"I love you, it's ruining my life"

Charlotte. 22. she/her. main @slvt4stevenwithav

[elysianightsss]

SUNSHINE

Simon Riley × Reader | A One-Shot

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.

He came home to you.

Your best friend. Your home. Your Simon.

Taglist | @sdieflwr @pipsysstuff @laswells-cia-assistant @luneiiz @myblogystuff @kitty-kat-crevan @drugs-and-daddyissues @magicwriterinspo @twizkat @sea-4salt

[drmariecurie]

[gutsby]

X

Summary: Simon finds your G-spot.

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

Note: I’m on Instagram now (kinda), come say hi :-)

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.

“That’s what I’m here for, lovie.”

[thykingdoncome]

The Animal That Therefore I Am

summary: there's something off about the Codys.

|| smut mdni 18+, omegaverse, a/b/o dynamics, werewolf!pope, alpha!pope, omega!reader, heat cycles, rut, no smurf (one mention of her but she's not in the story), bratty!reader, some dub con (not with pope) but only because she's in heat around a bunch of alphas, licking, kissing, monsterfucking, reader is part of the dead dad club, reader had a bad relationship w her dad, established 'acquaintance-ship' with the codys, mean!deran, end of season 4 spoilers!!!! knotting, pinv, f!receiving oral, biting, mating bonds, painful heat, fuck-or-die vibes, mating press / prone bone, bicep choking, possessive!pope, pope is a consent king™  || a/n: cannot believe this is my first pope smut im posting... title from a book by Jacques Derrida wc: 9.5k

There was something … off about the Codys.

For one, they owed you fucking money.

Secondly, they were just…different. They didn't trust easily. They were known for stealing, lying, screwing people over. But they were also immensely private. That part you understood.

Most packs kept their closed doors, kept to their old grudges, their places at the table no outsider was ever going to sit. But the Codys were different even then. Their house always felt locked up tight, even when the gates were open, even when they'd throw huge summer parties.

And ever since two years ago when your father had introduced you, the Codys never gave in. You thought it was because your dad was an asshole, plain and simple. Because he was. And he'd gotten killed because of it.

But there was something else too. Something more curious. They often kept people out like it wasn’t only money they were protecting, careful and uneasy of any outsiders that sniffed too close.

Usually, you understood. But today, it pissed you off.

Because whatever rotten blood pact they had between them as a family, as a pack—it didn't mean they got to keep your cut of the money.

It was why, even though your body was screaming in a noxious, thrumming pain and your pulse was pounding through your head, and your gums felt itchy even as you chewed your wad of bubble gum, and your skin was too warm, and your thighs pressed together tightly in the driver’s seat—you were heading to the house anyway.

The gum had long become tough between your teeth, sugar and artificial strawberry turned flat, but you kept chewing because your jaw needed something to do or else the chattering of your teeth would drive you crazy.

Your cycle thrashed behind your ribcage, a wet and burning omega begging for something or someone , but still early enough where your head was on your shoulders and you could push it down.

Your back felt sweaty against the driver's seat of the Jeep, and you could feel the humiliating slick gathering, could feel the awful little pulse of it between your legs. Every part of your body seemed desperate to make that your problem instead of the dead-father, missing-money, Cody-family problem you were trying very hard to focus on.

But still, you were determined to get to the house.

Because fuck 'em. That's why.

Your dad had given them a job, had found the armored truck, had even gotten the head of security to sign off early for his son's birthday, leaving the coast completely clear for them to take it without being seen.

But he died. On the job.

So technically, the money was yours now.

Next of kin— all that.

The streets up from The Strand were always annoying, which only made your ire grow— flames licking up from your belly into your chest, fueling you as the pad of your foot stepped harder on the gas pedal of your open Jeep. The cooler air did help, if only a little. The breeze off the ocean cut through the hot early summer sun and cooled the sweat at your temples for one brief second before your body burned through it again.

Your Jeep took every climb and sharp turn easily, though it jostled you so hard it sometimes forced a moan from your throat. You did your best to bite the sound off behind your teeth as your thighs clamped together and the worn seam of your shorts dragged exactly where you needed it to—no, no you did not need. You did not. Though, at one point, stopped at a red light with one hand tight on the wheel and the other pressed hard against your lower stomach, you did have half a mind to shove your hand down your shorts right there just to take the edge off.

But you couldn’t. You weren’t quite at that point of humiliation yet, though the fact that there was a yet at all made your mouth twist around the wad of gum. You'd deal with it later. With your toys and your medication just like every other year of this hell.

Eventually you were pulling up to the wide gated house with your brows pulled together and a deep frown.

The gate opened for you without much question.

Huh. Wonder if they were expecting you.

Good. Maybe then they'd have your money ready and waiting, too.

You pulled the car into the driveway, only one Cody there waiting for you—the youngest, J. Smurf's grandson who'd had a lot to say about the family business ever since she passed away. Rest in hell, the mad woman.

You studied him long before cutting the engine completely. His tee shirt stuck to him from sweat and early summer heat, brows set, that usual glare typical of his face, though today it had your teeth clenching around your gum.

"Could smell you from a block away." J called as you hopped out of the seat, "what do you want?"

The dig only made your lip curl up, your teeth bared before you could stop yourself. Josh Cody was a beta, which surprised you, to say the least. Smurf made it her mission to raise alpha men, though you were never sure if it made any difference. Nature versus nurture, who could be sure. She’d barely known him most of his life, and maybe that was why he’d ended up almost normal. He had a normal designation, no biological need for territory or scent or reproduction. No physical need for it like the rest. His body would stay his own.

"Nice to see you too." you snarked. "Haven't seen you around much."

"Yeah, well" he said flatly. "Dead grandma, and all."

You clicked your teeth, "Aw, you seem really cut up about it."

The two of you glared at one another for a long moment. The sun was beating against your face now, your own scent climbing up around you in a way you could almost taste, sweet and cloying and too much. It made you want to crawl out of your skin, made you want to show your teeth at this asshole. Worse, it made you want hands on you so badly that your stomach cramped with it, and then the shame of that made your anger snap back into place even harder.

"Listen, I'm just here to collect my dad's cut. That's it. Then I'll be out of your—"

But then, the back gate was opening, and two of the Cody sons came walking out.

Oh, fuck.

You suddenly realized how much of a mistake this was. Coming here right before your cycle. J was probably right, you thought—that you stunk to high hell—your belly twisting on itself in instinctual glee while your brain still had enough hold on you to know that it was fear too. Three grown alphas lived here, two unmated. Their bodies coming toward you with the sun at their backs making your omega hindbrain—stupid little traitor that she was— lift its head and whine.

J's glare flitted around as they all formed a sort of half circle around you.

Craig came out first, tall and loose-limbed, his hair messy, his chest bare, tattoos showing against his skin. His smell invaded you, uninvited, unmated— smokey with the grain of beer, a heady press of alpha that made your nose want to scrunch.

Deran was beside him in a faded tank, his thick blond mustache pulling down around his mouth, shoulders already lifted with irritation. He smelled like salt water, malt and liquor cutting through the clean surf of him.

"It was my dad's job." you said, trying to force the ire in your voice as your heart began to pound harder in your ears, looking back at J, "and because you jackasses got him killed, the cut goes to me. His daughter."

"Your dad was an idiot who got himself killed." Deran cut in with a hard glare.

"Yeah, Deran?" you snapped, looking over to him. You only half saw Craig and J fidget in your periphery as you stepped into the mated alpha's space, "I think that maybe it's that mommy isn't here anymore to tell you how to actually do a job. Maybe you really are all brawn, no brain after all."

You heard snarls coming from around you, the men bristling at your sharp tongue as their rough, low voices scraped over air. It made you jump, it made your stupid omega brain want to keen and show your belly, but you refused even as sweat began to bead your brow. You needed to get your money and get the hell out of here as your heat blazed in your belly and down between your legs where slick was beginning to pool.

“We don’t owe you shit.” Craig growled from beside you. But you didn’t even hear him. Deran was glaring down at you, his shoulders shaking, his entire body vibrating with fury.

As he was the only one mated to his omega, Adrian, he posed less of a threat. Maybe that's why you pushed it even harder.

“What’s the problem, D?” you said, ignoring Craig. “Being the baby brother make it easy for the others to stand up for you?"

"You should go."

You heard his voice from your right, enough to make you look over to him as he walked up from the garage. Pope—Andrew. Dark, curly hair, broad shoulders under a black t-shirt. That tense way he carried himself. Not pissed like Deran, but ready. He smelled like rain and gunmetal, like fresh air through an open truck window with the leather seats warmed by the sun. But underneath all of that was salt and sweat and a mouthwatering alpha scent. You pulled it greedily into your lungs before you caught yourself.

On his neck were three nearly healed slash marks, as if an animal had fought him. His eyes—his pretty hazel eyes—were on you, his head tilted, pupils blown a little wider than normal.

You swallowed thickly before speaking again, hoping your voice would still sound steady.

"I think I'm owed some money, Andrew."

"God, you omegas really are so fucking stupid." Deran's laughed, and when you looked back at him, he had a mocking smile twitching his beard, "You come waltzing up here, just a little bitch in heat—"

The slap of your palm meeting his face cracked loudly between you.

Everyone was silent.

But Deran—

His eyes were changing almost immediately, blue blowing out wide—his body no longer only vibrating, but shuddering violently. His shoulders rose into his neck, his eyes focused on you with a newfound fury as his lips peeled back from his teeth. For a second, you thought it was just anger, that he was holding himself from hitting you back.

Then his jaw popped. A wet, terrible crack sounded under the skin, and Deran sucked in a breath that seemed too large for his chest.

“Fuck—” J muttered from behind you, and you felt his hand on the cup of your shoulder, pulling you away.

“Here we go—” Craig said with an eye roll that did nothing to hide the way his body had gone tense, “Deran, c’mon, chill, man—don’t be stupid—”

Pope was in front of Deran in an instant, pushing him back.

All the anger, the ire, the attitude you’d just had was fading quickly.

Because Deran was…was changing.

Pope barked over his shoulder, "Get her outta here, J!"

The youngest's hands came up to both of your shoulders now, pulling you back, but you wouldn’t budge. You watched as Pope pushed his brother through the back gates, the bones in Deran’s face shifting under his skin, his body curling up on itself but still getting bigger and bigger. Large, heavy huffs of breath that didn’t sound like him or his voice were heaving from him as his eyes stayed locked on you.

His hands hit the ground first, fingers spread against the concrete, and then the fingers were wrong too—stretching into dark claws that scraped against the patio with a sound that made your teeth hurt. His tank tore across the back. The muscles along his spine jumped in hard ridges beneath his skin, and then fur began to push through, thick and yellowed auburn, spreading over his shoulders and down his arms.

You shoved out of J’s hold as the back gate nearly swung shut, and you pushed through it. Call it instinct, call it the thanatos death drive, call it the worst timing in the world for your body to mistake danger for want—but you had to see.

Deran Cody was no longer between his brother's arms.

Instead, there was a creature. Sand blonde and thick coated with long snout with teeth that dripped with saliva as he snarled. But even as he watched you, you recognized the blue of his eyes. But he was terrifying. He looked close enough to a wolf and yet wrong enough that every other part of you went cold. The fur along his spine stood high. His lips dragged back over teeth that looked made for cracking bone. His ears were pinned flat to his skull, and every breath came out of him in a thick, wet huff that stirred the loose leaves near the pool drain.

He was beginning to thrash around, pushing at his brothers with a heavy shoulder. Enough to knock them off balance. The moment Craig’s head hit the concrete of the poolside, his body started to vibrate too.

“Craaaiiigggg—” Pope called out in warning. He glanced back at the gate, his brows narrowing at you. “You have a death wish, omega? Get. Out!”

His last words hit you differently. One moment, you were staring at Deran's figure as it began to lope towards you, but then as you heard Pope's voice go low and heavy, your eyes found him, your body trying to answer before your brain could. Your knees went soft, your feet beginning to move out towards the driveway again, but—but you couldn't.

Because Deran was already lunging for you.

And behind him, Craig's body was rearranging itself into a black mass of inky fur with bright, terrifying blue eyes to match. His back bowed and his jaw opened on a shout that broke apart into a snarl. Black fur burst over his arms and chest, glossy under the beating sun, and his hands slapped against the concrete, claws skidding before they caught. He was snarling and his back was arched like a cats as he fully morphed into the wolf— longer than Deran, darker, his ribs moving hard beneath all that fur.

You barely noticed sandy blonde wolf's jaw around your ankle before you were being pulled to the ground, dragged against the concrete hard enough to scrape against your back. Your arms flew out, pushing against him as he hauled on top of you, snapping at you. Though your blood surged with fear, there was something worse, too. Something old as time and instinct. That traitorous omega sung for him to take you like this. She loved the chase, the fight of it, even if you were scared for your life.

Your thighs opened instead of kicking him away, heat twisting low and stupid while your brain screamed at you to move, to fight, to get out from under him. He was mated. Adrian’s. That should have meant something to the dumb animal part of you, but it didn’t. It only knew alpha. It only knew the heat of his body, even if he was trying to eat you alive.

The shame of that burned almost as badly as the concrete against your skin.

Because the fever burned worse now, your heat in full effect, making you weaker and unable to hold him back. You cried out as your mind began to slip, the rubber band between who you were and whatever lived inside your body stretching thin. The panic and pain got tangled very quickly with want—slick gathering hotter and thicker between your thighs, humiliation only making it worse as the concrete bit into your skin and saliva dripped from his mouth.

You still forced your fingers to dig into his neck just to keep those gleaming teeth from the sensitive flesh of your face, your nails sinking into the thick ruff at his throat while your heel scraped against the ground, trying to find leverage, trying to remember how to kick.

But then, a wash of mottled gray and brown shoved Deran off of you, knocking him sideways so hard it felt like a train being derailed. You sucked in a breath so fast, leaning up, one hand flying to your chest while the other stayed braced on the concrete beneath you.

In front of you was the most insane thing you think you'd ever seen before.

Wolves, fighting with their teeth, a mess of fur and snarls.

Three True Alphas.

It was a rarity, an abomination.

A fairytale.

Everyone knew the stories—before designations and medical forms and dating apps and certifications. True Alphas—the wolf. The most base, most pure animal version of your kind. Something that had been hunted down in the beginning, tested on, killed, regulated. Too dangerous, too hungry, too close to animal for laws to control. So they became bedtime stories, then horror stories, then nothing at all. An extinct bloodline cut out of the world.

And yet…there were three here, now. In front of you.

Deran and Pope were still snapping at one another by the pool, the eldest on top, seemingly winning against the younger, more brutish alpha. Deran fought with fury, all teeth and shoulder and claws scraping hard against the concrete, but Pope knew how to fight. He drove Deran down with his weight, jaws locked around the thick fur at his neck until Deran cried out and bit at Pope’s legs, twisting under him with a violence that made your stomach turn.

You couldn’t watch.

But your eyes wouldn't look away, either.

No wonder you hadn’t been able to hold off your heat. Even now, your brain was turning molten, your core burning hot as arousal gathered steady between your thighs—you remembered the stories. That True Alphas had something innate inside of them, something old and animal, something omegas were made to answer whether they wanted to or not. And to have three of them around you at once, to have one so close in his truest form only moments before, on top of you with his teeth bared and his breath hot against your skin—it had shoved you into full-blown heat so fast you had no time to stop it.

Your stomach began to churn on itself, cramps threading your blood tight and your veins constricting. You had to leave, you had to go home, that last shred of humanity said. Go home to your toys and your medication. You thought of the cold tile floor of your bathroom. Your perfectly made bed with the pillows just right.

The pain was becoming unbearable in your stomach, your vision pulsing black at the edges. You closed your eyes, squeezing them shut through another bad wave of cramping.

When your eyes opened again to the smell of salt and old beer, you saw Craig standing over you, black fur and blue eyes, his body blocking out a hard slice of sun. Pope and Deran were still by the pool, panting heavily as Pope held Deran under him, thick growls still eminating from both of them. But Craig was pawing closer and closer, his claws clicking against the patio, his nose lifting. Licking his jaws. Black nose twitching and inhaling greedily.

Fuck, fuck, fuck.

You keened, though nerves flushed a new wave of unease through you. He was so big, so long and lean and terrifying, all black fur and sharp angles and bright blue eyes fixed too tightly on you. His smell wasn’t right though. Too salty, too stale, old beer and smoke caught under the alpha of him, clinging to the top of your mouth wrong.

Your body still noticed him because your body was stupid now, because alpha was alpha when the heat got bad enough, but you had half a mind to know he wasn't for you.

“C-Craig—” you croaked, shaking your head, holding your hand out to try and make him stop in his path. You backed up until your shoulder blades hit the splintering wall of the makeshift bar beside the pool. “No, Craig—”

His head dipped, understanding, though he slowly brought his nose to your open palm, wet and rubbery as he breathed in deeply. His tongue, like sandpaper, licked at your hand. You sighed in relief, even as your belly cramped harder in need. Your head fell back against the bar, neck baring, eyes fluttering shut as he licked at your hand again, between your fingers, his teeth grazing the tip of your forefinger in a careful little nip. It felt so good, just the smallest touch of wet tongue, even if just for the moment.

Your core tightened, hips twitching, searching for more, your back arching a little as his coarse tongue licked carefully at the sensitive web of skin between each finger. You couldn't help the little helpless moans that fell from your lips, and Craig’s tongue pressed heavier with each sound, dragging slower over your palm, between your fingers, across the tender inside of your wrist. But when you mewled and keened, it wasn't for Craig. Or Deran. Or even for J—who stood at the back door, watching.

"An—Andy, please—"

Craig's teeth bit down hard suddenly on the meat of your palm.

You yelped, pulling your hand away, eyes flying open. Your skin felt too hot, your vision bleary and wet at the edges as your feet scrambled against the patio, trying to push yourself farther from the wolf in front of you. His eyes had gone harder now, bright blue and fixed on you, the skin over his muzzle wrinkling into a little snarl from the way you must’ve moaned his older brother’s name.

And soon you heard the crack of a thick growl coming from beside him.

The mottled gray wolf was coming back over to you, his head low, shoulders rolling under all that gray-brown fur. His snarl tore through the air at the same time Craig’s did when he noticed him, both sounds ripping over the pool deck, but neither of them lunged. They only stood there with teeth bared and breathing hard while the space between them and you seemed to shrink.

Across the pool deck, you saw the autumn blonde wolf limping away, Deran, tossing hard glares over his shoulder as he went.

You dropped your hand, your body trembling where you sat. A molten heap of nothing now, only want and need and burning. Your brain felt like mush as you looked at the two wolves, both still showing their teeth, until Pope moved forward and crowded your space, standing across your legs.

His fur of his belly tickled the tops of your knees, and you brought your face into his shoulder without thought, inhaling deeply. Yes, yes. He smelled so good. Gunpowder and rain, leather and sweat, and something you hadn’t noticed before, something clean in the thick of his fur. Almost like… pine. You inhaled so deeply it stuttered in your chest, your stomach pulling tight, your legs heavy beneath you. Your body was so strung out with need that the smell of him felt like the first thing that made sense, and you whined against his fur as the vibration of his growl faded under your cheek.

He turned his head toward you, letting you stay buried in his shoulder, his nose pressing carefully at your leg.

“I’m sorry,” you whined, your fingers curling into the fur at his side. “I didn’t mean—for all this—Andrew, I feel—you feel so warm, I—”

He was moving before you could finish, pushing his head under your arm to lift you up. Your arm looped around his oversized body, fingers digging into the thick fur over his shoulder blades as he helped you through the yard and toward the house. You heard the back gate clink shut behind you, the other two alphas slinking off across the pool deck. As you passed J’s hardened glare, you could barely make out his form through your hooded eyes, but Pope growled softly at him anyway, low and annoyed.

He guided you through until you were in the furthest corner of the house, your steps uneven beside the click-clacking of his claws as you made your way into his bedroom.

You blearily took in your surroundings: there was no laundry on the floor, no open drawers, nothing left out of place except a watch on the nightstand and a pocketknife set beside it, both placed perfectly straight. The room was dim, blinds half shut, every bit of it perfectly done. The bed had been made tight before you were shoved onto it, blanket pulled flat, pillows stacked square against the headboard.

But it smelled so good—like him. You rubbed your face into the pillow as he let you walk to the bed, and there was that pine smell— his detergent, then, you realized—mixing with the intoxicating scent of rain and leather again.

Your stomach cramped as the worst of your heat rolled through you, arms wrapping around your middle as you cried out.

You could vaguely hear Pope whining somewhere in the room—a low, thick sound that began to morph more human, breaking and heaving until it was a man’s breath, a man’s pain. When you opened your eyes again, he was there. Just Pope. Two-legged and naked as the day he was born, crouched on the floor by the door with his hands braced against the hardwood.

Scratches cut across his chest and arms, new claw marks fresh on his neck where Deran had caught him, red and raised beside the older scars you had seen before. Sweat ran down his temples, his shoulders shook. His freckled back arched over the floor as another wave of the turn moved through him, muscles jumping beneath his skin, bones threatening in pops and shifts.

He groaned through his teeth, head bowed, as if trying to hold onto this form with everything he had.

“D-don’t be scared,” he managed to whisper, though his voice was so rough, it was merely a scrape of sound. “I’m not gonna—” He sucked in a breath, eyes squeezing shut. “You can stay here until—until it passes, or until you can call somebody. I’m not gonna touch you. I’m not gonna—fuck, no, no, no—”

His back arched harder, bones rippling under his skin, and for one terrible second his jaw looked wrong—his shoulders rising, hands blanched into fists the floor. He cried out again as you watched his claws beginning to protrude from his knuckles.

But then he dragged in another breath through his nose, shuddered all over, and forced himself back down. Human, even if only barely. His eyes stayed fixed on the floor in front of him.

“Andrew,” you cried, your voice cracking, “I need you—”

You cut yourself off with another whine, your knees were pulling tight to your chest, teeth biting into your own arm as another wave of crippling, cramping pain pulled through you. You hated this part. Usually you prepared. Medication first, toys charged, towels and blankets laid out around the cold tile of your bathroom. You usually made sure to have your water and herbal elixir by the tub, phone plugged in on the counter playing something soothing. You had a whole system for surviving what your body did to you every cycle.

But now you were in an unfamiliar bed, in an unfamiliar room, with a True Alpha on the floor trying very hard not to turn back into the wolf at the sound of your voice begging for him.

And fuck, your body sang for him like nothing you had ever felt before. A deeper heat than you'd ever felt, something ancient and searing opening in you. It moved through your belly and down your legs, slick coating your thighs, staining your shorts. Your mind was slipping from you, you knew that well now, hardly your own, lost in pain—but mostly into need and want. So, so much want.

Every now and then you'd feel the chill of the fever as your skin went clammy and hot again, each breath dragging more of that rich scent from him into your lungs.

“Please,” you whimpered, fingers twisting in your own shirt. “Please, it hurts.”

"Don't—" Pope croaked from the floor. "I won't do that to you."

“I neeeeeeed it,” you cried, rocking yourself against the mattress. “Please, I promise, I promise I want you. I’ve always wanted you.”

Tears began pouring down your cheeks—from the pain, the want, the need to make him understand. You writhed in his sheets, body twisting toward him because he was right there, almost close enough to touch, close enough to smell, and still not close enough to stop the awful cramping pull inside you.

Why wouldn't he come to you? The little, desperate omega in you wondered. Had you done something wrong?

Yes, you thought. All wrong, all teeth and nasty temper.

You remembered the driveway, the way you’d snapped at them, teeth bared, shoulders squared, all that ugly anger spilling out of you before you could stop it. You shouldn’t have come in so mean. You shouldn’t have slapped Deran. Maybe that's why Pope didn't want you, after all. Because what kind of omega were you? Not the normal, sweet, docile little things that put on their doe eyes for their alpha. You'd never been that kind of person, never wanted to beg a man for anything, least of all a stupid, ego driven, territorial alpha.

But that wasn't Pope. You knew that. You'd known it for a very, very long time. So, you tried. Tried to be docile now, knew the one way to get under the animal's skin.

"Please, alpha—"

"Stop—" he growled.

"Please, please, alpha—"

"No." it was a deep growl, as if he'd finally caught his breath, using that low, heavy voice that only his kind were privileged to have.

“Yes,” you retorted, voice breaking into a whine. “I swear, Pope. I promise I’ve wanted you. I came here today hoping you would be here—Andy, I swear it.”

His head snapped up to you.

Oh, oh his eyes were so pretty. His full attention on you felt like being bathed in a pretty sunlight, those hazel eyes, those pretty dark curls. You softened only a little, eager, opening your body a little.

You nodded fervently, tears dripping down your temple and onto the pillowcase beneath. “I swear it. My dad—he was an alcoholic, an asshole. He only got you that job because he thought he could steal from you. I hated him. Hated him, Andy. But I knew…I knew you might still be here. So I came over, pretending I wanted the money. But I knew my heat was coming. I knew it was close, and I still came. I’m so sorry—”

He was next to the bed so fast, you gasped.

His hand came to the crown of your head, pushing back the sweaty hair there. The touch was so careful, but it felt so good, your breath shakily exhaling from you.

“You’re okay,” he said roughly. “You’re okay, don’t be sorry."

God, his touch was like a salve. Just his hand in your hair made your eyes flutter, made the pain in your belly loosen for one breath before it came back worse.

Pope swallowed, watching you now with something pained and soft in his face.

“This was a dumb idea,” he murmured, his thumb dragging over your hairline. “Coming over here when you knew better. Didn’t you know better, little omega?”

You nodded again, silent, your eyes searching his face. So many scratches. Fresh red marks along his neck, his shoulder, his ribs. Marks that were there because of you, because of the mess your body had pulled all of them into.

"You smell so good, Andy—"

“We can't do this today,” he said, voice still low. “You're in heat, you'll say anything."

You shook your head quickly, reaching for him, your hand going to his neck before either of you could think better of it. He hissed when your fingers slipped into the curls at his nape, your wrist turning just right so that the soft gland there pressed against the one behind his ear. You hadn’t meant to do it. You only wanted to touch him so badly.

But the contact made you moan anyway, your scent and his folding together between you.

His head fell back on his neck, mouth parting at the feeling, his chest pulling in one deep breath after another. “Fuck,” he breathed.

You keened at the sound, whining for him, trying to use your hold on him to drag him closer. He came willingly, but not all the way. Not enough. His mouth stayed open as he breathed you in from your jaw, down the column of your exposed throat, to your shoulder, and then back up to the tender, spongy gland behind your ear. "You smell so good too."

Your eyes went wide when his tongue dipped out to lick at the mark there, the moan you made slipping out of you obscene and helpless. Your legs opened before you could stop them, docile suddenly, open, wanting, your body begging for him in a way that would have made your whole face burn if you weren't so deep into heat.

You heard him whispering, "Yeah…yeah…" he inhaled, exhaled, licking lightly as your scent flooded the room even stronger, "That's it, good omega."

His voice was warping between man and other, his breath deepening.

"Andy, please, it hurts."

He growled a little, his name on your lips just enough to push him over the edge. You could smell how strong his rut was hitting now, with you in his own bed, legs open and slick shining along your bare skin.

“If you want to keep any of these clothes,” he said, voice rough, “take them off. Now.”

You squirmed where you sat, hands feeling heavy, the air thick around you as you tried to move. Your body felt slow and clumsy with need, every thought narrowed down to him, his mouth, his hands, the heat of him hovering so close and still not close enough.

“Tell me it’s not just this,” he panted, his voice catching back into himself for a moment. “Tell me you want me. Not just because of this.”

“Andy, I’ve wanted you for so, so long,” you whined, trying and failing to push down your shorts with one hand, the other still hooked around his neck. He pulled back so he was looking down at your face. His eyes were blown black, barely any hazel to be seen. For a moment, he was as scary as he was as the wolf—intimidating, serious, the gleam of animal in his gaze.

"Tell me." he ordered.

While you still squirmed, his hand came down to cover yours, stopping your movement entirely. You whined and thrashed a little, impatient. But all he had to do was 'tsk his tongue against his teeth and you laid still.

"Back when—" you inhaled, trying to get your mind to form words, coherent memories, but your heat was so strong now that all you cared about was the fact he was here, and he was very naked, and he was looking at you. Looking at you like that. "Andyyyy pleaseeee…"

“Be a good girl and tell me, omega.”

You pouted, breathing hard through your nose. “When I met J—”

“—That was two years ago.” he said, brows furrowed a little.

You nodded quickly.

“I think about you every time,” you admitted, voice breaking around the words. “Every time I’m stuck dealing with this —this bullshit by myself. M-my toys, when I have to do it alone—”

His face shifted. “You don’t have anyone to help?” he asked, and there was something so genuinely concerned in his voice that it made your chest hurt through the fever.

You shook your head.

His expression softened, the hard animal edge easing back just enough for Pope to look like Pope again. “Okay,” he said, quieter. “Okay, I understand.”

“S’been so long,” you whispered, fingers curling weakly against his neck. “All I do is think about you.”

"Okay," he repeated, "I'm gonna help, it's okay,"

Your heart soared at his words, your legs falling wider, your neck craning to give him access before you could think to be embarrassed. You were helpless to the instinct of your kind now, making yourself soft and open and desperate for him. But you were desperate. You were deep in the haze of want, too far gone to care how needy you looked in his bed, how quickly you answered the smallest kindness from his mouth.

“Ohhh, please,” you breathed, fingers tightening in his hair. “Please, please, please.”

He leaned down then, and though you thought you were feverish before, the first press of his lips nearly broke you. Heat blazed between you like kindled fire. It was not gentle in the way you expected. It was careful, yes, because he was Pope and because he was still fighting himself with every breath, but it was eager too. His chapped mouth pushed against yours, hot and a little clumsy at first, and both of you moaned into the contact.

His shoulders, tense for so long, dropped with one heavy exhale. His breath fanned over your face as the hand holding yours rose to your jaw, fingers spreading to keep you close.

You opened your mouth easily when his tongue pressed forward, and whatever restraint had been left between you began to fray. Your hands pulled at him, his mouth moved harder over yours. He was still kneeling at the side of the bed, but then he shifted, pressing into the mattress, his weight dipping as he hovered over your open body.

He finally pushed your shorts down for you, panties following after, ruined and wet against your skin. He didn't take his mouth from yours until he had to, until your shirt caught at your neck and he pulled back only to drag it over your head. You suddenly realized you could feel him. Hot, pulsing, thick against your thigh, making you undulate where you laid.

"Oh, oh, Andrew—I need, I need it now."

"Sh, sh, sh," he cooed, still kissing you.

You whined and mewled for him, your hands eager now, too eager, needing more of him than his mouth and his weight and the hot press of his skin.

You reached between the two of you, and the growl that came from his throat had your lips detaching from his, your neck craning to the side before you could think better of it. Submission, easy, immediate and instinctual—your body offering it up at the first scary sound from him.

But he felt so good in your hand. Smooth and hot, pulsing against your palm, velvet soft skin over all the thick weight of his cock. Your hand moved up and down gently at first, almost reverent despite the fever, until your fingers brushed something fuller at the base, thicker skin beginning to swell there.

"Is that—?" you whispered.

He nodded, kissing your face like he couldn’t make himself stop, his mouth dragging over your cheek, your temple, the corner of your lips while he hissed and sighed and moaned at your touch. “My knot.”

"Oh," you murmured, blearily blinking.

His face pushed yours to the side, stubble scraping against your skin as he kissed your shoulder and down your neck. You felt the sound he made before you heard it, a low, vibrating groan pressed into your throat as your hand tightened and your wrist twisted, tugging him closer.

“I—” he tried, breath breaking. “I have to tell you—I might—ohhhh, fuck—”

You swept your thumb over the tip of him, thick beads of arousal coating the head, and your whole body clenched at the feel of it. You wanted a taste. You wanted him in your mouth, inside you, against you, anywhere he would let you have him. Anything. You would do anything right now.

“Listen,” he snapped, a rough growl tearing through the word as he pulled his face away from your neck.

You paused, startled, your hand still wrapped around him.

His face changed immediately. “I’m sorry,” he murmured, both hands coming to your hair as he leaned fully over you, his thumbs pressing carefully at your scalp. “I’m sorry, little one. Don’t be scared. I didn’t mean to—shit, I’m trying to tell you something.”

You nodded quickly, eyes wet, both of you burning hot where your skin touched.

“You need to know,” he said, forcing each word out slowly. “If I lose it, if my rut gets too strong, I might change back. I don’t want to. I’m holding it —him—down, but I could—”

“Okay,” you whispered, barely listening as you guided him lower, finally bringing him against the slick folds of your aching cunt.

Your eyes nearly rolled back from the pressure alone, from the hot drag of him through all that gathered slick. He sighed into a long groan, his hips jerking, pressing harder, before he caught himself, one hand tightening in your hair while the other braced beside your head.

“You don’t understand,” he gritted through his teeth. "I could hurt you—"

“It’s okay, Andy,” you breathed, trying to soothe him even as your hips lifted against him, grinding your hips against him, lathering his cock with your arousal. “It’s okay. You don’t scare me.”

He paused, eyes searching yours, hazel swallowed up entirely by the black of rut. His hand moved through your hair again, harder now, almost restless.

"Okay." he finally whispered, kissing you once again.

At first, it was all tongue and hunger in your mouth, the sounds he made almost too much to hear when your body was already wound so tight. You sang for him too, squirming beneath him, needing and needy, your hands catching at his shoulders, his neck, anywhere you could hold. You whined and shifted as his kisses moved from your mouth to your jaw, down your neck, licking into the dips of your throat and clavicle.

He kissed your breasts, giving each one a moment of attention before going lower. His mouth dragged down the soft rise of your belly, warm against your skin, then lower still until his breath fanned over your mound. You gasped when his lips touched the top of your hip, already about to whine over the loss of his body against yours.

But then your brain suddenly went white hot as his tongue flattened over your cunt and licked a long stripe from entrance to clit. Your back bowed in on itself, an arch so clean off the bed, your fingers catching for any relief. One in his hair, one on the bed. You moaned loudly, your hips undulating for more. His hands came up quickly, around your thighs, holding you down and open as he did nothing but eat.

The sounds he made filled your ears—rough, animal growls, whimpering moans, the obscene sounds of his tongue against your slick pussy. Slurping, licking, huffing breaths against you like he needed it too. It was too much. Your hips tightened, spine tingling, and it wasn’t long before your jaw opened, unhinging to let out a yelp of pleasure as your orgasm crested and broke.

It wasn't enough, but it brought small relief. You felt your body clench down around the need for more, your breath hissing through your teeth as he continued to lick through your orgasm. His tongue had been the gentle press of something human at first—warm, careful and gentle—but then it dragged rougher, closer to sandpaper, and your whole body jolted beneath him until it returned to the human softness.

He held onto your firmly, and you only just saw the prick of blood on your thighs where his claws were starting to protrude again. When you looked down at him, his brows were threaded so tight, his form not quite turned but the signs were there—his claws, his teeth sharpening when they nibbled on your clit.

When he rose from between your legs, panting, his hands were greedy as they pawed roughly at you, "How was that, sweet little omega? Feel better, hm?"

You thrashed and shook your head because yes, and no, and not enough. But you let him manhandle you until you were on your belly, your ass lifted a little, pushing back into him before he even had to ask.

"Mmmm…" he hummed, his face buring into the back of your head, inhaling, "Fuck, you're so good. What a good girl. Tasted so fucking good."

His hand dragged down your spine, stopping at your hip, holding you still while he breathed hard behind you. You could feel him close, hot and heavy against your skin, his body shaking with the effort of waiting.

“Gonna let me take you, baby?”

“Yes, alpha,” you murmured, voice thick and warbled.

He hummed, content, his hands rough on you, squeezing until you whined into the pillow. But you didn't want him to stop, you hoped he'd never stop. He felt so warm, his smell enveloping you as he laid across your back.

"Down." he ordered. His voice was so thick now, that human and not-so-human growl sitting behind every syllable, and it made you shiver all the way down. You listened. Of course you listened, blood thrumming hard with the feeling of the tip of his cock right at your entrance, gliding through the slick there.

You laid fully down on the bed, wiggling beneath him, trying to push back, but he laid down over you, face into your neck, lips at your ear. His breath hot and thick around the shell as he said, "Settle down."

Instinct had you whining, your eyes rolling, desperately pushing your hips back and then—

And then you were nothing.

His cock pushed into you, and your brain went flat line. Your cunt, so wet and wanting, let him in without fuss, your body opening around him like it had been waiting for exactly this. The stretch, the warmth of his thick cock. Your toys never felt like this. They never made you feel this full, this fevered, this sick relief in your hips and stomach and spine. They never made your body go quiet for one stunned second, all that pain finally given something to hold onto.

"Ohhhhhh, Andy—" you moaned, eyes rolling back.

"Yeah," he breathed, and you could hear how his teeth bared around the word, the vibrating groan that followed as he pushed completely into you, hips meeting yours, balls resting gently against your clit.

He wrapped his arms around you tightly, pulling you into him until you weren't entirely sure where you started and he began. Your chin rested in the crook of his arm, head turned just enough to feel his breath in your ear, to hear the rough scrape of him changing between man and animal as he began fucking you in earnest.

His moans in your ear were no less obscene, no less desperate, than the rhythm of his hips jolting you into the mattress while his mouth stayed at your neck, open and panting. The bed creaked under you, his and your moans harmonizing with the slap of skin that filled the room.

“Good girl,” he whimpered. “Good girl, take my cock. Doing so good, little omega. Fuck.”

“Yes, yes, yes,” you moaned, because you had no other words.

Your brain was slack, your mouth parted, drool pooling a little onto his arm where he held you tight. He made a low and pleased sound, his arm tightening under your chin so you could feel the tendon and his muscles flex with every thrust.

"Gonna take such good care of you," he promised through a groan, "Mine, mine now. All mine."

Your heart sang for him, your ass pushing back harder into his lap.

"Yes, Andy, please, please—"

He was whispering into your ear, words broken by his breath, by his teeth, by the animal pressing closer under his skin as he completely gave into his rut. My little pussy. My omega. Gonna keep you. Mine, mine, mine. Each one sank into you worse than the last, until your body answered all of them, slick coating him and you and the bed, your hips jerking back to meet every hard swing of his.

You cried out sharply when his angle changed, his cock pushing deeper, striking something that made your hands claw at the sheets. The headboard knocked into the wall with loud slams of wood.

You felt his teeth press at the back of your neck, the wet heat of his mouth right over the gland behind your ear.

“Oh, please,” you cried, one hand reaching back for his hair. “Please bite me—”

"Sh, sh—no—" he growled, only pressing the flat front of his teeth to the gland instead. Your blood still sang for it as you kicked your feet with petulance. The need to be taken, mated, kept, moved through you so fast it made your throat close. You wanted the bite. You wanted the hurt. You wanted whatever came after it.

“Please!" you sobbed.

“Shut up, little omega,” he growled, voice thick against your neck. “You don’t know what you’re asking.”

You whined and kicked your feet even as he fucked you harder, his hips swinging in a desperate rhythm now, rougher with every breath. His fingers dug into your skin where he held you, and you felt the sharp prick of claws again that were not quite the stubby human nails anymore.

“You’re gonna take my knot just like you take my cock,” he said, the words pressed right into your ear. “Like a good girl. Do you understand?”

You nodded against his arm, sobbing around the movement.

“Say it.”

“I understand,” you cried. “I understand, alpha.”

“Mine,” he grunted. “Mine, mine, mine.”

“Yours, Andrew. Yours, I promise—please, please take me. Knot me.”

As his moans grew louder, you suddenly realized the shaking of the bed wasn’t only from the saw of his hips, or the stutter of your own heart in your ribs.

Pope was trembling all over.

Heat blazed off his skin worse now, his body burning against your back. His teeth were still bared along your neck, but sharper this time, the points catching when he dragged his mouth over your gland. His tongue dipped out, rougher than before, no longer the soft press of something fully human, and the scrape of it made you gasp so hard your whole body went limp around him, fully giving in.

You gasped as you heard his breath thicken and change, huffed through a mouth that did not feel shaped the same. His arm around you tightened, restricting your air so that you saw sparks in your eyes, his voice deep and not completely his own as he said, one last time: "Mine."

He came with one hard thrust, so rough it had you pushed deep into the mattress, and you felt too many things at once.

His cock swelled deep inside you, the pressure blooming as his knot caught and locked, stretching you around him until your mouth fell open in a silent cry. Warm ropes of spend filled you, one pulse after another, and your body seized around it, cunt clenching hard as your own pleasure tore through you all over again.

And then something wet pressed against your ear.

Your eyes went wide, spine locking as his breath huffed over the side of your face. His jaw was wrong around your neck, longer, rougher, the shape of him changing where he stayed folded over you. Your slackened brain keened for it anyway. Your body knew him. Man or wolf or whatever terrible place between, it knew him.

A wet, rough press of a nose to your ear. And a snout latching around your neck.

The bite came harder than you were expecting, different from what the other omegas had told you about. They told you it was as simple as teeth to the side of the neck, pain for a few seconds, then warmth, then the bond settling into place.

But this was not that.

This—this was entirely different. You were like a pup in the maw of his jaw, held down, taken, given everything. Held by the same teeth that could have torn through skin if he forgot himself for even one second. His jaw locked around your neck entirely, teeth on both sides, tongue licking long stripes as the gland burst for him.

He growled around your neck, panting hot against your skin as he came down from the high of his orgasm, each sound rolling through you from the bite to the knot locked deep inside. You felt, but couldn't see, the half change. Claws and teeth and snout, but not completely changed.

Pheromones, hormones, scent and sound and heat all burst white behind your eyes as his teeth sank in, flooding every part of you at once. You cried out, pulsing around his cock where he was locked inside you, your hand fisting in his hair as the bite burned and soothed in the same breath.

His deep, baritone growls rolled through your back, through your ribs, through the place where his body held yours pinned and full. They soothed you into stillness better than any words could have. You thought you could feel what he was saying anyway, even as the wolf.

Don’t be scared. Take what I give. Don’t be scared. You’re home now. You’re right where you belong.

It wasn’t until a little while later that Pope’s body was completely his own again. He had talked you through one more orgasm around his knot— voice rough at your ear, promising it would feel good, that it would help, and it did. It took over you slower that time, pulling the pain loose by inches until you were half asleep beneath him, cheek pressed into the sheets while he coaxed and cooed, telling you he knew best, telling you to breathe, telling you he had you.

By the time he pulled his spent, went cock from you, you barely had the strength to whine. He soothed you through that too, one hand spread over your hip, mouth moving along your shoulder in soft, messy kisses until the empty ache settled into something quieter.

Your breaths were even and in sync, chests rising and falling together. Your spine felt embedded in his chest where he stayed over you, his weight warm across your back, his mouth never stopping its little kisses and licks after the intensity of the True Bite. The sharpest part of it had passed, but the mark still throbbed under your skin, hot and alive with every beat of your pulse.

Your blood felt like it went through you, through him, and back to you. A circuit. A loop, always flowing. Your scents had mixed beyond telling now, salt and sweat and sex lingering in the sheets, rain and gunmetal pressed into your skin, your own heat softened just for now.

When his knot finally settled, he still didn’t move far. He only laid beside you instead of on top, pulling you in close as your body crawled toward him.

He took you again, like that. Side by side, facing him, your leg hitched over his hip and his hands holding you close. This time, it was slower. His rut was more controlled, though just as hungry, and face to face it felt even more intimate. More impossible to hide from. You could see every flicker of the change moving through him when his restraint broke—the dark pull of his eyes, the sharpening of his teeth, the way his breath came rough through a mouth that did not always stay shaped like a man’s.

But it didn’t scare you. You hadn’t lied about that.

The wolf was there, right behind his face, but so was Pope. Andrew. With his same careful hands, his certainty in the way he knew he could take care of you. And this time, you soothed him through it, your hands petting at his face gently when his muscles jumped, your fingers tracing over the long snout and through his curls. Even when his body changed, even when the shape of him moved closer to the stories than anything human, your omega brain did not see the thing from childhood warnings anymore. It saw him. Your alpha. Yours.

The second time he knotted you, there in his lap, your face buried in his neck, you breathed him in until your lungs ached with it. Pheromones, sweat, heat, the deep pull of the bond still settling between you. His hands clenched at the flesh of your backside, his body trembling beneath yours, and you turned your mouth to the gland behind his ear.

Your teeth were flat and nothing like his, but still—when you bit down hard, Pope froze beneath you.

His mouth parted in shock as his head tilted back. A whimper slipped through him that felt like it wrapped itself around your heart, constricting.

And then, as his head dropped forward, you felt change take this time, his body shifting under your hands, under your thighs, until your mouth was full of fur and your fingers were buried in the thick ruff at his neck.

When you opened your eyes, he was the wolf.

A Rorschach of gray and brown and shadow, massive beside you, warm enough to steam the air between your bodies. Not quite like the wolves in zoos. Not quite like the monsters from the stories, either. His head was too broad, his shoulders too heavy, his eyes too knowing when they found yours. He whined low in his chest, almost the same sound you had made for him, and you answered without meaning to.

The two of you stayed tangled there, breathing hard, the bond pulsing between your marks. There was no place else for you, nor for him. Not ever.

thank you so so much for reading!!!!

[thykingdoncome]

his best girl

part one | part two | part three | part four | part five | masterlist | ao3

rabbot x reader, park x reader, shen x reader, ellis x reader, langdon x reader

summary: You're Robby's favorite reward. When his staff earns it, he doesn't hesitate to offer you up. A month is a long time for you and for those around you to go without.

|| smut MDNI 18+, free use kink, cuckholding, a lot goin on in this chapter, overwhelmed!reader, fingering, mentions of spanking, flirting, groping (consensual), the men of the ED are handsssyyy!, lil moment where we might run into some dub con (reader wants but knows she cant have), praise kink, cuck!robby, dom!robby, jack watches, cockwarming, kissing, riding, orgasm denial (yeah, still), m!masturbation, lil glimpse of posessive!jack abbot, non canonical timeline || a/n: lots of different things going on in this chapter. If you start to feel overwhelmed, thats the point :) also, like... im sorry if its terribly edited. plz lmk of any mistakes! wc: 15k sorry I never stfu

A month was a long time.

For the first few weeks you mostly stayed home for your own sanity.

Robby left you to your own devices rather than dragging you through the halls and chaos of the emergency department. And you knew it was for the better this way. Away from temptation, from complicated feelings. You got to focus on him—your connection, and the rebuild.

When he'd come home exhausted and worn from a shift with new grayer hairs and deeper creases carved beside his eyes, you'd greet him with an eagerness that embarrassed you sometimes. He sought you out the same way you did him—needing to be close, needing to clear your minds and just touch and kiss and give. And take.

You felt a little like you were starting to go crazy from the lack of release. Dysregulated, maybe. Because it wasn’t like Robby had stopped touching you altogether. No, he still came home and made you feel wanted. Still kissed you until your thoughts went fuzzy, still got his hands on you whenever he could, still fucked you deep into the mattress just how you liked. But it was everything after that started to get to you—the being brought right up to that heightened edge only to be left there over and over, your body not understanding why it never got to finish.

Even your own thoughts began to betray you. You’d be standing at the sink with your hands in warm dishwater, staring down at a plate you’d already scrubbed clean, thinking about him coming up behind you and bending you over the counter. You’d be folding laundry and suddenly lose the thread of what you were doing, a pair of his boxers in your hands from the dryer, your mind filling in some awful, humiliating little fantasy about getting stuck in there and him finding you, taking advantage of the position. The kind of crazy shit that college boys usually searched on porn sites. And it only made the mess between your legs pulse worse, ache worse, until you were hot and flustered and taking cold showers halfway through the day just to reset yourself.

And still, the line was always in the same place. Every single time you thought Robby might finally give in, might finally give you the relief you begged for, he wouldn’t. Instead, he’d leave you twisted up with frustration, blinking back tears while he held you against his chest and brushed your hair out of your face, telling you it was for your own good.

And you had agreed—at least for the first week.

By the second, you were counting days.

By the third, you were becoming a genuine menace.

The second he walked through the front door, you were on him. You’d hear his keys hit the bowl by the entryway, the sound of his shoes being toed off, and you’d already be making your way across the house. Some evenings he barely got a chance to set down his bag before you were climbing all over him, hands in his hair, mouth on his, pressing yourself against him with no patience left in you at all. Other nights he’d drop onto the couch with an exhausted sigh and find you halfway onto your knees before he’d even gotten comfortable.

And Robby knew. He had to know how crazy it was making you. Some little devil on your shoulder told you he was enjoying it, enjoying you being so insatiable, so needy for him all the time, following him from room to room, touching him whenever he got close enough, getting short with him when he made you wait.

Because that had started happening too. The attitude.

The little huffs of annoyance you'd never made before when he spoke to you, the muttered comments under your breath, the way you’d roll your eyes before you could stop yourself and then freeze because you knew he’d seen it.

He'd taken you over his knee so many times in the past few weeks, your bum was almost always sore. And, of course, it only made you wetter too. His voice would drop into that low, hoarse place it got when he slipped into his natural place with you, telling you to count, telling you to take it, telling you that pretty girls still needed to use their manners. Your face would be buried in the couch cushion, holding back your moans as you did as he said. And even when he'd slide his fingers into your sopping folds when he was done, that part still felt like punishment too. How sensitive you'd become, how needy and desperate it all made you.

Sometimes you wondered if he'd keep the torture going past the one-month mark, if he'd decide he was having entirely too much fun watching you unravel. But you trusted him, and he never played games with that trust. You knew you'd get your release soon.

Because you missed everyone. And he knew you missed them. He'd sometimes be deep inside you, sawing his hips so that his swelling cock kissed your cervix, his lips on your ear, his arms wrapped tight around you and he'd ask who you missed most. Was it Park and his big dick down your throat? Did you miss Langdon's sweet kisses? He knew your favorite things about his residents—about the staff. So he'd pluck at them like strings, asking you questions that made your eyes roll back as he drove his cock in and out of you.

And yes. Yes, you missed all of it. How Frank's kissing alone would turn you into a puddle, his mouth so pillowy and tasting like Red Bull. And Brendon. How sweet he was, how somehow he managed to make you feel cared for and desired at the same time. How there seemed to ve a version of him only reserved for you, one that always knew exactly what you needed to shut your brain off and make the rest of the world disapear for a little while.

You missed Jack too. Though you often shoved that thought far, far away.

But other than the sex, you just missed them. The others, too. Mateo, Shen— who hadn't seen in a while. You missed your friends. Dana, Samira, Trinity and Mel.

Maybe that's what you needed. A night just with friends. A girl's night out.

So you texted them. A group chat made up of residents, interns and med students. Mel, Trinity, Joy, Victoria, Samira, Parker. Even Dana and Emma.

And that's how you ended up here at Space Bar, with a colorful cocktail in your hand and pink and green and purple back lights flooding the bar with music thrumming through the speakers.

"What the hell kinda place have you dragged us to?" Ellis shouted over the music beside you at the bar as she pulled up a stool. When you looked over, her skin reflected the multicolored glow of lights, her pretty almond eyes on you. You watched as she tried to school her expression into something flat and deadpanned, but the twitch of her lips and the amusement in her gaze gave her away.

"Good to see you too, Parker," you teased, knocking your shoulder against hers. "And it's a cocktail lounge. V needs to get a taste for real drinks, not just the shit beers at Bob's on karaoke nights."

To your right, Victoria smiled, rolling those big brown doe eyes at you from beside Joy and Emma.

A handful of them had actually managed to get the night off, all of you packed shoulder to shoulder at the corner of the colorful bar. You listened while stories bounced back and forth about recent impossible patients, insane cases they saw, the attendings giving them shit. Whatever fresh disasters had happened in the weeks you were away from it all.

"Trinnnn—" you groaned when you spotted Santos coming from the door with someone trailing behind her, "I said it was a girl's night!"

She pouted back, throwing her head back onto her neck as she replied, "He's like a lost puppy—follows me everywhere, I swear."

Dennis came walking up, sheepishly standing away from the group, "I can…uh, go home."

"No, no, don't be silly," you said, smiling and grabbing his wrist to tug him closer, "How's Amy and the baby?"

He blushed, a deep red staining his cheeks, "She's good. Theo too."

You saw Trinity roll her eyes beside you as she flagged down the bartender and ordered them drinks.

"So, where's Yoyo tonight?" you asked.

She didn't answer, but shot a look at Dennis, who looked at you a little apologetically and said: "Touchy subject."

"No, no!" Trinity exclaimed, "It's cool! I actually like being her little squeeze toy on lonely nights!"

Her elbows hit the bar with a thunk, and she thanked the bartender for the drinks, handing one to Dennis, and then added when she saw the two of you grimacing at each other: "Please stop with that loooook. It's fine. Really."

It was a little quiet for a moment, awkward, uncertain. You wished you'd never asked.

"So when are you gonna tell us the reason you've been gone for a while?" Ellis asked beside you. You were grateful for a change in subject, but when every set of eyes flit up to your face, it made your skin burn hot.

"I've just been home, hanging out." you explained.

Ellis's brows shot up, a mock frown tugging her lips downwards, "No reason for the absence?"

"I just—I was taking a break."

"From…?"

"From the little reverse harem you got going on with Robby, right?" Trinity asked, the annoyed look long gone, now replaced with a shit eating smirk as she sipped her lime green drink.

You nearly choked on your own beverage, looking at her with wide eyes.

"Guys—" Mel cut in, two hands wrapped around her sprite, "I don't think it's really our business—"

"Wait, you and Robby…?" Emma asked shyly, her mouth open, the pieces of her hair that hung around her face swinging as she looked around the group.

"Duh," Joy said dryly, "Where have you been, Em?"

"Oh my god…" you groaned, your stomach flipping.

"What?" Trinity quipped, "we're all just wondering about your little Twilight love triangle—the Ddward Jacob of it all. Will she, won't she with Abbot…Spill, girl."

You agonized with a long sigh, "Trin…"

"So just guys?" Ellis asked beside you. Your eyes found hers again, a funny look in them as she sipped from her drink.

"So far…yeah…" you muttered, not even trying to discern what that look meant.

"So it's true about you and Langdon?" Mel asked, eyes wide behind her glasses. "I've learned to not listen to the rumor mill but—"

"Wait wait wait—so Robby shares you?" Dennis cut in, big blue farmer boy eyes widening. "With who?"

"I don't know really know if I'm feel comfortable telling you guys—"

"Mateo?" Victoria blurted. Several heads immediately turned toward her.

"What?" she asked defensively.

"V!" Joy laughed, the neon lights of the bar reflecting in her glasses as she shook her head in deep amusement and pity.

The heat in your face climbed straight into your ears, you could only stare into your drink, stirring it around. The bright pink color suddenly looked very unappetizing as your stomach churned.

But then Joy's head stopped shaking, and she was looking at you differently now, as if your silence was answer enough.

"Oh my God," she breathed, eyes widening.

"Okay, wow," Dennis laughed nervously.

"That's a yes." Trinity chuckled. "I mean, I'll admit Mateo does have great hair."

You refused to look any of them in the eyes, your throat tightening up as heat blazed across your face and down your neck.

"Woah, what happened here, Pittlings?" you heard a familiar voice from behind you, a set of hands steadying your shoulders. Dana. You let out a breath you were holding tight in your lungs.

She squeezed once before looking around the group, and when you looked up, you saw her eyebrows climbing higher with every face she passed over.

"Why's everybody look like they're waitin' for sentencing?" she asked. "I leave you's alone for five minutes and suddenly it looks like somebody confessed to a murder."

"Sorry, D. Just trying to get to the bottom of some very interesting dynamics," Trinity said with a smile.

"Oh, I'm sure they're very interesting. And also probably none of your business." she said, eyeing the others.

A few groans went up around the table.

"Mm-hmm." She pointed at them. "The amount of nosy packed into one corner of this bar oughta be studied."

"You'd wanna know too!"

"I absolutely do not," Dana snapped without missing a beat. "I know enough already, more than I need to about all of yous."

That earned a laugh from around the bar, everyone's tension easing a little.

"Now," she said, standing up straighter, "Benji's home with the kids and I get one night out a week. So who wants a shot?"

"I'll go…put some music on the juke box." you said, sliding from your chair in humiliation.

You walked across the bar to the touchscreen jukebox slowly. It wasn't a far walk, but it felt long. You counted every uneven step, the ground feeling like it might as well open up beneath you and let you fall into the earth. You wouldn't mind. You tried to collect yourself with deep breaths, reminding yourself that it wasn't really a secret—what you and Robby were. But still. You didn't expect the subject to be pounced on you like that with your friends, your sex life being mapped out like a differential.

 As you stood in front of the glowing screen, you scrolled aimlessly through the song list, though none of the names really processed as they passed beneath your fingertips. The music still thrummed through the speakers, vibrating up through your toes. You could still hear the group talking and laughing from across the bar, and your hands began to sweat a little, wondering if they were still talking about you or—

"Hey."

You startled, looking up to see Ellis. She leaned up against the bright neon jukebox, the violet and blue lights catching along her cheekbones, her pillowy lips, the heavy hood of her eyes. They looked softer than usual, blurred a little by alcohol, her mouth pulled into a small frown.

"Hi," you replied.

"I'm sorry about… that. I should've known better around Jealous little Javadi."

You shrugged, "It's fine."

"And Santos, too. Girl's got awful bedside manner."

"I said it's fine."

Ellis clicked her tongue and tilted her head, trying to catch your gaze when you looked back at the screen. "Look at me."

You did.

She studied your face for a long moment, and you found yourself doing the same. Her expression tightened slightly as she looked you over. Her big almond eyes moved across your face, lingering here and there before she stepped a little closer.

"I'm sorry." she said again, but with more earnestness. "Dana was right, I was being nosy. I should've minded my business, should've asked in a different way."

She was leaning close enough now that you could smell her perfume, her body wash, or maybe it was just her. Shea butter and coconut, something warm underneath that had you leaning toward her before you even realized you were doing it, trying to place it.

"You're a good girl, you know." she continued, and your stomach gave a strange little twist at the casual way she said the pet name. As if she knew.

"Thanks." you murmured, feeling the heat creep back up your neck. You meant to look away from her, to break whatever spell had pulled between you as she studied you closer, but you just… couldn't. Something was off, and it was making your belly flip a little as the two of you stared at one another.

"So how does it work?" she asked.

"How does what work?"

"You and Robby."

She turned a little so she was leaning in fully, as if creating a wall between you and the rest of the room.

You gnawed at your lip, your fingers absently scrolling through the songs. You tried to focus on the screen again, but your eyes kept drifting back to hers.

"You can tell me," she murmured, her lips parting slightly. "I can keep a secret."

"I know."

Your brain kept lagging a little on how close she'd gotten, on how open her features were as she looked at you. She didn't bother hiding anything, her hair pulled back, her eyes searching yours, her lips a little parted. It had your lungs struggling to catch a full breath.

"Usually, um, the…well, Robby will…"

What was wrong with you? Why couldn't you form a full sentence?

Her lips pulled into a little quirk of a smile, as if she knew why entirely. "What will Robby do, hm?"

You took in a deep breath, "Sometimes he lets me pick, sometimes it's more like… a reward system. For… whoever…"

"Oh?"

You nodded, "Like when…" god, your face was so hot, your thighs pushing together without realizing, "When Frank did the cervical reduction a couple months ago… he um, came to see me after."

Ellis's eyes had gone very heavy now, and you watched how they dropped from your eyes to your mouth. "And?"

"Well, he and I—" you swallowed thickly.

"Oi!" you heard from across the bar.

Both of you sprung back from one another.

Dana was calling from across the bar, both hands raised in the air.

"You two doin' shots or what!?"

The next day, you were fucking tired.

Not physically. Well, okay, maybe physically too. A little hungover and very dehydrated, but mostly tired in the particular way that came from having too many thoughts bouncing around your skull with nowhere to go.

Last night had turned out to be fun, eventually. Once everyone got the memo that you and their attending's sex life was not a topic for public discussion, thanks largely to Dana and Ellis glaring people into submission whenever the conversation started drifting back in that direction. You'd stayed out late, came home tipsier than you'd expected, and fell right into Robby's orbit when you'd returned. He'd been up waiting for you, reading over charts with his readers low on his nose, a mug of coffee gone cold beside him. One look at him and whatever resolve you'd had about going straight to bed had evaporated. It hadn't taken long before he was gathering your hair into his fist while you eagerly worked your lips down his cock.

But this morning, you were just exhausted. Robby had headed to the Pitt for his early start on his bike, the weather a beautiful late-summer cloudless sky. But you just couldn't take any more long days stuck in the house like this.

So you headed for the pool.

Robby didn't live in an HOA community because it was fancy or for the oversized houses. He lived in one for the sheer convenience of it. A clubhouse with a gym, lawnmowers that were on a regular schedule, snow shoveling taken care of. And the poolhouse was beautifully kept, just a short walk down the block past neatly trimmed hedges and identical mailboxes, and you headed there with nothing but a towel, a coverup, and a book tucked beneath your arm. Your sunglasses kept the glare from your eyes as you pushed through the gate and made your way across the concrete deck before dropping onto an empty lounger.

It was quiet for a weekend morning, and you were grateful. For a while, you did absolutely nothing. You stretched out beneath the sun, letting the warmth sink into your skin while you worked your way through a few chapters, occasionally looking up whenever someone splashed into the water or the gate clicked open. Eventually the heat became too much, and you wandered down the concrete steps into the shallow end, sighing as the cool water climbed your ankles, your calves, your thighs. You floated around for a bit without much purpose, letting your thoughts drift peacefully in and out of your head, the cold water soothing.

By the time you climbed back out, your hair damp around your shoulders, you felt marginally more human.

While you sat up and lathered on more sunscreen, you saw a family enjoying the pool on other side, a woman in the water with her children while a man lay stretched out on a lounger nearby.

Looking at you.

You stared back, recognizing him, your stomach doing a little excited jump.

You smiled to yourself, snapping the bottle of your lotion closed and standing up. You didn't bother with the cover up, or the towel.

"Good morning, John," you said as you approached, stepping beneath the shade of his umbrella.

He looked up at you over his sunglasses, dark eyes full of mirth.

"Hey, hot stuff."

You couldn't help the smile that spread across your face. John Shen and his family lived in the same community as Robby, just a few streets down. A friendly face you didn't get to see often, but it was always a treat when you did. Shen had a way about him that made people instantly comfortable. Cool without trying to be, calm to the point that some people thought he cared about absolutely nothing. Somehow, he never seemed stressed, even at work. While everyone else in the ED ran themselves ragged, Shen drifted through the day with an easy smile and a shrug. And an iced coffee.

Shen held out his hand, and you stepped in a little closer. His palm settled against the sensitive skin on back of your calf, the contact making your blood surge a little.

"Did you come from the hospital? Or did you have off?" you asked, hyper aware of how his fingers caressed your skin.

He nodded, "Came from work just a couple hours ago, figured I'd come down and enjoy the nice day while they last. Swear I can feel the chill of autumn creeping in."

"Don't tease me." you said, "I, for one, can't wait."

"Of course you can't, crazy woman." A smile tugged at the corner of his mouth while his hand ran up, cupping behind your knee. "You always say that, then spend all winter complaining you're cold."

You laughed, shaking your head. Your gaze landed on his wife and children in the pool.

"How's Gwen?" you asked.

 All three of them were splashing around together, their laughter carrying across the water. She glanced over, spotted you standing with her husband, and immediately smiled before lifting a hand. Shen and his wife had an interesting relationship, one that allowed both of them to have their cake and eat it too, so to speak. He told you the first time he'd come into the exam room that his wife didn't mind if he occasionally saw you while he worked, and he didn't mind if she had her own time with one of the other dermatologists at her practice.

You waved back. When you looked down again, Shen's hand had found its way to the back of your thigh.

"We're good," he said. "Kids look like they're trying to drown her, but she's good."

You smiled down at him wider.

"Where've you been?" he asked then, looking up at you.

"Home, mostly." you said, your teeth digging into your bottom lip.

"Mm." he hummed, thumb brushing against the top of your thigh, close to the crease of your leg. "Robby said you're taking a break."

The thought of Robby apparently discussing your month long restrictions with the rest of the residents and attendings sent a strange little flutter through your stomach. Despite how ridiculous, your thighs pressed together automatically.

A smile appeared on Shen's face almost immediately as he glanced down between your legs, noticing the shift. His hand slid up higher, until it just brushed the hem of your bathing suit. "Miss you, it's been a while."

Your hand suddenly shot out, having to grip his bare shoulder to hold yourself up as his hand slid up to cup your bum, the tips of his fingers sliding just under the damp fabric of your suit. He squeezed the sensitive flesh in his hand, making you gasp and your knees wobble.

"Do you miss me, hot stuff?"

You nodded, pressing your lips together firmly.

"Cat got your tongue, huh?" he teased, his fingers pressing a little firmer. He had such a nice smile, charming and coy as he felt you up. He barely reacted to how sensitive you were to his wandering hand, but when your eyes dropped to his lap, you saw exactly how he felt. His swim trunks had gone noticeably tighter, a bulge stretching the fabric that made your mouth water.

"Y-yes," you managed, trying very, very hard not to let out the moan that threatened to escape when he slid his prodding fingers along the seam of your lower lips. "Miss y-you too."

"I'm sure you do," he cooed. "Can feel just how bad."

Your fingers dug into his shoulder harder, your teeth latched into your bottom lip as you let your eyes close a little when his middle finger pushed just so at your entrance.

"Too bad you're grounded. I can think of so many fun things we could be doing right now, hot stuff."and then his smile brightened in wattage, and he was pulling his hand away. "S'just a shame, isn't it?"

"Johnnnnn," you whined, stamping your foot before playfully smacking his shoulder. "You tease—"

He chuckled at that, bringing his fingers to his mouth, sucking them clean as his shoulders shook, already glancing back down at the paperwork in his hands.

"As tempting as you are, hot stuff, I'm not trying to get my ass kicked by Robinavitch. Now go be a good girl and say hi to Gwen."

You rolled your eyes, smiling despite yourself as you turned and headed toward the pool. You heard his voice call out behind you:

"Hate to see you go, love to watch you—"

You crouched by the water, scooping up a handful and splashing it directly at him.

Robby: have to stay long. do you want to come in

The text from Robby had your stomach tightening immediately as you read it from your spot on the lounge chair a little while later, both of Shen's kids planted beside you and chatting your ear off about their summer holiday plans for Disney World. You nodded along dutifully as they argued over which park was best, but your attention snagged on the screen in your hand the second his name appeared.

You: im at the pool right now

A speech bubble appeared and disappeared while you waited, your toes curling against the warm plastic fabric stretched across the chair. You tried to focus on what Mia was telling you about Epcot, but your attention was already wandering. It always did when it came to Robby.

Then, another text from Robby: leave the suit on. come in.

"I'm sorry, you guys, I gotta go," you said, pushing yourself upright.

Both kids immediately started protesting while you laughed and bent down to hug them goodbye.

"Seriously, John, if you ever need a sitter." you said as you stretched your arms around him.

"Careful," Shen called after you as you turned to embrace his wife. "You keep saying that and we're actually gonna start taking you up on it."

Both he and his wife thanked you and hugged you goodbye, and a few minutes later you were gathering up your things and heading out.You didn’t even bother going back home or changing, knowing full well Robby loved you in your little skimpy swim suits and cover ups—sometimes more than a lacy lingerie set.

An hour later, you were walking into the ED, the AC blasting hard enough to raise goosebumps along your arms. You rubbed your hands over them as you crossed through the entrance, waving hello to Lupe at the desk. She buzzed you through without issue, and you tossed quick greetings toward Ahmad and Mike as you passed.

In the chaos of the emergency department, something felt off immediately. Though, it seemed to be dying down. Voices carried in as they shouted over one another, people burst in and out of doors while the phone rang. Monitors chirped, ranging from steady and level to chaotic fits of panic. You caught a glimpse of Samira disappearing into a trauma room with Langdon behind her with Mel and Whitaker on their heels.

Dana intercepted you before you made it halfway to the charge station.

"Hey, angel. I'm sorry. Did Robby call you in?" She hooked an arm around you and immediately started steering you toward the back hall. "As happy I am to see you, it's a bit of a mess right now."

"What happened? Is everyone okay?"

"Incident at Kennywood. Rollercoaster."

"Oh, god."

Dana grimaced while squeezing your shoulder. "Yeah."

As she turned you down a hall, she added: ""Listen, I'll stick you in a room for now. Things are settlin' down, but it could still be a while before he gets free."

"Yeah, yeah of course, D." you said.

You'd barely made it around the charge station before somebody called Dana's name from across the department.

"Shit."

"Go," you said immediately. "I'm good. I'll find my way."

"North five, angel." Dana said, pointing your way ahead. You nodded, and started walking.

Every room seem occupied the further back you went, stretchers lining the walls and IV poles clustered near doorways. It wasn't as bad as some disasters you'd heard of—Pitt Fest for one—but still. It looked rushed, blood still on the floor of an empty trauma bay. Every room seemed to hold a different injury. Teenagers with broken bones and lacerations. Parents hovering anxiously beside hospital beds. A little girl clutching a stuffed rabbit while a nurse wrapped gauze around her arm.

The emergency department always had a strange feeling to it. Grief and relief lived side by side here. In one room somebody cried. In the next, a family laughed so hard you could hear it through the curtain. It made your chest ache a little harder the further you got.

"Hey, you."

You turned at the breathless voice and found Langdon hurrying toward you, already tearing off the disposable surgical cover he'd thrown on for trauma.

"Hey. Is everything okay?"

"Yeah, yeah—" He ran a hand through his hair before letting out a tired breath. "Well, no, actually, not really. But it will be."

"That's good." you said, and you were surprised to see him still following you as you kept walking. "Frank, go check on your patients, I'm good—"

"You know, I missed seeing you around here, baby."

The words stopped you—the pet name specifically had your tummy twisting a little—and Langdon guided you toward an empty strip of wall tucked away from the main traffic of the department, just enough privacy to steal a conversation.

"Don't tell me you've been neglecting your patients over a withheld reward again, Frankie."

His dimple appeared first, deepening into one cheek before the rest of the smile caught up, still a little breathless, shaking his head down at you. "No, never."

You smiled back up at him. It felt almost normal again, like it hadn't been over three weeks of you being kept away.

"Robby said you uh…"

"Yeah." you murmured, your smile slipping.

"Takin' a break from all of us then?" he asked, something amused in his pretty blue eyes.

"Just for now." you said, a little teasing lilt in your voice. "Don't worry, I'll be back soon."

"You're back now." he said, tilting his head down at you. "Does that mean…?"

You shook your head.

"Okay," he said easily, with a sort of half nod, his eyes never leaving yours. "Okay, I'll back off then. Good to see you though, baby."

Something in your chest pinched. Maybe it was because you'd spent the last month mostly at home. Maybe it was because seeing everyone again had reminded you how much of your life existed inside these walls. Or maybe you just really had missed him. Whatever the reason, you didn't let him get far before you stepped forward and wrapped your arms around his middle.

"Miss you too, Frankie." you murmured into him, "always."

His arms settled around your shoulders almost immediately, pulling you in while his cheek pressed lightly against the top of your head. You felt the vibration of a chuckle thrum through him before he was gently pushing you away, "Careful, I'll start thinking you have favorites."

"Maybe I do." you grinned up at him, your eyes a little hazier than before, your skin warmer as you felt his long, lean body against yours. God, you really did miss him. The flirty, the easy affection. This was all familiar to slip back into with him.

"Don't make me want to kiss you," he murmured, squeezing you against him again. "I could get in big trouble."

A laugh threatened at the back of your throat. "Yes you could," you said softly.

You stood there with your neck craned back, looking up at him beneath hooded eyes while his blue gaze wandered across your face. His dimple deepened when he smiled. He looked exhausted. Hair slightly disheveled, scrubs wrinkled. There was dried blood on one sleeve he'd probably forgotten about hours ago. Still so pretty. So Frank.

For one second, you thought he might actually give in as his head bent down lower, his eyes dropping to your waiting mouth. But then—

"Langdon! We need you in trauma two!" Perlah shouted down the hall. Langdon glanced up, blinking back to reality, and slowly let you go.

 "I'll see you around, baby. Be good!" he called as he started backing away.

"Bye," you murmured. You lifted a hand in a lazy wave, watching him disappear down the hallway long after he'd stopped looking back.

You felt a little thrown off course from your run in with him, your blood taking a moment to run smoothly, your heart settling. The cool air that rushed into your chest made your chest squeeze, your nipples under the thin bathing suit harden. You inhaled deeply but found it hard to catch a full breath. Fuck, you were screwed if you didn't find an empty room.

Finally, you turned on your heel, north five back in your sights.

But then—

"Bunny?"

You looked to your right and found Brendon Park stepping off the elevator.

Tall was almost an inadequate word for him. Even from halfway across the hallway, he seemed to take up space effortlessly, broad shoulders filling the opening as the elevator doors slid open. The second he spotted you, his attention locked on completely. His gaze swept over you from head to toe, taking in the swimsuit cover-up, the sandals, the just dried hair, and whatever conclusion he reached made something tense in his face.

His long strides carried him toward you quickly.

"Hey—" you started, and he was bending down before you could say anything else, pressing a quick kiss to your lips.

"How are you? What're you doing here? Were you at the theme park?"

"What?" you asked, still trying to catch up with the speed of the interaction before glancing down at yourself. Right. You could almost look like you came from a theme park. "Oh. No, no— I'm okay. I just came from home."

