I’ve been a loyal Joel girlie since tlou1 came out in 2013. He inadvertently influenced my type in men since I met the character at the ripe age of 10 (when you know, you know). Imagine being a 12-18 year old rejecting any advances from appropriately aged guys bc I was “only into older men”… and girls, lol.
Masterlist here !
Story synopsis:
The very core of who you are is hypocritical. Every day is a reminder of what you've lost, of who you've allowed yourself to become. Your walls are built around your heart like the fortress of Jackson, until… a certain man tries to pry his way through. How long can you withstand such intrusion? Will your heart ever open, will your soul ever heal, the way you have helped so many others do? Will you ever learn that you're worth saving too?
Slow burn, outbreak!au // Jackson!Joel x f!reader // angst
incomplete; 7 chapters, WC: 26.1k
[on hiatus]
(Last update Jul.28.2025)
Masterlist here !
Story synopsis:
You told him you were just visiting for the summer. Gave him a name that wasn’t yours. From the moment he saw you across the bar, he knew you were trouble—sunlight and sharp edges, all heat and laughter and something he shouldn’t want, everything he’d been devoid of for so long. What began as a fleeting summer fling burned into something neither of you could name. You left without saying goodbye, it seemed easier that way. But now you’re in his classroom. And he’s your professor. You told yourselves to pretend it never happened. To forget. But how could you forget the way the world only made sense when you were together—and how nothing had made sense since?
Slow burn, no outbreak!au // professor!Joel x f!reader; Rated E. 18+ MDI !!
incomplete; 18 chapters, WC: 125k
[active]
(Last updated August 1, 2026)
Masterlist here !
domestic fluff/ smut; Joel wants another baby.
no outbreak!au, established relationship, gratuitous smut
husband/dad!Joel x wife/mom!reader; Rated E. 18+ MDI !!
Pt. 10: daddy Joel but not in that way… can never seem to keep his eyes off of you.
< pt 1 | prev pt | series masterlist // main masterlist | next pt >
NSFW! 18+ only, mdni!
warnings/ content:
WC 1k - no outbreak!au, family!au, tooth-rotting fluff, age gap (reader is early-mid 30s, Joel is late 40s), husband!dad!joel x wife!mom!reader, reader and Joel have 3 kids. No explicit sexual content.
a/n: a drabble that I intended on making longer (bc I’m long-winded asf!), but decided I’m also capable of something short and sweet.
୨୧ ⏔⏔⏔♡⏔⏔⏔ ୨୧ ୨୧ ⏔⏔⏔⏔♡⏔⏔⏔⏔ ୨୧
“Y’all are ridiculous” a voice draws your attention away from where it had been glued for the past few minutes.
Tommy, of course, who had been gracious enough to wait in line with you while Joel keeps the kids occupied at the table.
You don’t know who looked first, but before you knew it, those soft, brown eyes were on yours again. A gentle smirk revealing a singular dimple focused entirely on you while his hands keep Ellie occupied and giggling. Your two oldest chatting amongst themselves as they focus intently on the coloring books in front of them.
You clear your throat and step up to the counter, ordering all the favorites of your little family.
“I mean hell, nearly 15 years and y’all act like it’s somethin’ new. Not that that’s somethin’ to be ashamed of, but it’s just bewilderin’ to me.”
You turn towards Tommy after you pay and get your order ticket, your hand lifts and pats him on the back, “who knows, maybe this’ll be you and Maria, y’never know!”
He scoffs and sheepishly rubs the back of his neck with his hand, “well, I never said I didn’t want what y’all have, you’ve just set a high ass standard, I hope she doesn’t get scared away by it.”
You both walk back to the table, and Joel’s eyes have followed you the whole way back.
You lean down and give him a peck to his lips, knowing that’s what he’d been waiting for. That earns you the smallest, imperceptible grunt of approval as he motions towards Tommy to catch him up in the conversation.
“He’s worried we’ve set too high of standards for he and Maria,” it’s a cliff notes version, Tommy starts to object but realizes you’ve summed it up perfectly.
“In what way?” Joel’s eyebrows raise, a signal that he’s genuinely curious.
He takes the receipt and folds it into his wallet, he knows you prefer it being neatly folded rather than crumpled for when you document all expenditures. Thoughtful, in all things.
“Y’know in what way, she’s heard your story and sees how in sync y’all are and always have been, I’m just… me. Ain’t the same as you big brother.”
And well, there’s no denying that fact. But you don’t want him to doubt how much he’s changed and his intentions he’s established within this new version of himself.
“Don’t discredit the work you’ve put into yourself and your relationship,” you’re quick to defend him against himself, “Maria loves you, you love her… your story is yours, your love is yours, can’t compare it to anyone else’s.”
He nods slowly, his attention quickly diverted to Artie who was intently coloring with what he has deemed as Tommy’s favorite colors. Tommy had never said otherwise, but it meant that anytime Artie uses those colors he had to show him.
“Aw, looks great little man. Can I have it? I’d love to put that on my fridge.”
The praise from his uncle causes Artie’s eyes to gleam with pride, a wide smile plastered on his face as he accidentally bumps his little legs against the booth beneath him in excitement. He nods his head eagerly.
As Tommy’s attention returns to the two of you, he just shakes his head, “would it kill y’all to quit it for five seconds?”
“What’s got your panties in a twist?”
Usually, you’d dissuade the men from using such language around the kids, but even Ellie’s preoccupied with her stuffed animal she never leaves home without. Off in her world of imagination, occasionally using Joel’s lap, arms, or head as a walking path for her pretend adventures.
Occasionally he’ll poke her in her side to send her into another fit of giggles, and you’ll never get over how she looks at the man she’s lucky enough to have as her daddy.
“I think… well, I am gonna propose.” He says it quiet enough so as to not alert his blabbermouth of a niece, or your oldest… who’d recently become thick as thieves with Maria since they’d spent time together while you and Joel were celebrating your anniversary.
It was no secret that she couldn’t keep a secret.
Joel strategically uses this to his advantage. Knowing you’re not keen on surprises, he’ll confide in Sarah when planning something for you or the family. It was an indirect way to let you know he’s scheming something. He may not tell her every detail but he’ll tell her just enough so she runs and tells you as many details as she can remember.
It’s genius, really.
Sarah did the legwork for him, and he reaped the benefits. The important details that may make or break his schemes were fine-tuned, and he was still able to maintain some surprise for his final reveal.
For example, when he built the kids a treehouse, he also remembered you mentioning how much you wanted a shed as a shared workspace for his woodworking and your newfound interest in pottery-making.
Sometimes he’ll ask for her input, or what she thinks you’d like and then any corrections or deliberations could be ironed out with you folded in half beneath him.
It also provided the excuse of mommy and daddy needing to be alone to discuss the treehouse and cannot be interrupted! The kids took these things very seriously, knowing if they didn’t go to bed and stay in bed that the process would take much longer than they could handle.
For anything not meant to be a partial surprise, he was more than ecstatic to fill you in on every detail. But this allowed Sarah to take pride in being his little confidant, whilst also respecting your wishes to be included in big decisions.
Of course, in the re-telling by Sarah, the shed was only briefly mentioned, but it still got the point across.
“Oh my god, that’s wonderful!” You say it a little too loudly and Tommy catches that mischievous curiosity out of the corner of his eye.
Sarah knowing you have a secret is also a bad position to be in.
“That our number was just called,” you add, somehow satisfying her curiosity as you and Joel get up to retrieve the trays of food from the counter.
“Lucky timing, darlin’,” Joel’s eyes catch yours once again, that mischievous gleam… so similar to all of your kiddos, but so distinctly his… intently looking at you.
He steals a quick kiss from you before you take the food back to your suddenly ravenous kids.
୨୧ ⏔⏔⏔♡⏔⏔⏔ ୨୧ ୨୧ ⏔⏔⏔⏔♡⏔⏔⏔⏔ ୨୧
Taglist as requested (please let me know if you want to be added/removed!): @white-wolf-buckaroo @streamermattsgf @somedayheaven @simpingforjoel @pascalgold
I’m obsessed with “All the Wrong Ways to Know You” Jesus Christ, I’m a sucker for Professor Joel 😫 love the way you write him. I was wondering if you plan on having an AO3? Just wondering, I like to read there better but I literally just got tumblr to read this amazing piece of art you’re writing!! Love to you and a big fat kiss to your amazing brain!! 🫠♥️
helloooo!!
teeheee stop makin' me blushhhhh! I'm also a sucker for Professor Joel; writing him has been an absolute (guilty) pleasure, and I'd do it forever if I could. So glad you're enjoying the story :) and what the hell do you mean you got tumblr to read it?!! holy... blowin' my little mind.
I am such a stubborn old dog when it comes to new things, but I do love the idea of posting on ao3. I will certainly try to figure it out! I do have an account with a very similar username/ pseud as this blog, forthelorewicker ! Slowly starting to upload some chapters.
love to you!! and a big phattttt juicy kiss to you too <3
WC 4.9k - As you and Joel struggle to preserve the careful distance between you, the ordinary intimacy of everyday life proves far more dangerous than either of you’d like to admit
// Joel fixes your car.
chapter content/ warnings: 18+ only!
No use of y/n, wee bit of power imbalance, tension, forbidden attraction, moral boundaries and conflicts, internal dialogue, switches from pov, mutual longing/pining/yearning, for the love of competency kink!, being complicated and frustrating as always, teasing/flirting in the way that they do, anxious/avoidant attachment, allusions to past intimacy, slow burn.
a/n: I refuse to accept that 2 months seems to be the timeline of me finishing/posting another chapter, but I kindly remind myself I’m no longer in an office for 10 hours a day where I really only worked 2/10 hours bc I could get all my work done in that timeframe and then spent the rest of my time writing smut/angst on my phone and goofed around with my coworkers on teams. Apologies for the wait, but I hope you enjoy!
· · ──────── ꒰ঌ·✦·໒───────── · ·
People look different in the daylight.
It isn’t just the light itself, though that certainly plays a role. The morning exposes things that evenings had the decency to soften… things that the night can no longer conceal in isolation. Things like the faint shadows beneath Joel’s eyes, the slow retreat from the haze of sleep aided by a cup of coffee, and the quiet routines that make up the life waiting for him outside the walls of his office. Things you have no business seeing and knowing what it is that you are seeing.
Daylight has the habit of contextualizing pieces of people in a way that the night would never demand. Light insists on the whole person, eliminating the shadows that had obscured the entire image.
During the summer, you’d known Joel in fragments, each one carefully insulated from the rest of his life. He’d existed almost entirely inside borrowed nights and lingering mornings, in moments carved deliberately away from responsibility, where desire possessed its own convenient logic and tomorrow always felt comfortably out of frame.
You can almost resent the way philosophers insisted on separating desire from duty, as though the two occupied opposite ends of the same moral spectrum. Semester after semester you witnessed the debate of whether virtue lay in resisting the passions or disciplining them, whether love was best understood as an emotion, a choice, or an obligation freely assumed. How easy it was for them to praise forbidden love. To proclaim it as ‘divine madness’ as if the promise of witnessing universal beauty and truth makes up for the unbearable ache that Joel’s touch had left.
And yet remarkably few of them seemed interested in how any of it actually began and the true consequences of loving someone enough to cling to restraint with your own nails digging into your soul. The experience of what felt like your soul bleeding. To welcome the tortuous longing as penance, as an eternal reminder that the universe had chosen you to suffer because you dared to fall into someone and find safety in their presence.
You understand now that it all began with the kind of ordinary familiarity no ethical framework ever seemed particularly concerned with. It started with a remembered preference, an unspoken routine, or the quiet certainty that someone will appear precisely when they said they will. It roots itself in conversations resumed without needing to remember where it had left off. The imperceptible migration of another person from the periphery of your life to somewhere much closer to its center, accomplished so gradually that by the time you notice, it’s already impossible to identify where the shift had first occurred.
Perhaps that had always been the greatest convenience of the summer, because lust had asked nothing of either of you beyond the present moment.
It had been gloriously uncomplicated in that way, expansive enough to explain every tenderness that threatened to wander beyond the physical. Every lingering glance or touch with the truth laid bare through the windows to your souls could be mistaken for the afterglow of attraction and desire. Every reluctant goodbye became the predictable consequence of appreciating the attention and affection provided in those moments.
The wanting never diminished. If anything, restraint has sharpened it into something almost unbearable. What changed was the realization that desire no longer seemed capable of carrying the weight of everything accumulating quietly around it.
Somewhere along the way, lust had ceased to be the whole story, and could no longer be sustained by the remarkably convenient excuse for refusing to read the rest of it.
The problem with daylight is that it exposes evidence those nights together had allowed you to overlook.
When you are alone, Joel still looks at you the way he had during the summer, his gaze lingering just a fraction too long before he remembers this version of you and him. You still remember exactly what it felt like to wake beneath the weight of his arm or hear his low timbre voice in the quiet hours before dawn. None of that disappeared, but it now seeps around each glance and every smile.
—
For the remainder of the week, Joel arrived outside your apartment each morning precisely when he said he would. You’d brought coffee in two thermoses because you had just so happened to make enough for two, but your roommate had left without taking some. He chooses to believe you because he had showed up with two coffees he had picked up on the way, “guess we’ll be plenty caffeinated for the day,” he’d said, as if remembering your coffee order wasn’t an homage to the mornings you used to share after a night spent together, half-naked in his kitchen.
It became an easy rhythm because he really hadn’t given you much choice, an unspoken responsibility he’d taken upon himself to insure that you had a safe commute to and from campus.
As someone who could usually explain yourself out of most things to avoid the guilt of asking for help, Joel had left little to no room for arguing. A few times you’d offer to ask a friend to take you home or catch a ride in the morning, but without fail he’d somehow convince you that this was the easiest and least inconveniencing option since he was already willing and happy to help… and well, there really was no room left for you to be stubborn.
And you were not going to tell him that your friends had already offered to provide rides which you’d adamantly declined… and you absolutely could not tell your friends you’d accepted your professor’s offer over theirs.
How could you explain without reasonable suspicion that your professor and your current employer offered to take you home, check out your car, then proceed to be your personal chauffeur until he could fix it himself.
So, you had somewhat evaded your friends for the duration of the week, leaving too many moments of quiet contemplation to ponder how you could possibly explain this preposterous scenario you’d allowed yourself to fall into. Thankfully, they’d accepted your excuse of it just being a busy week because it had been a busy week for them, too.
But it frustrated the hell out of you that by the time Friday surrendered to Saturday morning, you were already starting to mourn the mini-routine you’d established.
—
Winter mornings in Texas never possessed the sort of dramatic stillness reserved for postcards, but there was something unusually peaceful about the apartment complex before most of the world had finished waking up. The air carried that familiar February bite that promised sunshine without warmth, leaving a thin layer of frost clinging stubbornly to windshields beneath a cloudless sky.
Joel’s truck eases into the parking lot only a few minutes later, the low rumble of the engine cutting gently through the quiet before settling back into silence.
By the time you wander over to where he’s parked, he’s already climbing out of his truck, dressed far more casually than you were accustomed to seeing him nowadays. Faded jeans sitting low against his hips beneath an old brown leather belt, a charcoal henley stretching comfortably across his chest beneath one of his many worn flannels, and sturdy work boots crunching softly over the frost as he rounds the truck.
His sleeves are already pushed carelessly up his arms as he lowers the tailgate, exposing skin lightly dusted with dark hair and forearms that carry the unmistakable evidence of someone who’s spent most of his life building, repairing, lifting, fixing. The silver near his temples catching briefly beneath the pale winter sun.
His eyes meet yours for only a moment, though it’s long enough for that familiar softness to creep briefly into his expression, “Mornin’.”
Averting his attention back toward the truck bed, he nods toward the collection of tools and replacement parts, “Brought a little more than we need.”
Your gaze sweeps over the assortment of sockets and wrenches before returning to him. The understatement earning an incredulous look from you.
“A little?”
The corner of Joel’s mouth lifts as he grabs the toolbox and carries it over to your car, setting it down beside the right rear wheel.
“Never trust a mechanic that only owns one wrench.”
His voice carries that familiar roughness the early hour always seems to pull from him, lower than usual, softened by sleep in a way that did absolutely nothing to improve your ability to think coherently.
“I don’t actually know if that’s a real saying.”
Straightening again, he glances over his shoulder, amusement settling easily into the lines around his eyes.
“Should be.”
A quiet laugh escapes you, and he looks entirely too pleased with himself.
Turning back toward the truck, Joel reaches into one of the compartments before withdrawing a pair of worn leather work gloves, the fingers molded to the shape of his hands from years of use.
He flexes his fingers, working them comfortably into place before fishing a second pair.
Your brows rise immediately.
“They’re gonna be too big,” you observe before he’s even handed them over.
His eyes flick briefly toward your hands before settling back on the gloves, “I’d rather they be too big than have ya slicin’ your hands open.”
You accept them with a reluctant sigh, wiggling your fingers inside the oversized leather while Joel watches with poorly disguised amusement. The term ‘fitting like a glove’ worked far better for his own pair, and the way his forearms flex while adjusting them on his thick fingers has you swallowing dryly.
He crouches beside the wheel with the same unhurried confidence that seemed to accompany everything he does.
“I look ridiculous,” you tear your eyes away from the sight, looking down at your hands in hopes of steadying your breath before it becomes too painfully obvious.
Joel looks up from positioning the floor jack beneath the frame of your car. His gaze sweeps from the oversized gloves to the thoroughly unimpressed expression you’ve arranged for him before something quietly affectionate softens his features.
“A little…” The honesty catches you a little off guard, “But they’re protectin’ ya.”
“So I’m sacrificing dignity.”
He nods his head sharply and definitively, “For all ten fingers.”
Your eyes narrow at him over the absurdly oversized leather.
“I’ll mourn my dignity later.”
“You’ll be alright, promise.”
Joel lowers his attention back toward the car, you can see the gears turning in his head as he mentally lists every step that needs to be done, “Can y’turn the steerin’ wheel all the way to the left and put the emergency break on f’me?”
You nod and unlock your car doors, climbing into the front seat and turning on the engine. You do as he asks then turn your car back off, returning to his side as he places tire blocks by every tire but the one he’s working on to prevent the from car from going anywhere.
Once he loosens the wheel’s lug nuts, one broad hand curls around the crank he’d attached to the jack. The muscles through his forearm shift beneath lightly tanned skin with each measured movement, veins rising subtly as the weight of the car lifts inch by inch.
You try, unsuccessfully, to focus on literally anything else.
Once the tire hangs just clear of the pavement, Joel sets the handle aside before resting one forearm across his bent knee, studying the wheel for a brief moment to satisfy himself that everything is sitting where it should.
Only then does he glance back toward you, “C’mere.”
The invitation arrives almost absentmindedly, his concentration never leaving the wheel as he tips his head slightly toward the space beside him.
You step closer without thinking.
“So,” he points toward the brake assembly, “before we start pullin’ anythin’ apart, I want y’to actually know what you’re lookin’ at.”
You lean down instinctively, following the line of his finger into the narrow space behind the tire.
“I appreciate your confidence.”
A quiet huff of laughter escaped him, “I didn’t say it’d make sense immediately.”
“No, but I heard the optimism.”
That earns another smile, one that lingers just long enough for you to catch it from the corner of your eye before he settles back into the easy cadence of teaching.
—
Joel has taught enough students over the years to know exactly what happens when someone encounters an unfamiliar subject and shows some form of interest in it.
Curiosity simply possesses a way of shrinking the distance between a question and its answer.
He can feel your attention with startling clarity. Every time he points toward another component beneath the wheel well, you instinctively lean closer to follow the line of his finger. Your eyes track his movements with quiet concentration, brow furrowing in the same thoughtful way it always does whenever you’re trying to understand something.
You pay attention with an intensity that makes a man feel dangerously interesting.
Joel clears his throat, dragging his attention firmly back toward the brake assembly.
“This little piece is your caliper, this holds the pistons that clamp the brake pads against the rotor, slowing your car,” his finger taps lightly against the device before he catches himself looking at you instead of what he’s guiding your attention to.
You’re close enough that he can make out the individual flecks of color around your irises whenever you glance from wherever he’s pointing back to his face. Close enough that a strand of hair, caught by the morning breeze, drifts briefly across your cheek before you absently tuck it behind your ear.
You look at him for half a second before your gaze drifts very deliberately toward the hand still resting against the wheel.
The very hands that have always given him purpose.
Working with them quiets his mind, gives restless thoughts somewhere productive to go. They’ve built buildings and repaired roofs, changed tires in the rain, cradled Sarah when she was small enough to fit against his chest, fixed bicycles and leaky faucets and broken cabinet doors. They have always known what to do.
They seem considerably less useful when you’re looking at him. Everything in his body has to refrain from reaching for you.
The morning settles comfortably around the two of you, punctuated by the metallic click of tools finding their place, the occasional groan of stubborn parts giving way beneath steady pressure.
During a lull between instructions, you find yourself asking a question like you’ve been doing for the past thirty minutes or so, but this time it wasn’t about the car at all. Aided by the growing ease of conversation established through the past few weeks, “so… how did you learn how to do all this stuff?”
Joel hums thoughtfully at your question as he slides the new brake pads into place, “My grandfather always had some project goin’ on in his garage when me and Tommy were kids.”
Joel’s eyes remained on whatever occupied his hands while memories surface, “Was barely taller than the hood of the car lookin’ ‘bout like you with those gloves,” the dimple of his cheek appears as he catches you looking back down at your hands.
“But…” he continues, “didn’t learn nearly as much as I would when I bought my first truck from a man that my pops knew outside of Austin. He’d sworn I could get another hundred thousand miles outta the ol’ thing,” he chuckles fondly, and you catch the slightest eye roll as he recalls the memories, “I sure had to work for those miles, but it taught me the ins and outs of engines and any other possible thing that could go wrong with a car.”
There was something winsome about watching another person explain the ordinary pieces of themselves without realizing they were doing it.
Joel never seemed aware that these simple stories quietly reveal something much larger about the sort of man he is. He speaks the way people do when they aren’t trying to impress anyone. These small fragments of himself were given with the unconscious generosity of someone who assumes they aren’t particularly interesting, or who assumes their stories aren’t particularly significant in any regard.
You disagree vehemently.
Joel sighs as he motions towards the tire and you roll it back to him, he lifts it onto the rotor with ease, “now, put the lug nuts back in place and tighten’ em with your fingers, don’t have to be too tight just yet.”
You happily do as you’re told, your hands trembling slightly as they always do when you know you’re being watched.
“Doin’ great, darlin’,” you feel him straighten and take a step back as you finish, but the weight of his encouragement compresses your lungs just enough that it’s hard to get a full breath in.
You step back as he lowers the tire back down to the pavement and tightens the lug nuts with a tool you didn’t know the name of.
“Now for the next one, can y’turn the steering wheel all the way to the right f’me?”
You switch to the other rear wheel to repeat the process, but this time he’s making you do it.
Unfortunately for you, he understood your need for independence and that the best form of learning for you is to do something yourself.
However, the oversized gloves do not cooperate very well with your fingers so it’s a bit of a wasted effort on the things that require any sort of precision, “sorry ‘bout that, darlin’, I got it.”
Joel still guides rather than taking over completely, occasionally placing his hand over yours to correct the angle of a wrench or bracing one palm against the back of your glove when you need more leverage than the awkward position allows. Every touch arrives with an unimpeachable reason and lasts no longer than necessary, which does nothing to prevent your mind from cataloguing each one with humiliating precision.
By the time the car is settled back onto the pavement, the frost has disappeared from the surrounding windshields and the morning sun has climbed high enough to warm the dark fabric stretching across Joel’s shoulders. He gives the last lug nut a final tightening before rising with a quiet groan.
Your heart feels like a volcanic eruption, your blood flowing like lava through your veins.
Not that he meant to make that sound, but your body responds like a dog to Pavlov’s bell. Your mouth waters and your heart starts beating just a little faster…
God, you miss hearing those sounds in your ear. What wouldn’t you give to feel them against your skin… against your mouth… against your… Has your heartbeat always been so prominent between your legs?
Your attention shifts back as he pops open the hood of your car, and he waves his hand for you to join him.
You step into the space beside him, and Joel braces one hand against the frame while the other disappears somewhere deeper into the engine bay, “This here’s the alternator belt, it’s a little frayed and worn, which caused that rattly noise you’d heard.”
You nod in understanding with remarkable confidence for someone who hadn’t really heard any of the words he’d said in the past few minutes.
Your attention is occupied by considerably less practical things.
You can’t help but appreciate the quiet certainty with which his hands navigate what to you is unfamiliar machinery, but to him it seems to be a language he speaks fluently.
It occurs to you that competence possesses a curious sort of intimacy.
The intimacy of repetition, habit, and practice. The care it takes to learn and to repeat something enough times that your hands know what to do next, each step predictable and familiar.
Processes and tasks done so many times they no longer require conscious thought and slowly become part of who someone is. Memories no longer residing solely in your mind, but in your body. The intimacy of muscle memory.
People often guard their emotions, and Joel most certainly does, but somewhere along the way you’d begun collecting Joel’s habits with the same reverence other people reserved for grandiose revelations.
Your blood runs hot with every bit of himself he gives you, consciously or unconsciously.
You’ve found yourself memorizing him in every moment you share. The way his brow furrows whenever he concentrates. The crows feet accentuating by his eyes whenever he catches himself on the edge of a laugh. The twitch of his lips when he catches you staring. The unconscious habit of wetting his lips before explaining something complicated. The not-so-subtle once over he’ll indulge himself with when he swears you couldn’t possibly see the shift of his eyes over your form.
And now, the tendons shifting beneath the weathered skin of his arms every time he tightens another bolt, sleeves shoved carelessly toward his elbows until there’s nowhere left for your attention to settle except the broad sweep of his forearms and the quiet competence with which he moves through the world.
Every so often he glances toward you to make sure you’re following before returning to the task, entirely unaware of what those brief looks are doing to you.
It would have been far easier if he’d give you something to resent, some small imperfection sturdy enough to wedge between the attraction and everything else it had gathered around itself.
And sure, he’s not a perfect man, no one is perfect… but every scar he carries, every flaw he may have, makes him the man you know you’ll always love. The man whose arms feel like safety, and whose presence feels like home. The man who’s always cared, even when he knew the hollowness in his chest would burrow itself deeper.
The quiet competence that he shares because you need it, not because he has anything to prove.
There’s no performance in the steady efficiency of his movements. He fixes things because he knows how, and he teaches because leaving you more capable and self-sufficient is the best way he can show that he cares.
“Alright.”
The word pulls you back before your thoughts wander any further.
Joel gives the newly fitted belt one last careful inspection, nodding once to himself with quiet satisfaction while reconnecting your car battery and then stepping back from the engine.
“Go ‘head,” he nods toward the driver’s seat. “Start ‘er up.”
The engine turns over and the familiar uneven rattle that had greeted you every morning for the better part of a month never came.
Joel listens with his head tilted slightly and his brows furrowed.
After several long seconds, the corners of his mouth lift, “she’s soundin’ healthy again.”
You shut the engine off before climbing back out, unable to keep the smile from your own face, “That’s it?”
He nods, “that’s it.”
You looked toward the open hood almost suspiciously and peel the oversized gloves off of your hands, handing them back to him, “You made that seem entirely too easy.”
A soft huff escapes him as he takes the gloves from you and reaches up to guide the hood down with both hands, closing it with a solid thud, “Took me twenty-five years to make it look easy.”
Joel glances toward you when your silence stretches, the morning light revealing the faint exhaustion still lingering around his eyes despite the easier expression he wore now, “somethin’ wrong?”
The practical problem had been solved.
You have your car back. There would be no reason for him to appear outside your apartment in the morning with coffee waiting for you in his cupholders, no quiet twenty minutes contained safely between your building and campus, no evening ride home during which you could talk about everything except the one ever-present and mutual truth simmering beneath the surface.
You find yourself resenting the efficiency.
“Do you want to come upstairs for coffee?” You’re not thinking straight… in fact, you wonder if you’re thinking at all as Joel’s attention shifts toward the apartment building behind you, then returns to your face with enough caution to make you aware of every possible meaning the invitation might carry.
“You don’t have to,” you rush to cover the slip up, stumbling over your lapse of judgement, “I mean, you just fixed my car, the least I could do is offer some coffee or water.”
His shoulders rise with a slow breath before settling again, “y’know I shouldn’t.”
The words sound painfully reluctant, as though he was stating a fact that disappoints him every bit as much as it disappoints you.
You manage a small nod.
Joel lowers his eyes with a weary sort of acceptance and begins putting his tools back into the toolbox.
“Can I at least pay you back for the parts? Or for the labor?”
Joel sets the toolbox into the truck bed and shakes his head, “No.”
You frown immediately, “Joel.”
He places the jack into the bed and closes the tailgate with a solid thunk, as though the conversation had already reached its natural conclusion.
“Y’let me help, ‘s more than enough f’me.”
You search his face for a long moment, wondering if he understands how profoundly unfair that sentence feels after an entire week spent dismantling every excuse you’d carefully constructed against accepting help.
“You’re so aggravating.”
Joel’s eyes soften, “Been called worse.”
You can’t help the quiet laugh that escapes you, “Yeah, like what?”
“I ain’t fond of bein’ called ‘old man’.”
Your mouth goes dry and for a few seconds you don’t even realize it’s hanging slightly open in disbelief.
“But I was told it was southern charm,” he continues, the corner of his mouth lifting as he pulls his gloves off, “reckon I’m glad it’s evolved to offerin’ coffee and water nowadays.”
Your eyes are immediately drawn to the sight of his hands, the exertion of repairing a car forcing the veins on the back of his hands to be particularly prominent. You also realize there was no subtlety to where your gaze had fallen to.
The irony of the memory arrives with enough force to shake loose any facade you’d spent curating.
Joel seems to realize the weight of what he’s teased you about at almost the exact moment you do.
An entire semester of careful restraint settles itself over both of you, layer after painstaking layer, until you’d almost convinced yourself those nights existed somewhere outside the version of Joel who stood before you now.
The faint amusement lingering around his mouth falters and his gaze drops briefly toward the ground before returning to you with an expression that looks dangerously close to regret, “…sorry,” he murmurs, rubbing the back of his neck. “Shouldn’t’ve...”
You shake your head before he’s even finished, “No, it’s…” you swallow harshly, “… just surprised you remember that.”
A quiet huff escapes him, “more than I’ve got the right to, darlin’.”
He fishes his keys out of his pocket and you see his Adam’s apple bob harshly in his throat as he retreats to the driver’s side, “Let me know if anythin’ comes up with the car or there’s any more strange noises.”
You nod, your hands are shoved into your pockets and you force a small smile as if you entire body wasn’t screaming at you to fucking kiss him. KISS HIM!
“Thank you, Joel. I really am grateful for everything, you definitely didn’t have to…”
“I wanted to,” he interrupts and pauses right before he climbs into the truck, glancing back at you. His deep, brown eyes look like dark, golden honey in the winter sun’s rays, “see y’Monday.”
—
The entire drive back to his house he’s mentally punishing himself.
For one careless second he’d chosen to break the rules you’d both agreed to and had been surviving by. He’d become too greedy with the growing familiarity between these versions of you that he had chosen to puncture the unspoken agreement that had been keeping you both in check.
Pretend.
Pretend the summer belonged to strangers, that it never happened… that those people never existed together.
Pretend the memory of your mouth on his didn’t arrive with enough force to tighten every muscle in his body.
Pretend he didn’t remember exactly how you’d laughed that day, standing in your kitchen with a cold bottle in your hand before looking at his fingers and announcing, with complete seriousness, that he had nice hands.
Christ.
Unfortunately for him, nothing had faded. It wasn’t difficult to remember you. Remembering you had become the easiest thing in the world.
He remembered the way you’d looked at his hands. The way you looked at him. How you’d called him ‘old man’ with such unbridled desire in your eyes that he still can’t wrap his head around it.
Sure, he’d been called that by his daughter as a hypocrism for “dad” or by Tommy when he was giving him shit about something.
Far different context when the woman he’d been sleeping with called him that with her voice dripping with lust.
Because he remembers the way that conversation with you had ended. He remembers the lead up to that weekend and the anticipation he’d been consumed by to have you in his arms again. To feel you against him. How worked up he’d been from the teasing and flirting accompanied by intimate photos shared between the two of you.
He remembers the noises you couldn’t help but make, the angelic timpany of your pleasure resonating through his veins. The whisper of his name leaving your lips as your body welcomed him inside. The soft hitches of your breath when his eyes met yours as he buried himself between your thighs.
But worst of all, he remembers what it felt like to hold you through the night for the first time, and every time he’d been given after that. It was the first time in a very long time that he’d even fallen asleep around anyone that wasn’t Tommy or Sarah. An even longer time since he’d spent the night with a naked woman in his arms, but even then it had never felt… Well, no one had ever felt like you did in his arms, or in his bed, or in his house… or in his life.
Every night, despite his best efforts, he’d imagine what it would feel like to reach for you in the night and find you right there next to him.
Instead of dulling with time, the memories had simply become a quiet indulgence which sharpened and guaranteed their longevity. They waited patiently beneath the surface of ordinary moments until something as insignificant as a playful tease had unearthed an entire night he’d spent trying very hard not to revisit.
When he caught himself thinking about you and the nights you shared, his mind wandered just as easily toward the mornings afterward.
How you’d tuck your feet beneath yourself while drinking coffee. How you’d wear one of his shirts because yours had disappeared somewhere between the living room and the hallway.
How you’d stand beside him while he cooked breakfast, either a tv show on or your music playing in the background as if that could salvage every other way your souls had begun to intertwine.
Back then he’d safely filed those moments as intermissions, he’d denied the existence of any hint that he wanted more than just casual sex with you because time with you had been limited since the beginning. Admitting the truth to himself meant that he had actively allowed himself to grow attached to something he was guaranteed to lose.
Somehow that hadn’t stopped either of you from taking what you could while you had it. Somewhere in the mess of lust and denial, you’d both neglected to prevent the unusually easy comfort and fondness of each other’s presence from dictating the weight of each shared moment.
Time was supposed to sand lust into something manageable, to dull its sharper edges until it became little more than an occasional inconvenience. Joel had counted on that. He’d trusted time to do the work his own discipline hadn’t been strong enough to accomplish.
But time had betrayed him and abandoned him in the open ocean with little more than an inflatable raft.
The inevitability that he will eventually drown or starve couldn’t be denied.
Yet humans have the habit of holding onto hope of survival, onto the hope of being rescued, regardless of the odds. Because even 99.9% leaves that 0.1% chance.
Much like the odds against the two of you, who had become unwilling custodians of the same impossible truth, each carrying the other’s silence because neither could bear the consequences of speaking it aloud.
So, you both remained lost at sea. Hopeful that someday… against all odds, you could be rescued from the fate you’d been dealt.
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a/a/n: i’m also working a new job for the summer and school starts again in 2 weeks!! so I’m trying to be kind to myself but all I want is to WANT to write and to actually be able to. So yeah, I mean, I’m never not going to be working on something so there is always a guarantee that there will be a next chapter, thank you for your patience if you’ve been anticipating this next part.
taglist as requested (please let me know if you want to be added/removed): @magicxmiller @yslgreen @mallingcalling-blog @getitoutofmymindwrites @msdariaknight @faiantas-blog @anheloamores @loveday1219 @pascalgold @ifall4dilfs
*SEASON OF THE WOLF: a joel miller x reader story.
The giant wolf that has been killing people around town shares a very striking feature with the quiet man that keeps breaking into your home— They both have the saddest, warmest brown eyes you've ever seen.
click here to join the taglist. / click here for my main masterlist.
warnings: werewolf!joel, age gap (reader is late 20s, joel is mid 40s), reader is afab and goes by she/her, no outbreak, mentions of csa, kind of southern gothic vibes, gore & violence, death of minor characters, stalking (but like in a romantic way), reader is mentally unwell, no y/n, artsy reader, slow burn, reader is depressed and somewhat detached from reality, religious themes, no description of reader other than being curvy/plus sized, some animals die but it happens off page, found family, technically cannibal!joel, mentions of periods & period symptoms, reader is bisexual, monsterfucking, girldad!joel, death of a spouse, sarah lives, suicidal tendencies/suicide attempt, alcohol & weed consumption, eventual smut.
rating: +18.
fox says: hello friends! i've never written any supernatural fics before but the idea of a werewolf character has been stuck on my mind forever and i felt like joel would be the perfect fit for that; as many of you know i went back and forth a lot on whether this should be a joel or clint fic and in the end i thought the characterization fit joel better. this is also a small celebration of a follower milestone i reached a while back but it took me so long to post i already reached a second milestone lol anyway, thank you so much for reading my stuff and following me! as always, please let me know how we feel about it.
Love this story so far!! werewolf!joel just makes so much sense and this captures him perfectly + the backstories and location are thoughtfully crafted and fit so well. I’m all in!
WC 5.7k - Joel contemplates your place in his life and his place in yours. An opportunity arises to help you, and your insistent need for independence is challenged by the man who you could never really say no to.
chapter content/ warnings: 18+ only!
No use of y/n, wee bit of power imbalance, tension, forbidden attraction, moral boundaries and conflicts, internal dialogue, switches from pov, mutual longing/pining/yearning, for the love of competency kink, being complicated and frustrating as always, teasing/ some philosophical banter, abandonment issues. Mentions of Sarah’s mom, fear of abandonment, anxious/avoidant attachment, allusions to past intimacy, slow burn.
· · ──────── ꒰ঌ·✦·໒───────── · ·
Joel was only partially relieved that you weren’t in any of his classes this semester.
On one hand, he really doesn’t miss the shake of his hands and the way his brain would stall at the sight of you. On the other hand, however, he really misses getting to read your work, and the white-hot tension that would ignite within his chest whenever he’d catch you staring in the middle of class.
He was used to attention to some extent, he wasn’t ignorant to the way certain students ogled him. If anything, it unsettled him more than it flattered him. He understood the psychology behind it well enough. Professors occupied a dangerous sort of role for young people searching for direction, validation, and structure. An authority figure capable of making them feel intelligent and seen which could easily become the subject of admiration that blurred into something parasocial and inappropriate. Joel had always been careful with that responsibility, careful with the distance required to maintain it.
The idea of crossing those lines had genuinely never crossed his mind before you. And if he’d met you as a student first, maybe none of this would’ve happened at all.
Or maybe that was just another lie he told himself to sleep at night.
Because… you weren’t nineteen years old looking for validation from an older man with kind eyes and degrees hanging on his wall. You were older than most of your peers, inching toward your mid-twenties with a sharpness that made conversations with you feel less like speaking to a student and more like speaking to someone who understood him in ways most people never had. Even now, with the two of you carefully rebuilding something from the wreckage of what happened over the summer, the lines continued to blur in ways he knew were dangerous. At most, he tells himself, you would’ve become friends.
But friendship with you somehow felt more intimate than sex ever had with anyone else.
Now that the two of you had settled into this strange fragile rhythm of pretending, conversations stolen during office hours or while grading papers had started resembling something painfully close to normal. He’d learned snippets about your life the same way starving men rationed food, careful not to indulge too much at once for fear of ruining himself entirely. Stories about your classes, your friends, little observations muttered beneath your breath that made him laugh harder than they probably should’ve. In return, he found himself giving pieces of himself away with equal carelessness, offering up stories about Sarah or Tommy before remembering halfway through that this was exactly the sort of closeness he’d promised himself he wouldn’t allow.
It was a dangerous game for him to play.
He respected you too much to destroy whatever this was becoming simply because he lacked the self-control to keep his feelings contained, and selfishly, pathetically, he’d already begun relying on your presence more than he should. This new dynamic had become a lifeline disguised as professionalism, something to look forward to during mornings that had long since lost their sense of purpose.
At this point, he’d take whatever version of you he could have. There was some twisted sort of comfort in the longing, in the incessant reminder that at one point you had chosen to lose yourself in him too.
