CW: BDSM, Sexual Content, hucow kink, speech restriction, themed lingerie, lactation kink, lactation, breeding kink, dirty talk, pre-nut insanity (Bambi and Simon this time), dubcon elements
Notes: A sequel to Best in Show, and I'm very proud of it. There are elements of under-negotiated kink (surprises!), but if you've read Transferrable Skills and Best in Show, you know these two have very established communication. That being said, feel free to assume they have not negotiated enough, if that tickles your fancy.
The idea to surprise Simon pops up during a research assignment at work. The Lactation Consultants of Great Britain need data compiled and arranged from the NHS, and you find out a lot about lactation by talking to Dalia, your contact on their team. She’s is really passionate about her work. “Free the Nipple” flyers in her cubicle passionate. She’s also so organized that your meeting objectives are met early, every time, so you get to talking. Before you know it, she’s answering questions you didn’t even know you had about the experience of breastfeeding and inducing lactation.
“Anyone with breast tissue can do it,” she says with a shrug. Her coffee mug is covered in pairs of watercolor boobs. “Well, they can at least try. Hospitals are always in need of donated supply, and honestly… it makes damn good ice cream.”
Armed with the information she gives you, surprising your man becomes the new project. It’s ridiculously easy to get the medication and supplements. You make up a whole story about an adoption, a family member who is worried she won’t produce enough milk to for the new baby, the whole nine yards, but no one asks. The doctor writes the prescription, the pharmacist fills it, and you pick up some extra fenugreek from the health food store.
The breast pump isn’t much harder. The new mother forums are full of reviews, and it’s easy to find a pretty good one, used, for a decent price. The woman is even kind enough to walk you through the cleaning and sterilization process, showing you how to separate the parts and areas where moisture might want to linger. You take notes on your phone. Your thoroughness is taken for worry, and you find yourself with the contact info for her lactation consultant.
“She’s really nice,” Mary tells you, with a reassuring hand on your arm. “No matter what your jitters are, she’ll listen.”
It’s such a caring thing to say that you can’t help but give her a hug. You’re so misty eyed about it when you get home that Simon notices.
“Alright, love?”
“Yeah,” you tell him, shoving the pump, still wrapped in one of your reusable bags, to the back of the bottom kitchen cabinets. “Just… thinking about a conversation I had today. The woman was really nice.” You stand up to grin at him. “What’s for dinner?”
For all that he’s an elite soldier, Simon doesn’t dig around in the corners of the house unless you ask him to. He does notice the changes to your birth control and the supplements you’re taking, but doesn’t fuss when you assure him that things are fine.
And then he gets sent on a mission for four months.
You almost scream when you get the news that Simon is finally coming back home. Once he’s cleared by medical, he’ll be on leave for at least two weeks. Which means you’ve somehow timed everything out perfectly. Six months of planning and timers and patience, and now you get to surprise your man with his deepest fantasy. And thank goodness. According to the forums, the fullness you’re feeling in your breasts means the stars have aligned just right for you to hide the pump and let Simon stimulate you to actual production over the course of the weekend.
But first, you meet him at the pub with the rest of the team. It’s the usual post-mission ritual, and even Kate is there, so you’re glad to show face. As soon as they see you, Soap and Gaz jostle to be the first to show off new scars and flirt shamelessly, but you only have eyes for Simon. The captain and Kate give you quick one armed hugs, but don’t stop you from falling into his arms as soon as you can. You’re both smiling so hard that it’s hard to kiss him properly. Maybe another time, you would feel bad about taking his attention, being so clingy and distracting. But Gaz and Soap’s girlfriend shows up, and Price, his wife and Kate entertain everyone with stories and friendly jabs and good natured laughter. You’re free to cuddle up as much as you like.
Simon’s lips press against your temple through his surgical mask. “Missed you, sweet’eart. We c’n go whenever you’re ready.”
“Acknowledged,” you murmur back, tipping your face up to kiss his chin. “Half an hour, then we can say bye.”
“Gonna eat your pussy until you scream,” he whispers back, and you shiver at the promise in his eyes.
But you know better than to get too excited. “Let’s get home first.”
You’re fighting giggles by the time you get him through the door to your apartment. Simon’s eyes and feet have only gotten heavier the closer you got to home. The hand on your shoulder might be the only thing keeping him upright. He kisses you on the threshold like it's the only thing he could ever want, and then yawns so hard his jaw cracks.
"Wanna eat y'r cunt," he mumbles. His eyes are starting to unfocus, eyelids so heavy it almost makes you yawn. For all his bluster at the pub, he’s docile as a lamb when you lead him to the bedroom.
"Tomorrow," you promise, with a kiss to his eyebrow. His hands squeeze at your hips, and you can't help but grin. "Got a surprise for you."
He’s slow as you help strip him down to his shorts. "Mmmyeah? G've it."
"Tomorrow, Simon," you giggle, tipping him into bed. Everything creaks under him as he crumples down, well and truly exhausted. He always sleeps hard, that first night, no matter what his heart wants.
The next morning, you're up before him. You’ve already called out of work, so you aren’t in a rush, but you’re too excited to stay in bed. Grumbles follow you when you leave the room, but they’re quickly followed by more snoring. Simon'll be out for at least a couple more hours, you think, so you double-double check that everything is in order. All of his favorite foods are waiting, including the short ribs and macaroni that are ready to be thrown into the oven for quick heating. Every room has a tube of lube and at least one towel half hidden for easy access and cleanup. The various parts of your costume are hidden well enough that Simon probably won't find them, as long as he doesn't wake up with Ghost Paranoia and tear through the whole apartment. Hopefully, that’s not the case; at that point, the surprise is well and truly off the table.
Two hours later, the semll of cinnamon rolls in the oven coaxes him to emerge, a bleary eyed bear that takes a little longer than usual to drink his tea. He reels you in for a kiss, when you set his omelet on the table, and he’s so warm and solid and here. It’s so good that you keep kissing him for long moments, then jump and laugh when your oven timer goes off.
“Simon,” you ask, grinning to yourself as you set the rolls on the stovetop. “Do you mind hopping over to the pharmacy?”
“Need somthin’ from the shops? C’n go farther if you need.”
“No, no,” you answer, turning back to him. He’s so handsome that you have to bite your lip and look away to not get distracted. “Actually, can you just… grab some condoms?”
Simon blinks, brow furrowing, then nods to himslf. “’Lright. C’n get stocked back up. Lube, too?”
“Yes, please,” you hum. “Sorry, I thought I got everything.”
“Y’re perfect, Love. ‘Ll finish up ‘ere ‘n ‘ead out.”
“Thank you. You’re the best.”
You should have known that finishing up would include lifting you onto the kitchen counter and burying his face between your thighs. He might need a little longer for his own body to catch up to being home, but somehow, you had almost forgotten that Simon eats pussy for the love of the game. You barely have time to brace yourself before your thighs are over his shoulders and your hands are in his hair.
Two almost perfunctory orgasms later, and he pulls away from you with a kiss and a promise in his eyes. The ridiculous man doesn’t even clean off his face before putting on a black surgical mask. As soon as the door closes (and your legs stop shaking), you duck into one of the kitchen drawers and pull out a cow print headband. It’s sturdier than the one you bought the last time you played farm games. Even so, you take a couple of minutes to braid your hair around them to make sure they’ll stay in place. You take quick selfie to confirm that they’re just right. And that reminds you to put your darkest lip stain on your top lip while you still have time. Once that’s set, you’ll take a few more photos before Simon gets back. It might be the last time you look relatively decent all weekend.
Simon notices as soon as he comes home, of course. He freezes in the threshold, narrows his eyes, and closes the door behind himself.
“Teasin’ me?” he rumbles, crowding you against the wall.
The way he’s suddenly over and surrounding you, caging you in with his arms steals your breath. The flex of his bicep when he leans in is almost enough to distract you from the game.
Almost.
“I’m not teasing you,” you can’t help but tug at his jacket pocket and sway closer. “I was just standing here.”
“Oh yeah? Just standin’?”
“Yeah, I was, until you came over here to bother me.”
“Oh, am I botherin’ you? Expected me to stay away when you got your ears on?”
“Huh? What could you possibly mean?” You don’t bother to bite back the smile when he narrows his eyes at you. “I’m not wearing my ears and horns. They’re in the bedroom.”
“What’s this then?”
It’s so funny to exaggerate surprise when he tugs on one of your cow ears. “Oh my goodness! Those shouldn’t be there, yet!”
Simon’s head tilts, and you can see the gears turning as he tries to figure out what your angle is. “Yet?”
“It was supposed to be a surprise.” You roll your eyes and sigh, “I didn’t think it would take effect so fast.”
You try to wiggle away from him and gasp when he catches your chin in his hand. He’s amused, crows feet wrinkled as he smiles down at you. One of his eyebrows goes up.
“Bambi.”
“Yes, sir?”
The corner of his mouth twitches up. “What’re you up to?”
“Nothing off limits.”
“’S’at right?” He huffs a laugh. “Seem’s y’re tryin’ something. But alright.” He stands to his full height and crosses his arms. “Tell me. What’s takin’ effect so fast?”
God, you’re grinning too hard to even pretend to be coy as Simon huffs that “heh heh heh” that means he’s genuinely tickled. You duck under his arm and practically skip to one of the kitchen cabinets. The little plastic bottle of gummy candies that you painstakingly designed a label for is right in front. When he wraps his arms around you from behind, you show him the simple cartoon cow.
“Ditzy Farms: Happy Heifer Supplements.” He laughs against the base of one of your horns. “An’ where’d you find these?”
“Right in the supplements aisle,” you laugh. “Apparently they’re new to the public. Lab and farm tested, and perfectly safe. To a degree.” You pop open the top and eat a couple of orange and pink swirled disks.
“They’re not actually multivitamins, right?”
“Just gummy bears I melted down,” you confess. Then you tip back to look at him with a smirk. “Packed full of the latest in hucow pharmaceutical technology. And as long as we do this right, most of the effects are totally reversible.”
“’F Course,” he agrees, wrapping his hand around yours. “That mean you’re gonna lose your cute little ears?”
“As long as you don’t come in me until 12 hours after I’ve taken the last of these. Or drink my milk.”
It’s probably a trick of the light, but you could swear you see Simon’s eyes dilate. The hand on your hip tightens, but all he says is, “Tha’s why you asked for condoms, then?”
“Mmhmm. Once this dose I just took kicks in, I’ll be super fertile, so we have to be extra careful.” You hold eye contact to reinforce how serious you are. Nevermind the fact that he had a vasectomy long before you met and your tubes are solidly tied. “I’m really, really serious about this Simon. No surprise babies.”
“No surprise babies,” he chuckles. “Acknowledged.”
He meets you when you stand on your tiptoes for a kiss, and fire burns between you from the moment your lips touch. He groans when you turn more fully in his arms. With a grunt, he lifts you until your legs are around his waist, then carries you out of the kitchen. You’re not really sure where he’s going, and it’s hard to care. It’s easy to get lost in kisses when Simon is back from a long deployment.
At least… it usually is. The new pressure in your breasts is a distraction that unexpectedly splits your attention. You’re so sensitive, where you’re pressed against him. The softness of your sleep shirt rubs against your nipples in a way that has you panting into his mouth in record time.
Simon tips you onto your back on the couch and doesn’t stop kissing you. Your clothes are gone so quickly that your head spins, and you can’t help the noise you make when one of his hands pinches at your nipple. Then he’s tearing into the condoms, and you can’t even be annoyed that the box is definitely not closing again. The corner of the foil goes between his lips, then one hand goes between your thighs as the other seeks out the lube.
You’re wetter than you thought, and Simon is so hard it almost looks painful when he shoves his boxers down his thighs. Your both groaning in short order as he gets you ready, one, two, three fingers knuckle deep almost too soon. Then he’s pulling back to roll on the condom and stroke more lube over himself.
You try to say something along the lines of “towel” or “mess,” but you honestly forget what you’re talking about as soon as he pushes against and then into you. The slow, thick glide of it makes you grab at his shoulders, and he’s right there to swallow your breathless moan. The pace he sets is fast and deep and steady, just the way you both like for a first round. It won’t last long - it never does, even with a condom. But you don’t want it to. You want to be overwhelmed with him in you, on you, filling all of your senses. He’s knocking the breath from your lungs and rumbling like an engine, holding himself just far enough away to brush against your chest with every shove of his hips. You’re almost dizzy with how good it is, and you’re on the cusp of an orgasm when Simon suddenly shoves deep with a groan. The base of his cock pulses, and you whine. The knowledge that he’s coming so hard, that he would be right up against your cervix if not for a thin barrier of latex makes it hard to catch your breath.
Lost in the fantasy of the risk of it, you gasp. “Oh, oh. Oh god. Oh, fuck. I wish we didn’t have the condom, fuck, Simon. Simon!”
“Don’t tempt me,” he growls. His hips slam forward, startling another yelp from you as he groans. Then he’s reaching down, between you, rubbing his thumb over your clit just right. “Just told me the rules, Bambi, fuck. Can’t go bare or you’ll get all round and milky, won’t you?”
You’re hurtled into your orgasm so fast you can’t even take a breath to respond.
You’re both still for a long moment, panting into each other’s mouths. When you look at him, Simon’s eyes are dark and warm and full of energy. He chuckles when you whimper, then pulls out to take care of the condom. And then he immediately puts on the next one. You can’t help but whine when he pushes back into you.
The pace he sets is more drawn out, slower, and has your mind melting out of your ears. His touch is achingly gentle, but the way he kisses and squeezes your breasts and sucks on your nipples makes you clench down on him involuntarily. He surges up to kiss the moans from your lips, lifting your leg to settle even deeper into you while his other hand keeps rubbing you, just soft enough to bring your attention back to your breast.
“Y’re perfect, y’know that?” He emphasizes his words with a rough thrust that has your nails biting into his shoulders. He grins into your cheekbone. There’s a confusion of movement, and he manhandles you until he’s sitting back on the couch, grinning up at you in his lap. “Gorgeous fuckin’ girl.”
He doesn’t let you out of his grasp for what feels like hours. You ride him for longer than you thought you’d be able to, and then he’s bouncing you on his cock like you barely weigh anything, biting at your chest with hungry growls until you both come. You don’t resist when he coaxes you up onto your knees so he can remove the condom, but the crinkle of another foil wrapper makes you try to see around your body to his hands.
“Simon?”
“Shhh, easy, pretty girl. Settle.” He rumbles a pleased note as he pulls you back down onto his cock, petting your hips. “Jus’ so, tha’s my girl. Just need to be filled up if I can’t breed you, isn’t that right? What’s my pretty cow say?”
Oh, you might be in trouble. You sag into his chest with a breathless, “Moo, sir.”
“Tha’s my girl.”
You almost don’t have energy for a costume change after all of that, but the show must go on. Simon looks downright predatory when you emerge from the bedroom in your cowprint bralette and garter set. He almost inhales his sport drink laughing when he sees the little cow tail you’ve attached to the back. In short order, you’re bent over the back of the couch while he admires it, then pulls it out of the way to kiss you where you’re tender. He laughs again when you yelp and dance out of his grip.
Dinner is barely in the oven before he’s back on you, unsatisfied with a bare taste of you. There’s nothing hurried, this time, about the way he works his tongue and fingers into you. He’s indulgent, leisurely, as he eats you out, and no amount of pleading or squirming can make him rush. He only stands once you’ve come on his tongue, and then he’s railing you from behind. But only after dutifully putting on another condom.
You knew the barrier would drive you crazy, but you had no idea how erotic it would feel. You’re hyper aware of the latex between you. He won’t forget, you know, will remain collected and in control even as you unravel. But a part of you wants him to push that boundary, so bad, wants to play with the fantasy that he would cross the line, forget or refuse, and make you his pretty little breeding cow.
You’re so caught up in your head that Simon’s hand around your neck startles a groan from you. His arm squeezes your breast, pressure that sends a tingling zip of sensation from your nipple to your pussy and back up. The feedback loop of it throws you into an orgasm that hurts so soon after the last one.
“Tha’s it,” Simon rumbles, and you grip his arm with both hands as he seats himself deep. “So good, Bambi, so wet, fuck. Dream of this when I’m gone, you know that? Spend all my downtime ‘alf ‘ard, thinkin’ of this pussy, of my pretty girl waitin’ back ‘ome to take my cock. An’ I come ‘ome an’ you’re makin’ y’self even needier, huh? Takin pills to make yourself all soft ‘n breedable?”
“Simon!”
“Mm, love when you say my name,” he growls. “But that’s not what my pretty cow says, huh?”
His hands leave your body, and all you can do is hang your head and brace your arms on the counter. You grind back against him, and don’t realize that your eyes are closed until something touches your lips. Your jaw drops open before you can think, and he presses two sweet gummies into your mouth. Then he’s squeezing your cheeks with one hand, and pinching your nipple with the other until you squeal.
“C’mon, pretty girl,” he growls, letting go of your jaw to slap your ass. The next thrust has you up on your toes, a guttural moan torn from your throat. “Oh, there you are. Wanna hear my good girl moo for me. That’s why you started this, right? Want to turn that beautiful brain off and let me make you feel good? Let me take care of my pretty cow?”
His words flow down your spine and you moan after you swallow. “Oh, oh.”
“That’s it, that’s my sweet girl. Almost there, huh?” He fucks you faster, and you know he’s chasing his own peak. “By tomorrow, you’re gonna be right where I want you, huh? No more words, just my sweet girl letting me do whatever I like to her.”
“Yeah, yeah, oh, Simon,” you whimper. And then, breathless, “Oh, moo. Moo.”
Simon groans behind you, thrusts once, twice more, and comes.
Both of you are exhausted, after that. You eat dinner in a haze, too tired to even realize you forgot to steam the broccoli. Your consolation is that Simon looks half way to sleep as soon as he’s cleared his plate. You tag team cleanup - packing away food and cleaning the minimum requisite number of dishes before you let yourselves collapse on the couch again.
He pulls you into his lap to kiss your temple. “Thank you for the surprise, sweet’eart. Was real nice.”
“I’m glad,” you whisper, kissing the edge of his jaw, then settling into him with a sigh. “But that wasn’t the surprise. Well… not all of it.”
“Mm, you do got more for tomorrow, eh? Thought I might be talkin’ out of turn.”
“Mm-mm,” you disagree, before a yawn interrupts whatever you were going to say next.
“Wore you out today,” Simon agrees, around his own yawn. “What’s your number, Bambi?”
There’s really not much pain to catalog, but you’re definitely sore from so much sex after months without. “Three… point two five. Probably have to be done with penetration for the night.”
“Hips?”
“Not too bad. I’ve been doing my exercises.”
“Good girl.”
You’re both quiet for a long time after that. Just as you’re about to suggest that you could watch a movie, Simon starts snoring.
Simon is a big fan of the cowprint thigh highs and black, platform hoof boots that you reveal the next morning. You also gave yourself spots, but he’s got you sweating them off within minutes of seeing you. The horns almost fall off of your head as he plows you into the mattress. If you’re honest with yourself, you moo at least once on accident.
“Si-Simon! Please,” you whine, when he flips you onto your back and presses inside again. He pinches one of your nipples, a there-and-gone sharp sensation that makes you clench down on him. “Inside, please, moo, please, pleasepleaseplease.”
“You know I can’t,” he teases, putting a hand on your lower belly using his thumb to play with your clit. “Pretty girl, we gotta be careful. No accidental babies, right? You made me promise.”
By lunch, you’re barely holding it together. Your nerves are so alight with overstimulation and hunger for him that the fork shakes as you bring leftovers to your lips. Somehow, Simon has the audacity to look refreshed, pleased and amused when you keep shifting in your seat. He has to keep reminding you to eat and drink, and interrupts you from speaking anything but low vowel sounds.
“Only one dose left, hm?” The flex of his wrists when he twists open the bottle makes you feel more than a little crazy. “Lookin’ forward to seein’ what the final transformation does.”
He presses the gummies past your lips and hums when you lick his fingers afterwards. And then he stands and takes your empty plate to wash up. You can see a red line where you couldn’t resist scratching his back last night. You’re halfway from your seat and ready to jump on him, but your breasts almost hurt with how full they are. You want to beg him to touch you, but you’re genuinely in need of a breather.
“Simon, I need five minutes for a purple break.”
“Acknowledged,” he says, looking at you over his shoulder. “’Lright?”
“Yeah, just… need to cool down a bit, I think.”
“Drink some water ‘n lie down. 10 minutes. Acknowledge.”
“Acknowledged,” you concede, circling the table to kiss his shoulder. “I’ll see you in just a bit.”
His hum of agreement follows you out of the kitchen as you shuffle along to the bedroom. Simon’s already made sure your water bottle is refilled, so you take a few deep pulls. Lying down feels good, after that. It’s second nature to pull one of Simon’s pillows into your arms, but the soreness of your breasts and the way his scent makes you squeeze your thighs together mean you have to push it away again in short order. Even though you know you need a break, you want Simon again. Cliche as it is, you feel empty without him. And with the condoms, it’s even worse than it normally is. Clean up is undeniably quicker and easier, but… you miss the sensation of him coming inside.
You kick your feet and whine, because purple breaks are for doing things like that. Lying on your front hurts, and when you lie on your back, you want to touch yourself. So you flop onto one side, and then the other, and then your front again. You circle the whole bed that way, it feels like, before coming to rest on Simon’s side of the bed. And then you see one of the boxes of condoms on his bedside table. When you shuffle closer to peek, there are only two left. Two more isn’t so bad… but there’s at least one more box of twelve. And they’re so high quality. A part of you wishes he would have bought cheaper ones. He’s so fastidious about proper condom use that these high quality ones would never break-
Before you can stop to think about it, you reach into his drawer for one of his smaller utility knives. And then you poke a neat hole in the center of both condoms before putting everything back how it was. When you roll onto your back on the bed, you raise shocked eyebrows at yourself.
You’ve lost your mind.
The timer on your bedside table dings, so you make yourself go into the bathroom to freshen up. The feverish and bright-eyed woman in the mirror startles you. Your hair and horns and cow ears are holding up well, but the remnants of your makeup are basically gone. The bralette is fraying a bit, and your breasts are spilling out of the top even more than you realized. It’s just this side of obscene. The sight of yourself, along with the sheer weight of your chest, makes you feel wild. Or… well… domesticated. Feral.
Simon is leaning against the opposite wall when you emerge into the hall. His arms are crossed, and he cocks his head in a way that makes you freeze in place. Something in his eyes is almost predatory, just a bare edge of darkness that has you waiting to see what he will do. But when he smiles, you can’t help but relax, even as you curl into the door frame a bit.
He chuckles. “Suddenly shy, pretty girl?”
“Um.” Your tongue sticks to the top of your mouth when he stands to his full height over you. “Mm… moo?”
“S’at so? Interestin’,” he cocks his head. “What’s y’r color, Naya?”
The use of your name is startling, makes you pause to really assess yourself. “Green?”
“You askin’ me?”
He takes a step closer, and you not-so-suddenly remember that he’s bigger and stronger and faster than you. Your heart leaps into your throat, even as your whole body goes hot with arousal. “G-green.”
His hand is firm when he catches you under your chin, and his other hand grips your hip when you stumble in your boots. As you gasp, he chuckles, crowding you until you brace your hands against his chest.
“Such a pretty girl you are,” he rumbles. He uses the his grip on you to waggle your head back and forth. “And so trusting. Changed your whole body for a little fun, didn’t you? Cute little horns ‘n hooves, pretty tail. Like servin’ y’self up on platter for me.”
“Si-!” His hand goes tight on your jaw, and the alarm bells that were jingling ever so quietly in the back of your mind start crashing like cymbals. Your heart kicks into overdrive as you grab his wrist.
“Didn’t even notice I’d doubled up your last dose, just opened your mouth for it. How long until all you c’n do is moo, hm? My pretty girl, already so soft and sweet. Not a care in the world ‘cept getting bred and milked, exactly the way I like her.” He presses a hard kiss to your lips, then chuckles. “You even gonna notice if I’m not usin’ a condom this time?”
The part of your brain that knows this is a game crashes into the part of you that realizes he’s talking about about permanently changing you without your consent. A nervous giggle bursts from your mouth as you wiggle in his grasp. Here you were, clumsily orchestrating an accident, while your Dom, an officer, a tactician, was plotting to take advantage of you. No matter what you had planned, he’d already decided how this was going to end.
“W-wait, no, oh - moo,” you whimper, as he pulls you into the hall and back toward the bedroom. He keeps you off balance, the sturdy boots in the way of the zig-zagging steps he makes you take. When you get to the bedroom, the under-bed restraints are out, cuffs open and waiting, one at either end of the bed. The high side of your wedge pillow is aligned with the edge of the mattress and the spreader bar is on the floor. Everything he needs, ready to keep you bent over the side of the bed for as long as he wants.
When did he even have time to get all of this set up? You manage to get a tiny amount of space between you as you’re backed into the room. His hand remains solid around your neck, no change in pressure, even when you try to push him away and look for a non-existent escape route. He takes up the whole doorway, and regardless of if you could shake him off and try to dive back into the bathroom, he would have you in hand in barely a second.
And then you remember that your breasts hurt. The plan had been to ride Simon on the couch and have him suck your nipples. Then you would have finally felt relief **from the pressure while taking him completely by surprise. You can’t just lay over the pillow if your milk is about to come in; you didn’t do all of this work just to waste the big reveal on a wet spot!
If your renewed struggle does anything other than amuse him, he doesn’t show it. When you try to push him away, again, he easily brushes your hands off and arches you slightly backwards by your neck. Your center of gravity shifts so suddenly, you have to clutch at his arm to keep from falling. And then you almost jump out of your skin when he uses the opportunity to pinch one of your nipples and pull. He chuckles over your gasping, pulls your bra down under your breasts, and then does it again, again, again.
“Can’t wait f’your milk to come in.”
Your breast tingles, almost stings, and you can feel the change as your areola swells. A wave of endorphins flows from your temples down, and your legs tremble like you’re coming off of a massage table. You trip on your tongue, “wait” and “stop” and “Simon” and “moo” all tangled together in a moan.
The sensation is so strange. Like nothing you’ve ever felt, and just like every mommy forum said it would be, like something being drawn from you in a way that makes your whole body thrum. **You’re so caught up in it that you don’t notice Simon freezing in place, barely register the cool sensation of a drop rolling down your skin. Both of you are unmoving for a long moment, and then you’re arched even further, he’s guiding you down to the floor with one hand under your back. The one on your jaw goes tight, and he forces you to meet his eyes.
“Bambi.” As soon as your shoulders touch carpet, his fingers are pinching your nipple again. When you moan, he makes a sound like you’ve punched him. “Fuck, Bambi. What’re you-? How did you -?” He cuts himself off to growl a kiss into your mouth. You almost forget to give him a breathless moo as he holds your face in place.
Simon forces your legs apart so he can kneel between them, and puts both hands on your breasts. He pulls away to watch as he squeezes again, face frozen in something like hunger. The feeling of milk being expressed is a revelation, something you’re not sure you’ll ever get used to. You look down to see it, and the way it beads from your nipples makes you moan again.