The relief that crossed his face was immediate, his shoulders dropping slightly, some tension leaving him as he glanced around the department. He sent a glare to a passing doctor you didn't recognize before turning his attention right back to you.

He stepped forward into you.

You stepped back.

His brow furrowed slightly, concern still written all over his face as he looked you over again, checking for something you'd somehow forgotten to mention. The movement felt almost unconscious on both your parts. Brendon kept drifting closer, drawn in by equal parts worry and affection, and you kept retreating beneath the weight of that honed gaze, your brain already struggling to keep up.

He did it again, and again, until your hips pressed into the sharp edge of a table, a little gasp coming from your mouth as he loomed over you closer still.

“Brendon—” you said, and as he leaned down again to try to catch your lips again, you turned quickly so your back was to his chest instead. It didn’t help. If anything, it only made you more aware of how much space he took up, the broad width of him filling in behind you, his shoulders so expansive they cut off the hallway on either side. He'd always been big, big enough to overwhelm, but usually it was so easy to forget because he was so careful with you. His touch was gentle, his voice gentler. Today though—he felt too big for his own good. All that focus of his predatory stare had your heart in your throat. Maybe because you knew how easily you'd give in. It had been so long, after all.

With your back turned, hips pressing into the empty desk, you closed your eyes. The wood edge dug into your skin as he crowded closer. You shivered when you felt his strong nose brush through your hair as he bent his head, tracing slow along your neck and around the shell of your ear, inhaling.

"What's goin' on with you, bunny?" he murmured. "You're trembling."

You gasped when his lips pressed against the tender skin behind your ear, your back arching before you even realized it. Heat pooled hard, throbbing painfully between your legs, your thighs tightening together for some kind of relief while you gnawed at your bottom lip hard enough to hurt.

"N-nothing's wrong," you tried to say, but it came out thin and desperate. "I—we—I can't umm…"

It was too much, too overwhelming. Too many people touching you when you weren't allowed to do anything about it.

"Can't what, bunny?" he said softly, voice so low it sent heat down your spine, his nose tracing the shell of your ear now. "Can't just talk, hm?"

You shook your head a little. His mouth started trailing down your neck, making goosebumps rise over your skin, your nipples beneath your bathing suit top pebbling even harder and your knees wobbling.

"But I've missed you, bunny."

The words went straight in your stomach, heat coiling, core fluttering. You sighed shakily, and then he stepped even closer, and you felt him—hard beneath his cotton scrubs, pressing into the curve of your lower back.

"Oh, fuck," you whispered. "Brendon, I really can't—"

"You don't have to do anything, Bunny," he whispered back, though his kisses had already turned hungrier, firmer against your skin as they went down your neck onto your shoulder. "How've you been, hm?"

"Mmm... I've been... okay..." Your thoughts were starting to slide apart, softening so quickly you couldn't quite hold onto them.

"You smell so good," he muttered, completely ignoring your answer. "Smell a little like desperation. Robby been takin' care of you, sweet girl? Been so long since I've seen you."

Your breath stuttered. "I've been..." You forced yourself to inhale deep, trying to get oxygen back into your brain while he pressed his hips slowly against you from behind. The pressure made your core ache harder. You caught yourself trying to lean away from him just to think straight. "I've been grounded."

You felt the sharp burst of breath against your neck, almost a laugh.

"Grounded, huh?" His teeth scraped lightly against the crest of your shoulder. "What's that like?"

Your face burned. You wondered if Robby hadn't told him, or if he was just pushing all the right buttons. "No, um..." You swallowed hard. "I'm not allowed to… finish. Or be shared."

Brendon went still for half a second.

Then, finally understanding, he leaned harder into you with a low growl that sounded punched out of him.

"Is that right?" he said, and you could tell his teeth were bared, shark-like, before you even spared a glance over your shoulder. "Robby doesn't want his best girl feelin' good anymore?"

"No, it's not—not that—"

Your words broke apart when his hands slid around your hips. Big hands—warm and heavy. His fingers rubbed slowly into your skin just above the waistband of your shorts and it felt so good your stomach tightened painfully around it. You could already feel how wet you'd gotten, slick heat pooling fast between your thighs, you could've sworn you felt it starting to run down your leg.

His hands didn’t stay still for long, and fuck, they felt so good. Your mouth opened in a quiet gasp when they dragged up your front, over your stomach, beneath the loose fabric of your cover-up, his palms broad enough to make you feel held and handled at the same time. He slipped a hand of them under one the little flimsy triangles that covered your breasts, and your lungs caught. His own breath was heavy in your ear, hot and uneven against your skin, the outline of his cock pressing insistent against your back while his fingers wandered and squeezed at you.

You could hardly keep up with your mind or your body,

Your thoughts catching on how you were not supposed to be doing this, on the rules, on the fact that this was Brendon Park with his hands under your clothes, while your body arched back into him anyway, little gasps and whimpers slipping out before you could swallow them. Because it had been so long. Because it had been torturous, missing these big hands on you, missing the thick heat of him pressing into you, the way he touched you like he’d been thinking about it for weeks.

And then, his hands continued their wandering back down your stomach. And then, to your horror and complete and utter pleasure, one of his hands slipped beneath the elastic of your waistband.

"Brendon—"

"Let me check on you, bunny," he whispered, breath heavier now. "Just wanna make sure you're okay. I've missed you."

His palm slid lower beneath the lining of your bathing suit until it settled heavy against your pubic bone, and then his fingers, thick and rough with callouses, dipped carefully into the soaked seam between your legs.

"Fuckkkkk," he exhaled, like the word got dragged right out of his chest with a moan.

Your hands flew to the desk, palms flattening against scattered papers while your head dropped forward in defeat. You were grateful no one was passing by behind you, that the hallway somehow had been deserted the past few minutes. You didn't want to imagine what this looked like.

"Oh my god," you whimpered.

He was barely touching you. And yet, just the pads of two fingers circling slow through the slickness of your folds and the teasing around your clit was enough to make your brain turn to mush and your legs so weak so you could hardly stay standing.

"You're so wet I bet my cock would slide right in this pussy," he muttered, voice strained and wrecked despite the filth of his words, his hips dragging against your lower back harder in a grinding motion.

Park's fingers slid further, cupping your wet mound and prodding your entrance, his palm creating pressure for your clit, and the sharp pulse of pleasure nearly made you cry out. You had to bite into your lip hard to keep yourself from moaning at the contact, the constant ache you'd been left with cracked apart into sparks that shot all the way up your spine.

"Oh god, Brendon—"

You spread your legs obediently when his knee nudged between them.

"You don't have tell Robby, baby," he breathed against your neck. "Let me take care of you."

But hearing Robby's name again snapped through the haze hard enough to make your stomach twist.

 You stood upright so fast you felt dizzy from it. You grabbed Brendon's wrist and pulled his hand from your shorts, turning around to face him with your chest heaving. Despite how equally desperate he had seemed, he pulled away easily at your insistence.

"Brendon," you started, struggling to catch your breath, "I can't, I'm sorry."

He stared down at you, eyes blown dark with arousal, chest rising hard beneath the fabric stretched over his shoulders. You could still feel his thick length in the tent of his scrubs against your belly, could still see his mouth swollen from kissing at your skin. You held onto his thick hand for a moment in between the two of you to stop him. It glistened with arousal along his two fingers.

And just when you opened your mouth to explain, you heard a voice from the end of the hallway.

"Well, hello."

You turned, and your stomach nearly fell to the floor.

Black t-shirt stretched across heavy muscle. Graying curls mussed at the front. Narrowed hazel eyes fixed on Park, his jaw set so hard beneath the shadow of stubble his muscle twitched.

"Abbot." Brendon said curtly, not moving from where he stood with his chest up against yours, his eyes honed in like a predator's.

Jack walked forward, until he was only a couple paces from you. His gaze bounced around your face, then up to Brendon's. There was a faint curve to his mouth, something cheeky and almost amused, but it didn't reach his eyes.

"All okay, sweetheart?" Jack asked when his eyes found you again.

You nodded, suddenly very aware of how close Park was, of warm skin, his heart hammering in his chest up against yours. The way neither of your bodies hadn’t quite calmed down. You could only imagine what this looked like—your mouth parted and heaving, Park's chest pressed up against you.

 "I was gonna grab coffee from Dunkin'." Jack said, "You wanna come?'

You looked between him and Brendon then, uncertain.

"We were having a discussion, Abbot." Brendon then said sternly.

Jack smiled, a charming dimple creasing one of his cheeks, though there was still something in his gaze—something intense and sharp that you'd never seen before. "And I'm sure it was very enlightening."

There was a stiffness to the both of them now, even as Jack shifted his weight from foot to foot, his hands in his cargo pockets. The way Brendon wouldn't move, the way Jack's smile twitched when he looked between the two of you.

"C'mon, sweetheart," Jack offered, pulling one hand from his pocket and beckoning you.

Park's arm immediately slid around your middle, pulling you against him even harder. You looked up at him, suddenly the intensity of his nickname rang true— he looked scary, serious, his face darkening as he looked over at the attending.

"She's fine, Abbot, we were just talking."

When you glanced at Jack, all amusement fell from his face.

"Brendon," you murmured, sighing and looking back up at him.

You lifted your hands up into his chest, sliding them up until your fingers gently pressed into his face, turning it towards you. You saw him soften immediately as his eyes landed back on you.

You rose up onto your toes and kissed him softly on the mouth. You could feel his arm tighten even more against you as he breathed you in, his shoulders dropping. When you finally drew back, his mouth followed yours until you fell back onto your heels.

"Not today, okay?" you murmured, wiping some of the chap stick from his top lip, "I need to sort a few things out first. But I promise, you'll be the first to know when things are back to normal."

He sighed, and threw a mean glare at Jack once more before loosening his grip, though his hands stayed on you, guiding you down.

And finally, when he turned away, it was not without lingering his hands on you for as long as possible—his hands slid down your arms, holding the tips of your fingers as he said, "See you around, Bunny. Be good."

You smiled as you watched him go.

And then, turning around with a long exhale, you looked at Jack.

You'd never seen him look like that before.

There was no smile waiting for you or easy charm, no teasing remark halfway from his mouth. Instead, his brows were set low over his eyes, his jaw still tight like he was close to cracking a molar. He stared down the hall where Park had vanished, his gaze fixed on the empty stretch of tile and fluorescent light with an expression you'd never seen on his face. Mean. You didn't think you'd ever seen Jack Abbot look mean before.

"Jack?"

He shook his head and inhaled sharply, gnawing at the inside of his lip like he was trying to stop himself from saying something he knew he shouldn't. When his eyes landed on you, you watched them travel over your face, down your form, and back up again before he jerked his head toward the main ED.

"C'mon."

When you reached him, his hand settled lightly against your back, guiding you a few steps away from the flow of people moving through the department, toward the wall where a computer on wheels sat parked with its screen dimmed and a Esme was organizing a linen cart.

"I—um—I'm supposed to go meet Robby."

Jack paused. He looked down at you for a second, and suddenly you were far too aware of how close he was standing, of the heat of him even through scrubs, of how the space between you wasn’t really space at all. God. You hated this. You hated how seeing him still did this to you, how your heart immediately started acting up, how three weeks apparently hadn’t been enough time for your mind or your body to understand what you'd done was wrong. That you shouldn't want it again.

"Robby's in a trauma," he said.

"Yeah, I'm..." You swallowed. "I'm gonna go wait for him in North Five."

"Okay."

"Okay..."

You started to turn away.

The whole interaction felt wrong. Just wrong. Three weeks ago you'd been tangled up in each other in a way neither of you had planned for, and now it felt like neither of you knew what to say, how to say it. How to be in each other's presence and not think about it.

"Hey."

You’d only gotten an arm’s length away before it stopped you, and when you turned back, he was still standing exactly where you’d left him, his shoulders squared, his jaw set. He let out a slow breath through his nose and took a few steps closer, one hand settling on his hip while he looked you over.

"Are you okay?"

"Are you?" you asked, your voice maybe a little too defensive.

His head tipped back slightly, eyes never leaving your face. You worried for a moment that he'd give himself trismus with how much he was clenching the muscles of his jaw. He seemed to be weighing the answer, deciding how much of it he wanted to give you. "Been better."

"Yeah, same." you sighed.

Jack looked at you a little closer now, and it made your breath shorten. You wished he wasn't so handsome. You wished being this close didn't remind you of a month ago in the back of his truck, memories of your face in his chest with tears in your eyes, him kissing you, both of you crossing a line you even though you knew better. You wished you could forget how easy it felt with him too.

"You seem…" he began. "Was Park being—?"

“No,” you said quickly, shaking your head. “I’m just feeling really… I don’t know.” You sighed again, your hands coming up to your face, palms pressing against your cheeks, trying to steady yourself, but the overwhelm kept building anyway, tight in your throat and at the base of your neck, your heartbeat too fast and too loud. “It’s fine.”

“Some of us have been… a little restless, I guess,” he said, voice low, his head dipping as he looked at you, his gaze staying on your face in a way that felt careful instead of hungry. “Three weeks is a long time.”

"Yeah," you huffed sarcastically, "You're tellin' me."

He looked at you a little funny.

"I gotta go but… I'm fine. I guess. Yeah. Thanks…um… Jack. I'll see you."

"Okay, sweetheart. See you."

Luckily you didn't have to sit alone in your thoughts for long.

Robby found you in north five soon enough, and even though he looked exhausted—even though the crease between his brows was deep and feathered and his eyes had that look of a long, awful day full of cases he'd remember for life—he still smiled when he saw you.

"Hi, honey," he sighed, and opened his arms for you to fall into.

You went to him, your hands sliding up around the back of his neck, rising to your tiptoes so you could tuck your face into his chest, and he let out a breath that sounded like it had been stuck in him for hours. His arms wrapped around you and held you, swaying a little back and forth in place, his weight shifting in the muffled quiet of the exam room.

For some reason, some sixth sense, some thing that had been learned after all your time with him, you knew this was what he needed. He was particular about touch outside of this—he didn't accept hugs from most, or even a high five. He kept his praise quick and detached with his staff typically with a simple thumbs up or fist bump (though, you knew there was one person other than you who was the exception to that). But with you… it was like you were the only touch that was safe for him to fall into.

And though you craved touch, not even just from him but from everyone you knew—a hug with a friend, a hand on the small of the back, a bumping of shoulders in comradery, and the explicit kind too— there was something deeply sentimental about the touch from Robby's hands. When the two of you fell into each other, it formed a nucleus from the outside world. Nothing else existed now that he was here and holding you. The noise of the day outside the four walls of the exam room simply paused.

You felt his nose sink into your hair, inhaling, "How are you."

"M'okay," you murmured. "You?"

"Yeah." he said softly.

You squeezed him a little tighter.

After a moment, you said: "Robby?"

"Yeah, honey?" he asked.

"I feel like I'm going a little crazy."

He pulled away, only enough so he was still holding you in his arms but able to look down at you and study your face. His brows pulled together for a long moment while he did, assessing for anything really wrong. You felt his thumbs rubbing back and forth over the sheer fabric of your cover up.

"How so?"

You shut your eyes, breathing deeply, trying to collect yourself. You weren't sure why, but you felt almost like you wanted to cry. When you opened them again, Robby's eyes were still focused on you, his expression full of careful attention.

"I feel like I've barely been here an hour and I'm just so—" you shook your head, releasing your hands from his neck to cover your eyes, pressing your fingertips deeply into the sockets. Bright galaxies burst across your vision, and you inhaled again, steadying the whirring of your brain as you tried to think of the right words. "Everyone is being so sweet, trying to take care of me—"

"—take care of you?"

"—but I just feel so fucking overwhelmed, and I don't know how to tell them that I can't—"

"—they should already know to leave you alone—"

"I just want to go home, but I also really don't—because I miss everyone—but still—" you snapped, "I just want to stop feeling so fucking crazy."

"Okay, breathe, please—" he said, his hands sliding from your back to your shoulders, soothing up and down on your skin.

You opened your eyes again, letting your hands drop, sucking in a shaky breath and looking up at him.

"First of all," he said, his voice low and soothing, "I'm sorry I called you to come in on such a crazy day. I… I selfishly thought of having you here, wanting you after all this bullshit and I didn't think about the others seeing you."

"Well, they saw me." You shrugged. "I even ran into John at the pool with his family."

Robby tilted his head, "Did Shen—?"

You shook your head, "We just said hi, that's all. He said he didn't want to get in trouble. Langdon said so too."

Robby nodded, "Good, good."

"But I miss them." you murmured, your eyes wide and watery up at Robby.

"I know, honey."

"And…" you hesitated, but knew it was better to just tell him. "I feel like you're getting such a good fucking deal out of the past few weeks and I'm not. I feel fucking crazy, Michael."

He sighed, squeezing your arms a little tighter, his face with an expression of knowing that you don't want to hear. "Do you know why we've been doing this the past few weeks? Denying you?"

You let your head fall back on your neck with a little groan, "Yes."

"Why?"

"Because I went behind your back, I crossed a boundary. And it's fine, I understand—I just didn't think my body would be so fucking wound tight like this—"

"Okay, I hear you, c'mere," Robby cooed immediately, gently guiding both of you to the hospital bed in the center of the room.

You went without thinking about it, shuffling across the mattress until he could pull you into him. It dipped beneath your combined weight as he settled you on his lap, one arm wrapping securely around your waist while the other came up to cradle the back of your head. You let yourself sink against him completely, legs falling open around the large breadth of his body—hips to hips, chest to chest, your face tucked into the side of his neck where his skin was warm from a long day. His fingers slipped into your hair automatically, fingertips scratching lightly against your scalp while the steady rise and fall of his breathing moved beneath your cheek.

"Okay," he murmured, pressing his mouth briefly to your temple. "Tell me more."

"No, because—" Your voice caught unexpectedly. The burn seared in your throat even worse than before, your eyes prickling, your chin wobbling in a way that only made you more frustrated.

"It's so stupid." You swallowed hard. "You're here saving fucking lives and actually doing something, and I'm sitting here complaining because people..." A humorless laugh escaped you. "People like me too much."

The laugh that left him was soft, so fond that it made you want to hide your face even further. "Oh, honey."

You pushed your lips together to keep yourself from really beginning to weep, croaking out: "Don't laugh at me."

"I'm not laughing at you."

"I know." you admitted, inhaling a deep, shaky breath.

His hand continued moving through your hair, smoothing it back from your face before trailing down your spine in slow strokes.

"I understand what you're saying," he said gently. "But let's not compare apples to oranges, okay? Somebody else's problems don't make yours disappear. If something's upsetting you, it's upsetting you. I want you to tell me these things."

You let out a long breath into his shoulder, your body settling a little heavier against him, his heartbeat steady under your cheek, something you could focus on. His fingers kept moving, combing through the strands at the nape of your neck. For a few minutes, it was just this. His arms around you, your tears drying, your breath coming back to you.

He felt you begin to relax against him and then, his voice gentle and a little raspy: "I have an idea. I know you've been a little pent up, huh? Feeling a little overwhelmed?"

He had a certain way to his voice, a lilt that could always lull you into feeling comforted and yet completely wrapped around his finger. There was a gentleness to him, a softness, a patience. So much so that even without the special set up— the shampoo and the body wash and perfume or even braid in your hair—it had a funny way of making your brain turn to mush when he sounded like that.

You nodded.

"Can you come up a little for me, honey?"

You could do just about anything when he spoke to you like that.

His hands slid beneath your thighs and guided you higher against him, pulling you closer so your chest was up against his clavicle, your nose brushing up into his hair. You breathed him in automatically, the familiar scent of his cologne mixed with hospital and the lingering traces of a shift that had gone on far too long. Beneath you, you felt him shifting, heard the quiet rustle of fabric and the metallic sound of a zipper being tugged down.

The realization of what he was doing sent a fresh wave of heat through you. You began to whine a little at the feeling of it. Of him, against your thigh, his member warm and throbbing.

God, you felt so fucking desperate.

"Think this'll help us both relax a little, hm?" he murmured against your arm.

You nodded feverishly, and his mouth brushed your shoulder with a soft kiss in answer while his hands worked patiently. He helped you out of your cover up and your shorts, untying your bathing suit bottoms since your coordination seemed to have abandoned you entirely. You lifted your hips when he needed you to, shifted your legs where he guided them, letting him take care of the details while your forehead rested against the pillow.

"Aw, honey," he cooed, "you're soaked."

You whined a little more, petulant and impatient for him.

"Okay, okay," he soothed, "I know." And as he brought you back down into his lap, inhaling with a hiss through his teeth, the blunt head of his length pressed at your entrance. "Nice deep breath for me, honey."

You did as bid, and then, on your long sighing exhale, he pushed into you completely. Robby let out a low, strained groan that dragged up from his chest, his head tipping back against the thin pillows as his grip tightened at you. Your mouth opened in a gasp around his neck, a mewling whine falling from your lips.

"Ohhh…" you sighed, wriggling your hips a little to get him even deeper.

"Sh, sh, no moving—" he croaked lazily, his hands going to your hips to still you. "Just stay like that."

Your mouth, opened and wanton, found the side of his neck again, kissing and dragging, wet and searching, your tongue pressing along the line of his carotid while your teeth caught lightly at the skin there. He tasted like sweat, like his aftershave, his skin sensitive and thin around his beard. He hummed appreciatively at the feeling.

"Okay, now tell me what's goin on," he finally said once the two of you settled in. He didn't move his hips, but you could feel the involuntary twitching of his cock inside you every now and then. You were wet enough that it spread everywhere, slick between your thighs, warm where it gathered and slipped down over his balls that fit snug against you and dampening the sheets beneath. It made you ache for movement, for more, your walls clenching around him in want, but you held still, your hands gripping at him instead.

You let out a gurgled sound, your lips swollen and tongue still laving at his neck.

"What, are you suddenly too cock drunk to have a conversation, honey?" he said, and you could hear the smile in his voice.

"Feels… sooo… mmm…" you hummed, the words trailing off as your legs tightened around his on the bed without thinking, the shift pressing you down on him, forcing him deeper. The reaction was immediate—both of you letting out a louder sound this time, your breath catching while his grip snapped tighter, his hands closing hard under your ass, fingers digging in deep enough to sting.

"No. Moving." he gritted out.

"Yes, Robby," you sighed obediently, the name slipping out soft against his skin.

He hummed pleasantly again.

"Tell me what…" you started, but your voice drifted, your mouth still pressed to his neck as your thoughts slipped, the feeling of him filling you pulling your focus under again, your body tightening around him in small, needy pulses you couldn’t quite control. "...What happened with your day."

You felt a little boneless on top of him, your kisses becoming slower, more gentle, until you were only pressing your lips into his beard. He let out a long breath, his hands easing their grip, sliding up your back, then back down in slow passes, smoothing over your skin.

"There was a bad incident at Kennywood."

"Dana told me," you murmured, your eyes blinking open a little, your voice quieter now as you listened, trying to stay with him.

He nodded against the pillow, his jaw shifting under your cheek. "It’s always… the worst when…" He paused, breath catching slightly, like he had to push the rest out. "When it’s kids."

You nodded, understanding.

"I don't wanna talk about my day," he suddenly said, though his voice was still low and gentle, "I wanna hear about yours."

You shook your head, closing your eyes again. You moved a little on the bed.

"Stop squirming so much, honey, I know what you're up to—"

You smiled into his neck. But then you heard his pager go off.

He groaned under you, his head tipping back as he reached blindly toward the bedside table, fingers fumbling for it before bringing it up to his ear. "Robinavitch, I'm busy—oh—hey."

You resumed your soft, leisurely kisses to his neck, praying he wasn't being called out into the fray again. He felt so warm, so good here. You felt so full and content, your mind still hazy and soft, lips swollen and warm against his skin.

"Yeah, hang on—" He pulled the pager away from his ear, turning his head so his mouth brushed against your hair. "Honey—"

"Mm?" you hummed, your lips still moving against his throat.

"It's Jack."

That snapped the rubberband of your brain back to yourself, eyes opening immediately, your head lifting back and your body going still on top of him.

"It's okay, it's okay—" Robby soothed quickly, one hand coming up to steady you where you’d pulled back. He shook his head a little, his expression holding. "He wants to know if he can come check on you. He said you had a hell of a day."

Your brows pulled together as you looked down at him, your hands planted on his chest, the feeling of him connected to you more heightened as you sat back on top of him.

"And… you’re…okay with that?"

His jaw tightened a little, the muscle jumping beneath his beard, but it didn’t settle into anything sharp this time. Something else passed through his face instead, quieter, held in check. "Yeah, it's okay."

You stared at him for another moment, unmoving.

"I promise," he added, his thumb brushing once along your hip. "But if you don’t want him to come in, it can just be me and you."

You worried your lip between your teeth, your gaze dropping briefly to the pager still in his hand, then back to him. There was a small, stretched pause before he lifted it again and brought it up to your ear instead.

You watched him the whole time, and he only nodded when it touched your skin. You didn't take the phone from him, only let him hold it up to you.

"Jack?" you murmured.

"Hi, sweetheart."

His voice was soothing through the device, rough and hoarse and sultry—Robby's lips twitched, not naive to the feeling of your body reacting to the sound of it. You pictured him just as you saw him a little while ago, though in your minds eye, his face had softened, his shoulders were dropped, that intense look long gone.

"Hi," you whispered, "Are you coming in to say hi?"

"Only if you want me to."

Your eyes flicked back to Robby, searching again, and he gave you another small nod, steady this time.

"Okay."

Robby took the pager back, bringing it to his ear again, his gaze not leaving your face. "North five," he said. "Don’t let anyone follow you in."

There was a beat, a quiet exchange on the other end you couldn’t hear, and then Robby lowered the pager, setting it back onto the bedside table without looking away from you.

"C'mere." he said, pulling you into him once again.

You went easily, folding into his chest, your arms tucking in between you where there was barely space, your cheek settling against him. A million questions ran through your head, but they felt quieted by Robby's arms around you, his lips at the top of your head. The way you couldn't help but notice his length swelling more inside of you.

Only a few minutes later, there was a knock at the door.

Robby reached for the hospital blanket without moving you too much, dragging it up and over your back, tucking it around your hips with one hand while the other stayed firm around you.

"Yeah," he called.

The door opened, and with it came a brief rush of noise from the floor—voices, monitors beeping somewhere down the hall, the squeak of shoes—before it cut off again as the door clicked shut.

"Hey," came Jack’s voice from across the room.

You lifted your head slightly from where it had been tucked into Robby’s neck, turning just enough to look over your shoulder. Jack stood near the door in his the same clothes, black t-shirt pulled tight across his chest and arms, cargos sitting low on his hips, his stethoscope looped around his neck, badge clipped at his belt.

Robby looked at him without expression, merely acknowledging him, before his attention dropped back to you. "I’m gonna let him come say hi, okay?"

You nodded against him. You didn’t see it, but you felt the shift in Robby as he looked up, giving Jack a small nod, a subtle tilt of his head that brought him closer.

Jack’s steps weren’t loud, and you felt him before you saw him, the space beside the bed changing, his presence close enough that you didn’t have to turn to know he was there. His hand came to your back, so broad and warm, and calloused even through your sheer cover up, moving slowly over your shoulder blades, back and forth in an easy rhythm.

"You doing better now, sweetheart?" he murmured.

"Mhm," you hummed.

"D'you tell Robby about your day?"

You shook your head. There was a pause that hung for a second, quiet but noticeable as the two of them looked at each other over you.

"Do you want me to tell Robby?"

You hesitated, your fingers shifting where they rested against Robby's chest, and then you nodded again. You didn’t have it in you to say much—your mouth parted like you might, but the words didn’t come, your focus slipping instead. Your body stayed tuned to both of them, fully aware of Jack there now, of the shift he brought into the space, but you didn’t let the nerves of a changing dynamic pull you away from that soft space in your mind you'd found only moments before. Your eyes moved between them briefly, a little slower, a little softer, before dropping again, your lashes lowering as you settled against Robby.

"S’okay, honey," he said beneath you, his hand coming up to smooth your hair back, tucking a piece behind your ear. "We can talk about it in a little. I wanna show Jack how good of a girl you are first. Is that okay?"

You tightened your hold again. You felt quieted, pacified by Robby's comforting hold, your brain still a little fuzzy despite the other presence in the room.

"She okay?" Jack asked.

"Oh, yeah," Robby answered knowingly, his voice low, that same rough gentleness in it as his hand drifted down your back again. "She gets a little overwhelmed sometimes. This helps." He glanced up at Jack. "Go grab the stool, I’ll show you."

You heard Jack move, the roll of the stool’s wheels against the floor, the faint creak as he settled onto it somewhere beside the bed, though you couldn’t see exactly where. You glanced back anyway, just enough to catch him watching you, a small smile pulling at his mouth when he caught your gaze.

"I’m gonna talk to Jack now, okay, honey?" Robby murmured close to your ear, his lips brushing your hair as he spoke. "If you have anything to add, you can. Don’t worry about being shy."

Your thoughts felt even slower now as your focus narrowed down to the way your body sat on his, your legs still spread around his hips, the stretch of him inside you constant and full. When he pulled the blanket back, the air hit your skin, cool against the warmth you'd created, and it made everything feel heightened for a second before it settled back into that same hazy heat. Beneath you, you felt him react again, a slow swell, a small pulse that made your stomach draw tight.

Jack swore under his breath when the blanket dropped, and you watched him through heavy lids as his gaze lowered, fixed between you and Robby, on the place where you were joined.

"She's a good girl, brother." Robby said seriously.

"Yeah," Jack said, the edge in his voice gone quieter, more focused. "Yeah, she is."

"Jack." Robby’s tone shifted when he said it—flat, deliberate. There was a pause as he waited until Jack looked at him fully before continuing. "I want you to understand what you’re asking for."

Jack's jaw tightened a little at that, his expression a little more serious.

"This isn't just fucking around for fun." Robby said with a tightness to him, carefully stern. "It's a dynamic that only works because what’s underneath it is solid. Because at the end of the day, this what actually matters."

Jack didn't say anything.

"Her and I work because we want the same things," Robby went on. "Trust, for one. There’s no wondering where the line is, no second-guessing it. And when something crosses it—" his eyes flicked to you for half a second, then back, "—we deal with it."

Jack's lips pursed. You squirmed a little in Robby's hold, but he went on anyway.

"There are rules her and I both follow. She knows she can trust me, and, though it may look different to the outside, she has all the control here."

"Even if you give the okay?" Jack asked, more direct now.

Robby nodded, "The only way this works is with her okay. She is the one letting me make that call. She gives it all to me, and tells me when she wants things or doesn't. She's a good girl because she willingly hands me the responsibility to take care of her, to know her best, to understand and let her be exactly who she is without question."

You weren’t sure why, but again, your throat began to tighten. You closed your eyes, pressing your face into Robby’s neck, disappearing there. It was strange, hearing them talk about you like that, like you weren’t right there between them—but it didn’t feel bad. If anything, it settled somewhere deeper, somewhere steady and comforting. You'd never heard Robby explain your dynamic to anyone, it was just something that came to be between you, something that both of you understood and needed. Even through hours of conversation, of open talks of wants and needs and dreams and desires, you'd never heard it put like this before.

"Do you remember, a few years ago, when…"

"When you planned that ego-death trip to Head Smashed In?" Jack said, a quiet amused note to his answer.

Robby nodded slightly beneath you. You’d heard about that before, it was right before you knew him, before any of this.

"I don’t think…" he started, his hand moving slow up your back, then settling there firmly again. "I don’t think I could’ve come back from that and been where I am now without this. Without her."

Your grip on Robby tightened. His arms came around you a little tighter too.

"I’m telling you all this, Jack," he went on, his voice steady again, "because if you want in, you need to understand it’s not just about getting your rocks off—"

"—I never said that was—"

"I know. But you also need to understand its not about stealing her from me, either." Robby cut in, the words heavy, as if said through bared teeth. It made you squirm again in his hold, your body clenching down and him twitching inside of you, the place between you so wet and sensitive and swollen it made your hips begin to tingle.

But then Robby’s words finally clicked in your head, and you lifted your face from his neck, pulling back just enough to look between them. "Wait—"

"I’m not looking to steal anything," Jack went on, shaking his head, his voice rougher now, less smooth than usual. "I want— fuck…" He broke off, dragging a hand down his face, fingers pressing over his mouth before he dropped it and leaned forward, elbows braced on the bed, his head dipping for a second.

You shifted again, sitting up a little more, your chest pulling away from Robby’s as you reached for Jack, your hand sliding into his hair without thinking. He reacted right away, his hand coming up to hold yours there, pressing it lightly against his head, still not looking up, his grip steady like he didn’t want you to pull away.

But when he did, the look on his face almost made you cry in earnest. There was so much there—a yearning, a loss, a sadness. And yet, so much want it made your chest feel like it cracked in two.

"You're… joining us?" you asked softly.

He took the hand you had in his hair and brought it down, guiding it to his face until your palm cupped his cheek, the rough shadow of his beard dragging lightly against your skin.

"Is that something you’d like to try?" he asked, quieter now.

You nodded, your thumb moving along the edge of his cheekbone before you could stop yourself. And when you did, he turned his face fully into your hand and pressed a kiss to your palm, his lips warm, lingering as his eyes stayed on yours before they slid back to Robby.

"I saw Park cornering her today," he said, the words coming out a little tighter, "It made me feel insane. How do you… how does that part work?"

Robby let out a small breath through his nose, something almost amused under it, even as his hand stayed firm at your side.

"I mean, right now, it pisses me off," he said plainly. "Because he's supposed to know better. They're supposed to ask first." Robby said. There was a dry edge to it, an annoyance even as his cock jumped inside of you. Then his attention came back to you. "What did he do, honey?"

You gnawed on your lip, and Jack rolled the stool so you could see them both at once. He sat on Robby’s right, angled toward the bed, his forearms braced on his thighs as he looked up at you. And from that angle, being split over Robby's member that was pulsing and swelling, feeling both of their eyes on you, it had your stomach clenching.

"Oooh—" Robby choked slightly, his hands tightening at your hips to hold you still, his grip still firm as he felt the change in you. "What is it?"

You smiled a little, reaching forward now for Jack, your fingers carding through the top of his graying hair, pushing it back. "I like this view."

Both of them chuckled a bit at that. But Robby's hands tightened on your hips again, "Tell me about Dr. Park, honey. It's time we talk about it now."

You let your hand fall from Jack’s curls, both of your palms coming to rest flat against Robby’s chest, feeling the steady rise and fall of his breathing under your touch.

"He… um…" You glanced at Jack, then back to Robby, your fingers curling a little in Robby's shirt. "We ran into each other in the hall, and he was worried I was at Kennywood too. But then he—." Your face went warm. "He said he missed me, he starting touching me—" You swallowed, eyes dropping for a second. "I think I just got overwhelmed."

"Do you miss him too?"

You bit your lip hard enough it hurt, your eyes dropping for a second before you went on. "Yes. But... I don’t know if it’s just because it’s been so long."

Robby nodded once, not interrupting, just watching you.

Jack hadn’t moved, his gaze fixed on you.

"He… he tried to—um—finger me—"

The word caught on the way out of your mouth, your voice hitching as Robby’s hips jerked up under you sharply. The movement made you gasp, your body tightening, your hands pressing harder into his chest.

Jack’s eyes flicked between you both, trying to take it all in—the dynamic, the shift of the room moment by moment.

"I didn’t let him," you rushed on, your voice thinner now. "He touched me and I was—I was getting so close too fast, but I couldn’t—I knew you’d be mad. That I was grounded."

"Grounded?" Jack asked, his brow pulling slightly.

You nodded. He looked to Robby, and Robby answered without looking away from you.

"After your little run-in," he said, calm, measured, "we adjusted things for a few weeks. Other than the no sharing, she's not allowed to finish."

"Fuck." Jack whispered.

You didn’t even realize you were moving at first. It was small, almost unconscious—your hips shifting against him, a slow, shallow rock that dragged him deeper each time. It built gently, the light press of your clit against the thatch of hairs at the base of him creating a delicious friction. Your body leaned into it before your mind caught up, your breath starting to change as it settled into a rhythm. Robby didn't seem to want to stop you this time, he just let you gently rock back and forth.

"How did it feel, honey?" he croaked, his eyes changed to a narrowed, hungry gaze as he watched you. "Having Park's fingers on you after so long?"

"Felt so good," you whispered, "too good."

"Fuck." Jack said again, but this time, it was hoarse with a thick arousal. "When I saw…" he went on, swallowing thickly. Your eyes flickered to him.

"I only saw you after the fact, but his fingers were—they were wet and I didn't realize—" Jack's hand was on his lap, tightening around the inside of his thigh. You licked your lips, rocking your hips harder against Robby now.

"I kissed him too, Robby—I'm sorry—" you moaned out louder now, pressing down harder, chasing that friction now as Robby's hands pushed you down onto him further, his lip beginning to curl back.

"I wanted to punch him." Jack growled.

You gasped, mewling at the feeling now, Robby's cock punching deeper inside you as he dipped his hips and pushed back in.

"Seeing you up against Park like that, all pushed into him—fuck—" Jack groaned, tightening his hand on his cargo pants where you could see a little stain of precome through his pants. "Robby, brother—pull down her—"

He didn't even have to finish the sentence before Robby was reaching up and yanking the little triangles of your bathing suit aside, your breasts falling, nipples peaking at the cold air. The fabric cut into your skin around the globes, so they were more pressed together as your mouth hung open, watching both of them through heavy lids. Jack groaned in what almost sounded like pain as his hand tightened around his growing bulge.

"Take it out—" Robby commanded to the attending, "Do it—"

Jack didn't hesitate, He unzipped his cargos, pushed them down to just the mid thigh, and pulled his thick cock out.

"I see what you meant, honey—" Robby quipped with a breathless little smile as he punched up into you again. "When you said he felt big—"

Jack let his head fall back onto his neck a little, but his lips quirked into a breathless little smile, "You two—you two gossiping about me?"

You nodded, "I told him you felt so big inside me, Jack, how good it— your cock—oh god," you mewled.

Your features pinched together at the feeling of tightening in your spine, hips beginning to cramp.

"No, no, no—honey—don't you fucking dare—" Robby demanded, his teeth bared up at you.

"What?" Jack whimpered. You watched his wide grip wrap around his throbbing shaft, the glistening bead of arousal growing at the reddened tip. He used it, sliding the slick with his thumb over the head of his cock while he watched you bounce on Robby.

"She wants to come—" Robby said, though it was mean, a groan, a chastising.

"Fuck it, let her—"

"No—" Robby growled.

"Pleaseeeeeeeee…" you mewled, tears beginning to blur your eyes so you could hardly see Jack, how his jaw unhinged and his body slumping over as he fisted his cock faster.

"No." Robby barked, even as his thrusts became uneven. "Hold it."

Your face pulled into a wailing grimace, the pain in your belly, your spine, of holding it back.

"Breathe, sweetheart, just breathe—" Jack soothed, coming back to himself a little, his voice hoarse and desperate and yet soothing, "easier if you don't tighten up so much, just breathe through the feeling, it's just a wave—"

You did as he said, pulling in a deep breath, trying to force your hips to settle, to loosen, and Robby’s eyes widened as he watched you. Then he was groaning low, pushing you down onto himself with one last thrust. Oh, fuck, that’s so good— he moaned, his voice breaking as you felt him fill you with long ropes of thick, hot, spend, your thighs starting to shake from it.

You heaved in long, slow breaths as you whined from the denial, your eyes locked on Jack as he worked himself faster, his mouth parted, breath coming rougher. But instead of folding in on himself, he shifted, pushing his knees wider, leaning back in the chair just enough to hold himself there, his body straining. The noises he made were shallow, deep, a desperate string of curses, of your name.

"Come, Jack, please—please come for me—" you begged, your voice catching as your hips started to move again over Robby.

"God, doesn’t she beg so fucking pretty?" Robby said, breathless, his hands coming up to push your breasts together in his broad hands.

"Yes, God yes, oh fuck—oh fuck—look at me, sweetheart, that's it, look at me when I—" Jack moaned, but the words cut off into a long, strained groan, his brows pulling tight as he came, thick spurts hitting your thigh and his hand, his fist working himself through the overwhelming euphoria.

All three of you were full of breath for a long moment, your hips still tight with the loss of any relief. But you sighed dreamily still, drawing your finger through the milky come along your thigh. Both of them watched you in silence as you lifted it, your lips closing around your fingertip, sucking the salty spend clean. You pulled it out with a small pop, glancing between them with a faint, sheepish smile at the way they were staring.

"Jesus," Robby huffed.

"Yeah." Jack responded.

And then, like it caught up to them all at once, Jack pushed up from the stool, grabbing a few paper towels, wiping his hand off quickly before tucking himself back into his cargo pants. He zipped up, turned back, and stepped in closer again, holding out the towels just as you started to lift yourself from Robby’s lap.

"Thank you," you said softly, taking them.

He didn’t step away. If anything, he closed the space, his hand coming to your elbow, steadying you as you shifted, your legs still a little unsteady. Behind you, Robby moved too, rolling off the bed, one hand still at your side. For a second, both of them had their hands on you at once: close, warm, grounding as you settled back down onto the bed, the paper towels tucked beneath you.

As you sat there, feeling the slow, sticky release from between your legs, you looked up at them. They were looking at each other now, something silent passing between them. Neither of them spoke for a moment.

"So…" you began.

Both of them looked at you from either side of the bed.

"Is this like… going to be normal? How is this going to work?"

Robby sighed, looking at his fellow attending. Both of them still were wordless as they watched each other, as if sizing the other up even after your shared moment.

"Oh, I know," you said, softer now. Your hands came up, one to each of them—Robby back in his black hoodie, the fabric worn and soft under your palm, and Jack’s bare arm, warm under your fingers. They both looked down at you then, both of them a little quieter, a little more open than you were used to seeing. You looked back at Jack.

"Why don't you come for dinner?" you said. "Maybe next week?" Your eyes flicked to Robby. "Would that be okay?"

Robby made a sort of frown, thinking.

But it was Jack who spoke first, "That sounds great, sweetheart."

"And for now, let’s just… go on as normal. Think about what we actually want. We can just… take it slow."

Jack tipped his head down a little, a small smile pulling at his mouth. "That sounds nice." He came closer to you, brushing a kiss to your temple, but you caught him before he could pull away, your hand coming up to his face, your fingers settling along his jaw, holding him there.

When you glanced back to Robby, you saw he was smirking now, watching the two of you with a renewed light ignited behind his eyes.

You looked back at Jack once again, and your focus dropped to his lips.

"I think I deserve a real kiss goodbye," you said softly. "Don’t you think, Robby?"

Robby let out a quiet laugh, folding his arms across his chest. "I think you do. She was such a good girl, after all, Abbot."

Jack huffed a breath of a laugh, his mouth twitching before he leaned in the rest of the way.

"Anything for our best girl." he said, before pressing his lips to yours.

end note (so not to have spoilers): so much love and adoration for my friend court (@pearlessance) !!!! thank you for letting me pluck the idea of split custody from your beautiful brain!

thank you so much for reading!!!

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[winteryn]

ROUGH HANDS, STRAWBERRY KISSES & OTHER SOFT THINGS

18+ | MDNI - masterlist

PAIRING: farmer!bucky barnes x teacher!reader SUMMARY: navigating your first relationship feels overwhelming at times; every touch, every question, every new feeling makes you wonder if you’re doing things right. thankfully, bucky loves you with enough patience and gentleness to turn every new experience into a reason to hold you a little closer. or, a collection of moments in which your boyfriend teaches you that love was never supposed to feel frightening—not when it’s held in careful hands like his. WARNINGS: pre-established relationship; older!bucky (he's just mentioned to be older than reader & have a salt-and-pepper stubble, but both age are unspecified); gentle!bucky; protective!bucky; insecure!reader; reader is mentioned to wear skirts & dresses; size difference (author likes her men tall & beefy); non-sexual & light d/s dynamic; pet names feast & praise festival (this man is disgustingly whipped); reader uses "jamie" a lot bc the author finds it cute & intimate; domestic fluff; tooth-rooting romance; light angst; one (1) small argument; discussion about dealing with arguments in a healthy way; toxic family dynamics (reader's parents mentioned); brief discussion about the future & having kids; smut; big dick bucky organization (🙂‍↕️); soft dom!bucky; scent kink & possessive behavior; nipple play; pussy pronouns; pussy inspection; oral (f receiving); fingering; sex in public places; unprotected sex (I imagined reader to be on the pill but nothing is mentioned); rough & primal sex; multiple orgasms; overstimulation; squirting; creampie. WORD COUNT: 26.2k A/N: so... I won’t lie, I’m a little anxious. this story is extremely self-indulgent and stems from a deeply personal place. I know it might not be many people’s cup of tea but writing this was actually therapeutic after my friend gave me a sort of reality check about my love life lmao. one last thing, the order is not chronological. hope you’ll enjoy!

ᥫ᭡. WHEN YOU WANT TO WEAR MATCHING CLOTHES Sitting cross-legged on your bed, your laptop is balanced precariously on your thighs. The cursor has been hovering over the same cream-colored sweatshirt for almost twenty minutes now, your eyes flicking uselessly between the product picture and the tiny sizing chart beneath it as if either one could help with the actual problem here.

Because unfortunately the problem is not the hoodie per se, but that Bucky owns the exact same one. Well, almost exact. His is a beautiful shade of forest green, faded slightly at the cuffs from use and permanently smelling like fresh air, and the cedar and rose body wash he keeps in his shower. You saw it weeks ago, the first time he picked you up to drive you to work because you had planned to grab dinner together later. His broad shoulders easily filled the doorway of your house, holding two coffees and wearing that stupid hoodie that somehow made him look even larger. You remember trying to subtly peek at it while he drove, only to end up staring shamelessly at the way the sleeves strained around his forearms every time he turned the steering wheel.

And now here you are, thinking about matching clothes like a sixteen-year-old girl with a Pinterest board titled someday. It’s embarrassing enough that you need to physically close the laptop for a couple of seconds, before opening it again with a sigh.

You don’t even know why this matters so much. You have never done this before—the soft, easy parts of a relationship. You have never had someone long enough to build small habits with, someone steady enough that you could easily picture yourself sharing jokes only the two of you could understand over morning coffee, or reaching for their hand in the grocery store without spending days working up the courage first. You are still learning how to ask for things without feeling guilty afterward. Still learning how to want openly. And Bucky... God, Bucky makes it so much worse by being so impossibly patient about everything. From the very beginning.

Your first date had barely even started before he showed up with flowers hidden awkwardly behind his back, his left hand rubbing at the back of his neck almost sheepishly when he handed them to you.

“Before you say anything, sweetheart, my mama raised me right and she’d come back from the dead to beat my ass if I showed up empty-handed.”

Your laugh was so loud and unexpected that he stared at you for a good moment like he had just been entrusted with a beautiful, precious gem.

Then there was the second date. And the third. And somehow every single time, he never failed to surprise you with his sweet thoughtfulness. Sometimes it was wildflowers from his property he’d personally tie together with twine. Sometimes big yet tasteful bouquets of stargazer lilies that you would immediately put in a vase and proudly display on your dining table. Once, peonies so full and soft they had shed pink petals all over the inside of his truck.

He opened every door without making it feel performative, always guiding you carefully with one warm hand on your lower back as if that had become instinct before he even realized it. And then came the night of your fourth day, when he walked you to your door, lingering awkwardly while you fumbled with your keys.

You remember smiling nervously. “So… what exactly are we doing here?”

Bucky had taken a long moment to look at you, blue eyes softening under the faint light of your doorstep. “I was hoping I could court you properly.”

Court you. Who even says that anymore? Apparently, James Buchanan Barnes.

You stared at him while your heartbeat climbed into your throat. And because silence had stretched a little too long, he had immediately stepped in to reassure you.

“Only if you want me to, sweetheart. No pressure.”

No pressure. As if he had not already made your entire understanding of men shift off its axis.

Sometimes, it frightened you how naturally Bucky fit into your life. It started with warm drinks and pastries between classes because, “my pretty girl shouldn’t have to survive on burnt coffee from that old thing in the staff room”; with calling you every night just to hear your voice before bed, and taking you out on dates every Friday. Yet he could not stand going the rest of the week without seeing you, which was how sunny Sunday walks around his property became routine, along with Wednesday lunches at the little diner where his aunt’s friend, Pat, worked and spent the entirety of your meals watching the two of you with the sort of fondness reserved for people who are obviously in love yet keep shyly tiptoeing around each other.

Bucky loves intensely in all the quietest ways, which somehow makes asking for things complicated. Because what if one day you asked for something silly enough that made him realize how inexperienced you really were at all this?

Your eyes land back on the hoodie again as you chew at the inside of your cheek. Before you can overthink yourself out of it, you click purchase.

The first time you wear it around him is for movie night next Saturday. You have been shaking with excitement for weeks over the special twenty-fifth-anniversary screening of The Lord of the Rings. Bucky had agreed to come with you without even letting you finish explaining why it mattered so much, only to follow it up with an amused, “don’t gotta sell it to me, doll. I’ll take you wherever you wanna go.”

You almost change three times before he arrives. By the time his truck pulls up in your driveway, your stomach is churning so badly you feel like throwing up. It’s a hoodie that just happens to be like his, so what? People wear hoodies every day, they’re such a common piece of clothing... This is not a confession of undying love.

Still, the moment you pull open your door and find Bucky waiting on the other side like he’s been standing there just long enough to start missing you, you realize the sweater has perhaps not been your most emotionally neutral decision. His eyes find your face immediately, his default frown melting at once. But before he can even say hi, his gaze drops on the cream-colored fabric. You watch with horror the exact moment recognition settles in.

There is a brief, heavy pause, and then that slow, familiar curve of his mouth appears—not teasing in any cruel sense, never that. Just quietly pleased, enough that heat crawls all the way up your neck. And because your brain seems biologically incapable of letting you experience vulnerability like most people, you blurt out the first thing that comes to mind.

“I thought the color looked nice.” The words tumble over each other so quickly they barely sound coherent by the end of the sentence.

Bucky blinks, clearly caught off guard by your sudden defensiveness, before one dark eyebrow lifts, amusement flickering across his face in the gentlest possible way.

“Nobody said it didn’t, baby.”

You promptly look away as if the floor might offer some kind of mercy, pretending to be preoccupied with the sleeve of your hoodie while internally mourning what little dignity you have left. Bucky doesn’t let you sit in it alone for long, though. Taking a step closer, his warm presence is grounding enough that all the static noise in your brain fades. His hands naturally find your waist like they have always belonged there, before he softly nudges you forward.

“C’mere, sweetheart. Let me say hi properly.” He murmurs, leaning down to press a slow kiss on your lips, grinning at your unguarded, little giggle when his stubble tickles your skin.

The cold evening air makes you shiver, and you instinctively tug your sleeves further over your hands while Bucky leads you to his pickup truck, parked beneath a flickering streetlamp. You can sense his quiet amusement, though he is kind enough not to mention the hoodie outright. Still, every now and then you catch him glancing at you from the corner of his eye with that same smitten expression reserved for you only.

Once you reach the passenger side, Bucky opens the door before you can even think about touching the handle yourself, one hand braced against the top of the frame while you climb inside.

“Watch your head.”

You duck obediently beneath his arm, trying very hard not to think about how quickly you have fallen into these tiny routines with him.

As Bucky rounds the hood and slides into the driver’s seat, your heart finally starts calming down. You might survive the evening with minimal humiliation, after all. But then, he just has to reach across and smoothly pull the seatbelt into place for you—the way his knuckles brush your thigh briefly through the fabric of your jeans still manages to send your thoughts scattering again.

“You’re fidgeting.” He mentions quietly, eyes flicking toward your hands where they are twisting nervously in the sleeves of your hoodie. “What’s going on in that pretty head, hm?”

You shake your head, far too quickly to look convincing.

“Nothing. I’m just a little cold.”

Bucky hums under his breath like he doesn’t believe you for even a second, yet doesn’t comment and instead lets his gaze fall on your sweater one more time before returning to your face. The smile that spreads slowly across his lips is so openly fond that your cheeks start burning.

In a careful movement, he leans over the center console and kisses you, his calloused fingers cupping your jaw with impossible tenderness.

“You look lovely tonight.”

That almost makes your heart explode out of your chest.

The next time he picks you up for lunch on your day off, your breath hitches as you freeze on the threshold. Because Bucky is leaning against the hood of his truck in his dark green sweatshirt, looking so boyishly handsome with his sunglasses pushed up into his long hair.

His expression loosens when he sees your features fall in realization. God, he looks so unfairly gorgeous when he gets that look in his eyes, the same one that suggests every sharp edge exists only for the rest of the world, never for you.

“There’s my pretty girl.”

Your stomach flips violently as he pushes himself off the imposing vehicle to cross the short distance, his hands easily settling at your hips the second he reaches you. He bends to kiss you hello, unhurried despite the cold, and your palms unconsciously come up to touch his chest.

“I missed you so much, baby.”

You are still too busy internally combusting to softly point out that you just saw each other two days ago for bowling night with your friends, Natasha and Darcy. Your fingers curl tighter in the fabric, and Bucky notices instantly.

His thumbs stroke once the curve of your waist. “You okay?”

You nod eagerly.

“You wore it.” The words slip out of your mouth before you can stop them, gaze still lingering on the hoodie in pure wonder.

Bucky glances down at himself, and then at your own sweater before meeting your eyes, the right corner of his mouth lifting adorably.

“Thought we’d look real cute if we matched.”

You feel dizzy at his effortless answer, devoid of any trace of irony or hesitation. And that’s the thing about Bucky, you realize again as you stand there trying to steady your pulse: he doesn’t treat these moments like anything out of the ordinary. He simply folds them into the shape of his care for you.

Before you can collect yourself enough to answer, he is already guiding you forward with an arm around your shoulders, opening the passenger door ahead of you with that same practiced care. The warmth of the truck hits you almost dazedly after standing still in the cold.

“Heat’s been on for a bit.” He remarks at your blink of surprise as he settles into the driver’s seat, his chin lightly nodding at the backseat, where two of his heavier jackets are folded neatly, placed with deliberate care so they will not shift during the drive. Beside them a fuzzy blanket sits just as methodically arranged.

“I know it’s not the warmest of hoodies.”

When you look back at him, he sends you a small wink. At your stunned silence, his fingers gently move beneath your chin to have your complete attention, your heart already beating too fast for you to pretend otherwise.

“You alright there, doll?” He asks with a small crease between his brows.

You nod too quickly, not entirely sure what words would even hold up under the weight of everything you are feeling right now. Bucky lets out a low sound that might almost be a laugh if it were not so gentle, and then he is leaning in just enough to press a peck to the corner of your mouth.

“Y’know, I think I’m getting attached to this whole matching thing. Sends a pretty clear message.” He murmurs against your skin.

From that point on, it’s an unspoken agreement that has tenderly carved its rightful place between you both. It never turns into a conversation so much as it becomes a habit for the two of you. A jacket chosen to match the tone of your skirt, a top swapped for a darker color, small details that only make sense when you realize he’s genuinely paying attention to you, building your relationship one quiet choice at a time.

And months later, there are mornings when he is sitting at the edge of the bed with coffee in hand, his eyes lazily following you move around his room as you get ready. They eventually land on your shoes.

“You wearing the brown boots today?”

You glance down at your outfit, confirming it with a small nod as you keep applying your mascara. Bucky hums once in acknowledgment, already pushing himself up with a low groan to reach for his own pair in the shoe rack.

“Then I’ll wear mine.” He mumbles casually.

ᥫ᭡. WHEN YOU WANT TO TAKE A CUTE PICTURE TOGETHER The local café is a half-forgotten hole-in-the-wall tucked between a bookstore and a florist, the kind that only feels busy because the tables are close enough that conversations blur into one another in a soft, overlapping hum. Today it’s warmer than usual for the season, sunlight spilling lazily across the pavement outside almost indulgently after days of grey skies and persistent rain. It coaxes people into lingering longer than they probably intend to as though no one is in any particular rush to leave.

You are sitting across from Bucky at a small round table on the patio, your cups half-full and an empty plate sitting between you, remnants of the slice of red velvet cake you shared earlier still scattered across it. He stepped away only a few minutes ago, murmuring something about the restroom and brushing his knuckles briefly against your shoulder as he left.

In an attempt to occupy yourself while you wait, you take out your phone, your thumb moving absentmindedly across the screen as you scroll through whatever comes up. Until a specific post catches your attention so suddenly it stops you entirely.

It’s one of those photos you have seen countless times while looking for outfit inspirations on Pinterest, clearly curated despite its effortless appearance. A girl sits on what you assume must be her boyfriend’s lap while the camera is angled downward just enough to capture their shoes together, his heavy worn boots resting beside her delicate heels. The entire image is framed in warm light that makes it look like wanting something and simply having it without hesitation.

The contrast is cute rather than discordant.

You find yourself stuck on that picture as your chest tightens, because there are still so many small things that you don’t know how to ask for yet, things that feel too silly to voice even though they linger in your mind longer than you would like to admit. A lap. A picture. His boots beside your pretty Mary Jane heels… It feels ridiculous to desire it this badly, yet you keep staring at your phone as if hesitation could soften the sting of being dismissed. Or worse, laughed at.

You don’t notice Bucky returning until the chair across from you shifts under his weight, the scrape of it pulling you sharply into the present as you instinctively place your phone back on the table a tad too quickly for it to look natural. He sits down pretending to not have noticed any of it, reaching for his coffee.

“Alright, lovely?” He asks, voice unbothered.

You open your mouth, then close it again almost immediately, your mind caught between embarrassment and the awareness of how easily he always seems to understand you. Bucky notices your uncertainty, but doesn’t push, instead loosely rests his forearms on the table to lean closer.

“Hey,” his voice lowers just enough to gently pull you out of your thoughts. “What were you saying before I got up? About yesterday’s meeting?”

It’s such a simple question yet it almost disarms you completely. People don’t usually do that—they interrupt you to start new conversations, change direction, lose track halfway through and then forget about it entirely. But Bucky is looking at you like your words were simply waiting there for him to return to them.

So you blink once, a little startled, then slowly exhale as memories come back with a sharp pang. About that stupid staff meeting. About Ms. Cox.

The words come out carefully at first, testing how much space you are allowed to take up, but the more you speak, the clearer Bucky can see frustration still fresh beneath your composure. 

“There is this student, Mark. Ms. Cox keeps insisting that he’s lazy and just—” You exhale tiredly. “She believes he doesn’t care about school.”

His jaw subtly tenses as he nods for you to go on.

“And I tried to explain that it isn’t that simple,” you continue, your fingers fidgeting on your lap. “Because it’s true that he struggles with math, but he works really hard, always does his best. He just needs time. And she… well, she went off on me.”

His brows draw together. “Went off how?”

Your eyes fall on the table before you adjust in your seat, as if moving could shake off the discomfort.

“She accused me of inflating grades to make myself look like a good teacher.” You admit quietly, the accusation leaving behind an ugly taste of shame on your tongue despite your innocence. “Because students do well in English. Including Mark.”

You can practically sense Bucky biting back his irritation, his frown deepening as he watches you shrink just talking about it.

“And the principal just let it slide?” His voice roughens slightly at the edges despite his effort to keep it even.

You huff out a small breath that resembles a laugh, devoid of any humor. “She has been teaching there forever. They just don’t deal with her anymore. Alice described her as—ah, sorry. Alice is the—”

“The art teacher.” 

You finally look at him, blinking in surprise.

“Yeah.” 

He gives you a small nod, a brief smile crossing his features.

“I remember.”

“Oh.” You have mentioned your colleagues only once since you started going steady, your meager dating experience having taught you that nobody was really interested in your life—especially your job. They focused more on meaningless, polite conversations punctuated by some generic compliment about your eyes, or your dress, that could guarantee them some sort of reward at the end of the night.

“Um.” You clear your throat, trying to ignore the intensity of his gaze. “So, Alice described her as a vindictive woman and since she’s close to retirement, they let her do whatever she wants because it’s easier than arguing with her.”

You hesitate for a second. “Years ago, there was this new physical education teacher...” Your voice lowers a little as if she might appear out of thin air and point her condescending finger at you. “She refused to approve his one-day school trip unless it was on her day off, because she didn’t want her schedule disrupted.”

Your jaw clenches briefly. “He told the principal… and after that she kept filing complaint after complaint about his ‘lack of professionalism’, until the school ended up not renewing his contract the next year.”

“What the fuck?” He mumbles under his breath, his lips pressing together tightly. “Wait—and they just expect you to take it?” His nostrils flare with a slow exhale.

“Pretty much.” You shrug, though it feels heavier than you intend.

For a moment, Bucky just sits there with his jaw tight as he chooses to not push his annoyance outward yet, mainly because he is waiting for you to let it all out. It’s in that pause that your eyes move unconsciously to the side of the table. Your phone is still there, the screen dark now, but not locked properly. You realize it too late, when a notification from that stupid teachers’ group chat—the one filled with nothing but good morning texts, good night wishes, and painfully unfunny memes—briefly wakes it and reveals that picture again, bright and candid.

Bucky’s attention promptly lands on it too. He doesn’t comment, which only makes your stomach tighten further as you hastily reach for your phone, turning it face down with too much force.

“What was that?” He asks casually, quiet curiosity dancing in his eyes.

“Nothing.” You answer too fast and his eyes narrow slightly, more observant than suspicious.

“That didn’t exactly sound like nothing, sweetheart.”

You hesitate, then deflect again, weaker this time. “Just a random picture.” You shrug, hoping to appear disinterested. “I was on Instagram and forgot to close it.”

That earns a pause from him, his head tilting just a fraction as he studies you more carefully.

“A picture you don’t wanna show me?” He asks gently.

You shake your head, eyes shyly falling on his arms. At that, Bucky simply shifts in his seat, his hand crossing the small space between you—not to take your phone, but to find your wrist and gently guide it to his lips. When you peek through your eyelashes, you almost flinch at how close he is now, his thumb reverently stroking your knuckles before his other hand cups your chin deliberately.

“You can tell me anything.” His voice is steady in a way that doesn’t leave room for pressure, only reassurance. “Y’know that, right?”

You shiver at the proximity. You do know, that’s the problem, how could you forget when Bucky stands before you, always so careful and sweet? And still, you are never entirely sure how to stop the words from breaking in your mouth.

“I just… saw something,” you confess weakly. “That I thought would be cute to recreate together.”

Bucky’s expression softens instantly.

“What is it, sweetheart?” 

You swallow thickly, fingers flexing once under his hand. Then, barely above a whisper, you manage it. “I’d like for us to take pictures like… couples do.”

He observes you silently, expression unreadable, until a small smile pulls at the corners of his mouth, patient and knowing all at once. He nudges his chair back a little farther to make room for you, patting his thigh once.

“C’mere.”

You blink. “What?”

He nods toward his lap.

“C’mere, doll.” He repeats quietly, reaching for your wrist before you can overthink yourself into refusing, to guide you around the table.

The realization of what you are doing hits in one overwhelming wave of self-consciousness the second your weight fully sinks on his lap. Bucky is bigger than you in every conceivable way, broader and heavier with muscle, solid where you are soft. His thick forearm dusted with dark hair keeps you close to the warmth of his chest, and his strong thighs spread comfortably beneath yours. When his palm settles on your knee to keep you balanced, the rough heat of his skin bleeds straight through the thin fabric of your stockings, and a small involuntary shiver runs through you. It’s humiliating how dizzy it makes you feel, because Bucky appears completely at peace behind you. You are trying not to implode from his touch and there he is, sitting back and holding you as if that’s exactly where you are meant to be.

Your unsteady hands finally reach for your phone, trying to angle it properly, breath catching a little when his fingers flex against your waist.

“You’re thinking way too hard.” He murmurs near your ear, his salt-and-pepper stubble faintly scratching your skin.

“I’m not.” You insist weakly.

Bucky hums low in his chest, unconvinced, the sound of it vibrating through his body into yours.

“Baby,” he calls out gently, mirth lying beneath his words. “You’ve taken six pictures of the table.”

Your face burns.

“I’m trying.” You mumble horrified, sighing in relief when you finally manage to frame your shoes correctly while he chuckles behind you.

“I know. You’re doing just fine, sweetheart. Take all the time you need...” He releases a slow exhale, then under his breath, “I’m definitely not complaining right now.”

The faint rasp in his voice and the way his thumb strokes the skin of your knee only make your pulse stumble harder. Finally, after another moment of fumbling and readjusting yourself against him, you manage to take a few proper photos.

The knot in your chest loosens gradually as you look through them. They are good. Not overly posed or awkward as you feared, but cute and intimate in that effortless way you had envied earlier. His scuffed work boots are beside your neat Mary Janes, your knees tucked between his jeans-clad ones, the edge of his large hand visible against your thigh like a quiet reminder that the man holding you is very much real, and that’s him.

A coy smile brightens your features. It’s a small, absent-minded gesture, yet Bucky is completely enraptured.

“There she is.” A comment under his breath, meant for himself.

You feel him lean closer to look over your shoulder, his chin brushing your cheek as his gaze settles on the screen, and the expression that crosses his face afterward is so openly proud that you feel the sudden urge to squirm out of giddiness.

“They came out pretty nice, huh?” 

You nod before turning back to properly look at him, still smiling.

“Thank you, Jamie.”

The words leave your mouth instinctively, sincere. Still, Bucky furrows his brows at you. His hand leaves your knee to curl delicately around your chin, guiding your face until your eyes meet properly.

“You don’t need to thank me.” His voice low but firm—a fact rather than a suggestion. “I love spending time with my girl. Y’hear me, baby?”

Your next breath catches in your throat so fast you almost choke on it. His expression softens further at whatever he sees on your face, his thumb stroking once your bottom lip before he closes the distance between your lips.

“You ask me for something, I’m gonna give it to you if I can.” He adds quietly against your mouth.

You swallow thickly, answering with an imperceptible nod that makes him hum, pleased. For a while, it’s just you and him. Tucked against his chest with the phone still loose in your hand, you sit sideways on his lap, his arm tightening around your waist the more your body grows pliant. The initial embarrassment melts into pure bliss once his forehead comes to rest on yours, his blue eyes fiercely glinting with devotion as they trace your pretty features.

You would probably stay here all afternoon if you could: no talking needed, just the safety of his arms. Eventually, though, duty creeps back in enough that you stiffen slightly, and Bucky loosens his hold at once, watching you get up. The hand on your thigh lingers for one last meaningful squeeze, goosebumps prickling across your covered skin.

The second your feet touch the ground again, you suddenly become aware of your slow breathing; of how his touch made you completely forget that you were sitting in your boyfriend’s lap, making out in the middle of a café situated on the main street, for anyone to see.

“I should probably go.” You mumble, smoothing your flowy dress unnecessarily to avoid his eyes.

A small smirk tugs at his lips at your clumsy attempt to regain composure.

“I’ll walk you to your car.”

By the time you reach the parking lot, your embarrassment has faded into a fuzzy tingle in the back of your head. Bucky opens the driver’s side door for you without breaking stride, one large hand resting automatically against the top of the frame while you climb inside. Your movements are a little languid as you place your palms on his chest for another kiss—quick and sweet and still a little flustered—but before you can pull away fully, his fingers close gently around your wrists.

“Send me those pictures later.”

You almost flinch in surprise. “You want them?”

That earns you a look.

“Sweetheart,” he starts slowly, like the answer should be painfully obvious by now. “Of course I want the pictures we took together.”

You promise you will do that once you get home, and Bucky lets you go only after one last heated kiss that has you sighing dreamily the entire drive back.

Later that night, long after you have changed into pajamas and curled beneath your blankets, your phone lights up with a message from him. It’s a reel of a chubby orange cat dramatically rolling onto its back for belly rubs. The giggle that falls from your lips is immediate, because you know how much Bucky loves these silly videos.

Still smiling, you tap back to reply but your fingers freeze, because his profile picture has changed. And there, framed in a tiny circle at the top of the screen, are your shoes beside his boots.

ᥫ᭡. WHEN YOU WEAR HIS CLOTHES FOR THE FIRST TIME Bucky’s bedroom smells like him. Not cologne, or any sharp, artificial department store fragrance sprayed onto stiff collars and wrists... but a scent warm and lived-in. Cedar and clean detergent tangle together with fresh air drifting in through cracked windows, traces of earth and hay and early morning breeze clinging stubbornly to heavy fabrics, no matter how many times they are washed.

The whole house smells like sun-warmed wood floors and open fields after rain. Like stepping onto his farm and understanding right away why he belongs there.

The shower is running somewhere down the hallway after a long day spent driving deliveries back and forth across town, leaving you curled near the headboard with the remote in your hand, halfheartedly scrolling through movies while waiting for Bucky to come back. Your attention drifts eventually, pulled away from the television by the sight of one of his flannels folded over the chair near the dresser. It’s clean, probably left there after laundry day, thick dark fabric softened with wear. Before you can really stop yourself, your gaze lingers.

There is something strangely intimate about wearing someone else’s clothes. Not just in the obvious sense. It’s like stepping quietly into the shape of their life, wrapping yourself in something that has spent time caressing their skin, that carries their warmth and scent and the evidence of their existence in every seam. And maybe that’s exactly why your heart flutters at the thought. You stare at the flannel for another few seconds before finally setting the remote aside and climbing off the bed, moving almost cautiously toward the chair like it might bite you halfway there.

With a meaningful glance toward the door, you listen to the muted sound of running water, before carefully lifting it from the chair. The moment you pull it closer, his scent fills your lungs completely, clean and grounding and unmistakably Bucky. Without thinking too hard about it, you peel off your own sweater and slip his shirt on instead. The sleeves hang long past your wrists as the heavy fabric settles warmly around your body, and suddenly you are standing in front of the mirror near his dresser, turning slightly from side to side while smoothing your hands absently over the front buttons.

You feel ridiculously happy. Safe, somehow. Because it reminds your body that it never needs to stay on guard if he is there.

For a moment, you simply stand there smiling privately at your reflection. You are so entranced by it that you barely notice the bathroom door opening.

“Hey doll, did I tell you that yesterday those sneaky ducks nearly knocked over—”

Bucky stops mid-sentence. The silence that follows is sharp enough to make your stomach drop.

You glance at him through the mirror with wide eyes and freeze. He is standing just outside the bedroom doorway with his hair still damp from the shower, a grey henley stretched across his chest while he drags a towel over the back of his neck, but all movement stops the second his eyes land on you.

On his flannel wrapped around your body.

His gaze languidly follows your curves like he is trying to commit them to memory, scared you might vanish like some beautiful, cruel dream. Because his girl is standing barefoot in his bedroom wrapped in pieces of his life. And Bucky looks at you like he just forgot how to breathe.

“Oh my God,” you whisper, heat rushing into your face as you turn around. “I’m so sorry, I—I saw it there and—”

The towel drops forgotten onto the end of the bed as he carefully shortens the distance. The closer he gets, the quieter you become, until the only sound left is the faint clucking of the chickens outside.

Up close, you swallow at his gentle eyes, though there is something else lingering beneath them, proud and possessive.

“Are you apologizing for wearing my shirt?” He lifts an eyebrow.

Your lips part unhelpfully, but they close again on a second thought. Bucky’s eyes flick toward the sleeves swallowing your hands before he reaches out, large fingers carefully rolling the cuffs back for you one at a time, movements unhurried and practiced despite the roughness his hands are used to.

“There,” he murmurs. “Better.”

When he finally glances back at your face, there is a spark of amusement dancing in his gaze. “You keeping this one, sweetheart?”

“What?” The question catches you off guard enough that you huff out an embarrassed chuckle.

“The shirt,” he nods at it, still delighted. “Think it’s yours now.”

“Bucky, no. I can’t just steal it.”

“Sure you can.” He shrugs easily.

Your eyes widen. “What—no!”

A real smile finally breaks properly across his face, devastatingly fond.

“Angel,” he murmurs patiently, hands warm against your waist. “You’re standing in my bedroom looking happier than you have all week. Think I’d be pretty stupid to ask for it back.”

You awkwardly tuck your chin down, studying your socks.

“You’re exaggerating.”

A quiet laugh falls from his lips. “You were twirling around in front of the mirror.”

Your head snaps up at that, your jaw dropping indignantly.

“I was not!”

“You absolutely were.”

“I was simply checking how it fit.”

“Mm-hmm.”

Before you can argue back, his hands slide a little more securely around your back to pull you closer, eyes dropping briefly to the flannel.

“Looks better on you anyway.” He murmurs.

“That’s a lie.” You focus on a spot on his neck, too shy to meet his gaze.

“Ain’t.”

“It’s your shirt.” You retort weakly.

“Not anymore.”

The certainty in his tone makes your stomach flip. Bucky watches the reaction happen in real time, something unbearably tender crossing his face at your attempt to further hide from his gaze, before he leans just enough for his forehead to touch yours.

“Y’know,” he starts casually, thumbs rubbing slow circles on your sides through the fabric. “I like seeing you in my clothes a little too much to complain about it.”

Your chest warms at the sincerity in his voice, yet you keep stubbornly staring at his chest, trying and failing to stop the grin tugging at your mouth.

“I think that would get out of hand very fast.” You mumble, finally meeting his eyes.

He smirks down at you. “Would it now?”

“You have a lot of nice flannels.” Your arms wrap around his neck, prompting him to get impossibly closer.

“Mhm.”

“And your hoodies are comfortable.” The tip of your nose brushes his.

