though his voice was low, the way he said it made your heart pick up all the same:
“I'd like to know your name.”
You paused, just a beat. Long enough to make sure the moment stayed. Long enough to feel the charge in the air, as real and tangible as the sunlight still spilling across the floor.
Then you told him.
Your name slid out like honey, at least in his mind. Slow, unashamed, yours.
And the way he repeated it?
Soft. Careful. Delicate. Like he didn't want to somehow shatter it on his lips.
“I'm Remmick,” he added after a moment, hand pressing lightly to his chest. “Just Remmick.”
And though he said it casually, like it wasn't worth much, the way his eyes lingered on you afterward said otherwise.
Said everything.
You broke the gaze first, not necessarily because you wanted to, but because you had to. Something about the weight of it, the softness, the pull, it was too much to sit in for long.
You stood up, hands moving on instinct, reaching for his dish like you'd done a hundred times before. It was second nature. Quiet, practiced care. A rhythm born of solitude.
But before your fingers could wrap around the bowl, his hand found yours. Not rushed, not rough. Just a gentle, callused palm over your knuckles.
“Let me,” he said softly.
His eyes were upturned, looking at you with something that wasn't pity, wasn't duty, just earnestness. A sincere desire to give something back.
“You've done more'n enough,” his thumb brushed faintly across your skin before pulling back, the break of contact seemingly equally hard for both of you. “I got two hands and a sink in front of me. Least I can do is clean my own mess.”
You hesitated, your hand still tingling where he’d touched it. But something about the way he stood, slow and deliberate, like he didn’t want to spook the air between you, made you let him.
You stepped aside, and Remmick moved to the basin, running a hand over his bare chest as if remembering the shirt that once clung to it. His muscles flexed under pale, healing skin, burn scars catching the light like thin rivers on a map.
He handled each dish like it might break in his hands. Careful. Thoughtful. A man who’d maybe forgotten what peace felt like, but still remembered how to honor it when it came.
And in the stillness of that little kitchen, the soft sound of water and porcelain, you watched him. This strange, scorched man with sharp teeth and gentler hands, trying to give something back.
Like he wanted to earn the space he’d been given.
Like he’d stay, if you let him.
He didn't stay.
Evening had crept in slow, lazy and golden at first, but it cooled quick once the sun dipped past the horizon. You'd made tea by then, set out an old quilt on the porch steps, and the two of you sat there in a hush, talking in spurts and falling into silence just as easily. The kind of silence that didn't press too hard. The kind that felt safe.
You'd asked if he wanted to stay the night. Not with any suggestion on your tongue, just plain hospitality. The offer of a roof. Clean linens. A second mug of tea.
“Thank ya,” he'd said, eyes low. “But I can't.”
You frowned. “Your skin's still healing, Remmick.”
“I know.”
“I could wash your clothes,” it was one of your most weakly veiled offers yet. You knew you were being too obvious, but you didn't care. “Get the sweat and scorch off'em. They'll dry by morning, fresh as can be.”
His smile was tired. Soft. “I've taken more'n enough of your kindness for one day. Besides, leaving you with the smell of me hangin' in your air all night? That'd hardly be gentlemanly.”
You stood anyway, brushing off your skirt. “I'll pack you something, then. Something for the road.”
Then, he reached out. Not to stop you exactly, just to touch your hand. Gentle again, thumb tracing the back of your fingers like a memory he wasn't ready to let go of.
“I'll be back,” he said, voice thick like molasses left too long in the jar. “I swear to ya, I'll come back. As long as you'll have me.”
You searched his face, and he let you. Even stood to give you a better look. Let you linger on the curve of his cheekbone, the hollows of his eyes with pupils that you could've sworn were glinting red, the hint of a regretful smile playing on his lips.
Then he leaned down, not to kiss your lips, but your hands. Both of them.
Held them between his own, like prayer.
And pressed his mouth, reverent and warm, to your dorsals. First the left, then the right.
It left you breathless. Still.
You didn't speak as he turned and stepped back into the deepening blue of dusk. Vanishing into the cypress and cottonseed mist like he'd never been there at all.
But the porch felt colder when he was gone.
You lingered there a while, arms folded, watching the trees sway like they were mourning something too. The screen door creaked behind you, and when you finally stepped back inside, the house met you like a hollow room. Still shaped by him, but quiet now.
You closed the door softly behind you, the latch clicking louder than it should've.
You told yourself it was fine. You were fine.
You gathered the dish towel from the counter, folded it twice, then again, smoothing out invisible creases. You adjusted the chairs at the table, even though they weren't crooked. Put the leftovers of lunch and dinner back under their cloth coverings. Remmick loved seconds and thirds. Straightened the salt jar. Wiped down the basin, though he had left it spotless.
The floorboards creaked differently now. Not heavier, just... lonelier.
You checked your herbs hanging near the stove, even though you'd checked them that morning. The mint looked limp. The rosemary had drooped a little at the ends. The lavender hung tired, like it had lost something too. Even your yarrow, usually so full of pride, drooped ever so slightly.
You ran your fingers along their leaves anyway, whispering comfort to them you weren't sure you believed.
You pressed your hand to the windowsill. Still warm from the sun, but not the same warmth. Not his.
You went to bed early, though you didn’t sleep. The moonlight slipped through your curtains and painted silver lines across the floor, and your mind drifted without permission. Back to the curve of his smile, the rasp of his voice, the weight of your name when he said it like it belonged only to him.
When the rooster crowed, it startled you. You’d only just begun to drift.
But like every morning, you rose.
The sun was shy today, peeking out slowly from behind a curtain of cloud. You wrapped your shawl tighter around your shoulders and stepped out to the garden. The dirt felt cool under your feet. None of your plants greeted you like usual. No quiet whispers of good morning to be heard.
You knelt beside the aloe, your most recent, most favored little patch, and brushed the plumpest leaf with a fingertip.
“He’ll come back,” you murmured, not quite sure if you were speaking to the plants or to yourself.
Either way, they didn’t answer.
Four days.
Ninety-six hours. Five thousand, seven hundred and sixty minutes. Three hundred and forty-five thousand, six hundred seconds.
You hated that you knew the math. Hated even more that you’d counted.
It was foolish. Plain and simple. You had lived alone for years without a man’s company, without needing it, without asking for it, without even noticing the lack. The quiet had always been your comfort. Solitude your rhythm. But now... now it sounded hollow. Like a well too deep to draw from.
The nights stretched longer, like they were mocking you. You caught yourself reaching for an extra plate when setting the table, or pausing at the door before opening it, half-expecting him there with that crooked grin and boyish look about the eyes. You’d go to cut mint and think of how he’d inhaled it like it was the first clean breath he’d had in years. You avoided the basin, too, because every time your hands touched water, you thought of his bare back arched over the sink, washing your dishes like it meant something.
It shouldn’t have meant anything.
Not here. Not now. Not in a world that didn’t even let you walk on the same sidewalk as a man like him without stares and suspicion and violence.
But it had.
And you hated that, too.
By the fourth night, sleep didn’t come. You sat by the open window, quilt wrapped around your shoulders, watching the moonlight pool across the floorboards. The stillness wasn’t peaceful anymore. It was restless, pressing, waiting.
You nearly jumped when the sound came.
Knock. Knock.
Not the desperate pounding from before. Not the sound of pain clawing for entry.
Just two clean, confident knocks.
You blinked. Sat up slow. Waited, unsure if you’d imagined it.
Then:
Knock. Knock.
You opened the door.
And there he was.
Remmick stood tall and calm in the doorway, bathed in moonlight and cleaner than you'd ever seen him. His skin had healed to a pale, healthy glow, no longer bubbling or cracked. His deep brown hair was brushed back, catching the silver glint of stars. A collared shirt clung to his frame, pressed and buttoned, sleeves rolled to the elbow. Trousers clean, belt buckled. A gold chain still hung around his neck, subtle under the open top buttons.
In his hands, held like something sacred, was a small velvet box.
“Evenin',” he said first, soft as the breeze curling around your porch. His smile was slow, a little shy, like he knew he was interrupting something sacred. Your silence, your steadiness, your hard-won peace, but he didn't know all that had gone out the window when he departed.
Then, after a beat, his sparkling, no, glowing eyes met yours and held. Beckoning you to entertain him.
“May I come in?” he asked, voice low and steady, but you could still hear the hope tucked inside.
As if on cue, the box in his hand gleamed under the moonlight.
You stepped aside without a word, but your fingers curled tightly around the edge of the door.
He entered slow, eyes sweeping the room like it was the first time all over again, though he didn’t say so. You didn’t offer him a seat. Not yet.
“You’re late,” you said, cool and plain, folding your arms so he wouldn’t see how your hands trembled. You were being difficult on purpose. He never gave you a time. But you felt the need to make him suffer for it anyway.
He looked at you then, properly. The tenderness behind those eyes made your breath hitch, but you held it down, buried it deep.
“You left me high and dry,” you went on, chin raised. “One day of amity and then nothin’. Not a note, not a whisper, not a soul to say you was all right.”
Remmick stepped in closer, just one careful pace, hands out like he meant to calm a storm that hadn’t made up its mind yet. Maybe that’s what you looked like to him. Thunder tucked behind your eyes, the kind of quiet that came right before something broke loose.
“I know,” he said, voice thick with regret. “And I'm sorry, truly. I should've sent word, should've come sooner. But I didn't want you seein' me the way I was. Still mendin'. Still not quite myself.”
You didn’t answer. Didn’t flinch, either.
He reached up slowly and brushed his fingers against your elbow. Just the edge. Just enough to feel the heat of his touch ghost over your skin.