“Fuck, fuck, Bambi, I ‘ave to, fuck.” Your panties and garter tear under his hands, and then he’s shoving his sweats down. The head of his cock is almost purple with how hard he is. He laughs breathlessly as he notches it at your entrance. “You really should’ve thought twice about this. Even if I wasn’t plannin’ on breedin’ you up, you think I would’ve resisted after this? I wouldn’t’ve been able to stop from comin’ in you, as many times as it takes.”
It’s devastating, when he pushes inside. You arch into the stretch, the feeling of his cock with nothing between you as he starts a quick, rough rhythm. One of Simon’s arms goes under you, and then his lips are on one of your nipples. When he sucks, the fuzzy sting of it zips right down to your pussy. Simon groans, again, when you clench down.
“Gonna keep you forever,” he growls, switching to latch onto the other breast. “Beg me f’r it.”
“M-muh,” you whine.
He grabs you again, by the face this time, and sits up to stare into your eyes even as he keeps shoving into you. “Beg me to breed you up, tell me y’re mine. Tell me y’re mine, Bambi.”
“Yours, Simon, I’m yours,” you babble, clawing at his shoulder, his hip. “Keep me - keep me as your pretty cow, moo, breed me, please please, moo, please, breed me, I’ll be good-!”
“Fuck, you’re so good, my pretty girl,” he pants into your mouth, and his hands are back on your breasts, squeezing until you can feel more milk spilling. “Gonna breed you up, come inside you until it takes.”
He keeps saying that, until it takes, and as he bends to take your breast in his mouth again, you almost wish it would. That that he really could change your body, change you, make you into nothing but a pleasure dumb creature that craves his touch. It’s hard to catch your breath, it’s so good. You wish you could feel like this all the time, overwhelmed and blissful, the center of Simon’s attention and hunger. In that other world, he wouldn’t give you a choice, wouldn’t let you escape.
The orgasm slams into you all at once. It hurts, after so many in the last two days. Your abs, your thighs, your nerves are nothing but lightning as you claw at his shoulders and sob.
You’re still shaking with it when he suddenly pulls away from you. His weight, his mouth, his cock, gone in a moment. It’s so disorienting that tears spring to your eyes, but before you have time to flail, he’s flipping you onto your belly and then lifting you with one arm under your neck and the other under your hips, sudden and awkward. You flail with your arms, for a heartbeat, and then you’re dropped, your chest hitting the wedge pillow with a breathless gasp.
Propping yourself up on shaking arms takes long enough that he’s bound your legs apart by the the time you manage it. “S-Simon?”
He shushes you as he pulls one of your arms into place and locks the cuff around it. “Gotta do it right, don’t I?” He uses one hand to tilt your face back, over your shoulder, and his eyes are so dark that you shiver as he binds your other hand in place. When you’re secure, he pinches your nipple. You flinch away, but there’s nowhere for you to go. “There you are, pretty girl. Better’n the floor, yeah? Feel good?”
What can you even say? You drop your chin with a whimper. “Moo.”
“Fuck.”
He’s inside of you again, fast and rough, and his hands are the only thing that keep you upright. You almost can’t breathe. Every thrust knocks the air from you, and you can barely catch a breath before he’s coaxing milk from your breasts again with dizzying tugs. It’s a shock when he hooks two fingers in your mouth, unexpectedly sweet, and you can’t help but bite down when his other hand goes between your thighs.
“Shh, shh, shh, settle, Bambi, there’s my pretty girl,” he rasps in your ear as you keen and flail against the restraints. “Don’t gotta fight it. All you gotta do is come f’me, yeah? All you ever gotta do f’me, now, I c’n take care of the rest.”
His fingers on your clit are too much, too soon, but no matter how you much you struggle, you can’t close your legs. He knows you’re overstimulated, he has to, he has to, but he’s still rough with you, rubbing fast circles until you’re sobbing and drooling around his fingers, thighs shaking with another climax around his cock.
“Atta girl,” he rumbles against your shoulder, and you barely hear him over the ringing in your ears. He grunts and pants as he hikes your hips up again to meet his thrusts. “Fuck, gonna make me come inside, pretty girl. Gonna keep you ‘ere, just like this, until you pass out, hm? Then ‘m gonna take you somewhere no one’ll interrupt us, fuck, c’n just breed you ‘n drink your milk ‘n watch you swell with my babies, as many as you want, Bambi, ‘ll give you whatever you want.”
He’s wheezing by the end, and so are you, your whole body one, long, sharp nerve that sings with waves of tension that leave you blind. Simon stops thrusting, his fingers go still, and you can feel his heart thundering as his cock flexes inside of you. Somehow, that makes everything crash again, makes your cunt flutter, shakes your bones loose as the world goes white.
You flutter your eyes back open, coming back to yourself with a whine. You’re on your back on the bed, now, legs wrapped around Simon’s hips. He’s inside of you again, and when your eyes can finally focus, he’s staring down at you. You reach for him, but your hands are bound to the headboard.
“Th’fuck’ve y’done t’me?” he growls against your cheek. His hips stutter into yours, and you can hear how wet the two of you are, even over your weak moans. “’M supposed to take care of you, be gentle with my sweet girl, huh? But every time I come I just want to fuck you again an’ again. Fuck, it almost ‘urts, Bambi.”
Your lips can’t wrap all the way around his name. “S-Si-Si-”
“Gimme your color,” he pants, and his voice is desperate. “Tell me to stop, now, Bambi, love, tell me, or ‘m gonna-”
“-reen.” The word is past your lips almost before you can think. “Green, please, I can- I’ll be good, please, let me touch you, please.”
He does something just outside of your awareness, and then your still-linked hands are over his head, he’s in your arms, exactly where you want him. When he kisses you, his mouth and chin are wet, sweet. His chest slides against yours, and you whimper as he groans and shakes and comes inside of you again.
It’s dark out by the time the two of you wince your way back to the living room. Your favorite blanket is almost too soft once you’re bundled up and slumped into the arm of the couch, but you’re too tired to look for something more comfortable. You can’t even lift the mug of pleasantly hot tea that feels impossibly heavy for your still shaking arms.
Beside you, Simon looks worn out. He’s not so much reclined back into the cushions as sagging. His hand trembles as he lifts his own tea to his lips, and then he tips his head back to stare at the ceiling. With great effort, he slings his arm over the back of the couch behind you. You flop into him with a labored sigh of your own, and you barely avoid putting your ear into his armpit.
“So,” you rasp. “Debrief?”
He huffs what could generously be called a chuckle. “Fuckin’ ‘ell.”
“Yeah.” You have to use both hands to sip your tea.
The silence after that is comfortable, easy.
Extended.
You almost fall asleep, you’re both quiet for so long. But then Simon shifts in his seat, and when you tip your head back to look at him, he’s looking back. Whatever he sees - your lovesick expression, or maybe the wreck of your braids - puts a soft smile on his face. He’s so handsome that you can’t help but smile back.
A wave of love makes you want to purr. “Hi.”
“Mm. Hi.” His arm comes down around your shoulders. “Gimme your number.”
Everything hurts like you went too hard at the gym, if the gym also worked out your pussy. “Four point two. Achy. You?”
“Three-five,” he says with a shrug. Then he shifts his hips. “Balls ‘urt, though. Solid four.”
“Then I’ve done my job,” you joke around a yawn.
“Didn’t scare you too bad?” he checks. “Saw you poke holes in the condoms, figured you wanted somethin’ a little more… forceful.”
You giggle and cover your face with one hand. “Oh my god, you saw that? I felt crazy.”
“Came to see if you wanted a snack.” He huffs a laugh. “Wanted more’n that, apparently. Never thought you’d try to baby trap me.” You can’t help but laugh with him at the ridiculousness. When you’re both settled again, he hums, then asks, “…’ow’d you do that, anyway? The milk, I mean. ‘S a prosthetic?”
“What?” You’d never even considered something like that. “How the hell would I put milk In a prosthetic without you knowing?”
“I dunno,” he chuckles, voice warm and tired. “Got real convincin’ makeup ‘n things these days. Skin safe adhesives ‘n such. Shape of your breasts’s different, figured you’d talked to one’f your furry friends.”
“My breasts are a different shape because I’m lactating,” you chuckle. “Got a prescription, got a breast pump. Six months later, here we are.”
Simon goes still. “Naya. You said those were just gummies.”
“Oh my god!” You almost spit your tea. “No! Those were just gummies.”
You can see him working through the confusion and exhaustion. “But… the milk is real? You’re… it’s real.”
“Yeah.”
“You’re… lactating.”
“Uh-huh.”
“But… wait.” He sits up, suddenly, eyes wild. “Naya. Are you pregnant?”
“NO!” You don’t scream laughing, but it’s a near thing. “Oh my god, no. Neither of us can have kids, remember? I just… induced lactation. You know. Just milk, no baby.”
“Thank fuck,” he groans, slumping back into the couch. He swipes a hand down his face. “Okay. So when are you done?”
“Done? Lactating?” You shrug. “As long as I keep pumping and expressing, I can go as long as I want, I think. It took months to get here, so I want to go at least a few months. I’m gonna try making some ice cream or something.”
“Ice cream?” He perks up, then scrunches his eyebrows. “You’re… months?”
“We can talk more about it tomorrow, when we’re both more awake,” you tell him with a yawn. “Plenty of time. Did you like your surprise?”
He pulls you back into his space and kissees the top of your head. “Almost gave me ‘n ‘eart attack.”
“A sexy heart attack, though.”
“Yeah,” he chuckles, with another kiss to your hair. “Was perfect, Love. Thank you.”
a few friends had gathered to celebrate a mutual friend’s engagement, and of course, to fawn over the giant rock sitting pretty on her left hand.
“it was the most beautiful thing i’ve ever seen,” she says, eyes misting up. “flowers everywhere. candlelit dinner on this beautiful terrace. he even hired a string quartet.”
everyone awws at once.
you twist your own ring around your finger.
“you’ll never believe what james did for me!” someone else says, and like it always does when you all get together, it becomes less of a conversation and more of a contest.
they all take turns gushing over their partners and all the grand, romantic gestures that have happened recently, each story somehow bigger than the last. flowers. surprise trips. hotel rooms covered in rose petals. tickets to shows they had only mentioned wanting to see once.
all in some absurd, glittering attempt to prove who is adored more.
they all turn to you.
what had you and simon been up to recently?
you swallow.
the last date the two of you had been on had been watching a movie on Netflix, takeout and wine littering your coffee table, your legs thrown over his lap while he rubbed absent circles into your ankle.
it had been nice.
it had been normal.
but at this table, normal feels embarrassingly small.
“when you’ve been together so long, and with his schedule, it’s hard, y’know, to find those moments—”
another friend waves her hand, not unkindly, but ready to move away from what clearly wasn’t going to be an interesting enough story.
“that’s why you have to find those moments. what has he done for you lately? like for example, jack just planned this entire weekend getaway for us after my boss had been such an asshole and it was so romantic. he bought us tickets to—”
her voice begins to fade into the background.
you look down at your ring again.
it’s not that you think simon doesn’t love you.
of course he loves you.
he loves with the weight of his hand at the small of your back in crowded rooms. he loves with the way he always sleeps closest to the door. he loves with the way he notices when you are too tired to eat and sets something in front of you without asking. he loves with the way he comes home half-dead and still checks the locks, the windows, the thermostat, anything that might touch you before it touches him.
but sitting there, surrounded by candlelit dinners and surprise weekends away, a different question curls itself beneath your ribs.
does he still care?
you had already known what you’d signed up for when starting this relationship. simon was never one for giant declarations of love or grand, pretty spectacles. he didn’t perform affection well. never had.
hell, you couldn’t even remember the last time he’d brought you flowers or planned a proper date.
you shuffle in your seat.
“that’s really sweet,” you sigh.
rugby playing on the tv is what greets you, simon fully settled on the couch, a beer in hand.
his head lifts as soon as he hears your key in the door, shoulders falling even more relaxed at the sound of your footsteps entering the house.
usually, that would be your cue.
you’d toe your shoes off by the door, wander straight to the couch, and drop yourself onto him like it was the most perfect fit. he’d grunt like you’d knocked the air out of him, even though you both knew he could carry you around the house with one arm if he wanted to.
you’d recount whatever pointless gossip had been fed to you that morning, and he’d pretend not to be listening while remembering all of it.
instead, you busy yourself with the mail in the kitchen.
simon notices.
because of course he does.
you try the sink next, if only to give your hands something to do.
the tap sticks.
you yank it harder, and when nothing comes out but a high-pitched wheeze, you let out a frustrated groan.
simon is behind you before you can even turn around.
“probably clogged,” he says.
you sigh.
“i can call a plumber tomorrow.” then, before you can talk yourself out of it, you turn to face him. “we should do something tonight.”
his head tilts.
“we are,” he says, voice low and rough with confusion. “watching that new movie you wanted to see.”
you make a small noise under your breath.
his eyes flicker from the sink to you.
“no, si. i mean get dressed up. go out.” you swallow around the embarrassment already forming. “a real date.”
“why?”
your stomach lurches.
you know him. know he doesn’t mean it with any malice or cruelty.
but after an entire morning of listening to women talk about being chosen loudly, extravagantly, beautifully, that one word lands like proof.
why would he need to?
why would he think to?
why would he care to?
why would you ask for more when this is what you agreed to?
“forget it,” you say quickly, already stepping away. “i have a bit of a headache. ’m going to take a nap.”
simon says your name, but you don’t turn around.
the clanking of metal banging against each other is what wakes you.
for a moment, you don’t move.
you just lie there, blinking at the dim light of your bedroom, listening to the low metallic scrape from somewhere down the hall. the house is quiet around it, warm with evening, the television now turned down low enough that you can barely hear the commentator’s voice.
another clank.
a muttered curse.
you rub at your eyes and make your way to the kitchen.
simon has wedged himself inside the cabinet beneath the sink, broad shoulders barely fitting in the cramped space, one arm braced against the floor while the other reaches up into the mess of pipes above him.
“si?”
he grunts, focused on giving the valve one final screw and your gaze follows down to the toolbox lying next to his hip.
“line was damaged,” he says from under the sink. “it’ll need replacing proper, but i’ve got it for now. try it.”
wordlessly, you step to the sink and lift the handle.
water rushes out, hot and clear.
for some reason, it makes your eyes burn.
simon shifts, dragging himself out from under the cabinet with a quiet exhale. he sits back on his heels and looks up at you from the floor, forearms smudged, hair mussed, expression unreadable except for the little crease between his brows.
“i told you i could call a plumber,” you say.
he shrugs.
“got me right here, don’t you? i don’t mind.”
your chest tightens.
because it was never going to be flowers. it was never going to be candlelit dinners. it was never going to be a string quartet playing underneath a perfect night.
it was always going to be simon, sitting on your kitchen floor with a wrench in his hand, looking at you like the solution to a problem is obvious because he’s already there.
you sit down at your kitchen table, eyes already watering from overwhelm, when a memory comes so quickly it almost embarrasses you.
you, curled on the couch with him months ago with your laptop open, showing him a table from architectural digest with the sigh that you do when you’ve found something you absolutely loved.
“look at this, simon. isn’t it perfect?”
he had just hummed as you continued scrolling before you start laughing.
“absolutely not. who spends five thousand dollars on a table?”
simon hadn’t said much at the time. he rarely did when something lodged itself somewhere deep in his mind. continued stroking your hair, looked at the screen for a second longer than necessary, and went back to whatever match had been playing on the tv.
three weeks later, there had been lumber in the garage.
then sketches.
then sawdust tracked through the hallway.
then simon, scowling and cursing at a video tutorial, rewinding the same twenty seconds over and over until he understood the joint he wanted to make.
you’d laughed then.
you remember that, too.
you remember standing in the garage while he sanded the surface smooth, remember telling him he was insane, remember him saying it wasn’t that hard with all the grim seriousness of a man who had absolutely made it hard.
you remember the first night you ate dinner at it.
you remember how pleased he’d looked when you wouldn’t stop touching the grain.
you remember tearing up at the effort before sinking to your knees beneath that very table and thanking him so thoroughly that, to this day, he can’t sit at the damn thing for too long without his eyes darkening and his pants growing tight.
your eyes move across the room.
towards the cabinets he sanded down because you said the old ones made the kitchen feel too dark.
the backsplash he learned to tile because you had paused too long on a photo of handmade ceramic.
the wall he knocked through because you hated how boxed-in the room felt.
the bedroom he painted three times because the first two colors looked different once they dried, and he had only sighed, changed shirts, and opened another tin.
a house that had been perfectly fine when you bought it, just never quite yours, until simon got it in his head that he could make it so.
your heartbeat quickens.
the whole morning suddenly feels absurd in a way that makes your chest ache.
his gaze lands heavy as he watches every expression form across your face.
“you wanna tell me what got you in a mood earlier?” he asks.
his voice is even, but his hand drums once against his thigh.
your six-foot-four lieutenant of a husband, nervous at the thought of upsetting you.
you shake your head at first
then stop.
because no, that isn’t fair either.
he does love you. he loves you in fixed pipes and sanded wood and walls torn down to let in more light. he loves you in the things he can touch, carry, mend, build. he loves you so steadily that it has become the floor beneath your feet.
but you still want flowers sometimes.
you still want to be asked to put on a dress.
you still want him to look at you across a dinner table he did not build and make you feel, just for an evening, like loving you is not only something he maintains but something he celebrates.
“i know you care about me,” you say quietly.
his brow furrows.
“never said you didn’t.”
simon stills.
“i know that,” you repeat, softer this time, because you do. God, you do. “I just… I think I need more sometimes.”
something shifts in his face.
“more,” he repeats.
you huff a laugh, embarrassed now. “not more than this.”
your hand moves over the table again and his eyes follow the movement.
“just more…” You search for the words, then give up on making them perfect. “more on purpose, maybe. dinner. flowers. you telling me to get dressed because you made plans. stupid things.”
“they’re not stupid.” he immediately corrects you, firm and like he’s already offended on your behalf.
you look up at him and he pushes himself off of the floor.
you watch him stand, slow and heavy, wiping his hands on a rag before setting it aside. he comes toward you with that careful, deliberate look that always makes your stomach dip, like every bit of his attention has narrowed down to one target.
you.
“friday,” he says.
you blink. “friday?”
“dinner.” his gaze drops over you, not subtle in the slightest. “wear somethin’ nice.”
despite yourself, you laugh, small and wet in disbelief at how easy it is with him.
simon’s hand comes up, thumb brushing beneath your eye before a tear can fall.
“are you asking me on a date, riley?”
his mouth twitches.
“seems like i am.”
you look down at the table, at the careful seams, the polished wood, the impossible thing he made with his own two hands because you wanted it and he saw no reason you shouldn’t have it.
then back at him.
“good,” you say, standing slowly. “and since you fixed the sink…”
simon’s eyes darken.
you take one step toward him, then another, until your fingers catch in the waistband of his jeans and tug him close.
his hand finds the edge of the table behind you.
your table.
his eyes flick down to it, and whatever memory crosses his mind makes his jaw tighten.
you smile.
“careful,” you murmur. “you look a little proud of yourself.”
his hand settles heavy at your waist, lifting you to rest on the edge.
Come to think of it, it really is insane that my entire country is burning alive and literally no one in the rest of the world cares. Thousands of Indians are dying every day from the heat, it's 45+ degrees in multiple areas, the government couldn't give two fucks, we're getting severe warnings and red alerts, and not a soul outside of South Asia is speaking about it because why would you ever care about brown people
USA folks, that is a consistent temperature range hitting 113°. Death Valley temperatures. In Banda, it hovered between 116°-118° (47°-48° C) for a week straight.
This has been happening all month with little to no international media attention. Here are a few organizations you can check out for resources or to support:
let’s talk about how they made it impossible to function without a phone and digitalised everything and then turned around and went “actually! these phone things aren’t safe for kids but it’s magically ok once you’re eighteen. guess you’ll have to have your life dictated by your parents now lol cause we’re gonna take the devices away from you. IT’S FOR YOUR OWN GOOD WHY ARE YOU COMPLAINING”
ok my apologies. take away my ability to buy anything too ig because these fuckass stores don’t accept cash anymore. take away my ability to communicate with people outside my house and school because I can’t text and I can’t email and I cant drive to them either and I can’t even fucking get public transport without a phone either. can’t order at a fucking restaurant without being asked to get a membership and install an app and also very sorry but you can only order through our online menu now! have you ever considered that it’s not just about instagram?
your boyfriend satoru is almost too big to fit 𐔌՞ ܸ.ˬ.ܸ՞𐦯 ﮳﮳ᐢ) !
you’re on your back, legs spread wide, shaky breaths escaping your lips as satoru kneels between them. his cock is already slick with precum, a thick, heavy weight that rests against your stomach whenever he leans forward. you’ve done this before—enough times to know the ache that comes after, the way your body protests and craves him in equal measure. but tonight, something’s different.
“you okay?” he asks, voice low, teasing, but there’s a genuine edge to it. his thumb traces circles on your hip, grounding you.
“yeah,” you whisper, even though you’re not entirely sure. you reach down, fingers wrapping around his shaft. even half-hard, he’s massive—your hand can’t close around him, can’t even get halfway. your palm slides over velvety skin, feels the pulse kick under your touch. he hisses, hips twitching forward.
“gotta warn you, baby,” your boyfriend says, thumb pressing into your wetness, gathering some of the slick mess. “i’m not gonna be able to hold back tonight.”
you nod. a part of you wants this, wants to feel him split you open, wants that desperate, overwhelming fullness even if it hurts. you bring your other hand between your thighs, spread yourself open, show him how wet you already are, the way your hole flutters in anticipation.
“put it in,” you breathe.
satoru lines himself up, the fat head nudging against your entrance. it’s just the tip, and already you feel the stretch, the burn of being filled past what’s natural. he pushes, slow, inch by inch, and you gasp, back arching off the bed. your walls clench around him, trying to accommodate, but it’s too much. he’s too big.
“fuck,” he grunts, sweat beading on his brow. “you’re so tight. you’re fighting me.”
it hurts. it hurts so good. you can feel your inner muscles pulling against his girth, can feel the resistance, the way your body tries to deny him entry even as you beg for it. he stops when he’s about halfway in, breath ragged.
“i can’t—you’re not gonna take all of it,” he says, voice strained. “it won’t fit.”
“i don’t care,” you whimper, hands gripping his forearms. “just—please. i need it.”
he takes a breath, then pushes harder. you cry out as he forces another inch in, the pain sharp and bright, mixed with a pleasure that makes your toes curl. he’s buried deep now, but still not all the way. you can feel the empty space inside you, the part of him still outside, and it drives you crazy.
satoru starts to move, shallow thrusts at first, pulling out just enough to let your body adjust before pressing back in. each time, the stretch is remade, your cunt screaming in protest and welcome. your moans turn into a steady stream of incoherent pleas—faster, more, harder, please—and he obliges, picking up the pace.
but his cock is too big. no matter how much you want it, no matter how wet you get, you can’t take him fully. your body tells you in little spasms, in the way you clench and release without rhythm, in the tear tracks that streak your cheeks. he sees them, slows down.
“too much?” he asks, and his thumb wipes at your cheek.
“don’t stop,” you choke out. “don’t stop.”
so he doesn’t. he fucks you with everything he’s got, hips snapping against yours, the wet sound of your pussy taking what it can filling the room. you can feel every ridge of his cock, every vein, the way he pulses inside you. your hands rake down his back, leaving red marks, and he growls, fucks you harder.
it’s not long before you come. the orgasm builds like a wave, cresting over you as he grinds against that spot inside you that makes your vision go white. your legs clamp around his waist, pulling him deeper, and you scream into his neck as you come undone, pussy clenching around him in violent pulsing waves.
but he doesn’t stop.
“s-satoru, wait, i’m still—” you gasp, overstimulated, sensitive, raw. the feeling of him still moving inside you after your orgasm is almost too much, a pleasure so intense it borders on pain.
“i know,” he says, and he’s not cruel, but he’s relentless. “one more. just one more for me, baby. you can do it.”
you’re shaking, trembling, your thighs quivering as he thrusts. the overstimulation amplifies everything—the stretch, the friction, the fullness. every brush of his cock against your walls sends jolts of electricity through your nerves. you’re crying now, a mix of ecstasy and exhaustion, but you don’t tell him to stop. you can’t. you need this, need him to use you until you’re nothing but a sobbing, cum-drunk mess.
he watches you fall apart, eyes half-lidded, lips parted. his hand snakes down between your bodies, fingers finding your clit, swollen and oversensitive. he rubs circles, light and fast, and you arch off the bed again, a broken moan tearing from your throat.
“that’s it,” he murmurs. “come on. give me another one.”
your second orgasm is less explosive but longer, a drawn-out, messy affair. your entire body feels like it’s on fire, every nerve ending lit up, as you cum around his too-big cock, still buried inside you, still moving. you feel his rhythm stutter, feel his heat spill inside you, deep and hot and endless. he groans your name as he cums, and the feeling of being filled by him, even though he never fit completely, is the final push you needed.
he pulls out gently, careful not to hurt you, and you both collapse on the wet sheets. his cock is still hard, still slick with your combined fluids, and you can see the way your entrance gapes, the redness, the evidence of what you’ve done. he kisses your forehead.
“you okay?” he asks again, softer this time.
you don’t have the breath to answer, so you just nod, curling into his chest. you feel the soreness already settling in, the dull ache that will bloom into something more tomorrow. but right now, you still feel him inside you, even though he’s not. that phantom fullness.
he’s still hard, pressing against your thigh. you can feel his breath quicken, and you know he’s not done yet. “one more,” he whispers, and the words are a command and a plea, all at once. “please. i need—again. i need you to take it again.”
you should say no. you should tell him you need a break, that your body can’t handle another round. but the way he looks at you, desperate and hungry, and the way your pussy still clenches around nothing, aches for him despite the pain—it overrides any sense.
“okay,” you whisper. “okay. but go slow.”
“i will,” he says, and he’s already positioning himself, already pressing the head of his cock against your overworked entrance. you hiss at the immediate stretch, the burn returning with a vengeance. he pushes in, inch by inch, and you can feel every fold of your cunt being forced open, made to accommodate him even though it never will.
your cries turn into sobs as he bottoms out—or rather, as he reaches the point where you can’t take any more. he strokes inside you, slow and deep, and the overstimulation is a living thing now, a fire that consumes you from the inside out. every nerve is screaming. your clit is so sore you can’t bear the thought of touch, yet when he reaches down and pinches it, you scream, a mix of agony and bliss.
your boyfriend fucks you like that, slow but punishing, milking your oversensitive body for all it’s worth. you’re a mess of tears and sweat and cum, legs trembling, hands fisting the sheets. he doesn’t stop until you’re choking on another orgasm, this one weak and painful, barely a shudder before you’re done.
he follows close behind, spilling into you again, his cum mixing with his own before it leaks out around his cock. he stays buried for a long moment, breathing hard, before pulling out. you’re left lying there, empty and shattered, your cunt fluttering, trying to hold onto something that’s too big to stay.
satoru collapses beside you, pulling you close. “that was—fuck.” he laughs, a low, exhausted sound. “you’re amazing.”
you can’t find the words, so you just press a kiss to his chest and let the slick, messy aftermath settle around you both, the ache of being stretched beyond your limit a warm, persistent throb that promises to haunt you for days.