That sting of abandonment still made itself known, no matter how irrational it was, considering the circumstances. Didn't change the truth behind it all. Your choice was made purely out of self-preservation. A clean break from him as if he were nothing more than a distraction. That’s how you’d worked it anyway. How could he ever compete with that?
It wasn’t as though either of you had expected the intensity of your little fling, the ease of slipping into one another’s orbit, the comfort found in shared silences and lingering glances, the way he’d started searching for your eyes before he even entered a room.
He knows now that he’d never truly been in love before you. He’d mistaken obligation for devotion once, years ago, after a drunken stupor and a girl he barely knew turned into a positive pregnancy test and eventually a baby with his eyes cradled against his chest beneath fluorescent hospital lights.
She’d decided to keep the baby. And Joel, stubborn and terrified in equal measure, had done everything he thought a good man was supposed to do. He signed the papers at the hospital without hesitation, worked overtime until his hands ached, learned how to stretch exhaustion into something survivable while trying to build a life out of a relationship neither of them had been prepared for. She’d rejected his marriage proposal which, as upsetting as it was at the time, he is grateful they avoided that headache. For a while he convinced himself they could make it work, that love might eventually grow from proximity and persistence alone, though deep down he thinks they were both just clinging to the idea of not wanting to fail their daughter before she’d even learned how to speak.
Somewhere along the line her drinking worsened, the distance between them becoming impossible to ignore whenever she looked at Sarah with that strange sort of detachment, as though motherhood belonged to somebody else and she’d merely wandered into the wrong life by mistake. He’d read all about postpartum depression, all he could do was be there for her when she would let him, and hope it would someday go away. By the time Sarah was two, she was already half gone, disappearing for nights at a time before eventually disappearing for good, save for a signature on a stack of legal papers Joel could barely look at without feeling sick.
He remembers sitting in that courtroom with Sarah asleep against his shoulder while a judge finalized the termination of her parental rights, remembers the hollow ache in his chest as her mother willingly surrendered every legal claim to the little girl tucked safely in his arms, and even now, decades later, some ugly wounded part of him still associated love with being left behind.
Maybe that was why your disappearance cut so deep beneath his skin despite every logical part of him knowing the situation between the two of you had always come with an expiration date. You hadn’t owed him permanence.
Still, some traitorous part of him had started imagining what it might’ve looked like if you had stayed.
Because unlike before, unlike all those years ago when responsibility had arrived wrapped in panic and fear and the deafening realization that his life was no longer his own, loving you had never felt like an obligation. It had come naturally, frighteningly so, weaving itself into the spaces of his life before he’d even realized what was happening.
Which meant losing you felt less like failure and more like confirmation of something he’d spent most of his life trying not to believe.
That eventually, everyone he let himself love would decide he was easier to leave behind.
And still, despite all of that, despite the ache of wanting you sitting only a few feet away from him some afternoons while pretending not to notice the way his gaze lingered too long, despite the constant temptation to ruin everything the moment you smiled at him like you remembered those summer nights too, Joel found himself strangely grateful for the restraint this arrangement demanded of him.
Because this version of you that he was slowly getting to know now beneath fluorescent office lights and the soft scratch of red pen across paper, felt infinitely more dangerous than the woman he’d tangled himself up with over the summer.
Back then he’d only wanted your body, or at least told himself that was all it could be.
Now he wanted your thoughts, your opinions, your attention lingering on him for no reason at all. He wanted every strange insignificant detail you offered him freely between conversations about coursework and faculty meetings and books you thought he’d like. He wanted the version of intimacy that lasted, and the summer version of you would’ve never given him these moments of getting to know you separate from your body.
—
He glances at you now, his eyes tracing the profile of your face as you concentrate on the papers in front of you.
That furrow in your brow as you assess freshman philosophy papers is strangely endearing, your expression tightening every few seconds as though each half-baked thesis physically pains you to read.
“Do people really assume philosophy would be easy?” you ask suddenly, not bothering to look up from the paper in front of you. “Like genuinely. An easy A?”
Joel leans back slightly in his chair, “Think it’s the novelty of it all. Makes people feel smart.”
Your nose wrinkles faintly as you continue reading. “This one just used the phrase ‘societal moral thingies.’”
He chuckles under his breath in disbelief.
“No, seriously.” You turn the paper around enough for him to see the sentence in question, your pen tapping beneath it. “That’s a direct quote. Societal moral thingies.”
“Technical terminology.”
“Mm. Very academic.”
Joel shakes his head, unable to suppress the grin threatening at the corners of his mouth, “You’d be surprised how many students think confidence can compensate for substance.”
“I mean, apparently it can,” you mutter. “There’s a hundred people in this class and maybe twelve of them seem remotely interested in understanding what they’re arguing. The rest just throw around words like ‘nihilism’ and hope nobody notices they’re saying absolutely nothing.”
“That strategy works disturbingly well in certain departments.”
That finally earns him a glance over the top of your paper, your eyes narrowing with amusement. “You’re allowed to say that as faculty?”
“Tenure’s a beautiful thing.”
“You don’t even have tenure yet.”
“Yeah, yeah... details, I’ll be tenured by the fall.”
A quiet laugh slips out of you before you lower your gaze again, shaking your head slightly as you scribble feedback in the margins. Joel watches the movement absentmindedly, watches the way you chew lightly at the inside of your cheek whenever you’re trying to articulate a thought carefully.
“You certainly made it look easy,” he says after a moment, the words softer than intended.
It was the truth.
For the better part of last semester you’d maintained a nearly perfect score, though the one glaring exception still lingered in the back of his mind. You had intentionally skipped an essay question about care ethics on the final, bypassing it entirely despite knowing the material better than anyone else in the room.
A masterful evasion.
There were assignments you’d skillfully maneuvered around whenever concepts struck a little too close to home.
Not that the two of you had ever technically been in a relationship, but there had still been a strange sort of relational responsibility woven into whatever existed between you.
As much as he’d wanted to know what you really thought, he’d understood the mercy in your restraint.
You’d always been merciful with him.
Well. Had been.
Nowadays he wasn’t entirely sure either of you remembered how to be careful around one another anymore. It had only been about a month into the new semester and the shift between you felt palpable, the conversations easier and longer than they probably should’ve been, your guard lowering in subtle increments every time you lingered in his office.
You’d become awfully chatty lately.
“I still can’t imagine willingly choosing philosophy for a gen-ed credit,” you continue. “Thought kids these days avoided essay-heavy classes like the plague.”
That catches him off guard enough to make him bark out a quiet laugh, “Kids these days?”
You finally look up fully, utterly unapologetic. “Joel, one of my classmates asked me last week if Plato was alive during World War Two.”
“He was not.”
“I know that. I’m concerned that he didn’t.”
Joel rubs a hand over his mouth, trying unsuccessfully to hide his amusement. “You realize you are practically one of those kids these days. At least in terms of college kids.”
“I’m like three to four years older than most of my peers, actually,” you correct lightly, leaning back in your chair. “Which in undergraduate years practically makes me a war veteran.”
“Oh, is that right?”
“Mhm. I already feel disconnected from modern youth culture.”
Joel watches you with open disbelief now, “and you’re not a part of modern youth culture?”
“No, modern youth culture scares me.” You grimace down at the paper in front of you. “‘According to TikTok philosopher user moralityking09…’ See? This is exactly what I mean.”
Joel closes his eyes briefly, “I’m changing careers.”
“You threaten that every week.”
Joel scoffs while you fight a grin across from him, visibly entertained by your own argument, “And every week one of you people gives me another reason.”
“You love it too much to leave.”
You glance up a second later only to find Joel already looking at you.
There’s something dangerous about moments like this, you think. Not the tension itself, because that had existed between the two of you from the very beginning and likely always would, but the ease creeping in around it now.
It would almost be easier if he’d stayed cold.
The amusement lingering around his mouth softens almost imperceptibly and his expression shifts into something gentler, more thoughtful, and the sudden weight of his attention makes warmth creep uncomfortably high beneath your collarbone.
There had always been something deeply unsettling about the way Joel looked at people… well, looked at you.. Not intimidating exactly, though he certainly could be when he wanted to. It was more that he paid attention too thoroughly, his gaze lingering with an intensity that made you feel observed in ways most people never bothered to attempt. Seen and heard, listened to and understood.
Wanted.
You drop your gaze back toward the paper before the thought can settle too deeply, forcing your attention instead toward the paragraph in front of you despite the uncomfortable warmth still lingering beneath your skin.
Outside the narrow office window, the early evening light had started dimming into something softer, streaks of amber filtering weakly through the bare winter branches lining the edge of campus. The hallway beyond Joel’s office had grown quieter too, the usual shuffle of students tapering off as evening classes settled in.
You only notice how late it’s gotten when your phone buzzes softly against the desk beside your elbow.
Your brows knit immediately, “Shit.”
Joel glances up at the sound of your urgency, “What?”
You grab your phone quickly, checking the time before your stomach drops slightly, “I forgot what time it was.”
“How bad?”
“I’ve got like…” you squint at the screen, already mentally calculating the walk across campus, “eight minutes before the last bus gets to the stop.”
Joel’s expression shifts faintly in confusion, “Bus?”
You’re already shoving loose papers into uneven stacks to clear space in front of you, distracted enough not to think much of the question at first.
“What happened to your car?”
You hesitate briefly before shrugging one shoulder, “It’s been making this weird noise for like two weeks now and I haven’t had time to take it in.”
“What kinda noise?”
You pause mid-motion, glancing up at him skeptically, “That is an impossible question for me to answer.”
Joel leans back slightly in his chair again as he always does when he’s amused at something, the corner of his mouth twitching. “C’mon, humor me, I might be able to help.”
You stare at him for a moment before reluctantly attempting, “It sounds…” Your face pinches in thought. “Wrong?”
He laughs quietly at that.
“I don’t know how to explain it.” You gesture vaguely with one hand. “Kinda rattly? And a definite squeak from the back right wheel or something. But only sometimes.”
“That usually means somethin’s loose, and that your brake pads need replacin’.”
“See, that means nothing to me.” You point your pen toward him accusingly. “Men always say things like that as though I know what’s under the hood of my car.”
Joel watches you continue throwing things into your bag with increasing urgency. “And instead your solution was avoid it until the vehicle dies?”
“That is unfortunately how I approach most of my problems, yes.”
“Hm.” His gaze lingers on you another second before he pushes himself up from his chair with a quiet groan. “When were you gonna take it to a shop?”
You sling your bag over your shoulder, “Eventually.”
“That ain’t a timeframe.”
“I’m busy.”
Joel shakes his head, grabbing his jacket from the back of his chair, “Lemme take a look at it.”
The words catch you off guard enough that you still for half a second, “What?”
“Your car,” he repeats simply, shrugging into the jacket. “I’ll drive y’home, and I can take a look at it before y’spend money takin’ it somewhere and they overcharge ya.”
The offer shouldn’t feel as intimate as it does. It’s just a favor. A normal favor. The kind of thing people did for friends or coworkers or anyone they vaguely cared about.
Still, something tightens strangely in your chest anyway, “You really don’t have to do that.”
Joel’s expression softens with faint amusement, like he already knows you’re going to argue with him about this. “Sweetheart, if your car’s been makin’ death noises for two weeks and you’re still needin’ to drive it around, I promise I’d rather look at it myself before somethin’ happens to ya.”
Your mouth goes dry at the endearment.
Joel had always occupied space in a way that made awareness unavoidable, broad shoulders stretching the fabric of his dark button up shirt beneath the worn canvas blazer he’d just shrugged into, one hand braced lazily against the edge of his desk while he looked down at you with that same steady attention that had been unraveling your nervous system for months now.
Up close, you can see the faint exhaustion lining his face beneath the warm amber spill of evening light coming through the office window, the silver threading through his curls near his temples, the rough scrape of stubble shadowing beyond his neatly trimmed beard by the end of the day.
Your gaze catches briefly on his mouth before you force it away. You clear your throat softly as you take a small step backward in a weak attempt to reestablish something resembling normal distance between the two of you.
“I’ll be fine,” you murmur. “I can still make the bus if I hurry.”
Joel’s brows pull together slightly at that, his gaze flicking toward the clock on the wall before returning to your face.
“You’re not gonna make it in… five minutes,” he says plainly. “Not from this building.”
You open your mouth to argue before realizing he’s unfortunately right.
Your expression must give you away because the corner of his mouth twitches faintly again, less amused and more patient this time.
“And if y’miss it,” he continues evenly, grabbing his keys from his desk drawer, “that’s partly my fault anyway. Kept you here grading papers all afternoon.”
“You didn’t force me to stay.”
“No,” Joel agrees quietly, “but I also didn’t exactly encourage y’to leave when it started gettin’ late.”
Something warm and uncomfortable unfurls low in your stomach at that.
He steps around the edge of his desk then, close enough that you catch the clean cedar scent of his cologne beneath the lingering warmth of coffee and something distinctly him. Your pulse stutters embarrassingly hard at the proximity.
Joel notices it, and you know he does. Still, he gives you an out.
“If you’re uncomfortable with it, that’s fine,” he says after a moment, “I can still help figure out what’s wrong with the car another time. Just figured since I’d already be drivin’ you home…” his shoulders lift in a small shrug beneath the dark fabric of his jacket, “…might as well take a look while I’m there.”
He never pushes, and that’s the reason he continuously unraveled your defenses despite every logical instinct telling you to keep your distance.
Even now, standing close enough that you could count the silver strands threaded through the curls near his temples, his gaze steady on yours in the dimming gold light of his office, he still leaves the choice entirely in your hands.
“…you really think you can tell what’s wrong with it just by listening?” you ask quietly, attempting for something lighter despite the strange heaviness settling beneath your ribs.
Joel huffs a soft laugh through his nose. “Darlin’, half of fixin’ cars is just listenin’ to what they’re complainin’ about.”
Your stomach flips again, it almost makes you nauseous.
Joel waits, patient as ever. Since you’re not making a mad dash for the bus that has probably already left the stop, he figures you’re finally accepting his offer.
You exhale softly through your nose before finally nodding once, “Okay, fine,” you murmur.
Something in Joel’s face eases almost imperceptibly, “Okay,” he echoes.
—
By the time Joel pulls into the parking lot of your apartment complex, the sky had long since deepened into velvet blue, the last traces of daylight swallowed behind low winter clouds. The drive over had been quieter than most of your recent conversations. The radio hummed softly beneath the steady rush of heat from the vents while campus slowly gave way to dim storefronts and sleepy residential streets streaked gold beneath passing streetlights.
Now, standing a few feet away from your car with the hood propped open beneath the weak parking lot lights, Joel leans forward slightly with one hand braced against the frame of the car while the other disappears deeper into the engine.
And unfortunately for you, the sleeves of his dark button up had been rolled halfway to his elbows almost immediately after stepping out of the truck, exposing strong forearms dusted faintly with dark hair and veins that shift subtly beneath warm skin every time he moves his wrist. His shoulders pull tight beneath the fabric as he leans further over the engine, brow furrowed in concentration while the light catches silver near his temples.
You try very hard not to stare and you fail almost instantly.
“Hm,” Joel murmurs after a moment, attention still fixed somewhere beneath the hood. “Alternator belt’s worn.”
Your brows knit, “That sounds expensive.”
“Not terrible.”
“That hesitation was concerning.”
Joel huffs a quiet laugh through his nose before finally glancing over at you, “Wasn’t hesitation.”
“You literally paused.”
“I was thinkin’.”
“About how expensive it is?”
The corner of his mouth twitches faintly before he looks back toward the engine again, adjusting something with practiced ease, “Nah, I can take care of it for ya, just gotta get the parts.”
And you knew you were in deep trouble with the insinuation that he’d be the one to fix your car.
You’d spent months trying not to notice the things that made Joel attractive outside of the obvious, which had admittedly been a losing battle from the start. But watching him work with his hands always felt particularly cruel. There was just something about the calm certainty of his movements, the quiet confidence threaded through every absent adjustment he made beneath the hood like he instinctively understood how things fit together.
The winter air bites sharply at your cheeks while you linger uselessly a few feet away holding your keys.
“Hm,” Joel murmurs after a moment, brows pulling together slightly while he kneels down beside your real right wheel, pressing against something out of your line of sight. “When’s the last time y’got the brake pads replaced?”
You stare at him blankly for a second too long because your brain had unfortunately stopped functioning somewhere around watching the muscles in his forearms shift beneath rolled sleeves.
“My what?” In all honesty you just hadn’t heard what he said.
Joel glances up then, and the immediate flicker of amusement in his eyes tells you he knows exactly where your attention had drifted.
God.
“You weren’t listenin’ to me at all, were ya?”
Heat blooms violently beneath your skin, “I was listening.”
“Mhm.”
“I was.”
Joel ducks his head slightly to hide a smile.
Insufferable.
“You need new brake pads too,” he says again as he stands back up, making sure you’re actually listening now. “That squeakin’ you mentioned is from your wear indicators.”
You hadn’t realized how close he’d gotten until he stops directly in front of you, close enough now that the warmth radiating from him cuts through the cold evening air in dizzying waves. Your pulse stutters immediately.
He smells faintly like motor oil now, roughened by winter air and the lingering traces of his cologne beneath it all.
Joel looks down at you with that same maddening steadiness he always does, “You really should’ve gotten this looked at sooner.”
“I know,” you murmur, “just been busy and since the university runs the bus I’m alright walking home from the stop to save up for the fix.”
“You’ve been walkin’ home?”
You shrug and he sighs exasperatedly, “Well, glad y’missed the bus today so I could help y’out.”
It wasn’t necessarily flirtatious, though your brain was really trying to torture you at this proximity. Joel rarely crossed lines that directly anymore, not unless something slipped out accidentally beneath exhaustion or distraction. The sincerity was threaded so casually through things like this, the quiet certainty with which he offered pieces of himself as though helping you was the most natural thing in the world.
You glance away first, eyes catching on the thin curl of steam drifting from your breath into the cold air. “I mean, I would’ve figured it out eventually.”
Joel’s brows pull together faintly at that, “That’s not really the point.”
You look back at him then, caught slightly off guard by the firmness in his voice, “Then what is?”
Joel studies you for a second, his hand still resting against the roof of your car beside your head while the other hangs loosely at his side with the grease-stained rag curled around his fingers, “That y’don’t always gotta figure everythin’ out alone.”
The quiet sincerity of it nearly knocks the breath from your lungs and you immediately try to deflect. Heat creeps beneath your skin for entirely different reasons now, “I don’t need to be taken care of.”
“Never said y’did.”
“You implied it.”
Joel exhales slowly through his nose before shifting slightly closer, enough that the warmth radiating from him cuts more sharply through the cold evening air.
“No,” he says quietly, gaze fixed steadily on yours now, “I implied it’s okay to let somebody help you.” Joel shakes his head slightly, looking down for half a second before his gaze drifts back toward your face, then lower.
The shift is subtle enough that most people probably wouldn’t notice it, but you do. You notice everything when it comes to him.
His eyes linger briefly on your mouth before lifting back up again.
The air between you changes immediately.
Your body reacts before your brain can catch up, pulse stuttering violently while your fingers tighten around your keys hard enough for the metal to bite against your palm.
You can feel him thinking.
One step, maybe less, and that’s all it would take.
Joel’s jaw shifts slightly, throat working once beneath the open collar of his shirt while his gaze flickers downward again like he’s fighting the instinct in real time.
Your eyes drop to his mouth before you can stop them.
The realization seems to hit him at the exact same moment because his expression changes almost imperceptibly, something darker pulling briefly across his face before he leans in barely an inch…
…and stops.
The movement is so small you almost think you imagined it.
Joel closes his eyes for the briefest second before dragging a hand down across his mouth, exhaling sharply through his nose like he’s actively annoyed with himself, “Christ,” he mutters quietly.
The cold rushes back into the space between you as he steps away from the car.
You remain exactly where you are, heart pounding so violently it feels humiliating.
“Lemme order the parts tomorrow,” he says, voice rougher now. “Can probably fix most of it this weekend.”
It takes you a second too long to respond, “This weekend?”
“Mhm.” Joel nods once before closing the hood of the car with a solid thud. “Brake pads won’t take long. Belt neither.” His gaze flicks toward you again, softer this time. “I’ll teach ya while we do it so next time y’know what you’re lookin’ and listenin’ for.”
Your stomach flips all over again. Offering you competence instead of dependency like he instinctively understands how badly you resist feeling cared for.
“You’re gonna make me participate?”
That small smile returns immediately, “Sweetheart,” Joel murmurs, “it’s the dead of winter. And sure, this may be Texas but y’can’t be walkin’ home at night hopin’ y’can be one of the few who doesn’t need to rely on a car in your everyday life.”
A reluctant laugh escapes you despite yourself, the sound fogging visibly into the cold air between you both, “Fine, I yield.”
Joel huffs softly through his nose, the corners of his mouth still turned upward while he reaches for the rag tucked into his back pocket again.
There should genuinely be laws against men looking like this while doing mundane tasks.
Especially older men with rough hands and rolled sleeves and deep voices who insisted on fixing things for you without making you feel incapable in the process.
You’re hopeless for this man.
“You busy Saturday?” Joel asks casually while wiping his hands clean.
The idea of spending hours alone with him while he leaned over your car teaching you things in that low patient drawl of his feels dangerous in ways you don’t want to unpack right now.
“…depends,” you manage carefully. “How much actual learning about cars do I have to do to change brake pads?”
Joel laughs lightly again at that, “You’ll be fine, I promise.” He glances toward your apartment building then back at you, expression gentling slightly. “You should head inside before y’freeze.”
The silence stretches again, your fingers tightening slightly around your keys while Joel stands across from you, one hand resting against the hood of your car again like he’s reluctant to leave too.
Or maybe you’re projecting… probably projecting.
Joel glances briefly toward your apartment building before looking back at you again, “You got classes tomorrow?”
The question catches you slightly off guard, “Uh, yeah. Why?”
“What time?”
You narrow your eyes faintly, immediately suspicious. “Joel.”
“What?”
“You’re doing that thing again.”
“What thing?”
“The thing where you ask questions like you already decided something before consulting me.”
“What time?” he repeats calmly.
You sigh dramatically, “First class is at ten.”
“Mhm.” Joel nods once like that confirms whatever internal calculation he’d already been making. “I’ll pick y’up at nine sharp.”
Your brows shoot upward immediately, “Absolutely not.”
Joel barely reacts. “Sweetheart, your car sounds like it’s one pothole away from divine intervention.”
“The bus exists.”
“And now I know you’ve been walkin’ home alone at night from the stop.”
The easy warmth from earlier shifts subtly beneath the conversation now. Joel’s concern never really sounds overbearing because he never makes it about control. It’s always practical with him. Matter-of-fact enough that arguing starts to feel childish after a while.
Unfortunately, you still try, “I can survive two more days without inconveniencing you.”
Joel’s expression changes slightly at that, enough that your stomach tightens almost immediately, “Inconveniencing me,” he repeats quietly.
Joel looks away briefly, rubbing his thumb along the edge of the rag still hanging loosely from his hand before glancing back toward you again. There’s no irritation in his face, just calm… worry… if you look further, care.
“You really think givin’ you a ride to campus is some huge burden on my day?”
Heat creeps uncomfortably high into your chest.
“I just…” You exhale softly through your nose, struggling to articulate something that doesn’t sound pathetic now that he’s looking at you like this. “I’m used to handling my own stuff.”
“I can tell,” The gentleness in his voice nearly undoes you completely.
Joel steps a little closer again, “And that’s fine,” he says quietly. “Just let me help ya, just this once.”
You stare at him for a moment longer than necessary.
God.
Simple observations from him feel like they slide directly beneath your skin before you can defend against them properly drives you crazy.
Your eyes drift briefly toward the open collar of his shirt before snapping back upward again.
The corner of his mouth twitches faintly before he rescues you from your own embarrassment by reaching for his truck keys in his pocket instead.
“Nine o’clock sharp,” he repeats casually, like the conversation’s already over.
You exhale a soft incredulous laugh. “You are unbelievably stubborn.”
Nothing but a dimpled grin waiting for you to take him up on the offer like he already knows he won the argument.
“…fine,” you mutter eventually.
Joel hums in approval of your decision, the sound warming the cold night air between you both one last time before he finally starts backing toward his truck, “Night, darlin’.”
The word settles beneath your skin with immediate dangerous warmth because there’s nothing performative about it. No teasing edge or flirtation obvious enough to call out. It sounds natural coming from him, softened by exhaustion and familiarity in a way that makes panic unfurl quietly through your chest.
You’ve started noticing the difference now.
Sweetheart when he’s amused with you. Darlin’ when he forgets himself.
People do not accidentally develop specific terms of endearment for someone they’re trying very hard not to cross lines with.
You open your mouth to respond only to realize a second too late that your brain has stalled out entirely somewhere between hearing his voice and watching him stand there beneath the parking lot lights looking unfairly handsome with rolled sleeves and tired eyes and rough hands.
One brow lifts slightly while he waits beside the open driver’s side door of his truck, patient enough to make your pulse feel embarrassing.
“Goodnight, Joel,” you finally manage.
· · ──────── ꒰ঌ·✦·໒───────── · ·
a/n: hellooooo again my looooves!! Summer break-ish! Does that mean I can write more?! I fuckin’ hope so! But I’ll be starting work here soon. Holyyyy dude, spring sem broke my brain but I’m free of calc and physics yay! I’m grieving the fact that my yapping prof/muse for this fic will be gone until next spring but I’m fine, I swear!
I wanna give these characters more brain space beyond just daydreaming I’m getting back into adding songs to their playlist and transcribing the snippets of chapters I’d hand-written during class (old habits die hard) into their designated chapters. Sometimes it’s hard to piece it all together because my notes are not organized unless it’s for specific classes I actually care about. Which… should be all of them, but be so fr…. Miss me with that math bs (to all the math people, I DO enjoy math when it doesn’t stress me out to the point of drawing my focus away from the classes I actually am passionate for, but anti-derivatives can kiss my ass).
Incomplete yet HEFTY playlist I have for these two so far:
taglist as requested (please let me know if you want to be added/removed): @magicxmiller @yslgreen @mallingcalling-blog @getitoutofmymindwrites @msdariaknight @morganlolitta @faiantas-blog @anheloamores @loveday1219
me now that i’m up to date with this absolutely amazing fic that has taken over my life right now 🥲
words cannot explain how much i love this fic, this joel, everything is just insanely well written and i have cried an embarrassing amount of times in the past few days
i need more and i cannot wait for the rest of this fic !! <33
Seeing your comments/ reblogs got me kicking my feet and giggling 🤭🤭 Istg AHHHHHH thank you so much for reading, I have soooooo much in store for these two.
Professor!Joel is my everything. He has existed in my head for many years and finally bringing him to life is my true calling, why do I have to work and make money and exist in a society… sooooo unfortunate. Although I was writing/planning this before knowing that I was going back to college so that has been such an incredible experience to integrate what I’m learning into this story! Specifically with making friends/interacting with professors, it’s fascinating to have a little insight into that side of academia.
I love love love hearing thoughts on this story, it makes me so happy :) the next chapter is in the works and should be done within the next few weeks! The ebb and flow of motivation is so aggravating but I’m doing my best 😌 buckle in, we’re in for a long ride!
Another one couldn’t hurt… right? - The Big Reveal
Pt. 9: you and daddy Joel but not in that way… share the news of the addition to your little family.
pt. 1 | prev pt. | series masterlist // main masterlist | next pt.
NSFW! mdni 18+ only
warnings/content:
WC 7.4k - no outbreak!au, domestic fluff/smut, established relationship, husband!joel x wife!reader, some physical descriptions, mentions of pregnancy, age gap relationship, reader is early 30s & Joel is late 40s, they have 3 kids and are expecting a 4th. // unprotected p-in-v (don’t even think about it!), breeding kink/ pregnancy kink/ impregnation kink (even if your eyes are wide open, you don’t need to squint), soft dom!joel, size kink, fingers in mouth fingers in mouth fingers in mo—, fingering, degradation kink, praise kink, marking, dirty talk, multiple orgasms. No use of y/n.
a/n: more more more I’m greedy for them please stop making me exist elsewhere
୨୧ ⏔⏔⏔♡⏔⏔⏔ ୨୧ ୨୧ ⏔⏔⏔⏔♡⏔⏔⏔⏔ ୨୧
your parents’ house, Christmas Day
“You’re pregnant?”
Your sister’s voice cuts through the moment you step into the foyer. Her head is poking out from around the kitchen doorway, hair pulled up in a messy bun, hands still flour-dusted from rolling dough, and her eyes lock right onto your stomach.
You glance down at your bump, snug and unmistakably visible beneath your soft, form-fitting sweater.
Your small frame was always quick to betray the blooming life within your womb. You’d started showing at just two months pregnant, a form-fitting sweater leaves little doubt.
You blink at her past your parents, who are busy wrangling your kids into hugs… Sarah already halfway out of her coat and Artie’s stomping water off his boots, and letting himself be lifted into your dad’s arms.
“Well,” you deadpan, tossing a look back at Joel and that permanent smirk fixed on his face, “hello to you, too.”
Your sister disappears, but before you can get your coat off she’s right in front of you, wide-eyed and eyes locked on your bump.
“Oh my god, oh my god, you are. That’s a baby bump.” Her eyes find yours and you swear you see a tear in the corner of them, “You didn’t tell me!”
“I was going to,” you laugh nervously, surrendering your coat to Joel’s waiting hand. “I mean… I am telling you.”
Your mom turns at the noise, gaze dropping to your sweater the same moment she registers the conversation. Her brows lift, lips part, and then her hand covers her chest like the gesture might steady her heart.
“Is it true?” she asks, softly. “Honey, are you really…?”
Joel steps up beside you, tucking a hand around your waist, grounding the moment with that subtle, quiet strength of his. He’s still carrying Ellie, who’s buried her face in his neck with her thumb in her mouth, clinging to him despite her puffy pink jacket. Her little legs dangle against him.
“A little over 4 months along,” he says. “We wanted to wait a little while before tellin’ everyone.”
Your dad glances up from where Artie’s got him in a bear hug. “Wait… four months? You’re four months pregnant?” He stares at you, then Joel, then you again. “When were y’all gonna mention that, sometime after the baby graduates?”
“We wanted to do it in person,” you raise your hands in mock surrender.
The room stills, the chaos of coats and kids fading into a shared, stunned silence, and then your mom’s face breaks open like the sun coming out from behind clouds. She steps forward, hugging you with both arms.
“Oh, sweetheart… another baby,” she murmurs. “You’re growing another little person.”
Joel smiles softly beside you, and when your mom pulls back, she hugs him too. He stiffens for only half a second before sinking into it. Just the effects of your mom’s hugs, he stopped denying that fact.
“Four kids,” your dad mutters, still shaking his head. “You must really like bein’ exhausted.”
“Well, she’s hard to say no to.” A sharp nudge of your elbow has him looking at you with that devious smirk of his, knowing damn well he was the one you couldn’t say no to.
“Happy wife happy life, right?” your sister jokes, nudging Joel from the other side and causing a grunt from the man as he’s attacked from both sides with what he swears are the pointiest damn elbows.
So distinctly sisters, but he loves the bond the two of you share.
Your sister grins as she steps in front of you and reaches over to rub your bump. You roll your eyes, though you secretly love when your sister dotes on your babies. You were practically her baby growing up, after all.
“This little one’s already stealing the show.”
Everyone’s laughing gleefully and so emotionally now, your sister hugging Joel from the side with a playful, ‘you dog, you’.
Joel finally lowers Ellie, who’s now more awake and mumbling something as she toddles straight toward your dad, arms out like a sleepy penguin. It’s her turn to be scooped up by him and he presses a kiss to her forehead.
Joel peels off his coat last with a deep sigh and a pleased smirk on his face.
He glances at you with that look he saves just for these moments, half overwhelmed and half overflowing.
“You okay?” you ask quietly as the room moves around you in a swirl of hugs, laughter, and boots being peeled off of tiny feet.
He nods once, eyes locked on yours, the softest brown to ever be seen. Warm like creamy hot chocolate which has become a staple in your cravings lately, “Never better, darlin’.”
Sarah tugs at his hand then, pulling his attention away from you. Always feels like a much crueler interruption than it is. But what can you do when just a look from the man can have you feeling your heart beat out of your chest.
“Can I show Poppy the drawings we made?” Sarah asks, the brightest smile on her little face causing those distinctly Joel dimples to make their appearances.
Joel’s mouth twitches into a soft grin, “Sure thing, bug.”
She grabs your dad’s hand and drags him into the living room while Artie runs ahead. Your mom leads you toward the kitchen with her arm around your waist, as if you’re viable to break like precious china if handled wrong. She was always like this with your pregnancies, with your only sibling being your sister who was quite content remaining single and childfree, you and your kids were the main attraction at any family gathering.
Joel only had one brother, Tommy, who had also miraculously remained childfree despite his dalliances before he hit his mid-thirties where life turned serious.
Joel had told you all about that moment in his life that he’d realized how much he’d forgone a personal life to take care of his mom when she’d gotten sick. Then, she got better, and he was still stuck in that eldest role of taking care of his younger brother and being the pinnacle of support for the entire family.
When his work started flourishing and he had his own house to maintain, he lost himself in the work. The effort of a relationship is easily dissuaded by the endless hours of paperwork and phone calls that drained his brain of any further effort. By the time he’d get home, he’d be exhausted mentally, physically, and emotionally; he knew trying to establish anything external would only be a distraction. Plus, if he were to get into a relationship he’d want to be able to focus more of his energy on that than he was capable of at that point.
By the time you’d met him, he’d finally opened himself to the idea of dating. But he didn’t want the flings or the one-night stands. He’d taken care of himself for long enough that he had no interest in wasting time as that was his most valuable asset. Then, you. Intense, focused, brilliant, determined… young as hell, but you were… well, you. As much as he tried to deny it initially, you had woven yourself into his very being. The idea of waking up to a cup of coffee and his dose of you every day became his lifeline.
When you’d finally decided to try for a baby together, it wasn’t a decision made lightly.
You’d enjoyed almost an entire decade together childfree. You’d filled your time with traveling and enjoying each other to the fullest, but there was so much love left to give.
Joel had respected your wishes after things between the two of you had gotten to an undeniably serious point after you’d settled into the married life. The discussion of kids came up, and you’d both agreed that you wanted to focus on your career and your marriage and not prioritize the life path of having children.
Joel was respectful of your wishes, as he always has been, but you could tell he was a man meant to be a dad. He was nurturing and patient, slow to anger, protective, kind, strong and soft all at once.
He’d never once brought it up unless you did, the exciting idea of having kids. Then, you slowly started talking about it more. How you were having baby fever, or when his cousin’s kids always gravitated towards him and he was just so natural and gentle that you couldn’t help but feel your womb ache to have his babies. Or when you were just so deeply and irrevocably in love you’d beg him to give you his babies.
He always tried to differentiate the feral requests with the logical ones, the conversations brought up when talking about bills or vacations or friends who were having kids. The logistics of it all, the time allocated, the mental and physical impacts that may occur, the lifestyle changes, the entire shift of dynamics once again to accommodate the new roles of being mom and dad, best friends, and husband and wife.
Then, you were buying baby books for new parents, eyeing that empty room for the layout of a nursery, and adjusting yours and his diet for the healthiest baby-making… That's when he finally embraced the excitement he’d been harboring for years.
Of course, he’d always stated his openness to the idea. In a “if you ever want kids, darlin’…” kind of way. Well, he can’t pretend he’s entirely innocent… especially when he’d be balls deep inside of you and he hears those sweet whimpers and tells you to ‘take it… let me fill y’up, make it stick, make a momma outta you’.
It's easy for him as a man to embrace the concept of children. But he knew it would have to be your choice, all he could do was be supportive of your decision. He wanted you, all of you, to himself. He wasn’t ashamed to finally admit his desire for physical, undeniable proof of his possession of your love and your devotion. Turns out, you wanted everyone to know who you belonged to, too.
As if that was much of a surprise for the way you unashamedly would display your affections in public. Or rather lay your claim. He loved every damn minute of it.
You’d learned early on that you shared particular turn-ons regarding the idea of Joel’s seed taking root deep inside you, creating life out of primal instinct. Which were very unproductive for the logical side of things when in reality you both had agreed to prioritizing a childfree life… but it had always been a turn-on. In addition to many others you’d explored over the years, at some point you realized there may be some real-life application with which you were both genuinely excited for. Not just the primal instinct to breed, claim, and belong to each other, though that fire within you both certainly continues to burn brighter with each day.
Now, with your little family, anyone you’d ever encountered had no doubt in their minds about the passion shared between the two of you. Overflowing with love and admiration for each other and bleeding into the physical and living proof of your love in the form of three little munchkins and another on the way.
Damn, he was proud to be the daddy to these kiddos. Quite literally made with love. Growing to become little people he adores, so distinctive and brilliant in their own ways, yet so undeniably you in other ways. And yes, more often than not he can’t help but confront the parts of himself that shine through these mini-versions of he and you.
“Daddy…” Ellie’s tugging on the pant leg of his jeans, her brows furrowed just like her daddy’s, so intently focused on getting his attention.
“Yeah, baby girl? What’d’ya need?” Her eyes light up once she’s won his attention, immediately outstretching her arms.
With a deep sigh, he leans down and picks her up, a soothing hand rubbing her back as he straightens again.
His girls are spoiled, and his son certainly is too. The blossoming life growing inside of you will be just as spoiled… he looks at you at that thought, his gaze softening at the sight of your hand absently resting on the bump beneath your sweater.
He’s obsessed with that sight, but is once again rudely interrupted by Sarah and Artie nearly knocking over your mother as she was carrying dishes to the dining room table.
He groans, letting his eyes rove over you once more before gently sets Ellie back down, much to her disapproval, “alright, you two… c’mere.” Artie and Sarah’s eyes quickly look as his usual soft, gentle voice turned stern. A rarity, but they knew enough to know that they had done something to earn that tone. He points his finger to the floor in front of him, and kneels down so he’s closer to eye-level of your two oldest.
“Artie…” your son refuses to still, trying to grab onto Joel’s broad shoulders and climb onto his back. But Joel quickly catches him, lifting him and setting him down in front of where Joel was kneeling. Joel’s large hands gently grip your son’s upper arms, keeping him still which is a nearly impossible endeavor when he’s hyper.
“Y’listenin’, bud?” Joel’s stern dad voice is so unbearably sexy to you, and as much as you loved it you also liked that he didn’t have to use it that often… yet. Who knew what trouble your kids would get into as they get older and likely more rambunctious.
Artie’s mischievous eyes, the same dark, scheming eyes his daddy gets whenever he’s up to no good, dart everywhere except his father’s face.
Meanwhile, Sarah has already begun retreating behind you.
Your now seven-year-old carefully wedges herself against the back of your legs like maybe if she becomes part of your silhouette Joel won’t notice she’d very clearly been involved in whatever catastrophe had nearly taken out your mother and the dinner dishes.
“Oh no,” he drawls, pointing toward her without looking away from Artie. “Don’t you start hidin’ behind your mama like she’s gonna save ya.”
You bite the inside of your cheek, fighting a smile as Sarah’s little hands clutch the back of your sweater tighter.
“Mommy likes me,” she mutters into your side.
Joel huffs out a laugh at that, deep and warm and exhausted all at once. “Mommy likes me too, bug. Means she’s my accomplice, not yours.”
You finally glance down at her, raising a brow, “Were you helping your brother cause problems?”
Sarah’s eyes widen with immediate betrayal. Like you, of all people, should understand loyalty.
Joel catches the look and points between the two of you, “See? Team effort. Mommy and Daddy are united against tiny menaces.”
Joel sighs through a smile before finally straightening back up to his full height. Sarah stays tucked against you, peeking around your arm with cautious little eyes now that she realizes this is shifting from teasing into an actual lesson.
The softness settles back into his face almost immediately.
He reaches down, patting Artie lightly on the shoulder. “Hey,” he says more gently, waiting until both kids are looking at him. “Y’all know Grandma could’ve gotten hurt, right?”