“I meant to come back sooner, I swear it on every bit of gold I own,” he added with a sad sort of grin. “But I needed to be well. Presentable. Worth standin’ in your doorway again.”
Your eyes flicked down to where his hand lingered near yours. The space between your fingers suddenly felt loud.
“You think a fresh shirt and a fancy box makes up for worryin’ me near to death?” you asked, sharp, but your voice cracked just a hair.
He didn’t shy from it. “No, ma’am. But I think it’s a start.”
He lifted the jewelry box, but didn’t open it. He waited.
Then, softer: “Can I sit?”
You gave him a long, measured look. The air felt close again, like it had that first morning. Finally, you gave a small, reluctant nod.
He smiled. Barely there, like he knew better than to press his luck, and moved past you. As he did, the back of his hand brushed yours. Light as linen. Deliberate.
You didn’t pull away.
The table between you wasn’t much. Scuffed wood, worn edges, a single oil lamp casting gold across the grain. But the way Remmick looked at you across it, you might’ve been seated on a throne. His elbows rested lightly on the surface, one hand folded over the other, but his eyes were doing the real work.
His eyes traced the full curve of your nose, the gentle round of your cheeks, the dark velour of your skin in the lamplight. He studied the slope of your shoulders, the proud set of your jaw, the way your coils framed your face like a crown. His gaze lingered on your lips. Soft, plush, shaped by truth and silence in equal measure. Every detail of you, he took in like scripture.
You pretended not to notice. Focused on the kettle, or the way your fingers tapped along your mug. But your skin knew. It prickled under his gaze, warm and drawn tight with something you hadn’t named just yet.
“I brought somethin’,” he said at last, his voice soft as cloth but thick with meaning, and it hit you low in the belly, that sound. Like he’d been holding the words close, warming them with care, waiting for the right moment to let them go.
You glanced up, just as he set the velvet box between you. It looked wrong there somehow, too fine for your table, too soft for your life.
He opened it slowly, carefully, like it was something holy.
Inside, nestled in dark blue satin, was a necklace. Real gold. Rich, gleaming, honey-warm in the lamplight, and spaced along the chain were pearls. Soft, perfect things, like droplets of cream suspended in air. You blinked once, twice, sure you were dreaming, or mistaking it for something else.
Your breath caught.
“I know it ain’t… customary,” Remmick said gently, watching your reaction like it mattered more than anything else in the world. “But when I saw it, I thought of you. The gold... warm, like your voice. And the pearls… well. I reckon you’d make ‘em shine brighter.”
You didn’t speak. Couldn’t. You’d never pictured yourself in a thing like that, never even dared. Maybe in a younger daydream or an impossible story passed from woman to woman. But not like this. Not real. Not placed in front of you by a man with eyes that held no expectation, only hope.
He didn’t push the box closer. Just sat still, hands open on the table, waiting.
Your fingers hovered over the box like it might disappear if you touched it too quickly. You weren’t used to fine things. Things so delicate, so carefully made, things that shimmered without asking for attention. You slid the box closer, slowly, hesitantly. But when you reached for the necklace itself, your hand stilled. You didn’t even know where to start.
The chain gleamed in the lamplight, catching against the darkness like a promise. It looked too lovely to belong to you.
Remmick noticed. Of course he did.
He stood without saying a word, the chair creaking softly behind him as he stepped around the table. His shoes were silent against the worn floorboards, but your heart wasn’t. It was loud in your ears, wild in your chest, thudding like it might beat right out of you.
He came to stand behind you, and you didn’t stop him.
Didn’t want to.
His fingers were gentle as they lifted the chain from the velvet. He didn’t fumble or hesitate. The clasp clicked open like it knew where it belonged. He cupped the curls at your neck with his featherlight touch, slow and warm, gently tucking them aside.
And then the chain touched your skin.
You swore you could feel every link. Every pearl.
He leaned in to fasten it, breath soft against the nape of your neck, and the whisper of it made you shiver. Not from cold, but from the sudden, aching nearness of him. His chest just barely grazed your back, not quite a touch but close enough to feel the heat of him, the weight of him in the air around you.
“Ya alright?” he murmured, voice barely more than a breath.
You nodded, knowing your voice had fled.
The clasp clicked shut. But he didn’t move right away.
He lingered.
His hands stayed at your shoulders, not gripping, just resting there, warm and steady. You let your eyes close for a moment. Just a moment. Let the feel of it wrap around you like the chain he’d laid across your collar.
“God…” he breathed, more to himself than to you. “You’re perfect.”
That broke something loose inside you.
You turned your head, slow, and found his eyes waiting. He was closer now, one hand rising from your shoulder to brush your jaw, soft and trembling. He looked at you like he’d been waiting years for this moment. Like he still didn’t believe it was real.
He leaned in, slow enough to stop. Slow enough to be stopped.
But you didn’t stop him.
And when his lips touched yours, it was like stepping into warm water after a long, cold night. Gentle, slow, full of heat that built from the center and spread until your whole body felt wrapped in it. His kiss wasn’t greedy. It asked. And you answered.
His lips moved against yours, soft and coaxing at first, but growing more insistent, more hungry. His hand, which had been resting on your jaw, slid down to your neck, thumb pressing gently against your pulse point, feeling the rapid beat beneath your skin. You could feel his other hand, still on your shoulder, tightening slightly, pulling you further back against him.
His tongue traced the seam of your lips, asking for entrance, and you granted it, opening for him with a soft sigh. His tongue met yours, tentatively at first, then with more purpose, exploring your mouth with a hunger that made your knees weak. You could feel the hard planes of his body against your back, the heat of him seeping into you, making you ache with a need that was growing more urgent by the second.
His hand on your neck slid down, tracing the line of your collarbone, then lower still, over the chain he had placed there, and lower, to the swell of your breast. He cupped you gently, his thumb brushing against your nipple, making it harden beneath your clothing. You gasped into his mouth, and he swallowed the sound, his kiss deepening further, becoming almost desperate.
His other hand slid down your arm, then around your waist. You could feel his erection, hard and insistent, pressing against your back.
He broke the kiss then, only to trail his lips down your jaw, to your neck, nipping and sucking at the sensitive skin there. His hands were everywhere now, one still on your breast, the other roaming, tracing the curve of your waist, the flare of your hips, the softness of your stomach. You arched into his touch, wanting more, needing more.
His teeth grazed your earlobe as he whispered sweet nothings. His voice was hoarse, frantic, sending shivers down your spine. His hand left your breast, only to slide down your stomach, pausing at the waistband of your skirt. He looked at you, his eyes dark with desire, asking for permission.
You nodded, your breath coming in short gasps, your body aching with anticipation. His hand slid into the fabric, cupping you through your panties, his fingers pressing gently, making you moan. He smiled against your neck, a creeping, wicked smile, and began to move his hand, slow and deliberate.
His fingers pressed and rubbed, the thin fabric of your panties doing little to hide the heat and wetness building between your legs. You could feel how soaked you were, your body responding to his touch with a desperation that bordered on madness. He could feel it too, his fingers rubbing slow circles, teasing you, drawing out your pleasure.
“Mmm, you're so wet for me, darlin',” he muttered, a rumble against your skin, his accent thick and sultry. “I can feel how much you want this. How much you want me. Lord knows I've been waitin' for this since I first laid eyes on ya.” His fingers pressed harder, more insistently, and you bucked against his hand, chasing the pleasure he was building within you.
He chuckled, a low, throaty sound that vibrated against your back. “That's it, baby. Ride my hand. Take what you need.” His fingers slipped beneath the fabric, finally touching your bare skin, and you cried out at the contact, your body trembling with anticipation.
He took his time, exploring you slowly, his fingers tracing your folds, spreading your wetness, circling your clit with a teasing touch that had you squirming and begging for more. “You're so fuckin' perfect,” he panted, voice hoarse with desire. “So wet. So ready for me.”
His fingers dipped lower, teasing your entrance, and you pushed back against him, trying to impale yourself on his fingers. He chuckled again, a low, knowing sound. “Eager, ain't we?” he hummed, his fingers finally slipping inside you, slow and deep. “Fuck, you're tight.”
He began to move his fingers, pumping them in and out of you in a steady, deliberate rhythm, his palm grinding against your clit with each movement. You could feel your orgasm building, your body coiling tighter and tighter, your breath coming in short, desperate gasps.
“Ya like that, darlin'?” he grunted, voice taunting. “Ya like feeling me inside you, stretchin' you, fillin' you up?” His fingers curled, hitting a spot inside you that made your eyes roll back in your head, your body convulsing with pleasure.
“You're so fuckin' beautiful when you come undone like this,” he growled into your ear. You'd never imagined a man could speak like this, let alone hear it. “So fucking perfect. My perfect, wet, little mess.” His fingers moved faster, his palm grinding harder against your clit.
But just before you could cross that euphoric threshold.
He stopped.
Your body instantly ached, desperate for release. You whimpered, a sound of pure need and frustration. He returned the sound with a pleased, smug chuckle.
“Shh, darlin',” he cooed, planting a loving kiss on your neck. “I've got ya. I'm not gonna leave you hangin', promise.” His fingers slid out of you, and you mourned the loss, your body already missing the fullness, the pressure, the pleasure.
Then his hands were on your hips, turning you around, and you found yourself face to face with him, his eyes dark with lust, his breath ragged and uneven. He pushed you gently, urging you to sit on the edge of the table, and you complied, your legs shaking with anticipation.
He knelt before you, his hands sliding up your thighs with a deliberate slowness, pushing your skirt up with them, exposing you to his hungry gaze. His touch was firm yet gentle, his calloused palms rough against your soft skin, sending shivers of anticipation coursing through your body.