☾₊‧⁺...a/n : this is a post from my old blog but i revamped it and i really wanted to share this again because i was really proud of it. and yes, it's another breeding kink + pregnant kink. consider it a part two, since it takes place after megumi is born
toji never thought he’d get off on the idea of having another kid with you.
yet here he is, dick hard in his sweatpants as he thinks about you carrying his baby again...how you'd start to fill out all over again, that cute chubbiness coming back, how he'd have an excuse to dote on you whenever you complained about the simplest of things.
it starts off with how he sees you coo over megumi, calling him your sweet baby. you're such a good mother, too, it's clear you'd likely be the favorite parent to that little brat.
but god, does he find it attractive just seeing you be a mom to the kid that he gave you.
the day you ask megumi what he wants for his upcoming 4th birthday at dinner, neither one of you is prepared for the words that come out of your son's mouth.
“i want a baby sister,” he states bluntly as he chews on the steamed carrots, looking at you and toji. it was clear from how confident the little guy is that he's put a lot of thought into this.
“but, i don’t want her to look like daddy. he’s ugly, i want her to look like mommy.”
little brat.
you straight up choke, trying to stop the laugh-coughs as toji looks at his son, offended. this really is his son, because who else but you and the kid he made with you could have the nerve to say shit like that to him?
“twerp, you look just like me, you realize that, right?”
megumi huffs, looking at his dad in the cutest little glare. “that’s 'cause i'm a boy, though," he explains as if it's obvious, his precious little cheeks puffed up as he stuffs more of his food in his mouth.
"my sister has to be like mommy. you’d be an ugly girl, daddy.”
toji just rolls his eyes, pinching the cheeks of the mini him, ignoring his protests. as the two bicker, you think. would it...really be that bad to have another baby? you always wanted a girl, after all, and toji took such good care of you and megumi...it couldn't be that bad.
“well, uhm,” you begin, catching the attention of toji, an unfamiliar smile on your face.
there's a mischievous look on your face right now, his eyes narrowing as he waits for your response. whatever you're about to say is either going to haunt him for the next few days or make him roll his eyes at you.
“i'm sure daddy and i can work something out for you, 'gumi, but let’s think of some other things, too, m'kay?”
ah.
you went the haunting route.
ignoring the little cheer his son let out, toji can't hide the disbelieving look that crosses his face when he processes what you just said.
'daddy'?
you've said the word, sure, usually when you talk to megumi about him. but something was different about how you said it, the way you looked at him when you said it, the barely visible flutter of your eyes...a silent promise there'd definitely be a deeper conversation about it later.
the very day megumi has a sleepover with the neighbor's kid, yuuji, toji is mentally cheering. he loves his son with all his heart, he truly does, but having a toddler in bed meant limited contact with his pretty wife.
it's only been 3 days since that little comment you made and it's been on toji's mind constantly. every time he tried to bring it up with you, megumi would interrupt and toji was not being the reason his son ended up traumatized because he overheard mommy and daddy talking about making babies in the kitchen.
"bye, gumi! make sure you behave for mr. nanami, okay? have fun with yuuji," you coo as you press two kisses to your son's cheeks, snapping toji back to the present.
"see ya, kid, be good," toji says, giving a nod of acknowledgement to nanami. megumi barely says goodbye before he runs after yuuji to the car, his run a bit awkward because of his overnight backpack.
waving goodbye to nanami, you shut the door, turning to look at toji with that smile as you.
"hi, toj."
you think you're so cute, don't you?
"hey, mama."
toji can't even lie, you are. wearing his t-shirt and sweatpants? yeah, your the cutest thing he's ever laid eyes one. his hands rest on your hips, pulling you flush to his chest. fuck, you weren't even doing anything but he could already feel himself getting hard just from looking at you.
he's never been so whipped in his life.
"d'you wanna talk," you murmur lowly, your finger running over the thin silver chain on his neck. "we could go to the bedroom...and talk about the baby thing."
toji's eyes darken at the suggestion, knowing exactly what would happen the moment you both go into the bedroom. "yeah. think it's 'bout time we talked about it," he hums as he grips your wrist, tugging you to your room.
as soon you both step foot into the bedroom, toji hungrily presses your lips against his, letting out a deep groan. "had me thinkin' about knockin' you up again all fuckin' week, mama," toji sighs against your lips, tongue running over your lower lip.
"wanted to stuff you full so fucking bad."
feeling you sigh so prettily into the kiss, his doesn't hesitate to shove his tongue in your mouth, hands busying themselves as they push your (his) sweats down off your hips before guiding you back to the bed.
you knew he would get excited over your comment, but you didn't think it would be to the point where he was rutting into you as he practically devoured you, feeling your back hit the bed.
“you want to give our 'gumi a sister? wanna be a mommy again," he questions, breaking the kiss to press his forehead against yours. one of his hands slithers up under the oversized t-shirt to cup one of your tits and roughly knead it, his thumb just barely grazing over your nipple.
"wanna have another kid with big, bad toji? tsk, poor cunt missed gettin' stuffed full of cum?"
you just hum a little breathless. your hand comes up to cup his cheek, looking from his lips back up to his eyes. he's so handsome when he's over you like this, his chain dangling right in your face.
“maaaaybe. megumi just made me think about it, 's all. you've been a good dad t' him, how could i not want to give you another one,” you coo, guiding him closer so you can press a kiss against the scar on his lip.
“besides…”
toji grunts when he feels your legs wrap around his waist, pulling him flush against you so you can feel the thick, heaviness of his arousal through his sweatpants.
“don’t you want me to make you a daddy again, toji? c'mon, knock me up, big guy.”
after those words leave your pretty little mouth, toji is on you as he realizes that you're 100% going to give him the worse breeding kink ever.
"'m gonna fuckin' ruin you," he growls into your ear. you aren't given a second to protest before he's ripped your panties off, complaints falling on deaf ears. the tips of his fingers gently run over your puffy pussy lips, your slick wetness coating his fingers.
"fuck, mama, you're soaked already." his eyes are focused on your face as you squirm and whimper when he swirls little circles into your clit, an evil smirk on his face. "can't wait to fill you up 'til you're dripping with my cum, doll."
you can't stop your hips from trying to grind into his hand, eyes rolling back when he teased your entrance. "toji, c'mon, baby, i need you s'bad."
"baby, you know you can't take me without prep," he coos at you. he can feel how hot and slick you are, finally, finally slipping two of his fingers inside your cunt. and oh, the way you arch your back a little bit with a pleading whine of his name is so, so pretty, you're so fucking cute.
"mmn, maybe y'don't need prep, you just sucked my fingers right in," he says huskily before pressing a little kiss to the corner of your mouth. "you wanna try, mama? wanna see if you can fit my cock in you? really gonna feel that stretch, though, babe," toji warns, knowing you can't give a sensible answer when he starts pumping his fingers in and out.
when it seems like your about to answer him, the only thing that escapes your mouth is a shaky moan, his thick fingers curling to hit just the right spot inside of you that has you gushing. unable to form words, you tug on his shirt and nod frantically, just wanting to feel toji stuffing you full.
"yeah? you wanna try?" toiji pulls his fingers out of you, chuckling when you whine at the sudden feeling of emptiness. he pops his fingers in his mouth, cock throbbing at the addictive taste of your cunt on his tongue. "c'mon, we're both wearing too much, let's get you outta that shirt, ma."
you waste no time throwing the shirt off, not even giving him the chance to undress you. but once your shirt is off, you're practically ripping off his stupid black t-shirt that made his pecs look fucking delicious and those damn sweatpants and boxers that hid your prize.
as you fuss over his boxers, toji takes a moment to look at you spread out on the bed before him. you still had a bit of chub on you, tummy nice and soft and cute, just how he likes it. if he knew where his phone was, he'd take a picture of you right now; frustrated, horny, naked, and pretty. all for him.
"tojiiii, stop staring and kick off your stupid boxers, you're getting on my nerves!"
you can't even look him in the eye as you say that because you're too busy staring right at his cock, a thick bead of precum formed at the tip. the lick of your lips told him everything he needed to know, but he wasn't fucking your mouth, not tonight at least.
"what? i can't look at my own wife," he asks with a raised eyebrow, biting back a laugh when you swat at his hand that pinches one your puffy nipple. "tch, so rude, doll."
before you can snap back at him, he brushes the swollen head of his cock against your slick folds, smearing your wet over the tip. that shuts you up quickly and toji has to hold back another laugh. always so fussy until he finally gives you what you want. he's spoiled you rotten.
"toji," comes a soft whine, so soft he nearly misses it. your eyes are focused between your legs, lower lips between your teeth as he teases you with his cockhead. you huff, pushing your hand against his chest to give you enough space to shift positions, knowing exactly what would get him to stop teasing you.
once you roll over, you shift so that you're face down, ass up, you hand slipping between your thighs to spread your sticky pussy open, slick dripping down your fingers. "tojiiii, please? please, baby, stop teasing an' put a baby in me...please, hubby, give your wife what she wants."
any other whines or begs are interrupted when his hand comes down hard on your ass. he was going to give you what you wanted, what you both wanted. he was going to fuck you, fill you up with all his cum and whatever leaked out? he’d make sure to push it back in, whether with his fingers, mouth, or tip of his dick.
when he finally pushes into you, he just lets out the most wrecked groan you’ve heard from him yet, each inch sinking into you stretching those tight walls just a bit more.
"holy shit...fuuck me, baby, too fucking tight, you're strangling my cock," he hisses, fingers digging into the fat of your hips as he gave you inch after inch.
god, just the thought of fucking you not just to feel good, but to fill you up, get you to take his seed deep inside to give him another kid? it's fucking with his head, his wife was gonna be the death of him.
both of you moan once he's all the way inside. you feel so full, his cock is too fucking big it doesn't make any sense and you genuinely think you should've let him fully prep you...but shifting your hips just a little bit has his tip pressing against something sinful. you whine and reach back to grab at one of his hands on your waist, turning to shoot him a mean glare as you demand, “stop stalling n’ knock me up, toji."
who is he to deny what his wife asks?
using a hand to steady himself on the headboard, his hips begin to move slowly, pulling out just an inch and pushing forward again. "so tight 'n' warm..." each thrust hits deeper and more powerful than the last as toji begins to pick up speed, the thickness of his cock hitting every deep part of you.
it's almost too much, but you don't want him to stop, especially not when toji started running his mouth.
“shit, look at you, baby…takin’ it like a champ.”
now you really wish you stayed on your back, then at least you could've slapped a hand over his mouth to shut him up. you drop your head down against the mattress with a moan, starting to move your hips to match his thrusts, the room filling with the sound of skin slapping on skin.
“fuuck, c'mon, throw that ass back on me, thaaaat’s it, good girl.”
he starts pounding into you harder when he feels you tightening up on him. the sweet moans and adorable words of “gimme more,” “baby, please,” or “s’ too good, toj,’” only pushing him to get even deeper, to get you to cum so he could stuff you full.
he coos when he sees you starting to scramble up further on the bed, away from his relentless fucking. he knows that he found that sweet spot that would have you creaming in minutes.
"tsk, you just never fuckin' learn, huh? 's always gonna be too much for you, isn't it," he huffs as his hand finds its way into your hair, tugging your head back to keep you from moving more. “hey. hey, nonono, don’t run away from it, lemme have it," he coos at you, following you up the mattress.
you never change, always swearing up and down that you wouldn't run from his cock, that you'd be able to take him. you wanted this, you wanted your precious husband to fuck another baby into you, t'give 'gumi a little sister, s’ i’m gonna give it to you.”
toji may sound like he’s still put together, but he’s just thankful you can’t see his face since yours is pressed into the pillows at the top of the bed.
you can’t see how he’s barely holding himself together, trying his hardest not to let himself go too much. the last thing he needs is to cum before you, knowing that while you wouldn’t mind, he’d be annoyed for breaking his streak.
he’s brought back into the present when you manage to turn your head a little, able to look him in the eye, and god, does he love what he sees.
your mouth is open as you moan for him, eyes lidded and focused on only him. he sees the little tears gathered in them, not quite spilling over but the fact that they’re there tells him he’s the one making you feel that good.
“tuh-toji, ’m gonna cum, gonna cum—!”
"yeah?" hearing you moan so sweetly for him only makes toji smirk, fingers digging into your hips as he helps you meet each thrust. “gonna make a mess f'me already? poor little cunt can't handle gettin' fucked so good? mmn, shit, 's okay, baby. let go for me, mama, cum on daddy’s cock.”
"t-tojiiiii," you shakily moan, nearly ripping the sheets as you cum suddenly. it was his voice, the way he tried to sound put together but you could hear how desperate he was to feel your pussy clamp down on him and get his cock nice and messy.
toji's deep, guttural moans mix with your cries when he unexpected is pushed over the edge, the way you desperately grinded back against him causing him to swear under his breath as he lost his pace, groaning your name as he emptied into you. it felt so hot, the pulsating warmth of his tip nudging against your cervix paired with his thick cum filling you up dizzying the both of you.
you expect some kind of snarky comment from toji, trying to catch your breath so you could reply when he said it. but nothing comes (you have to stop yourself from laughing at the pun). you turn to look back, sighing when toji pulls out of you. usually he stayed inside, leaning down to tease you for cumming so fast...but he didn't.
something was wrong and for some reason, you felt like your pussy was in danger.
“toj…?”
he didn’t answer. he probably didn’t even hear you, not with the way he was looking so intensely at the mess between your thighs. the mess he made. toji doesn’t know what comes over him, his hands practically moving on their own as he moves you over onto your back, then moving his hands down to your sensitive hole and spreading.
the scene in front of him just breaks him. you let out a soft whine, hips gently rolling into his hands. his eyes stay stuck between your legs—sharp and focused—as they watch the thick globs of his hot cum drip out of your hole and down onto the bed sheets.
the groan that leaves him is sinful, and once you make eye contact with him, you realize how fucked you are. he’s hard again, almost making you believe he didn’t cum if it weren’t for the creamy sheen of his cum on his throbbing dick and the hotness of his dripping out of you. before you know it, toji’s climbing over you, making sure your legs get pushed over to his shoulders as he pushes you into a mating press.
yeah.
you're fucked.
you keep making eye contact, and now that he’s so close to you, you see how crazed he looks. his eyes, completely black due to his blown pupils, have an unhinged look in them, and the half smirk on his face only makes you worry about your ability to walk the next day.
“t-toji, if you need a break to calm down, then-oh!”
he shuts you up by pushing himself inside you, loving how your eyes cross so prettily. he has you now, you can't run away from the overstimulating feeling of him fucking you in this position. and when you feel his hands come up and lock together on your head to really keep you in place, you feel yourself gush all over his cock at the simple display of how strong he was compared to you.
you're so fucked.
all you can do is moan and cry out his name, hands grabbing whatever part of him they could reach. but he doesn't let you break eye contact, keeping you close to his face so he could see every little expression. and fuck, does he like what he sees.
“t-tojiii, t’ deep, t’ deep!”
“wan’ me t’ stop? t’ stop fuckin’ this messy hole?”
“fuck, y-you stop, and I’ll c-choke the shit out of yo-ouh!”
“that’s it, take it, take daddy’s cock, mama, lemme breed you.”
everything about this position is driving both of you crazy.
the closeness has you reeling, the way toji just cannot bring himself to break eye contact, needing to see what he was doing to you.
his thick cock is hitting deep, almost too deep, with the way each thrust of his hips causes the tip to press into the sweet spot inside you every. single. time.
he has you for the whole day and the whole night, he's going to make sure you're stuffed entirely and doesn't plan on stopping until either you tell him you need a break or until he can't cum anymore. and even then, he doesn't think anything will be able to get him out of your cunt.
but with the way he just moaned into your mouth, thick spurts of more cum coating your insides…and the way he didn’t get soft, instead pressing you even deeper into the mattress as he began to pound into you with a groan of how much he loved your pussy…
you were sure it would be a while until he was done with you.
20K words, Simon’s hair has grown out, reader wears glasses, Simon doesn’t know how to dance, smut, the fluffiest fluff, angst, size kink, Simon is huge, pee mentioned, Simon is filthy but we all knew that. Tell me if I missed any tags.
He was four years old when he stole your crayons.
Not all of them. Just the good ones. The red one. The yellow one. The bright, sunflower-gold one that you'd been saving to colour the sun in the corner of your drawing, the way all four-year-olds drew the sun — a circle in the corner, rays shooting out like a child's idea of joy.
You looked at him across the low art table in that bright little preschool room that smelled of poster paint and digestive biscuits.
He was stocky even then.
Chubby-cheeked and heavy-set. A thick, sturdy little boy who sat with his legs wide and his fat fists curled around your crayons like he'd earned them.
He wasn't even looking at you.
He was colouring something — a car, maybe, or a blob that might have been a dog — and the yellow crayon moved in big, purposeful strokes across his paper.
You did not cry.
You considered it.
Then you leaned across the table and took them back.
He looked up.
Brown eyes. Even at four, they were startling — dark and serious and far too watchful for a boy his age.
He stared at you.
You stared back.
Then he slid the gold crayon back across the table to you, said nothing, and went back to his drawing.
His name was Simon.
You would not learn that until the register was called the following morning. But you remembered his eyes before you remembered his name.
— ✦ —
He broke your glasses in Year Two.
Not on purpose — or so you believed, for most of your life, until you were old enough to accept that
Simon Riley did very few things without purpose.
He knocked into you in the corridor outside the dining hall, your plastic NHS frames hitting the linoleum floor, one arm snapping clean off at the hinge.
You stood there, the world going soft and blurry at the edges the way it always did without them, and you felt the particular, humiliating sting of being unable to see properly — the vulnerability of it, the indignity.
Simon picked up the frames. Looked at them. Looked at you.
He didn't say sorry straight away. He examined the break with the seriousness of a boy who was already, at seven, very careful about what he said and when he said it. Then, "I'll carry your bag till they're fixed."
"You broke my glasses," you told him like he didn’t know.
"I know." He nodded.
"That's not the same as fixing them."
"No," he agreed. "But it's what I've got."
He carried your bag for three days. And when your mum brought the repaired frames in on the fourth morning, he handed the bag back without ceremony, turned, and went to join his mates by the football cage. No further apology. No acknowledgement that anything had occurred between you at all.
That afternoon, you kicked over his sandcastle in the playground.
He watched you do it. Didn't say a word.
You felt better.
And somehow, after that, you were friends.
— ✦ —
He couldn't read very well. You figured this out in Year Three, during the round-robin reading in class — when the teacher went along the rows and each child read a sentence aloud.
You noticed the way Simon's jaw set and his hands went flat on the desk the closer it got to his turn. The way his eyes moved across the page, laboured and slow, tracking words like they were things to be wrestled rather than known.
He got through his sentence. Barely. His face was blank when he sat back, the particular blankness he'd already learned to wear — that carefully constructed nothing that meant everything was fine when everything was not fine at all.
You didn't say anything about it. Not then. You were eight years old, not stupid.
What you did was start reading with him at break time. You presented it as something you needed — you told him you were practising for a reading competition and needed an audience.
Simon was not fooled. He was never fooled, not really.
But he sat down with you on the bench by the library door and listened while you read, and then slowly, carefully, you handed the book to him and asked what he thought happened next, and he had to read ahead to find out.
It took most of the school year. But by the summer he was reading chapter books. He never thanked you. He did start saving you a seat on the library bench every break time, and that was the same thing.
— ✦ —
He played football and rugby.
You read on the grass bank above the field.
It became a kind of institution — the ritual of your shared proximity without shared activity. Simon on the pitch, broad and determined and already bigger than the other boys by Year Five, already moving with that particular physicality that seemed less like playing and more like declaration.
And you on the bank above, your book open, your reading glasses (a better pair now, tortoiseshell) perched on your nose, half-reading and half watching without ever quite admitting to the watching.
He always knew you were there. He didn't do anything about it. But sometimes, when he scored, he'd look up at the bank first before he looked anywhere else.
You told yourself you were only there because the grass was nice and the light was good.
You were not a good liar, even then.
— ✦ —
The boy's name was Daniel Holt and he pushed you over in the playground in Year Five because you'd refused to give him the answers to the maths homework.
You'd said no three times and the third time he pushed you and you went down hard on your palms and your knees, the concrete was unforgiving.
You were crying before you'd fully registered what had happened. Not dramatically — small, shocked, indignant tears, the kind that arrive before the pain does.
Simon was there before a teacher was. You didn't even see where he came from. One moment the playground was its ordinary mid-morning noise, and the next Daniel Holt had a split lip and Simon Riley was standing over him with blood on his knuckles and a look on his face that was completely, utterly calm.
The calm was the frightening part. Even at ten.
He got three days at home for it. He spent the first afternoon sitting on your front step, eating crisps, because he knew you'd be furious with him and wanted to face it head-on.
You were furious. You told him he was an idiot. He told you Daniel Holt had it coming. You told him violence wasn't the answer. He told you Daniel Holt wasn't going to touch you again.
He was right. Daniel Holt never came near you again.
You didn't thank him either. You went inside and made him a sandwich, and that was the same thing.
— ✦ —
Secondary school arrived like a change in weather — everything slightly larger, slightly louder, the corridors longer and noisier, the stakes somehow higher and more ambiguous all at once. You arrived with a bag so heavy your shoulder ached within the first hour: your textbooks, yes, but also the extracurricular books you carried everywhere, the extra notepad you used for non-school thoughts, the six different highlighters you colour-coded by subject.
Simon took the bag from you on the third day without asking.
"I can carry it," you told him.
"I know," he said.
He slung it over his shoulder like it weighed nothing, which for him it probably didn't. He'd grown over the summer — not just taller, though he was that, but broader, thicker through the shoulders in a way that made him look like a man playing a boy, trying the shape of it on. He wore it well, even at eleven. He wore everything like he'd already decided what he was and was simply waiting for the world to catch up.
He carried your bag when it was heavy, and it was frequently heavy. He did it without comment and without making you feel small for needing it. That was the thing about Simon — he never made you feel small. He made other people feel small, sometimes, when they deserved it. But not you. Never you.
— ✦ —
The bruises were never from rugby.
You knew by the second year of secondary.
You were not naive — you had read enough, observed enough, understood enough about the world to recognise the shape of what was happening in Simon Riley's house even though he never said a word about it.
The bruises were in the wrong places for rugby. They appeared in the wrong season. They were around his ribs and his arms and once, memorably, along his jaw, and he came to school the Monday after the jaw bruise with that face — that blank, carefully constructed nothing face — and you sat next to him at lunch and said nothing at all.
You said nothing because there was nothing you could do. You were twelve. You were a girl with a book bag and highlighter pens and absolutely no power over the man who was hurting your best friend, and knowing that — the impotence of it, the helpless, hollow ache of caring about someone you could not protect — was the first truly adult pain you ever felt.
What you could do was this: you could make sure he had somewhere to go.
Your mother, who was perceptive in the quiet way that some mothers are, never asked questions when Simon turned up at the back door on a Sunday evening or a Wednesday after school.
She just set another plate.
Your house became a refuge without anyone naming it as such. Simon did his homework at your kitchen table, ate your mother's cooking, watched telly with your family, and slept on your sofa sometimes when the option was presented naturally enough that it didn't feel like charity.
— ✦ —
You got your period for the first time on a Tuesday in November, in Year Nine. In the school toilets, third period, when you were thirteen years old and the day had been entirely ordinary right up until it wasn't.
The particular cocktail of shock and pain and embarrassment and the specific existential bewilderment of being a person whose body was doing something enormous without prior adequate notice left you sitting on the closed toilet lid crying in a way you hadn't cried in years.
You got out your Nokia. That familiar brick of a phone, the keypad worn smooth at the number five. You typed Simon's number and pressed call before you'd properly decided to.
He picked up on the second ring. "Yeah."
"Simon." Your voice came out wrong. Too thin.
A beat. When he spoke again his voice had changed — quieter, more careful. "Where are you?"
"Girls' toilets. Near the science block."
"Right," he said. "Stay there."
He appeared outside the girls' toilets seven minutes later — you could hear him through the door, his voice low and flat, telling a Year Eight girl to go use the other ones — and then he was there, right there on the other side of the door, talking to you through it in that steady, even way he had when he wanted to be calm on your behalf.
"You're alright," he said. “Do you need me to go to the office?"
"No," you managed. "I need — I don't know what I need."
"I'll get you something from the vending machine," he said, that Manchester accent of his low and unhurried. "And I'll text your mum."
When you came out of the toilets twenty minutes later, looking wrung-out and clutching what the school nurse had provided, Simon was leaning against the wall. He looked at you for a moment — took you in, the way he always did, that comprehensive, assessing look — and then he stepped forward and kissed your cheek. Quick. Certain. His mouth warm and deliberate against your cheekbone.
"You're alright," he said again. He said it like a fact. Like he was making it true by saying it.
You cried a bit more, for different reasons, and he pretended not to notice.
— ✦ —
He was captain of the rugby team by Year Ten. It suited him — the leadership, the sense of purpose, the structure of it.
You went to his matches sometimes, wrapped in a scarf on the touchline, and watched him move across the pitch with that same quality you'd noticed on the primary school field: less like playing, more like declaration.
He was ferocious and focused and occasionally frightening, and the other boys deferred to him not just because he was bigger than them but because he had the kind of authority that doesn't need to be announced.
Afterwards he'd find you on the touchline, still carrying that quality — coiled, alert — and it would take him a few minutes to come back to himself. To come back to you.
"Good game," you'd say.
"Yeah," he'd say.
And then slowly, the set of his shoulders would ease, and he'd become Simon again. Your Simon. The one who stole your crayons and carried your bag and ate your mother's shepherd's pie like it was sacred.
— ✦ —
He could make you laugh. This was not a small thing.
Simon Riley was not, by general consensus, a funny person. He was serious and quiet and his face in repose looked like a man carrying a private weather system. But he had a dry, deadpan wit that he deployed rarely and precisely, and it landed, every time, like a key in a lock made specifically for it.
He knew how to make you laugh because he'd spent years learning you. The specific frequency of your humour. The things that made you dissolve into giggles rather than just smile. He deployed his wit with the same precision he deployed everything else, and the result was that when Simon Riley made you laugh — really laugh, the helpless, breathless kind — it felt like being given something he didn't give to anyone else.
Which, you would eventually understand, was accurate.
— ✦ —
His name was Ryan Marsh and he was your first kiss, in the park on a Friday evening in Year Ten, and it was fine. It was nice, even. Ryan was sweet and nervous and smelled of his older brother's aftershave and the kiss lasted approximately forty seconds.
Ryan Marsh had a broken nose the following Monday.
Simon maintained, with total conviction, that Ryan had walked into a door. Ryan, to his credit, corroborated this story completely.
You did not push the matter, partly because you had no concrete evidence and partly because some part of you — the part that read on the grass bank and watched the pitch and noticed when Simon looked up at the bank before he looked anywhere else — felt something that was not entirely uncomplicated about it.