Sarah’s mouth pulls downward just slightly while Artie’s grip loosens on Joel’s jeans, “We didn’t mean to,” Sarah says quietly.
“I know y’didn’t.” Joel’s voice stays calm and steady, never sharp. “But that’s why we gotta be careful in houses full’a people, ‘specially when folks are carryin’ hot food or dishes, alright?”
Artie nods first, quick and earnest now that he understands that they could’ve hurt someone because of running inside. He was a kid with good intentions, and so was Sarah. You and Joel both know they’d never intentionally hurt anyone, especially Grandma, who makes the best cookies and lets them lick the bowl.
“Can y’go apologize to Grandma for almost knockin’ her over?”
Sarah immediately slips away from your side while Artie barrels after her, nearly tripping over his own feet in his rush to make it right.
Joel catches the back of his sweater again automatically before he can faceplant, “Walk,” he warns.
Artie slows to an aggressively fast walk.
You laugh quietly beside him while Joel shakes his head under his breath, though you can see the fondness written all over his face.
Then he glances over at you, “Think they just need to burn some energy,” he murmurs.
“Y’think?”
He ignores the sarcasm entirely, “I’ll take ‘em outside for a bit before dinner. Let ‘em run ‘round the yard or somethin’.” His gaze drifts toward the darkening yard outside. “Better than lettin’ your father get tackled by a four-year-old hopped up on peppermint bark.”
You hum and melt into his side, pressing your face to his chest as his hand finds your lower back, his fingers massaging right where you always need it.
Your eyes drift toward the kitchen again just in time to see Ellie ignoring the chaos entirely in favor of your sister, who’s finally escaped dish duty and flour-covered countertops long enough to breathe.
Ellie toddles directly toward her with complete certainty, as she always has with your sister.
Your sister barely has enough time to crouch before Ellie climbs straight into her lap, little arms looping around her neck like she belongs there.
You watch as Ellie curls so naturally into your sister’s lap while the rest of the house buzzes around them. She’d always been different from the older two in that regard. Ellie preferred to observe first. To linger quietly at the edges until she decided where she wanted to be.
And somehow, more often than not, she chose your sister.
Maybe because your sister never pushes for attention from her. Never forces interaction or tries to coax her out of her shell. She simply exists beside her. And Ellie responds to that with the kind of trust only little kids are capable of giving.
Sarah reappears from the kitchen with your mother behind her, and your mom’s already waving the whole thing off with affectionate exasperation.
Artie’s at her heels in apology while Sarah explains something very seriously with animated little hand gestures.
Joel watches the scene unfold and something in him visibly eases again.
You tilt your head up to look at him properly, and there it is again, that unbearable feeling that still catches you off guard even after years together.
The sight of him.
Not just handsome, though god he is. Broad shoulders filling out that dark sweater, hair slightly mussed from tiny hands, wedding ring catching warm kitchen light every time he moves.
It’s the intimacy of knowing every version of this man.
Knowing how gentle those hands are when they hold your babies. Knowing the same man that disciplines your children, kissed every inch of your body this morning like devotion itself. Knowing the quiet steadiness of him is real because you’ve seen every version of this man there is to see.
The younger Joel who kissed you like he was starving for it never disappeared. If anything, age only made him worse. Who kisses you now like it’s the nectar of life itself and the only way he can possibly get through the day.
The man who keeps fruit snacks in his coat pocket because Ellie gets cranky in grocery stores. The man who learned how to braid Sarah’s hair from YouTube videos because she once cried when he couldn’t make it look like yours. The man who lets Artie “help” him with yard work even though it usually creates three times more work in the end.
Now, the amazing father who is currently calculating exactly how long he can let the kids sprint around outside before someone inevitably cries about wet socks.
Joel notices you staring almost instantly and his eyes lower to yours, softening at the edges, “What?”
“Nothin’.”
That earns you a skeptical little huff.
Your fingers curl into the front of his sweater instead, smoothing over the fabric there while your body instinctively drifts closer.
You swear sometimes loving him feels less like an emotion and more like gravity.
Your Joel.
The man who somehow still looks at you like he’s a little stunned you chose him.
Even now, standing in your parents’ foyer surrounded by children and Christmas dishes and overlapping conversations, you can feel it lingering beneath the surface in the way his eyes drift over you.
“What’s on your mind, darlin’?”
You smile against his chest, “You always know when I’m in my head, huh.”
“Married to ya long enough.” His nose brushes briefly against your temple, “Got tells.”
You raise an eyebrow and look up at him again, “Oh, I’ve got tells?”
He nods lazily, his eyes slowly absorbing everything your expression has to reveal, “Mhmm.”
“What are they?”
His eyes flick down to your mouth before lifting again, warm amusement settling there, “Get real quiet. Start lookin’ at me like you’re about five seconds away from either kissin’ me or cryin’.”
His hand slides firmly around your waist and pulls you against him until there’s barely space left between your bodies. Warmth radiates off him in waves, familiar and grounding and dangerously distracting all at once.
Then he kisses you, his mouth moves against yours with the ease of long practice. His thumb strokes slow against the curve of your waist beneath your sweater while your fingers drift upward into the slightly mussed hair at the nape of his neck.
God, you love kissing your husband.
Love the way he always sighs into it immediately.
Love the way his hand tightens subtly at your hips every single time, grounding himself to you.
The room dissipates from around you. Everything else fades away until…
“Again?”
Joel pulls back first, though only barely, forehead still resting against yours as he closes his eyes with exhausted resignation.
Sarah stands in the middle of the foyer holding a candy cane like she’s personally witnessed a war crime.
Artie appears beside her two seconds later, immediately far less interested.
Sarah keeps squinting suspiciously at the two of you, “You kiss a lot.”
Joel snaps his fingers playfully and points toward her without missing a beat, “Well, I like mommy a lot. That’s generally how bein’ married works, bug.”
Artie nods thoughtfully at this revelation while Ellie, still planted in your sister’s lap, watches the entire exchange.
Your mother waves a hand from the dining room, “Joel, if you still plan on taking those children outside before dinner, now would be an excellent time.”
“Yes ma’am, I’m goin’.”
The kids erupt instantly.
You bite back another smile as Joel starts gathering tiny jackets, hats, gloves, and boots with the efficiency of a man who’s done this exact routine a thousand times before. He crouches to zip Sarah’s coat while simultaneously stopping Artie from pelting Ellie with a mitten.
Then he looks up at you with that stupid, devastating tenderness that never fails to wreck you.
Joel sighs heavily through a smile before opening the back door, immediately getting blasted with cold air and shrieking children.
Within seconds the backyard is chaos.
Sarah starts organizing some elaborate puddle game that only she understands while Artie sprints through the yard like a feral woodland creature. Joel trails after them with Ellie right behind him, her hat slipping crooked over one eye while she watches her siblings with fascination.
You stand near the kitchen window with your mother and sister, pretending to help arrange dinner while mostly just watching your husband through the glass.
The porch light catches on the broad shape of him moving through the yard, bending to help Artie gather sticks that look the most sword shaped while Sarah tugs insistently at his sleeve trying to explain rules to whatever game she’s invented.
And even from across the yard you can see the grin that spreads across his face when he catches you staring again.
—
Dinner passes in the warm, chaotic blur family holidays always seem to become.
By the time the gifts are all exchanged and opened, and the kids are finally bundled into pajamas and makeshift sleeping arrangements, both you and Joel are running on exhaustion, affection, and several hours of quietly pretending you weren’t thinking about each other in entirely inappropriate ways all evening. Joel stands in the hallway doorway watching you adjust Sarah’s blanket later that night, your sweater riding up slightly over the curve of your stomach as you bend.
The look on his face when you straighten again is enough to make warmth coil low in your belly instantly.
His wedding ring glints softly as he hooks a finger through the belt loop of your jeans and pulls you into him.
There’s a pattern to the two of you now. One built over years of marriage and children and knowing each other too well. Lingering touches throughout the day. Stolen glances across crowded rooms. The gradual build of tension until eventually one of you finally caves.
Usually him, though not always.
You glance down the hallway toward the room where the kids are sleeping before looking back up at him.
Joel follows your gaze and immediately groans under his breath.
“Darlin’,” he mutters, forehead dropping briefly against yours. “We are absolutely not sneakin’ around your parents’ house like teenagers,” Joel mutters against your mouth. Even as he says it, his hands are already sliding beneath your sweater, warm palms spreading over your waist like he physically cannot help himself.
“Mm,” you hum against his mouth. “Married teenagers with a mortgage and four children.”
That rough laugh leaves him before he kisses you again, helpless against it despite himself.
Maybe it was the nostalgia of being back in your childhood home. Maybe it was watching Joel all night, warm and broad and endlessly patient with your children. Maybe it was pregnancy hormones or the rare opportunity to exist without tiny hands climbing all over both of you for five consecutive minutes.
Whatever it was, the second the bedroom door shut behind you, restraint stopped feeling particularly important.
The guest room, which was once your childhood bedroom, is dark except for the colored glow of Christmas lights filtering faintly through the curtains from outside. Soft reds and greens drift across the walls in muted washes, catching along Joel’s shoulders as he locks the door as quietly as possible before turning back toward you.
And then he just… looks at you.
His gaze drifts slowly down your body, lingering at the swell of your stomach beneath your sweater before climbing back upward again. Something about pregnancy completely rewires this man. Not that Joel had ever really tried to keep his hands off of you, but carrying his babies seemed to reduce whatever self-control he once possessed into ash.
He’s stepping toward you again and you bite your lip in anticipation, the heat already climbing your neck.
His mouth brushes yours, “Thought your mother was gonna catch you eye-fuckin’ me across the dinner table.”
A startled laugh escapes you before he kisses you again, swallowing the sound immediately.
The kiss deepens almost without warning.
Years together had made the two of you dangerously attuned to each other. Every inhale. Every shift of breath. Every tiny sound. Joel kisses you like a man who already knows exactly what makes you melt and still enjoys discovering it all over again anyway.
His hands slide beneath your sweater fully now, rough palms smoothing up the curve of your spine before settling at your ribs. You shiver when his thumbs brush the underside of your breasts.
“Joel,” you whisper.
The sound of his name alone seems to do something to him.
His forehead drops briefly against yours again, eyes closing as he exhales slowly through his nose like he’s actively trying to collect himself, “This is a terrible idea.”
Your fingers slide into his hair, “Y’wanna stop?”
Joel lets out a quiet, disbelieving laugh against your mouth.
“Sweetheart,” he murmurs, palms smoothing slowly down your sides, “if I ever stop touchin’ ya, it’s because I’m six feet under.”
Joel backs you toward the bed slowly, one hand spread protectively over the curve of your stomach. The backs of your legs hit the mattress and he follows you down with a quiet groan the second you pull him with you.
His beard scrapes lightly along your jaw before his mouth finds the sensitive spot beneath your ear.
“Y’have any idea,” he murmurs quietly against your skin, “what watchin’ you tonight did t’me?”
Your hands smooth beneath his sweater, palms dragging over warm skin and the firm planes of his back. “Probably the same thing watchin’ you with the kids does to me.”
That earns you a rough exhale against your throat.
“Yeah?” His mouth curves faintly there. “Me wranglin’ sugar-crazed children got you worked up?”
“So stern yet so gentle with your minis…” You glance up at him innocently, “yeah, very much so.”
His mouth drags down your throat and he immediately catches the tiny sound that escapes you, one large hand sliding up to cover your mouth before instinct can betray either of you.
Those dark chocolate eyes lift back to yours instantly, equal parts amusement and warning.
“Mind yourself, darlin’, got sleepin’ kids and a house full’a people who already know too much about what we get up to when we’re alone.”
Your fingers smooth through the hair at the nape of his neck, softening at the rough edge in his voice. It’s almost unfair how quickly this man unravels for you after all these years. One kiss and suddenly the steady, capable father downstairs wrangling over-tired children disappears, replaced by the version of Joel who still looks at you like he’s starving for every inch of affection you offer him.
His other rough palm skims over your ribs, your waist, the gentle swell of your stomach again, “Y’gonna be quiet f’me, baby?”
You nod your head pathetically, and he can feel your grin against his hand.
“Y’promise?”
You nod your head again, taking staggered breaths through your nose as he looks down at you with such fire that you swear you melt beneath him.
“Alright… but I won’t hesitate in gaggin’ ya if I have to, y’understand?” He takes his hand slowly off of your mouth, assessing your understanding and obedience, “use your words, hun. Be a good girl.”
“Yes sir, I… I’ll be good.”
He hums in contemplation, knowing you have good intentions, but also knowing how hard you try to be quiet and how rare it is for you to succeed in that endeavor. His hands finally grab the hem of your shirt and peel it off of you, quickly disposing of your bra as you arch your back for him.
“Y’are a good girl f’me, ain’t ya…” His lips trail lower, lingering and reverent one second before turning hungry the next. Leaving dark red marks in his path.
The colored glow of the Christmas lights from the house beside your parents’ catches across his shoulders as he settles between your thighs again, broad hands smoothing up the outsides of them before spreading them gently apart.
You bite your lip hard enough to stop the sound threatening to leave you and his eyes darken instantly at the effort.
His thumb drags slowly along your bottom lip before pressing gently against it. Your mouth opens for him without hesitation, your tongue instantly working around it in a way that threatens his own unraveling.
“Y’know what y’do to me carryin’ my babies?” he murmurs, eyes dragging slowly over you. “Walkin’ around lookin’ so damn sexy all day while I’m tryin’ to behave in front’a your parents.”
His mouth presses briefly against your stomach then, softer than before, lingering there for a second longer before he looks back up at you again. His mouth presses briefly against your stomach then, softer than before, lingering there for a second longer before he looks back up at you again.
He withdraws his thumb from your mouth much to your dismay, but quickly unbuttons your jeans and hooks his fingers beneath the waistband of your pants and panties and pulls them down with less self-control than he’d been showcasing thus far.
You lift your hips as he slides them off, his hands lightly trace back up your legs, his eyes following aptly.
“Fuckin’ gorgeous, and look at that…” his obsession with your baby bump is no surprise, and might also be one of the reasons you’d agreed to having one last baby in the first place.
“You get prettier every damn day, don’t’cha?” His eyes flick back up to yours with that devilish grin of his before he’s gripping your thighs apart and settling himself between them.
He crosses his arms and peels his sweater and undershirt off in a grand show of revealing his deliciously tanned skin to your hungry hands and eyes.
It doesn’t take long for your hands to unbutton and unzip his pants and start to shuck them down his thick thighs. He steps off of the bed to peel the final layers all the way off.
His cock springs free, leaking profusely at the tip as if he’d been neglected all day. And maybe he had been, unintentionally, due to the demands of wrangling three trouble-makers on Christmas. And so had you, you realize, as your legs spread wider as settles between them again. Then, his attempt to inch down the bed is thwarted by your heels anchoring behind his thighs.
You’re not one to deny his hungry mouth from getting its fill of you, but the entire evening all you’d been able to think about is how you’re carrying his baby and how you need him to melt into you. For his broad body to cage you in like a damn animal and fuck the ache out of you.
“Need you, Joel… need to feel you,” your arms wrap around him as he presses his exposed skin against yours.
“Awfully bold of ya to assume you’re ready to take me, darlin’,” he drags two of his thick fingers down the expanse of your stomach, watching the shivers erupting on your skin with a quiet reverence.
“Gonna need t’use my fingers first, baby… need to feel y’cum before I lose my damn mind inside this tight pussy,” His fingers cup your mound now, his middle finger pressing against your entrance and quickly sinking inside without much resistance at all because of how long you’d been worked up, “fuck…” Joel groans at how wet you are already, then slowly adds another finger before starting to thrust in and out.
The squelch of his fingers is obscene, betraying how needy you are for him, as if there’s ever really any doubt.
“Needy cunt, I know… I know,” he soothes, his thrusts quicken with the addition of his thumb nudging against your swollen clit.
A whimper immediately escapes you, followed quickly by a moan of relief as he finds that spot inside of you, curling his fingers into the spongy ridge that has you seeing stars.
Joel can tell that you are already oblivious to the sounds you’re making. Before you can even register what’s happening, Joel’s thick fingers are stuffed into your open mouth, stifling the sounds pouring out of you, “since y’can’t shut y’self up…” he doesn’t need to finish that thought, the purpose is clear.
You hum around his fingers in surprise, but your eyes tell him everything he needs to know… well, the clenching of your tight walls around his thick digits buried deep in your pussy tends to also be a tell-tale sign that you are getting closer to cresting over that wave of pleasure.
Your hands anchor themselves to some part of him. Your nails biting into the tanned skin of his biceps and forearms, desperately trying to ground yourself against the onslaught of stimulation.
You're enraptured by the sight of him expertly working your body. He’s added a third finger into the gummy walls of your pussy, scissoring you open for his cock, and his thumb continues its circles on your clit.
You’re a blubbery mess around his fingers as you suckle them and incoherently plead for him, he doesn’t need to hear your words to know what you’re saying, “cum f’me, baby, then I can fuck the ache away. Be my good girl…”
Not like you had much choice in the matter as your body keens, your back arching into his touch as he brings you over that edge. Your vision goes blurry, the pleasure is blinding, and all you can feel is him. All you can hear are his stifled groans of approval and his words of encouragement through clenched teeth as he works you through your intense orgasm, “fuck yeah…such a good fuckin’ girl f’me… that’s it…”
You can feel the throb of his cock against your thigh, the tip leaking profusely and swollen red with need.
You still can’t talk coherently through his fingers still stuffed in your mouth, but he can feel your tongue moving along his fingers and his eyes finally meet yours again after he brings you down from your much needed release and withdraws his fingers from your pussy.
He keeps his fingers in your mouth, his eyes dark and hungry as he brings the fingers that had just been buried inside of you to his lips, sucking and licking them clean with a low hum of approval and murmuring praises as he indulges his favorite taste in the damn world, “so sweet, all fuckin’ mine.”
He keeps his fingers in your mouth as he grips his cock in his other hand, his head tilting back briefly in relief as he strokes it once before nudging your legs wider with his.
Your eyes say enough for him to understand what you want, and your body says what your eyes can’t. Your legs spread wider, inviting... begging. Your hands pulling him closer, the heels of your feet digging into the back of his legs and practically forcing his cock closer to where you need him.
“Alright, alright… I hear ya, needy thing, let me make y’feel better, yeah?”
You nod frantically, only now noticing the tears welling up in your eyes in sheer need to be filled by him.
Joel tuts mockingly at your desperation which only causes the tears to spill down your cheeks, “Y’need my cock to claim this sweet pussy like it ain’t what fucked ya deep and raw til it knocked y’up… again?”
His thumb traces your chin and cheek as your tongue works around his fingers as if they were his cock shoved deep into your throat. You do your best to swallow around them, the saliva starting to spill out and down your chin and he just watches, completely enraptured by the sight.
Much to your dismay…. surprise…. delight? you’re not really sure, he pulls his fingers out of your mouth. He then grips your face, with your mouth still agape, between his thumb and his soaked fingers, ensuring your full attention on him.
The next thing you know, his mouth is on yours, and the thick head of his cock is pushing into you.
You swallow each other’s moans, inhaling and absorbing every non-verbal confession of how badly you both needed this.
His tongue licks hungrily into your mouth and you greedily accept it, your hands finding purchase in his greying curls once more as he gives in to his own need.
The stretch is accompanied by a subtle burn as he works the girth of his cock into you. One of his hands grips the underside of your thigh, holding you open for him, while the other braces himself.
“Fuck,” he breathes against your mouth once he bottoms out. “Needed y’too, woulda kept teasin’ ya, but who the fuck am I kiddin’.”
He widens the stance of his thick thighs between yours, causing your legs to spread even more as he loses all abandon and begins fucking you into the mattress.
“Thank you, thank you… thank y…” you blabber against his lips, and you feel him grin against yours in response.
His pace picks up and his heavy balls slap against you with every thrust as he murmurs filth right into your soul, “take it, baby… this cock was made to fill this tight pussy, to fuck ya so hard and deep that y’can’t form a word in that pretty little head a’yours.” He keeps going, nestling his face into the crook of your neck and replacing his hand over your mouth to prevent your whimpers and moans from filling the entire house.
His lips are right up to your ear now, and you know he has no intention of stopping this spew of filth as he fucks you without reprieve, “this tiny body was made f’my thick cock to fuck my seed right into your womb… ‘n make it stick… over and over…” the sound of your bodies slapping together should’ve been more of a concern than whatever other sounds you could possibly be making, but Joel couldn’t care less at the moment.
The sound of Christmas movies carried throughout the house, so at this point it was more about making you compliant to the impact of his words, which he knows will have you milking his cock in no time, “fuckin’ ya in your childhood bed with our kids sleepin’ down the hall… what would your younger self say, huh? Before she knew what a greedy, desperate girl she’d become because a real man showed her how to fuck.”
You think about your eighteen year old self, finally eighteen, having indulged in endless fantasies of someday meeting an older man to show her exactly what Joel has shown you, but those fantasies could never compare to your reality now.
Joel’s words certainly have the desired effect, you can feel that coil tightening once more. That perfect mushroom head of his cock digging perfectly into that spot so so deep inside of you. His teeth and tongue are laying claim to the hollow of your throat. His grip tightens around your thigh, and you know it’ll bruise.
You fucking love when his hands leave a mark in the shape of his fingers. “Please…” you mouth the word against the hand still covering your mouth. Your nails rake down the muscles of his back, each thrust has you crying against his palm. You feel every detail of his impossibly hard cock as it repeatedly stretches you open around it and fucks deeper than you think is even possible, every time.
You can imagine every throb of every vein you’ve memorized with your tongue, your hands, your pulsating walls… his chest heaves against yours, the coarse, yet soft hair spattered across his broad chest rubs deliciously against your nipples and causes more whimpers to spill between his fingers. His skin melts against yours, the sweat of passionate bodies mixing together in a concoction of devotion and primal need.
He lifts himself up so he can see the way his cock splits you open and the foamy ring of your arousal forming at the base of his cock.
His brows furrow in concentration as he feels how fucking close you are again, “there it is, baby… give it t’me, my good fuckin’ girl,” he finally moves his hand from over your mouth in favor of strengthening your impending release. His hand moves between your thighs and his thumb finds that oversensitive bundle of nerves that instantly has you biting down on your own hand to stifle the noises from flooding out.
“That’s it,” his hips stutter as you begin to pulsate around him, he pushes his hips forward, tilting yours up slightly and then everything implodes, “fuck… fuck yes, milkin’ the fuck outta me, baby…”
Now, both of his hands grip the back of your thighs and folds you in half, his entire body pressing you into the mattress as he pounds mercilessly into you.
You’re free-falling off of the edge and Joel’s right there with you. Lips colliding in kisses meant to devour, hands grasping to pull him closer, but there’s no space between you left to fill, yet you ache to absorb.
A few more thrusts and he can’t hold back any longer. With a deep, guttural groan that vibrates so deep you can feel it in your own bones, he’s spilling his seed deep inside of you, “take it,” his forehead drops to your shoulder, his breath hot on your skin in soft grunts, emptying himself with thick spurts of cum painting your walls, “take it all.” His mouth claims every inch of skin he can reach, leaving little red marks and sloppy kisses in its wake. He slowly and messily trails back to your mouth, which he promptly pries open with his.
Your legs shake in the aftershock, your hands alternating between smoothing down the muscles of his back and tangling in his sweat-slicked hair.
You feel every pulse of his cock throbbing deep inside of you. With a few final and deep thrusts, he fucks his cum even deeper, and you can feel the mix of yours and his juices spilling out around his softening cock.
Right as you start to contemplate the consequences of making a mess on the guest room’s sheets, Joel understands exactly where your mind wanders to, “your parents ain’t dumb, they know we fuck like animals.”
Which does little to soothe your nerves. To know that your parents know how sexually active you are… as if a gaggle of kids and another on the way wasn’t proof enough… it went against your upbringing to really talk about that stuff with them. You and your sister are fairly certain they believe that she’s still a virgin, when you’d grown into your womanhood hearing about all of her sexual escapades. Her experience indirectly solidified your own preference for older men.
“Don’t worry, darlin’,” he presses gentle kisses to your forehead, your temple, your cheekbone…. the corner of your mouth, “I’ll rinse the sheets off in the mornin’ and leave ‘em to dry so there’s some benefit of the doubt… That work?”
You nod your head, but roll your eyes at the brown-eyed man staring so intently down at you, “thank you.”
He winks cheekily and you pull him into another sultry and sloppy make out.
“Anytime,” he replies.
You kiss his smug grin with a pleased hum.
A wandering hand finds your sore breasts with a soft sigh of relief against your lips, and he finally pulls out of you with a quiet groan, collapsing beside you. Joel presses gentle kisses to your shoulder and neck before settling into the soft mattress, allowing the exhaustion from the day to finally overtake you both.
୨୧ ⏔⏔⏔♡⏔⏔⏔ ୨୧ ୨୧ ⏔⏔⏔⏔♡⏔⏔⏔⏔ ୨୧
a/n: and yes, we are going to ignore the fact that this initially was going to be more of a Christmas chapter. fighting for my life a little bit (just being dramatic). my drive to do quite literally anything is minuscule to non-existent, but there is no better feeling than a blissful realization where I’m like oh let me do something I want to do and I actually do it. Throughout the past few months I have made like 20 drafts of general ideas for this fic and filled in plot holes/ did research for accuracy. that process is exhilarating for me as I scour pinterest, but that’s as far as I’d gotten til now. writing smut just wasn’t happening for me lol. soooo, here’s whatever this became! hope you enjoyed!
Taglist as requested (please let me know if you want to be added/removed!): @white-wolf-buckaroo @streamermattsgf @somedayheaven @simpingforjoel
Another one couldn’t hurt… right? - The Big Reveal
Pt. 9: you and daddy Joel but not in that way… share the news of the addition to your little family.
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NSFW! mdni 18+ only
warnings/content:
WC 7.4k - no outbreak!au, domestic fluff/smut, established relationship, husband!joel x wife!reader, some physical descriptions, mentions of pregnancy, age gap relationship, reader is early 30s & Joel is late 40s, they have 3 kids and are expecting a 4th. // unprotected p-in-v (don’t even think about it!), breeding kink/ pregnancy kink/ impregnation kink (even if your eyes are wide open, you don’t need to squint), soft dom!joel, size kink, fingers in mouth fingers in mouth fingers in mo—, fingering, degradation kink, praise kink, marking, dirty talk, multiple orgasms. No use of y/n.
a/n: more more more I’m greedy for them please stop making me exist elsewhere
୨୧ ⏔⏔⏔♡⏔⏔⏔ ୨୧ ୨୧ ⏔⏔⏔⏔♡⏔⏔⏔⏔ ୨୧
your parents’ house, Christmas Day
“You’re pregnant?”
Your sister’s voice cuts through the moment you step into the foyer. Her head is poking out from around the kitchen doorway, hair pulled up in a messy bun, hands still flour-dusted from rolling dough, and her eyes lock right onto your stomach.
You glance down at your bump, snug and unmistakably visible beneath your soft, form-fitting sweater.
Your small frame was always quick to betray the blooming life within your womb. You’d started showing at just two months pregnant, a form-fitting sweater leaves little doubt.
You blink at her past your parents, who are busy wrangling your kids into hugs… Sarah already halfway out of her coat and Artie’s stomping water off his boots, and letting himself be lifted into your dad’s arms.
“Well,” you deadpan, tossing a look back at Joel and that permanent smirk fixed on his face, “hello to you, too.”
Your sister disappears, but before you can get your coat off she’s right in front of you, wide-eyed and eyes locked on your bump.
“Oh my god, oh my god, you are. That’s a baby bump.” Her eyes find yours and you swear you see a tear in the corner of them, “You didn’t tell me!”
“I was going to,” you laugh nervously, surrendering your coat to Joel’s waiting hand. “I mean… I am telling you.”
Your mom turns at the noise, gaze dropping to your sweater the same moment she registers the conversation. Her brows lift, lips part, and then her hand covers her chest like the gesture might steady her heart.
“Is it true?” she asks, softly. “Honey, are you really…?”
Joel steps up beside you, tucking a hand around your waist, grounding the moment with that subtle, quiet strength of his. He’s still carrying Ellie, who’s buried her face in his neck with her thumb in her mouth, clinging to him despite her puffy pink jacket. Her little legs dangle against him.
“A little over 4 months along,” he says. “We wanted to wait a little while before tellin’ everyone.”
Your dad glances up from where Artie’s got him in a bear hug. “Wait… four months? You’re four months pregnant?” He stares at you, then Joel, then you again. “When were y’all gonna mention that, sometime after the baby graduates?”
“We wanted to do it in person,” you raise your hands in mock surrender.
The room stills, the chaos of coats and kids fading into a shared, stunned silence, and then your mom’s face breaks open like the sun coming out from behind clouds. She steps forward, hugging you with both arms.
“Oh, sweetheart… another baby,” she murmurs. “You’re growing another little person.”
Joel smiles softly beside you, and when your mom pulls back, she hugs him too. He stiffens for only half a second before sinking into it. Just the effects of your mom’s hugs, he stopped denying that fact.
“Four kids,” your dad mutters, still shaking his head. “You must really like bein’ exhausted.”
“Well, she’s hard to say no to.” A sharp nudge of your elbow has him looking at you with that devious smirk of his, knowing damn well he was the one you couldn’t say no to.
“Happy wife happy life, right?” your sister jokes, nudging Joel from the other side and causing a grunt from the man as he’s attacked from both sides with what he swears are the pointiest damn elbows.
So distinctly sisters, but he loves the bond the two of you share.
Your sister grins as she steps in front of you and reaches over to rub your bump. You roll your eyes, though you secretly love when your sister dotes on your babies. You were practically her baby growing up, after all.
“This little one’s already stealing the show.”
Everyone’s laughing gleefully and so emotionally now, your sister hugging Joel from the side with a playful, ‘you dog, you’.
Joel finally lowers Ellie, who’s now more awake and mumbling something as she toddles straight toward your dad, arms out like a sleepy penguin. It’s her turn to be scooped up by him and he presses a kiss to her forehead.
Joel peels off his coat last with a deep sigh and a pleased smirk on his face.
He glances at you with that look he saves just for these moments, half overwhelmed and half overflowing.
“You okay?” you ask quietly as the room moves around you in a swirl of hugs, laughter, and boots being peeled off of tiny feet.
He nods once, eyes locked on yours, the softest brown to ever be seen. Warm like creamy hot chocolate which has become a staple in your cravings lately, “Never better, darlin’.”
Sarah tugs at his hand then, pulling his attention away from you. Always feels like a much crueler interruption than it is. But what can you do when just a look from the man can have you feeling your heart beat out of your chest.
“Can I show Poppy the drawings we made?” Sarah asks, the brightest smile on her little face causing those distinctly Joel dimples to make their appearances.
Joel’s mouth twitches into a soft grin, “Sure thing, bug.”
She grabs your dad’s hand and drags him into the living room while Artie runs ahead. Your mom leads you toward the kitchen with her arm around your waist, as if you’re viable to break like precious china if handled wrong. She was always like this with your pregnancies, with your only sibling being your sister who was quite content remaining single and childfree, you and your kids were the main attraction at any family gathering.
Joel only had one brother, Tommy, who had also miraculously remained childfree despite his dalliances before he hit his mid-thirties where life turned serious.
Joel had told you all about that moment in his life that he’d realized how much he’d forgone a personal life to take care of his mom when she’d gotten sick. Then, she got better, and he was still stuck in that eldest role of taking care of his younger brother and being the pinnacle of support for the entire family.
When his work started flourishing and he had his own house to maintain, he lost himself in the work. The effort of a relationship is easily dissuaded by the endless hours of paperwork and phone calls that drained his brain of any further effort. By the time he’d get home, he’d be exhausted mentally, physically, and emotionally; he knew trying to establish anything external would only be a distraction. Plus, if he were to get into a relationship he’d want to be able to focus more of his energy on that than he was capable of at that point.
By the time you’d met him, he’d finally opened himself to the idea of dating. But he didn’t want the flings or the one-night stands. He’d taken care of himself for long enough that he had no interest in wasting time as that was his most valuable asset. Then, you. Intense, focused, brilliant, determined… young as hell, but you were… well, you. As much as he tried to deny it initially, you had woven yourself into his very being. The idea of waking up to a cup of coffee and his dose of you every day became his lifeline.
When you’d finally decided to try for a baby together, it wasn’t a decision made lightly.
You’d enjoyed almost an entire decade together childfree. You’d filled your time with traveling and enjoying each other to the fullest, but there was so much love left to give.
Joel had respected your wishes after things between the two of you had gotten to an undeniably serious point after you’d settled into the married life. The discussion of kids came up, and you’d both agreed that you wanted to focus on your career and your marriage and not prioritize the life path of having children.
Joel was respectful of your wishes, as he always has been, but you could tell he was a man meant to be a dad. He was nurturing and patient, slow to anger, protective, kind, strong and soft all at once.
He’d never once brought it up unless you did, the exciting idea of having kids. Then, you slowly started talking about it more. How you were having baby fever, or when his cousin’s kids always gravitated towards him and he was just so natural and gentle that you couldn’t help but feel your womb ache to have his babies. Or when you were just so deeply and irrevocably in love you’d beg him to give you his babies.
He always tried to differentiate the feral requests with the logical ones, the conversations brought up when talking about bills or vacations or friends who were having kids. The logistics of it all, the time allocated, the mental and physical impacts that may occur, the lifestyle changes, the entire shift of dynamics once again to accommodate the new roles of being mom and dad, best friends, and husband and wife.
Then, you were buying baby books for new parents, eyeing that empty room for the layout of a nursery, and adjusting yours and his diet for the healthiest baby-making… That's when he finally embraced the excitement he’d been harboring for years.
Of course, he’d always stated his openness to the idea. In a “if you ever want kids, darlin’…” kind of way. Well, he can’t pretend he’s entirely innocent… especially when he’d be balls deep inside of you and he hears those sweet whimpers and tells you to ‘take it… let me fill y’up, make it stick, make a momma outta you’.
It's easy for him as a man to embrace the concept of children. But he knew it would have to be your choice, all he could do was be supportive of your decision. He wanted you, all of you, to himself. He wasn’t ashamed to finally admit his desire for physical, undeniable proof of his possession of your love and your devotion. Turns out, you wanted everyone to know who you belonged to, too.
As if that was much of a surprise for the way you unashamedly would display your affections in public. Or rather lay your claim. He loved every damn minute of it.
You’d learned early on that you shared particular turn-ons regarding the idea of Joel’s seed taking root deep inside you, creating life out of primal instinct. Which were very unproductive for the logical side of things when in reality you both had agreed to prioritizing a childfree life… but it had always been a turn-on. In addition to many others you’d explored over the years, at some point you realized there may be some real-life application with which you were both genuinely excited for. Not just the primal instinct to breed, claim, and belong to each other, though that fire within you both certainly continues to burn brighter with each day.
Now, with your little family, anyone you’d ever encountered had no doubt in their minds about the passion shared between the two of you. Overflowing with love and admiration for each other and bleeding into the physical and living proof of your love in the form of three little munchkins and another on the way.
Damn, he was proud to be the daddy to these kiddos. Quite literally made with love. Growing to become little people he adores, so distinctive and brilliant in their own ways, yet so undeniably you in other ways. And yes, more often than not he can’t help but confront the parts of himself that shine through these mini-versions of he and you.
“Daddy…” Ellie’s tugging on the pant leg of his jeans, her brows furrowed just like her daddy’s, so intently focused on getting his attention.
“Yeah, baby girl? What’d’ya need?” Her eyes light up once she’s won his attention, immediately outstretching her arms.
With a deep sigh, he leans down and picks her up, a soothing hand rubbing her back as he straightens again.
His girls are spoiled, and his son certainly is too. The blossoming life growing inside of you will be just as spoiled… he looks at you at that thought, his gaze softening at the sight of your hand absently resting on the bump beneath your sweater.
He’s obsessed with that sight, but is once again rudely interrupted by Sarah and Artie nearly knocking over your mother as she was carrying dishes to the dining room table.
He groans, letting his eyes rove over you once more before gently sets Ellie back down, much to her disapproval, “alright, you two… c’mere.” Artie and Sarah’s eyes quickly look as his usual soft, gentle voice turned stern. A rarity, but they knew enough to know that they had done something to earn that tone. He points his finger to the floor in front of him, and kneels down so he’s closer to eye-level of your two oldest.
“Artie…” your son refuses to still, trying to grab onto Joel’s broad shoulders and climb onto his back. But Joel quickly catches him, lifting him and setting him down in front of where Joel was kneeling. Joel’s large hands gently grip your son’s upper arms, keeping him still which is a nearly impossible endeavor when he’s hyper.
“Y’listenin’, bud?” Joel’s stern dad voice is so unbearably sexy to you, and as much as you loved it you also liked that he didn’t have to use it that often… yet. Who knew what trouble your kids would get into as they get older and likely more rambunctious.
Artie’s mischievous eyes, the same dark, scheming eyes his daddy gets whenever he’s up to no good, dart everywhere except his father’s face.
Meanwhile, Sarah has already begun retreating behind you.
Your now seven-year-old carefully wedges herself against the back of your legs like maybe if she becomes part of your silhouette Joel won’t notice she’d very clearly been involved in whatever catastrophe had nearly taken out your mother and the dinner dishes.
“Oh no,” he drawls, pointing toward her without looking away from Artie. “Don’t you start hidin’ behind your mama like she’s gonna save ya.”
You bite the inside of your cheek, fighting a smile as Sarah’s little hands clutch the back of your sweater tighter.
“Mommy likes me,” she mutters into your side.
Joel huffs out a laugh at that, deep and warm and exhausted all at once. “Mommy likes me too, bug. Means she’s my accomplice, not yours.”
You finally glance down at her, raising a brow, “Were you helping your brother cause problems?”
Sarah’s eyes widen with immediate betrayal. Like you, of all people, should understand loyalty.
Joel catches the look and points between the two of you, “See? Team effort. Mommy and Daddy are united against tiny menaces.”
Joel sighs through a smile before finally straightening back up to his full height. Sarah stays tucked against you, peeking around your arm with cautious little eyes now that she realizes this is shifting from teasing into an actual lesson.
The softness settles back into his face almost immediately.
He reaches down, patting Artie lightly on the shoulder. “Hey,” he says more gently, waiting until both kids are looking at him. “Y’all know Grandma could’ve gotten hurt, right?”
Sarah’s mouth pulls downward just slightly while Artie’s grip loosens on Joel’s jeans, “We didn’t mean to,” Sarah says quietly.
“I know y’didn’t.” Joel’s voice stays calm and steady, never sharp. “But that’s why we gotta be careful in houses full’a people, ‘specially when folks are carryin’ hot food or dishes, alright?”
Artie nods first, quick and earnest now that he understands that they could’ve hurt someone because of running inside. He was a kid with good intentions, and so was Sarah. You and Joel both know they’d never intentionally hurt anyone, especially Grandma, who makes the best cookies and lets them lick the bowl.
“Can y’go apologize to Grandma for almost knockin’ her over?”
Sarah immediately slips away from your side while Artie barrels after her, nearly tripping over his own feet in his rush to make it right.
Joel catches the back of his sweater again automatically before he can faceplant, “Walk,” he warns.
Artie slows to an aggressively fast walk.
You laugh quietly beside him while Joel shakes his head under his breath, though you can see the fondness written all over his face.
Then he glances over at you, “Think they just need to burn some energy,” he murmurs.
“Y’think?”
He ignores the sarcasm entirely, “I’ll take ‘em outside for a bit before dinner. Let ‘em run ‘round the yard or somethin’.” His gaze drifts toward the darkening yard outside. “Better than lettin’ your father get tackled by a four-year-old hopped up on peppermint bark.”
You hum and melt into his side, pressing your face to his chest as his hand finds your lower back, his fingers massaging right where you always need it.
Your eyes drift toward the kitchen again just in time to see Ellie ignoring the chaos entirely in favor of your sister, who’s finally escaped dish duty and flour-covered countertops long enough to breathe.