“You're a sight,” he whispered, worship on his tongue. “All swollen 'n soaked for me.”
He began to kiss his way up your thigh, slow and deliberate, his lips soft and wet against your skin. He took his time, lingering, tasting, exploring every inch of you as if you were a delicacy he intended to savor.
When his hands reached the apex of your thighs, he paused, his thumbs brushing against the sensitive skin just below your hip bones. You shivered, your body aching with need, your breath coming in short, desperate gasps. He leaned in, his lips pressing a soft, reverent kiss to your inner thigh, just above your knee. You could feel the scratch of his stubble, the heat of his breath.
He looked up at you, his eyes dark and hungry, and then, without warning, he leaned in and bit down on your inner thigh, hard enough to draw a small amount of blood.
You cried out, a sound of surprise and pleasure and pain all rolled into one. He sucked gently at the wound, his eyes locked on yours, a slow, wicked smile spreading across his face as he watched your reaction. You could feel the blood trickling down your thigh, warm and wet, and it sent a primal shiver down your spine.
He released your thigh, his chin glistening with a mixture of your blood and his own saliva. He wasted no time licking away what remained of you on his lips.
He leaned in closer, his breath hot against your core, and you could feel the promise of what was to come. Your body ached with anticipation, your mind racing, your heart pounding in your chest like a drum, urging him on, begging for release, begging for more. And he obliged, his tongue snaking out, tasting you slowly, deliberately, from your entrance to your clit, and back again, his hands gripping your hips, holding you in place as he devoured you, as he claimed you, as he worshipped you.
He started at your entrance, his tongue pushing inside, tasting your depths, fucking you with his tongue in slow, deliberate thrusts that had your body convulsing and your hands gripping his hair, holding him to you, urging him deeper.
“Ya taste like heaven,” his words came through muffled and damp, but the meaning was never lost. “So sweet. Like honey. Like nectar.”
His lips closed around your clit, sucking gently at first, then with more insistence, his tongue flicking and circling, driving you wild, making your body shake and tremble and buck against his mouth. You could feel his stubble, rough and scratchy against your inner thighs, a contrast to the soft, wet heat of his mouth, the sharp, tantalizing sensation sending you spiraling even further.
He pulled back, his chin and lips and neck glistening with your wetness, his eyes locked on yours as he licked his lips, tasting you, savoring you, a low, appreciative growl rumbling in his chest. “I could feast on you for fuckin' hours, darlin',” it seemed like he couldn't go even a second without talking you through it. “Like a fuckin' drug.”
He dove back in, his tongue pushing inside you, fucking you with long, slow licks that had your body convulsing. He pulled back, his tongue flat against your flesh, licking you from your entrance to your clit and back again, over and over, the rhythm steady and unyielding, driving you towards the edge of sanity.
He focused on your clit again, his tongue flicking and circling, his lips sucking gently, his breath hot and ragged against your skin. He could feel your body tensing, your muscles coiling tight, your breath coming in short, desperate gasps. He redoubled his efforts, his mouth open wide, taking in as much of you as he could, his tongue and lips working in tandem.
“That's it, darlin',” he purred, tone almost pleading, reminding you of how you first found him on your doorstep. It all felt like a distant memory now. “Come for me. Let me taste that sweet nectar. Let me drink it all up.”
With a cry that seemed to tear from your very soul, you came undone, your orgasm crashing over you in waves of pure, unadulterated pleasure. He drank you up, his tongue lapping at your folds, his lips soft and gentle against your sensitive flesh, his breath hot and ragged against your skin.
He slowed his movements, his tongue gentle and soothing, his lips pressing soft, reverent kisses against your flesh.
His chin and lips and neck were absolutely drenched, eyes locked on yours, a slow, crooked smile spreading across his face. He leaned in, his lips pressing softly against yours, and you could taste yourself on him, musky and sweet and intoxicating. He kissed you deeply, his tongue exploring your mouth, sharing your taste with you. Only you.
He pulled away unhurriedly, his lips glistening with your essence, a satisfied smirk playing on his mouth. His eyes never left yours as he stood up. You could see the rise and fall of his chest, his breath still ragged.
With a slow, deliberate movement, he reached up and wiped his face with the back of his hand, a gesture that had you following his every move. He brought his hand to his mouth, licking and sucking your taste from his skin, his eyes rolling back slightly as he savored every last drop.
“You're somethin' else. Somethin' real special.”
He stepped closer, his strong hands gripping your hips and lifting you effortlessly off the table. You let out a soft gasp, your arms instinctively wrapping around his neck for support as your legs, weak and trembling, struggled to find their strength. He held you tightly against him, your bodies pressed together, and you could feel his heart pounding in his chest, matching the rhythm of your own.
“Easy, lass,” he soothed. “I've got you.”
He started to walk, his steps steady and sure, carrying you with an ease that belied your boneless state. You rested your head against his shoulder, your breath hot against his neck, as he navigated the room, his destination clear.
Gently, he laid you down on the bed, his body following yours, enveloping you in his warmth.
He hovered just above you, arms braced on either side, his eyes tracing every line of your face like they were reading scripture. His breath fanned across your cheek, warm and steady, and the way he looked at you, like you were something holy, made your chest ache.
One hand came up to fondle your necklace, rough knuckles grazing soft skin. “I’ll take ya up on that offer this time,” he mumbled, voice husky with something between gratitude and want. “To stay the night.”
He leaned in, kissing your forehead slowly, then your cheek, then your mouth. Each one a promise, a vow wrapped in silence.
And when he finally settled beside you, pulling you close until your bodies fit together like roots twining beneath the soil, the world quieted. The night wrapped around you both like a shroud.
For the first time in a long time, neither of you felt alone.
“C’mon, sweetheart, work with me here,” Benson whispers, his hot breath tickling your ear. “You’re only makin’ it worse for yourself. Quit squeezing on me so hard.”
Tags - dubcon/noncon, smut, unprotected piv, creampie, fingering, handjob, loss of virginity. fuck off about it i like what i like. dominant!benson, dirty talk, uhhhh idk idk idk. 2k words.
A/N - you know what the fuck is going on. i know this is a little bare bones and compared to my usual work but writing new characters is always a little tentative for me. just bear with me!
You follow behind Benson as he walks up the concrete motel stairs, a few steps behind him as. It’s a beautiful night, and the setting sun makes the sky colorful. Not for much longer, though. You can hear crickets and frogs, the neon sign from the motel buzzing. The air smells like gasoline and something sweet. Benson swears as he slaps a mosquito on the back of his neck, then wipes the dead bug on his pants.
He walks all the way down to the last room, then unlocks the door, painted a vibrant pink, though it’s all fractured and chipped. Benson ushers you inside with a hand on your lower back, gently pinching you there. He’s just…like that, you suppose. He’s hard on everything he touches. Everything he gets his hands on ends up chipped or dirtied or cracked. You’re no exception.
Benson flops onto the made bed, springs squeaking with his weight. You take a seat on a stained chair in the corner, watching him under the flickering light of a nearby lamp. He grumbles something as he shifts, then lifts his hips and reaches into his pocket for a pack of cigarettes. He pulls one out and lights it, then puffs on it a couple of times before ashing it in the dirty crystal tray on the nightstand.
Holding the cigarette between his pointer and middle fingers, Benson narrows his eyes at you as he takes another puff. He exhales, smoke curling up in front of his face, “So you just gonna sit there all night, or…?”
“Yeah, I–it’s fine,” you answer, switching the legs you have crossed.
Benson smiles, lopsided and smug, and it doesn’t quite reach his eyes. “No, it’s not. Come over here.”
You hesitate, and he holds up a hand, then beckons you by lazily curling his pointer finger. He doesn’t stop even as you stand up and cross the room. Not until you sit down on the edge of the bed does he drop his hand.
You can feel him watching you. Benson’s a bit of a wallflower in that way, always watching. Staring. He’s so pensive, and god only knows what thoughts swim through that mind of his. Your gut tells you nothing nice, probably.
You always had a tendency to attract people like him. Bad news, as your mom would say. He’s got this darkness attached to him like his own shadow, this sort of rottenness inside. You know he’s the beginning of a bad ending.
“You can lay down, sugar. I’m not gonna bite you.” Benson’s smirking when you look at him. “Unless you want it. You want me to bite you?”
“N-no thanks,” you answer quietly, soft as a breath. Your timidness makes him laugh.
“Oh, but you’re thinking about it, though. Aren’t you?”
You don’t answer him, but you do lay down against the other set of flat pillows. Benson grabs the remote and turns on the small TV, where Criminal Minds plays on some syndication channel that’s not CBS. The audio sounds tinny and weird, and the picture is fuzzy. You try to focus on that instead of the way it smells like dust in here, or the sticky and oppressive humidity. Apparently all the units with working AC had been taken. Benson sits up and pulls off his shirt, then unbuttons his jeans and sighs as he lies back down.
Trouble is handsome. He’s got such big, strong biceps, veined all the way to his hands. He has a nice abdomen as well, with toned muscles that rise and fall with his steady breaths. You watch the ash from his cigarette fall onto his bare skin. Your eyes draw a line up his neck and to his face, where he watches the show intently. He’s one of those people who looks like he’s angry when he’s focused or deep in thought, eyebrows pinched together and a pout on his lips. Pinching and twirling the end of his mustache.
Benson cocks his head at you. “Like what you see?” You flinch, cheeks heating up at the accusation. “Take a picture and it’ll last longer.”
“But you made me get rid of my phone, Benny.”
