Description: You’re spider-man’s closest thing to a friend since the world forgot his name. Helping him with gadgets, cleaning his wounds…all without him ever taking the mask off. His true identity has always been a barrier between you two, but what happens when he gets hit with the pollen, and not only him, but the creature lurking inside him fixates on the only person he gets to call home?
Tags/warnings: sex pollen smut, fem!reader, porn with plot, whiny desperate peter >>>, dry humping, piv, riding, oral fem!rec, fingering, dark!peter taking over for a bit, orgasm denial, prone bone, so much yearning, mask stays on…or does it?
Note: You have no idea how giddy it makes me to write him again. He had NO business looking that good in the movie so I had to get this out of my system. Enjoy 🤍
Masterlist
You've seen spiderman hurt many times. When you signed the lease of the first apartment you could afford as a recent graduate, you never thought that would become your new normal.
The first time it happened was completely accidental. He’d arrived at the building in the middle of the night, bruised, bleeding and too disoriented to realize that the window he’d come through was not his.
That night, the noise of a heavy body collapsing onto the floor woke you up. For one terrifying moment, you believed someone had broken into your apartment, only to switch on the lamp and find the city’s superhero groaning and pressing his hands to his side. His suit was torn there, and blood soaked through the ruined fabric onto your rug.
He barely lifted his head when he heard you gasp, the lens of his mask focusing on your figure standing there with wide eyes, wearing only an oversized shirt.
“Wrong window,” he choked, then tried to hold himself up but immediately collapsed again. “Dammit,” he cursed, waiting for you to freak out any second now.
You could have, but instead you rushed to him and knelt beside him.
“Oh my god, are you okay?” Your hands hovered helplessly over his body, trying to see how bad the damage was in the dark. “You need a hospital–”
“No!” He snapped, trying to turn away but failing miserably. “I’ll be fine, I heal quickly.”
“You still need to stop the bleeding,” you countered, folding your knees under your body so you could rest on your calves. “Listen, I can help you. I took some medical courses last year and I have a kit somewhere.”
You looked at him with pleading eyes. He’d saved the city so many times, the fucking world, it was the least you could do to give something back.
He considered his options for a second, and to be honest he didn’t have many. His body was betraying him, and he couldn’t even get up to fix it himself like usual.
The blood loss made him nod, and you wasted no time in getting up and finding said kit. The blood loss also made him drift in and out of consciousness as you tended to the wounds on his ribs as much as you could.
It did not make him less cautious of you though. When you noticed the rip on his mask over a nasty gash on his neck and reached for it, his hand closed around your wrist and even half conscious, his grip was strong.
“Please,” he whispered. Pleaded. “Keep it on.”
The fear in his voice made you promise you would. Even if you couldn’t get to that gash properly. Even when he fell asleep on your floor and didn’t wake up for six whole hours.
The next morning, he opened his eyes and found you sitting on your bed, still staring at him.
His hands patted his chest, and confirmed his arachnid powers had done its job and healed him mostly. But most importantly, his mask was still in place. With no warning from E.V of it being removed. He learned that you’d spent the night making sure he was still breathing without seeing his face.
That had been one year ago.
After thanking you profoundly for helping him, he’d repaired your window, apologized several times, and disappeared into the apartment next door. He then considered moving into another building, but the thought was brushed away very quickly when he remembered the balance in his bank account.
So he acted more careful instead. For a while, he only turned back home when your curtains were already closed, or he only left the apartment when you had already left for your job (because yes, he absolutely researched the hell out of you after that night.)
Then he moved to the attic of the building. Bigger space, no neighbors, no risks. No you. Or at least he thought.
Because some nights…some delirious nights he still found your window a few stories down, and the accidental visits became less accidental. When he was too badly injured to care for himself, he came to you, even after you confessed your degree had nothing to do with medicine.
When he noticed you understood about his equipment malfunctioning, he’d bring it for you to inspect. When he became too reckless with himself you talked his ear off about how being difficult to kill did not make him immortal.
Somewhere along the way, you became spiderman’s friend.
Spiderman was safer. With you, spiderman was the only part of him he could let you see. Because that was the thing, you only knew the masked superhero.
He’d spent so much time blocking away his identity, making peace with the fact that there was no longer anyone in the world who would call him Peter and know exactly who that person was. That name only belonged to the people that once knew him, and no longer existed, so he never gave it to you.
Never showed you more than a sliver of skin when his mask rode up or glimpses of his abdomen when you tended to his wounds. He always kept that barrier and you respected it, even on those nights he was too weak to stop you. Even if sometimes not knowing the color of his eyes kept you up at night.
A promise was a promise.
Maybe that’s why he kept coming. Why he trusted you with a certainty he couldn’t understand. Why he eventually showed you his new living quarters in the attic and let you spend time with him. Why half a year ago, he added another chair next to his desk so you could work together, or help him when he was out patrolling and needed an extra set of eyes.
“I’m officially the girl in the chair, spidey,” you joked that time as you sat next to him, spinning around in your chair.
He’d gone quiet immediately, his body tensing up enough to make you frown, but then managed a small smile and said you were. You pretended you didn’t notice him being too quiet as he worked on his inhibitor after that.
He was wearing a hoodie, sweatpants and the mask. Always the mask that didn’t quite let you see through him. After a moment of quiet, you rolled your chair closer to his and nudged his arm playfully.
“You know I can’t keep calling you spidey forever, right?”
He snapped out of his trance, and the chuckle that came from under the fabric was unmistakable.
“Why not?” He nudged your arm back, but still focused on the device he was hunched over. “I like spidey.”
You put your elbow on the desk, resting your cheek on your hand so you could lean a little closer.
“I like it too, but it feels ridiculous after having my hands all over your body almost every night.”
The moment the words left your lips, you realized how bad that sounded. He straightened up, turning toward you.
“Wow.” Even if you couldn’t see the smile on his face, the lenses of his mask were quite expressive sometimes. He was amused.
“That came out very wrong,” you said immediately, before he bursted into laughter. He had been laughing more since you entered his life. “You know what I meant,” you whined, laughing too with heat flooding your cheeks.
“I think I know,” he chuckled, making you roll your eyes.
“I’m being serious though,” you added, a little more quietly. “You don’t have to say your real name. Just give me something.”
“Mmm…” he acted like has considering it, going back to tinkering with the piece of metal between his fingers, but then his eyes drifted to the flowers he’d bought that morning, and the name came out of his lips before he could think twice about it. “You can call me Maynard.”
“Maynard?” You repeated, suppressing a chuckle. “You don’t sound like a Maynard. That’s like an 80 year old man’s name.”
“That’s all I can give you,” he shrugged playfully.
You had a feeling it went deeper than that, but you’d also learned not to push it with him.
“Alright. Maynard,” you nodded, “but don’t expect me to use that name unless you’re dying. Guess I’ll stick to spidey for now,” you chuckled, going back to your own work as he hummed in agreement.
The conversation ended there. With him trying not to think about your hands all over his body in…different conditions.
Peter didn’t know exactly when his gratitude became longing. He could not identify the moment the friendship, the closeness, or just your smile, shifted into something he craved everyday.
Despite the mask and the fake name, he knew that after years of being no one to everyone, he had become someone to you. And you had become everything to him. Even if it was behind walls he’d built, you were the person who knew him better than anyone alive.
Which is why, the night he lost control of himself after an unknown dust was thrown at him in a fight, he chose not to crash land into your room.
Peter hit the floor of the dark attic with a loud thud, as his senses went overboard. His suit was sticking to his body uncomfortably due to the sweat coating his feverish skin. The fabric was intact, with no visible wounds in his body, just that burning sensation of something running through his veins.
And that dark part of him he’d managed to lock down with the inhibitor, trying to claw its way out.
“What the…what the fuck is going on,” he cursed, clutching his heaving chest as he panted against the worn wood floors. “I can’t–I can’t breathe…”
The computer’s monotone voice broke through the silence.
“You have arrived injured. I’m letting her know–”
“NO!” He cut the AI off, “EV, don’t tell her–”
“Message already sent.”
He glanced up at the digital clock on his desk. 2:18 am.
He groaned, grabbing his head when a wave of migraine hit him. He knew what came after that. The black eyes. The desire to break. To take. But this time something felt different. It was like a pull, looking for something or someone…for…for you?
Oh fuck.
You were going to come in and you were going to see him like this. No, no–
“Spidey?” You asked from behind the door, knocking exactly twice before opening it anyways.
The air changed the exact moment you walked in, and that something inside him shifted too. It became aware that the only thing it craved to survive was in the room now.
He needed to get to you. He needed to pin you down and–
“Don’t!” He managed to scream, holding his hand up weakly when you scrambled toward him.
You stopped right in your tracks, eyes wide and running all over him, searching for torn fabric, blood, or anything that would explain why he looked like every breath was painful.
“What happened?” You frowned, when you couldn’t find any source. “Did you get hurt?”
You instinctively stepped forward, but he waved his hand in front of him again.
“Stop, stop, stop,” he said quickly, “don’t come any closer.”
The harshness in his voice caught you off guard, but what sealed the deal was him dragging himself further away from you. It was barely more than a clumsy, desperate crawl, but he managed to put a decent distance between you before collapsing against the side of his thrifted couch.
He avoided looking at you. The oversized shirt covering your body, the comfy shorts you were probably wearing, the way your hair looked messy from rolling out of bed as soon as you got EV’s warning even if you had work the next morning.
You stayed right where you were, watching him. His suit had always fit him like it was painted on his skin, but every pant made his chest rise and fall beneath the fabric so violently that you wouldn’t be surprised if it ripped at the seams.
This reminded you too much of the changes that happened in him months ago.
It started with a sharpened temper, then the heightened sensitivity to everything, the black covering his eyes, and moments during patrol when his reactions became simply frightening for someone who had as much strength as he did. But you were supposed to have stopped it.
“Is it the inhibitor?” You asked, crossing your arms over your chest, “is it failing?”
“I–I don’t know…I was hit with some dust out there,” he breathed. “I think it’s tampering with it…my head is killing me. Everything is too much.”
You nodded, turning toward the workstation.
“I will check the programming. Just hold on.” Not your best attempt at reassuring him, but he groaned in acknowledgment.
“EV?”
The computer woke when you touched the keyboard, illuminating the dark attic in a wash of blue light.
“Online.”
“Please run a diagnostic on the inhibitor and any possible interference.”
“Beginning diagnostic.”
You waited impatiently for the results, tapping your fingers on the desk while you watched him from the corner of your eye.
Over there, he…he was doing his best trying to breathe.
This obviously wasn't his first time having sensory overload. When the animal tried to take over the human part of him, everything in the city became impossible to escape. Not a single movement, or sound, or simple existence within miles was unnoticed by him.
But this time? The rest of the city had disappeared. There were no sirens in the distance, or voices coming through the walls, or every heartbeat in the building pounding in his head.
There was only you.
Your rapid heartbeat echoing inside him. He felt every tap of your fingers against the wood, every slight catch in your breathing each time he made another involuntary and pathetic sound from his spot on the floor.
Your scent…God, your scent filled the entire apartment.
The scent he found himself coming back to so often that it scared him. He didn’t want the attachment. The possibility of having someone again only to risk losing them again.
That same scent was making every muscle in his body react in a way he didn’t understand. It made him, and the other him, wanna do things to you he had only dreamed of in his wildest fantasies. Things he wasn’t proud of, things he wouldn’t dare to say out loud, even if he looked at you through the lenses of his mask and you couldn’t see the black in his eyes.
He pressed the back of his head against the couch harshly.
This was wrong. So wrong.
His senses were supposed to consume everything when the change came. Instead, they had fixed themselves entirely on you.
He could feel the heat of your body from across the room as though you were still in front of him. Could remember with sickening detail how soft your hands looked when they reached for him. Could almost feel the burn of the touch that had never landed because he stopped you.
What if he’d let you? What if he’d felt the way your hands ran all over his body? What if you’d moved them lower, and lower, as your mouth–
“Diagnostic complete.”
Your heads snapped toward the screen.
“There’s no external damage affecting the integrity of the device. I detected a foreign biotoxin in the bloodstream that may be bypassing the inhibitor, activating the suppressed arachnid hormones.”
“What biotoxin?” You frowned.
“Unknown. No matches found in available databases.”
Great. He thought. He had no time to take a bath with Yelena Belova to find out what the stupid dust was.
The screen changed, displaying a model of his nervous system. There were yellow bright lines pulsing quickly, running all the way from the base of his brain down the length of his spine. Something unknown was moving through his blood, altering the part of him he had spent months forcing into submission.
He sucked in a breath as he watched you read the screen. Your eyes were focused, and a bead of sweat made its way down the side of your forehead.
He suddenly felt the need to lick it off.
Wanted to run his tongue from the base of your neck to the back of your ear. Wanted to fist your hair and make your heart beat out of your chest from how good he knew he could make you feel–
“The effects remain within his enhanced tolerance. However, prolonged exposure to certain hormones can cause extreme distress without relief.”
“What hormones?” Your voice, worried and unknowing of his thoughts only made him feel guiltier.
It took him a second to realize what you asked, but EV threw him under the bus before he could say anything.
“There’s a significant rise in reproductive hormones. The unknown toxin is inducing a strong mating response in him.”
Mating response. He stopped breathing.
Your eyes slowly moved from the monitor to him, and he saw the moment your attention dropped lower to the tent of his pants.
That suit concealed nothing on a good day. On one like this? Fuck. Fuck. Fuck–
He shifted almost immediately, but the movement only worsened the pressure, pulling a helpless groan from his throat that made your pulse jump. You looked away at once, turning back to the computer.
“Is there a way we can…umm…stop it?” You asked hesitantly.
“The subject is experiencing severe sexual arousal with a fixation on a nearby individual,” she explained, because fuck him if he wasn’t the unluckiest individual on earth. “Acting upon it can be a positive option to relieve sexual tension.”
He wished the floor would open beneath him, swallow him, and never ever EVER spit him back out again.
Your pulse was absolutely hammering after that. He caught the sudden change in your scent. There was a sharp spark of surprise, nervousness, and something else beneath it that his altered senses fed on immediately.
You kept your eyes fixed on the monitor, although the data had stopped meaning anything the moment you heard fixation on a nearby individual.
“Is that what you really feel?” You asked softly after a moment.
His head fell forward, catching it between his gloved hands. He didn’t know how to answer without making everything worse.
Although, after what EV said, could it really be worse?
“…Yes.” The word came out rougher than he expected. Yet still not enough for what was happening inside him. “It’s like…I can only feel you. All of you.”
Heat rose to your face once again.
“What does that mean?”
Don’t say anything, don’t–
“I can smell you.” Great start, idiot. He cleared his dry throat before continuing. “I can smell your shampoo…the lotion you use…the ink on your hands from your favorite pen.”
He chose not to mention he could also smell the adrenaline on you. The heat gathering slowly beneath your skin.
Your eyes dropped to your hands, and under the dim light of the computer, you caught the blue stains in them from your journaling session before bed.
“I can hear your heartbeat changing every time I speak,” he added. Okay, that one slipped out.
You swallowed. And god, he felt that in his own throat.
The suit was suffocating him at this point. He wanted to rip it off as much as he wanted to rip off the fabric covering the goosebumps on your skin.
“Is it only because I’m nearby?” You asked, gathering the courage to turn your chair to him.
White lenses met you across the room. He dragged in another shaky breath of oxygen made of you as he thought about his next words. He could’ve lied. He should’ve lied. But instead, chemically overwhelmed and stripped of every defense he possessed, he gave you the truth.
“No.”
His voice was firmer this time. No hesitation in it despite the thousand red alarms pounding in his head telling him to shut up.
“It picked you–no, I picked you for a reason,” he added. “And it’s not just me. The other…the other me wants you too.”
His voice went lower on the last part, that told you how much it cost him to admit that.
The silence following his confession was heavy. For a moment he wished he could read your mind. For all he could feel of you, your thoughts were unreachable.
His own mind was a mess. The impulses didn’t feel like thoughts anymore, just his body feeding him instructions.
Get up. Cross the room. Touch her. Breathe her in.
His palms shook with the urge to close around you. His teeth ached with the need to graze your skin. His eyes burned with the desire to see beyond fabric.
Every part of him seemed convinced that the small distance between you was a mistake he needed to correct. That he needed to breathe you in until his lungs burned. Drag his mouth along the inside of your wrist and taste the pulse there.
He hated it.
He hated that something inside him could look at the person he cared for the most and reduce her to an answer for his pain.
“EV, how long is this state going to last?” He asked the computer, followed by a weak cough as he clutched his side.
“Your enhanced physiology is struggling to break down the toxin’s structure. I estimate a time between ten to twelve hours before it’s metabolized. However, neurological collapse is expected before that timeframe.”
“What?” You looked at him. “There’s no way we’re letting that happen. Maybe I can–”
“Don’t even start,” he cut you off, shaking his head profusely.
“So what? I’m supposed to sit here betting on whether your body collapses on hour three or hour six?”
“I’ll just pass out, big deal. I’m not putting you in danger because of this. I can handle it.”
“You’re barely handling it now. There’s no danger in trying–”
“You don’t understand what’s happening inside me right now,” he argued, raising his voice. “This other thing, the one the inhibitor controls it’s…awake. That part of me doesn’t think like I do. It doesn’t care if you're scared, or hurting–”
“You wouldn’t hurt me–”
“You don’t know that!” He snapped, his fist struck the floor next to him, hard enough to make the worn wood crack beneath his knuckles.
The sudden noise made you flinch. He smelled the flash of fear moving through your body for only a second.
One second enough.
“Fuck–that is what I mean,” he cursed, covering his lenses with his hands. “I don’t…I don’t know if I’d be gentle. I can’t risk this, I can't…shit, I can’t risk you.”
The words, said with so much pain, and honesty, seemed to settle somewhere deep in your chest.
“Okay,” you nodded, settling deeper in your chair. “But I’m not leaving you like this. I can’t risk you either.”
He shuddered a painful exhale. His head dropped to the couch again, shutting his eyes in preparation of what the next hours of torture would be.
Except…he didn’t even last ten minutes.
The suit was killing him, so he decided he’d be better without it. He reached desperately behind his back, clumsily undoing the zippers that tied the suit together.
He could feel your wide eyes on him as he tugged the fabric off his shoulders, peeling it off his sweaty arms. He groaned when he lifted his hips and the suit grazed his swollen crotch. In a matter of seconds that felt like eternity he managed to break free from the spandex, and threw it away somewhere in the room. He’d undressed down to his dark boxers, mask still in place, revealing the marble sculpture of his body.
You let out a shaky breath from your spot, eyes raking over a body you’d only seen partially. He was covered in wounds most of the time, but this time, he only had faint bruises from the night before decorating his chiseled abs.
His tight muscles flexed with every rise of his chest, his bulge straining harder the more you devoured him, pressing against his pants, making him curse quietly.
You noticed, and returned your eyes to the screen to track his vitals.
He felt grateful that you’d given him that grace, but just you being in that room made it very hard for him to think of anything other than your existence.
Too hard.
Before he knew his hand drifted down the growing ache in his crotch, trying to feel some relief, but every rub he made over the fabric of his boxers sent a jolt of pain through his body instead of pleasure.
It only made it worse when he realized you were tense at the desk, trying very hard to keep your focus on the screen and not on the whines he was letting out.
“…I’m sorry,” he apologized instantly, breathlessly, moving his hand away. “I didn’t–”
“Don’t apologize,” you shook your head quickly, eyes still on the screen. “You…you can do whatever you need.”
He didn’t say anything, just whined in pain again, so you took it as a chance to say it before you regretted it.
“But my offer still stands, spidey.”
What a polite way of saying ‘I’d let you fuck me into next week so you can control your horny arachnid hormones, spidey.’
Fucking hell.
“I’m okay I just–God I didn’t–I didn’t think it would feel this way…” He laughed humorlessly, staring at the ceiling. “But I–I got this. Yes.”
You kept quiet, hearing him mumble to himself about a hundred times about how he had this.
“I’m okay…I’m good…it’s fine…”
He wasn’t.
“Fuck I don’t…I’m going to die…”
For God’s sake.
“I think I can help.”
By the time he registered the words and looked back at you, you had already moved from your chair and shortened the distance between you, kneeling in front of him.
His senses went from one thousand to one million. He forced his hands behind his back, trying to keep the animal from grabbing you and getting it over with.
“What–what are you doing?” He stammered nervously, the lenses of his mask going wide.
“Maynard,” you said quietly, ignoring the way his body tensed up at that name. “Would it make you feel better if I put my hand here?”
You placed your hand right in the center of his chest, and your cold palm met his overheated skin. He gasped, feeling every individual fingerprint on his skin. He wanted them marked on him. Tattooed.
His back arched from the couch, with a strangled gasp breaking from beneath the mask. The relief hit him all at once, through a simple contact that felt like salvation.
Your hand steadied him for only a glorious second, but now that you had touched him, his body knew precisely what it had been denied.
It wanted more.
His own hand closed around yours so suddenly that you almost pulled back, but he loosened his grip the instant he realized how tightly he was holding you.
“Sorry–”
“Don’t apologize.” You pressed harder.
He was burning.
The heat beneath your palm scared you, but what scared you more was the violent pounding of his heart beating against your hand so so quickly.
“Better?” You asked quietly, trying not to bite your bottom lip at the image of him crumbling under your palm.
“So fucking better,” he said breathlessly, pressing your hand tighter against his chest. “I…dammit–”
“Breathe,” you reminded.
His head fell back against the couch. Chest rising up and down, up and down, up and down.
Just take her, man, she’s right there–
Your free hand accidentally brushed his neck, right where the border of the mask started, snapping him right back. He grabbed your hand, not harshly, but firm enough to make your breath hitch.
“Please.” Was all he said.
Leave it on.
It brought you back to that first night he’d crashed into your life.
“I wasn’t planning on removing it,” you whispered, leaning closer. “You can keep it on. But let me help you…I really want to.”
See? She wants it. She needs it so bad.
He hated that the other guy was right. He knew you meant what you said because he could smell the proof pooling between your thighs.
Fuck it.
In a sudden movement he reached for your waist, dragging you forward so you were straddling his lap. The bulge you landed on made you gasp, hands instinctively grabbing onto his sweaty biceps for balance when he let out a broken groan that vibrated against your core.
His hand cupped your jaw, bringing it closer to his face, and your dilated pupils reflected on the white of his lenses.
“I can feel that you want this,” he mumbled, tilting his head to the side. “Please, say it again…”
You shifted your hips, barely, so minimal yet he felt it travel through his whole body. He hissed, tightening the grip on your jaw.
“I want this,” you repeated firmly, moving your head closer to his ear. “You can take whatever you need…”
You moved your hips again, more deliberate this time, pulling a broken whine from him. The toxin made every contact feel like electricity racing down his spine, straight to the heavy, aching weight of his cock under you.
“Yes…yeah just like that…” he panted. “Just let me…”
His hands landed on your waist, moving you back and forth at a quicker pace over his bulge. You gasped at the friction, fingers digging into his shoulders, while he let out a collection of muffled words you could barely understand.
“...M–more…” he whined, throwing his head back against the couch. “I can’t–I need…”
“What do you need? More what?”
“More contact.”
His hands left your waist to grab the hem of your shirt.
“Can I?” He whispered.
You nodded eagerly, gasping when his hands shifted to the collar of your shirt instead, ripping it off your body with a sharp pull.
“Oh fuck,” he cursed when he realized there was nothing under that shirt, and saw your nipples hardening instantly under the cold air.
He resisted the urge to bite them through the mask.
His hands, however, wasted no time to cup your breasts with a broken whine. His thumbs played with your nipples, tugging at them as hard as he could allow himself to without hurting you.
“Fuck you’re perfect…you’re so perfect…” he whispered, more to himself than you, pulling some soft whimpers out of you when he tugged a little harder. His hands drifted to your lower half, to the hem of the last piece keeping your body from his greedy eyes. “These too,” he said, “please, can I? I want to feel you.”
“Yes,” you nodded, already out of air.
You didn’t even know why you tried to get off his lap to take the shorts off properly, when he just did the same as the shirt: ripped it in half where it rested on your hips, yanked it off from your body and threw the ruined pieces far away.
You weren’t wearing anything underneath.
“I can smell you. God, I can smell you. You’re so–oh God…”
Now he could feel your wetness drenching his boxers, dripping onto the fabric. He could almost taste it in his mouth. He wanted nothing more than to drown in it for hours.
“Can–can I–?”
You didn’t even let him finish, you grabbed his hand and placed it right between your legs.
Water. He found water in the middle of the dessert.
His hand moved carefully through your wet folds once, twice, delighting in your warmth, the way you felt, the way you let out the prettiest sound he had ever heard in his miserable life.
“Fuck…” you cursed softly, moving your hips eagerly when he kept stroking slow. Too slow. “Touch me, please.”
He obliged, fingers finding your clit in movements that had you gripping his shoulders tighter, eyes fluttering shut so beautifully he had to bite his lip to not let out a pathetic sound.
“Been wanting this,” he mumbled. “Longer than today. Longer than tonight.”
His finger slid inside of you, making you moan when he curled it just right.
“There were…there were nights I thought about you riding my hand,” he kept going, voice cracking as he added a second finger, stretching you more. “I’ve wanted you for so long–not just because of this shit in my blood. Because it’s you.”
Every word made you clench around his fingers. Every admission pulled another shaky moan out of your throat. You were a mess already, breathless, hips rolling down to meet the thrust of his fingers.
“Oh my God–don’t stop, please don’t stop–”
“Not stopping, baby.”
He kept working you open, the white lenses of the mask never leaving your face. His free hand slid up your chest, settling between your breasts.
“I’m–I’m close,” you managed. “I’m so close–”
“Come on…you’re perfect. You’re so fucking perfect like this.”
The heel of his palm lifted to press against your clit. You were right there, right on the edge, about to come on his hand and drip down his boxers–
“Please,” he begged, unable to keep it in. “Let me fuck you after this…please. I need to be inside you. I’ve needed it for so long–just let me, after you come, please, please–”
The plea undid you.
You came with a broken cry, stopping your movements as your walls pulsed around him. The sound you made against his shoulder nearly finished him right there.
It took you a second to just breathe again, your chest synching up with his in the search of oxygen. He kept rocking his hand slowly, not just to work you through the aftershocks, but because the friction of your pussy in his hand brought the tiniest relief to him.
You just stayed there as the last soft waves rolled through you.
Once you were able to see clearly again, you let out a breathless chuckle and straightened back up.
He needed you. He needed you so badly you really thought he was going to die if you didn’t help him.
You placed one hand on his chest as the other reached under you, slipping inside the fabric of his boxers without breaking eye contact.
The second your bare fingers brushed him, his hips jerked hard under you.
“You said please,” you whispered breathlessly.
You wrapped your fingers around him and pulled him free.
His cock sprang out, heavy and flushed between your bodies, so thick and hard and painful. The head was red and shiny, with precum dripping down the vein that ran along his length. The tip brushed the skin of your stomach, leaving a warm, wet patch that made the hair on your arms go up. He could smell the small flicker of intimidation sparking inside you, but the want that followed was stronger.
You stroked him a few times, slowly just as he’d touched you at first.
“Oh my God, your hand–your hand–”
Another thick bead of precum welled up and spilled over your fingers. Whether it was the toxin or just his enhanced physiology, he was dripping for you.
Flustered wasn’t enough of a word when you had his leaking cock in your hand.
His hands slid down to your hips, gripping tighter, guiding you up as if he was about to lift you then pulling you back down immediately.
Fuck her. Fuck her right now.
“Please, I need–I need to feel you…” he cried out. “Let me…let me…”
You nodded just as desperately, lifting yourself up as he helped, steadying you with shaking hands until the thick head of his cock nudged against your entrance. You both exhaled hard at the same time when you started to sink down, taking him inch by inch.
He was big. Almost too much. The burn of it made your breath hitch, but the way he cursed under his breath multiple times, completely at your mercy, made you keep going until he was buried balls deep.
You sat there for a moment, breathing heavily, and so full of him.
When the initial sting faded away, you started moving. He let you set the pace as you adjusted, holding back his need of thrusting up. His fingers dug on your skin, not lifting just holding you, but the more that you moved, the more that control started to waver.
He could feel it coming. The change.
You kept moaning, bouncing on top of him, completely unaware of his self restraint crumbling away.
His grip slowly tightened when his eyes began turning completely black under his mask. That careful, pathetic boy who’d been begging disappeared beneath something more…primal.
Fuck. Whatever had been holding him back finally snapped.
The next thing he knew, his hands slid under your thighs with sudden strength. He lifted you up in one motion until only the thick head of him remained inside you, held you there for a second as the last part of him tried to remember how to be gentle–then snapped his hips up hard.
That first thrust pulled a sharp moan out of you, but there was no chance to adjust this time. He set a relentless pace almost immediately, using pure strength to bounce you on his cock while he drove up to meet every drop of your body, buried so deep it stole your breath every time he bottomed out.
“Oh my–May…Maynard–” the name you barely used on him slipped out in the middle of the frenzy, but his hand reached behind your head to pull your hair back slightly as he kept thrusting up.
“Don’t call me that,” he snapped, his voice so different from just minutes earlier. “It’s Peter. Call me Peter when I’m inside you.”
He didn’t even give you time to process, still lifting and dropping you onto his cock at the exact hard rhythm he wanted. The only one that satisfied the need inside of him. Your hands instinctively reached for the edge of the arm of the couch he was leaning against, fingers digging into the worn fabric as he hit that spot inside you over and over again.
“Of fuck…Peter–fuck…yes…”
“That’s better,” he approved. “I was right, you’re so so perfect…taking every inch like you need it as bad as I do…”
A desperate sound slipped out of you at the praise, he could feel your walls clenching tight around him as your body went for that second orgasm, your eyes were fluttering shut, almost there–
“Nuh–uh,” he denied immediately, stopping mid thrust, holding you pressed against him as you gasped, surprised and confused.
“What–what happened? I was about to–”
“I want you to hold it for me. I know you can.”
That twisted part of him enjoyed the slow realization on your face.
Even if you couldn’t see his eyes, you knew the same spiderman he’d been without the inhibitor, was the one with your body at his mercy now.
Good.
He stayed buried to the hilt for a moment, breathing hard behind the mask. When your breathing finally slowed down and accepted that the high never came, he stood up. Still inside you, he walked you to the bed in the corner of the room.
His bed.
He pulled out with a wet sound that made both of you groan, then laid you down roughly near the edge of the mattress. He kneeled down, strong hands hooking behind your knees and dragging your legs over his shoulders, folding you open for him completely.
“Look at the ceiling,” he ordered. “Don’t look at me.”
You obeyed, staring up at the wood beams high above you while he tugged the bottom of the mask just high enough to free his mouth.
Peter leaned down and pressed a few soft kisses to your swollen folds. He wasn’t necessarily eating you out, just giving a few loud smooches that felt good enough to make you grip the sheets.
“M’sorry, you were so perfect there…” he mumbled condescendingly against your most sensitive spots. “But I need you to hold on a little longer. Can you do that for me, sweetheart?”
You nodded, eyes still fixed on the ceiling. Maybe too eager. Maybe too pathetic. Just like he’d been. Had he pumped that toxin into you?
Either way, you didn’t care. You’d be lying if you said you didn’t like this version of him.
He laughed right over your clit when you moaned loudly, after he moved his tongue in a slow, torturous swipe over it.
“Was back there too much?” He cooed. “Maybe I just need to stretch you more...”
Two fingers slid inside you, so easily, but the sudden stretch still dragged a whine out of your throat. He curled them immediately, finding the spot that made your hips jerk.
“Peter…”
“Huh?” He acted coy, pumping his fingers with a rhythm that kept you right on the edge without letting you tip over. He added a third finger, making your back arch from the mattress. “Keep holding it in.”
Every shake of your body fed the stupid toxin inside him. Having you like this…really trying to keep your body from coming apart because he said so.
God. He was never going back.
“You just took my cock. I think you can take three fingers with no problem.”
He kept the same relentless pace, chuckling when your body started twitching again.
“Shhh, you’re perfect, absolutely perfect…”
“Peter…” you called out again, hand dropping the sheet to find his shoulder instead. “I need…need…”
“Need what?”
“Need you inside me…please I won’t–I won’t hold for much longer just–fuck me.”
He stopped altogether, a smirk you couldn’t see stretching the corner of his mouth. He pulled his fingers out with a wet pop, licking them clean before tugging his mask back in place and standing up.
“Yeah?”
Your legs dangled off the edge of the bed for a moment before his hands gripped your hips and turned you over. He moved you higher up the bed, grabbing one of the pillows, and shoving it under your hips, tilting your lower body up for him.
He then climbed onto the bed behind you and knelt between your spread thighs, the mattress dipping under his weight as one hand stroked down the length of your spine.
But something made him stop.
“This fucking mask–” he cursed under his breath. “It’s suffocating me.”
The sweat on his forehead had pooled under the mask, making it so sticky over his eyebrows that it was affecting the lenses he was trying to see you through.
“I need you to be a good girl for me,” he added breathlessly, yet still commanding enough. “Keep your head on the mattress. Ass up. Don’t turn around.”
You nodded. Too eagerly again. Couldn’t care any less again.
He didn’t think twice, just yanked the mask off and tossed it aside. It landed near you, making you bury half your face on the sheets as if staring at the mask alone would be disobeying his commands.
The sound he made when the cool air hit his face was pure relief. He swiped the sweat off with his forearm, finally seeing you clearly. Face down. Eyes squeezed shut. Already clutching the sheets.
“You look so pretty like this,” he mumbled. “All spread out for me…waiting.”
“Peter…” you whined, lifting your ass slightly from the pillow.
“I know, I know. You’re okay.” He couldn’t keep the smirk away when he added, “you said please.”
He reached between you, guiding the thick head of his cock between your thighs until it nudged against your entrance. You were still soft and ready and perfect.
Peter pushed in slowly, letting you feel every inch as he sank deep and deep and deeper.
He braced one hand beside your head and kept the other on your hip, pushing you into the mattress as his thighs hit the back of yours. Slap. Slap. Slap. The position left almost no space between your bodies, with Peter pressing his chest against your back.
“Fuck…you feel so good like this…so pretty taking me.”
He kept going, making the mattress creak and the base of the bed hit the brick wall repeatedly. Your desperate moans ran through his body like electricity, making something inside him crack open again.
What? What is–
The moment his rhythm stuttered, he shook his head, trying to clear it. Beads of sweat flew from his hair to your back.
“God–you…you’re making me–” The roughness of his thrusts slowed down immediately, inhaling a sharp intake of air as he felt the change again. “I can’t, I can’t…”
He lifted his gaze to the window behind the bed and noticed his eyes had turned back to its original color.
“Oh my god,” he gasped, stopping altogether. He straightened up, still kneeling and inside you, but panicking. “I’m…I’m so sorry. I don’t know what happened I–“
“Peter!” You cut him off, pushing yourself back, closer to him, without turning around. “Shut up and fuck me.”
The order left your mouth breathless, pushing back against him even more to make the point clear. His hands twitched when they gripped your hips again.
“Okay, okay…” he panted, groaning when you dropped back on the bed and his cock almost left the warmth of your pussy. “I’m sorry–if I was too rough, I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to…”
He picked up the pace again, but the words tumbling out of him now were pure pleading Peter again.
“Don’t turn around–don’t turn around–fuck, fuck…” slap, slap, slap. “You can come now. Please. Please, I want to feel it–you’d come apart so pretty on me, I know you would…pleasepleaseplease–”
His final permission and the desperate way he said it made you crash harder than the first time, crying out into the mattress. The second he felt you coming around him, he knew he couldn’t last much longer either.
“Can I–inside…please, can I??…let me fill you up–”
“Yes–inside, Peter, do it inside me…”
He buried himself to the hilt with a strained groan and finally came. The orgasm tearing out of him was harder and longer than anything he’d ever felt, holding you there, filling you up.
You gasped against the sheets, breathless, as the waves of cum seemed to go on forever, flooding you with warm and thick ropes in every spurt as he emptied himself inside you.
“Thank you…thank you…” His forehead dropped between your shoulder blades, sending broken gasps against your skin as he kept coming. “You are so perfect–fuck…so perfect…thank you…”
The pollen wrung him dry until he could barely breathe, and even then he kept rolling his hips weakly, chasing the last of it while he slowly softened inside you.
When it finally eased, the pain, the need, the hunger…he pulled out slowly with a whine, and half collapsed over you. His arms held most of his weight as he planked above you, but you could feel every ridge of his muscles brushing your sweaty skin.
Peter’s eyes fluttered shut, feeling exhausted and aching in the best way, almost lulled by the sounds of your agitated breaths.
You both felt the warm trail of liquid leaking out between your bodies and neither of you moved or said anything for a while. He could’ve stayed like that forever, really. With your naked body under him, no masks, no barriers, just your swollen pussy leaking out his seed–
“Successful ejaculation brought down the arachnid hormone levels immediately. Inhibitor working within regular parameters now. Congratulations, Peter.”
EV’s monotone voice cut through the silence.
It took two seconds of shock before you both broke into breathless laughter. His teeth grazed your back as your bodies vibrated in sync from the amusement and overall flustering after everything that happened.
“Thank you, EV,” Peter muttered.
“You’re welcome. I gathered data and the released semen volume exceeds standard parameters by two hundred and twenty six percent due to the high hormonal concentration. Hydration, clean up and rest are advised.”
“For fucks sake…” Peter cursed under his breath.
“Oh god…” you mumbled against the sheets.
That was your call back to reality.
Peter felt you move under him, reaching blindly to the side until your hand found the mask. You lifted it over your shoulder, offering it to him without looking.
“I don’t want to,” he said, too quickly, then cleared his throat. “I…I don’t want to put it back on.”
“Then I’ll close my eyes,” you offered instead.
“No–I mean…you don’t have to. I don’t want to wear it around you anymore. Not after…all of this,” he admitted sheepishly.
“But you told me to not turn around,” you reminded him, dropping the mask on the mattress again. “And that was you, not the darker you.”
He chuckled, nodding even if you couldn’t see him yet.
“Yeah, because if I saw your face while I was balls deep inside you I would’ve busted before you came.”
There it was. He said it. No turning back now.
At least it got a chuckle from you too.
“Listen I…I meant everything I said. Everything. The wanting, the nights I thought about you,” he confessed. “I don’t want you to feel like I just used you when…when there was always a reason why I needed you like oxygen tonight.”
Your breath hitched, and his hand found your waist, pulling you closer to him, and when you didn’t push away…he exhaled in relief behind you.
“So maybe…you can turn around now. If–if you want to. Know the real me.”
“I would really like that,” you whispered without hesitation.
You tried lifting yourself up to turn around, but he did most of the job, moving away the pillow he had placed under you and helping you roll onto your back. You closed your eyes, at least until you were facing him completely, and took a deep breath. Holding onto his biceps for moral support, you finally opened them again.
Seeing his face for the first time felt so intimate, even after everything you just did.
There he was. The same guy who just fucked you into next week, looking more shy and boyish than you could’ve ever imagined.
Brown eyes. Dark, curly hair sticking to his forehead. A nervous smile tugging at the corner of his gorgeous mouth.
So young. So earnest. So yours.
Not spidey anymore. Just Peter.
Your Peter.
Thank you so much for reading 🤍 I used to write Peter so much back in the day (shoutout to my starktonyx era) and I’ve missed him dearly.
below is a list of fics for the 'just a secret' au series! ੈ✩‧₊˚
✩.* 'just a secret'} dean di laurentis x maxwell!femreader
in which dean can handle the secrecy. watching other guys hit on you, however, is an entirely different story.
✩.* if only they knew} dean di laurentis x maxwell!femreader
in which one rooftop party, one car ride, and one too many mentions of another guy forces dean to confront just how tired he is of pretending you're not his.
✩.*leave him behind} dean di laurentis x maxwell!femreader
in which a late-night argument with your boyfriend follows you home, beau finally voices what everyone has been thinking, and dean watches you break apart while realising just how unhappy you've become.
✩.* a love letter to new york} dean di laurentis x maxwell!femreader
in which a scheduling mix-up leaves you and dean sharing a weekend in new york together, blurring the line between friendship and something far more dangerous.
i’m begging like on my hands and knees for more i would’ve done that sober please please please it was like so amazing you are so talented keep it up!!
I hate being sober
Pairing: Dean Di Laurentis x childhood best friend!reader
⟡ Main Index | ⟡ Archive for Earth-66
☆ Read part 1 here!!
a/n: Big thank yous all around for your patience. I hope you guys enjoy this part! Let's all be responsible readers and keep some tissues nearby. Don't blow your snot on your shirts and keep your underwear on!!
Classification: Smut +18 | Alcohol consumption at a college party (background), confrontation, insecurity and anxiety around sexual performance and orgasm, references to a past bad relationship, emotional vulnerability, fear of rejection or disgust from a partner, overthinking and anxiety in romantic/sexual communication, sensory deprivation, mild nipple play, oral sex, conversations during sex/talking you through it and praise, unprotected p-in-v, creampie, mild cum play??, multiple intense orgasms, crying during sex and aftercare and past references.
Word count: 14 k
Divider by me ;)
Hockey boys disappeared.
You wished you had known that before you let Dean slip out of your place two nights ago.
They didn’t do it intentionally, never maliciously either but the season swallowed them whole. They vanished into six a.m. skates and afternoon lifts, into physical therapy appointments that patched together bruised shoulders and strained knees. Into mandatory media interviews the athletic department insisted would make the team more marketable, more approachable and into lectures they attended only long enough to collect notes before hurrying off to practice again, then came the exams they'd postponed because hockey had always come first until suddenly it couldn't.
Their schedules folded in on themselves until entire days disappeared without warning.
You only ever seemed to find them again at parties, ones Allie and Hannah practically dragged you to, insisting fresh air, loud music and cheap drinks counted as emotional healing.
Your skin had been buzzing ever since that night, an awareness sitting right beneath the surface no matter how hard you tried to ignore it. Every time you opened your dresser, the tangled pile of Agent Provocateur lace shoved unceremoniously into the back of your drawer stared back at you like evidence from a crime scene. You'd stuffed it in there without folding a single piece, too flustered to deal with it afterward, yet you still couldn't bring yourself to move it somewhere less obvious.
Then there were Dean's texts, you answered them eventually, right after rewriting each reply sufficient times to make yourself question your own sanity. Was starting a sentence with a capital letter too serious? Did ending it with a period make you sound annoyed? Was “okay” different from “ok”? You caught yourself deleting perfectly normal messages simply because they looked too eager before sending something shorter that felt even stranger.
You hadn't mentioned that night once.
You tried not to think too much about the kiss or what had come before and especially not how it had ended. He'd watched you pull your pajamas on without a trace of impatience, giving you the privacy of looking away whenever your eyes met before inevitably finding you again, you kept your focus away from the memory of the gentle press of his lips against your forehead before he'd left, so tender you could still feel the warmth after he’d stepped away. You'd looked completely wrung out, limbs heavy, emotions stripped bare, too tired to pretend you were anything but vulnerable and he'd treated you like something precious instead of fragile.
You hadn't reached for him.
Even now, the memory made your fingers twitch uselessly at your sides. If you'd caught his wrist and tugged him back for even another minute, would anything feel different now? Or would you still be dissecting text messages like they were evidence in a court case, wondering how you had become shy after years of knowing each other better than anyone else?
“So that's what it feels like,” you breathed, the words escaping before you realized you'd spoken them aloud as your heeled boots scraped lazily against the sidewalk.
A few steps ahead, Allie stopped so abruptly she nearly caused a collision. She turned on her heel, her brows knitting together as she looked first at Hannah walking beside you, checking whether she'd heard the same thing, before her attention landed squarely on you.
“That's what what feels like?” she asked, curiosity overtaking whatever conversation you three had been having.
You could feel another exchange of glances pass between them, so quick most people would've missed it. Hannah's eyebrows lifted ever so slightly, Allie's mouth pulled into a thin line before she gave the smallest shrug in return.
Years of friendship had made you fluent in conversations that didn't require words. If you had to guess, it translated roughly to “Maybe this was a bad idea. Maybe it was too soon to drag her to a party.” You pretended not to notice. Instead, you let your gaze drift down the street.
Cars lined both curbs, squeezed bumper to bumper beneath the streetlights, while clusters of students spilled across lawns and sidewalks with red cups already in hand. Music pulsed from somewhere ahead, bass so heavy it vibrated faintly beneath your feet and every few seconds another burst of laughter erupted from the overcrowded house at the end of the block where people continuously filtered through the front door, the party breathing them in and out.
You let out a quiet sigh, wondering whether turning around now would actually be more awkward than simply going inside.
Hannah spoke first, her voice light. “We don't have to stay long,” she reasoned, slipping her hands into the pockets of her jacket as she smiled at you. “There's free booze. Let's just treat it like a pregame, then we can head back to the apartment, order something greasy and play poker.”
“No offense, girls,” you replied with the ghost of a smile, “but I'm not stripping naked in front of you two tonight. Sorry to disappoint.”
Allie snorted. “I think she means the normal kind of poker.”
You looked at her with exaggerated disbelief. “We're in college, Allie. There is no other kind.”
A laugh escaped Hannah while Allie rolled her eyes so dramatically you were surprised they didn't disappear into the back of her head permanently.
“Okay…” Allie muttered under her breath, drawing the word out as she pointed an accusing finger at you. “Pessimist.” Then her entire expression brightened again, optimism returning with alarming speed. “Let's not waste good outfits by turning around prematurely. One hour.” She held up a finger. “Two, tops.”
“And no boys–” Hannah added.
You watched Allie's head whip toward her so quickly a strand of hair stuck briefly to her lipstick. “What?” she protested.
Hannah ignored her entirely, keeping her eyes on you instead. “We'll keep them at bay.”
“Who's we?” Allie demanded, her eyes widening in horror. She turned toward Hannah, raising both eyebrows in an elaborate series of expressions that looked suspiciously like she was trying to negotiate exceptions without saying them openly.
“Yeah,” you chimed in before Hannah could answer, “let's not be rash.”
Both of them looked at you at once and you blinked innocently. “I mean…” you amended, scratching lightly at the side of your neck. “Talking's fine, right?” Your shoulders lifted in a small shrug. “If Tucker came up to me, I wouldn't ignore him.”
“You like Tucker?” Hannah asked carefully, the question so gentle that it almost sounded like she was testing the ice before stepping onto it. Her eyes narrowed, though the corner of her mouth betrayed the beginning of a smile. “Though he's not the demographic I'm worried about.”
Your head snapped toward her. “No, I–” You stumbled over the words, making a vague gesture in the air between you. “It was just an example. He's a boy–” You caught yourself. “Man.” The correction did absolutely nothing to restore your confidence as both of them continued staring at you expectantly. You winced. “Okay, it was a bad example,” you admitted, ducking your head.
Before either of them could capitalize on it, you slipped neatly between them and continued walking toward the house, hoping physical distance would somehow end the conversation…It didn't.
“Surprised you didn't use Dean,” Allie remarked quietly.
Your entire body locked up and your next step faltered before stopping altogether. Slowly, you turned back to face them, your expression caught somewhere between horrified and deeply offended. “Let's pick another word.”
Allie blinked. “…What?”
You shrugged awkwardly, refusing to elaborate for a second before mumbling, “‘Use’ just sounds wrong.”
“I meant ‘use him’…” Allie's grin spread wider the second she realized what could’ve happened inside your head. “As in ‘use him as an example’.” She pointed at you dramatically. “Though if you're into that dominatrix shit, I'll just ask you not to do it in the apartment.” She tilted her head thoughtfully. “And much less with Di Laurentis. I doubt his ego could handle physically being under a woman and–”
Your eyes widened a little more with every passing sentence. Your mouth opened twice, each time thinking now was the moment you'd interrupt, only for Allie to barrel cheerfully into the next thought before you could squeeze a single word in.
“…he'd probably have trouble performing or something. I don't remember Six Flags having a ride where you stand in line for forty minutes just to leave disappointed. He'd spend more time advertising himself than actually delivering and fuck forbid he finds a captive audience…we'd never hear the end of how 'life-changing' he thinks his d–”
“Allie,” you finally managed weakly, which thankfully made her rant stop.
A few steps away, Hannah made a strangled sound that was half laugh, half cough. “Okay!” she wheezed, trying and failing to compose herself. “I think we'll all stay away from boys tonight.”
A huff of laughter escaped you, the tension finally cracking. “So if Garrett waltzes in,” you asked, “you're just going to keep that man away?” Your eyebrows lifted knowingly. “If what slips through the thinnest walls ever made is any indication, I'd like to see that work in your favor.”
Hannah didn't even have the decency to look embarrassed. “Well, that's different,” she replied with unmistakable pride. “We're together.”
“Better wrap up your French lesson then, Madame,” Allie declared, already marching ahead with exaggerated determination. She shook her head dramatically, muttering loud enough for both of you to hear. “We? Who's we? Far as I know this is still a free country…” She threw one hand into the air in theatrical protest without ever slowing her pace, leaving you and Hannah exchanging an amused glance before following after her.
You grimaced before leaning slightly toward Hannah, lowering your voice as though the woman in question might somehow overhear you from halfway up the walkway. “I think we should start putting the news on as background noise,” you reasoned with complete sincerity.
A laugh escaped Hannah before she bumped your shoulder lightly with hers as the two of you started walking again, unhurried despite Allie steadily increasing the distance between you.
“College is torture enough,” Hannah sighed. “Let's at least wait until we get this semester's grades.”
You nodded thoughtfully. “And gauge exactly how much pain we actually deserve…smart idea.”
Hannah breathed out dramatically. “Or the worst I've ever had.”
You laughed under your breath just as Allie's voice carried across the front lawn. “Are you guys coming or what!?” She stood on the porch with one hand on the doorway of the open front door, the music spilling out around her while impatiently waving both of you over.
“Yeahhh…no,” you replied, motioning toward the overflowing house in the distance, the one she'd insisted would be a good idea in the first place. “I think this one already beats it.” You let out a long, defeated sigh as you and Hannah finally caught up to Allie, meeting her expectant stare. “Poor choice of words again, babe.” You told her, pressing your lips into a thin line.
Allie rolled her eyes with exaggeration, muttering something under her breath that was completely swallowed by the music pouring from the open front door before disappearing inside. The bass had grown strong enough to rattle the loose wooden steps with every beat.
You stepped through the doorway last.
Warm air, thick with perfume, sweat, beer and something unmistakably fruity from whatever jungle juice someone had mixed in the kitchen, hit you instantly. Every room seemed packed wall to wall with students, some danced with complete disregard for personal space while others shouted conversations directly into each other's ears. Plastic cups littered every available surface, laughter rose above the music in uneven bursts and somewhere upstairs someone cheered so loudly, it briefly overpowered the speakers.
“…Or what,” you echoed quietly to yourself as the front door swung shut behind you.
The phrase lingered in your head while your eyes swept over the crowded rental. You spotted Hannah and Allie weaving confidently through the bodies ahead of you, Hannah reaching back once to make sure you were still following before the crowd swallowed her hand again.