You and Ryan Marsh did not have a second kiss. You told yourself it was because the chemistry hadn't been right.
You were getting a bit better at lying to yourself, by fourteen. But only a bit.
— ✦ —
GCSEs arrived the way all important things arrived — with more weight than you'd expected and less warning than you'd have liked.
Year Ten and Eleven were the years you restructured Simon's entire approach to studying, methodically and patiently, the same way you'd helped him learn to read, finding the approach that worked for how his mind moved.
Simon was not unintelligent.
He was, in fact, formidably sharp in ways that didn't translate easily to an exam paper: quick to read people, quick to understand systems, possessed of a spatial and strategic intelligence that you recognised and admired even as you taught him how to write it down in ways that the mark scheme would accept.
He sat with you at your kitchen table night after night — your mother quietly replenishing the tea,— and you explained things in the language that made sense to his brain rather than the language of the textbook.
He sat with you at lunch during school hours and glared at anyone who called you a nerd. The glaring was extremely effective. Simon Riley's face, by fifteen, was a significant deterrent.
His GCSE results, when they arrived, were good. Better than anyone who knew his circumstances might have expected from a boy who'd had so much working against him.
He rang you on the house phone when he opened the results envelope. He didn't say much. His voice, when he spoke, was different — something in it unguarded, the Manchester in it softer somehow, without the armour it usually carried.
"Couldn't have done it without you," he said.
"You did it," you told him firmly. "I just held the torch."
"Still needed the torch."
You smiled so hard your face ached. "Go celebrate, Simon."
"Yeah," he said. And then, quieter, "Thanks, sunshine."
— ✦ —
He was an apprentice at the butcher's on Renshaw Street after school — learning the trade with the same focused, physical competence he brought to everything else, solid and unhurried, his big hands learning new kinds of precision. You had a job at the bookshop two streets over.
On his lunch breaks you would walk over with a sandwich and a packet of crisps, and you'd sit on the low wall around the side of the shop while he ate and you talked about nothing in particular and everything in general.
He had sawdust on his boots and you'd have ink on your fingers from pricing stickers, and you'd sit in the thin afternoon light talking about books and people and where things might go from here, and it was the most ordinary, irreplaceable thing in the world.
You didn't know, then, that you were storing it up. You didn't know you were in the middle of something finite.
You were seventeen and you thought you had time.
— ✦ —
It was the eleventh of September, 2001.
You were at work when it happened — the bookshop had a small television in the back room, and you watched the footage with your hand pressed over your mouth and the world rearranging itself into a new shape around you.
Simon came to you that evening. He didn't knock — he had a spare key, had done for years — and you heard him come in and go into the kitchen and fill the kettle, the sound of him so familiar and domestic and real that something in your chest loosened a fraction.
He brought you tea. He sat on the sofa beside you and you watched the news together in silence, and at some point your head found his shoulder without either of you deciding it had.
"I'm going to join up," he said. Not asking. Telling.
You lifted your head from his shoulder. Frowned at him. "Join up what?"
"The military."
The word landed in the room and stayed there. You looked at his face — that flat, certain expression he wore when he'd already decided something — and you felt the ground shift slightly under you.
"Simon. You're seventeen."
"You can join at sixteen with parental consent," he said. Straightforward, as though he'd already looked into it. Which of course he had. "Seventeen without."
"That's—" You stopped. Started again. "You've thought about this before today."
"Yeah."
Of course he had. You could see it now, the shape of it — this was not a reaction to the footage on the television, not a hot, impulsive thing. This was something Simon had been building toward without telling you. The structure of it. The purpose. The particular kind of belonging that came from being part of something larger than yourself. You'd always known he'd go toward something like this. You'd just hoped, without ever quite admitting to the hoping, that it might be further away.
"You're not going to try to talk me out of it." Not a question.
"Would it work?"
He held your gaze. "No."
"Then no," you said. Your voice was very steady. You were proud of it. "I'm not."
He was quiet for a long moment. The television continued its awful repetition. Then his arm came around your shoulders, heavy and warm, and he pulled you in closer against his side.
You stayed like that until the tea went cold.
— ✦ —
The train station was grey and noisy with other leavings, other arrivals, other people in the middle of things.
Simon stood in front of you on the platform with his kit bag and his big, careful hands and the face he'd spent seventeen years learning to keep blank, and it occurred to you, not for the first time and not for the last, that you loved him.
That you had loved him in different quantities and different registers for most of your life. That you did not know how to say it and were not sure it would do either of you any good if you did.
So you didn't say it.
You went up on your toes and you hugged him — truly hugged him, arms around his neck, your face pressed against his jaw — and he held you back with both arms, the kit bag dropping to the platform, and he was so solid and warm and real that you memorised it.
"Don't be an idiot," you told him, muffled.
He made a sound that was almost a laugh. Almost. "Best I can do is try." The Manchester in his voice, low and warm and his.
"Simon."
"I know," he said quietly, against your temple. "I know, sunshine."
You stepped back. You held it together. He picked up his bag and he walked toward the platform and at the door of the train he turned, and looked at you standing there with your glasses and your coat and your hands pressed together in front of you, and for a second you saw something in his face that wasn't blank at all.
Then he was gone.
You cried on the way home. Proper, ugly crying, in the front seat of your mother's car, while she drove and said nothing and passed you a tissue.
You cried because you thought you might never see him again. Because the world had cracked open on a Tuesday in September and people were going toward the fracture and Simon Riley was one of them.
You cried because you never told him.
— ✦ —
He sent a birthday card every year.
They arrived with no return address and postmarks from places you'd never heard of, and sometimes they were late and sometimes they were so early you suspected he'd sent them weeks in advance in case he couldn't later.
They were always plain — Simon Riley was not a man who browsed the sentimental section — white or cream envelopes, the kind of card that was almost generic, and inside: his handwriting, which had improved vastly from the boy who'd struggled across the page in Year Three, and always the same thing. Your name at the top. Happy Birthday, sunshine. And then: S.
Just S.
Like he was still close enough that you'd know exactly who that meant. Like the initial was sufficient.
It was.
You sent his birthday gifts to a P.O. box he'd given you, wrapped carefully, the tag always: From your best friend. You didn't know if he received them all. You sent them anyway. It felt important to keep sending them — to maintain the thread, even when you couldn't see both ends of it.
— ✦ —
Thirty-four years old now.
You have no husband. You had come close, once — a man named Patrick who had been perfectly acceptable in every measurable way and who had wanted to marry you and had probably deserved someone who could give him more of herself than you could manage.
You had not been fair to Patrick. You knew that. You had been in love with someone else for most of your adult life, and even with the someone else absent and silent and possibly dead, there wasn't room for anyone else.
You have no children, though you wanted them. The timeline on that was becoming its own quiet ache, the kind you didn't prod too often.
You have a job that pays the bills and not much else — admin in an office building that smells of carpet cleaner and recycled air, the kind of work that requires enough of your brain to stop it from wandering but not enough to satisfy it.
You have an apartment that is functional and yours and that you have tried to make cozy, with books on every surface and plants that are mostly surviving and a kitchen you actually cook in.
It is not the house. It is not the house you told Simon about when you were sixteen and lying in his back garden on a summer evening, staring up at the sky.
No birthday card for five years now.
Five years of the particular, specific silence that was different from all the silences before, because the silences before had been interrupted. Annually, reliably, he had broken them.
Five years of nothing had the texture of conclusion. Of a chapter closing. And you had reached the point — slowly, painfully, with the kind of acceptance that doesn't feel like acceptance but feels like exhaustion — where you were fairly certain Simon Riley was dead.
Your heart ached for your best friend in the low, constant way of grief that has become so familiar it's almost structural.
You carried it the way you carried other things, quietly, with your spine straight.
Which is why you are sitting across from a man named — it didn't matter, it really didn't matter what his name was — on what your colleague Debbie had described as 'a perfectly nice date with a perfectly nice man' and trying to remember what it felt like to be interested in your own life.
The man sitting across from you was the complete opposite of Simon Riley.
He was trim and well-dressed and had the kind of face that was handsome in a way that required no effort to appreciate and inspired no particular feeling from you.
He had been talking for, by your reckoning, forty-seven minutes. In that time he had covered: his career (impressive, in his telling), his car (expensive, in his telling), his last holiday (exotic, in his telling), and his general philosophy on modern dating (nuanced, in his telling).
He had not asked about your job. He had not asked about your books or the one peeking out of your handbag; the one he'd glanced at and not commented on. He had not asked if your pasta was nice, which it was, actually, genuinely nice, and you'd have told him so if he'd asked. He had not asked you almost anything, come to think of it.
Simon Riley, who spoke perhaps a tenth as many words as this man, had always asked.
Simon Riley had always wanted to know. Not because it was polite. Because he actually, genuinely, in the particular way of people who care about very few things very deeply — wanted to know.
You excused yourself to use the bathroom and stood at the sink running cold water over your wrists and looking at your own reflection, and you thought: this is fine.
This is a perfectly nice evening with a perfectly nice man. This is what moving forward looks like. This is what being a person in the world, a person with a life and a future and reasonable expectations of company, looks like.
You dried your hands. You went back to the table. He had ordered himself another drink without asking if you wanted anything.
You finished your pasta and smiled at appropriate intervals and thought about Simon Riley and felt, as you so often felt, quietly furious at him for being gone.
— ✦ —
The birthday card arrived on a Thursday morning.
You almost missed it entirely — it was tucked between a pizza delivery leaflet and something from your energy supplier, the cream envelope almost camouflaged by the mundane. You shuffled through the post on autopilot and then stopped.
Your name, in handwriting you would have recognised anywhere, would have recognised in your sleep, had recognised in your bones for thirty years.
You sat down on the bottom stair. Your legs suddenly uneasy.
Your hands were not steady.
The envelope opened. The card was white. Plain. Almost generic.
Inside:
Happy Birthday, sunshine.
I'm sorry it's been so long.
I'll explain everything.
Come, if you want to.
If you can stand the sight of me.
Below that, an address. Three towns over. A postcode you didn't recognise.
And then, at the bottom, the way it had always been at the bottom: S.
You sat on the bottom stair for a very long time.
Then you got up, went to your room, and started thinking about what to wear.
— ✦ —
You plucked up the nerve to go on a Saturday.
The drive took forty minutes and you spent most of it trying to manage yourself — talking yourself through reasonable expectations (he is alive, that is enough, start there), warning yourself against things you could not control (the five years, the silence, the way your hands were doing that unsteady thing again), cataloguing everything practical (the address, the map).
The street was quiet. Semi-rural, the kind of neighbourhood that sits between things — between town and country, between the ordinary and the aspirational. The houses were spread out, set back from the road, each with its own front garden and its own character.
You parked. You looked at the address. You looked up.
And you stopped breathing.
It was a beautiful house.
Large, substantial and solid, the kind of house that had been built to last. White painted render, clean and bright in the afternoon light. A white picket fence surrounding the front garden, which was full of flowers. Roses climbing the gatepost. Lavender edging the path. Foxgloves and dahlias and great loose clusters of something purple you couldn't name from here. The kind of garden that had been planted with intention, tended with care, left to be a little wild in the best way.
A porch. And a porch swing, painted white, with a yellow cushion on it.
And flying from the corner of the roof, bright against the blue afternoon sky: the Union flag.
You sat very still in the driver's seat.
You were sixteen years old. It was a summer evening and you were lying in Simon's back garden on an old sleeping bag, looking up at the sky. He was beside you in the way he was always beside you — solid, quiet, taking up exactly the right amount of space. You'd been talking about the future the way teenagers do, in great floating hypotheticals that feel more like weather than plans.
"What kind of house?" he'd asked. He asked follow-up questions always, quietly, wanting the specifics. It was one of the things about him you loved.
And you'd described it. A big house, not ostentatious but real — space for books and for people and for a garden that did what it wanted within reason. A white fence, because you'd always liked them. A porch with somewhere to sit. A flag, because you were — despite everything — proud of where you were from.
Simon had been quiet for a long moment.
"Okay," he'd said. Just: okay.
You had thought he was humouring you.
You had not thought — you had not let yourself think — what it might mean, that he was going to do anything about it.
You got out of the car. Your legs were not entirely reliable. You held the gate and walked up the path — lavender brushing your hand where it grew close, the scent of it too perfect, almost staged — and you stopped at the foot of the porch steps.
The door opened.
He had to duck.
That was the first thing you noticed. The physical fact of him, the sheer size of him, his shoulders nearly touching the doorframe on both sides simultaneously, the automatic dip of his head as he stepped through onto the porch.
He straightened.
The afternoon light landed on him and you had to spend a moment recalibrating, because the last time you'd seen Simon Riley he had been seventeen years old with sawdust on his boots and a train ticket in his hand, and this man —
This man.
The white button-down shirt was simple, the sleeves rolled to the elbow, and from his left wrist to well past the roll of the sleeve his forearm was dark with ink — a sleeve of tattoos, intricate and considered. A whole geography of imagery that you couldn't read from here but would, you thought, take time to learn.
His right wrist carried a watch. His black slacks were fitted close enough that you could see the muscle of his thighs pulling the fabric with every shift of his weight, and his shoes — loafers, black with gold buckles, completely unexpected and somehow exactly right — were precise.
His hair. A dark sandy blonde, longer than military specification presumably allowed and slicked back from his face, which meant you could see all of it, his whole face; the angles that had sharpened from boy to man, the jaw, the set of his brow, and those eyes. Those brown eyes that had been watching you since you were four years old and had never, not once, looked at you with anything less than complete attention.
He was raking those eyes over you now. Slowly. With the same quality he'd always had — that comprehensive, unhurried assessment that somehow never felt like being measured — and his hands were in his pockets and he was standing there like that, on the porch he'd built or bought or arranged specifically around a description you'd given him at sixteen.
He looked like something out of a magazine and like Simon all at once.
You were going to murder him.
"Hi, sunshine."
His voice. Lower than you remembered, rougher, carrying all the years he'd lived since you last heard it. That Manchester accent — still there, unmistakably, that warm northern flatness underneath everything, the vowels shaped by a city, by a street, by a particular kind of upbringing that no amount of training had entirely smoothed out.
That nickname, in that voice, in that low, deliberate way he'd always said it: like you were his.
Like it was a prayer.
You opened your mouth. And you closed it. And you looked at him — this enormous, tattooed, stupidly handsome man who had stood on your mother's doorstep at twelve years old with bruises he didn't mention, who had kissed your cheek at thirteen and broken Ryan Marsh's nose at fourteen and waved goodbye from a train platform at seventeen and then sent you birthday cards from the edges of the world for a decade and then stopped for five years —
"Five years," you said. Your voice was very quiet.
Something moved in his face.
"I-,"
"I thought you were dead." You snapped cutting him off.
"I figured you would’ve."
"Simon."
"I know, sunshine." He said it the same way he'd always said things he couldn't argue with — not deflecting, not dismissing, just absorbing. The Manchester vowels in his voice like a hand on your shoulder. "I'll explain everything. I promise. All of it. Whatever you want to know."
You looked at him.
He looked at you.
The afternoon settled around the house, around the garden that was your garden in your own sixteen-year-old description, around the flag and the porch swing and the lavender and all of it, and the distance between you on the path and him on the porch steps was perhaps four feet and thirty years and five years of silence and a whole life of choosing not to say the one true thing.
"You built me the house?" you asked, whispering it. Like you were afraid to say it.
He was quiet for a moment. Then, "Bought it. Had the garden done the way you said."
"Simon." Your heart ached.
"You said lavender at the edges," he said. His voice was completely level. "You said a porch with somewhere to sit. You said you wanted to see the flag from the garden."
You pressed your hand to your mouth.
The rage was still there — it was not going anywhere quickly. The five years of it, the grief of it — but underneath it, something else. Something that had been there since you were four years old at a preschool art table, larger and quieter and more permanent than anything else you'd ever felt.
"You were sixteen," he said. As though this explained it. "You told me what you wanted. I just..." He stopped. Started again. "I wanted to be enough first. I wanted to have what you needed."
There was a long silence. A bee moved through the lavender. Somewhere a few streets away, a lawnmower hummed.
"Come inside," Simon said. "I'll make you tea. And I'll tell you everything."
You looked at him on the porch of the house he'd built you from a word, and you thought: you absolute idiot. You wonderful, impossible, infuriating man. You thought I'd stopped. You thought thirty years of this was something you could be enough for eventually, like it was a bar to clear, like there was a version of you I was waiting on instead of just —
Instead of just you. Always just you.
The lavender brushed your hand again. You walked up the steps and he looked down at you with those brown eyes that had never once left you.
"Hi, Simon," you said.
Something happened in his face. Something opened.
"Hi, sunshine," he said, his hand coming to the small of your back to guide you inside.
He made the tea.
You stood in the kitchen of a house that smelled of fresh paint and cedar and something faintly floral from the garden drifting through the open window over the sink, and you watched Simon Riley move around it like he'd always lived here — filling the kettle, finding the mugs without opening the wrong cupboard, knowing where the teabags were — and you thought: how long. How long has he been here, in this house he bought for you, learning where everything lives, waiting.
You sat at the kitchen table. It was a good table, heavy oak, the kind built to last and you ran your thumb along the grain of it and tried to arrange your feelings into some kind of order and failed.
Simon set the mug in front of you. Milk in last, the way you'd always taken it, which he knew because he'd made you approximately four thousand cups of tea over the course of your lives. He sat down across from you, his own mug between his big hands, and looked at you.
You looked back.
The kitchen light was warm and it caught the angles of his face. The jaw, the brow, the slight crook in his nose that was new, or newer, the result of something you didn't know about and weren't sure you wanted to.
He was watching you with that particular quality of attention he'd always had. Complete. Patient. Like you were the only thing in the room worth looking at.
"You're not wearing your glasses," he said.
You blinked. Of all the things. "No."
"Contacts?"
"For about ten years now, yes."
He was quiet for a moment, studying your face with that same unhurried attention, "I missed them."
"You missed my glasses?" You say with the deadpan tone you'd perfected over the years.
"Tortoiseshell ones," he said. "Used to push them up your nose when you were concentrating." He took a gulp of his tea, Adam's apple bobbing when he swallowed.
You stared at him. Eighteen years. Eighteen years of distance and war and God knows what else, and he missed your glasses. "Simon."
"Just saying."
"You are unbelievable." You scoff.
"The contacts suit you," he said, and the corner of his mouth moved — barely, almost nothing, but you'd spent your whole life reading that face and you caught it. "Everything suits you. But I liked the glasses."
"Stop it." You snap.
"Stop what?"
"Whatever that is," you said, and you pointed at his face, at the not-there-almost-smile, at the quality of his voice when he said everything suits you, at all of it. "You don't get to do that. You've been — Simon, you've been gone. You've been gone for eighteen years and for five of them, I thought you were dead." Your voice stayed steady, which surprised you. You'd expected it to crack on that. "So you don't get to walk out onto your porch looking like — like that — and tell me you missed my glasses and flirt at me like no time has passed."
He listened without interrupting. He always had — it was one of the things about him, the way he gave you the whole space of what you were saying before he entered it.
"You're right," he nodded.
"I know I'm right." Your spine straightened.
"I owe you an explanation."
"You owe me considerably more than that, Simon Riley, but yes. An explanation would be a start."
He wrapped both hands around his mug again and looked at you across the table and there was something in his face that was not the blank-nothing face, was not the armour he'd worn since he was twelve years old but something that was quieter and more exposed and a great deal more frightening because of it.
"Not here," he said.
You frowned. "What?"
"I don't want to do it like this. Sat in a kitchen." He glanced around the room briefly, as though orienting himself. "Come to dinner with me tomorrow night."
"What I—"
"The Grill on Merton Street."
You went very still.
The Grill on Merton Street. You hadn't been in years — not since you'd moved away from the area, not since things had shifted and the rituals of your old life had quietly been replaced by other things.
But you knew it. You knew every table in it. The way the light came through the front windows on a Sunday, the smell of it — roasted meat and old wood and the particular warmth of a place that had been feeding families for decades.
Your mother had loved it. Your father used to order the same thing every time and be pleased about it every time, and you and Simon had sat across from each other in the corner booth with the sticky laminated menus and kicked each other under the table and laughed.
"That's still open?" you managed.
"Had a look earlier this week," he said. "Still there. New owners but the same building. Same corner booth."
You looked at him. He looked at you. Outside, through the open window, a late bird was making itself known in the lavender.
"Fine," you said. "Dinner. Tomorrow. And you're going to tell me everything." you struck at him with a serious face.
"Everything," he agreed.
"I mean it, Simon. All of it."
"I know you do."
You drank your tea. It was exactly right. The temperature, the strength, the milk ratio and you hated him a little bit for that. For the fact that he still knew, that across seventeen years and God knows how many miles he still knew exactly how you took your tea, and he'd made it correctly on the first attempt without asking, and you were absolutely not going to cry about that.
You were not.
— ✦ —
You dressed carefully.
Not because you were trying to impress him.
You told yourself this firmly, standing in front of your wardrobe in the room you'd taken in the local B&B — you'd booked a night, not knowing how long this might take, not knowing what state you'd be in for the drive home afterwards — and you told yourself that you were simply dressing appropriately for a dinner at a decent restaurant.
That was all.
That was the entirety of it.
The dress was deep green. Fitted through the waist, falling to just below the knee, with a neckline that was elegant rather than dramatic.
You'd bought it for a work event two years ago and it had lived in your wardrobe since, waiting for an occasion that felt worth it. You put your hair up — not elaborately, just neatly, the kind of arrangement that looked effortless and had taken twenty minutes — and you wore the small gold earrings that had been your grandmother's. Low heels. The good handbag. A slick of red on your mouth that you almost wiped off twice before deciding to leave it.
You were not trying to impress him.
You were absolutely trying to impress him.
He was waiting outside The Grill when your taxi pulled up, standing on the pavement with his hands in his pockets. The air around him relaxed and easy. An anchored stillness, like a man who'd learned to wait and had made peace with it. He has the same dark slacks as yesterday, same loafers with the gold buckles, but the shirt tonight was black.
A deep, clean black that made his shoulders look approximately the width of a doorway, which was in fact an accurate assessment — and he'd left the top button undone. His hair was the same: pushed back, dark sandy blonde curling at the nape of his neck and catching the amber of the streetlights.
He saw you get out of the taxi.
He went very still. Completely, suddenly, entirely present in a way that landed on you like a hand against your sternum. Under your heartbeat.
You crossed the pavement toward him and his eyes moved over you — slowly, comprehensively, that same rake of attention he'd given you yesterday on the porch steps, only this time there was nothing restrained about what it did to your pulse.
He eyed you the same way he used to look at the extra cuts of slow roasted beef your mother added to his plate every time he joined you for a Sunday roast after church.
"Hi," you said.
"Hi, sunshine." His voice was low. The rough Manchester sending tingles down your spine.
He opened the door for you.
The Grill smelled exactly the same.
Roasted meat and warmed bread and old wood and something faintly of candle wax. It hit you the moment you stepped through the door and you had to stand still for just a second, just one second, to absorb the weight of it.
Your father's coat on the hook by the door. Your mother's reading glasses going into her bag as the menus arrived. Simon across from you, fourteen and fifteen and sixteen, his big hands wrapped around a Coke glass, his eyes on you under that careful brow.
The layout had shifted slightly — new owners, as Simon had said — but the bones of it were the same. The dark wood panelling. The low warm lighting. The tables set with proper linen and actual candles in glass holders. And in the back left corner was the booth.
Simon's hand was at the small of your back as the host led you through. A light touch, barely there, the kind of thing that could be merely courteous and was absolutely not merely courteous.
You said nothing about it.
You were almost at the booth when a voice said, "Well. I don't believe it."
You turned.
Margaret and Gerald Howarth.
Margaret had been your mother's friend since before you were born — a small, bright-eyed woman who had somehow barely aged in two decades. Her silver hair cut the same way it had always been, her husband a large, genial man beside her with a napkin already tucked into his collar. They'd been eating here since before you were born too, you suspected. Some people were simply woven into the furniture of a place.
"Margaret," you said, and you felt a genuine, warm rush of it. Of being seen by someone who had known you as a child, who had watched you grow up, who carried that particular knowledge of you that only people of a certain generation can hold. She was already rising halfway from her seat, her hand extended, and you took it and she covered it with her other one, the way she always had.
"We heard you were back in the area," she said — which was interesting, since you'd only arrived yesterday, but news apparently still moved at its old speed around here. Her bright eyes moved to Simon, and something in them softened with recognition and surprise in equal measure. "And Simon Riley. My goodness."
"Mrs Howarth." Simon's voice was respectful, quieter than usual, and you noticed — because you noticed everything about him — that he straightened fractionally. Not stiffly. Just the particular adjustment of a man in the presence of someone he'd known when he was young and unguarded.
"Look at the size of you," Gerald said, not unkindly, staring up at Simon with the frank appreciation of one large man for another. "What are they feeding you?"
"Gerald," Margaret scolded mildly.
"It's a compliment." He shrugged.
Simon almost smiled. "Good to see you, Mr Howarth."
Margaret was looking between the two of you with the expression of a woman who had been quietly observing people her entire life and drawing accurate conclusions from very little evidence. "Are you together?" she asked, with the particular directness that came with age and with having known you since you were in a pushchair.
"We're having dinner," you said carefully.
Margaret's expression said, quite clearly, that she had heard this and had also heard everything it was not saying. "Well," she said, patting your hand once more before releasing it, "it's lovely to see you both. You always did belong together, the pair of you. I said that to your mother once, do you know. I said those two—"
"It was lovely seeing you, Margaret," you said, with great warmth and only mild desperation.
She laughed, a bright, pleased sound and settled back into her seat.
As you turned to follow the host the rest of the way to the booth, you were almost certain you heard Gerald say, to his wife, "told you" in a tone of quiet marital satisfaction.
Simon was very carefully not reacting to any of this. You were very carefully not looking at him.
You saw two others you knew before you reached the booth.
Kim Ashworth, who had been in your form in Year Ten and who looked essentially the same as she had in school except that she had a baby on her hip and a husband trailing behind her with a changing bag.
She stopped mid-step when she saw you, did a small, delighted double take, said oh my God twice, and then looked at Simon in a way that was extremely uncomplicated in its appreciation before remembering the husband with the changing bag. There were promises exchanged to catch up properly, phone numbers that would probably not be used, genuine warmth on both sides.
And then at the bar, perched on a stool with a whisky, Dave Pearce — who had played alongside Simon on the secondary school rugby team and who greeted him with the particular vocabulary of men who knew each other at fifteen and have not changed as much as they think.
There was a brief, loud exchange that involved at least one shoulder-clap that could have knocked a smaller man sideways, and then Dave shook your hand too and told Simon he was punching. Which Simon received without expression and you tried your hardest not to laugh, biting your lip.
Finally the corner booth. You slid in. Simon folded himself into the seat across from you, the table scaled to ordinary human beings and therefore slightly absurd against the size of him, his knees bracketing it, his shoulders blocking the view of the room behind him entirely.
The menus came.