Ellie toddles directly toward her with complete certainty, as she always has with your sister.
Your sister barely has enough time to crouch before Ellie climbs straight into her lap, little arms looping around her neck like she belongs there.
You watch as Ellie curls so naturally into your sister’s lap while the rest of the house buzzes around them. She’d always been different from the older two in that regard. Ellie preferred to observe first. To linger quietly at the edges until she decided where she wanted to be.
And somehow, more often than not, she chose your sister.
Maybe because your sister never pushes for attention from her. Never forces interaction or tries to coax her out of her shell. She simply exists beside her. And Ellie responds to that with the kind of trust only little kids are capable of giving.
Sarah reappears from the kitchen with your mother behind her, and your mom’s already waving the whole thing off with affectionate exasperation.
Artie’s at her heels in apology while Sarah explains something very seriously with animated little hand gestures.
Joel watches the scene unfold and something in him visibly eases again.
You tilt your head up to look at him properly, and there it is again, that unbearable feeling that still catches you off guard even after years together.
The sight of him.
Not just handsome, though god he is. Broad shoulders filling out that dark sweater, hair slightly mussed from tiny hands, wedding ring catching warm kitchen light every time he moves.
It’s the intimacy of knowing every version of this man.
Knowing how gentle those hands are when they hold your babies. Knowing the same man that disciplines your children, kissed every inch of your body this morning like devotion itself. Knowing the quiet steadiness of him is real because you’ve seen every version of this man there is to see.
The younger Joel who kissed you like he was starving for it never disappeared. If anything, age only made him worse. Who kisses you now like it’s the nectar of life itself and the only way he can possibly get through the day.
The man who keeps fruit snacks in his coat pocket because Ellie gets cranky in grocery stores. The man who learned how to braid Sarah’s hair from YouTube videos because she once cried when he couldn’t make it look like yours. The man who lets Artie “help” him with yard work even though it usually creates three times more work in the end.
Now, the amazing father who is currently calculating exactly how long he can let the kids sprint around outside before someone inevitably cries about wet socks.
Joel notices you staring almost instantly and his eyes lower to yours, softening at the edges, “What?”
“Nothin’.”
That earns you a skeptical little huff.
Your fingers curl into the front of his sweater instead, smoothing over the fabric there while your body instinctively drifts closer.
You swear sometimes loving him feels less like an emotion and more like gravity.
Your Joel.
The man who somehow still looks at you like he’s a little stunned you chose him.
Even now, standing in your parents’ foyer surrounded by children and Christmas dishes and overlapping conversations, you can feel it lingering beneath the surface in the way his eyes drift over you.
“What’s on your mind, darlin’?”
You smile against his chest, “You always know when I’m in my head, huh.”
“Married to ya long enough.” His nose brushes briefly against your temple, “Got tells.”
You raise an eyebrow and look up at him again, “Oh, I’ve got tells?”
He nods lazily, his eyes slowly absorbing everything your expression has to reveal, “Mhmm.”
“What are they?”
His eyes flick down to your mouth before lifting again, warm amusement settling there, “Get real quiet. Start lookin’ at me like you’re about five seconds away from either kissin’ me or cryin’.”
His hand slides firmly around your waist and pulls you against him until there’s barely space left between your bodies. Warmth radiates off him in waves, familiar and grounding and dangerously distracting all at once.
Then he kisses you, his mouth moves against yours with the ease of long practice. His thumb strokes slow against the curve of your waist beneath your sweater while your fingers drift upward into the slightly mussed hair at the nape of his neck.
God, you love kissing your husband.
Love the way he always sighs into it immediately.
Love the way his hand tightens subtly at your hips every single time, grounding himself to you.
The room dissipates from around you. Everything else fades away until…
“Again?”
Joel pulls back first, though only barely, forehead still resting against yours as he closes his eyes with exhausted resignation.
Sarah stands in the middle of the foyer holding a candy cane like she’s personally witnessed a war crime.
Artie appears beside her two seconds later, immediately far less interested.
Sarah keeps squinting suspiciously at the two of you, “You kiss a lot.”
Joel snaps his fingers playfully and points toward her without missing a beat, “Well, I like mommy a lot. That’s generally how bein’ married works, bug.”
Artie nods thoughtfully at this revelation while Ellie, still planted in your sister’s lap, watches the entire exchange.
Your mother waves a hand from the dining room, “Joel, if you still plan on taking those children outside before dinner, now would be an excellent time.”
“Yes ma’am, I’m goin’.”
The kids erupt instantly.
You bite back another smile as Joel starts gathering tiny jackets, hats, gloves, and boots with the efficiency of a man who’s done this exact routine a thousand times before. He crouches to zip Sarah’s coat while simultaneously stopping Artie from pelting Ellie with a mitten.
Then he looks up at you with that stupid, devastating tenderness that never fails to wreck you.
Joel sighs heavily through a smile before opening the back door, immediately getting blasted with cold air and shrieking children.
Within seconds the backyard is chaos.
Sarah starts organizing some elaborate puddle game that only she understands while Artie sprints through the yard like a feral woodland creature. Joel trails after them with Ellie right behind him, her hat slipping crooked over one eye while she watches her siblings with fascination.
You stand near the kitchen window with your mother and sister, pretending to help arrange dinner while mostly just watching your husband through the glass.
The porch light catches on the broad shape of him moving through the yard, bending to help Artie gather sticks that look the most sword shaped while Sarah tugs insistently at his sleeve trying to explain rules to whatever game she’s invented.
And even from across the yard you can see the grin that spreads across his face when he catches you staring again.
—
Dinner passes in the warm, chaotic blur family holidays always seem to become.
By the time the gifts are all exchanged and opened, and the kids are finally bundled into pajamas and makeshift sleeping arrangements, both you and Joel are running on exhaustion, affection, and several hours of quietly pretending you weren’t thinking about each other in entirely inappropriate ways all evening. Joel stands in the hallway doorway watching you adjust Sarah’s blanket later that night, your sweater riding up slightly over the curve of your stomach as you bend.
The look on his face when you straighten again is enough to make warmth coil low in your belly instantly.
His wedding ring glints softly as he hooks a finger through the belt loop of your jeans and pulls you into him.
There’s a pattern to the two of you now. One built over years of marriage and children and knowing each other too well. Lingering touches throughout the day. Stolen glances across crowded rooms. The gradual build of tension until eventually one of you finally caves.
Usually him, though not always.
You glance down the hallway toward the room where the kids are sleeping before looking back up at him.
Joel follows your gaze and immediately groans under his breath.
“Darlin’,” he mutters, forehead dropping briefly against yours. “We are absolutely not sneakin’ around your parents’ house like teenagers,” Joel mutters against your mouth. Even as he says it, his hands are already sliding beneath your sweater, warm palms spreading over your waist like he physically cannot help himself.
“Mm,” you hum against his mouth. “Married teenagers with a mortgage and four children.”
That rough laugh leaves him before he kisses you again, helpless against it despite himself.
Maybe it was the nostalgia of being back in your childhood home. Maybe it was watching Joel all night, warm and broad and endlessly patient with your children. Maybe it was pregnancy hormones or the rare opportunity to exist without tiny hands climbing all over both of you for five consecutive minutes.
Whatever it was, the second the bedroom door shut behind you, restraint stopped feeling particularly important.
The guest room, which was once your childhood bedroom, is dark except for the colored glow of Christmas lights filtering faintly through the curtains from outside. Soft reds and greens drift across the walls in muted washes, catching along Joel’s shoulders as he locks the door as quietly as possible before turning back toward you.
And then he just… looks at you.
His gaze drifts slowly down your body, lingering at the swell of your stomach beneath your sweater before climbing back upward again. Something about pregnancy completely rewires this man. Not that Joel had ever really tried to keep his hands off of you, but carrying his babies seemed to reduce whatever self-control he once possessed into ash.
He’s stepping toward you again and you bite your lip in anticipation, the heat already climbing your neck.
His mouth brushes yours, “Thought your mother was gonna catch you eye-fuckin’ me across the dinner table.”
A startled laugh escapes you before he kisses you again, swallowing the sound immediately.
The kiss deepens almost without warning.
Years together had made the two of you dangerously attuned to each other. Every inhale. Every shift of breath. Every tiny sound. Joel kisses you like a man who already knows exactly what makes you melt and still enjoys discovering it all over again anyway.
His hands slide beneath your sweater fully now, rough palms smoothing up the curve of your spine before settling at your ribs. You shiver when his thumbs brush the underside of your breasts.
“Joel,” you whisper.
The sound of his name alone seems to do something to him.
His forehead drops briefly against yours again, eyes closing as he exhales slowly through his nose like he’s actively trying to collect himself, “This is a terrible idea.”
Your fingers slide into his hair, “Y’wanna stop?”
Joel lets out a quiet, disbelieving laugh against your mouth.
“Sweetheart,” he murmurs, palms smoothing slowly down your sides, “if I ever stop touchin’ ya, it’s because I’m six feet under.”
Joel backs you toward the bed slowly, one hand spread protectively over the curve of your stomach. The backs of your legs hit the mattress and he follows you down with a quiet groan the second you pull him with you.
His beard scrapes lightly along your jaw before his mouth finds the sensitive spot beneath your ear.
“Y’have any idea,” he murmurs quietly against your skin, “what watchin’ you tonight did t’me?”
Your hands smooth beneath his sweater, palms dragging over warm skin and the firm planes of his back. “Probably the same thing watchin’ you with the kids does to me.”
That earns you a rough exhale against your throat.
“Yeah?” His mouth curves faintly there. “Me wranglin’ sugar-crazed children got you worked up?”
“So stern yet so gentle with your minis…” You glance up at him innocently, “yeah, very much so.”
His mouth drags down your throat and he immediately catches the tiny sound that escapes you, one large hand sliding up to cover your mouth before instinct can betray either of you.
Those dark chocolate eyes lift back to yours instantly, equal parts amusement and warning.
“Mind yourself, darlin’, got sleepin’ kids and a house full’a people who already know too much about what we get up to when we’re alone.”
Your fingers smooth through the hair at the nape of his neck, softening at the rough edge in his voice. It’s almost unfair how quickly this man unravels for you after all these years. One kiss and suddenly the steady, capable father downstairs wrangling over-tired children disappears, replaced by the version of Joel who still looks at you like he’s starving for every inch of affection you offer him.
His other rough palm skims over your ribs, your waist, the gentle swell of your stomach again, “Y’gonna be quiet f’me, baby?”
You nod your head pathetically, and he can feel your grin against his hand.
“Y’promise?”
You nod your head again, taking staggered breaths through your nose as he looks down at you with such fire that you swear you melt beneath him.
“Alright… but I won’t hesitate in gaggin’ ya if I have to, y’understand?” He takes his hand slowly off of your mouth, assessing your understanding and obedience, “use your words, hun. Be a good girl.”
“Yes sir, I… I’ll be good.”
He hums in contemplation, knowing you have good intentions, but also knowing how hard you try to be quiet and how rare it is for you to succeed in that endeavor. His hands finally grab the hem of your shirt and peel it off of you, quickly disposing of your bra as you arch your back for him.
“Y’are a good girl f’me, ain’t ya…” His lips trail lower, lingering and reverent one second before turning hungry the next. Leaving dark red marks in his path.
The colored glow of the Christmas lights from the house beside your parents’ catches across his shoulders as he settles between your thighs again, broad hands smoothing up the outsides of them before spreading them gently apart.
You bite your lip hard enough to stop the sound threatening to leave you and his eyes darken instantly at the effort.
His thumb drags slowly along your bottom lip before pressing gently against it. Your mouth opens for him without hesitation, your tongue instantly working around it in a way that threatens his own unraveling.
“Y’know what y’do to me carryin’ my babies?” he murmurs, eyes dragging slowly over you. “Walkin’ around lookin’ so damn sexy all day while I’m tryin’ to behave in front’a your parents.”
His mouth presses briefly against your stomach then, softer than before, lingering there for a second longer before he looks back up at you again. His mouth presses briefly against your stomach then, softer than before, lingering there for a second longer before he looks back up at you again.
He withdraws his thumb from your mouth much to your dismay, but quickly unbuttons your jeans and hooks his fingers beneath the waistband of your pants and panties and pulls them down with less self-control than he’d been showcasing thus far.
You lift your hips as he slides them off, his hands lightly trace back up your legs, his eyes following aptly.
“Fuckin’ gorgeous, and look at that…” his obsession with your baby bump is no surprise, and might also be one of the reasons you’d agreed to having one last baby in the first place.
“You get prettier every damn day, don’t’cha?” His eyes flick back up to yours with that devilish grin of his before he’s gripping your thighs apart and settling himself between them.
He crosses his arms and peels his sweater and undershirt off in a grand show of revealing his deliciously tanned skin to your hungry hands and eyes.
It doesn’t take long for your hands to unbutton and unzip his pants and start to shuck them down his thick thighs. He steps off of the bed to peel the final layers all the way off.
His cock springs free, leaking profusely at the tip as if he’d been neglected all day. And maybe he had been, unintentionally, due to the demands of wrangling three trouble-makers on Christmas. And so had you, you realize, as your legs spread wider as settles between them again. Then, his attempt to inch down the bed is thwarted by your heels anchoring behind his thighs.
You’re not one to deny his hungry mouth from getting its fill of you, but the entire evening all you’d been able to think about is how you’re carrying his baby and how you need him to melt into you. For his broad body to cage you in like a damn animal and fuck the ache out of you.
“Need you, Joel… need to feel you,” your arms wrap around him as he presses his exposed skin against yours.
“Awfully bold of ya to assume you’re ready to take me, darlin’,” he drags two of his thick fingers down the expanse of your stomach, watching the shivers erupting on your skin with a quiet reverence.
“Gonna need t’use my fingers first, baby… need to feel y’cum before I lose my damn mind inside this tight pussy,” His fingers cup your mound now, his middle finger pressing against your entrance and quickly sinking inside without much resistance at all because of how long you’d been worked up, “fuck…” Joel groans at how wet you are already, then slowly adds another finger before starting to thrust in and out.
The squelch of his fingers is obscene, betraying how needy you are for him, as if there’s ever really any doubt.
“Needy cunt, I know… I know,” he soothes, his thrusts quicken with the addition of his thumb nudging against your swollen clit.
A whimper immediately escapes you, followed quickly by a moan of relief as he finds that spot inside of you, curling his fingers into the spongy ridge that has you seeing stars.
Joel can tell that you are already oblivious to the sounds you’re making. Before you can even register what’s happening, Joel’s thick fingers are stuffed into your open mouth, stifling the sounds pouring out of you, “since y’can’t shut y’self up…” he doesn’t need to finish that thought, the purpose is clear.
You hum around his fingers in surprise, but your eyes tell him everything he needs to know… well, the clenching of your tight walls around his thick digits buried deep in your pussy tends to also be a tell-tale sign that you are getting closer to cresting over that wave of pleasure.
Your hands anchor themselves to some part of him. Your nails biting into the tanned skin of his biceps and forearms, desperately trying to ground yourself against the onslaught of stimulation.
You're enraptured by the sight of him expertly working your body. He’s added a third finger into the gummy walls of your pussy, scissoring you open for his cock, and his thumb continues its circles on your clit.
You’re a blubbery mess around his fingers as you suckle them and incoherently plead for him, he doesn’t need to hear your words to know what you’re saying, “cum f’me, baby, then I can fuck the ache away. Be my good girl…”
Not like you had much choice in the matter as your body keens, your back arching into his touch as he brings you over that edge. Your vision goes blurry, the pleasure is blinding, and all you can feel is him. All you can hear are his stifled groans of approval and his words of encouragement through clenched teeth as he works you through your intense orgasm, “fuck yeah…such a good fuckin’ girl f’me… that’s it…”
You can feel the throb of his cock against your thigh, the tip leaking profusely and swollen red with need.
You still can’t talk coherently through his fingers still stuffed in your mouth, but he can feel your tongue moving along his fingers and his eyes finally meet yours again after he brings you down from your much needed release and withdraws his fingers from your pussy.
He keeps his fingers in your mouth, his eyes dark and hungry as he brings the fingers that had just been buried inside of you to his lips, sucking and licking them clean with a low hum of approval and murmuring praises as he indulges his favorite taste in the damn world, “so sweet, all fuckin’ mine.”
He keeps his fingers in your mouth as he grips his cock in his other hand, his head tilting back briefly in relief as he strokes it once before nudging your legs wider with his.
Your eyes say enough for him to understand what you want, and your body says what your eyes can’t. Your legs spread wider, inviting... begging. Your hands pulling him closer, the heels of your feet digging into the back of his legs and practically forcing his cock closer to where you need him.
“Alright, alright… I hear ya, needy thing, let me make y’feel better, yeah?”
You nod frantically, only now noticing the tears welling up in your eyes in sheer need to be filled by him.
Joel tuts mockingly at your desperation which only causes the tears to spill down your cheeks, “Y’need my cock to claim this sweet pussy like it ain’t what fucked ya deep and raw til it knocked y’up… again?”
His thumb traces your chin and cheek as your tongue works around his fingers as if they were his cock shoved deep into your throat. You do your best to swallow around them, the saliva starting to spill out and down your chin and he just watches, completely enraptured by the sight.
Much to your dismay…. surprise…. delight? you’re not really sure, he pulls his fingers out of your mouth. He then grips your face, with your mouth still agape, between his thumb and his soaked fingers, ensuring your full attention on him.
The next thing you know, his mouth is on yours, and the thick head of his cock is pushing into you.
You swallow each other’s moans, inhaling and absorbing every non-verbal confession of how badly you both needed this.
His tongue licks hungrily into your mouth and you greedily accept it, your hands finding purchase in his greying curls once more as he gives in to his own need.
The stretch is accompanied by a subtle burn as he works the girth of his cock into you. One of his hands grips the underside of your thigh, holding you open for him, while the other braces himself.
“Fuck,” he breathes against your mouth once he bottoms out. “Needed y’too, woulda kept teasin’ ya, but who the fuck am I kiddin’.”
He widens the stance of his thick thighs between yours, causing your legs to spread even more as he loses all abandon and begins fucking you into the mattress.
“Thank you, thank you… thank y…” you blabber against his lips, and you feel him grin against yours in response.
His pace picks up and his heavy balls slap against you with every thrust as he murmurs filth right into your soul, “take it, baby… this cock was made to fill this tight pussy, to fuck ya so hard and deep that y’can’t form a word in that pretty little head a’yours.” He keeps going, nestling his face into the crook of your neck and replacing his hand over your mouth to prevent your whimpers and moans from filling the entire house.
His lips are right up to your ear now, and you know he has no intention of stopping this spew of filth as he fucks you without reprieve, “this tiny body was made f’my thick cock to fuck my seed right into your womb… ‘n make it stick… over and over…” the sound of your bodies slapping together should’ve been more of a concern than whatever other sounds you could possibly be making, but Joel couldn’t care less at the moment.
The sound of Christmas movies carried throughout the house, so at this point it was more about making you compliant to the impact of his words, which he knows will have you milking his cock in no time, “fuckin’ ya in your childhood bed with our kids sleepin’ down the hall… what would your younger self say, huh? Before she knew what a greedy, desperate girl she’d become because a real man showed her how to fuck.”
You think about your eighteen year old self, finally eighteen, having indulged in endless fantasies of someday meeting an older man to show her exactly what Joel has shown you, but those fantasies could never compare to your reality now.
Joel’s words certainly have the desired effect, you can feel that coil tightening once more. That perfect mushroom head of his cock digging perfectly into that spot so so deep inside of you. His teeth and tongue are laying claim to the hollow of your throat. His grip tightens around your thigh, and you know it’ll bruise.
You fucking love when his hands leave a mark in the shape of his fingers. “Please…” you mouth the word against the hand still covering your mouth. Your nails rake down the muscles of his back, each thrust has you crying against his palm. You feel every detail of his impossibly hard cock as it repeatedly stretches you open around it and fucks deeper than you think is even possible, every time.
You can imagine every throb of every vein you’ve memorized with your tongue, your hands, your pulsating walls… his chest heaves against yours, the coarse, yet soft hair spattered across his broad chest rubs deliciously against your nipples and causes more whimpers to spill between his fingers. His skin melts against yours, the sweat of passionate bodies mixing together in a concoction of devotion and primal need.
He lifts himself up so he can see the way his cock splits you open and the foamy ring of your arousal forming at the base of his cock.
His brows furrow in concentration as he feels how fucking close you are again, “there it is, baby… give it t’me, my good fuckin’ girl,” he finally moves his hand from over your mouth in favor of strengthening your impending release. His hand moves between your thighs and his thumb finds that oversensitive bundle of nerves that instantly has you biting down on your own hand to stifle the noises from flooding out.
“That’s it,” his hips stutter as you begin to pulsate around him, he pushes his hips forward, tilting yours up slightly and then everything implodes, “fuck… fuck yes, milkin’ the fuck outta me, baby…”
Now, both of his hands grip the back of your thighs and folds you in half, his entire body pressing you into the mattress as he pounds mercilessly into you.
You’re free-falling off of the edge and Joel’s right there with you. Lips colliding in kisses meant to devour, hands grasping to pull him closer, but there’s no space between you left to fill, yet you ache to absorb.
A few more thrusts and he can’t hold back any longer. With a deep, guttural groan that vibrates so deep you can feel it in your own bones, he’s spilling his seed deep inside of you, “take it,” his forehead drops to your shoulder, his breath hot on your skin in soft grunts, emptying himself with thick spurts of cum painting your walls, “take it all.” His mouth claims every inch of skin he can reach, leaving little red marks and sloppy kisses in its wake. He slowly and messily trails back to your mouth, which he promptly pries open with his.
Your legs shake in the aftershock, your hands alternating between smoothing down the muscles of his back and tangling in his sweat-slicked hair.
You feel every pulse of his cock throbbing deep inside of you. With a few final and deep thrusts, he fucks his cum even deeper, and you can feel the mix of yours and his juices spilling out around his softening cock.
Right as you start to contemplate the consequences of making a mess on the guest room’s sheets, Joel understands exactly where your mind wanders to, “your parents ain’t dumb, they know we fuck like animals.”
Which does little to soothe your nerves. To know that your parents know how sexually active you are… as if a gaggle of kids and another on the way wasn’t proof enough… it went against your upbringing to really talk about that stuff with them. You and your sister are fairly certain they believe that she’s still a virgin, when you’d grown into your womanhood hearing about all of her sexual escapades. Her experience indirectly solidified your own preference for older men.
“Don’t worry, darlin’,” he presses gentle kisses to your forehead, your temple, your cheekbone…. the corner of your mouth, “I’ll rinse the sheets off in the mornin’ and leave ‘em to dry so there’s some benefit of the doubt… That work?”
You nod your head, but roll your eyes at the brown-eyed man staring so intently down at you, “thank you.”
He winks cheekily and you pull him into another sultry and sloppy make out.
“Anytime,” he replies.
You kiss his smug grin with a pleased hum.
A wandering hand finds your sore breasts with a soft sigh of relief against your lips, and he finally pulls out of you with a quiet groan, collapsing beside you. Joel presses gentle kisses to your shoulder and neck before settling into the soft mattress, allowing the exhaustion from the day to finally overtake you both.
୨୧ ⏔⏔⏔♡⏔⏔⏔ ୨୧ ୨୧ ⏔⏔⏔⏔♡⏔⏔⏔⏔ ୨୧
a/n: and yes, we are going to ignore the fact that this initially was going to be more of a Christmas chapter. fighting for my life a little bit (just being dramatic). my drive to do quite literally anything is minuscule to non-existent, but there is no better feeling than a blissful realization where I’m like oh let me do something I want to do and I actually do it. Throughout the past few months I have made like 20 drafts of general ideas for this fic and filled in plot holes/ did research for accuracy. that process is exhilarating for me as I scour pinterest, but that’s as far as I’d gotten til now. writing smut just wasn’t happening for me lol. soooo, here’s whatever this became! hope you enjoyed!
Taglist as requested (please let me know if you want to be added/removed!): @white-wolf-buckaroo @streamermattsgf @somedayheaven @simpingforjoel
WC 5.7k - Joel contemplates your place in his life and his place in yours. An opportunity arises to help you, and your insistent need for independence is challenged by the man who you could never really say no to.
chapter content/ warnings: 18+ only!
No use of y/n, wee bit of power imbalance, tension, forbidden attraction, moral boundaries and conflicts, internal dialogue, switches from pov, mutual longing/pining/yearning, for the love of competency kink, being complicated and frustrating as always, teasing/ some philosophical banter, abandonment issues. Mentions of Sarah’s mom, fear of abandonment, anxious/avoidant attachment, allusions to past intimacy, slow burn.
· · ──────── ꒰ঌ·✦·໒───────── · ·
Joel was only partially relieved that you weren’t in any of his classes this semester.
On one hand, he really doesn’t miss the shake of his hands and the way his brain would stall at the sight of you. On the other hand, however, he really misses getting to read your work, and the white-hot tension that would ignite within his chest whenever he’d catch you staring in the middle of class.
He was used to attention to some extent, he wasn’t ignorant to the way certain students ogled him. If anything, it unsettled him more than it flattered him. He understood the psychology behind it well enough. Professors occupied a dangerous sort of role for young people searching for direction, validation, and structure. An authority figure capable of making them feel intelligent and seen which could easily become the subject of admiration that blurred into something parasocial and inappropriate. Joel had always been careful with that responsibility, careful with the distance required to maintain it.
The idea of crossing those lines had genuinely never crossed his mind before you. And if he’d met you as a student first, maybe none of this would’ve happened at all.
Or maybe that was just another lie he told himself to sleep at night.
Because… you weren’t nineteen years old looking for validation from an older man with kind eyes and degrees hanging on his wall. You were older than most of your peers, inching toward your mid-twenties with a sharpness that made conversations with you feel less like speaking to a student and more like speaking to someone who understood him in ways most people never had. Even now, with the two of you carefully rebuilding something from the wreckage of what happened over the summer, the lines continued to blur in ways he knew were dangerous. At most, he tells himself, you would’ve become friends.
But friendship with you somehow felt more intimate than sex ever had with anyone else.
Now that the two of you had settled into this strange fragile rhythm of pretending, conversations stolen during office hours or while grading papers had started resembling something painfully close to normal. He’d learned snippets about your life the same way starving men rationed food, careful not to indulge too much at once for fear of ruining himself entirely. Stories about your classes, your friends, little observations muttered beneath your breath that made him laugh harder than they probably should’ve. In return, he found himself giving pieces of himself away with equal carelessness, offering up stories about Sarah or Tommy before remembering halfway through that this was exactly the sort of closeness he’d promised himself he wouldn’t allow.
It was a dangerous game for him to play.
He respected you too much to destroy whatever this was becoming simply because he lacked the self-control to keep his feelings contained, and selfishly, pathetically, he’d already begun relying on your presence more than he should. This new dynamic had become a lifeline disguised as professionalism, something to look forward to during mornings that had long since lost their sense of purpose.
At this point, he’d take whatever version of you he could have. There was some twisted sort of comfort in the longing, in the incessant reminder that at one point you had chosen to lose yourself in him too.
That sting of abandonment still made itself known, no matter how irrational it was, considering the circumstances. Didn't change the truth behind it all. Your choice was made purely out of self-preservation. A clean break from him as if he were nothing more than a distraction. That’s how you’d worked it anyway. How could he ever compete with that?
It wasn’t as though either of you had expected the intensity of your little fling, the ease of slipping into one another’s orbit, the comfort found in shared silences and lingering glances, the way he’d started searching for your eyes before he even entered a room.
He knows now that he’d never truly been in love before you. He’d mistaken obligation for devotion once, years ago, after a drunken stupor and a girl he barely knew turned into a positive pregnancy test and eventually a baby with his eyes cradled against his chest beneath fluorescent hospital lights.
She’d decided to keep the baby. And Joel, stubborn and terrified in equal measure, had done everything he thought a good man was supposed to do. He signed the papers at the hospital without hesitation, worked overtime until his hands ached, learned how to stretch exhaustion into something survivable while trying to build a life out of a relationship neither of them had been prepared for. She’d rejected his marriage proposal which, as upsetting as it was at the time, he is grateful they avoided that headache. For a while he convinced himself they could make it work, that love might eventually grow from proximity and persistence alone, though deep down he thinks they were both just clinging to the idea of not wanting to fail their daughter before she’d even learned how to speak.
Somewhere along the line her drinking worsened, the distance between them becoming impossible to ignore whenever she looked at Sarah with that strange sort of detachment, as though motherhood belonged to somebody else and she’d merely wandered into the wrong life by mistake. He’d read all about postpartum depression, all he could do was be there for her when she would let him, and hope it would someday go away. By the time Sarah was two, she was already half gone, disappearing for nights at a time before eventually disappearing for good, save for a signature on a stack of legal papers Joel could barely look at without feeling sick.
He remembers sitting in that courtroom with Sarah asleep against his shoulder while a judge finalized the termination of her parental rights, remembers the hollow ache in his chest as her mother willingly surrendered every legal claim to the little girl tucked safely in his arms, and even now, decades later, some ugly wounded part of him still associated love with being left behind.
Maybe that was why your disappearance cut so deep beneath his skin despite every logical part of him knowing the situation between the two of you had always come with an expiration date. You hadn’t owed him permanence.
Still, some traitorous part of him had started imagining what it might’ve looked like if you had stayed.
Because unlike before, unlike all those years ago when responsibility had arrived wrapped in panic and fear and the deafening realization that his life was no longer his own, loving you had never felt like an obligation. It had come naturally, frighteningly so, weaving itself into the spaces of his life before he’d even realized what was happening.
Which meant losing you felt less like failure and more like confirmation of something he’d spent most of his life trying not to believe.
That eventually, everyone he let himself love would decide he was easier to leave behind.
And still, despite all of that, despite the ache of wanting you sitting only a few feet away from him some afternoons while pretending not to notice the way his gaze lingered too long, despite the constant temptation to ruin everything the moment you smiled at him like you remembered those summer nights too, Joel found himself strangely grateful for the restraint this arrangement demanded of him.
Because this version of you that he was slowly getting to know now beneath fluorescent office lights and the soft scratch of red pen across paper, felt infinitely more dangerous than the woman he’d tangled himself up with over the summer.
Back then he’d only wanted your body, or at least told himself that was all it could be.
Now he wanted your thoughts, your opinions, your attention lingering on him for no reason at all. He wanted every strange insignificant detail you offered him freely between conversations about coursework and faculty meetings and books you thought he’d like. He wanted the version of intimacy that lasted, and the summer version of you would’ve never given him these moments of getting to know you separate from your body.
—
He glances at you now, his eyes tracing the profile of your face as you concentrate on the papers in front of you.
That furrow in your brow as you assess freshman philosophy papers is strangely endearing, your expression tightening every few seconds as though each half-baked thesis physically pains you to read.
“Do people really assume philosophy would be easy?” you ask suddenly, not bothering to look up from the paper in front of you. “Like genuinely. An easy A?”
Joel leans back slightly in his chair, “Think it’s the novelty of it all. Makes people feel smart.”
Your nose wrinkles faintly as you continue reading. “This one just used the phrase ‘societal moral thingies.’”
He chuckles under his breath in disbelief.
“No, seriously.” You turn the paper around enough for him to see the sentence in question, your pen tapping beneath it. “That’s a direct quote. Societal moral thingies.”
“Technical terminology.”
“Mm. Very academic.”
Joel shakes his head, unable to suppress the grin threatening at the corners of his mouth, “You’d be surprised how many students think confidence can compensate for substance.”
“I mean, apparently it can,” you mutter. “There’s a hundred people in this class and maybe twelve of them seem remotely interested in understanding what they’re arguing. The rest just throw around words like ‘nihilism’ and hope nobody notices they’re saying absolutely nothing.”
“That strategy works disturbingly well in certain departments.”
That finally earns him a glance over the top of your paper, your eyes narrowing with amusement. “You’re allowed to say that as faculty?”
“Tenure’s a beautiful thing.”
“You don’t even have tenure yet.”
“Yeah, yeah... details, I’ll be tenured by the fall.”
A quiet laugh slips out of you before you lower your gaze again, shaking your head slightly as you scribble feedback in the margins. Joel watches the movement absentmindedly, watches the way you chew lightly at the inside of your cheek whenever you’re trying to articulate a thought carefully.
“You certainly made it look easy,” he says after a moment, the words softer than intended.
It was the truth.
For the better part of last semester you’d maintained a nearly perfect score, though the one glaring exception still lingered in the back of his mind. You had intentionally skipped an essay question about care ethics on the final, bypassing it entirely despite knowing the material better than anyone else in the room.
A masterful evasion.
There were assignments you’d skillfully maneuvered around whenever concepts struck a little too close to home.
Not that the two of you had ever technically been in a relationship, but there had still been a strange sort of relational responsibility woven into whatever existed between you.
As much as he’d wanted to know what you really thought, he’d understood the mercy in your restraint.
You’d always been merciful with him.
Well. Had been.
Nowadays he wasn’t entirely sure either of you remembered how to be careful around one another anymore. It had only been about a month into the new semester and the shift between you felt palpable, the conversations easier and longer than they probably should’ve been, your guard lowering in subtle increments every time you lingered in his office.
You’d become awfully chatty lately.
“I still can’t imagine willingly choosing philosophy for a gen-ed credit,” you continue. “Thought kids these days avoided essay-heavy classes like the plague.”
That catches him off guard enough to make him bark out a quiet laugh, “Kids these days?”
You finally look up fully, utterly unapologetic. “Joel, one of my classmates asked me last week if Plato was alive during World War Two.”
“He was not.”
“I know that. I’m concerned that he didn’t.”
Joel rubs a hand over his mouth, trying unsuccessfully to hide his amusement. “You realize you are practically one of those kids these days. At least in terms of college kids.”
“I’m like three to four years older than most of my peers, actually,” you correct lightly, leaning back in your chair. “Which in undergraduate years practically makes me a war veteran.”
“Oh, is that right?”
“Mhm. I already feel disconnected from modern youth culture.”
Joel watches you with open disbelief now, “and you’re not a part of modern youth culture?”
“No, modern youth culture scares me.” You grimace down at the paper in front of you. “‘According to TikTok philosopher user moralityking09…’ See? This is exactly what I mean.”
Joel closes his eyes briefly, “I’m changing careers.”
“You threaten that every week.”
Joel scoffs while you fight a grin across from him, visibly entertained by your own argument, “And every week one of you people gives me another reason.”
“You love it too much to leave.”
You glance up a second later only to find Joel already looking at you.
There’s something dangerous about moments like this, you think. Not the tension itself, because that had existed between the two of you from the very beginning and likely always would, but the ease creeping in around it now.
It would almost be easier if he’d stayed cold.
The amusement lingering around his mouth softens almost imperceptibly and his expression shifts into something gentler, more thoughtful, and the sudden weight of his attention makes warmth creep uncomfortably high beneath your collarbone.
There had always been something deeply unsettling about the way Joel looked at people… well, looked at you.. Not intimidating exactly, though he certainly could be when he wanted to. It was more that he paid attention too thoroughly, his gaze lingering with an intensity that made you feel observed in ways most people never bothered to attempt. Seen and heard, listened to and understood.
Wanted.
You drop your gaze back toward the paper before the thought can settle too deeply, forcing your attention instead toward the paragraph in front of you despite the uncomfortable warmth still lingering beneath your skin.
Outside the narrow office window, the early evening light had started dimming into something softer, streaks of amber filtering weakly through the bare winter branches lining the edge of campus. The hallway beyond Joel’s office had grown quieter too, the usual shuffle of students tapering off as evening classes settled in.
You only notice how late it’s gotten when your phone buzzes softly against the desk beside your elbow.
Your brows knit immediately, “Shit.”
Joel glances up at the sound of your urgency, “What?”
You grab your phone quickly, checking the time before your stomach drops slightly, “I forgot what time it was.”
“How bad?”
“I’ve got like…” you squint at the screen, already mentally calculating the walk across campus, “eight minutes before the last bus gets to the stop.”
Joel’s expression shifts faintly in confusion, “Bus?”
You’re already shoving loose papers into uneven stacks to clear space in front of you, distracted enough not to think much of the question at first.
“What happened to your car?”
You hesitate briefly before shrugging one shoulder, “It’s been making this weird noise for like two weeks now and I haven’t had time to take it in.”
“What kinda noise?”
You pause mid-motion, glancing up at him skeptically, “That is an impossible question for me to answer.”
Joel leans back slightly in his chair again as he always does when he’s amused at something, the corner of his mouth twitching. “C’mon, humor me, I might be able to help.”
You stare at him for a moment before reluctantly attempting, “It sounds…” Your face pinches in thought. “Wrong?”
He laughs quietly at that.
“I don’t know how to explain it.” You gesture vaguely with one hand. “Kinda rattly? And a definite squeak from the back right wheel or something. But only sometimes.”
“That usually means somethin’s loose, and that your brake pads need replacin’.”
“See, that means nothing to me.” You point your pen toward him accusingly. “Men always say things like that as though I know what’s under the hood of my car.”
Joel watches you continue throwing things into your bag with increasing urgency. “And instead your solution was avoid it until the vehicle dies?”
“That is unfortunately how I approach most of my problems, yes.”
“Hm.” His gaze lingers on you another second before he pushes himself up from his chair with a quiet groan. “When were you gonna take it to a shop?”
You sling your bag over your shoulder, “Eventually.”
“That ain’t a timeframe.”
“I’m busy.”
Joel shakes his head, grabbing his jacket from the back of his chair, “Lemme take a look at it.”
The words catch you off guard enough that you still for half a second, “What?”
“Your car,” he repeats simply, shrugging into the jacket. “I’ll drive y’home, and I can take a look at it before y’spend money takin’ it somewhere and they overcharge ya.”
The offer shouldn’t feel as intimate as it does. It’s just a favor. A normal favor. The kind of thing people did for friends or coworkers or anyone they vaguely cared about.
Still, something tightens strangely in your chest anyway, “You really don’t have to do that.”
Joel’s expression softens with faint amusement, like he already knows you’re going to argue with him about this. “Sweetheart, if your car’s been makin’ death noises for two weeks and you’re still needin’ to drive it around, I promise I’d rather look at it myself before somethin’ happens to ya.”
Your mouth goes dry at the endearment.
Joel had always occupied space in a way that made awareness unavoidable, broad shoulders stretching the fabric of his dark button up shirt beneath the worn canvas blazer he’d just shrugged into, one hand braced lazily against the edge of his desk while he looked down at you with that same steady attention that had been unraveling your nervous system for months now.
Up close, you can see the faint exhaustion lining his face beneath the warm amber spill of evening light coming through the office window, the silver threading through his curls near his temples, the rough scrape of stubble shadowing beyond his neatly trimmed beard by the end of the day.
Your gaze catches briefly on his mouth before you force it away. You clear your throat softly as you take a small step backward in a weak attempt to reestablish something resembling normal distance between the two of you.
“I’ll be fine,” you murmur. “I can still make the bus if I hurry.”
Joel’s brows pull together slightly at that, his gaze flicking toward the clock on the wall before returning to your face.
“You’re not gonna make it in… five minutes,” he says plainly. “Not from this building.”
You open your mouth to argue before realizing he’s unfortunately right.
Your expression must give you away because the corner of his mouth twitches faintly again, less amused and more patient this time.
“And if y’miss it,” he continues evenly, grabbing his keys from his desk drawer, “that’s partly my fault anyway. Kept you here grading papers all afternoon.”
“You didn’t force me to stay.”
“No,” Joel agrees quietly, “but I also didn’t exactly encourage y’to leave when it started gettin’ late.”
Something warm and uncomfortable unfurls low in your stomach at that.
He steps around the edge of his desk then, close enough that you catch the clean cedar scent of his cologne beneath the lingering warmth of coffee and something distinctly him. Your pulse stutters embarrassingly hard at the proximity.
Joel notices it, and you know he does. Still, he gives you an out.