Benny makes a face as he nods, then stubs out his cigarette. “Should take off your clothes,” he tells you. “Can’t be too comfortable in this heat, huh?” He’s not wrong, though it’s less of a suggestion and more of a command. You sit up and slide off your hoodie, leaving it crumpled underneath yourself. “Shorts too,” he adds. “C’mon, now.”
Your fingers shake as you unbutton your shorts slowly, then push them down past your thighs. Benson lets out a low whistle at the sight of your bare legs, craning his neck to get a look at your panties.
He makes you flinch when he gets up and moves closer to you, when you feel his fingers against your bare skin. Benson reaches under your tank top and finds your bra, then unhooks it. “Bet this isn’t too comfy either.” He’s sliding his palms up your bare arms and reaching under for the straps, then pulling them down. “Shit, see? Look,” he comments, eyeing the marks your bra left in your skin. You shiver when he rubs over them with his thumb, and then he clicks his tongue and lays back down.
You relax as much as you can in the…however many minutes it is that passes. Benson yawns loudly and inches closer to you in the bed. “Are you going to sleep?” you ask.
“Mmm, I don’t know.” Benson reaches for the remote and places it in your lap. “TV’s yours.”
You opt to turn off the TV, then turn off your lamp as well. You’re not gonna get much sleep tonight, but you might as well let your body rest.
Some time passes where you and Benson lay in silence, until he disrupts it by tossing and turning, letting out frustrated grunts at the same time. You don’t know why you ask him if he’s okay.
“Yeah, shit. I’m fine. Just got this fuckin’...this fucking thing that needs taken care of.”
“What?”
Benson sighs. “Yeah, just - can’t sleep unless I cum, is all. But I’m in a bit of a predicament, see, and don’t wanna be ungentlemanly by doing it next to you.”
“Oh.” You wiggle away in the opposite direction of Benson, though he scoots closer to you. “I mean, th-there’s a bathroom–”
“Do you like to fuck yourself in the bathroom?”
You balk at the question. He’s so blunt.
“I asked you a question,” Benson says, his voice low and intimidating.
“No,” you answer, finally.
“Neither do I.” Benson flips on his side, and in the moonlight that pours in from the big window, you can see him. The elegant dip in his side between his ribs and his hip, and his face. So beautiful, for as awful as he is. He makes you breathe funny.
“Oh, sugar. What am I gonna do with you?”
You say nothing as you stare at him, heart beating so hard you can feel it in your throat. Benson palms his bulge for a second, and even in the low light you can make out how big he is.
Benson notices you looking. “Wanna feel it?” he whispers, smirking as your lips part and your mouth goes dry. “Yeah, you wanna feel it.”
He takes your hand and opens your fist, then presses your palm against his clothed cock, noting your little gasp. He’s so warm.
Benson can fucking smell it on you, your innocence. Your apprehension. Makes him all the more hungry for you. He always did have a voracious appetite, though. One of those people who could just eat and eat and eat. He could eat you, too. Devour you in his own way.
He smiles in a way that’s so chilling as he squeezes his hand over yours, and then he pulls his naked cock out from the confines of his boxers. He’s as hard as ever, thick and long as his length slaps against his toned stomach. Benson puts your hand back on his length, encouraging you to give him a kind squeeze. “Mmm,” he hums on his exhale, and when he inhales, his cock twitches at your scent. “You a virgin?” he mumbles.
“Benny–”
“Go on. You can tell me.”
He nods knowingly when you tell him yes. Benson wraps his large hand around your wrist and moves your hand for you, “You go all the way up, all the way down, sweet pea,” he instructs.
He feels heavy in your hand, slightly sticky with sweat from sweat. He keeps his hand on yours, guiding you through it. You pump him from base to tip, where his skin is wet with precum.
Once you’ve got the hang of it and found the rhythm that he likes, Benson lets you go, only to use that hand to pull you closer. He reaches into your panties, and grins when he finds you wet. He rubs your clit, then slides his thick, calloused fingers through your folds until they’re prodding at your entrance. You gasp when he pushes them both inside you, and curls them repeatedly. “Oh, there she is. Look at that,” Benson says, watching the way you shudder and listening to your moans.
He lays you on your back for better access, then pulls his fingers from your cunt, which are all slick from your arousal. Benson sucks them clean and hums at the taste of your pussy before pulling your panties down your legs and your top off of your torso.
He enters you with his fingers again, sliding them in and out of you, scissoring them, then curling them again. Benson uses his thumb to rub your clit in circles, making your body writhe in pleasure. You’re fucking cute, the way you reach between your legs to hold his arm. What are you doing, exactly? Trying to stop him, temper him in some way? Do you really think that’ll work?
Benson pulls his hand away and pumps his hard, leaking cock with his fist, using his precum and your slick to lubricate his length. “Spread your legs,” he grunts.
You freeze, looking up at him with an anxious look in your eyes. “Go on,” he tells you. “Don’t make me count to ten or some bullshit.”
You swallow thickly as you comply with his demand, spreading your legs. Benson parts your thighs wider, then drags the head of his cock up and down your slick folds. He knows you’re scared of him. “Shhh,” he hushes, “It’s gonna be okay, baby.”
“Deep breath,” he says. Benson notches the tip inside you, and with the head of his cock fit snugly at your entrance, he begins to inch his way into you, only to be met with a resistance. You whimper at the pain of the stretch, clutching his sides tightly in your sweaty hands, pinching him.
“C’mon, sweetheart, work with me here,” Benson whispers, his hot breath tickling your ear. “You’re only makin’ it worse for yourself. Quit squeezing on me so hard.”
“It just–it hurts, Benny.”
“Oh, sure, sure,” he nods, taking your chin between his thumb and forefinger, holding it in a less than gentle way. Benson looks so scary and handsome as he scans your face - blue eyes gorgeous as ever, but they’re so dark, and so empty. He loves the way your eyes dart left and right, so wide and nervous. Sparkling with everything that his own lack. “I get it. But you’re gonna be a good girl, right? Gonna take it nice for me?”
Feeling compelled to comply, you nod.
“Bite me if you need to,” he says. Benson starts to work his way into you again, loving those desperate, pained noises you make. “Halfway there. You got this.”
“Benny, wait–” Benson tilts his head as you squirm. “Can you–can you kiss me, maybe?”
He pauses and then smiles, eyes crinkling while dimples appear in his cheeks. “Can do, sweetheart. C’mere.”
He presses his lips against yours, moving them slowly before slipping his tongue into your mouth. For as rough around the edges as he is, he’s soft and gentle in how he kisses. The way Benson kisses you serves as a distraction as he fits his cock inside you the rest of the way, bottoming out with a grunt. “Yeah, fuck yeah,” he whispers, drawing out of you.
He slides into you again, filling you with his length. Benson sets a steady and deep pace, where the tip of his cock kisses your cervix with each stroke. It takes a moment for the pain to dissipate but it does, eventually.
He moans your name as he dips his head to kiss the flesh of your breast. Benson sucks one of your nipples into his mouth, then kisses across the valley of your chest and does the same to the other. “Such a good girl,” he praises quietly, groaning at the way your cunt pulses around him.
With a little more of his thrusting, a little more of that intentional, practiced way he rolls his hips, where his thick bush grinds against your clit, you’re cumming. Making little noises as you grip him tight, hips involuntarily rocking to match his pace. Benson cums next, fucking you harder and quicker now. His balls tighten just before his release, and he groans loud and guttural as he fills you with his spend.
pairing: squid game's salesman/ recruiter x f!reader (y/n)
synopsis: when someone dares to interrupt his game, the infamous salesman ought to punish them... but she doesn't intend to play by his rules.
warnings: violence, physical assaut, social stigma, psychotic mc, squid game au
a/n: we shall give the people what they asked for (salesman x readers) (i'm people)
The slap rang out like a gunshot, ricocheting off the cold subway walls. The man on the ground – disheveled, panting – flinched. His cheek blossomed red, but he didn’t dare look up. Above him, the Salesman stood poised, palm still tingling. His eyes were bright but empty, the light behind them clinical, dissecting.
"Come on now, one more try,” he taunted. His voice was smooth, almost musical and weightless, as if he were suggesting a game of chess. "Don’t stop at three. You’ll regret that more.”
It wasn’t joy he was feeling. Amusement, merely. Detached, surgical. Like stepping on something fragile just to hear the crack. The pathetic, the desperate – they all crumbled the same way. He just had to give them a little push, and their precious facade fell apart, leaving behind the twitching core of greed, ready to humiliate itself for scraps.
The sweating businessman bent to pick up his red tile, trembling. His shoulders sagged under the weight of silent despair. Miserable. The Salesman’s lips curled, though not exactly enough to be called a smile. He enjoyed the process. The inevitability of it.
Another failure.
He raised his hand, licking his lips in anticipation, but before he could swing, something unexpected happened. A hand grabbed his wrist.
Firm. Unshaking.
Cold.
His head snapped to the side; the sharp turn of a predator interrupted mid-hunt.
You.
His gaze narrowed. He’d noticed you earlier, lingering on the platform’s edge. Background noise. He rarely missed details, but somehow you had slipped through the cracks. Perhaps that was the first red flag.
His gaze drifted over your hand, slender fingers circling his wrist like a cuff. He could break free easily. Yet he didn’t. Your grip felt… deliberate. Measured.
“Enough,” you said, cocking your head to the side, sly eyes scrutinizing him.
His expression shifted, just slightly. Interest flickered, not outwardly hostile, but curious. He searched your face for clues – that familiar, nauseating blend of pity and self-importance most saviours carried. Yet, your eyes betrayed neither. But he didn’t need any tells – he knew people like you. Hypocrites yearning for crumbs of recognition.