“I'm gonna get us something to drink!” you called over the music once you'd caught up.
Allie answered with an enthusiastic thumbs-up that quickly dissolved into dancing with whoever happened to be beside her, already swaying to the beat without a hint of self-consciousness. Hannah, meanwhile, had her phone out before you even finished speaking, her attention dropping to the screen with a smile you recognized instantly as she typed what was almost certainly a message to Garrett letting him know the three of you had made it there safely.
You smiled back at everyone who greeted you on the way through the house, returning waves and quick hellos even when you barely recognized the faces. If you acted normal for a while longer, maybe your brain would eventually believe that this was just another party, another late night. No tangled thoughts or awkward tension sitting beneath your skin, no constant awareness of a pair of hands that had learned you with impossible patience only two nights earlier.
You kept searching for the kitchen instead, hoping the simple task would occupy your mind before it drifted back to your bedroom, to the mirror the two of you had stood in front of, to the way he'd looked at you through your own reflection, the quiet praise, the tenderness and how he'd made you feel seen by expertly opening the walls to your own pleasure.
By the time you reached the kitchen, you were relieved by the mundane sight of overcrowded counters. You pulled it open, grabbed three cans of soda and decided they were probably the smarter choice, experience had already proven that alcohol loosened your tongue far more than your common sense appreciated.
You cracked yours open, taking a long sip as the cold, fizzy sweetness settled pleasantly in your throat, cooling the nervous warmth that had been building there all evening. For a moment, you simply stood there, your eyes wandering over the crowded kitchen. People leaned against countertops with red cups in hand, someone laughed loudly, making the room glance over and two strangers debated mixers in front of the freezer.
Then your gaze caught on the one face you had hoped not to see, your ex.
His eyes found yours in the same instant, his posture straightening automatically. You recognized that look, that subtle shift that always came a second before he decided on his next move which was toward you.
Instinctively, you took a step backward, only to bump into a cluster of people reaching for drinks behind you. Someone muttered a quick apology without looking up, another squeezed past with a bag of ice and before you could sidestep out of the way, the kitchen had filled in around you completely. There was nowhere left to retreat.
He threaded through the crowd anyway, slipping between shoulders and conversations with determination until he stopped in front of you, wearing the careful expression of someone approaching a frightened animal he believed he could still coax closer. “Haven’t seen you around in a while.”
“Let’s make that a little longer then, wouldn’t that be nice?” you replied with a smile that never quite reached your eyes.
He exhaled through his nose, already looking faintly irritated in that familiar way that told you he'd remembered one of the things he'd disliked most about dating you, your sarcasm. “Come on, don’t be like that–”
“Don’t be like what?” you cut in flatly.
He hesitated, his rehearsed opening clearly unraveling. “I just meant…” He rubbed the back of his neck. “I’m trying to apologize here, okay?”
You let out a humorless laugh. “Great fucking job you’re doing,” you noted with a careless shrug. “Fantastic timing too, just like in the cafeteria.”
He sighed heavily, rubbing a hand across his face as though he could erase the last few weeks with the gesture alone. “I know I fucked up, okay? I tried to text you–”
“You’re blocked.” The interruption came so automatically you barely thought about it.
He paused for half a second before giving a slow, unimpressed nod. “I figured.”
“Good.” You took another sip of your soda before looking back up at him. “I was worried guessing would use up the rest of your brain cells and you wouldn’t have any left by the time exam season came around.”
A dry, humorless laugh escaped him. He glanced around the kitchen instinctively, checking whether anyone had overheard the exchange before his attention settled back on you. “This is all just a fucking game to you, huh?” His eyes dragged over you with thinly veiled annoyance.
“Isn’t that what made you leave?” You shot back, “Only one of us hates losing badly enough to flee.”
“Fuck you,” he bit out sharply. “I didn’t flee.”
“You didn’t stick around to try either.” You stepped forward to press a finger firmly against the center of his chest, the contact making him stiffen. “I fucked you.”
His jaw flexed so hard you thought you heard his teeth grind together. Slowly, almost unconsciously, he took a step backward, your finger slipping away from his shirt.
“Don’t text again,” you finished, your voice suddenly much quieter than before. “I think you’ve wasted enough of each other's time.”
He stared at you for another second, searching your face for something that wasn't there anymore, then he looked away first. Without another word, he turned, disappearing back into the crowd until the moving bodies swallowed him entirely.
You remained where you were, blinking slowly as your pulse settled, willing the humiliation from the cafeteria and the anger sitting hot in your chest to dissolve together into something less exhausting. They stubbornly refused.
Your eyes dropped to the soda can still clutched in your hand. You frowned at it as if it had failed you before lifting it for another long drink, the carbonation stung pleasantly at the back of your throat. You swallowed, exhaled through your nose and muttered under your breath, “I fucking hate being sober.”
“No you don’t.” The voice reached you immediately and it made every muscle in your shoulders relaxed before your brain had even caught up. You turned around so quickly a few drops of soda sloshed over the rim of the can. Relief settled into your chest the second you saw him.
Dean stood just a few steps away, both hands shoved into the pocket of a dark hoodie thrown hastily over a wrinkled Briar hockey T-shirt. A baseball cap sat low on his head, hair escaping around the edges and there were faint shadows beneath his eyes that spoke of too many early practices and not nearly enough sleep. He looked nothing like someone who planned on staying at the party and despite looking completely worn out, seeing him made the crowded kitchen feel infinitely less suffocating.
“Get me out of here,” you sighed, the words leaving you in one long breath. “Please.”
Dean's eyebrows lifted in genuine surprise before one corner of his mouth curled upward. The tiredness hanging around his eyes didn't disappear but it softened beneath a grin he was clearly trying and failing to suppress. “Is that begging I hear?”
Your eyes narrowed sharply. “Make yourself useful, Di Laurentis.”
He nodded with exaggerated thoughtfulness, accepting the challenge as he reached over to pluck the two unopened soda cans from your hands, balancing them effortlessly in one hand. “Front jean pocket,” he instructed, nodding toward your right side. “On your right.”
Your gaze followed the gesture before immediately flicking back up to his face, then, despite yourself, it drifted lower to his jeans. You looked back up at him with unmistakable suspicion and slowly shook your head. “I'm not putting my hand in there,” you decided, lowering your voice instinctively beneath the music. “It's inappropriate…and there's a…” Your eyes darted downward again before returning to his. “…lump.” Doubt colored the last word.
Dean stared at you for a beat before an incredulous laugh escaped him. “Those are my car keys,” he clarified, amusement bleeding into every syllable. “I figured you should wait in my car.” His grin only widened the longer he watched realization dawn across your face. Tilting his head slightly, he studied you with obvious delight. “You think I'm hung like that?”
You straightened, refusing to give him the satisfaction of looking embarrassed. “There was a point where we bathed together before it got weird,” you reminded him matter-of-factly. “I think I know exactly how hung you are.”
His eyebrows climbed. “Seen it recently?”
You snorted. “Your pants don't leave much up to the imagination.”
“Trust me,” he replied with effortless confidence, giving a small shake of his head. “They do.” He nodded once more toward his pocket. “Front pocket. Go on.”
You groaned quietly. “You saying ‘go on’ doesn't somehow make this better, you pervert,” you whisper-yelled, stepping closer so your complaint wouldn't carry past the people milling around the kitchen.
Dean mirrored the movement, leaning down until the two of you were close enough that neither of you had to raise your voices. Around you, the party rolled on without a second glance. Someone behind you was arguing over whose turn it was at beer pong, another group erupted into cheers from the living room and a couple squeezed past carrying more drinks, nobody spared the two of you so much as a curious look.
Dean's eyes lingered on your face, taking in the fake indignation you weren't quite managing to sell.
His smile softened, more playful than teasing. “Don't let those fingers stray, then,” he murmured, his tone light, you couldn't tell whether he was trying to fluster you or simply enjoying how easily you flustered yourself. “I'd hate for you to get distracted.”
You reached forward, hooking a finger through one of Dean's belt loops and giving it a small tug that drew him a step closer without either of you thinking much about it. The movement brought him within arm's reach, the familiar scent of clean detergent, cedar and the lingering bite of cold night air clinging to his hoodie crowded out the smell of beer and cheap liquor filling the kitchen.
You intentionally looked everywhere but at his face as you slipped a cautious hand into his front pocket, determined to keep your attention fixed on finding the keys rather than on the warmth radiating through the denim beneath your fingertips. Your fingers searched carefully until they brushed cool metal.
The two of you stood almost chest to chest now, neither acknowledging just how little space remained between you. “New perfume?” he asked conversationally, though the amusement in his voice was impossible to miss. It was probably the safest compliment he could give you, anything more direct and there was a decent chance you'd retaliate by driving a knee into somewhere he valued quite highly.
Then again, he thought with private amusement, doubling over from the pain would technically put him even closer to you.
“Shut up,” you mumbled, refusing to look at him as you heard him unsuccessfully swallow a laugh. Your index finger finally caught the loop of the keychain and with a victorious little huff you pulled the keys free before quickly retreating a full step as though distance alone could erase how aware you'd just become of him.
You held the keys up between two fingers. “Couple of lumps you've got in there.”
Dean stared at you for half a second before slowly shaking his head. “Poor choice of words.”
You pointed vaguely in the air between the two of you. “Yeah, say that to Allie.”
His brows pinched together. “…What's that supposed to mean?”
“Nothing.” You answered far too quickly before he could pry further. Gesturing toward the crowded rooms beyond the kitchen, you added, “I don't care if they drink, just make sure they have a driver home. We drove here.”
“Yes, ma'am,” he replied with an exaggerated nod and a mock salute. “Garrett's with them anyway. I'll tell him.” Moving to the side, he tipped his head toward the hallway in a silent gesture for you to go first. You squeezed back through the crowd, Dean falling into step close behind you without needing to be asked.
“Alright,” you muttered, fishing your phone out as you carefully navigated around a couple dancing in the middle of the hallway. “I'll text them too.” Your thumbs were already opening the group chat. “Seeing my fuckass ex is enough of an excuse to call it a night.”
Dean's expression, playful until then, quieted as he glanced back toward the kitchen you'd just left before looking down at you, his pace never slowing to make sure you never had to push your way through the crowd alone.
“He's here?” Dean asked, every trace of amusement now fully gone. His shoulders straightened instinctively as his eyes swept back toward the kitchen over his shoulder. “Where?”
You caught him halfway through turning, already reading exactly where his mind was headed. Before he could take a single step, you reached out, your fingers slipping into the waistband, lightly catching against his jeans to tug him back in the opposite direction. “Not the mission,” you reminded him.
Dean's attention dropped briefly to your hand before he let himself be redirected without resistance, falling back into step behind you. “I'm willing to make an exception,” he muttered, though there wasn't much conviction behind it anymore. After a beat, his voice softened. “Did he talk to you?” The concern sat plainly beneath the question.
You hummed in acknowledgment. “And I talked back.” You shrugged as if it had cost you nothing, even if your heartbeat hadn't entirely settled yet. “He won't invade Troy tonight…problem solved.”
By the time you reached the main room again, you rose onto your toes, scanning over the sea of heads for Hannah and Allie. “I saw them over there last.”
Dean followed your gaze before nodding. “They went out back. I'll go find them.” He jerked his thumb toward the street outside. “My car's up there.”
“No detours,” you warned, pointing a finger squarely at his chest. “I'm serious.” You didn't have to explain which detour you meant.
Dean looked at you for a second before lifting both hands innocently. “I'd say I'll keep my eyes down,” he replied, “but then we'd come face to face.” He punctuated the joke with the most exaggerated, insincere shrug imaginable, very intentionally mocking your ex's height.
You couldn't help the laugh that escaped you. “Face to nose if he's wearing his lifts,” you corrected.
“Told you he wasn't that tall,” Dean added, unable to resist sounding just a little smug as he began walking backward toward the sliding door leading outside, keeping his eyes on you until someone bumped into his shoulder and forced him to glance away.
“Yeah, well,” you mumbled as you headed toward the front door instead, weaving between conversations and dancing bodies, “one pair of fakers we were.”
The cool night air met you the second you stepped outside, washing away the suffocating warmth and noise of the packed house. You drew in a deep breath, the distant bass now muffled behind closed walls and doors instead of vibrating through your ribs. Following Dean's directions, you walked up the street beneath the glow of scattered streetlights until you found his car parked along the curb. You unlocked it with a press of the key fob, climbed into the passenger seat,and shut the door behind you. The silence that settled around you felt almost foreign after the chaos inside. You leaned back, letting your head rest against the seat, absently turning the unfinished soda can between your hands while condensation dampened your fingertips.
It wasn't long before the driver's door opened. Dean slid into the seat beside you, shut the door with a solid thud and for a moment neither of you said anything, both simply appreciating the quiet. The two of you sat without moving, facing the windshield as warm orange streetlights painted long streaks across the hood of the vehicle.
“Forgot how to drive?” you asked quietly, turning your head toward him. The question died when you realized he was already looking at you. He hadn't been watching the street ahead at all.
“Forgot I can't read your mind?” he countered, one eyebrow lifting.
“We both know you can,” you replied just as quietly, the corner of your mouth threatening the smallest smile. “Just won’t advertise it.”
Dean held your gaze for another second, searching your face as though deciding whether to challenge that. Instead, he looked away first. He reached for the ignition, started the engine and shifted the car into drive. It wasn't surprising in the slightest when he drove toward your apartment without asking where you wanted to go.
The drive passed in comfortable silence, it didn’t beg to be filled but still acknowledged some conversations deserved better than red lights and passing traffic. Every now and then your eyes drifted toward him, only to find his attention fixed on the road, one hand resting loosely on the steering wheel while the other tapped absentmindedly against the stick shift in time with a song only he seemed to hear.
He glanced at you once at a stoplight, offering a faint, reassuring smile before looking ahead again.
When he parked on campus, neither of you commented on the fact that he killed the engine immediately instead of lingering in the driver's seat. You climbed out together, your footsteps falling into an easy rhythm as you crossed the silent pathways toward your building.
The night air had cooled further, carrying the scent of damp grass and distant rain and Dean stayed close without crowding you, matching your pace while occasionally glancing your way as though weighing a dozen different openings to a conversation he hadn't quite found yet.
You unlocked your apartment door and stepped inside. He followed a second later, pulling the door shut behind him until the click of the lock left the apartment wrapped in familiar silence.
“Not much of a talker these days, I see.” The words carried no accusation. If anything, there was relief in finally saying them aloud after days of carefully skirting around the obvious.
Your replies had shrunk from paragraphs to sentences, then from sentences to a handful of words. Phone calls that once stretched lazily into the early hours now barely lasted a few minutes before one of you found an excuse to hang up. You wandered farther into the living space, slipping your jacket off your shoulders and draping it over the back of the couch.
Beneath it, the fitted top you'd worn out suddenly felt much less out of place than it had at the party. At home, there was no reason to pull the fabric loose or check how much skin it revealed. Hiding from Dean had never really been an option and after everything the two of you had shared, it felt pointless to start now.
“Not much of anything lately,” you mumbled, avoiding his eyes as you smoothed an imaginary wrinkle from the hem of your top.
Even without looking, you could feel his gaze settle on you. It carried none of the hunger that had unsettled you in front of your bedroom mirror days before. Instead, it was patient, concerned, impossibly attentive and that made it even harder to meet. Warmth crept across your skin anyway, a shiver tracing lazily up your spine under the weight of being so thoroughly seen.
Dean took a couple of measured steps forward, stopping before the space between you disappeared entirely. He tilted his head slightly, trying to catch your eyes and finding only your profile. “Did he get into your head?” he asked gently.
The question lingered for barely a heartbeat before you shook your head and finally looked up.
Your eyes found his. “No,” you answered. “You did.” The words came out quietly, stripped of frustration or blame. They weren't meant as an accusation, they mostly sounded like the first honest thing you'd managed to say all week.
“Well,” he breathed, the corners of his mouth lifting into an easy smile, “think I should've gotten first dibs on it before anyone else anyway.” As he spoke, he closed the remaining distance between you with unhurried confidence, leaving barely enough room for a breath to pass between your bodies.
“Funny,” you answered dryly, though the effort it took to keep your expression straight was entirely wasted. Your lips betrayed you, twitching upward despite your best attempts. You rubbed absently at your eyebrow before letting out a sigh, trying to smooth away nerves that refused to settle. “I don't know how to talk to you anymore,” you admitted, the confession falling somewhere between frustration and vulnerability.
It explained the clipped texts, the shortened calls, every conversation that had ended long before either of you had actually wanted it to. Dean's expression softened as he gave the smallest shake of his head, his voice matching the gentleness in his eyes. “That's okay.”
“No, it's not.” Your gaze dropped to your heeled boots, suddenly fascinated by the floor beneath them.
“You're doing it to me,” he replied with certainty. “I would know.” He stepped forward until there was nowhere left for the distance between you to exist. “Look at me.”
The request carried none of the sharpness of a command. It was patient, warm, spoken with the confidence that you'd meet him there eventually. Slowly, you lifted your eyes just as his hands came up to cradle your face, his palms warm against your cheeks, his thumbs resting lightly close to your ears. “It's okay,” he repeated, searching your face as though he intended to make you believe it through persistence alone.
You exhaled through your nose. “Of course you'd think that.”
“Mhm.” The sound vibrated quietly in his throat as he leaned in, brushing the tip of his nose gently against yours. The tiny gesture stole another reluctant smile from you. “Though if you ever say you're not much of anything again,” he murmured, “I'm afraid we're gonna have issues.”
Your hands rose instinctively, settling against his biceps, feeling familiar muscle beneath the soft fabric of his hoodie. “Don't we already?” you asked, smiling properly now.
“My only issue,” he replied without hesitation, “is that I haven't kissed you in two days.” His thumbs brushed lightly across your cheeks. “What's yours?”
“I already told you.” Your smile lingered as he began guiding the two of you backward through the apartment with tiny, measured steps, never pushing or assuming. Every movement left you room to stop him if you wanted to, though you never did.
“And I know you have a close second,” he said quietly.
You hesitated, swallowing once before admitting the thought you'd spent days trying to bury. “…It's embarrassing when the wanting shows.”
Dean's expression softened further. He shook his head once. “And the only person who ever made you feel ashamed of that isn't here anymore.”
Your fingers tightened around his arms without thinking. “It's gonna take a while to unlearn that,” you whispered.
“I can wait,” he answered. There wasn't a trace of impatience in his voice, only certainty. “I happen to know that what comes after is worth a lot more than passing time.”
Your breathing caught slightly. “What comes after, Dean?” you asked, your hands holding him a little tighter as though the answer might slip away if you didn't.
He leaned down until his lips barely grazed yours, close enough for every word to be felt as much as heard. “You.” The single word lingered between your mouths before he continued softly, “Everywhere else it can wait. Until that happens, you cum first.” A teasing smile slowly returned to his lips. “Still think my choice of words is poor?”
A quiet laugh escaped you, so warm it dissolved the last remnants of tension sitting in your chest. “Not if you prove it to be right.”
That was all the encouragement he needed. His mouth found yours with restrained hunger, patient for only the first heartbeat before deepening the kiss. One hand slipped from your cheek to the place where your jaw met your neck, tilting your face upward to meet him fully, while your own fingers disappeared into his hair, threading through the soft curls at the back of his head as every uncertain conversation from the past two days quietly gave way to something the two of you had always understood better than words.
Your tongues moved together with an ease that made the last two days of awkwardness feel impossibly far away, every hesitant thought dissolving into this. Your fingers gradually slipped from his hair, lingering there for a heartbeat before finding the front clasps of your top instead.
You worked at them absentmindedly, your attention never truly leaving him until the kiss eventually broke with a soft, audible pop, though neither of you moved very far.
Dean rested his forehead lightly against yours, his breathing still uneven as his eyes searched your face rather than wandering elsewhere. “Do you need anything?” he asked, his voice low enough that it barely disturbed the silence filling your room. Even as you continued undoing the clasps, he never looked away from your eyes. “Tell me what I can do.”
A small smile tugged at your lips, heat pooling low in your belly at the intensity of his gaze. You finished with the last fastening and shrugged the fabric from your shoulders, letting it slide carelessly to the floor beside your feet. Your breasts spilled free, nipples already tight and aching from the cool air and the weight of his stare before folding your arms loosely across yourself more out of habit than discomfort. “I was hoping you had a plan.”
Dean nodded imperceptibly, his expression turning thoughtful. His gaze drifted around your room instead of lingering on you, as though sorting through possibilities rather than impulses. The lingerie crossed his mind only briefly before he dismissed it, that had helped once but it wasn't something he wanted either of you to rely on.
He pressed a gentle kiss against your forehead before turning away entirely and walking toward your dresser. Pulling open the top drawer, he began looking through it with surprising confidence, as though he vaguely remembered where things belonged from years of friendship spent around you.
“Sure…” you nodded, watching him with growing amusement as you bent to unzip your boots, kicking each one aside before slipping out of your skirt and underwear as well, letting them pool at your feet, leaving you completely bare before him. “Make yourself right at home.”
“We can argue about it later,” he answered without looking over his shoulder, continuing his careful search. “You'll tell me how forward it was of me and I'll agree with whatever punishment or compensation you decide on afterward.” His hand paused before finally lifting a long, narrow scarf from beneath a folded sweater. “This'll do.”
Your eyebrows lifted. “For what?”
Turning back toward you, he crossed the room at an unhurried pace, stopping within arm's reach. The teasing had disappeared from his face, replaced by the same patience he'd shown you all evening.
Holding the scarf loosely in one hand so you could see it clearly, he asked, “Do you trust me?”
You tilted your head, studying him, trying to read whatever idea was taking shape behind his eyes. “I don't think I've ever had to ask myself that.”
“I need you to ask now,” he replied gently. “Do you trust me?” He let the question sit between you before adding, “And if you don't like where this is going, we stop. Immediately…at any point.” His certainty wasn't performative, it was calm, leaving no room for doubt about whether he meant it.
You held his gaze for another moment before answering, your voice barely above a whisper. “I trust you.” A faint smile softened your features. “It's not something I've ever questioned.”
He waited a beat before speaking again, giving you every opportunity to change your mind.
“Turn around.” The instruction was patient, offered rather than imposed. He didn't repeat it when you hesitated, didn't fill the silence that settled between you.
His eyes simply remained on yours as you swallowed, searching his face one last time before slowly turning your naked body away from him until your back faced his chest. You felt him move closer, heard the faint rustle of fabric as he stretched the scarf carefully between both hands. It rested gently over your eyes, the material impossibly soft against your skin before he drew the ends behind your head and tied a secure knot with care.
His fingers lingered, checking that nothing tugged uncomfortably. “Is this too tight?” he asked.
You instinctively shook your head before remembering he would probably request for it to be spoken. “No,” you managed softly.
His hand settled lightly against your hip, the simple contact making your breath catch. With the gentlest pressure, he guided you back around until you faced him once more. Deprived of your sight, every other sensation sharpened, from the warmth radiating from where he stood, to the rhythm of his breathing and the subtle creak of the floor beneath shifting weight.
You heard the soft thud of fabric landing somewhere nearby once he peeled off his hoodie and t-shirt, followed by another low rustle before his footsteps returned. His hands found yours gently, wrapping loosely around your wrists before guiding them upward until your palms rested against the warmth of his bare chest.
He didn't move them any further, leaving the choice entirely to you. Tentatively, your fingertips traced across firm muscle, learning the shape through touch alone. Your confidence grew by degrees, hands exploring broader paths over his shoulders and chest, your nails lightly grazing the contours beneath his skin before drifting lower over the firm lines of his abdomen, pausing briefly at his navel before following the faint trail of hair disappearing beneath the waistband of his jeans.
Your fingers came to rest just above the button. “I want these off,” you breathed.
Dean couldn't help the smile that spread across his face, though you only heard it in the warmth that colored his reply. “You think you're in a position to make demands?”
“That's exactly what I think, Di Laurentis.” You nodded once beneath the blindfold, a small smile tugging at your own lips. “If you want me to play the game, you're going to have to comply a little sooner.”
A quiet chuckle escaped him before it faded just as quickly. When he spoke again, his voice had lost almost all of its teasing edge. “I don't think this is us playing around anymore.” You felt him lean in, his breath brushing against your forehead as he spoke. “I hate that we used that as an excuse.” The frustration threaded through his words was unmistakable, directed inward rather than at you, carrying the weight of every feeling the two of you had hidden behind jokes because admitting them outright had always seemed far more frightening.
You couldn't help but smile at the memory, warmth creeping into your expression. There had been something absurdly innocent about the two of you back then, trusting each other so completely that curiosity had outweighed embarrassment, stumbling into questions neither of you had been old enough to answer, only to leave them hanging for years.
“We were getting too curious,” you murmured, a quiet laugh escaping with the admission.
“Isn't that what's happening now?” he asked, his voice carrying the faintest hint of amusement.
You tilted your head beneath the blindfold, the smile on your lips widening. “You know how to tie your own laces now, don't you?” you teased. He laughed softly before leaning in to press a gentle kiss to your lips. Your hands rose instinctively, finding the sides of his face, your thumbs brushing lightly along his jaw as you returned the kiss with an ease that had finally replaced the uncertainty of the past few days.
His tongue brushed yours, drawing a soft moan from your throat as heat pooled heavier between your thighs and while you kissed, his hands worked open the button of his jeans. You heard the metallic rasp of the zipper, followed by the rustle of fabric as he shoved them down his hips along with his boxers. He kicked off his shoes and stepped out of the rest of his clothes, leaving him gloriously bare. The heat of his body radiated against yours and you could feel the hard length of his cock brushing against your stomach, hot, heavy and already leaking at the tip.
His strong hands slid down your sides, then gripped your waist, lifting you effortlessly as a surprised yelp escaped you, quickly dissolving into a breathless laugh. Your legs wrapped around his hips as you kept kissing, mouths moving together in perfect sync while his muscles flexed beneath your palms as he carried you across the room, the thick head of his erection nudging teasingly against your inner thighs with every step.
He knelt carefully onto the bed, the mattress dipping under your combined weight and gently laid you back against the pillows. Your legs fell open shamelessly, knees bending and parting wide to make room for him. The cool air kissed your dripping pussy, making you acutely aware of how soaked and ready you already were.
Dean settled between your spread thighs, hips brushing the sensitive skin of your inner legs as his lips left yours to trail hot, open-mouthed kisses along the corner of your mouth, your cheek and down the sensitive column of your throat. Then he pulled back, leaving you waiting in the dark, blindfolded and aching.
You reached for him, fingers tracing and caressing every inch of his face from his cheekbones, the slight stubble on his jaw and the curve of his lips, trying to paint his expression in your mind.
His nose nudged affectionately against yours and you felt the warmth of his breath mingle with your own, the thick tension between you crackling like electricity.
He swallowed. “Can I kiss you?” His voice was hesitant, it didn't belong to the confident grin he usually wore. The uncertainty made your brows draw together for the briefest moment before your expression softened into a small, helpless smile.
“I think we're beyond you asking,” you replied, your heartbeat quickening as the silence stretched comfortably between you.
Dean's eyes lingered on your face, before landing on your lips for only a moment before lifting again. “Not on your mouth, Y/n,” he specified shamelessly.
You swallowed hard and nodded softly against the pillows, chest rising and falling faster as you heard the mattress shift under his weight.
His warm lips finally landed on your shoulder, pressing a slow, open-mouthed kiss there before trailing lower. They brushed along your sternum, then settled between your breasts, his hot breath fanning over the sensitive skin. When his mouth closed around one peaked nipple, you gasped sharply. The wet heat of his tongue swirled around the stiff bud, flicking and sucking with just the right pressure, sending jolts of pleasure straight to your core. Your back arched instinctively, pushing more of your breast into his mouth as slick arousal coated your outer lips.
The hand not supporting his weight traced a feather-light path from your knee upward, fingers grazing the soft skin of your inner thigh before reaching the neglected breast. He cupped its full weight, massaging slowly, rolling the nipple between thumb and forefinger while he continued devouring the other, gauging every reaction, squeezing harder when your breathing turned ragged and gentling when you whimpered, learning exactly how you liked to be touched.
When the first nipple was glistening and throbbing from his attention, he switched sides. His mouth claimed the other peak with the same hungry reverence, sucking deeply while his fingers continued to knead the slick, sensitive flesh he’d just left behind, all while low, needy sounds spilled from your throat.
Satisfied, Dean let his tongue drag lower, licking a slow, wet trail down the underside of your breast. He pressed lingering kisses along your ribs, then your stomach, each one audible and intentionally placed, his lips brushed over your navel, teasing the sensitive skin there before venturing even lower. He took his time, kissing the crease where your thigh met your pelvis, then settling fully between your spread legs.
Your heart thundered so loudly in your ears that the rest of the world felt distant. Blindfolded and trembling with need, every other sense was amplified, the heat of his breath against your dripping pussy, the faint scent of your arousal mixing with his and the slight tremble in his hands as he gripped your thighs. He was clearly trying to pace himself, wanting to savor you without rushing, refusing to give your doubts any room to surface.
A broken moan tore from your lips the moment his mouth finally sealed around your swollen clit. The wet heat, the perfect suction and the slow swirl of his tongue, were nearly too much, your hips jerked upward, fingers fisting the sheets as pleasure spread outwards.
He reached up, finding your hand where it gripped the sheets and laced his fingers through yours, squeezing once. The simple touch pulled you back into the moment when your mind threatened to drift.
“Tell me what you like,” he murmured against your pussy, the low vibration of his voice making your clit throb.
Your mind reeled. No one had ever been this patient with you, this attentive, this unwaveringly focused on what you needed instead of how quickly things could move forward. It felt unfamiliar, so much so that part of you didn't quite know what to do with it and the comparison arrived before you could stop it. Your ex had tried a handful of times but his enthusiasm had always faded the moment your body didn't respond on the timeline he expected. He would pull away with a shrug, muttering excuses about not enjoying it or not liking the taste, always making it sound like a matter of preference while leaving the weight of it squarely on your shoulders.
Every abandoned attempt had left you feeling increasingly self-conscious, wondering whether there was something wrong with you, whether you simply asked too much by needing patience instead of urgency.
Your throat tightened around the words before they ever had a chance to leave it. You wanted to explain why his patience mattered so much, why every careful pause and every moment he gave you without expectation made something in your chest ache but the memories felt too tangled, too embarrassing to lay bare.
“I wouldn’t know,” you breathed, voice shaky.
Dean didn't ask what you meant, he didn't press for details you clearly weren't ready to give, nor did he try to fill the silence with speeches that would only skim the surface. He pressed a soft, open-mouthed kiss right over your clit, then answered calmly, “Feel it. I know you can.”
He accommodated, strong hands sliding under your ass to tilt your hips slightly, giving himself better access. His tongue flattened and licked a long, slow stripe from your entrance up to your clit, gathering your wetness and savoring it with a quiet hum of approval. The sound was so genuine it made your cheeks burn.
He repeated the motion again and again with broad strokes that coated his tongue and lips in your slick arousal, then circled your clit with the tip of his tongue, learning the exact pressure that made your thighs twitch. He sucked the swollen nub gently between his lips, holding it there while his tongue flicked it softly. The suction was warm and rhythmic, never rushed or demanding and when your breathing grew uneven, he eased off enough to drag his tongue back down, licking through your folds and pressing the flat of his tongue against your entrance, tasting you deeply.
His saliva mixed with your own arousal, dripping down over your ass and soaking into the sheets beneath you. He kissed your pussy like he was kissing your mouth, slowly and attentively, alternating between gentle licks, soft sucks and lazy swirls of tongue that explored every inch of your most sensitive regions.
The blindfold made it impossible to predict where his tongue would go next, keeping your body in a constant state of anticipatory tension while Dean kept your hand firmly in his, thumb stroking soothing circles over your knuckles whenever he felt you start to tense or overthink.
Every so often he would pull back to press a tender kiss to your mound or the crease of your thigh, murmuring soft, wordless sounds of encouragement against your skin before diving back in. The sensations were overwhelming in their gentleness, relentless patience that made your pussy feel swollen and pulsing under his mouth.
After another slow, savoring pass of his tongue through your folds, he moved lower and pressed the tip of his tongue against your entrance. He circled the tight ring of muscle first teasingly, before pushing inside, gently but insistently. The thick of his tongue slid into you, stretching you open in the most intimate way possible. He fucked you with it in slow, shallow strokes, curling and thrusting, coating himself in the fresh rush of slick that leaked around his mouth while his nose pressed firmly against your clit with every forward motion, rubbing in time with the rhythm of his tongue.
Your skin grew damp with sweat, a light sheen covering your chest and stomach, nipples tightened into painful peaks, aching in the cool air. Your hips rolled and twitched against his face, thighs trembling as they tried to close around his head only to fall open wider again.
Your breathing turned into soft, broken whimpers that even you could tell sounded strained and uncertain. Dean noticed and slowed his movements but didn’t yet stop, still fucking you gently with his tongue, still licking up every drop of your arousal like he couldn’t get enough.
“Mngh…Dean–” you barely managed, his name catching on a shaky breath before your voice gave out entirely. His head lifted rapidly as he pulled away, concern replacing concentration as he searched your expression for any hint of discomfort. Every trace of certainty vanished from his posture, his brows drawing together as he studied you.
One of your hands reached down blindly, grabbing at his shoulder and pulling him upward. Your chest heaved as you struggled to steady your breathing, each inhale feeling a little too shallow to quiet the thoughts racing through your mind. Words crowded against one another, half-formed confessions and old fears tangling together until you couldn't tell where one ended and the next began.
Your other hand shook as it slid down your body, covering your throbbing, soaked pussy, clit pulsing hard under your palm, slick, swollen and too painfully sensitive to keep going. You still weren’t anywhere close to coming and all you could think about was saying the wrong thing, about ruining the fragile safety he'd spent so much time building around you. More than anything, you were terrified of disgust, that subtle withdrawal, the excuses and the feeling of being left unfinished.
Your voice came out small and fragile. “I’m sorry. I’m–fuck, I’m so sorry.”
His hand found your cheek, palm warm against your skin as his thumb brushed slowly beneath the blindfold. He studied your face in silence first, as though making sure you were really listening before he spoke and when he did, there wasn't an ounce of frustration in him. “You don't apologize,” he said firmly, thumb stroking gently across your cheek once more before coming to rest beneath your jaw, encouraging you to keep your chin up. “Not to me.”
One hand stayed wrapped tightly around his arm, fingers digging into the firm muscle as if you were afraid he might pull away despite his words. Your heart hammered so loudly in your ears that you barely registered his words at first. “It just takes really long–”
“Hey…” Dean nudged your face gently with his palm, guiding you back to the present until your racing thoughts quieted. “I would’ve sucked you clean off the bone if you hadn’t pulled me up,” he smiled.
The moment you registered his words, you let out a shaky sob that melted into soft laughter, the tension in your chest finally easing.
“We can try again some other time if you want–”
You were already eagerly nodding before the words had fully left his mouth.
He chuckled, the sound low and breathy against your skin. “Yeah? Did you like it? Was that okay?” His fingertips traced feather-light paths along your sides, your ribs and the curve of your waist, keeping the connection gentle but constant, which he knew you needed.
“Overwhelming,” you breathed, still feeling the lingering slick between your thighs as it cooled and the heavy pulse of your swollen clit against your palm.
“Mmm…Yeah?” His voice dipped with interest.
“Overwhelming’s good,” you continued softly. Your body felt flushed and sensitive all over, like it needed that intensity just to begin learning how to let go. “I like feeling you close.”
“How close?” he teased, his nose brushing slowly along the side of your jaw, warm breath tickling your skin.
“Really fucking close,” you whispered, guiding his face until his lips met yours in a deep, slow kiss. You could taste yourself on his tongue, tangy, slightly sweet and undeniably intimate, nothing like you had imagined. Dean moved his tongue against yours with the same patience he had shown between your legs, licking into your mouth with quiet groans of pleasure that vibrated through your chest.
“Tastes like fucking heaven,” he rasped when you finally parted for air.
Your nails dug into his shoulders as you pulled him closer, until your chests pressed together, skin hot and slightly damp with sweat as the hard length of his cock rested heavily against the soft inside of your thigh, twitching every time you moved.
You smiled against his lips, letting out a teasingly doubtful hum. “Careful there…might be disappointed when you go.”
“Doubt it. If there is one, you’re going there too.” The smug happiness in his voice made you laugh, the sound light and breathless. He responded by pressing a flurry of soft kisses all over your face, cheeks, nose, forehead and the corner of your mouth, while his cock dragged teasingly along your inner thighs, leaving a faint trail of precum on your skin.
Your laughter quickly faded into quiet, needy moans, inciting your own hand to apply pressure against your still-throbbing pussy, fingers slipping through the mess of slick there in an attempt to relieve the area. Dean lifted his upper body slightly, looking down between you as he stilled the accidental roll of his hips and you moaned again at the loss of friction.
“I could get closer,” he breathed, voice rough with want. “Want me to do that?”
Your legs parted wider in silent invitation as you nodded against the pillow, heart racing.
“Let me see you,” he spoke softly. It wasn't a command, more of a gentle suggestion, one he waited patiently for you to consider. You slowly moved your hand away, exposing your glistening, swollen pussy to him once more while you tried to picture the expression on his face, the way his eyes would darken with hunger and affection. “Do you have condoms?” he asked carefully.
“Closer, Dean,” you echoed, voice small but sure. “I want you as close as you can get right now.” You paused, ears straining for any change in his breathing. “I’ve never…” You trailed off, taking a deep, steadying breath. “I’m clean. I take my birth control–”
“Me neither.” His forehead dropped against yours, breath warm on your lips. “I just want you to be sure.”
You swallowed, nodding as your hands roamed up and down his arms and across his broad shoulders, feeling the tension and warmth of his muscles. His pulse jumped under your touch. “I would want it to be with you,” you confessed, bare and vulnerable.
He went still above you, the words knocking something loose. “I've always wanted it to be with you,” he breathed, the honesty in his voice wrapping around you like a second skin.
With a deep, measured breath, he wrapped his hand around the thick base of his cock, stroking it once before pressing the blunt, leaking head right against your slick entrance. Hovering over you, he braced his forearm beside your head, eyes remaining locked on your face as he pushed in leisurely until he sank deep in one long, continuous thrust.
Both of you moaned openly, lips falling slack at the intense sensation. He filled you completely, stretching your walls around his girthy length, stealing the breath right from your lungs. At the same moment, he reached up and gently tugged the blindfold away, letting you finally see him, your eyes glassy with overwhelmed tears as they met his, the eye contact undoing you more than the fullness between your legs.
You whimpered, voice breathless. “I hate that you might be right.”
“About?” he chuckled softly, staying buried to the hilt while he gave you time to adjust, eyes tracing over your face like he was trying to memorize it.
“Thinking highly of your dick…” You swallowed hard, your pussy fluttering and clenching around the solid invasion. “It sure is there.”
“Focus on it then,” he grinned, that cocky yet tender expression making your chest tighten. His gaze dropped to your lips, then back up as though he couldn't settle on one place to look.
“Not much else I can do,” you admitted, voice shaky, the words barely making it out whole.
Dean leaned down, catching your mouth with his, searching and wanting to swallow the shakiness right out of you. Only when you softened against him did he begin to move, shallow at first, drawing back only a few inches before sliding back in, letting you feel every inch of him dragging along your sensitive inner walls. Each time he bottomed out, his pelvis pressed firmly against your clit, sending sparks of sharp pleasure through you. Your body rocked beneath him with every careful thrust, the wet, intimate sound of your joined bodies filling the room alongside your shared breathing.
“Talk to me,” he murmured, eyes never leaving your face as he kept an unhurried pace, rolling into you repeatedly. He watched for every flicker, every little crease between your brows and twitch at the corner of your mouth, searching for the exact angle and depth that made your expression soften with bliss instead of tension. “What’s on your mind?”
“You,” you answered immediately, the most honest thing you could say.
His smile deepened with satisfaction but he wanted more than what was at the surface, what he knew you thought he wanted to hear. His thumbs brushed tenderly across your temples, easing your mind. “What’s around it?”
“How…” A moan interrupted you as he rolled his hips just right, cock stroking a spot inside you that made your toes curl. “Just how much I’ll want you to believe me when I say this was good…once it’s over. I know it will be.” Your breathing came in heavy pants now, chest rising and falling against his. “Even when…when I won’t–”
“If,” he corrected gently but firmly, still thrusting steadily as the head of his cock dragged deliciously along your walls on every withdrawal, then pushed back in deep. “That’s if you don’t.” He paused, “Listen to me, I don’t think there’s anything you’d tell me that I wouldn’t believe.”
“Well…I need you to be sure,” you pressed, blinking rapidly to keep the tears from spilling. Vulnerability sat raw in your throat, each word feeling like it cost you something you couldn't get back. Your nails dug crescents into his sides, holding on like he might disappear the second you finished the thought. “Please, be sure.”
“Certain,” he nodded, then leaned down closer, forehead nearly touching yours, eyes locked so you could see the sincerity burning there. “I’m right here with you, now and after this.”
He maintained the thrusts long and measured, pulling almost all the way out until only the swollen head remained inside you, letting you feel the stretch as he sank back in again, its slick glide was audible with every meeting of your bodies. Sweat beaded along his collarbone and dripped onto your chest as he held himself above you, muscles flexing with control.
His pelvis kissed your clit on every downstroke, rubbing in slow circles when he stayed buried deep, grinding the sensitive bundle of nerves until your thighs trembled around his hips.
When your brows creased a little too tightly, he adjusted the angle, tilting his hips until the sensation smoothed your expression again. He watched your eyes and mouth, learning your body in real time, focused entirely on making this feel safe and good rather than chasing his own end, he simply wanted to be connected to you.
Your walls hugged him tightly, fluttering with every push, your wetness coating his shaft and easing each deep slide while you could feel the way his cock throbbed inside you, the subtle twitch it gave when you clenched around him. He drew his cock back slowly so you could feel every ridge and vein dragging along your inner walls before sinking back in.
Your breath hitched sharply, as if that alone told him everything he needed to know, he repeated the motion, slower this time letting you feel the full drag and press of him. He pulled out almost completely on the next stroke, just the swollen tip resting inside you, before sliding back in with one smooth thrust that forced a whimper from your throat, strokes that let you savor the way your pussy stretched around his thickness, the way your walls fluttered and clenched trying to keep him inside.
Your hands roamed his back, nails lightly scoring his skin as another deep thrust made your feet arch and when your brows drew together in concentration, he moved again, tilting his hips, changing the depth. Near the end of a dragging stroke, he reached down and hooked one hand behind your knee. He lifted your leg slowly, draping it over his hip and higher along his side, opening you up further, the new angle letting him press deeper. He rolled his hips upward on the next thrust, driving his cock into you with a smooth, upward grind that rubbed directly against a spongy pillow inside while his pelvis continued to crush against your clit.
Your whole body reacted at once, back arching hard as a broken moan spilled from your lips.
“Right there, mmh?” he cooed, voice low and warm, repeating the exact same rolling motion. “Try that for a bit?”
You nodded quickly, eyes falling shut as you surrendered to the sensation. His cock stroked along that perfect angle with every upward push, the head pressing right where you needed it most, pussy clenching tightly around him and soaking his cock even more with every grind.
Dean kept watching you, even as your eyes stayed closed. He studied the way your head tilted back against the pillow, the rapid rise and fall of your chest, the way your lips trembled on every moan. He adjusted the angle of his hips in tiny increments, searching for the rhythm that would keep those creases of wonder on your face. The emotional weight of his attention made your throat tight, he wasn't just fucking you, he was tuned in completely, making sure you felt safe and cherished in every stroke.
“M–middle,” you moaned, voice breaking on the word.
Dean adjusted accordingly, angling his cock exactly where you needed him but before he could even settle into the new position, a raw, wanton moan tore from your throat and your back arched sharply off the bed as your eyes opened.
“Breathe,” he instructed gently, locking eyes with you and giving a slow, reassuring nod. His thumb brushed over your parted lips. “Breathe,” he repeated, “Focus on what you know.”
He kept moving in that centered, precise rhythm, strokes that dragged his thick cock along the same devastating path inside you.
“Mmpppff,” Your eyes fluttered shut as the pleasure built higher, one hand dug into his shoulder, nails biting into his skin while you struggled to draw full breaths. You tried to focus only on the slick drag of his cock entering and leaving your pussy, the way your walls stretched and clenched around his girth, the constant wet sounds of your bodies meeting.
“There you go. That's it,” he husked, bending lower to press a soft kiss to each of your closed eyelids. The new angle drove him even deeper, he pressed forward, settling his weight fully over you and nudging his face into the crook of your neck. Your moans became continuous, loud and broken, spilling from your open mouth without pause.
Dean groaned against your neck, low and desperate sounds vibrating through your skin and making you even hornier. His own unfiltered whimpers and heavy breathing mixed with yours as the position allowed you to breathe him in, sweat, skin and sex, chest heaving beneath his weight.
For several thrusts, no sound came out of you at all. Your mouth hung open in a silent cry, breath caught somewhere between your chest and your throat, refusing to let go. The pressure inside you coiled tighter than you'd ever known, winding higher with every drag of him, every muscle in your body drawn taut and ready to snap.
It was new, unfamiliar with an edge of fear threading through it, a building intensity you had no name for or memory to compare it to. Your fingers curled hard into his shoulder, keeping yourself against a feeling that seemed too big for your body to hold.
A sudden, sharp gasp tore from your lungs, followed immediately by a sob that shook your entire frame. The orgasm crashed over you, deep, vaginal and violently intense, unlike anything you'd known your body capable of. Your pussy clamped down hard around his cock in rhythmic contractions that squeezed him in waves as pure ecstasy ripped through you. For one disorienting second you didn't know whether to cry or laugh, caught between the shock of it and the sheer relief of finally breaking. You sobbed openly, tears spilling down your temples and into your hair, a startled laugh bubbling up right alongside them.
“Mmhnhgh…fuck, fuck, fuck!” you cried, voice wrecked and trembling as the pleasure kept rolling through you in devastating pulses. Your walls fluttered and pulsed wildly around his thrusting cock, soaking him even more.
Dean groaned deeply at the sensation, his hips stuttering for a moment before he forced himself to keep moving, drawing out every last tremor of your orgasm. A quiet laugh escaped him, disbelieving and reverent, the sound punched loose from his chest before he could stop it. He stared down at you, eyes wide, drinking in the sight of your face gone soft and open, tears streaking your temples and lips parted around broken breaths. You looked undone in the most beautiful way he'd ever seen and for a second his vision blurred, his head going light with it.
He blinked hard, jaw tight, willing himself to hold it together as your walls kept squeezing him greedily, refusing to let him go.
He fucked you through it with careful, deep strokes, prolonging the pleasure until your body trembled beneath him. You felt impossibly wet, your arousal and his precum mixing and leaking out around his cock with every thrust.
The first orgasm had barely begun to fade when his pelvis ground harder against your swollen clit with each rolling thrust. The added stimulation pushed you straight into a second, clitoral orgasm that blindsided you, entirely different from the first and brighter too now as many sensations arrived all at once for your mind to sort through. Your thigh quivered violently against his side as bright pleasure exploded outward from your clit, blending with the deep, pulsing contractions still rippling through your core. You cried out again, fresh tears streaming down your face as the dual sensations overwhelmed every nerve in your body.
Your vision whited out for several seconds, your entire body locking up and then shaking apart in his arms. Sobs mixed with desperate moans as wave after wave rolled through you, leaving you raw and shattered in the best possible way.
Dean bent down and kissed away your tears, the salt of it lingering on his lips. “That's how you're supposed to feel,” he hushed against your temple, voice rough with awe and restraint.
“Nnngh, can’t–” you managed, lips parted, chasing words that wouldn't come.
“I know, I know,” he soothed, voice thick. “Gotta let it happen.”
Dean kept thrusting for as long as he could, fucking you through the tail end of your orgasms. His hips snapped forward a few more times, chasing his own release, less controlled than anything he'd let himself be before.
With a wanton whimper, he buried himself to the hilt and came hard, harder than he ever remembered coming, raw and unguarded, shaking with the force of it. Thick, warm pulses of his cum spilled deep inside you, flooding your pussy with heat that made you shudder, your oversensitive body twitching around him as his cock throbbed and jerked against your walls.
He stayed inside you, breathing heavily against your neck, neither of you speaking and just letting the last tremors settle.
After a moment he pulled back reluctantly, until there was just room between your bodies for both of you to look down and watch. He gave a few shallow, unhurried thrusts, fucking his cum deeper into you, the creamy mixture leaking out around his cock with every small movement. You were both transfixed by the filthy, intimate sight, watching each slow slide, neither of you willing to look away until his cock finally stopped twitching.
With one final thrust he stilled completely, buried deep inside you and let his forehead drop to your shoulder.
Neither of you moved.
The room went quiet except for your shared, rasped breathing and underneath it, the faint hitch of his breath catching, over and over in quiet little hiccups he couldn't smooth out no matter how he tried. You ran your hands slowly up and down his back, soothing the tremor still running through him and caught the small, wet sniffle against your skin, proof that he'd cried too, that this had undone him just as much as it had undone you.
You finally felt like you could breathe again. Every muscle in your body went limp as you melted into the mattress, utterly spent, tears still drying on your cheeks and Dean's warm weight pressing you down in the most comforting way possible.
You kissed while stubbornly blinking back tears, holding yourselves together until you simply couldn't anymore. Time dissolved into something shapeless, measured only by slow breaths, racing hearts and bodies pressed together. The sheets twisted around your limbs and for the first time, your body didn't feel like something you had to apologize for.
When Dean finally moved, he did it with an achingly slow pace. He kissed you deeply, tongue dancing with yours while he began to pull out, as though the press of his lips could somehow stop the inevitable. You whimpered softly into his mouth at the feeling, his thick cock sliding from your sensitive, cum-filled pussy in one continuous, wet glide.
A thick trickle of your shared release followed, leaking slowly down your folds and onto the sheets. The sudden emptiness left you aching and strangely bereft, even as his tongue continued to stroke gently against yours through the loss.
Whatever this was afterward, it was unlike anything you'd ever experienced.
“Stay right here,” he murmured against your lips once they parted.
Dean eased himself out of bed shortly to start the shower, testing the water with the back of his hand until the temperature was just right before returning for you. He wrapped an arm around your waist and picked you up bridal style, carrying you into the bathroom and taking your weight without making you feel incapable.
Then guided you beneath the warm stream. Steam gradually filled the room while he took his time cleaning you, soapy hands moving with care over every inch of your skin, washing away sweat and the evidence of your shared pleasure, pausing every so often to brush a kiss against your shoulders, the back of your neck, the curve of your spine, or inside of your wrist.
He slipped away for a moment with a parting kiss, only to strip the bed and remake it with fresh sheets before returning the instant he heard the water stop.
You couldn't help but stare as he stepped into the bathroom doorway. A clean towel was already waiting in his hands, along with clean underwear and a pair of pajamas he'd unearthed from your dresser, and with obvious satisfaction, one of the hoodies he'd been insisting had mysteriously disappeared months ago.