“If you’re uncomfortable with it, that’s fine,” he says after a moment, “I can still help figure out what’s wrong with the car another time. Just figured since I’d already be drivin’ you home…” his shoulders lift in a small shrug beneath the dark fabric of his jacket, “…might as well take a look while I’m there.”
He never pushes, and that’s the reason he continuously unraveled your defenses despite every logical instinct telling you to keep your distance.
Even now, standing close enough that you could count the silver strands threaded through the curls near his temples, his gaze steady on yours in the dimming gold light of his office, he still leaves the choice entirely in your hands.
“…you really think you can tell what’s wrong with it just by listening?” you ask quietly, attempting for something lighter despite the strange heaviness settling beneath your ribs.
Joel huffs a soft laugh through his nose. “Darlin’, half of fixin’ cars is just listenin’ to what they’re complainin’ about.”
Your stomach flips again, it almost makes you nauseous.
Joel waits, patient as ever. Since you’re not making a mad dash for the bus that has probably already left the stop, he figures you’re finally accepting his offer.
You exhale softly through your nose before finally nodding once, “Okay, fine,” you murmur.
Something in Joel’s face eases almost imperceptibly, “Okay,” he echoes.
—
By the time Joel pulls into the parking lot of your apartment complex, the sky had long since deepened into velvet blue, the last traces of daylight swallowed behind low winter clouds. The drive over had been quieter than most of your recent conversations. The radio hummed softly beneath the steady rush of heat from the vents while campus slowly gave way to dim storefronts and sleepy residential streets streaked gold beneath passing streetlights.
Now, standing a few feet away from your car with the hood propped open beneath the weak parking lot lights, Joel leans forward slightly with one hand braced against the frame of the car while the other disappears deeper into the engine.
And unfortunately for you, the sleeves of his dark button up had been rolled halfway to his elbows almost immediately after stepping out of the truck, exposing strong forearms dusted faintly with dark hair and veins that shift subtly beneath warm skin every time he moves his wrist. His shoulders pull tight beneath the fabric as he leans further over the engine, brow furrowed in concentration while the light catches silver near his temples.
You try very hard not to stare and you fail almost instantly.
“Hm,” Joel murmurs after a moment, attention still fixed somewhere beneath the hood. “Alternator belt’s worn.”
Your brows knit, “That sounds expensive.”
“Not terrible.”
“That hesitation was concerning.”
Joel huffs a quiet laugh through his nose before finally glancing over at you, “Wasn’t hesitation.”
“You literally paused.”
“I was thinkin’.”
“About how expensive it is?”
The corner of his mouth twitches faintly before he looks back toward the engine again, adjusting something with practiced ease, “Nah, I can take care of it for ya, just gotta get the parts.”
And you knew you were in deep trouble with the insinuation that he’d be the one to fix your car.
You’d spent months trying not to notice the things that made Joel attractive outside of the obvious, which had admittedly been a losing battle from the start. But watching him work with his hands always felt particularly cruel. There was just something about the calm certainty of his movements, the quiet confidence threaded through every absent adjustment he made beneath the hood like he instinctively understood how things fit together.
The winter air bites sharply at your cheeks while you linger uselessly a few feet away holding your keys.
“Hm,” Joel murmurs after a moment, brows pulling together slightly while he kneels down beside your real right wheel, pressing against something out of your line of sight. “When’s the last time y’got the brake pads replaced?”
You stare at him blankly for a second too long because your brain had unfortunately stopped functioning somewhere around watching the muscles in his forearms shift beneath rolled sleeves.
“My what?” In all honesty you just hadn’t heard what he said.
Joel glances up then, and the immediate flicker of amusement in his eyes tells you he knows exactly where your attention had drifted.
God.
“You weren’t listenin’ to me at all, were ya?”
Heat blooms violently beneath your skin, “I was listening.”
“Mhm.”
“I was.”
Joel ducks his head slightly to hide a smile.
Insufferable.
“You need new brake pads too,” he says again as he stands back up, making sure you’re actually listening now. “That squeakin’ you mentioned is from your wear indicators.”
You hadn’t realized how close he’d gotten until he stops directly in front of you, close enough now that the warmth radiating from him cuts through the cold evening air in dizzying waves. Your pulse stutters immediately.
He smells faintly like motor oil now, roughened by winter air and the lingering traces of his cologne beneath it all.
Joel looks down at you with that same maddening steadiness he always does, “You really should’ve gotten this looked at sooner.”
“I know,” you murmur, “just been busy and since the university runs the bus I’m alright walking home from the stop to save up for the fix.”
“You’ve been walkin’ home?”
You shrug and he sighs exasperatedly, “Well, glad y’missed the bus today so I could help y’out.”
It wasn’t necessarily flirtatious, though your brain was really trying to torture you at this proximity. Joel rarely crossed lines that directly anymore, not unless something slipped out accidentally beneath exhaustion or distraction. The sincerity was threaded so casually through things like this, the quiet certainty with which he offered pieces of himself as though helping you was the most natural thing in the world.
You glance away first, eyes catching on the thin curl of steam drifting from your breath into the cold air. “I mean, I would’ve figured it out eventually.”
Joel’s brows pull together faintly at that, “That’s not really the point.”
You look back at him then, caught slightly off guard by the firmness in his voice, “Then what is?”
Joel studies you for a second, his hand still resting against the roof of your car beside your head while the other hangs loosely at his side with the grease-stained rag curled around his fingers, “That y’don’t always gotta figure everythin’ out alone.”
The quiet sincerity of it nearly knocks the breath from your lungs and you immediately try to deflect. Heat creeps beneath your skin for entirely different reasons now, “I don’t need to be taken care of.”
“Never said y’did.”
“You implied it.”
Joel exhales slowly through his nose before shifting slightly closer, enough that the warmth radiating from him cuts more sharply through the cold evening air.
“No,” he says quietly, gaze fixed steadily on yours now, “I implied it’s okay to let somebody help you.” Joel shakes his head slightly, looking down for half a second before his gaze drifts back toward your face, then lower.
The shift is subtle enough that most people probably wouldn’t notice it, but you do. You notice everything when it comes to him.
His eyes linger briefly on your mouth before lifting back up again.
The air between you changes immediately.
Your body reacts before your brain can catch up, pulse stuttering violently while your fingers tighten around your keys hard enough for the metal to bite against your palm.
You can feel him thinking.
One step, maybe less, and that’s all it would take.
Joel’s jaw shifts slightly, throat working once beneath the open collar of his shirt while his gaze flickers downward again like he’s fighting the instinct in real time.
Your eyes drop to his mouth before you can stop them.
The realization seems to hit him at the exact same moment because his expression changes almost imperceptibly, something darker pulling briefly across his face before he leans in barely an inch…
…and stops.
The movement is so small you almost think you imagined it.
Joel closes his eyes for the briefest second before dragging a hand down across his mouth, exhaling sharply through his nose like he’s actively annoyed with himself, “Christ,” he mutters quietly.
The cold rushes back into the space between you as he steps away from the car.
You remain exactly where you are, heart pounding so violently it feels humiliating.
“Lemme order the parts tomorrow,” he says, voice rougher now. “Can probably fix most of it this weekend.”
It takes you a second too long to respond, “This weekend?”
“Mhm.” Joel nods once before closing the hood of the car with a solid thud. “Brake pads won’t take long. Belt neither.” His gaze flicks toward you again, softer this time. “I’ll teach ya while we do it so next time y’know what you’re lookin’ and listenin’ for.”
Your stomach flips all over again. Offering you competence instead of dependency like he instinctively understands how badly you resist feeling cared for.
“You’re gonna make me participate?”
That small smile returns immediately, “Sweetheart,” Joel murmurs, “it’s the dead of winter. And sure, this may be Texas but y’can’t be walkin’ home at night hopin’ y’can be one of the few who doesn’t need to rely on a car in your everyday life.”
A reluctant laugh escapes you despite yourself, the sound fogging visibly into the cold air between you both, “Fine, I yield.”
Joel huffs softly through his nose, the corners of his mouth still turned upward while he reaches for the rag tucked into his back pocket again.
There should genuinely be laws against men looking like this while doing mundane tasks.
Especially older men with rough hands and rolled sleeves and deep voices who insisted on fixing things for you without making you feel incapable in the process.
You’re hopeless for this man.
“You busy Saturday?” Joel asks casually while wiping his hands clean.
The idea of spending hours alone with him while he leaned over your car teaching you things in that low patient drawl of his feels dangerous in ways you don’t want to unpack right now.
“…depends,” you manage carefully. “How much actual learning about cars do I have to do to change brake pads?”
Joel laughs lightly again at that, “You’ll be fine, I promise.” He glances toward your apartment building then back at you, expression gentling slightly. “You should head inside before y’freeze.”
The silence stretches again, your fingers tightening slightly around your keys while Joel stands across from you, one hand resting against the hood of your car again like he’s reluctant to leave too.
Or maybe you’re projecting… probably projecting.
Joel glances briefly toward your apartment building before looking back at you again, “You got classes tomorrow?”
The question catches you slightly off guard, “Uh, yeah. Why?”
“What time?”
You narrow your eyes faintly, immediately suspicious. “Joel.”
“What?”
“You’re doing that thing again.”
“What thing?”
“The thing where you ask questions like you already decided something before consulting me.”
“What time?” he repeats calmly.
You sigh dramatically, “First class is at ten.”
“Mhm.” Joel nods once like that confirms whatever internal calculation he’d already been making. “I’ll pick y’up at nine-thirty.”
Your brows shoot upward immediately, “Absolutely not.”
Joel barely reacts. “Sweetheart, your car sounds like it’s one pothole away from divine intervention.”
“The bus exists.”
“And now I know you’ve been walkin’ home alone at night from the stop.”
The easy warmth from earlier shifts subtly beneath the conversation now. Joel’s concern never really sounds overbearing because he never makes it about control. It’s always practical with him. Matter-of-fact enough that arguing starts to feel childish after a while.
Unfortunately, you still try, “I can survive two more days without inconveniencing you.”
Joel’s expression changes slightly at that, enough that your stomach tightens almost immediately, “Inconveniencing me,” he repeats quietly.
Joel looks away briefly, rubbing his thumb along the edge of the rag still hanging loosely from his hand before glancing back toward you again. There’s no irritation in his face, just calm… worry… if you look further, care.
“You really think givin’ you a ride to campus is some huge burden on my day?”
Heat creeps uncomfortably high into your chest.
“I just…” You exhale softly through your nose, struggling to articulate something that doesn’t sound pathetic now that he’s looking at you like this. “I’m used to handling my own stuff.”
“I can tell,” The gentleness in his voice nearly undoes you completely.
Joel steps a little closer again, “And that’s fine,” he says quietly. “Just let me help ya, just this once.”
You stare at him for a moment longer than necessary.
God.
Simple observations from him feel like they slide directly beneath your skin before you can defend against them properly drives you crazy.
Your eyes drift briefly toward the open collar of his shirt before snapping back upward again.
The corner of his mouth twitches faintly before he rescues you from your own embarrassment by reaching for his truck keys in his pocket instead.
“Nine-thirty,” he repeats casually, like the conversation’s already over.
You exhale a soft incredulous laugh. “You are unbelievably stubborn.”
Nothing but a dimpled grin waiting for you to take him up on the offer like he already knows he won the argument.
“…fine,” you mutter eventually.
Joel hums in approval of your decision, the sound warming the cold night air between you both one last time before he finally starts backing toward his truck, “Night, darlin’.”
The word settles beneath your skin with immediate dangerous warmth because there’s nothing performative about it. No teasing edge or flirtation obvious enough to call out. It sounds natural coming from him, softened by exhaustion and familiarity in a way that makes panic unfurl quietly through your chest.
You’ve started noticing the difference now.
Sweetheart when he’s amused with you. Darlin’ when he forgets himself.
People do not accidentally develop specific terms of endearment for someone they’re trying very hard not to cross lines with.
You open your mouth to respond only to realize a second too late that your brain has stalled out entirely somewhere between hearing his voice and watching him stand there beneath the parking lot lights looking unfairly handsome with rolled sleeves and tired eyes and rough hands.
One brow lifts slightly while he waits beside the open driver’s side door of his truck, patient enough to make your pulse feel embarrassing.
“Goodnight, Joel,” you finally manage.
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a/n: hellooooo again my looooves!! Summer break-ish! Does that mean I can write more?! I fuckin’ hope so! But I’ll be starting work here soon. Holyyyy dude, spring sem broke my brain but I’m free of calc and physics yay! I’m grieving the fact that my yapping prof/muse for this fic will be gone until next spring but I’m fine, I swear!
I wanna give these characters more brain space beyond just daydreaming I’m getting back into adding songs to their playlist and transcribing the snippets of chapters I’d hand-written during class (old habits die hard) into their designated chapters. Sometimes it’s hard to piece it all together because my notes are not organized unless it’s for specific classes I actually care about. Which… should be all of them, but be so fr…. Miss me with that math bs (to all the math people, I DO enjoy math when it doesn’t stress me out to the point of drawing my focus away from the classes I actually am passionate for, but anti-derivatives can kiss my ass).
Incomplete yet HEFTY playlist I have for these two so far:
taglist as requested (please let me know if you want to be added/removed): @magicxmiller @yslgreen @mallingcalling-blog @getitoutofmymindwrites @msdariaknight @morganlolitta @faiantas-blog @anheloamores @loveday1219
Yes… another one…. yes, it’s going to be angst. No, I’m NOT okay ☺️
Story synopsis:
You told him you were just visiting for the summer. Gave him a name that wasn’t yours. From the moment he saw you across the bar, he knew you were trouble—sunlight and sharp edges, all heat and laughter and something he shouldn’t want, everything he’d been devoid of for so long. What began as a fleeting summer fling burned into something neither of you could name. You left without saying goodbye, it seemed easier that way. But now you’re in his classroom. And he’s your professor. You told yourselves to pretend it never happened. To forget. But how could you forget the way the world only made sense when you were together—and how nothing had made sense since?
Story warnings: 18+ MDI !!! Joel Miller x f!reader
No outbreak!au
professor!joel x student!reader, age gap (she’s in her early 20s, he’s in his late 40s), no use of y/n, excessive use of pet names and nicknames, reader only has a nickname from separate characters, OC!reader, mean!joel eventually, hot girl!reader (no physical descriptions really), bisexual!reader. Slow burn. hurt/comfort, forbidden romance, yearning/longing/pining, emotional repression, guilt, secret relationship, trust issues, half-truths, consequences of lying, allusions to family trauma, allusions to religious trauma, academic pressure, lack of communication, eventual violence and allusions to violence, allusions to grief, self-destructive behavior, attachment issues, shared denial, etc. etc. ANGST.
Chapters will come with their own warnings. Not all will have sexual content, but will allude to it.
smut!, unprotected p in v, fingering, oral sex (f. receiving, some m receiving), power imbalance, praise kink, size difference, hands!, eventual jealousy, heavy on the flashbacks, marking/possessiveness, grinding/dry humping, fake name during hookup(s), creampies (don’t be stupid), dirty talk, hair pulling, rough sex, getting attached, touch-starved, needy!joel, needy!reader. OKAY OKAY you get the gist.
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Chapter 1: The Echo of Familiarity
WC 3.4k - Returning to your hometown for a fresh start, you are determined to rebuild your life on your own terms. With a new major, new apartment, and new friends, everything feels just unfamiliar enough to be hopeful. You’re focused, self-contained, and intent on staying out of trouble. But the past isn’t always behind you. You had ended things so you could focus on school with no distractions, but you couldn’t get him off of your mind. Turns out, the universe has a cruel twist of fate waiting for you in Carson Hall room 202— PHIL 205.
Chapter 2: The Summer Fling
WC 14.8k (hey! shut up 😭) - you weren’t looking for anything that night… just a drink, a distraction, something that wouldn’t follow you home or remind you of why you’d left this town to begin with. But then there was him. A stranger with a crooked smile and a voice like velvet and smoke. A couple drinks led to his truck, his bed, and a night that felt like it belonged to a different version of you. Neither of you really asked any questions, and you sure as hell didn’t ask for more. But when morning came and numbers were exchanged, neither one said what you were thinking—I hope I see you again.
Chapter 3: It Was Never Meant to Matter
WC 4k - your real name felt strange on his tongue, out of place. simple lies and half-truths that were never meant to cause any harm crash together in a crescendo of devastation as you come face to face with their consequences. the past stretches its fingers into the present, wrapping around your throat like thorns. you had only wanted a clean break, but there’s nothing clean about this. only heart ache.
Chapter 4: Come Over
WC 8.7k - you both thought it’d be a one-time thing. but a text sent, an invitation, leads you right back to him. what starts as heat becomes something quieter, gentler, harder to walk away from. you tell yourselves it’s just casual, and you wonder how long you’ll be able to cling to those lies just for another night with him.
Chapter 5: Act 1
WC 5k - the silence after heartbreak is never really quiet. you act like everything’s fine, well, try to. but the past keeps following you across campus. a name, a look, the echo of a memory that still lives in your bones. he pretends you’re just another student. you pretend he doesn’t make you ache. and when you’re pulled back into his orbit— you have to keep yourself from falling apart over and over again.
Chapter 6: Movie Night
WC 6.7k - you keep telling yourselves it’s temporary, like that’ll make it hurt less. like naming it would make it real. but neither of you pulls back, not when the warmth is this easy, this addictive. not when something honest keeps blooming in the silence between words.
Chapter 7: What Once Was
WC 4.7k - glances linger, words go unsaid, and memories rise in the spaces where closeness used to live. you try to move forward, to remind yourself it’s your fault and you have to deal with the pain you caused, but part of you is still yearning for what once was.
Chapter 8: In This Shirt
WC 18.7k (don’t look at me!) - it’s easy to forget the days ahead, but something in the air feels different now. the weekend hums with quiet peace, stolen mornings, bare skin, and the kind of closeness that slips in without asking. somewhere beneath the warmth, something begins to shift. and a decision is made.
Chapter 9: Linger
WC 4.6k - life carries on, and so must you. but did it have to be so soon, and right where he could see it? did he ever mean to you what you still mean to him… or was he always just that easy to forget?
Chapter 10: The World We Knew (Over and Over)
WC 5.6k - you leave without saying goodbye. you tell yourself it’s better this way— that silence is softer than an ending, but all that’s left is the guilt you won’t face and the anxiety Joel can’t quiet.
Chapter 11: Twisted Fate
WC 7.6k - your friends discover the past you’d spent so long trying to run from, though you knew you couldn’t hide from it forever // you’re burning out and your friend has a suggestion that might ease the tension of your schedule, however, fate has a little twist in store for you // Joel finds your note.
Chapter 12: The TA
WC 6k - the lines between past and present blur as closeness turns into caution. what was once soft becomes sharp, and every shared space feels tighter, more fragile. what neither of you will say still hangs heavy in the air, and Joel can’t stop reaching for what he knows he has to let go.
Chapter 13: Professional Conduct
WC 6.5k - with your friend out sick, the classroom feels smaller… and quieter. between clipped exchanges and close proximity, you test the edges of something that feels almost like new ground.
Chapter 14: End of the Semester
WC 6.6k - As the semester wraps up, you must confront your inability to move on and the incessant reminders of how fucked you are, don’t worry… it’s mutual.
Chapter 15: A Better Man
WC 7.1k - A run-in during winter break leads a tense interaction of people who only know of the summer versions of you and Joel // the Spring semester starts.
Chapter 16: I Love You So
WC 4.4k - the aftermath of seeing each other like ghosts of the summer has Joel questioning it all / Tommy interrogates Joel about what happened between you.
Chapter 17: If I Needed You
WC 5.7k - Joel contemplates your place in his life and his place in yours. An opportunity arises to help you, and your insistent need for independence is challenged by the man who you could never really say no to.
More to come!
This is a work in progress, chapters are subject to further changes and proofreading pending rational judgement after dealing with ferality.
SLOOOOOOWWWW BURNNNN !!
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Some of these titles are directly from some of my favorite songs!
What Once Was - Hers
In This Shirt - The Irrepressibles
Linger - The Cranberries
The World We Knew (Over and Over) - Frank Sinatra
(A) Better Man - Paolo Nutini
I Love You So - The Walters
If I Needed You - Townes Van Zandt
Chapters aren’t based on the titles but their correlation after I wrote them fits in a way that tickles my fancy.
WC 5.7k - Joel contemplates your place in his life and his place in yours. An opportunity arises to help you, and your insistent need for independence is challenged by the man who you could never really say no to.
chapter content/ warnings: 18+ only!
No use of y/n, wee bit of power imbalance, tension, forbidden attraction, moral boundaries and conflicts, internal dialogue, switches from pov, mutual longing/pining/yearning, for the love of competency kink, being complicated and frustrating as always, teasing/ some philosophical banter, abandonment issues. Mentions of Sarah’s mom, fear of abandonment, anxious/avoidant attachment, allusions to past intimacy, slow burn.
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Joel was only partially relieved that you weren’t in any of his classes this semester.
On one hand, he really doesn’t miss the shake of his hands and the way his brain would stall at the sight of you. On the other hand, however, he really misses getting to read your work, and the white-hot tension that would ignite within his chest whenever he’d catch you staring in the middle of class.
He was used to attention to some extent, he wasn’t ignorant to the way certain students ogled him. If anything, it unsettled him more than it flattered him. He understood the psychology behind it well enough. Professors occupied a dangerous sort of role for young people searching for direction, validation, and structure. An authority figure capable of making them feel intelligent and seen which could easily become the subject of admiration that blurred into something parasocial and inappropriate. Joel had always been careful with that responsibility, careful with the distance required to maintain it.
The idea of crossing those lines had genuinely never crossed his mind before you. And if he’d met you as a student first, maybe none of this would’ve happened at all.
Or maybe that was just another lie he told himself to sleep at night.
Because… you weren’t nineteen years old looking for validation from an older man with kind eyes and degrees hanging on his wall. You were older than most of your peers, inching toward your mid-twenties with a sharpness that made conversations with you feel less like speaking to a student and more like speaking to someone who understood him in ways most people never had. Even now, with the two of you carefully rebuilding something from the wreckage of what happened over the summer, the lines continued to blur in ways he knew were dangerous. At most, he tells himself, you would’ve become friends.
But friendship with you somehow felt more intimate than sex ever had with anyone else.
Now that the two of you had settled into this strange fragile rhythm of pretending, conversations stolen during office hours or while grading papers had started resembling something painfully close to normal. He’d learned snippets about your life the same way starving men rationed food, careful not to indulge too much at once for fear of ruining himself entirely. Stories about your classes, your friends, little observations muttered beneath your breath that made him laugh harder than they probably should’ve. In return, he found himself giving pieces of himself away with equal carelessness, offering up stories about Sarah or Tommy before remembering halfway through that this was exactly the sort of closeness he’d promised himself he wouldn’t allow.
It was a dangerous game for him to play.
He respected you too much to destroy whatever this was becoming simply because he lacked the self-control to keep his feelings contained, and selfishly, pathetically, he’d already begun relying on your presence more than he should. This new dynamic had become a lifeline disguised as professionalism, something to look forward to during mornings that had long since lost their sense of purpose.
At this point, he’d take whatever version of you he could have. There was some twisted sort of comfort in the longing, in the incessant reminder that at one point you had chosen to lose yourself in him too.
That sting of abandonment still made itself known, no matter how irrational it was, considering the circumstances. Didn't change the truth behind it all. Your choice was made purely out of self-preservation. A clean break from him as if he were nothing more than a distraction. That’s how you’d worked it anyway. How could he ever compete with that?
It wasn’t as though either of you had expected the intensity of your little fling, the ease of slipping into one another’s orbit, the comfort found in shared silences and lingering glances, the way he’d started searching for your eyes before he even entered a room.
He knows now that he’d never truly been in love before you. He’d mistaken obligation for devotion once, years ago, after a drunken stupor and a girl he barely knew turned into a positive pregnancy test and eventually a baby with his eyes cradled against his chest beneath fluorescent hospital lights.
She’d decided to keep the baby. And Joel, stubborn and terrified in equal measure, had done everything he thought a good man was supposed to do. He signed the papers at the hospital without hesitation, worked overtime until his hands ached, learned how to stretch exhaustion into something survivable while trying to build a life out of a relationship neither of them had been prepared for. She’d rejected his marriage proposal which, as upsetting as it was at the time, he is grateful they avoided that headache. For a while he convinced himself they could make it work, that love might eventually grow from proximity and persistence alone, though deep down he thinks they were both just clinging to the idea of not wanting to fail their daughter before she’d even learned how to speak.
Somewhere along the line her drinking worsened, the distance between them becoming impossible to ignore whenever she looked at Sarah with that strange sort of detachment, as though motherhood belonged to somebody else and she’d merely wandered into the wrong life by mistake. He’d read all about postpartum depression, all he could do was be there for her when she would let him, and hope it would someday go away. By the time Sarah was two, she was already half gone, disappearing for nights at a time before eventually disappearing for good, save for a signature on a stack of legal papers Joel could barely look at without feeling sick.
He remembers sitting in that courtroom with Sarah asleep against his shoulder while a judge finalized the termination of her parental rights, remembers the hollow ache in his chest as her mother willingly surrendered every legal claim to the little girl tucked safely in his arms, and even now, decades later, some ugly wounded part of him still associated love with being left behind.
Maybe that was why your disappearance cut so deep beneath his skin despite every logical part of him knowing the situation between the two of you had always come with an expiration date. You hadn’t owed him permanence.
Still, some traitorous part of him had started imagining what it might’ve looked like if you had stayed.
Because unlike before, unlike all those years ago when responsibility had arrived wrapped in panic and fear and the deafening realization that his life was no longer his own, loving you had never felt like an obligation. It had come naturally, frighteningly so, weaving itself into the spaces of his life before he’d even realized what was happening.
Which meant losing you felt less like failure and more like confirmation of something he’d spent most of his life trying not to believe.
That eventually, everyone he let himself love would decide he was easier to leave behind.
And still, despite all of that, despite the ache of wanting you sitting only a few feet away from him some afternoons while pretending not to notice the way his gaze lingered too long, despite the constant temptation to ruin everything the moment you smiled at him like you remembered those summer nights too, Joel found himself strangely grateful for the restraint this arrangement demanded of him.
Because this version of you that he was slowly getting to know now beneath fluorescent office lights and the soft scratch of red pen across paper, felt infinitely more dangerous than the woman he’d tangled himself up with over the summer.
Back then he’d only wanted your body, or at least told himself that was all it could be.
Now he wanted your thoughts, your opinions, your attention lingering on him for no reason at all. He wanted every strange insignificant detail you offered him freely between conversations about coursework and faculty meetings and books you thought he’d like. He wanted the version of intimacy that lasted, and the summer version of you would’ve never given him these moments of getting to know you separate from your body.
—
He glances at you now, his eyes tracing the profile of your face as you concentrate on the papers in front of you.
That furrow in your brow as you assess freshman philosophy papers is strangely endearing, your expression tightening every few seconds as though each half-baked thesis physically pains you to read.
“Do people really assume philosophy would be easy?” you ask suddenly, not bothering to look up from the paper in front of you. “Like genuinely. An easy A?”
Joel leans back slightly in his chair, “Think it’s the novelty of it all. Makes people feel smart.”
Your nose wrinkles faintly as you continue reading. “This one just used the phrase ‘societal moral thingies.’”
He chuckles under his breath in disbelief.
“No, seriously.” You turn the paper around enough for him to see the sentence in question, your pen tapping beneath it. “That’s a direct quote. Societal moral thingies.”
“Technical terminology.”
“Mm. Very academic.”
Joel shakes his head, unable to suppress the grin threatening at the corners of his mouth, “You’d be surprised how many students think confidence can compensate for substance.”
“I mean, apparently it can,” you mutter. “There’s a hundred people in this class and maybe twelve of them seem remotely interested in understanding what they’re arguing. The rest just throw around words like ‘nihilism’ and hope nobody notices they’re saying absolutely nothing.”
“That strategy works disturbingly well in certain departments.”
That finally earns him a glance over the top of your paper, your eyes narrowing with amusement. “You’re allowed to say that as faculty?”
“Tenure’s a beautiful thing.”
“You don’t even have tenure yet.”
“Yeah, yeah... details, I’ll be tenured by the fall.”
A quiet laugh slips out of you before you lower your gaze again, shaking your head slightly as you scribble feedback in the margins. Joel watches the movement absentmindedly, watches the way you chew lightly at the inside of your cheek whenever you’re trying to articulate a thought carefully.
“You certainly made it look easy,” he says after a moment, the words softer than intended.
It was the truth.
For the better part of last semester you’d maintained a nearly perfect score, though the one glaring exception still lingered in the back of his mind. You had intentionally skipped an essay question about care ethics on the final, bypassing it entirely despite knowing the material better than anyone else in the room.
A masterful evasion.
There were assignments you’d skillfully maneuvered around whenever concepts struck a little too close to home.
Not that the two of you had ever technically been in a relationship, but there had still been a strange sort of relational responsibility woven into whatever existed between you.
As much as he’d wanted to know what you really thought, he’d understood the mercy in your restraint.
You’d always been merciful with him.
Well. Had been.
Nowadays he wasn’t entirely sure either of you remembered how to be careful around one another anymore. It had only been about a month into the new semester and the shift between you felt palpable, the conversations easier and longer than they probably should’ve been, your guard lowering in subtle increments every time you lingered in his office.
You’d become awfully chatty lately.
“I still can’t imagine willingly choosing philosophy for a gen-ed credit,” you continue. “Thought kids these days avoided essay-heavy classes like the plague.”
That catches him off guard enough to make him bark out a quiet laugh, “Kids these days?”
You finally look up fully, utterly unapologetic. “Joel, one of my classmates asked me last week if Plato was alive during World War Two.”
“He was not.”
“I know that. I’m concerned that he didn’t.”
Joel rubs a hand over his mouth, trying unsuccessfully to hide his amusement. “You realize you are practically one of those kids these days. At least in terms of college kids.”
“I’m like three to four years older than most of my peers, actually,” you correct lightly, leaning back in your chair. “Which in undergraduate years practically makes me a war veteran.”
“Oh, is that right?”
“Mhm. I already feel disconnected from modern youth culture.”
Joel watches you with open disbelief now, “and you’re not a part of modern youth culture?”
“No, modern youth culture scares me.” You grimace down at the paper in front of you. “‘According to TikTok philosopher user moralityking09…’ See? This is exactly what I mean.”
Joel closes his eyes briefly, “I’m changing careers.”
“You threaten that every week.”
Joel scoffs while you fight a grin across from him, visibly entertained by your own argument, “And every week one of you people gives me another reason.”
“You love it too much to leave.”
You glance up a second later only to find Joel already looking at you.
There’s something dangerous about moments like this, you think. Not the tension itself, because that had existed between the two of you from the very beginning and likely always would, but the ease creeping in around it now.
It would almost be easier if he’d stayed cold.
The amusement lingering around his mouth softens almost imperceptibly and his expression shifts into something gentler, more thoughtful, and the sudden weight of his attention makes warmth creep uncomfortably high beneath your collarbone.
There had always been something deeply unsettling about the way Joel looked at people… well, looked at you.. Not intimidating exactly, though he certainly could be when he wanted to. It was more that he paid attention too thoroughly, his gaze lingering with an intensity that made you feel observed in ways most people never bothered to attempt. Seen and heard, listened to and understood.
Wanted.
You drop your gaze back toward the paper before the thought can settle too deeply, forcing your attention instead toward the paragraph in front of you despite the uncomfortable warmth still lingering beneath your skin.
Outside the narrow office window, the early evening light had started dimming into something softer, streaks of amber filtering weakly through the bare winter branches lining the edge of campus. The hallway beyond Joel’s office had grown quieter too, the usual shuffle of students tapering off as evening classes settled in.
You only notice how late it’s gotten when your phone buzzes softly against the desk beside your elbow.
Your brows knit immediately, “Shit.”
Joel glances up at the sound of your urgency, “What?”
You grab your phone quickly, checking the time before your stomach drops slightly, “I forgot what time it was.”
“How bad?”
“I’ve got like…” you squint at the screen, already mentally calculating the walk across campus, “eight minutes before the last bus gets to the stop.”
Joel’s expression shifts faintly in confusion, “Bus?”
You’re already shoving loose papers into uneven stacks to clear space in front of you, distracted enough not to think much of the question at first.
“What happened to your car?”
You hesitate briefly before shrugging one shoulder, “It’s been making this weird noise for like two weeks now and I haven’t had time to take it in.”
“What kinda noise?”
You pause mid-motion, glancing up at him skeptically, “That is an impossible question for me to answer.”
Joel leans back slightly in his chair again as he always does when he’s amused at something, the corner of his mouth twitching. “C’mon, humor me, I might be able to help.”
You stare at him for a moment before reluctantly attempting, “It sounds…” Your face pinches in thought. “Wrong?”
He laughs quietly at that.
“I don’t know how to explain it.” You gesture vaguely with one hand. “Kinda rattly? And a definite squeak from the back right wheel or something. But only sometimes.”
“That usually means somethin’s loose, and that your brake pads need replacin’.”
“See, that means nothing to me.” You point your pen toward him accusingly. “Men always say things like that as though I know what’s under the hood of my car.”
Joel watches you continue throwing things into your bag with increasing urgency. “And instead your solution was avoid it until the vehicle dies?”
“That is unfortunately how I approach most of my problems, yes.”
“Hm.” His gaze lingers on you another second before he pushes himself up from his chair with a quiet groan. “When were you gonna take it to a shop?”
You sling your bag over your shoulder, “Eventually.”
“That ain’t a timeframe.”
“I’m busy.”
Joel shakes his head, grabbing his jacket from the back of his chair, “Lemme take a look at it.”
The words catch you off guard enough that you still for half a second, “What?”
“Your car,” he repeats simply, shrugging into the jacket. “I’ll drive y’home, and I can take a look at it before y’spend money takin’ it somewhere and they overcharge ya.”
The offer shouldn’t feel as intimate as it does. It’s just a favor. A normal favor. The kind of thing people did for friends or coworkers or anyone they vaguely cared about.
Still, something tightens strangely in your chest anyway, “You really don’t have to do that.”
Joel’s expression softens with faint amusement, like he already knows you’re going to argue with him about this. “Sweetheart, if your car’s been makin’ death noises for two weeks and you’re still needin’ to drive it around, I promise I’d rather look at it myself before somethin’ happens to ya.”
Your mouth goes dry at the endearment.
Joel had always occupied space in a way that made awareness unavoidable, broad shoulders stretching the fabric of his dark button up shirt beneath the worn canvas blazer he’d just shrugged into, one hand braced lazily against the edge of his desk while he looked down at you with that same steady attention that had been unraveling your nervous system for months now.
Up close, you can see the faint exhaustion lining his face beneath the warm amber spill of evening light coming through the office window, the silver threading through his curls near his temples, the rough scrape of stubble shadowing beyond his neatly trimmed beard by the end of the day.
Your gaze catches briefly on his mouth before you force it away. You clear your throat softly as you take a small step backward in a weak attempt to reestablish something resembling normal distance between the two of you.
“I’ll be fine,” you murmur. “I can still make the bus if I hurry.”
Joel’s brows pull together slightly at that, his gaze flicking toward the clock on the wall before returning to your face.
“You’re not gonna make it in… five minutes,” he says plainly. “Not from this building.”
You open your mouth to argue before realizing he’s unfortunately right.
Your expression must give you away because the corner of his mouth twitches faintly again, less amused and more patient this time.
“And if y’miss it,” he continues evenly, grabbing his keys from his desk drawer, “that’s partly my fault anyway. Kept you here grading papers all afternoon.”
“You didn’t force me to stay.”
“No,” Joel agrees quietly, “but I also didn’t exactly encourage y’to leave when it started gettin’ late.”
Something warm and uncomfortable unfurls low in your stomach at that.
He steps around the edge of his desk then, close enough that you catch the clean cedar scent of his cologne beneath the lingering warmth of coffee and something distinctly him. Your pulse stutters embarrassingly hard at the proximity.
Joel notices it, and you know he does. Still, he gives you an out.
“If you’re uncomfortable with it, that’s fine,” he says after a moment, “I can still help figure out what’s wrong with the car another time. Just figured since I’d already be drivin’ you home…” his shoulders lift in a small shrug beneath the dark fabric of his jacket, “…might as well take a look while I’m there.”
He never pushes, and that’s the reason he continuously unraveled your defenses despite every logical instinct telling you to keep your distance.
Even now, standing close enough that you could count the silver strands threaded through the curls near his temples, his gaze steady on yours in the dimming gold light of his office, he still leaves the choice entirely in your hands.
“…you really think you can tell what’s wrong with it just by listening?” you ask quietly, attempting for something lighter despite the strange heaviness settling beneath your ribs.
Joel huffs a soft laugh through his nose. “Darlin’, half of fixin’ cars is just listenin’ to what they’re complainin’ about.”
Your stomach flips again, it almost makes you nauseous.
Joel waits, patient as ever. Since you’re not making a mad dash for the bus that has probably already left the stop, he figures you’re finally accepting his offer.
You exhale softly through your nose before finally nodding once, “Okay, fine,” you murmur.
Something in Joel’s face eases almost imperceptibly, “Okay,” he echoes.
—
By the time Joel pulls into the parking lot of your apartment complex, the sky had long since deepened into velvet blue, the last traces of daylight swallowed behind low winter clouds. The drive over had been quieter than most of your recent conversations. The radio hummed softly beneath the steady rush of heat from the vents while campus slowly gave way to dim storefronts and sleepy residential streets streaked gold beneath passing streetlights.
Now, standing a few feet away from your car with the hood propped open beneath the weak parking lot lights, Joel leans forward slightly with one hand braced against the frame of the car while the other disappears deeper into the engine.
And unfortunately for you, the sleeves of his dark button up had been rolled halfway to his elbows almost immediately after stepping out of the truck, exposing strong forearms dusted faintly with dark hair and veins that shift subtly beneath warm skin every time he moves his wrist. His shoulders pull tight beneath the fabric as he leans further over the engine, brow furrowed in concentration while the light catches silver near his temples.
You try very hard not to stare and you fail almost instantly.
“Hm,” Joel murmurs after a moment, attention still fixed somewhere beneath the hood. “Alternator belt’s worn.”
Your brows knit, “That sounds expensive.”
“Not terrible.”
“That hesitation was concerning.”
Joel huffs a quiet laugh through his nose before finally glancing over at you, “Wasn’t hesitation.”
“You literally paused.”
“I was thinkin’.”
“About how expensive it is?”
The corner of his mouth twitches faintly before he looks back toward the engine again, adjusting something with practiced ease, “Nah, I can take care of it for ya, just gotta get the parts.”
And you knew you were in deep trouble with the insinuation that he’d be the one to fix your car.
You’d spent months trying not to notice the things that made Joel attractive outside of the obvious, which had admittedly been a losing battle from the start. But watching him work with his hands always felt particularly cruel. There was just something about the calm certainty of his movements, the quiet confidence threaded through every absent adjustment he made beneath the hood like he instinctively understood how things fit together.
The winter air bites sharply at your cheeks while you linger uselessly a few feet away holding your keys.
“Hm,” Joel murmurs after a moment, brows pulling together slightly while he kneels down beside your real right wheel, pressing against something out of your line of sight. “When’s the last time y’got the brake pads replaced?”
You stare at him blankly for a second too long because your brain had unfortunately stopped functioning somewhere around watching the muscles in his forearms shift beneath rolled sleeves.
“My what?” In all honesty you just hadn’t heard what he said.
Joel glances up then, and the immediate flicker of amusement in his eyes tells you he knows exactly where your attention had drifted.
God.
“You weren’t listenin’ to me at all, were ya?”
Heat blooms violently beneath your skin, “I was listening.”
“Mhm.”
“I was.”
Joel ducks his head slightly to hide a smile.
Insufferable.
“You need new brake pads too,” he says again as he stands back up, making sure you’re actually listening now. “That squeakin’ you mentioned is from your wear indicators.”