“And who might you be?” His voice retained its warmth, but irritation simmered beneath it.
You stepped between him and his trembling opponent, your hand falling away. “Doesn’t matter.”
His gaze darkened as annoyance started to seep in his body. He didn’t even watch as the man behind you scrambled to his feet, disappearing into the crowd like prey escaping a hunter. His focus was entirely on you now – the intruder. He examined you for long time – longer than what he was used to. The Salesman never cared much for remembering anyone other than his recruits – but there was something about the lines of your face, the crooked slope of your mouth, the mischief in you pupils. Something challenging. Something he wanted to crush.
"You just cost me 100,000 won," he said lightly, adjusting his cufflinks with meticulous care – but the tightness in his jaw betrayed the casual tone. "So. How do you plan to pay me back?"
You shrugged, defying. “I don’t plan to.”
His grin widened, but the glint in his eyes sharpened. “I see. Then I’ll have to take it from you. A slap or cash. Choose.”
“I have a better idea,” you smirked, lazily flicking the red tile between your fingers. “I’ll take his place. I want to play too.”
His smile faltered. The thrill flickered out, but simply for a second – you weren’t desperate, not twitchy or ashamed. Not his typical prey. Yet. Because after all, if you wanted to play, it was because you wanted money – like everyone else.
He just needed to crack your confident mask to see you scrambling for it.
A chuckle escaped his mouth, hunger for your humiliation gnawing at his stomach. He wanted to see your heroic aspirations slapped out of your mind until you were nothing more than the lowlives he usually dealt with.
Yes. This would be even more fun to watch.
His smirk returned, though colder. “Fine. Each loss costs 100,000 won. Can you pay?”
“Don’t worry. I won’t lose.”
Your smugness stirred something primal in him—something ugly, something he hadn’t felt in years. You flipped the red card over your fingers, defiance oozing off you. Then in a split second you hurled the tile to the ground with surprising force. There was no hesitation, no tension. He didn’t need to look down to know you had flipped the blue card over. He watched you carefully, waiting for the inevitable flicker of relief that most winners betrayed.
None came.
Your eyes had barely left him either, like you were also gauging his reaction. Your lips stretched in a predatory smile – a thrill of excitement ran down his veins.
“I paid the debt. Now let’s play for real,” you cheered, displaying a naïve smile, one that could have fooled him as genuine if there wasn’t a flick of calculation - measurement - behind the easy curve of your lips.
The Salesman was a man of control – he could recognize when someone was leading a game, and right now this someone wasn’t him. He wasn’t surprised when you succeeded again.
“You won,” he stated, but there was no satisfaction, no amusement – he was still hungry for your humiliation. He reached for his luggage. But your foot stopped him, stepping on it as you suddenly reduced the distance between them.
“Oh no, Mister. You must have misunderstood me,” you slowly leaned towards him and whispered against his face.
He should have seen it before – but it was only now, when you were inches away from him, that he finally noticed the spark of amusement hidden in your eyes. It wasn’t heroism, nor greed that animated you.
Danger. His heart raced with the adrenaline that was reserved for his favourite kills, an all-too-powerful feeling that welcome your next words.
“I wasn’t playing for money.”
And then with sudden, brutal efficiency, you slapped him. Hard. Hard enough to send him stumbling on his feet and wipe any thought from his mind.
The crack resounded louder than his own had.
His head jerked to the side, pain stinging his cheek. Silence stretched between you. The slap burned, but not as much as the unfamiliar sensation curling in his gut.
Your laugh cut through the quiet, light and playful, but dripping with something – something mad.
He scoffed, bringing a hand to massage his cheek. It was stinging, the only proof that the last seconds had happened. When he looked back at you, you had tilted your head in an innocent expression.
But your conniving smirk was taunting him. “I get you now; it is quite fun. Have a nice day, Mister.”
You turned and walked away, your figure shrinking under the flickering subway lights.
The Salesman didn’t follow. Not immediately.
He watched you disappear into the station, the flickering fluorescent lights overhead casting fractured shadows on the tiles.
He stayed rooted, fingers twitching at his side, replaying the moment. Over and over.
Then, without warning, he laughed. Deep, unhinged, shaking laughter that echoed through the empty station. His stomach twisted with hunger, sharper and more vicious than he had felt in years.
THE FOOL CARD - Josh Washington x F!Reader
AO3 // Spotify Playlist
WORD COUNT - 3.1k
SUMMARY - You've been sneaking around with your best friend's older brother since summer. If it's supposed to be easy and casual, why does it feel so foolish?
TAGS/WARNINGS - friends with benefits to lovers, female anatomy reader, teasing, alcohol/drinking, cursing, unprotected p in v sex, brief mentions of asphyxiation, creampie, josh has feelings first, dialogue heavy?
NOTES - this is a self-indulgent fantasy smutty dialogue pracitce that isn't edited bc who has time for that these days. ignore overuse/repeat words if u love me. fan of josh since '15 only now i have the ability to do something about it
“You don’t really believe in that stuff, do you?” Josh asks, leaning against the doorway, casually sipping a beer.
You glance up from the cards spread out in front of you. Ashley sits opposite you, deer-eyes round with awe from when she held off of your every word, hinting at her friendship with Chris potentially becoming something more. A small smile grows on your face as you gather the silky cards together and slot them back into place.
“You’re not just saying that because you’re scared, are you, Joshy boy?”
With another sip, the corner of his mouth ticks up with intrigue. He shoulders off the doorway and saunters over, eyes never leaving you.
“Alright, I’ll bite,” he says cooly, sliding onto the stool that Ashley scoots out of. She shoots you a knowing look, a glimmer in the ring of her green eyes, a flush to her cheeks as she scurries back into the chatter-filled living room.
“Tell me,” he begins, lounging back in the wooden chair with a low, shadowed look on his face. A long sip of beer, a generous amount of lash-lidded eye contact. “What does my future hold?”
“Your future?” You smirk, skillfully shuffling the cards in your hand, cheeks warm when you lose the competition of holding his confident stare. The tarot cards are glossy and thick, a high-quality deck gilded with gold that you’d nabbed from a crystal shop that stunk of coconut incense and white sage.
A card flies from the deck, landing face-down. You reach and flip it over, revealing The Tower—a crumbling structure, lit with a devastating fire.
“Sudden, eruptive change.”
He leans closer, interest piqued. “What kind of change?”
“Well… let’s ask the cards to clarify,” you continue, reshuffling until another card leaps out. You pick it up, revealing a heart, daggered with three, long swords. “The Three of Swords. Heartache, and pain.”
He scoffs humorously. “The only heartbreaking and painful thing about this week was Chris eating my leftover pizza.”
You hum, unconvinced. Another card.
Ten of Cups reversed. Familial despair.
“It feels like a warning,” you say, trying not to look at the blatant picture. Familial grieving, pain, loss. Clearing your throat, you glance back up at him. “Almost like everything you know is about to change.”
“Hm. Seems ominous,” he replies, entirely not convinced. “What about my near future?” He perks a suggestive brow, licks the dry of his lips. “What are the cards saying about tonight?”
You roll your eyes, feigning indifference, but your hands tremble when you pull two cards. The Moon, and The Lovers.
“Hmm… looks like the cards are saying…” you faux scan the cards, then glance over your shoulder to ensure there aren’t any eavesdroppers. When you’re satisfied they’re distracted, you return with your chin propped on two folded hands and a small, mischievous smile.
“Your room. Midnight?”
His lips stretch into a grin. “Y’know, if the cards keep saying things like this, I might just become a believer.”
You mirror his smile, tucking yourself in tight as you lean closer to the counter.
Hannah walks in, playing with her fingers nervously, and you instinctively lean back. She glances between you, Josh, the cards, and twists her feet against the tile seams.
“You want a go, Han?” You ask. She nods, but appears apprehensive.
“Come on, Josh, client confidentiality. Get outta here. Scram.”
Josh laughs, once. “Alright. I’ll leave you ladies to it.”
Your eyes flicker to him for a moment. He nods with a poker face like steel, raises his beer in acknowledgement of his sister, and leaves the room without a second look.
It’s cruel, how he walks away. Cruel like it’ll never mean more to him.
Ashley, face pink from cocktails, corners you when you return from the readings, hand pawing at your arm.
“Can I ask you something?”
“Sure, Ash. What’s up?”
She leans closer, voice lowering. “Do you have a crush on Josh?”
You’re mid-sip of wine when she asks, and you sputter a cough.
“Excuse me?”
She grins. “You know. Do you like like him?”
Ever the butt of the joke, your defensiveness flares like the prickle of young flames. Is she teasing you? Your fingers tighten around the glass stem.
“No, I know what you meant,” you reply, face warming. “Um, no, Ash. I don’t have a crush on Josh.”
“You know you can tell me anything, right? I could totally set you guys up. I mean, I told you about my crush on…” she glances around, tactically lowering her voice. “…Chris. So, you can trust me!”
“Ash, I think everybody knows about your crush on Chris.”
She blinks like a doe in headlights. “No, they don’t,” her gaze slips away. “Do they?”
You sip from your glass. “Everybody except Chris, apparently.”
She whacks your arm gently. “Shut up! He might hear you!” She scolds, embarrassed. You chuckle to yourself, eyes drawn to your cup as you mindlessly swirl the drink.
“But, seriously, it’s probably good that you don’t have a crush on Josh. Hannah and Beth would kill you!” She laughs.
Your blood turns icy as your mind is suddenly overwhelmed by a flurry of hook-up flashbacks, and you take a healthy, guilt-numbing swig of your drink before replying.
“Haha. Yeah. You’re probably right about that.”