Another towel hung dangerously low on his own hips, barely clinging to the sharp cut of his pelvis. Droplets of water still clung to his skin, tracing slow paths down the defined lines of his abs and the deep V that disappeared beneath the towel. The sight made your breath catch all over again, his body glistening, relaxed and impossibly attractive in the soft bathroom light.
Dean noticed your gaze and gave you a small, knowing smirk but said nothing. He set the clothes aside and got to work, drying your skin carefully section by section, working moisturizer into every inch of you with soothing strokes and helping you into the soft fabric of your clean underwear and pajamas. Then he carried you back to the freshly made bed despite your quiet insistence that you could walk.
After fluffing your pillows and tucking the blankets around you, he finally took a moment to dry himself off and pull on his boxers. Only then did he return to your bedside, lean down and press a gentle kiss to the crown of your head before lingering there for a moment, as though reassuring himself that you were comfortable and finally at peace.
“I'll go raid your cabinets for something to eat,” he said quietly, palm moving slowly over your hair in absent, soothing strokes as he looked down at you. His thumb brushed lightly against your temple before his hand slipped away.
It was far too late to order food and even if somewhere nearby was still open, you doubted you had the energy for anything more substantial than a few bites. A tired smile tugged at your lips as you gave him a small nod but the moment he stepped away from the bed, your chest tightened unexpectedly, eyes following him across the room as though distance alone suddenly felt wrong.
Dean noticed the movement out of the corner of his eye but kept walking toward the bedroom door. “If you hear something heavy drop,” he said over his shoulder, a teasing grin returning now that the weight of the evening had begun to lighten, “that's probably just me hiding from Hannah and Allie if it comes down to it.”
A quiet chuckle escaped you as you turned your head toward the clock resting on your bedside table, the glowing numbers confirming just how late it had become. “Doubt they'll be back tonight,” you murmured, your voice rough with exhaustion.
Dean paused with one hand resting against the doorframe. Instead of leaving, he turned back to look at you properly. His teasing expression faded as he searched your face, trying to read what you needed without making assumptions but he knew tonight had been overwhelming in more ways than one. Maybe you wanted to be alone now, to untangle your thoughts in private before either of you tried putting words to everything that had changed between you.
He wouldn't force that conversation tonight if you weren't ready. “I can go,” he relented, the offer sincere enough that you knew he'd leave without hesitation if that was what you wanted.
Your hands fidgeted restlessly with the edge of the blanket gathered over your lap, smoothing wrinkles before twisting the fabric between your fingers again. You gave the smallest shake of your head, so slight it was nearly impossible to notice.
“I'd rather you didn't.” The words came out quietly. Your gaze drifted away from him, settling instead on the dark window across the room where your reflection stared back faintly against the glass.
You drew in a slow, steadying breath. If there was ever such a thing as good timing, you doubted either of you had managed to stumble across it tonight, then again, maybe there never would've been a perfect moment for this. All you knew was that you were tired of keeping parts of yourself hidden from him.
Dean remained exactly where he was. He didn't move closer, didn't interrupt or rush to fill the silence stretching between you.
“I think I love you,” you admitted at last, it felt strangely fragile once spoken.
Your eyes finally lifted to meet his as you blinked quickly, trying to keep the fresh sting of tears from spilling over, you'd already cried enough for one night.
Dean's expression didn't morph into surprise. Instead, he nodded once, his head tilting and his answer arriving with a tenderness that marked you more than if he'd been shocked. “I know that.”
A breathy laugh escaped you, your head shaking as you smiled weakly. You should've known he’d say that. The two of you had said those words before, they'd existed between you for years in birthday cards, sleepy phone calls, goodbye hugs and reassurances before exams or after bad days, less frequently as you'd grown older, perhaps but they had never truly disappeared.
This was different, though, you'd hoped he'd hear it in your voice. “No…not like that.” You swallowed, clearing your throat before trying again. “The…the other way.” The confession sat awkwardly on your tongue, still too new to fit comfortably. “It's probably going to take me a while to figure out that one too.” You let out a self-conscious laugh that barely qualified as one. “I just thought…I'd give you a heads-up.” Your fingers tightened around the blanket. “In case…you have time to stick around for that too.”
Your eyes dropped back to your hands, unable to bear watching disappointment if it appeared.
For a long second, the room remained perfectly still, then Dean smiled. It was far from the teasing grin he wore so effortlessly, a smile touched with years of memories only the two of you shared.
“I know, baby,” he ventured.
His fingertips tapped absently against the doorframe as scenes from years ago drifted through his mind of the two of you, younger and convinced you were being impossibly sneaky, sitting shoulder to shoulder in playgrounds you'd long since outgrown after the sun had gone down, hiding behind climbing frames and plastic tunnels simply because they gave you somewhere to be alone together.
Memories of fingers laced together in the dark, shared laughter muffled into sleeves and the first time your mouths had met almost by accident, followed by another and another, both of you pretending each one had been just as thoughtless as the last since acknowledging it felt far more frightening than simply letting it happen again.
“I never thought we'd grow out of it,” he admitted, his eyes never leaving yours. “You've never been an enigma to me…Of course, I have time,” he murmured. “I've loved you for as long as I can remember. For you, I’ve always had time.”
He smiled softly and everything inside you slid into place.
Oh, love. The nostalgia returned with childlike wonder. How long had it been waiting for you to find your way back to the playground?
a/n: Comments, likes and reblogs really do mean the world and help more than you know! More stories will be added to the archive soon, so stay tuned for new content. Thank you so much for reading! 🤍
below is a list of fics for the found family au series;
✩.* you've corrupted her } garrett graham x fem!reader
in which dean misunderstands a conversation between sabrina and tucker, leading to an entirely unsolicited birds and the bees talk, before later discovering that y/n is far less innocent than he originally believed - much to garrett’s amusement.
✩.* sunset skies } garrett graham x fem!reader
in which allie, y/n, sabrina and grace chase a sunset from the hockey house roof, only to end up stranded while the boys swing wildly between panic, frustration, and overwhelming relief trying to get them down safely.
✩.* to take away the pain
in which nobody realises how much of the group's heart y/n holds until she's the one lying in a hospital bed instead of taking care of everyone else.
✩.* fill in the gaps } dean di laurentis x fem!reader
in which dean is always the one quietly stepping in whenever garrett can’t, filling the gaps with a kind of friendship that feels safe without ever asking for recognition.
✩.* to heal a heart
in which garrett spends a fundraiser being congratulated for everything he's achieved, only to be reminded of the father who missed it all, and the family who never did.
✩.* injury prone
in which a weekend without garrett goes from quiet to chaotic after one badly timed misstep.
✩.* scarred
in which dean learns two very important things. always knock, and some things cannot be unseen.
✩.* chaos at the carnival!
in which everyone brings chaos to the carnival, but garrett stays exactly what he always is for you; steady, soft, and impossible not to love.
✩.* distance between us } garrett graham x fem!reader
in which garrett struggles with the quiet ache of feeling shut out by the person he loves most, as y/n seemingly leans on everyone but him.
✩.* drunk on you } garrett graham x fem!reader
in which y/n is rarely clingy, but tonight she can’t seem to let go of garrett, and he finds himself loving every second of it.
Summary: You convinced yourself you were the exception to his rule. But when Allie Hayes crashes into his life, you realize you were never playing the long game—you were just warming the bench.
Angst / Hurt-Comfort
Warnings: not proofread, angst, explicit language, sexual references, heartbreak.
A/N: I am so, so sorry it took me over a month to post this request! My finals lasted for almost a whole month and I was so stressed I couldn't even exist. And then right after that, I went to visit my parents in my hometown, and then I had to move apartments and it was absolute chaos. I feel so bad for making you guys wait this long. But I really hope you enjoy this fic! Now that the chaos is over, I will be back with more fics. Anyway. Feedback is much appreciated. Take care of yourselves and lots of love!
Words:
Playing with fire is for amateurs. Fucking Dean Di Laurentis? That was like striking a match in a room full of gasoline.
Dean Sebastian Kendrick Heyward-Di Laurentis. Christ, even his name was exhausting.
Every girl with a pulse at Briar U knew the deal. He was the hockey team's resident golden boy. A walking, talking wet dream with a trust fund, an eight-pack, and these devastating, smoky green eyes.
He was also the undisputed king of casual hookups. Dean always got what he wanted. And ninety-nine percent of the time, that meant someone female, flexible, and completely gone before the morning coffee finished brewing. You knew the rules. You were well aware of the track record. You knew exactly what you were getting into when you let him slide his hands under your shirt.
But human beings are fundamentally stupid, hopelessly optimistic creatures. Somewhere between late-night poli-sci study sessions and lazy Sunday mornings drinking coffee in Garrett’s kitchen, you managed to convince yourself you were the exception to the rule.
It started out platonic enough. You were just another fixture in the hockey house, a girl supposedly immune to the legendary Di Laurentis charm. At least, that was the bullshit lie you sold him.
But then the sarcastic banter started to shift. It bled into lingering touches. The heavy weight of his warm palm resting flat against your lower back. His whiskey-rough voice murmuring filthy jokes in your ear over the thumping bass at Malone's.
When you finally crossed the line, it wasn’t just a quick, meaningless fumble on those god-awful couch cushions. It was supposed to be a one-time thing. An itch scratched. But one time turned into two, and two turned into a dangerously comfortable routine.
It didn't feel like a hookup. It felt... significant. Intimate.
The mornings were what really screwed you over. Instead of the awkward, panicked rush to grab your clothes and sneak out before the rest of the house woke up, he wouldn't let you leave.
He would just groan, reach out with a heavy arm, and drag you right back against his bare, sculpted chest. He'd tangle his legs with yours, press a soft, lingering kiss to your spine, and mumble, "Stay. Just five more minutes, baby doll".
In those rare, unguarded moments, stripped of his usual cocky swagger, you didn't feel like a temporary distraction. You felt devastatingly permanent.
That was the trap. That was how you justified the blurred lines. You told yourself you weren't just another notch on his bedpost because you were more than that. You were his best friend.
You were the one he bitched to about Frank O'Shea, the hardass defensive coordinator who was dead-set on making his senior year a living hell. You were the one who knew the actual scores of his LSATs. You listened to him vent about his looming Harvard Law future.
To the rest of Briar, Dean was still playing the field. But to you? It felt like an exclusive, unspoken secret.
You’d find yourself staring at the ceiling of your dorm room at two in the morning, your heart doing a pathetic, frantic little backflip every time your phone buzzed with a filthy, late-night text from him.
I’m not a puck bunny, you’d tell yourself, stepping over his discarded Timberlands in the hallway. We have a real connection. He just needs time to pull his head out of his ass.
God, you were a fucking idiot.
You fell for him. Hard, fast, and entirely without a parachute.
You fell for that cocky-as-sin grin. You fell for his surprisingly sharp intellect. You fell for the rare moments when he’d look at you like you were the absolute only girl in the crowded room.
You spoon-fed yourself the delusion that it was only a matter of time. Surely, the playboy would eventually wake up and realize the girl he actually wanted was already right there, sitting next to him on the couch.
You thought you were playing the long game. You didn't realize you were just warming the bench.
The illusion didn't just shatter; it exploded in your face, piece by agonizing piece the weekend Allie Hayes crashed at the hockey house in full-blown crisis mode.
She was nursing a broken heart over her ex, hiding out in Garrett's empty bedroom. Logan had even fired off a group text explicitly warning Dean to keep his dick in his pants.
You thought you were safe. Allie was Hannah’s best friend. She was the definition of off-limits.
But since when did Dean Di Laurentis ever give a shit about the rules?
For weeks, their hookups were a heavily guarded secret. Allie was adamant about keeping everyone out of their business, preferring to keep it strictly under wraps.
But you knew Dean better than that. You noticed the subtle, damning little details.
You saw the dark, purplish hickey blooming on his neck the morning after she stayed over. You noticed the way he was suddenly glued to his phone, staring glassy-eyed at the screen while he waited for her to text him back.
And then Dean dragged you into the kitchen, his green eyes burning with a frustrating mix of panic and utter exhilaration.
"I'm screwed," he whispered, leaning back against the counter. "I hooked up with Allie."
Your stomach plummeted straight to the linoleum. "What?"
"It's a secret, so keep your mouth shut," he warned, raking a hand through his blond hair. "But I can't get her out of my head. I even sat through this terrible French soap opera called Solange just to hang out with her".
He said it with a laugh. A helpless, ridiculously besotted laugh.
Then he started dropping the nicknames. Baby doll. Allie-Cat.
The exact same lazy, affectionate nicknames that used to make your own stupid heart flutter.
You had to stand there, plaster a supportive best-friend smile on your face, and listen to the guy you were hopelessly in love with talk about falling for someone else. It felt like taking a slapshot straight to the ribs without any padding.
The absolute worst part was that you couldn't even openly hate her. Allie was so frustratingly sweet, completely oblivious to the fact that she was actively destroying you. There was no villain here. Just you, completely alone in your grief.
So you just... faded out.
You started taking your coffee to go. You hauled your ass to the campus library to study instead of camping out at the guys' kitchen island. When Dean tried to rope you into his usual flirty banter, you shot back short, clipped answers and kept your eyes glued to your textbooks.
You honestly thought you were doing a bang-up job of acting like a ghost.
But you forgot who you were dealing with.
"She's fine, Dean. Leave her alone," Tucker's drawl echoed in the hallway one afternoon.
You froze, your hand hovering over the doorknob.
"She's been dodging me for weeks, Tuck," Dean argued, sounding genuinely frustrated. "I just want to see what's wrong."
"What's wrong is that she's swamped with midterms. Give her some space." Tucker smoothly stepped into Dean's path, effortlessly acting as your own personal human shield.
You backed away, your chest tight with unshed tears. Tucker knew. John Tucker noticed absolutely everything.
Logan, on the other hand, was far less subtle.
A few nights later, while Dean was busy sneaking into Allie's dorm room, a loud knock rattled your door.
It was Logan and he didn't bother waiting for an invitation. He just pushed right past you, armed with two pints of Ben & Jerry's and a pair of plastic spoons.
He took one look at your pathetic, red-rimmed eyes and let out a heavy sigh.
"You look like absolute shit," Logan stated, tossing a pint of your favorite kind onto the mattress.
"Thanks. You really have a way with women," you croaked, wiping furiously at your wet cheeks.
"Do you want to talk about it?" he asked, dropping his massive frame onto the edge of your bed.
"No."
"Cool." Logan popped the lid off his ice cream like it was just another Tuesday. "Then we won't talk about it. Put on a movie."
He sat next to you in comfortable silence, eating his ice cream while you let the tears finally fall.
The boys knew.
They saw exactly what Dean was too hopelessly blind to see. And they were quietly circling the wagons to protect one of their own.
It was a chaotic victory party at the hockey house, and the bass rattled the floorboards. You were standing by the kitchen island, forcing a laugh at something Fitzy was saying, doing your absolute damnedest to pretend your heart wasn't actively bleeding out all over the linoleum.
Then, a large, familiar hand wrapped around your bicep.
You spun around, the breath catching in your throat.
Dean's jaw was set in a hard line. His blond hair was a tousled mess, and those smoky green eyes were flashing with a volatile mix of frustration and hurt.
"We need to talk," he demanded, his voice dropping an octave to cut through the pounding music.
Before you could even object, he was pulling you through the kitchen. He shoved open the sliding glass door and dragged you out onto the back patio. The frigid spring air immediately bit at your bare arms, but at least the bass was muffled out here.
"What the fuck is going on with you?" Dean demanded.
He crossed his arms over his broad, perfectly sculpted chest.
"You’ve been ghosting me," he accused. "And tonight, you completely walked away when Allie said hi. What is your problem?"
The sheer, blinding oblivion of the man was staggering.
"I don't have a problem, Dean," you lied, fighting to keep your voice perfectly even. "I'm just busy."
"Bullshit."
He stepped closer, crowding your space until that familiar, spicy cologne wrapped around you. It made your chest physically ache.
"You’re my best friend," he pushed, a rare edge of desperation bleeding into his tone. "We used to tell each other everything. Now you won't even look at me."
He ran a hand through his hair, looking genuinely distressed. "Allie thinks you hate her. And I'm starting to think you hate me."
"I don't hate Allie," you whispered. Your hands were shaking so violently you had to cross your arms to hide them. "And I don't hate you. But things change, Dean. You're... you're with her now."
"So?" He threw his hands up in the air. "Garrett and Logan have girlfriends, and you still hang out with them! Why am I the only one getting frozen out?"
The absolute unfairness of it snapped whatever fragile restraint you had left.
"Because Garrett and Logan weren't fucking me, Dean!"
The words ripped out of your throat before you could swallow them back down.
Silence slammed onto the patio, heavy, suffocating, final. The only sound left was the muffled vibration of the music inside the house.
Dean froze.
The anger instantly drained from his perfectly chiseled face. It was replaced by a devastating, agonizingly slow realization.
His green eyes widened as he stared at you.
You could practically see that pretty head of his piecing together the timeline, the sudden distance, the lame excuses. The way the rest of his teammates had been subtly shielding you from him for weeks.
"You..." Dean started, his voice dropping to a horrified whisper. "Wait. You..."
"Don't," you choked out.
You wrapped your arms tighter around yourself, feeling like you might actually shatter. The humiliation burned the back of your throat like acid.
"Just don't say it, Dean. I knew the score. I knew who you were. It's my own stupid fault for catching feelings while you were just getting your rocks off."
"Baby doll, I didn't—" He reached out, his hand actually trembling as he stopped inches from your arm. "You're my best friend," he whispered, his voice cracking, looking at you like you had just betrayed him. "You're the one constant I have. I swear to God, I never would have touched you if I knew it would ruin this."
It was the final nail in the coffin. He didn't regret breaking your heart; he regretted crossing a line that jeopardized his own comfort. The physical intimacy that meant everything to you had meant absolutely nothing to him.
The sliding glass door screeched on its track as it was abruptly shoved open and Garrett Graham stood in the doorway.
His broad shoulders blocked the light from the kitchen, his dark eyes flicking from your tear-stained face to Dean’s horrified expression.
As the team captain, Garrett knew exactly when a play was going south.
"Step back, D," Garrett ordered.
His voice wasn't yelling, but it carried a lethal authority that left zero room for argument.
"G, this is between us," Dean pleaded, looking utterly panicked. "I just need to fix this."
"You can't fix this tonight, man. Open your damn eyes and give her some space."
Garrett stepped out onto the patio. He gently placed a warm, solid hand on your back. He didn't look at Dean again. He just looked at you, his expression softening into total empathy.
"Come on," Garrett murmured. "Let's get you out of here."
You didn't fucking dare to look back at Dean. Because if you looked over your shoulder and saw him standing on that patio—frozen, horrified, looking at you with pity instead of love—you would actually shatter into a million jagged pieces.
Garrett's palm on your back was a steady, grounding weight. He bulldozed a path right through the swarm of drunken frat boys and puck bunnies. He didn't stop until the heavy front door slammed shut behind you.
The freezing air hit your lungs like crushed glass, and you finally let out a ragged, ugly sob.
"I've got you," Garrett murmured. His voice was surprisingly gentle for a guy who spent his life smashing people into the boards.
Tucker was already waiting by Garrett's Jeep in the driveway. Because of course he was. John Tucker always knew exactly where he needed to be.
He took one look at your face, immediately shrugged out of his heavy winter coat, and draped it over your trembling shoulders as he opened the back door of the Jeep and guided you inside.
"G, you driving?" Tuck asked quietly.
"Yeah. Let's get her out of here."
The interior of the Jeep smelled like rich leather and cold winter air. You curled into a miserable, pathetic ball in the backseat, pulling Tucker's massive coat around you like a suit of armor. You squeezed your eyes shut, but it did absolutely nothing to stop the hot tears tracking down your cheeks.
Garrett started the engine, the heater roaring to life. He shifted the car into drive, but before pulling out of the driveway, his dark eyes met yours in the rearview mirror.
"You want me to go back in there and kick his ass?" Garrett asked. His tone was deadpan and entirely serious. "Because I will. Logan is probably already tearing him a new one, but I'm more than happy to take a swing."
A wet, broken laugh scraped its way out of your throat. "No. Don't punch him. It's not... it's not his fault he didn't fall for me, G."
"It's his fault for being a blind, selfish idiot," Tucker corrected from the passenger seat. "He led you on, whether he meant to or not."
You rested your forehead against the cold glass of the window, watching the hockey house disappear into the darkness. The brutal reality of it was settling deep into your bones, heavy and hollow.
It was over.
Whatever messy, undefined, agonizingly beautiful thing you had with Dean Sebastian Kendrick Heyward-Di Laurentis was dead. He was going to move on with Allie Hayes, and you were going to have to figure out how to exist in a world where you weren't his favorite secret anymore. You had to go back to being just a friend.
It was going to hurt like a fucking bitch. You were going to have to mourn a breakup for a relationship that never technically existed.
But as Garrett reached back to adjust the vents so the warm air hit you directly, and Tucker quietly turned up the radio to drown out the heavy silence, a tiny, fractured piece of your heart clicked into place.
You hadn't won the guy. You had lost the golden boy to the blonde girl with the broken heart.
But looking at the two massive, fiercely protective hockey players guarding your front seat, you realized you hadn't lost everything. You had played with fire, and yeah, you'd gotten burned. But you had walked out of the ashes with a family.
Theo Nott shows up to the library after a terrible day. Instead of talking about it, he buries himself in your arms and refuses to let go, turning your quiet study session into a soft, clingy moment of comfort.
Warnings: established relationship with a tired clingy boyfriend
Word count: ~1,4k
A/N: hi, hello. Yep, I'm trying to write again after a long break. This one was inspired by @nottendo post (no smut tho, sorry, babe). Love u ♡
The library had grown quiet around you.
Not silent, exactly. Hogwarts never truly went silent. There was always the soft scratch of quills, the distant shuffle of pages, the low crackle of torches along the stone walls. Somewhere behind a shelf, someone whispered too loudly and was immediately hushed.
But your corner had settled into something peaceful. A pile of books sat open in front of you, notes scattered across the table, ink pot dangerously close to the edge. You had been trying to focus for the better part of an hour, rereading the same paragraph on defensive charms until the words started to blur together.
Then Theo appeared.
You noticed him first by the way the chair beside you shifted, though he didn't sit in it. Instead, he hovered there, quiet and tired-looking, his school tie loosened, dark hair falling messily over his forehead. His eyes, usually sharp with dry amusement, looked heavy today.
You softened immediately.
"Theo?" you asked gently.
He said nothing at first. He only stepped closer, leaned down, and wrapped his arms around your shoulders from behind. His face disappeared into the crook of your neck.
You froze for half a second in quiet surprise before your hand instinctively came up to rest over his arm.
"Bad day?" you murmured.
Theo hummed against your skin. It was a low, unhappy sound.
"That bad?"
He just nodded slightly, his nose brushing your neck, and tightened his hold around you. His body curved over yours like he had been holding himself together all day and had finally found somewhere safe enough to fall apart a little.
You let your quill drop onto the parchment, focusing on him fully. "What happened?"
"Don't want to talk about it," he mumbled quietly, voice muffled against your skin.
"Okay."
He seemed grateful for that. His shoulders loosened slightly, though he didn't let go.
For a while, you let him stay there. You could feel the warmth of him against your back, the soft rise and fall of his breathing against your skin. His thumbs moved absentmindedly over the sleeve of your jumper, slow and soothing, as if he were comforting himself with the texture of it.
You turned your head just enough to brush your cheek against his hair. "I do have to study, you know," you said softly.
Theo went still.
Then, with all the dignity of a wounded prince, he whined.
It was quiet, barely more than a breath, but it was so unlike his usual composed self that you had to bite back a chuckle.
"Theo."
"No."
You laughed under your breath. "No?"
"No," he repeated, voice low and petulant as if he were a 5-year-old. "You studied yesterday."
"That's not how exams work."
"They should."
You tried to turn back toward your notes, but Theo only buried his face deeper into your neck, his arms tightening around you as if he could physically prevent you from returning to your work.
"Theodore Nott," you warned, though there was no real bite in it.
He just made another miserable sound and nuzzled further. "Five more minutes," he muttered.
"You said that fifteen minutes ago."
"That was a different five minutes."
You smiled despite yourself.
Theo must have felt it, because he pressed a little closer, his lips brushing the side of your throat in something too soft to be a kiss and too tender to be accidental.
"Please," he whispered softly.
That made you pause.
Theo didn't beg often. He rarely asked for anything directly in general. Usually, he hovered at the edges of affection, pretending not to need it until you offered it first. But now his voice had gone quiet and rough, stripped of all sarcasm.
You reached back and touched his hair softly. His breath caught slightly in his throat.
"Really terrible day?" you asked quietly, voice laced with a gentle worry.
He nodded once, and it made your heart ached.
With a sigh, you pushed your books away and carefully turned in your chair. Theo loosened his grip just enough to let you move, but not enough to let you go. The moment you faced him, he stepped between your knees and leaned into you again.
You cupped his face. He looked so exhausted as if he'd been running around the Hogwarts since the last you saw him.
"Oh, Theo," you breathed out softly.
His eyes flickered over your face, guarded and vulnerable all at once. "I just wanted to see you."
"You did see me."
"No," he said, frowning slightly as if it was obvious. "I wanted this."
Before you could ask what he meant, he folded himself into you, arms sliding around your waist as he tucked his face back into your neck. You wrapped yourself around him instinctively, one hand at the nape of his neck, the other resting between his shoulder blades.
He exhaled like he had been waiting all day to breathe. "You're warm."
"And you're freezing."
"Mhm."
"You need to take better care of yourself."
"I have you."
"That is not a care plan."
"It's my favorite one."
You rolled your eyes, but your fingers kept moving gently through his hair. Theo melted under the touch. His entire posture changed, the tension draining from him bit by bit. He leaned more heavily into you, trusting you to hold him together, and you did.
The library around you faded into the background. There was only Theo, tired and clingy and soft in a way he showed almost no one else. Theo, who looked like winter to everyone else but felt like a quiet fire when he was this close. Theo, who hid his bruises behind clever remarks and cold eyes, but came to you when the day had been too much.
"You know," you said quietly, "Madam Pince is going to throw us out if you keep standing here like this."
"Good."
"Good?"
"Then you'll have to stop studying."
"You're impossible."
He gave a small, satisfied hum. You felt him smile against your skin.
"There he is," you murmured warmly.
Theo lifted his head slightly, just enough for his eyes to meet yours. "Who?"
"My Theo."
Something in his expression shifted. The teasing disappeared. For a second, he only looked at you, blinking slowly.
Then his face softened so completely that it nearly broke your heart.
"Yours?" he asked, voice barely above a whisper.
You brushed a strand of hair away from his forehead. "If you want to be."
His hands tightened at your waist. "I do." No hesitation. No sarcasm. No clever deflection.
Just the truth.
Your thumb stroked his cheek. "Then yes. My Theo."
He closed his eyes, leaning into your touch like the words had settled somewhere deep inside him.
"You make everything quiet," he whispered.
You swallowed slightly and softly kissed his head. "Is that a good thing?"
His eyes opened again, darker now, gentler. "It's the best thing."
You didn't know what to say to that, so you simply pulled him closer. Theo followed easily, sinking into your arms until his forehead rested against your shoulder.
For a while, neither of you spoke. You held him while the torches burned low and your abandoned notes lay forgotten on the table. His breathing evened out slowly, his fingers no longer clutching at you quite so desperately. Every now and then, he shifted closer as if reminding himself you were still there.
Eventually, you murmured, "I really do have to study."
Theo groaned.
You just laughed softly. "Theo."
"Five more minutes."
"You are going to say that forever."
"Yes."
"Theo."
He lifted his head, just enough to look at you through his lashes. "Your scent and warmth make me feel at home."
He seemed embarrassed the second the words left him. His gaze dropped, a faint flush touched the tips of his ears. But you didn't tease him — you just can't when your heart was aching so terrifyingly beautiful in your chest at his words. You only pulled him back in and kissed the side of his head gently.
The books could wait.
The essay could wait.
The exam could even wait, at least for a little while.
Theo had spent the whole day being sharp-edged and silent for the rest of the world. But here, with you, he was soft. Here, he was safe. Here, he could bury his face into the crook of your neck and ask for five more minutes like it was the only thing keeping him together.
So you held him tighter.
"Okay," you whispered. "Five more minutes."
Theo sighed, warm and relieved against your skin.
And this time, neither of you pretended it would only be five.
SYNOPSIS‧₊˚ When you enter the Love Island villa as a bombshell, you spark an instant, high-stakes connection with the intense and complicated Rafe Cameron. As you navigate each others web of secrets, messy betrayals, and jealous rivals, you must decide if your undeniable chemistry is a genuine match or just a casualty of the game...
WARNING(S)‧₊˚ swearing, smut, mentions of past relationships, suggestive content, mentions of addiction, circumstantial cheating/infidelity, general LI drama, arguments, mentions of mental health, drinking, more detailed warnings for each individual chapter
SERIES TAG NAV‧₊˚ #fic analysis☀️ | #sotb | #mailbox:sotb
some quick (kinda important) notes
EPISODES
The Deep End (Day 1+2) | tweets
2. Muggy Mornings and Moonlit Pasts (Day 3+4) | tweets
c/w ᝰ.ᐟ backward hat!rafe + your anklet on his shoulder™️, unprotected p in v, poolside sex, w.a.m., language, pet names (baby, pretty, my girl + no y/n), obsessed husband!rafe, kelce + top catching strays, rafe’s grumpy as hell + rafe is down catastrophically bad per usual ‧₊˚ ⋅ ౨ৎ ‧₊ .ᐟ
“Hell no.”
Topper pauses halfway through reaching for his ball marker and looks over. “What?”
Rafe points at him fast. “I know what you’re gonna ask. Fuck off.”
Topper stares at him for a second before a laugh escapes. “Jesus Christ, dude.”
Beside him, Kelce just shakes his head, snickering under his breath while he crouches to line up his putt. The ball sits a few feet from the hole and he’s still smiling when he lines up his putter behind it.
“We haven’t even said anything yet.”
“Don’t need you to.”
“You don’t even know what I was gonna ask.”
“Yes I do.”
“No, you don’t.”
“You were gonna ask if I wanted to grab a drink after this.”
“Is that a bad thing?” Topper asks, lifting an eyebrow at Rafe like he’s officially lost his mind.
“You don’t want an answer to that, Top.”
He hooks a finger beneath the sleeve of his golf polo and rolls it a little higher on his bicep, adjusting the fabric before dragging the back of his hand across his forehead. The UV index has to be somewhere around ten and he feels every bit of it.
“The only reason I’m out here is because she said it’d be good for me.”
Topper snorts and Kelce’s chip barely makes it out of the sandpit.
“And you’ve been thinkin’ about leaving since hole one,” Topper chuckles, shaking his head.
“Hole one? That’s insulting,” Rafe breathes.
“Sorry, hole four—”
“Parking lot,” Rafe cuts him off. “I was thinkin’ that since the parking lot, Top.”
But even that’s a lie. He was thinking that the moment that he watched you wave to him over your shoulder before you stepped outside—that little string bikini peeking out of the top of your shorts, tormenting him beyond belief.
Ever since then he’s been crossing holes off in his head like an advent calendar from his own personal hell.
“He’s not even listening,” Kelce teases.
Rafe looks over at him, blinking slowly a few times with his lips pursed and his hands resting on his hips.
“‘Course I’m not.”
“Unbelievable,” Topper sighs. “I was just telling Kelce we could do another eighteen holes—”
Rafe can’t even contain his disgust—wincing, brows pinched tight, nostrils flared with a side eye dripping with judgment.
“We’re not inviting you, Cameron. Calm the fuck down,” he blurts.
Ding! Rafe’s hand moves, diving for his pocket like someone challenged him to a goddamn duel.
Kelce drops the head of his putter against the grass, shaking his head judgmentally. Rafe rolls his eyes, unlocking his phone without a shred of shame.
“You’ve got a problem,” Topper says.
“A legitimate fucking problem,” Kelce adds.
“I can’t help that neither of you like your wives,” Rafe mutters and both of their mouths hang open in disgust. “Whatever,” he says, sounding so genuinely unbothered. ‘Cause he is.
Then he looks down at the screen and suddenly nothing else matters.
You’re stretched out across one of the lounge chairs beside the pool with a book propped open. The afternoon sun reflects off your skin. The book covers half your face, but that isn’t helping him concentrate because the rest of you is impossible to miss—the soft swells of your breasts pressed against the pool chair, the curve of your ass, just a taste of your thighs. Your feet are crossed, the little anklet he bought you glittering in the North Carolina sun.
“Look at him,” Topper says, nudging Kelce with his elbow.
“Not a single thought in that head,” Kelce adds as he steps forward and rests his putter behind the ball, taking his time while he studies the break.
The green goes quiet for a second while everybody waits for him to hit it. Before he can even pull the putter back, Rafe steps directly into his line and sinks his putt without hesitation.
Topper starts barking out a laugh and Kelce stares at him in complete disbelief as his ball rolls toward the hole. “You are such a prick,” Kelce says.
“We’re done.”
“We are absolutely not done.”
“This feels done,” Rafe answers, bending down to grab his ball, starting toward the flag before the argument is even over, Kelce’s ball still rolling toward the cup.
“You’re unbelievable, Cameron—”
Rafe cuts off Kelce’s critique, kicking the ball, sending it careening away. “It was gonna hook left anyway,” Rafe says over his shoulder, digging his keys out of his pocket, heading toward the parking lot as the two bitch behind him. “You two suck at golf, by the way,” Rafe calls back.
“Fuck you, Rafe,” Kelce laughs weakly, walking toward his ball.
“Short game’s terrible.”
“Rafe!” Topper calls but he flicks him off in response.
“Don’t even get me started on you, Top. You read greens like an eighty-year-old man with cataracts, fucking useless.”
“Jesus Christ,” Topper gasps.
Rafe doesn’t even bother organizing his clubs when he reaches the parking lot. He yanks them out of the cart, tosses the entire bag into the trunk with absolutely no regard for the thousands of dollars’ worth of equipment inside.
He jogs around the side of the car, yanks the driver’s door open, and practically falls into the seat before firing the engine to life.
Gravel spits behind him as he throws the car into reverse, backing out of the spot in one smooth movement before shifting into drive.
The second he hits the main road, he grabs his phone and calls. His thumbs drum against the steering wheel as the summer wind whips through the car, his pulse hammering, still racing from that power walk to his car.
“Hey, baby,” your voice fills his car and he softens in his seat, hands wrapping a little tighter around the wheel as he smiles.
“Hey pretty,” he hums.
His voice is softer now, gravelly from talking all day and sweeter than it has any right to be considering the way he’d been speaking to Topper and Kelce five minutes ago.
If you’d been standing on that green listening to him threaten both of them, you’d absolutely have something to say about it. He already knows exactly what you’d tell him too. Be nice. Stop being grumpy. They’re your friends. The problem is that he doesn’t care about any of that right now.
“Where are you?” You ask curiously, and he can hear in your voice that you know he dipped out of there sooner than he should have.
“Just left.”
“You just left?” You giggle.
“Mhmm...” Your voice comes through the speakers and instantly makes him feel better than the entire golf outing did.
Traffic slows for a red light and the drumming starts again as he waits for it to change.
“You weren’t gonna get a drink or something?” You ask. “Relax?”
“Absolutely not.”
The answer comes so fast that you start laughing again. The corner of his mouth twitches as he shifts in his seat. “They were stayin’ to practice puttin’, baby.”
“Really?” You ask, not convinced in the slightest.
“Yeah. Their—uhhh… Their short games suck.”
“Gotcha.”
“I’m serious.”
“I’m sure you are.”
“They’re fuckin’ terrible, baby. That was a long-ass day,” he grumbles and you giggle. He leans back against the headrest as he lets the moment breathe for a minute. “Kids been easy on you today?”
“Actually, yeah.”
“Yeah?”
“Just laying by the pool,” you say.
“Sounds rough.”
“Fuckin’ terrible, baby,” you echo his words back to him and he smiles. “They’re actually at Wheezie’s.”
The car accelerates, completely subconscious on his part, but you hear it loud and clear. Rafe’s eyes flick briefly toward the speedometer while a grin starts pulling at the corner of his mouth. “Oh yeah?”
“Rafe Cameron, slow down.”
The grin only gets worse, sinking a little lower in the driver’s seat, as one hand falls to the shift stick.
“I’m goin’ slow, baby.”
“You are not,” you answer. “You accelerated the second I said the kids weren’t home.”
“Did I?” You can practically hear the grin in his voice now as he weaves through traffic. “So.”
You start laughing, knowing exactly where he’s going to go with this. “Winnie’s in Charleston with Jackson.”
“Got it. And Max?” He asks eagerly.
“He left like an hour ago.”
“On the boat?” He asks, knowing that’s an all-day affair.
“Mhmm…”
Rafe’s laugh rumbles through the phone. “Interesting,” he says.
“Interesting?” You laugh and sigh sweetly.
“Sounds like I get you to myself all day?”
“Sounds like it.”
By the time he turns into the neighborhood, he’s grinning so hard his cheeks hurt. The gates open and he barely slows down as he pulls through them, already spotting flashes of blue water between the houses.
“You’re almost here, aren’t you?”
“Absolutely,” he hums. “See you outside, baby.”
The second he turns into the driveway, the car barely has time to rest before he’s throwing it into park, killing the engine.
The garage door rumbles overhead and he doesn’t wait, ducking underneath it before it can open all the way. His shirt’s halfway over his head before he even reaches the mudroom. By the time he steps inside, he’s carrying the polo in one hand, snagging his swim trunks from the laundry room with the other.
He stumbles slightly, kicking off his golf shoes without ever breaking stride. Future Rafe can deal with that problem. Present Rafe has more important things to do.
His golf shorts are already undone by the time he reaches the hallway. He steps out of them, steps into the swim trunks, and keeps walking without stopping once to grab his hat, tugging it on before he flicks it to the back.
Now he’s finally home and the only thing he cares about is the backyard door sitting at the end of the room. He reaches it a few seconds later and quickly slows down, dragging the glass door open.
And that last bit of tension breezes out of him, because there you are.
You’re curled up in a chair with a book open in your hands, completely unaware that he’s standing there.
He admires you for a moment—one leg crossed over the other while sunlight dances across the pool behind you. He soaks in the scene he’d spent eighteen holes waiting to get home to.
Then a sharp whistle rips through his lips.
Your head lifts at the sound.
The book lowers into your lap and a smile breaks across your face so fast it makes something in his chest tighten.
You start to uncross your legs, already leaning forward like you’re about to stand, but he points at you.
“Nah, baby,” he says. “Stay right there. I’m comin’.”
You laugh under your breath and fall back against the chair.
The cushions dip beneath his weight as he climbs on top of you. One hand braces against the armrest while the other finds your thigh, his broad palm sliding higher as he guides you closer.
“Miss me?” He asks. Rafe’s smile tugs a little wider when you whisper yes, his thumb brushing absentmindedly against your thigh.
He slides a hand along your side, guiding you onto his lap as one arm wraps around your waist, pulling you tight against his chest while the other lifts to cup your cheek.
“Goddamn, I missed you. Don’t make me do that shit again,” he mutters, shaking his head once before leaning back enough to look at you properly. “M’not home enough for that.”
“Okay, baby,” you laugh.
“I mean it.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Don’t try to charm me after that, pretty. That was hell.” He leans in first this time, forehead brushing yours for a second before his lips find yours. “I love you,” he murmurs.
Your hand presses against his chest, nails scratching lightly down sun-warmed skin. He pushes the cup of your bikini to the side, wrapping his lips around your skin while his other hand drifts between your thighs.
“Out here?” You ask with a laugh.
“We’re all alone, baby. Why not?” His lips brush yours again before trailing along your jaw. “We can go inside too—”
“Right here,” you whisper.
“That’s what I thought,” he hums. “Who’s my girl, huh?”
You smile, fingers hooking beneath the waistband of his swim trunks. “I’m your girl.”
“Mhmm.” His thumb drifts along your collarbones to your shoulders, nudging one strap down before the other. “You’re my fuckin’ girl.” The words come out rough enough to pull a smile from you.
You reach up and untie the small bow holding your swimsuit top together. The fabric slips loose between you.
Rafe’s eyes drop as you toss it away. “Jesus Christ, baby.” A low groan slips out of him as he tips his forehead against yours for a second, hands lifting to squeeze your tits in his big palms as his mouth finds yours again.
You glance down briefly, catching his swim trunks sitting low on his hips from where you’d been tugging at them, bunched slightly against his muscular thighs, the fabric stretched tight across them.
“Take these off,” you whisper, the words barely leaving your lips before he slides down in his seat, tugging down his shorts with him, his heavy cock smacking against his toned stomach with a snap, his eyes locked on your body.
His hands squeeze your hips, digging in as he drags your clothed pussy on top of him, head pressing back into the chair. The sun beats down on your skin. A thin line of sweat catching his chain before it rolls in a lazy train down his chest.
“They said I got a problem,” he mumbles through a smirk, his jaw tightening as you keep moving against him, the heat of your body bleeding through the fabric of your swimsuit, finally snapping whatever patience he had left.
“Yeah, baby?”
“You see any problems here?” He asks breathlessly as he reaches for the bows at your hip, tugging them free, yanking away the rest of the fabric in a hurry as his hands close around you again.
He blows out a breath like he’s finally gotten rid of the last thing standing between him and what he wants, his hand diving between your thighs.
His fingers press inside and he gasps, working you with his hand as you rest on his chest, feeling his heart bang underneath, his muscles flexing with each push of his hand.
“Just jealous they don’t have a woman like you?” He hums as he pulls his hand away just long enough to drag you in.
Rafe’s lidded eyes connect with yours, lips falling open with his as he pulls you down on him. You grip his shoulders, hands trembling as a deep groan thunders in his chest, feeling your wetness wrap around him tight.
“Fuck, me,” he mutters under his breath, dragging you closer, smiling against your lips before capturing your mouth in a tender kiss.
“Oh my god,” you whine.
“Pussy’s so perfect.”
His eyes lift to yours in a lust-ridden daze, muscles flexing as he works you over on his length. You bounce on his lap, wet slaps of sweat and slick filling with air around you mixing with your soft whimpers and his deep groans.
You grip the arm rests, circling your hips and he throws his head against the back of the chair to get a better look, his eyes drifting between your face and the bounce of your tits, falling to his lap where your pussy swallows him up each time you sink down.
His legs spread a little wider, feet resting on the ground, hips pitching to fuck up into your soaked hole. Your head throws back as you rise on your knees, letting him hit that perfect spot, the knot in your belly tightening, your body impossibly hot.
“Rafe,” you moan.
“Yeah?” He asks, and you can hear the satisfaction in his voice. “Been playin’ this shit over and over in my mind, pretty. Let me have it.”
You cry out as he pounds your pussy with his thick dick. Your thighs tremble uncontrollably, as your pussy flutters around him. He looks up at you in a haze, lips parted, brows softening as your release wets his lap and thighs.
“Oh shit, that's my girl… That’s my baby,” he praises, making you gasp when he rolls you onto your back, not giving you a moment to breathe before he’s on you again.
He looks down at you with a smile, adjusting his hat, staring at the wet mess between your thighs. “Why the fuck would I ever wanna leave you, huh?” He asks as he pushes your legs against your chest, hooking your ankles over his broad shoulders.
You whimper out a little breath as he taps his cock against your pussy, muscles jumping with each slap.
He pushes in slow, tilting closer to get as far as he can go, pressing a deep kiss to your trembling lips. “Gonna cum in your pussy,” he whispers, his voice breaking with pleasure. “M’so, so fuckin’ close.”
His face turns slightly, pressing a kiss to your ankle, right against the charm. His ab muscles clench as he rolls his lips, sweat sliding down his temple.
“I’m so deep,” he mumbles. You nod quickly, lip bitten between your teeth, hands gripping the arm rests tight.
“So fucking deep,” you whisper.
“Yeah?” He asks breathlessly. “Fuck me.”
He loses his rhythm, thrusts growing uneven as he snaps against your skin. His muscles quake, shoulders trembling, slamming into you in one heavy thrust.
His eyes pinch shut, head falling forward, cumming deep inside you with your name on his lips.
He lets your legs go but he doesn’t let you get far, snuggling into you again, kissing your forehead—then your nose and your lips.
“Goddamn,” he mumbles, lingering while your breathing slows together.
He sits down next to you, dragging you close, kissing you as he grabs your thigh, tugging it over the top of him—close not close enough.
“This,” he huffs out a deep breath through a smile, relaxing into the lounge chair. “This is what’s good for me.”
“Yeah?” You giggle, tilting your chin up for a kiss that he gladly steals. You rest your head on his shoulder, the warm summer breeze blowing against your skin, the soft music that you had playing while you were reading filling the space in between.
“You sent that picture to me on purpose,” he breathes.
A smile stretches on his lips when you don’t answer right away, the corner of his eyes crinkling as he smiles.
“Holy shit, you did? Didn’t you?” He asks, tilting his neck to look you in the eyes and you shrug and smile.
“Thought it would get you home quicker.”
His hand comes down heavy on your thigh as he dips in, brushing his nose against yours, chuckling deeply against your lips before he kisses you.
pairing – garrett graham x kitty!reader
summary – garrett’s closed bedroom door offers absolutely no protection from the fact that tucker sleeps on the other side of the wall.
warnings – 18+, explicit smut, swearing, spit kink, scratching/biting, praise, dirty talk, rough sex, noisy sex, roommate overhearing.
notes from me – this is just pure smut idk man. but as requested here!!! we love kitty!!!!!
word count – 3.1k
navigation – masterlist |
The hockey house has learned nothing from history, which is probably why Garrett’s room is still directly beside Tucker’s and why Garrett, for all his captain-brain discipline and deep, tragic commitment to acting like he has self-control, currently has one hand braced beside her head and the other hooked under her thigh like the entire world begins and ends between her knees.
The room is too hot. That’s the first thing she notices when she can notice anything outside the slick, heavy pressure of him moving over her.
Too hot, too dark, the lamp beside his desk throwing gold across his shoulder and catching on the curls at his forehead every time he drops his head to kiss her again.
His sheets are twisted under her back. His comforter is half on the floor. Her skirt is somewhere near the door because Garrett had yanked it down one leg and she’d kicked it away with such violent commitment that he’d laughed into her mouth and said, “That was aggressive,” right before she’d grabbed his face and told him to stop talking.
He’s not talking much now. Which is really for the best, because when Garrett Graham gets too smug, she starts wanting to bite him. And when she bites him, he gets this ruined little hitch in his breathing that makes her feel extremely normal and mentally well about the whole thing.
Her legs are wrapped around his waist, ankles locked low at his back, pulling him in harder every time he starts to get too careful. He keeps trying to kiss her like it will quiet her down, which is stupid for several reasons, mainly because she’s never once in her life been inspired toward silence by Garrett’s mouth.
If anything, it makes her worse. Messier. Hotter under the skin. More likely to drag her nails down his back until he hisses through his teeth and his hips snap forward hard enough to make the headboard complain behind them.
“Fuck,” Garrett grits out, breaking the kiss just enough to breathe against her mouth. “Baby, your nails.”
She smiles, but it comes out shaky because he rolls into her at the same time, deep and slow and mean, and the sound that leaves her is nothing like the clever thing she had planned.
It spills out raw and open, caught in the back of her throat before it turns into his name. Her fingers flex against his shoulders anyway, nails finding the hot, damp skin there. “You love my nails.”
“I love my skin attached to my body.”
“Liar.”
His laugh breaks halfway through when she drags her nails down again, lighter this time but still enough to make his whole back tighten under her hands. He drops his forehead to hers, breath shaking, mouth brushing hers without properly kissing. “You’re evil.”
“You’re inside me and still complaining.”
“That’s multitasking.”
“That’s annoying.”
“That’s rich coming from the girl who bit my jaw ten minutes ago because I said please.”
She turns her head just enough to see the mark under his jaw, dark and pretty and entirely her fault. Heat licks through her again, stupid and proud. “You sounded cute.”
Garrett’s eyes narrow, but whatever comeback he has dies when she clenches around him on purpose. His mouth falls open against hers. The hand under her thigh tightens, fingers digging in, and his next thrust comes rougher, less polished, all the practiced control slipping for one hot second.
She loves when it happens. Loves the little cracks in him. Loves how Garrett can be cocky all night downstairs with half the campus orbiting him like he hung the moon in Briar blue, but in here, with her ankles locked behind his back and her nails in his skin, he gets messy. He gets honest in ways he doesn’t always know how to say.
“There,” she breathes, laughing softly even as her eyes start to flutter. “That shut you up.”
His mouth curves against hers, smug even ruined, which is frankly inspirational in the worst way. “You’re so fucking mouthy for someone who’s been moaning for ten minutes.”
She gasps, offended, except it gets dragged sideways into a moan when he shifts his angle and hits something low and bright that makes her hips jerk. “Garrett.”
“Yeah?” He kisses the corner of her mouth, then her cheek, then the place under her jaw where her pulse is going stupid. “What, baby?”
Her nails scrape up into his hair, tugging hard enough that his head lifts. His eyes are dark, half-lidded, heat blown wide through them, and he looks so good above her that it annoys her. It always annoys her.
He has no right looking like that in a room this messy, with a scratch blooming red over one shoulder and his mouth swollen from hers, like some rich athletic nightmare built specifically to make her standards embarrassing.
She pulls him down until his mouth is almost on hers again. “Spit in my mouth.”
Garrett stills for half a second. A tiny pause, one blink, his eyes searching hers with the last scrap of sense either of them has brought into this room. “Yeah?”
She nods, breath already catching because he hasn’t moved again and her body is throwing a private, furious little tantrum about it. “Yeah.”
Something shifts in his face. His thumb presses into the soft skin beneath her thigh, his mouth hovering over hers, his voice dropping into that low, careful place that still sounds filthy because it’s Garrett and he’s looking at her like he wants to ruin his own life with both hands. “Open, baby.”
Her stomach flips so hard it almost feels like falling. She opens her mouth, and of course he chooses that exact second to thrust again, slow and deep enough that a moan pushes right out of her, helpless and wet and humiliatingly perfect.
Garrett’s eyes drag over her face like he’s memorising it for later, like he’s going to be insufferable about this for the rest of time if she gives him even an inch. Then he leans closer, lips parted, and spits into her mouth.
The sound she makes is obscene.
Garrett’s breath catches. His jaw flexes as he watches her swallow, and for one second all his stupid golden-boy polish goes clean out the window. He looks wrecked. Actually wrecked. Mouth open, eyes gone dark and stunned, hips pressing into her like he forgot what rhythm was supposed to be because her tongue just flicked over her bottom lip and that was the final thing his brain could survive.
“Fuck,” he says, low and rough, almost to himself. “You’re gonna kill me.”
She smiles up at him, dazed and pleased and hot all over. “Don’t be dramatic.”