“That so?” His brows shoot up playfully.

“And your jackets smell good.” You admit before you can stop yourself.

That finally earns you a proper grin. Far too pleased with himself.

“Oh, sweetheart,” he drawls. “You’re in real trouble then.”

You groan tiredly, throwing your head back in despair but his arms don’t allow you to stray too far from him.

“Don’t make fun of me.”

“I’m not making fun of you.” His hands settle more firmly. “Just thinking I oughta start keeping extras around.”

His brows then lift as though he has just reached a very reasonable conclusion.

“Actually,” he corrects himself, voice thoughtful. “Might need to make a rule.”

You squint up at him suspiciously. “A rule?”

“Yeah.” He nods once, completely serious despite the subtle, teasing smile. “Think the second you walk through my front door, you’re legally required to put on one of my flannels.”

“Legally required?” You ask unimpressed.

“Mm-hmm.”

You shake your head pensively. “I really don’t think you can do that, Jamie.”

“Sweetheart, I own the property.” His expression turns impressively solemn, his lips grazing yours as he speaks.

“Means I make the laws around here.”

A laugh bursts out of you before you can stop it, bright enough that Bucky beams at the unguarded sound.

“No exceptions either, baby. Could be ninety degrees outside, I don’t care. Flannel goes on.” He hugs you tighter, his next words nothing short than a low murmur in your ear.

“Don’t even need to wear anything else underneath.” A squeak unexpectedly falls from your lips as his palms land briefly on your ass, squeezing the soft flesh before sliding back on your waist.

You sigh fondly despite the heat crawling up your neck. “This is the dumbest rule I’ve ever heard.”

“And yet,” his eyes drop briefly to the flannel before returning to your face. “Here you are.”

At some point, Bucky doesn’t announce it anymore. The moment you step inside the farmhouse, he’s already reaching for one of his flannels and holding it out—doesn’t matter if you’re staying for hours or just long enough to share a meal and a quiet evening that doesn’t demand anything from either of you. And then he’s crossing the distance between you in a few unhurried steps to pull you into his chest. He lowers his face into the slope of your neck, and breathes in deeply, again and again, like he needs the second breath more than the first.

Something unmistakably you—familiar, layered with the faintly sweet body cream you always use—mixes with his own scent that lingers in the weave of the flannel, worn-in and musky. His shoulders drop every time unfailingly, the tension he carries out in the world has no choice but to disappear.

His obsession for your scent doesn’t stop there, it only exacerbates when you are finally lying on his sheets, the two halves of the flannel crumpled at your sides as Bucky pants against your chest. He kisses you desperately, clutching your bare thighs until you are left warm and moaning under his roaming hands caressing your body with reverence. His palms map the dip of your waist, stroking along your ribs, until they encompass the swell of your breasts, gently kneading the skin as his lips trace a wet path from your mouth to that sensitive spot behind your ear that makes you whine so sweetly.

Your lips part around a breathy squeak the moment the calloused pads of his thumbs delicately circle your nipples, a low hum vibrates unintentionally in his chest at how fast they harden.

“Wanna hear you, princess.” He murmurs against your collarbones. “Let me hear how good it feels, c’mon.”

Bucky takes his time. You feel as light as cotton candy in his arms, sighing at every brush of his lips against your nipples. His mouth is hot and his tongue eager against the tender surface.

“Jamie!” You gasp as he starts sucking. His hand fondles the other breast, whimpers filling the dark room as his fingers playfully tug and flick your nub until your back arches so beautifully. His other hand grasps your thigh, leaving behind delicious reminders of his lust.

The gentle licks soon turn into harsher suckles, and your hands shoot forward to anchor yourself—one of them twists the sheets until your fingers hurt, the other sinks into his locks. Bucky exhales sharply at the light sting when your fingers pull at his hair, loving how the wet sounds bounce off the walls.

“Prettiest tits I’ve ever seen.” He growls. 

“Jamie, it’s—oh my God.” Your head falls back when his lips take care of your other nipple, the one left behind now damp and tingling.

“Mhm, I know princess, they’re so sensitive. You gonna come in your cute panties?” You nod eagerly. Bucky’s dark eyes stay fixed on your crumpled features like a predator observing his prey, his mouth wicked on your poor abused nubs. Until the pressure in your belly is just too strong, and to your sheer surprise, your orgasm hits you out of nowhere. Your breasts are tingling with sensitivity, your hips frantically humping the air as your pussy throbs painfully at the lack of stimulation, clenching around nothing.

“That’s it, my needy girl. Look at you, coming just from having your tits sucked.” He grits out, giving your breasts one last, little smack a harsh squeeze. 

Your skin is sticky and your lungs burning as Bucky finally moves between your shaky legs, peeling off your ruined panties with a swift, practiced movement. His calloused hands are firm on your thighs as they spread you open, silently watching your pussy as it pulses and drips, the unbearable ache mixing deliciously with the embarrassment of being this exposed for him—not a single ounce of shame in Bucky as he inspects it more thoroughly. 

First, it’s his thumbs gently spreading your folds, his eyes devouring the way it tenses under his intense hunger. A shiver runs down your spine when his index finger slowly traces the tender slit, marveling at the way your slick sticks to his digit.

“Jamie...” You whine, your body—still so sensitive—lurching at his delicate teasing.

“Look at the pretty mess you made.” He whispers amazed, leaving a soothing kiss on your hipbone. You hear a sharp inhale as he buries his face into your core, his eyes rolling back at how strongly your scent hits his lungs. With blissful serenity written all over his face, his tongue starts lapping at your clit with lazy strokes. A strangled gasp falls from your lips at the sensation, your hips moving helplessly under the arm that blankets your stomach as Bucky hums satisfied at the drops of sweet arousal blessing his senses. 

You almost choke on a delirious moan the moment a long finger slips inside, the hand grasping his sheets shooting down to grasp his wrist instead.

“Gonna bury my face here every morning, sweet girl.” He mumbles, a second finger joining the other inside you. “Make you soak my beard so I can smell your pussy all day at work.”

“Shit!” You almost scream, thighs snapping close around his head.

Bucky growls at the pressure, hungrily nursing on your throbbing clit as his nostrils flare. It’s so messy, with his saliva dripping down his chin and the insatiable need to please you driving his hips wild against the mattress. You can feel its intensity from the way his starved tongue laps at you, every flick sending biting sparks down your spine. 

When he momentarily pulls away with a wet squelch, he groans in delight at the intoxicating taste. “C’mon princess, time to make a mess on my face.” He rumbles, mouth already latched back onto your clit, sucking with a steady rhythm as his fingers hit your sweet spot at the right speed.

Your body shakes from the unbearable pleasure washing over you, but Bucky refuses to stop, only pressing himself further into your clenching pussy, his tongue insistent as he pumps his fingers quickly.

“‘M gonna—Jamie!” You sob, hips jerking up as he pushes you right over the edge for a third time, this orgasm just as powerful as the others. Thoroughly consumed by him, you tremble and writhe, wailing when you squirt all over his face, soaking the sheets and your inner thighs as well. Bucky is not doing any better, resting his forehead on your mound. He tries to regain his breath after almost coming in his boxers as if touching a pretty, naked woman for the first time.

When he finally has a steadier grip on his self-control, he licks his lips with a low hum, shifting both of you until you are straddling him, your head lying limply on his chest as he plants sweet, little kisses on your forehead.

“Breathe, angel.” He murmurs, voice still rough with arousal. “You did so good for me, lovely.”

You blink, still spent and disoriented, but as his arms gently pull you higher, your sensitive core accidentally brushes against his erection. Bucky is still kissing you, noticing your little shiver but not thinking much about it—he knows you must be sleepy and tired. Yet he couldn’t be far from the truth.

Your hips gently rut against his thigh, squeaking under your breath when it finally touches your naked clit. Bucky’s body goes rigid for a heartbeat, suddenly catching on what’s going on in that pretty head of yours. You keep moving your hips, now thoroughly and shamelessly humping his thigh. His arms squeeze your waist hard, eliciting a surprised gasp out of you.

“What are you doing, doll?” He rasps out, his voice heavy with lust. He planned to take care of himself in the bathroom, maybe paint your tits with his cum if you insisted on helping... But how can he keep his composure with such a beautiful, sweet woman in his arms, so desperate for his touch?

Your head lifts enough for you to meet his gaze. “Please, Jamie.”

“Please what?” One of his hands grasps your jaw. “Use your words.”

You moan shamelessly, the warm tingle in your core impossible to ignore now. “Your cock... please.”

“You’re making a mess.” He mutters absently, his chest heaving at the sweet sight. And suddenly, his tongue is slowly tracing your bottom lip. A whimper escapes you, before his fingers tighten on your jaw as he thrusts his tongue in your mouth, just like he would with your pussy. 

“You need my help, baby?” He reiterates, his gaze marveling at your fucked-out expression. At your eager nod, Bucky swallows thickly, fingers digging into your hips until you are forced to stop the desperate rocking motion of your hips.

It takes a single look at your big, shiny eyes and suddenly you are on your back, his cock so thick you start to tear up. “I know, I know. baby girl. It’s big, hm?” He coos, carefully kissing your cheeks and licking up the little tears like a ravenous beast.

“Eyes on me, princess… There you go, that’s a good girl.” Your mouth falls open into a perfect round shape, squeaking as his hips thrust forward leisurely. Bucky takes in the sight of your pussy stretched nicely around his length with pride burning hot in his chest. He would be lying if he said he isn’t getting impatient himself, unable to ignore anymore the fervent urge to see you unravel on his cock.

“Hold on to me.” You obey, eagerly wrapping your arms around his neck, your breasts pressed against his soft torso dusted in dark hair.

Once his cock slams right back into you, you gasp, nails digging into his back as he sets a brutal pace. The sounds of your skin slapping against his fill the room obscenely along your little whines of Jamie.

It only spurs him on because, “Fucking hell—yes, baby. Your Jamie.” Before searching your lips to pull you into a filthy kiss.

His calloused fingers dig into the plush of your ass, keeping you anchored to him just to see your eyes roll back at the delicious friction between your clit and his pubic hair. 

“She’s so tight.” He grunts. “Keep clenching like that and I’ll make you leak for days.”

Your legs squeeze around his waist, drawing him impossibly deeper. “Please.”

He takes note of the way your eyes start to roll back as your pussy flutters eagerly, even if you do your best to keep them on him just like he told you... His pretty angel is always so good for him.

“Jamie...” You breathe out, body squirming between his sturdy arms built by years of hard work in the fields rather than gym. “’M so close—oh my God, yes right there!”

“I know, princess.” He mumbles, never breaking his rhythm. “Fuck, can feel her squeeze me so good, wanna keep me there forever, huh?” His lips twist smugly. “Don’t worry sweetheart, this cock’s all yours.”

Your breath stumbles in your throat as though there’s not enough air. Bucky is right there with you, brows pulled in concentration when he feels the familiar ache in his belly. His thrusts grow deeper, more purposeful, almost primal in their intensity, and you can tell by the tension in his jaw and the slight tremor in his arms, that he’s fighting for control. Even lost in pleasure, he is always putting you first.

“Tell me when you’re close.” He grits out, leaning down to steal a wet kiss that is more tongue than lips. “So I can fill my pussy up. That’s what you want, right princess? Wanna feel my cum drip out of you while you sit all cute watching me cook, hm?” 

Your words come out in a warped, pathetic moan as he stuffs your mouth with two thick fingers. Your tongue is already playing with them, a sad whine clawing out of your throat when Bucky takes them out. It’s not even seconds later that you are tossing your head back, your words barely coherent as you tell him you are coming, his two wet fingers rubbing your clit at the right speed.

“That’s it.” He drawls through his teeth, his rhythm clumsily faltering at the thought of your pussy completely covered in his white cream. “Just like that, beautiful.”

Your vision blurs at the edges as pleasure consumes every single crevice of your body until your brain only knows how to scream your boyfriend’s name. Until there’s nothing but the delicious shape of his cock. You clench so tight his hips can barely move, pulsing and shaking around him as your hazy eyes cross, before rolling back.

Bucky follows moments later, pressing deep inside you as a full shudder travels down his body. His face is insistently pressed into your neck, trying to muffle the roaring groan that rumbles through his chest. The contact grounds him as his cock twitches and swells inside you, borderline animalistic in the way his fingers clutch your hips when he finally fills you up—the thought of leaving a part of himself inside you only prolonging his orgasm.

“Oh, my pretty princess.” Bucky pulls you tighter against him like he cannot bear the thought of letting go yet, both your hearts still hammering in sync as the aftershock pulses beneath your skin. His warm breath tickles your collarbones, and although his limbs are trembling with exhaustion, his hips still thrust lazily inside you to make sure not a single drop goes to waste.

ᥫ᭡. WHEN YOU START REACHING BACK By the time Bucky introduces you to his friends properly, you have already learned something important: everyone else gets a different version of him than you do.

You begin noticing the pattern before he ever points it out himself. People straighten when he walks into a room, some of his new employees still stumble over their words when he speaks to them, and children stare at him in open fascination because he is broad and carries himself with grounded confidence without appearing arrogant. And honestly, you understand it. Bucky looks like someone built to endure anything. His hands are coarse from years of work, permanently marked with small scars and callouses from repairing machinery, hauling feed, and spending entire days beneath brutal weather conditions without complaint. His voice settles low and gravelly in his chest, and whenever he frowns in concentration—which is often—he appears unapproachable to anyone who doesn’t know him well enough to recognize that his silences are rooted in reflection rather than coldness.

Then there is the version of him that exists around you, so quiet in its devotion that you only begin noticing it gradually, through dozens of tiny moments. He automatically slows his pace to match yours whenever you walk together—just enough that your shorter steps never have to hurry to keep up with him. On the nights you stay over, he reaches past you to test the shower water before you step under it.

And somehow, it extends to even the smallest, most ridiculous things. Like the time you gasp at the sight of a spider near the kitchen sink and instinctively dart behind him before you can stop yourself. Embarrassment burns on your cheeks at your own reaction as you quietly ask him if he can please take it outside instead of killing it. Bucky only glances back at you, visibly amused by the fact that you are clinging to the back of his shirt like the spider personally declared war on your bloodline. Then, he easily cups it beneath a glass, slides paper underneath, and carries it out onto the porch with all the patience in the world. And when he comes back inside, there is a faint smile pulling at the corners of his mouth as you mumble a sheepish thank you from the safety of the hallway.

And maybe, the thing that affects you the most is how instinctive all of it seems for him. His care exists in reflexes. In the quick appearance of his hand over the sharp corner of an open cabinet before you can bump into it while bending down. In the way he reaches for your hand whenever a crowd grows too dense around you, thumb constantly stroking your knuckles in reassurance before you even realize you needed it. In the way he notices your social battery draining only by the slight slump of your shoulders, then gently finding reasons to get you home before exhaustion fully settles into your bones.

It feels less like being looked after and more like being... considered. Constantly. Carefully. Which becomes a problem eventually. Because the safer you feel with him, the more affection you want to give in return. And unfortunately, loving someone openly without constantly doubting yourself is still difficult for you.

Despite how naturally Bucky seems to exist inside your life now, there are moments where you feel painfully aware of your own inexperience. You want to reach for his hand first, sit beside him in diners instead of across from him, kiss his cheek whenever he starts rambling about the farm with that subtle enthusiasm that makes him look so unfairly adorable. You want to curl into his lap during movie night and play with his hair and bury your face into his chest whenever he hugs you.

Every little touch from him feels so dangerously addictive now that you know what it’s like to be handled with genuine tenderness. But every single time you think about doing any of it, your brain betrays you. What if he thinks you are clingy? What if you interrupt him? What if he only tolerates it because he knows you have never done this before?

So instead, you hesitate. But the thing about dating someone who observes the world as methodically as he does is that very little escapes him for long, especially when it concerns you. Therefore, he just starts making things easier. When the two of you sit together somewhere public, his hand begins resting palm-up beside yours on purpose—an open invitation without forcing you before you are ready. He starts pulling you gently against his side halfway through movies, and sometimes, while talking with Steve or Sam out on the porch, he pats his thigh absentmindedly without interrupting the conversation at all, silently inviting you closer. Eventually, sitting on his lap is expected and anticipated. And every single time he notices your hesitation before kissing him first, his head tilts downward before you can even decide whether to ask.

But it’s the first time you meet Steve and Sam properly that you understand how clearly his devotion to you reads to everyone else.

Dinner happens at a small place near the edge of town after one of Bucky’s longer delivery days, rain clouds gathering thick and heavy outside while the restaurant buzzes warmly around you.

You keep squirming nervously beforehand despite Bucky reassuring you the entire drive there.

“Baby, believe me, you’re worrying over nothing. They already like you.” He repeats patiently while turning into the parking lot.

You glance over suspiciously. “They’ve never met me.”

Bucky snorts under his breath, one hand settling on your thigh to give it a comforting squeeze.

“Sam’s heard about you so much he already acts like he knows you.”

“That’s not reassuring.” You mumble, sinking a little lower in the seat.

A beat passes in which the car slows as he searches for a parking spot, and you take the opportunity to dramatically exhale like your entire future depends on this night going well.

“You’re meeting my friends, not attending a parole hearing.”

“They could easily be the same thing.” You insist. “Meeting your partner’s best friends is basically like meeting... I don’t know—their adoptive parents.” Bucky snorts, shaking his head.

“Don’t laugh! I’m serious. There’s judgment involved. Silent scoring. Probably some kind of test I don’t know about yet.” You hastily list with your fingers.

That pulls a chuckle out of him, warm and low in a way that only worsens your dramatic suffering.

“Baby—”

“No, because what if they hate me?” You whine, already spiraling. “What if I say something weird? What if I accidentally make Steve uncomfortable? He looks like the kind of man who says ‘language’ unironically.”

Bucky laughs harder at that, shoulders shaking slightly.

“Steve absolutely says language unironically.”

“See? I’m going to swear once and he’s never going to recover from it.”

His grin only grows as the car comes to a stop, but he doesn’t turn it off yet. Instead, Bucky leans back slightly in his seat, head turned to watch you with that infuriatingly entertained expression that makes your anxiety feel personally mocked.

“You’re one to talk anyway.” You quip before he can say anything.

His eyes go wide. “Excuse me?”

“Because let’s talk about the first time you met Nat and Darcy.” You smile innocently, straightening up. “You kept me on the phone for forty minutes because you didn’t know what to wear.”

There’s a beat of silence, before his entire posture shifts.

“Hey, I wanted to make a good first impression.” He frowns.

“You were debating a tie,” you repeat slowly. “For bowling.”

“It was a new environment.” He shrugs.

Your eyebrows shoot up. “It was bowling!”

He simply shakes his head dismissively. “You don’t understand the social dynamics—”

“You were spiraling,” you cut in, now completely turned in your seat to face him. “I remember it very clearly. You kept throwing clothes on your bed that I’ve never seen you wear to this day.”

“I was being thoughtful.” He answers quickly.

“That’s anxiety.”

“That’s being prepared. And my first impression went fine.”

“Yeah, because I talked you out of the tie.”

You lean back in your seat, absolutely delighted now despite your earlier panic.

“I see how it is. I don’t need to worry about meeting your friends, but you needed a forty-minute emotional support phone call about whether you needed a tie for a bowling alley.”

Bucky exhales through his nose, clearly trying not to laugh at being exposed so thoroughly.

“It was a valid concern, I wanted to be respectful, sweetheart.”

“To who? A bowling ball?”

He opens his mouth, then closes it again, having run out of arguments to defend himself.

A grin takes over your lips as you nod in victory. “Yeah, that’s what I thought.”

Bucky laughs properly at that, fondly shaking his head at you. The sound makes the knot in your chest loosen despite the anxiety, and when his hand eventually reaches over the console to intertwine your fingers together, you finally feel like you can breathe a little more easily.

“Steve and Sam are gonna like you. That’s not even up for debate.” He says anyway, quieter now.

You purse your lips, the teasing softening just a little.

“And neither is the fact that you’re still nervous about a tie.” You add gently.

His head briefly falls forward as he sighs dejectedly. “It was a good tie.”

And that, somehow, makes you laugh all the way out of the car.

Inside, Steve and Sam hug you instead of shaking your hand, and within less than twenty minutes, both men seem to realize something deeply unsettling about Bucky Barnes.

Namely that he becomes ridiculously, unbearably soft around you. For starters, his hand settles automatically against the back of your chair while you sit down. At some point, he subtly pushes your drink closer because he knows you forget to hydrate when too engrossed in a conversation, his attention entirely shifting on you whenever your lips part, no matter what topic.

And then there is the hand-holding “incident”.

You are talking about your disastrous attempt at baking banana bread last weekend, when your eye briefly catches Bucky’s hand resting near yours on the booth seat.

His large, warm palm tilted upward.

Your gaze keeps drifting toward it despite yourself, because you want to take it so bad. God, you need to feel his skin against yours. But... What if you are misinterpreting it and he is ashamed of being affectionate in front of his friends? What if Steve and Sam think it’s excessive?

Without looking away from Sam, who is now complaining about boat repairs, his hand moves another inch closer until his knuckles brush lightly against yours.

Your heartbeat quickens embarrassingly fast at how obvious he makes it for you.

Hoping nobody is going to notice how you keep squirming in your seat, your hand moves before you can change your mind. Bucky’s fingers close around yours like he had been eagerly waiting for you all night. His thumb strokes once over your knuckles as he replies to his friends, completely unfazed.

Across the table, Sam goes still. Steve, on the other hand, is trying very hard to hide a smile behind his beer. Because the thing is, they have both known Bucky for years. They know him as reserved and controlled and difficult to read most of the time. Yet, what they are witnessing now is essentially an imposing Anatolian Shepherd collapsing happily onto its back because someone finally understood that looking scary doesn’t mean hating cuddles.

Once you are back at the farmhouse, rain is crashing heavily against the roof, therefore Steve and Sam help Bucky move a few things into the barn before the weather worsens further. Afterward, everyone ends up scattered throughout the kitchen while you make lemonade because inside it feels warm from all the damp clothes and humid air.

You are standing near the counter slicing lemons when Bucky walks in, settling beside you after washing his hands.

His gaze automatically drops to the knife, then to you. Then back to the knife.

“You’re holding it wrong.”

Your chin snaps up, eyes blinking at him in confusion.

“What?”

Instead of answering verbally, Bucky steps behind you until the softness of his belly is touching your back. One hand covers yours around the handle while the other steadies the cutting board before showing you a safer angle to hold the knife.

“There,” he murmurs near your shoulder. “Less chance of slipping.”

The entire interaction lasts maybe twenty seconds, yet the butterflies in your stomach go absolutely feral. The worst is that Bucky doesn’t even seem aware of what he does to you half the time. To him, this is simply how he loves, through guidance and care.

A little later, after his friends disappear into the kitchen for more lemonade while loudly arguing over the score of some recent football match, you end up curled beside Bucky on the couch, on the brink of dozing off to the soothing sound of rain tapping against the glass. Your head rests on his chest while he absently rubs slow circles along your arm, and eventually your fingers find his hair without much thought.

You expect tolerance at most. Maybe amusement. Instead, the second your nails lightly scratch his scalp, Bucky goes completely still, before his eyelids flutter shut. A deep, slow breath leaves his nose, his posture slumped as he leans unconsciously into your touch. His expression is so devastatingly content that you feel a mix of pride and joy burn hot in your chest.

From the kitchen doorway, Sam witnesses the scene in horrified fascination.

“Steve!” He whispers sharply.

The other man can’t help but burst into helpless laughter because there, curled around you in complete bliss, sits the same man who once made a grown mechanic squirm just by staring at him too long during an argument over tractor parts. Meanwhile Bucky, fully aware you are being watched, slowly opens one eye to glare at them with pure annoyance.

“What.”

“Man, you know your imaginary tail is wagging so hard I can practically hear it from here?”

Bucky silently stares at Sam for exactly five seconds, and without any shame whatsoever, tightens his arm around your waist to pull you closer.

“Yeah,” he rasps out. “And?”

ᥫ᭡. WHEN YOU NEED HIM THE MOST Bucky simply moves through your life with the quiet assumption that if something can be made easier for you, then of course he will do it.

One freezing morning in late November, you walk outside expecting the usual miserable routine of scraping ice from your windshield before work while trying not to freeze your fingers off in the process, only to stop short at the sight of your car already running softly in the driveway, pale exhaust curling into the cold air while warm light glows through the windshield.

And there he is, leaning casually against his pickup truck with two cups of coffee in his hands. Wrapped in his heavy work jacket, Bucky looks entirely unbothered by the bitter cold biting at his skin this early in the morning. You stare at him with wide eyes before glancing at your car. Then back at him.

“Did you come all the way over here just to start my car?”

His eyebrows pull together, genuine confusion touching his face.

“You hate being cold, sweetheart.”

Bucky never treats care as some grand romantic gesture that deserves applause. To him, love exists in maintenance, in noticing and remembering. It exists in the way he arranges himself around the sharp edges of your life without ever making you feel ashamed of needing help.

By the third month of your relationship, he already knows you forget meals whenever work gets too stressful, so he begins leaving containers of food in your fridge after particularly exhausting weeks, usually with little notes written in neat handwriting.

Eat something besides crackers today.

This one’s got vegetables in it. Don’t roll your eyes.

At first, a mix of embarrassment and old habits makes you protest.

“Jamie,” you sigh one evening while unpacking groceries he absolutely did not need to buy for you. “I can feed myself.”

“I know you can.”

The answer comes calmly, his attention never even leaving the frozen peas he’s putting away in your freezer.

“Then why are you doing all this?”

That finally makes him look at you, blue eyes steady and open.

“Because yesterday you had cereal for dinner and called it a balanced meal.”

Heat floods your face instantly. “It was one time.”

“It happened last Tuesday as well, baby.”

Your eyes squint at him betrayed. “You remember way too much.”

“You tell me things,” he shrugs lightly, shutting the fridge with his hip. “And I pay attention.”

Yes, Bucky pays attention. To everything. He notices the way your head starts to ache more than usual after difficult meetings at work; the moments you shrink because someone talked over you while discussing something important; the days you’ve had too much coffee and not nearly enough water before you’ve even registered it yourself. Once he recognizes a pattern, he simply starts building small routines around it—never demanding, or controlling. But guiding you so tenderly that by the time you notice, he’s already taken the weight you carry and made it easier to bear.

“Three coffees, baby.” He reminds you one afternoon after spotting the suspiciously large iced drink in your hand during lunch.

You promptly clutch the cup closer to your chest.

“This is tea.”

Bucky stares at you for a long moment, before his eyes lower meaningfully to the giant logo on the side of the cup.

“Sweetheart,” he starts patiently. “That thing smells like melted tiramisu.”

Your smile is sheepish. “It’s been a hard week.”

The teasing falls from his face at the exhaustion in your voice, concern replacing it so quickly it makes warmth bloom beautifully behind your ribs. He steps closer without hesitation, one broad palm settling on the back of your neck while his other hand cradles your cheek—a gesture so instinctively soothing that your entire body loosens before you can acknowledge it.

“I know, princess.” He murmurs softly. “Still need water though.”

And somehow—impossibly—you find yourself listening. He never makes care feel humiliating, because every reminder sounds far from correction and more like loving you so much it physically pains him seeing you not taking care of yourself the way you deserve. However, having someone pay attention to you this reverently is still complicated when, for your whole life, you’ve been used to being the responsible one, the accommodating one, the person who notices everybody else’s needs before they can become problems. Teaching only sharpened instincts you already had mastered long before adulthood: constantly anticipating, organizing, soothing, fixing. Somewhere along the way, taking care of yourself became secondary to making sure everyone else was never burdened by you.

Then Bucky arrives and begins undoing those habits piece by piece without ever criticizing you for it.

There is one particular parent-teacher night that leaves you painfully exhausted and miserable, so much that your eyes burn with unshed tears the entire walk to your car. One parent spends twenty minutes speaking over you every time you attempt to explain their child’s struggles in class; another openly questions whether you are “experienced enough” to manage disruptive students, because “you definitely don’t look like you are”. And Ms. Cox still finds enough energy afterward to criticize your “overly emotional teaching style” in front of half the faculty before finally leaving for the night.

By the time you make it home, you feel like an empty shell. You sway on your feet while eating half a granola bar in the dark, then drag yourself into bed wearing one of Bucky’s old sweatshirts—the same ones you shyly asked to have for particularly hard nights where his absence presses heavy on your heart. Yet, you spend nearly two hours staring miserably at your ceiling because exhaustion apparently does not guarantee sleep.

You and Bucky already said goodnight earlier. Normally he insists on calling before bed no matter how busy either of you are, but tonight he could feel how drained you were by text alone. Still, sometime after midnight, loneliness finally outweighs guilt. And even as you beg him to stay in bed and rest, insisting it’s late and he should be sleeping, he still replies with two simple words that make your heart flutter.

Already driving 12:22am

Twenty-five minutes later, headlights sweep across your curtains and you get out of your bed with a pained groan, your legs heavy as you shuffle into the kitchen in fuzzy socks. Bucky is already inside, carrying a paper bag in one hand, concern settling visibly between his brows the second you appear.

“Hey there, princess.” He whispers, leaving everything on the counter so he can pull you against him.

And that’s the moment your body goes frighteningly limp as you realize how badly you needed Bucky to hold you, knowing he would never ask for anything in return.

“I’m okay.” You quickly try to reassure him, but don’t do a very good job when your words come out slurred against his jacket.

His low hum expresses clear disagreement, one hand smoothing slowly over your back before he pulls away enough to cradle your cheeks.

“You ate dinner?”

The hesitation on your face answers for you.

His jaw clenches slightly. “Sweetheart.”

“I wasn’t hungry.” You blurt out, dangerously close to tears.

“I know, angel.” His voice turns to a whisper in front of your distress. “But you had a long day.”

There is no irritation in his voice, only concern wrapped in gentle firmness that somehow makes embarrassment crawl up your throat anyway. But before shame can take you away from him, Bucky leans down to press a long kiss on your forehead.

“Hey,” he murmurs. “I’m not angry.”

Your shoulders visibly lower a little.

“Sit down for me while I make you something warm, okay?”

And there it is again, that tingly sensation spreading low in your belly whenever he speaks like that, calm and assured and already prepared to handle things for you before you can break.

You curl beneath your favorite blanket on the couch while he heats soup and makes some chamomile tea. Watching him in all his composure as he takes care of you, moving around your house, and opening cabinets without needing directions because he already memorized where everything belongs months ago... Well, it nearly undoes you completely.

“You always think about me like that?” You ask feebly once he finally appears with a tray that he momentarily places on the coffee table.

Bucky glances at you from where he’s adjusting the blanket around your legs. “Like what?”

“Like… this.” You swallow, not liking how your throat is starting to tighten. “Taking care of things—of me, before I even notice what’s wrong.”

“‘Course I do, princess.” He answers quietly.

Tears dangerously sting at the back of your eyes, but your teeth promptly sink into your bottom lip before you can succumb to them. There is a brief moment suspended in time in which Bucky’s eyes search your expression, before he moves to kneel on the floor in front of you, palms already reaching for your jaw. 

“You spend so much time looking after everybody else.” He starts under his breath. “I just want... somebody looking after you too.” His thumb strokes the skin of your cheek and that’s when you notice the lonely tear that escaped the last thread of your control.

“I wanna be your safe place. Want you to know you can come to me. Always. You don’t gotta hold it together with me.”

“And when it gets too much out there,” he adds after a beat. “Or here,” his knuckle gently brushes your temple. “I’ll be right beside you. I’ll catch you. Every time.”

You built a relationship based on care and mutual trust, something you never had before but deeply craved. For quite a long time, those sleepless nights spent wondering when it will finally be your turn, soon turned into cruel reminders that maybe, after all, you just were not built for that kind of love. So you kept running yourself into the ground for everyone else without anyone actually noticing how much that cost you. Some people though, Bucky said, weren’t even worthy of those pretty eyes looking their way, let alone your kindness. Still, a small flame of hope kept burning in your heart—the hope that someday, someone would truly see you. Nobody has ever tried to earn your trust enough for you to hand over your vulnerability. But with Bucky, you bloom so easily in the warmth of his love.

Rain has turned part of the farm path into thick mud after a storm, and despite Bucky repeatedly warning you to not wear your pretty shoes near the fields, you ignored him confidently right up until your foot sinks deep enough into the mud to trap you completely. Bucky turns at the sound of your horrified gasp, and immediately starts laughing.

“Bucky!” You whine while trying unsuccessfully to yank your shoe free. “Stop laughing.”

“Sweetheart,” he says through obvious amusement while walking toward you. “Why’re you wearing those heels out here?”

“I didn’t think it would be this bad.”

“Mhm.”

You narrow your eyes at him. “You’re being mean.”

His grin only grows as he reaches you.

“Far from it, princess. C’mere.”

Before you can ask what he means, both hands settle firmly around your waist and suddenly your feet leave the ground entirely. A startled squeak escapes your throat as your boyfriend lifts you effortlessly out of the mud like one of those bags of fodder he so easily carries around the farm.

“Bucky!”

“You were getting stuck.” He smirks.

“I could’ve figured it out myself.” You mumble shyly.

“I know you could.”

His words are tinged with mirth as he carries you back toward solid ground, one arm secure around your waist while your hands instinctively clutch his shoulders.

“Doesn’t mean I’m gonna stand there watching you struggle.” Your chest tightens in a way that has nothing to do with guilt anymore, your hands instinctively curling a little tighter into the collar of his jacket as the real meaning of it sinks deep in your heart.

This becomes another habit somehow. He lifts you onto kitchen counters while cooking because otherwise you “hover too much.” Carries you inside from the truck whenever you fall asleep during long drives home from town. Sometimes, after particularly exhausting school days, he simply hooks an arm beneath your knees and picks you up before you can properly protest.

“Jamie, I can walk.” You mumble sleepily against his collarbone.

“I know you can, baby.”

“Then put me down.”

“No.”

The answer comes calm and completely immovable while he adjusts you more securely against his chest.

He looks down at you. “You’re tired.” As if that is enough of an explanation.

You squint at him, but he raises one eyebrow before your overworked brain can elaborate something witty to retort with.

“You gonna keep arguing or you gonna let me hold my girl?”

Being with him has a way of quieting the constant vigilance in you as your body learns—gradually, unconsciously—that Bucky’s strength never asks you to fear it. All that’s left is a fuzzy, unfocused warmth you can’t quite name. And over time, you begin realizing that what affects you most is not the carrying itself, but what it represents. Around him, you are allowed to take up space without apologizing for it first. You are allowed to keep him company as he works, to cling to him through difficult days and cry without trying to make yourself smaller afterward.

The first time you break down in front of him happens after a bad argument with your mom. You spend nearly ten minutes apologizing between sobs. Bucky listens quietly the entire time before finally reaching up to tenderly wipe your tears with his thumbs, brows drawn together in soft confusion.

“Princess,” he asks gently. “Why’re you apologizing for being upset?”

You open your mouth, but then close it again helplessly. Because once again, you were about to slip back into the bad habits you are carefully working through together. Bucky’s expression morphs instantly in silent understanding.

“C’mere, baby.”

And just like always, you go.

ᥫ᭡. WHEN YOU WANT TO BE PART OF HIS WORLD For a long time, you are convinced that helping Bucky with work will only make things harder for him. Not because he ever said that—quite the opposite, actually. But he moves through the farm with effortless capability, making everything look so easy. He knows where every tool belongs, which fence post is beginning to loosen before anybody else notices, the sound each engine is supposed to make—immediately catching when something is wrong.

Meanwhile, you once managed to stall your own car three times in a row trying to leave the school parking lot because your brain was too tired to function properly. So naturally, the idea of “helping” him feels laughable. Standing in the middle of his world feels strangely similar to trying to communicate in a language you don’t speak fluently yet. Still, that doesn’t stop you from wanting to try. Loving Bucky means wanting to understand the shape of his days and exist inside the life he built long before you arrived in it. You want to know what his mornings look like at sunrise, learn the routines his body slips into automatically after years of repetition, and more than anything, you want to stand there beside him without feeling like a guest.

His blue eyes catch the golden afternoon sunlight so prettily as he glances up from where he’s crouched in front of the fencing, near the south pasture.

“What’s up, lovely?” One corner of his mouth lifts when you linger there without answering right away, your hands fidgeting against the wooden post as if looking for something to ground you.

“What?” He teases lightly. “My girl misses me already?”

You huff a quiet laugh through your nose, eyes dropping briefly to the tools scattered beside him.

“Maybe a little,” you mumble. “I just wanted to see what you were doing.”

His expression softens instantly at that. “C’mere, then.”

You step closer without thinking.

“You wanna help?”

You hesitate under the weight of the question. “Only if I’m not gonna be in the way.”

The offended look Bucky gives you makes you chuckle lightly. He frowns, standing to full height while wiping his hands against his jeans.

“You being here is the opposite of in the way.”

And there it is again—that wonderful ache in your chest. You shift your weight from foot to foot, head ducking a little at the sheer love in his words. His rough fingers slowly hook beneath your chin to tilt your face back toward him.

“You wanna stay with me while I work?” He asks softly.

You nod silently.

“Then stay.”

Simple as that. No sighing. No tolerating your presence to avoid arguments. No making you feel like affection must be earned through usefulness.

After that, he begins finding small ways to pull you into his world. Nothing overwhelming that leaves room for you to panic about messing things up.

“Hold this for me.”

“Pass me that small wrench, pretty girl.”

“Sit over there where I can see you, and watch your step.”

At first, your help is mostly symbolic. You hand him tools, hold flashlights, keep him company while he works beneath trucks or repairs broken equipment in the barn. At some point, Bucky quietly sets up a small table near his workbench for you, sanding the wood smooth and making sure to buy a comfortable pillow for the chair so you can sit there for hours grading assignments and planning lessons while he moves around you.

One afternoon, while you are perched on the workbench as he works beneath the hood of his pickup truck, you accidentally hand him the wrong tool three times in a row. By the third attempt, you groan dramatically. Your face falls into your hands.

“I’m fucking useless.”

Bucky leans back enough to look at you, expression deeply unimpressed.

“Hey.” The single word lands firmly enough that your head snaps up at once. “You ain’t allowed to talk about my girl like that.”

You simply stare at him as he reaches out to squeeze your knee before taking the wrench from your hands.

“Besides,” Bucky adds casually. “You’re real cute when you boss me around with the wrong tools.”

You burst out laughing despite yourself, shyly looking away once you notice he has been busy admiring you with a smitten grin.

Every single time insecurity starts curling around your throat, ugly and uninvited, Bucky is there to loosen it with his careful hands before it can choke you. Dismissing insecurity is far too easy, yet that’s what most people do. It makes them uncomfortable and impatient, so they wave it away with empty reassurance. They joke about it, call it overthinking... They turn vulnerability into a shameful weakness. Because acknowledging it properly would require them to sit inside someone else’s discomfort for a while. But Bucky never treats your vulnerable moments like inconveniences he has to endure. He looks at them directly in the eye until they stop feeling quite so monstrous inside your head.

The way you feel warm all over has nothing to do with the late afternoon sun spilling gold across the land. He had sounded genuinely insulted, because loving you also includes protecting the way you speak about yourself. He cannot stand cruelty directed at you even when it comes from your own mouth.

Your pulse flutters embarrassingly beneath your skin.

His attention returns to the engine eventually, muttering something under his breath as he reaches deeper beneath the hood. Your eyes focus on the rolled sleeves exposing his strong forearms slightly soiled with grease, then slowly travel up the faded flannel stretching across his broad chest, before noticing the crease between his brows. The low hum he gives every now and then when something cooperates correctly makes your pussy throbs, your mind clouded with memories of your thighs around his head.

Your legs swing idly as you sigh, watching him work for another silent moment.

“You know,” you murmur thoughtfully. “For someone who says he likes having me around, you sure are ignoring me right now.”

Bucky snorts softly without looking up.

“I’m working , sweetheart.”

“Mhm.”

He glances at you briefly, one eyebrow lifting. “What?”

You exhale dramatically, leisurely looking around the shed. “I think you’re pretending to fix the truck because you secretly enjoy making me suffer.”

A low chuckle rumbles out of him at that, though he still turns another bolt calmly like you are not trying to derail him on purpose.

“You surviving okay over there, pretty girl?”

“Barely.”

“You’ll make it.”

The problem is that he sounds entirely too entertained by this. Your eyes narrow slightly at his tone. Then, after a moment of consideration, you shift a little closer along the edge and let your thighs part slightly, your hands landing on the wooden surface by your sides to slightly push your chest forward.

Bucky notices immediately from his peripheral vision, but all he gives you is a low, “Careful, doll.” Without any real heat in it.

You stare at the side of his face for another second, then toss your head back enough to deserve an award.

“Mhm...” You hum mournfully. “If my boyfriend really loved me, he would stop fixing stuff and pay attention to me.”

This time Bucky laughs unguarded, the sound rough around the edges as he finally leans back enough to look at you.

“Oh, so that’s what this is?”

You try to appear unbothered. “What?”

“You being a needy girl.”

Heat crawls immediately into your cheeks, still you keep your eyes on his.

“I am not needy.” You insist.

His mouth twitches, incredibly amused. “No?”

“No.”

“Mhm.”

You huff softly, crossing your arms while he turns back toward the engine with entirely too much satisfaction for your liking. And unfortunately—for the both of you—you are an incredibly stubborn woman. Which means your brain immediately decides to make things worse by jumping down the bench and silently approaching the vehicle until you are leaning down the edge of the hood, right beside your boyfriend. 

“Maybe there are more interesting things you could be doing with your hands right now.” You murmur, eyes dragging slowly over the length of his body.

The wrench stops turning at once. For one very dangerous second, the entire world seems to go still with it. Bucky exhales slowly through his nose before straightening to his full height, wiping his palms across his jeans with deliberate calm that somehow feels infinitely more threatening than any other reaction.

“Oh, you’re trouble today.”

You try to hold his gaze without shrinking under it, but that becomes significantly harder once he starts edging closer to you, the stupid tool that confused you completely forgotten. The light teasing in his face has shifted into something heavier, a kind of seriousness that has your panties completely ruined.

“Looking at me like that while I’m trying to behave...”

You swallow. “Maybe I don’t want you to.”

His nostrils flare for a brief moment, one large hand sliding around your waist while the other braces on your hip, and before your brain fully catches up, he is backing you a few slow steps toward the side of the shed. The wall presses lightly against your back, Bucky’s frame crowding you back into stillness, close enough that you can feel the warmth radiating from him through every layer between you. His thumbs stroke your sides rhythmically as he studies you with an expression that almost makes you forget how to breathe.

“You’re playing with fire, doll.”

You tilt your chin up despite the way your pulse stumbles. “I just wanted your attention.”

Bucky’s jaw flexes once. “Oh, you got it.”

His mouth claims yours like he is afraid you will disappear if he doesn’t, the hand on the curve of your waist tightening possessively while the other traces the length of your neck, until his fingers dig into your jaw to keep your head tilted exactly how he wants it. A small, unintentional whimper is muffled against his mouth as your fingers curl tight into the front of his shirt, and Bucky exhales softly through his nose like the sound nearly undid him too. It is rough, urgent... Too much and still not enough.

When he finally pulls back, it’s only far enough for his forehead to rest briefly against yours. Both of you breathe a little unevenly, his palms still heavy on your skin, as though he has no intention whatsoever of letting you wander too far now that he finally has you pliant and whining for him.

“Tell me to stop.” His voice is rough, gaze frantically going back and forth between your hazy eyes and your lips glinting with his spit.

“I need you, Jamie.”

And he is kissing you again, slower this time but no less distracting, and you are just beginning to melt properly into him when his hands slide beneath your sundress, harshly grabbing the back of your thighs.

“Jamie—”

“C’mon, up sweetheart.” He rumbles in your mouth, already pushing you higher against the wall.

Your giggle dissolves into a wanton moan when his tongue slides back between your lips, fervent and eager, your fingers tangling into his hair while his grip tightens instinctively on your ass.

“Fuck.” He pants wrecked, his bulge pressing insistently against your covered core.

“Jamie, please.” You toss your head back as his lips frantically move over your neck and cleavage, more lapping and biting at your skin than actually kissing. 

“So fucking sweet.” He grunts, humping you like an animal right in front of the open door of the shed. 

See, Bucky is… well, particularly insatiable. It’s not enough to spend Sunday mornings slowly grinding into you until you are begging him to make you come, tears staining your cheeks as he coos at you. It’s not enough to bend you over the kitchen counter and thrust his cock into your pussy from behind, his warm and heavy body pressing you down as you hold onto the edge of the wooden surface for dear life. It’s also not enough for his fingers to not-so-subtly slip beneath the hem of the blouse you just spent ten minutes adjusting to your liking, just to squeeze your tits because “They’re missing me, doll”.

And he never seems to care if you are late for something, or how long it takes... or where you are. Like that time he pulled into the deserted parking lot of a random mall on the way back from your cousin’s engagement party because one of her friends had flirted with you a few too many times—even with Bucky standing just a couple of feet away, talking to your aunts while openly glaring at him. He growled an amused, “Try not making a mess on the seats, princess” before you ended up squirming and moaning in the backseat of his pickup truck, still fully clothed as his hand slid down the front of your unbuttoned pants. He was three fingers deep inside your pussy, his other hand gripping your jaw to keep your eyes on his as he whispered how good he was going to fuck you later in his bed, and how good he’d make you cream all over his cock. His dick was straining against the confines of his pants, painful and throbbing because you were so pretty with your lips parted around your little, unrestrained whimpers, your half-lidded eyes staring hazily at him, and then… the bright flash of red and blue lights blinded you both in an instant.

By the time the two police officers knocked on the window car, you were both just about composed—his jacket lay on his lap to hide the impressive bulge while you leaned against his shoulder, carefully performing a convincing enough bout of nausea to explain why you had been parked there so long. They told you that someone had reported a vehicle acting suspiciously nearby and Bucky quickly chimed in, matching their story just enough. However, the car in question disappeared down the road the moment you parked. A brief, measured silence followed, until one of the officers glanced at you. Then at Bucky. Then back at his partner, clearly deciding that whatever they might have walked in on was not worth pursuing further. 

Or that time your first picnic date turned into Bucky keeping a hand on your mouth as he fucked you right in the middle of the blanket you had so carefully arranged, imagining quiet naps beneath the trees and lazy kisses. Instead, you had squirted all over it after Bucky had growled into your neck that you needed to be quiet, or else one of his employees might catch you. Still hard, he hastily lay between your thighs for his earned “dessert”.

You have always managed to get away with it before—never caught, never interrupted, always just out of reach of consequence. Until now.

The wall rattles with a particular hard thrust of his hips, loud enough that the sound travels straight through the large space, followed immediately by a sharp, unceremonious clatter from somewhere above your head. Before either of you has even processed what’s happening, something tumbles from the nearby shelf and lands directly on Bucky’s head with a force that makes you both flinch at the same time.

Your boyfriend jerks back instantly, a harsh curse slipping out under his breath as one hand flies up to the exact point of impact, while his other arm tightens around you, still holding you close out of reflex even as he recoils.

“Oh my God—” You gasp, eyes widening in horror as you register what just happened. “Bucky!”

“’M fine.” He grunts automatically, though the tight set of his jaw and the faint squint in his eye suggest otherwise.

You wriggle out from his hold with anxious urgency until he sets you back on your feet, quickly reaching for his wrists as though you can physically prevent any further damage. He keeps muttering under his breath about “fucking shelves” and “the motherfucker who put that damn thing there.”

“Sweetheart, it was just a flashlight, not a bullet.” He grits out to reassure you.

“Who cares, it hit your head!” You argue frantically. “Move your hand, let me see.”

There is a long, theatrical pause, during which Bucky clearly considers refusing out of principle alone, but eventually he exhales through his nose and lowers his hand with exaggerated reluctance, revealing nothing particularly dramatic beyond a faintly annoyed expression.

“There,” he sighs. “Still alive.”

You stare at him with genuine devastation shining in your eyes.

“Oh, baby.”

And that is the moment everything shifts. Because your tone changes completely, your panic dissolving into something softer and infinitely more dangerous as your hands come up to his face without hesitation, cradling him with careful precision while your thumbs brush lightly over his cheeks. You inspect him with big, worried eyes, pouting at him like he has just survived something far more dramatic than an ambush by a shelf.

Bucky, for his part, goes still in a way that has nothing to do with pain and everything to do with your attention. It’s almost humiliating how quickly his entire focus narrows down to you. The way your thumb absently brushes his cheek. The way your voice drops into a gentle, breathy coo every time you ask if he is alright. The way you keep smoothing your thumb over the bruise like it physically pains you to see him like this. And somewhere in the middle of it, a thought forms with unsettling clarity—he really likes this.

“You poor thing,” you murmur mournfully. “Does it hurt?”

Bucky blinks once, twice. “A little...” He admits slowly, though the word feels less like an answer and more like an experiment he is conducting purely for the sake of seeing how you respond.

You frown. “Oh, Jamie.”

He leans into your soft palms without thinking, eyelids lowering in complete bliss.

“Mhm.”

“Do you feel dizzy?”

“... Think I might now that you mentioned it.”

The crease in your brows deepens at once, fingers sliding into his hair as you begin checking for other bumps, your touch careful and thorough in a way that turns his brain into pure mush.

“You need ice.”

“Mhm.”

“And water.”

“Probably.”

“And you should sit down for a minute.”

At that, something entirely too satisfied slips into his expression, subtle but unmistakable. Because you are standing in front of him on the verge of tears, treating this huge, rough man like a wounded woodland creature.

“You’re real sweet when you worry about me.” He murmurs, smitten.

You roll your eyes even as your hands stay on his face. “Someone has to take care of you.”

That’s all it takes. He is not going to discourage this behavior in any way, shape, or form.

Bucky lets you guide him toward the chair beside the workbench without resistance, lowering himself into it with slow obedience. The moment he is seated, you are immediately between his knees, hovering, checking, fussing, entirely focused on him as though nothing else in the world currently matters. Which, unfortunately, becomes the highlight of his entire week.

“There’s a bump.” You murmur to yourself, brows drawn together in concentration.

“Mhm.” He agrees gravely, as if this confirms a deeply unfortunate outcome for his future.

“You could’ve been seriously hurt.”

And Bucky just watches you, completely lost in the way you move around him with anxious care, your hands never quite leaving him. There is something recklessly addicting about being the center of your attention that settles into him far too easily, like it has always been waiting there for you to unlock it. It goes to his head faster than the flashlight ever could.

“Are you still feeling dizzy?” You fret.

Bucky tilts his head slightly as if genuinely considering it, though the truth is he could not care less about his symptoms.

“…Little bit.” He decides finally.

Your eyes widen. “You do?”

“Might need mouth-to-mouth.” He adds, entirely deadpan.

You stare at him in disbelief. “James.”

“What?” A pause, thoughtful. “I got a concussion, sweetheart. Have some compassion.”

“You don’t have a concussion.”

“You sure?”

“Yes.” Your voice briefly cracks with amusement.

He sighs as though genuinely disappointed by the medical community. Still, he looks unbearably pleased with himself.

“Stay still,” you mutter pensively, already turning toward the small freezer tucked away nearby. “I’m getting ice.”

Bucky watches you go with an expression bordering on lovesick, his lips twisting into a soft curve. By the time you return, he has already shifted slightly, spreading his knees just enough to make space for you again. His hands find your hips as soon as you’re close enough, steadying you, holding you in place while you press the ice gently against the bump, your face still pinched with concentration.

“Too cold?” You ask softly.

“Nah.” Then, after a beat, entirely too casually, “Still think you should kiss it better, though.”

You roll your eyes, yet your small smile betrays you. “You’re enjoying this way too much.”

“Can’t believe you’d say that while I’m injured.” He retorts, tone solemn. “I got hit real hard, doll.”

“You said it was a flashlight.” Your eyebrow raises skeptically.

“Still could’ve knocked loose my precious brain cell.”

That finally does it, a laugh slipping out of you despite the anxiety still lingering in your stomach. It’s soft and breathless and completely unrestrained, and Bucky’s hands squeeze your waist, as though he is physically anchoring himself to it.

“What am I going to do with you?” You sigh, fingers threading carefully through his hair. It occurs to you with a fond, helpless kind of clarity that you have accidentally created a monster. One who is absolutely going to treat every minor inconvenience like a life-threatening injury, if it means being doted on by you.

This time, there is no hesitation when he answers, voice quieter but absolutely certain.

“Keep spoiling me like this.”

The words come out lazy and teasing, yet they land heavier than either of you anticipate. Because he means it a little. Maybe a lot. Your expression softens in response, the final threads of panic melting away into something far more vulnerable. Then, much to his delight, you lean down and press a long kiss to the top of his head.

“There,” you murmur. “Better?”

Bucky goes still beneath you, before his arms wrap more firmly around you, pulling you just a fraction closer until his chin can comfortably rest on your torso.

“Yeah,” he whispers, reverent eyes looking up at you. “Way better.”

ᥫ᭡. WHEN YOU SPEND YOUR MORNINGS TOGETHER The two of you are stretched across his bed after a late dinner and a movie downtown, the television flickering low pale light across the room. One of Bucky’s older hoodies hangs from your shoulders, and the comforter pooled around your legs still carries faint traces of that comforting earthy scent that always seems permanently stitched into everything he owns.

You are trying very hard to stay awake. The week has been horrible: your students restless from too many rainy recesses indoors, paperwork piling endlessly across your desk, and parent emails arriving faster than you could answer them. By the time Bucky picked you up earlier that evening, your body had already been aching with fatigue. Still, you are determined not to fall asleep here. Because despite the fact that Bucky has never once made you feel unwelcome in his space, there is still a nervous little part of you convinced that accidentally crossing invisible boundaries will somehow ruin everything. Falling asleep in his bed feels far more intimate than kissing him does, strangely enough, because it means trusting him enough to stop monitoring yourself.

So every time your eyelids begin slipping lower, you stubbornly force them open again. Unfortunately, Bucky notices the way your responses slow down halfway through conversations and the increasingly delayed reaction every time he asks you something about the movie. Your body keeps unconsciously curling closer and closer toward his warmth before you catch yourself and straighten again. At one point, your head dips toward his chest for too long you abruptly jerk yourself upright.

Bucky glances at you, his hand leisurely rubbing along your arm, and one corner of his mouth already threatens to lift.

“You don’t gotta stay awake for me, doll.”

His voice comes low and soothing beside you, yet your eyes widen abruptly.

“I’m awake.”

Bucky hums softly, deeply unconvinced. “You sure?”

“Yep. I was listening.”

“To what?”

You open your mouth but nothing comes out, your eyes fluttering shut in defeat when you realize you absolutely set yourself up for that.

Bucky’s chest shakes slightly with restrained laughter at your weak glare.

“I’m serious.” You slur, shifting upright again beneath the blankets with all the determination of somebody seconds away from losing consciousness. He hums patiently, still rubbing slow circles against your sleeve.

You try very hard after that. You focus on the movie, ask questions about the actors… You even sit up straighter just to prove you are perfectly fine. Then Bucky’s hand slides absentmindedly beneath his shirt to rub slowly along your bare hip instead.

And honestly, after that, you never really stood a chance. Bucky glances down after a couple of silent minutes and finds your body curled into his side while your breathing evens out gradually beneath the faint sound of the wind outside. And something about the sight hits him so deeply it hurts. Because he knows this is not easy for you yet. That you are still learning how to be yourself around another person without feeling like an inconvenience. 

Your boyfriend slowly adjusts himself against the headboard so you can settle more comfortably on him, one hand pulling the comforter higher around your shoulders before he lowers the volume of the television. You stir faintly at the movement, brows pinching briefly in your sleep, but his hand promptly strokes your back with gentle movements.

“There you go,” he murmurs quietly. “Go back to sleep, pretty girl.” The tension melts from your muscles so quickly beneath his touch that Bucky’s eyes linger on you in silent wonder for a long moment. He presses one long kiss on your forehead, and sometime later, sleep finally finds him too, quiet and unguarded with you tucked safely against his side.

The next morning, you wake feeling unexpectedly well-rested. For several peaceful seconds, your mind drifts lazily through the hazy border between sleep and awareness. It’s only when your body stirs with a slow, languid stretch that you realize you are pressed against something solid.

Solid, pleasantly warm, and… moving?

Memories crash into you all at once—the dinner, the movie... Bucky’s bed.

Your eyes fly open.

Early sunlight catches along the broad expanse of his bare forearm where it rests heavily around your waist, like he fell asleep making sure you were always close throughout the night. Mortification hits you like a punch in the stomach. You can’t believe you were careless enough to fall asleep in his bed without discussing it first, the surprise quickly curdling into guilt as you picture him stuck with you there, too kind to wake you up.

Trying to not be swallowed by panic until you are completely alone, you carefully shift beneath the blankets only for Bucky’s hold to tighten automatically around you. A sleepy hum leaves him, followed by his voice a second later, raspy and deep.

“Morning, sweetheart.”

You turn carefully enough to find him already watching you through heavy-lidded eyes, hair messy from sleep and jaw still shadowed with yesterday’s stubble.

“I’m sorry.” The words come out before you can even think about it.

Bucky blinks slowly, his soft smile falling at once. “For what?”

“For falling asleep here.”

“You were tired.” He frowns.

“I know but… I didn’t mean to bother you.”

The second the words leave your mouth, something in Bucky’s expression morphs into painful understanding. You genuinely believe this inconvenienced him.

“You silly girl,” he murmurs fondly, pulling you closer by your waist. “You fell asleep during a movie. That ain’t exactly a crime, y’know?”

You stare down at the comforter instead, suddenly unable to meet his eyes. “I just didn’t wanna impose.”

Long fingers are already sliding beneath your chin, guiding your face back toward him with impossible patience.

“You think I’d rather have you driving home exhausted in the rain at midnight? Hm?”

Your lips part slightly. “Well—”

“No, baby.” His thumb delicately brushes your bottom lip. “I’d rather have you here with me.”

It feels hard to breathe properly when faced with the certainty in his voice.

“I liked waking up next to you.”

The confession lands directly beneath your ribs.

“You did?” Your eyes observe him wide with hope.

“‘Course I did.” A sleepy little smile tugs at his mouth. “I...” He huffs out an abashed chuckle, and you recoil a little, completely caught off guard. Because Bucky has never once looked this flushed since your first date.

“I’d really like it if you stayed over more.”

“Really?” It’s nothing short of a whisper.

“Mhm.” His hand drifts slowly along your side as his gaze lingers on your face with devastating devotion.

“Don’t really like the idea of you driving home late all the time anyway, and…” He pauses briefly, almost thoughtful. “I wanna wake up with you in my arms.”

The room suddenly feels far too warm. Bucky shifts slightly closer again, his other arm coming under you to anchor your body to his, his nose teasingly grazing yours.

“Wanna have my mouth on you before either of us even gets outta bed, and be late because we inevitably get carried away with our little kisses.” He whispers lazily against the slope of your neck, pressing a peck on your collarbone that makes you shudder.

“Wanna make breakfast together and watch you steal half the bacon off my plate after you said you weren’t hungry.” His mouth barely brushes your cheek. “Wanna sit at the kitchen table while you talk my ear off about your day before it even starts.”

Nobody has ever spoken about wanting you in their life as a fantasy too fragile to touch. But Bucky has already made space for you in his future without hesitation.

And then he completely ruins you by adding under his breath, “You look good here, sweetheart. With me.”

The same hesitation holding you back melts completely after that.

“I liked waking up next to you too.” You whisper, cheeks warming up at your own brave confession. But the bright smile he gives you is completely worth it. 

Staying over becomes less of an exception and more of a habit neither of you wants to break. Soon enough, pieces of you begin appearing around the farmhouse: a spare toothbrush beside his sink; a brand new box of your favorite strawberry lipgloss that Bucky bought for you to specifically use when you stay over; your favorite cookies tucked into one of the kitchen cabinets—because Bucky noticed you always look for them first in the mornings.

He never rushes you into the day. Even when he has technically been awake for hours already, he moves through the morning with a steady, unhurried ease, as though the world itself knows it can take a break around him.

Sometimes you wake to find him already watching you quietly from the pillow beside yours, one arm still draped across your waist while pale sunrays spill across the sheets between you. Most mornings, you simply cuddle closer for a little while, listening to him breathe, memorizing the warmth of his arms around you, letting yourself exist without urgency for once.

“Morning, baby.”

His voice still sounds rough around the edges from sleep when he leans to meet you halfway, pressing a slow kiss on your mouth that lingers far longer than necessary because neither of you is in any hurry to separate yet.

Downstairs, the kitchen already smells faintly of coffee he started earlier. You are halfway through pouring cream into your mug when dread hits you like a bucket of icy water. Bucky notices immediately from his seat at the kitchen island, where he’s reading the newspaper like every morning.

“What happened?”

You sigh softly, your head falling back with a groan. “I still have to finish prepping activities for today.”

Instead of looking disappointed that your attention has shifted elsewhere, Bucky simply studies you thoughtfully for a moment before setting his mug down.

“Show me.”

You turn in surprise. “What?”

“Show me what you gotta do.”

“You wanna help me lesson plan?” Your eyebrows raise in amusement.

“Correction, I wanna spend my morning with you.”

So eventually you spread everything across the wooden surface: worksheets, glue sticks, colored markers, laminated reading cards, paper cutouts for today’s classroom activity. Bucky watches the process unfold with intense concentration, a deep crease between his eyebrows while he studies your materials.

“This all for one class?”

“Mm-hmm. Reading exercise, drawing activity, vocabulary review…” You point at each group of items.

Bucky gives you a slow nod, despite still looking vaguely overwhelmed by the amount of paper involved. Without thinking much about it, you hand him a stack of cut-out shapes that needs to be organized by color. He takes them at once, no hesitation whatsoever. Several minutes later, you glance up and nearly snort out loud when you realize he’s sorting them not only by color, but by shade. After that, he busies himself with other simple tasks, like passing markers to you in color order because he noticed you unconsciously arrange them that way yourself, and flattening laminated sheets carefully beneath one rough hand while you cut around them.

At one point, Bucky picks up one of the worksheets and studies it with intense concentration, his brows slowly knitting together the more he reads through the page. You barely pay attention at first, too focused on cutting out paper stars for the reading activity, until silence stretches suspiciously long. When you are done, you find Bucky still staring at the paper as if studying a government document.

“These kids gotta circle the adjective?”

You blink once. “Yes?”

He glances down at the paper, then back at you. “They know what an adjective is?”

“Most of them.” You chuckle at his genuine curiosity.

Bucky shakes his head like the information has sincerely overwhelmed him.

“When I was their age, I was eating dirt behind the barn.”

“Bucky.”

“I’m just being honest, sweetheart.” His finger taps the worksheet once. “These little kids are out here identifying pronouns and shit at eight in the morning.”

You are laughing too hard now imagining a smaller, frowning Bucky eating dirt and running around the pasture hugging lambs probably larger than him. Bucky watches you with obvious satisfaction, until his eyes narrow at another page on the table.

“Is that a frog?”

You grin at him. “That’s the reading mascot, Sir Ribbits.”

His eyebrows shoot up. “The frog helps them read?”

“He encourages them.”

Bucky stares at the cartoon amphibian for another long moment before giving it a satisfied nod.

“Good for him.”

After hunching over papers for what feels like hours, you stretch your arms with a tired little moan. Bucky is already rounding the table to rub your stiff shoulders, and instead of flinching, you simply lean back into it.

By the time everything is finally packed away, the kitchen table is covered in marker caps and paper scraps. He gathers the last stack of worksheets into neat piles before you can even reach for them.

“You’re weirdly good at this.” Your teeth sink into your bottom lip as you prop your elbow on the table and rest your chin against your knuckles.

Bucky glances up from the papers. “You let me into your world,” he says simply. “Figured I should learn it too.”

He never expected you to abandon pieces of yourself to fit into his life more easily. Instead, he stepped gently into yours, observing every detail with patience and the kind of love that makes ordinary mornings feel sacred without either of you even realizing it.

A strange heaviness weighs in your body on Thursday morning but Bucky is so warm, and still dozing beside you with one of his large hands resting on your stomach. So you yawn, lazily letting your eyes blink at the window just enough to not abandon that pleasant, fuzzy state of drowsiness. But then they accidentally land on the clock on your nightstand and the realization is like electricity in your veins.

“Oh no.”

The words catch painfully in your throat while you scramble upright so fast the mattress shifts violently beneath you.

“No, no, no, no—”

Bucky wakes with a jolt at the desperation in your voice, his brows pulling together while he pushes himself up on one elbow, still heavy with sleep but already alert.

“What’s wrong? What happened?”

You are throwing the blankets aside, heart hammering painfully while you frantically open your closet. “I’m so fucking late.”

He glances once toward the clock and sits up fully.

“Okay.” He says calmly, rubbing one hand briefly over his face before standing. “Hey, sweetheart. You need to breathe.”

But your thoughts pile over each other in a chaotic succession to acknowledge the note of seriousness tinging his voice. Stumbling around your bedroom, you mentally list everything waiting for you at school, and fuck! You still need to print the spelling worksheets—

Suddenly your chest feels too tight for your lungs.

“I can’t believe this is happening,” you whine shakily while yanking open dresser drawers with far more force than necessary. “Why didn’t my alarm go off?”

Bucky watches you for approximately three seconds before deciding this has gone on long enough.

“Sweetheart.”

You barely hear him.

“Where are my tights? Fuck—”

The sound of your name in his low voice is like an arm dragging you out of the fog. You look up just in time to see him step directly into your path, his palms settling carefully on your upper arms before your nervous pacing can continue.

“Sit down for me.”

The words are not sharp, but there is enough firmness in his voice that your body pauses anyway.

“I don’t have time to sit down.” You argue weakly, still breathless.

“You got thirty seconds.”

“Bucky—”

“Thirty.” His thumbs stroke once over your arms. “Then you can go back to panicking all you want.”

And somehow, despite yourself, a tiny startled laugh almost escapes your throat. Your spiraling does not scare him, he has already decided he can handle it.

Reluctantly, you fall back on the edge of the bed, your right knee already bouncing anxiously. Meanwhile, your boyfriend moves around the room with military efficiency despite being startled awake not even five minutes ago, opening drawers you left hanging crooked and pulling out clothes with far more success than you had managed one minute earlier.

“This sweater okay?” He asks, holding up the brown-colored knit you wear most often to school.

You nod quickly. “Yeah.”

“What about bottoms?”

“The dark jeans. Not the—no, the other ones.”

A sleepy smile pulls at his mouth. “Doll, you own six pairs of those.”

“They’re different.”

“Mhm. I’m learning.”

He lays the clothes neatly beside you before his eyes meet yours.

“I’ll get the shower running.” You are already half-way up but he stops you promptly with a hand on your shoulder. “You stay put for one minute and focus on your breathing.”

Your body slumps back on the mattress dejected. “I don’t have one minute.”

“You do,” he calls back over the hallway. “You just decided you don’t.”

And annoyingly enough, hearing him say that steadies your heartbeat embarrassingly fast. Bucky never meets your panic with more panic, but with this quiet expectation that life will go on if you slow down to take a breath.

By the time you finally hurry into the kitchen twenty minutes later, still trying to button one sleeve, you stop short at the familiar sizzling of the pan. Bucky is standing near the stove in grey sweatpants and an old dark henley, hair still messy from sleep and posture relaxed while he slides scrambled eggs onto a plate.

“Sit.” He says after spotting you hovering on the threshold.

“Bucky—”

He turns toward you fully then, watching you with that deeply patient expression of his.

“C’mere.”

You comply with a sigh as he slides the plate in front of you alongside a toast, some jam and a travel mug of coffee already prepared exactly the way you like it.

“You need protein.”

You massage your temples to soothe the impending headache. “I’m gonna be late.”

“You’re already late,” he points out calmly, leaning against the counter. “Now, you can either be late and fed or late and miserable.”

You stare at him and he promptly raises one eyebrow. “You done fighting me on this or you got another argument ready?”

That finally pulls a reluctant laugh from you. “You’re bossy in the morning.”

He shrugs easily, now understanding why you arrive home every afternoon looking like somebody has been ruthlessly peeling pieces off you since sunrise.

He then helps without making a performance out of it. Your coat appears folded neatly over a chair, and your keys get placed directly beside your coffee as you try to eat faster. When your lunch bag nearly gets forgotten on the kitchen counter, Bucky simply hooks two fingers through the strap and places it near your coat.

“Every morning you skitter through this part like a startled little thing.” He murmurs eventually.

Your answer is a tired sigh. “Because I’m always running behind.”

“Nah,” he corrects gently, stepping behind your chair to put his hands over your shoulders and press a kiss to your temple. “You just got it in your head that if you ain’t running yourself ragged, you’re not working hard enough.”

The words hit uncomfortably close to home, leaving you staring down at your empty plate in silence. Bucky promptly kneels beside you, intertwining his fingers with yours.

“You hear what I’m saying, princess?” He mumbles softly.

“A little.” You nod reluctantly.

“You don’t gotta earn rest by wearing yourself thin.”

Your throat tightens unexpectedly, not used to have your exhaustion treated like something deserving tenderness instead of expectation. Before the moment can settle too heavily inside you though, Bucky glances toward your bag where papers are sticking halfway out.

“You got everything?”

You finally look up, straightening just a little. “I think so.”

“That usually means no.”

You groan softly. “Please don’t start.”

He chuckles under his breath before walking over to the bag for a checkup, clearly having observed this exact routine unravel before. Within seconds, he pulls out your half-empty water bottle.

“You forgot to fill this.”

“Oh.” You frown.

“And your portable charger.”

“Oh.” Your shoulders slump.

“And doll?” His eyes lift to you knowingly while he holds up the folder with all the notes for your lesson currently bent sideways. “This thing’s fighting for its life.”

Exasperated, you hide your face behind your hands while he fixes the folder carefully before zipping everything properly closed. But the bag is too full and when your fingers close around the handle a few minutes later, the zipper gives away anyway, and frustration spikes sharply enough that your eyes sting.

“Why won’t this stupid thing—”

Before you can fight with it further, Bucky steps in and takes the bag from your hands. One smooth motion and the zipper slides perfectly into place.

“There.”

Your entire nervous system settles slightly from that tiny act alone.

You finally make it to the front door—still flustered, still behind schedule, still trying to mentally catch up with the day waiting outside. But you are no longer drowning in it.

You grab your car keys, expecting some hurried goodbye while Bucky cleans the kitchen. Instead, he is standing directly in front of the door, and without a word, his hands reach down and fix your collar where it folded awkwardly.

“Text me when you get there.”

“I will.” His eyes search your face for another moment, cradling it between his warm palms.

“You did good.”

You stare at him incredulously. “I overslept by almost an hour.”

“And you still got up,” Bucky comments simply. “Still got dressed. Still ate breakfast. Still remembered your stuff. That’s what matters, baby.”

He never measures your worth through perfection, only through effort. Through whether or not you are being gentle enough with yourself while surviving difficult days.

He leaves a long kiss on your forehead, completely unbothered by the clock ticking loudly behind you.

“Now go teach your little gremlins.”

“They’re not gremlins.” You roll your eyes fondly.

His left eyebrow raises in skepticism. “One of ’em tried to lick glue yesterday.”

“He said he wanted to know if it tasted like blueberries because the bottle was blue.” You mumble defensively.

“Mhm.” He presses one last kiss to your lips. “Tiny gremlins.”

You shake your head, chuckling as you reach for the door. And while walking to your car, you realize with pleasant surprise that your breathing is a little steadier. Controlled. Because Bucky stood beside your panic and refused to let it carry you away.

ᥫ᭡. WHEN YOU ARGUE FOR THE FIRST TIME Pickup was already chaotic: one of the first graders had burst into tears after losing her glitter-covered pencil somewhere near the cubbies, a little boy had refused to put on his raincoat because he insisted it was “for babies,” and by the time the middle school students started flooding the shared hallway, you already felt like hiding beneath your blanket and sleeping for two days.

That’s when the shouting starts—two eighth graders near the front doors, chest-to-chest, yelling loud enough to make half the younger kids stop in place.

You don’t even think before stepping in.

“Hey!” You call sharply, moving between them before either could swing properly. “That’s enough.”

One of them backs off immediately. The other glares at you. He is taller by several inches, angry in the ugly, reckless way teenagers sometimes become when they realize they can intimidate adults physically now. His face twists the second you tell him to step away from the younger students.

“You can’t tell me what to do.”

“I absolutely can,” you answer promptly, trying to keep your voice collected because several of your students are staring with huge frightened eyes. “Go cool off in one of the classrooms.”

He laughs, a sharp and bitter sound, before stepping closer.

“You think because you teach stupid little kids that you can boss everybody around?”

You ignore that part. “Watch your language.”

That only makes him angrier. “You gonna write me up?” He mocks. “Go teach somebody the alphabet or something.”

He starts talking over you, muttering insults under his breath, waving his hands too close to your face while you try to de-escalate things without frightening your students more than they already are.

And then Bucky walks in. He has come to pick you up because your car is still at the mechanic after the tire issue earlier that week. The second he steps through the school doors and sees some teenage boy towering over you while a crowd of scared children has shrunk back against the wall, something in him visibly sharpens.

Once the boy swings one hand again while barking the umpteenth insult aimed at you, too close to your shoulder this time, Bucky is there in seconds.

“That’s enough.”

His voice cuts through the noise so coldly that even the younger kids go quiet.