Two glasses of wine later, you excuse yourself for the bathroom and veer off path when the coast is clear to Josh’s room. His door is ajar, feeding through a slim slice of warm lamp lighting onto the dark hallway.
A familiar routine— a scratch for the itch, a hit for the craving. Can’t keep your hands off him, not since the first time. You’d be in so much trouble if the twins knew you were hooking up with their older brother, but the scandal of it all gives you hot flashes between the thighs.
Hands tickle up your sides when you sneak in. A flat palm over your shoulder to click the door shut.
“You’re late,” he teases.
You stifle your giggles. “Yeah, well, unless you want everybody finding out about whatever we’re doing, then you’ll have to be patient for me to find my moment to sneak off.”
He closes the space between you, pressing against your chest to tilt you against the dresser, feeling small beneath his frame. Knees locked around his hips when you hop up.
“Would it be so bad?” He murmurs, immediately kissing along your neck, hands greedy on your waist. “You know… if they knew? About us?”
Us. A word like hot coals, fingers instinctively recoiling from the topic. Excited butterflies turned to anxious wasps in your belly. Casual moments bleeding into lingering stares, “we’re just friends” to eye contact and hand-holding when he makes you cum.
You think Emily knows. She’s quick-witted and perceptive whenever you leave the room, eyes sharp like a bristled cat ready to pounce.
“What’s there to know? We’re just friends,” you say, and he hums sceptically in response. You clutch his shoulders, warm beneath wine-numb fingers. “Besides, Hannah and Beth would kill me—”
“So, that’s it?” He grins, pulling away just enough that you can feel his breath fanning across your clavicle. You smell alcohol and peppermint gum and your head spins from the proximity.
“I’m just your dirty little secret?”
He’s making fun of you.
“Shut up,” you whine, breath laboured from the tingly feeling he produces against your skin with his mouth. Arousal so severe you feel like you’re sixteen again, a hormonal ball of teenage puppy fat and insecurity.
“Fine. How’d Hannah’s reading go? What’d she wanna know?”
You sigh with frustration, trying to nudge your hips closer to his. “Josh, please don’t talk about your sister when I’m trying to fuck you.”
“Oh, just like that, huh? Like I’m a piece of meat?”
“Isn’t that what you signed up for, pretty boy?”
He nips harder. “You think I’m pretty?”
A severe eye roll. “I don’t know why I put up with you.”
“Well, I can be pretty convincing,” he mutters, pushing the hemline of your skirt up your thigh. “Your dress is cute. You wear it for me?”
You had— all butterflies and anticipation at the thought of easy access. A short, black milk-maid thing, as well as enduring an everything shower the night before, sore from vanilla-sugar exfoliation. Soft for him.
The words escape you in a stuttered breath when he thumbs up to your panty line, tipping it to the side.
“You wish.”
He noses against the column of your throat when he slips a finger against you, shuddery breaths when the slick gathers on his palm.
“Always so wet,” he strains, tipsy touches circling your clit, pressing into the honeyed entrance. “You’re insatiable, you know that? Can’t get enough of me?”
No.
“Mm… don’t flatter yourself. Consider it convenient.”
He tilts his head. “Is that supposed to hurt my feelings?”
“Stop— stop being such a dick,” you pant, muscles seizing against the sudden onslaught of building pleasure.
“Thought you liked me a little mean.”
He slides a singular finger into you, all molten and tingly as he knuckle-fucks you.
“Oh God, shut up.”
He sucks pressure onto your neck, affectionate with a hand on the small of your back. Your insides clench, aching with the urge to be filled, a desire his fingers would never be fully be able to satisfy.
You palm the growing mound behind his denim. “Need to feel you.”
He leans back, looking at you boyishly, pausing the work of his wrist.
“Right now?” His voice peaks. “But you’re hardly ready—”
“Gotta be quick.” You tug on his belt buckle and challenge his eye contact with lowered eyelids. “I can take it.”
You’ve rendered him stun-locked, shy.
He blinks. “Fuck— shit, okay,” he reaches for the zipper on his jeans, already steel-hard when he releases himself. He nudges closer, but you’ve never done it like this before. Not without a condom.
“This okay?” He asks hurriedly, the strain to his voice a sobering splash.
The wine blurs the line you promised not to cross. You glance down to where he fists himself, hastily spreading your slick across his length, and your lower belly flips.
You nod, bottom lip captured between your teeth. “Fuck. Please.”
“You sure?”
“Josh—”
“Alright, alright, needy.”
He slips a hand over the curve of your ass, propping you firmly on the dresser and nestling further between your thighs, notching his tip against your wet heat before pushing in. A sharp inhale accompanied by a hand on his chest, urging him to go slower.
It’s a tight stretch as you adjust to the weight of him pressing inside you, nails digging reflexively into the meat of his shoulders.
“Easy, I got you,” he murmurs, hand sliding up from guiding himself inside of you to the wall beside your head. His mouth captures yours as he sinks deeper, a balm to soothe the sting.
You don’t normally kiss. Not often, usually only when you’re drunk. It felt too intimate at first, too weird— because two “just friends” fucking each other’s brains out certainly wasn’t, but you sigh-melt when his tongue slips past the parting of your lips.
He rolls his hips shallowly once, twice— until the burn turns honey-silk, sheathed heavily in your velvet. He’s panting when he leans back, reaching up for purchase, something to ground himself. He instinctively goes for your waist, second-guesses himself, and leans a hand against the wall.
Dark eyes search for yours in the haze. “You alright?”
You slide your hands underneath his plaid shirt. “You trying to be romantic or something?”
He rolls his eyes. “Quit it.”
You bite down on your lower lip, suppressing a grin, and dig the ball of your foot into his ass to pull him closer.
“Get on with it, then.”
He obliges with a groan, pistoning slowly at first. A gentle back-and-forth, slickening himself up all sweet for you, precarious where he tries not to make the dresser rock too much. Helplessly his fingers cling to you, digging into the plush of your thigh, thumbing along the crease where the skin meets your hip.
He reaches to cradle your face and parts your kiss-wet lips with a thumb. You suck him into the cup of your mouth, tongue curling around his skin. You’ve never blowed him before but you’re sure he pictures you pretty on your knees with the way his eyes darken.
His thumb releases with a pop and he presses it against your clit, puffy with need.
The rhythm catches up, and soon you’re panting as you rock against one another. Arms clinging to the broad spread of his shoulders, legs squeezing around his waist. You could stay here forever, you think— drunk on the way he fucks you like he cares what you feel, what you think. Attentive, giving. Better than any exes and you’re sure he knows it— why else would you stick around?
Your best friend’s older brother.
“We should stop doing this,” you concede, words strung high across a moan. “Ashley thinks I’ve got a crush on you.”
A tilt of his head. Something flickers on his face, sparkles in his eye when his lip quirks up. Amusement.
“That right?” He breathes, teeth flashing. “Cute.”
“Jesus, right there—”
Panting breaths melt together between a symphony of curses. A roll of your eyes as your head tilts forward, nails digging into his tense biceps, bracing yourself against the pulse at your centre as his spit-silky thumb circles your clit.
He swallows thickly, throat bobbing against your temple. “Well… do you?”
You pull back from the crook of his neck you’d buried yourself into. “What?”
“Have a crush on me?”
You sock his shoulder. “Don’t make it weird.”
He grins, followed by a roll of his hips. “Oh, right, because that’ll make things weird.”
“Just— just keep doing that, please.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
Footsteps and laughter.
Your eyes widen, nerves doused with adrenaline. “Someone’s coming—”
Josh’s hand snaps up and clamps across your mouth, his hips shifting to continue their pace but careful to mind knocking against the dresser. Eyes low and dark as he leans closer, cheeks flushed as he squeezes your face.
From outside the door, “Yo, where’s Josh?”
“He said he was going to get more beer!”
It’s Chris and Mike.
“He’s been gone for a while. Do you think he’s passed out in his room?”
Your brows scrunch, torn between the thrill of fear and pleasure. A moan squeaks behind his palm, every thrust a countdown. Josh mime-shushes you, licking his lips and glancing over at the door as footsteps pass by. Nothing but a piece of wood between you and a secret spilt.
You whimper, pussy turning to liquid heat between your thighs, fizzy with ecstasy, clamping down hard around his hips. Cobra tight around the lava sink and drag of his cock.
“Nah, man. Let’s check the wine cellar.”
The footsteps continue down the hallway, easing your adrenaline with each step as you turn gelatinous in his arms. He releases you at once and the oxygen runs to your head with a dizzying force, eyes wild as they address you.
“Did you…?”
“Mhm.” It pitches high, and his eyes widen with the realisation.
“You liked that. Do you want us to get caught?”
You tremble with the aftershocks of your orgasm. “Maybe I just liked you choking me.”
His brows raise. “Wait. Really?”
You smile wickedly in response, leaving the question unanswered— you aren’t trying to give him any ideas, but you feel that bubbly-wistfulness in your belly at the thought of his hand around your throat the next time he takes you.
You’re not meant to daydream or hope for the next time; this was only supposed to be a one-time thing— just shy of your nineteenth birthdays, fucking yourselves through a dry spell, but you’ve been jumping his bones since the Washington’s invited you to stay with them last summer and he showed you how to smoke your first joint.
You’re a sweet girl, their parents said. Hannah and Beth couldn’t have been more excited that their best friend was coming to stay for six weeks. They hadn’t suspected a thing.
That was last August. Now you’re here with the others for the annual winter getaway— the lodge all to yourselves, and you’d not even lasted a night before you’d tip-toed into his room at 1 AM.
Josh grunts into your neck, cock twitching within you, sliding in and out of your slickened pussy like water.