He laughs once, without humour, and kisses her so hard the back of her head presses into the pillow. It’s sloppy after that. His tongue pushes into her mouth and she lets him, opens for him, pulls him closer with her legs until he groans into the kiss and his hips start moving again, faster now, the bed shifting beneath them with every thrust.
She can feel him everywhere. In her hips, her thighs, the bruising grip of his hand, the sweat-slick slide of his chest against hers, the dizzy little ache where he fits so deep it makes the entire room blur at the edges.
She gets loud because there’s no point pretending she won’t. Garrett knows it. The house knows it. The drywall has probably developed trauma. His mouth keeps catching hers between sounds like he’s trying to swallow them, like he wants them and also knows Tucker is on the other side of the wall silently considering a transfer.
“Baby,” Garrett mutters, but it sounds more like a plea than a warning.
“What?” she breathes, all fake innocence and no air. “Too loud?”
His hand slips from her thigh to her waist, then lower, dragging her harder into the next thrust. “No.”
She laughs, but it breaks apart when he does it again. “You’re so bad at pretending to be responsible.”
“I’m extremely responsible.”
“You’re fucking me through your mattress.”
“That’s private captain business.”
She makes a sound halfway between a laugh and a moan, and Garrett kisses it off her mouth, smiling like an idiot against her lips. It’s too warm suddenly, too close to something sweet, so she scratches lightly down his back again to ruin it. He hisses and pulls back, eyes flashing.
“Roll over,” he says.
Her breath leaves her in a rush. There’s a beat where she just looks at him, because she likes him like this. Bossy but not cold. Rough around the edges but still watching her face, still making sure she’s with him, still Garrett under all that heat.
She lifts one brow because surrendering immediately would be bad for her brand. “Say please.”
His mouth parts, incredulous. “You want manners now?”
“I’m classy.”
“You just asked me to spit in your mouth.”
“And you did.” She smiles sweetly. “So maybe don’t act above the table manners portion of the evening.”
Garrett stares at her for a second, then laughs under his breath, shaking his head like she has personally ruined every plan he had for being a normal man. “Please roll over before I lose my fucking mind.”
“See?” she says, already moving because her body has no interest in maintaining a bit when his voice sounds like that. “That wasn’t hard.”
“No, but I am.”
She chokes on a laugh as he pulls out, and then he’s got his hands on her hips, helping her turn, warm palms sliding over her waist and stomach and thigh in little unnecessary touches that make it very clear he’s not, actually, as impatient as he’s pretending to be.
The mattress dips. The sheet twists under her knees. She gets one elbow beneath herself, then pushes her hips back because she knows what she’s doing and because the groan Garrett makes behind her is worth any amount of lost dignity.
“Jesus,” he mutters.
She looks back over her shoulder, hair falling into her face, mouth swollen, breathing still ruined. “What?”
His hands settle on her ass, thumbs pressing in, and his eyes move over her like he’s having a serious private conversation with every bad decision he’s ever made. “Nothing.”
“You look pained.”
“I’m admiring.”
“You’re staring.”
“Same shit.”
She laughs and starts to say something else, but Garrett bends before she can, pressing his mouth to her ass in a hot, open kiss that steals the thought clean out of her head. Her fingers grip the sheet. He does it again, slower, then bites just lightly enough to make her jolt.
“Garrett.”
“Mm?”
“Are you making out with my ass?”
His laugh brushes warm over her skin. “You sound mad.”
“I’m impatient.”
“Yeah?” His mouth moves up, kisses dragging over her lower back, then higher, slow and warm and unbearable. “Poor baby.”
“Don’t poor baby me when your dick is literally begging to be inside me.”
He breaks. Actually laughs against her back, low and helpless, and the sound sends something soft and molten through her before she can stop it. Then his hand slides up her spine, palm smoothing over the place her body has gone tense with need, and his mouth follows: her back, her shoulder blade, the slope of her shoulder, the side of her neck.
By the time he’s over her again, chest pressed to her back, one arm braced beside her and the other guiding her hips, she’s trembling in a way she would deny under oath. His mouth brushes her ear. “You good?”
The question is quiet. Almost swallowed by the heat of the room, the house noise underneath them, her own heartbeat. She turns her face into the pillow and nods. “Mhm.”
“Words.”
She huffs, but it comes out soft. “I’m good, Garrett.”
His mouth presses to her shoulder, a kiss that lingers half a second too long. “Good.”
Then he pushes back in, and she forgets every single language she has ever used to be difficult.
The moan that leaves her is loud enough that Garrett’s hand flexes at her hip and his forehead drops briefly to her shoulder like he’s either praying or laughing at his own funeral.
She falls forward into the pillow, fingers twisting in the sheets, ass still tipped up because pride may be dead but instinct is thriving. He starts slow for approximately three seconds, which is very noble and completely unsustainable. Then she pushes back against him, and whatever thread of control he’s holding snaps with a sound low in his throat.
“There she is,” he murmurs, voice rough. “Fuck, baby.”
She says his name into the pillow, muffled and useless, and Garrett’s hand slides around the front of her throat, holding her there while his mouth presses beneath her ear. It makes her eyes roll shut. It makes every sound worse. The angle is deeper like this, sharper, each thrust sending heat licking up through her stomach and down the backs of her thighs until her whole body feels loose and overlit and almost too full of him to stay attached to itself.
The first bang on the wall is so hard the lamp flickers. They both freeze for one startled, ridiculous second.
Then Tucker’s voice comes through the drywall, flat and furious and deeply traumatised. “KEEP IT DOWN.”
Garrett goes completely still behind her.
She turns her face out of the pillow, eyes wide. For one silent second, the room holds. Then Garrett’s breath hits her shoulder in a shaky laugh, and she loses it too, a breathless little giggle that immediately makes her hide her face again because there’s nothing dignified about being naked on all fours while Tucker yells through the wall like the world’s saddest RA.
“Oh my God,” she whispers.
Garrett’s shoulders shake against her back. “We’re gonna get evicted.”
“You own nothing.”
“I live here.”
“Not for long if Tucker kills you.”
Another bang hits the wall. “I CAN HEAR YOU LAUGHING TOO.”
She lifts her head, trying to sound sincere and absolutely failing because Garrett chooses that moment to shift inside her, just barely, and her voice wobbles. “SORRY–”
Garrett thrusts again. The apology breaks apart instantly, turning into a moan she has no chance of catching. Her head drops back into the pillow, fingers gripping the sheet as Garrett buries his laugh against her shoulder and then, because he’s a bastard and a deeply unserious man, does it again.
Tucker groans through the wall. “I HATE THIS HOUSE.”
Garrett kisses her shoulder, still laughing, but his hips keep moving now, slow and deliberate and mean in a way that makes the humour dissolve back into heat far too quickly. “You apologised so nicely,” he murmurs against her skin.
“Shut up.”
“You want to try again?”
“I hate you.”
“No, you don’t.” His hand tightens at her waist, pulling her back to meet him, and her whole body answers before she can decide not to. “You’re clenching.”
“Garrett.”
“Yeah, Kitty?”
“Don’t call me that when I’m trying not to scream.”
His mouth curves against her neck. “That sounds like a you problem.”
She reaches back blindly and smacks at his thigh. He catches her wrist, pins it gently against the mattress beside her head, and the movement does something awful to her stomach.
His chest is hot over her back, his breath ragged at her ear, his body moving harder now, less careful with every little sound she fails to swallow. She can’t bring herself to care about anyone else in the house. Not when Garrett’s other hand slides around her hip and down, fingers finding her with the kind of precision that makes her bite into the pillow.
“Oh,” she gasps, muffled. “Fuck.”
Garrett groans. “Yeah. There?”
She nods because words are a scam. His fingers keep moving, slick and firm, and his rhythm falters for the first time. That gets her. The fact that he’s not as controlled as he sounds. The way his hand tightens around her wrist. The way his mouth presses to her shoulder and stays there while his breathing falls apart in little pieces against her skin.
“Baby,” he says, and it’s not smug now. It’s rough and low and almost gone. “You’re so fucking good.”
Her eyes squeeze shut. The praise lands too deep, curling hot behind her ribs, and she tries to arch away from it, from the feeling, from how quickly it pulls her apart. Garrett follows, hips pressing in deep, fingers steady, mouth at her ear.
“Don’t hide,” he murmurs. “Let me hear you.”
“Tucker will kill us.”
“Tucker’s already dead inside.”
She laughs, or tries to, but it turns into another moan when he changes the angle again, and Garrett makes a sound like that one got under his skin. “There,” he says. “That’s it. Fuck, that’s the one.”
Her body goes tight all at once, heat winding so hard through her stomach that she stops caring about the wall, the house, the fact that she is absolutely going to have to walk downstairs later and look Tucker in the eye.
Garrett’s fingers keep moving. His hips keep dragging her under. His mouth is on her neck, then her cheek, then the corner of her jaw, messy little kisses that don’t match how filthy everything else is, which is honestly rude.
“Garrett,” she gasps.
“I know.” His voice breaks around it. “I know, baby. Come on. I’ve got you.”
“I’m gonna–”
“Yeah.” His hand releases her wrist so he can wrap his arm around her middle, pulling her tighter against him, holding her through the sudden, helpless shake of her body. “There you go.”
She comes hard enough that the room blanks at the edges. Her face presses into the pillow, one hand flying back to grip his hip, nails digging in wherever she can reach. Garrett swears against her neck, deep and ruined, hips stuttering as she tightens around him.
He fucks her through it with no finesse left, just heat and breath and his hand locked over her stomach like he’s keeping her from coming apart completely.
By the time she comes back to herself, he’s still moving, slower now, his forehead pressed between her shoulder blades, breath ragged and damp over her skin. She turns her face out of the pillow, cheeks hot, mouth swollen, eyes bright with leftover heat and laughter. Garrett looks down at her, curls wrecked, shoulders scratched, face flushed and soft in all the places he keeps pretending he isn’t. She smiles before she can stop herself.
“Poor Tucker,” she whispers.
Garrett’s mouth curves, and his hand slides possessive and warm over her hip. “Poor Tucker should buy earplugs.”
She bites the pillow to hide another laugh.
He leans down, mouth brushing her ear, voice dropping back into heat like it never left. “Now be nice and keep your apology quiet this time.”
She turns her head just enough for her mouth to graze his jaw. “Make me.”
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pairing – garrett graham x nursing student!reader
summary – after a head injury at clinical, garrett graham gets to be the one doing the looking after for once.
warnings – head injury, concussion, facial bruising, blood, medical care, patient aggression, emotional distress, caretaking, strong language
notes from me – we're getting somewhere my loves!!!! based on this ask, hope u enjoy! <3
word count – 11.9k
navigation – masterlist |
The car smells like hospital hand sanitiser and Maria’s vanilla air freshener and the coppery, unpleasant trace of blood she’s pretty sure is still stuck somewhere under her nose.
She sits very carefully in the passenger seat with her bag clutched in her lap and the discharge papers folded into the front pocket because Maria had put them there for safekeeping after watching her try to read the same paragraph three times and then ask, quietly and with genuine confusion, whether nausea was spelled with an o. The answer is no. Apparently. She knows that. Usually.
Her head throbs with every tiny vibration of the road, a dull, spreading pressure behind her eyes and across the bridge of her nose, pulsing in time with her heartbeat like her skull has decided to develop a second career as a bass drum. The split in her lip keeps reopening every time she moves her mouth too much, which is rude, considering she would very much like to continue pretending this is all fine and fine people generally require functional lips for lying.
There’s dried blood under her nose. She can feel it there, tight and flaky against her skin, the way she can feel the swelling beginning to gather beneath both eyes, heavy and hot and humiliating.
Her scrub top is folded in a plastic bag somewhere near her feet because the front of it’s torn and streaked with blood from the first few awful seconds before anyone could get to her, before security and Maria and Steph from triage had managed to pull her backwards by the waist while the patient screamed so loudly the whole department seemed to go airless around it.
It wasn’t his fault, not really. He was frightened and out of it and nobody expected him to come up that fast, one second curled tight on the bed with his voice climbing, the next swinging blind and hard enough that his elbow caught her straight across the face.
She remembers the crack of pain before she remembers making a sound. Then her own cry seemed to set him off worse, his hand catching a fistful of her scrub top before she could step back, the brutal pull forward, the bed rail coming up too fast.
Her nose had hit first. Or her mouth. Or her forehead. It’s all a little rearranged now, bright flashes and metal and Maria shouting her name and someone saying, “Security, now,” with enough force to make the whole bay move.
She knows it wasn’t anyone’s fault. She knows psych presentations can turn quickly, knows agitation isn’t always a straight line with warning signs and a polite little interval where everyone gets to reposition themselves safely.
She knows all the rational things. She also knows her face hurts badly enough that thinking in full sentences feels like pushing through wet cement, and she is, medically speaking, having a really fucking shit time.
Beside her, Maria drives like a woman who’s spent twenty years transporting compromised student nurses and actual glassware with equal care. One hand on the wheel, eyes on the road, her voice soft enough not to scrape against the inside of her skull when she says, “How’s the head, honey?”
She exhales through her nose and immediately regrets it because her nose doesn’t wish to be involved in breathing at this time. “Super normal. Love having one.”
Maria makes a small sound that could be a laugh if it wasn’t wrapped so tightly in concern. “Nausea?”
“Not worse.”
“That’s not what I asked.”
She lets her head rest back against the seat and keeps her eyes on the blurred glow of streetlights sliding across the windscreen. The movement makes her stomach roll faintly, but not enough to tell Maria about, because Maria has already done enough.
Maria had stood in the consult room while Dr. Patel checked her pupils and her nose and the swelling around her cheekbones, one warm hand resting between her shoulder blades every time she tried to make a joke and ended up going quiet instead.
Maria had found her spare hoodie from the locker room and helped her into it when lifting her left arm made pain streak down through her shoulder. Maria had said, very gently, you’re not catching the bus after getting your bell rung in my department, like that settled the matter.
“A little,” she admits. “But I’m not going to vomit in your car.”
“Kind of you.”
“I’m very thoughtful.”
“You’re concussed.”
She sighs softly. “Also that.”
Maria’s eyes flick over her in the dim light, quick and practised. “You remember what Dr. Patel said?”
She does. Mostly. The words have been looping vaguely around the edges of her head since he handed her the paperwork. Mild concussion. No fracture. Neuro obs stable. X-ray clear. Rest. No driving. No placement until reviewed. Come back if vomiting, worsening headache, confusion, unusual drowsiness, changes in vision, weakness, seizure, or if anything feels wrong enough that you’re trying to talk yourself out of seeking help.
No being alone tonight.
That last one had landed harder than the rest, somehow. Maybe because the ED had been too bright and too busy and she had been sitting there with a wad of gauze under her nose, feeling like a leaking appliance. Maybe because the doctor had said it in that professional, non-negotiable way that made arguing feel childish. Maybe because the idea of someone watching her because her brain had been knocked around made her feel suddenly, horribly small.
“Wake me every few hours,” she says. “Check I’m not getting weirder.”
Maria’s mouth tips. “You said weirder.”
“That’s the clinical term.”
“It’s not.”
“It should be. Easier to spell than altered level of consciousness.”
Maria actually laughs that time, but it fades quickly. “You can’t be home alone.”
“I know.”
“And you’re not going to pretend you’re fine and sit in your dorm by yourself because you feel embarrassed?”
Her eyes drift shut for half a second, then open again when the darkness makes her head swim. “I’m not embarrassed.”
Maria’s silent.
She sinks a little lower in the seat. “Okay. Maybe a normal amount.”
“There is no normal amount of embarrassed after being assaulted by a patient at work.”
“It wasn’t assault.”
Maria sighs. “Honey.”
“He didn’t know what he was doing,” she argues.
“That doesn’t mean you didn’t get hurt.”
Her mouth twitches before she remembers her lip is split. Pain snaps bright and sharp through the swollen skin. “Ow. Fuck.”
Maria’s hand lifts slightly off the wheel like she wants to reach over, then thinks better of it. “Don’t smile.”
“That’s bleak advice.”
“Currently medical advice.”
She presses her tongue carefully to the inside of her lip and tastes blood again. The whole evening keeps arriving in pieces. The patient’s arm. The bed rail. Maria’s face above hers, too close and too worried. Someone cutting away the torn edge of her scrub top.
Her own hands shaking in her lap while she tried to tell everyone, very reasonably, that she could finish the shift if they just gave her a second. As if she hadn’t been bleeding on her own shoes.
The thought makes heat rise under the bruising in her face, which is unfair because her face has already suffered enough. “God,” she mutters. “Everyone saw.”
Maria sighs, not impatient, but close to something sad. “Yes, everyone saw that you got hurt.”
“I’m the student.”
“Yes,” Maria nods.
“I’m supposed to be useful.”
“You were useful all day.”
“I ended the shift with a concussion and a bloody nose.”
“You ended the shift injured because an unpredictable situation escalated. That’s not a performance review.”
She knows that. She does. She would say that to anyone else. She would put her hand on another student’s shoulder and mean it completely. She would tell them they were in the wrong place at the wrong second and that sometimes you can do everything right and still get hurt because hospitals are not made of lesson plans and perfect outcomes.
Unfortunately, she’s not another student. She’s herself. And herself currently has blood in her hoodie sleeve because she keeps forgetting not to touch her face.
They hit a bump in the road, not even a large one, but it sends pain blooming through her skull with such immediate nastiness that she sucks in a breath through her teeth and grips the strap of her bag.
Maria notices. “Almost there.”
She opens her mouth to ask where there is, and then remembers campus, her dorm, her room, the bed with the old sweatshirt shoved under the pillow, the roommate who is not there. Her stomach drops so abruptly it makes the nausea worse. “Shit.”
Maria glances over. “What?”
“My roommate’s not home.”
“Tonight?”
“She’s at her sister’s. Like, hours away.” She closes her eyes, then opens them again because the inside of her head does not enjoy visual privacy right now. “Fuck. I forgot.”
“Okay.” Maria’s voice stays calm. That is possibly the worst part. “Do you have someone else? A friend you could stay with?”
She thinks of Lucy first, because that’s the correct answer. Lucy would absolutely let her stay. Lucy would probably panic and then overcorrect into a level of cheerfulness that could qualify as a secondary head injury. Monique would be better, quieter, but Monique has an exam tomorrow and lives across campus in a building where the lift is always broken, which feels like a personal attack under current conditions.
Then her brain, unhelpfully and immediately, supplies Garrett.
Garrett’s room with the lamp on. Garrett’s hand at the back of her neck. Garrett’s voice low in her ear telling her to stop studying and sleep. Garrett sitting on the edge of her bed taking off her shoes after a bad shift.
Garrett looking at her like competence is something he can be proud of even when she feels like she’s wearing it badly. Garrett, who has been hit in the head enough times that concussion protocol is probably written somewhere in his bones.
Garrett, who’s not technically her boyfriend, except the technicalities feel very stupid when her head is throbbing and her lip is bleeding and she wants him so badly it makes her chest ache worse than her shoulder.
“Yeah,” she says, and her voice comes out softer than she means it to. “Uh. Yeah. I have someone.”
Maria doesn’t look smug. That’s probably part of why she is a good preceptor. “Address?”
She gives her the hockey house. The words feel bigger in the car than they should. Maybe because saying his address out loud to Maria feels like she’s accidentally handed over evidence. Maybe because the last time Maria saw Garrett, he’d been standing in the ED hallway with panic sitting badly under his skin while Logan asked what day it was for the third time.
Maybe because Maria now knows exactly where to take the concussed student nurse with the split lip and the ruined scrubs, and that place is apparently Garrett Graham’s house.
Maria only nods and changes lanes.
The hockey house is lit up when they pull onto the street, every downstairs window glowing warm and yellow into the cold, the porch light flickering faintly over the steps. There are cars out front, some vaguely familiar. The sight of it loosens something in her chest. At least someone’s home. At least there’s a couch, and people who know what pupils are supposed to do, and Garrett somewhere inside if the universe has decided to be kind after all the other things it did tonight.
Maria puts the car in park and turns toward her. “Wait. I’ll help you.”
“I can walk.”
“I didn’t ask,” Maria responds.
She huffs, which hurts less than smiling. Maria gets out first and comes around, opening the passenger door before she can argue again. The cold hits her face and instantly makes her nose ache in a new and innovative way.
She climbs out slowly, one hand braced on the car door, shoulder protesting when she reaches for the strap of her bag. Maria takes it from her without comment.
“Rude,” she murmurs.
“Concussed.”
“Everyone keeps saying that like it explains everything.”
“It explains a lot.”
The walk up the path feels longer than it should. The porch steps require more concentration than she likes, which annoys her because she’s watched drunk freshmen navigate these steps while carrying open cups and zero dignity. Her sneakers scrape lightly over the boards.
Somewhere inside, someone yells something that might be, “You’re cheating,” followed by Dean’s voice saying, “It’s not cheating if the game lets me do it,” which feels like an argument that has existed in this house for generations.
She knocks once because lifting her hand twice seems excessive. There’s a crash inside. A hockey house crash. Male voices overlap, loud and irritated and completely unaware of the fact that sound is currently a weapon. She winces before she can stop herself, one hand coming up toward her temple and hovering there uselessly.
Maria’s mouth tightens. “You okay?”
“Yep.”
The door opens on Logan in sweats and a faded Briar shirt, hair a mess, controller in one hand, expression halfway to annoyed until he sees her. Everything drops out of his face.
He says her name once, startled and low, and then, “What the fuck happened?”
The room behind him seems to quiet in stages. Maybe because of his voice. Maybe because she’s standing on the porch looking like an ED discharge summary with legs.
She becomes suddenly, viciously aware of herself: the bruising already shadowing beneath her eyes, the swollen bridge of her nose, the blood dried under it despite Maria helping her clean up, the split lip, the hoodie zipped crooked because raising her shoulder hurts. She hadn’t thought much about how she looked in the car because looking required mirrors and mirrors required courage she didn’t currently possess.
Then Garrett appears behind Logan, and the whole night rearranges itself around the look on his face. He must have been in the living room. His hair’s damp at the edges like he showered not long ago, curls loose over his forehead, sweatpants low on his hips, a dark t-shirt pulled tight across his shoulders.
He steps into the doorway with his mouth already forming some question, probably a chirp, probably something warm and annoying about why she’s showing up with supervision. He sees her, and all the colour leaves his face, as if something has reached into him and taken it by the roots.
His eyes move over her once, too fast and not fast enough. Nose. Mouth. Bruises. Hoodie. The stiff way she’s holding her shoulder. Maria beside her with the bag and the paperwork. Back to her face, where his attention catches and stays.
She tries to smile. It’s a mistake immediately. Pain sparks through her lip, and she winces instead, which feels like the saddest possible version of flirting. “Hi,” she says.
Garrett doesn’t answer.
Logan steps back at once. “Jesus. Come in. Fuck. Come in.”
Warmth and sound and the smell of boys and pizza and laundry detergent roll over her as she steps into the house. The living room lights make her eyes sting. Dean and Tucker are on the couch, controllers in hand, the TV paused mid-game like they’ve both forgotten the concept of winning. Dean’s mouth opens. Tucker’s face changes quietly, which somehow feels worse.
“Holy fuck,” Dean half-yells.
The words hit too loud. She flinches before she can make herself not do it.
Tucker moves instantly. “Dean, get the lights, man.”
“What? Oh. Shit, yeah.” Dean scrambles for the lamp with the guilty urgency of a man who’s suddenly remembered inside voices exist. The room drops into a dimmer yellow, the overhead going off, the TV brightness turned down under Tucker’s quick hand. It changes the whole house at once, softens the edges, takes the blade out of the light.
Maria watches all of it with a look that would be approving if she weren’t still too professional to be obvious about it.
“She’s had a head injury,” she says, voice calm, eyes moving to Garrett because everyone’s eyes move to Garrett, because this is his house and not-his-girlfriend has arrived at his door concussed and bleeding. “Mild concussion. X-ray was clear, no nasal fracture, but she needs monitoring overnight. No alcohol, no driving, no being alone. Keep the lights low, noise down. She can sleep, but someone needs to check on her as per the discharge instructions. If she starts vomiting, gets more confused, can’t be woken, worsening headache, vision changes, weakness, anything that feels off, take her back in.”
Garrett nods slowly. He’s still staring at her.
Logan, maybe because Garrett looks like he’s briefly lost access to language, reaches out and takes the paperwork from Maria. “Yeah. We’ve got it.”
Maria turns back to her, and her face softens in that way that makes the back of her throat go tight. “I’ll see you in a couple days, honey. Not tomorrow. Rest tomorrow.”
She nods carefully. Even that tiny motion makes pressure throb through her skull. “Thanks for driving me.”
“Text me when you wake up.” Maria’s eyes flick toward Garrett again. “And listen to them for once.”
That almost makes her smile. She resists, heroically. “No promises.”
Maria gives her shoulder the gentlest squeeze, nowhere near the painful side, then lets herself out. Logan closes the door softly behind her, like the whole house has been put on medical quiet time.
For half a second, nobody moves. Then Dean says, much quieter this time, “Who the fuck did that?”
She lets out a breath that doesn’t quite make it to a laugh. “Hi to you too.”
Dean’s on his feet now, controller abandoned on the couch, all his usual lazy beauty sharpened into something pissed and bright. “I’m serious.”
“I know.” Her head’s beginning to pound harder now that she’s standing still. The adrenaline from getting out of the car, climbing the steps, seeing Garrett’s face, all of it drains down through her body and leaves her feeling oddly hollow.
Garrett notices, his hand comes to her elbow, barely touching at first like he’s afraid pressure might break something. The warmth of him lands through the hoodie and her body, traitorous and exhausted, turns toward it before her pride has any say.
She steps into him. She leans forward and presses her forehead against his chest because the angle is the only one that doesn’t put pressure on her nose, one hand curling weakly in the soft fabric of his shirt.
Garrett tenses under her for a fraction of a second, like seeing her had knocked him out of himself and her touching him is what pulls him back in wrong. Then his arms come around her.
Careful. So careful it almost makes her cry. One hand settles at the back of her head without pressing, fingers spread wide over her hair, the other around her waist, holding her there with a gentleness that feels nothing like the boy who body checks men into boards for sport and everything like the one who once took her UGGs off because outside shoes didn’t belong in bed.
She closes her eyes, just for a second. Garrett’s voice, when it finally comes, is rough enough that she feels it against her cheek. “Baby.”
“I’m okay,” she says into his shirt, because she’s decided to start lying as a hobby.
His hand flexes once at her waist. “You’re bleeding.”
“I’m not actively dying.”
“That’s not the same thing.”
She manages a weak shrug. “Clinically significant distinction.”
Logan exhales behind them, shaky in a way he probably wishes nobody noticed. Tucker moves around them quietly, collecting controllers, turning the game off properly, lowering the TV volume until the room becomes mostly the hum of the refrigerator and distant campus noise through the windows. Dean’s still standing there looking like he needs something to hit and has, unfortunately for everyone, found only furniture.
Garrett pulls back enough to look at her, but not far enough that she loses him. His eyes scan her face again, slower now. It’s almost worse than the pain. The way his gaze catches on the swollen bridge of her nose, the blood at one nostril, the split in her lower lip. He looks wrecked by it. Offended, almost, like her body has done something behind his back.
“Come sit down,” he says.
She wants to make a joke about his captain voice. She really does. It’s right there, familiar and easy. Unfortunately, her brain loses the sentence halfway through assembling it, and by the time she finds a piece of it, Garrett’s already guiding her to the couch.
Dean moves a cushion out of the way. Tucker places another behind her back. Logan stands nearby with the paperwork in one hand, reading it with a frown so intense it looks like he’s preparing for finals in head trauma.
They all shift around her with this strange, quiet purpose that makes her chest feel too full and her face feel too sore to hold whatever expression she wants. Garrett crouches in front of her and reaches for her sneakers.
She blinks down at him. “What are you doing?”
His mouth barely moves. “Taking your shoes off.”
“I can take my shoes off.”
He looks up at her, and there is something in his face so taut and helpless that the argument falls apart in her lap. “Can you let me?”
Oh. That’s not fair. That’s wildly not fair.
She swallows and looks away first. “Yeah.”
Garrett unties her sneakers one at a time, slow with the laces, careful of the way moving her leg pulls faintly at her shoulder. He sets them neatly beside the coffee table. When her feet are free, she curls her legs up onto the couch without thinking, tucking herself sideways into the cushions because upright feels like an idea designed by people whose skulls are not currently full of angry bees.
Garrett’s hand hovers near her knee, then settles there. “Did you want water?”
She nods, then instantly regrets the movement. Pain washes across her forehead, hot and thick. Her eyes squeeze shut. “Ow. Fuck. Yes, please.”
Garrett rises. Her hand moves before she decides to move it, fingers catching the loose fabric of his sweatpants at the thigh, barely enough to stop him if he wanted to go. But he does stop. Immediately. She opens her eyes. Garrett’s looking down at her hand on him. Then he looks at Logan.
Logan’s already moving. “I’ve got it.”
Garrett sits beside her instead. He does it carefully, couch dipping with his weight, his thigh warm along the outside of her curled legs. He doesn’t crowd her face. Doesn’t pull her in too fast. Simply sits close enough that she can feel him there, his hand returning to her knee, thumb still because even his restless touching has gone cautious.
Dean hasn’t let the original point go. He sits on the edge of the coffee table across from her, elbows on his knees, all dramatic cheekbones and very real anger. “No, seriously. Who the fuck did this?”
She opens her mouth. The first answer is too long and falls apart before she can get to it. Her head gives one hard pulse. She shuts her eyes briefly, tries again. “A patient.”
Dean stares at her. “A patient did this to your face?”
“He was really agitated,” she explains as Logan comes back with water. He hands it to Garrett, not her, which would be annoying if her hands didn’t feel vaguely unreliable. “It escalated. He didn’t mean it.”
Dean’s expression says that this isn’t helping his blood pressure. “He didn’t mean it.”
“No.” She lets Garrett pass her the glass, taking it with both hands because one feels optimistic. The cold of it is nice against her palms. Her lip stings when she drinks, water catching briefly at the split, but her throat is dry enough that she keeps going anyway. “He was out of it. Psych presentation. It wasn’t– nobody did anything wrong.”
Tucker returns from the kitchen with an ice pack wrapped in a tea towel and offers it out with both hands like a peace treaty. “For your face. Or your shoulder. Or… wherever. I don’t know. I’m not the medical one.”
She takes it and immediately loves him a little for the towel. “Thanks, Tuck.”
Logan, reading from the discharge sheet now, says, “It says shoulder strain?”
“Logan.”
“What? It does.”
“Stop reading my lore out loud,” she huffs.
Dean gives her a look. “Your lore says shoulder strain and concussion.”
She lets her eyes close for a moment. “My lore is private.”
“Your lore showed up bleeding on our porch.”
She would like to laugh. She really would. Instead, the corner of her mouth twitches, pain bites through her lip, and her eyes water instantly. “Ow. God. That’s so annoying.”
Garrett’s hand comes up, stops short of her face. His fingers curl in midair before he lets them drop. “Your lip’s split and you’ve still got dried blood under your nose, baby.”
The baby does something terrible to her. It always does, but right now it’s worse because his voice is stripped down to the bone. He’s looking at her like he’s trying to keep himself from shaking by cataloguing every visible injury.
She shrugs with one shoulder and immediately regrets that too. Pain tugs from the side of her neck down into the joint, sharp enough that her breath catches.
Garrett sees it. His jaw flexes. “Don’t shrug.”
“I forgot.”
“How do you forget your shoulder hurts?”
“Concussion,” she says, because if everyone else gets to use it as an explanation, so does she. “It looks worse than it is. Promise. I’m just drained. And foggy. I keep losing my train of thought, which is the rudest symptom. Like, I was mid-sentence with Dr. Patel and just fully misplaced the rest of it.”
Tucker’s mouth softens. “That sounds scary.”
She looks down at the glass in her hands. The condensation has started to wet her fingers. “Mostly annoying.”
She lifts the ice pack toward her face, but her shoulder protests halfway up and makes the movement jerky. Garrett catches the pack before she can pretend she meant to do that.
Her eyes flick to him. “I can hold an ice pack.”
“I know.” His voice is quieter now. He shifts closer, one knee turning toward her on the couch, the wrapped ice pack careful in his hand. “But how many times have you looked after me, huh?”
She has no good answer for that. Too many. Not enough. In locker room hallways, in his bed, on this exact couch with bruises over his ribs while he tried to convince her hockey was a sufficient medical explanation for all bodily damage. She’s pressed ice to his cheek and taped his fingers and made him take painkillers and once threatened to call Maria for backup if he said manageable one more time.
Garrett’s mouth moves faintly, not a smile, but close enough to hurt. “Let me.”
She lets him. Garrett lifts the ice pack to her face with a care that makes her throat tighten, angling it over the bridge of her nose and the swelling beginning to spread under one eye without pressing too hard.
The cold hurts first, a bright, mean sting over bruised skin, then settles into something almost relieving. Her breath comes out shaky despite her best efforts.
“Too much?” he asks.
“No.”
“You sure?”
“Yeah.” She shifts her gaze past him because his face is currently unmanageable. Dean and Tucker and Logan are all watching her with varying degrees of poorly concealed worry. Dean looks like he’s biting the inside of his cheek hard enough to draw blood. Logan still has the discharge paper. Tucker has both hands shoved into the pocket of his hoodie like he doesn’t trust them not to hover. “What?”
Dean blinks. “What?”
“You guys look like this every week and I don’t stare at you.”
Logan snorts, but it comes out thin. “That’s because we’re hot when we’re bruised.”
She manages an eye roll, which is a win. “You’re concussed half the time and deeply irritating the other half.”
“Range,” Dean says automatically.
She points weakly toward the TV with the hand not holding her water. “Relax. Go back to your video games.”
Tucker’s brows pull together. “No, but– but it’s different.”
Her eyes move to him.
He looks briefly embarrassed, then pushes through it anyway. “It’s you.”
Her chest does that awful thing again, too soft and too sore at the same time. She looks down because taking that directly from Tucker feels unfairly intimate, like he’s handed her something warm without warning.
“I’m okay,” she says, and it’s not entirely true, but she tries to make it sound close enough. “Really. I was observed. I had neuro obs. I had scans. No fracture. Nothing’s broken. Just bruised and concussed and mildly tragic.”
“Mildly?” Dean asks.
“Moderately if you keep fucking yelling.”
His face changes instantly. “Sorry.”
The apology is so immediate that she almost smiles again and has to stop herself like a responsible person. “It’s okay.”
Garrett’s hand holding the ice pack is steady. His eyes have barely left her face, and the longer she sits there under that attention, the more she realises he still hasn’t really said anything. Not like Garrett. Not a joke, not an actual question, not one of the bossy little comments that usually lands him in trouble and somehow still gets her to drink water.
His silence has weight. It sits beside her on the couch, pressed into the careful line of his shoulders.
She turns her head just enough to look at him. “You’re being weird.”
His eyes flick to hers. “I’m not.”
“You are.”
His mouth presses together. For a second, he looks younger than he usually does. Less Briar captain, less untouchable campus landmark, more boy on a couch holding an ice pack to a girl’s swollen face with fear making a mess under his skin.
He swallows. “Do you want me to loosen your hair?”
The question is so small and practical that it nearly undoes her. Her hair is still claw-clipped from placement, half-fallen now, strands tugging at her scalp from where it got pulled in the scuffle and then shoved messily back while she was being assessed. She had forgotten about it until he said it, and now she can feel every tight little pull at the roots, all of it feeding into the headache sitting behind her eyes.
“Yes, please,” she says.
Garrett lowers the ice pack and hands it to Tucker without looking. Tucker takes it like an assistant in surgery. Garrett turns slightly toward her, one hand moving behind her head, not touching at first. “Tell me if it hurts.”
“It all hurts.”
His face does something awful.
She softens her voice. “I’ll tell you if it hurts more.”
“Okay.” His fingers find the clip carefully. He’s taken her hair down before, usually with far less medical purpose and far more smugness, but now every motion is slow, almost reverent. The clip gives, and the weight of her hair loosens down her back. The relief is immediate enough that her eyes flutter shut without permission.
Garrett catches that too. “Better?”
“Mhm.”
He combs the fallen strands away from the side of her face with his fingers, avoiding the swelling, avoiding the blood, avoiding every place that might make her flinch. His thumb brushes once near her temple, feather-light.
She opens her eyes and finds him looking at her. “I’m okay,” she says again, quieter this time. “Really.”
Garrett doesn’t argue. That might be worse. He only nods once and takes the ice pack back from Tucker, pressing it carefully to her face again.
For a while, the room adjusts around her. Dean sits back down, but he doesn’t pick up the controller. Tucker goes to the kitchen and returns with a straw for her water like a man who’s discovered a side quest and intends to complete it properly. Logan reads the discharge instructions twice, then starts setting alarms on his phone without announcing it, because subtlety, in this house, is sometimes just everyone pretending they cannot see love doing administrative tasks in sweatpants.
She drinks water through the straw because lifting the glass is annoying and because nobody makes a thing of it. Garrett keeps the ice pack steady. Every so often, he asks a question in a voice too even to be casual. Headache worse? Nausea? Vision okay? She answers as best she can. Same. Little bit. Yeah, mostly.
When Dean shifts too fast and the couch creaks, he freezes like he’s committed assault by upholstery. That makes her huff something dangerously close to a laugh, and Garrett immediately murmurs, “Careful,” like her face is now a team responsibility.
The fogginess comes in waves. Sometimes she’s fully in the room, tracking Dean’s quiet rage and Tucker’s gentle fussing and Logan’s forced calm. Sometimes the edges blur a little, slow, like her thoughts are moving through syrup. Garrett’s thigh is warm against her curled legs. His arm rests along the back of the couch behind her, a soft barrier between her and the world.
She leans into him by degrees until her shoulder touches his chest and her head tips carefully toward the place beneath his jaw that smells like soap and boy and safety.
She doesn’t mean to get sleepy. She has discharge instructions that say she can sleep, she knows that, but the idea of giving in with everyone watching feels embarrassing in a new, stupid direction. Still, her eyelids grow heavy. The headache spreads and dulls under the cold. The room is dim. The boys are quiet. Garrett is warm.
At some point, Dean says softly, “You want me to call Lucy or someone?”
She tries to answer. The name gets halfway through her head and then wanders off. “Tomorrow,” she murmurs.
“Okay,” Dean says, and for once there’s no joke attached.
Garrett shifts beside her. “Baby?”
She makes a small sound that could mean what or I’m alive or don’t make me move, depending on how generous he feels.
“You getting sleepy?”
“No.”
There’s a pause.
Logan says, very quietly, “That was the least convincing thing I’ve ever heard.”
She opens one eye to glare at him, but the room tilts slightly with the effort, so she closes it again. “Your face is least convincing.”
“Strong comeback.”
“Thank you.”
Garrett’s lips brush her hair. It’s quick, maybe accidental, except nothing Garrett does with her feels accidental anymore, no matter how hard both of them have tried to label it otherwise. “I’m gonna take you upstairs, okay?”
Her eyes open properly at that, or as properly as they can. “I can walk.”
“I know.”
“You keep saying that and then doing the thing for me anyway.”
His mouth curves faintly for the first time all night. It’s tiny and tired and painfully Garrett. “Yeah.”
She should argue. She’s built a respectable portion of this entire situationship on arguing with Garrett Graham while letting him do exactly what she wants him to do. But her shoulder aches, her face throbs, and her legs feel like they belong to somebody who’s spent the day being chased by weather.
More than that, she wants him. She wants his hands steady under her thighs, his chest close, his room dark and warm around them. She wants to stop being the student who got hurt and start being the girl Garrett carries upstairs because the floor feels too far away.
“Okay,” she whispers.
Dean looks at the TV like he’s never been interested in anything more. Tucker suddenly finds the water glass fascinating. Logan folds the discharge papers with great concentration. Nobody says a word.
Garrett slides one arm behind her back and the other beneath her knees with the same careful strength he uses for everything he takes seriously. “Shoulder?”
“Fine.”
His eyes flick to hers.
“Not worse,” she corrects.
He nods once and lifts her.
It does hurt, a little. Her shoulder pulls, her head pulses, and the movement makes nausea roll faintly through her stomach. But Garrett holds her so close and so steadily that the discomfort never gets sharp enough to scare her. Her hand curls in the front of his shirt, her face turning carefully toward his neck because pressing into his chest would bump her nose and she’s learned at least one thing tonight.
Dean’s voice follows them, low and rough from the couch. “G.”
Garrett stops at the foot of the stairs but doesn’t turn fully, like turning her too much might hurt.
Dean’s eyes move over her once, then to Garrett. Whatever he’d been about to say gets swallowed down and changed into something smaller. “We’re downstairs if you need anything.”
Garrett’s hold tightens by a fraction. “Yeah.”
Tucker adds, “I’ll bring up more ice in a bit.”
“And meds when she’s due,” Logan says, lifting the papers slightly.
She wants to tell them they’re all being ridiculous. She wants to say she’s fine, to make some joke about the Briar hockey team turning into a poorly licensed urgent care clinic. But her throat feels thick, and her eyes sting in a way that has nothing to do with the swelling, and for once the joke doesn’t come quickly enough to save her from feeling it.
So she only says, “Thanks, guys.”
Dean nods, jaw tight. Tucker gives her a small, worried smile. Logan says, “Anytime,” like he means it and hates that there’s a reason to.
Garrett carries her upstairs slowly. The stairwell is dim, the house clutter softened into shadows: a hoodie over the railing, someone’s shoes kicked near the landing, a dent in the wall nobody has confessed to making.
His breathing is steady beneath her ear. His arms don’t shift, don’t tremble, don’t let her feel for one second like she’s heavy or inconvenient or anything other than something he’s decided belongs safely against him.
Halfway up, she murmurs, “Garrett?”
“Yeah?”
“You’re still being weird.”
This time, his breath leaves him in something almost like a laugh. It brushes warm over her hair. “Yeah, baby,” he says, voice low enough that it belongs only to the stairs and the dark and the careful space between them. “I know.”
His room is already dim when he gets there, like he’d been in it before everything happened and left the lamp on low beside the bed, the shade turning the walls a warm, soft yellow that doesn’t stab behind her eyes.
The window is cracked just enough to let in a thin line of cold air, shifting the edge of the curtain and carrying in the far-off sound of campus on a weeknight, car doors and laughter and somebody shouting down the street like the world has not personally offended her face.
Garrett nudges the door open with his shoulder and steps inside carefully, like the room might have developed hazards in the ten minutes since he last saw it. One of his hoodies is thrown over the desk chair. There’s a textbook facedown on the bed that he must have been pretending to read earlier, a roll of hockey tape on the nightstand, his phone charger twisted into a knot on the floor.
The ordinary mess of him sits around them so gently that it makes something behind her ribs go weak. His room. His bed. His detergent and the clean soap smell of his skin under the faint cold of the hallway.
For the first time since the bay, since the rail, since the white burst of pain and Maria’s hand firm between her shoulder blades, her body seems to understand that it’s stopped moving.
Garrett lowers her onto the edge of the mattress with so much care it almost becomes annoying. One arm stays behind her back until she’s properly sitting, the other at her knees, and even after he lets go he keeps his hands there for a second, hovering near her like he’s not fully convinced gravity has been handled.
She blinks down at him because he’s crouched in front of her now, broad shoulders between her knees, face tipped up, eyes moving over her again with that same awful, quiet attention.
She can feel what he’s seeing before he says anything. The blood dried tight beneath her nose. The swelling already darkening around the bridge of it. The split in her lip, tacky and sore. Mascara smudged under both eyes from the crying she doesn’t remember allowing herself to do properly, only the wetness and the sting and Maria saying, breathe for me, honey, nice and slow.
Garrett swallows. His hands rest lightly on her calves, thumbs still. “Did you want to wipe your face?” he asks, voice careful. “You’ve got, uh…” His eyes flick down, then back up, and his mouth tightens around something he doesn’t let out. “Some mascara under your eyes. And some blood still.”
She knows he’s trying very hard not to sound like the sight of it is putting his organs in the wrong order. She loves him a little for the effort, which is a thought she cannot touch right now because her brain is concussed and reckless and clearly looking for loaded weapons.
She nods once, then immediately remembers that nodding is no longer a neutral activity. The headache flares behind her eyes, thick and punishing. “Ow,” she says, small and irritated.
Garrett’s hands tighten on her legs. “Hey.”
“I’m good.” Her tongue touches the split in her lip and she tastes metal again. “Can you?”
His face changes. Barely. A little fracture through the tight worry, something softer underneath it. “Course.”
He stands, and the second his hands leave her, her body reacts before her mind catches up. Her fingers snag in the hem of his t-shirt, clumsy and sudden, and the movement pulls through her bad shoulder so sharply that a soft, wounded sound slips out of her before she can bite it down.
Garrett freezes instantly. Entire body going still. “Hey. Hey, you’re good.” He turns back toward her, one hand coming carefully to her wrist, covering her fingers where they’re twisted in his shirt. “I’m just going to the hallway, yeah? Bathroom’s right there. Two seconds.”
She knows that. Obviously she knows that. She’s been in this house enough times to know the bathroom is six steps from his door and usually contains at least one towel on the floor and Dean’s body wash in a place where it doesn’t belong. She knows Garrett’s not leaving. She knows the door is open, the house is full, Logan’s downstairs reading concussion instructions like the exam is tomorrow.
Still, her fingers don’t let go right away.
Her head hurts. Her mouth hurts. Her shoulder is a hot, sharp line down one side of her body. And the small, rational part of her brain that usually handles dignity and sarcasm is sitting in a dark room somewhere with a blanket over its head, because all she can think is that she wants him where she can reach him.
Garrett’s thumb moves once over her knuckles. “I’ll keep the door open.”
She nods more carefully this time. “Okay.”
He waits until her fingers loosen, then steps backward instead of turning right away, eyes on her the whole time. It would be funny, maybe, if it didn’t work. If she didn’t feel her ribs unclench slightly because she can still see him, because he backs into the hallway like she’s a wild animal he’s trying not to spook and not a nursing student with blood under her nose and one of his sleeves somewhere in her fist.
He disappears only when he reaches the bathroom, and even then he keeps talking. “Still here,” he says, and the water starts a second later, soft against porcelain. “Just getting a washcloth.”
“I know,” she calls back, then winces because even her own voice feels too loud inside her skull.
Garrett comes back with the washcloth damp and folded in one hand. His other hand shuts the door halfway, enough to soften the rest of the house into a distant murmur. The mattress dips when he sits beside her, turned toward her with one knee bent on the bed.
He smells like clean skin and laundry and something faintly sweet from the kitchen downstairs, and she has to swallow around the childish, humiliating urge to press her face into his chest and stay there until her body stops feeling like it has been borrowed from a car crash.
“Here we go,” he says.
The cloth touches just beneath her eye first.
She stiffens on instinct, because everything has hurt tonight and her body is no longer trusting innocent objects, but Garrett pauses immediately. “Too cold?”
“No.” Her voice comes out thinner than she likes. “Just surprised.”
“Okay.” His face stays close, intent in a way that would normally make her flustered for more interesting reasons. “I’ll go slow.”
He does. He wipes the smudged mascara from beneath one eye with feather-light strokes, the washcloth barely dragging over skin, then folds it to a clean corner and does the other side. He works like he has been given something fragile and a little dangerous. Like every movement is being negotiated with the injuries on her face and the dull heaviness behind her eyes.
His jaw flexes when the cloth comes away grey-black with makeup and faintly pink with old blood, but he doesn’t comment. He only turns it again and brings it to the place under her nose.
“That might hurt,” he murmurs.
“It already hurts.”
His eyes lift to hers. “Yeah.”
She looks down at his wrist, at the veins there, at the old tape mark near his thumb, at the little scrape over one knuckle from practice or a game or some Garrett-related misuse of his own body. Usually she would notice and ask. Usually she would press her thumb near it and say, what’s this? and he would say, nothing, and she would call him annoying and make him let her look anyway.
Tonight she just watches his hand hold the cloth and lets him clean the blood away. The dried parts tug where they have hardened on her skin, and she sucks in a breath through her mouth when the washcloth brushes too close to the swelling at the bridge of her nose.
Garrett stops every time, waits for the little movement of her fingers in his shirt to settle, then continues. He wipes around the split in her lip last, his mouth flattening when fresh blood beads at the edge.
“You’re gonna bruise like hell,” he says, almost to himself.
She tries not to smile. It becomes a tiny, crooked thing anyway and immediately hurts. “Hot.”
His eyes flick back to hers, and for the first time since she arrived, something almost like Garrett moves across his face. Small. Tired. There and gone. “Yeah, baby. Real intimidating.”
“Good. I’ve always wanted to look tough.”
“You already look tough.”
“That’s because you have questionable standards.”
“No,” he says, and the softness in it makes her look away first. “I don’t.”
The room goes quiet except for the dull throb of the house underneath them, the creak of something downstairs, Logan or Dean moving around, the low murmur of the boys trying and failing not to sound worried through the floor. Garrett folds the washcloth over itself and sets it on the nightstand, then looks down at the rest of her.
The hoodie Maria put on her is zipped to her collarbone, dark fabric stained rusty near the cuff where she must have touched her face. Her scrub pants are still on, wrinkled and creased from the shift, one knee smudged faintly with something she refuses to identify. There is a hospital sticker on her shoe that nobody noticed until now, bright and stupid and stuck to the edge of the sole.
Garrett’s gaze catches on the blood at her sleeve. “You want out of these scrub pants?” he asks quietly. “And your hoodie has blood on it, baby.”
She looks down, as if this is new information. Her brain takes a second to make sense of the stain. “Oh.”
“It’s okay.”
“Yeah,” she says after a moment. Then, because the word seems to have scraped something loose on the way out, she adds, “Sorry.”
Garrett’s head lifts. “Why the fuck are you sorry?”
The sharpness of it makes her blink. He says it too quietly, all the force held under his tongue. But it lands somewhere tender anyway. She presses her lips together and immediately regrets that too. “Ow.”
Garrett’s expression softens, but his eyes stay fixed on her. Waiting.
She sighs, and it comes out shaky enough that she would like to file a formal complaint with her nervous system. “Because you…” The thought keeps slipping. She can see it, vaguely, but reaching for it makes her head pulse harder. “You didn’t sign up for this. I should’ve gotten Lucy or Monique. Or stayed with Maria, or– I don’t know.”
“No.” Garrett shakes his head once, and then stops himself, like maybe he’s remembered that head movement isn’t anyone’s friend right now. His hand comes to the side of her face, careful of the bruising, thumb brushing just below her temple where the skin is untouched. “Don’t do that.”
“I’m not doing anything.”
“You’re apologising for coming here.”
Her throat tightens. She looks at his shoulder because his face is too close and too much and still not close enough. “I just didn’t want you to feel like you had to.”
“Had to what?”
“Look after me.”
For a second, he only stares at her. Then he exhales through his nose, rough and almost disbelieving, and his fingers slide into her hair at the side of her head, holding it back from her face like the gesture can stand in for all the things he’s trying not to say too fast or wrong. “You think I’m sitting here because I feel obligated?”