You hadn’t realized how close he’d gotten until he stops directly in front of you, close enough now that the warmth radiating from him cuts through the cold evening air in dizzying waves. Your pulse stutters immediately.
He smells faintly like motor oil now, roughened by winter air and the lingering traces of his cologne beneath it all.
Joel looks down at you with that same maddening steadiness he always does, “You really should’ve gotten this looked at sooner.”
“I know,” you murmur, “just been busy and since the university runs the bus I’m alright walking home from the stop to save up for the fix.”
“You’ve been walkin’ home?”
You shrug and he sighs exasperatedly, “Well, glad y’missed the bus today so I could help y’out.”
It wasn’t necessarily flirtatious, though your brain was really trying to torture you at this proximity. Joel rarely crossed lines that directly anymore, not unless something slipped out accidentally beneath exhaustion or distraction. The sincerity was threaded so casually through things like this, the quiet certainty with which he offered pieces of himself as though helping you was the most natural thing in the world.
You glance away first, eyes catching on the thin curl of steam drifting from your breath into the cold air. “I mean, I would’ve figured it out eventually.”
Joel’s brows pull together faintly at that, “That’s not really the point.”
You look back at him then, caught slightly off guard by the firmness in his voice, “Then what is?”
Joel studies you for a second, his hand still resting against the roof of your car beside your head while the other hangs loosely at his side with the grease-stained rag curled around his fingers, “That y’don’t always gotta figure everythin’ out alone.”
The quiet sincerity of it nearly knocks the breath from your lungs and you immediately try to deflect. Heat creeps beneath your skin for entirely different reasons now, “I don’t need to be taken care of.”
“Never said y’did.”
“You implied it.”
Joel exhales slowly through his nose before shifting slightly closer, enough that the warmth radiating from him cuts more sharply through the cold evening air.
“No,” he says quietly, gaze fixed steadily on yours now, “I implied it’s okay to let somebody help you.” Joel shakes his head slightly, looking down for half a second before his gaze drifts back toward your face, then lower.
The shift is subtle enough that most people probably wouldn’t notice it, but you do. You notice everything when it comes to him.
His eyes linger briefly on your mouth before lifting back up again.
The air between you changes immediately.
Your body reacts before your brain can catch up, pulse stuttering violently while your fingers tighten around your keys hard enough for the metal to bite against your palm.
You can feel him thinking.
One step, maybe less, and that’s all it would take.
Joel’s jaw shifts slightly, throat working once beneath the open collar of his shirt while his gaze flickers downward again like he’s fighting the instinct in real time.
Your eyes drop to his mouth before you can stop them.
The realization seems to hit him at the exact same moment because his expression changes almost imperceptibly, something darker pulling briefly across his face before he leans in barely an inch…
…and stops.
The movement is so small you almost think you imagined it.
Joel closes his eyes for the briefest second before dragging a hand down across his mouth, exhaling sharply through his nose like he’s actively annoyed with himself, “Christ,” he mutters quietly.
The cold rushes back into the space between you as he steps away from the car.
You remain exactly where you are, heart pounding so violently it feels humiliating.
“Lemme order the parts tomorrow,” he says, voice rougher now. “Can probably fix most of it this weekend.”
It takes you a second too long to respond, “This weekend?”
“Mhm.” Joel nods once before closing the hood of the car with a solid thud. “Brake pads won’t take long. Belt neither.” His gaze flicks toward you again, softer this time. “I’ll teach ya while we do it so next time y’know what you’re lookin’ and listenin’ for.”
Your stomach flips all over again. Offering you competence instead of dependency like he instinctively understands how badly you resist feeling cared for.
“You’re gonna make me participate?”
That small smile returns immediately, “Sweetheart,” Joel murmurs, “it’s the dead of winter. And sure, this may be Texas but y’can’t be walkin’ home at night hopin’ y’can be one of the few who doesn’t need to rely on a car in your everyday life.”
A reluctant laugh escapes you despite yourself, the sound fogging visibly into the cold air between you both, “Fine, I yield.”
Joel huffs softly through his nose, the corners of his mouth still turned upward while he reaches for the rag tucked into his back pocket again.
There should genuinely be laws against men looking like this while doing mundane tasks.
Especially older men with rough hands and rolled sleeves and deep voices who insisted on fixing things for you without making you feel incapable in the process.
You’re hopeless for this man.
“You busy Saturday?” Joel asks casually while wiping his hands clean.
The idea of spending hours alone with him while he leaned over your car teaching you things in that low patient drawl of his feels dangerous in ways you don’t want to unpack right now.
“…depends,” you manage carefully. “How much actual learning about cars do I have to do to change brake pads?”
Joel laughs lightly again at that, “You’ll be fine, I promise.” He glances toward your apartment building then back at you, expression gentling slightly. “You should head inside before y’freeze.”
The silence stretches again, your fingers tightening slightly around your keys while Joel stands across from you, one hand resting against the hood of your car again like he’s reluctant to leave too.
Or maybe you’re projecting… probably projecting.
Joel glances briefly toward your apartment building before looking back at you again, “You got classes tomorrow?”
The question catches you slightly off guard, “Uh, yeah. Why?”
“What time?”
You narrow your eyes faintly, immediately suspicious. “Joel.”
“What?”
“You’re doing that thing again.”
“What thing?”
“The thing where you ask questions like you already decided something before consulting me.”
“What time?” he repeats calmly.
You sigh dramatically, “First class is at ten.”
“Mhm.” Joel nods once like that confirms whatever internal calculation he’d already been making. “I’ll pick y’up at nine sharp.”
Your brows shoot upward immediately, “Absolutely not.”
Joel barely reacts. “Sweetheart, your car sounds like it’s one pothole away from divine intervention.”
“The bus exists.”
“And now I know you’ve been walkin’ home alone at night from the stop.”
The easy warmth from earlier shifts subtly beneath the conversation now. Joel’s concern never really sounds overbearing because he never makes it about control. It’s always practical with him. Matter-of-fact enough that arguing starts to feel childish after a while.
Unfortunately, you still try, “I can survive two more days without inconveniencing you.”
Joel’s expression changes slightly at that, enough that your stomach tightens almost immediately, “Inconveniencing me,” he repeats quietly.
Joel looks away briefly, rubbing his thumb along the edge of the rag still hanging loosely from his hand before glancing back toward you again. There’s no irritation in his face, just calm… worry… if you look further, care.
“You really think givin’ you a ride to campus is some huge burden on my day?”
Heat creeps uncomfortably high into your chest.
“I just…” You exhale softly through your nose, struggling to articulate something that doesn’t sound pathetic now that he’s looking at you like this. “I’m used to handling my own stuff.”
“I can tell,” The gentleness in his voice nearly undoes you completely.
Joel steps a little closer again, “And that’s fine,” he says quietly. “Just let me help ya, just this once.”
You stare at him for a moment longer than necessary.
God.
Simple observations from him feel like they slide directly beneath your skin before you can defend against them properly drives you crazy.
Your eyes drift briefly toward the open collar of his shirt before snapping back upward again.
The corner of his mouth twitches faintly before he rescues you from your own embarrassment by reaching for his truck keys in his pocket instead.
“Nine o’clock sharp,” he repeats casually, like the conversation’s already over.
You exhale a soft incredulous laugh. “You are unbelievably stubborn.”
Nothing but a dimpled grin waiting for you to take him up on the offer like he already knows he won the argument.
“…fine,” you mutter eventually.
Joel hums in approval of your decision, the sound warming the cold night air between you both one last time before he finally starts backing toward his truck, “Night, darlin’.”
The word settles beneath your skin with immediate dangerous warmth because there’s nothing performative about it. No teasing edge or flirtation obvious enough to call out. It sounds natural coming from him, softened by exhaustion and familiarity in a way that makes panic unfurl quietly through your chest.
You’ve started noticing the difference now.
Sweetheart when he’s amused with you. Darlin’ when he forgets himself.
People do not accidentally develop specific terms of endearment for someone they’re trying very hard not to cross lines with.
You open your mouth to respond only to realize a second too late that your brain has stalled out entirely somewhere between hearing his voice and watching him stand there beneath the parking lot lights looking unfairly handsome with rolled sleeves and tired eyes and rough hands.
One brow lifts slightly while he waits beside the open driver’s side door of his truck, patient enough to make your pulse feel embarrassing.
“Goodnight, Joel,” you finally manage.
· · ──────── ꒰ঌ·✦·໒───────── · ·
a/n: hellooooo again my looooves!! Summer break-ish! Does that mean I can write more?! I fuckin’ hope so! But I’ll be starting work here soon. Holyyyy dude, spring sem broke my brain but I’m free of calc and physics yay! I’m grieving the fact that my yapping prof/muse for this fic will be gone until next spring but I’m fine, I swear!
I wanna give these characters more brain space beyond just daydreaming I’m getting back into adding songs to their playlist and transcribing the snippets of chapters I’d hand-written during class (old habits die hard) into their designated chapters. Sometimes it’s hard to piece it all together because my notes are not organized unless it’s for specific classes I actually care about. Which… should be all of them, but be so fr…. Miss me with that math bs (to all the math people, I DO enjoy math when it doesn’t stress me out to the point of drawing my focus away from the classes I actually am passionate for, but anti-derivatives can kiss my ass).
Incomplete yet HEFTY playlist I have for these two so far:
taglist as requested (please let me know if you want to be added/removed): @magicxmiller @yslgreen @mallingcalling-blog @getitoutofmymindwrites @msdariaknight @morganlolitta @faiantas-blog @anheloamores @loveday1219
Rules: Post ten GIFs of your ten favorite movies (no giving away the title) and tag ten people.
thank you for the tags my dears!! @simpingforjoel @ess-evo
Figured I’ve been M.I.A. for a bit now, and I’m letting yall know I am alive!
I haven’t had much time to watch movies or write but I’ll do my best to remember movies I’ve watched… why is it always such a hard list to come up with 😭
GIF by @dearemma
This was so hard and I’m going to be so mad about whatever movies I’ve forgotten, but this is a pretty good list for now! I think I used to watch so many movies because a celebrity crush was in them and those aren’t always “favorite movie” quality hahaha
No pressure tags bc I’m done being scared to be perceived (jk no im not): @littledes1re @saralovesjoelmiller @joelismyserotonin @missadangel @studioghibelli @isabellaboo2025 @reedispunk @cinnxmxngxrl @katyispunk @rosharanfiction (my apologies if you’ve already done it!)
“I've got to get away and let you go, I've got to get over” - “I Love You So” by The Walters
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professor!joel miller x f!reader
Chapter summary:
WC 4.4k - the aftermath of seeing each other like ghosts of the summer has Joel questioning it all / Tommy interrogates Joel about what happened between you.
chapter content/ warnings: sexual content, 18+ only!
wee bit of power imbalance, tension, forbidden attraction, moral boundaries and conflicts, internal dialogue, Joel’s pov, mutual longing/pining/yearning, being complicated and frustrating as always. Mentions of medication, depictions of a panic attack, allusions to past intimacy, slow burn.
· · ──────── ꒰ঌ·✦·໒───────── · ·
Mill, Locke… hell, even Aristotle had something to say about restraint. About the virtue in holding the line when the easier path was giving in. Self-control as the thing that made a man more than his appetites.
He told himself that’s what this was. A kind of moral exercise, the discipline to want and not take, to burn and still stay good. To put his years-long studies of theories and moral challenges to proper use. To prove to himself what he was teaching had its foundations in reality.
The true power wasn’t in the taking. It was in the holding back. In knowing exactly how fast he knew he could make you come apart for him and choosing not to touch you at all.
But one slip and it wouldn’t just be a lapse, it’d be a headline and the end of his career. The kind of thing that gutted reputations and left scorch marks you never scrubbed out. He’d lose the job, the department, every shred of professional respect he’d clawed together.
And morally, Christ, he knew the balance was already uneven. You were his TA, his student. The power between you didn’t tip so much as lean, and if he reached for you now, it would be him making the move, him taking advantage, no matter how much you may have wanted it for yourself.
That was the truth of it, the rot at the center of the wanting. He couldn’t separate the hunger from the ruin.
It was the same logic as every story about forbidden fruit, it wasn’t dangerous because it was sweet, it was sweet because it was dangerous. Unfortunately for him, he knew how sweet you tasted too, and the punishment was in the knowledge that he would never be able to taste you again.
He remembered the salt of your skin in summer heat, the faint trace of whatever you’d been drinking on your tongue when you’d pulled him in. The way you’d gone soft and pliant against him when he’d bitten just hard enough to hear you gasp. It was in his mouth now, phantom and maddening, as if memory alone could conjure it back.
Every second you sat there, he could feel the line under his feet like a live wire. One step over and everything changed.
So he told himself he could live in the wanting. That the ache was cleaner than the act. That restraint was a kind of penance, proof he wasn’t the man people might think he was if they knew.
But the more you leaned toward him, the more the ghost of you lingered on his tongue, the harder it became to believe his own lie.
And when you shifted in your seat, skirt tugging higher on your thigh, and looked up at him through your lashes like you were about to ask something, he knew with bone-deep certainty that if he wasn’t careful… one day, he was going to fail at this.
God, you were trouble, and he sure as hell shouldn’t enjoy this.
You still had power over him, that much was abundantly clear to him.
But now he remembered he had power too.
It stirred something old and heady in his chest, something feral. It made his cock strain beneath the desk, made him clench his jaw and breathe through his nose just to keep his voice steady as you were working through essays together.
“Next one,” he muttered, flipping to the next page like he wasn’t choking on the weight of his own need. Like he wasn’t imagining how fast you’d crumble if he really used that power, if he stepped into the space between you and…
He breathed out slowly. Because that was the only way he got to keep looking at you like this, unchained, and still call himself good. He knew it was only a matter of time before he’d break if he kept this up. He could only take so many accidental brushes of fingers against his before he’d have pinned you beneath him… alright, it’s getting away from him today.
He was lucky you’d always chosen to sit across the table from him, unable to see his pants tighten just because you fucking exist next to him.
You shifted in your seat, boot grazing the floor, the sound sharp in the quiet. You tilted your head slightly, eyes still on the paper in front of you.
He glanced up then. Just for a moment. Watched the way your fingers moved across the rubric, steady and confident. Watched the way your expression never faltered, even as your pen hovered just long enough over one particular line, like it reminded you of something, “I can’t quite figure out what’s wrong but I just know something is.”
He clears his throat before extending his arm to point out what he’d noticed, “The citation’s wrong.”
You glanced up briefly, “Is it?”
He tapped the margin with his thumb, “They’ve attributed a Hunt quote to Nietzsche.”
You frowned at the paper, “Ah, I see. Just needed your keen, expert eye,” you say with a faint lilt to your voice, something just a breath past teasing… not quite playful but not entirely innocent either.
Joel didn’t answer. His eyes lingered a second too long before he looked back down, he had to take a sip of his coffee to hide his grin.
The room settled into the quiet scratch of pens and the soft shuffle of paper, but it wasn’t quiet to him. Not when he could hear the faint shift of your breathing, not when every movement in his periphery pulled at him like a hook under the skin. You were close enough that if he leaned just a little, he could catch the scent of your shampoo. Close enough that his arm could brush yours if he let it.
When he’d accepted your application, he’d told himself he’d be content merely in your presence. The silence surrounding would be just as well as anything else. The tension crackled regardless, and that was his solace that you hadn’t been just a dream. He was fine with that. Stolen glances and spared words limited to professionalism and courtesy… he was just fine with that. And you have proven yourself to be an exemplary student and TA.
But instead, because of your proposition, and your insistence for a change of pace between the two of you, and now the new semester without Jamie’s impeding presence, it felt like something else entirely, something he’d have to manage just as carefully.
You leaned in, scanning the essay between you, and he had to lock his jaw to keep from looking down the slope of your neck, from imagining the heat of your skin under his palm. Because he knew exactly what he’d do if he let himself, how he’d hook a hand under your chin, drag your gaze to his, thumb pressing into your bottom lip until you parted for him. How he’d slot his hand between your thighs under the desk and slide it up until you shifted in your seat, until you made that sound he’d been starving for since summer. That skirt of yours rucked high enough for his fingers to slip beneath, feel the heat of you, test just how ready you’d be for him.
He reeled himself back, long breath in through his nose, pen tapping against the paper to give his hands something else to do.
It would be so easy. Too easy.
—
“What the fuck do you mean you’re her professor?”
Tommy’s voice echoed in his head as the memory dragged him back to that cold December night.
Joel hadn’t answered. He had pushed open the door and stepped into the cool air instead.
“Fuck, Joel…”
He’d tried to walk it off, tried to put distance between himself and the conversation, but Tommy had followed him out into the night like a shadow he couldn’t shake.
“Joel!” The shout had cracked across the parking lot, sharp with disbelief.
Tommy had grabbed his arm and spun him around, the weight of the moment finally forcing Joel to look at him. “You can’t just drop something like that and walk away.”
Joel’s eyes finally focus on his brother’s, what could only be described as distress etching deep lines in his face.
Joel’s jaw had tightened so hard it ached. “Just stop.”
The pressure in his chest came fast and unforgiving, a sharp bloom of pain that stole the breath right out of him. His hand had flown up instinctively, fingers gripping his shirt as the world tilted sideways. He barely had time to stumble before Tommy caught him, steadying his weight with both hands.
“Whoa, what the fuck? Easy… I got ya.”
He squeezes his eyes shut and feels his breath staggering in gasps.
The night blurred after that. The concrete beneath his boots, the sting of cold against his face, the rush of air in his ears. He couldn’t tell how much of the walk to the truck he’d managed on his own, only that the next clear moment found him in the passenger seat. Tommy’s cold hands gently slapping him back to consciousness.
“Joel! Joel, man, c’mon… look at me, it’s alright, you’re alright,” repeated in his ears as the world steadied once more. A bottle of water was being handed to him and his brows furrowed in confusion.
“It’s been awhile since one of those, are you alright? Thought you were taking meds for this?”
Joel groaned and waved him off, irritation flashing through the lingering fog. Tommy lifted both hands in surrender, backing off just enough to let him breathe, “Alright. Alright.”
Tommy rounded the truck and climbed into the driver’s seat, motioning to Joel to buckle up only to get a few grumbles from his older brother.
“She got you that bad, huh. I was gonna say how lucky you were fucking hot college girls, but I see that’s not appropriate… and I apologize.”
Joel didn’t answer. He leaned his head back against the headrest, eyes closing as the truck rumbled to life, the vibration traveling up through his bones. His chest still felt tight, like the panic had left an echo behind, a dull pressure that refused to fade completely. He rolled his shoulders once, then again, trying to shake the lingering tension from his body.
Tommy drove in silence for a few minutes, the road stretching out in front of them, the dashboard lights casting soft shadows across the cab. Joel watched the blur of streetlights through half-lidded eyes, his thoughts drifting despite his best efforts to corral them.
He knew the panic attack hadn’t come out of nowhere.
He’d honestly been surprised he’d gone so long without one since this whole ordeal began. With his prescription waiting for a refill request, he’d simply refused to discuss alternatives with his doctor.
He figured he deserved the anxiety, he wanted that edge that kept him on his toes. The physical reminder of all he’s lost and everything he could possibly lose.
The pain and ache was worth those few moments of reprieve he’d find to pictures of you stored in his phone. He’d even revisit those voice memos you’d left during that last week as you anticipated spending the weekend together.
Everything had been too easy, he’d taken it for granted. Projected his own feelings onto you when it seemed safe to assume that level of mutuality.
Maybe he’d hoped you’d have decided that he was worth the risk of attachment. That you would let yourself be worshipped by him until his final breath like he’d grown to crave with you.
“We didn’t know,” he said, weakly, taking a sip from the bottle with shaky hands.
“I mean from the way you two looked at each other I’d have believed y'all were in love, man. Did y’all break it off after you found out?”
He just shook his head once, his eyes never shifting from their far-off gaze out the window and into the winter night sky.
“C’mon, talk to me, just this once,” Tommy stopped at the red light and turned his body towards his older brother.
Joel slowly turns his head, his eyes unamused at his brother’s insistence.
“She left before.”
He sees the realization on Tommy’s face and a slow nod of acknowledgment. “Did she say why?”
With another curt shake of his head, Tommy sighs and the light turns green.
“No, nothin’. Not til…”
Tommy’s eyebrow lifts with that, “Not til what?”
Joel groans, he’s never been one to talk about feelings. To talk about anything personal, really. His brother knew more than anyone, but it still felt like some kind of failure to have to externalize it. He knew it was rooted in pride, in habit, in years of keeping things locked behind his ribs, but knowing that didn’t make it any easier to change.
Joel’s fingers tightened around the bottle, knuckles whitening as he stared through the windshield at nothing in particular. The streetlight outside cast long shadows across the dashboard, stretching the silence between them.
“Just… forget it.” He grumbles, leaning his head back against the headrest and closing his eyes.
“You drive me insane, man. Just once I wish you’d let me in, let anyone in. Gettin’ too old for this shit.”
That earned Tommy another glare from the older man, “I am too old for all that sappy bullshit, ain’t worth fussin’ over.”
Tommy silently pulls into the parking lot of a familiar spot, Joel hadn’t even realized he hadn’t been heading in the direction of his house.
“Well, shit… of all the places.”
The realization dawns on Tommy’s face and yet another deep sigh resolves the unintentional resurfacing of memories. “Fuck, we can go somewhere else if y-”
“It’s fine, let’s grab a drink.”
The two men find a spot at the bar and sit in silence for a few moments as they nursed a beer, watching whatever football highlights were running on the tvs.
“So…”
Joel downs a shot of whiskey and signals the bartender for another, “what do y’want me to say?”
Tommy shrugs and turns in his seat, but notices a woman down the bar eyeing Joel in a not-so-subtle way. “When’s the last time you’ve gotten laid, man?”
“The fuck?”
Tommy tilts his head in the direction of the woman and raises his eyebrows suggestively. Joel’s gaze followed where Tommy was so fixated.
“Fuck off.” And that was that, at least Joel had hoped, but so far tonight one thing had become increasingly clear to Tommy.
“You’re in love with her,” an accusing finger points straight to Joel and he grumbles under his breath for the night to be over.
For the first time in a long time, Joel had found himself the opportunity to talk about you. He hadn’t mentioned you since he avoided the conversation when Sarah and Tommy were gossiping, and even then he was deflecting.
If Tommy could tell his conundrum, he must’ve seemed like an open damned book as he got to really take you in at the hockey stadium. With your flushed cheeks and your trembling lip, your warm eyes looking up at him at the closest proximity you’d been in months. He was still replaying that interaction in his head.
He wishes he could kiss you every time you looked at him like that, he wishes he could kiss you any time he damn well pleased.
Since that video of you kissing that girl and the odd lack of jealousy he felt after you’d assured him she’s just a friend, he hadn’t stopped thinking about how important it was to you that he knew she was just a friend.
You seemed almost apologetic that he had to watch it, then that banter where you’d accidentally made a joke about his dick being big and well… that had fueled a night of restless fist-fucking. He’d imagined you on that phone call before that last weekend together, your voice so sweet and breathless as you asked him to show you how hard you’d gotten him just from the sound of your moans through the phone.
He likes to imagine you touching yourself to the thought of him, that your sweet pussy still drips when you’re around him… that at any moment he could reach between those milky thighs and be proven how much he can still affect you, that your…
Fuck… there he goes again.
“I don’t know, Tommy, I just…” he downs the shot after he realizes the bartender had set it down in front of him.
“Alright, how about this,” Tommy turns with his beer in one hand and his other hand perched on his thigh, earnestly leaning towards Joel so he could hear him better. “I’ll ask ya a few questions, just say yes or no, ‘kay?”
He can tell Tommy’s getting a little drunk, a few shots’ll do that to the poor lightweight, no matter how much tolerance he should have at this point.
“Fine. Shoot.”
Tommy clears his throat and takes his own shot, shaking his head at the burn of it. “Do y’miss her?”
Straight to the point, Joel respects it. And while he can, maybe it’d be good for him to admit some bits of truth to the only other person who knows about you, “Sure.”
“Do you ever see her besides in whatever class she has you for?”
“Mhmm.”
Tommy’s eyebrows raise at that, “Beyond what happened today or is that what you’re implying?”
“Beyond what happened today.”
Tommy continues, hoping he can gain some clarity, “Have you ever had a chance to be alone with her?”
Joel clears his throat this time and slowly nods his head, “Yeah, happened pretty often actually.”
“Then what the fuck, man! What’s stoppin’ you?”
Joel glares at him again, “Ain’t a yes or no question, Tommy.”
“Also, how the fuck do you get alone time with her? Seems like it’d be kinda suspicious, no?”
“Again, not a yes or no question, dumbass. She’s my TA.”
And now Tommy’s just got a blank stare on his face.
“What?”
“You’re alone with her often… you’ve got a socially acceptable reason to be alone with her as her professor and… you see the problem with this? Okay fine, last yes or no question, are you in love with her?”
Joel nods his head slowly and furrows his brow, “but I don’t get what’s wrong, I’ve been doin’ things right, I haven’t crossed any lines…”
And of course it wasn’t Tommy’s last question, “You chose her as your TA?”
“Yeah, but she applied!” He gestured innocently, as if someone who had been sexually involved with him and had applied for a TA position couldn’t plausibly be angling for some proximity.
“For you specifically?”
“No… no, but Dr. Lansing’s position had been filled and she was a good fit. Plus, her friend was already my TA and I thought they’d work well together.”
Tommy is nodding along slowly as he takes in the information, connecting dots as best as he can to understand the dynamics.
“But you said you get to be alone with her?”
Joel’s head is starting to spin now, maybe that last shot wasn’t such a good idea after he’d just had a panic attack an hour prior.
“I just don’t see why y’can’t sneak around, y’got that high of a moral standin’ that you can’t make it work with the woman you love?”
“Jesus, Tommy. I teach philosophy, remember? What the fuck do y’take me for?” Joel takes a deep breath and takes another sip of his beer. “Couldn’t even bring home a woman because it’d make me feel dishonest about my intentions, ‘specially when Sarah was young. I don’t know how to deal with this shit, plus, this is her future we’re talkin’ about.”
Tommy holds out his hands, halting his rant, “Slow down, man.”
It’s the first time he’s ever truly been vulnerable besides when Sarah’s mom left the little baby in his arms as she drove off from all maternal responsibility. Only time he’s let Tommy into his personal life and admit he’s no super human void of emotions.
“Have you talked to her about any of this shit?”
“Fuck no, that’d just make it complicated.”
“How the fuck could it get more complicated?”
Joel gestures widely, “I could be fuckin’ my TA’s how it could get more complicated.”
“So you admit it’s plausible that she would be on board with it?”
“Ain’t the point... I can’t be selfish.”
“But you won’t have sex with anyone else… so, what… you’re just waiting for her graduation?”
Joel sighs deeply and shrugs, “guess so… hadn’t thought that far ahead.”
“Got me fucked up, Joel.”
Another shrug as Joel finishes off his beer.
“I say hit it once, see what happens.. What is she, a blabber mouth? She gonna squeal to her daddy that a professor fucked her?”
“Don’t think she has any interest in fuckin’ either of us over.”
“Gotta admit it’s a hot prospect, secret little affair, ‘specially if you love ‘er, fuck it man, y’only live once right?”
Joel slaps him on the shoulder and shakes him gently, “don’t think you’re gettin’ it, little brother. Ain’t how this is gonna go as much as I like to think of it.”
“Why’d y’go off your meds?”
And another sigh from the older man and he clears his throat, “Couldn’t finish, stopped it last summer, ‘round the time I met her.”
“Bet y’fucked like rabbits then, huh… no wonder you’re so hung up. I remember y’bein’ so fuckin’ antsy when y’couldn’t see her that week Sarah was here, is that when she ghosted?”
A slow nod.
“Then she showed up in your class?”
Another.
“Am I gonna get anywhere close to understandin’ this dynamic? If it was me, I’d fuck her ‘n be careful ‘bout it. Don’t make any rational sense to me why y’don’t find it a perfect opportunity.”
“Can y’stop sayin’ you’d fuck her like you’re actually imaginin’ fuckin’ her?”
“If you’re not gonna.. What’s stoppin’ me from imaginin’ that? She’s smokin’!”
“Would your girlfriend enjoy you talkin’ like that ‘bout my girl?”
“Your girl…”
“Fuck off, y’know what I meant.”
“Mhmm… never seen y’like this before, Joel, just don’t get why y’gave up so easily.”
“Who said I gave up, I got her eyein’ me every time she’s with me… I’d say it’s ‘bout as good as it can get in our situation.”
“Well… y’could be gettin’ some much needed release and that’d probably be even better,” Tommy’s starting to slur on his words, keeping them partially under his breath, clearly stubborn on his take of things.
Joel can’t deny he’s thought of it. He’d considered any possibility at this point, but none of them outweighed the risk to you, the risk to your future… otherwise he’d dive head-fucking-first. He’d gather you in his arms and never let you go. Issue with Tommy is, he’s too focused on the physicality of it. He’s not considering the long-term impact of Joel condoning that behavior as a philosophy professor.
Tommy wasn’t wrong about one thing. Joel had thought about it. Not once or twice, but in the quiet hours when sleep wouldn’t come and the house felt too empty to breathe in. He had imagined what it would be like to stop holding the line, to close the distance, to take instead of deny. The relief of it. The warmth of it. The way it might quiet the constant hum under his skin.
But every version of that fantasy ended the same way.
With you losing something you could never get back.
He stared into his glass, watching the condensation bead and slide down the side like it might carry the answer with it.
“It ain’t about the sex,” he said at last. “If that was all it was, I’d have gotten over it by now.”
Tommy tilted his head, studying him more seriously now, “So what is it about?”
Joel’s jaw flexed. For a second it looked like he might shut down again, retreat behind that familiar wall of silence. Instead he scrubbed a hand over his face, rough and tired.
“It’s her,” he said simply. “Just… her.”
The words landed heavier than anything else he’d said all night.
“She walks into a room and everything feels… brighter,” he went on, clearly uncomfortable with his own honesty. “Like I remember what it’s like to be excited about shit again. About romantic shit. About the future.”
Tommy didn’t interrupt.
“And then I remember I ain’t allowed to want that,” Joel added. “Not from someone like her.”
“Someone like her?” Tommy echoed.
Joel nodded toward the bar, toward the world beyond it, toward everything he wasn’t. “Young ‘n smart. Got her whole life ahead a’her. She ain’t supposed to get tangled up with some middle-aged professor with baggage.”
Tommy huffed quietly. “You say that like you don’t get a vote.”
“I don’t,” Joel replied. “Not when the consequences fall on her.”
That shut Tommy up for a second.
Joel leaned back, eyes drifting toward the ceiling. “If anyone found out, it wouldn’t be me they’d worry about. It’d be her. They’d question her grades, her motives, her character. Every damn thing she’s worked for would get picked apart.”
His voice roughened, “I can survive bein’ the bad guy if it means she ain’t wrapped up in my mess.”
Tommy’s expression softened, the teasing finally draining out of him. “You really love her.”
Joel didn’t answer this time because the truth sat in the air between them, undeniable.
After a long moment, he exhaled, shoulders sagging in a way that made him look older than he was.
Tommy took a slow drink, shaking his head like he still didn’t fully understand but couldn’t argue either. “Man,” he muttered. “That’s rough.”
Joel let out a tired laugh, “Tell me about it.”
—
And now, he sits across from you again with all those thoughts floating around his head. The selfish temptations toying with his psyche.
That conversation with Tommy seemed like the last chance he’d get to be honest, at least about you. And had he even been completely honest?
Should he have shared how every time he catches you staring it takes active effort not to devour you whole?
Should he have shared the weight of your presence feels like home? That he only ever feels at peace when he has you by his side?
No, he shared what he could. To at least externalize bits of you that had been living in his mind. To make the ache for you into its own sort of existence.
The full extent of you in his mind is his alone.
· · ──────── ꒰ঌ·✦·໒───────── · ·
a/n: and they’re back! I’ve had a lot of time for brainstorming for this story and I’m really excited for what I have in store 😈 it’s been a slow-going time writing wise, but I get to it when I can. Man, I love them so much, sorry I’m not pushing chapters out faster.
taglist as requested (please let me know if you want to be added/removed): @magicxmiller @yslgreen @mallingcalling-blog @getitoutofmymindwrites @msdariaknight @morganlolitta @faiantas-blog @anheloamores @loveday1219
Pt. 8: you and past daddy Joel but not in that way navigate the new dynamics of your relationship.
< pt. 1 | prev pt | series masterlist // main masterlist | next pt >
NSFW! mdni 18+ only
warnings/content:
WC: 12.8k - no outbreak!au, family!au, flashback chapter!, fluff, love at first sight, yearning/pining/longing, teasing, big fat crushes, juicy age gap (reader is 19, Joel is early 30s), Joel is a respectful man!, soulmates basically, lots of inner dialogue; smut!, unprotected pinv (reader has an iud), size difference, so many pet names/nicknames, belly bulge, Joel’s a big man alright!, oral sex (f!receiving), fingering, creampie, riding, size kink, feral!joel, possessive!joel, soft dom!Joel. No use of y/n.
a/n: uhhhhhh hellooooooo yeah yeah yeah long time no see, every winter (or once it ends) I have the epiphany of seasonal depression 🥴 so uhhhh im back I guess! It’s my spring break which means I’ve got a few day for revising/ proofreading so we’ll see what I get accomplished. I’m so sorry I’ve been gone so long, finally getting back into writing is so rewarding but I feel so behind! So bear with me, I’m not going anywhere, I just love taking looooong breaks and then realizing mental health actually matters for me too. It’s been a wild ride. Some angst may be in the works as well so hopefully within the next week my prof fic will get an update. Anyway, hope you enjoy!
୨୧ ⏔⏔⏔♡⏔⏔⏔ ୨୧ ୨୧ ⏔⏔⏔⏔♡⏔⏔⏔⏔ ୨୧
“What’cha got runnin’ through that pretty little head a’yours, baby?”
You’ll admit you haven’t been particularly subtle after the night you’d spent with Joel over the weekend. Finally having him in your bed had awakened a feral side of you that you hadn’t even known existed.
And now… you were sitting across from Joel for the first time since he’d spent a night between your thighs and well, that image wasn’t going anywhere as the man sat and sipped his coffee.
“Nothin’, just… admiring you.”
“Admirin’ little ol’ me?” But that devious grin of his means he’s just trying to make you squirm, and that dynamic had become increasingly clear to you as you’d spent more and more time with him.
You roll your eyes and can’t help the gentle nibble of the bottom of your lip, “You’re annoying.”
He scoffs, “Y’ain’t mean that, darlin’.” And that sly bastard leaned back in his chair and the fabric of his shirt tightened over his broad chest. “but y’should know it’s best to use your words. Taught y’that Saturday night, didn’t I?”
You nod, your breath catching making you momentarily speechless.
“Missed you yesterday,” you flutter your eyelashes and he tsks his tongue against the roof of his mouth, his hand smoothing over his freshly trimmed mustache and beard.
“I missed ya too, sweetheart.” He leans forward, crooking his finger and motioning you to lean forward.
Of course, you comply, and the way your cheeks dimple has him sucking in a breath to steel himself in public.
“Missin’ those sweet lips of yours,” and the suggestive, low tone of his voice means he wasn’t just referencing kissing the lips you were currently smiling at him mischievously with.
“Yeah?”
He nods in reply and inhales deeply before leaning back in his chair again, refusing to say anything else before he loses any semblance of self-control and hauls you back to his truck.
To be fair, when he had to run off to his parents’ for a family dinner, he had regretted every second of it. Not a single thought was spared to his cousins or their kids running around.
Especially since he’d woken up to your ass grinding against him, your flushed skin warm beneath his touch as his fingers found your perfectly slick mess between your thighs.
He knew this was the closest he’d ever get to heaven on earth as your whimpers and pleas for him to fill you again had him levitating out of body. He sank into your tight walls devastatingly slow again, not only for your sake, but because just the sight of your naked body melted against his had him dangerously close to finishing before he’d even begun.
“Y’know…”
That sultry voice of yours has him right back to the present and the way your eyes drink him in. He loves the way you look at him, it’s intoxicating to know just how mutual the attraction is.
“What’s that?” He straightens his back and takes another sip of coffee, chancing a quick glance at the clock to see how much time he has left with you before you have to go to the office.
“I always wondered where you park, you said it’s close by?”
His mouth goes dry, it was like you could read his damn mind, but he quickly closes his mouth and clears his throat, “Just around the corner, why the sudden curiosity?”
You shrug nonchalantly, but that look in your eyes makes it abundantly clear to him that you were feeling particularly needy and he was more than happy to oblige as long as it wouldn’t get you into any trouble with work.
“We’ve only got about twenty minutes before you’ve gotta get ready for your meetin’, darlin’,” you’d told him all about the proposal you’d had to prepare for your boss. That you were presenting it today which is why he’d made sure to be extra mindful of the time this morning.
“Twenty whole minutes?” That sparkle in your eyes was quickly becoming an aphrodisiac to him… as if everything about you didn’t already have him hooked like a damn addict.
“Nineteen now.”
You slide your chair back and begin to clear the table, but Joel is quick to pick up on this. As always, he takes the trash and the cups and offers his arm as the two of you leave the coffee shop.
The walk to his truck is about four minutes, four precious minutes you could’ve used sinking down onto him liked you’d craved to do since you’d seen him last, but now you knew you didn’t have the time so you’d have to settle for something to bide you both until you could take your damn time.
“Ain’t exactly private, baby…”
Your hands press against his abdomen and grip the fabric tightly, pulling him closer as he unlocks the doors.
You don’t really care how much time or privacy you have, “just wanna feel you close.”
He hums contemplatively and opens the door for you to hop into the backseat, then climbs in behind you.
When he shuts the door behind him, you’re already pressing yourself against him, and for a moment he complies, allowing your soft lips to crash against his like it’s all you’ve thought about since you’d seen him last.
Joel’s back hits the seat with more force than you’d intended, one of his arms coming up instinctively to pull you with. The other hand lands on your waist, and for a split second he just breathes you in, eyes shut, jaw tight like he’s holding something feral on a leash.
Your hands slide up his chest, fingers curling into the fabric of his shirt, pulling him closer.
His thigh presses between yours automatically, muscle flexing beneath denim, and the contact pulls a soft, needy sound from you before you can stop it.
That made his restraint crack.
Joel’s hand leaves your waist to cup the back of your neck, just rough enough for you to feel his urgency, thumb brushing just beneath your ear where your pulse is hammering. He tilts your head the way he likes, deepening the kiss without devouring you entirely.
You can’t help the way you melt into him.
He breaks away first, dragging a breath through his nose, forehead dropping to yours, “Now…” his fingers tighten at the nape of your neck as he cradles your face in his palm, gently holding your face away from his so you’re able to look at him, “y’gonna tell me what’cha need or y’gonna just grind on my thigh ‘til y’gotta go?”
You hum contemplatively, imitating his tone from earlier, biting your lower lip and stilling on his lap.
Joel’s eyes are intently on yours, his breath labored as his grip tightens on your hips to prevent any potential movement. His resolve is thin, and you know within a second you can make him succumb to your wiles.
But… you aren’t cruel. Plus, you know how little time you have.
Your eyes betray this consideration, and of course he picks up on it.
Joel checks his watch and scoffs an amused breath, “Got a big day…” His voice is strained as he fights to maintain his composure, understanding he’d need far more than ten minutes to stifle this need thrumming between the two of you, “Need that sharp brain a’yours workin’, not all scrambled ‘cause y’let me distract ya.”
You lean in again, your mouth curving against the hot skin of his neck. Your tongue peeking out to press against the stubbled skin of his jaw, “maybe I like being distracted.”
A quiet huff of breath leaves him and he tips his head back against the window, eyes closing for a second like he’s counting backwards from ten to reground himself.
“Christ…” he loves to say that when he’s not even sure why the hell he’s callin’ on a god he doesn’t even believe in, “And I love bein’ the one to distract ya darlin’.”
He pulls himself back yet again, those soft, brown eyes looking at you earnestly now.