“Where should I…”
A vulnerable split-second of eye contact. Shivery energy zips between you and something atmospherically shifts, like a moon falling into orbital alignment. The space behind your rib cage becomes soft and malleable, gravity tugging on your heartstrings.
The Fool Card.
A dangerous cliff edge that you’re too wrapped up in the moment to take mind of. You’re already in this deep— might as well fling yourself over it.
You dig your fingers into him. “Inside.”
His eyes flash wide. “Yeah?”
“Yeah, yeah— fuck, Josh, let me feel you.”
“Oh, shit. Okay. So fuckin’ hot.”
He thrusts with more urgency now, brows knit, teeth bared. Sharp when they slide along the skin of your shoulder.
He releases a cute grunt when he comes, nose buried in your neck, cock pulsing strongly inside of you. A sharp little rut of his hips, pushing himself deep, milking dry what remains.
Panting breaths mingle together, misty with post-sex sweat. You stroke the back of his exertion-damp head, cradled gently against your shoulder, his knuckles white as they brace against the dresser.
This is usually the time when you clear your throats and tug your clothes back on, but when he lifts his head to look at you, there’s something soft and sticky-sweet in the post-clarity lax of his features, the seraphic upturn of his brows.
“Can I kiss you?”
You blink at him. “Josh…”
Something visibly deflates on his face. “Sorry, sorry, I overstepped, I forgot the 'rules'—”
You grab him by the neck, thumb affectionately along the line of his jaw, and capture his mouth against yours. When you kiss he’s still sheathed to the hilt, chests pressing together, and you suddenly don’t feel so drunk anymore.
Everything narrows down, vision tunnelling. You’re suddenly not in a lodge with all of your friends, not propped up on his dresser, not just friends with benefits. You can pretend in the safety of his bedroom, making out like lovers, because when it’s this dark it’s just him, him, him, an utter mind-reeling consumption, so warm and soft and tender you feel shame trickle down your spine.
It’s not supposed to feel this good.
Spit strings between your mouths when you pull back.
“We should… go back to the others. Probably wondering where we are.”
He pants, gazing down at your lips. “Yeah. Yeah, you’re right. We should do that.”
It’s cruel, the way he looks at you. Cruel like this means more to him, too.
people who reblog this just to put in the tags that they don’t like hummus, i cannot emphasise enough that this post isn’t for u. actually if u don’t like hummus, don’t even talk to me. literally i love u hummus, i love u baba ganoush, i love u muhammara
Tags - stepdad!roman, dom!roman, stepcest, dubcon/noncon, manhandling (i can't believe he has it in him either), manipulation, coercion, oral (f!receiving), fingering, unsafe piv, creampie, dom/sub, roman's icky as usual. sorry. Also daddy kink. Sorry.
Fic help - @noxturnalpascal, @beefrobeefcal, and @endlessthxxghts tysm for all that you do! ♡
A/N - he’s baaaaaaack!! It’s gonna get worse before it gets better. Hope you’re all sluts for ickiness like me. I have so many plans for daddy romey, I might have another fic coming out this week. Peer pressure works on me jsyk. Also might do a new sleazy gynecologist Roman au. We’ll see ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ at least a one shot. Thots? Feelings?
Follows Boundaries but can be read as a standalone 🩷
Stepdad!Roman Masterlist
You don’t know it, but Roman can hear you. Roman’s been listening to the ceiling above him - your floor - creak for hours. Sometimes vigorously, sometimes gently. On and off, all night. Your bed creaks too. Soft springs groaning and squeaking as you hump your pillow, the pillow Roman laid his head on as you rode his cock. Can you smell him in your blankets? Have you washed his stains off your sheets yet? And through the air vents, he can hear your frustrated whimpers, your strangled, broken moans. Poor thing. You can’t come, can you?
The bed creaks loudly, louder than those rhythmic noises it made before. And then there’s muffled footsteps, the sound becoming clear as you open your door and walk down the hall, down the stairs. Shifting a bit on the couch, Roman looks over his shoulder and watches as you open a cabinet and grab yourself a glass. You fill it with crushed ice and water from the fridge, then drink it all over the sink. The TV’s on in the living room, volume barely audible, bluish-white light flickers like lightning.
Roman’s footsteps startle you as he stands up from the couch, you whip around to see him stretching his back and his shoulders as he yawns. “You’re up way past your bedtime, young lady. It’s…” Roman squints and checks the time on the oven, “Late.”
“Couldn’t sleep.”
“Yeah, I could tell,” Roman says, walking into the kitchen as he scratches the back of his neck. “You’d be surprised at what you could hear through the walls. Very thin, very, very thin.” He brushes against you as he opens a cabinet. His soft, white t-shirt rides up and exposes his soft tummy and the dark hairs spattered down it as he pulls out a ceramic bowl. You step to the side, uncomfortable with his touch but Roman continues to invade your space; he puts his cold hand on your hip to nudge you out of the way so he can open the silverware drawer. He paces around the kitchen some more, opening other cabinets until he finds his Tupperware container of Cinnamon Toast Crunch, then opens the fridge for his carton of almond milk. He makes himself a large bowl of cereal. “Want some?”
“No.” You bring your glass to your lips and chew on the leftover ice, shifting your weight from one foot to the other.
Roman watches you, eyes scrolling up and down your body slowly. You’re fidgeting, you’re uncomfortable. It’s written all over your face, evident in your body language. Shoulders curled inward, arms crossed over your chest, you’re keeping your distance from him. So defensive. You have to be, of course. Roman will exploit any and all vulnerability in you that he can find. He smirks as he eats a spoonful of the sugary cereal, a bit of milk dribbling down his bottom lip.
It wasn’t really news to him, your feelings. He found it unsurprising when he read your diary and learned the ins and outs of your feelings for him. Sickly-sweet fantasies about him making love to you, detailed and romantic descriptions of his handsomeness. Puppy love. It seems that’s all gone now, and it’s funny how quickly it happened, replaced with nothing but disgust. Disgust at Roman himself, maybe. He thinks that more than likely, you’re disgusted by yourself. Being confronted with your feelings in such an intimate, vulnerable, shameful way did a number on you, huh? It almost makes Roman sad, and he wonders if that puppy love is still inside you somewhere, buried deep beneath the guilt and humiliation.
“You toss and turn a lot, you know that? You’re a restless sleeper, just like your mother.”
“Fuck off.”
“Jesus. I can’t make conversation with you? You’ve had such an attitude with me recently, and I don’t - I don’t appreciate it. I thought that maybe we could chill and watch TV like we used to, but sure - I’ll just fuck off, thanks.”
Roman kind of misses those nights with you. He wasn’t lying or making another comparison of you to your mother just to get under your skin, though he knows how well that works on you. He has a hard time sleeping in the same bed with your mother, can’t quite drown out the snoring or tolerate the tossing and turning. He spends a lot of nights on the couch in the living room. You used to join him there when you couldn’t sleep either, when your sheets and your pillows felt too hot and suffocating. You and Roman would watch shitty horror movies and Saturday Night Live together until you fell asleep, and then you’d share quiet, dark mornings alone together until your mom woke up. Your head on Roman’s lap, him gently stroking your hair. You used to feel safe around him.
You need to remove yourself from this situation. You dump the ice out in the sink, then place your glass on the countertop. It all sounds so loud in the quiet kitchen. You shove past Roman, causing him to spill some of his cereal onto the floor. He lets out a breathless laugh, irritated. He slams the bowl of cereal down on the dining room table then follows you, you’re already three steps up the stairs. Roman grabs your arm and yanks you down the steps, causing you to stumble and yelp. He catches you, clutches you against his chest. You’re reminded that he’s stronger than he looks.
“You, sweetheart-” Roman drags you by the arm back into the dining room, his nails digging into your skin, “-Need to remember who’s in authority here. Who’s living in whose home, huh? You don’t get to fucking walk away from me when I’m talking to you.” Roman backs you against a wall, his hot breath fanning over your neck. Your jaw is clenched, your body so rigid and hard like glass, on the verge of breaking into a million pieces. You’re just defensive, that’s all this is and good for you for having that fight in you. Roman knows you’re delicate underneath it all. He’s seen it, seen how small he can make you.
All it takes is a knee between your thighs, Roman pressing himself against your center, and then you gasp, melt a little. All of your fire snuffed out with a simple, dull touch. He knows you. You’re his stepdaughter for fuck’s sake, and so easy to read he could find you in a book. All bark, no bite, and easier than you think you are. Roman’s eyes dart across your face as he breathes heavily, a smile curling on his lips.
“You know what I think?”
“Shut up, Rom–”
“No, you shut up. I think you’re in a mood because you can’t make yourself come. And you’re taking it out on your stepfather. Kinda fucked up, don’t you think?” It makes Roman’s cock swell when your pupils widen and your jaw goes slack at his words, your bottom lip wobbling slightly. He’s vulgar on purpose; intentionally lacking any nuance or subtlety when he speaks. He needs to get under your skin, make you squirm for him. “Ohhh. There it is. You’re busted, young lady.”
You twist your arm in an attempt to wriggle yourself out of Roman’s grip, but he holds you tighter, pressing his knee harder against your cunt. You’re beginning to soak through your shorts, through his plaid pajama pants. You’d thank god he can’t feel it yet, but does it matter? One way or another, he’s gonna find you soaked for him. Your tummy flutters when Roman’s long, deft fingers push your hoodie up your body so he can find the drawstring of your pajama shorts, tugging the knot undone.
“I heard you, you know,” Roman growls against your ear. “You sounded so frustrated, kiddo. Your fingers just aren’t - aren’t quite doing the trick anymore, huh?”