They were not laminated anymore — proper printed card, changed seasonally, the kind that meant the new owners had ambitions. But the roast was still on. The proper Sunday roast, the one your father used to order when you could afford to.
"Same corner," Simon said quietly.
"Same corner," you agreed.
He was looking at you across the table the way he used to look at you across this table, except that now his face was older and larger and had been to places that had clearly asked things of it. The look was different in its texture. Deeper, maybe. Older in the same way he was older. Like it had more weight behind it from all the years of being carried.
"You said everything," you reminded him. "All of it."
"I know."
"So." You gestured for him to start.
He set his menu down. Looked at you. And then he started talking.
He told it the way he told everything — without embellishment, without drama, in the flat, precise language of a man who had learned to communicate facts and trusted the facts to carry the weight without decoration.
He'd gone in at seventeen and he'd been good at it. Not surprising. He was built for the structure of it, for the clarity of having a purpose and a unit and a chain of things that made sense.
He'd moved up fast — faster than he let on in the cards he'd sent you, which had been careful, he explained, deliberately careful, because the more you knew the more you might worry. Which, you pointed out, had not been his decision to make. He didn't argue with that.
Task Force 141 came later. Years later, after deployments that he summarised in a sentence each and you understood enough from his face to know that each sentence was doing the work of much longer things.
He was a lieutenant now. He said it the way he said most things about himself, flatly, without vanity, presented as information. He had certain freedoms now that he hadn't had before, certain ability to make choices about where he went and when and what he did with the things the years had given him.
You both ordered your food.
"And the five years?" you asked, sipping your cocktail the waitress had brought over.
He was quiet for a moment, he stared at his San Miguel pint, the condensation sliding down the glass. Your food had arrived at some point during the waiting, while Simon collected his thoughts.
He picked up his fork and then set it down again.
"There was a man," Simon said.
Something about the way he said it made you put your fork down too.
"He ran drugs. Major operation, international — I won't go into all of it." He said this without flinching, looking at you steadily, not softening it. You'd always appreciated that about him — the way he treated your intelligence as a given. "After I escaped him, he decided to make it personal. He went after the people I—" He stopped. Chose the word carefully. "The people I was connected to."
The candle in the glass holder between you threw warm, unsteady light across his face.
"He killed them," Simon said. "My brother. Tommy's family." A pause that cost him something; you could see it cost him. "My Mother."
The restaurant continued around you — the murmur of other tables, the clink of cutlery, someone laughing softly near the bar — and you sat very still.
"Oh Simon," you whispered, you could feel the way your face formed the sympathy.
"I'm alright." He said it the way he'd always said it, the Manchester flat and absolute. The way that meant; don't make it bigger than I can hold right now. You knew that voice. You honoured it.
"He knew about you," Simon said and you froze. "That was the other thing. He'd done his research." His jaw shifted slightly. "As long as he was alive, you weren't safe. If I'd contacted you, properly contacted you, kept the thread going the way I wanted to, it would have given him a cleaner line. A more reliable way to reach me."
You understood the logic of it. You understood it clearly and immediately in the part of your brain that processed information. The other part — the part that had sat on the bottom stair with a birthday card after five years of silence, the part that had thought past tense — that part was going to take considerably longer.
"So you cut me off," you said. Not as an accusation. As a fact, laid down. You were starting to understand the shape of it.
"To keep you safe. Yes."
"Without telling me why." You sighed but you knew you were being unreasonable, but you hoped he would let you for a little longer.
"If I'd told you why, you'd have known there was a threat. And you'd have—" He stopped. The corner of his mouth moved, something that was not quite a smile and not quite not one. "You'd have done something about it. Gone looking. Made noise."
"I would not have—" You stopped, because you would have. You absolutely would have. You'd spent thirty years being completely unable to sit on the sidelines where Simon Riley was concerned, and the knowledge that someone was threatening him would have made you entirely unreasonable. "That's—" you huffed.
"Yeah," he said.
"You could have found a way—"
"There wasn't one. Not one that was safe." His voice was very level. "I went through every option, love. I promise you. Every one."
The word arrived quietly, without ceremony.
Love.
He'd never called you that — not in thirty years, not in all the time and all the familiarity of what you were to each other. He said it the way he said everything that mattered: without preamble, without dressing it up, laid down like the fact it was.
"And now?" you asked. Your voice was quite steady. Steadier than you felt.
"He's dead." No elaboration. None needed. The flat Manchester vowels carrying the weight of it cleanly, without mess. "And you're safe. And I—" He looked at you across the table, across the candle and the white linen. "I bought the house," he said. "I've spent a while making it what it is. Making if perfect. I saved up for years. The 141 pays well when you get to a certain level and I wasn't spending it on anything else."
"For years," you repeated, feeling a shiver rack up your spine and your toes go numb.
"Since I was about twenty." He said this without apparent embarrassment, as though it were the most natural thing in the world to spend fifteen years saving money to buy a woman a house from a description she'd given you at sixteen years old. "Took a while to find the right one that wasn’t too far from your parents. The lavender took three growing seasons to look like it did when you pulled up."
Three growing seasons.
He had planted the lavender three years ago. He had stood in a garden three towns from where you lived and planted lavender along a path because a sixteen-year-old girl had mentioned it lying on her back in his garden thirty years ago, and he had tended it for three years, and he had waited.
"Simon Riley," you said.
"It's got room for your books Sunshine, built the shelves myself." His lips quirked up at the corners at your flabbergasted expression.
"You are the most—" You stopped. Started again. "Do you have any idea what the past five years have felt like? Do you have any idea what I—" Your voice did the thing you'd been preventing it from doing, cracked at the edge of the sentence like a plate under too much weight. You stopped. Pressed your lips together. "I grieved you. I sat in my flat and I genuinely, actually grieved you and decided you were dead. I had — Simon, I had a plan for getting through it. I was managing it."
"I know."
"Don't say I know." you snapped sounding more like a bratty child than angry.
"I'm sorry." And this was different. This was not the automatic I know, the absorbing of your anger. This was something he said the way he said very few things — carefully, with full weight behind it. His eyes on yours across the table. "I'm sorry for the five years. I'm sorry I couldn't find another way. I'm sorry you were on your own with it." A pause. "I'm sorry it took me this long to have something worth coming back with."
"The house is not—" You stopped. "You didn't need to buy me a house, Simon. I didn't need—"
"I needed to," he said. Simply. "I needed to know I was coming back with something real. Something that wasn't just me turning up with nothing after all that time, asking you to — to accept—" He moved his hand across the table, and his fingers stopped just short of yours. Not touching. Close. "Asking you to take me as I was. I needed it to be enough. I needed there to be something I could give you that was—"
"Simon." Your voice was very quiet.
"I know it's not—"
"Simon." You turned your hand over on the table. Just that. The small, deliberate movement of turning your palm up.
He looked at it. Then he looked at you. Then, slowly, he put his hand in yours — his enormous, careful, tattooed hand. Not quite the one that had carried your bag through every corridor of secondary school and pulled you up off the pavement after Daniel Holt and held you on the platform at the train station, but this one now and his fingers closed around yours and he held on.
"I only ever wanted you," you said softly.
"Sunshine-"
"You were always worth it," you cut him off. And then, because it was time — because it had been time for approximately thirty years and you were done waiting for the right moment when the right moment had repeatedly failed to arrive — "You were always enough. You were always the thing I was — Simon, you have always been the only one I wanted. Exactly as you are."
He was very still.
"I didn't tell you on the platform," you said. "I should have. I've thought about it every day since."
"So have I," he said.
The candle between you flickered in some movement of air from the kitchen, and in the warm unsteady light his face was open in a way you had waited thirty years to see. His hand was warm and sure around yours, and from the other side of the restaurant you were almost certain you heard Margaret Howarth say something to Gerald in a satisfied undertone.
"You planted the lavender," you grinned.
"Three years ago." He finally smiles back at you, it was crooked and uneven and you loved it.
"You are," you said carefully, "the most ridiculous man I have ever known." You shook your head still grinning.
"Missed you too, sunshine," he smirked.
Dinner ended the way the best dinners end — not with a definitive conclusion but with a gradual, reluctant unwinding, the kind where both people keep finding one more thing to say, one more thread to pull, because the alternative is standing up and the evening becoming past tense.
You ordered dessert.
Neither of you particularly wanted it but you both ordered it, and you both knew why, and neither of you said so. The chocolate brownie was very good. Simon ate his methodically, the way he ate everything, and at one point looked up and caught you watching him and said nothing.
The candle between you had burned down to a stub by the time the bill came.
He paid. You protested on principle. He gave you a look that had not changed at all since he was fourteen years old — flat, certain, faintly amused — and handed the card to the waiter without further discussion.
"That's not—" you started.
"Next time," he said.
Next time. You let it sit there between you, warm and presumptuous and everything you wanted.
Outside, the evening had cooled.
The last of the summer still holding in the air, the kind of September evening that felt like a concession, like the year wasn't ready to be done.
The street was quiet for a Saturday, just a few couples moving between the restaurants and a group of lads outside the pub further down having a smoke. The amber of the streetlights made everything look like something worth remembering.
Simon stood beside you on the pavement, close enough that his arm brushed yours when he turned to look down the street, and you were very aware of the warmth of him and the black shirt and the lavender you couldn't smell from here but could somehow still feel in your hands.
"Walk with me a bit," he said. Not a question, not quite. He'd always done that — phrased invitations as though the outcome were already agreed, as though he simply assumed you'd say yes because you almost always did.
"Alright."
He fell into step beside you, and for a little while you just walked — past the wine bar with its fairy lights, past the old library that had become a gin distillery at some point in the last decade, past the post office that had been there since before either of you were born. You talked about small things. Easy things. The kind of conversation that runs alongside the real one underneath.
Then he stopped.
You stopped too.
Simon looked down at you. His hands were in his pockets. That brown gaze of his moved over your face in the way it had been moving over your face all evening — like he was cataloguing it, like he was making up for lost time in the looking.
"Dance with me," he said.
You blinked. "What?"
He tilted his head, "Come dancing with me."
You stared at him.
Simon Riley, who had sat against the wall at every school disco you'd ever attended, arms folded, watching everyone else with the expression of a man conducting a private risk assessment.
Simon Riley, who you had never, in thirty years of knowing him, seen voluntarily approach a dance floor.
"You don't dance," you said.
"No," he agreed. "But you do."
The simplicity of it landed somewhere very central.
You do.
As though that were reason enough. As though your enjoyment of a thing were sufficient justification for him to walk into it without hesitation.
Which, you supposed, when it came to Simon, it always had been.
"Alright," you said, for the second time in ten minutes.
His hand found the small of your back again, that same light, deliberate touch from inside the restaurant and he guided you down the street.
Simon said you weren't far, when you heard it.
The particular sound of a Domino's box. The slight crinkle of a carrier bag. And then your mother's voice, carrying across the quiet street in the way it always had — warm and clear and entirely without volume control.
"Oh honey! We thought - oh!"
"Oh fuck," you cursed.
You said it very quietly. Not quietly enough. Simon chuckled under his breath.
Your parents were coming along the pavement from the direction of the only car park around here — your father in his weekend coat, your mother in the blue one she'd had for fifteen years. A Domino's pizza box balanced in her arms and a carrier bag hanging from your father's hand.
Movie night. Of course. They still did it every other Saturday, had done since you were small, and of course they would do it tonight of all the Saturday nights in the entire calendar.
Your mother's face when she saw you was pure, unguarded delight — the face she always made when she encountered you unexpectedly, as though each time were still a pleasant surprise. Then her gaze moved, naturally and automatically, to the man standing beside you with his hand at the small of your back.
The delight didn't disappear. It did something more complicated.
"Oh honey," she said again, but differently this time. Softer. Her voice going somewhere else entirely. "Simon?"
The Domino's box dipped. Your father caught it with the reflexes of a man who had been catching things your mother nearly dropped for forty years.
Simon had gone still beside you. Not that controlled, present stillness he had, the one that wasn't tension but something adjacent to it. He was looking at your mother with an expression you couldn't fully read from the side, but you could see the line of his jaw, and it was careful.
"Mrs—" he started.
"Don't you Mrs me," your mother said. Her voice was not angry. That was the thing — you'd prepared yourself, in the split second between seeing them and now, for anger, or for the brisk, self-protective coolness she used sometimes when she'd been frightened. But it wasn't that. It was something that had tears in it, which was considerably worse to witness.
She handed the pizza box to your father without looking at him — he took it with the silent competence of long practice — and she crossed the pavement in four short steps and she put her arms around Simon Riley.
He was so much larger than her. He had always been larger than her, even at fifteen when he'd eaten her shepherd's pie at the kitchen table and been careful to seem like it was casual and not like he was starving. Even when she gave him seconds and he looked like he would beg for thirds.
But now it was almost absurd, the smallness of her against the width of him, and he stood there for just a fraction of a second — that fraction where you could see him recalibrating, receiving something he hadn't prepared for — and then his arms came around her and he held on.
Your mother was crying. Small, quiet sounds, the kind she made when she was trying not to. Her face was pressed against his chest and her hands gripped the back of his black shirt and she said, muffled and with great feeling, "You absolute boy."
Simon said nothing. His eyes, over the top of your mother's head, found yours.
You had to look away. The street was very interesting. The lamppost in particular.
You bit into your lip.
Your father appeared at your shoulder.
He was a quiet man, always had been. The kind of steady, observant presence that took things in without making a production of the taking in. He stood beside you with the pizza box over one arm and the carrier bag in the other hand and watched his wife hold the boy who had eaten at their table for a decade, and he said, very quietly, to you,
"Well. He's not dead then."
"No Dad," you managed. "He's not dead."
"Good," your father said.
As though this settled it. As though the entirety of the past five years of your grief and his, because he had grieved Simon too in his quiet way, in the way of a man who doesn't say things aloud but feels them thoroughly. He looked at Simon over the top of your mother's head and gave him a single, deliberate nod. The kind that meant; we'll talk. The kind that meant; I have things to say to you. The kind that also, underneath both of those, meant; I'm so glad son.
Simon received the nod with equal gravity, which was exactly right.
Your mother finally pulled back. She held Simon by the arms — or tried to, her hands not quite making it around the circumference of them — and looked up at him with red eyes and the particular expression of a woman who has a great deal to say and is choosing, for now, not to say most of it.
"You'll come for dinner," she said. Not a question. The same tone she'd used on him at fifteen and apparently intended to continue using indefinitely. "Sunday. Proper dinner. Not a restaurant. Mine."
"Yes," Simon said. Immediately. Without hesitation.
"Good." She released his arms and reached up and patted his cheek once, firmly, the way you might with someone who had done something frustrating and beloved in equal measure.
Then she turned to you, and her expression did something complicated and warm and knowing, and she didn't say any of the things she was clearly thinking, which you appreciated deeply.
What she said instead was: "Don't stay out too late. You're thirty-five, not seventeen."
"Mum." You scolded.
"I'm just saying." She shrugged.
"We're going dancing," you told her, with the energy of someone redirecting a conversation through sheer momentum.
Your mother looked at Simon. Simon looked at your mother. Something passed between them that was private and thirty years old and not yours to have.
"Of course you are," she said.
Your father passed the Domino's box back to your mother, and said, "Right then. We'll leave you to it." He looked at Simon one more time. "Sunday," he confirmed.
"Sunday," Simon said.
Your parents moved off down the pavement.
Your mother looked back once — just once — and her face when she did was the face you'd seen her wear at your primary school nativity and at your GCSE results and on the morning you'd gone to university; the particular face of a woman watching her child be happy and feeling the full, complicated, loving weight of it.
Then she turned back to your father and said something you couldn't hear, and his hand found her shoulder as they walked, and they rounded the corner and were gone.
You stood on the pavement in the September evening and breathed.
Beside you, Simon was also very carefully just standing there.
"She cried on me," he said, after a moment.
"Yes."
"Didn't expect that."
You turned to look at him. He was looking at the corner your parents had turned, and his face had the quality it sometimes had when something had reached him — not visibly, not dramatically, just in that particular stillness that meant something had got through.
"She cried about you," you told him. "When you stopped writing. Three years ago — there were several times, actually, but three years ago was the worst. She held me in her kitchen and we both—" You stopped. Managed the next part carefully. "She loves you too, Simon. She always did. You were at our table every other night for years."
He was quiet for a moment. Something moved in his jaw. "I know," he said. And this time the I know was different from all the other times he'd said it tonight — heavier, and private.
"You agreed to Sunday dinner," you giggled.
"Of course I agreed to Sunday dinner," he said knowing full well he would have been stupid not to and gotten an earful from your mother.
Simon offered you his hand.
Not at the small of your back this time. His hand, palm up, in the space between you. Old-fashioned and deliberate.
You put yours in it.
"Come on then," he said. "Let's go dancing."
There was, as it turned out, only one place to go dancing in this town on a Saturday night if you meant actual dancing — the kind with a proper floor and music with a real structure to it.
It was not a club.
It was not a bar with a cleared space near the speaker.
It was the old church hall on Callow Street, which had been hosting the Saturday Evening Social Dance since before either of you were born, and which Simon seemed to know about with the specificity of a man who had done his research.
"A dance hall," you said, standing outside it. Through the tall, thin windows the warm light was visible, and the sound — strings, a proper band, something with a waltz rhythm that made the windows hum faintly. "You're taking me to a dance hall."
"Only place with a floor."
"Simon, this is a — there will be pensioners in there." you said quietly.
"There'll be a dance floor," he looked down at you. "And you said yes." he shrugged but looked smug.
He pushed the door open and held it, and because you had in fact said yes, and because the music through the door sounded genuinely lovely, and because you were still holding his hand from the pavement, you went in.
The church hall smelled of floor polish and tea. Fairy lights were strung along the rafters — someone's addition, not the original fixtures, and they made the whole space amber and soft.
Round tables lined the edges, most of them occupied by couples in their sixties and seventies and eighties, a few younger faces dotted among them, everyone dressed with the particular care of people who still believed an evening out was worth dressing for.
On the small stage at the far end, a four-piece band was working through something in three-four time with the ease of musicians who had played together for years.
And at the edge of the floor, clipboard in hand, wearing the same expression of organised authority she'd worn every PE lesson for fifteen years was Mrs Valerie Croft.
She was smaller than you remembered. Or perhaps you were simply larger.
She'd retired at some point — the hair was fully silver now rather than streaked — but the posture was identical: spine straight, chin up, the bearing of a woman who had spent decades telling teenagers to stand properly and had eventually simply become the embodiment of the instruction.
She looked up from her clipboard as you approached and her eyes moved from you to Simon, and to her credit, she didn't miss a step.
"Well," she tilted her chin up to meet his eyes, "Riley."
"Miss," Simon said. Which was technically incorrect given that she had a ring on her finger and had for as long as you'd known her, but you suspected it was because he'd called her Miss in secondary school the way you had. "Mrs Croft. Sorry. We were passing and— " He paused, which was unlike him. "Is there any chance we could crash it?"
Mrs Croft looked at him. She looked at you. She looked at your joined hands with the expression of a woman who had supervised enough teenagers to recognise a development when she saw one.
"Can you behave yourselves?" she asked.
"Yes," you said nodding.
Simon said nothing.
Mrs Croft made a sound that was not quite a laugh but was adjacent to one. "Floor's open," she said. "Don't knock anyone over." And she turned back to her clipboard.
The first dance was not elegant.
Simon was, as he had always been and had openly admitted, not a dancer.
He was a man built for other kinds of movement — purposeful, directed, the kind that had somewhere to go. Dancing required a different relationship with your body, a willingness to be present in it without agenda, and that was not naturally his.
But he was trying. And Simon Riley trying at something he wasn't good at with complete, unhesitating commitment was one of your favourite things in the world.
He held you correctly — one hand at your waist, the other holding yours at the right height — because he had clearly looked this up at some point, which you were choosing not to think about too hard. His footwork was careful. Deliberate. Slightly behind the beat in the way of someone counting silently.
"You're counting," you told him trying your hardest not to laugh.
"Shut up."
"Simon, I can see your lips moving." you snorted.
"I said shut up."
You were laughing now. Properly, helplessly, the kind that came up from somewhere real — and he looked down at you with that face, that flat, long-suffering, completely fond face, and something in his eyes that was warm in a way that had nothing to do with patience and everything to do with the fact that your laugh had always been, apparently, one of his favourite sounds.
"You're doing fine," you told him, once you'd recovered.
"I'm doing terribly," he answered. "Keep going."
By the second dance, he was better.
By the third, he had found something. Some adjustment in the way he held you, the way his hand settled more fully at your waist, drawing you closer so the movement between you became less about individual steps and more about one shared thing. He was a quick study. He always had been, once he'd decided something was worth doing.
You became aware, gradually, of the room watching.
Not intrusively. Not all at once. But in the soft, peripheral way of a room full of people who have been in love for decades and recognise the particular weather of it when it walks through the door.
An older couple near the stage — she in pale blue, he in a suit that had been good once and was still cared for — had stopped talking to watch you.
A woman at one of the corner tables had her chin in her hand.
Mrs Croft, by the door, was very deliberately looking at her clipboard and failing to look only at her clipboard.
You didn't mind. You were too busy watching Simon watch you.
The band changed tempo at half past nine.
The waltz gave way to something with a different shape entirely — something that moved from the hips rather than the feet, a rhythm that was slower in its pulse and considerably less innocent in its intention.
A rumba.
You looked up at Simon.
He looked down at you.
"I don't know this one," he said.
"I'll show you." you breathed.
You took his hand and placed it lower at your waist, right above the curve of your ass. Deliberately watching his face when you did it, watching the shift in his expression, the way something in his eyes went very still and very focused. "Hip to hip," you told him. "Slower than you think. Let the music pull you."
He followed your lead with an attention that was frankly overwhelming in its completeness.
Simon Riley giving you his full, undivided, physical focus was not a small thing. He was so large and so present and he moved with you rather than against you, adjusting with every shift of your weight, and somewhere in the second minute of the song the counting stopped and something else replaced it.
He drew you closer. His hand at your hip pulled you in until there was no space left between you, until you could feel the warmth of him through the green of your dress and you were very aware of every point of contact, of the music and of the room full of people who had gone very quiet.
Then he turned you.
It was not technically correct. It was not what the dance required. But he turned you in a single, smooth movement that his body had decided on and yours simply followed, because that was what it did with him.
And then he dipped you.
The room tilted. His arm was across your back, solid and immovable, and you were suspended in the amber light with the music around you and your hand at his shoulder.
He lowered you — slowly, with complete control, no hesitation in the hold and then his face was close, very close, and his nose grazed the line of your throat making your breath hitch.
A slow, deliberate graze. The warmth of his breath against your pulse point. You felt it in places that had nothing to do with dancing, between your legs throbbing.
His hand — the one at your hip — slid down, just slightly, just enough, finding the outside of your thigh where the fabric of your dress lay, and he hooked your leg, slowly, around his hip. His fingers at the back of your thigh. Holding you there. His nose still at your throat.
The music resolved. Somewhere behind you, someone started clapping.
He brought you upright. Smoothly, slowly, until you were standing again and his hand was still at the back of your thigh. Your leg still around his hip and your faces were very close. Your heart was conducting itself in a way that had absolutely nothing to do with exertion.
You were panting. Slightly. Just slightly.
He was not panting. He was looking down at you with the almost-smile, the one that had always been rarer than gold and twice as valuable — and his eyes were warm and very dark and entirely, completely satisfied with themselves.
"You looked that up as well," you managed.
"No," he said.
"Simon—"
"That one," he said, "I just wanted to do."
From the table by the stage, the woman in pale blue was applauding with great enthusiasm. Her husband had two fingers in his mouth and was whistling.
Mrs Croft had given up entirely on the clipboard.
The taxi back was not a long ride.
It felt longer than it was, and shorter than you wanted.
You sat beside him in the back seat with his thigh against yours and the city moving past the windows and neither of you speaking. The silence had a texture to it that was thick and warm and anticipatory in a way that made the air feel heavy in your lungs.
His hand was on your knee. Just resting there, heavy and warm, the way he did everything — with complete, unapologetic certainty.
You did not move it.
The house appeared at the end of the lane with its white fence and its dark windows and the lavender silver in the moonlight.
You were out of the taxi before it had fully stopped and you were aware how eager this appeared and you didn't care.
Simon paid the driver and caught up with you in three strides because his legs were considerably longer than yours and always had been.
He got to the door first. Key in hand.
The door opened.
And you did not wait for him to step through it.
You took him by the front of his shirt, that black shirt, warm from his body, the fabric bunching in your fists and you lips were suddenly on his.
You walked him backwards through the doorway and you felt the moment his back met the wall just inside and you were already kissing him before he'd fully registered the sequence of events.
Your mouth on his. Your hands in the front of his shirt. Thirty years of it finding its way out all at once, without ceremony, without preamble, without any of the careful management you had been applying to yourself since you were four years old at a preschool art table.
He kissed you back.
He kissed you back the way he did everything — thoroughly, completely, with his full attention and no apparent interest in doing anything else ever again.
His hands came to your face, big and careful, tilting your jaw, and for a moment you were simply inside the realness of him and the warmth of him and the fact that he was here and alive and kissing you in the hallway of the house he'd bought for you.
He pulled back.
"Easy, sunshine," he said against your lips. Low. A little breathless, which you would be privately triumphant about later. The corner of his mouth pulled up in that crooked smile.
You became aware, in the slightly dazed way of someone returning from somewhere, that your hands were still in his shirt and his hands were still on your face and you were standing approximately two inches apart in his hallway.
You also became aware, in the refocusing of your vision, of his mouth.
Of the scar on his upper lip.
You didn't know how you hadn't noticed it before — through dinner, through the dancing, through all of it.
Perhaps you had simply not been this close before. Or perhaps you had been looking at so many things that you hadn't been looking at everything.
It was small, a thin pale line bisecting the left side of his upper lip, old enough to have faded to silver, the kind of scar that had been there for years and had been lived with so thoroughly that the face had absorbed it.
You lifted your thumb and touched it, gently. "How'd you get this?"
He went very still, alert and present and reading you.
You kissed it. Softly. Just that.
Something moved in his throat.
His hands shifted from your face to your waist, warm and settled, and he began to move you gently — backwards, one steady step at a time — turning you both away from the wall and deeper into the hallway. His foot found the door behind him and pushed it closed with a quiet, final click.
"If I tell you about that one," he said, his voice low and even above your head as he guided you past the entrance and toward the stairs, "I'll have to tell you about the rest."
He looked down at you as he said it, that look, the one that said you were the most interesting thing he had ever encountered. The one that made you feel simultaneously seen and slightly undone — and his expression had in it something that was fond and amused and entirely, devastatingly warm.
You kicked your heels off at the bottom of the stairs. They went somewhere behind you. You didn't look.
Your bag went next, dropped against the banister.
"The rest?" you repeated. Your voice came out slightly smaller than you intended. Your eyes, entirely without your permission, moved down the front of him — the black shirt, the breadth of his shoulders, his torso, his thick thighs, all of him — and back up again. Slowly.
He watched you do it. He said nothing.
You swallowed. "Tell me then."