She has the very strong, very pathetic urge to cry, which is inconvenient because crying would involve her face. “I don’t know.”
“Baby.”
She closes her eyes.
“Hey.” His thumb moves once. “Look at me.”
She does, reluctantly, because Garrett’s voice has gone into that low place that usually gets him what he wants and because her resistance is currently running on fumes.
His face is steadier now. Still pale underneath the warm lamplight, still tight around the edges, but steady in the places he’s offering to her. “I want you here.”
Her breath catches around something that hurts in a completely separate way from her nose. “Are we…” She stops, partly because the sentence is embarrassing and partly because she loses the middle of it for a second. The fog rolls in, cottony and irritating. She blinks, and Garrett waits. He doesn’t hurry her. Doesn’t fill the gap with a joke. Just keeps his hand at her face until she finds the rest. “Are we okay?”
His expression breaks so gently it makes her chest ache. “Course we are.”
“Yeah?”
“Yeah.” He brushes her hair back again, knuckles barely grazing the side of her neck. “We’re okay.”
She nods carefully. A tiny movement. “Good.”
Garrett’s mouth lifts at one corner, soft and sad and warm all at once. “Good?”
“Yeah.” Her fingers curl in his shirt again. This time, she doesn’t pull. “Because I really…” She swallows. Her throat is dry. Her head is thick. The truth comes out before she can dress it up in something safer. “I just wanted you.”
Something in him goes still. A held breath somewhere in the centre of him, then he nods, and the smile that comes with it is small enough that it feels private, even with the door half open and the boys downstairs and the whole house softly rearranged around her injury. “I know the feeling.”
She sniffs, because her body is committed to making the worst possible choices, and pain snaps up through her nose so sharply her eyes water. “Ow. Fuck.” She presses two fingers near the side of her face. “You do?”
Garrett’s smile shifts. “You want me to say it again while you look like you’re about to sneeze blood?”
“Maybe.”
“I know the feeling,” he says, and this time he doesn’t look away. “Because who better to nurse me back to health than you, huh?”
The laugh that escapes her is tiny and breathless and immediately followed by a wince, but it’s real. “I’m not even good at it today.”
“That’s okay.” He leans in and kisses the top of her head, nowhere near the bruising, lips warm against her hair. “I’ll cover this one.”
He gets up slowly this time, one hand staying in hers until the last possible second, then moves to his dresser. She watches him pull open drawers.
He finds a pair of grey sweatpants first, soft and old and definitely his, then a zip-up hoodie because it will not need to go over her head. She can see the moment he chooses it for that reason. The little pause, the glance back at her shoulder, the jaw tight enough to tell on him.
When he comes back, the clothes folded over his arm, he crouches in front of her again. “Alright. We’ll do this slow, okay?”
She nods, then corrects it into a verbal answer before her head can punish her. “Okay.”
“Pants first.”
“Romantic.”
His mouth twitches. “I’m known for it.”
He helps her stand only as much as she needs, one hand at her good elbow, the other at her waist. The room sways faintly when she gets upright, unpleasantly loose at the edges, and Garrett’s hand firms at once. “Dizzy?”
“Little bit.”
“Sit?”
“No, I’m good. Just…” She looks down at the drawstring of her scrub pants, then at him. “This is a very low dignity moment for me.”
Garrett’s gaze flicks up, and there it is again, the smallest spark of him through the worry. “Baby, you’ve fallen asleep drooling on my chest after telling me I had slutty veins.”
She frowns. “I said that?”
“You did.”
“That does sound like me,” she accepts.
“Exactly. Dignity’s been dead.”
She huffs, almost laughing, and he helps ease the scrub pants down her legs without making a production of it. Nothing in his face changes in the way that would make her feel watched, despite the fact that he’s, technically, undressing her in his bedroom.
His touch stays practical, warm, almost painfully respectful. He holds the sweatpants open for her one leg at a time, keeps a hand at her hip while she steps in, then draws them up slowly over her thighs.
They’re too big, of course. They sit low on her hips and pool at her ankles in a way that would be funny if everything didn’t hurt. Garrett ties the drawstring in a loose knot and pats it once.
“There,” he says. “Very fashionable.”
“Shut up. I’m concussed.”
“I know. That’s why I’m letting you get away with that tone.”
Her mouth threatens a smile, so she bites it back and looks down at herself instead. The hoodie is next. Garrett reaches for the zipper, then stops. “Where’s the top?”
She blinks at him. “What?”
“Your scrub top.” His voice stays even, but not naturally.
Her mind searches the department and comes back with torn fabric, scissors, someone’s gloved hands. “Um.” She rubs her fingers against the seam of his sweatpants, trying to make the thought stay still long enough to look at it. “Um. Bag. Maybe. They had to cut it off, I think.”
Garrett’s jaw tenses. It’s quick. A muscle jumping once, his mouth going flat, his eyes dropping away from her face for half a second like he needs to put the reaction somewhere she can’t see it. But she sees it anyway. She’s concussed, not blind.
When he looks back up, he’s forced something lighter onto his face. It’s not quite convincing, but the attempt is so Garrett it makes her ache.
“Damn,” he says. “Liked that pair.”
She stares at him. “Pair?”
“Set. Outfit. Whatever.” He lifts one shoulder, careful to keep his voice mild. “Made your ass look great.”
The giggle escapes before she can stop it. Immediately, pain blooms across her lip and nose, and she presses her fingers to her mouth with a muffled, “Ow. Don’t flirt with the concussed.”
Garrett’s smile is barely there, but warmer this time. “Can’t help it.”
“You should try.”
“I’ve been trying for months. Terrible at it.”
That one sits in the room longer than it should. Her eyes lift to his, and for a second, neither of them moves. Then Garrett clears his throat softly and reaches for the zipper of her hoodie.
“This one’s gonna suck,” he says. “I’m sorry.”
That’s somehow worse than if he had lied. “Okay.”
He unzips the bloodstained hoodie slowly, easing one side down her good arm first. That part is fine, or close enough. The bad shoulder is different. Even with the zip-up, even with him going painfully slowly, the fabric drags over the sore joint and catches near her elbow, and the strain of lifting even a fraction sends pain snapping hot and deep through her shoulder and up the side of her neck.
She makes a sound she hates. Small and broken enough that Garrett’s whole face changes.
“Stop, stop, stop,” he murmurs immediately. His hands freeze, one holding the fabric, the other at her waist. “I’ve got it. You’re okay. Don’t move.”
Her eyes burn fast. Too fast. The pain isn’t even the worst she has felt tonight, which somehow makes crying more insulting, like her body has chosen this as the point to become unreasonable. A few tears slip out anyway, hot and humiliating over her swollen cheeks.
“Sorry,” she whispers.
Garrett’s eyes flash. “Do not.”
“I know. I know, I’m just–” Her breath catches in that horrible little pre-sob way, and her face hurts too much to do anything with it. “It hurts.”
“I know.” His voice drops, low and steady. He shifts closer, bracing her gently with his own body while he works the sleeve down by tiny increments. “I know. I’m sorry. Almost done. There you go. Good girl. That’s it.”
The praise lands somewhere stupid and warm under all the pain, and she would make fun of him for weaponising it if she were not currently trying not to cry into his shirt. The hoodie finally comes free, and Garrett gets his zip-up around her without making her lift her arm higher than necessary, guiding the sore side in first, then the other, then drawing the soft fabric closed around her body. It smells like him immediately. Clean laundry, cold rink air, skin.
The relief of being out of the hospital clothes hits harder than she expects. She folds forward into him.
Garrett catches her like he has been waiting for it, one arm firm around her waist, the other cradling the back of her head before she can tip into the wrong angle. “There we go,” he murmurs into her hair. “Got you.”
She nods against him, but it’s barely a movement. “Hurts.”
“I know, baby.”
“I’m being a baby.”
“No.” His hand spreads over her back, broad and warm through the hoodie. “You’re being concussed with a fucked-up shoulder.”
She breathes against him for another minute, letting the warmth of him settle over the sharper edges. His heart is steady under her cheek. Or maybe it isn’t. Maybe that’s just what she needs it to be. Either way, his arms stay around her until her breathing evens out, until the tears stop sliding hot under her eyes, until she can pull back without feeling like she might tip sideways into the nightstand.
Garrett helps her lie down against his pillows. He has her on her back at first, then adjusts when she makes a face, turning her slightly onto her good side with slow hands and a pillow tucked near her shoulder so it isn’t pulling strangely. He moves like he’s learning her injury as he goes, like the map of her pain matters enough to memorise. It makes something soft and sore press up behind her ribs.
When he climbs in beside her, he doesn’t pull her in immediately. He waits, lying on his side facing her, one arm bent under his head, the other resting near the blanket between them. Giving her space to decide how much contact feels possible. Which is very considerate of him and also deeply annoying because she has no interest in space.
She curls into him as best she can, awkwardly, her bad shoulder protected between them, her forehead carefully finding the safe hollow below his collarbone. Garrett lets out a breath that sounds like he has been holding it since the front door.
“There,” he says softly. “That okay?”
“Mhm.”
His hand comes to her hair again. Fingers sliding slowly from her temple back over her scalp, loosening what the clip and the shift and the panic left behind. The motion sends a dull, pleasant ache through her, somewhere under the headache, a different kind of heaviness.
She sighs before she can stop herself. “Feels nice.”
Garrett’s thumb moves near her hairline. “I’ll keep doing it then.”
She lets her eyes close.
For a while, the room stays still around them. The lamp glows behind her eyelids. The house below makes small, careful sounds, a cabinet closing softly, footsteps pausing in the hallway and then retreating, the quiet evidence of three hockey players trying very hard to be normal about the girl in Garrett’s bed with a concussion.
Her head throbs anyway, steady and deep. Her lip pulses. Her shoulder aches in its own miserable rhythm. But Garrett’s hand keeps moving through her hair, slow enough that her breathing starts to follow it.
She’s almost asleep, or something near it, when Garrett speaks. “What happened?”
His voice is quiet. He asks like he’s been holding the question in both hands for too long and needs to set it somewhere.
She opens her eyes to the dark cotton of his shirt. Her brain takes a few seconds to come back online. She breathes out slowly through her mouth because her nose is still a disaster.
The memory is there at once, too close and too bright around the edges, and her body reacts to it before the words arrive. Fingers curling lightly in the front of his shirt. Shoulder tightening, then complaining. The ghost of the rail coming up fast.
Garrett’s hand pauses in her hair. “You don’t have to.”
“No.” Her voice is quiet. “It’s okay.”
He starts moving his hand again, slower now.
“It was a psych patient,” she says. “He was really agitated. Not like… violent, at first. Just scared, I think. Curled in on himself, wouldn’t really let anyone near him. Maria was with me. We were trying to keep the room calm, but the ED was so busy and loud and everyone was stretched thin, and he just…” She stops, trying to find the order of it. Everything feels slippery when she looks too directly. “He lashed out. His elbow got me in the face. Accidentally, I think.”
Garrett’s chest goes very still under her cheek.
“And I cried out,” she continues. “I don’t know. It just hurt and it surprised me, and I think that freaked him out more. Or the noise did. Or maybe he just didn’t know what was happening.” She swallows. Her throat feels raw. “He grabbed my scrub top before I could move back. Pulled me forward. My nose hit the bed rail. Or my mouth did. I’m not sure. It happened really fast.”
Garrett’s arm tightens around her, then loosens immediately like he’s afraid of hurting her. His hand remains in her hair, but the fingers have gone still.
“Security came in,” she says. “Another nurse pulled me back. Steph, I think. Or maybe Maria. Both, maybe. I don’t know. I remember Maria saying my name a lot.” She looks down between them, though there is nothing to see but the dark fold of his shirt and the edge of his hoodie on her body. “He didn’t mean it.”
Garrett is quiet for long enough that she starts to wonder if he has stopped breathing.
Then he says, “You keep saying that.”
“He didn’t.”
“I know.” His voice is rough, scraped thin at the edges. “I know he didn’t, baby. I just…” He takes a breath. It moves carefully through his chest. “You got hurt anyway.”
The words land with the same awful simplicity as Maria’s had in the car. That doesn’t mean you didn’t get hurt. She closes her eyes, because everyone has decided to be kind in the exact way she cannot defend against.
“I know,” she whispers.
Garrett’s hand finally moves again, fingers sliding over her scalp, then down to the nape of her neck where he can touch without brushing bruised skin. “Is this how you feel?”
She opens her eyes. “What?”
“When I come home after a game all bruised and shit.” He shifts just enough that she can feel him looking down at her, though she doesn’t lift her head to meet it yet. “Is this what it feels like?”
A tiny breath leaves her. Not quite a laugh. More tired than that. “You mean do I also go weird and silent and look like I might throw up?”
“Yeah.”
“Then yeah.” Her fingers smooth over the fabric of his shirt because she needs something small to do. “Kind of, I guess.”
Garrett doesn’t answer.
She turns her face slightly, enough to look at the line of his jaw in the low light. He’s staring at the wall beyond her head, mouth set, brows drawn, hair falling messily over his forehead. He looks angry and young and helpless, which is such a strange combination on him that it makes her chest ache.
“It’s different,” she says softly. “You’re playing a game you love. You know the risks. I know that. And you guys are all… insane about pain, which I’ve accepted against my will.”
His mouth twitches without humour.
“But I don’t enjoy seeing you hurt.” Her voice goes quieter around the admission. “Even when it’s normal hockey hurt. Even when you’re smug about it and standing in the kitchen telling me it’s fine while your ribs look like someone used you as a doorstop. It still makes my stomach feel weird.”
Garrett’s eyes come down to her then. She tries to hold the look for a second and manages maybe half. His attention is too raw tonight. Too stripped of the things he usually wears over it.
“I know you’re tough,” she says, looking at his collar instead. “I know you can take it. I know half the time you think me worrying is funny or hot or both, because you have a very damaged sense of romance.”
“That’s fair.”
“But I still…” She frowns slightly, the thought losing shape, then finding it again. “I still hate it. Not because I think you’re weak. Because you’re not. Obviously. It’s just your body, you know? And I like your body.”
Garrett’s eyebrows lift faintly.
She narrows her eyes at him. “Don’t.”
“I didn’t say anything.”
“You were about to become insufferable.”
“Maybe a little.”
“I have a concussion. Be kind.”
His face softens again, the almost-tease folding back into something warmer. “I’m being so kind.”
“You’re doing okay.”
“Glowing review.”
She breathes out through her mouth, and for a moment the room feels almost normal. Almost. Garrett’s hand in her hair. His chest under her cheek. The two of them managing to find the familiar shape of each other even through the bruising and the blood and the fear still sitting somewhere near the foot of the bed.
Then Garrett’s thumb brushes the side of her head again, light and careful, and his voice drops. “I hated seeing you like that.”
She looks at him this time.
He doesn’t look away. His eyes are dark in the low light, all the usual teasing stripped out of them. “At the door,” he says. “I hated it.”
“I know.”
“No, I don’t think you do.” His mouth tightens, then releases. “You were standing there with blood on your face and Maria next to you and you looked at me like you were sorry. Like I was gonna be upset that you came here.”
Her throat works. “I didn’t want to be too much.”
Garrett makes a sound under his breath, small and rough. “You got hurt.”
“Yeah.”
“You’re allowed to be too much.”
The sentence is so simple it feels dangerous. Her eyes sting again, and she presses her face carefully into his chest before the tears can do anything stupid to her already stupid face.
Garrett’s arm comes around her, careful of her shoulder, his hand settling between her shoulder blades where he can hold without hurting. “Especially here,” he murmurs into her hair. “Especially with me.”
She doesn’t answer. She can’t, really. Not without crying, and crying hurts, and she’s tired of things hurting. So she only curls her fingers more tightly in his shirt and lets him keep his hand in her hair.
After a while, she says, very quietly, “I’m really tired.”
“I know.” Garrett kisses the top of her head. “You can sleep.”
“Logan set alarms.”
“Of course Logan set alarms.”
She manages the faintest smile. “He looked very serious.”
“He loves a protocol.”
“He does have the head injury experience.”
Garrett huffs a soft laugh against her hair, the sound loosening something in the dark. “Unfortunately.”
She lets her eyes close again. The headache is still there. The bruising is still swelling around her nose, hot and heavy. Her shoulder still aches beneath his hoodie. None of it has gone away.
But Garrett’s fingers keep moving through her hair, and his body is warm where hers has gone cold and wrung out, and downstairs the boys are quiet in a way that makes the whole house feel like it is holding its breath around her.
“Garrett?”
“Yeah, baby?”
“If I say something weird, it’s the concussion.”
His hand pauses for half a second. “Okay.”
“And if I say something nice.”
His mouth brushes her hair. “Also concussion?”
“Probably.”
“Got it.”
She’s quiet long enough that he likely thinks she’s drifted off. Maybe she has, a little. The edge of sleep is soft and close, pulling at the corners of the room, blurring the pain into something thick and manageable. Then she murmurs, “You’re good at this.”
Garrett’s chest rises slowly beneath her cheek. “At what?”
“Looking after me.”
His fingers resume their movement through her hair, slower than before. “Yeah?”
“Mm.”
His voice, when it comes, is barely more than warmth in the dark. “Only because you taught me how.”
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pairing – garrett graham x petal!reader
summary – a joke with dean’s jersey stops being funny the second garrett sees another name across her back.
warnings – jealousy, public argument, possessive-ish behaviour, post-breakup/rebuilding relationship, strong language
notes from me – i combined these two asks for this one!! jealous garrett is 🥵
word count – 5.1k
navigation – masterlist |
The thing about Dean Di Laurentis was that he had a very dangerous understanding of comedy. In the way a person became dangerous when they had too much confidence, too little shame, and a girlfriend who was willing to stand beside him in the entryway of the hockey house saying, “No, wait, that’s actually evil,” while laughing so hard she had to grip the bannister.
“It’s not evil,” Dean had said, holding his jersey out to her like a formal offering.
Allie had made a sound. “Garrett’s going to throw up.”
“Garrett throws up when someone beats him at pool,” Dean said. “This is nothing.”
“It’s not nothing,” Allie said, delighted, already looking at the jersey. “This is, like, emotional terrorism with shoulder patches.”
And maybe she should have listened to that. Maybe, somewhere between Allie leaning against Dean’s side in the foyer with glitter still on her eyelids from rehearsal and Dean grinning like a man who had discovered a loophole in the laws of decency, she should have thought, carefully and with maturity, that Garrett Graham was already a little too wound up about her lately for this to land as cleanly as a joke.
Because Garrett had been laying it on thick. He had been remembering the light ice and carrying her bag without making a ceremony of it and texting her before games with stupid little things like wish me luck, baby.
He had been walking her home with his hands in his pockets because he knew better than to reach too much, looking at her mouth like it was taking actual captain-level discipline not to kiss it, and then saying goodnight. He had been careful and funny and patient and so visibly trying not to rush her that every part of her body had begun to feel like a room with the heat turned up too high.
The boys were sick of him. Dean had said this with enormous satisfaction. Logan had threatened to start charging Garrett for every time he looked at his phone and made a face. Tucker, who rarely entered other people’s emotional disasters unless invited, had told Garrett last week, very calmly, that if he sighed one more time into his cereal, someone was going to put him outside.
So, really, if a person thought about it from the correct angle, this was community service.
Which was how she ended up at the hockey house after a game, standing in the front hallway in a black mini skirt that had made Allie go briefly silent before saying, “Oh, he’s going to die,” knee-high boots, and Dean’s jersey half tucked at her waist like she hadn’t just committed a crime against Garrett Graham’s emotional stability.
The party was already loud enough to make the floor feel alive under her heels, music thudding from the living room, laughter spilling out of the kitchen, the whole house smelling like beer and deodorant and someone’s aggressively cheap cologne. Dean had walked in beside her with Allie tucked under his arm, far too pleased with himself, and every few steps he glanced down at the name across her back and started laughing again.
“You’re so annoying,” she’d told him, but she was laughing too, because at that point it had still felt light. Stupid. Harmless. Dean’s jersey swallowed her a little through the shoulders and sleeves, the hem loose over her skirt, soft from too many washes and carrying the faint smell of laundry detergent and house air and Dean’s cologne, which was objectively ridiculous but not intimate.
Not to her. Not to Allie, who had watched her tuck the front in and nearly folded in half from laughter. Not to Dean, who loved Garrett like a brother and irritated him like a calling.
Then Garrett saw her. It happened from across the living room, so quickly and so completely that the joke died before she had time to put a drink in her hand.
He was near the kitchen entrance with Logan and Tucker, shower-damp curls, black Briar shirt pulled tight across his chest, a faint flush high on his cheekbones from whatever mix of adrenaline and beer and victory had been buzzing through him before she walked in.
He was smiling at something Logan was saying, mouth open, head tilted, easy and bright and Garrett enough that her stomach had done the stupid little flip it always did lately when she saw him before he saw her. And then his eyes landed on Dean’s jersey, and the smile disappeared so fast it was almost ugly.
Anger took it’s place. A clean, immediate lock of his jaw, the bottle in his hand lowering an inch, his eyes going dark in a way that made the noise around her seem to lift and thin.
He looked at the sleeves, the half-tucked hem, the name she knew was stretched across her back, and something moved through his face that made her spine straighten before she had decided whether she was in trouble or just watching him become a problem.
“Oh,” Allie said softly beside her, laughter gone. “Shit.”
Dean, because Dean had been dropped as a baby directly into a vat of bad instincts, grinned wider. “Oh, this is beautiful.”
“It’s not,” Allie muttered, eyes tracking Garrett as he set his beer down on the nearest table without looking. “Dean.”
“What?” Dean said, still smiling, though even he had begun to notice the lack of comedy in Garrett’s expression. “It’s funny.”
Garrett crossed the room like nobody else existed. People moved without really understanding they were moving, bodies shifting around the direct line of him, conversation breaking in tiny startled pieces as he came through.
He didn’t shove anyone, didn’t need to. Garrett had that athlete thing where his body made decisions faster than the room could argue with them, all broad shoulders and purpose and the low, dangerous quiet of a man who hadn't come over to be charming.
He stopped in front of her, close enough that she caught the clean, warm smell of him under the party air. His eyes flicked once to Dean beside her and then back to the jersey, and when he spoke, his voice was low enough that it should not have cut through the music the way it did. “Take it off.”
Her eyebrows lifted before her brain fully caught up. “Uh. Hi to you too?”
Garrett didn’t smile. That was the first real warning. Garrett could usually find a smile even when he was pissed, could wrap the sharp thing in something bright enough to make everyone else think the blade wasn’t there. But now his mouth was flat, his eyes fixed on the jersey like if he stared hard enough it might remove itself out of fear. “Take that shit off.”
The back of her neck warmed, like every person within ten feet had suddenly been handed a flashlight and directed toward her skin. “Garrett.”
“I’m not kidding.” His jaw shifted, tight enough that the muscle jumped near his cheek. “Take it off. Now.”
Something in her, the proud little reflexive thing that always reached for a weapon when embarrassment got too close, snapped its head up. “Well, I can’t exactly stand here in my bra, so.”
Dean made the mistake of laughing. A surprised little breath of amusement, barely anything, but Garrett’s eyes cut to him with such force that Dean’s grin stalled halfway across his face.
“Bro,” Dean started, holding up one hand, still playing it loose because Dean would flirt with danger until danger punched him in the throat. “Come on. It’s obviously–”
“I will punch you in the mouth if you keep talking,” Garrett said, so evenly that the threat landed worse than if he’d yelled it. “Shut the fuck up.”
Dean blinked. Allie’s hand tightened around his wrist, her expression going sharp in a way that suggested she was deciding whether to remove her boyfriend from the blast radius or let natural consequences finish raising him.
Logan, over Garrett’s shoulder, had stopped mid-sip near the kitchen doorway, eyes wide with the kind of interest usually reserved for sudden injuries. Tucker stood beside him, quieter, watching Garrett’s face instead of the jersey.
Her stomach had started doing something unpleasant. The joke, the stupid harmless little spark Dean had struck and she had fed because it was easier than admitting Garrett had been making her feel too much lately, was suddenly a live wire in her hands.
“It’s Dean’s,” she said, lower now, trying to drag the whole thing back down into sense. “It’s not some random guy’s jersey. He’s literally standing here with Allie. It’s not that deep.”
Garrett’s eyes came back to her, and there was something worse under the anger now, more exposed. Like the jersey had caught on a place he had been trying to keep covered. “Don’t do that.”
“Do what?”
“Act like I’m crazy for having a reaction when you walked into my house wearing another guy’s name across your back.”
The words hit harder than they should have because he said my house and another guy’s name like both things mattered in a way she hadn’t given either of them permission to matter. Her fingers curled once at her side, nails brushing her palm. “You’re acting like I came in wearing an ex’s shirt.”
“You came in wearing Dean’s jersey to piss me off.”
She opened her mouth, then closed it, because the worst thing was that Garrett wasn’t wrong. She had done it to get a reaction. She had wanted him to look. She had wanted, maybe, to make him feel one sharp little fraction of the twist she used to feel every time a girl leaned too close to him in public and he acted like the whole thing didn’t matter.
But she hadn’t expected this. She had expected Garrett’s annoyed grin. A muttered really? Maybe a tug at the jersey, a low comment near her ear, Dean cackling in the background until Allie elbowed him. She hadn’t expected Garrett to look at her like she had placed something bruised between them and pressed down.
“It was a joke,” she said, and this time her voice didn’t have as much bite in it.
“Yeah?” Garrett’s laugh was short and humourless, barely making it out of his chest. “Funny.”
Dean shifted beside them, and Garrett’s head turned a fraction, eyes warning. Dean, to his credit or survival, shut his mouth. It lasted exactly three seconds.
“Okay, not to make this worse,” Dean said, which meant he was absolutely about to make it worse, “but technically she does look great in it, so–”
Garrett moved so fast she barely registered it before his shoulder had turned toward Dean and Allie was between them with both hands up, saying, “Nope. Absolutely not. Nobody is getting punched over cotton-poly blend, thank you.”
Dean stepped back, finally smart enough to look like he understood that Garrett wasn’t playing the role he had written for him. “I’m joking, man.”
“I’m not,” Garrett said.
The living room around them had gone quieter in patches. She could feel attention glancing off them from every side. Her skin prickled under the jersey. All at once, she was horribly aware of her skirt riding high on her thighs, of the boots, of Dean’s name on her back, of Garrett’s eyes and everyone else’s curiosity and the old, sickly-familiar feeling of being seen in the wrong way.
That seemed to be what reached Garrett through the jealousy. His gaze moved over her face, catching on whatever her expression had done before she could hide it, and something in him tightened differently.
“Come upstairs,” he said.
Her chin lifted. “Excuse me?”
His hand twitched at his side like he wanted to reach for her and knew better. “Please.”
The please did something irritating to her ribs. Softened one edge when she had been very prepared to keep both hands around her pride. Garrett looked furious still, but he was holding it with visible effort now, forcing himself back from the part of him that wanted to drag her out of Dean’s jersey by sheer will and probably bad language.
His voice dropped lower. “I have one of mine upstairs. You can change. I won’t– I don’t care. Just–” His eyes flicked down, then up again, jaw working. “Please don’t stand down here in that.”
The anger in her didn’t vanish, it reorganised. Became something more complicated and warmer at the edges, which was deeply inconvenient because she had been doing so well with offended. “You could have led with that.”
Garrett stared at her for half a second like he was seconds away from saying something stupid and knew it. “Yeah,” he said finally. “I know.”
Tucker’s voice came from behind him, calm and mild as a seatbelt clicking into place. “G.”
Garrett didn’t look back, but some of the tension in his shoulders shifted at Tucker’s tone.
She looked at Allie, who was still holding Dean by the wrist like he was a badly trained dog near traffic. Allie gave her a tiny apologetic grimace that said, with devastating clarity, we may have overcooked this.
Dean mouthed, sorry, which was frankly so rare and unsettling that she almost forgave him on principle.
“Fine,” she said, because the room felt too hot and the jersey had started to feel less like a joke and more like evidence she didn’t want to keep wearing. “I’ll change.”
Garrett’s face didn’t relax, but the relief moved through him anyway, quick and badly hidden. He stepped aside enough to let her pass without touching her, then followed her toward the stairs so closely she could feel him at her back without his hand ever landing there. That was Garrett lately. All this heat and restraint. All this wanting with its hands clasped behind its back.
Behind them, Logan whispered, much too loudly, “So we’re not chirping him right now, right?”
Tucker said, “Read the room.”
Dean said, “I did read it. It said homicide.”
Garrett stopped on the first stair and looked back. “Dean.”
Dean pressed his mouth shut with two fingers and nodded solemnly. Allie smacked his arm anyway.
The stairs creaked under them as they went up, the noise from the party getting duller with each step, bass turning into a thud through the walls, laughter blurring into the old wood and plaster. She kept one hand near the hem of the jersey because the skirt really was incredibly short and because she suddenly needed something to do that wasn’t think about Garrett behind her, angry and jealous and careful enough not to touch.
His room was exactly as it had been the last time she had seen it, which was unfair. Bed half-made in the way men considered close enough. Textbooks stacked on the desk beside a roll of hockey tape and an empty water bottle. A hoodie dropped over the chair. The faint smell of detergent, clean sheets, and Garrett living in a space. It hit her with such force that she paused just inside the doorway, breath catching in a small stupid place she hoped he didn’t notice.
He moved past her without comment and opened his closet, shoulders still tight under his black shirt. For a few seconds he shifted hangers with more force than necessary, then pulled out a Briar jersey with Graham across the back and held it out to her. His name looked different in his hands. Familiar in a way that made her stomach dip.
“Here,” he said.
She took it, fingers brushing the fabric. “Thanks.”
Garrett nodded once, then turned his back immediately, facing the desk with his hands braced low on his hips like he needed somewhere to put them or they might do something unwise.
She looked at the line of his shoulders. Still stiff. Still pissed. Still giving her privacy even though his jaw looked like it had been carved out of annoyance.
A laugh almost slipped out of her, but it snagged on something softer before it made it. “Garrett.”
“What?”
“You’ve seen me naked before.”
His head tipped slightly, but he didn’t turn around. For a second, the party noise filled the space where his answer should have been, muffled bass under the floorboards, someone downstairs yelling Logan’s name like either Logan had done something amazing or unforgivable.
“Yeah,” Garrett said finally, voice lower. “But only when you want me to.”
The music kept thudding. Someone laughed in the hallway. A door opened somewhere and slammed shut again. But inside her body, something small and protected went very still. The kind of stillness that came before a feeling had a name, before it decided whether it wanted to be relief or ache or some awful third thing that made her fingertips tingle around the fabric of his jersey.
She swallowed, looking down before he could somehow see her face through the back of his own head. “Right.”
Garrett’s shoulders moved once with a breath. He didn’t turn.
So she changed. Pulled Dean’s jersey over her head carefully, the fabric sliding up her ribs, cool air hitting her stomach and the bare line above her skirt. For one strange second she stood there in her bra and mini skirt and boots in Garrett’s bedroom, holding his jersey in both hands, and the whole situation felt so absurdly teenage and stupid and emotionally lethal that she almost laughed again. Instead, she tugged his jersey on.
It fell differently. Longer, for one thing. Softer in a way she had no right to notice. It smelled like clean laundry and the closet and a faint trace of Garrett, enough that her body recognised it before she did, a warm little pull low in her stomach. She tucked the front loosely into her skirt the same way she’d done with Dean’s, then looked down at herself and felt something settle despite her best efforts.
“Okay,” she said. “All good.”
Garrett turned. Whatever he’d been prepared to say didn’t survive the sight of her. She watched it fail in real time, his eyes dropping from her face to the jersey, to the hem tucked into the tiny black skirt, to her bare thighs above the boots, then back up again with an effort so visible it made heat climb her neck.
He exhaled through his nose. “Jesus.”
She folded her arms, mostly because if she didn’t, she might do something with her hands that would embarrass them both. “Better?”
Garrett’s eyes snapped to hers, and there was still anger there, yes, but it had been dragged through something darker and more helpless on the way up. “Don’t.”
Her brows lifted. “I’m asking.”
“I know what you’re doing.”
“I’m standing here in your jersey because you almost murdered your best friend over the other one.”
Garrett raised a shoulder. “He deserved it.”
“He’s dating Allie.”
“Congratulations to him.”
“It was a joke.”
Garrett’s mouth tightened again, but this time the anger didn’t flare as sharp. It came out tired around the edges. “I know it was a joke to you.”
She stared at him for a second, then looked away because his room was too small for that kind of honesty. Her gaze caught on the desk, the tape, the textbooks, a pen lying uncapped near the edge like Garrett had abandoned it mid-thought. “Garrett.”
“No, I get it,” he said, though his voice made it very clear he didn’t enjoy getting it. “You and Dean wanted to fuck with me. Fine. Great. Everyone’s hilarious.”
She bit the inside of her cheek. “We didn’t think you’d actually be upset.”
He laughed once, without humour. “Yeah, well. I was.”
“I noticed.”
His eyes flashed. “Did you?”
Her head turned back to him. “Don’t talk to me like that.”
Garrett stopped. The anger in his face faltered, and for a second he looked at her like he’d forgotten where the line was and hated himself a little for stepping on it. He dragged one hand through his curls, rough enough to make them worse. “Sorry.”
The apology came fast, real enough that her shoulders loosened by a fraction.
He dropped his hand, looking at her with all that jaw-clenched frustration and something underneath it that made her want to be gentler than she felt. “I know you’re not my girlfriend right now.”
Her throat moved.
Garrett’s gaze flicked down briefly, then back to her face. “I know that. I know I don’t get to tell you what to wear or who to talk to or whose jersey you put on. I know all of that, okay? I’m trying really hard not to fuck this up by acting like I have a claim I haven’t earned back yet.”
The back of her eyes warmed so quickly she had to blink. Once. Hard.
“But you walked in downstairs with his name on you,” Garrett said, quieter now, and the heat in his voice shifted into something rougher. “And I know it’s Dean. I know he’s with Allie. I know he’s a fucking idiot who thinks ruining my night is foreplay for his own relationship. But for about two seconds, all I saw was you looking like that in someone else’s jersey, and I–” He stopped, jaw working around the rest like it was too ugly to hand over cleanly. “I fucking hated it.”
She looked down at the jersey, at Garrett’s name across her, at the place her fingers had started worrying the hem without permission. Her stomach had gone tight, with recognition, maybe. With the awful tenderness of watching someone tell the truth before he could make it charming.
“I’m sorry,” she said, and it came out smaller than she meant it to.
Garrett’s face softened immediately, which was almost unbearable considering he was still pissed off. “I’m not trying to make you feel bad.”
“You kind of were downstairs.”
He grimaced. “Yeah. I know.”
“You came over and started ordering me to take it off like I’d walked in wearing enemy colours.”
“You did.”
“Dean plays for the same team.”
“Not right now.”
The laugh gets out before she could stop it. Small and stupid and a little wet at the edges. Garrett’s mouth twitched too.
He leaned back against the edge of the desk, folding his arms like he needed the extra barrier. His eyes went to the jersey again, and this time the look did something slow and unmistakable to the air between them. “You look better in mine.”
Her skin warmed under the fabric. “Yeah?”
Garrett’s eyes lifted to hers, dark and steady. “Yeah.”
She took one step closer before she’d fully decided to move. Then another, because Garrett didn’t move away. His gaze stayed on her face now, but she could feel every place he wasn’t looking like a touch.
The boots, the skirt, his name across her chest. The room seemed too warm suddenly, or maybe it was just her, standing there in his jersey after weeks of careful coffee and cheek kisses and all the almosts they kept stepping around like cracks in the pavement.
“I like this one better anyway,” she said.
Garrett’s expression changed. Something quieter, more dangerous because it didn’t try to hide behind smugness. “Don’t say stuff like that if you don’t mean it.”
“I do mean it.”
His arms unfolded slowly. She watched his hand lift, giving her enough time to step back if she wanted to. She didn’t. His fingers came to her jaw, warm and careful, thumb resting near her cheek like he was relearning the permission there.
The contact made her breath go shallow. Ridiculous, really, considering they had done so much more than this once. But that was before. Before the coffee shop fights and the public invisibility and the break-up and Drunk Shakespeare and light ice and all of this careful, aching reconstruction.
Now, Garrett’s thumb on her cheek felt like something with weight.
His eyes moved over her face, searching the way they’d started to do lately, as if he was trying to read every small shift before he made a mistake. He still looked wound up. She could feel it in the way his fingers held still instead of stroking, in the tightness around his mouth, in the way his gaze kept dipping to her lips and dragging itself back up.
“Please don’t do that again,” he said, and the words were low, almost a request with the bruise left in.
She nodded once. “I won’t.”
Garrett’s thumb moved then, one slow pass along her cheekbone. “I mean it.”
“I know.” She let her hand come up, fingers wrapping lightly around his wrist. “I didn’t realise it would piss you off like that.”
“It wasn’t just pissed.”
She knew that. She could feel the shape of it now. The jealousy, yes, hot and immediate and almost flattering in the stupidest way, but under that something else. Garrett had been spending weeks trying not to overstep, trying not to touch what he had not been given back, trying to earn every small piece of her trust with coffee orders and public boundaries and not kissing her even when his whole face said he wanted to. And she had walked into a party wearing someone else’s claim as a joke.
Her chest tightened. “I’m sorry,” she said again.
Garrett looked at her mouth. Neither of them moved for a second, then both of them did, barely. A tilt. A shift closer. His hand firmed at her jaw, and her fingers tightened around his wrist as her chin lifted. The space between them thinned into something hot and quiet and overdue, the party downstairs dropping away until all she could hear was the muffled bass through the floor and the unsteady little breath Garrett took through his nose.
His lips were so close she could feel the warmth of him.
The door burst open.
“Oh shit,” Logan laughed.
She jerked back so fast her shoulder hit the closet door. Garrett’s hand dropped from her face like it had been burned, his head snapping toward the doorway with murder already written across his features.
Logan stood frozen just inside the room, eyes wide, one hand still on the knob. Dean was half behind him, peering over his shoulder with the doomed fascination of a man who had never once survived his own curiosity.
For one silent, horrific second, nobody moved. Then Dean’s gaze dropped to the jersey she was wearing. Garrett’s jersey. The grin that began spreading across his face was so slow and so pleased and so full of future consequences that she wanted to throw a shoe at him.
“Oh,” Dean said softly. “Okay. So the plan worked.”
Garrett took one step toward them. “I’m going to kill you.”
Logan backed up immediately, both hands raised. “I didn’t know! He said you had beer in here.”
Dean looked offended. “You followed me.”
“You said beer.”
“I said maybe beer.”
“Both of you,” Garrett said, voice flat with the kind of calm that suggested violence had moved from impulse to schedule. “Out.”
Dean leaned slightly around Logan, because apparently the threat of death only improved his posture. “For the record, G, I do think this is a healthier colour palette on her.”
Garrett moved again. Dean yelped and disappeared into the hallway so fast he almost took Logan with him.
Logan stumbled back, laughing now because Logan had a brain injury in spirit if not in current medical fact, and shouted, “Sorry! Sorry. Great jersey. Very normal situation,” before Garrett slammed the door in their faces.
The second it shut, the room went quiet again. She stood near the closet with her heart still somewhere in her throat, one hand pressed to her hair even though nothing had happened to it, and Garrett stayed facing the door for a second with both hands on his hips, breathing like he was reminding himself that prison would interfere with playoffs.
“I’m seriously gonna kill them,” he said.
She tried not to laugh. Failed a little. “Please don’t. Tucker would have to do paperwork.”
Garrett turned his head slowly, eyes narrowing at the sound in her voice. “You think this is funny?”
“No.” She pressed her lips together. “A little.”
He stared at her. Then the corner of his mouth twitched despite himself, annoyed and helpless and so Garrett that it made her chest ache. “You’re all awful.”
“Me?”
“You started this.”
“Dean started this.”
Garrett’s brows lifted. “You wore it.”
“Under peer pressure.”
“From Dean?”
“He’s very persuasive.”
“He’s an idiot.”
“He’s Allie’s idiot now,” she said, which made Garrett exhale something almost like a laugh, his head tipping back for half a second as if asking the ceiling for patience and being denied.
The heat between them hadn’t disappeared, it had just been shoved sideways by Logan’s face and Dean’s mouth and the knowledge that the entire downstairs would know, within ninety seconds, that she had gone upstairs in Dean’s jersey and would be coming down in Garrett’s.
She looked down, smoothing the front of the jersey with both hands. “I should go back downstairs.”
Garrett’s attention came back to her immediately. “Yeah?”
“Yeah.” She swallowed, then looked up. “Before they make it weirder.”
“They’re going to make it weird no matter what.”
“True.”
Neither of them moved.
Garrett looked at her, and the almost-kiss sat between them with its hands folded, patient and unfinished. His eyes dipped once to her mouth again, but he didn’t step closer. Didn’t try to grab the moment back from where Logan and Dean had kicked it across the floor.
He only ran a hand through his hair and let out a low breath, half frustrated, half amused, all of it so careful it made her feel tender in places she hadn’t agreed to soften. “You okay?” he asked.
She nodded. “Yeah.”
“With…” His eyes flicked to the jersey. “This?”
Her fingers pressed lightly into the fabric at her waist. Graham, tucked against her body. His name, not as a claim, not yet. But as something she had chosen after the joke stopped being funny.
“Yeah,” she said, and this time she let herself smile a little. “I’m okay with this.”
Garrett’s face changed, just slightly. “Good,” he said.
to be notified when i post new fics, follow @kooksandpearls-library and turn on notifications! i no longer use a taglist for garrett fics.
a/n: Here’s my little “get well soon” gift for @kryptidfiles !! Imagine this wrapped in a huge bow with flowers sticking out from every side. EVERYONE GO FOLLOW HER BLOG and I hope you enjoy!!
Summary: You made the mistake of turning sex into casual conversation with your coworker and accidentally start the worst HR violation of your life.
Classification: Smut +18 | coworkers to lovers, several smut scenes, alcohol consumption, rude/arrogant Scott Miller, oral sex, fingering, dirty talk, rough sex, rough groping, protected and unprotected sex, doggy style, missionary, squirting, ass smacking, marking/bruising, praise, dom/sub dynamics, workplace boundary issues and emotionally repressed idiots in love.
Word count: 9,2k
There was a difference between good sex and great sex, the same way there was a difference between getting fucked and being made love to...
Good sex was what you expected from anybody decent enough to make it that far with you. It was the kind people talked about casually with their friends, the kind that came up over drinks after someone asked, “So, was he good?” Good sex happened on Tuesdays after work with the guy from Hinge who insisted on taking you out somewhere too expensive for a second date. You split a basket of fries, drank half a beer because you still had work in the morning, drove home with exhaustion sitting heavy behind your eyes, then let him fuck you well enough to sleep for four uninterrupted hours.
Good sex was practical and predictable. It convinced your body you were living a normal life.
Great sex was different. Great sex happened after work parties when your mascara was already smudged and your heels were in your hand by midnight. It happened on weekends with nowhere to be the next morning. You never talked about great sex because it sounded exaggerated the second you said it out loud, like you were overselling a man nobody else would understand. Great sex made you cum or at least brought you close enough that your stomach tightened every time you remembered it afterward. You thought about great sex while driving long stretches of empty highway, your hands steady on the wheel while your mind wandered somewhere warmer.
Great sex stayed in your body for days. You caught yourself replaying parts of it absentmindedly while standing in line for coffee or brushing your teeth before bed.
Then there was getting fucked…
There was no cleaner way to define it. It lived somewhere between fantasy and urban legend, passed around between women in half-serious conversations that always dissolved into laughter. Everybody claimed to know someone who’d experienced it but nobody could explain it properly. Getting fucked was the kind of sex that distracted you in the middle of the day badly enough to make you stop what you were doing and change your underwear. It sat dangerously close to the limits of what sex could actually be before the whole thing collapsed under its own weight.
If a guy treated you too much like an object, it fell apart immediately.
If you didn’t orgasm, it didn’t count.
If you weren’t still thinking about him six months later at red lights and in grocery store aisles and during lonely hotel nights, then it wasn’t that either.
Getting fucked sat at the very top of the scale, lit up like something obvious and somehow most men still missed it completely.
Being made love to was worse and more dangerous, honestly.
For somebody like you, it could become embarrassing fast. Storm season kept you on the road for months at a time, bouncing between states, sleeping in motels with stiff sheets and weak air conditioning. Off-season meant office buildings, weather models glowing across multiple monitors, long meetings about funding, new equipment and data collection. Your life moved constantly and men liked that at first. A woman who was smart, busy, gone half the year, financially stable and difficult to pin down.
Men loved the idea of you because it excused the fact they never had to give very much. Most of them thought they were in love but really, they just liked access to somebody they found impressive.
Before all of that, you used to think being made love to meant passion…intimacy. That it was slow sex with somebody who knew your body so well they could pull an orgasm out of you patiently and confidently, like it mattered to them as much as breathing did. You imagined hands lingering at your waist, sleepy conversation afterward, somebody brushing your hair away from your face before kissing you again.
Instead, you ended up underneath men who mistook enthusiasm for intimacy. You stared at ceilings while they grunted above you, listened to them breathe your name like they were performing something instead of feeling it. Sometimes you felt your stomach turn from the boredom alone, your body rocking mechanically with theirs while your mind drifted somewhere else entirely to storm reports, grocery lists and whether you needed to change your oil before the next drive west.
You never let them finish once you realized you hated it, that was the one thing you refused to fake. You pushed them off, sat up and reached for your clothes while they blinked at you in confusion. You told them it wasn’t going to work, sometimes you said it gently and other times you just didn’t bother. Either way, you watched realization settle over them while they sat there flushed and humiliated, their ego bruised worse than their feelings ever were but somehow your harsh words still made them cum…
Needless to say, after a while, you stopped having sex altogether.
You were in your rental house after a long day spent staring at storm data and listening to Javi ramble about whatever breakthrough he thought he’d made this time. It was late, the entire house felt heavy and warm, every light dimmer than usual and lately, you weren’t alone nearly as often as you used to be.
Scott sat at your dining table with your laptop open, shoulders slightly hunched, completely absorbed in columns of numbers and radar models. You’d known him for two years and he’d been your partner for one of them.
People were right about him. He was direct to the point of rudeness, arrogant enough to make most people defensive within five minutes and mean when he thought someone deserved it but unlike most men in your field, Scott had learned how to admit when he was wrong, far from gracefully or happily but still, he did it.
The two of you were impossibly stubborn in almost identical ways, so sharing space with him sometimes felt like being trapped in a room with a sharper version of yourself. Separately, you were both good at what you did but together, you were nearly impossible to beat.
You couldn’t pinpoint when “coworkers” had turned into Scott walking into your house without knocking, helping himself to your fridge and sitting at your table like he paid rent.
“Best orgasm you’ve had during sex?” His voice came from across the room, casual and flat, like he’d asked you about rainfall percentages. He didn’t even look away from the laptop while he said it.
You’d forgotten he was meeting you there before the two of you drove to the bar together, which was why you were still walking around in sleep shorts and a bra, trying to find something decent enough to wear without looking like you’d spent an hour trying.
You took a sip from the beer he’d already pulled out of your fridge and nearly snorted into the bottle. “You think men do that?” you asked as you disappeared into your bedroom.
“To you?” Scott finally looked up. His eyes tracked your movement automatically while he reached for the beer the two of you were apparently sharing now. “I hope so.”
He took a drink as his eyes followed your movement.
You walked back into view holding two dresses on mismatched hangers. “You’re a fucking idiot,” you said plainly. “And maybe a pervert.”
Scott pointed at you immediately. “You’re changing in front of me. I could probably keep count of your bras at this point and I don’t. That actually makes me less of a pervert.”
You disappeared back into your room. He could hear hangers scraping against the closet rod while you searched through clothes with growing irritation.
“Just because it doesn’t make you hard doesn’t make you not a pervert,” you called back, your voice muffled through the wall.
“How do you know I’m not?” he shot back instantly, sounding almost offended by the assumption.
Silence followed but about a minute later, you walked back out wearing a dress he’d never seen before. It was simple, fitted enough to make his eyes stop for a second before continuing downward automatically. You crossed the room toward him, letting your heels drop onto the hardwood before slipping them on one at a time.
“You’re not attracted to me, Scott,” you said flatly.
He looked up slowly then, his eyes dragging over the length of the dress with enough attention to make most people nervous. On you, it just made you impatient.
“You seem awfully confident about that.”
“I am.” You adjusted the strap on your shoulder before glancing toward his laptop screen. “So don’t say shit that makes me sound stupid.”
Scott looked back at the laptop fast enough to make the movement obvious. He pretended to scroll through data he’d stopped reading the second you started undressing in the next room.
“I’m ready,” you said. “Good to go?”
“Need five minutes,” he muttered.
You walked behind him toward the front door, tapping his shoulder as you passed. “The data will still be there tomorrow. C’mon, Scotty.”
The teasing grin in your voice made something in his jaw tighten. You disappeared outside before he could even think of an answer.
Scott closed the laptop harder than necessary and stood, quietly adjusting himself through his jeans with the irritation of a man betrayed by his own body. He shut off the lights one by one and grabbed your keys from the counter before locking the door behind him.
The porch light was off so you couldn’t see the tent in his jeans. Thank fuck for that.
“Scotty was an eight-year-old with chubby cheeks,” he muttered while locking the deadbolt. He glanced over at you waiting by the passenger side of his truck. “It’s Scott.”
“It’s whatever I decide it is,” you replied easily.
He rolled his eyes and walked down the porch steps, unlocking the truck with a sharp click.
“Come open my door.”
“Since when do you need me to do that?” he complained, already circling the hood anyway.
“Since you got comfortable commenting on my bras.”
Scott stopped in front of you to stare before reaching around your waist to pull the handle open. The movement brought him close enough to smell your perfume underneath detergent and beer.
You smiled to yourself while climbing into the passenger seat because for once, Scott didn’t have anything smart to say.
Talking about sex with your coworkers was probably the least professional habit you could develop but professionalism stopped mattering after twelve-hour drives, shared motel rooms, gas station dinners at midnight and enough close calls together to make normal boundaries feel unnecessary. There were barely any women in the field to begin with, which meant the few of you that existed clung together fast and Scott, despite being deeply irritating most of the time, was easier to talk to than most people.
Brutally honest people usually were.
At some point, conversations that started as jokes during long drives turned into real discussions about relationships, sex, exes and every disappointing person either of you had ever slept with. It happened slowly enough neither of you noticed the line moving until it was already somewhere far behind you.
HR would’ve had a heart attack.
That night, you learned Scott Miller did not do good sex. If good sex existed to him at all, it involved two people fully clothed and standing on opposite ends of a room.
The bar was more crowded than you expected, packed wall to wall with storm chasers, meteorologists, researchers and people who somehow always smelled faintly like dust and gasoline no matter how clean they looked. Whenever women in the field found each other, there was an unspoken tendency to group together immediately, so you spent most of the night at the bar talking with another researcher from Oklahoma while music pounded so loud you felt it vibrate through the floor beneath your heels.