The boy freezes. Honestly, anybody would in front of a six-foot-something man wearing rough work clothes still dusted faintly from the farm, and a face that rarely softens around strangers.

“You’re done yelling at her, and you better start showing some respect to your teachers.” He continues evenly. “You understand me?”

The boy mutters something under his breath about you not being his teacher, prompting Bucky to take a step closer. The younger snaps his head up, before taking a step back.

“Try again.”

Silence.

Then finally, begrudgingly, “Yes, sir.”

The principal arrives not even a minute later after hearing the commotion, quickly pulling the boy away while apologizing profusely to you both, and the altercation ends as quickly as it started. At least physically. Emotionally, it’s heavy as a boulder on your shoulders, because the entire drive home, Bucky is quieter than usual, so tense that you feel the need to tentatively reach for the handle at your side and roll down the car window for some fresh air.

His hand still rests on your thigh, he still opens your door, and asks if you have eaten. But there is something bothering him underneath all of it. And eventually, while he is cooking dinner later that evening, it finally surfaces.

“You shouldn’t have stepped between them like that.”

You look up from where you are sitting at the kitchen island grading some assignments. “What?”

Bucky keeps stirring something in the pan, shoulders tight beneath his henley. “He was bigger than you,” he continues carefully. “And he was already angry.”

“He’s a kid.”

“He’s fifteen.”

“He’s still a student.”

His jaw clenches briefly. “And if he had hit you?”

With a slow sigh, you decide to put your pen down—these are all signs that you are not getting out of this conversation anytime soon. 

“He wasn’t going to, I had it under control.” You rebut tiredly.

“Didn’t look like you did.”

The second those words leave his mouth, something ugly inside your chest twists painfully. His voice is controlled, far from cruel, but those words feel like a knife ruthlessly stabbing an old scar that refuses to heal properly. And suddenly, you are twenty-two again, standing in your parents’ kitchen while your mom frowns at your teaching degree paperwork.

Teaching little kids? What are you gonna do with that?

You’re wasting your time, this won’t pay bills.

“Well, I handled it anyway.” You look back at the paper in front of you, quietly.

Bucky exhales through his nose, still focused on the stove. 

“Sweetheart, I know you were trying to help, but—”

“I did help.” You frown at his back.

“You can’t just jump between two angry teenagers.”

“I’m a teacher.”

“And I’m saying you don’t gotta throw yourself in front of people to prove that.”

That one hurts too. It tastes like doubt, criticism... disappointment.

“I know how to do my job.” You croak out.

Bucky finally turns then, brows drawn slightly.

“I didn’t say you don’t.”

But his voice is firmer now, frustration slipping through the cracks of his apparent composure despite himself, and when he gestures with the wooden spoon in his hand, his tone rises just enough to make you flinch before you can stop it. The movement is barely noticeable, more out of surprise than anything. Except Bucky freezes.

You don’t even realize your eyes have dropped somewhere on the counter in front of you until his voice changes completely.

“Sweetheart.” A soft, tentative sound, but you are already shaking your head.

“It’s okay.” Your voice sounds wrong and dismissive even to you and Bucky’s expression shifts into painful realization.

He sets the spoon down without another word, turns off the stove, then gingerly walks toward, still keeping his distance so you won’t feel cornered.

“C’mere a second, baby.”

You hesitate, because your body already knows the shape arguments are supposed to take, even if your mind is trying to remind itself that this is your Bucky. Your Jamie.

Still, somewhere deep inside you, disagreement has tied to punishment long ago, to that awful tightening in the air that used to settle over rooms after somebody got upset. You are used to conversations turning cold the second emotions become inconvenient; to silence stretching for hours or even days because you were the one expected to smooth everything over—apologize first, speak softer, take up less space. Growing up, anger always came with withdrawal attached to it. Simple disagreements morphed into slammed cabinets and heavy sighs and someone suddenly acting as though your mere presence had become irritating. And even though Bucky has never treated you that way, your instincts still brace for him to go quiet in that unbearable way that turns a home into a suffocating prison.

But his hand rests on your back as it gently guides you toward the couch, settling beside you but still leaving enough room to breathe. Bucky does not like the way you move cautiously around him, the way you slowly lower yourself onto the same couch that has held you both through late-night talks that stretched until early morning, and movie nights that ended in soft, unhurried kisses.

“We’re not doing silence, okay?”

Your eyes fall on the floor. “I wasn’t—”

“Yes, you were.” His voice stays gentle. “You started disappearing on me halfway through that conversation.”

“I was listening.” You stare at your fingers fidgeting on your thighs. 

“No, angel.” He shakes his head once, his eyes never once straying away from you. “You got quiet because you thought I was gonna turn into somebody I’m not.”

The stinging pressure behind your eyes becomes unbearable. Bucky braces his forearms on his thighs, leaning forward with a slow exhale instead of pressing closer.

“I’m not mad at you.” He adds in a whisper. “I was worried for you.”

You swallow around the lump in your throat. “I know.”

“Do you?” His tone is impossibly feeble now, because suddenly this is not about the hallway anymore, but a habit that was acquired through mortification and fear. Bucky studies your face for another second before speaking again.

“Ain’t no reason for you to be scared to talk back to me, sweetheart.” His brows pinch faintly. “And if I say something that hurts you, I need you to tell me.”

You let out a shaky breath, your voice coming out weaker than you intend to. “It wasn’t just that.”

Bucky straightens at once at the first crack in your armor, unconsciously getting closer. 

“Then help me understand.”

Eventually, with trembling hands and wet eyes, you open up. About your mom and how every time you came home exhausted during your first teaching year, she would look at you like you were failing at life itself. About how your dad used to scoff whenever you talked about your students, because “Teaching kids how to write their name isn’t a real career”. About how even the tiniest mistake sounded like proof you were incapable.

And the more you speak, the worse Bucky looks. By the time you finish talking, it feels like a weight has finally been removed off your chest, yet he looks genuinely sick with guilt.

“Baby,” he mumbles, reaching for your hand. “I wasn’t doubting you. I would never do that.”

You shrug weakly. “I know you weren’t trying to.”

“But I still made you feel that way.”

That’s what finally breaks you, because he’s not defending himself, nor minimizing it.

Tears spill before you can stop them, and your Bucky is already there with open arms to catch you.

“C’mere, babygirl.”

You climb into his lap without hesitation, burying your face against his neck as his arms wrap around you securely. One large hand slides slowly up and down your back, and you try really hard to swallow down your sobs, but you only end up making a bigger mess of his shirt.

“I’m so sorry, princess.” He whispers against your temple. “And I should never’ve raised my voice at you.”

“You weren’t yelling.” You answer shakily.

“You still flinched.”

The shame in his voice makes your heart ache. His hold tightens around you instinctively at your whimper.

“I wasn’t angry at you.” He mumbles urgently. “I was angry at the whole damn situation. At that kid thinking he could talk to you like that after nearly starting a fight in front of your students.” His jaw tightens briefly before he continues. “Couldn’t stand there listening to some mouthy little bastard trying to scare you in front of those little kids.”

Your eyes close in sorrow as the image of their startled faces comes back cruel and still fresh. 

“They were terrified.” You sniffle and his arms squeeze you just a little tighter. 

“I know why you stepped in.” he sighs. “You love those kids like they’re your own for eight hours every damn day, and you can’t stand the idea of any of ’em feeling helpless in a place that’s supposed to be safe.” His palms cradle your cheeks to slowly coax you out of his chest, the urge to see you so strong it pulls hard at his heart. 

“You walk into that school every morning and spend your whole day teaching them how to read and write and believe in themselves. And you’re so fucking good at that, angel. You teach ’em how to be brave enough to admit when they don’t understand something. How to speak up without being scared of failing. How to be kind with each other when the world already gives them enough reasons not to be.” A faint, helpless sort of admiration softens his face then, like he still can’t believe he gets to love and be loved by someone as precious as you. 

Your lips shake as you give him a pained smile, tears still sliding relentlessly down your cheeks.

“Years from now those kids probably won’t remember every worksheet you gave ’em, but they’ll remember how you were patient with ’em. That you listened.” His teeth clench when his voice wavers a little. 

“So yeah, I know exactly why you did that. But that boy still thought he could stand there and talk to you like you were nothing.” He exhales slowly, forehead leaning against yours. “And baby… I got scared too.”

Your chest heaves, something akin to panic swirling in your stomach, because you have never seen your boyfriend look so devastated.

“You matter to me more than being right in an argument,” the words come out rough, his throat working hard around the tight knot lodged there. “So if I get scared and it comes out wrong sometimes, I need you to remember it’s only because the thought of something happening to you tears me apart.”

You nod slowly before folding yourself back against him, arms wrapping tightly around his neck as you bury your face in the warmth of his chest. And then you simply exist together for a long while, curled into him with your cheek pressed against the soft fabric of his shirt while his strong arms hold you safely close to his heart.

The living room has gone quiet around you, the stove forgotten for the moment, as your breathing gradually evens out. He is the one who breaks the silence first, clearing his throat lightly as his lips brush your forehead.

“We’re gonna argue sometimes,” he murmurs carefully, almost reluctantly, like the thought alone upsets him as well. “I can’t promise we’ll never get frustrated with each other.”

Your arms tighten around him at that.

“What I can promise you,” he continues softly, pulling back just enough to look at you properly, one hand coming up to cup your jaw with impossible tenderness. “Is that I’m not gonna stop loving you when things get hard.”

A fresh set of tears settles at the corners of your eyes, because that’s the part you never learned growing up—that the love of the people close to you was not supposed to be conditional.

Bucky’s thumb brushes beneath your eye. “And I’m really, really sorry, sweetheart.” His voice full of genuine regret. “I hate that I made you feel small for even a second.”

You shake your head urgently, not liking his expression. “You didn’t mean to, Jamie.”

“Yet I still did it.” He shifts slightly beneath you then, settling you more comfortably against his chest before continuing quietly.

“Next time one of us gets too worked up, we stop.” His tone is thoughtful now, already trying to build something safer for you with his bare hands. “Nobody keeps pushing the conversation just to win it. We sit down, we breathe, maybe hold each other if that’s what you need, and then we talk when it actually feels like us again instead of our anger. How’s that sound?”

You nod eagerly, before letting out the tiniest watery chuckle against his shoulder.

“That sounds very therapist of you.”

Bucky huffs a soft laugh of his own through his nose. “Probably because I’m thinking real hard how I never wanna be the reason my girl cries like this again.”

A sob threatens to spill out at the pain beneath his words, so you press your face against his neck insistently—as if that could physically stop your own anguish. Bucky plants a gentle kiss on your temple.

“And if I ever get loud again,” he continues with quiet embarrassment, brows pinching in guilt. “You tell me straight away, okay? There are no excuses for it. Don’t sit there holding it on your own while I’m thinking everything’s fine.”

You nod slowly. “I can do that.”

“Promise?” He mumbles, teasingly pushing the tip of his nose against yours.

“Promise.” You leave a tiny peck on the corner of his mouth and only then does some of the tension finally leave him.

His hand slides upwards, fingertips scratching lightly at your scalp just how you like, a soft sigh escaping him at the feeling of your body melting against his. 

“You okay now, babygirl?” The whispered question comes out so sweetly, so sincerely worried, that it nearly brings you to tears all over again.

He gets a simple nod as an answer, and that’s enough for him to understand you are still quite overwhelmed to communicate with words. Bucky considers your body for a moment, his eyes moving carefully over you like he needs to be absolutely certain before he believes it. Your shoulders are no longer drawn up near your ears, and your hands have loosened, clutching lightly at his shirt instead of gripping it desperately. Your breathing has finally settled as well, slower and steadier against his chest. Even your eyes have lost their heat, no longer shiny with panic but tired and present in the moment. Only when he seems fully convinced that you are no longer bracing for something awful to happen does his expression finally ease.

“I got you,” he murmurs quietly against your forehead. “Even when we get things wrong, I still got you.”

Later that night, long after your chagrin has faded and dinner has finally been eaten cold straight from reheated plates, you lie on him with your ear resting directly over his heartbeat. Usually Bucky melts into the sheets whenever you cuddle him like this. Tonight, he stays strangely rigid beneath you.

Lifting your head slightly, you look at his handsome features kissed by the dim, warm light coming from the lamp on his nightstand.

“Jamie?” His fingers pause where they have been tracing absently along your spine, eyes fixed emptily on the TV screen.

“Hm?” He blinks once, hastily turning toward you, like your voice had suddenly pulled him out of whatever thought he had disappeared into.

“You alright?”

The silence that stretches afterward allows anxiety to creep onto the edge of your ribs, before he carefully maneuvers the both of you so you are lying on your sides, facing each other.

“Can I ask you something?”

“Always.” His jaw clenches before he meets your eyes.

“Were you scared of me?”

You almost flinch back. “What?”

“Tonight.” He grunts, clearing his throat awkwardly. “Or before. At any point.”

You stare at him in genuine disbelief. “Bucky—”

“I know I ain’t exactly…” He huffs. “Mr. Friendly with strangers.”

You snort softly because the statement sounds so painfully sincere.

“I’m serious, doll.” His gaze absently lands somewhere on your collarbone. “Most people think I’m angry before I even open my mouth.”

You frown at the tinge of sadness in his voice.

“And then tonight happened,” he continues quietly. “You flinched when I raised my voice and—”

“That wasn’t because of you.” You quickly correct him.

“But I can’t stand that your body reacted like that around me.”

You push yourself upward, cupping his face between your hands until he finally looks at you properly. “James Buchanan Barnes,” you whisper solemnly. “I have never been scared of you. And never will.”

His expression softens at the full name.

“You’re the only person who’s ever made me feel safe.” His eyes still refuse to meet yours, but from the blush settling high on his cheeks, you reckon it’s out of shyness rather than bitter insecurity.

“You know what I see when I look at you?” He shakes his head once. “I see a good,” you murmur softly. “Gentle, patient man.” Your voice lowers even further at that, warmth blooming through your chest when he finally looks at you. 

“You always reach for my hand before we cross a street without even thinking about it. You remember which side of the bed I sleep better on; you peel oranges for me because you know I hate the smell on my fingers, and you always turn the porch light on before I get to your house so I never have to walk up in the dark alone.” An adoring grin tugs at your mouth then. “You look at me like I’m the prettiest girl in the world. All the time—even when I’m exhausted and cranky and covered in glitter glue from school projects.” 

“So no, Bucky. I don’t think there’s anything about you to be scared of.” You sigh dreamily, lying back down. “You’re my Jamie.”

He swallows hard, jaw tightening for a moment as he fights for control over the tears threatening to spill.

“I love you.” He whispers abruptly, like he can’t hold it back anymore.

Your breath hitches, and then your smile breaks open so wide your cheeks start to ache. “I love you too, Jamie.”

The second the words leave your mouth, Bucky is pulling you over him for a feverish kiss that steals the oxygen from your burning lungs.

That night, he carefully rolls until he’s the one resting on your chest, his arms locked securely around your waist. And for the first time in your life, disagreement ends with someone offering silence as a space to settle instead of weaponizing it.

ᥫ᭡. WHEN HE THINKS ABOUT FOREVER You are sitting with crossed legs on the couch in one of Bucky’s flannels and thick socks, Alpine dramatically sprawled on your lap as one tiny paw stretches lazily beneath your chin. Her purring is loud enough to vibrate through your ribs every time your fingers drag slowly through her white fur. She arrived in the middle of January wrapped inside one of Bucky’s old flannels, small enough that at first you mistook her for some white bundle of fabric against his chest. You still remember the way he had stepped through the front door that evening with rainwater clinging to the shoulders of his jacket and damp locks at the nape of his neck, one large hand carefully cupped beneath the trembling kitten like he was afraid she might dissolve if he held her too tightly.

“Found her near the south fence,” he had explained quietly while you fretted over them, your heart already breaking at the sight of the little thing. “No collar. Could barely stop shivering to eat.”

Alpine had looked miserable then, all wide blue eyes and soaked fur, but the second you reached for her, she had pushed her tiny face straight into your palm with a desperate little squeak that made Bucky huff a soft laugh. And that was it for you.

Months later, Alpine rules the farmhouse like she personally pays the mortgage. She follows Bucky everywhere when he is home, winding around his boots while he cooks or trying to climb directly into his lap whenever he sits down for more than five minutes. But with you she turns even softer, almost spoiled in the way she melts instantly against your affection. The moment you walk through the front door, she is meowing to be picked up, trotting across the hardwood floors before you even have time to take your shoes off. Sometimes she is eagerly waiting on the back of the couch like she somehow heard your car turn into Bucky’s lane.

He pretends to find it deeply offensive.

“Think she likes you more’n me now.” He had grumbled once while watching Alpine stretch shamelessly in your arms instead of his. You laughed, finding him extremely adorable.

“She sees you every day.”

“Exactly,” he had replied, narrowing his eyes at the cat like she had personally betrayed him. “And apparently that means nothing anymore.”

Tonight is no different.

“There’s my pretty girl,” you murmur as your hands delicately cradle her face. “Yes, there she is. Sweet baby.” Alpine answers by shoving her tiny face directly beneath your chin.

“Oh, you want more attention?” You gasp theatrically. “What a shocking development!”

From the doorway, Bucky watches the entire thing unfold in silence with the shadow of a fond smile lingering on his lips, one shoulder leaning against the frame separating the living room from the kitchen and thick arms crossed loosely over his chest. There is dirt still faintly smudged along one forearm from work outside, his flannel pushed up to his elbows, hair still slightly messy from where he dragged his fingers through it earlier. But all of that roughness fades beneath the look in his eyes. Because you are sitting there treating that tiny stray kitten like she hung the moon. Carefully kissing her head. Adjusting the blanket around her. Holding her with such tenderness, like this is the only language your body knows how to speak.

“Needy thing.” You murmur affectionately before pressing another kiss between her ears.

“You say that like you’re any better.”

The sound of Bucky’s teasing voice makes you glance up immediately. Alpine notices him too, her ears perking instantly before she lets out a tiny chirp of recognition. Still, she makes absolutely no attempt to leave your arms. The floor creaks softly beneath his boots as he finally pushes away from the doorway and walks toward the couch. You give him a sweet smile before your attention drops back to the kitten currently trying to chew on the sleeve hanging over your hand.

“Your daughter is biting me again.” Bucky snorts quietly as he lowers himself beside you, one arm immediately stretching around your shoulders.

“My daughter?” He repeats, pulling you closer. “That cat stopped being mine the second you started baby-talking her.”

“Mmh, that’s not true.”

“Princess, you carried her around this house for three hours yesterday because she sneezed once.”

You frown. “She was sick.”

“She had dust on her nose.”

You gasp softly in mock offense while Alpine flips onto her back, completely unconcerned with the argument happening over her custody. Bucky watches you scratch carefully beneath her chin, your entire face softening without restraint every time she purrs louder. Something in his chest pulls so hard it almost feels unfair, because you have no idea how gorgeous you look, and that he could stand there for hours just watching you pour your love out so freely.

Bucky reaches down then, scratching gently beneath Alpine’s chin until the kitten practically melts in your lap. “She sits in front of the door when you leave, y’know.”

Your eyebrows lift in surprise. “She does not.”

“Mhm.” His mouth twitches faintly. “Walks around crying for twenty minutes like her entire life just fell apart.”

“That’s dramatic.” You tell her with an exaggerated pout.

“Says the woman holding her like an actual infant.”

You look down instinctively. She has, in fact, moved to lie against your chest beneath the blanket with only her tiny head visible. “… Okay maybe a little.”

Bucky chuckles softly, the sound settling warm and deep inside your chest. You eventually notice his silence as somewhere deeper in the house the dryer hums low and steady. The air smells faintly like coffee and detergent and the water lily and sheer musk candle you lit earlier before sunset. When Alpine decides it’s time for the second round against the buttons of the flannel, your smile fades gradually as you become aware that Bucky’s still looking at you.

“What?” You ask softly. He blinks once like he has to pull himself back into the room.

“Nothing.” He murmurs automatically, though it’s very clearly not nothing.

Your eyes narrow a little. “James.”

His expression shifts then, softening even further until it almost looks thoughtful, his gaze drifting toward Alpine.

“I keep picturing something,” he breathes out absently. “Not in a big, dramatic way. Just… small things stacked together.”

Your breath catches quietly.

“Waking up,” he continues, almost like he can see it somewhere in front of him. “And not having to rush outta bed right away. Coffee that gets cold because neither of us remembers it’s there. A kitchen that’s too full of noise for how early it is.” His frame moves with the faint breath of amusement that slips through his lips, but it never breaks the softness of the moment.

“And coming home at the end of the day knowing it doesn’t matter how it went out there,” he adds more quietly, finally meeting your eyes. “Because there’s still you here.”

You can barely breathe now, your heart doing a strange little stutter. He says it so easily. Like these thoughts have existed inside him for a long time already. Like he’s visited them before and kept coming back to them over and over again.

Bucky shifts slightly closer on the couch without even seeming aware he is doing it, his free hand settling warm on your knee, his thumb brushing back and forth on your bare skin.

“I don’t know all the details yet,” he whispers, eyes moving from your eyes to your lips. “But I know it keeps coming back to the same thing. You being here. That’s the part my mind doesn’t change.”

Bucky leans closer until his forehead finally rests against yours. “If someday you decide you want kids, I’ll build something bigger for us. A place with too much noise, toys everywhere and muddy boots by the front door.” His smile grows almost boyishly giddy now, soft laughter warming his words. “Maybe a little boy with your eyes... and a little girl with your smile.”

Your chest rises sharply, your love for this sweet man soaring so suddenly in your heart it almost hurts. Tears burn hot behind your eyes before you can stop them.

“And if you don’t want that,” he continues gently, certain that every path still leads to you anyway. “Then we’ll keep the farmhouse just the way it is and spoil every animal we’ve got. Those damn ducks already act like they’re running the place anyway.” A watery laugh escapes you despite the lump in your throat, and Bucky smiles at the sound, his nose brushing lightly against yours.

“You wanna travel? We’ll travel. You wanna stay here forever teaching little ones while I complain about tractors and rain?” His hand squeezes your knee once. “Fine too.” Then the teasing fades from his expression entirely.

“Any future is right if you’re in it.”

Your vision blurs completely to the point a few small tears escape anyway, Bucky reaching up almost instinctively with his rough thumb to carefully brush away the wetness beneath one eye.

“I love you,” he whispers, thick with emotion. “I just need you.”

You stare at him for one helpless second before you finally cup his face.

“I love you too, Jamie.” You manage shakily, chuckling at how wobbly your voice must sound.

And yet, you couldn’t care less, because his lips are on yours—soft, reverent. One hand moves on your waist while the last rays of sunset spill warm gold across the walls around you.

Alpine promptly puts her front paws on your chest halfway through like she refuses to be excluded from this sweet moment. You feel Bucky laugh gently against your mouth at the feeling of fur brushing against his neck, but even then, he stays close enough that your foreheads still touch.

“Everything else,” he murmurs quietly, like a promise made as much to himself as to you. “Can figure itself out around that.”

END NOTES: what was your favorite moment? thank you so much for reading 💕 as I mentioned in another post, nowadays it’s hard to find someone who is willing to put real effort into a relationship, but with this story I wanted to focus on the more positive side of dating—especially how someone like this reader, kinda insecure and with little relationship experience, might navigate certain situations for the first time + the degree of trust it takes to let yourself be vulnerable for the first time with someone. honestly there was so much more that I wanted to write, but because of the 1000 blocks limit, I had to cut out many scenes, shorten the smutty parts and make longer paragraphs (hope it doesn't look bad). I also intend to further explore the non-sexual d/s dynamic in other stories, because this one-shot was just a collection of moments so I thought it'd be better to keep it pretty tame.

🏷️ general bucky taglist: @itzzkayla @randomfanpage @astrae-and-her-novels @heavenlypjm @spinsteringintoamillionpieces @pandasslol @wildflowersandvibranium @scribblesandquotes @beans-and-toast @singulartoast @gentlelimerence @secretxion14wells @maplesyrizzup @phantom-wolf-girl @norucking @punkh3arted @r4isins @doctorbitchcrxft @butterfly-lover @usernamee18 @secretdream2 @sambuckystony @cowboylikeh @jasontoddswhitestreak @shrupshrooms @bibiishin @sheriff-bodecker @ninauh @metal-armed-muse @mehmeh331 @iloveshawnieboi @namjoohnie

[chateaubarnes]

the wolfman of the woods

werewolf!steve x reader | 23.1k

warnings: MDNI, steve transforms into a literal wolf, NO a/b/o dynamics, PTSD, mentions of grief, minor character death (off-page), reader is a little stupid, minor injury, slowburn, forced proximity, strangers-to-friends-to-lovers, grumpy x sunshine dynamic, use of a petname (bunny), semi-public nudity, unprotected sex, rough sex, p in v, biting/marking, hair pulling, dacryphilia if you squint, BDE steve

author's note: this was going to be set in the same world as belong to you but i changed my mind. 💗 also i was live laugh loving this when i wrote the outline but now i lowkey hate it! 🥰 i don't even know what happened but one second i thought i was onto something, and the next, i found that i had lost the plot. but at least now it's out of my head! #mybad. @superbassbuck mrs. werewolf herself, this is for you.

The Pacific Northwest was known for its lush forests. It was what Steve Rogers had been banking on when he’d moved there abruptly. It was what he’d hoped for when he’d set about the lumber yard a couple towns over from where he’d decided to set up. No one had asked him too many questions. He’d just taken what he’d needed and gone. Anything else he’d acquired had been found at estate sales or made on his own. He had no one to rely on but himself, after all.

He’d grown used to the distant rush of water that cut through the forest, the whistle of wind through the trees. The chirping of the birds that went silent when a storm was about to pass through. The woods had infinite sounds for him to listen to, his hearing much better than it had used to be. It was a complex orchestra, one that couldn’t be accurately repeated. Each day there was a slightly different melody.

Perhaps if the forest didn’t play music, Steve would feel the walls of solitude pressing in on him more forcefully. But when the window was open late on a warm night, and all he could hear were noisy crickets and hooting owls, he could almost forget about the lack of another human body beside him, like there used to be. Almost.

The loneliness was penance for what he’d done, and he’d serve his sentence willingly. He didn’t deserve forgiveness. Steve Rogers might have been a good man, once, but he believed that good man had died when she had. There just hadn’t been a body. Only a lonely ghost, destined to haunt a tiny cabin in a far-off spot in a forest people didn’t venture into all too often. But it was better that way.

Steve felt that the forest responded to him in a way it might not if he had been a regular man. But there was nothing regular about him, not anymore. The leaves seemed to sigh when he walked under them, the moss seemed to curl tighter to logs and trunks. The tiniest animals didn’t skitter through the underbrush quite so much as they did when he wasn’t hunting as a creature. The forest had folded him into its great, green embrace, and welcomed him.

He was lucky that people didn’t tend to travel so deeply that they came upon him. It happened sometimes—some hikers just believed that they had a natural compass as an extra sense—and he'd reluctantly help them back to a path that would take them far away again. Three years in the woods had worn away at his social skills, yes, but Steve had been more than ready to adopt a more standoffish persona. He couldn’t take care to be too friendly lest people thought it an invitation to wind their way back to his home, to poke their noses in where they didn’t belong.

He remained blunt, to the point. He’d turn away, broad shoulders brushing tree branches, without so much as a goodbye. His rifle would bump against his back as he walked. His general appearance, rugged in every sense of the word from the flannel shirts to the dirty boots, the hair he’d grown out to match the beard, along with his hulking height and stature, was another helpful deterrent.

Despite his coldness to humans, he wasn’t an outright savage. He’d take the time to free animals from the gruesome traps some hunters would set up, saving them from the rusty snap of metal jaws. And Steve was also a very, very good shot. If an animal was beyond saving, he wouldn’t miss, and he’d make their suffering end as cleanly as he could. Inhumane traps like that would be taken apart and disposed of. They had no place in what he’d come to know as his forest.

The smaller creatures, mice and birds, might not have feared him, but the larger ones certainly did. Whether he liked it or not, Steve was king of the forest, a mantle that weighed on his shoulders like cement blocks. So, he’d spend his time in his cabin whittling figurines or reading one of the same four paperbacks that had survived the journey, so yellowed and worn that they looked decades old. He’d hunt and fish and lay in the dark, swim in the lake in the summer months. But always, he was alone, with nothing but his own cruel memory as company.

You very much loved your job. Being a freelance photographer had always been your dream, your work just good enough to pay your bills. You were still coming into your own. Engagements and gender reveals were your biggest money makers, but you thought you liked street photography the best. You even had a decent following on social media, with people inquiring about booking your services enough that you got to travel over to the neighbouring states pretty frequently.

But your portfolio was starting to look a little bare, a little boring, of late. Street photography was more difficult when you kept venturing into small towns without so much as a city square. Big cities just weren’t in your budget right now, especially not when you’d just signed a six month lease on an apartment that really shouldn’t have cost as much as it did, but the string of business you had on the docket was all in the same area, and you’d figured—why not?

You hadn’t been in town very long, but you’d already surmised that people much preferred outdoor activities here rather than cheese and wine tastings, upscale clubs, and hot yoga. No, it was much more down-to-earth here. There were three separate tackle and bait shops, multiple sporting goods stores, and grills and lawn mowers lined the outside of the hardware store like trophies.

It wasn’t necessarily your vibe—you’d never been the type of girl to enjoy hiking, let alone running—but it was interesting, that was for sure. On your first day there, you’d seen four separate men wearing the same exact plaid shirt. Your online following was a larger total than the town’s census. But in a town this small, it wasn’t too long before you heard something that piqued your interest, just a little bit.

You’d been in the town’s most popular coffee shop, snuggled into the blue and orange booth in the corner. The amenities might have been basic, but they still knew how to foam up a latte, so you weren’t complaining. Editing photos was a more tedious task, but it was something you enjoyed the rhythm of. Usually you had headphones with you, but you’d forgotten to charge them, so you listened to the idle chatter around you, instead.

“Jacoby swore it was the size of a brown bear. Said it looked him right in the eye, too. But it took him back to the path like it knew he was lost.”

“Huh, surprised it didn’t take a chunk out of him first.”

“I don’t know, I’ve heard about this wolf before. Seems sort of friendly, even though it’s always alone. Not the first time I’ve heard of a hiker being brought back to the trail like that.”

You dialled into the conversation when you heard about this wolf. Your finger slowed on your trackpad as you listened to the men at the table across from yours.

“Leave it to Jacoby to get himself lost like that. Ain’t his dad a hunter? He should know directions by now.”

You grimaced at your screen. You’d much rather hear of this benevolent creature than how much of an idiot this Jacoby guy was. One of the men laughed. “Yeah, well, you could hand Jacoby a map and a compass and he still wouldn’t know how to find his own ass.”

It looked like that was the end of the story. You sipped the dregs of your latte, the stoneware mug still warm in your hand. This set of photos needed to be complete to send to the client by tomorrow, and you weren’t going to get any of it done by listening to small town gossip. But then…

“Anyway, I thought there were no wolves around here. Foxes and coyotes, yeah, but not wolves.”

“Well, like I said, every time I’ve heard about it, hikers have said it’s by itself. Must not have a pack or something.” A pause, and then a chuckle. “Hey, maybe it’s just the big, bad, wolf.”

Suddenly the perfect shot seared itself in your mind with a clarity you couldn’t even hope to capture with the perfect focus on your lens. A beautiful wolf, maybe pure black or white, staring directly into the camera. Maybe it would be standing on a big boulder, looking regal. Sunlight would dapple its fur, and moss and ivy would be crawling up the trees around it…

You’d certainly never taken a photo like that before. But wouldn’t it be stunning in your portfolio? You didn’t even think about it that long, your mind already made up. That would be the photograph of a lifetime, and you were going to be the artist.

You almost shut your laptop in your excitement, wanting to get up at that exact moment and go venturing out into the woods. But your equipment was at home, and you really did need to finish editing.

You’d mostly tuned the men out, an exhilarating hum in your bones as you kept working on your edits. You weren’t really listening when they continued on to say, “D’you think that guy who lives out there’s ever encountered it?”

“Nah, probably not. He would’ve shot it by now, don't you think?”

“Eh, I guess. My uncle met him once. Scary son of a bitch. Maybe the wolf hasn’t crossed him ‘cause it knows it would get stuffed and put on display. That dude’s probably into taxidermy and all that shit.”

All you really paid attention to was that there was a man living in the woods, and he’d probably be the perfect person to ask about this wolf. It sounded like a brilliant plan. And if he did turn out to be some sort of creep, you had pepper spray somewhere in an old purse. You’d be just fine. Besides, all artists had to take risks at least once in their careers, right?

A more practical person might have stopped at one of the many sporting goods stores and gotten some things to prepare, like appropriate shoes, perhaps a backpack and compass, a sturdy water bottle, and pants with enough pockets to keep essential items like a flashlight or satellite phone on hand.

Yes, a more practical person just might do that.

You, however, were much more of a ‘fly-by-the-seat-of-your-pants’ type of girl. You didn’t know where this man in the woods was located, nor the wolf, but you figured that you’d just go with whoever you found first. Surely it wouldn’t be that hard to find the man, at least. Couldn’t you just look to the sky and find smoke curling from a chimney or something? It was a bit muggy out for late spring, so you selected your favourite white dress from the closet. You braided your hair to keep it out of your face. Then you gathered up your car keys, your camera bag, and your hopes and dreams, and headed out.

Your cellphone dictated the directions to you. It was a decent drive outside town limits, halfway up a hill, but eventually your tires crunched over the gravel of a very small parking area. A sign that really needed to be repainted was tacked to one of the trees. ‘Silverlake Woods Hiking Trail A’ was inscribed on the board in faded white paint. You supposed there must be hiking trails B and C somewhere too, but A sounded like a good first step.

The sun was still high in the sky as your shoes scuffed stray gravel onto the path. You were absolutely sure, as you navigated the dips and curves of the trail, listening to the cheerful birdsong, that you’d find some sort of success. At the very least, you’d be able to practice taking nature shots.

Steve was very used to the familiar sounds of the forest. He might not have known what day of the week it was, but he could tell the time of day based on the sounds. There was a rabbit snuffling around the undergrowth a little ways away. He could hear its body moving, slow hops as it searched for something to eat. He could tell without seeing it. As it was, Steve was laying on his back in the minuscule kitchenette trying to fix the sink. Water had been smacking him in the forehead in a slow drip for the last ten minutes. Living in seclusion like this, he’d gotten pretty good at fixing problems when they came up. He only ventured into town for things once or twice a year, under strict emergency.

The wrench clicked every time he twisted it, the sound blending in with all the others he could hear—the birds, the rabbit, the leaves brushing together in the breeze. The snap of a twig…

He smelled you at the same moment he heard the twig. Floral, but manufactured, not natural. Perfume. Under it, something clean and powdery. Deodorant, maybe. His whole body went stiff. The water was dripping more sluggishly now, and he didn’t even flinch at the next bead of it that landed and slid sideways down his temple and into his hair.

The scent of you underneath the products you used was softer, sweeter, but not too much. Not in an overwhelming way. More like the flavour of strawberry cream. He could taste it in the back of his throat.

As alarming as it was to Steve that someone was getting close to his territory, he was more concerned that you seemed to be alone. He couldn’t smell anyone else. Sure, there were plenty of women in town that were seasoned hikers. But usually he’d smell bug spray, along with rations carried along in a backpack. He’d hear the buzz of a walkie talkie or the murmur of a partner. Surely you weren’t just ambling along without the proper preparations. You were still on one of the paths, Steve thought, since his cabin was a decent way off from any of them. Realistically, you should pass right by him. But still, he was tense as he listened to your distant footsteps, and the occasional click of something he couldn’t quite name.

You were finding yourself to be quite delighted by the forest. Maybe sandals hadn’t been the right footwear—there were a surprising number of fallen logs and broken branches about—but the paths were pretty easy to navigate in broad daylight. Well, maybe that was a bit of a stretch, because the sun wasn’t as strong as it could have been. The trees were all thick with leaves, blocking out the sun for the most part unless you happened upon a clearing. The lack of light made the forest cooler than you’d imagined as well, the trees acting as a never-ending awning.

Your camera bumped against your sternum as you moved. You’d gotten some nice shots already, wild berry bushes and pretty birds that you’d passed by on your walk. Still no sign of the wolf or the man, but you weren’t worried. You hummed a little tune as you continued on. A flash of brown and white in your periphery had you turning your head to the side, squinting through a thicket of bushes.

A deer nibbled daintily on a leaf, its ears twitching as it kept a constant scan for danger. Quietly, you adjusted the lens of your camera and zoomed in as much as you could without sacrificing clarity. The click of the shutter made the deer glance your way, but it didn’t deem you as a threat. You looked at the photo and frowned. It was a little too far to be a great shot.

Carefully, you stepped off the path and onto the wild grass. It tickled your ankles as you navigated around the bushes. You just wanted to get a bit closer. The deer kept eating its lunch, unperturbed. You kept stopping every few feet to take more photos. You wondered if you could get close enough to let it sniff you. Maybe you could get a shot of its glossy eyes, its soft snout. Maybe it would even let you feed it.

It felt like a scene from a fairytale. The deer would go still every time your steps were too loud, but it hadn’t decided to run from your approaching figure, not yet. You hunched your shoulders inwards, trying to appear smaller, less scary. You were close enough now to extend a hand.

But this wasn’t a fairytale. Fairytales wouldn’t have your foot catching on a tree root as you took another step, wrenching your ankle and sending you down to the forest floor, hard.

The shriek of pain was distinctively human, not animal. “Fuck,” Steve muttered under his breath. He laid under the sink for a second longer. He hadn’t even seen you yet, but he’d already decided you’d be possibly the stupidest hiker he’d ever have the displeasure of meeting.

He could still hear you rustling about in the underbrush, but he let your scent guide him as he ambled out of the cabin’s safety. You were far enough that you wouldn’t have seen the cabin, but he knew you’d stepped off the trail.

He saw the white of your dress first and almost choked on his breath. He hadn’t seen a woman in a sundress in… Well, it had been a long time. But he couldn’t appreciate the sight of you, because what idiot thought that was appropriate to wear out in the wilderness?

You were sitting with your knees close to your chest, your hands fluttering around one of your ankles. Steve did a double take at your choice of footwear. Sandals with so many straps, they might as well have been made solely of string. Something glinted in the grass beside you. Your scent was a little more cloying now—well, the perfume was—but he was close enough to pick up other things, too. The faintest hint of coffee, something more chemically like air freshener. You were quite a pitiful thing.

He crossed his arms over his chest, stopping a few feet from you. Alright, it was time to get your sorry ass up and out of here before night fell. The walk back would take you at least an hour. “Are you okay?” He asked, voice gruff after days of silence.

When you turned your head to look up at him, only just noticing that he’d arrived, Steve felt a jolt down his spine. You might have been the dumbest person around, but God…

You were beautiful.

It had been years since he’d been around people socially, but even still, he didn’t think he’d ever seen a girl as pretty as you. Except… Well, he didn’t want to dwell on her right now. He should focus on getting you out of here, not the shape of your eyes or the way loose strands of your hair fell in wisps around your face.

“I don’t know…” You said, looking down and extending your foot a little, wincing as you did. “I fell and twisted my ankle pretty bad.”

If you were afraid, you didn’t show it. He couldn’t detect any traces of fear from you, not the acrid tang of it at the back of his throat, nor the sound of an elevated heartbeat. “Can you stand?” He made no move to help you.

Your fingers tangled in the grass before you pushed yourself upwards, wobbling when you did. You took one limping step forward, towards him—not what he wanted—before you let out a hiss of pain. “I don’t think I can walk on it. It hurts too much.”

Already, Steve could see that it was beginning to swell. He bit his tongue. Even if he helped you back to the main road, supporting your weight, you probably wouldn’t be able to drive. And it was going to get dark soon, at least here in the forest. The trees blocked out so much light that it would seem like nighttime before long. He had a decision to make, and he wasn’t pleased about it, not one bit.

It was time to see how stupid you actually were.

“I can wrap it for you, if you let me help you back to my cabin.” Even though he was offering help, his tone was short, more of a bark than a sincere offer.

But you only smiled at him, expression sunny enough to make up for the fading light. “Oh, would you? That would be great, thanks. Oh, could you just grab my camera for me? I dropped it when I fell, but I think it’s okay.” You pointed at the grass. That must have been the glinting object he’d seen.

He stepped closer to you to pick up the camera, and you took it from him gratefully, slipping the strap over your neck. You really weren’t afraid at all. It was like you had no sense for danger. He could be a murderer for all you knew, bringing you back to a cabin fitted with a dungeon to keep you in. But here you were, optimistic as anything. You made him think of a dumb bunny, one who would be so focused on a delicious patch of foliage that it wouldn’t notice the predator standing right behind it with its teeth bared. But there was nothing Steve could do about it now, as he slipped an arm around your waist to help you walk. He did his best to ignore how thin and flimsy the fabric of your dress was as you limped alongside him. It would have been easier to just hoist you up in his arms—you were tiny, compared to him—but that was a line he refused to cross.

There might have been no path to Steve’s cabin, but he knew the way so well, he could remember exactly when to sidestep hidden holes dug by animals or tricky thickets that could have caught on your dress. “So, you must be the guy that lives here, right? What’s your name?” You asked, staring up at him quizzically.

He avoided your gaze. He didn’t want to be friendly with you. He wanted to send you on your way, as soon as possible. He didn’t answer, hoping you’d drop it. But you poked at his side with nimble fingers, as if he was a good friend. “I’ll tell you mine first,” you added, taking his silence as him playing coy.

He was about to refute it, to tell you that he didn’t care what your name was, because he’d never see you again once he sent you packing, but you said it anyway, and it stuck to his brain like wet paper. Like your name was important. It didn’t matter, he thought, trying to dismiss it. But still, it echoed like a sweet song in his ears. “So, yours?” That time he did make the mistake of looking down at you, catching you batting your lashes and flashing him a toothy grin.

“It’s Steve,” he said, teeth gritted.

“Steve,” you repeated. “It’s nice to meet you.”

He held back a snort of disbelief. You might have told him your name, but you were still very much a dumb bunny to him. You let out a soft gasp then, looking forward. The cabin was in view.

It was nothing special, Steve thought. It was made from trees he’d cut himself, which he thought was evident. The roof was uneven, the shingles varying shades of brown. The door had a gap at the bottom, which let in bugs in the summer, and bits of snow in the winter. The water tank was tucked away at the back. The chimney jutted out like an unseemly splinter. But it was home, as dishevelled as it was.

The wind whistled, blowing your hair across your face and rattling the trees. Steve could taste it then, the impending storm. And when it stormed, the paths in and around the forest tended to flood. His arm around you tightened in frustration. You were now probably going to be stuck here for the next twenty-four hours.

“Wait, stop…” You halted as you said it, letting go of Steve and grabbing at your camera. “The lighting’s not great, but… I can fix it in post. I need to capture this.”

You held your camera up, adjusting the settings, before snapping a few photos. He watched you with a slight grimace. He didn’t particularly like that you were capturing his private space on camera, but he doubted you’d share them around. You’d probably look at them later and decide that it was an ugly little house not worth remembering. When you were satisfied, you let the camera hang against your chest again and snaked your arm back around Steve, allowing him to lead you to the door.

It swung open with ease, and you were already in the matchbox living room. The ceilings were a little low. Steve maybe had six inches between him and the light fixture, a yellow tinted shade that did nothing to brighten up the room and everything to sallow it. The couch was really a futon of checkered red and cream. The side table was little more than a slant of wood fitted over an empty barrel. There was no television, just a hand crank radio. Puzzles that had never been completed were in their boxes, shoved onto the first two shelves of the scratched bookcase. The rug was an old throw blanket. Steve didn’t even have a table and chairs, the space was so small.

He deposited you on the futon and took the three steps down the tiniest hallway in the world, to the bathroom that resembled the size of one you’d find in an airplane. The first aid kit was a battered green tin that he’d hung on the door, which he grabbed now in one big hand. Its contents clattered together as he walked back to you. You’d scooted yourself to one corner of the futon and swung both of your legs up onto the other end.

“Those shoes look like deathtraps.” He muttered, flicking open the tin’s clasps and settling it on the side table.

“But they’re cute.” You said, admiring your impractical footwear.

“The wildlife doesn’t really give a crap about ‘cute’. Take it off.”

You did as ordered, reaching to start undoing what seemed to be a very complicated series of twists and loops. Once the sorry excuse for a shoe was gone from your foot, Steve’s hands hovered over your ankle. “May I?”

You nodded. “Go ahead.”

He was gentle as he assessed the damage. It was probably a sprain. Definitely swollen, but it wasn’t the worst injury he’d seen. Still, it would probably do you well to keep the pressure off. It wasn’t long before he was wrapping your ankle, his movements methodical and practiced. He was no stranger to injury. It had taken him quite awhile to adjust to living out here, and he still suffered the forest’s bite on occasion. When he finished with you, he closed the tin. “Feel alright?”

You wiggled your toes in answer. “Better, I think. Thanks.”

Upon standing, Steve chanced a glance outside. It was already much darker, but the storm clouds over head had certainly hastened the day’s end. He was sure he’d hear rain falling in the next hour. “Look, uh,” he turned to face you, scratching at the back of his neck, “you’re probably going to be stuck here overnight. Storms like this tend to wash out the paths.”

And then, because he couldn’t resist: “Do you not check the weather before journeying out into the wild? Well, no, I guess not… Not if you’d also wear such ridiculous clothes to come out here.”

It was mean, but he’d been meaner to other hikers. And it didn’t seem to have any effect on you, anyway. “It was sunny when I left,” you said brightly. You seemed to be totally at peace with staying in a stranger’s home overnight. He wondered if you’d also hit your head when you’d fallen.

“I’m going to make something to eat,” he said begrudgingly. It was a bit early, but he needed to be away from you for a minute. Even if ‘being away’ meant standing ten feet to the left, in the kitchen. “It’s not gonna be anything fancy though.” He warned, eyeing you.

You only smiled. “That’s okay. I’ve had my fair share of gas station hot dogs. Can’t be worse than that!” And then you became wildly interested in your camera, going through the photos you’d taken.

Steve could only shake his head at your delusional nature and duck through the archway and into the kitchen.

It really was nothing fancy. Chicken soup, the kind that came from a can. Steve had stocked up the last time he’d been anywhere close to a store. Heating it on the stove had taken less time than he’d hoped for, and then he was sitting beside you on the futon. It was almost comical, really. You, a tiny bird of a girl, sitting primly next to him, a bear of a man. His bowl looked more like a cup in his hands.

You’d both sat in silence for the first few minutes, but it wasn’t long before you started babbling away. He had a feeling that you were something of a talker. “You must know these woods like that back of your hand, right?”

He glanced at you sidelong. “Yes.”

You wriggled in your seat like you were an excited puppy. If you weren’t careful, you were going to be wearing your dinner on your dress. “Okay, so tell me this: I keep hearing about this lone wolf that lives around here. Have you ever seen it? Is it true?”

Steve’s spoon tapped against the side of the bowl when his hand jerked in surprise. He felt his shoulders go stiff as soon as you’d said wolf. “I’ve never seen it,” he said carefully. It was technically true.

“Hmm,” you hummed, food forgotten. “You’ve never seen it, but you’ve heard of it?”

He was irritated that you seemed so enthralled. “Not really. Don’t interact with people much.”

“Oh, really?” Your eyes were wide, dumbfounded. “Well, I’ve heard that its sort of become like a symbol of safety for the hikers in town. Apparently whenever someone gets lost here, the wolf finds them and leads them back to the trails. Isn’t that cool?”

The wolf wasn’t a hero. It was a killer. He was a killer. “You know that wolves are dangerous wild animals, not cute puppies, right?”

You shrugged, an easy smile on your face. “I know. But this wolf can’t be all bad. Otherwise, it would have taken a few chunks out of the hikers, don’t you think? I wonder why it doesn’t have a pack. It’s sort of sad.” You tapped your spoon against your mouth in thought. “Anyway, that’s why I came out here. I wanted to find it and take its photo. I’ve never done wildlife photography before.”

At this, Steve couldn’t help the incredulous look he gave you. “So, you just decided to come out here with no preparations, no knowledge of the forest, and full intentions to come face to face with an animal that could and would kill you if given the chance? Did you even tell anyone you were doing this?”

You shook your head with a frown. “Well, no. I’m new to town. Who would I tell?”

“Are you stupid? If that wasn’t bad enough, you’re sitting next to a total stranger. I could murder you, you know, and you’re acting like you don’t even care. Do you have a death wish?”

“…I have pepper spray.” You patted around at your hip and pulled a spray can shorter than your spoon out of your pocket.

Oh my God, Steve thought. I’ve officially seen it all. He put his empty bowl on the side table and grabbed yours from you in one swift movement. Then he grabbed both of your wrists together in one big hand. He shook you, anger sparking in his eyes. “Your self-preservation skills are shit. Look how easy it would be for me to hurt you.” He plucked the spray can from your grasp and let it roll across the rug. He was waiting for fear to enter the equation, but you continued to look at him openly.

“If you were going to do that, you would have by now.” You sounded disgustingly earnest. He let go of your wrists like he’d been burned, and you gestured to your bandaged ankle. “I mean, look. I’m in a vulnerable state and I don’t know my way around, but you brought me here, wrapped my foot, and made me dinner. Why would I be scared?”

“Unbelievable.” Steve stood from the couch, rubbing a hand over his beard.

You blinked at him owlishly. “Can I have my bowl back, please? I wasn’t finished.”

It took everything he had not to fling it at you before he stalked off to his bedroom, the door rattling on his hinges after he shut it behind him.

You quite liked the cabin. It was tiny, but it was charming. You especially liked the little wooden figurines dotted around the place, no bigger than your hand. You’d already spotted a bear, a fox, and a deer. You assumed Steve had made them himself. No internet was definitely a choice that you yourself would never make, but you supposed it was probably quite freeing not to fall victim to doom scrolling or silly online dramas. You settled back on the futon once you’d finished eating, looking through your photos again. Some were a little too blurry and out of focus for your taste, but others had great potential. Three birds on a branch, mid-song. Some of the faraway shots of the deer were pretty stunning. Different flowers and berries you’d seen, things you didn’t know the name of. You would bet that Steve did. Maybe you could ask him about them in the morning. Maybe you could convince him to tell you the best trails to take to put yourself in the wolf's path.

You tugged the afghan blanket from the back of the couch over your legs, tucking its ends under your thighs as you got more comfortable. your ankle didn’t hurt too badly when you were sitting still. You were sure you'd be fine to drive tomorrow. the softest patter of rain started to ping off the roof. The window behind the couch only showed pitch black and your reflection. Your braids had become loose and dishevelled, so you removed the elastics keeping them together and shook out your hair, settling deeper into the checkered cushion.

You didn’t remember falling asleep, but you must have, because when you opened your eyes, pale gray light filtered through the window. But it wasn’t the window you’d been looking through the night before. This was a different one, because you weren’t in the living room anymore. Instead, you were sitting up, your fingers finding a coverlet in dark green over a bed that looked like it had been hand made. The wood was polished and clean, but you’d never seen a headboard with such beautiful carvings. You traced your fingertip over the swirling design. You were in Steve’s room. a heavy jacket hung on the back of the door. The closet was just a pole suspended onto one of the walls, the clothing sparse. Other than that, the room was empty, which was probably for the better, because you were pretty sure that if you leaned to the right a little more, you’d be able to touch the wall. The cabin really was tiny, just big enough to maneuver around but not enough to have more than one person living in it. Steve was taking the bachelor life up to the next level, you thought. He must have carried you in here sometime last night.

You stretched your arms over your head and yawned before carefully rotating your ankle, assessing the pain. It still hurt, but it didn’t feel nearly as bad as it had when you’d first fallen. Your dress was rumpled when you stood. Your walk was less of a hop this morning as you gingerly put your weight on your foot. Your steps were quiet enough that you were able to make it to the living room without disturbing Steve.

He looked uncomfortable there on the futon, curled up. He was far too big to sleep there, and you thought the angle at which he’d stuffed himself onto it would probably give him a sore neck at the very least. Even in sleep, he wore a perpetual frown, his brows drawn close, but it was more lax than you’d seen during his waking hours. After he’d stomped off to his room, you hadn’t seen him for the rest of the night. But now, you looked at his unruly mop of hair, his scruffy beard. His shoulders stretched the dark gray cotton of his t-shirt. He might have looked a little more like a beast than a man, but you thought he was handsome anyway. His lashes were long, longer than yours. His eyes were closed now, but their stormy blue shade when he’d been glaring at you yesterday reminded you of a tumultuous sea.

A floorboard creaked under your next step, and those stormy eyes fluttered open, his frown deepening. He focused on you immediately, heaving himself to sitting. “How’s the ankle?” His voice was rough with sleep as he rubbed at his neck.

“’S’okay,” you held it up for emphasis, balancing on your good foot. “I think I’ll be fine.” You looked around the small space. “Did you really sleep out here?”

He stared at the floor. “…Yeah.”

“I could have stayed out here. I’m smaller than you. Probably would have been more comfortable in your own bed.”

He shrugged, discomfort passing across his face. “Not right to take the bed when a woman’s got nowhere else to sleep.”

You were surprised by his old-fashioned chivalry. Contrary to what he’d said, you weren’t stupid. You knew you were a stray interloper in his home, and that he’d already done much more than he needed to. It was one thing to patch you up, but to feed you and let you sleep in his bed, too?

“Well, thanks. That was sweet of you.”

He grunted noncommittally before standing. You swore you heard his joints pop when he stretched. “It stopped raining a little after one in the morning. If you’re lucky, the bigger paths shouldn't be too bad.” He picked up your sandals by their long laces and held them out to you.

You were a little taken aback by his haste to get going, but you laced up your shoes anyway. “You don’t happen to have a dirt bike stashed away or something, do you?” It would certainly make the trek back faster, at least.

“No.” he said, voice dry.

Steve turned for the door and pulled it open without a second glance, and you scooped your camera up from the side table before following. You emerged into the weak sunlight, the grass wet on your toes as you trailed behind him. “Watch for branches and roots,” he tossed the warning over his shoulder. “And holes in the ground.”

You did your best to put your feet where he did. His boots left impressions on the grass. You couldn’t move all that fast lest you upset your ankle, but eventually, you made it back onto the path. It was a bit muddy from the rain, but you guessed the narrower ones were worse. “I’ll walk you about halfway, but then you’re on your own. Just because I know some of the forks in the path could be blocked off by fallen trees.”

It had taken everything in Steve to not just pick you up and carry you to your car. His strides were twice as long as yours, and you kept getting distracted, wanting to take pictures of fat dew drops on the leaves, or moss that looked “much greener than it did yesterday”. It was infuriating.

But finally, he got you to where he felt confident you could make it back. He’d been assessing your movements the entire time, and while you were still limping a little bit, it had turned out to be a less severe strain than he’d thought. When he’d stopped, letting you walk ahead, it had taken you a minute to notice he wasn’t following along anymore. You’d stopped short and turned back to look at him curiously. “Oh, are we halfway?”

“Yes,” he’d said gruffly. “don’t get distracted. Go back to your car and drive home. Got it?” He didn’t care if he was being bossy—he still thought you’d been out of your mind to come out here dressed like that in the first place.

You’d given him a half-smile and a thumbs up. “Okay.”

He stayed right there on the path and watched you until you were almost out of sight, but then…

“Hey!” Steve barked your name. You froze where you’d crouched down to snap a quick photo of something, caught. “Go back to your damned car!”

Another, more sheepish smile was directed his way before you stood and walked on. The white of your dress disappeared into the trees and Steve shook his head. Silly little bunny of a girl. At least he wasn’t likely to see you again.

He saw you again.

Steve was actually astounded that you’d remembered how to get to his cabin. When he’d smelled you that time, he’d just stepped out of the shower. His bathroom window had been open to let out the steam, a dark towel wrapped around his waist, water droplets spilling from his hair. He thought he’d imagined your scent. He stopped in front of his fogged up mirror and closed his eyes, taking a deep breath, trying to confirm that he was wrong, that all he could smell was the forest.

But no, it was your sweet scent wafting through the air.

He all but forgot about the state he was in when he stalked through the cabin to the front door, wrenching it open. And there you were in shorts and a flowy tank top, your camera looped around your neck like the last time. You waved as you picked your way though the grass, and he caught sight of what looked to be platform sneakers on your feet. “What are you doing here?”

“I told you, I’m looking for that wolf. But I thought I’d come and say hello first.”

You didn’t bat an eye as you raked your gaze up and down his form and Steve was suddenly very aware of his lack of clothing. “Go home.” He bit out.

“No way! I was just stopping by for a quick visit. Then I’ll go check out one of the other trails and see what I can find. I know there’s supposed to be a waterfall and an outlook somewhere around here. If I can’t find the wolf, I’ll settle for those today. Can I come in? I’m a little thirsty.” You had the audacity to give him a hopeful look.

“I don’t want you here.” He couldn’t keep tiptoeing around his rule. It wasn’t safe for humans to be around him, and certainly not one that lacked self-preservation skills in a way he’d never seen before.

“Please? I forgot my water bottle in the car.” You folded you hands together like you were praying.

Didn’t you get it? He didn’t mean he wasn't feeling social today. He meant he didn’t want to see you ever. “No. Get lost.”

“But I—”

“Listen, because I’m only gonna say it once: I’m not looking for and I don’t need a friend. So, stop coming by here, don’t ask me to come in or for a tour or to look for this damned wolf. Am I clear?”

“Well, someone clearly got up on the wrong side of the bed today. Fine, I’ll leave you alone. I was gonna show you some of the shots I took, but I guess it can wait.”

I guess it can wait. Steve was incensed. There would be no waiting. He had just told you never to come back. “You dumb bunny. I’m a great show with my crossbow. I don’t think you want to find yourself in my crosshairs. Do you get it now? Stay off my damned property and go back to your car and drive your ass back to town.”

You put your hands up in a defensive gesture, though your expression didn’t seem to beget any true understanding of his threat. “Okay, I hear you.”

But did you, though?

You finally turned and walked a few steps. He knew you were going to do exactly what you said and go trekking around a forest that you didn’t know and obviously weren’t capable of navigating well, but Steve didn’t want to put himself in your proximity anymore than he had to. He needed you to take the hint and go. But… “Hold on.”

You stopped, looking over your shoulder with what could only be described as a devious smile. He disappeared into the cabin for a second before returning to the door. “Take this. I don’t want to see you here again.”

He tossed a bottle of water in your direction, and you caught it, just barely. “Thank you, Steve. Have a good day! Oh, and your towel is slipping.”

You’d already turned away started walking back into the forest when he clutched at his towel, feeling his face heat with a mixture of embarrassment and anger. He supposed he should feel lucky that he’d been able to scent you, because he had a feeling that you would have just invited yourself in, otherwise. He probably shouldn’t have helped you, that first time.

Like an unwelcome stray, you kept coming back. Any hope Steve had had that you would grow bored of your quest and go back to town, keep doing whatever sort of photography you tended to specialize in, dwindled upon his third encounter with you. Your attire was still as ridiculous as always: plaid shorts and a thin tank top, but at least you’d had the common sense to bring your own water this time. And he could smell sunscreen on your skin, for once. But you’d ambled up to the cabin yet again, this time while he’d been clearing some creepers from around the door.

When he’d paused, shears squeaking in protest, and looked at you over his shoulder, you’d grinned and said, “So, no wolf yet, but I think I’m getting the hang of the paths now! I only fell in a blackberry bush once this time.” That explained the purplish smudges on your shirt and your legs.

“As opposed to…?”

Your smile turned sheepish. “I may or may not have become quite familiar with the types of berries that grow around here last time. Anyway, do you want to see the photos I took this time around? I got the cutest shots of a mother fox and her babies.”

Steve straightened, wiping his brow with the back of his hand and pushing his hair back from his damp temples. “Think I told you before, bunny, that I’m not interested in what you’re here for and I don’t care to look.”

You shrugged, unbothered. “Oh, I’ll win you over soon enough, Steve. I don’t know how you haven’t gone crazy out here all by yourself yet.”

He shifted on his feet. “The silence can be nice.”

“Well yes, it can be, sometimes. But all the time? I think I would have given all the trees names and personalities by now, if I was you.”

And from then on, he kept seeing you against his will, a couple of times a week. You always had a cheery disposition, even if you were scratched to hell and dusty from crawling through bushes. Even if you had twigs in your hair and cuts on your palms. Even if you’d upset a hornet’s nest and ran like hell, banging frantically on the cabin’s door to be let in.

Steve had continued to try and get you to leave him alone, trying for mean, threatening, and even downright douchey, but every single attempt had been futile. Eventually, as he’d disinfected one of the stings on your arm, he’d just muttered, “If you’re gonna keep coming around here, can you at least dress for it? No more of whatever this is,” he gestured to your skirt, which seemed to be entirely made of lace and frills, and your boots which were definitely more fashion than fortitude.

You made a face. “But all the hiking gear is so ugly.”

“So you’d rather be fashionable and dead than safe and alive?”

You let out an exaggerated sigh. “Ugh, fine. I’ll go to the store and get the same things that literally everyone in town has.”

And you did. That was really the surprising part—that for once, you’d listened. Anything else Steve had to say had fallen on deaf ears. Sure, a lot of what you showed up in was pink, as if the colour would make it less ugly somehow, and you’d replaced the laces of your new boots with literal lace, but at least you were wearing pants that covered your bare legs and you’d picked up a bag, albeit small, and put some honest to god equipment in it.

It was a strange thing, to realize that he was getting used to you. Though Steve still never greeted you in a way that screamed ‘friendly’, he had come to expect your scent in the air, the first sign that you were coming, and then your steps, still clumsy, through the underbrush. You had still been unsuccessful in your quest, and Steve planned to keep it that way. As far as he was concerned, you’d never get a photo of the wolf. But you hadn’t let it deter you. He was beginning to realize that despite your ditzy, lackadaisical nature, you were also quite resilient. He had absolutely no idea how he’d be able to convince you to stop trampling through the forest during the colder months. He had no desire to fish you out of the frozen lake or pull you from a snowdrift.

But despite you pushing your way into his life, interrupting his solitary confinement, Steve did begin to enjoy your visits. He’d never make it known lest you try to bridge the perilous gap of friendship even more ferociously, but it wasn’t the worst thing in the world when you announced yourself. Especially when you brought food.

The thing was, Steve was very used to his diet by now. He’d stock up on canned food once or twice a year from the general store furthest from town, but the rest of his food stores consisted of things he’d hunted and prepped himself. Like he’d told you, he was very good with his crossbow. And it helped to know what plants were edible around here. You likely hadn’t noticed the very meager garden around back—you’d never been able to explore around his cabin too much, because he knew you were there. You hadn’t seen the tiny cross with his late wife’s name staked into the ground, either.

But there you were one of those times, standing in a patch of sunlight and holding a pale purple box in your hands. He could smell its contents even before you opened it. “There’s this bakery that just opened up in town called Furiously Good Eats and their specialty item today was cherry pie.” You looked Steve up and down. “Probably been a while since you’ve had one of those, huh?”

“If you think food is gonna get me to like you…” but he stepped aside anyway, and you flounced right in, beelining for the kitchen and its single butcher’s block counter, where you placed the box with flourish.

You scoffed as you popped open the lid. “Please, you already like me. I’m very loveable, you know.”

“Uh-huh,” He pulled out two plates.

“It’s true. Voted ‘Most Loveable’ in my senior year of high school.” The knife you chose to use was really for cutting meat, but Steve found himself lacking any sorts of dainty pastry utensils.

Cherry filling oozed out onto the plate when you handed it to him, and you sucked your finger into your mouth thoughtfully. “Don’t suppose you have any ice cream, do you?”

At his blank look, you turned back to the pie and cut off your own slice. You both stayed standing in the kitchen, balancing your plates in one hand and forks in the other. The first bite flooded Steve’s tastebuds like nothing he’d experienced in recent years.

It was, in no uncertain terms, the perfect pie. The crust was flaky and light, the filling tart and sweet at the same time. But you were right—vanilla ice cream probably would have been a great pairing. Still, Steve wolfed down the rest of his piece in three bites and then looked hungrily at yours as you took more dainty, slow ones. Wordlessly, you slid the box closer to him. “The rest is yours,” you said, covering your mouth with a hand as you chewed. “I’m just sampling the goods.”

He was already cutting a second slice before you’d finished speaking.

The bakery deliveries, as delicious as they were, were something of a bittersweet phenomenon to Steve. All the things you’d brought so far happened to be exactly the types of desserts he liked, and he had no idea how you’d figured him out so easily without him having to say anything. But they also all reminded him of his wife. He could picture her in their first apartment together, though the memory seemed to have a fuzzy vignette over it now. He remembered her nimble fingers rolling out dough, or dusting cake with powdered sugar. He remembered how she’d laugh and slap his hand away when he tried to sneak a cookie from a cooling batch. It was hard not to associate all the things you’d bring him with her. He just couldn’t override those memories with ones of you. Not even when you’d brought eclairs and eaten yours so messily that you’d smeared cream on your nose and a little bit in your hair. As much as it was a nice gesture, it made Steve want to shut you out again. He hadn’t yet, and he couldn’t figure out why. There was no future here, not for you. You’d get tired of the woods eventually. You’d make friends in town at some point. There really wouldn’t be a reason to keep visiting him—he certainly hadn’t gone out of his way to be hospitable to you. He’d tried to drive you out.

But the fact of the matter was, he had come out here, uprooted his life and moved into the wilderness, because he didn’t think he deserved companionship. Not anymore, not after what happened, what he did. And he would probably do it again. He didn’t trust himself to get close to anybody, lest he put them directly in harm’s way. In his way. But he’d been allowing himself this small, selfish act, to let you into his cabin and into his life like you were one single flower, blooming in the sun amidst dead, blackened weeds. And now he wasn’t sure if he could pluck you from your bed of grass and tear your petals away without hurting himself in the process. Maybe that was part of his penance, to take a good thing and sully it. To not get to enjoy things for too long. Why should he enjoy something when his wife couldn’t luxuriate in anything? No sun on her skin, no taste of cherry pie.

And though all those thoughts kept churning through his head like a choppy river, every time you skipped through the grass to the cabin, you’d smile at him and chatter away, and he’d let you stay a little longer, and he’d begrudgingly ask you questions that would keep you talking endlessly. And for a single second, he’d almost forget.

The wolf was very elusive, you thought. You wondered if it was more nocturnal than you’d originally imagined. You’d believed that it must come out during the day, must have built a home somewhere near one of the paths, because how else would it lead so many hikers back when they’d lost their way? But now you’d exhausted every single one. It had been weeks of searching in between your regular photography sessions with clients, and you’d still seen no sign of it.

You didn’t mind that much, not one to let frustrations get the better of you. And really, you thought it would have been worse to see it right away and come back with a crappy shot. Instead, you’d used the time to practice your wildlife photography, figure out the best way to edit and enhance each one to bring out the best parts of the picture. And you’d taken plenty of photos of other animals, in the meantime.

But your favourite animal to photograph was Steve. He didn’t know, you were sure. He never wanted to look at your photos anyway. But your camera was now full of candid shots of him, as well. The ones you’d take before announcing yourself were good. You had one of him in profile, looking up at the sky. Another of him chopping wood. Another where the leaves had made different shadows across his brow, but the sun had still picked out the precise blue of his eyes. You had one of him standing in his kitchen with his back to you, and you’d traced the shape of his shoulders with your finger afterward, when you’d uploaded it to your computer. Yes, you had many, many photos of him that you’d taken somewhat in secret. You’d taken pictures of his wooden figurines too, random things in his cabin, to disguise the obvious sounds of your camera’s shutter going off, and he’d become so used to the sound and your idle photography that he’d stopped looking at you sharply every time he heard it. It was what made it so easy to sneakily take pictures of him.

You remembered what you’d thought the first day. Steve really was handsome. You assumed that he had to know that fact, but you’d shied away from saying it, in case he took it badly. You were usually free with compliments, something you’d learned to get comfortable with after having many clients that were insecure in front of the camera. It would take nothing at all for you to tell him, but you knew that you’d already pushed his boundaries a lot since coming to know him. So instead, you’d just admire his broad frame, his strong hands, and a mouth that seemed allergic to smiling.

You still neglected to check the weather. That was something you only did when you had an outdoor shoot planned with paying clients. You had to ensure that conditions were good for those meetings, but otherwise, you tended to just look out the window upon waking up and then see where the rest of the day took you. You didn’t mind a little rain every now and then. The only person consistently annoyed by your lack of planning ahead was Steve. You’d had to stay twice more in his cabin overnight since the first time. The summer storms were ramping up, but they never seemed to come when all the weather warnings predicted, in your defence. You thought it was fun, actually. You’d mentioned as much to Steve, had told him it felt like camping. You’d asked him if he could build a fire outside for the full experience, but he’d declined with a look of annoyance. It was no bother, because the next time, you bugged him until he set up his fireplace, and then pulled a bag of marshmallows and some skewers out of your bag and had a delightful time playacting what you believed a real camping experience to be.

You still enjoyed the comforts of your apartment, of course. You couldn’t imagine roughing it every single day like Steve did, nor did you want to try it. You liked waking up and making coffee with your fancy coffee maker. You liked flopping back into the white, puffy comforter on your bed and turning on a movie, the projector on your ceiling painting the wall with rom-coms. You liked standing in front of your stove and poking at an omelette with your spatula, music playing from your phone. You wondered if Steve had ever liked those sorts of things too, or if the great outdoors had always held the appeal over how most of the modern world liked to live. You could sort of picture it, if you tried. Him standing in your kitchen, which was small, but looked huge compared to his. He’d be able to sleep on your leather couch with much more space than his own futon. You thought about how a picture would look if he stood in front of the windows in your living room, the floor to ceiling view of the town below. One of your espresso cups would look absolutely ridiculous in his big hands.

You didn’t think he’d agree if you invited him back with you. You’d thought about it a few times, considered asking him in a teasing, lighthearted way to come back to town with you and help you pick out more practical hiking things like he’d wanted you to get. You would sweeten the deal with cannolis from the bakery. But you had a feeling he’d say no. You were friends, despite his protests, but you didn’t want to push in a way that made him shut down. It had already been a bit of a journey to get to the point you were at now. You didn’t want to do anything to ruin it. You knew that your positive attitude could only get you so far. But maybe one day, you’d be able to offer, and you’d feel confident that he would say yes, and lock up his cabin, and fold himself into your little car. And then you’d get that picture of him at your window. Yes, you thought. One day, you would.

So far, your visits, by the grace of some higher force, hadn’t coincided with Steve’s transformations. They’d been close, a couple of days before at most, and Steve knew he was acting much moodier and more combative on those days than usual, but you still took it in stride, visited for a little while, and then left.

The moon’s cycle acted like an hourglass. Steve could see the grains of sand slipping through like blinking stars every single night. He felt the most like his old self on a new moon, the beguiling white eye in the sky hidden from view. But as that eye began to slowly open from a crescent to a half circle, closer to a full, round ball of light, Steve would feel the need to change wanting to burst through his skin. He had a little bit of control over it, just barely, but it was easier to throw himself to the moon’s mercy and get it over with when she demanded it, rather than try to plan ahead.

The primal need to hunt, to rip and tear and shred, to run until he couldn’t anymore, was what he tried to bury the most. Especially when you were around. He knew what it could look like if someone got too close. He knew it disturbingly well. And he’d woken up countless nights since meeting you, his skin dripping with sweat, his lungs feeling like they’d burst, the image of you torn to pieces dissolving in his head like sugar in water, but they’d be there all the same. Peggy had morphed into you some time ago. Instead of a horrible memory, it was a potential future, one he’d been trying to prevent. It was the reason he had been so adamant at keeping you away, at first. He didn’t believe he was able to be rehabilitated. And he didn’t want to risk your life trying to figure it out. But he’d been convincing himself that it was fine to let you get close when the moon was at rest. He’d already thought of an easy lie to tell if you came by when his transformation was near—he’d tell you he was going to go hunting deeper in the forest for a few days, that he wouldn’t be home. He would convince you that you would not enjoy tagging along. But he hadn’t had to spin that lie yet, and he’d let you drift closer and closer as the summer drew to a close.

He was not expecting to see you when the moon next cast its weary gaze on him. Your visits were usually every three or four days, spaced apart between your work and appointments. You’d never visited back-to-back before. Steve had let his guard down, awaiting the change with a patience that felt alien, the relief that you wouldn’t be returning until well after in the back of his mind.

The panic that kickstarted his pulse when he scented you could have sent him into cardiac arrest. He’d only seen you two days ago—he should have been safe for another two, he’d predicted. The comedown wasn’t as bad as it used to be, especially when he offered himself to the moon right when it was full, rather than trying to put it off. He knew without a doubt that his transformation would be that night. He’d been scenting the air all day, tasting rain. He knew the forest would go silent with the first clap of thunder that night, and he’d be free to weave through the trees with no obstacles.

But there was your scent, as clear as if it was a visible thing in the air. And he could smell chocolate, too. With frustration, he felt his body quiver. Of course, being ravenous for the hunt was not the only thing he felt hungry for, most times. And a beautiful human woman being in his proximity would serve no purpose other than to make him hungrier.

His backpack was half-assembled by the door, leaning against the panelling. He usually packed light and stowed the bag somewhere safe for him to circle back to near the transformation’s end. He tried to rein in his panic as you got closer. He had no idea what his face was doing when he opened the door and stared at you from the threshold. He was trying for his usual irritation, but he didn’t think he was quite achieving it. “What are you doing here? I saw you the day before last.”