His hand at your waist steered you up the first step, and then the second, and the stairs curved slightly toward the landing above, and at the top of the stairs he pushed open the door to a bedroom.
The room was large and furnished.
A bed, properly large, the kind that accommodated a man his size without complaint. Low lamps on either side casting the same amber warmth as the hall below. Dark wood floors, a window looking out toward the garden, the curtain shifting slightly in a crack of night air.
He kissed you, just inside the door you kissed him back and his hands were at your hips.
Then he pulled back with a groan. Both of you breathing slightly harder than was strictly accounted for by climbing one flight of stairs.
"I want to, sunshine," he said. His voice was very low. Restrained. His hands still on your body, holding you there, his thumbs moving in a small slow motion against the fabric of your dress that was doing nothing to help you think clearly. "I do. But I need to hear it from you first. Your permission. Clear words. I don't want to misunderstand you."
You opened your mouth.
And then your eyes moved, over his shoulder, to the dresser.
A skull mask looked back at you.
You closed your mouth. You looked at it. The mask, white and stark and precise but somehow both alien and completely, recognisably his. The balaclava beside it, folded neatly. And tactical gloves — enormous, black, reinforced, approximately the size of your head.
"That yours?" you asked.
Simon turned his head, following your gaze. He looked at the dresser, then back at you. "Yeah."
"What is it?"
"What I wear on missions."
"Oh," you said.
And then your brain did something entirely beyond your authority. It constructed, with great speed and considerable detail, an image: Simon, broad and enormous, in black tactical gear. Gloved hands. That mask. Hovering over you.
You swallowed.
The image did not leave. It simply settled in, warm and vivid and decidedly unhelpful.
"Sunshine."
His hand came to your face — his big, warm, ungloved hand, his actual hand, the one you knew — his thumb sweeping gently under your eye, bringing you back into the room and the amber lamplight and the present moment.
"Hmm?" you managed meeting his gaze.
His eyes moved over your face with the same comprehensive attention he always gave you.
"Your permission, love," he said. Quiet. Certain.
"Oh." You blinked. "Yes. Yes, you have it. Always."
The almost-smile. "Not for everything I want to do to you." His thumb was still moving, very gently, under your eye. "I'll ask. Multiple times."
You stared at him. "Multiple—"
"Times," he confirmed. His voice was entirely level. His eyes were not.
You pushed his shoulder and your cheeks burned.
He caught your hand as you pushed it and laughed, a low, real, full sound, the kind that you had spent most of your life engineering because it was so rare and so completely, unreasonably good.
You laughed too, properly, the helpless kind, and his forehead came down to rest against yours and you were both laughing in the amber light of his bedroom with the skull mask on the dresser and the lavender outside the window and thirty years behind you and everything in front.
The laughing settled.
Not all at once — it unwound gradually, the way laughter does when it's the real kind, leaving something warm and loose in its place.
His forehead was still against yours. His hands had moved from your face to your waist, both of them now, holding you the way he'd held you on the dance floor — with that complete, unhurried certainty, like you were something he'd been waiting to hold properly for a very long time and intended to do it right.
The amber light of the lamps lay across everything. Through the gap in the curtain, you could see the edge of the garden — the pale shapes of flowers, the dark of the lawn.
"Tell me about the rest," you said quietly.
He pulled back just enough to look at you. "The scars?"
"You said if you told me about the one on your lip you'd have to tell me about the rest." You reached up and touched the scar again — that thin, silver line — with the pad of your thumb. "So tell me about the rest."
He looked at you for a long moment. Then he reached up and began, without ceremony, to unbutton his shirt.
You were very still.
He did it the way he did everything — without drama, without performance, button by button from the collar down, and when he shrugged it from his shoulders and set it aside you understood, in a way you hadn't before, what eighteen years of that life had written on him.
He was enormous.
You'd known that in the abstract — had known it from the doorframe and the dance floor and the way rooms seemed to reorganise themselves around him — but this was different.
This was the specific, undeniable reality of his shoulders, the breadth of his chest, the muscle of his arms that carried the tattoo sleeve on the left, the ink wrapping from wrist to shoulder in dark, intricate patterns that in this light you still couldn't fully read but wanted to.
And the scars.
There were more than you'd expected.
Each one a different shape and age and story, written into the topography of him in pale and silver lines. A long one along his left ribs. Something older, fainter, across the top of his right shoulder. A circular scar below his collarbone on the left side that your medical knowledge was sufficient to identify and that made your chest constrict briefly and completely before you put that particular knowledge away for now.
He was watching your face as you looked. Careful. Giving you the time of it.
You stepped forward. You placed your hand flat against his sternum — his heart under your palm, steady and real — and you felt him exhale.
"The lip," you said.
"Kandahar. 2004. Caught the stock of a rifle." He said it the same way he'd told you everything tonight — flat, factual, trusting the fact to carry the weight. "Bit through my lip. Wasn't pretty for a while."
You moved your hand from his sternum to his ribs. Found the long scar there, traced it gently with your fingertips.
"That one."
"Knife. 2009. I moved the wrong way and the other man moved the right way." The shadow of something in his face that was not quite humour and not quite not. "Lesson learned."
Your hand moved to his shoulder. The older, fainter scar.
"Before the military," he said, before you asked. His voice changed, just fractionally. Flatter. Doing more work to stay level. "Not a mission."
You understood. You didn't ask further. You pressed your lips to it instead — gently, just that, your mouth against the old pale mark — and you felt the breath go out of him in a way that was different from all the others. Slower. Deeper.
"Sunshine," he said. Very quietly.
"The one below your collarbone," you said.
A pause. "That one's not a story for tonight."
You tilted your head back to look up at him. "Is it a story for eventually?"
His eyes on yours. Something in them that was considering, assessing, "Yeah," he said. "Eventually."
"Alright," you said. You meant it. You had waited thirty years; you could wait for the story of one scar.
His hand moved to your face. That same gesture from the hallway — his thumb at your cheek, slow and deliberate and he tilted your chin up and kissed you. Not urgently this time. Slowly. Deeply.
His hands found the zip at the side of your dress — careful, unhurried — and he looked at you, a clear question in it, and you nodded, and his hands were very steady and very gentle. Your dress went the way of your heels and your bag, somewhere behind you, unmissed.
He looked at you the way he had looked at you on the porch yesterday, and outside The Grill tonight, and across the restaurant table, and on the dance floor — with that complete, comprehensive attention.
Only now there was nothing restrained about what was in it. It was simply there, open and certain, and it was thirty years of something finally being allowed to be exactly what it was.
"Hi," you said. Which was absurd. Which made him laugh again, low and real.
"Hi, sunshine," he said. His hands at your waist. His forehead dropping to yours.
“Si I need to-“ you breathed in deep, “I um,” he pulled his head away from yours, looking into your eyes with those brilliant brown ones of his.
“What is it Sunshine?” He asked, his finger under your chin tilting your head up.
“I’m, I’ve never-“ you sigh, “I’ve told you so many things, I can’t believe I can’t even say this to you.”
“Do we need to slow down?” He asked, his voice softening.
“No. It’s not that. I mean I’m not a virgin if that’s what you’re thinking I just, no guy has ever-“ you sigh again, your eyes dropping from his.
Simon is quiet. He waits, the way he always waits — giving you the whole space of it, not rushing you toward the end of the sentence.
“Made it good,” you finally say, to his chest. “For me. It’s always just, fine. Maybe sometimes I get close but then it’s over. Not that there’s been loads of guys, maybe three.”
A beat.
You make yourself look up at him.
Something changes in his face.
You see the flare of it.
Anger.
Not toward you — you feel that immediately, the anger isn't at you, it moves through him and settles somewhere else entirely. His jaw shifts. His eyes, for just a moment, go somewhere dark and quiet.
"Every one of them," he says. Low. More to himself than to you.
"Simon—"
"Had you," he says. "And didn't—" He stops. The jaw again. His eyes squeeze shut. "Didn't pay attention."
"It's not—"
"It is." His eyes open. He looks at you, his hands moving to your hips, both of them, settling there with a weight that feels like anchoring, like he needs the contact as much as you do. The darkness has settled now, controlled, underneath everything else.
"And I wasn't here." Something moves through his expression — not guilt exactly, but something adjacent to it, something private and old. "Should've been your first, sunshine. Should've been there to—"
He stops himself. His forehead drops to yours.
"I've waited years for this," he says quietly. "I'm not rushing it. And I'm going to pay attention."
“Pay attention?” You ask breathless.
“To every sigh,” he kissed your cheek, “whimper and moan.” His lips moved down to your jaw. “To the way your hips move, the way your back arches, the way you’ll writhe under me, how I’ve imaged it every time I’ve gotten off for the last two decades.” He whispered the last bit into your ear, teeth tugging on your earlobe.
You gasp, “Simon.” Your cheeks burn.
“Oh don’t tell me you never thought about it.” He grins pulling back to look down at you.
You look at the floor sheepishly cause of course you have. Of course you’ve cum the hardest you ever have in your life only when thinking about Simon fucking you.
"Oh you have." He smirked titling his head.
“Shut up.” You push his shoulder and he laughs.
His hands leave your hips and then you're moving, his arms around you, and the edge of the bed meets the back of your knees.
Then his massive paws are in your hair and his lips are on your neck as your back meets the sheets. His weight heavy and solid on you. You could tell he was holding himself up so he didn’t squish you.
He leaned back on his heels, kneeling between your legs. You sighed in satisfaction when his fingers ran over your bare skin. His blunt nails scratching softly where your pelvic bone sits.
"So beautiful Sunshine," He grabs your hips and squeezes, "Fill my hands with you finally." Simon groans. A noise you've been picturing in your head. This and everything else that happens this evening, you truly believe, will be one of those times when reality is better than anything you have imagined.
Simon's brown eyes have always been intense, but right now the way he's looking down at you it's like he is someone else entirely. His eyes almost black with how much they have darkened.
"Simon." You tangle your fingers with his.
"Can I?" He asks. His hand, the one not in yours, trailing down your thigh and stopping on your mound. You clench around nothing when he pushes down, just a little bit of pressure that you feel in your clit and makes your hips buck.
You don't miss the way his lips do the almost smile thing. You nod furiously but he shakes his head.
"Need your words love." He raises a brow.
"Yes, yes Simon touch me." You breathe out, your chest feeling tight when he nods, moving his hand down to cup your cunt over your underwear.
And maybe its because you haven't had sex in three years, maybe its because you are touch starved or maybe its simply because its Simon, but your back arches and your moan is down right pornographic with a simple touch over your underwear.
"So responsive." He mumbles, his thumb rubbing circles over your clit through the fabric. "Get your tits out for me Sunshine, wanna see em." he grunts feeling your underwear getting wet.
Shakily you reach behind your back and unclip your bra. "Been thinking about them for years. What they look like, how they'll bounce when I fuck you." He groans as you pull the straps down your arms and fling the bra on the floor.
His eyes are on your chest, he doesn't blink. Then as if his system has rebooted, he blows air out of his cheeks and whistles low. "Fuck lovie, so pretty. You're a dream." Simon leans forward and wraps his lips around your breast, his tongue swirling around the nipple as his thumb continues circling your clit.
You moan, fingers tugging at his hair.
He comes off your breast with a pop making you whine and push at his shoulder. He grins pressing his thumb firmer against you, while sliding his other hand over your leg, index finger tracing over the small scar on you leg from when you fell off your bike after Simon broke your training wheels.
There was something comforting about this. Simon wasn't someone you had to explain yourself to, he already knew every version of you, he was simply adding this one to his list. This version, open and honest and begging the man you'd known for thirty years to make you cum on his fingers.
This didn't feel like a hook up, not like other guys have, but it felt like two people who have been each other's home for years and they're finally admitting it.
"Kiss me Simon." You're not even sure if what you said made sense with how much you were panting. But he leaned down to graze his lips along yours. Teasing and soft, despite the fast past he'd started to set with his thumb.
"Stop teasing." You huffed.
"Its my favourite pastime." He grinned hooking his fingers in your underwear, pulling them down and moving with them to settle between your legs.
You gasp, when his tongue slides from your asshole to your clit. "Simon!" His dark eyes are locked on yours as he swirls the tip of his his tongue around your entrance. Your toes curl, your head falling back onto the soft bed sheets.
A few occasions, you could count on one hand, had a guy you were with eaten you out and it was good but fuck, it didn't feel like this.
You felt like you were burning all over with each swipe of his tongue, each dip inside your entrance, each pattern he begins to circle over your clit.
He was learning you.
Simon groans against you, his breath hot, it made you dizzy. You feel everything, its too much to quick and your hips start to buck against his mouth.
Simon clearly had no intention of slowing down or stopping as he slides his arms around your thighs and splays his hands over the tops of them locking you in place.
It feels like fire, like molten lava pooling low in your abdomen the harder his tongue presses against you.
You don’t even recognise the sounds coming out of you, it’s as if every movement pulls a new one from you.
His thumb replaces his tongue and he rubs the bump in small circles until you can barely breathe. “Sound so pretty,” he murmurs just as your back arches and you moan loudly into the night air.
He is still speaking but you can’t hear anything he is saying, it’s all blurring together the way your vision is blurring. His thumb slides from your clit down until it’s pushing its way inside you. Your hips jerk away but his other hand is quick to hold you in place.
“No running.” Simon growls.
You cry out when his tongue comes back to torture you, lapping at you like he’s never had a drink and you're fresh water. Soon enough the rhythm he’s built has your hips rolling forward seeking more of whatever he has to give you.
Your hand reaches for his arm and squeezes hard the exact moment your vision turns white and your body shakes, dissolving into pleasure. It's like lightning pulsing through you. He works your through your orgasm, wringing every last wave of pleasure from you before he moves to your lips, kissing you.
“Did so good Sunshine. I’ve got you.” His arms wrap around you, your nipples grazing against the hair on his chest, that alone has you whimpering.
"Need more, want you inside me Simon. Please." You look into his eyes, your shyness gone with your orgasm.
"Okay Sunshine." Simon chuckles, the sound vibrating against you.
He pulls back and gets off the bed before he starts to unbuckle his belt. He pushes his black slacks down along with his underwear, his large, and he was so fucking big, cock already hard.
"Always wondered what you'd be like in bed," He tilts his head with a smirk, "If you'd like being in control. Or if you'd prefer me to lead," He knelt on the bed again, and oh my god Simon Riley, your best friend of thirty years and the love of your life was crawling up the bed towards you until his cock was flush with your entrance. "If you'd be needy and beg. Or if you'd bark orders at me." He slapped the head of his cock against your clit. "If you'd be loud or quiet."
"If you'd let me do whatever I wanted to you," his head titled back, eyes shut, "Fuck Sunshine, the things I've imagined doing to you," He looks down at you with the most intense gaze, pining you there on the bed, "Would you let me lovie? Do whatever I want to you?" He asks, pearly whites peaking out to sink into his bottom lip.
"Like what?" Your breath is so unsteady, so hitched and uneven you feel your cheeks heat even more than they have done at his words.
He grins, "Like what?" He chuckles pushing the head of his cock against your entrance, not in, but resting against it, "Wanna fuck you so hard you can't walk. Make love to you slow and so deep you'll feel me everywhere. Bend you over every surface in this house and make you cry on my cock-"
"Simon!" You gasp.
"Can I Sunshine?" He groans pushing in a little more and your eyes sting with tears at the stretch.
"Yes! Please yes!" He pushes in slowly. One of his hands coming next to you on the bed and the other gripping your hip. He keeps sliding in further, so slowly until its sheathed inside you.
Simon does not move. You can see the restraint within the way his teeth are gritted, his brows furrowed, sweat forming on his forehead.
“Fuck you feel amazing wrapped around me, so tight.” He groans.
You don’t have any words and even if you did, you doubt you would be able to say them. You have never felt so…full. So filled to the brim and unable to get a reprieve from it.
“M’gonna move, gotta move Sunshine,” Simon growls and the fullness disappears for a second before he’s pushing himself back in.
“Fuck you feel so good Si.” You shudder and stars appear in your vision when he moves forward and takes your legs with him folding you in half.
Simon Riley has you in fucking mating press and didn't even break the slow rhythm he's building. He continues this push and pull movement until it begins to flow, each movement begins where the other ends. The pattern making you sob, “Don’t stop!”
You can't function and its only now that you understand the phrase 'being fucked dumb', rocking your hips, trying desperately to keep up with each thrust, back arched so beautifully.
Simon lets his hand slip and curve around your jaw without thinking about it, "Taking me so well Sunshine." The feral look in his eyes sends a shiver up your spine.
"Too big." You sobbed, your hands grabbing at his large biceps as he thrusts harder. He could feel every ridge and curve of your sopping cunt.
"You can take it." He encouraged you, biting at your neck leaving marks in his wake and looking so damn happy whilst doing it.
You continued to moan and whimper, tears of pleasure falling down your face while Simon's huge body hovered over you. Protecting you from the outside world, in here, it was just you and him.
"Si..oh!" you cried out feeling him hit that rough spot inside your weeping, swollen cunt.
"There it is." He didn't mean to grin like a obsessed man in such an intimate moment but he couldn't help himself. He never can with you. Each thrust hits the one place no man ever seems to be able to find but Simon seemingly found with ease. A spot that makes a tightening begin like a coil, being wound with every drive of his hips.
Your sinful noises morph into higher pitched breathy little screams.
"I know lovie, I know." He cooed, holding you closer. His sweat glazed skin meeting yours as his large veiny hand slips under your head, his other arm curling around your waist.
You move your hips and he groans vulgar into the air, his hand gripping your hair and pulling your head back, a little to the side before he attacks your neck all messy. Smearing his lips across your throat, you don’t even recognise the sound that leaves your mouth.
He pulls away, his dark eyes flit to your squelching pussy, the noise attracting his attention pupils dilating, honing in on the way your cunt sucks his cock back in. He couldn’t pull away even if he wanted to and fuck he doesn’t, he wants nothing more than to stay in your pretty pussy forever.
“Simonfuckyespleaserighttheredontstop!” All the words and moans blend together until your mumbling nonsense trying your hardest to keep conscious, it’s difficult with the way he’s fucking into you so deliciously it’s making you delirious in the best way.
His big body towering over yours, big hands gripping you almost bruisingly. His thick muscular hairy thighs press against your skin compellingly, the sight before you, it's irresistible. All you have to do is look down to see his massive cock sliding in and out of you, a ring of white collecting at the base.
It's too much seeing him like this, feeling the sweet pleasure burn through you and yet Simon moves one of his hands off your head and presses a thumb to your swollen, aching clit.
You're done for.
You sob, so fucking loud you swear everyone in the world can hear it, hot tears flow down your cheeks staining them.
"That's it." The words wash over you with your orgasm, it swirls around you, clings to you, and pushes you down down down the rabbit hole of pleasure. Oversensitivity sets in making you whine at his touch, but you can't stop yourself from wanting more.
Your hips buck into his touch eliciting a dirty chuckle from him.
As Simon picks up his thrusts, he comes to the conclusion that he loves you like this, wants to see it everyday. You're so drunk, so delirious and he loves it. Loves the far away look in your eyes right before they roll back into your skull.
He shoves his face into your neck groaning, "Gonna cum Sunshine, need to. Where?" his thrusts pick up again, as if that were even possible.
"Cum inside me Simon, fill me up." You cry out.
Simon must have been right there as he cums the second you finish your sentence. Hot thick robes of cum pushing deep inside you. He rubs your clit faster and another smaller orgasm zips through you leaving you whimpering.
He stays in you, holding you until he goes soft. He moves your legs so they don't cramp. "Did so well for me Sunshine. I love you so much." He looks into your eyes as more tears spill down your cheeks.
"I love you Simon." you bring your fingers into his hair, pulling him closer to kiss you. The contrast between the way he just destroyed your guts and is now kissing you so softly, is astounding.
He is careful when he picks you up and walks into the ensuite bathroom to the right, flicking the light on and placing you on the toilet. "Gotta pee sunshine, don't want you getting you a uti." He says and you're so tired you don't even have the energy to be embarrassed.
Your eyes as still closed as you pee. Your hand moves to find the toilet paper but a warm flannel is being pressed against you, Simon's other hand on your knee to keep them open. You whine and push his hand away, "Simon that's icky." You frown at him opening your eyes to see him looking at you with a frown of his own.
"Nothing about you is icky Sunshine. I'm clearing up my mess, now move your hand." You do as told and it occurs to you, through your tired haze, while Simon gently wipes you clean that he must be used to clearing up mess with the job he does.
"All done. Want a shower or straight to sleep?" He asks.
"Sleep." You yawn making him smile at you.
He carries you back to the bed, lifting the duvet and settling you both underneath it.
The particular quality of afterwards settles in the room.
The warmth of it, the specific silence, the way the world outside the window continues to exist and you become aware of it again in layers. The sound of the garden. The distant sound of a car somewhere. The sound of him breathing.
You were lying with your head on his chest. His arm around you, heavy and warm. His heartbeat under your ear, steady and unhurried, the same heart that had been beating beside you in one form or another for thirty years.
His hand moved. Slowly, idly, up and down your back.
You watched the lamplight glow on the beside table. You thought about the lavender. You thought about the train station in 2001, and the birthday cards, and the bottom stair with the cream envelope, and Margaret Howarth saying you always did belong together with the satisfied certainty of someone who had known it before either of you did.
"Simon," you said.
"Yeah."
"You planted lavender for three years."
"You mentioned that already."
"I'm still processing it."
A low sound in his chest that was the rumble of a laugh contained. "Take your time Sunshine."
You propped yourself up and looked at him. His face in the lamplight — older, marked, those brown eyes that had been watching you since you were four years old, now watching you from a pillow in the house he'd bought you.
His expression was open in the way it had been open on the porch and at the restaurant table and in the dance hall, the way it had been open perhaps three times in thirty years before tonight and was now, apparently, simply his face when he looked at you.
You loved him so much.
You had loved him in different quantities and different registers for most of your life and now you loved him in this one too, this new one, and it was the same love and completely different and you thought you would be discovering its dimensions for a considerable amount of time.
"You should have told me," you said. "Years ago. Before the train."
"Yeah," he said. No argument.
"I would have said it back then too."
Something moved in his face. "I know," he said. And then, quieter, "I wasn't ready then. Wasn't enough yet."
"Simon—"
"I know what you're going to say."
"You were always—"
"I know," he said. "I believe you. Now." His hand came up to your face, tucking a strand of hair back, his thumb at your cheekbone. "Took me a while to get there. But I'm here."
"You're here," you agreed smiling.
"And you're here." his hand tangled itself in your hair.
"I'm here." you giggled.
He looked at you for a long moment. Then, "Stay with me."
Not a question, not quite — more like a hope said aloud. The rarest thing from him. He had carried so much silently for so long, and this one small thing cost him something, and you could see it, and you loved him for it.
"It's my house," you said cheeky and bright.
He blinked. Then that laugh again — the real one, the rare one — and your heart did what it always did when you earned it, that particular, irreplaceable lurch.
"Yeah Sunshine," he said. "It is."
You lay back down against his chest. His arm came around you. His heartbeat under your ear.
Outside, the lavender moved. The Union flag was still on the roof. The porch swing sat in the dark with its yellow cushion, waiting for morning.
"Sunshine," he said. Into your hair.
"Hmm."
"I love you."
You pressed your lips to his chest, above his heart.
"I love you too," you said. "I've loved you since you were that chubby four-year-old who stole my crayons."
A long pause.
"Chubby," he repeated.
"Stocky," you amended, grinning into his chest. "You were very stocky."
"I was four."
"You were a very solid four year old."
His arm tightened around you — not painfully, just firmly, the way of a man making a point through the medium of holding — and you laughed again, helplessly, into the warmth of him.
He made that sound, that low rumbling laugh that lived in his chest, and the lamp burned warm and low and outside the lavender moved in the dark.
Simon Riley.
Who stole your crayons at four and broke your glasses at seven and learned to read because of you and carried your bag through every corridor of secondary school and punched a boy for pushing you over and kissed your cheek in a toilet corridor and sat beside you through every lunch and glared at anyone who called you a nerd and came round to your kitchen table for years and went to war at seventeen and sent you cards from the edges of the world and planted lavender for three years and bought you the house you described at sixteen and came home.
Warnings: 18+. Unprotected p-in-v. Disgustingly loving sex (sorry). Soft dom!Simon Talks You Through It™️ Creampie. Brief mention of Reader’s insecurities w sex
Word count: 2.1k
It wasn’t like you hadn’t tried before.
You’d had your fair share of lovers and experienced more than a good deal of fun. With everyone in the past, climax came the same way, every single time: clitoral stimulation, and clitoral stimulation alone.
By this point in your life, you suspected your g-spot was probably just a figment of your imagination, no more real than Atlantis, Santa Claus or the Tooth Fairy.
That was, until, you met your boyfriend, Simon.
And things had only been official for a week.
You and him had fooled around a handful of times—made love, as he called it, and kissed and cuddled and occasionally dry-humped until the two of you were both panting, groaning messes—but all of this was new. Simon was still learning you, as you were him.
He finished between your tits. You came on his tongue. He fingered you to the point of tears, and you learned how to touch his sac just right to get him to blow his load in seconds. On this night in particular, you were fucking missionary, and holding hands while you did.
Lovesick puppies, Price would say. Neither one of you seemed able to unglue your lips or unlace your fingers or keep your hips from colliding again and again and again in frantic search of the other’s furthest depths. You were perfectly wrapped up, with no desire to move
Except, you needed to reach down between your bodies to actually get off. That was a minor detail.
You didn’t think the man above you would mind if you moved your touch from his, but then that grip tightened the second you tried pulling away.
“Keep it there, lovie. Like holding you like this,” he said.
You enjoyed it, too. It was intimate, and sweet, and with your hands pinned on either side of you, locked securely in his, you felt safe. You just couldn’t finish.
“But I…I need to come,” you whispered against him. You rolled your hips and felt his cock twitch inside you.
Simon grunted, then swallowed. Nodded slowly.
“Yeah. I’ll get you there. Feel this?”
He slid deeper for emphasis.
You didn’t.
You rarely did, or at least not in the way you figured you were supposed to get when something pressed there.
“I think…sort of, yeah,” you hedged your answer.
Don’t bruise his ego, don’t hurt his feelings.
This is all on me, Si, I promise it’s not you.
Cutting in over your thoughts, Simon moved swiftly. Took your hips in his big, strong hands, lifted up, and plunged his cock to the hilt. The girth of him was enough to knock the air out of your lungs, and you felt your walls stretch, sting, and weep sweet liquid warmth around that intrusion. You moaned.
“Better?” The man’s question was simple.
Before you could answer it, he was sliding a pillow underneath your backside. Sawing his long, thick, leaking cock in and out of you, he reached a new spot.
You made a face, feeling good from that but…strange.
Simon snatched your hands up again and planted them beside your head on the mattress. He thrusted steadily. He peppered kisses all over your face and your neck while the bed frame squeaked in time, and you had to dig your heels into his ass to ground yourself.
“Talk to me, baby. Can’t make it better if you don’t.”
“I—I know, I just can’t—”
At the same time, Simon tilted your hips slightly once more, and the tip of his cock kissed something soft and wet and dizzyingly pleasurable inside your body. A loud, embarrassing cry slipped out between your lips.