Eventually Javi appeared beside you carrying drinks you absolutely weren’t going to refuse. He handed one over before leaning closer, lowering his voice.
“What’s wrong with Scott?”
You blinked at him. The question caught you off guard enough to make your brows pull together immediately because nobody ever asked about Scott. People either tolerated him, argued with him or avoided him entirely. Whatever problem Scott had, he usually fixed it himself before anyone could notice it existed.
Your eyes scanned the crowd automatically until you found him near the back corner of the bar with a soda in his hand. Of course he wasn’t drinking, he stood half-shadowed against the wall looking deeply unimpressed by the concept of social interaction…and staring directly at you.
Your eyes narrowed slightly until Scott finally got the message and looked away first.
You turned back to Javi. “Do you mean tonight or in general?” you asked dryly. “Because I’m pretty sure he was dropped as a child, but you’d have to ask his mother for confirmation.”
Javi frowned harder. “I mean tonight. He looks tense and it’s making me uneasy.”
“It’s Scott. He always looks tense.”
“More than usual.” Javi glanced over his shoulder carefully. “Tell him to relax for once…and to make some friends. That’s literally why we came here.”
You pointed at yourself immediately. “Why am I responsible for that?”
Javi shrugged like the answer was obvious. “Because you speak ‘Scott’ fluently. Translate what I just said into something he’ll actually understand.”
Your gaze dropped to the drink in your hand. “You’re bribing me.”
“And that drink cost me twenty-five dollars,” he replied. “So yes. Go.”
You snorted into the rim of your glass. “Pretty sure stress is what’s making you bald, by the way…not Scott’s burning gaze.”
Javi adjusted his baseball cap defensively. “Just go talk to him.”
You shook your head, already grinning despite yourself and pushed through the crowd toward the back of the bar, which Scott noticed immediately.
The music got louder the closer you got to him, voices bleeding together into useless noise, so instead of trying to shout over it, you reached forward and hooked one finger through the belt loop of his jeans.
“Outside,” you said simply, tugging once as you moved toward the exit.
Scott followed without argument, that alone should’ve concerned you more than it did.
The plan was for him to ask what you wanted once you got outside. Instead, somewhere between the crowded bar and the exit door, he got distracted watching you walk ahead of him. Your dress moved against your hips every few steps, exposing flashes of leg skin under the low bar lights and the muscles in your bare back moved subtly every time you pushed through another cluster of people.
Inevitably, Scott’s eyes dropped lower before he caught himself.
By the time the two of you stepped outside into the cooler night air, he still hadn’t said a word.
You finally let go of his belt loop once the two of you were far enough from the entrance that the music had dulled into muffled bass behind you. You turned to face him properly, folding your arms across your chest as you looked up at him.
“What’s your current issue?” you asked.
“Current?” Scott repeated, brows pulling together.
You nodded once like the question made perfect sense.
“When’s the last time you had sex?”
A startled laugh escaped you before you could stop it. “Excuse me?”
He shrugged carelessly, shoving one hand into the pocket of his jeans. “What? Are you the only one allowed to ask those questions?”
You laughed again, this time shaking your head as you pointed at him. “Yes. Obviously.”
Scott snorted.
“And those are long-drive questions,” you continued, motioning vaguely toward his truck behind you before pointing back toward the crowded bar. “Not ‘parking lot outside a packed bar’ questions.”
“You still need to answer.” He shrugged again. “Those are the rules.”
“Have I ever told you how stupid those rules are?”
“First time I’m hearing complaints since you’re the one who made them,” he replied with a grin.
“You’re insufferable,” you muttered under your breath before taking another sip of your drink.
Scott stayed quiet as he just watched you over the rim of his own soda, patient and expectant in a way that immediately irritated you because he clearly thought he was getting an answer eventually.
“Are you seriously gonna make me answer?”
“I can’t make you do anything,” he said calmly. “But I can wait. I still have to drive you home.”
You looked up toward the entrance of the bar. Through the windows you could still see people packed together under neon lights, laughing too loud, talking over each other about work, storm patterns and equipment failures. You’d already reached the point of the night where conversations started blending together into white noise.
“Can we leave now?” you asked.
Scott didn’t answer verbally. He just pulled his keys from his pocket, unlocked the truck with a click, then held his hand out toward your drink.
“Get in and lock the doors,” he said as he took the glass from you and turned back toward the bar to return it.
“Don’t tell me what to do,” you called after him while walking directly to the passenger side and doing exactly that.
Honestly, you didn’t mind answering the question. The problem was that once you actually thought about it, you realized you weren’t entirely sure how long it had been. It had been long enough that you had to start considering technicalities and long enough that the answer became embarrassing and unfortunately, thinking about sex while sitting alone in Scott’s truck immediately led your brain somewhere unhelpful…
Scott eventually climbed back into the truck and shut the door behind him. He didn’t start driving right away, he just sat there in the dark, one hand resting on the wheel while the dashboard lights cut sharp shadows across his face…waiting, because the thing about car questions was that silence usually came first.
“A year and a half,” you blurted out finally. “Give or take.”
Scott’s head turned toward you so fast it almost looked painful. “No,” he said immediately. “I don’t believe that.”
You laughed in disbelief and looked toward him. “Believe whatever you want, Scott. I answered the fucking question. That’s the game.”
“A year and a half?” he repeated, staring at you like you’d confessed to murder. “What the hell do you even do on weekends?”
“Currently?” you replied dryly. “Sit in your truck while you annoy me.”
“No,” he said, already turning the key in the ignition. “You’re irritated because you’re sexually frustrated.”
You barked out another incredulous laugh.
“And you’ve been sexually frustrated since I met you,” he continued as he shifted the truck into reverse. “Which explains why you piss me off every single fucking day.”
“Excuse you?” You turned toward him fully now, half laughing from sheer disbelief. “First the bra comments and now this? What’s next? Are you gonna set me up with one of your friends so he can fix me?”
“Put your seatbelt on.” The command came out flat and automatic.
You narrowed your eyes at him. “Don’t fucking tell me what to do, Scott. I’m not drunk enough to–”
The words died in your throat the second he reached across you.
His arm slid in front of your chest while the truck reversed smoothly with his other hand still turning the wheel. His forearm brushed against the underside of your breasts accidentally…or maybe not so accidentally and your breath caught hard at the sudden closeness. Scott grabbed the seatbelt beside your shoulder, pulled it across your body in one sharp movement, then clicked it into place at your hip without looking away from the rear window once.
You drove home in complete silence.
No radio or conversation, just the steady sound of tires against asphalt and the occasional flick of the blinker while Scott kept his eyes fixed on the road ahead. You’d heard every version of his voice over the last two years, sarcastic, irritated or sharp enough to make grown men defensive in meetings but hearing him tell you to put your seatbelt on while his arm pressed across your breasts had done something deeply unfortunate to your brain.
This was entirely your fault. You were the one who made sex an acceptable topic between the two of you, you were the one who turned it into a game, into background conversation during long drives and late nights. Somewhere along the way home, your definition of good sex had rewritten itself around that precise moment.
For most people, that probably counted as foreplay, but for you? It counted as a serious fucking problem.
By the time Scott parked outside your house, your thoughts had spiraled so badly that you barely registered the truck stopping. You stayed seated even after he cut the engine, staring forward blankly while the silence settled heavier around you.
Scott got out first without saying anything and walked around the front of the truck toward your side.
The passenger door opened. You looked up just in time to feel him lean in and reach across you again, fingers brushing lightly against the fabric stretched over your waist as he unclipped the seatbelt. The contact lasted maybe a second but that was already too long.
Only then did you finally move. You climbed out quickly, making an effort to keep close to the truck instead of brushing against him, then headed straight for your front door while digging through your purse for your keys even if it was practically empty and somehow that made it worse. You found lip balm…receipts…some loose cash, everything except what you actually needed.
Scott followed behind you quietly.
You still hadn’t found the keys when his arm appeared beside you, reaching around your body with frustrating familiarity. He’d had your keys the entire night, he usually did whenever the two of you went out together because you constantly lost track of them.
The metal clicked softly as he unlocked the door for you.
Your breath stalled as Scott stood so close behind you that you could feel the heat coming off him through the thin fabric of your dress. His chest nearly touched your back, one arm still braced near your shoulder while he turned the lock. It boxed you in completely, your body caught between the door and him and the worst part was that it felt good.
The sharp heat low in your stomach made that painfully obvious.
Good sex, apparently, was standing fully clothed on your own porch while your coworker unlocked your front door…all while standing right behind you.
The lock finally clicked open. You pushed the door open and stepped inside fast to put distance between you before turning back toward him.
Determination sat stiffly in your chest now…You were staying dressed. Whatever this weird tension was had to be alcohol-fueled, temporary, deeply stupid or preferably all three and gone by morning.
Unfortunately, Scott looked unfairly good standing on your porch under weak yellow light.
At some point he’d taken off his cap, you didn’t know when and hadn’t realized until now. Why did he look dreamy!? His hair was messy from running his hands through it all night and the expression on his face had settled back into that unreadable calm that somehow made things worse.
“Night, Scott,” you said quickly, then shut the door directly in his face…very determined to remain dressed.
“Are you gonna set me up with one of your friends so he can fix me?” That sentence replayed in your head later for one humiliating reason: Scott Miller had never been the kind of man to hand off work he could do himself.
You’d been wrong earlier, completely wrong.
Great sex didn’t happen on weekends or after parties or during long-awaited moments with somebody you trusted. Sometimes it happened five minutes after you slammed your front door in a man’s face and tried convincing yourself you still had common sense.
You stayed standing by the door after closing it, palms warm against the wood, waiting to hear his truck start. You expected the familiar sound of the driver’s side door opening, shutting and the low rumble of the engine before he pulled away but nothing happened.
At first you told yourself you were imagining the silence because you were still too aware of him…then a full minute passed…followed by another and then three more.
Five long, miserable minutes where your brain refused to focus on anything except the fact Scott was still outside your house.
You opened the door expecting embarrassment or maybe annoyance, maybe him realizing he forgot something. Instead, he was still standing there in the same position with that same unreadable expression, hands shoved into the pockets of his jeans like you hadn’t just shut the door on him…five minutes ago.
You stared at each other for a second too long.
You never figured out what exactly snapped first. Pride, self-control or curiosity…maybe all of it at once again.
One second he was standing on your porch and the next you were grabbing a fistful of his shirt and pulling him forward hard enough to make him stumble into you as your mouth crashed against his.
The moment the door clicked shut behind you, the fragile determination to stay dressed shattered. You didn't just invite Scott in, you practically hauled him across the threshold, pulling him into a kiss that tasted of alcohol and months of suppressed frustration. It was messy and desperate, a collision of teeth and tongues that left you both breathless.
You stumbled backward, the friction of your bodies fueling a fire that had been simmering for far too long. As you navigated the space, your heels clicked erratically against the floor until you kicked them off with frantic movements, one flying toward the wall and the other sliding away as you backed into the dining area.
You hit the edge of the heavy wooden table and Scott didn't miss a beat. He gripped your waist with bruising force and hoisted you up, the sudden elevation making you gasp into his mouth. He didn't stop kissing you but his path shifted, lips sliding down your jawline to your neck, sucking hard enough to leave a mark. His hands were everywhere, frantic and demanding, sliding up the fabric of your dress and bunching it up around your waist until your thighs were bare and shivering against the cool wood.
You felt his fingers hook into the elastic of your panties, tugging them down with a sharp, decisive motion until you could kick them off, exposing you to the air. As he lowered himself, his mouth found the swell of your breasts through your dress, biting lightly against the fabric on his way down between your legs.
"You don't need to do that," you managed to moan, your voice trembling as he moved your weight, sliding you toward the edge of the table until you were perched precariously, your legs naturally falling open.
"Shut up," Scott muttered against your skin, his voice a low, arrogant growl that sent a jolt of electricity straight to your clit as he finally settled himself firmly between your thighs, the heat of his body radiating against your wetness.
Then, he dipped his head. The first touch of his tongue was a shock of heat, it was wet and precise. He dove right in, tongue licking upward from your perineum to your clit in one long, sweeping stroke. You arched your back as a loud moan escaped you since it had been so long since you’d felt anything this raw, this focused. You were starving for it and Scott was feeding off of you with a primal intensity that blurred everything else out.
He used his hands to grip your hips, pulling you closer to the edge so he could bury his face in you as he kneeled. He began to lap at you with a rhythmic, punishing speed, his tongue flattening out to cover as much surface area as possible before narrowing into a sharp point to flick relentlessly against your clit.
The sensation was overwhelming. You began to squirm, hips jerking instinctively against his mouth as your fingernails clawed at the tabletop. You weren't just enjoying it, you were unraveling.
"Fuck…Scott...please," you whimpered, though you didn't know what you were asking for.
He responded by changing your position. He pushed you flat onto your back on the table, the hard wood pressing into your spine and hauled your legs up, draping them over his broad shoulders. The position left you completely exposed, your pussy flared open and glistening in the dark room.
He didn't stop the oral but added more by sliding two fingers deep inside you, stretching you open while his tongue continued to hammer away at your clit. The combination of the internal pressure and the external friction was too much. You were shaking, breath coming in short, jagged gasps as your feet drummed against his back.
He could tell you were close, encouraging him to increase the pressure, fingers curling inside you to hit your G-spot while his tongue sucked your clit into his mouth, creating a vacuum of pleasure that felt like it was pulling your entire soul out through your cunt.
“Holy s-shit!” Your head thrashed from side to side, a loud, unrestrained scream tearing from your throat as the orgasm hit you like a freight train. It was violent and all-consuming, your internal muscles clamping down hard on his fingers as waves of intense pleasure crashed over you, leaving you whimpering and twitching on the table.
As the peak slowly subsided, Scott didn't pull away immediately. He stayed there, his breath hot against your sensitive skin, slowly lapping the remaining juices from your pussy. He cleaned you thoroughly, his tongue lingering on every inch of your swollen cunt until you were completely spent, lying limp and shivering on the table, finally satisfied.
He straightened slowly from between your legs, chest rising hard with uneven breaths that matched your own. His mouth was swollen and wet when he licked across his lips absentmindedly, eyes fixed on you with an intensity that made heat crawl back under your skin even while your body still twitched from the orgasm.
From your place sprawled across the dining table, you stared up at him in stunned silence. Your thighs were still trembling now against his sides and you were almost certain your expression looked ridiculous, wide-eyed and dazed in a way you hadn’t allowed yourself to look around another person in years.
Scott held a hand out toward you and you took it automatically.
He helped you sit up first before guiding you carefully off the table, one hand steady on your waist while your legs struggled to cooperate beneath you. The second your feet touched the floor, your knees nearly gave out entirely.
Scott wiped his mouth with his palm. “Goodnight,” he said and the gentleness of it caught you off guard more than anything else that night had.
His hand slipped away from your waist and the two of you just stood there for a second, staring at each other while trying and failing to breathe normally again.
Then Scott turned and walked toward the front door.
You stayed frozen in place while he opened it and left your house without another word. A few seconds later you finally heard the sounds you’d been waiting for earlier, the truck door opening, shutting and the engine starting before he drove off into the night.
You tried walking toward your bedroom afterward and immediately realized your legs barely worked. You ended up half stumbling down the hallway, one hand dragging along the wall for balance because your entire lower body still felt weak and oversensitive.
Great sex…that had been unbelievably, painfully great sex.
You thought about it constantly afterward. In the shower, during calls and meetings, while sitting in traffic or lying awake at night staring at the ceiling with your thighs pressed together. You didn’t mention it to your friends or talked to Scott about it, even during the long stretches of silence that filled the truck during drives. The two of you understood what happened without discussing it directly, you’d crossed a line and both of you seemed aware that talking about it too much would probably drag you over it again.
The following mornings, you waited for him outside on your porch instead of letting him walk into your house like usual. Mostly because you’d spent the entire week masturbating to the memory of him between your legs on your dining table before getting ready for the day and you didn’t trust yourself to survive seeing him inside your kitchen before sunrise.
For one solid week, you slept perfectly. No insomnia or late-night work spirals, no pacing around rooms or answering emails at one in the morning just to keep your brain occupied. Whatever tension usually sat under your skin had disappeared completely and now it sat between you both instead.
Every drive felt heavier, the silence stretched longer and every sharp inhale from him made your stomach tighten unexpectedly until eventually you got sick of pretending neither of you noticed it.
“We don’t have to talk about it,” you interrupted suddenly.
Scott glanced toward you briefly, eyes leaving the road for barely a second before returning forward. “Do you want to?” he asked.
“I don’t,” you admitted. “I feel like you do though.”
“You’re right.”
You snorted quietly and looked back down at the laptop balanced across your knees.
“I thought you liked being right.” Scott added.
“Fucking love it,” you replied automatically before grimacing. “Usually.”
Silence settled again until you broke it. “Okay,” you sighed eventually. “Maybe one thing.” You turned to him properly this time. “I wasn’t that drunk that night. Actually, I wasn’t drunk at all. I had that one beer before we left my place and the rest were mocktails.”
Scott turned his head enough to study your face for a second. “I wouldn’t have touched you if you were drunk,” he said flatly. “I’m an asshole, not fucking stupid.”
You leaned back against the seat slowly. “Even that’s changed.”
His brows furrowed. “What does that mean?”
“The coffee for starters,” you said. “The lunches, too. You stopped buying disgusting gas station sandwiches and now we actually eat dinner out like normal people.” You gestured vaguely toward him. “You used to hand me coffee with five sugar packets on the side because you couldn’t remember how I took it. Now it’s magically perfect every fucking morning.”
Scott adjusted his grip on the steering wheel.
“I thought eating around other people would make this less weird,” he admitted. “And I got tired of sugar packets all over my truck.”
“Our truck,” you corrected automatically before pointing at him accusingly. “And nothing about this is normal, Scott! You ate me out on my dining table!”
“Stop yelling at me.” His tone stayed frustratingly calm.
“Why?” you shot back. “Is it making you hard?”
Scott shifted in his seat hard enough that you noticed instantly. Both his hands locked tighter around the steering wheel while he stared straight ahead at the road. The tension in his jaw became visible because unfortunately for him, you weren’t wrong.
The last week had changed things. You looked less exhausted and less tightly wound. You hadn’t snapped at him once during work and he hadn’t gotten a single unhinged one a.m. email from you all week because for the first time since he’d met you, you were actually sleeping.
“So when are we doing it again?” he asked finally, against every ounce of common sense he had left.
NEVER…that should’ve been the answer. It was the logical answer, the responsible one, the answer two coworkers with already questionable boundaries should’ve landed on immediately.
It just wasn’t the truth.
You had always maintained that getting fucked couldn’t happen in motel rooms. It didn't matter how good the sex was, the second cheap carpet, bad lighting and a rattling air conditioner got involved, the whole thing dropped several levels automatically.
Motel sex could be great, sometimes even memorable but it couldn’t be that, so the next time it happened definitely wasn’t in a motel room.
The weather that day had turned bad enough to keep everyone grounded but not dangerous enough to send your team chasing storms through three different counties. There was heavy rain, low visibility and too much lightning for comfort but not enough rotation to justify going out.
At some point, without either of you actually saying it outright, waiting the storm out in Scott’s apartment became the plan instead of sitting cramped inside the truck for hours pretending the tension between you didn’t exist.
You still couldn’t pinpoint who made the first move once the elevator doors closed behind you.
One second you were standing beside him soaked at the edges from the rain, listening to distant thunder through the concrete parking garage and the next, Scott’s hand was inside your pants like it belonged there.
You gasped hard into his mouth as his fingers slid against you immediately, already somewhat familiar with exactly what made your hips jerk forward. The kiss that came after barely counted as one, it was messy and distracted, interrupted constantly by your breathing and the quiet sounds you kept failing to swallow down.
The elevator ride lasted less than a minute but by the time the doors opened onto his floor, your orgasm was already hitting you in sharp waves around his fingers while your forehead pressed against his shoulder to keep yourself standing.
If you weren’t already fucked, you were about to be.
You’d been inside Scott’s apartment before. A handful of times after late nights working or when weather reports needed reviewing somewhere quieter than a crowded diner. You remembered the big windows first, stretching across the living room area with a full view of the skyline in the distance. Tonight they framed heavy gray clouds and rain pouring so hard that it blurred the city lights into smears of white and yellow.
Scott barely gave you time to look around because the second the apartment door shut behind you, his hands were on you again. He walked you toward the living room with rough impatience, pulling your pants down from behind while you stumbled against the edge of an armchair. Your underwear followed immediately after, dragged down together in one quick motion before pooling around your ankles.
The air in Scott’s apartment was heavy, charged with the static of the storm raging outside. The gray light of the overcast sky filtered through the windows but the atmosphere inside was scorching.
"Kneel," he commanded as he pointed toward the armchair, his voice a low, authoritative rumble.
You didn't hesitate. The tension that had been building between you for weeks, the unspoken glances and lingering touches, had finally snapped. You sank to your knees on the plush seat, your heart hammering against your ribs. You leaned forward, gripping the headrest with both hands, body already trembling in anticipation. You were completely exposed to him, your ass tilted back and waiting.
Scott disappeared for a moment, leaving you in a silence broken only by the distant roll of thunder. When he returned, the sound of a foil packet tearing echoed in the room. You heard the metallic click of his belt unbuckling and the slide of a zipper.
The anticipation was agonizing. You heard him roll the condom on, followed by the wet sound of him spitting on the head of his cock to make the entry smoother.
He stepped up behind you, heat radiating against your backside. He lined himself up and then, with one powerful, decisive surge, he thrust deep inside you.
You let out a sharp, strangled whine, your fingers digging into the fabric of the headrest. It had been so long since you’d felt a man inside you and Scott was massive. The initial stretch was borderline painful, a blunt force that filled every millimeter of your tight, starving pussy. You blinked rapidly, tears pricking your eyes as your body struggled to accommodate his size, your breath hitching in your throat.
Scott didn't give you time to adjust. He reached forward, his large hands clamping onto your hips with bruising force and yanked you backward, pulling you deeper onto his cock until there was no space left between you.
"I wanna see you," you moaned, your voice broken and desperate, trying to twist your torso around to look at him.
He didn't let you. Instead, he leaned in and sank his teeth into the skin of your shoulder, a sharp bite that made you moan despite your best efforts. His hand moved from your hip to your jaw, gripping it firmly to keep your head pinned forward.
"Just focus," he rasped calmly against your skin, the contrast of his steady voice and his firm grip sending a shiver of submission down your spine.
He let go of your jaw and began to thrust. He didn't start slowly, he hit you with a rhythmic, punishing intensity. The apartment was suddenly filled with the sound of your sudden, loud moans and frantic curses. You collapsed forward, your chest pressed against the headrest, your body jarring with every hit.
As he hammered into you, Scott reached around, his hands finding your breasts. He didn't bother undressing you further, he grabbed your boobs firmly over your clothes, squeezing and kneading them with a rough, possessive grip that matched the violence of his hips.
"I'm gonna fuck you on every surface of this apartment," he growled. "You'll be seeing a lot of me."
The sex quickly became raw and primal and so, so fucking good. The sound of skin slapping against skin, mixed with the wet, rhythmic thud of his pelvis hitting your ass filled the room, competing with the roar of the thunder outside. Every thrust shook your entire frame, quaking your body from your head to your toes. You were whimpering loudly now, the pain of the initial stretch having completely melted into an overwhelming, white-hot pleasure you never thought you could feel.
Your eyes watered, staring out into the distance of the room, the world blurring as the friction built. It was fast, harsh and so perfect that you found yourself wanting to bite the armchair, your teeth sinking into the fabric as your back arched violently. You were unraveling, the long period of abstinence making you hypersensitive to every inch of him.
"I'm right there, keep going! Scott, please! Don’t fuckin’ stop." you whined, voice echoing through the apartment.
He didn't, he instead increased the pace, his thrusts becoming shorter and more frantic, drilling into you with an obsession that felt like he wanted to merge his body with yours. The thunder peaked with a deafening crash that seemed to trigger something inside you.
Suddenly, your internal muscles spasmed. A wave of heat exploded from your core and you felt a sudden, uncontrollable gush of fluid. You were squirting, something that had never happened to you before, the hot spray soaking the armchair and your own thighs. You began to shake uncontrollably, your legs giving out as you sobbed out of pure pleasure into the headrest.
Scott let out a guttural groan, the feeling of you flooding around him driving him over the edge. He loved it, hell, he was obsessed with the way you were falling apart under him. He kept going, ignoring your tremors, continuously driving himself into you as you peaked into a mind-blowing, screaming orgasm that left you completely breathless.
With a final, deep thrust, he groaned loudly, coming hard into the condom.
The momentum stopped abruptly. He stayed buried inside you for a long moment, both of you frozen, chests heaving in unison.
Slowly, he withdrew, the wet sound of his exit punctuating the silence with an obscene pop.
You both watch the rain lash against the glass, the gray light illuminating the wreckage of your passion. You took a long, shuddering breath, body still twitching from the aftershocks as your pussy twitched around nothing, back arching further needily, earning a smack from him.
"Holy fuck," you both breathed simultaneously, the weight of the encounter settling over you in the heavy, humid air.
There was no going back after that day. Not to abstinence, not to disappointing hookups or to pretending sex was something casual and forgettable that fit neatly between work schedules and storm reports.
Once Scott got his hands on you, everything else lost appeal embarrassingly fast.
What started as isolated incidents quickly turned into a pattern neither of you seriously attempted to stop. It was a terrible idea professionally, obviously, but somehow the two of you functioned better afterward. Meetings became easier, long drives felt lighter and you argued less viciously because the tension always had somewhere to go now instead of festering under your skin for weeks.
You started going home together most nights under the excuse of saving gas money. Then showering together afterward became another practical decision because apparently water bills mattered too now. Somewhere between shared coffee in the mornings and him keeping spare clothes for you at his apartment, things moved quietly into something neither of you had planned for and the worst part was that it worked.
The sex stayed incredible. Sometimes rough enough to leave hickeys along your skin and fingerprints fading across your thighs and hips by morning, or other times slow enough that you ended up tangled together for hours afterward while thunderstorms rolled outside the windows. Every now and then he fucked you hard enough to leave you shaking afterward, staring blankly at the ceiling while he stood in the kitchen making you food like that was a normal sequence of events but eventually you realized it wasn’t just about that anymore.
You started having actual dates without calling them dates, it was dinner after work that lasted until restaurants closed around you. You went grocery shopping together because both of you were too exhausted to go separately and you began falling asleep on opposite ends of his couch while weather models played quietly on television screens neither of you were really watching.
Off-season made it worse.
Without constant travel, motel rooms and adrenaline keeping you both distracted, there was finally time to explore whatever this thing between you had become. You drifted naturally between your house and his apartment depending on whose place seemed closer to the office that day. Half your belongings somehow ended up at his place and vice versa. You texted each other constantly during meetings despite sitting twenty feet apart, phones hidden beneath desks while coworkers talked around you.
Scott started bringing your coffee to your desk already made exactly how you liked it before you even decided you needed one. You started buying his preferred cereal without asking if he wanted any. He slept better with you in his bed and you stopped grinding your teeth in your sleep when he stayed over.
So naturally, being made love to finally happened exactly the way you once thought it would and it wasn’t some exaggerated version of romance men convinced themselves they were capable of after two drinks and mediocre conversation.
It sort of snuck up on you. It was Scott pulling you into his lap while both of you were exhausted after work, kissing your shoulder absentmindedly while you read through data on his laptop. It was him waking you up slowly on Sunday mornings with his hand sliding under your shirt and nowhere either of you needed to be. It was sex that lasted forever because he knew your body well enough to take his time with it, knew exactly what made you gasp, what made your legs tense and what made you hide your face against his neck when the pleasure became too much.
He paid attention and it made all of the difference. Scott learned your body like he learned storm patterns, thoroughly and obsessively, until touching you became instinct to him and it showed…
The morning light filtered through the curtains of your bedroom in soft, golden slats, painting the sheets in hues of amber and cream. The house was silent, save for the rhythmic sound of your shared breathing and the distant chirp of birds welcoming the dawn. You were tangled together, skin on skin, the warmth of the duvet trapping the heat of your bodies in a private, humid cocoon.
There was no rush, no storm to outrun and no urgency born of desperation. There was only the heavy, sweet weight of Scott pressing you into the mattress. You were both fully naked, your limbs entwined in a lazy, possessive knot.
Scott began slowly, his lips tracing a path of fire across your collarbone. He wasn't just kissing you, he was tasting you, tongue swirling against your skin in slow circles that made you shiver. He moved lower, mouth finding the sensitive curve of your breast as you let out a soft, airy moan. He took your nipple into his mouth, sucking firmly while his thumb and forefinger pinched the other peak, twisting it just enough to send a jolt of electricity straight to your core.
You arched your back, your fingers sliding into the thick hair at the nape of his neck, pulling him closer. The friction of his chest against your breasts was intoxicating, the rough hair of his torso grazing your sensitive skin.
He shifted, sliding his body up so he could look into your eyes. His gaze was dark, filled with an intensity that felt more overwhelming than any of the rougher encounters you'd had. He didn't move to flip you or push you into a different position, instead, he settled between your thighs in a classic missionary stance and pushed inside. There was no latex barrier this time, no clinical snap of a condom. It was raw, wet and absolute.
The sensation of his bare skin sliding against yours was a revelation. You gasped, your eyes fluttering shut as you felt the full, throbbing heat of him filling you completely. It felt different, more intimate and permanent. The lack of a barrier made every ridge of his cock feel amplified, every pulse of his blood echoing against your own internal walls.
He didn't start with the punishing pace of the past. Instead, he began to rock, his movements slow and agonizingly deep. He pressed his palm flat against your stomach, pushing down firmly to tilt your pelvis, ensuring that every thrust hit the deepest part of you.
"Gripping me like a fucking vise…so perfect." he groaned, his voice a gravelly morning rumble that vibrated through your chest.
You wrapped your legs around his waist, locking your ankles to pull him even deeper. You were lost in the rhythm, the slow, sliding friction creating a build-up of tension that felt like a tightening coil in your belly. You ran your hands through his hair, your nails lightly scratching his scalp as you moaned into the first rays of the morning sun.
The intimacy was suffocating in the best way possible. As he continued to rock, his movements grew slightly more urgent, the slow glide turning into a passionate, driving force. He leaned down, his lips brushing against yours, tasting the salt and sweetness of your skin while he continued to pinch and tease your nipples, hand roaming your curves with a familiarity that spoke of a deep, obsessive knowledge of your body.
It didn’t take long for your breath to become shallow, chest heaving as the pleasure began to peak. You could feel the walls of your pussy clenching around him, milking him with every deep stroke. Your body tensed, toes curling into the sheets as a wave of heat crashed over you. You cried out, a long, melodic sound of surrender, as your orgasm ripped through you in slow, pulsing waves that left you shaking beneath him.
Scott didn’t slow his pace as his forehead rested against yours, both of you breathing heavily. He continued moving, the intimacy of the connection almost too much to bear.
"Want to be done?" he whispered, his voice strained, muscles trembling with the effort of holding back.
You looked up at him, eyes hazy with pleasure and affection. The thought of him pulling away felt wrong because you wanted everything. You wanted the weight, the heat and the mark of him.
You shook your head with an escaped whimper, pulling his face down to yours. "Don’t you dare pull out…’want you to come inside." You breathed.
The request broke the last of his restraint. Scott let out a guttural sound, a mix of a groan and a sob and began to drive into you with a renewed, primal intensity. It was a desperate, loving hunger. He hammered into you, movements strong and deep, each thrust a claim and a promise.
As he reached his limit, his grip on your hip tightened, fingers digging into your skin. He thrust one last time, burying himself as deep as physically possible and you felt the hot, thick bursts of his cum flooding into you. The sensation of him filling you from the inside out was the most intense feeling you had ever experienced, a physical manifestation of the bond that had grown between you.
In the height of his release, as his body shuddered violently against yours, he gasped out the words he had been holding back.
"I love you," he choked out, the confession raw and unplanned.
The world seemed to stop for a heartbeat. You felt a surge of emotion that rivaled the intensity of the orgasm, a warmth that started in your chest and radiated to your fingertips. You tightened your hold on him, pulling him down for a deep, searing kiss.
"I love you too," you whispered against his lips.
He collapsed onto you, heart drumming a frantic rhythm against your own, both of you spent and glowing in the morning light, finally and completely entwined.
A few years ago, you would’ve hated the idea that Scott Miller of all people would end up teaching you everything worth knowing about sex. It would’ve bruised your ego badly, especially considering how seriously you once took those stupid categories and scales in your head before Scott showed up and ruined all of them completely.
Good sex stopped mattering.
Great sex became expected.
Getting fucked became routine enough that you lost count somewhere along the line, usually around the third orgasm of the day and definitely before he started dragging you into his lap halfway through work calls just because he felt like bothering you…with his hands and dick.
But somehow, even after all the rough sex and ruined schedules, Scott still managed to make love to you exactly the way you once imagined it should feel.
So if somebody offered you the chance to go back and do it all over again, you would without hesitation.
You were an absolute HR nightmare now and what a fucking delight that was!
A/N: If you enjoyed this story, feel free to explore the archive for more! Liking and reblogging helps others discover my writing and comments always make my day, they’re a huge encouragement for me to keep creating. Thank you so much for reading!
Look at him just chewing the FAWK out of that gum 😭 (wait chew me next)
content warnings: illusions to sex; mentions (only mentions) of period sex; mentions of alcohol consumption; dean di fricken laurentis
You remember the first time Dean approached you with his charming smile and half-lidded eyes that watched you from across the room long before he introduced himself.
You remember that your heart picked up its pace in a way you wrote off as adrenaline. You remember the way your name rolled off your tongue like he’d known you forever. You even remembered that feeling of electric when he leaned in close, brushed his lips against the pulse of your neck and offered you a bedroom upstairs.
Most of all, however, you remembered the unspoken rule that enforced itself the moment he took your hand and led you upstairs to his room: Nothing serious.
So long as Dean Di Laurentis was a student at Briar U, no one had known for him to be the commitment type, not even to his flings.
He kept them on rotation, never the same girl in one week and rarely ever letting anyone sleep over. If push came to shove, he’d offer a very comfortable place on the couch.
The invisible law flashed through your head with neon lights, even as your back came flush against his mattress and he looked down from over you with burning lust in his eyes.
You became good at upholding this law—making sure to see yourself out before the night settled in fully, keeping the flirting between the parties and the bedroom, keeping everything the two of you did restrained to sex and hookups only.
It was like a contract you signed as his lips slanted against yours in messy fervor. You had every intent to keep your end of the agreement.
In truth, it was Dean that broke away from the so-called ‘invisible law’.
It all started small. Short conversations that slowly extended themselves between heavy breaths and tangled sheets. He’d try to talk and you’d try to get dressed until eventually he was begging you to stay another hour.
“No round two,” he’d bargain. “Unless you’re up for it.”
Longer nights led to early mornings eating breakfast at the table as you came to realize how different the hockey house felt when it wasn’t packed to the brim with drinks and people.
Months went by and slowly the texts felt less casual, less sexual. He was no longer flirting with you but confiding in you.
You weren’t stupid, you could sense the shift the moment his arms wrapped around you, begging you to stay just a while longer.
But you also knew a dumber person would accept it as it was; accept the delusional idea that you were suddenly the ‘something different’ that made Dean Di Laurentis want to commit.
Where you put your foot down was the pesky week per month where you refused to see the boy. Even if it meant ignoring your phone as he send you message after message, call after call.
“I’ll bite,” your roommate Miley finally spoke up, breaking the silence between the movie the two of you shared. “What’s this thing going on between you and Dean.”
You didn’t pause the movie, nor did you look away from it. You only casted her the shortest of glances before fixing your attention back to it. “What do you mean?”
You could feel the weight of the couch shift under you as the girl moved so that she was facing you with utmost curiosity. “I mean you and Dean have been seeing each other for nearly a year now. What’s going on with that?”
She received only a side eye. “The same thing as always Miley. And we’re not seeing each other…he just—,”
“Asks for you every day this week?”
That took your attention. Internally, your heart jumped and paced quicker than before. Externally however you simply let out an exasperated sigh and paused the movie, turning to the girl.
“Out with it.”
You watched as a giddy smile stretched across her lips, repeating the same words as before. “He asked me about you. When I was at Malone’s last night.”
“Did he now?”
“Yup,” she replied, popping the p in a matter-of-fact way. “And in class, in the dining hall, at that party I went to—”
“Miley.”
Your voice was flat and plain as you interrupted her, masking everything else that worked underneath the surface.
She looked up at you with eyes wide at attention. “Yeah?”
“I get it.”
“Doesn’t feel like you do if you’re ignoring him.”
You rolled your eyes, clearly not as amused as Miley was. Clearly not as amused as you were letting on. “I’m not ignoring him, I’m just…busy.”
The girl simply hummed and nodded. “Uh huh…if you say so.”
You were good at dodging people if you needed it. Some called it avoidance, you called it self-perseverance.
If there was a conversation that “needed” to happen then you saw no reason in having it when you weren’t ready.
However, you also found that Dean was exceptionally good at finding people, especially if they didn’t want to be found.
You went to the bar with only the intention of getting drunk with Miley and going home, but Dean seemed to love to pin you down in all ways intended.
“Your roommate told me you’d be here.”
He slid into the bar stool next to yours rather smoothly, his elbows resting against the bar top with his sleeves pulled down to his crook. You didn’t even have to look at him to know that he was shining that charming smile you knew and secretly missed.
Your eyes slid over to him slowly, a smugness hidden in your smile. “Dean.”
Dramatically, he placed a hand over his heart. “You say that like you don’t miss me.”
“I say that like I’m busy, Dean.”
His eyes dragged slowly across you, drinking you in before finally falling back on your face. If he could hear the way your heart pounded in your chest, you were sure he’d have an ego trip to last him to graduation.
“You don’t look busy to me.”
In a swift movement, he reached for your stool and dragged it to him so that you had no choice but to breathe in the smell of his cologne as his breath kissed the skin of your ear. “I miss you, baby. Come home with me.”
In your deepest desires you’d pull him in right then and there, press your lips against his and thread your fingers through his hair.
But you knew what he wanted.
You placed your hand on his chest, pushing him away with a knowing smile. “Dean.”
From underneath your palm you could feel the vibrating resonating from his chest. Not a growl or a grumble, but something resembling more pathetic you couldn’t put the words.
However, it did make you smile.
“You’re killing me.”
“I’m sure you’ve got an entire line up of gorgeous women to keep you company.”
He hummed, leaning in closer to you and only stopping where your palm touched the center of his chest. “I don’t want them…I want you.”
Your smile rose then fell before trailing your hand down until it fell at your side. “Better luck next week, Di Laurentis.”
Then, for the first time that night, pure confusion crossed his face as his brows dipped down low. “What does that mean?”
A scoff of a smile slipped out from your lips before stepping down from your stool. “Good night Dean.”
You walked away from him, following the path Miley took outside, likely assuming you to be going home with Dean.
However, you only got a few fleeting moments of cool air before the sound of Dean’s voice reached your ears again.
“Slow down, Christ!”
You swiveled around, seeing him standing on the sidewalk of the bar and slightly out of breath. “Okay, maybe I’m stupid but what do you mean next week.”
You squinted at him for a moment, throwing your hands on your hips. “What?”
“Every month,” breathed, vapor forming ahead of him like smoke as he stepped down and closer to you. “Once a week, every month you disappear like clockwork. It drives me crazy.”
You weren’t sure to be painfully amused or steadily annoyed as he stepped closer and closer to you.
“I thought private school boys have higher education or something.”
Dean seemed to mimic you, throwing his hands on his hips as he shrugged. “Enlighten me.”
You took a step closer to him, closing in the space from five feet to four. “Well, when a person with a uterus isn’t pregnant and isn’t on the pill, once a month they will bleed out from their v—,”
“I know what a period is. That still doesn’t connect any dots for me as to why you’re avoiding me right now and every other month.”
Your face fell into some sort of deadpan. For a moment you debated walking away, not having the patience for this conversation before giving up beating around the bush. “I’m not having sex with you on my period Dean.”
And just like before, he was struck silent as his brows dug low. “Is that what this is about?”
“What else would it be?” You shrugged as if it was obvious before turning back away from him. “I’m sorry I’m not of use to you now but—”
The feeling of a warm hand folding over your wrist stopped you short.
“Hey, hey. Can you just talk to me? Please? No riddles, no sarcasm, just talk to me.”
You stared at him. Hard. Searching for the gotcha-moment in his eyes but…you found nothing. Just desperation. You released a sigh. “Fine.”
It was silent for a moment, nothing but you and him as you waited for his words, watching him as he pieced them together slowly.
“You think I’ve been chasing you down all week just because you’re of use to me?”
You only nodded. “Isn’t that what a ‘no strings attached’ hook up typically entails?”
“Yes, but…” he paused, looking you in your eyes. “That’s not what I want.”
Your brows flinched down, heart stuttering as you measured your words cautiously. “Then what do you want, Dean?”
“I want you. I want…us. With all the strings and shit attached.”
“…but Dean Di Laurentis,” you said his name with an air of bravado, “doesn’t do relationships.”
“I didn’t.” You saw as he swallowed thickly. You could even feel as his hand twitched around your wrist, wanting to pull you closer before ultimately letting it drop to your side. “But you changed that for me.”
You looked at him in mild disbelief, sure that maybe you were just dreaming. “There’s no gotcha here,” you questioned. “No ‘buts’?”
Dean shook his head, stepping closer to you so the two feet of spaced closed to nearly nothing. He drew his hands up to you, cupping either side of your face until they touched the nape of your neck and his thumbs brushed over your cheek.
“No ‘if, ad's, or buts’. I want you and I want you to come home with me tonight. No sex required. Just. You.”
Your smile, as good as you were at hiding and disguising it, spread wide against your cheeks as he held you. Like an instinct, you let your hands fall to the fabric of his sweater, holding him close.
Your breath mixed in with his as you neared his lips, only slowing to utter the words : “Are you saying I managed to tame the Dean Di Laurentis.”
“Just kiss me already,” he grinned before finally pulling you in and slotting his lips against yours.
It was nothing like his usual kisses—rough, hurried, cocky. This was slow and desperate, drinking you in and reveling in the fact that you were his with all of the strings attached.
@whothehellismack @sleepiscrazy
omgg i've been waiting for this one!! literally bouncing in my seat as i write this
Summary: you don’t tell him your last name. By the time Dean finds out, he’s too far gone to do anything but brace for impact. Falling for the ice-cold, vodka-drinking Russian freshman is one thing. Falling for Ilya Rozanov’s little sister is a death wish. Dean decides he doesn’t care
Warning: 18+ content
Read part two here
The 2000s hits blasting from the speakers are so loud they rattle the floorboards, but Dean is undeniably bored.
He leans against the doorframe of the living room, a red Solo cup dangling loosely from his fingers. The party is packed, a sweaty sea of grinding bodies, spilled beer, and bad decisions, but it’s the exact same crowd as last weekend. And the weekend before that. Dean is a guy who thrives on variety, and lately, the scenery is getting repetitive. Money is no object, and usually, neither are women. He rarely spends a night alone. But tonight? Nothing is catching his eye.
“You look miserable,” Garrett remarks, bumping Dean’s shoulder as he passes by with a fresh keg of beer.
“I’m not miserable,” Dean corrects him smoothly. “I’m uninspired.”
Logan snorts from his spot on the ratty couch. “Uninspired? You literally took twins home on Tuesday.”
“That was Tuesday, Logan. It’s Friday. I’m a growing boy. I need fresh stimulation.” Dean sighs, pushing off the doorframe. “I’m going to the kitchen to find something stronger than this watered-down piss.”
“Good luck,” Tucker calls out over the music. “I think the football team raided the liquor cabinet an hour ago.”
Dean navigates the crowded hallway with the effortless grace of a guy who owns the place. He dodges a couple making out against the thermostat and sidesteps a puddle of questionable origin. As he rounds the corner into the kitchen, the noise level shifts. It’s less thumping bass and more rowdy, escalating shouts.
A crowd is gathered around the center island. Specifically, a crowd of massive, tank-like senior football players. And right in the middle of them is you.
Dean stops dead in his tracks.
You are perched on one of the barstools, looking entirely out of place and yet completely in control. Your hair falls over your shoulders in messy waves, and you’re wearing a cropped leather jacket over a tight top that leaves exactly the right amount to the imagination. But it isn’t just the way you look — though you are undeniably, breathtakingly stunning. It’s the way you’re holding court.
“You are slowing down, big guy,” you say, your voice carrying over the chanting. It’s smooth, slightly raspy, and laced with a heavy, unmistakable Russian accent.
You push a brimming shot glass of clear liquid toward a guy Dean recognizes as Meathead Mike, a defensive lineman who weighs close to three hundred pounds.
“I’m not slowing down,” Mike grunts, looking slightly green around the gills. “I’m pacing myself.”
“Pacing,” you repeat, a smirk playing on your lips. It’s a wicked, self-assured smirk. You pick up your own shot glass. “In Moscow, pacing is for the weak. We drink, or we go home to sleep. Which one are you doing, Mishka?”
Dean is instantly fascinated.
“I’m drinking,” Mike growls, snatching the glass.
You tap your glass against his. “Na zdarovye.”
You toss the vodka back effortlessly, not even a flinch crossing your features. You set the glass down with a sharp clack against the granite. Mike follows suit, but he gags halfway down, coughing violently into his elbow. His buddies groan and slap his back.
“Alright, alright, he’s done,” one of the other linebackers laughs. “Jesus, girl. What are you made of?”
“Mostly spite,” you reply, your face deadpan, though your eyes gleam with amusement.
You glance over your shoulder at a blonde girl standing nervously by the fridge. Your roommate, Morgan, the quintessential all-American girl next door whom you dragged here because you were bored.
“Morgan,” you say, snapping your fingers lightly. “Pass the bottle. I think the offense wants a turn.”
Morgan looks terrified. “Um, I think maybe we should stop? That’s, like, a lot of vodka.”
“It is barely a warm-up,” you insist, reaching over to grab the handle of Smirnoff yourself. You look at the bottle with a mix of pity and disgust.
Dean watches you, completely captivated. He knows the type of girls who hang around Briar parties. They giggle, they flirt, they bat their eyelashes at the hockey players. You are doing none of that. You look like you could buy and sell everyone in this room, and honestly? You probably could.
Six years younger than Ilya Rozanov, the infamous, cocky Boston Bruins center, you are practically a miniature version of him. Ilya brought you to the United States the second you turned eighteen, pulling you out of Moscow and away from your emotionally abusive father and older brother. He bought you a luxury apartment just off the Briar campus, filled your bank account, and told you to get an education — mostly because, in Ilya’s words, “hockey players are dumb, and we need at least one brain in the family.” Ilya spoils you rotten and guards you like a dragon hoarding gold. But right now, nobody in this kitchen knows that.
Dean takes a step forward, sliding into the gap left by one of the retreating football players.
“I don’t think you should waste your time with the offense,” Dean says, leaning his hip against the counter right next to you. He flashes you his trademark, million-dollar smile — the one that usually has girls melting into puddles. “They drop the ball when it counts.”
You pause, the vodka bottle hovering over a glass. You turn your head slowly, raking your eyes up and down Dean’s frame. You take in his messy blond hair, his sharp jawline, the casual but expensive fit of his casual sweater.
Your expression doesn’t change. You don’t melt. You don’t even blink.
“And who are you?” You ask, your tone bordering on bored. “The waterboy?”
A few of the remaining football players snicker. Dean’s eyebrows shoot up. Okay. Not the usual reaction.
“Dean Di Laurentis,” he says, offering his hand. “I live here. Play hockey.”
You look at his hand, then back up to his face. You don’t shake it. “Congratulations on paying rent, Dean Di Laurentis. But as you can see, I am busy.”
Dean lets his hand drop, entirely unbothered. The chase is the best part, and you just handed him a massive head start.
“Busy giving the entire offensive line alcohol poisoning,” Dean notes, glancing at the bottle. “You know, that’s cheap shit. It’ll eat straight through your stomach lining.”
You snort, pouring yourself another shot anyway. “Please. I am Russian. This,” you tap the bottle of Smirnoff, “is practically flavored water.”
“A Russian,” Dean says, stepping a fraction closer. “That explains the accent. What brings you to a sweaty college basement in Massachusetts? Boston isn’t exactly Moscow.”
“Thank God for that,” you mutter under your breath. You pick up the shot glass, twirling it between your fingers. “I go to school here. First semester. Which means I am currently trying to enjoy a party, but people keep talking to me instead of drinking.”
Dean laughs, a genuine, startled sound. “You’re a freshman? Could’ve fooled me. You’re holding court like a senior.”
“Age is a number,” you say dismissively. “Maturity is knowing when a man is trying to hit on you with terrible opening lines.”
“Terrible?” Dean clutches his chest in mock offense. “Ouch. I’ll have you know my opening lines have a very high success rate.”
“Then the women here have very low standards.” You toss the shot back. Again, no chaser. No wince.
Dean shakes his head in amazement. “Okay, color me impressed. You’re completely unbothered by that.”
“I am unbothered by most things,” you reply. You slide off the barstool, landing lightly on your feet. You’re a few inches shorter than Dean, but the way you hold yourself makes you seem taller. You have this undeniable, gravitational pull.
You turn to your roommate. “Morgan. Are we having fun yet, or do you want to go?”
Morgan jumps, startled to be addressed. “Um! I’m having fun! But, uh, maybe no more shots?”
“Fine. No more shots.” You look back at Dean. “See? I am very compromising. A delight to be around.”
“I can tell,” Dean says, his eyes tracking the movement of your mouth. “But you know, you never told me your name.”
“I did not,” you agree.
Dean waits a beat. “Are you going to?”
“No.”
Dean laughs again. He loves this. He is completely, hopelessly intrigued. You are stunning, sharp-tongued, and just the right amount of a bitch. It’s a breath of fresh air. “Come on. Give me something. A fake name? A nickname?”
“You can call me when you have better vodka,” you deadpan. You step around him, your shoulder brushing lightly against his chest. The contact sends a sudden, sharp jolt of electricity straight down Dean’s spine.
“Hey, wait,” Dean says, turning to follow you as you start walking toward the living room. “At least tell me what you’re studying. Let me guess. Business? Political science?”
You don’t stop walking, but you glance back over your shoulder, a patronizing smile on your lips. “Do I look like I want to wear a pantsuit and argue in a boardroom?”
“You look like you’d win every argument,” Dean fires back effortlessly.
“Obviously. But I don’t need a degree for that.” You weave through the crowd with expert precision.
Dean keeps pace, ignoring the people calling his name. “So what is it then? Art history? Bio?”
“You ask too many questions for a hockey player,” you tell him. “Aren’t you supposed to just grunt and hit things?”
Dean grins, stepping directly into your path to force you to stop. “I can do that too, if you’re into it.”
You look up at him, your eyes narrowing slightly. It’s a purely assessing gaze, like you’re weighing his worth on a scale and finding him somewhat lacking, but not entirely useless.