You smiled, holding up what he’d come to know as one of the bakery’s trademark lilac pastry boxes. “I know, but I passed by their window on the way home from an appointment today and I just couldn’t resist. Chocolate and strawberry filled croissants.”

You were wearing jeans and a t-shirt and surprisingly sensible shoes today. He was silently thankful, because he wasn’t sure if he could have handled you in one of your strappy sundresses today of all days. The forest had already gone quiet with the promise of an impending storm. You were close enough now that your scent was almost overpowering. It made him want to sink his teeth into your skin. What was worse was that he didn’t know if he wanted to inflict pleasure or pain. “Its going to storm.” He said.

It was both a reprimand to you, and a bleak reminder to him. A storm, like all others, meant the paths would flood. And that meant you were staying. Tonight of all nights, that was more or less a death sentence. But you, none the wiser, stopped in front of him and pried the box open, holding the lid up so that he could take a croissant. “That’s okay. The futon and I are becoming pretty good friends.”

With another stab of panic, Steve wished he could send you away. But like mother nature herself could feel his rising anguish, the sky opened up and the downpour hit in the blink of an eye, and you snapped the box closed and scurried past him into the cabin like a mouse going back to its hole in the wall.

“You should be proud of me—I started packing pajamas in my bag for moments like this.” You said, letting your backpack slide to the floor next to his. “Oh, are you going somewhere?”

Through gritted teeth, he bit out, “I was planning to go hunting. And you wouldn’t need to pack pajamas if you would just check the damn weather report.”

But like always, you only shrugged and sat down on the futon, before patting the space beside you. “Do you want a croissant or not, because I didn’t eat lunch and I have no qualms about having yours too.”

Sitting next to you would be too much temptation right now, so instead he just leaned over the back of the couch and snatched his from the box, his forearm brushing the sleeve of your shirt. He shuddered at the contact, as small as it was, and retreated to the kitchen. He ate over the sink, crumbs falling into the basin, staring stormily out the window at the pelting rain.

If you were going to be here tonight, he needed to go out as soon as possible without you catching on.

There was no way around it: Steve was on edge. There was no telling if tonight would be the night that he’d lose what little control he had and add another life to his ledger. He just had to hold on long enough to get far away from you. His plan was to turn in early, to convince you to do the same, and then sneak out when you were asleep. Ridiculous to have to sneak out of his own home, but it was all he could think to do.

He’d been fighting the urge to pace between the kitchen and living space, too aware of your presence, too aware that you might ask questions about why he was more tense than usual. But so far, you’d just been playing around with your camera. “Oh, I brought my laptop with me this time, too. I know you don’t have wi-fi but at least I can edit some of my stuff tonight.” You reached over the back of the couch and dug around in your bag for a moment before pulling out a slim silver laptop, most of its surface covered in stickers. You looked over at him as it booted up. “Do you ever miss it?”

“Miss what?” he sounded brisk, distracted.

“The internet. And cable. That sort of stuff.”

“I have my radio.”

You made a face, one he saw out of the corner of his eye. “Yeah, but I’ve heard the one station you tend to pick up around here, and I think I’d rather sit in total silence than listen to that.” You paused then, and he heard the stroke of your fingers on your keyboard as you typed in your password. “Or have you been an outdoorsy type since you were a little kid?”

“I used to be a movie critic, actually,” Steve said absently, frowning at the weather outside. He wanted it to get dark already.

“What, really?”

The surprise in your voice was what made him realize what he’d just revealed about himself. Shit. He’d been pretty good at redirecting conversation to have you focused on mostly talking about yourself. He hadn’t given you that many details on his adult life. Almost all of his memories had been tied to her. “Yes.” He didn’t say anything else, hoping you’d drop the subject.

“What was your favourite?”

“My favourite what?”

“Your favourite movie, silly. I assume that you had to start somewhere, right?”

He paused for a long moment, debating on if he should make you drop it or not. He was already agitated as it was. But he decided on a scrubbed down version of the truth. “Star Wars.”

He saw a look of excitement and disbelief pass over your face. It might have been the wrong thing to say. “A New Hope, specifically. None of the current crap.”

“It’s not crap!” you said, indignant, but he had the sinking feeling that you were more thrilled than upset. “The Force Awakens was awesome.” Then you were babbling on in defence of it.

It was almost enough to settle Steve’s nerves. Almost. But then you waved an arm and it wafted your scent into his orbit again, and he had to hold his breath and close his eyes until the need to overwhelm your space had passed. He tuned back in to you saying, “Next time I’ll download some of them and we can watch together. Bet it’s been a long time since you’ve seen any of them.”

It had been a long time. Not since before he’d become what he now was. He’d seen them enough times growing up that he could recall the story backwards and forwards. He could remember every little detail, could play it on the backs of his eyelids at night when he couldn’t sleep. Could remember the exact cadences of some line deliveries. But they’d always been movies he’d watched alone, never with anyone else, never with Peggy either. As he was feeling right now, it spelled a recipe for disaster. He’d just want to bury his head against your neck and leave marks there instead of pay attention to a plot that had kept his attention for years, upon every rewatch.

He looked outside again. The barest edges of the sky that he could see above the treeline were just beginning to darken. All he had to do was try and wait it out. He really hoped that he could. He didn’t want to know the exact shade of your blood.

If Steve had waited just a little bit longer, he might have managed it. As soon as it had been reasonable, he’d feigned sleepiness and gone straight to his bedroom, even though the urge to transform felt like an itch under his skin. He’d also lied about a headache to keep you from asking him too many questions. Even with the door closed, your scent burned his lungs like you were laying right beside him. He wanted to rip into you so very badly that he’d torn at his comforter with how tightly he’d been gripping it.

Steve had laid there in agony while he’d waited for you to fall asleep. He’d heard you power down your laptop, tiptoe into the bathroom to change, and then softly step back to the futon. He’d heard the rustle of your clothes and the afghan and the creak of the wooden frame as you’d gotten comfortable. He had listened for your breathing, heard it deepen eventually, each puff of air getting slower and more even.

He should have waited longer, made sure. But instead, he’d crossed through the cabin and grabbed the strap of his backpack. He had made sure to be as quiet as he could, but something must have been just loud enough to rouse you.

It would be something he’d wonder about later. But he heard a mumbled, sleep-thickened, “Steve? Where are you going?”

His shoulders went tight under his t-shirt. The room was dark, but he could still see you sitting up, your hair already a mess from snuggling down into the cushion, as you looked at him from over the back of the couch. “Just… out.”

“Out where?” Oh, no. You were waking up too quickly, too aware of him. “Did it stop raining?”

It had, a while ago. So much for this big storm he’d expected. He definitely could have turned you away earlier. But it was too late for that now. He felt the change coming in a ripple under his skin, like a rising tide.

He bit down hard on his lip before saying, “I forgot to check a trap earlier. I’m going now.”

It was another lie, but it was all he could think of.

Usually, you went with whatever he said, but something had alerted to you, made you realize it was different this time. “Are you okay?”

“Fine.”

“Are you sure? Maybe I should come with you.”

At that, he stood straight up, almost crushing the doorknob in his hand. “No. you don’t need to do that. And you don’t know your way around. You’d only hinder me.”

But you were pushing yourself to stand. He caught the long outline of your bare legs, the afghan huddled around your shoulders. He needed to go, now. “Okay, maybe I don’t know the way perfectly yet, but I don’t know, I just… I don’t think you should go out in the dark, alone. What if you get hurt or something? Shouldn’t I come with you so I can get help if that happens?”

“It’s fine, bunny. I’ve been alone long before you and I’ll be alone again.”

You rounded the side of the futon and stopped in front of him. “But you don’t have to be alone. I’m right here.”

“Drop it.”

You tilted your head, chin up, defiant. He’d never seen you wear that expression before. It was a terrible time for you to trot it out. “No.”

He was just going to have to leave you here, then. He could outrun you. It wouldn’t be hard. It was just a matter of how far he could get before it happened.

Steve turned away from you, swinging his bag onto his shoulders, and wrenched open the door. Your fingers were gentle on his arm when you touched him, but you may as well have stabbed at him with a hot poker, with the way he whirled on you, teeth bared, and roared in your face, “Leave it!”

He could feel it in his spine first—he always did. Opening the door had let in a spill of moonlight, and he was standing right in it. He was bounding off in a dead sprint immediately. He just had to go. He had to go, he had to go, he had to go.

You knew that Steve was in great shape, but you were still caught off guard by how swift he was.

He’d been acting erratic ever since you’d shown up today. He’d always been a little cold towards you, even on the best days, but it was something you liked about him. Despite his coldness, you always felt warm when you were with him. It was why you kept coming back. And when you’d passed by the bakery, you’d thought of him. It was hard not to. He’d never told you if he enjoyed any of the things you brought for him to try, but you knew that he did. The speed at which he scarfed food down was always impressive. And if Steve really didn’t like your company, you were sure he could have made good on his threat and met you at the door with his crossbow, but he never had. Despite what he might think, you and he were friends, and if he thought that screaming in your face would change it, he was wrong. Instead, you’d had the steadily rising feeling that something was wrong. You just didn’t know what. When he’d gone to bed early, talking about a headache, you’d thought that maybe that was all it had been. You’d had a migraine or two before, and it had always sucked immensely, especially without any over the counter medicine, of which he had none. But deep down, you’d had a feeling that it was something more. He hadn’t gotten near you the entire time you’d been there. And sure, Steve was the kind of guy who kept a healthy distance between you, but not so much that he wouldn’t even sit on the same couch as you.

The way he’d just torn out of the cabin confirmed that yes, something was definitely wrong. As much as you annoyed him sometimes, Steve had never gotten in your face like that. There’d been some sort of animalistic fear in his eyes, something you’d never seen from him before, and then he’d twisted from your light touch like he’d been burned.

He was already a blur in the moonlight by the time you’d started to follow. It wasn’t even something you’d consciously decided on, but before you knew it, the slick grass was tickling your bare feet. The air was clean and cold in your lungs as you raced after him. It was pure luck that you didn’t trip over any stray tree roots, though wet leaves caressed you as you blew past. You were lucky that he came to a stop fairly quickly, or you would have lost him. You’d only been chasing after him for a couple of minutes before he flung his backpack against a tree with a solid thwack! and fell to his hands and knees.

With the way his body was heaving, you thought he was going to throw up. You stayed about ten feet away, wanting to comfort him but keeping your distance, just in case. If you’d had the presence of mind to grab your own bag, you would have been able to use your satellite phone to call for help.

What happened next was something you didn’t think you’d ever be able to believe if you hadn’t seen it yourself.

With a great shudder, right under the moon’s spotlight, the back of Steve’s shirt ripped in a jagged line down the back. His muscles rippled with effort. And then right before your very eyes, he stopped being Steve.

He became a wolf, instead.

Dark fur sprouted so quickly, it seemed to happen in a blink. A strangled cry from his throat became a guttural, tortured howl. The sound of it seemed to echo through the entire forest. A flock of birds erupted into the sky in fear. When you looked away from them and back to the forest floor, your eyes met that of a snarling beast’s.

He bared his teeth at you, canines glinting. He was a study in shades of black, as dark as it was. The moon might have provided some light, but he was awash in night. So, this was why you’d never been able to stumble upon the wolf. You’d been sharing pastries with him the whole time, instead.

A growl started low in his throat. You saw his tail—he had a tail!—swish once, agitated. He hadn’t come any closer yet. You got the feeling he was trying to scare you off. He was going to be disappointed.

You sank to the ground, ignoring the wet seeping through your pajamas. You held both hands out. “It’s okay. I’m not afraid. It’s okay.”

He tossed his head, snapped at the air. You stifled a laugh at the absurdity of it. You had a feeling he was displeased. But still, you stared each other down. Slowly, you noticed the fur that had been standing on end around his shoulders had started to go flat. He dug the claws of his front paws into the earth with a whine, tossing his head again, and then he prowled forward. He kept his head bowed, ears flattened against his skull. He stopped in front of you a little ways away, but close enough that you could just about feel his breath, warm compared to the chill in the air.

You weren’t running away. Stupid bunny, stupid girl. He wanted you to be afraid, to finally realize what he’d been telling you all along: that he was dangerous, a wild animal. That he had the capacity to hurt, to maim, to kill. But the insatiable urge to tear you limb from limb, confusingly, wasn’t there. He thought that getting closer to you might make you come to your senses. But when he stopped in front of you, tail tucked, a whimper escaping his jaws, you only lifted a steady hand and touched his fur, right at the side of his neck.

Tonight was the first time someone had touched him in years.

You’d done it before, when you’d tried to stop him from leaving. And you were doing it again now, ignoring the fact that he was no longer a human, only an animal.

He’d touched you, the first time he’d met you. When he’d wrapped your ankle, carried you to bed. But he’d refrained after that. And it had all been above board, had been born out of necessity, not want. But now, you stared at him, unblinking, and softly stroked at his fur like it was the most natural thing in the world. It made him want to weep.

He leaned into the touch, another quiet whine escaping his throat as your fingers moved. But you couldn’t stay out here all night. And he needed to run, to hunt, to satisfy the bloodthirsty urge that had usually surfaced by now. He stood, shaking your hand off, and walked past you, flicking you with his tail, before looking over his shoulder to see if you were coming. But you stayed put. Another flick didn’t do anything to spur you forward. Were you really not getting the memo? He padded back to you and nosed at your ribs, but it only served to make you giggle.

With an exasperated huff, he walked to the edge of the small clearing you were in and looked back again, letting out another whine.

You’d brought your knees up to your chest, your arms encircling them. “I’m not going back to the cabin without you. And I have a feeling you’ll leave me there as soon as I get to the door. I’m staying.”

Of course you’d say that. He shouldn’t have been that surprised, since you hadn’t run screaming bloody murder upon seeing his transformation. He had half a mind to grab your shirt between his teeth and pull, forcing you to move unless you wanted it to rip, but he had a feeling that you’d just let it happen. It seemed you were at an impasse. He could already imagine the headache he’d have tomorrow when he was human again, the number of questions you’d lob his way. He also had a feeling that he’d never get rid of you, now. You were too curious to learn this about him and simply move on.

He could have left you there and gone about his usual routine, but he couldn’t bear the thought of you stumbling through the dark on your own back to the cabin. Worse, you might try to follow him. So instead, he came back to you and sat by your side, and you stroked his fur again, in the shared silence of the woods.

It didn’t take very long for your eyelids to grow heavy. The grass was still damp, but you curled up on it anyway. You fell asleep right there on the forest floor. He curled around you, unable to stand the idea of you shivering and cold, pressing his body against your back.

He hadn’t smelled any fear on you before, not when he’d yelled in your face, not when he’d ran away, and not when he’d become a wolf right in front of you. He couldn’t smell it now. You just settled more, and he let himself breathe in your scent. It hadn’t triggered him to tear you apart, not like he’d been so sure it would. Not like his first night as a wolf. It was a strange thing. He didn’t want to think about it, to imagine that his fears had all been in his head. They couldn’t be, or he would still have a wife. He wouldn’t be here with you. But all he felt at that precise moment was the need to protect you, to keep you in his sight. To keep you warm and safe under the open night sky.

It was only you, him, and the clear white moon. It was foreign to have no anxieties on a night like this, and they hadn’t left him, not completely. But he rested his head on his paws, keeping his eyes open and his ears alert, and let himself believe, just for a little while, that things might work out.

When you woke up, it was to sunlight streaming across your face, and birdsong. Eyes still closed, you frowned, your nose wrinkling. You shifted your arm and felt grass coming away with it. Lifting your head a little, you opened your eyes and took in the hundreds of shades of green surrounding you. You’d slept outside.

You’d slept outside, because…

You remembered at the same time that you became aware of warmth at your back and over your waist. You glanced down your body and saw the corded muscle of Steve’s arm, loose over your hip, his palm spanning your stomach. The warmth you felt was him, pressed to your spine. He stirred when you shifted.

He was human again, already? You looked up at the sky. Well, the moon was gone, so you supposed it made sense. But what did you know about wolves? Or werewolves, for that matter? You started to turn to face him but stopped short at the first glimpse of his legs, never mind his torso. Right. He was completely naked.

He seemed to realize it at the same time as you, his arm disappearing from you. “There’s extra clothes in my backpack, if you go get them,” he muttered, not meeting your eyes.

You crawled away on your hands and knees to the bag, still where it had landed when he’d thrown it, and pulled out pants and a shirt before closing your eyes and blindly shoving them in his direction. You listened to the rustle of fabrics and the zip of his fly before he said, “I’m decent.”

Peeling your eyes open, you gave him a once over. He was still the same Steve that you’d gotten used to. Still tall and broad, hair dishevelled and long—though yours probably didn’t look much better—a familiar worried frown on his face. He held out a hand to you, which you took, and he pulled you up. “I think it’s time we had a conversation.” He stooped to pick up his bag before turning and striding away, not waiting for you.

Who would have thought he’d be more chivalrous as a wolf?

At least you followed this time, picking your way through the grass. He kept an eye on you in case you slipped. It was a wonder that you didn’t have any cuts across the soles of your feet. For once, you were staying quiet. He wondered if you were marvelling at the sequence of events, too, or if you were just thinking up questions to bombard him with. Knowing you, it was probably the latter.

With the cabin in sight, he ushered you in ahead of him. “Why don’t you go take a shower?” he offered, closing the door behind him. “Water takes a bit to heat up, but you slept on the ground all night.”

“Okay. That sounds like a good idea.” You shuffled off after grabbing your bag and disappeared into the bathroom.

Steve let out a long sigh at your departure. He stood in the kitchen, hands resting heavily on the counter, and let his head hang down as he gathered his thoughts. What exactly could he tell you? The basics, he supposed. But then also, maybe to finally scare you straight, he’d tell you what had happened the first time. Explain to you why he lived out here in the first place. Tell you that while you might have survived last night, that didn’t mean there was any guarantee to survive future transformations. He could still rip you to shreds.

He must have been standing there awhile, lost in his own head, because it felt like it had only been a few minutes before he heard the bathroom door creak open, followed by your footsteps on the wood. The aroma you brought with you was a dizzying blend of your own and his. You had used his soap. Your scent would be all over his towel, too. You were dressed now in what you’d worn yesterday, but he just wanted to pull you close and nuzzle against the hollow of your throat, breathe you in, lick your skin. Instead, he cleared his throat and leaned against the counter. You mirrored him, pressing your back against his old fridge. It was only a little bit taller than you were.

“So… you’re the wolf I’ve been hearing so much about,” you finally said, your arms crossed. You tilted your head as you looked him up and down. “And you let me go on a wild goose chase trying to find you.”

You weren’t upset. Rather, your eyes were alight with interest.

He ran a hand through his hair. “Well, I couldn’t exactly just tell you, could I?”

“I guess not,” you shrugged, “but maybe you could have pretended to lay some bait out or something. You didn’t have to tell me it was you.”

“Well, if I had my way, you never would have found out. I was waiting for you to get bored and give up. I didn’t think I’d ever have to tell you.”

“Why is that?”

He waited for you to answer your own question with the obvious: it was dangerous. But instead, you only gazed at him, waiting for his answer.

So, he gave it to you.

Steve didn’t want to go into too much detail, but he thought he still managed to paint a pretty vivid picture. The truth was that yes, he had always been an outdoorsy type. He’d grown up hunting and fishing and hiking. He was familiar with the forests near where he’d used to live. He’d go on weekends alone or with friends. Peggy would never come. It just wasn’t her thing. She was more of a night in type of girl, and Steve had respected that. They both had their own hobbies that they could do alone.

Only one of his solo trips had gone badly. He still didn’t know exactly what had transpired, the events still muddied in his mind. He’d set up a tent like always. Slept for a bit. Been woken up by a noise. He didn’t usually camp in spots that other campers did. He preferred going off the beaten path. That had proven to be a mistake.

An animal attack. He had thought at first it was a bear, smelling the food he’d brought along. But it hadn’t been a bear. He’d never gotten a clear look, but he’d lost a lot of blood and been disoriented as hell when he’d come to. He’d dragged himself to a ranger’s hut and been taken to the hospital. Even the doctors hadn’t been sure. He’d been tested for rabies, amongst other things, and everything had come back clean. He was out in a couple of days.

Steve hadn’t even noticed anything was particularly wrong, at first. But the following month, when he’d decided to brave the outdoors again, Peggy had insisted on coming too. She was afraid of him going alone, after last time.

And so, they’d gone together, and Steve had ignored the itch of agitation in his gut, in his bones. He’d ignored the pull of going even deeper into the forest.

The transformation had taken him by so much surprise, he’d lost sight of what happened until the next morning, when he was human again.

He’d awoken with dried blood crusted on his skin and in his hair. Blood that wasn’t his. Blood that was Peggy’s.

She hadn’t been so lucky to survive such a vicious attack. And Steve had been so in denial, so confused, that he’d held her long after her body had gone cold. It had taken him a very long time to realize that he’d been her attacker.

He didn’t even remember spinning the lie, stammering it out to the rangers, then the officers, then the coroner. That he’d left her there to go hunting, come back to her dead. It was some sort of self-preservation instinct, he thought. And he couldn’t very well say that he had turned into a wild animal and done it himself. He would have been sent to a psychiatric facility. And then what would have happened if he transformed again? And again, and again, and again?

Instead, he’d very quietly packed up his life, moved a few states over, cutting off any friends and family, and built his own prison far away from people, where he couldn’t hurt them. And it had worked.

You listened to his explanation with a hand against your throat, taking it all in. He waited for your eyes to shutter, for you to make your way past him and out the door, to tell him you were going to report him for murder.

But you didn’t seem to grasp that he was giving you a very good reason to run away. When he finished talking, you stayed quiet, like you were mulling it over. Then, slowly, you unfolded your arms from yourself and leaned across the small space between you. Your hands came to rest on his arms. “Thank you for telling me, because I know it wasn’t easy.” He’d never heard you sound so hushed, so serious before.

Here it was, he thought, you’d tell him you understood and that you would stay away. But instead of that, you said, “But you didn’t hurt me. Things might have changed, Steve. You’ve been here by yourself for three years. That’s dozens of transformations. I know your first one was traumatic, but you didn’t know what was happening to you. You do now.”

“That was a fluke,” he said stubbornly. He wished you wouldn’t look at him so empathetically. “I don’t know what happened last night. It’s the first time I haven’t gone hunting as a wolf. I just couldn’t… I couldn’t leave you there on your own.”

“You could have,” you argued, though you were still completely calm. “You could have left me there. But you stayed and you didn’t hurt me. I’ve trusted you from day one, Steve. You’re not going to hurt me. I can stay away from you if you really want me to during full moons, but I think it would be better for you to get used to being around someone when the time comes.”

“Bunny, it’s not that simple. We can’t predict that it’s all gonna be fine from now on. I’m not willing to risk it.”

You sighed, leaning closer. For a horrible moment, he thought you were going to hug him. “I get why you chose to live this way. It’s noble. But I don’t believe that you’re a danger. At least not like you were your first time. I  think you’ve had the time out here alone to learn who you are now, and how to handle it.” You were careful, considering, when you added, “How do you know without a doubt that you were the one that hurt Peggy? What if you’d been defending her? Isn’t that a possibility?”

He didn’t have an answer for you, even though you seemed very sure. It made him ache, your unwavering faith. If he hadn’t scared you off last night, hadn’t scared you off now, he didn’t think that anything would. Not until it was too late.

And even though he wanted you to be safe, he couldn’t control what you did. If you wanted to keep showing up after all he’d said, there wasn’t anything he could do to stop you. He’d just have to hope that eventually, you woke up and realized what you were risking by putting yourself in his path.

You started looking at the weather after that. But probably not in the way Steve had wanted. Rather, you were steering yourself toward him in ways that he couldn’t easily prevent. That meant showing up for every bad storm and staying the night and being there, refusing to leave when the full moon was going to be on display. You’d stuck with him for two more transformations. You’d let him leave when he’d wanted to, curling up in his bed with the curtain open to let the moonlight in, and trusted that he wouldn’t come back and tear you limb from limb. And he’d shuffle home in the morning, surprised to see you untouched under his comforter, editing your photos on your laptop. Because falling in love meant sticking by someone even when the odds were stacked against them, even if it was foolish.

Steve’s cabin really wasn’t meant for two people. Some days, it wasn’t even meant for someone of Steve’s size. But you’d started to add your own touches with each visit. Jars of wildflowers. On the nightstand, one of the windowsills, the side table. A shoddy wreath made of twigs, which you’d put on the door. It hung crookedly. The place had long since started to smell like you, as well. And as much as he hated to admit it to himself, Steve had started to miss you quite desperately when you weren’t there, despite the danger. A bit of his old self had come back, by letting you in. He wasn’t so blunt. Wasn’t irritated when you dropped in. He’d started keeping things there for you at your request, like tea blends and a change of clothes.

You’d also grown very comfortable touching him. It was the only reason, selfish as it was, that he hadn’t pushed harder to make you leave. If he didn’t greet you at the door, if he was instead sitting on the futon carving a figurine, you’d lean over the back of it, resting your chin on his shoulder to watch for a minute before moving on to deposit whatever you’d brought with you. If he was at the stove, your fingers would clutch at the back of his shirt while you peered around him to see what he was making. You’d put your feet in his lap if you sat together, push at his arm when you laughed, trail your fingers over him if you were walking past. It was intoxicating. Little by little, he’d started to rely on you, to expect you to show up. He’d started to make space for you. It had become a vastly slippery slope, and Steve no longer had any footholds to stop himself from plummeting. He had also begun to find that he didn’t want to. Maybe it was time to bask in the free fall, instead.

Fall had arrived by now, but there were still a few days in mid-September that reached high temperatures by the afternoon. One such day had you floating through the door along with a sweet, warm breeze, and a sparkle in your eye that could only mean trouble.

“Steve, how do you feel about swimming?” you asked, but in an air that was much too casual to really be casual.

He glanced at you sidelong. “I could take it or leave it. Why…?”

“Well, it’s just that it’s going to get too cold to swim soon, and that great big lake isn’t too far from here… I know how to get there from the trails now. Do you wanna come with me?” You picked at invisible lint on your dress. Your trail-inappropriate attire made sense now. The red sundress screamed summertime.

“Bunny, I don’t have anything to swim in.” Steve said honestly, spreading his hands in apology. It was true. A swimsuit had been the absolute last thing on his mind when he’d been fleeing his old life. And any times in the past that had had him braving the lake had been when there was no one around to see him in other only other one he had: that of the birthday suit.

“That’s okay. You don’t need one.”

And now the gleam in your eyes made sense. “If you’re suggesting skinny dipping…” he began with a shake of his head. There was no way on god’s green earth that he would be able to handle you naked. Even less so if he was also naked.

You laughed then. “Aw, Steve, you’re so cute. No, you can wear shorts or your underwear or something. C’mon, please? It’ll be just us. I haven’t gone swimming in so long.”

Your pout should have been illegal. He may have been a literal dog once a month, but you put any semblance of puppy eyes he might have been capable of to shame. “Okay, fine.”

You clapped your hands together, bouncing up and down. “I’ll even leave my camera here, if you’re feeling shy. Wouldn’t want to make you blush,” you said with an exaggerated wink.

It was a fifteen minute walk from the cabin to the far side of the lake. The other side was far enough away that the small set of lake houses wouldn’t be able to spot you. It didn’t really matter, anyway. No one seemed to be on the water today.

You wasted no time at all unzipping your knee-high boots and pulling your dress up over your head, revealing a red and white bikini. Maybe Steve should have said no. He’d seen a lot of you on display before, in your other outfits, but he suddenly felt like he was being lecherous when he stared at you too long. He snapped his jaw shut, glad that you hadn’t seen his open mouth. He could have caught flies, the way he’d been gaping at you. You stared at him expectantly until he kicked off his own shoes and tugged at his shirt, before turning your back to him and tiptoeing your way down to the water’s edge.

His hands paused on the waistband of his shorts while he watched you wade in, until you looked back at him cheekily. “Hurry up!”

And hurry up, he did. He tugged his shorts down as quick as he could, then all but ran into the water. He didn’t want you to see he was beginning to sport a hard-on just from looking at you.

As soon as he was waist deep, you grinned and splashed a big wave of water at him with the back of your hand. “Okay, now come and get me,” you laughed, bobbing away through the water. You weren’t quite deep enough to start swimming yet.

“You want me to chase you?”

“Mhm. You might be faster on land but are you really faster on water?” The mischievous twinkle in your eye was back, and all Steve could do was allow himself to be snared in your web.

He let you take the lead for a little while. You seemed to take great satisfaction in letting him get almost close enough, his fingers skimming your arm, before you’d kick away and cut through the water with a shriek of laughter. It was a sound he still wasn’t quite used to hearing. Even less so, his own laugh, booming across the open space.

When he grew tired of chasing though, he surged forward with a strong push. It was very, very easy to scoop you into his arms while you giggled, your hands on his shoulders as you half-heartedly squirmed away, but he held you fast. His arms locked around your waist, holding you to him. You were slippery, but not so much that he couldn’t keep a firm grasp on you. You relented by tangling your fingers together at the nape of his neck. If he wasn’t careful, he was going to get an eyeful of your chest. Not that he minded much.

“Don’t tell me you were going easy on me that whole time,” You were smiling when you complained.

“Okay. I wasn’t going easy on you the whole time.” He repeated it with a grin of his own.

It made you smile impossibly wider. He startled as you ran one of your hands over the back of his head, fingers through his hair. “Oh, I just knew that you were hiding a movie star smile. Very swoon worthy. And you’ve been keeping it a secret under all this facial hair.”

Your other hand came to his face, turning his jaw this way and that, and he let you. “You want me to shave it off?”

“No!” you said too quickly. “Maybe tidy it up a little, but no. don’t get rid of it. I like the rugged look.”

Steve raised his eyebrows at you. You were being honest—he could tell by the look on your face. It was strange to hear such a compliment. Before he’d been changed, he’d always kept to a more clean-cut sort of look. “And your hair, too. Keep it like this. You look very handsome.” Your fingers combed through the strands again.

Steve was suddenly very aware of your body being pressed against his. He shifted his arms, so that one of his hands covered the expanse of your back, your skin hot beneath his fingers. It took no effort for him to hold you like this, your feet nowhere near the sandy bottom of the lake. He’d always been strong, but his transformation had made him even stronger. “Steve?”

“Mmm?” He’d been looking at your mouth already when you’d said his name, saw your tongue move for the st, your teeth graze your lower lip for the v.

He wanted to kiss you. So badly it hurt like a bullet ricocheting between each of his ribs. He didn’t get to do that. He didn’t deserve you. You were too good, too pure, to full of joy to be sullied by his history. He could love you and not do anything about it, he thought. He could love you and continue to see you live. Your fingers brushed the nape of his neck. “Steve?” you said his name again, and his eyes finally flickered up to yours. “Did you hear what I said?”

You’d said something other than his name? Now he was lost in your eyes. You seemed to see right through him. He might have called you stupid in the past, might have been callous and tried and push you away, but he knew you were more emotionally sensitive than you let on. You might not have done a very good job being concerned for your own well being, but you were pretty great about caring about his. “Sorry, what did you say?”

“It’s my turn to try to catch you now.” But the way you said it made him wonder if you’d actually asked him something else.

It was just as well, he thought. He should put distance between you. He needed to, before he did something that both of you might regret.

The next full moon was coming. It was bringing cold weather right alongside it. Steve knew that snow wouldn’t be far behind, and he also knew that it would get to a point where it really would be impossible for you to get out here, no matter how badly you wanted to. He’d have to make his one and only trip to the general store soon to stock up. He kept a running list throughout the year, and he’d learned from previous years up here what he would need more of, and what he could do without. He’d explained a little bit of his system to you already, when you’d sweetly asked if there was anything you could get for him that wasn’t available at the store that might be easier to find in town.

It was going to be hard to lose out on seeing you. He found himself entertaining your idea of getting him a satellite phone, too.

The day before he was due to shift, you came by like you had been. You had a jacket on for once. Hell must have frozen over already for you to be wearing one. But as much as Steve was happy to see you, some internal part of him lighting up like a sparkler, he thought that this was really a moon cycle you should have missed out on.

He’d already felt more agitated this time than he had the last few. He didn’t know if it was residual feelings over the upcoming loss of your regular presence, or something else. But he could feel it making the tendons in his hands and jaw jump. He felt it with the way the hair on his arms stood up at the faintest touch of your skin against his. “I don’t think it’s a good idea for you to stick around for this one, bunny.”

You looked at him, puzzled. You’d just started to untie your shoes after following him in. Wind battered against the door. “Why? Is something different this time?”

“I don’t know.” He was fidgeting in the kitchen’s archway. “Yes, something is.”

“Well, all the more reason to stay. I want to help you figure it out.” You put a hand on his arm.

The contact burned. He stepped back from you instantly. You didn’t miss the reaction, and it made your frown deepen. “Tell me what’s going on.”

Steve touched his fingertips to his temples. “I’m worried I’m gonna hurt you. I feel really… wound up. I can’t explain it. Like anything could set me off. You should go, seriously.” He said the last part more firmly.

“I’m not going.” You said, equally firm.

“Bunny. I’m telling you that it’s not a good idea. You said you’d go if I asked. I’m asking.”

“No. You’re scared because you’re confused. That’s not a good reason. I’m here to help you, Steve.”

“Stop coming so close.” He bit out. You’d been taking very miniscule steps towards him, and he’d been matching them by moving backward. But he was about to run out of space. You weren’t even particularly close at the moment, but your scent was catching in the back of his throat like honey.

The realization came over him like a lightbulb turning on.

Lust. That was what was making him act out of order. He wanted to be all over you, which meant you had to go. Steve wanted to be on you, around you, inside you on a regular basis—he was sure that one of the things he’d gained after being bitten was an insane sex drive—but he’d always made do with his hand and a fantasy. Now, the fantasy was standing in front of him in a flimsy shirt and jeans that detailed every curve.

You held a hand up like you were trying to get close to a cornered, frightened animal, which in a way, you were. “Steve, it’s gonna be fine.”

“No, it’s not. You need to go. Would you just listen to me for once?”

“Can you just think rationally for a second? You’ve been completely fine the last few times.”

“God, you’re not listening.” He raked a hand through his hair, wanting to pace, to move, to go to you, to make you leave, to pull you close. “You’re driving me fuckin’ crazy, bunny.” He growled, exasperated.

You took another step. Your smell was all around him now. In his bones, in his skin. His lungs, his heart, his brain. It was too much. Especially with the way you looked at him, all soft eyes and compassion.

“God damn you.” he muttered, before any semblance of holding back withered away. He could no longer help himself when he closed the distance with one step of his long legs, pulling you into a kiss so fierce, it could have had teeth and claws of it’s own.

A tiny part of him felt guilty when he put his hands on your face, tilting your head up to his. In a perfect world, he would have asked your permission. Steve expected you to try and pull away at any second, to smack him and run away. But he also clung to you more tightly, pushing his tongue between your lips, eager to taste you, eager to claim.

It was the shock of his life to realize that you were eager, not repulsed. You jumped—literally—to meet him, your legs fitting around his waist like you’d been formed with him in mind. His hands slid from your face to the backs of your thighs.

He groaned into your mouth as your fingers scrabbled at the collar of his shirt, pulling so hard that he felt the back of it cutting into his neck. This was what he had wanted since before you knew the truth about him. It was a tiny, self-sacrificing reason as to why he’d wanted to push you away. Because you were a storm cloud he knew he wouldn’t mind chasing, if given the chance, in search of rain. And he didn’t think he was allowed rain.

You were intent on proving him wrong. Between scattered kisses, your mouth a bruise on his, you murmured, “Take me to your room now.”

He obeyed, walking blindly through the kitchen and down the tiny hall, careful not to bump your head on the ceiling. He’d had to pause right before the door, unwilling to let go of your for even a second to open it. It was even more difficult with you trailing kisses down one side of his neck, raking your nails across the other side. he hadn’t taken you for a biter, but he was pretty sure he’d find marks on his skin later.

The only reason he didn’t throw you down on the bed was because he didn’t want to break it, or you. But as soon as your back hit the dark green comforter, his hands were roaming across every inch of you. Your shirt was gone in a flurry of fabric. You actually ripped his collar in your haste to pull it over his head. Steve’s scalp stung from you tugging at his hair. Every time he nipped at your collarbone, laving his tongue over the bite afterwards, you’d pull on the strands and sigh. “More.” you moaned, tipping your head back as much as you could.

You needn’t have asked. For every bite you’d given him, Steve marked you with two. Your throat was already beginning to bloom with darker marks, like a haphazard necklace in the shape of his teeth. Even though Steve had fantasized about you many times, he’d never pictured taking you like this. His fingers pushed your bra strap off one shoulder. “Can I…” his lips brushed the curve of your breast.

“Why are you even asking? The answer is yes.” And before he could even do anything about it, you were reaching back behind you and unclasping it, flinging it away from your body like it was contaminated.

You were suddenly half-bare before him, and Steve couldn’t even stop to admire you. Later, he promised. Later, I’ll take my time. Right now, he couldn’t. Right now, he just had to feel every inch of you until he forget everything in the world except your taste and touch and scent.

Your sharp squeal changed to a whimper when he bit down gently on one of your nipples before smoothing his tongue over it and sucking, massaging your other breast with one of his large hands. “Oh, god,” you breathed. Your fingers had a vicelike grip on his hair, and he didn’t care.

Your other hand patted at his chest before travelling down his abdomen. It made him shiver. He’d never put on a belt, so you went straight to work on the button of his jeans. He did the same for you, peeling yours down by their belt loops. One popped loose from its stitching in his haste, before he was kicking is own off.

Your panties were soaked through at the center. The baby pink fabric did nothing to hide it at all, especially not when you parted your legs, biting your lip as you looked at him.

“Are you—”

You cut him off by pulling at the waistband of his boxers. “Don’t even think about asking me if I’m sure. I’ve been waiting for you to make a move for months.”

You weren’t shy at all about sticking your hand down the front and squeezing the base of his cock. “Do me now. Don’t make me wait anymore.”

“Jesus Christ, bunny.”

He almost saw nirvana just from the feeling of your hand around him. “Steve.”

“Fuck, okay.”

It seemed his shirt wasn’t the only thing that had finished being useful, because your panties met the same fate. He quite literally tore them from your hips. You both heard the soft rip of the fabric. You squeezed your hand around him again and he took a shuddering breath before cupping your pussy. His thumb rolled a lazy circle around your clit, just so he could see you squirm. Your legs jumped when you whined. “Now. Now, now, now. Please.”

His boxers were gone a second later, and he replaced your hand with his own, rubbing some of your slick over his cock. You only watched, your bottom lip red and plump between your teeth. “Are you really sure?” He asked—he couldn’t help it, even as he rubbed the head of his cock over your folds.

You sat up on your elbows then. “Do I need to be on top?” You said it like it was a threat, but really it sounded like a gift.

“Maybe next time.”

You had likely had some sort of retort on the tip of your tongue, but it dissolved into one loud, long groan, your eyes squeezing shut, as he pushed in. He’d only done the tip and already you were pulsing around him in a way that had him white-knuckling the bedspread next to your hip. “Not there yet,” He grunted, pushing deeper.

“Oh god, oh god, oh god,” You were chanting with your head thrown back, like you really were praying to a higher being.

Bottoming out was bliss like Steve had never felt before in his life. You were squeezing around him like you planned to keep him there for good. He pulled out nice and slow, relishing in the easy slide, before slamming back in so forcefully you jolted up the bed a little.

And then you were off to the races. His hips snapped against yours while his teeth landed on your neck. Your nails were ten tiny brands in his shoulders. He just wanted more of you, all of you. More of your noises, more of your reactions, your legs tight on his waist. He wanted to sear himself into your skin and it seemed like you were trying to do the same. You couldn’t stop touching him. Your hands kept moving from his shoulders to his ribs to his neck, like you couldn’t decide where to hold on, like you’d lost the ability to form an opinion.

But still, Steve wanted more.

He slowed down enough to pry your legs from him. He glanced up only to see confusion overtaking ecstasy. He supposed he was about to see how flexible you were.

He pulled out with a wet pop!, his cock smacking against his stomach. Your wetness was dripping off him and onto the bed. You whined out his name with a petulant look. “Why did you—”

“Trying something.”

He pulled your legs up to your chest before having you put your hands under your knees to keep them up, to keep you open. His dick twitched at the sight of you spread apart for him. He wanted to devour you. But he wanted to be inside you more. “Hold on for me, bunny. Atta girl.” Your eyes filled with tears when he entered you a second time. “Feels good?” He was panting, breath fanning across your mouth.

“S—so good, Steve.”

If he’d thought he was deep before, he’d been wrong. Now his cock was kissing your cervix with every thrust, and you couldn’t contain any of the noises you were making. You were loud, unashamed, and gorgeous. The tears in your eyes spilled, sliding down your temples, but he caught one on his tongue before it went too far. He couldn’t help it. He wanted everything you had to offer. You couldn’t hold onto him, folded in half as you were, and he cradled your face with one hand, the other holding him up. You tilted your cheek into his palm, nuzzling like a kitten.

It was that, and that alone, that had him saying, “I’m gonna come.” He had you in a position that exposed you to him completely, but it was the tenderness of your eyes that really did him in.

“Together?” you breathed.

“Mhm, together.”

It was with reluctance that he stopped touching your face to rub furious circles on your clit. You came a split second before he did, clenching down on him for all he was worth, and then he was spilling into you with a force he’d never known. Each squeeze from you sent another wave from him until you were both breathing so heavily, he thought one of you might pass out. He only stopped thumbing at your clit when you dropped one of your legs to weakly bat at his hand, and he settled it across your stomach, pressing down. You let out a small, choked cry. “Oh, fuck.”

“You’re so full.”

“Yeah…” There was no longer a thought behind those eyes of yours. “So full. So good.”

It made Steve smile, to see you so fucked out. He’d done that. He’d made you feel so good that you couldn’t even think anymore. And to think he’d wanted to turn you away for safety’s sake. He no longer felt any of the agitation that he had before, even as he looked at the uneven chain of hickeys across your throat. He’d definitely left impressions of his teeth in a couple of spots.

He kept his hand on your belly for a moment longer before pulling back and out. His cum spilled out of you in a steady drip. At least he finally had a use for his ripped shirt. He was gentle as he wiped you clean, then dropped it over the side of the bed. He could have gone again, he was sure, but you were clearly done for now. Instead, he settled next to you, pulling you close, curling around you like he’d done when he’d been a wolf. You both stared at the ceiling.

Finally, you’d returned to yourself enough that you murmured, “See? You didn’t hurt me. You need to trust yourself. Because I trust you.” Your speech was slurred.

But it was the first time Steve was convinced that maybe you had a point.

It was still hard for Steve to believe that you weren’t in any danger around him, but it was easier than he’d thought, too.

You talked about it at length the first couple of days after you’d slept together. You hadn’t really wanted to leave, and he hadn’t wanted you to. You were amazed that he’d never sought out any others like him. Neither of you believed that the wolf attack had been a normal wolf. There had to be more people suffering from his same problem. You thought that maybe it was time he tried. “I don’t even know where to look,” he admitted finally.

It was late at night, the window in the bedroom just slightly cracked open. You were both laying facing each other, his hand a gentle graze up and down your spine. Your fingers drummed against his chest. “I’m not suggesting you go right away, but maybe you need to go back to that forest. The one where you were bitten. That’s where it all started. If not there, then one near it. We know for sure that wolves like you were around at one point.” You smoothed your hand over his heart when you looked at him through your lashes. “I know that it might be traumatic for you. And I won’t come if you don’t want me to. But I think that’s the best place to start.”

He settled against his pillow and tucked you closer, your head fitting under his chin. “Maybe in the spring.”

He wasn’t ready to face it yet. And the harsh weather was going to be rolling in to stay soon, anyway. But maybe in the spring, he’d have wrestled with the idea for long enough to feel good about it. Your nose brushed against his throat, and you placed a kiss against his skin a moment later. “Whatever you decide, you know I’m with you every step of the way.”

It took a little persuading from you, but Steve agreed to come to town with you. Not just the edge of it, or the road just off the main one where the general store was. But right into town, where you lived and worked the most frequently. And he wasn’t just going for fun, either. It was a date.

He’d felt nervous like a teenager again. You’d come to get him, but he’d met you at the lot where you usually parked, not wanting you to venture all the way into the forest. You were wearing a dress he’d never seen before, this one an ocean blue slip of silk, peeking out under a wool coat. The bitter temperatures had already fallen into effect. Your hair fell in loose waves around your face, coming free from its clip. He suddenly felt very underdressed in his plaid button up and jeans, but they were the nicest of his clothes. He only got more nervous as you drove. “Should I have cleaned up more?” He asked, watching you.

Your tongue stuck out of the corner of your mouth as you frowned at the rearview mirror—you were trying to execute a somewhat dicey parallel park. But your eyes flicked to him for a brief moment, one of your hands leaving the wheel to touch his leg. “I told you never to shave the beard. I like the rugged look, remember? My wolfman.” That was accompanied with a sweet smile, and he felt a rush of heat not only to his face, but to his groin, too.

Once you were satisfied with your parking job, you turned to him, leaning across the console. Your fingertips danced over his jaw when you kissed him. “You ready to go in?”

The restaurant you had parked in front of was a study of dim lighting. He could see it through the window—the hanging lamps were made of mason jars. It was now or never, he supposed. “Yes. Let’s go.”

Steve was surprised it was going so well. There’d been a bit of fumbling around with the wine menu—he hadn’t had a drink in years—but the rest of it had been fairly simple, no over the top dishes in sight. And it hadn’t been too busy, either. The waiter kept to the shadows, only passing by your table once during the meal. And through the whole thing you’d kept your easy smile, your foot brushing against one of Steve’s ankles. The lighting might have been dim, but it didn’t dull the sparkle in your eyes.

As much as Steve was relieved that this outing hadn’t been a total disaster—a small part of him had been afraid you only worked together because of the seclusion—he didn’t feel ready to venture into town at will, not yet. He said as much to you when you asked. He wasn’t ready to abandon the cabin, either, even though it really was too small for both of you and didn’t have half the amenities he knew you’d prefer.

You looked at him over the table, your plate empty, and rested your knife and fork neatly across its surface. “Why don’t we compromise?”

He didn’t know what you meant, not right away. But after eating, you took him by the hand and got in the car. You drove him all the way through the town’s center before turning off one of the side roads. You drove for twenty minutes. It was the complete opposite side of town that you’d come from, the side he was most familiar with. The road itself was pretty bumpy, unpaved. But you stopped eventually at a circular driveway.

At first, Steve thought you were just taking him to the edge of town because you thought he’d be more comfortable there. But you got out and rounded the car to his side, until he climbed out to join you. You pulled him a little ways away, to a cluster of trees. “I’m not saying that it’s the perfect solution, but…”

You trailed off. That was when he saw, under the shade of some evergreens, a small stone cottage. It was bigger than his cabin all the way around, with rounded windows. Lavender and ivy had begun to creep up one of its sides. The pathway up to it was made of tiny pebbles. The lawn needed work. But the cottage was big enough for two without being overwhelming. It was far away from people, trees surrounding it. No, it wasn’t perfect. But Steve was moved by it all the same.

His stunned silence made you ramble. “I’m not saying this is the one, but I went looking around. There’re a few places like this one around here. Some are newer, some need a lot of TLC. But they have what we’d both want in a place.” You pulled your coat tighter around yourself. “It’s just a thought,” you added quickly. “I’m not trying to move too fast.”

He pulled you closer by your hips and kissed your forehead, then your mouth. “You can move as fast as you like, bunny. I’m with you.”

Winter had not splintered your relationship like Steve had feared, though it had been a real bitch to try and clear enough snow to let you through the forest and to the cabin. It was what made him finally unearth his rusty blue truck from where he’d hidden it under tarps and dead branches on a different trail. He’d been surprised it still worked. But it was easier for him to drive down to yours, to brave the town and stay at your apartment with you, than it was for you to come to him. And he found he didn’t mind staying in town so much when you were wrapped around him like a blanket. It was infinitely better when you’d come home after a shoot, shaking snow from your hair and your clothes and your boots, and he’d have dinner ready. Something simple, but less so than what he’d ever been able to put together at the cabin. And you’d eat on the couch, then tear his clothes off. Sometimes you didn’t even make it to the bed. Once, he was pretty sure the bakery across the street had seen you pressed against the window.

But afterwards, you would cuddle up against him in your bed, and put Star Wars on the projector, and you’d always fall asleep by the time the Millennium Falcon came into play.

By the following fall, you’d said goodbye to that apartment. You were waking up next to him in the countryside in an old farmhouse. It was half an hour from town, with wide open fields on either side, and a forest beyond. It needed a lot of work, but you’d revelled in taking all the before shots of it. The coffee table was blanketed by paint swatches. It was probably going to take a few years to finish. Steve had kept the cabin, though he really only stayed there in the summer months, now. He was still looking for answers about what had happened. But he hadn’t had a single accident. None of his transformations had recreated what had happened with Peggy. He was beginning to wonder if your theory was right.

He was just glad to be able to wake up next to you every morning and not have to feel fear and dread that he was going to hurt you. It was still in the back of his mind—it always would be, he suspected—but each passing day made him feel less and less afraid.

The part of the farmhouse you’d started on first, after getting the roof fixed, was the living room. The stone fireplace had been a joint effort to repair, but it fit in nicely with the burnt orange shade of the walls, the big leather couch, the cozy rug. The mantel was cut from a poplar tree, shaped by Steve and stained by you. One of his wooden figurines claimed the space on top. And right above it, in a simple black frame, was one of your photographs.

You’d gotten the picture you’d gone into the forest for. A wolf, your wolf with watchful eyes and a gleaming coat, standing on an overhang overlooking the lake. You’d decided not to put it in your portfolio.

That one was just for you.

TAGLIST;; @blowingbarnes, @superbassbuck, @flockoff-featherface, @unificsation, @firingstars, @barnesonly, @54nboo, @earthsmightiestbenders, @its-in-the-woods, @iamthatonefangirl, @winterdecember18, @houseofhyde, @heldbybarnes, @herejustforbuckybarnes, @stellacherryfairy, @biaswreckedbybuckybarnes, @buckysbunnny, @miraclediviner, @macbaetwo, @star-yawnznn, @kisskittenn, @dolcesaints, @akiyhara, @yourstrulymariii, @sassandscribbles, @emilyswortwellen, @colettebarnes, @starfire-irl, @pinksplace, @lunaskye999, @spdrveil, @shackoflove, @bbyanarchist, @venigrantrogers, @randomfanpage, @idkbeautiful

bonus note: yes, this was me working on the remaining seven scenes yesterday. yes, the timer went longer than this. yes, this broke me a little.

[annsfics]

♡ you wish this were him? ♡

♡ pairing: jack abbot x fem!reader x michael robinavitch

♡ synopsis: what begins as a simple facetime call on an ipad ends with you, jack, & robby all orgasming together as loving admissions are made.

♡ content: fingering, masturbation, dirty talk, cam sex

♡ a/n: based on this request, ty!

Your eyes slowly flutter closed before you force them open again, only to be met with the sight of Robby's smirking face on the illuminated glass screen that sits in front of you.

"Getting tired, sweetheart?" Robby questions with a gentle smirk.

Jack raises a brow and slides a hand down your side and over your hip. "She fallin' asleep on us?"

Pushing your back further into his chest from where you're each lying on your sides in bed, you snuggle into the pillow that rests beneath your head. "Trying," you mumble.

Robby sighs—a familiar sound which typically signals that he's about to hop off for the night.

After listening to the two of them talk endlessly about patients and medical anomalies and football games for the last two hours, you're sure your dreams are due to be quite interesting this evening. As in: a quarterback running across a field while holding a bedpan instead of a football while dressed in a hospital gown that's covered in a pattern of blue, red, and yellow diamonds.

Nevertheless, you're eager to get to sleep. And soon.

Until Jack slides his hand beneath the waistband of your panties and you nearly shoot straight up in bed before your mind stops you, that is.

You don't want Robby to know that your husband is attempting something so inappropriate while he's watching. The hell has gotten into him?

Gripping his wrist tightly, you shove his hand away, and he chuckles.

A sound which grabs Robby's attention immediately. "What're you up to over there?"

You quietly slap Jack's arm. "Nothing, he's just trying to tickle me to keep me awake," you lie.

"If that's what you want to call it," he replies sarcastically before finally shoving his hand wholly in your panties this time.

"Jack!" you shout while half turning back to him.

And then Robby speaks and your head jerks back to the tablet. "I'd be less offended if you just let me see what he's doing. Feel like I'm being left out of the joke here."

You swallow thickly. "He's just being an a—"

"I don't know what you're acting so shy about," Jack says while circling your clit with his index finger, causing your hips to jolt in response. "You're the one who's joked multiple times about a threesome with Robby."

Your eyes grow wide in panic and heat blooms across your cheeks. How... How could he—

Eyes flitting toward the tablet, Robby leans in with interest. "I'm sorry, she's what?"

Jack slides his hand upward and fondles your breast, which Robby can actually see this time. Swatting at it, you half think to hiss at him because you're in such an overstimulated tizzy. "What has gotten into you?" you cry while finally sitting up.

And then Robby gets a preview of your panties.

"Those cherries?" rumbles a baritone voice on your right.

"What're you two up to?" you ask while staring down at your husband, who merely greets you with a smirk.

"Robby, you still there?" Jack calls over your shoulder.

"Still here," he replies.

Jack looks at you and grins. "May not be here, but we can still have one." He shrugs. "In a manner of speaking."

You narrow your eyes. So they've decided to play a very offensive, obnoxious prank. Because terrorizing you at work clearly isn't enough. Like how Jack is constantly grabbing your backside every time your guard is down. Though, there was a day recently when your rear was pinched and you squealed in surprise before circling around, only to find Robby as the only man standing near you.

He claimed Jack had just walked away, so you obviously attributed it to him without thinking to doubt him. Now...you're not so sure.

Sliding an eager hand between your thighs, Jack's expression softens. "Lay back, baby."

"But—"

"Can you move the tablet further back?" Robby asks. "So I can see all of her?"

You jerk your head back to Robby. "Did... Did you two plan this?"

Robby feigns innocence by shrugging off your question. "Won't be anything I haven't seen before."

"That happened one time!" you shout, and Jack snickers.

It was months ago, but Robby was invited over for dinner and arrived early. You'd just been getting out of the shower when he came waltzing into the bathroom wanting to relieve himself, only to find you naked—minus the towel on your head. You'd screamed bloody murder as he stood in the doorway with his mouth agape before finally turning back around the same way he came with the door left standing wide open behind him.

"And it was your fault," you scold.

Robby chuckles. "Sure made you think it was an accident, though, didn't I?"

You glare at him, but wonder how well he can see it with the tablet screen being the only source of light in the bedroom. On the screen, you admittedly look a bit hazy.

Snapping your head back to Jack, you scowl at him next. "What are you two up to? Spill."

Sliding a hand between your breasts, he gently pushes you back down onto the bed. "You want me to come out with it?"

Jack reaches across your body and grabs the tablet before shoving it back onto your nightstand to grant Robby a full view of you—all the way from your face down to your knees.

You watch as he reaches below what his camera grants you view of, and you hear clothes shifting.

Is he...?

Jack leans in close and caresses your cheek. "Robby and I've been talking about this for awhile," he rasps while kissing your temple. "He knows how you feel about him. Honey, did you really think all the times he flirted with you were disingenuous?"

"They weren't," Robby states with certainty.

You roll your head to the side. "What... What're you two wanting me to do?" you ask with quiet curiosity.

"Let me touch you," Jack says while sliding a hand beneath his old Army t-shirt that you're wearing. "And while I do, you tell me what you wish Robby was here doing to you."

Rolling a pebbled nipple between his fingertips, you find yourself only able to focus on the way your heart is hammering away between your breasts like it's trying to escape your ribcage. So hard in fact, that you find yourself suddenly short of breath. "I..."

"Honey, look at me," Robby says softly.

You turn toward the tablet.

"If you want us to stop, we'll stop. But I want this, sweetheart. We both do."

You ground yourself by grabbing Jack's forearm. "You're sure?"

Jack leans down and presses his lips tenderly to yours. "I am."

Now undressed, and with Jack's hand planted firmly between your spread thighs, you keep your eyes affixed to the iPad in front of you. You'd asked, once you were made naked for Robby's benefit, if he would take his shirt off as you only thought it fair.

He'd been hesitant, until you whined needily for him. After that, he found himself unable to deny you.

You'd thrown one of your legs over Jack's hip when you observed the soft swell of his stomach and how his brawny chest was smattered with coarse, dark hair. And then you'd gotten greedy when you demanded he let you see his cock, too.

If he wanted to hear how you wanted him to use it inside of your body, then he was to show it to you.

His hand slightly trembled from nerves, so you cooed and told him how desperately you wished he were in bed with the two of you, so as to stroke his ego.

Not that it was untrue whatsoever.

"God, it's so long," you'd whimpered.

He'd paused stroking his cock to eye you with surprise. His cock that twitched with want when he caught the way you licked your lips as you surveyed its girthy, veiny length, as well as a dark trail that led below his navel before flourishing into a healthy tuft of hair above his member.

So now here you lay, with Robby getting off to Jack touching you, and you telling him all the filthy things you very much wish for him to do to you.

"Tell me, baby," Jack rumbles in your ear. "What you want him to do right here," he drawls while easing two calloused fingers inside your wet cunt.

"I want your cock buried inside of me," you sigh—watching how his stomach jiggles from his ministrations. "Every inch. I want you to make love to me, Robby."

Jack kisses your cheek. "You wish this were him inside you?"

You nod. "I wish I could touch you."

Robby groans while leaning forward. "So do I, sweetheart."

"I want your cock bottomed out, and for you to feel me squeeze around it because that's how badly I need you here. No condom; I want you finishing inside of me. Filling me with your cum."

He curses quietly. "Christ..."

"Keep going, baby," Jack encourages.

"I'd clean you with my mouth after—every inch of your cock dripping down my throat." You wiggle your hips and Jack swipes his thumb over your clit. "God, Robby, I need you so bad. Inside of me. Please."

Jack adds another finger.

"Can you hear that?"

Robby's cock sways to the side when he releases it to adjust his device's volume.

"Mm, it's so hard," you moan.

"What'd you want me to hear, baby?" he asks lowly while taking his swollen cock back in-hand.

"How wet I am for you."

You grow quiet, and the sound of your squelching transfers through the speakers.

Robby leans back while nodding. "I hear, honey. God, you're really turned on, aren't you?"

"Only because I'm watching you." You drag your eyes down his body. "I wish I could feel your weight on top of me. Pushing me into the mattress as you hold me close while taking whatever you need to."

Jack dips his head and sucks a nipple into his mouth, so you slide your fingers into his hair.

You feel so terribly overcome with emotion that it's staggering. "I love you."

Jack releases your nipple with a quiet pop, and a tear slips from your eye. "I love you both so much."

Robby rocks forward in his seat while furiously stroking away at himself.

Cupping your right cheek, Jack presses his forehead against your left temple. "Say that again," he whispers in your ear. "He needs to hear it. Keep telling him."

"I love you, Robby," you say between sniffles. "Do you hear me?"

He nods, and his chin wobbles.

"I love you. I have for so long. I'm so glad you both came into my life. God, I love you."

His strokes grow sloppy and furious. "I love you too, honey," he grunts between ragged breaths. "I'm so fuckin' close," he whispers.

"Come, Robby. Come inside of me. Please. I want it. I've never wanted anything more."

Jack's own erection has tented his briefs. Fleetingly, he removes his fingers from between your thighs to tug the garment down below his knees before slipping the slick digits back inside of you.

"Come with me, honey," Robby encourages. "At the same time. Finish around me."

Jack continually swipes his thumb over your swollen, sensitive bundle of nerves.

"'M close," you whine. "I'm almost there. Keep your cock where it belongs: right inside me."

"Oh, God," he moans while slapping a palm down on the desk he sits before.

"Ah," you pant while lifting your hips to meet Jack's tireless strides. "C'mon, baby. Come for me. Let me see. Please, Robby."

"Tell me," he says while licking his lips. "Say—"

"I love you. Robby, look at me."

He does.

"I love you. So, so much. Both of you. More than I thought possible."

"Oh fuck," he cries. "Oh f—" Robby releases a guttural moan, and you watch in fascination as his cum spills from his cock, over his hand, and onto the floor.

Throwing your head back, you're overcome with white-hot heat from where Jack's fingers plunge away inside of you, between fluttering walls slick with arousal.

"Oh my G—Ah. Ah, Robby! Jack! Oh God—"

You actually begin to cry when relief finally overcomes you. Your hips buck against your husband's hand, you claw at the sheets you lie atop, and only when you slowly return to your senses do you finally realize that your naked thigh is now covered with cum, because Jack has finished as well.

Collapsing back against the pillow behind you, you heave for breath, same as the two of them.

"Thank you."

You turn to Robby.

Stretching toward the tablet, you slide it off the nightstand before bringing it closer while Jack wraps both his arms around your waist and plants numerous affectionate kisses to your cheek.

You press your fingers to the screen—to Robby's face, wishing you could hold it between your hands. "You have nothing to thank me for, sweetie."

He smiles sheepishly.

"Should've done this a long time ago," Jack mutters.

"See you two tomorrow, then?" Robby asks while smiling warmly at you.

You blow a flirtatious kiss into the camera.

"Might just have to bring you home with us," Jack states with anything but a sarcastic tone.

Robby swipes at his eye with his forearm. "And I might just have to agree to that." He focuses on you. "Goodnight, sweetheart."

You kiss the screen—directly on his lips. "Goodnight, Robby. I love you."

[cinnxmxngxrl]

Shared Custody pt 2

Michael “Robby” Robinavitch x reader

FIRST PART Updates Account

You convince yourself that sleeping with Robby was just a one-time relapse, and return to the co-parenting routine you’ve carefully built. But everything unravels when you’re dragged into a family vacation at a resort in Mexico. One full week of trying to survive Robby’s relentless attempts to win you back.

warnings/tags: smut, minors DNI, porn with plot (lots of plot), age gap (but readers age isn’t disclosed), jealous!robby, co-parenting, GirlDad!Robby, this is long as fuck so read it with time, they’re still down bad for each other, unprotected piv, semi-public sex, handjob, blowjob, fingering, creampie

You remembered that day as if it had been yesterday. The cold porcelain of the toilet seat under your thighs. The pregnancy test stick clutched in your trembling fingers while you tried to aim. The uncertainty that made every sound echo louder in your tiny studio apartment, the best place a med student could afford. The steady drip-drip-drip from the leaky faucet. The nervous pacing of Robby’s footsteps just behind the thin wooden door.

“You good in there?” he asked, you could picture him leaning in, pressing his ear against the wood like he could somehow hear your thoughts.

You quickly wiped away the silent tears that had been streaming down your cheeks. “Yeah…” Your voice came out shaky and small. “Yeah. I’m done.”

You wiped, flushed the toilet, and stood up on unsteady legs, pulling your pants back on. Carefully, you set the cup and the pregnancy test on the edge of the sink before washing your hands.

“Can I come in?” Robby asked from the other side. Guilt was already eating him alive. This was his fault. He should have been the one guiding you, teaching you how to become a great doctor. Instead, he had jeopardized everything,  your education, your career, your future. Now, because of him, you were taking a pregnancy test in a cramped bathroom, wondering what the hell you were going to do with your life if two pink lines appeared.

You didn’t answer with words. You simply walked to the door, opened it, and stepped aside so he could enter. “It says three to five minutes,” you murmured, nodding toward the test resting on the sink.

“How—” Robby cleared his throat when his voice threatened to crack. “How are you feeling?”

“Scared?” The word came out like a question. Truthfully, you didn’t even know if “scared” was the right word. What was the right word for finding yourself in a situation you’d never wanted, knowing it was your own damn fault? You should have been more careful. You should have said yes the first time he asked about wearing a  condom. You should have told him to pull out instead of moaning “fill me up, Robby” every single time like you had lost all sense. 

You knew the odds. You knew the risks. But when he was inside you, none of that had mattered. And now destiny was laughing in your face. You had no plan. If you were pregnant… what then? Goodbye to med school. Goodbye to your dream of graduating and matching into emergency medicine. You’d probably have to move back in with your parents and spend your days raising a child instead of becoming a doctor. And goodbye to Robby, because why would a man like him want to stay tied to the med student he’d accidentally gotten pregnant and the baby he never asked for?

Fresh tears slipped from the corners of your eyes, soaking your cheeks instantly. You tried to stay quiet, but the sobs broke free anyway.

“Hey, hey, hey… come here.” Robby closed the distance in one step. The heat of his body wrapped around you like a shield. He slid one strong arm around your waist, anchoring you against his solid frame, and the other hand cradled the back of your head. “It’s perfectly normal to be scared. But you’ve got me. You’re not alone in this.”

“What are we—” Another sob escaped, muffled against his shoulder. “What am I gonna do, Robby? What am I supposed to do?”

“Whatever feels right,” he whispered against your hair, pressing a gentle kiss there. “You’re supposed to do whatever you want to do. You have all the choices.”

“But which one is the right one?” You pressed harder into him, as if you could disappear into his chest. “Which one won’t make you hate me?”

“Jesus— Look at me.” He gently cupped your face with both hands, lifting it from his chest so you had no choice but to meet his eyes. His own were red and watery. “Let me say this once, and I need you to hear me. I could never hate you. None of this is your fault. It’s no one’s fault… this just happens, okay? If the test is positive, then… it’s not the end of the world. We’ve got options. We have time to think about it.”

“Then why does it feel like it is the end of the world?” You tried to hide your face again in the broad warmth of his chest, where your tears had already left a dark patch on his shirt. He wouldn’t let you. He kept your face cradled between his palms, one thumb softly stroking your cheek as he wiped away another tear. 

“Why does it feel like no matter what I choose, you’ll end up resenting me for it?”

“I won’t,” he assured you again, his voice steady even though you could feel how hard he was trying. “You have to think about what you want. Nothing is more important than that. I’ll be here for whatever you decide.”

“What if I don’t want to keep it?” The words tumbled out. “Wouldn’t you feel like… like I took something away from you? Wouldn’t you think I’m selfish?”

“It doesn’t matter what I think.” He leaned in and kissed the tip of your nose, his warm lips making you shiver. Then your cheek, tasting your tears. Then your lips, reassuringly. “If the test is positive and you choose to terminate 6he pregnancy, I wouldn’t think that makes you selfish. I wouldn’t think you’re a bad person or that you’re stealing something from me. I’d think you’re strong. I’d think you’re being brave. And I’d be right there with you.”

The calmness in his voice steadied you a little. You could tell he was terrified, probably having a panic attack on the inside, but he was pouring every ounce of strength into not showing it. He wanted to be the rock you could lean on, the one who had answer, who knew what to do, who’d be there to support you no matter what.

“Is that what you’d want?” he murmured against your lips. “An abortion?”

“I don’t know,” you whispered, so softly he might not have heard if he weren’t so close. “But… maybe it’s the only right choice. What would I even do with a baby? I’d have to drop out of med school… I’d fall so far behind. Raising a baby… I don’t know when I could even go back.”

“It doesn’t have to be like that, you know?” he said gently. “A lot of women finish their studies while pregnant. They work while being moms too. Think of Dr. Shamsi, she finished her residency while—”

You knew he meant well, but right now the last thing you needed was a pep talk about strong women. “Yeah, well, I’m not Dr. Shamsi, Robby,” you cut in, the words coming out harsher than you intended. “I don’t think I can do it. And I can’t… I can’t put that weight on you. That burden. A child, Robby. I’d feel so guilty knowing I trapped you.”

An incredulous laugh escaped him. He pulled back just enough to really look at you. “Trap me? Jesus fuck… do you even hear yourself? When have I ever made you feel like you’d be trapping me?” 

His tone edged toward anger, which only made your own flare up. “You didn’t ask for this! You’d be stuck with a child you never even wanted just because I didn’t want to get rid of it!” You couldn’t meet his eyes anymore and stared at the floor instead.

“A child…” He let out a slow breath. “A child doesn’t sound like the worst thing in the world.” The words he’d been too afraid to even think until now finally slipped out. “Yeah, it would be difficult. Yeah, it would be a fucking challenge. I’m not gonna lie, I’m scared. But I don’t think a baby would be the worst thing to ever happen. Not by far.” 

He’d be lying if he said he had never dreamed of having a child, of becoming a father. In his mid-twenties, he had pictured it so differently. Finding the love of his life, getting married, waiting a year or two before having their first baby, then another one soon after. A proper family. But life had gotten in the way, long hours in the ED, the weight of responsibility, his own fears and insecurities reshaping the entire trajectory of his existence. Time slipped through his fingers, and before he knew it, the dream had been pushed further and further into the distance. Definitely not like this, a baby at forty-nine with the fourth-year med student he’d been sleeping with in a messy situationship for only a few months… that was never part of the plan. And yet, as that pregnancy test sat on the edge of the sink, the possibility grew heavier, more real. Maybe this was how it was meant to happen. Maybe the universe had finally caught up with him. Maybe it was time to stop running, time to stop hiding, and finally commit to something bigger than work. Something that actually mattered. Something that’d change his life and give it a new meaning, a new purpose.

“You’re saying you’d want it?” you asked, surprise flashing in your eyes as you finally looked up at him. “If I were pregnant… you’d want the baby?”

“I’m saying I want you to do what you want. But yeah… if you chose to keep it, then I’d want it too. I’m in, 100%.” Behind the fear in his voice, you heard absolute certainty.

“And how would that even look?” you asked quietly. “How would we do it?”

“If we’re doing it, we do it right. Together.” He took your hands in his, brushing his thumbs over your knuckles. “You could move in with me. Once the baby’s born, we’d arrange our shifts so one of us is always with them. We’d get a sitter to help us so you can still have time to do your residency. You have me. You’ll have me every step of the way.”

“Promise?” you whispered.

“Promise.”

Silence stretched between you, as if the rest of the world had stopped spinning. In that tiny bathroom, it was just the two of you, holding each other’s hands with the promise of facing whatever came next together.

“I think it’s been over five minutes,” Robby said finally, glancing toward the sink. “Want to check?”

You nodded, and Robby released one of your hands, picked up the test, and held it between you without looking at the result yet. “Together?” he asked.

You swallowed. “Together.”

The imposing voice of Dana cut through the fog in your mind. “Earth to you… hello?”

You blinked, startled, and reluctantly dragged your eyes away from the computer screen where you’d been pretending to chart for the last ten minutes. Dana was leaning against the nurses’ station counter with one hip, crossing her arms tightly over her chest. “Jesus, Mary, and Joseph. Are you even listening to me right now? Because I’ve been talking to myself for five minutes. What’s up with you? You look like you didn’t close an eye last night.”

You forced a small, nervous laugh and quickly looked back down at the computer, hoping the glow of the screen would hide the exhaustion on your face. “Sorry… I slept okay,” you replied, trying to sound nonchalant and unbothered. You weren’t fooling anyone, least of all Dana. You could feel her eyes studying you, taking in the faint shadows under your eyes, the slight slump of your shoulders, and the way you kept subtly shifting in your chair. Because no matter how hard you tried to focus on work, your body was still painfully aware of last night. The ghost of Robby’s thrusts still lingered between your thighs, a delicious ache that refused to fade even twelve hours later. 

Every time you moved, you were reminded of how hard he had taken you, how thoroughly he had ruined you. Your muscles were sore in the best and most inconvenient way possible. You crossed your legs under the desk, trying to ignore the throb that pulsed through you at the memory. The last thing you needed was Dana figuring out why you were so distracted. Unfortunately, Dana had the observational skills. She narrowed her eyes even further, tilting her head as she continued to stare at you. “Yeah… sure you did.”

Dana drifted his gaze past your shoulder down the corridor. Her expression shifted almost imperceptibly, lifting her brows a fraction and her mouth twitching like she’d tasted something sour. You followed her line of sight to Robby, striding toward trauma two, wearing his navy scrubs and cargo pants. There was a loose, easy roll to his shoulders, a confidence in his steps that screamed satisfaction. The corners of his mouth were curved in a half-smile that was the unmistakable “I got laid and it was fucking amazing” look.

Dana let out a dry huff of laughter, crossing her arms over her chest. “Jesus. I hate when he walks around with that ‘I got laid and it was amazing’ face. It’s obnoxious as hell. Makes the rest of us feel like we’re doing it wrong.”

You kept your face carefully neutral, tapping your fingers against the keyboard, but without writing anything. “Maybe he’s just in a good mood.”

“Oh, please, don’t give me that. You know that face, it’s always the same with that man.” Dana tilted her head, studying him as he paused to talk with Victoria, that satisfied smile lingering a beat too long. She narrowed her eyes, thinking hard for a second, then her head snapped back toward you when realization hit him. “Wait a minute… That face. That exact face is too familiar. It’s not just his regular ‘I got some’ look. That’s the same damn face he used to wear back when you two were sneaking around four years ago. And I haven’t seen it on him once since you two called it quits. Not a single time.”