“Please,” you whimper.
“Please what? Be specific, sweetheart. Please make you come? Do you need daddy to make you come? You miss how daddy fucked you?” Roman smiles at how he taunts you, how uncomfortable his words make you as you writhe under him, wriggling your hips away from his knee. “Is that it? Do you miss me, is that what this is?”
You use the hand that’s not gripping Roman’s wrist to shove his chest, knocking him away from you only slightly. Kudos to you, getting a shot in, making your daddy proud. The fight only serves to excite him.
Roman pouts with feigned displeasure. “Ouch,” he says, “I’m hurt, sweetheart, so hurt. Maybe I miss you. Not miss you, miss you. But…you know.” Roman tilts his head to the side, cautiously letting go of your arm to bring his palm to your face. You flinch as you await his touch, a gentle caress across your jaw. He uses his thumb to tug on your bottom lip, then releases it.
“Look at us, here like this. I know you’re hot, too.”
You shake your head, No, but your body betrays you. Deep, trembling breaths, pupils widened with lust. Roman knows when he dips his slender fingers into your cunt, you’ll soak him, slick running down his digits and into his palm. Maybe he’ll make you lick it up.
“I could make you come. I could do that easily, actually. You know that. Remember?”
He shoves his hand down the front of your shorts, and it feels cold and unwelcome, but familiar all the same. He glides his fingertips through your folds, relishing in the mess he caused you to make. It makes you feel sick, giving him this satisfaction. You tug and tug on his forearm, trying to force him away from you. This can’t happen again. “Roman,” you beg.
“Shh - just quit…fuckin’...” You’re scratching him, leaving little marks on his skin that’ll burn when he showers later. You’re making things much more difficult for him, more difficult for yourself. Don’t you know how much better you’ll feel when he makes you come? You poor, stupid thing. All out of sorts until daddy calms you down. “Rela - hey, relax. Don’t fight it. Quit fighting me.”
Roman drops his knee to allow himself space to touch you the way he wants to. He circles your clit with just one finger, patiently rounding the sensitive bud. You’re still all tense, full of combativeness, of aggression. While massaging your clit, Roman waits patiently for you to soften. “This is what you want,” he whispers. His eyes are glazed and lidded, silky strands of hair cascading over his face. “I know you need this.”
You fall apart for him. It’s palpable, your reaction. Guard lowered, you tilt your head back, your shoulders drop slightly, you unclench your jaw. “Roman,” you sigh softly, the relief evident in your voice. He’s successfully molded you into compliance.
“Yeah, that’s it. Over here, come over here.” Roman pulls his fingers from your core and you whine in frustration, he shushes you with an I know, I know. Roman spins you around and backs you against the dining room table, then sets you down. He pushes chairs out of the way and cringes at the loud sound of the legs scraping against the hardwood floor, then drops to his knees. He wraps his arms around your thighs and pulls you closer to his face, causing the bowl of cereal on the table to slosh slightly. He hooks his thumb under the fabric of your Halloween print pajama shorts, utterly soaked with your arousal, and pulls them to the side. You’re glad he doesn’t say anything about it.
Before Roman tastes you, he looks up and gazes upon your body - your soft tummy heaves up and down with heavy, anticipatory breaths, your thighs are twitching and spread wide, your fingers gripping the edge of the table so hard you could make the wood splinter. And your face, desperation painting your features as you stare down at your stepfather. Oh, how he likes you like this.
Roman spits on your cunt before he licks it, causing you to gasp. He watches the bead of saliva roll down your folds as you grip his hair, fingers tingling as you tug those sleek, graying strands of his impatiently. You shouldn’t be pulling him closer. It’s wrong, it’s all so wrong. Roman’s on his knees for you and really, he should feel vulnerable right now. It’s a submissive position in and of itself, being on one’s knees for another. Theoretically, if you found the strength within yourself, you could snap his neck. Easily. But you won’t do so much as push him away right now, and Roman knows this. Not while he’s using his mouth to part you open and explore your cunt, tongue drawing up and down your soft, slick folds. “You fucking need this, don’t you?” he murmurs, slowly slipping two fingers inside your wet heat. “Tell me you need me.”
“I need you, Roman,” you whimper, pushing his head closer to your center. Roman rewards the admission by curling his fingers, stroking that sensitive space inside of you. All you can do is hold yourself up and take it.
Roman’s tongue is hot as it laps against your clit. You’re still tugging on his hair, holding him close to you, whimpering his name in broken syllables. As Roman finds a rhythm with his tongue, you rub your thumb along his forehead, his temples. You’re soaking his face completely as he eats you, his tongue pumping in and out of your tight, dripping hole as he noses your clit. He digs his fingertips harshly into the flesh of your thighs, bruising your sensitive skin. You can take the pain, you little slut.
There’s a gnawing thought in Roman’s mind to pull away and leave you like this, teach you a lesson for that fucking shoulder check and the shove. But he finds himself addicted to the taste of your pleasure and needs to know the feeling of you coming on his tongue.
But not tonight. Roman pulls away and wipes his face against the soft skin of your inner thighs, causing you to whine in frustration. Good. Roman groans as he stands up, knees cracking. Fuck, he’ll be sore tomorrow. He already is.
Roman pushes the elastic waistband of his pajamas down his hips, freeing his cock from the confines. Even under the lack of light, you can see how red and angry Roman’s cock is. He’s throbbing, aching to be inside you once more.
Roman spits in his fist and grips his aching member, a low groan escapes his throat. He smears that pearly bead of precome at his slit right over your sensitive clit and you moan at the contact, watching as he drags the head through your folds, just barely notching it inside of you.
“We shouldn’t be doing this,” you whimper urgently, reaching for his cock. You try to stop him from going further, but god - how you missed the warmth and the weight of his shaft in your hand.
Roman pulls your hand away and continues to tease you, dragging the tip up and down, pushing himself in and out of you. “You’re right,” he says. “It’s wrong.”
“It’s wrong,” you nod, panting while tilting your hips as he runs the thick head of his cock back and forth over your clit.
“That’s why we like it.”
With that, Roman fills you with a slow, steady slide inside your cunt that has him moaning. He holds the back of your neck, pointer finger at your skull to tilt your head down and make you watch as it happens, his cock disappearing into your body. “Ohh, fuck,” he groans, pulling out of you about halfway before pushing in again.
You wrap your hands around his shoulders and clutch the worn fabric of his white t-shirt as he draws in and out of you, his scruffy cheek right against yours. He rolls his hips at a punishing pace and looks at you, wrapping your legs tighter around him. You’re so pathetic.
“Rome - fuck - Roman,” you whisper, then bite into his neck to quiet your cries.
You’re drooling, spit dripping down onto his collarbones. It makes Roman smile. “Listen to you,” he murmurs. “Trying so hard to be quiet, aren’t you?”
You nod against him as he fucks you, the mahogany wood table groaning and creaking with each of his thrusts. Roman pulls back, a string of saliva that connects from your lips to his throat breaks. He shoves the two fingers that were inside your pussy into your mouth, “Suck,” he commands.
You suck his fingers, humming at the tanginess of your own arousal. From this position, you can see his face clearly. His hazel eyes are black with lust, hooded and glazed over. There’s something both human and robotic about the way he looks at you as he pumps his cock in and out of you, like he’s a slave to his own biological needs. He moves into a deep and hard rhythm, now wriggling his free hand between your writhing bodies. He paints those same steady circles against your clit with his thumb, just like he did before. “You gonna come for me? You gonna - fuck - you gonna come on daddy’s cock?”
You nod, Roman’s fingers still jammed down your throat so that tears are beginning to spring up in the corners of your eyes. He watches your face contort as the pleasure begins to build, almost exponentially. Your eyes squeeze shut and your brows knit tightly together, you’re biting on Roman’s fingers and there it is - your orgasm washes over you like the tide, waves of warmth and electricity flowing over your body with each roll of Roman’s hips. “Yeah, you fuckin’ needed that,” he breathes. “Fuckin’ needed me.”
Your own climax coaxes Roman’s along, and he pulls his fingers from your mouth. Your pulsing cunt, the slick noises you make together - it all goes straight to his stomach, directly to his balls. His cock is throbbing as he empties himself into you with a deep and guttural groan, filling you with his come. He fucks you through his high until his his thrusts slow to a standstill, then pulls his softening member out of your body.
Roman takes satisfaction in the fact he has to ease your trembling legs onto the floor, your hips too sore to move on your own. He rubs his thumbs soothingly over your hip bones, and it makes him feel needed in a more gratifying way than by getting you off.
Roman reaches for his bowl of cereal, little white splashes of milk decorate the table around it. Oops. He wipes that up with a paper towel, along with his spend that leaked from your body. He then takes a bite of his cereal. “That actually worked out perfectly,” he mumbles, mouth full. “My Cinnamon Toast Crunch is nice and soggy, so yeah - thanks for the uh…I don’t know. You know.”
Roman walks back into the living room with his cereal, and you’re still by the table, standing awkwardly. The floor under your bare feet is still warm with Roman’s body heat. You pick at your fingernails anxiously.
“What are you doing in there, kiddo?” Roman calls from the couch.
“I don’t know. I’m not tired.”
Roman loudly pats the couch cushion next to him, inviting you to join him. You’re not sure what compels you to do it but you do, sitting on the sectional with your knees tucked under your chin. Roman watches you, tense all over again. Your thighs are covered in goosebumps. He takes the edge of his plush, oversized blanket and tosses it over your legs, then turns up the volume of the TV.
If you enjoyed, please let me know 💜 your kind words keep me motivated to write. Comment, send an ask, and/or reblog with your thoughts 💭 💖
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