“You are very confident,” you note.
“I have reason to be,” Dean says, his voice dropping a fraction of an octave, turning rougher, more intimate. “I’m a good guy to know around here. I throw the best parties. I know the best places to eat. I can get you out of that dorm and into places you actually want to be.”
“I do not live in a dorm,” you say smoothly. “And I go wherever I want to go.”
A shadow crosses your face so fast Dean almost misses it. The mention of your father in Moscow hits a nerve, pulling at the dark memories Ilya dragged you away from. Your jaw tightens.
“Not my father,” you say, your voice suddenly cold enough to freeze hell over. “My brother.”
Dean instantly realizes he stepped on a landmine. “Hey, I didn’t mean anything by it. Just making conversation.”
“You are making assumptions,” you correct him sharply. You take a step back, the playful banter completely evaporating from your posture. You look at Morgan, who is hovering a few feet away. “We are leaving.”
“Wait,” Dean says, reaching out instinctively. He catches your wrist, his fingers wrapping around the warm, soft skin.
You freeze. You look down at his hand on your wrist, and then slowly bring your eyes back up to meet his. The look you give him is so lethally calm it actually makes Dean’s heart skip a beat.
“Remove your hand,” you say softly.
Dean lets go immediately, holding both hands up in surrender. “My bad. I’m sorry. Seriously.”
You brush off your sleeve, even though he barely gripped you. You are Ilya’s sister through and through, you don’t take shit from anyone, especially not pretty-boy athletes who think they own the world.
“Do not touch me again,” you say.
“I won’t,” Dean promises, and he means it. He watches as you turn on your heel and stalk toward the front door, Morgan trailing anxiously behind you.
“Hey!” Dean calls out, unable to help himself. He takes a few steps after you. “Can I at least get your number? To apologize properly?”
You stop at the front door and look back at him. The coldness has receded a bit, replaced by that same haughty, amused superiority from the kitchen.
“You do not need my number, Dean Di Laurentis,” you call back over the thumping bass of the music. “You are clearly used to girls making things easy for you.”
“And you’re not going to?” Dean asks, a smirk pulling at the corner of his mouth.
You smile — a full, devastatingly gorgeous smile that hits Dean like a physical blow to the chest.
“I do not make anything easy for anyone,” you say.
With that, you open the front door and step out into the cool September night, pulling it shut behind you.
Dean stands in the hallway for a long, silent moment. The party rages on around him, people bumping into his shoulders, girls laughing in his direction, but he doesn’t notice any of it. He is staring at the closed front door, his mind completely blank except for the echo of your heavy Russian accent and the sharp, burning realization that he needs to see you again.
Garrett appears out of the crowd, clapping a hand on Dean’s shoulder. “Hey man, who was that? She completely ghosted you.”
“I don’t know,” Dean murmurs, still staring at the door. “But I’m going to find out.”
Garrett laughs. “Looked like she was about to rip your throat out.”
“Yeah,” Dean says, a slow, entirely genuine smile spreading across his face. He finally turns to look at his teammate, his eyes bright with a sudden, fierce energy. “I think I’m in love.”
***
Outside, the air is crisp, biting at your exposed skin. You pull your leather jacket tighter around yourself as you walk down the sidewalk, the rhythmic click of your boots echoing in the quiet street.
“Oh my god,” Morgan gasps, rushing to keep up with your long strides. “Are you insane? Do you know who that was?”
“Some guy named Dean,” you say dismissively, checking your phone. A text from Ilya sits on the lock screen: Are you home? Drink water. Lock door. Love you.
“Not just some guy!” Morgan insists, practically vibrating with anxiety and awe. “That’s Dean Di Laurentis! He’s, like, Briar hockey royalty. He’s gorgeous, he’s rich, and he literally never gets turned down. You just rejected the hottest guy on campus!”
“He is arrogant,” you reply, typing a quick reply to Ilya: I am fine. Going home now. Do not be annoying.
“Well, yeah, they all are!” Morgan huffs. “But he was so into you! Why did you blow him off?”
You slide your phone back into your pocket and look at Morgan. You like her — she’s sweet and harmless — but she clearly doesn’t understand how the world works. At least, not your world.
“Because, Morgan,” you say patiently, your Russian accent softening in the quiet night air. “Men like that are used to getting what they want the moment they want it. They think the world is a vending machine. You put in a little charm, and a woman falls out.”
“And you’re not a vending machine,” Morgan finishes, nodding slowly.
“Exactly.” You smile, looking ahead down the dimly lit street toward your luxury apartment building. “I am the prize. If he wants me, he is going to have to work for it. And I am going to make him work very, very hard.”
You know exactly what you’re doing. You saw the look in Dean’s eyes when you walked away. The shock, the frustration, the desperate, clawing hunger. It’s the exact reaction you wanted.
Ilya taught you a long time ago that on the ice, you never let the opponent know your next move. You make them chase you. You make them exhaust themselves trying to figure you out, and then, when they’re completely off balance, you strike.
Dean Di Laurentis thinks he’s a player. He thinks this is a game he knows how to win.
But as you walk back to your apartment, a small, triumphant smile playing on your lips, you know one thing for absolute certain.
He has absolutely no idea who he is playing with.
***
The sharp, scraping sound of steel biting into ice is the first thing that actually makes you feel like you can breathe since you landed in America.
You sit in the third row of the arena, the chill of the rink seeping through your designer sweater, and you close your eyes for just a second. The smell of the cold, the faint metallic tang of sweat and Zamboni fumes — it’s universal. It smells like Moscow. It smells like the freezing, dilapidated local rinks where you used to sit huddled in a thick coat next to your mama, her gloved hands wrapped around a paper cup of awful coffee, watching a scrawny, angry little Ilya learn how to check kids twice his size into the boards.
Hockey is in your blood just as much as it is in Ilya’s. Before your mother passed away, the rink was your sanctuary. It was the only place your father didn’t care to go, which meant it was the only place you, Ilya, and your mama were truly safe. Now, there are very few things in this world you genuinely love: Ilya, expensive clothes, fast cars … and this.
“I don’t understand what’s happening,” Morgan complains loudly over the roar of the crowd, pulling you out of your memories. She is shivering beside you, holding a foam finger she bought at the concession stand. “Why are they hitting each other so much? Isn’t the puck over there?”
“It is a forecheck,” you say, not taking your eyes off the ice. “They are establishing physical dominance to force a turnover in the defensive zone. Keep up.”
“I thought we were just here to look at hot guys,” she mutters, taking a sip of her hot chocolate.
“You are here to look at hot guys,” you correct her smoothly. “I am here because I appreciate the sport.”
And you do. But as you watch the Briar Hawks cycle the puck in the offensive zone, your eyes inevitably track back to number sixty-six. Dean Di Laurentis.
You haven’t seen him since the party last weekend. You haven’t texted him, and since you didn’t give him your number, he hasn’t texted you. But on the ice, he is impossible to ignore. For a guy who spends his weekends trying to charm freshmen out of their clothes, he is undeniably lethal on the blue line. He’s a defenseman, playing right side, and his skating is fluid, almost effortless.
“Oh, look,” Morgan gasps, pointing. “It’s Dean! He’s the guy you yelled at!”
“I did not yell at him,” you say calmly. “I simply declined his unsolicited advances. There is a difference.”
“He’s really good, isn’t he?”
You narrow your eyes as Dean receives a pass at the point. He fakes a slap shot, dragging the puck around a sliding defender, and fires a wrist shot through traffic. It clangs hard against the post and deflects out.
“He is decent,” you allow, your voice flat. “But his gap control is inconsistent, and he relies too heavily on his forehand.”
Morgan stares at you blankly. “Is that English?”
“It is hockey,” you reply, leaning back in your seat. “Which is better.”
The buzzer sounds a few minutes later, the scoreboard flashing a 4-3 victory for Briar. The crowd erupts into a deafening cheer, the student section banging on the glass. You offer a polite, golf-clap level of applause. It was a sloppy third period. Briar let up on the gas, allowing two unanswered goals in the final ten minutes. Ilya would have been screaming on the bench if his team played like that.
“Okay, they won! Can we go now?” Morgan begs, teeth chattering. “I can’t feel my toes.”
“We can go,” you agree, standing up and brushing invisible lint off your jeans. “Your toes are weak.”
You navigate the crowded concourse, weaving through the sea of Briar hockey jerseys and drunken college students. You are halfway to the main exit, your mind already jumping ahead to the heated seats in your car, when a voice cuts through the noise.
“Hey! Moscow!”
You don’t stop walking. You know exactly who it is, but you are not a dog to be called.
“Hey, wait up! Come on, I know you hear me!”
Footsteps jog up behind you, and suddenly Dean is stepping right into your path, forcing you to stop or physically walk into his chest.
You pause, looking up at him slowly.
Dean is slightly out of breath, his chest heaving under a crisp, perfectly tailored charcoal suit. His blond hair is still damp from the post-game shower, pushed back casually, and his tie is already loosened at the collar. He looks ridiculously, unfairly handsome, and the smug, triumphant grin on his face tells you he knows it.
“You know,” you say, your accent thick and unbothered, “usually, the players wait until they have left the arena to harass the fans.”
Dean laughs, dragging a hand through his damp hair. “I saw you walking out. Had to run to catch up. I didn’t peg you for a hockey fan.”
“I am full of surprises,” you reply dryly. “Now, if you will excuse me, my friend is freezing to death.”
Morgan, standing a few feet away, gives a tiny, terrified wave. Dean shoots her a dazzling smile that makes her blush furiously, before immediately turning his full attention back to you. The laser-focus in his eyes is intense. It’s the same look he had on the ice.
“So you came to watch me play,” Dean says, his voice dropping into that smooth, confident purr. “I’ve gotta say, I’m flattered. You played hard to get at the party, but you show up to my game? That’s a mixed signal, sweetheart.”
You let out a soft, patronizing laugh. “I came to watch a hockey game, Di Laurentis. You just happened to be on the ice. Do not flatter yourself.”
“Ouch,” Dean says, though his grin doesn’t waver. “You’re killing me here. But hey, we won. You can’t deny we put on a good show.”
“A good show?” You tilt your head, crossing your arms over your chest. You look him up and down, your expression perfectly deadpan. “Is that what you call that third period?”
Dean blinks, the smugness faltering for a fraction of a second. “Uh. Yeah. We got the win.”
“You got lucky,” you correct him seamlessly. “Your team played a neutral zone trap for the first two periods, which was effective against a slower offensive line. But in the third, they adjusted their breakout, and your defense collapsed. You were scrambling.”
Dean is staring at you now. The playful, flirtatious energy completely drains out of him, replaced by genuine, unadulterated shock. “Wait. You actually … you know the systems?”
“I know when a team stops moving their feet,” you say, stepping a fraction closer. You don’t even realize you’re doing it, but the hockey analysis is completely taking over. “Your forwards stopped backchecking, which left you and your partner hung out to dry on odd-man rushes. You were playing on your heels for the last ten minutes.”
Dean’s mouth opens slightly. He looks like he’s just been hit by a truck. “I … yeah. Garrett was pissed on the bench. We gave up the blue line way too easily.”
“You specifically,” you point out, tapping a finger lightly against his expensive suit jacket. “You pinched on the boards with four minutes left. It was a stupid risk. If their winger had been half a second faster, that was a breakaway, and the game goes to overtime.”
Dean swallows hard. He’s looking at you like you just sprouted a second head, but more importantly, he’s looking at you like you are the most incredible thing he has ever seen in his entire life. His eyes track the movement of your finger on his chest, then snap back up to your lips.
“You saw that,” he murmurs, his voice suddenly sounding a lot rougher.
“I have eyes,” you say dismissively. “But the real problem is your transition game. You are fast, I will give you that. But you are predictable.”
“Predictable?” Dean echoes, his competitive streak flaring up. He steps closer, closing the distance between you so that you have to crane your neck slightly to maintain eye contact. “I’m the leading scoring defenseman in the conference.”
“Because you play against college boys,” you fire back, unimpressed. “But you rely entirely on your forehand. Every time you pick up the puck behind the net, you pivot right. Every single time. You never transition to your backhand to make the breakout pass up the left wing.”
“Because my forehand is stronger,” Dean argues, a defensive edge creeping into his tone. “The pass is more accurate.”
“Because your backhand is weak,” you correct him bluntly.
Silence falls between you.
Even the dull roar of the crowd leaving the arena seems to fade into the background. Dean just stares down at you, his green eyes wide, his chest rising and falling visibly under his shirt.
He is completely silent.
For a defenseman who prides himself on his skill, being called out like that should infuriate him. It should make him defensive, angry, or at least dismissive. But you watch as a slow, dark flush creeps up his neck. You watch the way his jaw tightens, and the way his gaze drops to your mouth again, heavy and hot.
Holy shit, Dean thinks. His brain has short-circuited.
He’s spent his entire life surrounded by puck bunnies. Girls who wear his jersey, girls who tell him he played great even when he knows he played like garbage, girls who only care about the post-game parties and the status of hooking up with a Briar hockey player.
And then there is you. Standing in the middle of a crowded lobby, ripping apart his blue-line transitions and calling his backhand weak with a heavy Russian accent and an expression that says you couldn’t care less if you bruised his ego.
He has never been so incredibly turned on in his entire life. It’s actually a little terrifying. His pants suddenly feel uncomfortably tight, a heavy knot of pure lust coiling in his gut.
“My backhand is weak,” Dean repeats slowly, his voice dropping an octave, practically vibrating with tension.
“Very weak,” you confirm, completely oblivious to the internal crisis you are causing him. Or maybe you aren’t oblivious. Maybe you just don’t care. “If you ever make it to the pros, a smart forechecker will notice that in the first period and shut down the right side of the ice. You will be useless in your own zone.”
“Useless,” Dean whispers. He licks his lips, stepping even closer. The scent of his expensive cologne mixed with the faint, lingering smell of his body wash hits you. “God, you are brutal.”
“I am honest,” you reply, though your breath catches slightly as he invades your personal space. You hold your ground, refusing to back up. “Do you want me to stroke your ego and tell you that you are perfect, Di Laurentis?”
“No,” Dean says immediately, and he means it. “I want you to tell me everything else I did wrong.”
You pause, caught off guard for the first time. You expected him to get mad. You expected him to puff up his chest and rattle off his stats. You did not expect him to look at you like he wants to drag you into the nearest broom closet and let you dissect his entire life.
“You missed a wide-open pass to Graham on the power play in the second period,” you say, your voice a fraction softer, the air between you suddenly thick and electric.
“Keep going,” Dean murmurs, his eyes dark, his body angled entirely toward you.
“You … you over-commit on the penalty kill.” You feel a flush rising to your own cheeks now, furious at yourself for losing your composure. Why is he looking at you like that? “You chase the puck instead of holding the box.”
“What else?” Dean asks, his voice practically a gravelly whisper. He reaches out, and for a second you think he’s going to touch you, but he just rests his hand on the wall next to your head, leaning in. “Tell me my gap control is shit again.”
You swallow hard. Ilya warned you about American boys. He did not warn you about this.
“Your gap control is shit,” you say, forcing your voice to stay steady. You lift your chin, meeting his intense gaze head-on. “And if you do not fix it, you are going to cost your team the championship.”
Dean lets out a harsh breath, shaking his head slightly as a slow, wicked smile spreads across his face. “Jesus Christ. Who are you?”
“I am the girl who is leaving,” you say, ducking swiftly under his arm.
The spell breaks. You grab Morgan by the sleeve of her coat, practically dragging her toward the glass doors.
“Wait!” Dean spins around, his dress shoes slipping slightly on the tile. “Seriously! What’s your name? I can’t keep calling you Moscow!”
You push through the double doors, the freezing night air hitting you like a physical wall. You don’t stop, but you look over your shoulder one last time. Dean is standing inside the lobby, framed by the bright fluorescent lights, looking after you with a mixture of desperation and awe.
“Fix your backhand, Di Laurentis,” you call back, a smirk finally breaking through your icy exterior. “Maybe then you will earn my name.”
You turn away, letting the doors swing shut behind you.
“Oh my god,” Morgan gasps as you speed-walk toward the parking lot. “What just happened? What was that? Was that flirting? Because it sounded like you were insulting him, but he looked like he wanted to eat you alive.”
“It was hockey analysis,” you say firmly, though your heart is hammering against your ribs in a way that has absolutely nothing to do with the sport.
“No, that was … that was aggressive sexual tension disguised as hockey analysis,” Morgan insists, pulling her keys out of her pocket. “Y/N, I am not joking. I think you just broke Dean Di Laurentis.”
You reach your car, leaning against the cold metal door as you wait for Morgan to unlock it. You think about the look in Dean’s eyes when you called out his play. The sudden shift from arrogant playboy to entirely, intensely captivated. You didn’t expect him to care about the sport as much as the glory. You didn’t expect him to listen to you.
And you certainly didn’t expect to feel this sudden, terrifying urge to see him again.
“I did not break him,” you say softly, mostly to yourself as you pull open the passenger door. You stare out at the darkened arena one last time, the cold air biting at your cheeks.
“But I think I might.”
***
Inside the arena lobby, Dean is still standing exactly where you left him.
He feels like he’s just been hit by lightning. His heart is pounding against his ribs, his blood rushing hot and fast through his veins. He replays the last five minutes in his head on a loop. The way your eyes flashed when you criticized his transition game. The heavy, intoxicating purr of your Russian accent. The absolute, unshakeable confidence radiating off you.
Garrett walks out of the locker room hallway a minute later, dressed in his own suit, his gym bag slung over his shoulder. He spots Dean standing completely still in the middle of the empty concourse.
“Hey,” Garrett says, walking over and waving a hand in front of Dean’s face. “Earth to Dean. You good, man? You look like you just saw a ghost.”
Dean slowly turns his head to look at his captain.
“Garrett,” Dean says, his voice totally deadpan.
“Yeah?”
“I need to run drills.”
Garrett frowns, confused. “What? Now? We just played a game, dude. We’re going to Malone’s to celebrate.”
“No,” Dean says, shaking his head. He looks back at the doors you just walked through, that wicked, determined smile returning to his face. He has never wanted a challenge more in his entire life. He has never wanted a girl more in his entire life. “I need ice time. Right now.”
Garrett stares at him. “Are you sick? Are you concussed? What drills do you even need to run?”
Dean adjusts the cuffs of his suit jacket, his eyes gleaming.
“Backhand passing,” Dean says simply. “I’ve got a lot of work to do.”
***
The Briar University quad is a rare picture of New England perfection today. The sun is shining, the sky is a crisp, cloudless blue, and the temperature is hovering right around seventy degrees — an absolute miracle for early October.
Because of this, half the student body has decided that classes are optional. The sprawling green lawns are covered with students lounging on blankets, throwing Frisbees, and pretending to study.
You are one of the people pretending to study.
You sit on a plaid blanket under the shade of a large oak tree, a heavy microeconomics textbook propped open on your lap, and a pair of oversized, dark sunglasses resting on your nose. You have a highlighter in one hand, but you haven’t marked a single page in twenty minutes.
It is entirely too loud to focus, mostly because of the pickup soccer game happening fifty yards away.
Normally, you would just pack up and go back to the quiet luxury of your off-campus apartment. But there is a reason you are still sitting here, pretending to read about supply and demand curves.
Dean Di Laurentis is playing soccer.
He is running around the makeshift field with his teammates along with a guy you recognize from a party as Beau, the star quarterback of the Briar football team. They are loud, obnoxious, and taking the game far too seriously for a Thursday afternoon.
“Pass it, Di Laurentis, you puck hog!” Beau shouts, jogging backward as Dean weaves the black-and-white ball between his feet.
“It’s a ball, Beau, not a puck,” Dean fires back, his footwork surprisingly nimble for a guy who spends his life on ice skates. “And maybe I’d pass if you knew how to finish a play!”
“I throw seventy-yard bombs for a living,” Beau laughs, trying to steal the ball. “I finish plenty.”
“Yeah, but your footwork is trash,” Logan calls out from across the grass. “Stick to using your hands, golden boy.”
You watch them over the top of your textbook, hidden safely behind the dark lenses of your sunglasses. Dean is wearing a grey Briar Hockey t-shirt and athletic shorts, his blond hair sticking up in sweaty, messy spikes. He is laughing, completely in his element, shouting trash talk at his friends.
And then, he turns around to jog backward, scanning the perimeter of the quad.
His eyes sweep over the crowds of students, past the girls clustered on a nearby blanket who have been practically drooling over him for the last hour, and land squarely on the oak tree.
He stops. He actually trips over the soccer ball, stumbling forward a few steps before catching his balance.
“Hey, watch it!” Tucker yells as he steals the abandoned ball. “Head in the game, Di Laurentis!”
Dean completely ignores him. He is staring straight at you. Even from fifty yards away, you can see the exact moment the cocky, playful grin melts off his face, replaced by that sharp, predatory focus he had in the arena lobby.
You do not wave. You do not smile. You simply flip a page in your textbook, pretending you haven’t noticed him at all.
“Man, it’s hot out here, isn’t it?” You hear Dean say loudly a moment later.
You glance up just in time to see Dean grab the hem of his grey t-shirt and pull it over his head in one smooth, practiced motion. He tosses the shirt onto the grass, running a hand through his damp hair, and stands there in the dappled sunlight.
He is built exactly the way a Division I athlete should be built. Broad shoulders, a sculpted chest, and a torso lined with sharp, defined abdominal muscles that disappear down into the waistband of his shorts. He looks like a centerfold for a fitness magazine, and he absolutely knows it.
The group of girls on the blanket nearby actually let out a collective gasp.
You, however, slowly raise an eyebrow behind your sunglasses. Really? “What are you doing?” Logan demands, hands on his hips. “Put your shirt back on, nobody wants to see that.”
“I’m cooling down,” Dean says easily, though he is looking directly at you. “Gotta let the skin breathe, right?”
“You’re an idiot,” Garrett mutters.
Dean ignores them. He leaves the soccer game entirely, jogging across the grass at a slow, deliberate pace. He is making sure you have plenty of time to look. You make sure your eyes are glued firmly to the page about market equilibrium.
“Hey there, Moscow,” a smooth, slightly out-of-breath voice says a minute later.
A shadow falls over your textbook. You wait three full seconds before you slowly tilt your head up. Dean is standing at the edge of your blanket, his chest rising and falling from the run, a bead of sweat tracing a path down his stomach. He has his hands planted on his hips, flashing you that million-dollar, dimpled smile.
“You are blocking my light,” you state plainly.
Dean’s smile widens. He drops down onto the grass, sitting directly across from you on the edge of your blanket, completely uninvited.
“You’re studying,” he observes, leaning back on his elbows. He stretches his long legs out, crossing them at the ankles. “Econ. Boring.”
“It is only boring if you lack the intelligence to understand it,” you reply, picking up your highlighter. “Which, I suppose, explains your opinion.”
Dean barks out a laugh, entirely unoffended. “God, I missed you. Where have you been hiding? I’ve been checking the stands at practice every day.”
“I do not hide,” you say smoothly, turning a page. “And I do not attend practices. I have a life.”
“A life that involves sitting on the quad, reading a textbook, and secretly watching me play soccer?”
“I was not watching you.”
“Right. You were just staring intently in my general direction.” Dean shifts closer, the scent of fresh air, grass, and masculine sweat washing over you. It is entirely distracting. “Did you enjoy the show, at least?”
You pause. You look up from the book, sliding your sunglasses down the bridge of your nose so you can look him directly in the eyes. You let your gaze drop down his chest, over his abs, and back up to his face.
“You took your shirt off in seventy-degree weather,” you say dryly. “It was the most obvious display of male ego I have ever witnessed.”
“Did it work, though?” Dean challenges, a teasing spark in his green eyes.
“I am not a fan of theatrics.” You push your sunglasses back up. “Put your shirt on, Di Laurentis. You look ridiculous.”
“You’re lying,” Dean murmurs. His voice drops into that low, gravelly register that he used at the arena, the one that makes the hair on the back of your arms stand up. He leans forward, closing the distance between you. “I saw the way you looked at me just now. You like the theatrics.”
Your breath hitches slightly, but before you can fire back a cutting remark, a sharp, loud ringing cuts through the tension.
Your phone, sitting on the blanket beside your leg, is vibrating. The caller ID flashes brightly in the sunlight.
You let out a soft sigh, breaking eye contact with Dean. “I have to take this.”
“Boyfriend?” Dean asks, his voice suddenly losing its playful edge. His jaw tightens, a flash of genuine territorial annoyance crossing his face.
“None of your business,” you say smoothly. You pick up the phone and swipe to answer, bringing it to your ear.
Dean doesn’t move. He sits right there, completely invading your personal space, watching you intently. He clearly expects you to get up and walk away, or lower your voice.
Instead, you lean back against the trunk of the oak tree and slip effortlessly into your native tongue.
“Hello, Ilyusha,” you say in Russian, your voice softening just a fraction, the sharp consonants and flowing vowels rolling off your tongue perfectly.
Across from you, Dean practically stops breathing.
His eyes widen, locking onto your mouth. He doesn’t understand a single syllable of what you just said, but the sound of it hits him like a physical blow. Your voice is huskier in Russian, deeper, and the cadence is incredibly intimate.
“Y/N. Little bird,” Ilya’s booming voice comes through the speaker, loud enough that you have to pull the phone away from your ear for a second. “Why did it take you three rings to answer? Are you safe? Is someone bothering you?”
You roll your eyes, though a fond smile touches the corner of your lips. “I am sitting on the grass at school, Ilya. I was reading. Nobody is bothering me.”
You glance at Dean. He is staring at you with an intensity that is bordering on feral.
“Well, except maybe one idiot,” you add, a smirk forming.
Dean shifts his weight, leaning closer. “What did you just say?” He whispers, his voice thick. “Are you talking about me?”
You ignore him.
“An idiot?” Ilya demands, his protective instincts instantly flaring. “What kind of idiot? A boy? Do I need to fly back to Massachusetts and break someone’s kneecaps? Because I have a game in Dallas tomorrow, but I can make the flight tonight.”
“Do not be dramatic,” you sigh, switching your phone to the other ear. “It is just a hockey player. He thinks he is charming.”
“A hockey player?” Ilya groans. “God, Y/N. I told you to stay away from them. They are stupid. They only want one thing. Trust me, I know. I am one.”
“I know you are,” you laugh softly. “I am handling it.”
“You better be,” Ilya grumbles. “But listen to me. You are in college. You are beautiful. You are going to have boys chasing you. I do not like it, but I cannot stop it.”
“You are remarkably self-aware today.”
“Shut up and listen,” Ilya says, though there is warmth in his voice. “I am your brother, so it is my job to threaten to kill them. But I am also realistic. If you find a boy you actually like — which is highly unlikely because your standards are terrifying — you have fun. Do you hear me? Have fun. Use protection. Make him buy you dinner.”
You feel a flush creeping up your neck. Having your older brother give you sex-positive dating advice is always a bizarre experience.
“I am hanging up now,” you tell him, embarrassed.
“Wait, wait! Let me finish,” Ilya laughs. “If he crosses a line, you break his heart. If he makes you cry, I break his legs. It is a very simple system.”
“I understand the system, Ilyusha.”
“Good. Give them hell, little bird.”
“I always do. Good luck with the game tomorrow. Love you.”
“Love you too. Call me this weekend.”
You hang up the phone, tossing it back onto the blanket. You let out a breath, centering yourself, and then you turn your attention back to Dean.
You fully expect him to have a smug comment ready. You expect him to ask who you were talking to, or tease you about the foreign language.
Instead, Dean is staring at you like a starving man looking at a feast.
His pupils are blown wide, almost entirely swallowing the green of his irises. His chest is rising and falling rapidly, and there is a dark, heavy flush high on his cheekbones. He is leaning so far forward that his face is only inches from yours.
“Di Laurentis?” You ask, frowning slightly. “Are you having a stroke?”
“What the fuck was that?” Dean asks, his voice so raw and raspy it barely sounds like him.
“It was a phone call.”
“In Russian.”
“Yes,” you say slowly, as if explaining something to a child. “I am Russian. I speak Russian to my family. This is not a new development.”
“You didn’t sound like that when you spoke English,” Dean breathes, his eyes tracking the movement of your lips. “Your voice … it dropped. It was completely different.”
“It is a different language,” you point out. “The inflection changes.”
“Do it again,” he demands softly.
You raise an eyebrow, your heart suddenly giving a hard, erratic thump against your ribs. The sheer, overwhelming wave of lust rolling off him is palpable. It is thick enough to choke on.
“Do what again?” You ask, keeping your tone carefully neutral.
“Speak it,” Dean says. He reaches out, and this time you don’t pull away when his fingers lightly brush against the side of your knee. The touch sends a jolt of pure electricity straight up your thigh. “Say something else. Anything.”
You look at him, really look at him. You see the desperate curiosity, the absolute fascination. But beneath that, you see exactly what he is thinking.
Dean doesn’t just want to hear you speak Russian. He wants to hear you speak it in his bed. He wants to hear you whisper it in his ear when the lights are out. He wants to know what you sound like when you lose that rigid, icy control.
The realization makes the breath catch in your throat. It is intoxicating. The power you hold over this guy right now is absolute, and you both know it.
You lean forward, mirroring his posture. You let your sunglasses slide down your nose slightly, locking eyes with him.
“You are completely out of your mind,” you say in Russian, your voice a soft, husky murmur.
Dean lets out a ragged exhale, his eyes slipping shut for a fraction of a second. “God. I have no idea what you just said, but say it again.”
“No,” you say, slipping back into English. You sit back against the tree, pulling your leg away from his touch. The sudden loss of contact leaves a cold spot on your skin. “The show is over.”
“Come on,” Dean groans, running a hand over his face. He genuinely looks pained. “You can’t do that to a guy and just stop. It’s cruel and unusual punishment.”
“I told you at the party,” you remind him, picking up your highlighter and turning back to your textbook. “I do not make things easy for anyone.”
“I don’t want it to be easy,” Dean says. The playfulness is completely gone from his voice. It is replaced by a quiet, fierce sincerity that makes you look up again.
He is staring at you, not with the smug arrogance of a playboy, but with the focused, unwavering determination of a D1 athlete who has his eyes on the championship.
“I don’t care how hard you make it,” Dean tells you, his voice steady. “I’m not going anywhere.”
You hold his gaze for a long moment, your pulse hammering a frantic rhythm in your ears. Ilya’s voice echoes in the back of your mind. If you find a boy you actually like … give them hell.
A slow, wicked smirk curves your lips.
“We will see, Di Laurentis,” you murmur.
“Yo, Dean!” Garrett’s voice echoes across the quad, breaking the heavy tension. “Are you playing or are you just going to sit there and bother the girl all day?”
Dean doesn’t take his eyes off you. “I’m busy!” He yells back.
“We’re down a man!” Beau shouts. “Get your ass back over here!”
Dean finally tears his gaze away, looking over his shoulder at his friends. He sighs, running a hand through his hair. “Duty calls. But this isn’t over.”
“It has not even begun,” you correct him.
Dean smiles. It’s a softer smile this time, smaller and much more dangerous. He pushes himself up off the grass, grabbing his discarded t-shirt. He doesn’t put it back on, much to the delight of the girls on the nearby blanket, but simply slings it over his shoulder.
“Have dinner with me,” Dean says, looking down at you.
It isn’t a question. It is a demand.
“I am busy tonight,” you reply without missing a beat.
“Tomorrow, then.”
“I have plans.”
“Saturday.”
“I study on Saturdays.”
“Sunday night,” Dean counters, refusing to back down. “My treat. Any restaurant in the city. You pick.”
You tap your highlighter against the page of your textbook, pretending to consider it. You are pushing him, testing the limits of his patience. Most guys would have walked away by now, their egos bruised.
Dean just stands there, waiting.
“Sunday,” you finally say, your tone conceding an inch. “But I pick the place, and you pay.”
“Deal,” Dean says instantly, looking like he just won the Stanley Cup. “I’ll pick you up at seven.”
“You do not know where I live.”
“I’ll figure it out,” Dean promises, taking a step backward toward the soccer game. “See you Sunday, Moscow.”
“Do not call me that,” you call after him.
“Then give me your real name!” He shouts back over his shoulder, jogging backward.
You smile, looking back down at your textbook. You wait until he is halfway across the quad before you answer, your voice carrying easily over the grass.
“It’s Y/N.”
Dean stops. He turns around, a massive, genuine grin breaking across his face. He points a finger at you, backing away toward his friends.
“Y/N,” Dean repeats, testing the sound of it on his tongue. He nods slowly. “Sunday, Y/N. Be ready.”
You watch him turn and jog back to the game, immediately tackling Beau to the ground in a mess of limbs and laughter.
You let out a long, shaky breath, closing your textbook. Studying is officially impossible now. You pull your knees up to your chest, resting your chin on your arms as you watch the group of boys on the grass.
Dean is laughing, shoving Logan out of the way to steal the ball. He looks carefree, happy, and entirely out of your league when it comes to emotional availability. He is exactly the kind of guy Ilya warned you about. A player. A distraction.
But as Dean suddenly looks over his shoulder, catching your eye from across the field and shooting you a quick, blazing wink, you know exactly what is happening.
You are giving him hell.
And you are enjoying every single second of it.
***
The date is, annoyingly, perfect.
You expected Dean to stumble. You picked an upscale, impossibly hard-to-book French-Asian fusion restaurant in the heart of Boston — the kind of place with a six-month waiting list that you only bypassed because Ilya knows the owner. You expected Dean to look out of place, or complain about the portion sizes, or act like the typical, uncouth college athlete he pretends to be.
Instead, he showed up at your apartment building right on time, wearing a tailored black button-down that made his shoulders look impossibly broad, and a pair of dark jeans that hugged his legs in all the right ways. He opened the car door for you. He ordered wine in flawless, unaccented French. He kept up with your sharp, biting banter effortlessly, matching you insult for insult with that constant, devastating smirk on his face.
He didn’t just survive the test. He passed it with flying colors.
“You look annoyed,” Dean observes as he steers his sleek black SUV off the highway, taking the exit back toward the Briar campus.
“I am not annoyed,” you say, looking out the passenger window at the passing streetlights.
“You’re a little annoyed,” he teases, glancing over at you. The dashboard lights cast a warm glow across his sharp jawline. “You thought I was going to embarrass myself. You thought I’d order chicken fingers and ask for ketchup.”
“I thought you would be a hockey player,” you correct him, turning your head to meet his gaze. “Instead, you were surprisingly tolerable.”
Dean laughs, a rich, genuine sound that fills the quiet interior of the car. “Tolerable. Wow. I’ll have to add that to my resume right under top scoring defenseman.”
“Do not let it go to your head.”
“Too late.” Dean reaches across the center console. He doesn’t ask. He just slides his hand over yours where it rests on your thigh, lacing his long, warm fingers through yours.
Your breath catches slightly, but you don’t pull away. His palm is rough with calluses from his hockey stick, a stark contrast to the soft leather of the car seats and the smooth fabric of your slip dress. The casual intimacy of it sends a sudden, sharp jolt of heat straight to your core.
“So,” Dean murmurs, his thumb brushing a lazy circle against your skin. “The date is over. I paid. I was charming. I didn’t embarrass you in front of the waiter.”
“Barely.”
“Where to now, Y/N?” He says your name softly, testing the weight of it. “I can take you back to your ivory tower. Or …”
He lets the sentence hang in the air, thick and heavy with implication.
You look at his hand holding yours, and then up at his profile. You can feel the electric tension radiating off him. You know exactly what he’s asking, and you know exactly what the answer is. You made up your mind somewhere between the second glass of wine and the way his eyes darkened when you laughed at one of his jokes.
“Your house is on the way,” you say, your voice perfectly steady, though your heart is suddenly hammering against your ribs. “It would be inefficient to drive all the way to my apartment.”
The SUV actually swerves a fraction of an inch as Dean’s hands tighten on the steering wheel. He exhales a harsh, shaky breath.
“My house,” he repeats, as if making sure he heard you correctly.
“Unless you are scared your roommates are awake.”
“I don’t give a fuck if my roommates are awake,” Dean says instantly. He hits the turn signal, taking a sharp left onto the residential street that leads to the off-campus hockey house. “My door has a lock.”
The drive takes less than five minutes, but it feels like an eternity. The air in the car is so thick with anticipation you can barely breathe. When Dean finally throws the SUV into park in the driveway, he doesn’t wait for you. He is out of the car in a flash, opening your door and offering you his hand.
The house is surprisingly quiet. The usual thumping bass and smell of stale beer are absent. As Dean unlocks the front door and ushers you inside, you see exactly one person.
Logan is sprawled on the ratty living room couch, a bowl of cereal balanced on his chest, watching SportsCenter on low volume.
He looks up as the door clicks shut. He sees Dean. Then he sees you.
Logan’s spoon freezes halfway to his mouth. His eyes dart between the two of you, taking in Dean’s dark, focused expression and your thoroughly unimpressed, perfectly manicured appearance.
“Di Laurentis,” Logan says slowly, lowering the spoon. “You brought a girl home.”
“Astute observation,” Dean says, not stopping as he guides you toward the stairs by the small of your back.
“No, I mean, you brought a girl home,” Logan insists, sitting up slightly. “Not a puck bunny. Not a sorority girl. You brought an actual woman who looks like she could murder you and hide the body.”
“I will not hide the body,” you tell Logan calmly over your shoulder as you start up the stairs. “I will leave it in the living room for you to clean up.”
Logan’s eyes widen. He looks at Dean with pure, unadulterated respect. “Good luck, man. You’re going to need it.”
“Shut up, Logan,” Dean snaps, though he is smiling as he pushes you gently up the final few steps and down the narrow hallway.
He opens the door at the end of the hall, pulling you inside, and kicks the door shut behind him. The heavy click of the lock sliding into place echoes in the quiet room.
Dean’s bedroom is surprisingly clean. The bed is large and freshly made, there are no clothes on the floor, and the faint scent of his expensive cedar and citrus cologne lingers in the air.
You barely have a second to take it in before Dean is right in front of you.
The playful banter is completely gone. The energy shifts so fast it gives you whiplash. He crowds you against the heavy wooden door, his hands coming up to bracket your head. He looks down at you, his green eyes completely dilated, dark and hungry.
“I’ve been wanting to do this since you yelled at me in the kitchen,” Dean whispers, his voice rough and vibrating with need.
“I did not yell at you,” you breathe.
“Shut up,” he murmurs, and then his mouth crashes down onto yours.
It is a devastating kiss. There is nothing hesitant or gentle about it. It is pure, unfiltered demand. His lips are hot, his tongue immediately parting your lips, tasting the expensive wine and sweeping inside to claim every inch of your mouth.
A sharp, electric shock rips through your body. You kiss him back just as fiercely, your hands flying up to grip the lapels of his black shirt. He lets out a low, guttural groan, sliding his arms around your waist and pulling your hips flush against his.
He is hard. Achingly, brutally hard against your stomach.
The realization sends a thrill of pure power straight to your head. Ilya taught you to never let anyone dictate the pace of the game. You pull your mouth away from his, leaving him chasing your lips with a frustrated sigh.
“My turn,” you say smoothly.
Before Dean can process what you mean, you grab the collar of his shirt and push. He stumbles backward, completely caught off guard. You advance, pushing him again until the back of his knees hit the edge of his mattress, and he falls backward onto the bed with a soft thud.
Dean looks up at you, his chest heaving, his dark hair messy from your hands. He looks completely thoroughly derailed. “What are you doing?”
“Taking control,” you tell him. You step between his spread thighs, looking down at him with a wicked, predatory smile. “You are very used to running the show, Di Laurentis. But you are playing my game now.”
Dean swallows hard. He leans back on his elbows, watching you with wide, fascinated eyes. “Okay. Show me your game, Moscow.”
You climb onto the bed, straddling his hips. He groans instantly at the friction, his hands twitching at his sides, but he doesn’t touch you. He lets you set the pace.
You reach down, your fingers deliberately slow as you start undoing the buttons of his tailored shirt. You watch his face as you work, taking in the rapid pulse at the base of his throat, the way his jaw tightens with every agonizingly slow brush of your knuckles against his bare skin.
Once the shirt is fully unbuttoned, you push it off his shoulders, letting it fall onto the sheets. You run your hands flat over his sculpted chest, feeling the heavy, frantic thud of his heart beneath his ribs.
“You are impatient,” you murmur, leaning down to press a soft, teasing kiss to the center of his chest.
“I’m dying,” Dean corrects roughly. His hands come up, gripping your hips tightly. “Y/N. Please.”
“Please what?” You ask, your voice dropping into a sultry, teasing purr. You shift your weight, grinding down against his hard length right through his jeans.
Dean’s head throws back, his hips automatically bucking up against you to chase the friction. “Fuck,” he gasps. “Take it off. All of it.”
You smile. You reach down, finding the hem of your slip dress, and pull it up over your head in one smooth motion, tossing it to the floor. You are wearing nothing but a matching set of sheer, black lace lingerie.
Dean stares at you. He actually stops breathing for three full seconds.
“Holy shit,” he whispers reverently. “You are … you are perfect.”
“I know,” you say confidently.
You lean down, capturing his lips again. The kiss is deep, wet, and incredibly hot. You move your hips in a slow, rhythmic grind that has Dean cursing into your mouth. He is letting you ride him, letting you dictate the rhythm, his large hands resting on your waist, guiding your movements but not forcing them.
You reach for the buckle of his belt, your fingers completely steady, but before you can even undo the clasp, the dynamic shifts.
Dean’s patience completely snaps.
“Okay. You’ve had your fun,” Dean growls softly against your lips.
Before you can even react, his hands tighten on your waist. He lifts you effortlessly — like you weigh absolutely nothing at all — and in one fluid, powerful motion, he flips you.
You let out a startled gasp as your back hits the mattress. Suddenly, Dean is hovering over you, his broad shoulders blocking out the overhead light. His eyes are entirely black now, the playful, indulgent boy completely gone, replaced by something dark, dominant, and terrifyingly hot.
“You think you’re the only one who likes control?” Dean murmurs, leaning down so his mouth is a breath away from your ear. “You think you can just climb on top of me, grind against me like that, and I’m just going to lay there and take it?”
“You were doing a very good job of it,” you try to say haughtily, but your voice is suddenly a little breathless.
“I was letting you win the first period,” Dean corrects, his teeth grazing the sensitive skin of your earlobe. “But the game is mine now.”
He doesn’t give you a chance to argue. His hands are everywhere. He unclasps your bra with a single, practiced flick of his fingers, tossing it aside. He takes your mouth again in a bruising, dominant kiss, swallowing your soft gasp as his warm, rough palm cups your breast. His thumb drags firmly over your nipple, and a jolt of pure pleasure shoots straight down to your core.
You arch your back, your hands tangling in his thick blond hair. The icy, untouchable Russian princess act is rapidly melting under the sheer, scorching heat of his attention.
Dean breaks the kiss, moving his mouth down your neck, pressing hot, open-mouthed kisses along your collarbone. At the same time, his hand slides down your stomach, hooking his fingers into the waistband of your lace panties and pulling them down your legs.
He steps off the bed for exactly three seconds. The sound of his zipper dragging down, his jeans hitting the floor, and the tear of a foil wrapper are deafening in the quiet room.
When he comes back over you, he is completely bare, beautiful, and completely focused. He settles between your thighs, his knees pressing your legs wider.
He reaches down, his fingers finding your slick, aching center. He strokes you once, two fingers pressing deep inside, and you let out a sharp, genuine cry.
“You’re so fucking wet for me,” Dean groans, his voice dark with triumph. He leans down, his mouth hovering over yours. “Tell me you want this.”
“I want it,” you breathe, your accent heavy. “Do not make me wait, Dean.”
He doesn’t. He grips your hips, aligning himself with your wet heat, and pushes forward.
He fills you completely in one long, agonizingly slow thrust. You gasp, your nails digging half-moons into the hard muscles of his back as he buries himself to the hilt. It’s incredibly deep, stretching you so perfectly it makes your vision swim.
Dean freezes, a low shuddering groan tearing from his throat. He rests his forehead against yours, his eyes closed, his jaw clenched tight as he fights for control.
“Fuck, Y/N,” he breathes, his body trembling over yours. “You are so tight. So incredibly tight.”
“Move,” you demand softly, your hips instinctively arching up to take him deeper.
Dean’s eyes snap open. “Yes, ma’am.”
He starts to move. He pulls back almost completely before driving his hips forward, burying himself deep inside you again. The friction is immediate and explosive.
“Oh!” You gasp, your head throwing back against the pillows.
Dean sets a brutal, relentless pace. He isn’t rushing, but he isn’t being gentle either. Every thrust is deep, hard, and perfectly angled. He hits the exact spot that makes your toes curl with every single stroke. The skin-on-skin slap of his hips meeting yours echoes loudly in the quiet room, a dirty, incredibly erotic sound.
“Is this good?” Dean asks, his voice thick, thrusting hard into you. “Is my form okay for you, Moscow?”
“Shut up,” you moan, your hands gripping his shoulders desperately.
“You had a lot of opinions about my performance on the ice,” Dean taunts darkly, dropping his head to bite lightly at your neck as he pounds into you. “Critique this.”
“Dean-”
“Say my name again,” he demands, his grip on your hips tightening. He angles his hips differently, grinding hard against your clit with his pelvis as he thrusts deep inside you.
The sensation is so sharp, so overwhelming, that your brain completely short-circuits. The English language entirely evaporates from your mind.
“Bozhe moy,” you cry out, your voice fracturing.
Dean freezes for a fraction of a second, his head snapping up. His eyes are wide, wild with sudden, explosive heat.
“What did you just say?” He breathes, thrusting back into you with sudden, renewed ferocity.
“Da,” you gasp, completely unable to stop yourself. The pleasure is mounting too fast, spiraling out of control. “Da, pozhaluysta.”
“Russian,” Dean groans, the sound completely animalistic. “Fuck, yes. Keep doing that. Talk to me in Russian.”
He speeds up, his thrusts becoming a rapid, punishing rhythm. You are completely lost in it, clinging to his broad shoulders as the world spins around you.
“Sil’neye,” you beg, your nails scratching down his back. Harder. “I don’t know what that means,” Dean rasps, his chest heaving, sweat dripping from his forehead onto your collarbone. “But I fucking love it. Tell me you’re mine. Tell me in Russian.”
“Tvoya,” you sob, the word slipping out as the tension in your core finally snaps. “Ya tvoya.”
The climax hits you like a freight train. You cry out loud, your back bowing off the mattress as wave after wave of intense, blinding pleasure rips through your body. Your inner muscles clamp down hard around his thick length, milking him perfectly.
Dean lets out a loud, raw shout. He drives into you two more times, impossibly deep, and then completely falls apart. He buries his face in the crook of your neck, his body shaking uncontrollably as he empties himself inside the condom, completely surrendering to you.
For a long time, the only sound in the room is the ragged, desperate sound of both of you fighting to catch your breath.
Dean’s heavy weight is crushing you into the mattress, but you don’t care. You feel thoroughly, beautifully wrecked.
Slowly, the haze begins to clear. Dean shifts his weight, pulling out of you with a soft, wet sound, and carefully rolls off to the side to dispose of the condom. When he comes back, he drops onto the mattress beside you, throwing one heavy arm and a leg over your body, pulling you flush against his side.
You rest your head on his bare chest, listening to his heart still hammering against his ribs.
“Wow,” Dean breathes into the quiet room.
“Yes,” you agree softly, your voice still a little raspy.
Dean presses a soft kiss to the top of your head, his fingers lazily tracing the curve of your hip. “You completely lost your mind there at the end, didn’t you?”
You feel a flush creeping up your neck. “I do not know what you are talking about.”
“Liar,” Dean laughs softly. “You lost your English entirely. It was the hottest fucking thing I have ever experienced in my entire life.”
You turn your head, resting your chin on his chest so you can look up at him. His eyes are soft now, completely completely devoid of the cocky arrogance he usually wears like armor. He just looks entirely, thoroughly captivated by you.
“You played a good game, Di Laurentis,” you tell him, your accent soft and thick in the quiet room.
Dean smiles, reaching up to tuck a damp strand of hair behind your ear. “Good enough for a second round?”
You raise an eyebrow, your old, haughty confidence returning in full force. “Do not flatter yourself. Let us see if you can handle the conditioning drills first.”
Dean throws his head back and laughs, a bright, happy sound that makes something warm and completely foreign bloom in the center of your chest. He pulls you up slightly, capturing your lips in a soft, lazy kiss that tastes like contentment and the promise of a very long night.
“Whatever you want, Moscow,” Dean murmurs against your mouth. “I’m not going anywhere.”
***
The house living room smells like stale pepperoni, cheap beer, and the distinct, aggressive musk of four college athletes who have been yelling at a television for the past two hours.
Dean is sprawled in the worn armchair, a long-necked bottle of Corona resting on his stomach. On the ratty couch, Garrett, Logan, and Tucker are packed shoulder-to-shoulder, their eyes completely glued to the sixty-inch screen mounted on the wall.
It is a Tuesday night, which means the Boston Bruins are playing the Toronto Maple Leafs, and in this house, an NHL game is basically a religious event.
On the screen, Ilya Rozanov, the Bruins’ star center and arguably the most terrifying, arrogant, and talented player in the league, intercepts a pass at center ice. With a burst of speed that defies the laws of physics for a man of his massive size, he blows past two Toronto defensemen, dekes the goalie out of his crease, and casually roofs the puck on his backhand.
The goal horn blares through the TV speakers, shaking the floorboards of the living room.
“Holy shit,” Garrett breathes, leaning forward so fast he almost knocks over his beer. “Did you see that edge work? The guy is an absolute machine.”
“It’s disgusting,” Logan agrees, shaking his head in awe. “He makes NHL defensemen look like Pee-Wee players. It’s physically embarrassing for them.”
“And there are still idiots out there who claim Shane Hollander is a better player,” Tucker snorts, reaching for a slice of cold pizza from the box on the coffee table. “Hollander is great, sure. He’s got the golden boy reputation. But Rozanov? Rozanov is a killer. He has zero conscience on the ice.”
“Hollander has better defensive metrics,” Garrett points out, ever the captain. “But yeah, offensively, Rozanov is in a league of his own. If I ever meet him, I think I’d actually ask him to sign my chest.”
Dean laughs, taking a slow sip of his beer. “You literally have a poster of him in your bedroom, Garrett. It’s creepy. You’re twenty-two years old.”
“It’s not a poster, it’s a framed print,” Garrett corrects defensively. “And it’s about respecting greatness, Di Laurentis. Try it sometime.”
Dean just grins, leaning his head back against the armchair. He feels relaxed. Better than relaxed, actually. He feels completely, terrifyingly anchored. It’s been three weeks since that first date with you, and his life has practically flipped upside down. He spends half his nights sneaking into your luxury apartment, and the other half trying to convince you to stay at his place. You are demanding, brilliant, ruthlessly critical of his defensive zone coverage, and the best thing that has ever happened to him.
He hasn’t looked at another girl since the night you called his backhand weak.
On the TV, the broadcast cuts away from the Bruins’ bench celebrating the goal.