Heat flooded your cheeks instantly. You felt cornered, exposed, like a deer caught in headlights. Dana ran this place, nothing escaped her eyes. Trying to lie to her was usually pointless, she could smell bullshit from miles away. “I– I really need to finish these charts,” you stammered. “I promised Hannah I’d try to get home early so we could—” The excuse died on your tongue, it sounded pathetic even to your own ears.

She looked at you like she’d already decided you were guilty. “Please tell me you didn’t do it.”

“Didn’t do what?”

She snorted. “You’re a terrible liar. Always have been.”

You exhaled through your nose, dropping your shoulders in defeat. You glanced around the nurse station. It was quiet, no one close enough to overhear, then leaned in just a fraction.“Okay,” you muttered. “It was one time. One weak moment. I’m not doing it again.”

Dana didn’t t look surprised, just disappointed in the resigned way of someone who’s watched this film before and knew how it ended . “You’re so stupid,” she said, almost fondly. “Letting that mess of a man back in again.”

“I know.” You rubbed a hand over your face, wishing you could teleport anywhere but here. “I know. I’m just… so weak when it comes to him. He’s got this way of looking at me, like I’m the only thing in the room that matters, and the way he touches me…” You trailed off. “God, Dana, you don’t know how good it is. How he remembers every single—”

She held up a hand with the palm out. “Stop. Right there. I do not need the details. I’ve worked with that man for the last 20 years of my life, and I still got to work with him for the next eight hours. Spare me the play-by-play.”

“Sorry. It’s just… it felt like coming home, you know? And then this morning reality hit like a truck. And I realized I fucked up last night.”

Dana studied you for a long beat, and her expression softened just a fraction, enough to show the concern underneath.“Honey,” she said quietly, “you’re not weak. You’re human. And that man has always known exactly which buttons to push with you. But you’ve built something solid these last five years. Don’t throw that away because the sex is good.”

You nodded, swallowing hard. “I told him it was a one-time thing. A relapse. I’m not doing it again. I swear.”

Dana arched her eyebrow high. “You swear.”

“Yeah.” You met her eyes even if your stomach twisted. You were embarrassed to let anyone know about your poor life choices, but if you could trust anyone, that was Dana, one of the only people who’d been here since the start of your story with him. “Last night was… it was stupid. It won’t happen again.”

She studied you for a long beat, then she pushed off the counter, stepping closer and dropping her voice to that tone she used when she’s done playing nice.“You'd better not. Go out. Meet someone. Anyone whose last name isn’t Robinavitch. Someone who can actually commit to a relationship.”

You looked down at your hands, still faintly wrinkled from too much hand sanitizer, a nervous habit you’d gotten out of him. “It’s not that easy.”

“It’s not supposed to be easy,” she countered. “But it’s supposed to be possible. Find a guy who doesn’t bolt after a month because he ‘feels trapped’ and ‘needs space.’ Someone who doesn’t look at commitment like it’s an impossible mission. Someone who stays.”

The words sting because they’re true. Robby never lied about it, he’d told you early on he wasn’t built for the long haul, that relationships felt like another thing he’d inevitably fuck up. And when Hannah came along, when the exhaustion and the shifts and the fear piled up, he didn’t fight to keep you together. He just… drifted. Back to separate houses, separate beds, separate lives. 

“Hon, you know Robby was not made for a relationship. He’s a great dad, nobody’s arguing that. The man would walk through fire for that little girl. But you? He loves you in the way he knows how: sporadically. And that’s never gonna change. Keep it that way. Keep him in the dad column. Don’t let him back into the partner one.”

You rubbed your temples, the ache from last night’s lack of real sleep settling in behind your eyes. “I know. I do. It’s just… when he’s there, when he’s touching me, talking to me like I’m still his… it’s like the last five years never happened. Like we could pick up where we left off.”

“That’s the trap,” Dana said quietly. “It feels like home because it used to be. But homes can be haunted too.”

In the days that followed, you did everything you could to avoid Robby. At work, you kept your distance, volunteering for procedures on the opposite side of the ED whenever possible and burying yourself in charts or patient updates the moment you felt his presence nearby. Because every single time your eyes met his, even for a brief second, your body betrayed you.

You remembered the crushing weight of him on top of you that night, the way he’d fucked you into the mattress like the world was ending. You remembered how perfectly your bodies still moved together, how easily he could pull those broken sounds from your throat. Years had passed, but the fire between you hadn’t dimmed. If anything, it was burning brighter and hotter than ever, threatening to consume every boundary you had built.

Thankfully, Robby seemed to sense your need for space and didn’t push. He gave you room to breathe at the hospital, only speaking to you when a case genuinely required collaboration. His tone stayed strictly professional, his touches nonexistent. He still called every evening like clockwork to talk to Hannah, but with you he remained carefully polite, never lingering, never teasing, never crossing the lines you had drawn. 

You should have been relieved. He was finally respecting your wishes, he was doing exactly what you had asked him to do, and yet… on nights like this, when Hannah was at his place for her half of the week, the silence in your house felt suffocating. The emptiness pressed in from every corner. No little footsteps pattering down the hallway, no giggles echoing from the living room. Just you, alone in the quiet, with nothing but your own thoughts to keep you company. And your mind refused to shut off, It buzzed loudly, relentlessly, replaying every moment of that night in vivid detail, the heat of Robby’s skin, the burn of his beard against your neck, the groan in your ear when he came undone inside you. 

You kept hearing his promises afterward: that he was a changed man, that this time he wanted you for real. Not out of duty because he’d gotten you pregnant. Not because he felt trapped by responsibility. But because he truly wanted to be with you, because he loved you. God, you wanted to believe him so badly. There were moments, weak and dangerous moments when you wished you could be reckless enough to fall for every word that came out of his mouth. To let yourself be dumb and hopeful and blind, just like you were five years ago.

Maybe you would have risked it if you were the only one who would get hurt when everything inevitably fell apart. You could survive a broken heart, you’d done it before. But Hannah couldn’t, she was innocent in all of this. She didn’t deserve to watch her parents try and fail again, to feel the instability, the confusion, the heartbreak of seeing her mother and father almost become a family, only for it to crumble. You refused to gamble with your daughter’s emotional safety just because you still craved the man who once broke your heart.

The knock on the door came right on time, just as the late afternoon sun was starting to slant through the living room windows. You were still in your scrubs, hair thrown up in a messy bun, when you opened the door to find Robby standing there with Hannah perched on his hip, her little pink backpack slung over his shoulder, making him look both silly and endearing at the same time, and her head resting sleepily against his chest.

“Hey,” Robby said softly. “We’re here.”

Hannah’s face lit up the second she saw you. “Mommy!” She reached both arms out, already wiggling to get to you. Robby shifted her gently into your arms, brushing his hand against your side in the process. The brief contact sent an unwelcome spark through you that you immediately tried to ignore.

“Hi, baby girl,” you murmured, pressing a kiss to her soft brown hair, she smelled like the strawberry shampoo Robby always used on her. “Did you have a good time with Daddy?”

“We had a great time,” Robby answered for her, stepping inside and closing the door behind him. He set her little backpack down by the couch and rubbed the back of his neck, looking unusually hesitant. 

“Listen… I’ve been thinking about something.”

You raised an eyebrow, bouncing Hannah lightly on your hip as she played with the collar of your top. “That sounds ominous.”

He let out a small laugh, the corners of his eyes crinkling. “Not ominous. Just… I’m thinking of taking some days off work. Vacation days.” Your surprise must have shown on your face because Robby quickly continued. “I’ve been thinking about taking her somewhere warm. She’s been talking about the beach nonstop lately. There’s this resort in Mexico I’ve been looking at, very kid-friendly, right on the beach. Thought it might be nice for her to run around in the sand and actually see the ocean.”

Robby had never been one to take vacations. For most of his life, work had consumed him completely. He was drowning in the ED, the never-ending stream of patients, the constant pressure of being the one everyone relied on. There was always something more important, and a quiet voice in the back of his head constantly whispered that everything would crumble if he wasn’t there to hold it all together. He had never felt the pull to travel, no place ever seemed worth leaving the hospital for. Nothing could impress him or hold his attention long enough to make him want to step away. His entire identity had been tied to the job for so long that the idea of doing anything else felt foreign, almost selfish.

That was before Hannah arrived, she changed everything. From the moment she came into his life, Hannah gave him something he had never truly had before, and that was real purpose. She became the reason he woke up every single day determined to be better, to be the kind of father she deserved. The person who had to stay strong and healthy because she depended on him for everything, from teaching her how to tie her shoes, to how to be kind, how to stand up for herself. 

But Hannah had given him more than just purpose. She had awakened in him a brand-new desire to actually live. For the first time in years, his world expanded beyondwork. He wanted to do things, he wanted to see things, and more than anything, he wanted to experience them with her. His life no longer felt like it should revolve solely around the ED, he craved as much free time as he could carve out so he could share it with his daughter, watching her discover the world. He refused to miss even a single moment of her childhood while she was still small and everything felt unique to her. Hannah had unknowingly pulled him out of the endless cycle of work and survival. 

And that was how the trips began. Beach days where Hannah squealed at the waves and collected seashells in her bucket. Lazy summer afternoons fishing at a lake. Winter weekends at a cabin resort in the mountains, where they built snowmen in the backyard and drank hot chocolate by the fire. Whatever Hannah wanted to do, Robby made it happen.

You nodded slowly, processing the information. You dropped Hannah off carefully on the floor, and she immediately walked to her bedroom, mumbling something about saying hello to her stuffed animals. “Mexico… That sounds really nice for her. When were you thinking?”

“Probably in a couple of weeks, if I can get the time approved. I’d take about a week.”  He paused, watching your expression carefully. “Are you okay with that? With me taking her?”

“Yeah,” you said without hesitation. “Of course I’m okay with it. She’ll love it. Just make sure you send me all the flight information and the hotel details once you have them. I want to know exactly where she’ll be and how to reach you.”

“Already planning on it,” he assured you. “I’ll send everything as soon as it’s booked.” A comfortable silence settled for a moment. Then Robby shifted his weight and looked at you again, something vulnerable flickering behind his eyes. “Actually… I wanted to ask you something else.” He rubbed the back of his neck again, a tell you knew too well. “Would you want to come with us?”

You blinked, caught completely off guard. “What?”

“I’d pay for everything,” he added quickly. “Your flight, your room. You don’t have to worry about that. You’ve been working insane hours lately with residency. It might be good for you to get away for a few days, too. Relax. Sleep in.”

The offer hung in the air between you, and for one brief second, you let yourself imagine it. You pictured the three of you on a beach in Mexico. Hannah running barefoot through the warm sand, her hair messy from the ocean breeze, laughing with pure joy every time a wave came close enough to tickle her toes. You saw yourself and Robby sitting nearby on lounge chairs, drinking margaritas while the sun kissed your skin. The sound of the waves rolling onto the shore, lulling you into a nap you hadn’t allowed yourself in years. 

After surviving on less than six hours a night for so long, the mere idea of lying back on a lounge chair and actually resting felt almost sinful. Vacations had always been a luxury you couldn’t afford. Not with the mountain of student loans, the demands of your residency, and the constant juggle of motherhood. The thought of taking time off just to relax had felt selfish, unrealistic, and completely out of reach. And now Robby was offering it all on a silver platter.

You quickly shoved the beautiful images away before they could take root and make you weak. Because that was the problem with Robby’s offer, it wasn’t just a vacation. It was a week of playing house, of blurred lines, and of watching him be the devoted father he had become, while your stupid heart remembered exactly how good things used to feel when the three of you were almost a real family.

“Robby…” You let out a slow breath. “Thank you. Really. That’s incredibly generous. But I don’t think that’s a good idea.”

He furrowed his brow slightly. “Why not?”

“Because going on a vacation like that, the three of us,  it would be confusing. For her, especially. If we’re sharing space like a family for a whole week, she might start getting ideas about us getting back together. I don’t want to give her false hope. And it’d be confusing for us two, we need to keep our distance after… You know what.”

Robby’s jaw tightened for a moment, but his voice stayed calm. “We can get separate rooms. Hell, we don’t even have to hang out the whole time if you don’t want to. You could do your own thing, be at a different pool, get spa treatments, whatever. I’m not asking you to pretend we’re a couple. I just… I want to do this for you. You deserve a break too.”

You shook your head, even as a small, traitorous part of you ached at how sincere he sounded. “No, Robby. Thank you, but no. It’s sweet of you to offer, but it’s too complicated. We’ve worked really hard to keep things stable and clear for Hannah. Mixing a family vacation into that… it blurs too many lines. I appreciate it, I really do. But I think it’s better if it’s just the two of you.”

He watched you for a long moment, something like disappointment passing across his face, a quiet frustration he tried so hard to hide. “Alright,” he said quietly. “Message received. I’ll just take her, then. But the offer stands if you ever change your mind.”

You gave him a grateful smile, even though your chest felt tight from how much you wanted to say yes, because of how much you wished that maybe in another life, Robby and you could be those parents sunbathing in Mexico with their kid. “I won’t. But thank you.”

He nodded once, lingering for another few seconds like he wanted to say more, but decided that by pushing too hard to get close to you again, he’d only end up pushing you away. “I’ll text you the details as soon as everything’s booked.”

“Sounds good.”

Before heading toward the door, Robby paused. He gave you one last long look, the kind that always managed to slip past every defense you’d carefully built over the years. In that single glance, you were flooded with memories you spent most days trying desperately not to dwell on. Memories from five years ago, back when everything still felt possible. Back when you still believed, with naive, foolish hope, that the two of you could somehow make it work.

And then there were the much more dangerous memories from just two weeks ago, the night where, for a few stolen hours, it felt like the rest of the world had simply stopped existing. His hands on your body like he still owned every inch of it, the way he’d whispered your name against your skin, the overwhelming feeling that you had teleported back in time, back to when it was just the two of you. For those few hours, you had let yourself believe again. You had let yourself imagine that maybe, just maybe, there could still be a “we” in your future.

A couple of days later, you heard the knock of the door echo through the house just as you were finishing packing Hannah’s favorite stuffed capybara into her little backpack. You opened the door to find Robby standing on the porch. Hannah immediately squealed at the sight of him.

“Daddy!” She bolted forward, launching herself into his arms. Robby caught her with ease, laughing as he lifted her high and spun her once before settling her on his hip. “Hey, angel,” he said, pressing a loud kiss to her cheek. “You ready for Daddy’s house?”

You stepped aside to let them both in, arms crossed loosely over your chest as you watched the usual handoff routine unfold. Hannah was buzzing with energy, clutching Robby’s shirt with her little hands. “Daddy, Daddy! Are we really going to the beach soon?” she asked with her eyes wide, full of pure excitement. “With the ocean and the sand?”

Robby grinned, the kind of soft and genuine smile he only ever wore for her. “We sure are, baby girl. I already picked out a really nice hotel. It’s right on the beach. Want me to show you the pictures later when we get home?”

“Yes!” Hannah bounced in his arms, practically vibrating. “Does it have a pool? And ice cream? And can I get a new swimsuit to wear?”

“It has a huge pool, and I’m pretty sure they have all the ice cream you can eat,” Robby answered patiently. He glanced over at you while still holding her. “I booked one of the family suites with a big balcony overlooking the ocean. You’re gonna love it, Han.”

Hannah gasped dramatically, her little mouth forming a perfect ‘O’. “Mommy, did you hear? Daddy got a hotel with a balcony! For the ocean!”

You couldn’t help but smile at her pure joy, even as a knot started forming in your stomach. “I heard, sweetheart. Sounds amazing.”

Robby set Hannah down so she could run to grab her stuffed animal from the couch. The moment she was out of earshot, he lowered his voice slightly. “I meant what I said the other day. The offer’s still open if—”

Before he could finish, Hannah came racing back, clutching her capybara tightly. “Daddy, can Mommy come with us to the beach? Please?”

Robby didn’t miss a beat. He looked straight at his daughter with an innocent expression that you knew was anything but. “You know what, Han? I was actually thinking about inviting Mommy too. What do you think? Would you like Mommy to come on the trip with us?”

Hannah’s entire face lit up like the Fourth of July. She spun toward you so fast she nearly tripped over her own feet. “Mommy! You have to come! Please please please! We can build sandcastles together and swim and eat ice cream and watch the sunset and— and everything!”

You shot Robby a deadly look over Hannah’s head, the kind that promised a painful retribution the moment you two were alone. He simply raised his eyebrows in mock innocence. The bastard knew exactly what he was doing. He was weaponizing the one person he knew you could never say no to. Hannah. She had always been your biggest weakness, your softest spot, and Robby knew it better than anyone. Those big, warm brown eyes were lethal. One pleading look from her, and your resolve crumbled like sand.

And right now, she was using every ounce of that power, blinking up at you with hope while clutching your hand like her entire happiness depended on your answer. It was unfair, completely unfair. Robby wasn’t just standing by and letting her beg, he was actively encouraging it, using your daughter as the ultimate emotional leverage. He knew you could resist him, he knew you could fight your own feelings, your own desires, your own stupid heart. But Hannah? Saying no to her when she looked at you like that felt almost cruel. And the worst part? He wasn’t even trying to hide how satisfied he was with himself, that tiny twitch at the corner of his mouth said everything. He was enjoying this far too much.

“Hannah, baby…” You crouched down to her level, gently brushing a strand of brown hair behind her ear. “Mommy would love to, but I’m super busy with work right now. I have so many shifts and—”

Robby’s voice cut in smoothly from behind her. “Actually, you have a bunch of vacation days saved up. I checked it yesterday.”

You straightened up slowly, narrowing your eyes at him, silently warning him to stop this nonsense before it went too far. “Robby.”

He shrugged, completely unbothered. “Just stating facts. You shouldn’t lie to your daughter, you know?”

Hannah grabbed your hand with both of hers, swinging it dramatically. “Mommy, pleeease? Pretty, pretty please!” You opened your mouth to respond, but Hannah was already in full pleading mode, her big puppy-brown eyes, exactly like Robby’s, staring up at you with devastating effectiveness.

“I really can’t afford it right now, sweetheart,” you tried again. “Plane tickets and hotels are expensive, and Mommy—”

“If Mommy can’t pay,” Robby interrupted you. “Then Daddy will pay. I’ve got it covered. Flights, resort, activities, all of it. You wouldn’t have to worry about a single thing.”

Hannah tugged harder on your hand, bouncing on her toes. “See? Daddy’s paying! So you can come! Please, Mommy? I want all of us together. Pretty pleeeeease.”

You felt cornered, trying to come up with more excuses, but as you reached inside your head, you couldn’t think of any. Robby stood there looking far too pleased with himself, while your daughter continued her relentless assault with those lethal eyes and endless enthusiasm.

“Hannah…” you started, searching desperately for another excuse.

“But Mommy,” she whined, pressing her face against your leg, “I’ll miss you so much if you stay here.”

Robby, the absolute traitor, decided to join forces. “She’s got a point,” he said casually, though his eyes were anything but casual when they met yours. “It wouldn’t be the same without you. And like I said before, I can get us separate rooms. You can do your own thing the whole time if you want. But it would mean a lot to her… and to me.” 

The “and to me” was spoken so quietly you almost missed it. You looked between the two of them, your daughter with her hopeful, shining eyes and her father, the man you still stupidly loved,  with that steady and patient gaze that had always been able to wear you down. The silence stretched. Hannah’s lower lip started to tremble just slightly, the ultimate weapon in her arsenal.

With a long, defeated sigh, you finally gave in. “…Fine,” you muttered, rubbing your temple. “I’ll go too.”

Hannah let out an ear-piercing squeal of pure delight and threw herself at your legs, hugging them tightly. “Yay! Mommy’s coming! We’re all going to the beach together!”

Robby’s smile was slow and satisfied, though he tried to keep it modest. “That’s great,” he said softly, his eyes never leaving yours. “Really great.”

You pointed a finger at him over Hannah’s head. “You’re going to pay for this later, Robinavitch.”

His only response was a knowing chuckle. “Looking forward to it.”

Hannah continued dancing around the living room in celebration, already chattering about sandcastles, seashells, and swimming with dolphins. You stood there watching her, with your heart full of love for your daughter, loving every second of seeing her so happy, and equal parts dread and excitement about what you’d just agreed to, a family vacation in Mexico with Robby. God help you.

Hours later, the glow of your bedside lamp was the only light in the room. You were already tucked into bed, wearing an old, oversized t-shirt that had seen better days. Your phone suddenly vibrated on the nightstand, making you glance at the screen, letting out a slow breath as soon as you noticed who was calling. A Facetime from Robby. 

You hesitated for two rings, it was almost midnight, and you didn’t feel like having any possibly agitating conversation right before your bedtime, but ultimately ended up accepting the call. Robby’s face filled the screen almost immediately, he was in his bedroom too, the light of his lamp illuminating his face. His hair was messy, like he’d been running his hand through it, and his glasses were perched low on his nose, those fucking glasses… No, don’t even go there, you silently muttered to your brain

“Hey,” his voice sounded rougher, the way it always got late at night. A small smile tugged at his lips. “You already in bed?”

“Yeah,” you replied, adjusting the blanket over your lap, as if trying to cover yourself up. “It’s late, Robby.”

He hummed in agreement, slowly dragging his eyes over what he could see of you on the screen. “You look comfortable. Cute shirt.” There was a brief pause before he asked, almost casually, “So… have you started packing swimsuits yet?”

You stared at him for a moment, the irritation you’d been carrying for the past hours finally bubbled up. “Robby… we need to talk.”

Robby lifted his eyebrows slightly, but the lazy smile didn’t leave his face. “Alright. About what?”

“You manipulated me into agreeing to this trip.” 

Robby let out a low chuckle. “Manipulated? Damn, you’re using big words tonight.”

“It’s not funny,” you said sharply, though you kept your voice quiet so you wouldn’t wake Hannah. “You used our daughter to convince me, and then you joined in. That was low, even for you.”

He tilted his head, still smiling like this was all some lighthearted game. “Anything else?”

You narrowed your eyes. “Yes. You guilt-tripped me. The whole ‘it would mean a lot to her… and to me’ line? That was manipulation.”

Robby leaned back against his headboard, resting one arm behind his head, giving you an even better view of his bare chest. He looked far too relaxed for someone being accused of emotional manipulation. “Jesus,” he muttered, still chuckling softly. “Oh-ho-ho, I’m so evil, I manipulated the mother of my child into letting me take her on a fully paid week at a luxury beach resort in Mexico.” He raised an eyebrow, mock-serious. “Am I gonna go to prison for that?”

“Robby.”

“Relax,” he said, softening his tone just a fraction, though the amusement was still there. “Hannah’s excited. You saw her. She wants all three of us there. I’m just trying to give her what she wants.”

“You know exactly what you’re doing,” you shot back. “I know your real agenda behind all of this.”

He tilted his head again, looking curious now. “Oh yeah? And what’s my agenda, according to you?”

You sat up a little straighter in bed, clutching the blanket tighter. “You’re using this stupid trip as an excuse to try and get back with me. You think throwing money at a vacation and putting us in the same space for a whole week is going to magically fix everything. It’s not going to work.”

For a moment, Robby just looked at you, his expression unreadable. Then that stupid smirk of his spread across his face again. “Have you seen me in swim trunks lately? I look real good. You might have to swallow your words when you see me.”

You let out an exasperated scoff, though you couldn’t stop the flush that crept up your neck. You hated the way he could still make you laugh when you were trying to be pissed. You hated the way your body still reacted to his words. “You’re impossible. Seriously, it’s impossible to have a serious conversation with you sometimes.”

“I’m just saying,” he continued, clearly enjoying himself. “Sun, sand, good drinks, me looking like this… you never know.”

“I’ll go,” you said, cutting him off before he could keep going. “But don’t even think this means anything else. We’ll get separate rooms. We’ll make separate plans. I’m going for Hannah. That’s it. Don’t get any ideas.”

Robby ignored your warning completely. “You look so gorgeous right now,” he murmured. Suddenly, his voice went quieter, more intimate. Robby moved his eyes slowly over your face, down to the collar of your shirt and back up again. “All soft and sleepy in bed like that. Fuck… I wish I were lying there with you.”

Your stomach flipped despite yourself, the way he said it, so sincere and full of a hunger that never ceased but only grew stronger every day, made heat bloom in your belly. You wanted to scream at how easily he could still do that to you. “Robby…” you warned him.

“I’m serious,” he continued. “I miss the way you feel under me. The way you breathe when you’re falling asleep next to me. I miss—”

“Goodbye, Robby.” You didn’t wait for him to finish, you ended the facetime call with a tap of your finger, plunging your screen into darkness. The room felt suddenly too quiet, too empty without his presence there. You dropped your phone onto the mattress beside you and stared up at the ceiling. Your skin felt warm, your mind was already replaying the way he’d looked at you, the tone of his voice when he said he wished he was lying there with you.

You pulled the blanket higher up to your chest, trying to ignore the storm of feelings Robby had just stirred up with nothing but his voice. It didn’t work, the ache was still there, as well as the flutter in your chest. The way your heart tripped over itself whenever he looked at you like that. Five years later, and Michael could still make your stupid heart race like you were that same fourth-year med student who used to sneak into his place late at night after shift. And now you had agreed to spend an entire week with him. A full week in Mexico. Seven days of Robby being Robby, charming, attentive, and far too good at reminding you exactly why you fell for him in the first place.

You had to force yourself to go back to one of the saddest days you could remember. Robby had come home from a brutal twelve-hour shift. You had just collapsed onto the couch after finally getting Hannah down, she’d been fussy all day, teething and crying restlessly. The moment he walked through the door, you could tell it had been a bad one. His eyes were glassy and distant, the lines on his face etched deeper than usual. Lately, every shift seemed to carve something out of him. He moved closer and pressed a quick, almost mechanical kiss to your forehead. No hello. No “how was your day.” Not even the ghost of a smile. Just autopilot, he was running on empty.

He sat on the edge of the kitchen counter, far from you, shoulders slumped. “There’s some pasta in the fridge I made,” you whispered, hoping it would reach him. He didn’t answer, didn’t even nod. He just stared at nothing, too drained to move.

Then Hannah let out a small cry from her crib. Before you could push yourself up, Robby was already on his feet. He scooped her up gently against his shoulder, swaying her in a soothing rhythm. “Are you okay, little angel?” he cooed softly, tender in a way it hadn’t been for you in weeks. “Yes, you’re okay. Yes, you are. Daddy’s here… shhh, go back to sleep.” That was the only moment you saw him smile genuine, and heartbreakingly soft as he held his daughter.

Tears burned in your eyes as you stood and walked closer to him. You had spent so many sleepless nights turning it over in your mind, and you couldn’t keep prolonging the inevitable. “Robby… we need to talk.”

“About us?” he replied, already sensing where this was going.

You nodded, feeling your throat tight. “Why do I get the feeling that you don’t want to be with me? That… you regret telling me to move in with you and being together?”

Robby sighed heavily, rubbing his temples like the weight of the world was pressing down on them. “It’s just work. You have no idea what it’s like trying to hold the whole fucking department together when everything is crumbling down and—”

“It’s not just that,” you cut him off. “You don’t look at me. You don’t talk to me. I understand your job is hard, that you’re stressed and exhausted, but… shit, Robby, all we do is ignore each other. The only time we actually speak is to argue about something stupid.” The tears slipped free then, there was no holding them back.

“I’m sorry,” he whispered, his voice breaking. “I thought I could do all of this, but I—” Tears welled in his eyes too, spilling over as he tried to hold it together. “I don’t know what to do. I—” A sob cut him off.

“Do you need space?” you asked, dreading the answer. “Is that it? You need us to take some time?”

He looked at you for a long moment, broken and defeated. “Yes.”

Two weeks had passed, and before you realized it, the suitcase lay now open on your bed, half-filled with the folded clothes you had carefully picked for the trip. You stood in front of it, folding another sundress, while Hannah sat cross-legged on the floor surrounded by her own small pink suitcase and a pile of toys.

“Hannah, baby, do you have everything?” you asked for what felt like the tenth time. “Swimsuits? Sunscreen? The colouring books Daddy bought you for the plane?”

Hannah nodded enthusiastically, holding up her favorite ruffled swimsuit. “Yes, Mommy! And my water wings and the new sunglasses Daddy got me!” She beamed with uncontainable excitement. “Are we leaving soon? Is Daddy almost here?”

“Any minute now,” you replied, zipping up the main compartment of your suitcase with a sigh. Your stomach had been in knots all morning, this trip still felt like a terrible idea the more you thought about it, but Hannah’s joy made it impossible to back out now.

Right on cue, there was a knock at the front door. Hannah shot up like a rocket and ran toward it, yelling “Daddy!” at the top of her lungs.

You followed more slowly, pulling both suitcases behind you. When you opened the door, Robby stood there in a casual white linen shirt and shorts, looking annoyingly relaxed and handsome in the morning sunlight. His eyes immediately found yours, a small playing on his lips. “Hey,” he said softly. “You two ready?”

“Daddy!” Hannah launched herself at him. Robby scooped her up effortlessly, kissing her cheek as she wrapped her arms around his neck. “Hi, my little mermaid. You got all your stuff?” He glanced over her head at you. “Need help with the bags?"

“I’ve got them,” you said, a little more curtly than you intended. 

The drive to the airport was filled with Hannah’s nonstop chatter from the backseat. She pointed out every car, every cloud, every sign, asking a thousand questions about the plane, the ocean, and whether there would be dolphins. Robby answered every single one with patience, occasionally glancing at you in the passenger seat. You kept your eyes on the road, trying not to think too hard about how domestic this all felt. 

At the airport, Robby handled check-in, and when the agent handed over the boarding passes, you caught a glimpse of them and froze. Business class.

You turned to him slowly as they walked toward security. “Seriously, Robby? It’s a four-hour flight. We could’ve flown economy like normal people.”

He shrugged, a smirk tugging at his mouth. “I had miles on my card for an upgrade. Didn’t cost anything extra.”

You narrowed your eyes. “Robby.”

He leaned in slightly, keeping his voice low so Hannah wouldn’t hear. “Forgive me. I just wanted to spoil my family a little.”

“We’re not a family,” you said firmly, glancing ahead at Hannah skipping between you two. Robby didn’t argue, he just gave you a look that said he disagreed but wasn’t going to push. 

The flight itself was smoother than you expected. In business class, the seats were wide and comfortable. You both let Hannah had the window seat, ans she spent most of the flight pressed against the glass, watching the clouds and looking at the ocean. Robby sat in the middle, keeping Hannah entertained with the in-flight entertainment and snacks.

You tried to read, but your mind kept wandering, every time Robby’s arm brushed yours, reaching for something, or when he laughed at one of Hannah’s excited comments, memories flooded your mind back, and you had to constantly remind yourself the only reason you were doing this was because Hannah had asked.

You landed in Cancun four hours later. A private transfer waited for you outside arrivals. The driver loaded your bags while Hannah bounced between you and Robby, holding both your hands. The drive to the resort took about forty-five minutes along the coast. You watched the palm trees that lined the road and the turquoise water on one side. Hannah pressed her face to the window the entire time, gasping at every new sight.

When the resort finally came into view, it was even more beautiful than the pictures. A luxurious property with white buildings, infinity pools cascading toward the ocean, and tropical gardens everywhere. 

The humid air of Cancun wrapped around you the moment you stepped out of the transfer van. The resort lobby was stunning with high ceilings, white marble floors and massive floral arrangements. Hannah’s hand was firmly in yours, her fingers squeezing with excitement as her eyes darted everywhere at once. “Mommy, look! There’s a fountain! And flowers! And the ocean is right there!”

Robby walked a few steps ahead, carrying Hannah’s pink suitcase in one hand and his own duffel in the other. He looked completely at ease, the fabric of his shirt slightly damp from the humidity and clinging just enough to show the lines of his shoulders. He glanced back at you with a reassuring smile before heading straight to the reception desk. You stayed back with Hannah, letting her point out every detail she noticed.

A few minutes later, Robby returned, twirling a key card between his fingers. “All set. We’re in the beachfront wing. Follow me.”

The walk to the room was beautiful but felt endless. Hannah skipped between you and Robby, holding both your hands and swinging them as she chattered nonstop about building the biggest sandcastle in the world. 

Robby finally stopped in front of a beautiful wooden door, he swiped the key card, and the door clicked open. The suite was breathtaking, with floor-to-ceiling sliding glass doors that opened onto a wide private balcony overlooking the ocean. The living area had elegant white furniture, and as you stepped further inside, your eyes landed on the bedroom area with two queen-size beds.

You stopped dead in the doorway. “Where’s the other room?” you asked slowly, worried you already knew the answer Robby was about to give you.

Robby set the suitcases down and scratched the back of his head, looking mildly sheepish. “Yeah… so there was a mix-up at the front desk. We only got one room.”

You stared at him with disbelief. “What? Are you serious right now?” The asshole had to be kidding. But then again, this was Robby, and this was exactly the kind of shenanigans he’d put you through. You should have known he wouldn’t keep his promise to let you do your own thing at the resort, to not act like you were a real family on a family holiday. You had been to hopeful to expect he’d at least wait a little longer before showing his real intentions.

Hannah, completely oblivious to the tension, let out a delighted squeal and immediately launched herself onto the nearest bed, jumping up and down with pure joy. “This one’s mine! No, this one! Look how bouncy it is, Mommy! Daddy, come jump with me!”

You barely heard her, your whole attention was locked on Robby. The family suite was gorgeous, in tasteful neutral tones, with fresh flowers on the nightstands, a bottle of champagne and fruit plate waiting on the table with a welcome note, but none of that mattered. What mattered now was that Robby had not only manipulated you to agree to this trip, but he’d also lied to you.

“Michael, do you think I was born yesterday? You totally did this on purpose. I know it.” 

He held up both hands in a placating gesture, though the corner of his mouth twitched like he was fighting a smile. “There was a confusion with the booking. I swear. They had us down for a family suite with two queens instead of two separate rooms.”

You crossed your arms, glaring at him. “Go fix it. Right now.”

“I already tried,” he said calmly, stepping closer so Hannah wouldn’t overhear. “They’re completely booked. Peak season, a big wedding happening this week. No other rooms available in the whole resort.”

You let out a frustrated breath, rubbing your temple. “This is not what I agreed to, Robby. Separate rooms. That was the condition. I never would’ve come if—”

“I know,” he interrupted gently. “But it’s just one week. I can take one bed, you and Hannah can take the other. It’s fine.”

“It’s not fine,” you hissed, keeping your voice down as Hannah continued bouncing happily, now unpacking her stuffed capybara and arranging it on the pillows. “This is exactly what I was worried about. You’re pushing boundaries.”

Meanwhile, Hannah had moved on to dragging her suitcase across the room, chattering excitedly. “Mommy, can we go to the beach now? The water is waiting! I want to find seashells and build a castle.”

Robby glanced at her with that fatherly smile that always made your chest ache, then looked back at you. “Look at her. She’s already so happy. One week, that’s all. We’re adults. We can handle sharing space for a few nights without it meaning anything.”

You stared at the two queen beds again. They were large, luxurious, with more pillows than necessary. The balcony doors were open, letting in the warm breeze and the constant, soothing sound of waves. It would have been perfect… if it weren’t for the man standing two feet away looking far too pleased with this “mix-up.”

Hannah suddenly ran over and grabbed your hand, then Robby’s. “Come on! Let’s go to the beach! I’m ready! I have my bucket and everything!”

You looked down at your daughter’s beaming face, then back at Robby. He raised an eyebrow slightly, waiting. You let out a long, defeated sigh. “Fine. But this changes nothing, Robby. Separate beds. No funny business. And the second a room opens up, we’re switching.”

“Whatever you say,” he replied, but the small, satisfied smile on his face told you he wasn’t worried at all.

He set his suitcase near one of the queen beds and nodded toward the bathroom. “I’ll go change first. Won’t be long.”

You nodded silently, still processing everything, but as soon as the bathroom door clicked shut behind him, you turned your attention to Hannah, who was already pulling things out of her pink suitcase with frantic excitement.

“Come here, baby,” you said softly, kneeling on the floor beside her bed. “Let’s get you ready for the beach.”

Hannah stood in front of you, wiggling with impatience as you helped her out of her travel clothes. You carefully slipped her into her favorite ruffled swimsuit, bright pink with little white flowers, adjusting the straps and smoothing the fabric over her tummy. Then came the sunscreen. You squeezed a generous amount into your palm and rubbed it slowly over her arms, shoulders, back, legs, and face, making sure every inch was covred. Hannah giggled when you got to her nose, squirming because of how tickly it was.

“You have to stay safe from the sun, okay?” you murmured, pressing a kiss to her forehead. “We’re going to have so much fun, but Mommy doesn’t want you to get burned like a toast.”

“I won’t!” she promised solemnly, then immediately went back to bouncing on her toes. “Can I wear my new sunglasses? And my hat with the flowers?”

The bathroom door opened, and Robby stepped out, for a moment, time seemed to slow. He wore dark swim trunks, paired with a simple white shirt that he hadn’t bothered to put on yet,  it was slung over his shoulder. You had seen his bare body no more than a month ago, you’d been under it, but it still felt, somehow, like seeing him again for the first time.

You stared at him longer than you should have. His soft but solid tummy that drove you insane, and that familiar trail of dark hair across his chest that you had always, always loved running your fingers through.

Your eyes traced the lines of his chest, the way the hair curled slightly, the soft give of his stomach. Heat flushed up your neck because God, you still loved every inch of him. 

Robby caught you looking and a knowing smile spread across his face. “What?” he asked teasingly. “I got something on my face?”

You blinked hard, tearing your gaze away. “No,” you muttered, grabbing your own beach bag a little too quickly. “I’m… going to change.”

You escaped into the bathroom, closing the door firmly behind you. The mirror showed your flushed cheeks, and you took a deep breath, trying to steady yourself. This was just a week, you could handle this. Just a week of sleeping in the same room, just a week of seeing his body, just a week of him deliberately trying to break down our walls.

You changed into one of the bikinis you’d packed, a simple black two-piece that tied at the sides and back. You liked how it looked on you, it was flattering, but as you looked at yourself in the mirror, you felt suddenly, acutely aware of how little it covered. Your body had changed since having Hannah, a few stretch marks here and there, breasts that were fuller but not as perky as before. Standing here in just this tiny bikini, knowing Robby was right outside… it felt vulnerable.

You adjusted the ties one more time, took another steadying breath, and stepped out of the bathroom. Hannah immediately squealed. “Mommy, you look so pretty!” She ran over and hugged your legs before darting into the bathroom herself to grab her sunglasses and sun hat. “I’ll be right back!”

You stood in the middle of the suite, adjusting the strap of your beach bag, when Robby stepped in from the balcony. He had been leaning on the railing, looking out at the ocean, but the moment he turned and saw you, he stopped dead. His eyes widened, and he dramatically clutched his chest with one hand, staggering back a step like he was having a heart attack.

 “Jesus Christ,” he breathed, the grin on his face pure mischief. “Warn a guy next time.”

You rolled your eyes, fighting the smile that wanted to break free. “You’re so not funny, Robinavitch.”

You wanted to slap that smug smile right off his face and kiss him senseless at the same time. The two urges warred inside you, because you hated how much his words mattered. How easily he could make you feel like the most beautiful woman who had ever stepped foot on this earth, and how completely you believed him when he said it. He wasn’t just mumbling the words because it felt like something he was supposed to say. No, Robby looked at you like he truly wanted you, like he was dying to get his hands back on your body, to pull you close and remind you exactly how good it used to feel. His gaze lingered, tracing over you in a way that made heat flood your stomach. God, you hated how much you still wanted him to.

He didn’t stop. He kept one hand pressed to his heart, shaking his head slowly as his gaze traveled over you, unashamed, appreciative, and far too warm. “You’re trying to kill me on day one, huh? That bikini… fuck. You look incredible.”

Heat flooded your face again, but you crossed your arms over your chest, suddenly self-conscious. “Stop it. This is exactly what I was worried about.”

Robby took a slow step closer, still smiling, but his voice dropped. “Can’t help it. You’ve always looked good, but seeing you like this…” He let the sentence trail off, his sight lingering on the curve of your waist and the ties at your hips.

Before you could respond, Hannah burst back out of the bathroom wearing her oversized sunglasses and floppy sun hat, striking a dramatic pose. “I’m ready! Let’s go see the ocean!”

The sand was warm under your feet as the three of you made your way down the wooden boardwalk to the private stretch of beach reserved for resort guests. The sea stretched out in front of you, waves lapping against the shore, leaving behind lines of foam. Hannah’s excitement was infectious. She ran ahead a few steps, then back to you and Robby, her little sun hat flopping with every bounce. “The water is so blue! Can we go in right now? Please?”

Robby chuckled, adjusting the beach bag on his shoulder. “Let’s set up first, kiddo. Then we’ll swim.”

You chose three loungers under a large thatched umbrella near the water’s edge. You spread out towels while Robby helped Hannah with her water wings. The resort staff had placed a small cooler with chilled water and fruit beside the chairs, and soft music drifted from speakers along the beach. 

Once everything was settled, Robby stood and offered his hand to Hannah. “Ready, little mermaid?” 

She grabbed his hand with both of hers and tugged him toward the water. You watched them go, settling back into your lounger with the book you’d brought.  The sun felt incredible on your skin, you opened your book, but your eyes kept drifting over the top of the pages. Robby and Hannah waded into the shallow waves. Hannah squealed every time the water touched her legs, clinging to Robby’s hand. He lifted her high when a bigger wave came, spinning her around as she laughed uncontrollably. His swim trunks moved lower on his hips, and it made it impossible for you to focus on your book, every few minutes your gaze wandered back to them. 

After nearly an hour, Hannah came running back to you, dripping wet and beaming. “Mommy! Come build sandcastles with me! Daddy said he’ll watch our stuff.”

You set your book aside and took her hand, walking down to the firmer sand near the waterline. The two of you knelt together, digging with plastic shovels and buckets. Hannah chattered nonstop about her castle needing a moat and a tower for the princess. You helped her pat the walls smooth, adding seashells and bits of coral you found along the shore. The sun warmed your back, and for a while, everything felt simple and perfect,  just you and your daughter creating something together. But you felt Robby’s eyes on you the entire time, when you glanced up, he was sitting on the lounger, with his elbows on his knees, watching with an unreadable expression. 

He didn’t look away when your eyes met, the intensity in his gaze made heat bloom across your skin. Later, when the castle was tall and elaborate, Hannah got a mischievous glint in her eye. “Can we bury Daddy in the sand? Like a mummy?”

Robby, who had joined you, raised an eyebrow. “Oh, I see how it is. Ganging up on me already?”

You smiled despite yourself. “Sounds fair.”

The three of you worked together, slowly covering Robby as he lay back in the sand. Hannah patted sand over his legs with delight, while you worked on his arms and torso. The heavy sand molded around his body as he lay there patiently, occasionally joking with Hannah about becoming a “sand mummy.” Every time your hands brushed his skin while smoothing the sand, a spark jumped between you. He noticed, and you knew he did.

When you finally stepped back, Robby was almost completely buried, only his head and part of his neck visible. Hannah clapped her hands and danced around him. “He looks like a turtle!”

Robby chuckled, trying to move and finding himself well and truly stuck. “Alright, ladies. Fun’s over. Unbury me.”

You exchanged a look with Hannah, a smile spreading across your face. “You know what, Hannah? Don’t you want to go get some ice cream? I saw a stand right by the pools, and since this is all-inclusive, we can have all the ice cream we want.”

Hannah’s eyes lit up like stars. “Yes! Chocolate and strawberry and rainbow sprinkles!”

Robby snapped his head toward you, as much as he could with what little mobility he had left. “Ice cream sounds great. Why don’t you get me out of here and we go there together?”

You crouched down beside him, close enough that your shadow fell over his face. You leaned in until your faces were only inches apart. “This is for booking one room, Michael.”

His eyes widened with outrage. “You wouldn’t—”

You straightened up before he could finish, taking Hannah’s hand. “Come on, baby. Let’s go find that ice cream. Daddy can wait a few more minutes.”

Hannah giggled conspiratorially and waved at Robby. “Bye, Daddy! We’ll bring you some… maybe!”

As the two of you walked away hand-in-hand toward the resort path, Robby’s voice followed you, half-laughing, half-protesting. “This is unfair punishment! Hannah! Come back!”

You didn’t look back, but you couldn’t stop the satisfied smile on your face. For the first time since arriving, you felt like you might actually survive this week, but only if you kept winning the small battles.

The light of late afternoon had softened into the warm pinks and oranges by the time you and Hannah returned to the suite. The scent of ocean salt that clung to your skin and your hair was a wild mess. You both needed showers badly. You helped Hannah first, rinsing the sand from her hair and body. After drying her with one of the oversized white towels, you slipped her into her favorite purple dress and brushed her hair until it was smooth. Your turn came next, you took your time, letting the warm water wash away the salt, sand, and sunscreen. When you emerged wrapped in a towel, Hannah was sitting on one of the queen beds, flipping through a children’s book the resort had left. 

She looked up with a bright smile. “Mommy, I’m so hungry! Can we go eat now?”

“Soon, baby. Let’s wait and see if Daddy gets back so we can all go together.”

You were both dressed and ready when the door to the suite finally opened. Robby stepped inside, still covered head to toe in sand. It clung to his hair, dusted his shoulders and arms, and left visible trails down his legs. His swim trunks looked gritty, and there was sand stuck to the damp skin of his chest and stomach. He looked equal parts ridiculous and defeated. You and Hannah stared for half a second before bursting into laughter. 

Hannah pointed, doubling over on the bed. “Daddy! You’re a sand monster for real!”

Robby closed the door behind him with a dramatic sigh, brushing uselessly at his arms. “It’s not funny,” he grumbled, though the corner of his mouth twitched like he was fighting a smile. “That wasn’t cool at all.”

You tried to stifle your laughter, covering your mouth with one hand. “You deserved that, Michael.”

He shot you a look, narrowing his eyes playfully. “I have sand in places no person should ever have sand. I’m talking places, okay? You left me there all afernoon.”

You raised an eyebrow, still smiling. “Really? The whole afternoon?”

He ran a hand through his hair, sending another shower of sand onto the floor. “Maybe a beach guard eventually helped dig me out. That’s not the point. The point is you two left me there.”

Hannah was still giggling uncontrollably. “Sorry, Daddy. I ate all the ice-cream.”

Robby shook his head, trying to look stern but failing miserably. “Traitors, both of you.” He glanced down at himself again and sighed. “I need a shower. Give me ten minutes and we can head to dinner.”

While Robby disappeared into the bathroom, you and Hannah sat on the edge of the bed, listening to the water run. When Robby finally emerged, he looked refreshed, wearing a clean button-down shirt and shorts. “Ready?” he asked, offering Hannah his hand.

The buffet was everything a resort like this promised, long tables overflowing with fresh seafood, grilled meats, salads, tropical fruits, and many dessert stations. Hannah’s eyes were wide as saucers as she piled her plate high with pasta, shrimp, and fruit, while you and Robby chose more balanced meals. 

You ate slowly, savoring the flavors while Hannah chattered between bites about everything she’d seen that day, occasionally yawning as the long day caught up with her.

After dinner, the walk back to the suite was peaceful, the pathways were lit with lanterns, and the sound of waves grew louder again as you approached the beach wing. Hannah walked between you and Robby, holding both your hands, her steps slowing with tiredness.

Back in the room, the bedtime routine felt strangely intimate. You helped Hannah brush her teeth while Robby turned down the beds. Hannah chose to sleep with you tonight. You tucked her in on the bed closest to the balcony, reading her a short story while Robby dimmed the lights.

Soon, Hannah’s breathing evened out into sleep, her body curled against your side. You lay there in the semi-darkness while Robby settled into the other bed, the sheets rustling as he got comfortable.

“Well, isn’t this nice?” Robby murmured, soft enough not to disturb Hannah’s peaceful sleep. “The three of us here like this… I had a great time today. Even if I spent three hours buried under sand.”

You closed your eyes, trying to ignore the way your treacherous heart agreed with him. It did feel nice, dangerously nice. You’d had so much fun being with him, doing things together like a regular family: building sandcastles, chasing waves, watching Hannah’s delighted squeals. For a few stolen hours, it had felt real. “Tomorrow morning,” you said quietly, despite the ache in your chest, “you’re going to the reception and asking if they have any more rooms available.”

The next morning you woke slowly, Hannah was still curled against your side on the queen bed. Carefully, so as not to wake her, you slipped out of bed. You moved quietly around the room, brushing your teeth, splashing cool water on your face, and running a brush through your hair. You chose a red bikini today, tied the strings and slipped on a light white cover-up. Before leaving, you scribbled a short note and left it on the nightstand: Went for an early walk on the beach to watch the sunrise.

Robby woke later, he spotted the note immediately and read it with a smile. “Mommy went for an early beach walk,” he told Hannah, helping her sit up. “Let’s get ready and surprise her with breakfast on the beach. What do you think?”

Hannah’s face lit up. They took their time, Robby patiently helping her brush her teeth and wash her face. He changed into swim trunks and a loose linen shirt, applied sunscreen to Hannah’s face and arms, and they headed out hand-in-hand, making a quick stop at the breakfast buffet to grab some fresh fruit, croissants, yogurt, and cold water bottles to bring to the beach.

The ocean sparkled brilliantly as he scanned the loungers, looking for you. When he finally spotted you further down the beach, his steps slowed. You were standing near the water’s edge in just the red bikini, the morning light highlighting every curve of your body. You looked relaxed, confident, and breathtakingly beautiful. And you weren’t alone. A tall, ripped guy in his mid-to-late twenties stood close to you, shirtless, his sculpted abs and broad shoulders glistening slightly with sweat or water. He was laughing at something you said, leaning in with confidence, clearly flirting back with you. 

He looked like he belonged on a fitness magazine cover, young, with zero signs of the wear that came from decades of work. An ugly twist of jealousy hit Robby in the chest. But it wasn’t just jealousy, it was insecurity hiding right behind it. This guy was younger, fitter. Probably had endless stamina and no emotional baggage. Robby became acutely aware of his own softer stomach, the gray hairs scattered across his chest, and the wrinkles around his eyes from years of exhaustion. He felt every one of his fifty. years in that moment, standing there holding a plate of fruit and his daughter’s hand.

Hannah tugged excitedly on Robby’s hand. “There’s Mommy! Look, Daddy! She’s over there by the water. Can we go say hi? Please?”

Robby forced a smile that didn’t quite reach his eyes. “Yeah, angel. Let’s go.”

They started walking across the warm sand. Robby’s focus narrowed entirely on you and the man standing far too close. As they approached, he heard the guy’s easy laugh again. The young man was animated, gesturing toward the horizon with one muscular arm, clearly in the middle of some charming story. 

“Good morning” Robby said, trying not to sound bothered but doing a terrible job hiding his annoyance. “I see you found company.”

The guy’s gaze flicked from you to Robby, then back to you with mild confusion. “Is that… your father?”

The word landed like a punch, and Robby let out a short and dry laugh, though his jaw tightened painfully. “Her father,” he mumbled on the low. “Cute. No. I’m her husband, as a matter of fact.” His voice didn’t even hesitate over the blatant lie he’d just said.

You laughed, an uncomfortable and forced sound that made Robby’s chest twist. “He’s not my husband,” you corrected quickly. “He’s just… a guy I know from work.”

Robby turned to you slowly, raising one eyebrow raised in disbelief. “A guy you know from work? Excuse me?” The young guy shifted awkwardly on his feet, clearly sensing the sudden thick tension crackling in the air. “I’m the father of her daughter. Michael Robinavitch, nice to meet you.”

The guy’s eyes darted between the three of you, with a confused look across his face as if he couldn’t quite process the sudden shift. Just a couple of minutes earlier he’d been leaning in close, flashing an easy smile and flirting with acute woman at the beach. Now here you were with a man standing possessively close and a little kid next to him. And as if he couldn’t quite believe that Robby, was somehow the father of that kid. “So… you have a daughter? With her?”

Robby kept his tone light for Hannah’s sake, ruffling her hair gently with one hand, but there was an edge underneath his words. “Yes. I got her pregnant. It was a wonderful experience, actually.”

The words came out with a possessive undertone he didn’t even try to hide. What a fucking little prick, Robby thought. He wishes he could pull a woman like you. Sure, the guy might have abs where Robby had a softer belly. Maybe his forehead was smooth, with no lines etched from the pass of time, and his head might still be free of silver hairs. But Robby had pulled you without any of that polished bullshit, and you had always looked at him like he was the most handsome man to ever exist. A little asshole like him wouldn’t have a clue what to do with a woman like you.

You shot Robby a warning glare, a mix of anger and embarrassment. because now you had to explain your awkard family situation to this stranger. “It’s… complicated,” you told the guy, forcing a polite smile that felt brittle on your face. “Really complicated.”

The young man rubbed the back of his neck, his sculpted shoulders tensing visibly. He was clearly uncomfortable now, the easy flirtation from moments ago evaporating. “Yeah… uhh, I think my friends are calling me. Nice to meet you, though.” He gave you one last lingering, appreciative glance before turning and walking away toward a group of guys further down the beach.

The second he was out of earshot, you rounded on Robby, trying to keep your voice low and controlled so Hannah wouldn’t hear, but still with a furious undertone in it. “What the hell was that? You completely ruined it. He was flirting with me, and you had to march over here acting like some possessive caveman. And “her husband” What the hell was that?”

Robby set the beach bag down on the sand a little harder than necessary. “Oh please,” he said, crossing his arms over his chest, the movement highlighting the soft give of his stomach beneath his shirt. “He’s not even your type.”

You stared at him incredulously. “And how exactly would you know what my type is these days, Robby?”

He shrugged, but his eyes were dark with a potent mix of jealousy and insecurity. “Because I know you. That guy? All looks and no substance. Perfect abs and zero idea what real life looks like. You’d be bored in ten minutes.”

The words hung between you. Hannah, sensing the growing tension like children always do, tugged gently on your hand. “Mommy, can we eat breakfast now? I’m hungry.”

You forced a warm smile for her, pushing down the frustration and smoothing her messy brown hair with your fingers. “Of course, sweetheart. Let’s sit down and eat. Daddy brought all your favorites.”

The rest of the morning on the beach passed in silence from your side. You didn’t speak one more word to Robby. Every time he tried to make conversation,offering you some mango, commenting on how beautiful the water looked, asking if you wanted more sunscreen, you answered with short nods or turned your attention to Hannah instead. Robby noticed, and after a while, he stood up slowly, brushing sand from his legs.

“I’m gonna take a walk around the resort for a bit. Give you some space.” He looked at Hannah with a soft smile. “You stay with Mommy, okay, angel? I’ll be back soon.”

Hannah nodded, already busy building another small tower on her sandcastle. Robby lingered for a second longer, resting his eyes on you with something regretful in them, before he turned and walked away down the beach path. You watched his back until he disappeared behind the palm trees.

The hours passed slowly, you played with Hannah in the shallow water, built more sandcastles, applied more sunscreen, and read a few chapters of your book while she napped under the umbrella. But your mind kept replaying the scene with the guy, Robby’s jealous interruption, his possessive words, the way he’d looked at you. It stirred up too many old feelings you didn’t want to examine.

 Part of you enjoyed the attention he gave you, the way Robby got possessive whenever another guy even stepped too close. It felt good to be wanted like that. To see him look at you like he still wanted you to be his and his only, even after all this time, even after everything that had happened between you. It was dangerous, how much you liked it. Because it stirred up the same old feelings, the ones that made it so hard to remember why you kept pushing him away in the first place.

Robby returned a couple of hours later, carrying two fresh iced drinks. He approached cautiously and sat down on the edge of your lounger, close but not touching you. “I know you’re pissed,” he said. “And you have every right to be. I overstepped. I was an asshole back there. Jealous and… yeah. I’m sorry.”

You stayed silent for a long moment, staring out at the turquoise water. “You were. You ruined a nice, harmless conversation.”

Robby nodded, accepting it. “I did.” He paused, then offered one of the iced drinks. “I walked by the spa earlier. They have really good reviews. I thought of getting you a massage as an apology. You deserve to relax after everything… and after dealing with me being an idiot.”

You looked at him then, searching his face. His expression was sincere, the usual cocky edge softened by genuine regret. Part of you wanted to stay mad. The other part, the tired nd overworked resident and mother, desperately wanted that massage. “…Fine,” you said eventually. “But this doesn’t mean I’m not still annoyed.”

“Understood.” He gave you a small smile.

You left Hannah at the resort’s supervised children’s activity center, a beautiful shaded area with crafts, games, and attentive staff. She was thrilled to join the other kids, waving goodbye without a second thought. 

The spa building was serene and even more luxurious than the rest of the resort. Robby stepped up to the elegant reception desk first. You watched him leaning slightly on the polished wood counter, and the woman on the desk checking the screen and nodding. 

After a couple of seconds, Robby came back to you. “Okay, it’s all settled. I’m gonna head back, maybe hit the pool with the bar. Enjoy your massage. You deserve it.”

Before Robby had any time to head to the door, a masseuse in a white uniform approached you both. She offered a welcoming smile. “Okay, beautiful couple, ready for your couple’s massage? We have the ocean-view room prepared with the full aromatherapy package you selected. It’s one of our most popular experiences.”

You froze right there and then, the word “couple” hitting you like cold water. Your stomach tightened instantly, a rush of irritation flooding through you. “Robby,” you said, turning to him. “What the hell did you do now?”

He looked genuinely surprised, his eyes widening as he raised both hands in a surrender gesture. “I swear I don’t know,” he said quickly, sounding sincere for once. “I just booked a regular massage for you. I didn’t say anything about a couple’s anything. I was very clear, one person, one massage.”

The masseuse glanced between the two of you, still smiling politely, completely unfazed by the sudden tension. “It’s our signature couples experience, side-by-side tables, synchronized massage, and a glass of champagne afterward. Very romantic and relaxing. Perfect for reconnecting.”

Before you could refuse, clarify, or even form a full protest, the staff were already guiding you both forward with efficiency. They led you down a quiet, incense-scented hallway that opened into a treatment room. Two massage tables stood side by side in the center, candles flickering all around the room and towels folded neatly.

Your heart was racing now, a mix of irritation at Robby and anticipation because soon he would be shirtless again, lying only a few feet away while you were both having a “couple experience” when all you needed was to be as far away as possible from the concept of you and Robby being a couple. Your brain was already getting all these confused, dangerous feelings after spending so much time together, the laughter, the casual touches, the way the three of you looked like a real family from the outside. The last thing you needed right now was to keep doing couple activities. Every shared dinner, every walk along the beach, only made the line between co-parents. You were supposed to be keeping your distance.

You turned to him. “This is not what I agreed to, Robby.”

He looked almost sheepish, rubbing the back of his neck with one hand. “I really did just ask for one massage. But… we’re here now. Might as well enjoy it?”

The masseuses were already moving, preparing the oils, laying out fresh towels, adjusting the temperature and lighting.

On of them smiled gently. “If you’d both like to remove your clothes to your comfort level and lie face down on the tables, we’ll begin with the back and shoulders. Take your time.”

Robby glanced at you, reading the hesitation in your posture. He gave a reassuring nod. “I’ll go first,” he said quietly, and stepped behind the simple privacy screen they had provided. 

You heard the rustle of fabric as he removed his shirt and trunks. You turned around quickly, facing the wall to avoid the sight of his fully naked body, one you knew far too well and that still had the exact same devastating effect on you. Definitely not the kind of reaction you needed when you were supposed to be relaxing. But even with your back to him, the knowledge that he was right there in the same room, completely bare, got your heart beating fast. 

When he emerged and lay face down on the right-hand table, he draped the sheet modestly over his lower half. You couldn’t help but notice the familiar lines of his back, his strong shoulders, the soft curve where his waist met his hips. Your turn came next, you stepped behind the screen, your fingers slightly unsteady as you untied the bikini top and stepped out of the bottoms. The cool air kissed your bare skin, you wrapped yourself quickly in one of the large, warmed towels and moved to the left table, lying face down.

You turned your head to the side, away from Robby, trying to steady your breathing. The masseuses worked in sync. Pouring warm oil first, spreading it with their fingers, starting at your shoulders and working downward in long strokes. The pressure was perfect — deep enough to melt the knots from endless shifts, gentle enough to feel indulgent. Beside you, Robby let out a low sound of relief as his own masseuse began. The sound sent an unwelcome shiver down your spine, you knew that voice too well, one you’d heard far too many times.

One of the masseuses, an older woman, spoke softly as she worked on your upper back. “You two make a lovely couple. Have you been together a long time?”

Robby answered before you could explain how you weren’t a couple, you two had ended here after a complicated series of events. “Five years.”

You opened your eyes, staring at the white sheet beneath you. “We’re not really together,” you corrected quietly, the words slipping out before you could stop them. 

Robby let out a soft chuckle from the next table. “It’s more like an on-and-off thing.”

You turned your head slightly toward him, the irritation mixing with the pleasure of the massage, an experience that was supposed to be relaxing, but now was irritating due to Robby’s presence. “It’s mostly off than on, really.”

The younger masseuse working on Robby smiled as she kneaded his shoulders. “Ah, but you are here together now. That counts for something, no?”

The older woman on your side pressed deeper into a knot between your shoulder blades, drawing a quiet sigh from you. “You make a good couple,” she said warmly. “I have seen many couples working here, but not many where the man looks at the woman the way he looks at you. It’s very special.”

You let out a small, skeptical laugh, the sound muffled against the face cradle. “I find that hard to believe.”

Robby’s voice came from beside you. “I look at her like she’s the second most precious thing in this entire world.”

The masseuses both made soft. The younger one asked curiously, “Why second?”

Robby didn’t hesitate. “Becuse the first one is the daughter she gave me five years ago.”

A soft chorus of “Awww” filled the room. You could practically feel the women melting at his words. The older masseuse patted your shoulder gently. “That is beautiful. A man who knows what he has.”

You felt heat rise in your cheeks, a confusing mix of embarrassment, irritation, and something warmer that his words always managed to make you feel. “He’s a flatterer,” you muttered, trying to keep your voice light. “Don’t let him fool you. He’s very good at saying the right things.”

Robby chuckled again. “Only when it’s true.”

The synchronized rhythm of the massage created an oddly intimate atmosphere. When your masseuse dug into a tight knot between your shoulder blades, Robby’s masseuse did the same at the exact same moment. The sensation of feeling your own body release tension while hearing his quiet groans of pleasure made the room feel smaller, more charged. Time stretched. You found yourself relaxing despite everything, the ocean view, the scent of the oils, the pressure, until the masseuse gently asked you to turn over. You hesitated for a second before complying, keeping the sheet carefully draped over your chest as you rolled onto your back. Robby turned at the same moment, and for a brief second, your eyes met across the small space between the tables. His gaze was dark, but you looked away quickly, focusing on the ceiling and the glow of the candles.

The front massage was somehow even more intimate, oil poured across your collarbones, your arms, your legs. The masseuse’s hands worked slowly up your thighs, careful and professional, but the proximity of Robby, who was lying there with his eyes sometimes closed, sometimes open and watching the ceiling, made every touch feel amplified. 

The older masseuse spoke again softly as she massaged your temples. “It is good to see a family taking time together. These moments are precious.”

You stayed silent this time, and Robby’s quiet reply came a moment later. “They are. It took me a while to realize there’s nothing more important than my family.”

When the massage ended, the masseuses quietly stepped out, leaving you and Robby alone in the treatment room. Robes had been provided, and two elegant flutes of champagne with fresh strawberries and raspberries waited on a small table between the two massage tables. You sat up slowly, wrapping the white robe tightly around yourself. Robby did the same on his table, the robe hanging open just enough to show his chest.

For a moment, neither of you spoke, the only sounds were the distant waves. Robby reached for the champagne glasses and handed one to you. He clinked his glass gently against yours.

“To surviving the rest of this trip,” he said softly, a smile playing on his lips.

Robby leaned back against the edge of his table, watching you. The robe slipped slightly off one shoulder, revealing more of his chest. “No matter how much you try to pretend you hate spending time with me… I know you secretly enjoy it. We get along. We have fun together. You know there’s this… connection between us.”

You stared into your glass, watching the bubbles rise. You took a sip before answering. “You’re wrong. The only reason we keep spending time together is because you pull this shit all the time. This wasn’t what I agreed to. I asked for separate rooms, no couple activities. You keep lying to me and manipulating everything because you have this fantasy that I’ll magically get back with you just because you paid for some expensive vacation.”

Robby set his glass down slowly. He didn’t look defensive. Instead, his expression was open, almost vulnerable. “I didn’t get a couple’s massage. I swear. I asked for one massage for you.”

You raised an eyebrow, the champagne making your cheeks feel warmer. “What about the hotel room mix-up?”

He rubbed the back of his neck, a sheepish smile tugging at his mouth. “Maybe… I didn’t correct the receptionist when he gave me only one room.”

You let out a disbelieving laugh, shaking your head. “You’re unbelievable.”

Robby looked at you then. “I’m in love,” he said simply. “Crazy in love with you. And every single day, every second I spend with you it just gets bigger and bigger. I can’t help it.”

The confession hung between you. You wanted to push back, to stay angry, but the massage had stripped away too many defenses. You knew you could pack your suitcase right now. You knew you could call a taxi, get to the airport, and buy the fastest ticket back home. But part of you didn’t. Part of you longed to stay and see what the next thing Robby would do, how far he’d go to win you back, how much he was willing to risk this time, and whether he truly meant it. The worst part of it all was how little you actually wanted to run away from him.

“You can’t deny the massage was nice,” Robby added quietly.

You took another slow sip of champagne. The truth slipped out before you could stop it. “It felt good,” you admitted, barely above a whisper. “Really good.”

The next day you woke to Hannah’s excited bouncing on the bed and Robby’s chuckle from the other side of the room. After a leisurely breakfast on the balcony while watching the ocean, the three of you headed to the resort’s massive water park, full of slides, lazy rivers, and splash zones. Hannah’s eyes were wide with wonder as she ran from one attraction to the next.

You spent hours in the shallow kids’ area first, where sprays of water misted over mushroom fountains. Hannah laughed uncontrollably as she darted through the sprays. Robby lifted her onto his shoulders so she could reach higher sprays, both of them soaked and beaming.

Later, you moved to the lazy river, the three of you floated together on a large raft, the current carrying you under bridges and past waterfalls. Hannah sat between you and Robby, chattering nonstop about the “big slides” she wanted to try next. Robby’s arm rested casually behind you on the raft, occasionally brushing his fingers over your shoulder. 

You braved a few bigger slides with Hannah while Robby waited at the bottom with open arms to catch her. He went down the steeper ones with her, their laughter echoing as they shot out into the splash pool. You watched from the side, smiling despite yourself at how good he was with her, patient and playful.

By late afternoon, you were all tired, but still decided to head to the open-air resort theater for the karaoke night. The tables were arranged in an arc around a central stage. You sat at a table near the front with Hannah comfortably settled on your lap. She wore her favorite sundress, her hair still slightly damp from the evening shower. In her small hands, she held a colorful fruity mocktail with a paper umbrella and a slice of pineapple on the rim. She watched performer after performer take the stage, clapping enthusiastically for every single one, whether they were hilariously off-key or surprisingly talented.

Robby sat right beside you, he had switched to margaritas after dinner and was now on his third or fourth. His cheeks were flushed a warm pink, and his smile came easier, the alcohol had softened the edges that usually existed between you, but you kept your guard firmly in place, hyper-aware of the weight of his arm behind you and the occasional brush of his fingers against your shoulder

The host, a charismatic man stepped up to the microphone scanning the crowd. “Alright, folks, next up we have Michael Robinavitch! Michael, the stage is all yours.”

Your stomach dropped instantly. You froze, asking yourself if you’d heard right, because karaoke was something Robby would never, ever, do. But then again, this wasn’t normal Robby, this was Robby after four margaritas that inhibited any level of self-awareness he had. “Robby… where are you going? What are you doing?”

He stood up with a bright, slightly tipsy smile that lit up his whole face. He leaned down and pressed a quick kiss to the top of Hannah’s head, then straightened. “You’ll see,” he said.

He walked toward the stage with confidence, the stage lights catching on the slight sway in his step from the margaritas. The crowd quieted with anticipation as he took the microphone. For a moment, he just stood there, looking out over the audience, until his eyes found yours across the tables. A heart-stopping smile spread across his face.

“Good evening, everyone,” he began. “My name is Michael Robinavitch.” He scanned the audience again until his gaze locked directly on you. “This song goes out to the love of my life.” He pointed straight at you, and heads turned. Dozens of eyes shifted your way all at once. Heat flooded your face in an instant, a deep and mortifying warmth that burned from your chest all the way to your ears. 

You wanted the sand beneath the theater to open up and swallow you whole. You sank lower in your seat, wishing you could disappear. Robby didn’t stop. “No, not only the love of my life. She’s the woman of my life. She’s the mother of my child. Look at them, aren’t they the most beautiful ladies in the world?”

The crowd let out a collective and heartfelt “Awww.” Some people clapped, a few whistled. Hannah waved happily at her dad from your lap, completely thrilled and oblivious to your embarrassment. “Daddy’s singing for us, Mommy!” she whispered excitedly, bouncing a little.

The opening notes of Aerosmith’s I Don’t Want to Miss a Thing began playing, and Robby’s voice came through the speakers, rough around the edges from the margaritas, but surprisingly in tune despite being a terrible singer. He sang directly to you, keeping his eyes locked on yours the entire time, as if no one else existed.

“I could stay awake just to hear you breathing

Watch you smile while you are sleeping

While you’re far away and dreaming…”

Embarrassment burned through every inch of you. Your cheeks were on fire, and you covered your face with one hand, peeking through your fingers. 

“I could spend my life in this sweet surrender

I could stay lost in this moment forever

Where a moment spent with you is a moment I treasure…”

Hannah bounced happily on your lap, clapping along. “Daddy sounds so good! He’s singing for you, Mommy!”

Robby poured everything into the chorus, his voice rising with emotion, and cracking slightly on the high notes but full of feeling.

“Don't wanna close my eyes

I don't wanna to fall asleep

'Cause I'd miss you baby

And I don't wanna miss a thing…”

He pointed at you and Hannah again during the song, his gaze never wavering. The crowd was completely swept up, some singing along, others watching the three of you with fond, smiling faces. You felt painfully exposed, seen in a way that terrified you, and yet terrifyingly wanted and loved in front of all these strangers. 

When the final notes faded, the audience erupted in loud applause and cheers. He gave a small, humble bow, grinning widely. He didn’t step off the stage immediately, instead, he raised the microphone again. “Thank you,” he said, smiling at the crowd. “I just want to say one more thing before I go. I was an idiot. I did some things I regret. I let fear and work, and my own stubbornness get in the way of the best things in my life.” He looked straight at you. “But this woman right here… and our beautiful daughter… they are the best thing that ever happened to me. All I want is another chance to fix it. To do it right this time.”

The crowd reacted instantly, followed by scattered cheers and shouts of encouragement. Someone near the back yelled, “Give the man another chance!” More voices joined in, “Yeah, go for it!” until it became a playful chant rippling across the theater. 

Robby finally stepped off the stage, making his way back to your table amid the lingering applause. Hannah launched herself into his arms the moment he sat down. “Daddy! You sang so good for Mommy!”

You stared at him, your heart still racing from the public love declaration and the serenade. You leaned in close so only he could hear. “You’re an idiot, Robby.”

He turned to you, so close that the scent of tequila and his cologne wrapped around you again. “Yeah. But I’m your idiot.” 

You wanted to push him away, to stay angry about the public spectacle and the way he kept blurring every boundary. But with Hannah happily chattering between you two about how “Daddy is the best singer ever,” and the crowd still occasionally glancing your way with fond smiles, it was impossible to ignore the pull.

 “Every single word was true.” He brushed your shoulder gently. “I lost so many years, so much time, so many memories I let go because of how I felt, and now the thought of missing one single moment with you kills me. I don’t want to be anywhere you’re not.”

You had to blink back the tears threatening to spill from your eyes. For the first time, you believed every single word that left his lips, no doubting, no second-guessing, no walls left to hide behind. After days of fighting him, of pushing back against every word and lingering touch, all you wanted was to pull him close, to bury your face in his chest and tell him you wanted the same thing. That every second you’d wasted fighting him was a second the two of you could have been together, laughing, touching. “We’ll talk about this tomorrow,” you swallowed. “When you’re not four margaritas in.”

The next morning, you woke before Hannah. You glanced at Robby in the other queen bed. He was still asleep, lying on his back with one arm draped over his stomach, the sheet low on his hips. You moved quietly and sat on the edge of his bed, the mattress dipping slightly under your weight. For a long moment you just watched him, the morning light highlighting the white hair on his jaw and the lines around his eyes. 

Then Robby stirred, fluttering his eyes open slowly, focusing on you with sleepy confusion that quickly shifted into something softer, almost disbelieving. “Am I dreaming?” he murmured as he blinked a few times, pushing himself up on one elbow. “Why are you in bed with me?”

You stayed seated on the edge with your hands in your lap. “Do you remember what happened yesterday?”

He rubbed his face with one hand, still half-asleep. “We went to the water park? Hannah loved the slides…”

“Not that, idiot,” you said quietly, a small smile tugging at your lips despite yourself. “Later. The karaoke.”

Robby froze. His eyes widened as the memories clearly flooded back. He let out a long groan and dropped back onto the pillow, covering his face with both hands. “Oh yeah… Jesus. I can’t believe I did that.”

“I bet you’re regretting it now.”

He lowered his hands slowly. “I might be deeply embarrassed. But I don’t regret it. I wanted to do something romantic for you. Something that showed you how I feel.”