His thumb drifts along your jaw, then down your throat, stopping at your collarbone where your pulse jumps again beneath his touch. He watches it, something dark and tender flickering in his expression all at once.
“Missed ya,” and he’s so endlessly gentle in the way he admits it. Such a stark contrast to the carnal hunger filling in any space between you.
You soften instantly, pressing your forehead to his again, fingers slipping into his hair at the nape of his neck. He leans into it… a barely perceptible shift, but you feel the way the big, steady man folds just a little when it’s you.
A car door slams somewhere down the street and real life intrudes the moment.
Joel exhales slowly to ground himself, hands sliding back to your hips and he squeezes gently, “C’mere,” he murmurs.
He pulls you into his chest, chin resting lightly on the top of your head. The embrace is tight and warm, almost protective if you let yourself see it. It’s the kind of hug that says I wish we had more time too.
Your cheek presses to his shoulder, breathing in the familiar scent of his soap and coffee and smothered cigarette smoke. His hand moves up and down your back in slow strokes, soothing both of you.
“After your meetin’,” he says into your hair, voice back to that steady and grounded tone he uses when you know you have to part ways, “You call me. Tell me how it went.”
You nod against him, memorizing the feel of him to get you through the rest of the day.
“And if it goes good,” his mouth curves against your temple, his breath ghosting your skin, “maybe I take ya somewhere nice tonight.”
“What if it goes just alright?” And he knows what that means to you as a perfectionist.
You don’t doubt that you can do the job competently, you’re fairly confident in your capabilities… but sometimes things just don’t go exactly right, and all you can do is fix it for the next time. The only way to learn is to try, and you live by that.
His arms tighten around you, “Then I definitely take ya somewhere nice.”
You laugh softly into his shirt, the tension easing as you both settle into the part of your time together that you hated the most… the saying goodbye.
He presses a lingering kiss to your hair.
“Alright,” he murmurs, “off y’get before I change my mind.”
You nod solemnly before you feel his lips meet yours again. You find yourself drowning in him, then finally he pulls back, breathless.
His deep, brown eyes soften any semblance of guilt that had started to bloom for starting something you couldn’t finish.
“Sorry… just missed you,” you admit sheepishly.
“Ain’t nothing to be sorry ‘bout, sweetheart. Missed ya too.” A blush of embarrassment paints your cheeks as he pushes against the very noticeable bulge beneath the denim of his jeans, willing it to go down. You know he’s intent on walking you to the office as he always does after your coffee together.
“I don’t want’cha to think this is all I want from ya now, darlin’, but I also want ya to know how badly I wanna be able to take my damn time.”
You hadn’t really had the opportunity to discuss this new dynamic between the two of you. Not that you’d avoided the conversation, but mostly due to there not being much time for talking over the weekend.
If it were up to him, or more accurately if it were up to you, you both know exactly how this twenty minutes would have gone. But he’s still determined to prove to himself that he can be the man who walks you back to your life instead of distracting you from it.
You know how intentional Joel always is when it comes to his words and his actions.
Joel has set a high standard of expectations for himself, and you know how important it is to him to maintain that with you.
He wants to be a healthy addition to your life, even if there still wasn’t exactly a label on this blossoming thing between the two of you. It sure feels like he wants to spend the rest of his days worshipping the ground you walk on, but you know… nothing too serious.
He doesn’t want to limit you, he doesn’t want to be selfish. Most importantly, he just hasn’t had that conversation with you quite yet.
Then again, he had been so intent on waiting longer before taking that next step with you and had it been on his own terms, he’d have been able to discuss what the expectations of this thing was before he could close his eyes and know exactly how you feel against him and around him.
Does he regret giving in to you? Absolutely not. He has no clue how he had been so goddamn patient, but he figures, for you… he’ll do anything. Your existence in his life is enough to make his head spin in disbelief and his pants tighten at the notion of you being his.
You’ve talked about plenty of things, and he has greedily consumed every tidbit you feed him. He loves that rush of remembering something you’ve said and the way you light up when he references it. He loves making you feel seen and cared for in every way that he can. He loves showing up for you in the ways that you’ve allowed thus far, and hopes to be more than just an early morning coffee date and Saturday night dinners.
You’ve given him a lot of yourself and he’s given a lot of himself to you, but he wants to give all of himself to you.
And he wanted to have all of you to himself.
So, that conversation would need to be had, boundaries would need to be set… or else he’d find himself in quicksand. Falling for you irrevocably while you’re on steady ground, watching him sink.
He hadn’t had any intention of finding someone he wanted to share his life with. He wasn’t particularly good at sharing in general. But since you quite literally bumped into his life, his entire outlook on the future has changed.
With you, he sees hopes and dreams he’d thought were too late for him to want. In you, he sees a future of things to look forward to, of things to aspire to be, of reasons to wake up every damn day with a smile on his face and incessant morning wood begging for attention.
Joel had never been a particularly joyful guy. He had a permanent scowl on his face and smoked a pack of cigarettes a day, but since you… well, fuck. Even his mom could tell the difference.
His mother, who has fought like hell to see her sons become successful but has never once had a girl brought home for her to meet. Sure, Tommy casually dates and brings them around without caring much about how significant it was to their mom that they both find someone to share their life with.
Meanwhile, Joel hadn’t brought anyone around. Nor had there been anyone to bring around. A few flings here and there in a drunken stupor, but never a name that stuck around long enough to be remembered.
He’d never considered himself the lover type, he’d always been too preoccupied with keeping his brother out of trouble and helping his pops at the ranch.
His family has always been his first priority, and thus his working had been primarily to support them. It hadn’t left much room for a personal life.
That is, until his mom convinced him to buy his own house after she’d won a medical malpractice lawsuit that allowed them to pay off the house and hire a ranch hand.
God, he wanted to tell her all about you at dinner the other night, but he needs to make sure your intentions are aligned before he gets too ahead of himself. Before he gets his own hopes up and his mom’s hopes up. He knows how devastating it would be.
His mom will love you. He has no doubt about how welcomed you’ll be to the family once they get to meet you. There was too much uncertainty with his mom’s sickness anyway to waste a moment pretending you weren’t everything he needs and wants in his life.
The only thing was your damn age. A grown ass man so enamored with a girl who isn’t even out of her teens.
There was a delicate balance here to maintain, for your sake mostly.
He wasn’t necessarily worried about what other people thought, but he did care that his intentions were never questioned by you and those who care for you.
He isn’t blind to the side eyes you’ve already received while together in public, especially if there had been any display of affection undeniably non-platonic.
He hadn’t been the instigator in those moments, and the act of you claiming him in public had awoken something entirely new within him. Something primal and feral that feeds off of your passion for him, but doesn’t understand how you can want him of all people. Of all the guys who wish they could have a shot with a girl like you… you wanted him.
Now that he’s gotten a taste of you, well, he doesn’t think that hunger can ever be satiated. In fact, every moment he spends in your presence makes him realize just how desperate he is for more time with you.
—
Joel’s grip tightens around your hand, his eyes intently observing you from across the table, “ I got somethin’ I wanted to ask ya..”
The meeting had gone fairly well considering the distractions that had been firmly planted in your mind since the morning. Joel’s promise of taking you out to a nice dinner motivated you even more to give your best for the presentation. Your boss had actually commended you for the slideshow, although your voice had a distinct shake at the start, you’d quickly found your rhythm.
With Joel on your mind you’d found that quiet self-assurance. No matter how it may have gone, you had him. It was merely a bonus that you want to make him proud of you, too.
But now, with his large hand holding yours, and those earnest, brown eyes looking at you with that undeniable softness, your heart is pounding.
You have no idea what’s going on in that pretty head of his, but it’s making him fidgety as hell in an endearing way.
“What is it?” You try to soothe him by tracing the veins of his hand and forearm.
He watches intently, always enraptured so easily by the feel of you.
God, he’s intoxicating, every bit of him. If he were consumable you’d be drunk off of his countenance alone.
Now that image is in your head, the thought of drinking his very essence was an exciting prospect to say the least.
“I just wanna formally ask ya to be mine.”
Your brain halts to a stop, or at least pauses those filthy thoughts you’d just conjured… at least for a moment.
A subtle smile creases his lips as he watches your brain catch up.
“Well, yeah..” you moisten your lips with your tongue and pick up your glass of water to take a sip, “I mean, yes, of course. I’ve been since the beginning.”
That earns a soft chuckle from Joel as he lifts your hand to his lips and presses a lingering kiss to the back of it.
“So… what, you want me to start calling you my boyfriend?”
You see him physically wince at that title which was entirely your intention.
“I’m kidding,” and that mischievous grin graces your lips again.
“Don’t care what’cha call me, darlin’, just wanna establish that I’m yours, and I want ya to be mine.”
You hum thoughtfully, leaning forward in your chair and letting your eyes trace his broad shoulders, you lose yourself for a moment again until you feel his hand squeeze yours to reel you back.
“Y’alright?”
You slowly nod your head, your tongue peeking out to moisten your lips as Joel takes in a stuttered breath.
“How’s the food, baby?”
You clear your throat and giggle to yourself, peeling your eyes away from him to look down at your plate of barely touched food.
You know that’s his hint to eat more, he always wanted to make sure you were eating enough and hydrated… ever so thoughtful for a man who wasn’t even officially yours until this very moment.
You take a few bites and can feel him intently watching, the tension thrumming thickly between you. That fire from the morning never having a chance to be stifled yet.
“I like being yours,” you say finally, taking a sip of your water and your eyes finding his once again.
You can feel the tension of his body rolling off of him, “That right?”
“Mhmm… you think we can get out of here soon?” You poke at the food on your plate, preparing another bite and gauging how long it will take you to finish so you can finally find some alone time with Joel.
Joel slowly exhales with a grin, “Couple more bites then I can take y’home.”
He watches you rush your bites and shakes his head, “I was thinkin’ I could take y’to my place tonight. Maybe grab some clothes from your place first, I know y’haven’t been over yet.”
Your eyes go wide and you excitedly nod your head, chewing your food before you reply, “I’d love that, you’d let me stay the night?”
“Let ya? Darlin’, y’know how hard it was for me to leave ya the other day, I’d spend every night with you if I could.”
That causes you to raise an eyebrow, “Then we should figure that out more often.”
Joel leans back in his chair with those broad, tense shoulders stretching the fabric of his shirt, and a barely audible but unmistakable groan from the anticipation of all of the possibilities escapes him.
The waitress comes by to check on you and gives an odd look between the two of you since you were sitting in silence practically ogling each other. Neither of you pay any mind to it, too consumed by the prospects of finishing what you started this morning.
You leave the restaurant hand-in-hand, with Joel opening doors for you as he always does.
As soon as he opens the passenger’s side door of the truck, you’re pulling him into you by his belt loops. His hand immediately grips your hip and pulls you even closer, letting you feel the tension that has been growing the entire day in anticipation of feeling you close again.
You moan against his mouth, his tongue and jaw working in tandem to pry your mouth open.
By this time you should have realized you’re in a busy parking lot, but a stern cough from the person that had parked next to his truck interrupted the moment.
You hadn’t even heard it, you’d been so enraptured by the feeling of Joel against you, but as soon as he peeled himself away from you the pieces fell together as he stepped backwards and patted your ass to get up into the seat, closing the door behind you.
“Sorry about that, ma’am, we’ll get out of your way.”
“Grown man and a young girl, you should know better,” but all you see is an old woman shaking her finger accusingly before getting into her car.
Joel says something else you can’t hear with a furrowed brow, then walks around the front of the truck to get into the driver’s seat.
“What’d she say?”
“Just a cynical old woman, somethin’ ‘bout my age ‘n yours,” it doesn’t seem to affect him, but it makes you seethe at the notion of someone commenting about something that doesn’t concern them in the slightest.
“What’d you say back?”
“Told her to mind her own business, and wished her a good evenin’.”
You shake your head and reach across the console for his hand which he gladly offers.
“Doesn’t bother you, does it? I just hate for anyone to see you in a bad light because of me. It isn’t fair that I give you a bad rap.”
He turns to you, a slight frown on his face as he takes in your words, but it quickly softens as his eyes trace your features, “Don’t give a single fuck, baby. Just want you, nothin’ else matters but you and makin’ sure you feel safe and respected.”
And god if you could hop the mid-console and have him finally take you like you’ve been craving all night… this man drives you fucking crazy.
“Good, good, I’m glad, because I really do love being yours,” and you hadn’t meant to use that word, but your brain was far from thinking rationally. Even if it had been, the meaning remained.
And Joel had taken note, he was always taking notes. The word excited him, but not for the reason he initially expected, but because he’d been thinking that same word for a while now and knew he couldn’t be the one to say it first.
And while you hadn’t said it in that way, he knew that’s what he hoped for some day. Some day.
He leans across the console, silently prompting a kiss and you happily comply. He pulls back immediately to prevent it from getting out of hand again, “Let’s get you a change of clothes for tomorrow and I’ll finally show ya my place,” his hand releases yours so he can start the truck’s engine, but offers it again for you to hold while he drives to your place.
—
He hadn’t intended for the stop at your place to be anything but a quick one, but you’d decided to get changed into something more comfortable and had allowed him the peep show of watching you undress ever so slowly. He’d tried to be respectful, to urge you to hurry and stop teasing him like you so loved to do… but then you held eye contact and laid back in your bed to strip off your visibly wet panties, and it was over for him.
Now, his head is buried between your thighs, drinking you in like he hasn’t even seen water for weeks. His tongue lapping at your slick folds, your fingers entangled in his hair as you writhe against him. His filthy murmurings of possession are pouring out of him on instinct now. Finally being able to lay claim completely and utterly, “mine, mine, mine. my sweet pussy.. my good girl… that’s it… tell me who you belong to…”
He’s already made you cum once, you thought that would be enough to get you to his place before you really indulged, but he hasn’t stopped. He can’t stop, he’s a man possessed, the taste of you is imprinted in his soul and the thirst will never be quenched.
“That’s it, baby… fuck… let this sweet pussy cum f’me” he groans against you, the loud whimpers spilling from your throat merely spurring him on to make you forget every thought but him.
“Joel… oh my god, please… please please…” not that you need to beg, he is right there at your every whim to give you what you need.
His tongue delves into your weeping hole, quickly followed by a thick finger penetrating your tight cunt.
Even if you wanted him to stop, he isn’t sure he’d be able to. Since his first taste of you, even just your tongue against his, the hunger has only culminated every moment between his tongue tasting some part of you. On skin, against your tongue, devouring your sweet pussy… he couldn’t get enough. It’s all he thinks about, to the point of complete distraction at work or around his family. The snapping of fingers in front of his face is a common occurrence when he’s without you.
Next thing he realizes is your velvet walls clenching around his fingers, having added a second one to start working you open for his cock. He’d been so consumed by the thought of finally feeling you around him again that the gush of fluids signaling your impending orgasm floods into his mouth and he’s fucking drowning in it. His moans are unmistakable as he fucks his fingers against that spongey ridge that makes you scream.
He earns those desperate screams as your orgasm rides out longer than the last, your hips bucking and your legs trembling. He can’t help his incessant moans of approval as he drinks every drop. Your hands are desperately pushing against his shoulders for some reprieve.
That finally pulls him back to reality, his tongue slowing as he laps up the remnants of your release. But you nudge him and his eyes meet yours over your sweat slicked torso.
“Joel… Joel.. holy fuck..” his dazed eyes searching yours as he comes back down to earth.
He blinks slowly and his tongue cleans your slick from his lips and that sly fucking smile makes those dimples appear that you adore, “Yeah?” That’s all you get from the man so clearly disoriented.
Your hands cradle his face, then pull him towards you, motioning him to climb over your naked body, “Joel, that tongue…”
He moans appreciatively at your praise, using that very tongue to lather sloppy kisses against every inch of skin he encounters on his ascension up your body, eventually reaching your breasts and laving his tongue over each pebbled nipple.
You practically have to pry him off of you to finally bring him back to you. Those big, brown eyes so far gone.
You pull him against you, your lips crashing against his and the overwhelming taste of yourself on his tongue pulls a whimper from you. His tongue instantly prying open your mouth further to chase those sounds from you. His groans pouring into you and reverberating through every nerve on your body in return.
Every ounce of his body is focused on molding himself against you. You can feel his strong jaw working beneath your palms as his tongue tangles with yours.
For a few seconds there’s nothing but heat and breath and the heavy weight of him pressing you deeper into the mattress. His hand splays across your ribs, thumb dragging slow circles over your side while his hips settle instinctively between your thighs. Your hips seek the perfect friction of the incessant hard-on beneath his denim, no doubt smearing your slick all over the crotch of his jeans.
Which he still needs to wear to take you back to his place… which is when something in him finally clicks.
He pulls back just enough to drag a breath into his lungs, forehead falling against yours while his eyes remain shut.
“Jesus…” he mutters under his breath, voice rough and low.
Your fingers are still curled in the back of his shirt, holding him close, and for a moment he lets himself stay there, breathing you in, letting the warmth of your body and the smell of you settle into his bones.
Then he exhales and lifts his head. “Baby,” he soothes softly, eyes tracing along your naked, flushed skin with a low whistle of appreciation.
You blink up at him, still flushed, trying to tug him back down toward you.
He chuckles quietly at that, brushing a strand of hair away from your cheek.
“As much as I’d love to keep goin’,” he murmurs, voice steadying again, “I did promise I’d take you to my place tonight.”
You groan softly in protest, pulling him down for another quick kiss like you’re trying to renegotiate the plan.
He indulges you, of course he does, kissing you slow and deep once more before easing away again, this time more firmly.
“C’mon,” he says, brushing his thumb over your cheekbone. That crooked grin appears, dimples appearing on cue, “I was kinda hopin’ the first time you see my place we’d be able to take our time, and maybe I’d keep my hands off ya long enough to at least show ya the basics.”
You huff out a laugh, and push playfully at his chest, “You’re the one who lost control five minutes after we got in the door.”
“Now hold on there, miss,” he says, raising a brow. “You’re the one that started the little strip show.”
Your cheeks warm but you can’t help smiling, guilty as charged. You knew exactly what you were doing as soon as you dragged him with you to the bedroom after you’d told him that you wanted to change into something more comfortable. And while you could’ve had some decency of being quick and efficient, his hungry eyes watching you all night had planted that devious notion into your head to give him a little show.
Now you didn't need to crook a finger in his direction as you laid down on your bed and opened your legs to show the panties that you’d soaked through even just enjoying a nice dinner with him. You didn’t need to entice him towards you or encourage his request of… “ just a quick taste, baby… know y’been waitin’ all day” but he knew you needed it or wanted it or who the hell cares he needed to taste you again for purely selfish reasons too.
Joel finally shifts off the bed, dragging a hand through his tousled hair while he tries to collect himself. Adjusting his jeans to alleviate the pressure momentarily. He reaches down with his other hand to pull you off of the bed after him.
“Alright, trouble. Go grab whatever y’need for tomorrow,” his voice is so rough around the edges as he appreciates your naked body so casually existing around him like it wouldn’t make him lose his damn mind.
You slide off the bed, stealing one last quick kiss from him as you pass.
Joel watches you go, jaw (and fucking pants) tightening again as you disappear into the closet.
He lets out a slow breath with the semblance of the words, “fuck me,” escaping under his breath with a groan, continuing to take deep breaths as he tries to reestablish his composure.
A minute later you reappear with a small bag and that same mischievous look that’s been driving him insane all night.
Joel shakes his head, matching your grin with his own, holding the soaked panties you’d slowly peeled off of yourself in his hands and bringing them to his nose, inhaling deeply in an obscene show of possessiveness, “keepin’ these as a little souvenir.” He stuffs them in his pocket and reaches for you to guide you towards the door.
Your eyes are dazed once again, the two orgasms clearly having minimal impact on your built up tension and anticipation of finally having Joel to yourself.
He guides you towards his truck, resting a hand at the small of your back, “it’s gettin’ late.”
—
As Joel pulls into the driveway, you notice there’s already a truck parked there. You hear Joel huff a “fuckin’ Tommy” under his breath as he climbs out and rounds the hood to open the passenger door for you.
He guides you inside, offering you a reassuring smile, which means this isn’t unusual to find his younger brother using his spare key like an open invitation.
“Yo, Joel, I saw you were out of beer so I thought…” he’s walking from what you conclude is the kitchen when his eyes see you, then flicker between you and Joel before a knowing grin spreads on his face.
A face resembling Joel’s but his facial hair is scruffier, his hair is dark and long with those same curls you’ve grown to adore on the older man. No doubt a younger brother in both looks and the way he seems to be gearing up to pick on his older brother.
“Well, well… who’d’ya got here?” He steps closer to get a better look at you.
You were amused, and couldn’t help the smile on your face. Sure, you’d wanted to meet his family since you’d heard so much about them through the stories Joel had shared with you, but this most certainly hadn’t been the ideal way to do so.
“Wasn’t really expectin’ y’here tonight, Tommy. Thought you had plans?”
Tommy shook his head dramatically, a shit-eating ear-to-ear grin spreads on his face as his eyes haven’t strayed from you. Observing you like an animal in a zoo, or rather something so out of place that he can’t help but stare.
Joel looks down at you and his brow furrows at your amused, calm countenance, “nice to meet you, Tommy.”
Joel introduces you with no hesitation as his girl and you offer your hand for Tommy to shake. He gladly takes it and scoffs his own amusement.
“Never met a girl of Joel’s before. Didn’t know he could get any.”
Joel grumbles beside you and Tommy takes that as an opportunity to further investigate this phenomena of Joel bringing a girl home.
But Joel knew his brother almost as well as he knew himself, “Listen, Tommy…”
Tommy holds both of his hands up, “Was just gonna welcome her to the family, we both know this ain’t somethin’ casual if you’re bringin’ her to our neighborhood.”
You knew Joel lived down the street from his parents, he always wanted to be close by for his mom even if she’d insisted on some space, for his sake. He worries, he is a worrier, you know that and you want to be there for him as he has been for you.
“Not now, alright? Go bother mom ‘n pops while you’re in the neighborhood.”
“Alright alright… here,” he goes towards the door you and Joel had entered the house through. He presses a carton of cigarettes into his hand, “picked you up a new pack of smokes for ya since you were runnin’ low at work, had a deal goin’ so I figured I’d grab ya one.”
“Thanks,” Joel stiffens and shakes his head, patting his brother on the back as he opens the door.
Tommy pauses once more before he leaves, “Really is nice to meet you, hope to see y’round.”
Joel pushes him on the shoulder and urges him through the door, “See ya tomorrow, now go on, get.”
He closes the door and locks it, turning back towards you with a deep sigh.
“Sorry ‘bout that… and these..” he holds up the carton of cigarettes and throws them on the foyer table, “been tryin’ to cut back.”
“It’s alright,” you take his hand in yours and his gaze shifts to your small hand compared to his, “He seems… exactly as you’ve described him.”
Joel chuckles at that, his entire focus narrowing back to you, “Ain’t how I wanted to introduce ya to ‘im, but guess that’s the way it was bound to go.”
You nod in understanding, that amused smirk still not leaving your face.
“What?” He furrows his brows, and you take that moment to really take in the differences between the brothers.
Joel and Tommy were no doubt biologically related, their deep brown eyes were unmistakable, but Joel’s are full of familiar warmth and adoration.
That sparkle in his eyes that you adore and study endlessly, which could easily be compared to the warm swirl of coffee with an ounce of cream that you rely on to get you through every day. A routine he’s become embedded within every morning.
The intensity of his gaze never fails to make you go weak in the knees, being the object of focus to those big, brown puppy dog eyes was enough to make you fall head first and you knew you were falling… fast.
The wrinkles by his eyes formed from squinting in the sun or smiling, or a number of things that he’s done enough that even his early thirties have cemented them into his very being. You know they’re called crow’s feet, it was something you’d always found so beautiful in an older man.
The grey speckles starting to spread in his beard and by his temples, another signal of a life well-lived, experiences lived through, good and bad times making themselves known. His beard was always well-trimmed, sometimes he’d shave to just a mustache and… well, you think it’s because the grey in his beard makes him appear older than he is. You secretly love it, you’ve always found the evidence of aging a beautiful and sexy thing.
You’ve always preferred older men, you’d told him that not long after he’d finally asked you out. It was no secret, but you think it’s hard for him to wrap his head around, and you don’t blame him. You hadn’t actually dated anyone older before him, but after your trial run with someone your own age just to be sure… your preconceived notions had been confirmed, and you vowed to never settle for a guy who couldn’t handle all you are and all that you want to become.
Your eyes shift to those lips of his, always so soft and so expressive, watching him talk was mesmerizing. The shape of his face and his bone structure made it almost obscene to watch him talk. His voice and that rasp of Texan woven so deeply into his diction, you could listen to him talk for hours.
But then that tongue of his peeks out as you’re observing him so intently, your mind flashes to merely half an hour ago when he was buried between your thighs with that skillful mouth of his. Your grip on his hair as he devours you is one of your favorite sights to see. Those brown curls with the occasional streak of grey, especially when they were slightly tousled from your wandering hands, you were obsessed.
You could look at him forever, and this particular moment you’ve taken to appreciate him was rudely interrupted by his big, calloused palms directing your attention back to those big brown eyes of his… but they had changed from moments prior. The pupils were blown wide, they were intense, darkened by your obvious ogling of the man you can’t seem to get enough of. The man you could now confidently call yours.
“Y’alright, hun?” His eyes frenziedly search yours and you nod sheepishly, still too enraptured by the pools of melted chocolate staring so intently into your soul. No doubt reading you from the inside out and outside in, he had a special knack for that.
“Tommy’s definitely your brother,” you say, finding the words to translate every dirty thought floating through your head, “but I think the arrangement of genes aligned perfectly when your parents made you.”
“That so?”
You hum, tilting your head in his palm and unconsciously giving him those doe eyes he can’t seem to resist.
“Damn, darlin’, two cums ain’t enough to sate ya?”
You shake your head as much as you can manage between his palms, “been achin’ for you to fuck me.” It’s quiet and almost breathless as his gaze bores into you, but it’s enough to have any of his remaining restraint fade into the abyss.
A guttural groan emits from somewhere deep in his lungs as the words sink into his flesh, immediately feeling the tension build tenfold since he finally has you alone and in his house.
“Y’know…” his gaze shifts towards the couch in the living room behind him, “been daydreamin’ of the way you’d look ridin’ me.”
Your eyes widen in excitement and he dips his head to finally press his lips to yours. Those endlessly soft, passionate lips of his, quickly parting to lick his tongue into your mouth which you happily comply with.
The groan that he lets out lights that fire within you once again. The fire of incessant need and hunger that has you pushing him backwards towards his living room.
He leads you to the couch and pulls you down onto him so you’re straddling his thighs.
Your “more comfortable” outfit happened to be a damned dress, and it became very clear with the way your slick was dripping down your thighs and onto the fabric covering his thighs, that you’d decided against putting any form of panties back on, “Should’ve fuckin’ guessed you’d opt for no panties after your little show earlier, gonna tell me what’s in that pretty little head a’yours?”
His grip on your hips is already so tight you swear it might bruise your sensitive skin, “Need y’to use your words, sweetheart…”
God, the juxtaposition of your sweet Joel to your filthy, feral Joel always keeps your head spinning and your pussy fucking pulsating and dripping in anticipation of being stretched by his thick cock. He always makes you cum harder than you could ever have imagined possible prior to meeting him. But that was merely a bonus. Having such a beautiful, kind, and caring man so damn needy for you was the greatest feeling of all.
The idea of him being so worked up for you has you grinding down against the fabric of his jeans, “need you… need to feel you, please,” the whimpers of need flooding out of you without any attempt at filtering them has his grip tightening and he guides your hips harshly against his, he’s more than happy to comply with your request.
Even though your mind is practically blank and every possible thought is replaced with the sensations of the man beneath you, you know the sight awaiting you beneath the denim is going to be filthy. That thick mushroom head so swollen and probably already leaking that precum you’ve been dying to get a taste of, waiting ever so impatiently to get the attention it deserves.
He’s been holding in his need for you for what seems like an eternity now, how many times has he found himself with an unfortunate tent in his pants throughout his time without you just at the damn thought of having you in his arms again?
And now, Joel is finally able to have you to himself, to claim you for the first time as solely his own. At least, officially. Even if both of you had already known there was never a moment since you’d met you hadn’t belonged to each other. But now, it was confirmed without doubt that you were his. Only his, and fuck if he wasn’t going to remind you of that fact every damn chance he gets.
With you grinding so prettily on him, he has to squeeze his eyes shut to think of anything that will keep him from cumming in his damn pants before he’s even gotten to feel your molten warmth squeezing his cock, “fuckin’ cravin’ you wrapped ‘round me, baby, don’t even bother fuckin’ my own fist anymore, ‘cause I knew there’s no comparison to you and the way your tight pussy squeezes my cock. Ain’t nothin’ like it… swear to fuckin’ god baby..” he really can’t help the lewdness spilling from his mouth between kisses and your borderline pornographic moans against him.
It’s got you practically whining and undulating in his lap for more, and suddenly he’s cursing the very invention he never goes a day without, “help me get these damned things off.” One hand releases its grip on your hip as he goes to unbuckle his belt, but your tiny, very capable hands quickly aid him in the task. With a quick lift of his hips he shoves the pants and his boxers to about mid-thigh and that seems good enough for now. He pushes his shirt up so it’s out of the way.
His thick and painfully erect cock bobs against his stomach. The tip is swollen and angry, the shaft twitches as his blood pulses through it. Precum is leaking from the tip in copious amounts, practically crying for relief. His balls look so heavy and full… you want him to empty himself completely inside of you.
“Wow” slips past your lips, your fingers deftly tracing the bulging vein that perfectly runs down the length of it.
His cock jumps, and his head rests back against the couch for a brief moment, his mouth hangs slightly open and you watch his adam’s apple bob as you wrap your hand around it as much as you can. Fuck… how the hell does he make this thing fit in you?
“So big…” you’re just thinking out loud, but Joel’s blown out pupils meet yours again and that dark chuckle of his means he’ll make the damn thing fit.
“I know… I know… y’know I’ll be real gentle,” his hands which had been practically glued to your hips now smooth up your bare thighs, pushing your dress up so he can finally get a view of you on his lap.
“Y’think y’wet enough to sit on it?” He swipes his thumb over your clit and slit, testing for himself. You practically jump at the contact, so overwhelmed by the anticipation that his touch could make you fall apart in an embarrassingly short amount of time.
“Oh, fuck…” he’s enraptured at the sight, slowly sinking a thick finger into your aching cunt. He adds a second and guides your hips over them, you had never experienced anything like this. “Ride my fingers, baby, show me how y’gonna ride my cock.”
You rock your hips back and forth, completely unaware of the sounds spilling from you at the sensation of his fingers massaging that spot inside of you that’s making your vision blurry. Your grip tightens on his biceps to stabilize yourself, leaving crescent shaped marks on his skin. The groans from beneath you spur you on.
The roll of your hips and the twitch of his cock in anticipation has him entirely enraptured. “That’s it… make y’self cum on my fingers and then I’ll let you sit on my cock… can y’do that?”
You nod eagerly, your hands sliding up his arms and to his neck, tilting his face towards yours so you could lose yourself into the chasm of his need for you, “So beautiful, baby, doin’ so good for me.”
He was so good at talking to you, it was incredible how effective his words are at making you fall apart.
“Joel…” you mewl, that crest of euphoria quickly approaching as his expert fingers work you closer and closer..
“You say my name so sweet, say it again while y’cum for me, c’mon…” he can feel your impending orgasm as you squeeze his fingers so fucking tight that his head spins in anticipation.
Joel feels it the moment your body tightens around his fingers, the change in your breathing, the way your hips start chasing the movement instead of following it.
“Right there, right there, please… Joel…”
He loves when you beg, when you’re so fucked out that the chase of your orgasm is the only care in the world.
It’s what you deserve, to let everything else go for as long as he can prolong it. He craves that look in your eyes and the complete loss of any inhibition. Your passion and your hunger are things he always wants to inspire.
Suddenly you’re pulsating around him, your release gushing around his fingers, it’s intense and makes his dick throb with its current state of neglect.
Your forehead drops to his shoulder for a second, breath warm against his neck, you murmur quiet whimpers into his skin and something in him softens even while the rest of him is wound tight as a goddamn wire.
“Easy,” he murmurs, voice low and steady in that way that somehow grounds you even while he’s the one undoing you. His free hand slides up your back, fingers spreading wide between your shoulder blades, holding you there for a moment as he works you down from your high.
Your hair falls forward over his arm and he brushes it back absentmindedly, tucking it behind your ear before his hand settles against your cheek.
“You’re alright,” his thumb grazes beneath your eye as if he’s checking you’re still with him.
You lean into the touch without thinking, your breathing uneven, body still rolling against the slow rhythm he’s keeping.
He loves this part too, the moments between the heat. The way you soften when he touches you like this.
“Look at me a sec,” he murmurs.
You comply, your pupils blown wide, cheeks flushed, lips parted as you try to catch your breath.
Joel huffs out a quiet laugh under his breath, “Yeah… ‘bout what I expected. You’re gorgeous like this, darlin’.”
“Need you… please, Joel, let me ride you.”
He hums at that, so amused at your begging and so surprised that he’s been able to refrain from impaling you onto him.
“Well, since y’askin’ so nicely, who am I to keep my good girl from gettin’ what she wants, hmm?” With a few last strokes of his fingers inside your velvety walls he slips them out, immediately bringing them to his lips to suck clean.
You watch the lewd show with apt attention, pulling your bottom lip between your teeth as his tongue works around his own fingers to savor every ounce of your essence.
He fucking loves the way you’re looking at him, those doey, fucked-out eyes have him lifting your hips over his unbearably swollen tip, “Sit on it, baby.”
As the tip nudges between your slick folds, he hisses at the contact, one hand holding the base as he guides your hips up and down along the length of him, your slick dripping along his shaft.
“Shit,” as soon as he nudges his tip against the tight hole, you whimper and it causes him to buck his hips involuntarily. Your greedy little cunt sucks him in and he knows in an instant that he’s in trouble.
“Oh fuck,” escapes from your lips as you ease yourself onto his length.
“Yeah, that’s it…” his low groans pour out of his throat at the feeling of finally having you wrapped around him again. He knows this isn’t going to last long, not with the built up anticipation and the sight of you sitting so prettily on his lap.
His beautiful girl, so eager to please and so eager to be pleased. As a giver, he’d drown between your legs if given the chance. But as a man, he wants to see you work for it, too. And he wants to fill you up with his cum every chance he fuckin’ gets.
Maybe see the way you look kneeling between his legs just so he can recall that image on nights he doesn’t get to spend with you.
He’s failed tremendously at trying to distract his brain from the very pertinent feeling of your walls pulsing around him.
He’s kept his grip on your hips, holding the skirt of your dress up so he can watch the way his cock disappears into your tight cunt, then reappears as he fucks into your abdomen. It’s a wild sight to see, the bulge of his cock inside of you is something he’s never even known was possible but he’s obsessed, the sight never leaves his mind.
“Look at that…” he says in awe, pressing his free palm against the sight, he can feel it, the head of his cock making its way deeper and deeper inside of your vaginal canal. “My good girl, mine. Fuck.”
Your fingers entangle in his hair, pulling just enough for his face to tilt upwards as his hips finally meet yours, the coarse hair at the base of his cock rubbing deliciously against your clit as you rock back and forth on him.
You crash your lips against his, slowly lifting yourself up and lowering back down over his shaft, so slick from how worked up he’d gotten you.
Your moans and the rhythm of your hips and tongue against his are like lyrical fucking ballads in his head.
He’d never been much of a poetry guy, but since you entered his life he’d finally begun to understand the appeal. Especially when you share your favorites with him, he studied the meanings like he was a poetry fanatic.
And especially if he had this comparison he could really appreciate the significance. The quite literal masterpiece of you fucking yourself on his cock.
“Ain’t gonna…” he groans against your mouth, your little bunny hops causing your tits to bounce against his chest makes him lose his damn mind even more, “ain’t gonna last much longer, baby, doin’ so good f’me…”
He releases his grip on your hips in favor of grabbing your ass and pulling you all the way down onto him, practically impaling you even if you had already worked yourself open for him, you’d been favoring the top half of his cock. Not that he minded, he wants you to take control of your pleasure and it feels mag-fuckin-ificent but he wants to be all the way inside of you when he finally reaches that peak.
You wail in a mixture of pleasure and pain as he fucks up into you harshly, his grip on your ass guiding the tip of his cock forcefully against your cervix. It’s a pinch and an aching pain, but it’s a thrill more than anything. Your whimpers pour into his mouth and he drinks them in, quiet chants of his name that have never sounded sweeter than when on your lips.
Once again your walls begin to milk him even more, he finds that little bundle of nerves and rubs little circles again in a desperate and greedy attempt to have your orgasm trigger his own. To absorb your euphoria into one cataclysmic explosion of connection and passion as he finally claims you as his. His. His. His. Your clit is so swollen and puffy, he can tell how sensitive it is by the way you initially jerk away from the touch, but give in quickly as the wave of pleasure starts to peak once again.
That sensation is something he’ll never tire of, the pulse of your walls, the tight grip on his hair pulling his lips to yours, the moans and cries of overstimulation and then… the wave of your release dripping down his balls as you squeeze the ever-living shit out of him, “Oh… there it is, fuuuuuuuck,” and he’s gone right with you, burying his face into the crook of your neck.
His cock pulses inside of you, stream after stream of spend coating your walls as he fucks it as far into you as he can.
Your whimpers of overstimulation melt into him and he swallows harshly, leaning his head back against the couch with his eyes shut tight and chest heaving.
“Fuck,” he breaths once more, feeling the after effects of relief and overstimulation all at once, “y’still with me, darlin’?”
All you can offer for the moment is a nod of your head against his shoulder.
His hands trail up and down your back, soothing you both as the waves recede again.
What had been firm and guiding turns into something softer. Palms warm and steady as they trace up your spine, then back down again, like he’s trying to map you out in a different way now. Memorize you without all the urgency.
You let out a slow, shaky breath against his neck, then huff a quiet laugh.
“Y’know… for a man who said he’d try to keep his hands off of me so he could show me around, I’m really enjoying the tour of your living room thus far…”
Joel lets out a low, tired chuckle, the sound vibrating against your collarbone.
“Mm,” he hums, not even opening his eyes yet. “Had somethin’ real nice to look at. Got a little distracted.”
Your hand slides from his hair to his jaw, thumb brushing along the scruff there as you tilt your head back just enough to look at him.
“You’re unbelievable,” you say, but there’s no bite to it. Just warmth and a little awe woven in.
His eyes finally crack open, heavy-lidded, still a little dazed.
“Yeah?” he murmurs sleepily.
“Yeah,” you breathe, smiling faintly. “You turn into this…” you gesture vaguely between your bodies, “…absolute menace… and then five seconds later you’re all soft and sweet like your cum’s not leaking out of me around you.”
He exhales a quiet, breathy laugh at that, like he’s still somewhere between here and a few seconds ago.
“Jesus…” he mutters, one hand sliding up to cup the side of your face, thumb dragging slow across your cheek like he needs to remind himself you’re real. “You don’t make it easy on me, do ya?”
You grin, entirely unrepentant, “Not really my goal.”
That earns you a soft huff again, his eyes finally opening properly to look at you. There’s something steadier settling in there now beneath the haze.
Something that looks a lot like decision.
Joel studies your face for a second longer than necessary, like he’s taking stock of you… of this, of what you just shared… and then his mouth curves.
“Yeah,” he says quietly. “I think I like you like this.”
You raise a brow. “Like what?”
“Lookin’ at me like that,” he murmurs, thumb brushing your cheek again. “Like I’m the only thing on your mind.”
You hum, leaning into his hand. “You are. That’s kind of the problem.”
That gets a real smile out of him, dimples and all.
“Problem?” he repeats, amused.