You wanted to clap a hand over your mouth, hating the way you’d just sounded, but your fingers were stuck to his. Simon grinned down at you, toothy and approving.
“Can’t do what, now, darlin’?”
The warm, bulbous head of his cock had found its mark, and he just kept prodding that spot, like it entertained him to do it. The fingers laced between your own constricted their grip even more, and Simon leaned down to kiss you while his cock carved a mind-numbing path. In between kisses, he praised you.
“That’s my girl. She’s likin’ it now, isn’t she?”
“Feel good when my cock hits that spot?”
“Your pussy’s fuckin’ soakin’ me, baby.”
But still, somehow, it just wasn’t quite enough.
Maybe you’d never found that place after all.
This was where most men gave up—after a few good minutes of fucking when their balls had gotten to be as swollen as stones and their bodies were aching for release, more often than not, they’d go off chasing their own high. That was when you usually started rubbing your clit, or waited for your partner to finish so they could get you off with their tongue or something.
You hated to feel like a burden, and you really despised the thought of being the reason your sweet Simon couldn’t get to orgasm. So you squirmed again.
Straining to reach down, to try and touch yourself, you whimpered, “Si, please, it just—it takes me too long—”
“Good thing we’ve got all night,” Simon replied bluntly.
Then, once again, he twisted your bodies like you were as soft and malleable as putty in his hands, and this time, he hitched one of your legs around his hip, high.
With one slow-rolling thrust and an audibly squelching sound, Simon’s cock stretched your hole to maximum capacity, and then a little more. Your juices leaked down his shaft, aiding the slide, and he stabbed in a few shallow strokes. Probing. Testing the waters, as if he were trying to find something hidden inside you.
You sucked in a breath. Simon’s gaze slid to yours.
“Let’s find that precious spot, lovie. Easy, now.”
Gently coaxing your body open, he drove a slow, measured pace. He split your cunt like it was the easiest thing in the world, delving within your wet, velvety heat to tease every contour and crevice of your pussy. His tip leaked precome. His balls glistened in your arousal and landed with the gentlest plap, plap, plaps while he explored your insides with his member.
It really was as simple as that, nothing more and nothing less than poking around. Having patience.
“S-Si,” you stammered, nose wrinkling slightly.
“What’s’at, baby? Got something to tell me?”
Like a teacher, almost, he pressed for more.
Like his cock was showing you something new about your body but he needed your help to tell him just how and where to find it, Simon took care to be kind. He smoothed a hand over the crown of your head and then cradled the back of it, one massive set of fingers splayed out against your skull and engulfing it wholly.
He still held onto your other hand tight.
Your cunt pulsed. Ached. Fluttered around him.
Stuffed to the brim, you had only to feel, and murmur:
“Higher.”
“Higher?”
“Um, to the…to the left.”
Simon tilted his hips left.
Yes.
That was just it. So close.
Almost…
Or, maybe…
“Maybe it just…isn’t there,” you huffed out, deflating. “Know you’re trying so hard, baby, but I think I can’t—”
Then Simon hit the same spot as before, only higher.
Just like you’d told him: to the left, and then…
“Oh, fuck,” you cursed. “Oh, fuckfuckfuck.”
The grin above you stretched even wider.
“There, lovie?” Simon goaded you on.
“Right there.” You nodded furiously.
A wave of pleasure swept through your limbs, from your core down to the soles of your feet. Your toes curled, and you squeaked, feeling Simon’s cock graze that soft, spongy, sensitive place—except he’d pushed in deeper. The sensation made your eyes roll back.
“Little dove doesn’t mind my pokin’ after all, huh?” Simon’s words were a tease, but you heard a strain in them, too. The second you were caught in the throes of real pleasure, your cunt must’ve clamped like a vice.
“Keep…keep pokin’, Si,” you choked out. “I like it.”
Your lover kept at it—poking from the inside.
The routine almost felt like losing your virginity all over again, together. Simon cradled your head, told you how good you were doing, how sweet you were for him, and you whimpered under his hold. Squirmed and clung to him for dear life, then kissed him feverishly.
Simon’s mouth was hard and hungry, his thrusts deep. His cock throbbed within the wet, clenching confines of your pussy, and he seemed to be going wild at the feeling. With the idea that he was driving you wild, too.
You realized as much when he whispered it to you.
“Could lose my bloody mind when you’re like this—” Another sharp, labored breath. Another shudder passing through his body when your insides squeezed. “—so why didn’t you talk? Ask for what you needed?”
Your voice was small. “Didn’t wanna be a bother.”
Your eyes were locked with Simon’s, and in his irises, you caught a shade of concern. It flared, hot as anything, then mixed with disbelief. Disappointment.
“Don’t be angry, Si, I—” you started, hurried.
“‘M’not.” Simon blinked. But he gritted his teeth, and he withdrew his cock until the head was bumping and teasing between your folds, then he shook his head. “It’s those fuckin’ pricks who should be sorry, yeah?”
The ones that you’d been with before.
You wanted to protest, insist that you were at least partly to blame, but you never got the opportunity.
Simon was back inside you in a blink.
Hitting that same spot again, and again, and again.
He grinned, the tic of a muscle in his jaw telling you that he was less amused this time around, but proud.
Vindicated.
“Well. It’s not like they’re ever gettin’ a chance in between these pretty legs again, are they, lovie?”
You nodded in agreement.
You smiled back at him, only to have that gentle curve falter a little when you felt Simon’s thrusts accelerate.
“Only thing that’s gonna touch this spot other’n my cock is my seed, splatterin’ all over your walls, right?”
When he gave a playful nip to your lower lip and squeezed your hand tighter, you knew that he meant it. The man had plunged so deep inside you that his pubic bone was now grinding against your skin, and the rest of him was buried. His balls, all full and warm and heavy with his release, rested firmly in your cleft.
And the steady, measured strokes of his cock landed with near-surgical precision on the G-spot you’d convinced yourself up until tonight didn’t exist.
Simon beamed. You were overcome with ecstasy.
“This it, lovie? This spot right ‘ere?” he cooed.
His cock bobbed against that gummy and indescribably dizzying place, causing your last moan to morph into something more akin to a shriek.
You nodded your head: “Y-Yes. Yes.”
“Feel good when I hit it?”
“Fucking perfect, Si.”
You sighed when the man bottomed out for what felt like the millionth time, and the pleasure never waned. He felt just as good now as he did when he first got in.
“Yeah? Gonna come on my cock then, pretty girl?”
“Yeah. I’m— I’m so close.”
“Go on then, love.”
And, shortly, you did.
Maybe three, four, five more stabs of his cock to your most precious, intimate place and you were unraveling beneath him, stars bursting in your line of vision. It seemed dramatic to say, but that was really what it came to—your mouth hanging open, eyes wide, gaze peering into Simon’s while he fucked you through the most intense orgasm of your life. You clung to him, and your walls spasmed again and again and again, milking the man’s release in the next few seconds. Simon shuddered and grit his teeth as he unloaded a thick, gooey load inside, dousing that spongy, body-numbing spot and then some. The two of you moaned in unison.
Your body was boneless, your head a hazy mess.
It took several seconds for your conscious mind to come back online fully, and when it did, Simon was leaning in again and planting kisses along your face.
“That’s my girl,” he murmured, breath fanning hot across your skin. “My perfect girl. You did so good.”
You smiled and caught his mouth for a proper kiss.
“Thank you,” you murmured against him.
Then Simon squeezed your hand—the one he’d been holding this entire time. He lifted it gently, like he was afraid too rough of a movement might split you in two.
He turned your wrist and kissed the back of your hand, eyes locked on yours and expression soft while he did.
sukuna's convinced he'll never find a mate. he's tried it all, mate pairing programs, rehabilitation. no one wants him. who needs a bond anyway? he prefers the solitude. you're his last hope. an optimistic volunteer thrown at him by that pesky support program in hopes that he'll finally find a mate. will you be the one to show him that he doesn't really wanna be lonely? or will you throw him to the curb like everyone else? well, his rough exterior and unexpected rut truly puts you to the test.
♡ ﹕ 8.6k words
♡ ﹕ this was commissioned by @lycanqueen
꒰ 🍓 ⸰ ✦ 𝓒ws. hybrid au :: human!reader :: smut :: hurt/comfort :: mean!sukuna :: sweet!reader :: possessiveness :: pining :: hybrid ruts :: scenting :: marking :: oral ( f.receiving ) :: face-sitting :: p in v :: rough sex :: mating press :: multiple orgasms :: emotional sex :: overstimulation :: choking :: breeding :: talks of cubs :: creampie ꒱
"Maybe they were right about you. You are a lost cause."
So this rehabilitation agent had guts? Sukuna would give him that much.
The sun pierced his eyes and slitted his pupils as he stared at the man before him, unshaken. Bold, for someone with noting but a flimsy clipboard for a weapon if Sukuna let his temper get the better of him.
He never had an issue with it before. So where were his claws?
"That mean I can finally do my own damn thing now?" He gruffed, stuffing his hands into his pockets as he propped against his doorway. He ignored his tail that hung low.
The man furrowed his brows. Sucked in a breath. Looked like he was searching for patience in the late afternoon air. His hand with the clipboard dropped as he stood straight.
"You don't get it, do you Ryomen?"
"What's there to get? That I can't play housecat for your domesticity programs?"
"Behavioural programs."
"That've made shit progress."
"It's not as if you make it any easier."
"Your potential mates bore me."
"You scared them off. Every one of them."
The man didn't need to match Sukuna's tone to scathe him. His face never broke clinical aloofness, even with each word loaded. Baggage of the ugly truth: that Ryomen Sukuna was a lost cause.
Countless mates. Five? Six? He lost track. He pretended to forget their names but he remembered every one.
The first left quietly. Said he was too loud.
The second left loudly. Said he was too quiet.
The third claimed she was frightened. The fourth didn't even give him a reason. Fifth and sixth were some ugly variation of all of the above.
Sukuna stopped caring.
He did care, at one point. That's why he let his coworker convince him to join this stupid 'hybrid nature rehabilitation program' in the first place, right? Because maybe tigers were too bold. Too frightening. Too much.
Too much. That's what the last one said.
Well, if he was too much for anyone, maybe they weren't enough for him.
The agent sighed. Pinching the bridge of his nose and probably contemplating why he chose to work for a facility that boasted a 100% rehabilitation record. Guess Sukuna was about to ruin that too. As he did most things.
"Look," the man said. His shoulders slumped. "We do not typically give up on our patients, but surely you understand that we've tried everything in the book for you, right?"
Sukuna didn't reply.
"Behavioural therapy. Group counselling. Mate pairings and courses. You've chased away every volunteer and potential mate. Somehow even frightened off your therapist last month."
"She was weak."
"She was doing her job. You act like. . ."
Sukuna grunted. His claws threatening to lash out and tear up his own shirt. "What?" He knew the answer. Knew that sickening word that they all used for him. "An animal?"
The man didn't answer. Didn't have to. He sighed again and checked his clipboard. "This is your last shot for clearance."
"And if I don't pass?"
"You'll be escorted to a private facility."
Hybrids were monitored under lock and key by the state. Sukuna guessed he couldn't really blame them. They were different. Unpredictable.
Animals.
Sukuna regretted ever approaching the program in the first place. If he knew what he knew now— that he was simply built to be on his own, he would have swallowed the furball and bit his own tail. Lived out the rest of his life without the feeling of being watched.
Now, they knew he was unstable. Now, they considered him a threat. Guess his claws really were clipped.
"Thanks to your last stunt, none of the volunteers stepped up for this," the man said, flipping through his clipboard.
Sukuna huffed. "What's the point then? Just ship me off already." At least he'd get to be alone, then.
"Because miraculously, one of our assistants offered to help." The man looked up. "She's new. And your last shot." He handed over the clipboard with a small picture clipped at the top right.
That's the first time Sukuna saw you.
The second time he saw you, you smiled at him. Stupid move, really. For someone so small, so frail— so breakable.
"It's nice to meet you," he's sure you lied as you stuck out your hand. Chirpier than a bird hybrid. Bright eyed as a squirrel. Were they sure that you were human?
"Yeah. Hi." He gruffed, not reaching for your hand. It looked too gentle for him.
You dropped your arm to your side, still smiling, but softer. Before you trotted off to lug the rest of your belongings into his home.
He helped you, of course. Tiny thing like you probably would sprain her spine if she did it all by herself. Pathetic.
This was his last hope? They might as well cage him and ship him off already.
Within a week, he was sharing his space again. The few days of blissful solitude had come to an end. Now, there was a canvas in his living room. Pink body wash and products littered across his bathroom counter. Books from authors he couldn't even pronounce occupying his empty shelves.
You were sweeter than the three spoons of sugar you dumped in your strawberry tea every morning. Softer than the dinner rolls you insisted on making every Wednesday and Friday. Shy. Gentle.
Too gentle for someone like him.
In the beginning, Sukuna had watched you. Like a tiger stalked its prey. Scouring for the first sign of discomfort. A hint of fear. Even those who started off strong couldn't keep up the act for long. Not with him.
Which was what made it so odd.
You were timid, sure. But not afraid of him. Guess he'd give it some time.
Because that's simply his fate now, right? Watch a new volunteer skip into his lair and run off with their tail between their legs once he got too much. No one stayed. Not like they did with everyone else.
Others made hybrid bonding look easy. They'd join circles and find mates in the same week. Same night, even. Claiming it all as 'the right timing'. The right person.
Sukuna was a wrong person. Therefore, no right person would fit. Like an unwanted puzzle piece.
Not that he cared. He didn't need to fit in with anyone. If he was too much for any twisted jigsaw of companionship then he'd simply be the missing piece. A corner piece no one looked for. The one that made no difference to the puzzle. The one that no one needed.
He preferred being alone, anyway.
If this last ditch effort blew up in smoke, he guessed he'd have his wish. Whatever facility they'd stuff him into— at least he would be alone. It was better that way.
By himself, he didn't have to soften his tongue. By himself, he didn't have to pretend that he did not have stripes, claws and canines. Didn't have to soften himself for someone who wouldn't soften for him.
Didn't have to watch anyone leave when he became too much.
You didn't leave.
A week went by. Then two. Three, before he knew it. You rooted yourself into his floorboards like a flourishing flower and offered him the same sunny smile every morning.
"How'd you sleep, Sukuna?" You'd ask, as if you cared.
"Fine." He'd grumble from the coffee machine. The bitter stain on his tongue refused to ever let him return the question.
Why should he bother with someone who was going to sign him off anyway? Might as well show her what she was getting herself into. His poor behaviour and slacking social skills, as his therapist put it.
You never flinched. Humans sure were resilient.
But he was hybrid. And everyone knew that tigers were ruthless.
He wouldn't shroud his nature to make himself more palatable for you. For anyone, ever again.
It's odd. You actually tried.
You adapted your body clock to him. Sukuna woke up drearily early. To catch the dawn on his ears during his morning run. He supposed you started waking up shortly after him. Giving you enough time to ready breakfast for him when he stepped back through the door.
Eggs. Bacon. Any raw protein you could think of. You were unfortunately, a good cook.
"This isn't necessary," he said from the counter, but still wolfed down your perfectly fluffy scrambled eggs.
"Waking up early has its perks." You mused, sipping your tea. Probably strawberry. Or rose. He hated that he now knew your favourites.
You made his bed whenever he wasn't looking. He scolded you for it, the first few times. You insisted it was fine. That you liked cleaning up.
You tried to watch movies with him. Plopped beside him on the sofa and struck him your signature smile.
"Wanna watch something?" You asked, soft. Already dangling the remote. Sukuna couldn't help but compare the size of your hand to his.
He scoffed. "What? Some romcom?"
"Or horror." You bashed.
His instincts told him that a gentle soul like you wouldn't last ten seconds with a horror movie. Still, he indulged you. The last thing he wanted was to endure some stupid hybrid hallmark film.
A slasher flick. He didn't pay attention to the name. All he knew was that you quivered halfway through it and that stirred an urge in his gut.
Urge to what? Now that, he once again had no answers to.
It was warm. Low. The same way he felt when kids dropped their ice creams and mothers tripped in grocery stores. He couldn't name it. But he did drape his arm over the back of the couch. Not grazing your shoulders but, there.
You'd probably have nightmares tonight. Silly girl. Now he would be obligated to return the favour.
Because you did, a few nights ago. When he tossed and turned. Creased his sheets and slashed his blankets. Sukuna wasn't one to dream— but he did have nightmares.
About the darkness. About the cold. About a void that for some, unfathomable reason, unsettled him.
"It's okay, shh." Your voice reached out to him through the shadow. Light against the darkness.
"It's okay. I'm here. Wake up, please."
You were luck he hadn't broken your arm.
His grip was too tight. Claws too wretched. Not lucid enough to realise that he snatched your wrist when he had woken up.
"Get out." His voice rumbled. Eyes bloodshot and pupils tight. Sweat burned his forehead.
It must have not sounded like a threat, or maybe it was your stupid human resilience. You leaned over him. One knee on his bed and your hand ghosting his shoulder.
"You're freezing," you whispered.
He jerked from you. Rolled over onto his side and refused to allow himself to be vulnerable under your gentle gaze.
"I'm fine." He said.
You insisted. Are you sure? — Can I get you anything? — All the things that people said to catch you off guard and then left anyway.
"I said I'm fine."
His voice boomed, final. It was the first time he'd seen you flinch. He did not bother calling out for you as you shuffled out of the room. Assumed your bags would be packed by the morning. Your pink body wash nowhere to be seen on his counters and your books vanished from his shelves.
You didn't leave. Here you were, a few days later, with shaky knees and a horror movie. But insisting that you were enjoying it for his sake.
You never turned tail. Never backed down. Maybe it was more than human resilience. Maybe it was stubbornness.
That's the only thing that made sense to him. Why else hadn't you disappeared regardless of how much steam he'd blown at you? Especially when he was too much.
"Let's get one thing straight."
You had said something stupid one day in the kitchen. Something about being there for him. Some empty promise he had heard mixed and minced several different ways until it lost all meaning.
As if his mood was not sour enough.
Your back pressed into the fridge. His strong forearm shoved above your head. Sukuna's hulking body shadowed yours. Perhaps this was it. Where you finally became apart of that void that haunted his dreams.
"You and I. Are not. Compatible." His ears pinned back to his head. Tail coiled tight. Like his jaw and teeth that clenched.
Still, you held his stare. Even when it burned.
"Not a thing. Not. Possible." He spat. "So stop acting like you aren't just gonna sign me off so I can be caged up."
"I'm not—"
"I want you to."
He cut you off. Sharp as his heave as he craned closer. Close enough to smell your cherry shampoo— but not a hint of fear.
What was wrong with you?
"I want you to sign me off. So that we can stop pretending like any of this is gonna work and that I'm anything but better off alone."
The fridge rattled as he shoved himself off. He expected your knees to shake. Expected you to clamber out of the kitchen and stuff whatever you could into a suitcase for the night.
Instead, you watched him storm off. With those same, achingly gentle eyes.
Why were you so gentle?
Why did you stay?
Why did he find himself being gentler, too?
Of course, Sukuna didn't want to snap at you. You were simply the closest thing. The softest thing. His hands weren't built to cherish the tender.
Yet, tender were his hands, as they cooked for you. If you handled breakfast, it was only fair that dinner was his responsibility. Even if all he exchanged with you were grunts and gruffs, as long as you went to bed full, he was content.
Content? Odd. That wasn't a word in his vocabulary anymore.
His voice dangered tender's territory on nights you'd be out. Work, friends, whatever he never bothered listening to but for some reason found himself worrying over when the street lights switched on.
"Do you need a lift back?" He asked into the phone. Taking note to look uninterested, even if you couldn't see him.
"I should be fine, Sukuna." You chirped.
"You sure? It's almost midnight."
"I'm sure! What's the worst that could happen?"
To a sweet thing like you? A lot. More than he'd like to imagine.
Morals, he told himself. He pulled up in the middle of the morning to pick you up because of his pesky morals.
"Sorry you had to come all this way," you said as you shut the passenger door.
Sukuna considered your dress. Hated himself for it.
"What?" His tongue clicked. "Were you expecting to walk all the way back?"
"What's the worst that could—"
"A lot."
It wasn't like the other times. His voice raised, but didn't roar. His brows narrowed, but didn't glare.
The car ride was silent.
Your smile was sickening.
Cute.
He watched you closer. Not as a tiger stalked prey. Not anymore. He couldn't name this.
He refused to call it gentle.
Even when he carefully observed the way you fixed your hair every morning. How he noted which of your curves that the sun bounced odd of. The soft plush of your body and how your thighs moulded into the couch cushions, or rounded perfectly in your shorts.
Never had he been one to appreciate art— though he stood in front of your canvases and stared at your paint patterns. Swirls of green and blotches of warmth. Illustrations of nature: jungles and wild flowers.
It called to something within him. He assumed his hybrid traits. A tiger yearned for jungle, that was his home.
Home.
Sukuna didn't have a home.
He had a house. He had you. Had pink body wash on his counters and books he'd learnt the names of on his shelves. Had a warm meal every morning and a warmer bed you still insisted on making.
He had movie nights. A running partner. Someone who finally rooted her heels to the floorboards and blossomed in his walls. Stubborn as she was shy.
But not a home.
It was only a matter of time. Until he said something that finally was the thing. Until he'd wake up to your paintings missing, and your shampoo gone. He'd come home to no protein, but a sheet of paper:
I've signed you off. Good riddance.
You told him that you wouldn't, after he insisted it that night in the kitchen.
You padded to doorway of his room, picking at your sleeves with a petal-soft voice.
"All we have to do is clear you for rehabilitation," you said.
Not once did your eyes meet his.
"Then what? I can finally be alone?" He asked, incredulous.
You nodded.
It's what he wanted. What he claimed to want. So why was your agreement a sharp pang between his ribs?
That was then. He assumed your plans hadn't changed much. A silent agreement that if he behaved, you'd leave him be by the end of it all.
That's why he was gentler, he told himself.
Just trying to ensure his goals, he insisted.
For now, he would take care of you as you did him. Whether conscious or not. If it meant that when it was through, he'd get what was best for him.
Solitude.
But if solitude was what he wanted, why did he hate seeing you in others' company?
It was late. Emergency work call. He missed his afternoon cat nap and only scuffed down half of his breakfast.
The sun peeped at him from its sprawl across the horizon. Glaring into the back of his head as he stalked home. Burning him hotter. Hot.
He felt so. Fucking. Hot.
It wasn't even summer yet. Spring had only perked its preppy head. The blossoms bloomed. Their nectar tickled his nose. Couples gifted their flowers.
Sukuna hated spring.
He hoped you hadn't cooked dinner yet. That was his job. His responsibility.
But no, you were outside. Prattling to a neighbour.
All smiles and soft. Cupping your hands in front of you as you listened to the man's stories. The irritable snow leopard that lived next door. With his baby blue eyes and boyish grin.
What were you even doing outside in the first place? Didn't he tell you it was dangerous once the street lights started switching on?
Sukuna did what he did best. He watched. Looming by the telephone wire. Feeling the sun stab into his head. His spine. Feeling the heat gurgle from his gut. Splutter up his lungs. Against the back of his teeth.
That spotted fucker touched your arm.
Sukuna scathed.
Blurred colours. A muffled yelp. His claw caught on your woolly sweater as he snatched your arm.
"Sukuna—!"
Your gasp drowned in the rumble of his growl. Grated from the back of his throat. The leopard backed off. Your muscles tensed under his calloused fingers.
"Inside. Now."
He didn't wait for you to agree nor disagree. Dragging you inside and rattling the walls as the door clattered! shut.
"Su—" he lodged your voice in your throat once more. Shoved your back into the nearest thing— the same splintering door.
Was it hotter inside? Or was that the anger?
A sweat drop sweltered between his brows.
"What the hell were you doing?" As if he had any right to ask. You weren't his mate.
Mate? Of course you weren't his mate.
Then why did his teeth crave to sink into your flesh? Mark you?
His stare hazed. Blinking rapidly. Heaving. The heat blistered into his nerves. Clenched his muscles. Suffocating. It was suffocating.
"Why were you. With him. Why—" he zeroed in. Mistake. Big mistake.
Your scent.
You weren't his mate. Why the hell did you smell like it, then?
Did you always smell this good?
Your gaped at him. Hands stiff on your sides and pressed flat into the wood. Your neck craned to account for the height difference. Were you watching him this time? Was he too much?
His eyes squeezed shut.
"Sukuna," you spoke. His name didn't deserve that gentleness. It ached him deeper today.
"I think you're. . ."
Snapping open his stare, he sucked in breath. Considered your words. The phrase your lips wrapped around.
Rut.
Shit.
He shoved himself away from the door. Away from you. The fire crawled up his throat. Thunked his heart. Thrummed a deep, dark chord in his gut.
The sweat slipping down his spine in the middle of spring confirmed it. He was in rut. With a poor, persistent, pretty human in claw's reach.
"Hey— hey it's okay," you attempted, stepping forward where he stumbled back.
"Don't."
He hissed.
You preserved.
Stubborn. Stubborn, sweet thing.
"Let me help." You offered.
"No."
He tried. Tried to stumble off. Lock himself in his room. He could hump the mattress for all he cared but he wasn't so much as touching—
You took him by the wrist. Might as well have taken his soul while you were at it.
Splintered his restraint.
The door rattled again. Creaked awfully with the weight of him. On you. The thickness of the air. The heat. Your wrists fit well in his big hands. Looked like they belonged there.
You looked like you belonged here. Pinned under him.
His chest heaved. Voice jagged, throaty.
"You don't know what you're getting into." He said.
You gulped. He paid too much attention to your throat. "I did when I signed up for this."
"Do you even know what a rut is?"
"I know you can't be alone right now."
Sukuna's breath hitched.
You relaxed your hips. Let them mould into his. Their plush softness drove him wild.
Lashes hung over deep maroons. The quiet thrummed with your heart beats. His, thundering and wanting. Yours, tender yet eager.
He craned closer. Tuffs of his pink hair tickled your forehead.
"I can do awful things to you." He whispered.
Still no flinches. You never did.
Your eyes batted at him.
"Is that so bad?"
"Yes."
"Show me."
Even the kiss, burned.
Your lips really were petal-soft. Softer than he had imagined. He hated himself for imagining this in the first place.
The knot in his gut wound tight. Urging him to flush you further into the wood. Flush further into you. Patience slipped into the simmer between your mouths. Sukuna kissed you with violence. Nothing contained. Nothing hidden.
He told you that he wouldn't placate himself for you.
Abandoning your wrists, his grip sought your plush. Squeezing your thighs between his fingers gaps. Lifting you into his arms so that your heels pressed into his back. So that he could consume you. Tongues tangling and teeth tackling.
Your hands smacked at his shoulder. Breaths huffed through your nose. A desperate sound that plunged him deeper into heat.
He let you breathe. Barely.
"I can be good for you." Was what you used the privilege to gasp.
His chest rumbled. "Yeah?"
The slope of your throat was so pretty when you gulped.