You raised an eyebrow, trying to keep your tone light even as your pulse quickened. “Yeah? Nothing more romantic than singing off-key Aerosmith in front of a hundred strangers.”

Robby chuckled and pushed himself up to sit against the headboard. “Come on, it wasn’t that off-key.” His eyes met yours. “I meant every single word I said. About not wanting to miss another second without you. About you and Hannah being the best things that ever happened to me. About wanting another chance.”

You held his gaze for a long moment, the weight of his words settling heavily in your chest, breaking down your defences more and more each day. “I heard you loud and clear, Robby.”

Hannah stirred slightly in the other bed but didn’t wake. You stood up slowly, smoothing your sleep shirt. “I’m gonna head to the pools for a bit before she wakes up.”

Robby sat up straighter. “You can’t.”

You turned back to him, raising your eyebrow. “Why not?”

He rubbed the back of his neck, looking a little sheepish again. “Yesterday I… booked us dancing lessons on the beach. Salsa. For this morning.”

You stared at him. “And why the hell did you do that? Why didn’t you ask me first? I don’t wanna go.”

He let out a helpless laugh. “I don’t know. I was drunk and thought dancing salsa with you on the beach sounded like a great idea at the time.”

You crossed your arms. “Well, I’m not going.”

“Please go with me,” he said wofter now, almost pleading. He looked at you with those warm brown eyes that had always been able to weaken your resolve. “I’ll behave. I promise. Otherwise I’m gonna have to dance with the teacher, and that would be even more embarrassing than last night.”

You stood there in the quiet morning light, part of you still wanted to say no, to keep the boundaries firm, to protect the distance you’d fought so hard to maintain. But you knew if it wasn’t this, then he’d simply come up with another way of putting the two of you together in another situation. Being with him for these days had softened you more than you cared to admit, it had all worn down your defenses. And after every honest word he’d laid bare last night, combined with the way he was looking at you now with that sheepish, boyish smile and those earnest eyes that always saw straight through you, it made it very hard to keep saying no.

After dropping Hannah off at the resort’s supervised kids’ activities center, where she immediately ran off with a group of children to do crafts and play games, you and Robby walked the shaded pathways toward the beach.

The beach dancing area was set up in a beautiful, semi-private cove framed by gently curving palm trees and large rocks. The instructor, a local man, welcomed you both with open arms. “Perfect timing!. Come, come, partners, face each other. We start with the basic steps.”

Robby was a terrible dancer. He tried, God, he tried so hard, but his movements were initially stiff and awkward, his hips resisting the rhythm. He settled his hands on your bare waist with visible hesitation at first, but that hesitation quickly melted into something much hungrier. 

The first time the instructor called for a basic side step and Robby pulled you in, he pressed his palm firmly against the small of your back, splaying his fingers wide as if he needed to feel as much of you as possible. 

The heat of his touch burned straight through your skin, sending a spark racing up your spine. “Like this?” Robby asked the instructor as he attempted the next step.

His thigh accidentally slid between your legs for balance during a turn, pressing close for a second longer than necessary. You felt the warmth of him, the subtle shift of his hips, and heat pooled in your belly.

The instructor laughed good-naturedly. “Looser hips, my friend! Feel the music. Let it move you.”

Robby tried again, pulling you closer on the next basic. He brushed his chest against yours with every step, the thin fabric of his shirt and your bikini top did nothing to hide the heat of his body.

“This is harder than it looks,” he muttered close to your ear, his breath warm against your neck. He slid his hand a little lower on your back, digging his fingers in with hunger. “But I like having an excuse to hold you like this.”

You swallowed hard, trying to focus on the beat. “You’re terrible at this.”

He grinned as he dipped you slightly on the instructor’s cue. “But I’m trying. For you.” 

His body was pressed flush against yours, his hips rolling in what was supposed to be a salsa step but felt far more intimate. The subtle grind, the way his thigh stayed between yours for balance, the hungry way in which he dropped his to your mouth and lower, to the swell of your breasts, made your skin tingle everywhere he touched. 

Your pulse thundered in your ears, almost drowning out the music. Every turn, every close hold, every time his hands guided your hips, the tension built higher. He traced possessive circles on your lower back with his fingers. When the music slowed for a moment to practice a more sensual move, he looked down at you with heavy-lidded eyes, like he wanted to devour every inch of you right there on the sand in front of everyone.

You couldn’t take it anymore. You’d tried to fight every single advance he’d made since you both arrived. You’d tried to ignore the way he looked, more tan from the sun, those charming freckles scattered across his nose and cheeks, his soft body on full display in nothing but swim trunks. You’d tried to pretend you weren’t affected by the flood of memories rushing back every time he got close, or by the fantasies of what life could look like if you finally let him in. And you were bone-tired of pretending you didn’t want the same thing. Exhausted from denying yourself what your body craved so much, his hands, his mouth, the weight of him pressing you down, the way only he could make you fel.

Mid-step, you grabbed Robby’s hand tightly and started walking, pulling him firmly away from the group and down the beach. The ocean breeze tried cooling the flush on your skin but did nothing to calm the fire in your belly.

Robby stumbled slightly to keep up, surprised but not resisting. “Where are we going?”

You didn’t slow down, already scanning the shoreline ahead. “We’re going to have sex.”

He let out a startled and deep laugh that sent another shiver racing through you. A second later the laugh faded into pure disbelief. “Wait… are you serious?”

You kept walking, your breath coming faster as the arousal intensified with every second that went by without feeling Robby’s touch. “Yes, Michael.”

Robby’s grip on your hand tightened. “Let’s go back to the room then. No risk of anyone seeing—”

“It’s too far,” you cut him off, your voice breathy with need. “And they’re probably cleaning it right now.”

He let out an incredulous laugh, half-aroused, half-amused. “So what? We’re doing it in the wild?”

You glanced back at him, the corner of your mouth twitching despite the heat flooding your body. “Michael, it’s the beach, not the wilderness.”

“Excuse me,” he said, still laughing softly but with clear hunger in his eyes, “But I really like this resort. I don’t want to get banned for life from this chain.”

You stopped for a second, turning to look at him fully. Your voice dropped to a more direct and impatient tone. “You wanna fuck or not?”

His expression shifted instantly, completely undone. “Yes please.”

“Good, then stop complaining.” You kept walking until you found a good spot: a small, semi-secluded cove partially shielded by large rocks and leaning palm trees. The sand here was softer, shaded in patches by the foliage, with a clear but private view of the ocean. You pulled him behind the largest rock formation and Robby followed without hesitation, his hands already sliding to your waist the moment you stopped. The hunger in his touch matched the fire burning in your veins. He pressed you back against the smooth, sun-warmed rock, his body crowding yours, mouth hovering just inches from yours, breath ragged. The tension that had been building since the massage, since the karaoke, since the entire trip finally snapped.

The moment you pulled Robby behind the large, sun-warmed rock, the rest of the world fell away, all that existed was the heat between you, the desperate need that had been simmering since the very beginning of this trip.

You surged forward and kissed him. Robby met you instantly, a hungry sound rumbling in his chest as his hands grabbed your waist, pulling you flush against him. His mouth was hot and demanding, and his fingers dug into your hips with desperation. He kissed you like a man who had been starving ever since the last night you shared together, sweeping his tongue into your mouth, claiming, while he slid one up your back to tangle in your hair, tilting your head exactly how he wanted it.

He broke the kiss just enough to breathe against your lips. “I’ve been dreaming about this. Every single night since we got here. I didn’t think it would actually happen.”

You smiled against his mouth, sliding your hands up his chest, feeling the rapid beat of his heart under your palms. “All your stupid tricks finally worked.”

He groaned, pressing his forehead to yours as he roamed his hands restlessly over your body, down your sides, cupping your ass, pulling you harder against the growing hardness in his swim trunks. “All I did was to try and prove you how much I love you,” he murmured. “I want to be with you. Not just fuck you again. I want everything. You, Hannah, us as a family. That’s all it’s ever been about.”

Your hand slid down between you, palming the hard and thick outline of his cock through the fabric. He hissed sharply, jerking his hips forward into your touch. “It was torture,” he rasped, against your ear, “seeing you in that bikini every single day and not being able to touch you. Not being able to do this.”

You squeezed him gently, stroking the length of him through his trunks. “Maybe I wanted to touch your body too.”

He let out a shaky laugh that turned into a groan as you rubbed your thumb over the fat head. “I know. I could see the way you watched me. You’re not as subtle as you think you are.”

You couldn’t wait any longer. You hooked your fingers into the waistband of Robby’s swim trunks and pushed them down just enough to free him. His cock sprang out, the thick vein along the underside pulsed visibly as you wrapped your hand around the base, your fingers barely able to close fully around his girth. You stroked him slowly from base to tip, savoring the way he throbbed powerfully in your grip. “It’s your fault for having this fucking body,” you whispered. “It’s just my type.”

Robby let his head fall back against the rock with a moan, bucking his hips into your fist. “I was right,” he managed to say. “That guy the other day at the beach… he wasn’t your type, was he?”

You swept your thumb over the head on every upstroke, spreading the leaking precum and making him even wetter. Robby groaned deeply, jerking forward into your fist as you twisted your wrist just the way he liked, squeezing a little tighter on the way back down. “Please. That guy lacked everything I love in you.”

“Fuck… your hand feels so good,” he rasped. “Been dying to feel you touch me again.” He cursed under his breath, gripping your hip hard enough to leave marks. 

You sank slowly to your knees in the sand, until Robby’s cock stood right in front of you, flushed a deep, needy red at the head and already leaking a steady bead of precum. You looked up at him through your lashes, taking in the sight of him towering above you. 

As you wrapped one hand around the thick base, the heat of him pulsed strongly against your palm, the weight and girth of him making your mouth water. You started slow, torturously slow. Leaning in, you pressed an open-mouthed kiss to the leaking tip, tasting the salty, slightly bitter bead of precum that had gathered there. Robby’s hips jerked forward involuntarily as a whimper escaped from his chest. You kissed it again, slower this time, letting your lips linger as you savored the skin stretched tight over the swollen head. 

Then you dragged your tongue in a wet circle around it, tracing every ridge and vein, feeling the way he twitched and throbbed against your tongue with every pass. “Fuck… baby,” he groaned, already wrecked and sounding hoarse. One of his hands came down to gently grab your hair, trembling slightly as his fingers carded through the strands. “Come on… please… Take a little more, baby.”

You smiled against the slick head, barely parting your lips to take just the tip into the wet heat of your mouth. You sucked gently, swirling your tongue lazily around him, giving him only the lightest, teasing pressure. Robby’s moan was loud and needy, his thighs were trembling as he fought the powerful urge to thrust deeper into your mouth.

You pulled back just enough to speak, brushing your lips still against the glistening tip, a thin string of saliva connecting you. “You’ve been thinking about this the whole trip, haven’t you?” 

Robby closed his eyes for a second and nodded, almost like he was in pain. Then you took him deeper, sucking more of his length into your mouth. You hollowed our cheeks as you worked him with deliberate bobs of your head, savoring every inch. The taste of him, the salty skin that was so uniquely Robby, made you moan around his cock. The vibration drew another loud, desperate whimper from deep in his throat. 

You remembered every little trick he used to love from years ago, the way he liked the flat of your tongue pressing firmly along the sensitive underside, followed immediately by soothing suction, the way you hollowed your cheeks on the upstroke to create that perfect tight pressure. You did them all, eagerly and hungrily, losing yourself in the heavy weight of him on your tongue and the broken, needy sounds he couldn’t hold back no matter how hard he tried.

You slid your free hand between his spread legs, cupping and gently rolling his heavy balls, massaging them with careful pressure. Robby’s head fell back against the rock with a guttural groan that was almost too loud for the public setting. His hips stuttered forward, chasing the wet heat of your mouth as he fought for control.

“God… your mouth,” he panted, forcing his eyes to stay open. He couldn’t stop watching you, the way your lips stretched obscenely around his cock, the spit glistening on your chin and dripping down his shaft, the lust-drunk look in your eyes as you took him deeper with every bob of your head. “I can’t… fuck. You look so fucking good like this, on your knees for me.”

You moaned again around him, and took him as deep as you could, until your nose was brushing the dark, untrimmed hair at his base, holding him there for a long moment while your throat worked around him. You continued playing with his balls, gently tugging and rolling them, feeling them draw up tight as his pleasure built. 

Robby’s whimpers turned into full, unrestrained moans. He tightened his fingers almost painfully in your hair as he began rocking his hips shallowly, fucking your mouth with tiny movements. Spit dripped down your chin, coating your hand as you stroked what your mouth couldn’t reach, twisting your wrist on every upstroke just the way he liked.

You pulled off just enough to gasp for air, strings of thick spit connecting your swollen lips to his throbbing cock. “You gotta be quiet,” you whispered, “if you don’t want to attract an audience.”

Robby let out a shaky laugh that quickly dissolved into another deep moan as you licked a long stripe up the entire underside of his cock, tongue pressing firmly against the thick vein there.

“I can’t… I can’t be quiet when I’m finally feeling your mouth again. Fuck, I’ve missed this so much. Missed you so fucking much.”

You took him back in without warning, sucking harder and faster now. Robby’s moans grew louder, more needy, his body trembling as he fought the edge, his thighs shaking beside your head. “Baby… I’m close,” he warned, stuttering his hips forward. “So fucking close—”

You kept going, eager to push him over the edge, dying to feel his thick load flooding your mouth, but Robby suddenly pulled you off with a desperate groan. He hauled you up to your feet with strength. His cock, slick and throbbing and coated in your spit, pressed against your stomach. “Not yet,” he rasped. “Not like this. I want more. I want all of you.”

With a growl, he spun you around, pressing your front firmly against the rock. Your cheek rested against the stone as he yanked the ties of your bikini bottoms loose with impatient fingers until the fabric slid down your legs and pooled at your ankles. You kicked it aside impatiently, leaving yourself completely bare from the waist down. 

One of Robby’s large hands slid up your body from behind, slipping under the fabric of your bikini top. His palm was hot as it cupped your breast fully, squeezing the soft flesh with blatant hunger. He found your already hard nipple and rolled it slowly between thumb and forefinger, pinching just hard enough to send sparks of pleasure shooting straight down to your dripping core. You gasped, arching your back and pressing your breast harder into his hand, craving more of that delicious sting.

At the same time, he dipped his other hand between your legs from behind, dragging two thick fingers teasingly through your soaked folds, parting them and spreading your slick arousal everywhere. The wetness coated his fingers as he explored you, rubbing up and down your slit before finally finding your puffy clit. He circled it with the pad of his middle finger, pressing it just right, making your thighs tremble and your knees threaten to buckle against the rock. 

“Fuck, you’re soaked,” his voice was rough with lust. “This pussy is dripping for me already. You’ve been aching for my cock, huh?”

You moaned loudly and pushed back against his hand desperately. “Robby… I can’t wait anymore,” you gasped. “I need you inside me. Now. Please.”

He pressed a wet kiss to the back of your neck, grazing your skin with his teeth possessively. “Fuck, yes,” he groaned.

You felt the blunt head of his cock nudge against your entrance, sliding through your slick folds once, twice, teasing you both. Then, with one powerful thrust, he buried himself deep inside you.

The stretch was like something you never felt before, overwhelming and full, exactly what you’d been craving for days. Robby filled you completely, his cock dragged against every spot inside as he bottomed out with a satisfied groan. 

He stayed there for a long moment, buried to the hilt, both of you breathing hard together, his chest pressed flush against your back, one hand still massaging and kneading your breast, the other gripping your hip hard enough to leave marks.

Then he started moving, he was slow at first, giving you deep and rolling thrusts that let you feel every single inch of him. Robby snapped his hips forward deliberately, driving his cock so deep you swore you could feel him in your stomach. The wet sound of skin meeting skin mixed beautifully with the waves and your shared, breathy moans. 

Robby’s grip on your hip tightened as he gradually picked up the pace, fucking you harder, deeper. “God, you feel so fucking good,” he groaned right against your ear. One of his hands left your breast, sliding down your body until it reached your ass. He grabbed a full, greedy handful of the rounded flesh, squeezing hard enough to leave marks as he spread you open wider for him, pulling your cheeks apart so he could watch every inch of his cock as it disappeared inside your greedy pussy. Your arousal coated his shaft, strings of wetness connecting you every time he pulled back, only to slam in deeper. “So tight… so wet for me. Been thinking about this pussy every single day on this trip. You’re creaming all over me, baby. Can you feel how deep I am?”

You moaned loudly, pushing back to meet every powerful thrust. The rock was warm against your front, your breasts kept rubbing against it with every movement. He leaned over you more, changing the angle so he could fuck you even deeper, snapping his hips forward with raw purpose now. “You’re mine,” he growled against your ear. “This pussy is mine. You’re mine. Say it.”

You could only moan in response at first, lost in the overwhelming pleasure. “Y-yours.”

He grabbed your hips with both hands, digging his fingers in hard as he pulled you back onto his cock with every thrust. “Fuck, Robby… harder,” you gasped, still pushing back against him. “Don’t stop.”

“Never,” he growled, slamming into you deeper. “Not gonna stop until you’re coming all over my cock.”

You moaned louder, unable to hold back. Robby’s hand left your hip and slid up your body, pressing two fingers firmly against your lips. “Suck on them,” he growled hotly against your skin. “Before someone hears how well I’m fucking you. Be a good girl for me.”

You parted your lips obediently, taking his fingers deep into your mouth. You sucked on them eagerly, swirling your tongue around the digits just like you had around his cock earlier. Robby groaned deeply at the feeling of your muffled moans against his fingers, his hips slamming into you harder.

With his other hand, Robby found your swollen, aching clit. He pressed his digit firmly against the bundle of nerves, rubbing tight circles with exactly the pressure he knew drove you wild. He alternated between teasing strokes and faster, more insistent ones, never letting the rhythm become predictable. The dual sensation was devastating, not only his cock stretching and pounding into you from behind, but now his fingers working your clit relentlessly. 

“That’s it,” he rasped as he fucked you even deeper. “Suck my fingers while I ruin this pussy. You’re so fucking wet for me. Been thinking of it since the dance lesson, haven’t you? I could feel how soaked you were the whole time I was touching you.”

You moaned around his fingers, the sound vibrating against them as you sucked harder. Your legs shook uncontrollably. “Come for me,” he rubbed your clit faster and harder. “I want to feel you squeezing my cock when you cum. Let me feel how much you need this. How much you’ve been aching for me.”

The tension snapped, your orgasm crashing over you hard and suddenly. You cried out around his fingers, your pussy clenching rhythmically around his thick cock, fluttering and squeezing him tightly as waves of overwhelming pleasure rolled through your entire body. 

Robby’s thrusts grew erratic as he chased his own release. “Fuck… you feel so good when you cum. So tight. I’m so close, baby.” He kept fucking you through your orgasm, drawing it out with deep strokes, his fingers still rubbing your oversensitive clit in gentler circles. His voice was completely wrecked when he spoke again. “Can I finish inside? Please… I need to fill you up. I need to cum inside you.”

You pulled off his fingers just enough to gasp out. “Yes. Cum inside me. Fill me up, Robby. I want it so much.”

That was all he needed. Robby buried himself as deep as possible with a broken moan as he came. You felt every pulse as he emptied himself inside you, hot ropes of cum flooding your pussy in thick spurts. He kept thrusting through it, as if he wanted to push every single drop of his fat load as far inside you as possible. His body trembled against yours as he pressed his forehead to the back of your neck, breathing raggedly against your sweat-slicked skin.

Robby wrapped his arms around you from behind, holding you close as he softened inside you, placing lazy kisses along your shoulder and the back of your neck. His cum slowly leaked down your thigh in sticky trails, mixing with your own wetness. 

Eventually, you shifted, feeling the pleasant ache between your legs and the reality of where you were. You reached down, picked up your discarded bikini bottoms from the sand, and slowly tied them back on with slightly shaky fingers. Robby stayed close, resting his hands on your hips, stroking circles with his thumbs as if he couldn’t bear to stop touching you.

“We should go pick up Hannah,” you said softly, still sounding a little hoarse.

Robby didn’t move right away, he turned you gently to face him, cupping your face with his hands. “Wait,” he murmured. “What does this mean? Just admit it and stop fooling yourself. Tell me you want this as much as I do. That you want to be with me too. That you never minded sharing a room, or getting a couple’s massage, or taking dancing lessons. Tell me you actually like spending time together like this.”

You looked up at him, the vulnerability in his voice made your chest ache, and after an intense orgasm like the one he’d just given you, you couldn’t even fool yourself. You took a slow breath. “Yes… I do,” you admitted. “I like being with you, Robby. I like the sex. I like how you make me laugh. I like talking to you. I like… all of it.” His eyes lit up with hope, but you continued before he could speak. “But what happens with me? What happens with Hannah if you change your mind? If the charm wears off once we’re back home, dealing with real life.”

Robby’s expression turned serious, almost pained. He cupped your face more firmly, brushing your cheeks. “I wouldn’t go through all of this if I weren’t a hundred percent sure of what I feel and what I want. Hannah is the most important thing in my life. I’d die before hurting her. Or you. I’m not going anywhere this time. I promise.”

You searched his eyes, tears pricking at the corners of yours. “How can I believe you?”

He smiled softly, a little sheepish. “I sang in front of a crowd for you. That has to count for something.”

You laughed despite yourself. “This whole trip has been so nice… but real life isn’t a beach resort with massages and dancing lessons.”

Robby pulled you closer, resting his forehead against yours. “I want you when you’re tired from work. Sweaty, your hair a mess, exhausted. I want the long nights when we’re both too drained to speak, and the fights when we’re frustrated and still choose each other every single day. I want all of it.” He kissed you softly, then pulled back just enough to look into your eyes. “Please… I’ve missed so much already, don’t let me miss another thing.”

You smiled, tears slipping freely down your cheeks. You leaned in and kissed him again, slow and deep, full of everything you’d been holding back. When you pulled away, he searched your face with hopeful eyes. “Is that a yes?” he asked, barely above a whisper.

You smiled wider. “It’s a maybe.”

He kissed you again, deeper this time. “Say yes.”

You laughed softly against his lips. “Maybe.”

Another kiss, sweeter. “Yes?”

You melted into him, wrapping your arms around his neck. “Yes.”

Your reblog doesn’t just support me as a writer, it also helps this reach the people who read the first part, so please consider taking 0.00001 second to click that button, it’s free!!💜

A/N: I feel like, the way it happens in a lot of media, second parts are never quite as good as the first one. But people wanted a second part, and I wanted to write one too, so here’s what I came up with. I hope it wasn’t too long or boring. I’m so thankful for all the love and support the first part got. It genuinely makes me so happy to see that people enjoyed it🥹

There’s honestly so much I could write about these two, but it already felt long as it is. I don’t think I’ll write a third part, to be honest.

@blacpiink @fallout-girl219 @tpwklizzie @tlc3802 @findthebeautyinbreakdowns

dividers by: @cafekitsune

[thykingdoncome]

his best girl

Part One | Masterlist | ao3

frank langdon x reader, michael robinavitch x reader

summary: You’re Robby’s favorite reward. When his staff earns it, he doesn’t hesitate to offer you up. And today, it's Langdon's turn.

|| smut MNDI 18+ f!receiving oral, fingering, dirty talk, free use kink, dom!robby, praise kink, pussy inspection, m!masturbation, face riding, medical malpractice lol, they do it at the hospital, orphaned reader, reader has trauma, no reader age specified but always legal, reader has no physical descriptions except for having breasts and hair long enough to grab, takes place during s2e14, reader likes Flamin' Hots cause I like Flamin' Hots, the relationships in this fic are not healthy!!! I do not condone this!!! but its kinda hot!!!!! power imbalance, pet names like honey / sweetheart / baby, reader calls langdon 'frankie' sometimes || a/n: listen... I had ONE little daydream about being shared by the pitt men....... and here we are....

"Look who we have here!" called a familiar voice from the center of the bustling ED.

The cool air hit your bare skin the second you stepped inside, AC blasting hard enough to slip under the hem of your shorts and across the damp curve of your chest where your blouse hung low. You shivered at the abrupt change, rubbing your hands once along your arms as your sandals flipped over the tile. The place was alive in the way it always was: doctors and nurses calling codes and medication orders, rumbling of stretchers over tile, machine chirps overlapping one another as you walked by.

"Just what the doctor ordered," came the same voice, her Pittsburgh accent thick. Dana came around the desk before you could answer, her sneakers squeaking with each step, and pulled you into a hug that smelled of hand sanitizer and coffee. As she pulled back, her palm slid down your arm, eyes checking you over.

"Was that a nurse joke?" you asked with an eyebrow.

"I only got a few, so I use ’em when I can," she shot back, not missing a beat. Then her eyes narrowed. "You eat today? You look a little peaky."

"Yes, Dana," you said, a little put-upon, you’d heard her mothering comments a hundred times, but even now your mouth pulled into a smile.

She gave you that look. Her brows lifted and lips pressed flat like she didn’t buy it for a second.

"I had a bagel!" you insisted, tipping your chin up just a bit.

"Okay, okay," she relented, one hand lifting in surrender, though her eyes stayed on you. "But just so you know, I got my good LaCroix stash in the lounge and some flamin' hots I know you like. Hidden behind the protein shakes in case anyone got greedy. I’d make an exception for you, though, angel girl."

"Thank you, D—" your face lit up, "the tangerine?"

"With your name all over it."

You grinned, and she hooked an arm around your shoulders, pulling you into her side as she steered you through the emergency department. Her hand was warm and firm where it rested against you, guiding without asking.

As you passed Perlah and Princess, they both paused at the desk. Their eyes followed you and Dana across the room, widening for a second before flicking to each other, something silent passing between them before they looked back at you.

"Not a word, ladies—" Dana said, pointing at them without even looking. They both straightened and spun their chairs around to face away.

Dana walked you a few more steps before stopping, turning you in front of her with a light hand still at your shoulder. Up close, you could see the tired lines at the corners of her eyes, her lips pursed tightly like she was thinking too hard about something.

"Now listen—" she said, lowering her voice to separate it from the rest of the noise around you. "Robby’s havin’ a bit of a day." Her eyes flicked down the hall, then back to you. "I’ll send him over as soon as he’s free, alright, angel girl?"

"Yes, Dana," you said gently, "is he okay?"

"Are any of us ever really okay?" she shot back, but there was something heavier sitting under it.

You nodded, your fingers brushing absently at the hem of your shorts. "I understand."

"But that’s why you’re here, innit'?" she said, her tone easing, the hand that was on your shoulder sliding down squeeze your upper arm. "Brighten things up a little. They need you, kid."

You smiled softly. Dana was always like this, as much as she had once hated the idea of it all the moment she became aware of you and Robby's…situation. But it grew on her the more she realized how much you meant to everyone, how you lifted their spirits too, nevermind the fact that you and Dana just plain liked each other. And yes, sometimes there was the typical testosterone shoot out where the men of the ED became territorial or antsy if you were around, Dana always said they were no better a pack of hungry wolves! when they got a whiff that you were in the hospital.

"Right in here, hon," she said, pushing open a door with her hip.

The room was quieter, the hum of the main floor dulled to a low murmur, curtains pulled tight across the glass and the overhead lights dimmed. The bed in the center was clean and fresh, no blankets or usual patient gown.

"Robby said go on ahead and get changed," she added, nodding toward the bed. "Leave the top on, alright?"

You nodded, already hooking your thumb into the button of your denim shorts.

"He’ll be here any minute," she went on, pausing in the doorway, one hand still braced against the frame. "You holler if you need me. And don’t you go leavin’ without sayin’ goodbye."

"Yes, ma’am."

She gave you a quick wink, then pulled the door shut behind her with a soft click.

When the room quieted, you took a moment to gather yourself, shunting your shorts down to the floor before picking them up again, folding them neatly and setting them off to the side. It was almost always the same routine when you came to see Dr. Robby. Once, sometimes twice a week if his schedule allowed. Sometimes he’d text you not to come in if things were bad. Sometimes he’d tell you to come in now if they were worse.

You and him had a good deal.

He’d found you after the crash. Or what was left of you, anyway. You’d come in shaking, blood barely beginning to dry down your arms that wasn’t yours, your parents already being rushed past you on separate gurneys, machines breathing for them before you could even understand what was happening.

That day--and the months that followed--were all a blur. But you remembered him, his steady voice and kind eyes. He was always there.

You never left their bedside, not when the machines took over or when the doctors would come in with those sad eyes and pitiful looks on their faces. People who you thought you were close to started to avoid you once your parents got moved permanently upstairs to a shared room on life support.

But Robby came every day to check on you. Other people started to come too. For him, you knew realized after a while, since they all had those same scrubs on, all of them had badges--residents, attendings. They'd bring you coffee, or just sit with you when he couldn’t. You got used to seeing the same faces, and they got used to seeing you.

You’d promised your parents you’d never date again. You weren’t sure if they could hear you, but you told them anyway. You told them if you could go back and change that night, you would. You would’ve never taken them to that god-awful dinner with your piece of shit boyfriend—now ex, thank you very much. His family was just as bad as he was. You should have known. About him, about them. About how the car ride would go after, your parents telling you that you deserved better, that they couldn’t believe you’d settled for any of that.

The whole ride had been tight with hurt feelings and raised voices, your dad turning in his seat to argue, your mom trying to calm him—and then the light, run red, and the sound that followed.

You’d never let them down again.

When the time finally came to take them off their breathing machines, to let them go naturally instead of artificial lifesource, you didn't have anything to go back to. Your job had let you go for not showing up without telling them what happened. Your bills went overdue and you were evicted from your house, the recliner by your parents’ bedside becoming the only thing you could even kind of call yours. Even then, you knew you’d be buried in debt for how long you kept them hanging on.

Robby took you in.

He had no hesitation, he didn't even let you argue. You vowed to him you'd never be his girlfriend, and that was fine by him. You told him you'd be an easy roommate if he let you stay for free. You'd cook for him, keep his place clean though he was barely there. You'd do and be anything else he needed.

And he needed you.

He'd come home to find you after his shifts, and you'd be there on his darkest days, and on the good ones too. You were something soft for him to fall into, something warm and steady after everything he carried through those hospital doors. A place for all that restless energy to land, for his hands to find you, for him to press his cock into you until the day finally left his body. Sometimes he'd let you take care of him instead, climbing into his lap, easing him back, letting him breathe while you did the work. In exchange, he gave you a place to stay, his credit cards, his company. He rebuilt you from scratch, a broken girl who'd been left all alone, now his one way or another.

And he began to change. His fellow attendings noticed, his residents noticed. People started asking questions. He'd bring you around just so you could say hi and get out of the house. He wanted the hospital feel like something other than the place you lost everything. You’d stay close to him at first, tucked into his side or in the break room, smiling when people spoke to you, letting them fuss over you a little because it felt…good. To be seen, wanted, loved. They already knew your face. They already knew your name. They felt like family.

Robby saw how his staff gravitated towards you any time you came in. And he was never territorial like some of your exes had been. If anything, it made him more confident, standing taller. Whenever anyone paid you a compliment near him he'd always puff his chest up, smile, and say That's my girl.

It wasn't anything at first-- when things really changed. that is. You'd gotten so used to Abbott's long and intense eye contact, Langdon's lingering touches and sweet words. Even Park, with those cocky smirks he never bothered to hide when he saw you. You'd started wearing less and less, choosing thinner fabric so if you got a chill, your breasts might peak and they'd get an eyeful, or you'd bend over in your little skirts Robby would buy for you to give them a flash of a pretty black thong beneath. You’d catch the way their eyes followed you around the ED, the way conversations stalled for a second before picking back up.

It was the night that Robby told you to give his resident a kiss goodbye when things really shifted direction. You'd listened, did as he told without hesitation, and that night he'd taken you home and nearly broke his king sized headboard with the force of how he fucked you into the mattress.

So…yeah. Things changed. He saw how much happier his staff was when you were around, how the whole place seemed to ease just a little with you in it, and you liked the way he looked at you because of it, the quiet pride in his eyes.

You were like his little reward to give out, and you were more than eager to please.

Though, there was a catch.

Robby saw you first. Always. He needed that moment with you before anyone else got their treat. He'd come in and check that everything was in 'working order' and that you were ready for his chosen resident or attending. Only if someone earned you, did they get to enjoy what was his.

"And how is my best girl doing today?"

It was a familiar voice that cut into your thoughts, one with a kind, rough crack through every word. He was so tall, hair mussed and fussed from where you knew he'd dragged his hands through it all day. Brown eyes twinkled down at you as he pulled on the usual blue sterile gloves, coming to the bedside of the hospital bed.

"Good." You sat up on your knees and pursed your lips, waiting for his greeting. He bent down and pressed a fat peck to them, humming contentedly. "How are you?" you added.

"Oh, living the dream as always," he said, shaking his head, laying his hands on either side of the guardrails raised around your bed.

"That bad?"

"I've had worse," he said softly, smiling at you, and then patted the end of the bed. "Scoot."

You grinned back and moved toward him, coming to the end of the bed, beginning to lay yourself down—but not before planting one more kiss to his lips, then along his bearded jaw. Your hands pet over his shoulders, his arms, until you could no longer reach him and you were flat on your back. His fingers hooked into your panties immediately, pulling them swiftly down your legs and putting them in his pocket. Then he guided your feet up to the stirrups and placed both hands on your knees, his touch warm despite the gloves, and opened your legs for his gaze to settle between them.

He hummed his approval, and dragged one hand light down the center of your thigh, "And how is she doing?"

"Better now," you whispered, breath catching as his gloved fingers pressed against the pearl that had throbbed all day at the thought of this. Your eyes closed in contended bliss.

"You haven't been playing, have you?" he asked, glancing up, head tipped.

Another rule: no touching unless he says so.

"No," you said quickly, opening your eyes. "Just thinking about you. About coming to see you."

"That so?"

Your hand came up, finger pressed between your teeth in anticipation. He dragged his finger down the seam of your center, and you could hear the humiliating shlick of wetness that gathered there for him, making your tummy flip.

"You must've been thinking some filthy things to be this soaked already, honey," he said, voice edged with amusement.

You nodded.

"You gonna tell me what you were thinking about?"

He worked two fingers along your folds, slow, thorough, up and down, spreading you open, circling your clit, making your hips undulate under his touch.

"Um—oh—yes, please, oh—"

And then you heard a thick, throaty sound, and he was spitting onto your already soaked core, making you mewl.

"Easy, easy," he added softly, "Gotta be a good girl and stay quiet now. These glass windows are only so sound proof, honey. Now c'mon—tell me what you were thinking about today."

"Well—I heard—um, I heard…"

You hesitated. Robby wasn’t going to like it. Maybe you could pivot.

"You seemed in a bad mood when I was texting you—and—" you scrambled, grasping for something safer, "and when you're in a bad mood you get rough with me and—and—"

"Hm…" he hummed thoughtfully, and reached up with his hand that wasn't teasing you, pulling the fabric of your top down so your breasts spilled over the neck band. You gasped, but smiled when his fingers twisted your nipples, making them pebble beneath his touch.

His other hand now pressed at your entrance, the slick sound of latex and wet making your eyes roll back so you couldn't watch him play. "You like when I'm a little rough, honey? That it? Thought I'd take my reward for myself tonight?"

"Mhmmmm," you moaned.

You opened your eyes once more, and instead of seeing his usual sweet demeanor, his kind brown eyes, he was now looking down at you with a stone face.

"You're lying."

"I'm not!" you squealed, and then choked on a moan as he entered two thick fingers into you.

He pulled back, then thrust again, hooking them up, working against the front of your walls as his lip lifted in a sneer. "Good girls don't lie to their doctors. Now tell me what you meant—go on."

"Ah! Ah!" you moaned, head thrown back.

"Tell me or this stops and you go home."

You brought your head back up to look at him over your breasts, sweat beginning to dabble your skin.

"Frank—" you hiccuped, "I heard Frank is back."

He paused the thick, long thrusts of his fingers inside of you. His eyes darkened even further, huffing out a sarcastic laugh you knew all too well.

You had been right, bad day to bring it up.

"I just—I missed him, Robby, I'm sorry—it’s been a while, and I kept thinking how—oh fuck—"

He began finger-fucking you in earnest then, the loud sound of your slick all over his hand as his lip curled, eyes black, "Language, young lady." he growled.

"You're lucky he's earned you today." he went on. "If you'd come in here moaning his name with my fingers inside you without him acing that fucking manual reduction—"

"Robby—oh fuck—please, please, I'm sorry, I'm gonna—"

He spat on your pussy again, the glob hitting you right on your clit before his thumb began working the little bundle of sensitive nerves. You were wailing like a damn cat, back arching in a boneless arch.

"Come for me, baby, c'mon, show me what's mine, make her soaked for my fucking resident."

Your thighs seized up, and jaw came unhinged, mouth open wide as you moaned his name.

"Robby, Robby, Robby," you gasped, thighs shaking, hips riding his fingers, until you were all breath and sweat and heat and all he could do was watch you.

"That's it, that's my good girl, nice and easy now, breathe," he soothed, his other hand sliding from your chest, down to your waist where he squeezed you assuringly, then resting warm at your knee, petting slow as he eased his fingers out of you. He brought them to his mouth, licking them clean. "Think she's ready for him. Don't you?"

You nodded, eyes half lidded. Your brain felt light and foggy, dazed as you watched the chief attending strip off his gloves.

"Robby…" your voice came quieter now, uncertain, your fingers curling into the hospital bed sheet beneath you. "I'm sorry I brought up…"

He moved to your side, bare hands replacing latex, fingers combing through your hair, grounding, warm, welcome. He helped you cover up your breasts again to keep warm. "I'm not mad at you for wanting Langdon, honey. Just—caught me off guard. I know you missed him."

"You missed him too, didn't you?" you murmured, leaning up just enough to press a soft kiss to the bridge of his nose.

Robby closed his eyes at that, a breath leaving him before he straightened, tossing the gloves into the bin. "Stay put. I'll bring him in."

It was only ten or so minutes later that the door was opening again, and Frank Langdon entered.

"Frank," you sighed, a smile pulling at your lips. You sat up in the bed.

"Hey, you," he said, but he didn’t come any farther once the door shut behind him. He stayed there, leaning back with hand still on the handle, like he hadn’t decided if he was staying or leaving.

"Umm… how are you?" you asked, a little unsure now.

"I’m good. I’m—yeah, I’m good," he said quickly, then glanced up at you, "You?"

"M'good."

You watched him—he'd changed since the last time you saw him. He wasn't as antsy as he usually was. Sometimes he'd come into the room bouncing off the walls, sometimes he'd come in irritated, but the ten months away seemed to have settled him down. It almost put you off a bit. He was suddenly hard to read.

"Come here, please," you said, reaching out from where you sat at the edge of the bed, your legs dangling.

His eyes flicked to your outstretched hands first, then up to your face, then down again, catching himself. It made your heart twinge. You always liked when he looked at you. Why didn't he want to look at you?

"I—" he shook his head once, like he was trying to clear it. "We should probably just—talk first."

"Hug me first?" you asked softly, wiggling your fingers where they were waiting for him.

You missed him too much, you didn't even bother trying to hide it. You just needed to know he was okay, that you and him were okay. There was a funny feeling of butterflies in your belly that didn’t quite feel like excitement, something you weren’t used to having around him.

He let out a slow breath, looking down at the floor for a second before finally pushing off the door.

"Yeah. Okay. Just—" he muttered, more to himself than you, as he crossed the room.

You didn’t give him time to finish the thought. You were eagerly at the edge of the bed, arms and legs wrapping around him the second he got close, clinging tight like a little barnacle.

"Missed you," you said softly, muffled by the way you pushed your face into his chest.

He stayed still for half a second before his hands wrapped around your shoulders, pressing his cheek against the crown of your head. "Yeah?"

"Mhm," you hummed, fingers wandering up his back, over the ridge of his strong shoulder blades, then down along his waist. "You smell so nice. Just like I remember."

He let out a quiet chuckle, but his hands slid down to your upper arms, gently pulling you back. "Listen… we need to talk."

Your stomach dropped. Your brows pulled tight as your thoughts started to spiral, one worse than the next—he didn’t want you anymore, he was leaving for good, you’d done something wrong. So many things began to cloud your thoughts, worries, insecurities you thought you'd thrown away after all this time. The confidence you'd built over the past few years crumbling under his intense stare. You pulled back from him too quickly, but he didn’t step away, still standing between your legs like he hadn’t fully committed to the distance.

"I—" he exhaled, dragging his hands over his face. "Do you know why I was gone, sweetheart?"

You nodded.

"You know I was in rehab, then?" he said, quieter now, his hands lowering again, hovering near you like he wanted to touch but stopped himself again.

"Yes," you whispered.

"Well, I've been making my amends, owning up to the things I did. Trying to be better," he went on. "Been 186 days."

"That’s amazing," you said softly, your hands finding his waist again. Okay. Now you understood. This wasn't about you. This was about him. His journey, his need for reassurance.

He nodded, licking his lips as he looked down at you. Once it had clicked that he wasn't rejecting you, you suddenly could see how hard he was fighting himself from giving in. "But that means I can’t— as much as I appreciate you asking for me, sweetheart—we can’t—"

"Oh, but Frankie," you whined with an exaggerated pout as you pulled him in again, arms wrapping tighter around his waist. You had to crane your neck to look up at him, your legs wrapping around him again, breasts pushed up into his stomach. "I missed you so badly! Didn't you miss me?"

He let out a breath, his hands settling on your shoulders, steadying you. "I did, baby. I missed you too, but—"

"What if—" you wet your lips, your gaze dropping briefly to his mouth before lifting again, "what if we just kissed? Please? I've been thinking about you all day."

He dragged his teeth over his bottom lip, eyes fixed on you. You could see it there, the wheels turning in his head and how he paused. He was hesitating. Your feet pressed into the backs of his knees, waiting.

"Just a kiss?" he asked.

You nodded.

"I—" he sighed, "Okay. But only kissing, you understand?"

"Yes, Frankie," you said, already beginning to purse your lips up at him, "I promise."

He leaned down, finally, finally. You let your eyes flutter closed, waiting for him, and when his lips pressed against yours, you sighed dreamily into him, winding your legs tighter around his so you could feel him flush against you.

You couldn't help the noise that slipped out of you when his tongue traced the seam of your top lip.

"You're getting too excited," he murmured, but he didn’t stop.

You moaned again, hands gripping at his back, trying to keep them from wandering where you wanted to, keeping them locked around him instead. With how close you had him against you, you could feel the growing press of his member through his cotton pants on your stomach, and you shifted just slightly, pressing yourself even closer.

You opened your mouth for him, his thick, wet tongue finally finding yours, and it wasn't only you making pathetic little whines anymore— Frank had let out a suffocated moan at the taste of you, too.

"Fuckkk…" he whispered against you, his hands sliding from your shoulders to your face, tipping your head back even more so he could deepen the kiss, taking more, licking and eating at you, each press of his lips and slide of his tongue more urgent by the second.

He was fully hard beneath his black scrubs now, and you could feel him pushing into you just as much as you were pressing into him, not an inch of space between the two of you. Your breasts felt sandwiched against him, almost to the point of soreness, but they were aching for his touch, the throbbing between your legs only getting worse.

"I missed you so much, Frankie," you said again, pulling back to breath for only a second before kissing him again, his pillowy, swollen lips panting for breath. He smelled like mint, like that aftershave he always used. It was Pavlovian, only making you want more, practically drooling from your mouth—and between your legs—for him.

He let your tongue explore his mouth just the same, tasting behind his teeth for more of him, and when you suckled on his tongue between your lips, he groaned as if it pained him. He pulled you away with one more gentle lick to your lips, looking down at you.

His blue eyes were half lidded, a mirror of your arousal with pupils dilated, his pulse thick and quick where you felt his heart against your jaw when you rested your chin on his chest.

"I know, I know," he said softly, pressing one more kiss to your lips. "Come on, get up."

Your heart jumped in your chest, "But you said—"

"—Only kissing," he nodded, and he reached back behind him to unlatch your fingers from his shirt where you'd clung to him. "Be a good girl and listen now."

You knew better than to disobey, and pulled yourself away, albeit reluctantly, sliding off the bed and coming to stand beside him.

"Just kissing," he murmured, quieter this time, more to himself, the words coming out under his breath as he climbed up onto the bed. He shifted the thin pillow, flattening the stretcher before looking back at you as he settled onto his back.

"Take that off, baby. C’mon now, not done with you yet," he said, voice gentle.

You obeyed instantly, pulling your top over your head and tossing it aside, leaving you bare while he stayed fully dressed.

He patted his chest, coaxing you. "Up here, you know I've got a bad back—"

You climbed over him eagerly, a soft giggle slipping out when he smiled up at you and pinched your ass. He let you resume kissing him again, and you couldn't help but rock against the outline of his throbbing bulge. He didn’t let it go on long—his hand slid into your hair, fingers threading through before tightening at the nape, making you gasp, then tipping your head back.

"Getting too excited again—" he warned.

"M’sorryyyyy," you whined, hands pawing at his chest. "I told you I’ve been thinking about you all day."

"Yeah?" he whispered, nipping at your chin, and you nodded. "What a sweet girl you are," he added, cooing as he brushed his lips against your skin while he spoke. You gnawed at your bottom lip as he kissed up your jaw, suckling the skin under your ear, until you felt his breath against the shell of it as he said, "gonna let me kiss your pretty pussy, baby?"

You gasped, and made to pull away, but your hair was firmly in his grip.

"Yes, Frankie," you moaned in answer.

"Climb up." he ordered.

He helped you climb on top of him, your knees settling at the top of the bed, your hips lining up with his shoulders before you pushed yourself upright.

"Are you sure I’m not gonna suffocate you—"

"Trust me, if this is the way I go out, I’d die a happy man," he said with a breath of a laugh. "Besides, we’re in a hospital. If I pass out, there's plenty of doctor outside that door."

You giggled again, carding your fingers through the front of his long brown hair. He brought his hands up to squeeze the cheeks of your bum, hoisting you up so your core was hovering above his mouth. He leaned up and planted a light kiss to the top of it, and you gasped.

"Just as sweet as I remember, come closer," he murmured, and as you let yourself down onto him, he hooked his hands over the back of your hips and suddenly pulled you flush on top of him.

"Frankie!" you gasped, instinctively trying to pull away, worried you might hurt him.

"Shh, sh, sh," he cooed, his hands locked around you, "let me enjoy this."

You moaned when his tongue flattened over the slick seam of your folds, gathering all the arousal you'd made for him. Finally, you gave in as his lips closed over your clit, pulling hard. Your head fell back, a hoarse moan leaving you as your hips began to move against him, up and down, slow at first, then needing more.

"Ohhh, Frankie, holy shit—" you mewled. Your tongue peeked out to catch the bit of drool that had began to pool at the corner of your open mouth. "Feels so—ohhhhh…"

"Yeah, baby? Tell me." he moaned, a little muffled against your skin. His tongue kept up a rhythm then, cupping your entrance and back up to your clit where it swirled around, lips closing on the nub. You jolted a bit at the abrupt pleasure.

"So good, so so good," you whimpered, and as you opened your eyes to the feeling of the bed rocking, you looked behind you where his hips were moving, gently up into the air with no relief.

"Let me—"

"No, no," he cut in, breathless. "S’okay. Let me take care of you. You just—enjoy."

"But I wanna—!" you said petulantly, reaching around to touch his cock through the cotton pants.

He groaned at the contact, letting you quickly untie his scrubs and shove them down just enough to free his pulsing member. Your hand wrapped around him, velvet at the head and thick and warm at the shaft, but only for a second before he pulled your hand away, replacing it with his own, working himself with a rough grip. The sight of him like that—pleasuring himself, his cock red and angry with a pearl of arousal at the tip—made your mouth part and your brain fuzzy.

His other hand came up to cover your mouth as you let out a loud moan when his tongue plunged deep into your pussy, and you held onto his wrist for support. His hand moved to press two fingers into your mouth, and you sucked on them, hard, tongue sliding between his two fingers, letting your teeth graze the top of his knuckles just how you knew he liked his cock sucked.

You heard a very muffled oh fuck come from between your legs, and you let your hips rock harder and harder against his face. You no longer seemed to care if you suffocated him to death. You were so so—

"Close! Frankie, I'm so close—I'm gonna—"

"Come all over my face, pretty girl," he said, tongue flat so you could ride against it, "doin' so good, you're such a good girl, I'm gonna fucking come too, oh fuck fuck fuck—!"

You weren't able to watch how his eyes rolled to the back of his head as your spine arched, stiffening, toes curling as one hand gripped his wrist, the other flat against the wall to steady yourself. You tried your best to stay quiet, the ecstasy coursing through your bloodstream too strong, and Langdon took his fingers that were in your mouth and buried them deeper down your throat. The pad of his fingers pressed at the back of your tongue where you began to gag on him, choking your moans, and he went stiff under you as his own orgasm tore through him.

You road out the wave of your orgasm with his, feeling the thick ropes of his spend shoot over your back. Soon, it quieted with only the sounds of your breathing and those of the hospital coming back to you outside the doors.

Frank was panting beneath you, both of his hands coming down to sooth you at the junction of your thighs, kissing sweetly at the apex of your center until you were a fidgety mess, twitching from overstimulation. You shifted back, giving him room to breathe, but he didn’t let you get far. You ended up seated on his stomach instead, his arms wrapping around your hips from over your legs.

"Thank you for…asking for me today," he said, a shy smile tugging at his mouth as he looked up at you. His lips were still shining, parted as he caught his breath, taking in slower, shallow lungfuls. "I think I needed it."

You rested your hands flat on his chest, letting your fingers drift back and forth over his pecs, up along his collarbones, to his strong shoulders and neck—tracing, remembering, like you were relearning him all over again. Your smile softened, just a little sad around the edges.

"You almost said no." you said quietly.

He pressed his lips together, rolling them once before answering. "I know. I’m sorry… it’s not—you, you know? It's a me thing. I wasn't sure if ..."

"I know." you whispered, touching his lips to quiet him.

"C’mere," he said gently, patting your leg, guiding you off him. You swung your leg to his side, and he scooted over to let you lay against him. He tucked himself back into his scrubs without much thought, more focused on pulling you close, his arm sliding under your head so you could rest against his shoulder.

He let out a long breath, "I meant what I said, about trying to be better." he whispered.

You believed him. Though you never saw anything the matter with him before, once you heard about his addiction, it made you wonder if you ever really knew what he was like beneath all the hubris, if the fidgety Langdon you knew was really him. You were glad that he was still here, beneath it, next to you now. He still had his gentleness, his sweet way with words. He was just… more mellow.

"And I owe you an apology too. I let a lot of people down. And you were nothing but good to me."

You tilted your head up, resting your chin against his chest. "That must be so hard to admit. You’re doing so well, Frank."

He huffed out a small laugh. "I’m trying to tell you I’m sorry."

"For what? You were perfect. You still are."

"Far from it," he said, softer now, "but thank you, sweet girl." He leaned down and pressed a kiss to your nose.

You hummed, eyes slipping closed.

"I should probably clean you up and get back out there," he said after a moment, though he didn’t move.

"Stay for a few minutes," you murmured, wrapping your arm around his middle. "Just lay here with me."

He looked over at you with his eyes half closed, a grateful smile pulling at the edges of his lips like a string was tied to each end. "Alright."

You settled your cheek against his chest, listening as his heartbeat slowed under your ear, so steady, so warm, so him— and let your eyes close, drifting asleep as he dozed beside you.

coming soon:

⤷ x Abbot ⤷ x Park ⤷ x Robby

[drmariecurie]

[burgundysnow]

Ugugugugug i can’t stop thinking about the “Jack has to tell Robby when to quit on their girl.” Trope. It’s my favorite of all time and I feel like I have to jump on the bandwagon.  Word count: 0.7k Warnings: threesome. Mdni. Edging. Fem!reader. Piv.

Your body’s on fire; you can feel the sweat dripping down the side of your forehead and Robby’s hard thrusts from behind you. 

He’s been at it for a while. Rubbing soothing circles into your clit that doesn’t seem so soothing anymore when the bud is pulled taunt against your skin and every single touch feels like a wave of pleasure and pain going all the way down your legs. 

And every time Robby’s cock rocks back inside you it hits that spot where you can feel him in your throat. He’s just so big and rough, you’ve been considering that he likes torturing you. 

“Robby— please… please I can’t.” 

This has to be the tenth time Robby’s stopped all his ministrations and edged the life out of you. His hand moving from your clit and going lax against your stomach. His cock sliding all the way out. Going from so much pleasure to absolutely none, leaving your orgasm on the brink of disappearing. 

But then you feel a big hand on the side of your face. Brushing away the hair that sticks to your sweaty forehead. Eyes flickering up to Jack he has one of the most caring expressions you’ve ever seen. His legs spread wide in front of you and naked in all his glory.

He’s so pretty, you have to shove your face into the pillow he gave you (because unlike Robby, jack actually cares about the neighbors hearing) or else even just the sight of him might tip you over the edge. 

“m’cant.”

Your voice is muffled, hand grasping at the soft cotton of the pillow. Trying to scoot back into Robby because you need that release bad. And Jack notices. 

“You gonna give her the next one man?” 

Knowing Robby, he’s probably clicking his tongue at jack and shrugging. The universal sign for “will see.” 

Gasping there’s a small pressure back on your cunt and when Robby thrusts all the way in your breath hitches. It feels like an eternity with how big he is. Eyes shutting It feels so good but what’s the point of continuing if there’s not that exploding reaction at the end? 

“You better give it to her.” 

There’s a little bit of demanding in jacks voice, and when your head picks up he’s leaning back on the headboard getting comfortable again as if to watch a show. His dick is erect and flushed red but you’ve long given up on trying to take two at once when your brain can hardly comprehend one. 

“How about you sweeten the deal honey?” Jacks voice is so soft. It’s so easy to register between Robby’s grunts and your moans in between each other. “Beg for it. Come on. You know Robby likes to hear that pretty little voice.” 

“Please.”

You choke on a moan, words falling out sporadically, anything to sweeten your chances of that coil in your stomach to come back. 

“Wanna cum so bad. Please. Don’t… don’t be mean. I’ll do anything.” 

“Fuck.” 

You feel Robby’s hot breaths on your shoulder, breathing heavily against you. The more Robby’s hips snap against yours the more your body feels like it’s pushing for that release. All the fundamentals coming together to create that spill in your abdomen. 

“Robby— please, please, please.” 

The sloppy thumb back on your clit, his weight on your back. The warmth. The pleasure. It’s all so so much. You can’t see it but Robby’s eyes flicks to Jacks. As if for confirmation.

“Give it to her.” 

And it’s a command from jacks mouth. If it was up to Robby he’d stop now, he relishes in watching you squirm. But this time he picks up speed, biting a soft love mark on your shoulder when you moan. And fuck. 

Robby hates it when Jacks right. 

Your walls spasm around his dick when you cum. The sounds on your lips and the way your insides tighten around his sensitive cock. So wet and gummy. It makes Robby dizzy. You’ve never came this hard before. 

With a groan Robby’s not that far behind. Not when you’re so perfect like that for him. Begging and squeezing like your life depended on it. 

“Yes. Thank— thank you.” 

You chant and Jack watches in amusement as you both fall apart over each other. Tired and sleepy. Achieving possibly the best sex of your life.

What would you both do without him?

[pinkandblueblurbs]

Just saw what you wrote ab Robby punishing reader when jacks not home, and it got me thinking when reader’s being bratty, Robby is so much meaner and harder on her than jack but somehow they still always looks for him for comfort first and jack doesn’t understand why😭

18+ mdni

i love this!!! the only thing is i do think overall jack knows why… like i think jack is very in tune with you i def think you’d go to robby first for comfort bc you’re seeking reassurance after he’s hard on you or just generally seeking out affection that he doesn’t give quite as readily as jack

that being said the first time it happens it’s probably a bit of a surprise. you’d acted like a brat then fought robby all along the way as he bent you over the bed and spanked your ass raw. the whole time jack sat by your head and stroked your hair and murmured encouragement.

so when robby lands his final blow jack coos “There we go, honey. You’re all done.” And is totally ready for you to move into his lap and give robby the cold shoulder.

Robby is too. Fully opens his mouth to scornfully say something about you ‘crawling back to your daddy’ but is stopped short when you turn your head to look at him all teary eyed.

“‘M sorry, sir.” You say it so softly then gingerly get up and lean into his chest. On instinct Robby’s arms wrap around you right away despite his shock, and he shares a baffled look with Jack. Your tear-stained cheek smears a wet spot on his shirt.

“I know. You did good, hon.” He rubs your back along with the praise. Then, in the hopes of keeping the waterworks to a minimum, he adds “you’re such a brave girl, aren’t you?”

But it works— you sniffle and rub your eyes, nodding against Robby’s chest.

“Yeah.” He looks down at you, swipes at a fresh tear before it can really fall. “There she is.”

[navybrat817]

Lean On Each Other

Pairing: Husband!Bucky Barnes x Pregnant!Female Reader

Summary: You are tired, which is the norm for you nowadays, and share a sweet moment with Bucky.

Word Count: Over 1.8k

Warnings: Established relationship, pregnancy, pet name (sweetheart for you, baby nicknamed Sprout), stretch marks (they are beautiful), mention of serum, tiredness, fluff, feels, domestic life, Bucky Barnes (he's a warning, okay?).

A/N: Lovelies, I have been exhausted for some time now and this popped into my head for Soft Echoes, Strong Roots AU. ❤️ Not beta read and written on my phone, so any and all mistakes are my own. Divided by the talented @saradika-graphics . Please follow @navybrat817-sideblog for new fics and notifications. Comments, reblogs, feedback are loved and appreciated!

You stretched out on the bed with a small sigh, ready to put the day to rest. It was peaceful in your room with no appointments or demands to take up your time. Bucky would join you once he shut everything off and double checked the locks. It was such a small domestic and protective thing and it brought a soft smile to your face.

This was your life. Your home. Your family.

You were already half asleep when Bucky settled behind you, the mattress dipping under his weight. You were surprised you weren’t out the moment your head hit the pillow. His arm slid around your waist automatically, his palm resting on your stomach protectively. He exhaled against your neck, his chest solid and warm against your back.

Everything felt right when he held you like that, his presence wrapping around you as naturally as the blanket keeping you warm.

“You feeling okay, sweetheart?” he asked, his thumb brushing the curve of your belly like he was trying to memorize the feeling.

You hummed in response, not quite opening your eyes. “Hmm. Just fine.”

The room felt more calm and quiet, like the world and time itself slowed down for the two of you.

Well, three of you.

“Not hungry?”

“You made sure we ate plenty,” you answered.

“Good.” Bucky nuzzled your skin, drawing a small laugh from you when his stubble tickled you. “And now you need rest.”

“That’s why I’m already in bed,” you teased.

“Good,” he said again.

The last few weeks had been chaotic. Not bad, thankfully, but busy in a relentless way. Appointments and every day life stacked on top of you until you felt stretched thin. Your energy seemed to go just as quickly as it came. Some days you felt like you were chasing the clock, always a step behind when your body was working overtime to accomplish everything. You just couldn’t seem to keep up.

Bucky noticed.

Of course, he did.

It was in the way his brows pinched when he looked at you, cataloguing every yawn and when your shoulders slumped. His voice softened whenever he said your name, the sound soothing when exhaustion seeped in. He began to carry you around without you asking, leaving no room for argument. He tried to take things off your plate, too, even when he had his own things to do.

“You’re gonna run yourself into the ground at this level, sweetheart.”

“Bucky, I’m pregnant. Being tired comes with the territory. That’s just how it is.”

You said that because you believed it. Because you had to be strong and prove you could handle it. Life wasn’t about to give you a pass because you two decided to have a baby.

But Bucky saw through that.

“I’m your husband and the father of our child. You can lean on me instead of trying to do it all by yourself. Just like I lean on you some days.”

The words carved their way into your heart and didn’t leave.

Because he was right. Some days when the world felt too heavy, he looked to you for support. You were there for him without question. And he was there for you, too.

It wasn’t out of obligation to give and take nor was it the kind of thing where you kept score. It was out of love and devotion, something that made you both stronger. Neither of you had to carry anything alone anymore.

The truth of that eased something in your chest you hadn't realized was there until you exhaled.

“Guess what?” he asked, his voice light and breaking through your thoughts.

“I thought I was supposed to be resting, not talking,” you replied, giggling again when his teeth nipped your skin. “Okay, okay. What?”

“We should be getting the pictures tomorrow.”

You smiled happily. “Really? That’s great!” you replied, your baby moving around as if they felt how excited you were.

A bright light within the business was the recent maternity photoshoot. The weather had been perfect, you wore a beautiful dress, and Bucky smiled so much in and out of the photos you were certain his cheeks ached. He already picked out the space on the wall where he wanted them hung up and there was an empty frame on his desk waiting for the right picture. He was so happy.

You both were.

“I know they’re going to be perfect,” he said quietly, chuckling under his breath. “And Sprout’s been busy today. Kicking like they’ve got somewhere to be.”

Your smile widened and you shifted just enough to press back against him. “I think they get that from you.”

Your baby must’ve picked up his old dancing skills because they did a fantastic number on your bladder earlier in the day.

At least you made it to the bathroom in time.

He huffed under his breath. “Hey. I was a perfectly calm kid.”

You opened your eyes and turned your head just enough to give him a look over your shoulder. He smiled and your heart beat faster. His blue eyes softened when his fingers traced your belly again, touching one of your stretch marks through your shirt. He traced it like it was something sacred.

You both bore life-changing marks on your skin, your bodies telling stories that only the two of you would ever fully read.

“You keep touching them,” you whispered, not accusingly. More like awe.

“I do,” he agreed, pressing a kiss to your neck and shifting your body so you didn’t have to keep looking over your shoulder. “I know you don’t think they’re pretty, but they’re one of the most beautiful things I’ve ever seen.”

You blinked, only semi-surprised. “Really?”

Bucky always found a way to make you feel beautiful and desired. Whether it was through his actions or words, he never wanted you to doubt yourself or how much he craved you. You were certain he would do that for the rest of your lives. But since you got pregnant, he took it to another level of worship.

Not that you would ever complain about having his attention and focus.

“I mean it. Your body is changing because our baby is growing and it’s so beautiful. We made this. You and me.” His fingers moved again, tracing each mark with intention. “I’ve seen a lot of things. Stuff I wish I could forget. But this?” He let out a shaky breath, his hand pausing to cradle your stomach tenderly. “This is the best thing I’ve ever been part of.”

Your throat tightened. Your eyes watered. Damn hormones kept making you emotional. Except it wasn’t the hormones at all. It was just you in love with this man.

A man who loved you and your baby with his entire being.

“How are you so perfect?” you asked.

His nose scrunched when he laughed, the sound making your heart feel full. “Sweetheart, I’m so fucking far from perfect.”

You took his face in your hands, refusing to let him think of himself as anything less . “Bucky Barnes, listen to me.”

“I always listen,” he swore, solely focused on you. “Talk to me, sweetheart.”

It took you a second to speak since having his full attention was overwhelming in the best way. “You are the best husband and provider. And not just because you fix the sink and bring me ice cream and validate my feelings when I’m insecure. You love, take care of, and respect me. You remind me that I don’t have to go it alone,” you said, your gaze affectionate when he leaned into your touch. “And I know you’ll be the perfect father.”

“You think so?” he asked after a moment, his voice thick.

“I know so,” you said.

He quickly closed the small gap between you, kissing you so deeply that it stole the breath from your lungs. “Thank you.”

Your heart beat wildly. “You have nothing to thank me for,” you said, your face twisting at the particularly hard kick in your stomach and making Bucky frown slightly. “Our baby really is a mover.”

Along with his dancing skills, you guessed your baby would have his agility and strength. You were thankful they hadn’t kicked through your stomach. Your husband may have gone off on someone who suggested it could be a possibility thanks to the serum. They hadn’t looked you in the eye since, much to your better half’s satisfaction.

No one would ever look out for you more than him.

“Hey, Sprout. Your Mama’s been working extra hard lately. Growing you takes a lot out of her.” The fondness in his voice was enough to make a tear fall. “She’s magical and stronger than I’ll ever be, but we need to make sure she gets enough rest for both of you. Maybe we can start with gentler kicks? Can you do that?”

The kick under his palm was much softer, like they understood.

His eyes lit up and your chin wobbled. He looked so happy. You knew some days he still couldn’t believe he got to have this, but no one deserved it more.

“They really can understand me,” he said in awe.

“Of course, they do.”

They loved the sound of his voice.

“Thank you, Sprout,” he whispered, sliding down the bed enough to kiss your stomach. “You get some rest, okay? We love you.”

You sniffled when he moved back up to hold you again, his lips finding yours in a soft kiss. “And did you, a super soldier, seriously call me strong? And magical?” you asked so you wouldn’t ugly sob from how sweet he was being.

“You are strong and magical. Sprout agrees,” he said gently but firmly before he kissed your tear away. “But even the strong and magical need rest.”

You stifled a yawn, your eyes slipping shut. You did need the rest. “Will you be here when I wake up?”

“I wouldn’t be anywhere else.” He nuzzled your neck again and kept you close. “I love you both so much.”

Your heart skipped a beat. “We love you, too.”

“And I’m gonna spend the rest of my life trying to deserve this,” he admitted quietly. “You. Sprout. All of it.”

Your hand covered his and your baby rolled beneath his palm, both of you leaning into him and seeking to comfort him before his thoughts spiraled. “You already have,” you assured him. “Trust us.”

You and Bucky built a life and home together, one that he more than deserved. You were partners in life and love. That love extended to your baby and would only continue to grow.

Tonight you didn’t have to think of anything beyond the walls of your bedroom. You could simply rest in his arms and let everything else be. And he’d watch over you while you slept like the hero he was.

And a man in love.

I hope you lovelies all have enough spoons, get the rest you need, and have someone to lean on. Love and thanks for reading! ❤️

Masterlist ⚓ Bucky Barnes Masterlist ⚓ Ko-Fi

[smorgaswhored]

null & void (part one)

pairing: sugar daddy!Bucky Barnes x fem!reader

warnings: 18+ MDNI, eventual smut, fluffy!Bucky, power imbalance, sugar daddy / sugar baby dynamic, age gap (reader in mid-to-late twenties while Bucky’s in his early forties), mentioned illness/death of parents (minor characters), money troubles, i.e., debt, bills, etc., alcohol consumption, one instance of smoking cigarettes, no mentions of y/n

word count: 12.5k

part two: coming soon

summary: The arrangement is simple enough: you give him friendship, he gives you a better life. But between the private dinners cozied up in a booth and the charity galas pressed to his side, it’s getting harder for you to hold up your end of the bargain when you’re starting to feel things for your sugar daddy that were not included in the contract…

sammy speaks: so the rumors are true, I am in fact bucky’s sugar baby and this is my autobiography, thank you for reading it!! could easily say this is my magnum opus, I don’t think I’ve put more time and effort into a piece of writing than I have this one. I hope everyone out there on the bucky x reader tag gets the chance to read it <3

Your shift is off to a very bad start.

The subway broke down — again — which means you had to sprint the last six blocks in your tiny skirt and sheer tights just to make it to work forty minutes late. Sweat pours down your back by the time you burst through the service door; the girls still lingering after the day shift give you wary looks while you lean against the wall, panting and brushing wet strands of hair from your face. You don’t care.

All you want is some water and to clean yourself up before heading out onto the floor, but your manager decides now is as good a time as any to give you a lecture on tardiness.

Your lungs are still struggling for air as you endure his power trip, your teeth grinding together over the fact that he hadn’t let you clock in before launching into his tirade. His ruddy face and the drool collecting at the corners of his mouth would’ve made for a comical sight if you weren’t already fuming over your situation. By the time he tires himself out, he’s eaten away at seven additional minutes you could’ve been paid for.

Safe to say, there’s a black cloud over your head when you finally emerge onto the floor. Cleaning yourself up had been futile — there was nothing you could do about your hair, and you’re putting a lot of faith in the ambiance to keep the sweat stains on your uniform indiscernible. And not only are you sticky with dried sweat, smelling of the cheap drug store body spray and year-old deodorant you borrowed, but blisters are beginning to form after your uncoordinated run in heels earlier. You have a feeling you’ll be cleaning dried blood from them at the end of the shift, and until then, every step will be torture.

That is until you see the floor map at the host stand, then you don’t even register the pain anymore. The hostess fidgets nervously beside you as you double and triple-check what you’re seeing.

At first glance, it looks like it always does. You have the same tables every night with the same people filling them like clockwork, because this place thrives on consistency and it’s common knowledge that regulars have the deepest pockets. Everything looks normal…except for one table. And once your eyes catch on it, it makes your heart seize.

Your Friday night 8:30 p.m. regulars is missing — the group of eighty-something year-old men that like to compare you to their granddaughters and fuss over your wellbeing and always tip like it’s their last day on earth are no longer in their usual back booth. No, the long-standing reservation under ‘S. Lee’ is off in another corner of the screen. In Melissa’s section. In her booth.

“This has to be a mistake,” you say out loud. The young girl playing hostess for the evening squeaks, curling in on herself.

“I’m sorry, he made me,” she whispers urgently, and you know she means your manager. “You were running late and he didn’t want them to wait, so he had me put them at Mel’s table next to the piano—“

You tune her out, a hand covering your eyes to block out every sensory input you could. The missing table of your best regulars feels like the death blow to your optimism, your hope, your last chance. With debt collectors clogging up your voicemail, you haven’t thought about anything but this shift for the last week. A lot was riding on it, and not just the tips or the wages — tonight was going to be the night you swallowed your pride and pitched your sob story to the table of Warren Buffet clones. It’s a gamble — one that risks your job if you don’t play your cards right — but after months of buttering them up with winks and pats and an endless amount of patience for repeatedly-told stories, you figured at least two out of the six might crack open their wallets for a charitable cause of a motherless young woman with crippling medical debt.

But now you would never know. The thought hurts a lot worse than the blisters.

It takes great effort to slap a smile on your face and act like you didn’t just miss the last lifeboat on the sinking ship, but every time you pass the empty booth, a cold chill runs down your spine. Deadlines, due dates, and late notices swirl in your brain while you take orders or fake laughter. Your mind has catalogued everything you think the repo men will take first when they come knocking next week. It’s a dark and winding internal spiral.

But just when you think it can’t get any worse, your black cloud becomes a roaring thunderstorm.

You know the hostess thought she was helping — you’ve been catching her apologetic looks from the corner of your eye throughout the shift. But when she creeps over to you cautiously, a small smile on her face, and says she found the perfect replacement reservation for you, you’re about ready to dump a pitcher of water over her head.

“Replacement” rings alarm bells in your head. “Replacement” means reservations outside of the regulars’ time slots. “Replacement” means snotty out-of-towners with connections or ignorant first-time club members. “Replacement” means trouble.

And trouble they are.

You assess your new group of gentleman from across the bar. There are seven of them in the secluded booth, all of them spread out and lounging comfortably like they’ve been patrons of your table for years. You don’t recognize any of them, and neither does the bartender, which confirms your biggest fears. You’re at risk of cracking a tooth.

But your manager appears out of nowhere, giving you the evil eye, so you have no choice but to relax your jaw and make your way over to the newcomers.

Your forced smile could power a small generator when you sidle up to the table.

“Welcome to The Alpine, gentlemen. How are we?”

Seven pairs of eyes snap to you, and you know what comes next: the head-to-toe look over and appreciative smiles that follow shortly after. The tall blonde in the middle has a particularly disarming curl to his lips that raises the hair on the back of your neck.

“Better, now that you’re here,” he quips, line of vision resting somewhere between your chin and your naval. The man beside him chuckles.

“Well, glad I could be of service,” you say brightly, eyelashes fluttering on command. Even if it kills you, you’ll flirt like hell with them if it means better tips. “What brings you in tonight?”

The blonde one speaks up again. “Our friend here just bought another nightclub,” he says, gesturing to a man to his right. “So we thought we’d celebrate him adding to his empire.”

Your smile never falters, but you feel your eye twitch.

“How exciting,” you manage to say.

It takes you much longer than necessary to get their drink orders. The blonde man — whose name you learned is Walker — doesn’t seem to know how to stop talking. Even if you shoved a dirty bar towel down his throat, you think he’d still be shooting off jokes. Probably about ball gags, after hearing the mouth on him.

As you walk away to put in their orders, you can just hear Walker’s nasty little comparison of a bouncy ball and your ass. Your eyes roll so hard they hurt.

When you return with their drinks, he once again zeroes in on your neckline.

“How long have you been working here, sweetie?” he asks your breasts, voice cutting through the others’ conversations. Your smile is blank and placid as you hand him his drink, ignoring the purposeful drag of his fingers over yours.

“Coming up on a year,” you reply. “Long enough to know when someone interesting walks in.”

You add a wink for good measure and he devours it. Sitting up straighter, Walker puffs out his chest.

“Interesting, huh?” he asks with a smirk that’s probably meant to seduce but instead summons vomit. “Sounds like I might be a new favorite of yours.”

Do not gag do not gag do not gag—

“Oh, I don’t do favorites. I just like my clientele to feel special.”

God, you might make yourself vomit—

“Good to know,” he drawls, “because I’ll be around a lot more soon. Barnes is getting me on the short-list next month, right, Barnes?”

Before whichever man named Barnes can reply, Walker continues. “So don’t go running off anywhere. Wouldn’t want you breaking my heart before I even get settled in.”