“An unbelievable individual effort from Ilya Rozanov,” the play-by-play commentator announces over the roar of the TD Garden crowd. “His tenth goal of the season already, and we’re not even fully into November.”
“And you know who’s loving it up there?” the color commentator chimes in. “Let’s take a look up at the Bruins’ friends and family suite.”
The camera cuts from the ice to the luxury boxes high above the lower bowl. The shot zooms in on two young women sitting in the plush front-row seats, leaning over the glass barrier to look down at the ice.
Dean’s brain instantly short-circuits.
He stops breathing. The bottle of Corona slips dangerously in his grip.
It’s you.
You are right there on the sixty-inch screen, wearing a flawless black leather jacket over a form-fitting white top. Your hair is styled in perfect waves, and you are currently in the middle of an animated, laughing conversation with the woman sitting next to you.
“Whoa,” Logan says, leaning forward. “Who are they? The one on the left is gorgeous.”
“Shut up, John,” Dean croaks, his voice cracking horribly.
The broadcast graphics flash at the bottom of the screen, highlighting the two of you.
“That’s Svetlana Vetrova on the right,” the commentator explains cheerfully. “Daughter of the legendary Soviet goaltender Sergei Vetrov. She and Rozanov grew up together in Moscow.”
The camera pans slightly, focusing entirely on your face as you laugh at something Svetlana says.
“And with her is Ilya Rozanov’s younger sister,” the broadcaster continues, the words echoing through the dead silent living room like gunshots. “She just moved to Boston this fall to attend university locally. The Rozanov siblings are famously close. Ilya practically raised her, and rumor has it he is incredibly protective.”
The TV screen shows Ilya skating back to the bench. He looks up toward the suite, pointing a gloved finger directly at you. You smile, rolling your eyes affectionately, and give him a small, sarcastic golf clap.
In the house, the silence is so heavy it could shatter glass.
Garrett’s jaw is practically on the floor. He slowly, mechanically turns his head to look at Dean.
Logan and Tucker follow suit, their eyes wide with absolute, unadulterated horror.
Dean is frozen in the armchair. All the blood has rushed out of his face, leaving him pale and dizzy. His heart is hammering a frantic, terrified rhythm against his ribs.
He thinks about the way he pushed you against his bedroom door. He thinks about the sheer, insane volume of highly explicit texts he has sent to your phone in the last forty-eight hours. He thinks about the massive, bruised hickey he left just below your collarbone two days ago — a hickey that Ilya Rozanov could probably see with his naked eye from center ice.
“Dean,” Garrett whispers, his voice trembling slightly. “Is that …”
“Yes,” Dean says hollowly.
“That’s Moscow,” Tucker confirms, sounding like he’s at a funeral. “That’s your girl.”
“She didn’t tell me,” Dean gasps out, clutching the beer bottle like a lifeline. “She told me her brother paid for her apartment! She never said her brother was the most dangerous player in the National Hockey League!”
“You’re sleeping with Ilya Rozanov’s little sister,” Logan says, the reality of the situation finally crashing down on him. A slow, hysterical laugh bubbles up in his chest. “Dean. He is going to literally kill you. He is going to break your legs with his bare hands.”
“I have a poster of her brother in my room,” Garrett says, staring blankly at the wall. “I’ve been in the same room as you two while you were making out, and I have a poster of her brother on my wall.”
“What do I do?” Dean demands, panic finally settling in. He drops the beer onto the side table and runs both hands through his hair, gripping the blond strands tightly. “Do I text her? Do I ask why she didn’t tell me? Do I change my name and move to Mexico?”
“You can’t move,” Tucker says solemnly. “Rozanov has Russian mob connections. He will find you.”
“He does not have mob connections!” Dean yells, though his voice pitches up nervously. “Does he?”
“Dude, he led the league in penalty minutes for three consecutive seasons,” Logan points out, highly unhelpful. “He shattered a guy’s jaw last year just for looking at his goalie wrong. If he finds out you — Briar’s biggest, sluttiest defenseman — are hooking up with his baby sister? You’re dead. They’ll never find your body.”
Dean stares at the television screen. The broadcast has moved on, showing a replay of the goal, but Dean can’t see the puck. All he sees is his own impending doom.
He is so incredibly fucked.
***
Two hours later, you are sitting in a private booth at one of the most exclusive steakhouses in Boston.
The post-game adrenaline is still buzzing in the air. Ilya is sitting across from you, casually dressed in a dark designer sweater that stretches tight across his massive shoulders. He has a faint, purpling bruise on his jaw from a high stick in the second period, but his mood is absolutely electric.
“I told you,” Ilya says, cutting into a massive, rare ribeye steak. “Toronto defense is weak this year. They leave the middle of the ice wide open. It is insulting.”
“You showboated on the breakaway,” you point out, sipping your sparkling water. “You did not need to go to the backhand. The five-hole was open.”
“I am an entertainer, Y/N,” Ilya replies smoothly, chewing his steak. “The fans pay a lot of money to see me play. I must give them a show.”
You roll your eyes, picking at your truffle fries. You love him, but his ego takes up ninety percent of any room he walks into. Still, the dinner is nice. Sibling bonding time is rare during the NHL season, and you cherish the moments when it’s just the two of you, speaking Russian and acting entirely normal.
“Sveta looked well,” you say, changing the subject. “I hear she is thinking of taking a job with the Bruins.”
“She is good,” Ilya nods. “She asks about you. She says you are distracted lately.”
You pause, a fry halfway to your mouth. You lower it back to the plate, keeping your expression completely neutral. “I am not distracted. I am adjusting to a new country and a new curriculum. Economics is demanding.”
Ilya stops chewing. He swallows, rests his forearms on the heavy mahogany table, and pins you with a dark, intensely knowing look.
“Do not lie to me, little bird,” Ilya says softly, his heavy accent wrapping around the Russian words. “You have been living here for months. You were not distracted in September. But the last three weeks? You are checking your phone during the game. You are smiling at your screen.”
“I look at memes,” you lie smoothly.
“You do not understand American memes,” Ilya shoots back without missing a beat. “So, let us skip the part where you insult my intelligence. Who is putting that smirk on your face?”
You let out a slow sigh, leaning back against the leather booth. You knew this conversation was coming. Ilya is overprotective on a good day, and completely tyrannical when it comes to the men in your life. You intentionally haven’t told him about Dean because you wanted to enjoy the early stages without your brother accidentally ending Dean’s hockey career.
“It is nothing serious,” you say carefully, sticking to Russian so the waiter passing by won’t understand. “Just a boy from the university.”
Ilya’s eyes narrow instantly. “A boy. Does this boy play a sport?”
“That is irrelevant.”
“It is highly relevant. If he is a hockey player, I need to know immediately so I can arrange an accident on the ice.”
“Ilya.” You give him a sharp, warning look. “I am nineteen years old. I am allowed to have fun. You told me to have fun.”
“I told you to have fun with respectable men,” Ilya argues, jabbing his steak knife in your direction. “Not college athletes. They are animals. They do not know how to treat a woman.”
“He treats me very well, actually,” you fire back, defending Dean instinctively. The memory of Dean’s complete devotion — both in and out of the bedroom — flashes through your mind. “He takes me to nice places. He is polite.”
“Polite,” Ilya snorts, taking a large gulp of his red wine. “Sure. And what does this polite boy think is happening between you two? Does he know it is casual? Because men like that, they get attached. They get possessive.”
“He knows,” you say smoothly, though a tiny flicker of doubt sparks in your chest. Does Dean know it’s casual? He certainly hasn’t been acting casual lately. He acts like he owns you, and worse, you find yourself letting him.
“He knows,” Ilya repeats sarcastically. He shakes his head, cutting another piece of steak. “I worry about you, Y/N. You play these games, but eventually, someone gets hurt. You cannot just keep things casual forever. Eventually, you have to commit or walk away.”
You stare at your brother. The sheer hypocrisy of his statement actually leaves you speechless for a moment.
You slowly pick up your glass of wine, swirling the dark red liquid. You look at Ilya over the rim of the glass, a slow, lethal smirk curling the corners of your mouth.
“You are giving me advice on commitment?” You ask, your tone dangerously soft.
Ilya pauses, a flicker of unease crossing his features. “I am your older brother. It is my job to give you advice.”
“Interesting,” you note, leaning forward and resting your elbows on the table. “Because as far as I can tell, you have been in a situationship for the last six years, and you still refuse to put a label on it.”
Ilya’s jaw drops slightly. The smug, overprotective older brother act completely shatters. A dark, furious blush creeps up his neck, disappearing into his hairline.
“I do not know what you are talking about,” Ilya says rigidly.
“Oh, please.” You take a sip of your wine, enjoying the sudden shift in power. “How is Jane?”
Ilya actually chokes on his wine. He coughs, grabbing his napkin and pressing it to his mouth, his eyes watering.
You watch him without an ounce of pity. You have known about “Jane” for years. You know exactly who “Jane” is. You know that Jane is not a woman, and you know that Jane happens to be a certain golden boy captain of the Canadian national team who plays in Montreal. You know that Ilya and Shane Hollander have been hooking up in secret hotel rooms across North America for years, wrapped up in a bitter rivalry that is a very thin cover for a desperate, consuming obsession.
Ilya refuses to admit it out loud, but he knows that you know.
“Jane is fine,” Ilya grits out finally, glaring at you across the table.
“Good. Tell her I say hello,” you say pleasantly. “And tell her that if she ever breaks your heart, I will break her legs. That is the system, yes?”
Ilya stares at you. For a long, tense moment, the air between you crackles with unspoken threats and sibling stubbornness.
And then, slowly, the tension breaks.
Ilya lets out a low, rumbling laugh, shaking his head. He wipes his mouth with the napkin, looking at you with a mixture of immense pride and total defeat. You really are his exact replica.
“You are a menace, Y/N,” Ilya says softly.
“I learned from the best,” you reply smoothly.
Ilya sighs, raising his glass of wine toward you in a gesture of surrender. “Fine. You win. I will stop asking about the boy from university. For now. But if he hurts you, Y/N, I am serious. I will end him.”
“He will not hurt me,” you say confidently, clinking your glass against his. “I would never give him the power to do so.”
“Za zdarovye,” Ilya murmurs.
“Za zdarovye.”
You take a sip of the expensive wine, feeling a rush of affection for your brother. You handled him perfectly. He is backed off, your secret is safe, and your casual arrangement with Dean remains uninterrupted.
But as you set your glass down, your phone buzzes in your purse.
You pull it out, glancing at the screen under the table so Ilya can’t see.
It’s a text from Dean.
Actually, it’s six texts from Dean, sent in rapid succession.
Dean: Tell me right now you’re not actually Ilya Rozanov’s sister.
Dean: Holy shit.
Dean: They showed you on the broadcast.
Dean: Garrett is hyperventilating into a paper bag.
Dean: Why didn’t you tell me?
Dean: Are you with him right now? Don’t let him look at your neck.
You stare at the screen. Your carefully constructed, compartmentalized life is suddenly colliding in real-time.
You look up across the table. Ilya is casually cutting into his steak, completely oblivious to the absolute meltdown happening on your phone. He is relaxed, happy, and entirely unaware that his beloved little sister is sleeping with a hockey player.
You look back down at the screen, your thumb hovering over the keyboard.
A tiny, wicked thrill races down your spine. The game just got a lot more interesting.
You: I am having dinner with him now.
You: Do not panic, Di Laurentis. He does not know about you. Yet.
You hit send, slide the phone back into your purse, and pick up your fork, completely unbothered.
Across town, Dean receives the text.
He stares at his phone screen for a full minute, the words burning into his retinas. The terrifying confidence of your reply does nothing to soothe his racing heart.
“Well?” Logan asks nervously from the couch. “What did she say?”
Dean slowly lowers his phone, looking at his three best friends. His expression is completely haunted.
“She told me not to panic,” Dean whispers.
“Oh, you’re dead,” Tucker nods sagely. “That’s exactly what people say right before they execute you.”
“Can I have your signed Marchand stick when you die?” Garrett asks, entirely serious.
Dean ignores them. He falls back against the armchair, pressing the heels of his hands into his eyes. He is terrified. He is absolutely, completely terrified of Ilya Rozanov finding out that Dean has had his hands all over his little sister.
But beneath the terror, beneath the very real threat of physical violence, there is another feeling. A feeling that Dean can’t ignore, no matter how hard he tries.
He thinks about you sitting across from the most intimidating man in the NHL, calmly texting him, completely in control of the situation. He thinks about the way you challenge him, the way you speak Russian against his skin in the dark, the way you make him want to be better, faster, stronger just to earn a shred of your approval.
Dean drops his hands, staring blankly at the ceiling of the hockey house.
He is terrified. But he isn’t going to run.
“I’m keeping her,” Dean says suddenly, his voice quiet but incredibly firm.
The three guys on the couch stop talking. They stare at Dean like he has just lost his mind.
“Dean,” Garrett says slowly. “Did you hear what we just said? Her brother will end your career. He will end your life.”
“I don’t care,” Dean says, sitting forward. The panic is fading, replaced by that fierce, undeniable stubbornness that makes him the best defenseman in the conference. He grabs his beer, taking a long pull. “Let him try. I’m not letting her go.”
Logan sighs, rubbing his temples. “We’re going to need to buy so many deadbolts.”
𝐒𝐔𝐌𝐌𝐀𝐑𝐘 — dean di laurentis needs a fake girlfriend for his family’s charity weekend. unfortunately, the girl he asks is the one person who can’t stand him. even more unfortunately, she might be the only one who can make it believable.
𝐖𝐀𝐑𝐍𝐈𝐍𝐆𝐒 — 18+ mdni, fake dating, enemies-to-lovers banter, only one bed trope, forced proximity, tension, flirting, dean being dean, suggestive moments, almost kiss, no smut in this part.
𝐖𝐎𝐑𝐃 𝐂𝐎𝐔𝐍𝐓 — 7,019.
𝐚𝐮𝐭𝐡𝐨𝐫's 𝐧𝐨𝐭𝐞 — part one of boyfriend material is finally here. i’m so excited for this mini-series. tell me what you thought about part 1 <3
𝐓𝐀𝐆𝐋𝐈𝐒𝐓 ⟶ you can find my taglist here!
𝐌𝐀𝐒𝐓𝐄𝐑𝐋𝐈𝐒𝐓 ⟶ you can find my masterlist here!
━━━━━━━━ 🏒 ━━━━━━━━
The first thing you realized was that Dean Di Laurentis wasn’t good at begging without making it dramatic.
The second thing you learned was that Dean absolutely hated being bad at anything.
“No,” you answered.
Dean blinked at you from across the kitchen table as your answer had personally offended him. “You didn’t even let me finish.”
“You said, ‘I need a huge favor,’ and then looked at me like you were about to ruin my entire week,” you told him, taking a sip of your coffee. “That was enough.”
Hannah pressed her lips together beside you like she was trying very hard not to laugh.
Allie didn’t bother trying.
She leaned back in her chair, already grinning into her mug. “This is my favorite conversation.”
Dean gave her a look. “No one asked you.”
“You showed up in our dorm at nine in the morning.”
“It’s almost ten.”
“On a Saturday,” Allie added. “That’s basically dawn.”
Dean ignored her and turned back to you, his hands braced on the table. His hair was messy, his hoodie was wrinkled, and he had the faintly panicked look of someone who’d made several bad decisions and was only now realizing consequences existed.
It wasn’t an unfamiliar expression on him.
“Just hear me out,” he tried.
“Absolutely not.”
“[Y/N], come on.”
“Dean, no.”
“I’m serious this time.”
“That’s when you’re usually most dangerous.”
Hannah finally gave up, laughing softly into her hand.
Dean pointed at her. “Don’t encourage this.”
“She doesn’t need encouragement,” Hannah said. “She’s doing great on her own.”
You gave him a sweet smile.
Dean’s eyes narrowed. “You’re enjoying this.”
“Deeply.”
“You don’t even know what I’m about to ask.”
“I know it involves you, your family, and the phrase ‘huge favor,’ so that tells me everything I need to know.”
Dean exhaled and dragged a hand through his hair. “Okay, fine. I may have accidentally told my parents I’m seeing someone.”
Allie went quiet, Hannah looked up, and you lowered your coffee like the conversation had suddenly earned your full attention.
Dean looked between the three of you, suddenly defensive. “It made sense at the time.”
You stared at him. “No, it didn’t.”
“You don’t have the context.”
“Was the context that you lied?”
“It’s more complicated than that.”
Allie leaned forward like she’d been waiting for this. “Oh, this is good.”
Dean let out a groan. “It’s not good.”
“It’s incredible,” she corrected. “Keep going.”
Dean shot her a glare before turning back to you. “They’ve been on my ass lately about taking things seriously.”
You hummed thoughtfully. “Wonder why.”
His gaze cut to yours. “You’re not helping.”
“I’m still listening.”
“You’re judging me with your whole face.”
“I’m capable of both.”
Hannah touched your arm like she was asking you, very nicely, to let him finish.
You leaned back with a dramatic sigh. “Fine. Go on.”
Dean looked like he was starting to regret coming here, which was satisfying.
“My family’s hosting this charity weekend,” he started. “Country club, hotel, dinner, auction, donor thing, the whole nightmare.”
“That sounds expensive and exhausting,” Allie said.
“It is.” Dean pointed at her as Allie had just proven his point. “Exactly.”
You raised an eyebrow at him. “I’m still waiting for the part where this becomes my problem.”
“I’m getting there, okay?”
“I’m getting older,” you added, watching Dean clench his jaw.
Hannah tried to hide another smile.
“My mom asked if I was bringing anyone,” Dean admitted. “And I said yes.”
You waited for him to keep going, and when Dean didn’t, you narrowed your eyes.
“Dean,” you warned, watching him look away. “Dean.”
“I panicked,” he admitted.
“You panicked,” you repeated, because somehow that explained nothing.
“She got weirdly intense.”
“She asked whether you had a date.”
“She asked it like it meant something.”
“Oh my god, Dean.”
“And then my dad made this comment about wanting to meet whoever finally got me to settle down, and I didn’t correct him fast enough, so now my parents think I have a serious girlfriend.”
The room went quiet for about two seconds before Allie burst out laughing.
Dean pointed at her again, which only made her laugh harder. “This isn’t funny.”
“It’s kind of funny,” Hannah admitted.
“It’s actually very funny,” you told him.
Dean looked at you like you’d personally wounded him. “I’m in crisis.”
“You’re dealing with consequences.”
“I need your help.”
“You need a reality check.”
“I need a girlfriend.”
“I need a girlfriend,” Dean blurted, and you nearly choked on your coffee.
Allie made a delighted little sound, and Hannah looked at him like he’d lost his mind.
Dean held up both hands before you could react. “Fake girlfriend.”
“No,” you told him, setting your mug down hard.
“You haven’t even heard the full plan yet.”
“There’s no plan in the world that ends with me pretending to date you.”
“That’s actually hurtful.”
“That feels fair.”
Dean leaned across the table and lowered his voice, as if that would make him more convincing. “It’s one weekend.”
“No.”
“It’s three days.”
“Still no.”
“Two nights, technically.”
“Not a chance.”
“I’ll owe you big.”
“You already owe me after you told Logan I liked his haircut and he thanked me for twenty minutes.”
Dean winced at that. “That was an accident.”
“You said, and I quote, ‘[Y/N] thinks you look hot.’”
“I was just trying to distract him.”
“Distract him from what, exactly?”
Dean paused before admitting, “I don’t remember.”
“That’s what I thought.”
He sighed your name, long and pleading.
You hated that your name always sounded softer when he said it like that, and you hated it even more because part of you noticed anyway. After all, that was the thing, you didn’t hate Dean the way you pretended to.
Hating Dean Di Laurentis would’ve been a lot easier if he weren’t so hard to like.
He was arrogant, irritating, shamelessly dramatic, and way too pleased with himself, the kind of guy who flirted like it was a reflex and teased you because he knew exactly how to get under your skin. He stole fries from your plate whenever you sat with Hannah and Allie at Malone’s, called you “sunshine” when you glared at him, and “sweetheart” when he was clearly trying to get something thrown at his head.
But he was also usually the first one to notice when Hannah got overwhelmed in crowded rooms, to cover Allie’s drink when someone brushed too close to it, and to walk you home when it got late, like it wasn’t a big deal.
Dean was irritating and had always been in trouble, but he also had a way of looking at people that made him notice more than he should.
You found that deeply inconvenient.
“No,” you repeated, because apparently he needed to hear it twice.
Dean’s shoulders slumped. “You don’t even want to know what’s in it for you?”
“No.”
“I’ll get you tickets to the next game.”
“I already know too many hockey players.”
“I’ll make Garrett stop calling you scary.”
“I actually like it when Garrett calls me scary.”
“I’ll get Logan to stop flirting with your friend.”
“You absolutely can’t.”
Dean considered that for a second, then nodded. “Fair.”
Allie leaned closer to you. “You should ask for money.”
Dean looked genuinely offended. “I’m not paying someone to date me.”
“You’re not,” you told him, “because I’m not dating you.”
“Fake dating,” Dean corrected.
“Somehow, still no.”
He looked at Hannah as if he were getting desperate. “Help me.”
Hannah lifted both hands. “I’m not getting involved.”
“You’re already involved,” Dean told her. “This is your apartment.”
“That’s not how involvement works.”
Dean looked back at you, and for the first time since he’d shown up, the panic slipped into something quieter.
“Please,” he murmured.
The word landed differently this time.
It wasn’t dramatic this time. It wasn’t teasing. It was just Dean, looking at you like he really needed you to say yes.
Your chest tightened before you could stop it.
Damn him for making it harder to say no.
You hated that seeing him genuinely stressed made it harder to stay annoyed. It was much easier to say no when Dean was being insufferable, not when he looked like he actually needed you.
“Why me?” You looked at him, trying not to sound like you were already considering it.
Dean blinked, thrown for half a second, like he hadn’t expected you to ask.
Then he straightened slightly, like the answer was obvious once he said it. “Because they’ll believe you.”
You frowned at him. “Why?”
“Because you don’t act like someone who would put up with me unless you wanted to.”
Allie snorted into her mug, and you shot her a look.
She held up both hands, still grinning. “Sorry. That was good.”
You looked back at Dean, trying not to think too hard about what he’d just said, but he was watching you carefully now, without the smirk or the teasing, and that made it harder not to.
“Also,” he added, a little quieter, “you’re good with people. My mom will like you, my dad will think you’re smart, and you won’t get intimidated by my family or let me say something stupid without kicking me under the table.”
“You say stupid things all the time.”
“Exactly. I need supervision.”
You looked away first, which felt annoyingly close to a loss. That was a mistake, because Allie immediately let out a soft little gasp as she’d just witnessed something historic.
“Oh my god,” Allie gasped. “You’re considering it.”
“I’m not.”
Hannah tilted her head like she was trying to be gentle about it. “You kind of are.”
“I’m not,” you insisted, which didn’t help your case. Dean’s eyes lit up with dangerous hope, and you pointed at him before he could say anything. “Don’t look excited.”
“I’m not,” Dean said, looking extremely excited.
“You are,” you told him.
“I’m cautiously optimistic.”
“You should be afraid.”
“I can multitask,” he said, looking entirely too pleased with himself.
You dragged both hands over your face.
This was ridiculous. It was ridiculous. It was exactly the sort of thing you shouldn’t agree to under any circumstances.
Dean Di Laurentis was a lot of things, but boyfriend material wasn’t one of them.
He was flirt-at-a-party material, bad-decision-after-midnight material, the kind of guy who looked good leaning against counters and bad for your common sense. Charming when he wanted something, dangerous when he smiled, and completely unqualified to be anyone’s serious boyfriend, especially yours. Fake or not.
You leaned forward, eyes narrowed. “Do you want my help, or do you want to die?”
Dean, for once, made the smart choice and closed his mouth.
You pointed at him. “No kissing unless necessary.”
“Define necessary.”
“You know exactly what necessary means.”
“I do, but I’m getting the feeling your definition is stricter than mine.”
“My definition includes your mouth staying away from mine most of the weekend.”
Dean’s eyes flicked briefly to your mouth, so briefly that you almost convinced yourself you’d imagined it.
Almost.
Then he looked back up at you, expression so maddeningly innocent it had to be fake. “The majority?”
You narrowed your eyes at him, which only made him smile.
You hated him.
You hated him.
You were starting to think that might be a problem.
“No sex,” you added, sharper this time.
Allie choked on a laugh.
Hannah breathed, “Oh my god.”
Dean blinked once, then twice, before his mouth curved. “Sweetheart,” he murmured slowly, “I hadn’t even brought that up.”
Heat rushed to your face. “That’s why I’m bringing it up first.”
“Very responsible of you.”
“I’ll stab you with this spoon.”
Dean’s grin widened. “Fake relationship rule number two. No sex.”
“Rule number one,” you corrected, “is no kissing unless necessary.”
“Right. Very tragic rule.”
“Rule number three,” you went on, ignoring him. “No feelings.”
Dean raised an eyebrow like that was exactly the wrong thing to say. “Were you worried?”
“Yes. For you.”
Dean laughed. “For me?”
“You seem emotionally fragile.”
“I’m already devastated.”
“Rule number four,” you continued. “No calling each other boyfriend or girlfriend when no one is around.”
Dean’s smile shifted slightly, just for a second, before it came back.
“Why not?” Dean wanted to know.
“Because that’s weird.”
“We’re pretending to date for an entire weekend, sharing a hotel room, and lying to my parents, but boyfriend is where you draw the line?”
“Yes.”
“Interesting.”
“It’s not interesting, Dean.”
“It’s kind of interesting.”
“Rule number five,” you went on, louder this time. “When this is over, we go back to normal.”
Dean studied you like he knew there was more beneath the surface. For once, he didn’t immediately make a joke, which somehow made it worse.
The word sat between you in a way you didn’t want to look at too closely, because normal, for you and Dean, had never been simple. It’d always been bickering in kitchens and too-long eye contact, comments that felt like dares, and smiles you pretended not to return. It’d always been his hand hovering near your back in crowded places, never staying long enough for anyone to call it something, but close enough that you noticed every time.
Dean nodded once, like he understood exactly what he was agreeing to. “Deal.”
Your stomach tightened a little. “You’re agreeing too easily.”
“I told you, I’m desperate.”
“That’s very comforting.”
“I mean it,” he promised. “Your rules. I’ll follow them.”
Allie coughed, as if she had thoughts about it.
Dean glanced at her. “What?”
“Nothing,” Allie said, in a way that meant absolutely nothing.
“That sounded like a judgmental cough.”
“I just think ‘your rules, I’ll follow them’ is going to age beautifully.”
You ignored her and held Dean’s gaze like you were trying to figure out whether you believed him.
“You owe me,” you reminded him.
“Anything,” Dean promised.
“You don’t even know what I want yet.”
“Then I’ll find out.”
The words shouldn’t have sounded like that, soft and low and too much like a promise. Your fingers tightened around your mug.
Allie, because she had no mercy, leaned back in her chair. “This weekend is going to be a disaster.”
Dean looked at you, and you looked back at him. For once, neither of you argued.
**
Less than twenty-four hours later, the disaster began.
Dean picked you up at noon, which gave him just enough time to text you seven times beforehand.
dean
wear something my mom will believe i had a shot with
you
so basically nothing?
dean
very hurtful.
you
objectively accurate.
dean
my mom’s going to love you.
you
because i’m obviously charming?
dean
because you’re mean to me. she’ll find it refreshing.
you
your family sounds smarter than you.
dean
everyone says that, actually.
By the time Dean pulled up outside your apartment, you were already on the curb with your overnight bag, pretending your stomach wasn’t twisting.
Dean pulled up to the curb and got out immediately.
You wished he looked worse. It would’ve been helpful if he’d shown up in something ridiculous, like a stained hoodie, bad shoes, or a hat that made him look like an idiot.
Instead, he showed up in dark jeans, a navy sweater pushed up at the sleeves, and sunglasses hooked into the collar like he’d been designed specifically to ruin your life at a family charity weekend.
His eyes moved over you before he seemed to remember he wasn’t supposed to be obvious about it. Too late, though. You noticed.
“You look…” Dean started, then seemed to forget the rest of the sentence.
You raised an eyebrow. “Careful.”
His mouth curved. “Expensive.”
You stared at him because somehow that was worse.
Dean smiled like he couldn’t believe he had to explain it. “That was a compliment.”
“That was a weird compliment.”
“My mother’s going to love it.”
“You really know how to make a girl feel special.”
He took your bag from your hand like it hadn’t occurred to him not to.
“I’m your fake boyfriend,” he reminded you. “That’s my job.”
You froze. Dean froze, too, like he’d realized it at the same time, and then you slowly turned your head toward him.
“What was rule number four again?”
Dean sighed as if this rule were personally inconvenient. “No calling each other boyfriend or girlfriend when no one is around.”
“And are we currently around anyone?”
Dean looked dramatically up and down the empty street before nodding toward a bird. “Does that count?”
“Dean,” you warned.
“Fine.” He put your bag in the trunk. “I’m the man pretending to be emotionally invested in you for social gain. Better?”
“Much better.”
“You’re impossible.”
“You literally begged me.”
“I’m regretting it already.”
“No, you’re not.”
He shut the trunk and smiled at you over the roof of the car like he knew you were right.
“No,” he told you. “I’m not.”
That shouldn’t have warmed something in you. It did anyway.
The drive to the hotel took about 2 hours. Dean spent the first 30 minutes giving you a full family briefing, as if you were about to enter witness protection.
“My mom’s going to ask how we got together.”
“We’re going to need a story.”
“We already have one.”
You looked over at him. “Since when?”
“I flirted with you until you gave up.”
You stared at him until he glanced over. “What?”
“That’s not a story.”
“It’s close enough to the truth.”
“It’s absolutely not.”
Dean grinned as he’d just found a loophole. “So you admit there’s some truth to it?”
“I admit you flirt with anything that has a pulse.”
“Not anything.”
“Sorry,” you corrected. “Anything attractive that breathes.”
Dean tilted his head as he’d just caught you. “So you admit you’re attractive?”
You closed your eyes as that might help. “I hate you.”
“That’s not very fake girlfriend of you.”
“Dean. Rule four.”
“Fake girlfriend,” he insisted.
“That still counts.”
“It doesn’t.”
He smiled at the road like he was enjoying this way too much.
You hated how easy it was to fall into this with him, into the fighting and the rhythm and the way he always seemed ready for whatever you threw at him. It made the fake part feel less fake than it should’ve, and that was dangerous. Very dangerous.
Dean’s phone buzzed where it sat in the cup holder.
He glanced down at it, then passed it to you. “Can you read that for me?”
You picked it up. The text was from his mom, which felt ominous.
Mom
Can’t wait to meet her. Your father says, “Please don’t be late.” I say try not to scare her off before dinner.
You smiled despite yourself as you handed the phone back. “She sounds nice.”
“She’s nice,” Dean admitted. “That’s the problem.”
“Since when is nice a problem?”
“When nice people are disappointed in you, it’s worse.”
Your smile softened. Dean said it casually, but his fingers tightened slightly on the wheel, just enough for you to notice.
That was the problem with fake dating someone you spent so much time pretending not to care about. You knew things, tiny things you weren’t supposed to know, like how Dean joked more when he was nervous, how he tapped his thumb against the wheel when he was thinking too hard, and how his confidence was loudest when he was trying to convince himself of it.
“You’re nervous.”
Dean’s thumb stopped tapping against the wheel.
“I’m not nervous.”
“You are.”
“I’m just focused.”
“On lying to your parents, you mean?”
“On surviving this weekend.”
You studied him for a moment, and when you spoke again, your voice was quieter. “Do they really think you’re that unserious?”
Dean’s mouth twitched, but it didn’t quite turn into a smile. “I mean, I haven’t exactly given them evidence otherwise.”
Something in your chest pulled tight. “Dean.”
He glanced over at you, and for a second, there was no teasing in his expression at all.
“I know what people think of me,” he admitted. “It’s not like they’re wrong.”
You didn’t answer immediately, because you’d thought those things too. Cocky, careless, shameless, charming enough to get away with anything. But then there were the other things, the things Dean pretended didn’t count, like how he’d shown up at Hannah’s after one text when Garrett was spiraling, how he always checked if Allie got home safe even when they were arguing, and how he noticed which teammate needed to be dragged out of a party before anyone else did.
Dean was unserious about a lot of things, but not everything.
“Maybe you’re just bad at letting people see the evidence,” you offered.
Dean looked over at you again, and when the car went too quiet, you looked out the window like that would help.
“Don’t make it weird,” you told him.
His voice was softer than you expected. “You made it weird.”
“No, I didn’t.”
“You said something nice to me.”
“That was an accident.”
“Do that again, and I might fall in love.”
Your head snapped toward him, and there it was again, Dean’s grin, annoying and beautiful and infuriating all at once.
“Rule three,” you reminded him.
“No feelings,” he agreed lightly. “Yeah, yeah.”
But his hand stayed tight on the wheel long after that.
**
The hotel was exactly what you expected from a Di Laurentis family charity weekend: expensive, tasteful, and deeply intimidating.
It sat beside a sprawling country club with polished lawns, white columns, and more valet attendants than one entrance could need. People moved through the lobby in tailored clothes and quiet confidence, like they knew which fork went with which course and had opinions about wine regions.
You stepped out of Dean’s car and immediately felt underdressed, which was unfair, considering you’d agonized over your outfit for an hour.
Dean appeared beside you, already grabbing both bags from the trunk. “You okay?”
You blinked at him. “What?”
He looked down at you, brows drawn like he’d noticed before you had. “You got quiet.”
“I’m just observing the rich people’s habitat.”
His mouth twitched. “Careful. They can smell fear.”
“Great. Then I’ll stand behind you.”
“You think I look less scared?”
“You look like you belong here.”
Dean looked toward the hotel, his expression shifting into something you couldn’t quite read.
“Yeah,” he murmured. “That’s the idea.”
Before you could ask what he meant by that, a woman’s voice called his name.
“Dean, sweetheart!”
Dean’s whole posture changed, not dramatically, but enough for you to notice. His shoulders straightened, and his smile shifted into something warmer, brighter, less guarded.
A woman with dark hair and elegant gold earrings crossed the lobby toward you, followed by a man in a blazer who looked like an older, sharper version of Dean.
His parents.
Your stomach flipped when Dean’s hand touched your lower back, light and brief, like a silent check-in. You hated how much it helped.
“Mom,” Dean greeted, leaning down to kiss her cheek when she reached him.
She hugged him tightly, and despite yourself, you smiled. Then her eyes found you, the warmth in them sharpening into curiosity.
“And you must be [Y/N],” she greeted warmly.
You smiled and extended a hand, but she ignored it and pulled you into a hug instead.
“Oh,” you laughed softly, surprised. Beside you, Dean coughed.
His mother pulled back, still smiling. “Sorry, I’m a hugger. Dean should’ve warned you.”
“He left that part out,” you told her.
Dean’s father stepped forward and offered his hand. “It’s nice to meet you finally.”
Finally.
The word made you glance at Dean, but he was looking anywhere except at you.
You shook his father’s hand and smiled. “It’s nice to meet you, too.”
His father looked between you and Dean, assessing but not unkind.
“So,” his mother began, slipping her arm through Dean’s like she wasn’t about to interrogate you in the middle of a hotel lobby. “How long has this been going on?”
Dean opened his mouth, but you answered first. “Long enough for him to annoy me into saying yes.”
Dean’s mother laughed instantly. Dean turned to stare at you, and you smiled sweetly up at him.
His father’s mouth twitched like he was trying not to smile. “That sounds like Dean.”
“It really does,” you agreed sweetly.
Dean leaned in, lowering his voice so only you could hear. “You’re enjoying this too much.”
“You literally begged me,” you whispered back.
His eyes flicked down to yours.
For half a second, the lobby disappeared.
His mother looked between you and Dean, smiling. “Well, I already like her.”
Dean’s gaze lingered on yours for a second too long.
“Yeah,” he murmured. “That happens.”
Your heart did something deeply inconvenient.
So you looked away first.
Check-in went smoothly, mostly because Dean’s mother handled it while asking you questions with the skill of a woman who had definitely hosted charity events before and knew how to extract personal information without seeming rude.
She wanted to know where you were from, what you were studying, how you knew Hannah and Allie, and, most importantly, how you and Dean had gotten close.
Dean answered the last one before you could. “She hated me at first.”
You blinked at him. “At first?”
His mother’s smile widened. “And now?”
You tilted your head like you were giving it serious thought. “Now I tolerate him.”
Dean pressed a hand to his heart as you’d wounded him. “She’s shy with affection.”
“I’m shy with public displays of murder.”
His father laughed under his breath. Dean’s mother looked delighted, and Dean looked at you like he was trying not to smile.
It was ridiculous how easy it was.
That should’ve been the first warning sign.
The second came when the receptionist handed Dean the room keys and said, “King suite, eighth floor.”
You waited, Dean waited, and his mother smiled pleasantly.
Your stomach dropped.
“King suite?” you echoed.
Dean’s head turned slowly toward his mother like he already knew she was responsible.
She blinked at him with perfect innocence. “Is something wrong?”
“No,” Dean said, too quickly.
At the same time, you asked, “One bed?”
Dean’s father raised an eyebrow. Dean’s mother looked between you and Dean, just as his hand came to rest at your waist.
Warm. Steady. Entirely too natural.
“We’re good,” Dean said smoothly. “She likes to pretend she needs her own space.”
You turned your head very slowly toward him.
Dean smiled down at you, the kind of smile that made people believe terrible lies.
“Isn’t that right, sweetheart?”
Sweetheart.
Your nails dug into your palm.
Rule four. No boyfriend or girlfriend in private. Technically, this wasn’t private.
Still.
Dean was enjoying this.
You smiled back, bright and dangerous. “Only because you kick in your sleep, babe.”
Dean’s eyes flashed. His mother made a soft, delighted sound. His father looked like he might be reconsidering everything he knew about his son.
Dean leaned down until his lips were close to your ear.
“Babe?” he murmured, like he was testing the word out.
“You started it,” you whispered back.
“You’re going to regret that,” he murmured, still close to your ear.
“Can’t wait.”
You felt his fingers flex once at your waist, like he’d forgotten himself for half a second.
Then he stepped back, smile still in place.
You were in trouble.
The room was somehow worse.
The suite was beautiful, because apparently Dean’s family didn’t do anything halfway. There was a sitting area, a massive window overlooking the golf course, a marble bathroom, and, right there in the middle of the bedroom section, one enormous king bed.
You stood in the doorway, staring at it. Dean set the bags down behind you.
Neither of you spoke.
Then you said, very clearly, “Absolutely not.”
Dean sighed, already resigned. “Here we go.”
“You knew.”
“I didn’t know.”
“You absolutely knew.”
“I thought there would be a couch.”
You stared at him. “There’s a couch.”
You both turned to look at the small decorative couch near the window.
It looked like it’d been designed exclusively for people without spines.
Dean made a face.
You pointed at the couch. “Enjoy.”
“I’m six foot two.”
“Congratulations.”
“I won’t fit.”
“Fold.”
Dean turned to you like you’d lost your mind. “You want me to sleep on that?”
“You created this problem.”
“I didn’t create the furniture.”
“You created the fake serious girlfriend.”
Dean opened his mouth. Closed it. Then nodded once, like he hated that you had a point. “Fair.”
You walked farther into the room and crossed your arms. “I’m not sharing a bed with you.”
Dean’s eyebrows rose. “Scared?”
You laughed. “Of you?”
“Yeah.”
“Dean, the only thing scary about you is your ego.”
“My ego and my charm.”
“Your delusion.”
“You like my charm.”
“I tolerate your charm.”
“You said you tolerate me. That’s different.”
“I’m expanding the category.”
He stepped closer, smiling like he knew exactly how annoying he was. “You know, for someone who hates me, you’re very committed to arguing with me.”
“For someone who needs me, you’re very committed to being unbearable.”
“Maybe that’s my love language.”
“Then I pity every woman you’ve dated.”
Dean’s smile faltered, barely enough to notice.
But you noticed.
The joke had landed wrong somehow.
You almost apologized.
Then Dean turned away, walking toward the window like he needed something else to look at. “You can have the bed.”
Your arms loosened before you could stop them. “Dean.”
“It’s fine,” he said, but it didn’t sound like it.
The sudden lack of teasing felt strange. Too strange.
You watched him pull his phone from his pocket, pretending he suddenly had something to check.
Dean was good at pretending, and you were starting to realize that was part of the problem.
“I didn’t mean it like that.”
He looked back, grin already in place like nothing had happened. “Relax. I’ve slept in worse places.”
And just like that, the moment was gone.
You didn’t know whether to be relieved or disappointed.
Dinner was scheduled for seven. Dean had called it “casual,” which apparently meant everyone would be wearing outfits that cost more than your monthly rent.
You managed to unpack in silence for approximately three minutes before Dean ruined it.
“So,” Dean said from the other side of the room, sounding way too casual, “should we practice?”
You looked up from your bag, shoe already in hand. “If the next words out of your mouth are kissing-related, I’m throwing this at you.”
Dean glanced at the heel in your hand and raised both palms like you were the unreasonable one. “Hostile work environment.”
“You created the job.”
“I meant the story.”
“What story?”
“Our story.”
The shoe lowered in your hand. “Right.”
Dean sat on the edge of the bed, which annoyed you because he looked too good there. Relaxed, comfortable, like the room belonged to him, and the weekend wasn’t already beginning to unravel around you.
“How did we get together?” he asked.
“You annoyed me until I had a lapse in judgment.”
“Funny, but my mother is going to want details.”
“Fine. We started hanging out because of Hannah and Allie.”
“True.”
“You flirted.”
“True.”
“I rejected you repeatedly.”
“Debatable.”
“Dean.”
“I’m listening.”
“And then one day, you were slightly less annoying than usual, so I agreed to dinner.”
His eyes narrowed thoughtfully. “I like that.”
“You like being called annoying?”
“I like that your version still has me winning.”
“You didn’t win. I suffered a moment of weakness.”
“I’ll take it.”
You rolled your eyes, but your mouth betrayed you anyway.
Dean saw the almost-smile.
“Careful,” he murmured.
You looked at him, instantly suspicious. “What?”
“You almost looked like you liked me for a second.”
The room shifted. Maybe it was the softness in his voice, or the bed between you, or the fact that in less than an hour, you’d have to walk downstairs and convince his entire family that whatever this was had a name.
You forced a laugh like that would fix whatever had just happened. “Don’t get excited, Di Laurentis.”
“Too late,” he said, smiling like he knew exactly what he was doing.
Your stomach flipped. You turned back to your bag before he could notice.
He probably noticed anyway.
Dinner was both easier and harder than you expected. Dean’s family was warmer than you’d feared, which should’ve helped, except their warmth only made the lie feel worse.
His mother sat beside you at the long table in the hotel restaurant, asking questions with genuine interest. Across from Dean, his father watched him with quiet amusement every time you corrected him or stole the bread basket from his side of the table.
“You two bicker a lot,” his mother said, smiling into her glass.
Dean leaned back, his arm draped over the back of your chair. “It’s part of our charm.”
“Our?” you echoed, eyebrows rising. “Interesting.”
“Fine. Your charm. My patience.”
You laughed before you could stop yourself.
Dean looked at you, and his smile softened.
His mother noticed.
You could feel it.
“So,” she said, looking entirely too pleased, “Dean tells us you’re the reason he’s been slightly less impossible lately.”
You nearly choked on your water.
Behind you, Dean’s arm stiffened. “I said no such thing.”
His father’s mouth twitched. “You said she keeps you in line.”
“That’s completely different.”
You turned to him before you could stop yourself. “You talk about me?”
Dean’s eyes met yours, and for once, he didn’t look away.
Then he said, “Only to complain.”
“Liar,” you said, but there was no heat in it.
His mouth curved. “Prove it.”
The table faded again.
That kept happening. Little moments where the performance went quiet, and something else slipped in.
You hated it.
You liked it.
You were doomed.
Later, after dessert, after his mother had hugged you again and his father had told Dean not to be late for breakfast, you both made it back to the suite in silence.
The door clicked shut behind you.
The performance dropped, sort of.
Dean let out a breath and leaned back against the door. “You were good.”
You kicked off your shoes. “I know.”
He laughed quietly. “Humble.”
“I was excellent.”
His smile softened. “You were.”
The sincerity made you pause. Dean pushed off the door, rubbing the back of his neck as he walked farther into the room.
“My mom loves you.”
“She has good taste.”
“My dad too.”
“Clearly, good taste runs in the family.”
Dean looked at you then, and something unreadable moved through his eyes.
“Yeah,” he said, still looking at you. “They do.”
Your pulse stumbled.
No.
Absolutely not.
You turned toward the bed because that felt like the safer option.
It wasn’t.
The bed was still there, large and waiting and definitely mocking you.
You pointed at the decorative couch. “Your throne.”
Dean followed your gaze and sighed. “You’re really going to make me sleep there?”
“Yes.”
“You’re cold.”
“You’ll survive.”
“I might not.”
“How tragic.”
He walked over to the couch and sat down, only for his knees to immediately look ridiculous.
You pressed your lips together, trying not to laugh.
Dean stared at you. “Don’t laugh.”
“I’m not.”
“You are.”
“I’m being respectful.”
“You’re biting your lip.”
“Out of grief.”
He narrowed his eyes, which only made you laugh.
You couldn’t help it.
Dean tried to glare, but his mouth twitched. “You’re enjoying my suffering.”
“Deeply.”
“You know, a loving fake girlfriend would offer to share.”
You froze, and Dean froze too.
For a second, both of you seemed to remember the rule at the same time.
No boyfriend or girlfriend when no one was around.
“Sorry,” he said, quieter this time.
The apology came quickly, too quickly, as he meant it, and that made it worse.
“It’s fine,” you said.
Dean stood, suddenly restless. “I’ll sleep on the couch.”
You looked at him. Really looked. Noticed how tired he seemed now that his family wasn’t watching, how the weekend had already pulled something tight in him, how he was trying, actually trying, to respect the line you’d drawn.
The bed was huge. Huge enough to avoid touching, probably.
Maybe.
You exhaled. “Dean.”
He looked up, cautious now.
“You can sleep in the bed.”
His eyebrows rose like he wasn’t sure he’d heard you right.
“But,” you said sharply, pointing at him, “there will be rules.”
His mouth curved slowly. “More rules?”
“Yes.”
“I love rules.”
“You break rules.”
“I lovingly challenge them.”
“You stay on your side.”
“Yes.”
“No touching.”
“Yes.”
“No flirting.”
His smile widened. “In my sleep?”
“Especially in your sleep.”
“What if I dream about you?”
“Then wake up ashamed.”
Dean laughed, warm and low, and you hated how much you liked hearing it in the quiet room.
“Deal,” he said, softer than you expected.
You changed in the bathroom, mostly because you didn’t trust Dean and partly because you didn’t trust yourself.
When you came out in sleep shorts and an oversized shirt, Dean was already in bed, shirtless.
You stopped in the doorway, because apparently your body needed a second.
He looked up from his phone. “What?”
“Where’s your shirt?”
Dean looked down at himself like he’d forgotten. “Off.”
“I can see that.”
“I sleep shirtless.”
“Not tonight.”
“You’re policing sleepwear now?”
“Yes.”
Dean’s gaze moved over your face, amused and something else you didn’t want to name.
“You’re flustered.”
“I’m annoyed.”
“You’re standing in the bathroom doorway, glaring at my chest.”
“I’m glaring at all of you.”
“My chest feels singled out.”
You marched to your suitcase, grabbed a pillow, and threw it at him. He caught it easily, laughing.
“Put a shirt on.”
“Why?”
“Because.”
“Because why?”
“Because I said so.”
Dean’s smile turned dangerous. “That’s not a reason.”
Your face warmed. His eyes flicked over it, but then he reached down, grabbed a shirt from his bag, and pulled it on.
“There,” he said.
You blinked. “That was… easy.”
“I can be easy.”
“Never say that again.”
His grin returned immediately. “Too tempting?”
You reached for the lamp on your side and turned it off before he could see your expression.
“Go to sleep, Dean.”
“Yes, ma’am,” he murmured.
You climbed into bed carefully, staying as far to the edge as possible. The mattress dipped under Dean’s weight when he shifted. Even with space between you, you could feel him there—his warmth, his breathing, his presence taking up too much of the room.
For several minutes, neither of you spoke.
Then Dean’s voice came quietly from the other side of the bed. “You did save my life today, by the way.”
You stared into the dark. “I know.”
“My mom would’ve killed me if I showed up alone.”
“She still might if she ever realizes this is fake.”
Dean was quiet. Too quiet. You turned your head slightly, but you couldn’t see his face well in the darkness.
“Dean?”
“Yeah?”
You didn’t mean for your voice to soften. “Are you okay?”
He let out a quiet laugh, not amused exactly.
More surprised.
“Why wouldn’t I be?”
“You went quiet.”
“I’m fine,” he said, too quickly.
You recognized the answer because you used it too.
Fine.
The least convincing word in existence.
You rolled onto your side, turning toward him in the dark.
He lay on his back, one arm behind his head, staring up at the ceiling.
“You don’t have to pretend with me,” you told him.
The words were out before you could think better of them.
Dean turned his head toward you, and even in the dark, you felt his gaze settle on your face.
“That’s funny,” he said softly.
“Why?”
“Because pretending is kind of the whole point, isn’t it?”
Something in your chest tightened. “Not all of it.”
The silence after that was different.
Thicker.
Dean shifted onto his side too, until you were facing each other. Too close. Not touching. Close enough to see his eyes in the low light from the window.
“You’re being nice again,” he murmured.
“It keeps happening by accident.”
“That’s a dangerous habit.”
“Don’t get used to it.”
“Too late.”
Your breath caught.
There it was again, that softness. The part of Dean that didn’t feel like a joke.
For a second, neither of you moved. His eyes dropped to your mouth, and this time, there was no pretending you didn’t see it.
Your pulse jumped.
“Dean,” you whispered.
“I know,” he murmured, his voice lower now. Rougher.
He didn’t move closer, and neither did you, but somehow, the space between you felt impossibly small.
“No kissing unless necessary,” you whispered.
His gaze lifted back to yours. “Right.”
“This isn’t necessary.”
“No,” he said, but neither of you moved. He didn’t look away, and you didn’t roll back over.
Almost kissing him was somehow worse than actually kissing him. The possibility of it. The heat. The fact that you could feel how easy it would be to close the distance and ruin every rule on the first night.
Dean’s hand shifted on the mattress between you. Not touching, but close enough.
Your fingers curled into the sheet.
He noticed. His jaw flexed, and then he rolled onto his back, putting space between you with a quiet exhale.
“Goodnight, [Y/N].”
You stared at the side of his face, your heart still racing. “Goodnight, Dean.”
You eventually turned away, facing the window. But sleep didn’t come quickly. Not with Dean lying beside you. Not with the ghost of an almost-kiss sitting between your ribs. Not with the horrible realization that rule number one had already started to feel less like protection and more like a challenge.
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