Sukuna slipped a hand to your cheek. Rough. He couldn't be gentle. Not with you. Not now.
"Gonna be good for me, pretty girl?"
Eyes blown out. Jaw tight. If you said anything other than your whined little yes as his hips ground into yours, he might have lost his mind entirely.
His mouth attacked yours again. Sucking on whatever was left of your lychee lipgloss. Surely bruising your lips in the process. He didn't care. Let him mark you. Everywhere. So that stupid snow leopards didn't get the wrong idea. So that everyone knew what you were.
His.
The home blurred into vertigo colours. The floors creaked under the weight of his footsteps. Sukuna hoisted you with him. Haphazardly avoiding furniture in the stagger to his bedroom. Hands palming at whatever part of your flesh he could reach.
He almost stumbled in the hallway. Caught you against the doorway, one of your hands gripped at it while the other clutched the back of his neck. Fisted his hair between your fingers.
"Sukuna, careful." You whined.
He didn't listen. Too busy humping on your thighs that squished perfectly between his hard body and the cold door. Nurturing his bulge. Tucking its hot curve into the smooth crux of your skin.
"Said you'd be good for me." His growl rumbled on your pulse. Teeth mapping out his new territory: your velvet flesh. "So shut up and take it. Like a good girl, yeah?"
The door swung open. You must have palmed the handle. Feet fumbled in a clumsy waltz. Hands clinging for dear life. He caught you. Kept you pressed against his blazing body as he mouthed down your throat. Latched onto a tender spot. Marked you.
Sukuna handled his ruts the way he handled everything else: alone. His hand, a pillow, and a grotesque amount of tissue boxes. When last had he felt the soft touch of a partner? Held their warmth beneath him while his mind drove him wild with fire?
He was always too much. Too much to handle. Too aggressive. Too big.
But you.
You seemed to want everything.
In the way your nails curled on his shirt. In the pitiful way your neck arched to give him more access. Offering yourself up to him. A pretty deer who craved a tiger's claws in her. His maw latched to your throat.
"You're so eager," he groaned.
You whimpered, "I'm yours."
Fuck.
The mattress sunk. Creaking in retort to the callousness of his shove. Your body moulded into his sheets. Into him, as he staggered over you. Knees digging into the bed. Teeth clamped on the base of your throat.
You jerked. A gasped cry vibrating against his teeth. Palms knocking into his shoulders. To push him off?
No— to grip. Cling. To him. To your mate.
After all, you were his now, weren't you?
Bites bloomed across your neck. Over your collarbone. Down your shoulders. Your clothes threading like ribbons under Sukuna's claws. The sound of fabric tearing accentuated the rough pants and pitched whines in the humid air.
He wanted to speak. Wanted to tell you what a good girl you were being for him. Wanted to grunt into your skin about how perfect you were. Tell you that you were everything he'd been waiting for.
The words lodged in his throat. Sticky on the back of his tongue that could only muster out wet pants and deep growls as he feasted on your flesh.
Every inch of your skin revealed to him was another blessing. Your curves. The dips. The soft slopes of your body. Salivated him all the more.
Your bra never stood a chance. Clawed away. Probably ruined at the wire. He didn't care. He'd buy you a new one. Buy you whatever you wanted if you were gonna carry his cubs.
Cubs.
The word slipped into his mind with ease, and ruined it.
Pupils blown out. Lungs clenching. He made the mistake of eyeing your tummy.
Perfect, round, soft. You'd be the perfect mate. The perfect mother for his young.
The thought spurred his hands rougher. Tearing away offensive fabrics until you were laid completely bare before him. With big, doe eyes batting up at him. So pretty. So his.
From the corner of his eye he spotted your hands slipping. To cover up. Cover what was his. Your wrists were snatched in his hard grip.
"Don't," he warned. Lips assaulting yours. Stealing your breath and tonguing on your whimpers.
"Don't hide what's mine."
Your tits were softer under his tastebuds. Delicate to the harsh swirls of his tongue. So small when compared to his mouth that sought to consume, to claim.
Sweet sounds sighed from your kiss-bitten lips. Your spine curved so that you pressed back into him. Squishing your plush breasts into his face. His groan rumbled into the flesh.
So tender it was maddening. So perfect it was addicting.
Kisses, sucks, bites. He littered your tits in more claims. Feasting on your silk flesh. Fantasising about the image of them larger. Fat and swollen with milk— just as you were round with his cubs.
His cock strained thick in his pants. Flushed hot on your inner thigh. He ground into your warmth. Rutting wildly. Like the animal he always was.
Your hands delving into his hair almost broke him. Almost. He withdrew from your chest. Eyes glowing through the dark as he found your face.
"Taste so good. So sweet." A hand roughed down your side. Cupped your thigh and strung it round his waist.
"Up."
Raw strength scooped you into his palms. Flesh spilling between the gaps of his fingers as he squeezed for good measure.
Your little squeaks were so cute.
Teeth dragged on your flesh. Callous over bites sunk into your gentle flesh. He lapped on the indents of his own canines as he wrest you over him. Shoved your thighs higher. Urging you. Demanding.
"Face. Now. Fucking sit on my face."
Senseless. Each word was a growl. It's a miracle you understood him at all. Maybe you always would. That's how mates were, right?
The cotton of your panties dragged on his collarbone. Frantic eyes darted to your face as your hips locked. Unmoving.
Stubborn little human.
"What?" He husked. Scuffling to shove you over his awaiting face. "I said sit."
Your lips pressed together. Hands scrambling for the headboard. "Wait are you— are you sure? I'm—"
"—driving me mad." He hissed through clenched teeth. The throbbing in his groin pulsed the sickening heat hotter. Seared into the back of his skull. To his hands that groped your ass. To his eyes that narrowed.
"Said I wanna taste you. So get. On."
Was that too much?
Was he too much for you?
No, course not. You wanted to be his good girl. He saw it in your doe eyes batting at him. In the quiver of your lip and the tremors of your thighs. You shuffled over him. Pressing the cusp of your panties against his chin.
"Like this?" You meeked.
"Like this."
Sukuna tugged you over him. Knocking your thighs. You stumbled. Caught yourself with shaky fingers in his hair and an adorable yelp.
The musked cotton scrunched into his nose, his mouth, the rest of his hard face. Stuffing his nostrils with the sweet, intoxicating aroma. His eyes threatened to roll back.
A muffled curse rumbled into your heat. First came his tongue. Abrasive like everything else about him. Lapping on your folds. Drenching the fabric. Trying to suck in your taste through it.
Then came his teeth. Impatient. Tearing into your panties. His head wrest, violent. Claws ripping away the cloth in a feral affair.
Your sweet heat was his reward. Slicking up his face with your clit pressed into his nose.
"Fuck," his groan thrummed. Straight into your velvet. Leaking your pussy into his agitated mouth. "Knew you'd taste s'fucking sweet."
Hands slipped up your thighs. Cupped your ass. Sukuna sought to press kisses to your quivering slit— but you dangled above him. Not pressed, not sat. Hovered.
"Said. Fucking sit."
He hauled you into him. Cramped your thighs into his head. Smothered your pussy into his face. Even with his ears muffled by your plush, he heard your stunned gasp.
The weight was perfect on his head. Your hands were perfect in his hair. Pussy pretty, pulsing, perfect, on his tongue that stroked over your slit. Lathered you in saliva. All the way to your clit.
He darted the muscle. Circled on your bud. Trying to commit to a rhythm. A pattern. It scathed into the heat of his rut. The heat to take, to claim. To make you his. Finally.
Even if you hated him after this.
Even if you signed him off and he finally got what he wanted. Solitude.
Right now, all he wanted was your pussy.
Filthy squirts and sloshes squelched through the room. Brimming the hazed air together with your whines. Moans. Gasps of his name.
He always hated how gently you said it. Like it meant something. Like it ever could mean something. Hearing it broken sounded better. Shaky and whimpered as he fucked you on his tongue.
"S-Suk— kuna, ah."
Sweet. So sweet. Sweeter than he ever deserved. But Sukuna was a greedy man. So he gripped on your thighs, bit his nails into your flesh, and feasted to his heart's content.
"There ya go. C'mon, pretty girl, ride my face."
Spank! went his hand. Clamouring your ass and fisting the jiggles. Pulling you down, harder, closer— till he was suffocating. Suckling on your clit. Guiding your hips into a sinful sway.
Your hips fell into rhythm. Atta girl. Always so sweet for him. Always so obedient. Yeah, if you stayed, you'd make the perfect mate.
He hoped you stayed.
He could make you stay.
Keep you in his bed. Make a den for you. Hold you down and fuck you into his sheets day-in-and-day-out. Fill you up until your tummy grew even rounder. Softer. Until you were swollen. Until you were his.
No. Fuck. That's the rut talking.
The rut talking.
It's the rut that had him palming your ass and squeezing you into his face. The rut that had his mouth kissing, sucking, licking and laving through your creamy mess. The rut that had him fucking you on his tongue and bucking his hip into the air just as yours ground down into his face. Smearing mess all over him.
Yeah. That's the rut. But fuck, if he wasn't drunk on your pathetic moans. Your messy pussy.
Your clit spasmed under the flat of his harassing tongue. Your thighs clamped around his head. Fingers dug into his skull. Even your pain was sweet.
"Shit— kuna." Your voice croaked. Called to him as a mate should. "I'm gonna, fuck. Think 'm gonna. . . gonna—"
His eyes fluttered. Throat rasped.
"Gonna cum? Yeah? Gonna cum, hah, all over my face?"
From between the small gap of your thigh, Sukuna witnessed your face. Eyes rolled back. Jaw slack. Tits bouncing as you rode his face as if he was yours.
He was.
In this moment. In these blurred lines of his rut. Where he pictured you as his mate. Entertained the thought of wanting. Of being wanted. Of not being alone.
He was yours. Even if for a moment.
You sung his name through the haze. Tender even when he ripped you apart at the seams. Delicate even in his claws that threatened to tear into you. Mark you with scars and blood.
Your hips clumsily rocked. Once—twice—locked up in feverish tremors. Your hands bunching his hair. Clinging. Your body hunched over his. Shattering.
Sukuna rode you through an orgasm with his lips latched around your clit. Sucking harsh on its throbs. Teething on its twitches.
You splattered his face in warmth. Sweet, sickening warmth that doused him deeper into his rut's clutches.
"That's it. There you go. Fuck. Prettiest fucking pussy," he slurred into your wetness. Tongue delving between your puffy folds. Lapping up your cum. Greedy.
You toppled over him. Breaths ragged. One hand clutched in his hair and the other on the headboard.
"Wanna— wanna help. Wanna." To his surprise you pulled on his hair. Interrupting his creamy kisses on your slit.
Stares met. His hot. Yours warm. Wanting.
"Wanna make you feel good too."
How pretty you were when you quivered. Lips glossed by drool and lashes soaked with tears. It ached a deep chamber in his heart.
"Wanna be good for me?" He panted.
Your nod was doeish. As everything else about you was. His delicate girl. So fragile in his hands.
He couldn't wait to break you.
The bed creaked again. You squeaked as he hauled you down into the wrinkled sheets. On your back with his hulking weight pressing down on you. His mouth fixed to yours. Magnetic. Addicted. Letting you taste yourself on his tongue.
"That mean you gonna let me breed you too, baby?" Catching your lip between his teeth, he grunted. Pressing the swell of his cock between your legs. Staining his crotch in your slick. "Gonna let me breed this sweet pussy?"
Your response was sweet, shy, but oh so eager. A tepid nod, as your fingers slipped to his shoulders. So small. Smaller than him in every way. He took the moment to appreciate it.
You, spread and waiting for him. Your pussy, swollen and twitching. His bulge pressed on your glistening folds dwarfed you entirely.
Oh, how you'd squirm on his cock.
At last he shrugged his shirt off. Shivered when your touch feathered over his chest. He made the mistake of watching your eyes. How they mapped out scars that your fingers traced.
You didn't have to say anything. Your gaze spelt affection he wasn't ready to receive.
"Don't stare at me like that." He gruffed, kicking off his pants.
"Why not?" You asked.
"Makes me think you want me."
"I do want you, kuna."
Damn you.
Damn you and your tenderness. Damn you and that sweet nickname your sugar lips latched onto. Damn you and the way you made his cock throb hard in the strained fabric of his boxers.
He palmed your throat. Focused on your pulse. The control he held over you in the moment.
"Shut up." His hiss muffled with a kiss. Hot and open-mouthed on yours. As if he could suck the words from your tongue and swallow them into his gut that knew better.
Knew that he was better off alone. That this was only for the sake of his rut.
Bulging and angry, his tip nudged between your thighs. Soaking up your arousal. The slippery sensation of your pussy sent shivers down his spine. So wet. For him. Only him.
He let you pull away. Watching as your gaze lowered to his thick cock sandwiched between your folds. Sliding against your slit and dragging on your clit. Your wide eyes eased a chuckle from him.
"What?" He drawled. "Too big?"
"Well. . . yes."
"And every inch's gonna fucking breed you."
He pinned you back into the mattress. Flat on your back with your knees scooped into his big hands. Dwarfed you there too. He pressed them back into you so that they kissed your tits. Folding you in half and completely exposing you entirely to his hungry eyes.
Salivating. He was salivating. Your eyes were too kind for how lewd your pussy spread out for him. Leaking a string of mess. Calling for him. Wanting him.
"Keep your eyes on me, you got that?" Maroon burned into yours. Searching for hesitance. For fear. For something that could cut into this feverish rut and remind him that he didn't deserve you. But no.
You obeyed him.
You wanted him.
His cockhead slotted against your slit. Dipping in to feel the silky sin of your pussy. A deep groan rumbled from the depths of his chest. His brows furrowed. Fuck. When last had he had this?
Blunt nails dug into the backs of your thighs as he sunk in. One inch. Two inch. Three inch. Four— popping through the first tight ring of resistance. Eyes devouring yours the entire time.
He watched your face. How it scrunched up and your mouth parted. How tears clouded your eyes as he pushed past the halfway point.
He stopped.
"You good?" He huffed. Barely gentle.
Very. Gentle.
"Yeah it's— just. . . just a lot." You croaked.
"Too much?"
His face didn't falter, but his heart sure did. His grip loosening on your limbs. Ready to let you go. Free you from him.
But you shook your head. Teary eyed. Twitching smile.
"Not enough."
Hips possessed. Mind a mess. He slammed forward at those two, pretty little words. Till his tip smooched your cervix and his balls squished into your folds. Bottomed out. Filling you to the brim.
The sound you made was sin itself. A blessing. Heaven, hell, and everything in between.
"Oh fuck." You cried, head tossed back. Unable to see him gasping out the same exclaim.
Your syrupy cunt hugged around him. Tight, snug. Nursing on an underside vein and milking him around the tip. Every pulse was your heartbeat, and it devastated him.
Cussing, he pushed down onto you. His heart tugging itself towards yours. To press into your skin as his hips started rutting. Slow, eager.
"Fuck. Look at you take this cock. Like you were born for it," his words husked above you.
Your lashes fluttered. Brows knitting at the centre. He watched your tears threaten to slip as he humped on the sensitive ring that was your cervix.
His tongue clicked. Swapping out a hand on your thigh, he snatched you beneath the jaw instead. Wrenching your face to his hot one.
"Didn't I say keep your eyes on me?"
"M sorry."
"Don't apologise, just take it."
He withdrew. Halfway at first— then shoved back in. The second time was further. And further. Until his thrusts pulled to the tip and plunged back to your womb. Languid, but hard. Sure to make you feel every inch of him pressing into your pussy nerves.
You soaked up his thighs. Splashing his balls and leaking a puddle into the sheets already. The scent was intoxicating. Flared his nostrils and dizzied his head.
The mattress shook beneath the power of his thrusts. Your body bounced with it. He made sure to coil his tail tight around your waist. Held you down like a predator did prey as he fucked you open on his cock.
Pleasure built a knot in his gut. Hot, heavy. Urging his hips to snap harder and chase bruises on your jiggling ass.
Every sound was sin. Sweet. Cries, moans, a whimper than surged into a whine of his name when he removed his other hand from your thigh to instead hold them back with a steeled forearm. So that his palm could press on the bulge swelling up the base of your tummy.
"Fuuckkk," he growled. Ears pinned back to his hair. Jaw hung and canines glinting. "Look at that. See that, pretty girl? What's here?"
You hiccuped, "your— ah. Your cock!"
"Yeah? What's it doing?"
"It's—"
You couldn't answer. Slurred by moans and the delicious drive of his dick stretching you out. He watched your eyes go static.
Spank! his palm landed hot on your clit. Bulging your eyes and jerking your hips up into his frantic thrusts. He laid another. Two. Three— encouraging your pitiful whimpers.
"Asked you a fucking question. What's it doing?"
"It's— hah. B. . . Breeed—"
"Breeding you? Yeah?"
"Uhuh! Breeding. Breeding me s-so . . . s'goood."
Drool bubbled on your lips. Your hands that had tried to scramble on his shoulders and dig your mark into his flesh now fell flat on the pillow. Beside your head. Limp like the rest of your body that surrendered itself to him.
Heat surged down his spine as you clamped around him. Sucking the air from his scathing lungs. Staining his base in a thick, filthy ring of cream.
His hips rammed all the more faster. Harder. Imprinting you into his bed. Your slick. Your sweat. Your scent.
One of your weak hands slipped down. Meeking over to his larger one fixed on your stomach. Wrapping around two of his massive fingers. Or at least trying to.
It strung a deep chord in him. Thin and vulnerable. One he has thought he cut out long ago.
His half slipped over yours. Fingers laced. Pressing you against the bulge he plunged into your tummy. Holding your hand. Holding it tight.
"Sweet pussy's milking me," his grunt fanned your pulse as he swooped down. Mouthing on your neck. Searching for your pulse to feel it race beneath his lips. "Fuck. Wants my cum so bad. Wants my cubs."
"Please!" You slurred.
He swore he could do this for life.
Shoving all the way, Sukuna paused on your cervix. Sweat dripping from his hair. Cock drumming heavy. He clamped you down through your protesting whines.
"Yeah, yeah, shut it." It didn't sound harsh. Especially not with his firm squeeze on your hand.
Slipping out just enough, he watched your juices spray all over him. Mesmerising him. He worked on autopilot. Bundling you into his arms and manhandling you into a different position.
Tossing you to your side, Sukuna slotted behind you. Hips spooning your ass. One strong arm hooked around your neck, choking you on his bicep. While the other strung around your thigh. Wrenching you open for him and his massive cock, that bullied back into your cunt. Squelching your cum and sick in messy streams.
Your angelic cries resonated into his bicep. Making him squeeze it harder against your throat. Headlocking you into his greedy mouth that sucked hickies across your neck.
The angle was deeper. Filthier. Letting him feel so much more of you.
How much smaller you were than him. How you squeezed him just right. How perfect you were in his arms.
Like you belonged.
Shit. Don't go there.
Sukuna tried to drown it out. The returning thought of you. A permanent fixture in his life. Your pink body wash on his counter, that was now his. Your books on his shelves that he could read to you. You, in his living room, painting.
Painting the jungle. Painting home. Being his home.
His cock pulsed hard at the base and sweltered at the tip. The knot in his stomach wound tight. But that thought— that thought gutted him.
That you were here. That you had been here. Warm, and sweet, and soft and for the last few weeks. His.
You could be his.
"No," he wanted it to sound like a grunt. But he whimpered. Panting, heaving, mind dizzy and thrusts frantic—
Sukuna was whimpering.
Your face was pressed into his bicep. Head limp and hand still trying to hold his that clutched your thigh. Still calling his name so sweetly.
"N-No?" You breathed.
Still attuned to him even when he was fucking your brains out.
"Don't want you to leave."
Oh.
Oh.
He hadn't realised that it slipped from his lips. Hadn't realised that through his brutal thrusts— he was breaking. Lost in the burning bliss, the heat, and the warmth of what could be.
Sukuna lost his fucking mind.
"Don't wanna— fuck. Don't wanna be alone." His face fell into your neck. Arms squeezing your body into his. Trying to melt your skin into his. Tuck himself into your warm flesh and the selfish wish you gave him.
Hazed, and hot, and so heavenly yours.
Slick hair pressed into your cheek. His body collapsed onto yours. Pounding his cock up into your creamy cunt. Chasing his blazing nerves as his mouth rambled.
"Don't want you to leave. Don't. Shit. Don't leave me, please, please don't fucking leave me."
His thrusts lost rhythm. As frantic as his rushed whispers. Plunging into your cervix. Bruising your thighs. Clutching you closer. As close as he could muster. As close as it would take to keep you here forever.
"Say you won't— say you," he slurred. Eyes squeezed shut. Words melting into a clumsy splutter of curses. "Say. Say you won't. Say—"
"Won't. Won't. 'kuna I won't— hngahh. Promise!"
That single word. So raw. So true. Choked in a gasp as you tried to nudge your face closer to him.
It shattered whatever pride he had left.
"You promise?"
He croaked. Dangerously hopeful.
You nodded. Cried.
"Promise. I promise S'kuna. Breed me— please."
He should have known you'd be trouble from the moment you first smiled at him.
Heat trapped him. Seeped into every nerve and spasming muscle. Ears drooped. Tail clinging around your waist, as his arms did every inch of you.
He held your hand.
The ache in his hips nulled to the sound of your sweet voice. Tucking promises away in his heart and sealing them with attempted kisses, even when he was choking you.
He felt your orgasm shake through you. Your body locking up as you babbled his name into the humidity. And with that Sukuna finally— finally let go.
Ramming his cock up one, final time. He stilled. Deep and thrumming within you. Heat bursting from his gut and washing over him in a devastating wave of blissful carnage.
Loud and wrecked, his moan vibrated into your back. Hips rocking in small stutters as spluttering, white ropes creamed your cervix. Pouring his thick cum into every inch of your twitching cunt. Brimming you with him and his promise.
"Fucking. . . fuck. . . hah. Take it. Take all this cum in your pretty pussy." Slurs dragged up your throat, to your ear as you face limped into his arm. His voice husked, a vow.
"Just feel me breeding you full. Filling you with my cubs."
You whined, meekly rocking back into him. But he snatched your hips and pressed it down into the mattress with a soft hush.
The throbbing at his base thrummed into swelling. His knot bloomed until it lodged stiff in your cunt. Pulsing with your pathetic little twitches.
He watched your eyes widen and brows furrow. Your body locked up and a whimper strained from your swollen lips. "Mmm. That's your—"
"Mhhm. Just stay still."
Laving his tongue over one of the bites, Sukuna held you near. Savouring your warmth.
The silence finally didn't feel like a void. Even if it was heavy.
He held onto the moment. Clung to its peace as the warmth simmered into cooling sweat on your flesh.
You broke the quiet first.
"Did you mean that?"
He didn't answer you. But his hand cupped your tummy. Fingers still laced in yours as his face tucked against the back of your shoulder.
". . . Was it too much?"
He never thought his voice could ache.
You tried to shift again, and despite the lump in his throat, he clicked his tongue. Squeezed your thigh in warning. "I said stay still, didn't I?"
"You're never too much. Not for me, Sukuna."
There you went, saying his name like it meant something.
Nudging your face to his, Sukuna licked at the tears on your face. A tender act he never thought himself capable of. "Don't say shit like that."
"That I want you? Or that I love you?"
His breath hitched.
Once the knot settled, he pulled out. Hesitantly— especially with your heat still clinging to him.
"You love me?" He muttered, laying a kiss on your cheek. Then to your jaw. To your shoulder. Down your body until you were on your back.
Calloused thumbs swept your folds back. Eyeing the lewd streak of cum leaking out of you.
His eyes found yours as you spoke, tender.
"Do you want me to say it again?" One of your hands raked into his hair.
His face nudged between your thighs. His hummed approval followed the flat of his tongue. Laving up your slit. Licking away the mess and holding your thighs open amidst their intense shivers.
Even as you whined. With your eyes on the brink of tears. They were still soft for him.
"I love you."
You shouldn't.
He shouldn't.
But he still said it back.
"My mate."
Low, and grumbled, not those three words but something that spelt a deeper bond. One he finally had.
After licking you clean, Sukuna bundled you up into the sheets. Pushing himself from the bed and returning with a warm towel and a water bottle.
He cradled the back of your head as he gave you the water.
Worshipped your flesh as he wiped you down. Tracing over bruises and bites. His mark.
And when you were finally tucked into his arms. Dozing off with your head nestled on his heart that now beat for you. His tail curled around your leg and his claws soft on your curves. Sukuna understood.
Now that the Flotilla members have been released and with those photos of brutal physical abuse and sexual assault, can we admit that there is no line they wouldn't cross. Let's be serious the israelis know that even attacking the "untouchable" ie people with european and american passports won't cut off the aid they get from the very countries the members come from. Its a message to peaceful advocates everywhere that they are not hesitant to treat you like palestinian prisoners. And i think the lib zionist reaction that this is "ben gvirs doing" is so fucking laughable. If the israeli government really disapproved they would arrest him. This faux condemnation of ben gvir is a distraction from the fact that hes been given greenlight to do whatever he wants bc israel is a settler colony. Their purpose is eradication of the indigenous people. There are no red lines.
I said this before but there is no peaceful action or violent act that the israelis wont respond to with violence. And the israelis will respond to violence from Palestinians with incredible violence. But violence threatens them the most. When an iof soldier is killed, when a checkpoint is attacked, when a wall is breached after years of standing, it shows the holes in their power structure. It tells other palestinians that there are ways to hurt them, that they are not totally invincible. That is why they reacted to october 7th with horrific violence bc palestinians everywhere learned that a multi biilion dollar wall with latest technology can be breached with less. This is why standing with palestinians that raise guns and trying to meet them where they are is important. We wont ever raise an army equal to them, but we dont need to. Empires have come down with less. The FLN was almost completely disarmed and imprisoned in Algeria but France left only a few years later to a renewed rebellion.The French didn't leave bc their people "got tired of the war," their people got tired bc it was clear to them that the indigenous will always fight and their colony will never be secure. The US dropped millions of napalm bombs on Vietnam and left but they could have continued. These empires have the money and the weaponry but when they realize that no weapon will give them total control, then their effort will be abandoned. But under the oppressed who love their land, there will be traitors but there will always be those fighting no matter the cost. That is the difference and that is why armed resistance matters more than boycotts and more than flotillas. If there is no palestinian with a weapon, then there is no threat to israeli power
do not let your loneliness convince you that indifference or someone who is constantly hot + cold is better than being alone. being misunderstood or unappreciated is a loneliness of its own
You should be able to listen to a full album without looking at your phone. You should be able to watch a 3 hour film from beginning to end without checking social media. If you can't do this, you need to start training your attention span as if it were a physical muscle. I don't experience boredom or restlessness because I've trained my brain to not be dependent on quick stimuli and dopamine hits. If you can't chill on a park bench while waiting for a friend with just your imagination to keep you company, you need to learn how to do it ASAP because one day we may not have access to the internet.
s-u-f-j-a-n-s-t-e-v-e-n-s
turnnoffyourmind
tangentwithtanner
izzy806
amandla
kianamaiart
dailybridgerton