The cliche of it all has you actively fighting the urge to burst out laughing.

“And give up the chance to have you as a regular? Wouldn’t dream of it,” you soothe, smile cracking with your hidden mirth. The man at the end of the booth makes a noise somewhere between a snort and cough, but Walker beams like he won the lottery.

As the drinks flow, his audacity grows, which you find as shocking as it is endearing — which is to say, not at all. But you play along, because what other choice do you have? None when Walker’s giving all the signs that he’ll be footing the bill.

So you keep it up, the back and forth, the balance of flirty and dismissive responses; you can see the interest growing in Walker’s eyes as his sobriety shrinks. His friends are right there with him, and soon enough the energy of the table starts to shift in Walker’s direction.

“That vest really does wonders for you.”

“I like it when a girl shows a little skin.”

“That skirt looks like it was made for you.”

Your patience is wearing thin.

To their credit, a couple others at the table try to rein him in when they can, including the man of the hour, the club buyer, an attractive guy in his early forties called Sam. He makes pointed subject changes and laughs off the awkwardness when Walker makes a comment that lands just this side of perverted. Truthfully, you wouldn’t mind Walker running his mouth until you had grounds to have him removed, essentially destroying whatever chance he has at the “short-list,” or whatever the fuck that made up thing was. But you appreciate Sam’s efforts all the same.

And then there’s the other guy, the one on the end, who takes a more direct approach to shutting Walker up.

Walker’s in the middle of a slurred proposition for you to accompany him home after your shift when the man at the end of the booth lifts his head.

“Enough,” he says bluntly, suddenly; his voice is low and rough, direct. The tongue-in-cheek comment about sharing a bed immediately dies on Walker’s lips, his eyes flashing to his interruptor.

He doesn’t even bother looking at Walker, staring at his drink as he slowly spins it on the table, still his first one when the others are on their fourth or fifth. There’s a brief flash of something black and gold peeking from underneath the cuff of his suit jacket — a brilliant watch, clearly high-end and probably worth more than you’ll ever make in your life. A ring sits on his pinky, polished titanium. His charcoal suit fits his shoulders like every stitch and seam were custom made for his measurements — and maybe they were.

You see money in various forms all the time at this job, but occasionally you’ll stumble across real money. Big money. Stupid money. The kind that expresses itself quietly instead of boisterously like Mr. Short-List. It’s not always easy to spot, but you’ve learned how to over the last year, and when you do, it doesn’t fail to knock you on your ass every time.

One quick look and you know this man has real money. Your heart stutters in your chest, thoughts of your stack of unpaid bills wiping the smile clean off your face.

On the other side of the table, Sam disrupts the new silence by making a brave pivot to the stock market, something the rest of the group jumps on, even Walker. You’re attempting to swallow the lump in your throat, scrambling to grab empty glasses and old napkins, when you feel eyes on you.

It’s him, the man at the end of the booth.

His eyes are a startlingly bright blue that sends an electric shock down your spine. His face, looking like it was carved straight from Michelangelo’s private diary, stays neutral as you meet his gaze; you can see the years on him through scars and scruff and wrinkles around the eyes, but you wouldn’t guess him to be older than forty-five. His thick dark hair is swept back, threaded with silver near the temples that matches the silver around his chin.

He’s watching you like he’s waiting for something. Some sort of reaction maybe. His pink lips are parted like he’s about to ask a question. You have no idea what it could be.

Not giving yourself the chance to hesitate, the smile is back on your face with practiced ease. “Can I get you anything, sir?” you murmur quietly, trying to draw as little attention from the others as possible.

He blinks, breaking the undisclosed stare down between the two of you. “Just the check, please.”

“Of course. Can I get the name under the membership?”

“Barnes,” he says, holding out a black credit card for you to take. “James Barnes. Thank you.”

“Thank you, Mr. Barnes.”

His eyes find yours again and stare. You offer him one last smile before leaving.

Your fingers tap restlessly against the counter as you wait for the receipt to print. From across the room, you watch as the group at the booth begins to get up. Walker’s foot catches on the lip and he stumbles into his friend; Sam’s there immediately to usher them toward the door. You place the receipt in the black book and make your way back to the table, where James Barnes still sits, still staring at his drink.

Unfortunately, you have to pass Walker on your way over. With a sad excuse for a smile, you thank him for coming in tonight. He leans forward, into your personal space, reeking of liquor and leering at you.

“Left my number on the napkin if you miss me too much. We can pick up where we left off when you’re done with work.”

Clearly he thought he was bestowing a tremendous gift on you, from the way he winks and struts away. Your smile drops as soon as you turn back to the table, where you see James Barnes staring at you yet again.

Feeling caught, you offer him a sheepish look, a small upturn of your lips, and hand him the receipt.

“Thank you for coming in tonight, Mr. Barnes. We hope you come back soon.”

He hums, taking it from your hands; your fingers brush, and your brain has no choice but to acknowledge how different it feels from when Walker did it. He signs the receipt and offers it back to you before you have the chance to give him privacy, but when you grab it, he holds on to the other end, stopping you in your place.

“I’m sorry,” he says quietly, eyes boring into yours again, “for what you had to put up with tonight.”

You blink. “Oh, that’s — it’s not a problem at all, your friends seem like a, uh — fun time.”

A smile flits across his face, crooked and devastating. “Fun? So, you enjoy getting asked to go home with your customers?”

“I—“ your blush lights up your face. “He didn’t mean it, I’m sure—“

“He did.”

“It’s fine,” you rush to say. “I get it a lot, comes with the territory. Call it a work perk.”

His eyebrow lifts.

“A work perk,” he repeats. “Sure. Some places offer health insurance, but you get to be flirted with by married men.”

Fucking dick bag, you seethe internally, your mind conjuring up a scenario where you curb stomp Walker until his teeth fall out.

You try to smile but it feels like a grimace. “What can I say? I’m living the dream.”

He chuckles, finally releasing the bill. His eyes sweep across your face.

“Are you?”

You pause. “Am I what?”

“Living the dream.”

“Is anyone, really?” you say with a quirk of your lips.

“I don’t know,” he allows, tilting his head. ”Maybe not. But we keep pretending we are.” His gaze drifts around the room before settling back on you. “Were late nights and putting up with guys like Walker what you always pictured your life to look like?”

You chuckle, but there’s hesitation in it. Images of your verbally abusive manager and meager paystubs flash through your mind. But that’s the darker side of the club that customers aren’t supposed to know about. As a server, your job is to slap a pair of rose-colored glasses over their eyes and keep them there. Yet he’s asking to take them off. It feels taboo.

He’s looking at you like he can read your thoughts, but he waits for your answer like he has all the time in the world.

“Uh, no,” you say slowly. “Definitely not.”

You glance over your shoulder like you’re expecting your manager to be standing there, red-faced and spitting again.

“Good,” James murmurs, “I was starting to worry about your long-term goals.”

“I’m…I’m actually in school,” you admit before you can stop yourself. “Grad school. Masters in Business Analytics.”

His lips do something similar to a smile, but his eyes are serious as he leans your way. “Impressive. What are you hoping to do with this degree?”

You shrug, feeling the full weight of his undivided attention. It isn’t uncomfortable, but it’s heavy.

“Something with data. It kind of — I don’t know — speaks to me, I guess? I’m good with numbers. I can read an Excel sheet, which is half the battle. Interpreting data really isn’t that difficult when you dictate the right models and—“ You stop short and shake your head quickly. “I’m sorry. I’m boring you.”

His smile returns. “You’re not boring me.”

“I was rambling. You probably have better things to do than listen to me run my mouth about dictating data models,” you joke.

“On the contrary,” he murmurs, “I’d like to hear what you have to say about data models.”

You look to the floor as the blush blooms across your face. “It doesn’t make for very thrilling conversation.”

“We’re at The Alpine Club — I’m pretty sure data models make up ninety percent of the conversations around here. What’s one more?”

You laugh, bright and unexpected. “You got me there.”

He watches you for a moment, thoughtful.

“So,” he says, twirling his empty glass, “what kind of data are you hoping to manipulate around when you graduate?”

You blink as his question lands. It isn’t lost on you that he’s prolonging the conversation. Your weight shifts, you debate answering him; you have tables that haven’t been touched in minutes, you have side work that’s waiting for you in the back. Plus, your gut is screaming at you that this has gone a lot further than the average conversation between customer and server, especially when he’s already settled up. You should thank him for coming in and walk away.

“Manipulating data sounds corrupt,” you say with a small smile. The side work can wait. “It’s more like…making sense of it. Organizations collect all this information and half the time they don’t even know what to do with it. I like the idea of being the person who can look at a mess of numbers and data points and say okay, here’s the story.”

“Sounds like an art,” he says.

“Artists don’t use spreadsheets.”

“I think it still counts.”

Your hands tighten around the receipt book. “Not sure if I’ve ever heard someone call data analytics an art. Most people start disassociating when I mention Excel.”

“Most people are missing out.”

Your smile grows. “That sounds like a line.”

“It’s not,” he says easily, placing both hands on the table. “I’m genuinely interested.”

“In data?”

“In you.”

The words are a shock to your system. You feel heat climb into your cheeks again. Okay, that’s definitely a line.

That smile flickers on his face again, and he points toward his empty glass. “Actually, do you mind if I get one more from you? Please?”

You hesitate for a moment before nodding, turning for the bar again. When you return with his drink, he takes it from you with gentle fingers that brush yours.

“Do you think you’d be able to sit with me? Just for the drink?” he asks.

You freeze.

“If you’re busy, I understand,” he says quietly. “I don’t want to keep you from your work.”

Chewing your lip, you chance a look at your section. It’s died down considerably — closing time is near, but your last few tables have yet to pay. He watches you in that patient way of his.

“No, it’s — I’m not busy,” you mumble. You’re about to move to the other side of the booth when he slides over deftly, leaving room for you to sit next to him with a healthy amount of distance left between. Your hesitation is quick, but obvious, although he says nothing when you eventually take the spot beside him.

“Where do you go to school?” he asks, like there wasn’t a break in the conversation.

“O’Malley.”

His eyebrows lift a fraction. “That’s a great school.”

“Ha. Thank you. Yeah, my mom nearly had a heart attack when I got my acceptance letter. Big school, bigger price tag.” Your nose wrinkles. “I guess you could say that’s part of the reason I’m here.”

You’re not sure what made you bring up your mom — you haven’t weaved her into conversation in weeks. While your brows furrow in thought, James shifts in his seat, suddenly, like a twitch but more intentional. He lifts the drink to his lips.

“Part of the reason?” he repeats.

“It’s a long story.”

He looks at you, eyes bright but calm.

“I have time.”

You exhale softly, unable to hold the eye contact. “It — well, it’s not a very good story either.”

He doesn’t say anything, letting you consider in silence whether or not to share. You don’t tell your story very often — in fact, you’ve tried running from it multiple times. Hence the reason the debt collectors were after you. Tonight was going to be a rare occurrence if you had actually ended up telling your table of regulars your tearful tale.

Sitting beside him, you can’t deny the pull to James, nor the urge to tell him; you want to chalk it up to being prepared for another audience, but deep down, you know it’s something completely different.

With a sigh, you start.

“I had a lot saved up. A good chunk of it from my dad’s life insurance policy. Car accident when I was sixteen,” you add, when James’ tilts his head questioningly. “It was…sad, but we got through it. My mom and me. I got the money when I turned twenty-two, just in time to graduate college. I worked at a bar part-time and made some money there, so I decided to take a year off before grad school. Travel. See the world…”

James clears his throat. “Where did you go?”

“Europe. Mostly Italy. I love the food, the history, how the country’s broken up by states and each one has its own culture…” You trail off, biting down on a smile. “I think it’s my favorite place in the world.”

Next to you, James shifts again, but he’s got a soft smile on his face as he watches the liquid swirl in his glass.

“But then my mom got sick,” you continue, your voice lowering automatically. “Stage 4 colon cancer. I came home right away, brought her to every doctor in the city, but they all said the same thing: that there was nothing they could do.”

There’s a sound like a hushed rumble coming from James’ chest. He sets his drink down and meets your eyes.

“I’m sorry,” he says.

A stab of grief shoots through your heart at those two words. You’ve heard them a million times over in your life, eventually growing numb to them — especially when they came from strangers. But the way he’s looking at you, the simplicity in the way he said it, causes a reaction you haven’t had in months. You quickly blink away the burn behind your eyes.

“It’s…thank you.”

He nods once, a gesture of acknowledgment and to continue. You take a breath.

“She refused to give up. She was a badass, but I also think that was just her being a mom. She didn’t want to leave me on my own in the world. So we used up every cent we had flying across the country, meeting with the best doctors out there and trying treatment after treatment. We spent a stint at the Mayo in Rochester, and for a moment, things were starting to look up. But she took a sudden turn for the worse, so we came back here. We came home.”

You rest your chin in your palm, eyes following his finger as it taps against his glass. You can feel him watching you closely.

“I tried to make her as comfortable as I could. Took the rest of my savings and poured it into her care. She hated that I did that, but there was no point arguing. Not when we only had weeks left. She passed last spring.”

James’ free hand twitches in your direction. You pretend not to notice.

“After the funeral, I looked around and realized I had mountains of medical bills to pay, a mortgage suddenly in my name, and a future full of student loans.” You make a soft noise in the back of your throat, untitled in emotion. “Despite everything, my mom made me enroll in classes as soon as we got home — she wanted me to have something waiting for me on the other side of it all. I thought she was crazy at first because I couldn’t think about anything but her, but now that she’s gone, I’m glad she made me do it.”

The silence after you finish is surprisingly light. It doesn’t feel tense or heavy like it usually does, when your audience isn’t sure how to reconcile all of that grief in one person’s lifetime. James sits beside you easily, absorbing your story with careful consideration and space.

“For what it’s worth, I think your mom would be really proud of where you are today” he murmurs.

The corner of your mouth lifts.

“Don’t speak too soon. I sold the house, but it barely made a dent in the medical bills. Whoever invented interest can suck my dick.”

James coughs and takes a large sip of his drink.

“Truthfully, I’m — I’m drowning,” you laugh breathlessly. “I can’t study because I’m constantly worried about having enough money to keep the lights on, and then that makes me worry that I’ll get kicked out of the program and lose my chance at a job that pays enough to make these bills go away. So I got a job here in the meantime because — well, everything’s outrageously priced and that means you get outrageous tips, which is literally the only way to keep my head above water.”

Your voice has raised in volume, pitch and speed, but you plow on, too late to bottle it up now.

“I ran the numbers a hundred times, set them against average incomes of thousands of jobs in the city, calculated inflation and costs, and it came down to either this or stripping. Which I don’t have anything against! But I can’t move like that, I can barely do a push up — so tips would be beyond sad for me, if I get any, and then I’d be back to where I started. So between that and The Alpine, I thought why not save myself the embarrassment and—”

You cut yourself off with a wince. You did it again.

You shoot a furtive glance his way. He’s turned completely in his seat to face you, jaw tight and eyes unreadable. Like this, you get the full force of him, the piercing blue of his eyes, the sharp features of his face; it’s unnerving, but in a way that makes your skin tingle, like electricity’s dancing down your limbs. A brief look reveals a brush of chest hair peeking out from under his white button down, and your subconscious decides it would like to see the rest of it someday.

He appears to be considering something, mulling it over carefully in his head. He hasn’t looked away from you since you stopped talking, but you don’t find it creepy. Yet.

“Sounds like you have a lot on your plate,” James mutters.

“Yeah,” you say faintly, “sorry to unload all of that on you.”

He shakes his head quickly, throwing back the last of his drink in one large gulp. His lips press into a thin line. You’re kicking yourself mentally, thinking you’ve finally traumatized the poor guy with your unfiltered stream of consciousness, when he sets the glass down with a sharp klink.

“I could help,” he says quietly.

You blink. “Oh, you don’t — you don’t need to do that. I promise I wasn’t using my sob story to get you to kick me a bigger tip or anything—“

“Just listen, please.”

Your mouth shuts with a snap. The air hums with a level of anticipation that wasn’t there before. His eyes hold steadily onto yours.

“I’ll only say this once, and if it’s not for you, I won’t say another word about it ever again.” He tilts his head. “I believe two people can come together in an uncomplicated and beneficial way, like friends do, to help each other out. I’d like to make your life easier so you can focus on what actually matters to you. I’d be someone you can rely on, who values your time and wants to see you succeed…while also helping you with any roadblocks in your way. I could take some of the pressure off — financially — so that you can focus on your future instead of struggling to make things work today. And in return, I get your company. I’ve had a better time talking to you for the last twenty minutes than I’ve had with that group of guys for years. You’re sharp, you’re funny, you’re grounded…your time and your attention is all I would want.”

He lets that sit between you with a short pause. Meanwhile, the air has left your lungs.

“This requires trust. Discretion. Maturity. It’s not about rescuing anyone or buying affection. It’s more…intentional than that. Mutual.”

He pauses again, longer, as if he’s waiting for his words to sink in with you. They certainly have.

“Being my friend will never require you to be out of your comfort zone,” he continues softly. “It’s about making you comfortable. You’ll get support without strings, without owing anything, and without judgment. It’s not complicated, and it’s not about control. It’s about being a friend. I’d like to be your friend.”

Your mouth opens but nothing comes out. Not a whisper of a sound. The corners of his mouth twitch up as he searches your face — you suspect you’re not doing a very good job at concealing your emotions.

“You don’t need to give me an answer now,” James murmurs, leaning back against the booth; his voice has dipped into a lower octave, and the sound of it sends vibrations up your spine. “All I’m asking is that you consider it.”

You’re silent as you turn his words over in your mind, your heart thrumming beneath your chest.

“We don’t even know each other,” you whisper.

“I know,” he replies, “but I’d like to know you. This is a way for me to do that.”

You bite your lip. “If you’re saying all of this because of my mom, or — or ‘cause you feel bad—“

“No,” he says calmly, hand resting on the table near yours. “This isn’t because I feel bad.”

“Then why?” you ask.

“Because you’re beautiful, and I enjoy the sides of you that you’ve shown me tonight. And selfishly, I’d like to be your friend that makes things easier for you.”

Your gut swoops low. He called you beautiful. But there was an innocence behind it, like he was stating a fact rather than making a move. This settles over you like a warm blanket after a long day.

James watches you for another moment before reaching into his suit jacket and pulling out a card. He offers it to you.

“Take some time. Think it over. If you have questions, call me. If you never want to hear from me again, say the word and I’ll leave you alone. But if you’re interested in what this could be, let me know.”

You take the card without a word, absentmindedly pocketing it while you get to your feet. Your body has overridden your brain, moving you through the motions. James rises after you, and his frame towers over yours as you finally stand next to him. His bright eyes scan your face, assessing every detail. You swallow hard, his eyes track that as well.

“I hope to hear from you soon,” he murmurs, dipping his head down to your eye level. You nod breathlessly.

With a pointed look, he nudges the receipt book closer to you, where it had been abandoned on the table after he asked for another drink.

“It’s—it’s on me,” you say weakly. He raises his eyebrows, hands shoved into his pockets; you wave vaguely in front of you. “Don’t worry about it.”

“Thank you,” James says politely, and with a small dip of his chin, he turns away for the door. You watch as he crosses the room at a relaxed pace, dark hair bouncing gracefully, suit swishing perfectly. He doesn’t look back as the door is opened for him like a king and he exits the room.

You let out a breath you didn’t know you were holding. Holy shit.

Later that evening, when you stumble home with ruptured blisters, smelling of stale sweat and cleaning products, you collapse onto your couch and pull out the card.

James B. Barnes, Chairman of the Board

Barnes Group, Inc.

The last name should have given it away, but to be fair, you were blindsided by the smooth talking and how good he looked. Barnes Group, Inc. is a quiet but major asset management firm that dominates the Financial District. They hold their weight against the big ones despite being around for less than twenty years. They’re well-respected and popular, from what you’ve heard around The Alpine. Your instincts proved correct once again — he really does have real money.

Your mind whirls. How cliche is it for one of the wealthiest men in the city to offer an arrangement like this to a younger woman? Very — there’s no beating around that bush.

But the way he framed it had broken through your initial judgment, hitting you in a place that was dark and dusty and unused for ages. Friendship.

You couldn’t remember the last time you spoke to someone you could call a friend. All of them had slowly disappeared after you buried your mother, and for valid reasons; you made it impossible to keep in touch, dodging phone calls and ignoring texts like it was your job. But you’re still human — even if you push everyone away, that doesn’t mean you’re immune to loneliness. And with hardly any family left, that doesn’t leave you with many options for human companionship.

His words had shined a spotlight on that gaping hole in your life, intentional or not. Maybe he could see that on top of flirting with poverty, you’re lonely.

Maybe he’s lonely, too.

You rub your eyes viscously with your knuckles, willing the day to seep from your bones. Your cat, Lucky, hops onto the couch and curls up beside you.

You can’t believe it, but you think you need to consider this. While several true crime documentaries could show you the downfall of trusting the wrong person, you can’t help but take James’ words as they are. Perhaps that ity, bity, tiny sliver of hope you allow to live on inside you has taken charge of your decision making. It would explain your sudden deviation from enormous dislike for the rich.

You sigh, stroking Lucky’s back. “If this is real, I’d be an idiot not to,” you say to him, like you have no other choice. Lucky yawns his affirmation.

So you think on it. A lot. A lot a lot. Pretty much every minute of the next three days, you’re thinking about James. His words replay over and over in your head until it’s an automatic loop of noise.

I’d like to be your friend.

It’s distracting, thinking about him and his offer. Which means you’re distracted at work, you’re distracted on the subway, you’re distracted folding laundry. You even answer a debt collector by accident because your mind is in two places. You’ll never do that again.

…He could make sure you never do that again.

It comes to a head when you’re taking your break during your shift. The August night is hot and humid, the sky bragging of potential thunderstorms. The cigarette in your hand shakes as you inhale greedily.

The same two things circle your brain: how long would you let this go on for? And what would your mom think?

Both questions hold great weight, yet both are unanswerable to you — at least for now. Just when you start going down that road, your brain screeches to a halt in some sort of self-preservation tactic, distracting you by throwing mental memories of James’ soft smile, his quiet empathy, or — even worse — his chest hair.

It makes it a lot easier to pull out your phone than you think. The card is slightly crumpled from taking it out and holding it so often, but the numbers read clearly as you punch them in.

He’s offering you a way out of this mess you call your life. Just because he wants to. And all he asks is for you to smile and thank him for it over dinner every now and then. Either he’s dealing with a lot of guilt over having money, or he truly wants to see your life get easier because of him. Maybe it’s both. Either way, it’ll change your life.

For the better. Right?

The line rings three times before he answers. “James Barnes.”

“James,” you croak, exhaling a cloud of smoke. “It’s me. From The Alpine. Hi.”

Something shifts in the background, like he’s sitting up straighter or moving something around. It sounds like sheets against skin. “Hi,” he says back, neutral. You glance at the time on your phone.

“Shit,” you mutter, “I’m sorry. I didn’t even think about how late it is. I can call you back—?”

“No,” he cuts in. “Now’s fine. How are you?”

You chew on your lip. “I’m good. Busy, but…I’ve been— uh, I’ve been thinking.”

“Oh, yeah?” he murmurs, soft and loose like it’s a knee-jerk response. Your gut swoops low.

“About what you said,” you choke out. “About being…friends. I…I have some questions.”

“I have some answers.”

“I was wondering if we could meet. Soon. So I can ask you the questions. And learn a little more about…what this will be like.”

There’s a pause on the other end, not even a rustle of fabric or a brush of his breathing against the receiver to be heard. Then he clears his throat.

“How about tomorrow night? 8 o’clock at Pepper’s.”

“Yeah— uh, yes. That works,” you breathe. There’s a moment of silence where all you can hear is the pounding of your own heart.

“Would it be presumptive of me to bring a few documents? Unless you’d like to have a lawyer look over them—”

Your mouth goes dry. “No. That’s okay,” you say. “You can bring them.”

He makes a soft noise, something pleased. “I’m glad you called,” he says, voice low and warm. “I was starting to think I wouldn’t hear from you.”

The hand holding your cellphone spasms. “I’m sorry,” you whisper.

He shushes you quietly. “It’s okay. I’m glad you took your time. You seem like the type of person who wants to know exactly what she gets herself into. I admire that.”

You hum, because words are elusive as ever right now.

“Are you working?” he asks.

“Yes.”

“It’s almost midnight. Isn’t The Alpine closed by now?”

“Yeah, well…side work’s a bitch. I’ll probably be here until one.”

He grunts. “Let me send a car to get you home.”

“James, I—“

“Please. It’ll let me sleep tonight. Worrying about you walking around New York at one in the morning in the rain will do the opposite.”

Your foot taps restlessly. “Okay,” you breathe.

“Okay, doll.”

A flush runs through your body, from the crown of your head to the tip fo your toes. It leaves behind a wave of tingles that tickle your skin.

“Yeah, uh. I’ll let you— uh, I’ll let you get back to it then. I’ll see you tomorrow, James.”

“Tomorrow,” he vows. And the line goes dead.

You adjust the straps of your dress again, pulling them further back on your shoulders so that they frame your chest just right. It’s your favorite dress — or, more accurately, your only dress — and your one item of clothing that’s acceptable enough for the five star restaurant you’re meeting James at.

He’s sending another car — he texted you this time, brokering no argument over it, just a time and the driver’s name. You’d be put off if the ride last night hadn’t cut your usual hour-long hike home down to ten minutes and saved you from a torrential downpour. Private cars have their benefits, apparently.

The driver, Bob, picks you up at half past seven. He weaves in and out of traffic flawlessly, leaving you with very little time to fix your makeup and call on every shred of courage you have.

When he pulls up to the curb, he hops out of the car and opens the door for you, helping you to balance on your heels that don’t entirely cover the bandaids on the back of your ankles. You thank him for the ride as he ushers you into the restaurant.

James waits at the table tucked into a secluded corner at the back of the room, hair parted perfectly, scruff a little longer than before, and dressed in a suit of midnight black. His shirt is a shade lighter, the top three buttons undone and exposing even more chest hair than the last time. You take a deep breath as you approach.

He stands immediately when he spots you, eyes appraising you gently, like his favorite person in the world just showed up.

“Hello,” he says, coming around to hold out your chair for you.

“Hi,” you mumble, blushing as you sit. He holds eye contact as he resettles into his own seat, a small smile on his face.

“You look breathtaking,” he admits, a twinge in his voice that could pass for pained, like the way you look is so devastatingly beautiful, it hurts.

“Thank you. You look very nice, too.”

His smile grows. “I’m glad you could meet me tonight. I have to say I’ve been a bit restless since our talk last night.”

“Oh?” is your dumb response. Your pulse flutters as his smile grows crooked.

“I guess you could say I’m eager to hear your questions.”

“Oh, um…yes. I have a few…”

He gestures to the table. “Do your worst.”

You were prepared for this, but it still makes you feel light-headed as you pull out the small slip of paper from your purse. He watches you carefully as you unfold it, pieces of the ripped edges fluttering to the floor. Maybe you were expecting a bit of small talk, but what’s there to talk about when you hardly know each other? You can appreciate cutting to the chase, even if it makes your mouth dry.

“First, I…I just want to say thank you,” you begin quietly, shyly meeting his gaze. “For listening to me. And for not making it a big deal. It was the first time I’ve told that story that I didn’t feel like a tragedy after, and you made me feel that way.”

His shoulders seem to relax a little, his expression gentle. “You’re welcome.”

“That being said,” you continue shakily, unable to meet his eyes any longer. “I’m wondering what kind of help you want to give, and if there are things I can say no to.”

He nods, his face becoming serious. “Of course. I want to help, not intrude. If there are things you don’t want me to touch, then I won’t. You get the say in that.”

“So, if I say I don’t want any help with my student loans…”

“Then that’s that. I won’t push you about it either.”

You nod, fingering the edge of the paper nervously. The silence stretches.

“Would it be useful to give you a summary of what I will and won’t help with?” he asks, leaning back in his seat. You nod again, motioning for him to continue. He settles into his seat, clearing his throat. “To start, I won’t help with the circumstances of friends or relatives, unless they’re direct dependents of yours, which it doesn’t sound like you have anyway. This arrangement is for us, so it stays between us. And I won’t help with any legal troubles either. If you end up in jail, I won’t pay for bail, I won’t pay fines, and I won’t pay for legal counsel. If you’re charged with anything, this arrangement is void.”

His voice is level, almost monotonous, like he’s said this a few times. You gulp.

“But I will pay for everything else, if you’ll let me,” he remarks, growing softer. “You’ll get my card for the day-to-day things. Groceries, coffee, transit, take out. Anything you do when you’re not at work. I also want to pay for the things you couldn’t do before. Expect appointments booked for the spa, massages, hair, nails — whatever you decide. My assistant will help with that.”

“Okay,” you breathe, feeling just a little dizzy. God, when was the last time you got your nails done?

“I’ll also pay for your rent. Or, if you want to move, I’ll buy you a new place. Apartment. Condo. Brownstone. Up to you. I want you feeling comfortable and safe when you’re not with me.”

Your mouth falls open to protest. Buy a brownstone? For you? The girl he just met? You crumples the paper in a reflex reaction, but he holds up a hand before you can speak.

“You don’t have to, I’m just giving you the option. Remember, you’ll never have to go out of your comfort zone with me.”

He scans your face — you’re sure you’re a shade paler than before.

“Where do you live now?” he asks gently.

“Queens.” He smiles.

“Then I’d at least argue for you to use my driver.”

“Makes sense,” you murmur distractedly.

The server comes over then, placing a whiskey in front of James and asking what you’d like to drink. You order a white wine, cringing when he asks if you have a preferred bottle, but James answers for you, naming a brand you’ve never heard of, his eyes on you the entire time. The waiter returns a minute later with your glass, and you take a greedy sip as soon as it hits the table.

“I also like to give gifts,” James says, picking up where he left off. “That could mean jewelry, bags, cars, vacations—“ you choke on your wine, he politely ignores it. “Whatever I’m feeling that day.”

“Oh, is that all?” you say weakly. He chuckles, genuine and soft.

“It may change, depending on what I think you’d like. And what you tell me you like.”

“I’m picky,” you attempt to joke.

“I like a challenge.”

The air shifts subtly, you’d miss it if you weren’t paying attention. He crosses his legs effortlessly at the knee, looking every bit composed while you’re pinching yourself to keep from hyperventilating.

“Ideally, you’d quit your job,” he begins slowly. “Not for me, but because you won’t need to work anymore. You don’t have to if you don’t want to, but you’re in school, and it’s clear you love it. I want you to be comfortable enough to focus on that. Put your time into studying. Not dealing with men like Walker.”

You huff a soft laugh because you aren’t sure what else to say. Quitting your job hadn’t even crossed your mind through all of this, but now that the seed’s been planted, it takes root quickly, despite the voice in your head telling you not to let it.

James must be a mind reader, because he leans forward, making sure you meet his eyes.

“I’d like to spoil you, because I think you deserve it. Not because of what’s happened to you, but because of what you’ve done since it happened,” he says, voice pulling you in with the husky lilt to it. “I think you’ve earned the right to feel taken care of. It can be on your terms, of course, but trust me when I say there’s almost nothing I wouldn’t help with. Including the medical bills and the debt. Including the loans. But I will respect whatever you wish to keep separate from this.”

For a moment, you’re not sure what to say, but you end up on, “Thank you, James. I…I’ll think about it.”

He nods, businesslike. ”What other questions do you have?”

You blink, looking down at your list. “Well, you answered a couple of them, actually…um, I guess my next question is—“ You feel the heat rise to your cheeks. “When you say friendship, what does that…include, exactly?”

He leans back in his seat, taking a slow sip of his drink.

“I meant what I said about being friends,” he offers, “and I meant it in the traditional sense. This isn’t a “friends with benefits” situation. Holding hands, a light hug, or sitting close together are all reasonable to me. But touch isn’t required by you — you’re welcome to do whatever you’re comfortable with, and I won’t withhold anything from you if you aren’t comfortable with it. And I won’t touch you if you don’t want me to, but I will say I’m hoping to earn that right eventually.”

Something loosens in your chest, an unnamed tension releasing.

“I understand,” you say slowly. “I think those are reasonable, too.” His eyes flicker across your face for a moment. “I appreciate you clarifying that for me. It was on my mind a lot over the last few days.”

“That’s why we’re here,” he answers calmly. “Any more questions?”

“Yes, um. How does this…start?”

The smile returns to James’ face, sweet and relaxed. He waves two fingers in the air, and a server comes hurrying over with an official-looking envelope, setting it before him. James pulls out a small stack of documents and finds a pen in his suit jacket.

“It starts with a couple signatures. These are NDAs stating you won’t talk or publish anything about our time together, and the same goes for me. I’m held to the same principles you are. If I say a word about us to anyone without your permission, you have every right to sue me for all I’m worth. I hope it tells you how serious I am about this.”

It actually says a hell of a lot more than just how serious it is, but he’s already shuffling the papers aside, picking up the one on the bottom.

“This is an agreement on what I’m allowed to pay for. Like the rent — I’ll need to know where to pay to. There’s also a place for your bank account information, in the case of moving large sums of money. I’d like it wired safely and securely.”

You must show signs of panic, because he quickly tucks it away and says, “You don’t have to decide on anything today. You can add whatever you want to this as time goes on.”

Your breathing evens. He taps the pen against the stack of NDAs.

“Anything else?” he asks quietly. Your pinching grows stronger.

“Are you…friends…with anyone else right now? Or is it just me?”

His lips quirk like he was expecting this question. He leans forward, elbows on the table, and holds your gaze steadily.

“Just you. And I can promise that I won’t need any other friends as long as I have you.”

Oh.

“But you’ve…had other friends before. In the past.”

His eyes go blank for a moment. “Yes, I’ve had other friends before. A few.”

“They’re not still your friends, though?” you ask.

“No,” he answers. “There came a point when it was time for them to explore other…friendships. Start different lives. It always ended amicably.”

You hesitate. “So, if one day I decide I want to…stop being friends, that would be okay with you?”

“Of course. I’m here as long as you’ll have me. Or until we both decide it’s time.”

“Okay,” you whisper, meeting his gaze. There’s a roaring sound in your ears, like the ocean on a stormy night, but your hands are surprisingly steady as you reach out your hand toward him. “Okay. Can I borrow your pen?”

James smiles, the biggest smile you’ve seen from him yet. He offers you the pen and the first document, pointing out where to sign and initial. You do so quickly, conscious of your climbing blood pressure, but the adrenaline leaves a sweet aftertaste as you write your name with a flourish. Or maybe it’s him, beaming at you while you sign up for this new chapter of life with him.

Once the documents are signed, he proposes a toast. “To friendships,” he says. You clink your glass to his. “And, by the way, call me Bucky.”

“Bucky?” you ask, eyebrows raised.

“It’s what my friends call me.”

It starts immediately.

The next morning, you’re greeted with a jungle of flowers waiting outside your apartment door. Flowers of all shapes and colors, some tropical, some simple, and all of them make you smile. You’re placing the last of them on the counter when there’s a knock on your door — a dozen freshly-made croissants from the Parisian cafe in Midtown. Impossible to get into, impossible to order out from, yet here’s a box full of their best-selling pastries, still warm from the oven. You indulge in one too many, but it’s worth it.

Throughout the day, Bucky texts you. It’s something he mentioned off-handedly, probably meant to give you a choice, but he likes to talk during the day. A lot. He likes check ins, he likes updates; he wants to hear about anything and everything.

At first, it’s odd having someone to talk to so consistently again — the last person you spoke to like this was your mom.

But Bucky keeps it unforced, easing the conversation along with the right questions and dry comments that actually have you smiling at your phone. When you get to work that night, he wishes you a good shift. No mention of you quitting. You appreciate this so much that you have half a mind to quit anyway.

Not today, you tell yourself. You need to wait to see if Bucky actually puts his money where his mouth is first.

It isn’t long before he does.

Less than a week after you signed the papers, he asks you to join him for dinner on your night off. He makes the reservation early because he knows you have an exam in two days that you’re stressed over, leaving you with the rest of the evening to study. You’re grateful for his mindfulness, but equally grateful for the distraction he’s providing. He’s waiting outside the restaurant when Bob pulls up, offering his hand to help you out of the car.

“You look beautiful,” he states plainly, like only an idiot would argue with him. Your answering smile is wide and uninhibited.

Inside, the two of you are seated at a booth mostly concealed from the other diners. He sits beside you, much like he did that first night, close but with enough space for you to breathe easily. He asks you about your day, he encourages you to try something strange on the menu, he compliments you again and again and again.

Your whole body is flushed from the wine and his attention by the time the desert arrives. You’re licking chocolate syrup off the spoon, regaling a work story involving your meathead manager and another server.

“He just chooses to ignore anything that makes us seem human to him. No emotions allowed. No personal problems allowed. You show up for your shift, you do your job, and that’s it. Leave your life at the door, God help you if you don’t.”

You sigh, your spoon clattering loudly onto the plate. Bucky fidgets with his own spoon, eyes on the corner of your mouth. He shakes his head a little, like he thought better of something, then points to the corner of his own mouth, smiling. You blush, taking the hint, and wipe a dab of chocolate away from your skin. Bucky’s still smiling as he takes another sip of his drink.

“Might be because he lacks his own personal life,” he muses. “People are always going to project what hurts them.”

You consider this. “Now that you say it, I don’t think I’ve ever seen him take a day off.”

“That can do some fucked up things to a person.”

“Tell me about it,” you whine. “I haven’t taken a day off in months.”

His eyes slide lazily to you, glass held loosely in his hand. He smiles wryly, and you understand what he means before he says a word.

“I know, I know. I just…” You take a breath. “I need to know this is real first. Before I start cutting ties.”

He’s quiet for a moment. “Tomorrow’s the first of the month,” he says. “Have you thought more about allowing me to help with your rent?”

Your breath hitches.

“Yes,” you whisper. He hums, eyes sparkling with something bright and ambiguous.

“And what have you decided?”

“I think…it would be a show of good faith…if you helped me out.”

“Good faith,” he laughs. “Sweetheart, I’ll buy you the moon if it means you’ll believe me when I say I’ll take care of you.”

The next morning, you get the email at 9 a.m. — your rent has been paid, utilities as well. Your stomach had been in knots when you wrote down the information for him, but seeing the confirmation makes you feel like you’re floating.

It only takes you another week until you’re calling your manager and quitting. To celebrate, Bucky rents out the Met for the night, and you explore and observe and admire to your heart’s content as he stands quietly and steadily by your side. He knows an impressive amount about art, surprisingly, but then he starts making things up when a specific piece stumps him, and the rest of the unguided tour is spent inventing made-up artists and their tragic backstories. By the end of the night, you can’t resist anymore. You quickly lean in and wrap your arms around his waist.

It’s clear he’s shocked, that you’ve caught him off guard. But he recovers quickly, mirroring your grip and resting his cheek on top of your head. It’s strange, it’s new, but it’s…comforting.

Quitting your job means a lot more free time, but Bucky is adamant about you dedicating much of that time for school. So to keep a balance between time spent studying and time spent with him, Bucky proposes you come by his office between classes. Sometimes for lunch, sometimes to take a break, sometimes to set up camp on his leather couch, nose to your laptop screen as you research data sets and monitor the market while he quietly works at his desk.

It’s calming and oddly motivating — he’s the perfect person to work next to.

When you’re not studying, Bucky’s supplying you with appointments that fill up your calendar. You have a new contact saved in your phone — Inga, Bucky’s very Dutch, very cheerful assistant — because she calls you at least twice a day, arranging your schedule and finding time you didn’t know existed to fill.

A certain Thursday brings a yoga class from 7:45 to 9, then a massage from 10 to 11:30. After that is lunch with Bucky at his office (take out sushi from a place you’ve only ever dreamed of going to), followed up by a nail appointment from 2 to 3 and a virtual meeting from 3:30 to 4:30 with your old therapist that you had to abandon when money got tight.

Once you get past the catch up, your therapist says you seem a lot better than you were the last time you saw her. Crazy concept, to agree with a therapist, but you actually do.

You’re about a month into the arrangement when Bucky clears his throat at dinner, making you pause while twirling your pasta on your fork. You’ve slowly graduated to sitting closer, and his arm rests on the back of the booth behind you, its presence warm and obvious around your shoulders. You look up at him, waiting.

“I’ve got this thing tomorrow night,” he begins, voice a little on the gruff side. You’re shocked to realize he’s being shy, and poorly hiding it. “It’s a gala. The black tie kind. It’s for charity — Children’s, I think. If you’re up for it, I was wondering if you’d like to come with me.”

You smile slowly. “I’d love to. Just need something to wear.”

A stack of hundred dollar bills is on the table in seconds. Inga accompanies you the following morning to ten different stores, all designer, all with prices that make you feel faint, but she is quick to shoo you away from the price tags and push you to try on the dresses that make you sigh dreamily. Maybe that’s the reason Bucky wanted her with you.

You pick something bold, something you’d never see yourself in unless you had it on your body. It fits like a glove and reminds you that you’re a woman, not just a cog in the wheel of the working class. You only panic a little when you hand over the entire wad of cash Bucky gave you.

After that, you’re dropped off at the salon, where a facial and a blowout get you glowing like the sun. Bob picks you up and brings you to your apartment where your dress is waiting for you, courtesy of Inga. At 9 o’clock, Bucky’s waiting for you outside. The late September breeze ruffles his hair and swishes your dress as you come face-to-face.

He takes in every inch of you, from your painted toe nails to your shiny hair, and he sighs.

“You look…unbelievable.”

Later, when you’re buried deep into a crowd of people you don’t know, Bucky’s anchoring you to him with a hand on the small of your back, thumb brushing the skin there. He leans in, nose nudging your temple, and whispers, “I’m very lucky to have you here with me.”

Just like that, something inside of you breaks. Not in a sad way, but in a revolutionary way. Like a floodgate’s been cracked open, and what’s been locked inside is beginning to trickle out.

When he pulls back, your eyes linger on him. He flashes a movie star smile for the people that approach, but when he meets your gaze again, he gives you his crooked grin. Meant only for you. His warm hand pulls you closer into his side.

And that’s when it begins, right there at that gala. Your appreciation for Bucky has opened up into something larger, still undefinable, but growing in magnitude.

You find yourself sweating under the lights of the ballroom, not from the heat, but from the unknown shift. It shapes itself a little more when Bucky runs into a colleague and introduces you as his friend. He’s been doing it all night, but this time, it doesn’t feel right. It feels…off. Generalized. Misplaced.

Not that you’d ever tell him. Bucky was clear about your arrangement being a friendship — to question what he calls you would be to question where you stand, and you don’t want to make it seem like you can’t hold up your end of the bargain as his friend.

So you smile through it, focusing on the feel of his hand on your skin, and push it down. For now.

You’re a couple months into the arrangement when Bucky opens his home to you. It’s a penthouse suite hundreds of feet in the sky, offering breathtaking views of the city sprawled below. The apartment is big and modern, with plenty of low lighting and soft colors. You find out right away that he’s messy, which you think is more endearing than it is a nuisance, even if that means throwing sweatshirts and belts and books off the couch just to find a place to sit.

He apologizes constantly, but it never gets better each time you come over. You don’t mind.

With classes gearing up for finals, your time is more limited than before, leaving you with just a few windows of opportunity a week to be with each other. Most of these fall late at night, past 10 p.m., or early in the morning before he leaves for work.

So you start staying over.

It happens accidentally the first time. He picks you up and takes you back to his place for Chinese take out and binge watching trashy reality TV (of which he is a secret super fan), but you end up passing out minutes after he turns the show on.

The next morning, you wake in a soft bed, surrounded by oversized pillows and silk sheets. Bleary eyed, you stumble into the kitchen to find him dressed for work, sipping a coffee at the kitchen island and scrolling on his phone. He sets both of them down when he sees you, standing as you shuffle over.

“Morning,” he says, stretching out a hand to catch your sweatshirt clad waist.

This is par for the course these days — soft, grounding touches that don’t linger for too long, cuddles on the couch that don’t get too pretzel-like, barely-there kisses against the forehead when you say something that makes him smile a little too hard. All friendly, all innocent.

“Did I — did I crash?” you ask, suppressing a yawn. He chuckles, offering you his coffee.

“Didn’t even make it to the elimination. Steve R. went home.”

“Fuck, I liked him.”

“Me too.”

You look up at him, suddenly shy. “I’m sorry. Thanks for carrying me to bed.”

“Only threw out my back for it. No worries.”

You slap away his hand on your waist, but it’s teasing, playful. He withdraws, taking a seat again so you’re eye level with him. A look takes over his face, something caught between serious and hopeful.

“You know, that room can be yours, if you’d like.”

You pause mid sip of coffee. “What?”

“The room. It’s yours. For when you want to crash. Or just don’t want to go home.”

“Really.” It’s not a question.

“Really,” he repeats. “Don’t ever feel like you have to stay, I’ll take you home any time of night. But if you do want to stay, it’s there for you.”

“That’s…really sweet of you.”

He smiles a little. “Not too much?” You shake your head. “Good. ‘Cause I like knowing you’re close. Think I slept better. And I like waking up with you here.”

The feeling from the gala returns with renewed force. It almost drowns you, leaving you reeling in its tidal wave of emotion. It defines itself a little more as you picture sharing mornings with him, pouring travel mugs of coffee and shoving pieces of toast in his mouth as he races out the door.

But he’s watching you closely, expecting an answer, so you beat the feelings down until you’re numb. Sending him a smile over the mug, you say, “Okay.”

And that’s that.

The first time you sleep over intentionally, Bucky’s not in a great mood. Which is a rare occasion in and of itself. You know he’s only human, but you’ve barely seen him annoyed, let alone upset.

He makes an effort to hide it from you, greeting you with a soft kiss to the top of your head when you step out of the private elevator that opens to his floor. He all but forces you to relax on the couch while he cooks dinner, so you do, cracking open your textbook and stretching out lazily while he cooks. But even from the living room, you can feel the negative energy radiating from him.

He throws pans into the sink with a little too much force. He answers a call with a sharp bark of “what now?” He mutters to himself like a cranky old man.

His face is drawn and stony when he hands you a plate and joins you on the couch — pasta with red sauce, simple, and a family recipe, he claims. But the way he eats it, you’d think he hates it.

“Bucky,” you say after watching him stab his food with homicidal intent. He grunts. “Bucky,” you try again.

“What?” he snaps, sneering. Immediately, his eyes go round with guilt before you even have the chance to react. “Oh, God — I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean—“ He pinches the bridge of his nose, breathing deeply; when he opens his eyes again, his expression is calmer, more open. “Jesus. You didn’t deserve that. Forgive me.”

“Always,” you say like it’s second nature. “What’s going on?”

He sighs, setting down his plate. “Work,” he mutters, “is killing me. Someone fucked up a deal with a really, really important client. They aren’t happy, so I had to step in to clean up the mess. But now they’re playing hard to get, so all day I had to suck their dicks and call them pretty just to get a reply.”

You giggle. He tilts his head at you.

“You think that’s funny?”

“A little. But I can’t imagine anyone not getting on their knees for you immediately.”

Something flashes in Bucky’s eyes, something darker that doesn’t fit the conversation topic. It’s quick, brief, but you see it. He smiles before you can think twice about it.

“Not these guys. They like to test me. And I don’t like being tested.”

“I can tell,” you comment. “Want me to help?”

He side-eyes you. “How?”

“You can take all your anger out by…rubbing my feet?” Your smile is saccharine as you slide your legs into his lap. He laughs, one loud sound, but takes your left foot in his hands anyway.

“How sweet of you,” he coos. “How’d you know this is exactly what I needed?”

His mood improves for the most part, although his phone buzzes a few times and sets his jaw ticking. But whether it’s to keep him sane or to keep the easy vibe of the night going, he ignores it. Reality TV is watched, cookies are eaten (he has five), and you’re feeling satisfied for having turned his night around just as you start to yawn.

He notices it immediately.

“Alright, doll. You’re tired. I’m taking you home.”

“I might stay here tonight, if that’s okay with you.”

He freezes as he reaches for his keys. Slowly, his arm lowers, and there’s a slightly dazed look in his eye.

“Sure, yeah. Whatever you want,” he breathes.

He sets you up with a tooth brush and towels, an old shirt of his and boxers. While you’re brushing your teeth, you wander over to his bathroom and find him doing the same. You stand beside him, laughing through the toothpaste as he gets his all over his mouth and chin. Unintentionally, though he’ll deny it.

He walks you to your room like he’s dropping you off at the end of date. You try not to think too much about that.

“Sleep tight,” he says softly, leaning against the doorway, smiling at the too-big shirt and boxers. You smile back, sleepy and content.

“Goodnight, Bucky.”

He’s gone before you wake up the next morning, but the note on the counter thanks you for being there with him last night. It makes your heart flutter much too fast for having just started your day.

When you get back to your own apartment, your phone alerts you to a new email. The name on it makes your stomach sink: the debt collectors. They’ve been quiet for a while since you’ve been able to offer them bigger scraps of money, so what do they want now?

Thank you for your payment. Your bills have been reconciled and your current balance is at $0.00.

The room tilts. Your breathing stops. Hundreds of thousands of dollars of medical bills, gone overnight.

Bucky.

It was only a week ago that you had shyly asked to amend the document on what he could help pay for. You weren’t even sure that he looked at it yet.

Well, now you know he has. And in one fell swoop, he banned the debt collectors from ever bothering you again. Your mind can hardly wrap around it, can hardly wrap around Bucky, and his generosity, and his promises, and his follow through. All of it is a murky, muddy emotional mess inside of you. For the first time in months, you break down and cry.

Later that night, when the tears have finally dried and you’re sitting next to him at your favorite little Italian spot, you place a hand over his and just squeeze. You meant to say words, but they’ve disappeared on you.

But Bucky doesn’t need the words. He knows everything that you’re saying with the simple touch. He squeezes back, smile soft, posture relaxed as he nudges your shoulder with his.

The floodgate inside of you swings open wider.

sammy speaks again: wowowowowow ok that’s a wrap on part one. part two coming almost immediately! I tried to fit it all into one but tumblr doesn’t like 30k word posts I guess :/ don’t forget to let me know what you think, I appreciate all of you for making it this far 🤍

see ya at the next part!

[drmariecurie]

[johnpricescumrag]

You screamed. Ghost had shifted. He was supposed to be chained in a locked room somewhere - not be with you!

The only thing you could do is run and pray that Ghost wouldn't be able to find you. You knew deep down that he would find you.

You ran and ran. Your lungs burned, and your legs ached. He was still behind you. He was gaining on you, you could tell.

You stopped for a fucking millisecond, just to try and catch your breath, and Ghost was on you. His massive, monstrous werewolf form tackled you to the ground.

You could barely even scream with how hard you hit the ground.

In seconds, Ghost's claws left your clothes in tatters on the ground. Shameful as it was, your cunt was sopping. You'd always been curious about Ghost in his other form. You just didn't want to find out like this.

Ghost used one massive paw to push your head into the dirt, and the other pulled your hips up so that he could mount you properly. You clawed helplessly at the ground, crying pleas to be let go.

Ghost ignored you.

Ghost's massive, throbbing cock prodded against your slit. Your whines and sobs went ignored. You let out a weak, breathless squeak when Ghost pressed the head of his cock into you.

"Too big!" You wheeze, desperately trying to wriggle away.

Ghost huffs, draping himself over your back to nose at your neck. You feel one of his claws gently rubbing your clit.

The soft touches on your clit help you relax some. Ghost is able to push more of his cock into you. When you don't fight him, Ghost makes a pleased chuffing sound, licking your neck affectionately.

Ghost slowly pulls back, but your cunt grips at his cock like a vice. Ghost groans, deep and feral, at the sensation.

He slams back into you, harder and deeper than before. The thick tip of his cock hit your cervix, punching a hoarse scream from your throat. Ghost growls, the brief gentleness he had shown you gone.

His paws move to tightly grip both of your hips, tugging you back to meet his every thrust. Ghost's fucking into you like a ragdoll. Your hand creeps down to your clit, rubbing quick, desperate circles.

When you clamp down around him, screaming and so, so, so fucking wet, Ghost yowls like an injured beast, pulling you down all the way on to his cock.

The whole way down.

Past his knot.

The wide stretch makes stars appear in your vision. You scream without making a sound. Ghost huffs and growls into your neck, pumping his cum deep inside you.

It feels like hours before Ghost's knot is deflated enough to pull out. But, instead of pulling out, Ghost starts a slow, deep grind. The fucking beast is going again.

[yournamesnob]

toys could never

perv!rabbot x naive!roommate!reader (prev ⋆ masterlist ⋆ next) | nsfw, mdni, 18+ (masturbation, toys, dacryphilia, oral [f receiving], fingering, overstimulation, coercion, corruption kink)

The first thing they hear as they enter the condo is whining.

Loud, angry, desperate.

The two men share a quick glance with each other.

Oh?

They quickly dropping off their bags in the living room and practically stalk towards the bedroom at the end of the hall.

The door is shamelessly open. The light inside the room spilling into the rest of the place in a daring fashion, calling to them like the end of a tunnel.

They stop at the threshold, utterly entranced by what they have just walked into.

You're spread on the bed, Jack's camo shirt he left a few weeks ago adorning your body as a pair of Robby's favorite boxers hang loose just midway down your thighs.

Squished between your legs, a cute little pink vibrator humming deliciously right against your clit.

Your brow is scrunched in deep concentration, sweat starting to drip down your face to meet the already free flowing tears of frustration that have streaked.

Another whine escapes your lips, broken and raw, and Robby's cock twitches instantly inside his pants.

Jack can't help taking a step forward, unceremoniously tripping on your discarded work clothes.

He curses loudly, thankfully not making a further fool of himself, but alerting you to their presence.

You gasp, fingers fumbling with the power button as you rush to cover yourself up, throwing the blanket over your legs haphazardly.

Robby steps forward then, damage control the only thing in his mind.

"It's okay, honey," he coos, soft and deep voice he knows will melt right through you. "What's wrong?"

You stare at him for a long second, tears free flowing without your consent but you simply can't help it.

"'s not working," you sob, wrecked and frustrated. "I can't—"

Robby shushes you gently, physically having to stop himself from pouncing, from rushing to your side and taking care of it for you.

No, they need to be strategic here.

"That's okay, honey," he continues, watching you become putty in real time. "Sometimes that happens," he turns to Jack. "That's why we're here, y'know?"

Jack nods fervently. "Yeah, kid," oh that definitely gets a reaction out of you. "Let us help you out, how's that sound?"

Your eyes go wide with need and apprehension, like you're afraid you're asking them for too much.

But they smile at you and it instantly disappears to the back of your mind as you bite down on your lip, nodding shyly.

Jack is the first to move, stripping out of his shirt, pants and boxers all in one go, reveling in your reaction, borderline salivating as your eyes track his every move.

He goes to sit on the edge of the bed and removes his prosthetic before twisting around towards you.

"Nice shirt," he teases and your cheeks instantly heat up. "Let's take it off, kid, get you comfortable."

You don't even get to nod as his hands slide underneath the covers and find the hem of the long sleeve, pulling it up and off your body to reveal your already perky nipples.

Jack latches his mouth on your nipple, tongue lapping greedily, teeth nibbling and tugging, forcing a choir of moans to leave your lips.

Behind him, Robby finally manages to will himself into action, discarding all his clothes as well and pulling the cover to the side.

Your thighs press together, seeking friction as Jack teases your breasts.

Robby can't help but smirk devilishly at the wet patch he finds on his boxers. You must've been at this a while. Such a shame that shitty vibrator he got you didn't work out. Who would've ever thought, right?

He tugs the fabric down your body completely, tossing it to the side for later and finally reveling at the sight of your bare skin.

His hands grab a hold of your thighs, prying them open as he settles down between them.

Ever since Jack got to eat you out, even if just for less than a second, he's been ravenous, starving.

Jack detaches himself from your nipple, saliva stringing the two of you together and the sight causes Robby to snap.

He dives in, pulling your legs further apart so that your pussy opens up for him beautifully.

His nose rubs against your clit, a surge of electricity has you to surging right into his mouth. His tongue laps up every drop that has leaked from your entrance, greedily exploring every fold, every crevice.

"He's good with his tongue, isn't he?" Jack smirks against your ear and you shiver, causing him to chuckle in response.

Your hands thread into Robby's short hair but you don't dare tug, not until Jack slides into bed behind you, pulling you up against his chest, his own legs bracketing you, holding you down for Robby.

"I got her, brother," he tells the chief as his grip falters.

You can't help but stare at Robby, magnetically locked onto the blissful expression on his face.

His teeth nip at your clit, pulling just slightly and your own grip on his hair tugs.

He groans against your folds in response and you let go instantly, afraid you hurt him.

"You're good, kid," Jack soothes, his hand coming up to entwine with yours, pulling on Robby's short locks shamelessly.

The man moans then, loudly and encouragingly, the vibrations delicious against your clit.

You whine in response, pulling yourself now to get the same reaction out of him, beaming with pride when he does it again.

"I think she likes that, Robby," Jack teases. "'s that why you were using that silly little toy?"

Your entire body shivers in shame as you clench around Robby's tongue.

He chuckles against your folds, motioning for Jack to pull your legs back open so he can settle down.

And then his fingers join the mix.

He runs his middle finger through your folds, detaching his mouth for a second as he gathers up slick before slowly thrusting it inside of you.

You moan in response, throwing your head back against Jack's shoulder.

"That's it, kid," he groans. "See why it's much better when we help you out instead?"

Your mouth hangs open, brain empty as Robby starts to pump his finger in and out of you.

"She's so tight," Robby mutters.

Another tear slips past your waterline as your eyes shut in unbelievable pleasure.

You clench around Robby and he groans again.

"Oh honey," he feigns sympathy, manipulation lacing every word. "'s too much for you? Want me to take it out?"

"No!" you shriek, causing them both to chuckle darkly. "Want...more," you shyly open your eyes to meet his. "Please."

Oh Robby could've come right then and there.

But he's not some teenager, and this is definitely not his first time with a pretty girl coming undone beneath him.

It is, however, such a sweet victory, and he revels in the monster that they've started creating.

"Of course, honey," he leans down and places a kiss to your clit, Jack matching his reassurance, their praise, by placing a kiss to your temple.

Without further warning, he inserts a second finger into you, his movements picking up.

"Oh my god, Robby," you whimper, hips slowly starting to rock against his movements.

Jack wastes no more time, his hand sliding down your abdomen to make contact with your clit. His fingers settle into a slow, torturous rhythm, matching Robby's as the two slowly start to drive you into a frenzy.

You try to move your hips faster, harder, but their hands stop you, pressing your body against the mattress.

You wail, frustrated once more as they keep you there, teetering on the edge of something, anything, and yet nothing at all.

"Robby," you cry. "Jackie, please—"

"What's that, honey?" Robby asks, condescending.

"Didn't catch that, kid."

You huff, shame mixing with the pleasure of their fingers against you.

"I want—"

Robby curls his fingers upward against that spongy spot inside of you that you've been trying to find for the past hour.

You scream, hips bucking as you try to seek out the friction again.

Jack chuckles against your ear, his other hand cupping your breast again as his fingers toy with your nipples.

"What do you want, kid?"

Try as you might to form words, you literally can't.

Another chuckle, degrading.

"Aw, poor kiddo, can't even think anymore Rob."

The other man matches his tone, slipping a third finger inside of you, making you hiss through the slippery pleasure coursing through your abdomen, building and building, slowly.

"That stupid toy can never give you what we can, honey," Robby keeps his fingers inside of you, curling them steadily, hitting that spot over and over and over again.

Tears flow freely now, blurring your vision.

"From now on, you want to cum, you come to us, you hear me?" Jack chastises. "Nod if you understand me, kid."

You do, like it's the only thing your body is capable of doing.

"Good girl," his lips land a kiss on your cheek before he trails them down your jaw and neck, sucking a purple mark onto the side. "Make her cum, brother."

Robby beams, curling his fingers with a precision bordering on clinical.

Your body reacts instantly, every nerve lighting up like fireworks. You can't think, can't move, can simply feel.

And then Robby's mouth returns to your clit, mixing with Jack's fingers and adding to the delicious pressure that the tightness in your belly finally snaps.

You still, thighs clenching around Robby's head as your entire body convulses, clenching around Robby's fingers greedily.

The two of them don't stop their movements, instead they just keep going, as if trying to prolong your orgasm as long as they can.

It's a minute later that it starts to get uncomfortable. Too much.

You push Robby's head away, whining against Jack again, but neither of them stop.

"Stop it, kid," Jack scolds. "You can give us one more."

Your eyes burst open, terrified ones meeting Robby's who only looks deeply satisfied with himself.

You shake your head, try to push them off you again.

They don't budge.

"C'mon," Jack palms over your clit, gentle slaps sharply eliciting another wave of electricity to creep up.

Robby switches his movements, now flapping his fingers inside of you, not even bothering to switch out his hands even as he knows his fingers are becoming pruny.

"Just one more."

The way he says it calms you down a little, enough for pleasure to override the uncomfortable overstimulation.

It's just one more.

You can do that for them. They're being so nice and helping you out after all. And now they want to help you cum again?

You relax your body, allowing for their hands to do what they need to do.

Robby detaches his mouth from your clit, allowing for Jack's fingers to pinch and pull, while his own teeth nibble at the skin on your inner thighs.

"'m close," you whimper.

The second the words leave your mouth, Robby curls his fingers, biting down on your thigh, while Jack lands a lewd slap over your clit.

The mixture of pain and pleasure is overwhelming.

Your brain short circuits, exploding like thunder and lightning all in one as your second orgasm rocks through your body.

They hold you down against their bodies as you ride out your high, greedy hands and mouths touching and kissing every inch of skin they can reach while you're still a little out of it.

"Guess we can throw this in the trash," Jack jokes as he picks up the shitty looking vibrator and tossing it over the side of the bed.

Robby chuckles, tongue lapping over the ridges of his teeth marks on your inner thigh.

"Would you believe me if I said it cost ten bucks?"

Jack laughs, shifting under you as his now painful erection rubs against your ass.

You hum, pressing back agains him.

"Welcome back, kid," Jack teases, pulling you up to sit on his lap now as Robby finally pulls his fingers out of you and shuffles to rest against the headboard next to Jack.

You watch through still hazy eyes as he holds out his fingers to Jack, who opens his mouth greedily, his own tongue cleaning up your juices from Robby's digits.

No messes in your apartment.

You break eye contact with the display beside you, cheeks practically aflame now.

That's when your eyes land down over Robby's crotch.

He's stiff, painfully so, his tip so purple your heart starts racing.

"What about you?" you ask, oh so softly, so concerned.

The two men glance at each other, matching grins before they return their sights to you...

a/n: genuine q for the freaks, do you prefer robby and jack pov narration or reader's more?

dividers by @/enchanthings

taglist of pervs <3: @stuffingbuttsandshit, @natendo-art, @barcelonaaababe, @whoreforchrisev4ns, @defijones, @baileyjaneogle, @prettygirl321, @thebirdandthebee, @trashshart, @rufles2, @montenegroisr, @autisticoscarpiastri, @antisirkbitch, @lifeofapittgirl, @scrmqwn, @fuyu-no-kodomo, @angelbunny222, @odettecigno, @navylace, @merz-8, @imnoonejustapiramide, @bunnyzizi777, @in-ky, @howlingco, @possum-pancakes, @graythegoth, @vystasea, @emat-05, @l3tholog1ca, @realwhoreforfictionalmen, @moonlitblossomsofthesun

[weepingcoquette]

Beginnings || Married!rabbot x reader

drabble/headcanons

warnings: suggestive content, miscommunication/assumptions, smut

word count: .9k

||Series Masterlist||

-Married!rabbot who move after Robby’s near suicide attempt. Jack couldn’t go through that fear again so they find a place that agrees with both of them. Find an ER that they both can still work at and Jack forces Robby into a work life balance

-They had been in the new place for about a month when Jack decided to try this yoga studio, trying to get back into his norm when he met you. 

“Hey,” you greet tentatively, a bright smile on your face. “You look lost.”

“You caught me,” he says bashfully.

“What class are you taking,” you ask, your keychain clinging against your water bottle as you make your way over to him. “I could show you where to go.”

“The restorative one? I think," he says slowly, trying to recall.

“That’s the one I take! Follow me,” you squeal, gesturing for him to follow you. “We’re a little early. What’s your name, sweety?”

“Jack,” he stutters out, completely thrown off balance by you.

You repeat his name, testing it out and tell him yours. Opening the door to your respective room before following him in. 

“I usually stick to the back,” you explain. “I don’t like being watched.”

“Well, looks like I’m in the back with you.”

You glance at him with a twinkle in your eye as you roll out your pink yoga mat, “Really! You wanna stay with me? You don’t have to if you don’t want to-”

“Nope,” Jack sighs, rolling out his black yoga mat. “You’re stuck with me. You did this to yourself.”

-Jack who finds himself smiling with you silently as the class starts. You both are respectful of the rules, not talking the entire class but the silent solidarity between the two of you is nice

-You both chat a little after the class, you learn that he is married and just recently moved here from Pittsburgh. He learns that this was only your 4th class here and that you’ve lived here for a while.

-You both trade numbers and he goes home and immediately collapses into Robby, who wraps his arms around him

“How was the class?”

“I met someone.”

-He raves about you to Robby, how you just walked right up to him. You didn’t even stare at his leg, or lack thereof. He also tells him about the restaurants you recommended to him after you learned he just moved here. 

“She even offered to show us,” Jack grinned. 

“Us?”

“Yep. We’ll be going to this one Indian spot on Thursday. You’ll love her Rob.”

-Thursday rolls around and Jack is practically buzzing with energy, Robby even begins to feel it as they walk up to the hole-in-the-wall. Jack opens the door for Robby, tapping his butt as he walks into the small restaurant. 

-From across the room, your eyes widen as Jack walks in with a man. You mentally smack yourself for assuming he was married to a woman before you leave your claimed table

“Jack,” you smile, bounding up to them. 

“Hey, kid,” he grins, opening his arms up for you to embrace him. “This is Robby, my husband.”

Before Robby can even say hi, you move to embrace him too, your smaller form wrapping around him and encasing him in your strong perfume. Jack was right, he liked you already. 

“Nice to meet you,” you smile, finally releasing him. 

-You show them over to the table, feeling equal parts bummed and excited. Bummed that they’re gay but excited for a new friendship that might be blossoming

“How’d you find this place,” Robby asks, sitting down. 

-They quickly learn how much you love to talk. From that one question they somehow learned where you work, that you’re in nursing school, that you still live with your family but hope to move out after you graduate

-Married!rabbot who begin glancing at each other as the dinner progresses, knowing looks shared when you would glance away. Their younger years flashing behind their eyes, it had been a very very long time since they had shared someone, not since before they got married

-Robby who nearly pops one when you pull out your lipgloss after you are done eating, mouth parting as he watches you glide the applicator across your lips. Jack who isn’t doing any better but pinches Robby gently, prompting him to look away

-You, who are none the wiser to the two men in front of you as you pull out a stick of pink gum. Jack nearly scoffs at how stereotypical that was. You offer them a piece, frowning when they both decline but putting it back in your bag. 

-You all end the night with a walk around the city, different things you see prompting different debates. They find themselves even more enamored with you as you smile at a kid crying or frown when you see a group of loud men. 

-You go home, grinning at the idea of having two white older male friends with correct political opinions(which you learned as you all rolled your eyes after seeing a Trump 2024 hat). You liked how off-brand that was for you.

-They go home and practically break down the door, unable to keep their hands off of each other. 

“I thought I was going to combust when she sprayed her perfume,” Jack groans as Robby takes his shirt off and pushes him against the nearest wall.

“And then she had the nerve to blow us kisses,” Robby chuckles as he latches onto Jack’s nipples, grinning as the vet arches into him

Jack’s groans fill the room. They’re soon accompanied by Robby’s whines as Jack's hands find his bulge, palming it cheekily. 

“Damn baby,” Jack smirks through his grunts. “Is that for me or for her.”

“Both of you,” Robby whines, bucking into Jack’s hand. “Fuck.”

It’s a miracle they’re able to make it to their bedroom.

[monstersflashlight]

Day 15. Monster-kinktober: Curse + Anal/Praise Kink

Naga x fem!reader || praise kink, size kink, anal sex, double penetration, hemi-peens

“Are you sure you want to?” He asked again.

“For the tenth time, yes, I want you to fuck me in the ass,” you repeated, exasperated.

“But you are so tiny…” He tried to argue, also for the tenth time. He had been really worried about double penetrating you, never wanting to hurt you because he was way bigger than you. His worry was really cute at first, but you craved to be filled to the brim and his anxiety was getting in the way of you getting what you wanted.

“It will fit, stop worrying, we will use enough lube and it would be okay.” He still looked worried so you went for the big guns. “Remember when you were worried you wouldn’t be able to fuck my pussy? And did we?” He made a humming noise that made you snort. “Now, come on, come here and fill me like a stuffed turkey,” you told him in the most clash way ever.

“Ugh, don’t put it like that, that’s disgusting,” he grumbled as he approached you, already spread on the table.

You debated where you should do this, and ended up deciding it would be best to do it in the living room, the big table put you at the perfect high for him to fuck both of your holes at once without having to bend in weird angles. So you were already naked and spread on the table, your pussy on display for his hungry eyes as you exposed yourself completely, not having a care in the world.

He tried to launch for your pussy, his tongue already out, but you stopped him before he could make you lose focus. “You can lick me clean after, but come on, I want you in me, please,” you begged. He loved when you said please, made him all jittery and feral, his body vibrating as soon as the word left your mouth.

He used his fingers and an unholy amount of lube to prep your asshole, being extra careful and slow, and making you transform into a mess. You kept trying to move your hips, but he tsk-ed at you and held you down with his free hand, that covered almost all your tummy. You loved when he did that, the size difference between you two making your body thrum with pleasure. It was so hot that he could overpower you any time, but he decided to be so careful and tender… until his cock was inside of you, then he was nothing but wilderness. And you loved it. You loved all of him.

On top of that, he wouldn’t let you come, ignoring your needy clit completely and stopping you when you tried to help yourself. He growled at your moving hand and you pinned it down to the table again. Fuck, he was so hot.

By the time he could fit four fingers inside your asshole, your pussy was dripping, drenching his hand and making obscene noises as he finger fucked you slowly and methodically. You pleaded and screamed his name, but he didn’t relent until he deemed you stretched enough.

He started with just a press, his top dick fitting against your needy pussy instantly, and his lower one pressing almost imperceptibly against your stretching gaping hole. You rounded his waist with your legs, trying to get him closer and deeper, but he wasn’t having any of it, going so very slowly that you started to protest. His annoyance was noted as soon as he pushed a bit faster, making you grin up at him like the little shit you were.

By the time he was only half way in, he was sweating, a pearly drop falling over your chest as he struggled to go slow. “Fuck, babe, you are so tiny, your holes are so tight… I’m not sure it will fit.” He pushed a couple more millimeters, making you gasp.

“Keep going,” you let out in a breathless whisper. He felt as big as a fist, so big you felt like he was breaking you in half, and you were enjoying every second of it.

“Let’s try like this,” he said as he grabbed you by the waist and hoisted your body against his, putting you on top.

You smiled up at him, savoring the power of being on top even if your body was less than half the size of his. His tail made a perfect seat under your ass as he helped you slowly go down over his dicks. You tried to go faster, thinking you were in control. You were wrong, his hands on your hips were. He lowered you agonizingly slow, your body relaxing to let him go deeper. When you clenched your muscles round him, he cried out and accidentally released your hips… and gravity did the rest.

You screamed at the same time he did, his dicks so deep inside of you, you felt so full… You were gasping for breath as he groaned, visibly struggling to keep control. “Such a good girl, such a good human for me. Your holes are perfect, you are perfect,” he kept mumbling nonsense that made you wetter, laxer… Your muscles finally relented and you felt him completely, relaxed and at his mercy. That’s all it took for him to grab your hip handles and start bouncing you on his dick. “Look at those tits bouncing, you are magnificent, you are the prettiest human I’ve ever seen.” His compliments were making you light-headed as his dicks fucked into you, ecstasy within arm’s reach.

“Human?” You couldn’t resist teasing, your voice strangled with the exercise even though he was doing most of the work bouncing you up and down his shafts.

“The prettiest being, the most perfect, made for me,” he grunted the last part, making you giggle as you kept riding him like a cowboy in one of those bull riding competitions.

His eyes were unfocused, and his breathing was labored, the fucking was getting to him as much as it was getting to you, and that made you happy. You wanted him wild, you wanted him fuck-dumb for you. You bounced harder, your tiny scrams and bouncy tits making a symphony of filth that only added to the moment. To the pleasure.

“I’m gonna… I’m gonna…” You started, but you didn’t finish the thought, your back arching as you came messily and loudly around him, your screams probably woke up all the wildlife around your house.

“Just like that, such a good girl for me, such pretty holes to be fucked…” He kept praising you and your holes, his eyes closed and his hips hammering up to yours. He drew your orgasm further and further, until you were merely a rag-doll on top of him.

By the time he finally filled your holes, you were half dead (metaphorically). He fucked three orgasms out of you and fucked you through them, your oversensitive clit was almost painful to the touch, but it didn’t stop him from rubbing it until you came a fourth time, tears spilling from your eyes because the pleasure was almost painful.