“Mhmm,” you say, tracing your fingers down the center of his chest, feeling the steady thrum of his heartbeat finally settling. “You’ve completely ruined my ability to focus on anything else. I’ve got things to do, Joel.”
“Do ya now?” he murmurs.
“Supposedly.”
His hand slides from your cheek to your waist, thumb hooking just slightly like he’s debating pulling you closer again.
“You don’t look too concerned about it,” he says.
You tilt your head, smiling lazily. “I’m prioritizing.”
“Yeah?” he huffs, leaning in just enough that his lips brush yours without fully committing. “And what exactly am I?”
You don’t hesitate. “Top of the list.”
That lands right in his chest, you can see it in the way his expression softens before he covers it with a smirk.
“Dangerous answer,” he murmurs.
“Why’s that?”
“Means I’m gonna start wantin’ that kind of attention all the time.”
You grin, as if that’s not already your reality. Every time he’s near you he’s got all of your attention. He’s a priority, and it feels dangerously easy to let it stay that way.
Joel watches that look settle over your face, something soft but certain, and it does something to him. You can see it, feel it, in the way his hand tightens just slightly at your waist.
“C’mon,” he urges after a moment, voice quieter now. “Before I forget I had plans that didn’t involve keepin’ you right here all night.”
You laugh under your breath as he helps you up, easing you off of his softened length with a quiet hiss, slower this time, careful with you in a way that contrasts everything that came before. There’s no rush now, just his hand steady at your back, his thumb brushing absent little arcs like he can’t quite stop touching you.
He pulls his jeans back up, adjusting himself before he buttons and rezips them. He gives you a once over and smooths his hands down the fabric of your dress, nodding to himself when he’s satisfied that he’s somehow righted the erotic sight he’d just witnessed with you in that dress.
He leads you through his house, giving you a brief tour before returning to the foyer and grabbing the carton of cigarettes Tommy had given him. Then, he leads you to the back door and opens it for you, ushering you through it with a gentle hand to your lower back.
The night air hits you soft and cool, a stark contrast to the warmth still clinging to your skin. His porch is simple. Worn wood, a couple of chairs, a railing that’s seen better days but is still well-maintained… it just feels like him. Solid and lived in. The backyard is beautiful, well-manicured grass with enough foliage variation that it feels more natural than those seeded lawns that offer no biodiversity. Huge oaks line the back of his yard and a singular magnolia sits proud in the corner. Next to the deck is a pair of Japanese Maples that arch over the walkway into the garden.
It’s a complex yard for who you always assumed was a busy man, but you see that it’s a little overgrown, perhaps due to recent neglect.
“This is a beautiful yard, looks like it’s taken a lot of time to curate.”
Joel steps out behind you, holding the carton open and pulling out a cigarette, “used to be all I did on weekends, spent hours and hours out here. May not live on the ranch anymore but can’t take the ranch out of the man. Don’t do well cooped up inside.”
You don’t say anything at first, just watch as he turns the cigarette between his fingers, almost hesitant, which doesn’t feel like him at all.
“Thought you said you were tryin’ to cut back?” you tease, hoping to seem not too eager for the show you’ve been hoping he’d put on for you. The active suppression of the cigarette smell had made the idea of him actually smoking one seem like a myth in your head. Something so elusive that you couldn’t help but crave it.
“I did say that..” he trails off, looking over his yard thoughtfully. “Just need one, haven’t had one all day.” He glances at you. “Been tryin’ not to smell like it around you.”
“You know… you don’t have to do that,” you murmur, stepping up to the railing and leaning against it.
His jaw shifts, then shrugs, “I want to.” He flicks the lighter, flame catching, the tip glowing faintly in the dim light. He takes a slow drag, shoulders easing just a fraction as he exhales.
And yeah, there it is. You weren’t wrong in all the imaginings you’d have of him smoking in your mind. It’s… unfair, honestly.
The way he leans against the railing, head tipped slightly back, smoke curling past his lips like it belongs there. The quiet, the restraint, the way his eyes find you again through it all.
You step closer without thinking, “gimme one.”
He blinks at you, “What?”
You tilt your head, a grin spreading on your lips. “One puff. Relax.”
Joel straightens immediately, brows pulling together, “No.”
You laugh, shaking your head. “Oh, c’mon.”
“Ain’t funny,” he says, but there’s no real bite to it, just concern, immediate and unfiltered. “You don’t need to start that.”
“I’m not starting anything,” you counter, reaching for his wrist. “I’ve done it plenty of times before.”
His eyes narrow just slightly, “When?”
You shrug, “I’m in college, Joel. Drunk friends, bad decisions, you know.”
He studies you like he’s trying to decide whether to be annoyed or concerned at that. “Jesus,” he mutters under his breath.
You nudge his arm, “Joel.”
He exhales, then shakes his head like he’s already losing the argument.
“One puff,” he says finally, holding it out but not letting go yet. “And that’s it.”
“Deal.”
He hesitates another second, then releases it.
You bring it to your lips, take a small, practiced inhale, then pass it back without any theatrics.
Joel watches the whole thing too closely.
“See?” you say, handing it back.
He takes it, but his expression hasn’t softened, “Don’t like that you know how,” he mutters, “ain’t an easy habit to break if you let it become one.”
You lean against him, shoulder brushing his arm. “Don’t have to worry so much about me, Joel. Don’t plan on picking up any bad habits but you.”
He hums in response to that, “Y’think I’m a bad habit?” His brows furrow together again as he takes another drag of the cigarette, his eyes never leaving yours.
The ember flares brighter at the end of it, a brief, glowing pulse in the dark, and you can’t help the way your gaze follows it… up the line of his fingers, the roughness of his knuckles, the flex in his hand as he brings it away from his mouth. The way his veins of his forearms bulge deliciously up to his elbow. Then the tightness of his sleeves around his biceps now displaying little red crescents from where you’d nearly drawn blood.
You shrug as your eyes are drawn back up his firm chest and broad shoulders, “Mm… addictive. Bad in the way that it’s all I think about. But not something I intend on breaking.”
That earns you a look. His posture straightens, shoulders rolling back like he’s grounding himself again.
You take him in, really take him in now that there’s a little space between you.
The way the porch light catches along the sharp line of his jaw. The way his hair’s still mussed from your hands, falling just enough out of place to make him look… undone in a way that doesn’t quite match how composed he’s trying to be now.
His shirt sits open at the collar, showing the rise and fall of his chest beneath the swath of soft hair there, still not fully settled, and you can see where your fingers had dragged earlier, faint impressions that make your stomach tighten all over again.
And then there’s the cigarette. God. It shouldn’t do anything for you. So bad of a habit to have yet so hot when he’s the one doing anything.
The way he holds it, absent and practiced, like it’s just something to do with his hands, even though you know better now. The way his lips press around it, the slight hollow of his cheeks when he inhales, the quiet exhale through his nose like he’s thinking too much and trying not to show it.
It’s truly unfair.
You shift closer again without realizing, drawn in by something you can’t quite name.
Joel notices immediately, just as he always does.
“Don’t,” he says softly, but there’s no real warning in it, just a quiet kind of restraint.
“Don’t what?” you ask, tilting your head once again.
His gaze drops briefly to your mouth, then back up to your eyes.
“Look at me like that while I’m tryin’ to behave,” he answers.
You smile that mischievous smile of yours, “You were the one worried about bad habits.”
He huffs a quiet laugh, shaking his head as he taps the cigarette lightly against the railing.
“Yeah,” he mutters. “And I think I found a new one.”
Your hand finds his free one again, palm sliding into his palm, your fingers entwining with his.
“Wonder how hard I’d be to quit,” you wonder if it comes off self-righteous, but you just like working him up.
He glances down at your joined hands, then back at you, something soft cutting through the edge of him.
“Ain’t even gonna try,” he admits. Joel takes one last drag, slower this time, then stubs out the cigarette in the ash tray on the railing.
There’s something so absolute in how you both stand there, no rush or hesitation, just the quiet weight of it settling in.
It doesn’t feel new and that’s always what catches you off guard.
It feels… certain. Like something that had been circling the edges of both your lives finally stepped into the center and decided to stay.
He turns toward you fully, attention narrowing in that way you’re starting to recognize, like there’s nowhere else he’d rather be.
“Reckon’ we gotta actually talk about what this means,” his gaze is intense as it always is, “Us bein’ exclusive.”
Your breath catches, not because of the words themselves, but because of how steady he is when he says them. He never fails to take your breath away.
He continues, eyes fixed on yours, “Bein’ with you is the only thing that’s ever really made sense to me. Not gonna pretend otherwise.” A small pause as his thumb brushes over your knuckles. “Just want you feelin’ secure in it. And heard, always.”
You soften without even meaning to, your grip on his hand tightening just slightly as you look up at him, “Yeah… I feel that way too. I want this more than I’ve ever wanted anything.” And for someone who has always known exactly what she wanted, who chased things down with both hands and didn’t hesitate when something mattered, there’s a weight to that admission that doesn’t go unnoticed.
It settles into him in a way you can actually see.
The tension that had been riding under his skin all evening eases a fraction, his shoulders dropping just enough, his gaze softening without ever losing that fixed, unwavering focus on you, “good.”
His eyes flick down to where your hand rests against his chest, like he’s grounding himself in the contact, then back up to you, something deeper and steadier sitting there now. Whatever this is, whatever it’s becoming, he’s already made peace with the fact that it matters more than he’d ever expected anything to matter, “Just wanna do right by you. Be good to you.”
There’s no performance in it, just truth laid out plainly in that quiet, gravel-soft way of his.
You smile, “you are.”
Your thumb drifts against the fabric of his shirt, tracing slow, absent lines. Your body doesn’t quite know how to stop reaching for him now that it’s allowed to. “I want to be good to you too… not just take from this.”
His hand comes up, covering yours where it rests against him, holding it there, “You are, darlin’. Better than I deserve.”
You shake your head, stepping closer without thinking, your hand sliding from his chest to his jaw, your thumb brushing just beneath his ear, lingering there. “you deserve the world, Joel.”
His hand tightens over yours, like he’s refusing to give himself that, but he likes hearing it from you. He likes that you believe that for him, and maybe that’s enough. He’s not the best man, but you make him want to be.
He leans into your touch in that quiet, unconscious way that gives him away, and you follow it instinctively, closing the last bit of space between you until your forehead meets his, your breath mingling, your noses brushing.
There’s no urgency left. No sharp edge of want pressing forward, at least not right now. It’s driven by something deeper, something that settles instead of ignites.
When your lips meet his, it’s slow and unhurried, deliberate, this moment clearly isn’t something to rush through. His hand at your waist anchors himself to you just as much as he’s holding you.
There’s something about it that feels deeper than anything you’ve shared so far. But it’s not louder, or necessarily more intense, just more certain. Something has quietly rooted itself between you without either of you needing to name it.
Devotion.
The kind that lingers and settles. That chooses, again and again, without needing to be asked.
You feel it in the way he holds you like letting go isn’t even a consideration. He feels it in the way you stay, the way you linger without thinking, the way leaving him has already begun to feel like something you have to pull yourself away from. In the quiet recognition that every moment with him carries two truths at once: something new unfolding and something steady already built beneath it.
It’s a strange kind of peace.
Because devotion, you realize, isn’t found in the loud moments. Isn’t found in the urgency, the ache, the wanting. Those things are merely the result and culmination of it. It isn’t in the way two people collide, but in the way they remain. In the way they return. In the way they choose, again and again, even in the quiet, even when nothing is pulling them together but their own certainty.
It lives in this. In the stillness after everything has been said and done, where nothing needs to be proven and nothing needs to be asked.
Where the future isn’t something you’re trying to figure out, but something that feels… somehow and impossibly… already aligned.
And as you stand there, wrapped up in him and this quiet, undeniable knowing, it becomes clear that devotion isn’t something you just fall into.
It’s something you recognize.
Something you choose and something you keep choosing… until it becomes indistinguishable from who you are.
୨୧ ⏔⏔⏔♡⏔⏔⏔ ୨୧ ୨୧ ⏔⏔⏔⏔♡⏔⏔⏔⏔ ୨୧
Taglist as requested (please let me know if you want to be added/removed!): @white-wolf-buckaroo @streamermattsgf @somedayheaven @simpingforjoel
Yes… another one…. yes, it’s going to be angst. No, I’m NOT okay ☺️
Story synopsis:
You told him you were just visiting for the summer. Gave him a name that wasn’t yours. From the moment he saw you across the bar, he knew you were trouble—sunlight and sharp edges, all heat and laughter and something he shouldn’t want, everything he’d been devoid of for so long. What began as a fleeting summer fling burned into something neither of you could name. You left without saying goodbye, it seemed easier that way. But now you’re in his classroom. And he’s your professor. You told yourselves to pretend it never happened. To forget. But how could you forget the way the world only made sense when you were together—and how nothing had made sense since?
Story warnings: 18+ MDI !!! Joel Miller x f!reader
No outbreak!au
professor!joel x student!reader, age gap (she’s in her early 20s, he’s in his late 40s), no use of y/n, excessive use of pet names and nicknames, reader only has a nickname from separate characters, OC!reader, mean!joel eventually, hot girl!reader (no physical descriptions really), bisexual!reader. Slow burn. hurt/comfort, forbidden romance, yearning/longing/pining, emotional repression, guilt, secret relationship, trust issues, half-truths, consequences of lying, allusions to family trauma, allusions to religious trauma, academic pressure, lack of communication, eventual violence and allusions to violence, allusions to grief, self-destructive behavior, attachment issues, shared denial, etc. etc. ANGST.
Chapters will come with their own warnings. Not all will have sexual content, but will allude to it.
smut!, unprotected p in v, fingering, oral sex (f. receiving, some m receiving), power imbalance, praise kink, size difference, hands!, eventual jealousy, heavy on the flashbacks, marking/possessiveness, grinding/dry humping, fake name during hookup(s), creampies (don’t be stupid), dirty talk, hair pulling, rough sex, getting attached, touch-starved, needy!joel, needy!reader. OKAY OKAY you get the gist.
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Chapter 1: The Echo of Familiarity
WC 3.4k - Returning to your hometown for a fresh start, you are determined to rebuild your life on your own terms. With a new major, new apartment, and new friends, everything feels just unfamiliar enough to be hopeful. You’re focused, self-contained, and intent on staying out of trouble. But the past isn’t always behind you. You had ended things so you could focus on school with no distractions, but you couldn’t get him off of your mind. Turns out, the universe has a cruel twist of fate waiting for you in Carson Hall room 202— PHIL 205.
Chapter 2: The Summer Fling
WC 14.8k (hey! shut up 😭) - you weren’t looking for anything that night… just a drink, a distraction, something that wouldn’t follow you home or remind you of why you’d left this town to begin with. But then there was him. A stranger with a crooked smile and a voice like velvet and smoke. A couple drinks led to his truck, his bed, and a night that felt like it belonged to a different version of you. Neither of you really asked any questions, and you sure as hell didn’t ask for more. But when morning came and numbers were exchanged, neither one said what you were thinking—I hope I see you again.
Chapter 3: It Was Never Meant to Matter
WC 4k - your real name felt strange on his tongue, out of place. simple lies and half-truths that were never meant to cause any harm crash together in a crescendo of devastation as you come face to face with their consequences. the past stretches its fingers into the present, wrapping around your throat like thorns. you had only wanted a clean break, but there’s nothing clean about this. only heart ache.
Chapter 4: Come Over
WC 8.7k - you both thought it’d be a one-time thing. but a text sent, an invitation, leads you right back to him. what starts as heat becomes something quieter, gentler, harder to walk away from. you tell yourselves it’s just casual, and you wonder how long you’ll be able to cling to those lies just for another night with him.
Chapter 5: Act 1
WC 5k - the silence after heartbreak is never really quiet. you act like everything’s fine, well, try to. but the past keeps following you across campus. a name, a look, the echo of a memory that still lives in your bones. he pretends you’re just another student. you pretend he doesn’t make you ache. and when you’re pulled back into his orbit— you have to keep yourself from falling apart over and over again.
Chapter 6: Movie Night
WC 6.7k - you keep telling yourselves it’s temporary, like that’ll make it hurt less. like naming it would make it real. but neither of you pulls back, not when the warmth is this easy, this addictive. not when something honest keeps blooming in the silence between words.
Chapter 7: What Once Was
WC 4.7k - glances linger, words go unsaid, and memories rise in the spaces where closeness used to live. you try to move forward, to remind yourself it’s your fault and you have to deal with the pain you caused, but part of you is still yearning for what once was.
Chapter 8: In This Shirt
WC 18.7k (don’t look at me!) - it’s easy to forget the days ahead, but something in the air feels different now. the weekend hums with quiet peace, stolen mornings, bare skin, and the kind of closeness that slips in without asking. somewhere beneath the warmth, something begins to shift. and a decision is made.
Chapter 9: Linger
WC 4.6k - life carries on, and so must you. but did it have to be so soon, and right where he could see it? did he ever mean to you what you still mean to him… or was he always just that easy to forget?
Chapter 10: The World We Knew (Over and Over)
WC 5.6k - you leave without saying goodbye. you tell yourself it’s better this way— that silence is softer than an ending, but all that’s left is the guilt you won’t face and the anxiety Joel can’t quiet.
Chapter 11: Twisted Fate
WC 7.6k - your friends discover the past you’d spent so long trying to run from, though you knew you couldn’t hide from it forever // you’re burning out and your friend has a suggestion that might ease the tension of your schedule, however, fate has a little twist in store for you // Joel finds your note.
Chapter 12: The TA
WC 6k - the lines between past and present blur as closeness turns into caution. what was once soft becomes sharp, and every shared space feels tighter, more fragile. what neither of you will say still hangs heavy in the air, and Joel can’t stop reaching for what he knows he has to let go.
Chapter 13: Professional Conduct
WC 6.5k - with your friend out sick, the classroom feels smaller… and quieter. between clipped exchanges and close proximity, you test the edges of something that feels almost like new ground.
Chapter 14: End of the Semester
WC 6.6k - As the semester wraps up, you must confront your inability to move on and the incessant reminders of how fucked you are, don’t worry… it’s mutual.
Chapter 15: A Better Man
WC 7.1k - A run-in during winter break leads a tense interaction of people who only know of the summer versions of you and Joel // the Spring semester starts.
More to come!
This is a work in progress, chapters are subject to further changes and proofreading pending rational judgement after dealing with ferality.
SLOOOOOOWWWW BURNNNN !!
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Some of these titles are directly from some of my favorite songs!
What Once Was - Hers
In This Shirt - The Irrepressibles
Linger - The Cranberries
The World We Knew (Over and Over) - Frank Sinatra
(A) Better Man - Paolo Nutini
Chapters aren’t based on the titles but their correlation after I wrote them fits in a way that tickles my fancy.
I was recently thinking about how there really aren’t enough professor!Joel fics to quench my thirst. Because truly… professor Joel? A man who teaches and guides for a living? How many more boxes on my kink bingo card are we trying to tick here?
But what makes this series stand out isn’t just the trope. It’s the writing. It’s thoughtful, immersive, and emotionally precise in a way that sneaks up on you. It doesn’t just tell a story, it makes you feel it. You ache. You long. You sit with the weight of every moment.
My only regret is that I didn’t discover your work sooner.
@forthelorewick, you have such a gift. And don’t get me started with the “Another One Couldn’t Hurt…Right?” series because it lives rent-free in my mind for all the best reasons.
Thank you for sharing your talent with us. Your work genuinely stays with the reader, and that’s something really special. 🫂👌
Genuinely cannot fathom people reading my work which is ironic since I’m posting on tumblr but seriously, this means so so much to me.
Professor!Joel is quite literally years of daydreaming that started from the moment I understood what attraction was. In addition to being infatuated with a teacher of mine throughout high school… who also happened to be a Joel aha… ahaha…😅
I had those same feelings as you expressed when I decided to write this trope. Now, I’d never been that much of a fanfic reader, but whenever I tried to satiate that fixation of mine I was always disappointed because I am just not someone who can get past a completely unethical relationship stemming between a student and a professor (despite how much I love the dynamics of authority figures and that power imbalance…). Sure, I do enjoy reading it every once in awhile, some filthy, taboo stuff is fun! but I always had that challenge in my mind for this premise in particular. Then, at the end of 2024, I got into writing fanfiction for Joel Miller, whom I’ve been hyperfixated on since tlou 1 came out in 2013… I had never written fanfiction either! Until I met a friend who wrote fanfiction and well, she encouraged me to write my own. Obviously my skills are still being honed especially with the prospect of sharing it, but I’m appreciative of this outlet. And, of course, professor!Joel had to finally be brought to life and I was the only one who could write it the way I always envisioned it.
I didn’t want it to be forbidden attraction to student x professor, it had to be so much more and so much more painful to maintain an inherently angsty premise that I could extend across many, many chapters 😈 and so… All the Wrong Ways to Know You was born.
I used to have much more time to write and publish chapters, but it makes it that much more intentional now. I also don’t stress myself out over any timeline, but I wish I had more time and brain power to push chapters out more quickly.
Thank you so much for reading this story, I cannot express how much it means to me that there are actual people who read my work, and not only read it but enjoy it! I never posted on tumblr expecting any of that, I just do it because I love having it actually organized instead of just living in my Google Docs forever. Any attention feels like a bonus and will always be so surreal to me! I love love love writing these two and am so excited for all I have in store for them. And for my other fics too! I’m a chronic daydreamer so in one way or another they’re always in progress.
I will say, being back in college means I have additional sources for my research and I recognize some inconsistencies from my first few chapters since it was before I even knew I was going to be going back to school 😭 but it’s fine! And so we continue on our merry way… and enjoy my prof muse while he lets me schedule office hours.
Again, thanks for being here, your words encourage me to keep going and to get my ass moving with finalizing this next chapter, ha!
Wanted to add a dash of oversharing because why not (I apologize actually but I’m not going to change it).
How am I supposed to act normal after reading baby daddy Joel Miller? The smut is the best I’ve ever read holy shit I am legit stunned. Please tell me me you’re thinking about writing more for those two absolute sluts for one another?! 🤞🏻🫦
Omg thank you so much!! Hehehehe yeah idk man they’ve consumed my soul and I’m not really complaining about it but I am complaining about having to write actual college papers instead of my baby daddy Joel smut BUT !!! I have so many more parts planned and brainstorming all the time (daydreaming about baby daddy Joel) so don’t you worry, much much more to come! Idk any timeline as of right now, but the juices are flowing… or will be 🫣
Actually crazy how I never used to be a smut writer and it’s evolving slowly but surely. I at least hope it’s getting better and I really love knowing people are enjoying it.
Pt. 7: (Past) daddy Joel but not in that way… is so patient to take that next step in your relationship until you just can’t take it anymore.
pt 1. | pt. 2 | pt. 3 | pt. 4 | pt.5 | pt.6 / pt. 8
series masterlist // main masterlist
NSFW! 18+ only! mdi please or I will tattle to your parents.
content/ warnings:
WC 7.4k - no outbreak!au, family!au, flashback chapter!, fluff, love at first sight, yearning/pining/longing, teasing, big fat crushes, age gap (reader is 19, Joel is early 30s), Joel is a respectful man!, soulmates basically; smut!, unprotected pinv (reader has an iud), size difference, so many pet names/nicknames, belly bulge, Joel’s a big man alright!, oral sex (f!receiving), fingering, creampie, praise kink, size kink, feral!joel, soft dom!Joel. No use of y/n.
a/n: I know I said “soon” but time is relative so shhhhhh, I tried to make it more complicated than I needed to, and now I have like 3 more parts mapped out. I am NOT a write multiple chapters in advance type of person and it just is what it is alright. Ooooon another note Arc Raiders is peak new game out right meowwww and I’m living life in Reed Richards’s Fortnite skin 🫦 (I play to annoy and make bits with friends and also I’m just sooo good at gaming thank you).
୨୧ ⏔⏔⏔♡⏔⏔⏔ ୨୧ ୨୧ ⏔⏔⏔⏔♡⏔⏔⏔⏔ ୨୧
Pt. 7 (continuation from pt.6)
The next date passes in a blur of laughter, stolen moments, and the kind of closeness that leaves your pulse climbing higher every time. Between the dates which was becoming another one of those habits you’ve created together, you maintain your morning coffee together. He walks you up the street now, though, bidding you farewell with a hug and gentle peck of a kiss goodbye. What a wonderful way to start the day.
The third Saturday night, he knocks on your door exactly on time, his beard freshly trimmed but still rugged, shirt tucked in but wrinkled at the collar like he’d fussed with it last minute. At some point you’d told him that sunflowers were your favorite, something about their defiant cheerfulness, how they always turned toward the light— he remembered.
He showed up with a bouquet in hand, three golden sunflowers and a single sprig of lavender tucked just to prove he listens.
Dinner was easy, time with him goes by too quickly. He had picked a quiet place and you found yourselves leaning toward each other across the table without realizing. He didn’t talk as much as you, but when he did, it was slow and careful. Every word he chose was hand-carved for you.
He walked you to your door that night, hands in his pockets, standing close enough that your shoulders brushed, but to your disappointment, he made no attempt to initiate anything.
Then the next date, you dressed up more than you meant to. Joel’s eyes lingered for a second too long when you opened the door. The flowers this time were smaller— just lavender, a bundle tied with twine after you’d mentioned the smell soothed you during stressful exam weeks.
It made something flutter in your chest.
Later, parked in the truck beneath a streetlamp that buzzed softly above, he made you laugh. some grumbled joke about Texas winters and cheap red wine. You were still giggling when you turned toward him, and the warmth in your chest twisted into something molten as his eyes dipped to your lips.
The kiss was sudden, like you’d both forgotten to wait. His hand was firm on your jaw, his lips softer than you expected, tongue cautious at first and then devastatingly sure. It sent a shiver down your spine.
But then you shifted, angling your body to get closer, and he stopped. Pulled back like he’d burned himself. His pupils were blown wide, his chest visibly rising and falling with restraint.
“Can’t,” he muttered hoarsely, dragging a hand through his hair. “Not yet.”
You didn’t push. But it hurt, the kind of ache that curled between your ribs and refused to let go. All you did was think about him, about what he’d feel like against you, how he’d touch you… you were needy for it. Every night you’d peel your clothes off and bury your fingers in the slick mess he’d made of you.
The next time, he brought takeout and danishes from the highest renowned pastry chef in Austin, then parked overlooking a quiet lake. He passed you fries one at a time and shared stories he’d never told anyone. You’d never seen him so open.
You fed him your last fry, and he licked the salt from your fingers.
The kiss afterward was inevitable, slow and bruising and messy with want. Your hands slipped beneath his coat, fingers curling in the front of his flannel. His own slid beneath your jacket, wrapping around your hips like he’d been starving for the feel of you. The taste of him is addictive… something woodsy, the faint taste of cigarettes you know he tries to mask, coffee, something faintly sweet… but his control still didn’t crack. When he groaned softly into your mouth and your thighs parted almost instinctively in the narrow space between the console and the seat, he cursed under his breath, “Shit, baby…”and pulled away again, forehead pressed to yours.
You could still feel the tension thrumming in him like a livewire. He held your face gently, kissed your cheek, then your forehead. Then he walked you to your door and just stared like he wanted to say everything and couldn’t risk even one word slipping out beyond, “Goodnight, darlin’.” You can feel the weight behind it. All that want, the care, the ache he’s trying so hard to keep contained.
By the fourth Saturday night date, it’s unbearable.
You stop at your doorstep again, hearts racing in sync, breath fogging in the cold air. He starts to speak, something about seeing you soon, but the words tangle when you catch his hand.
“Joel,” you say,the edge of your voice trembling with frustration and need. “Please. Come inside. Stay.”
He freezes, eyes closing briefly to steel himself against his carnal hunger for you, “Sweetheart…”
You take a half step closer so your body is pressed against his, tightening your grip around his hand. “Please,” you whisper again, quieter now.
His eyes open, dark and searching. You see the tick of his jaw and the conflict in his eyes. But the fire flaring beneath it all wins over his hesitant disposition.
You watch him battle himself, wanting so clearly to move and to reach for you, but not quite letting himself.
So you make the decision for him and most importantly, for yourself.
You let go of his hand only to curl your fingers into the front of his shirt, dragging him close enough that your breath catches when his lips brush yours.
He groans low in his throat, his fingers flex where they grip your hips.
“Don’t go,” you say again. “Please stay.”
Joel looks at you intensely now, his eyes frantically searching yours for any hint of uncertainty. His hand comes up slowly, brushing along the side of your face, thumb tracing the hinge of your jaw.
“Sweetheart, if I come in,” his words are barely audible, “I ain’t gonna be able to hold back much longer.”
You nod in finality, “Good.” You open the door to your apartment and drag him along with you.
He kisses you before the door is fully shut behind you, you can feel the tension radiating off of him as his mouth devours yours.
His hands grip your hips tightly as he pulls you against him. His need seeps into you, mixing in a frenzy of lust and threadbare self-control finally unraveling.
Your hands cup his face, holding him against you as you lick hungrily into his mouth. He greedily accepts the intrusion of your tongue, saliva and moans mixing as you pull him along with you towards your bedroom.
You can’t stand it anymore, you can feel the thick bulge beneath denim against your thigh, but he keeps trying to distance himself from you. As if to keep you from feeling just how needy he is for you or his attempt to still maintain his self-control.
Your fingers slide down to his chest, deft fingers starting to unbutton his shirt and his breath stutters against your lips.
His hands leave your hips for a moment, sliding behind you to unzip your dress. His hands slowly trail up your arms, then drags the sleeves off of your arms, pulling the dress down so it pools at your feet.
Joel takes a moment, separating his lips from yours, his eyes scanning your exposed flesh like a predator ready to subdue its prey, “Fuck, sweetheart…”
You push his shirt open to reveal his tanned chest. The sight of it has your mouth watering and you can’t help but press your hand to his warm skin. You can feel the racing of his heart and the rapid rise and fall of his chest as his breath comes in stutters.
“You’re so fucking beautiful,” he groans, his hands meeting the warm skin of your stomach and trailing upwards. He hesitantly cups your breasts in his large hands, his eyes searching yours for permission. You eagerly lean more into his touch, wordlessly answering.
Without another moment’s hesitation he kneads your lace-covered breasts with reverence, his eyes transfixed on the sight, “prettier than I even imagined them…”
“You imagine them a lot?” You tease, gently biting your lip as you watch his eyes unable to move from your cleavage.
“Fuck yeah, I did.” He can’t lie, not with how exposed his desires were becoming as you undress for him. “Can’t tell y’how much I’ve dreamt of makin’ you feel good, makin’ you mine.”
You have nothing to say to that, it’s like he’s reciting your exact thoughts.
You look down, your breasts fitting perfectly in his hands. You whine at the sight and feel of him finally touching you, but don’t even realize the noises you’re making until his lips clash against yours to swallow them whole.
He takes this moment to slip his hands around to your back, quickly undoing the clasp of your bra, exhaling like he’s just barely keeping his restraint intact. You untangle your hands from where they’d found purchase in the curls at the nape of his neck, allowing your bra to be discarded along with your dress.
You push his shirt off of his shoulders and you lean back for half a breath, just enough to look at him.
God, he’s big.
Not just tall, substantial. Broad chest rising and falling, tan skin with a faint sheen of sweat at the collarbone. His arms hang at his sides, corded with strength, chest dusted with coarse hair that narrows in a line beneath the waistband of his jeans, “you’re beautiful.” The words escape your mouth in a breath, but you can tell he hears you by the bashful chuckle he lets out.
You can smell him so vividly in your space, something earthy and warm like tobacco and sweat, and him. It’s dizzying. You feel lightheaded from the sheer mass of him.
His gaze roves your body slowly, reverently, like he’s not just looking at you but studying you, etching you into memory. “Nothin’ compared to you, darlin’…,” his voice is gravel-thick, the sound vibrating in his chest and curling low in your belly.
You move closer again, your hands skimming up his bare chest, feeling the heat of him.
He groans softly, a sound caught between need and disbelief. His hands cup your waist, his palms spanning the full width of your hips, fingertips grazing the small of your back.
He leans down then, brushing his nose along your jaw before his mouth finds your neck, his stubble rasping against your skin. You smell his shampoo, faint musk and citrus, and feel the way his breath hitches every time you press closer.
His jeans brush your bare thighs and you can feel the strain in them, can feel all the ways his body is trying not to pin you to the nearest surface.
“Tell me you want this,” he rasps, one hand rising to cradle the back of your neck. “Tell me you’re sure.”
You meet his eyes. “I’m sure, Joel. I need you.” There’s no hesitation in your words.
He holds still for just a moment longer, like the words knock something loose in him. Then his mouth is on yours again.
His other hand is spread wide along your ribs, his thumb skimming along the underside of your breast, feeling the weight of it, “your tits are perfect, darlin’. Perfect weight in my hands… gorgeous fuckin’ nipples… you’re a dream, baby,” and without another word he guides you back towards the bed. His hands fully cup your tits, kneading them and gently flicking his thumb over your hardened nipples as he pushes you back onto the mattress.
“Whoa there, hun…” he breathes against your lips as you fingers graze over the metal button of his jeans, “not yet…” but you can hear the desperation in his voice.
Regardless, he’s patient, clearly he has plans he wants to do before he gets to that. For a moment, he lets your fingers trace the ridges through the denim, he’s thick and huge… and it’s intimidating simply to the touch. He groans as you cup his hardened girth through the fabric, “Y’feel what you do to me, darlin’? But I gotta get you ready first okay?”
He can only imagine how tight your cunt is going to feel… everything about you being so small compared to him. But those thoughts need to be stifled for just a moment, he needs to taste you first. To work you open to the point you can take him, and he was willing to spend as much fucking time between your thighs as he could manage without losing his goddamn mind.
He takes your wrists in the grasp of one hand, and you nod in compliance, raising your arms above your head against the mattress. His grip is tight and there’s no point in fighting against it, not that you want to anyway.
He hovers over you now, his gaze drifting to where your legs spread wide around his broad body. All that’s left to cover you is your slick soaked panties, your hips undulating against his, or trying to. Your body seeking that friction without your brain catching up, you just realize you’re doing it when his other hand presses firmly against your lower belly, pinning you down to the bed, preventing you from moving at all.
“Patience, baby. Y’alright?”
You nod, licking your lips as your eyes trace down his face again, the tick in his jaw as he tilts his head and tsks his tongue, “Gonna need you to use your words, hun, that’s how this is gonna work, y’understand?”
You swallow hard, breath trembling, and nod again, but it’s not enough. Not for him. “Yes,” you whisper. “Need you.”
Joel’s gaze softens slightly at the edges, but the heat doesn’t fade. If anything, it deepens, “Good girl.”
Two words, and they burn.
His thumb brushes the inside of your wrist where your pulse flutters like a trapped thing, and he leans down, so close his breath fans over your mouth. “You’re so fuckin’ sweet,” he says, dipping down to press a kiss just below your jaw. “So warm. Softest thing I ever touched…”
His mouth trails down the slope of your neck, kissing across your collarbone, pausing to breathe in the scent of your skin like he can’t believe you’re real. Every inch he touches leaves your body arching up into him without permission.
You’re making it incredibly hard for him to be patient. The strain of his cock in his jeans is nearing painful, but he likes it. He likes how worked up you get him. Likes the way you fill his mind after a long day of work to the point he works his calloused hands over his leaking cock to the thought of you.
He can wait, he’s waited this long already, and the thought of making you come apart on his tongue has him throbbing even harder against the denim. He’s sure he’s leaked through the fabric by now, he’s never been so fucking wired in his life.
The stubble of his beard scrapes along your chest as he kisses lower, and the sound he makes when your hips buck reflexively against his stomach… the groan that emits from his chest, half-choked as it escapes, is the sound of a man just barely keeping it together.
His other hand still presses firm over your lower belly, pinning you there. Keeping you still. “Don’t rush me, baby,” he mutters against your skin. “You’ll get what you need.” His tongue finally flicks your hardened nipple, causing you to arch into him with a whine of relief as he sucks one into his mouth.
You can feel the vibration of his moan through your skin, seeping directly into your blood stream which has your blood pulsing downwards. The throb of your clit against the lace fabric of your panties has you squirming beneath his heavy hand.
“Perfect…” he switches to your other nipple, gently biting. A string of saliva connecting his mouth and your body, a perfect image of his ravenous hunger for you, “fucking body.” He finishes his thought, now his kissing trails downward, the muscles in your abdomen flexing in anticipation and he groans at the sensation beneath his lips.
“What a tiny little thing, y’are…” he croons, loosening his grip on your hands as he continues his descent.
“Joel… please…” you whine again, not caring how pathetic you sound. You just need him to finally touch you, to give you anything and as he inches closer to your clothed pussy, you get hopeful… and fucking antsy.
“You say my name so nice baby, say it again… and I’ll give ya what y’need,” his hand, now free from their grip around your wrists, follows the same trail his mouth had mapped moments before, squeezing and kneading at your breasts, pinching and rolling your nipples.
“Joel”, you sigh as he settles between your legs, everything stops for a heartbeat. The air stills, his breath stalls, and the world seems to narrow to the rhythm of two people whose tension had been brewing for months at this point… finally letting their need consume them and each other.
He drags his palms down the slope of your waist, the pads of his fingers catching along the curve of your hips. You feel the catch in his breath when your legs shift, when you tilt your pelvis toward him like your body’s moving on instinct. His fingers find the waistband of your panties, his eyes entranced, both hands engaged as he shifts lower.
His eyes never leave yours as he curls over you, his face lit by the low glow of the bedside lamp, shadows softening the lines of his jaw but not the heat in his expression. “You’re shakin’,” he whispers, a smirk creeping onto his lips as he trails his knuckles along the soft skin of your thighs, causing them to erupt in more goosebumps.
“I know,” you breathe. “Can’t help it.”
His mouth parts, like he wants to say something back, but instead, he presses a kiss to your inner thigh, soft and slow and achingly deliberate. His nose brushes your skin as he exhales, warm breath ghosting over you.
“You smell so good, darlin’, dyin’ to get a taste. S’that alright with you?” His now dark, blown out brown eyes meet yours over the expanse of your body, your chest rising and falling rapidly as the sight of this broad, huge man between your legs with his face inches from your pussy has your heart rate tripling.
“Yes, Joel… yes please,” and you don’t know what to do with your hands since they’re free from their previous confines. You want to run your hands through his soft hair, to feel the curls between your fingers.
“S’okay baby, lift your hips for me,” his fingers tug at the waistband, you lift your hips and he drags the cloth down your legs. It catches briefly as the soaked fabric is peeled from your drenched lips, the sight seems to send Joel into a bit of frenzy.
His motions moving faster, yanking the fabric off of your legs and gripping your thighs and prying them open.
“Look at that pretty pussy, drippin’ f’me… tell me what y’need, baby, use those pretty words of yours.”
Your head is swimming in arousal, you’re so lost to the sight, sounds, and smells of this man you can barely form a sentence, but you want to please him… you want to verbalize your desire for him the same way he seems to be able to, so you try… “Pl.. touch me… need you..” hell, you hope that works.
He lets out a low laugh, and you see him lick his lips. Instantly rewarding you with a circular swipe of his thumb through the slickness pooling at your entrance in eager anticipation, now threatening to drip onto your blankets beneath you. He audibly moans, not wasting another second before he dips his head and presses a gentle kiss to your clit, inhaling deeply as he does so.
Before he does anything else, he glances up at you for a final confirmation that you want this too… what kind of lunatic wouldn’t want this man to devour them whole?
You can’t help it now, your body has a mind of its own, seemingly completely separate from your conscious train of thoughts. Your hands found their way to his head, your fingers tangling in his hair, and your hips arching into his mouth.
He doesn’t deny your eagerness, in fact he flattens his tongue in anticipation. His hands grip your legs open with a bruising grip, you can see his nostrils flaring as your heat envelopes his senses. He pulls you against him finally, his mouth latching onto your cunt, devouring the juices that had collected since he’d first picked you up for your date that night.
His moan is all-consuming as it radiates through your entire being, as soon as he gets a taste, he loses himself. The sounds are obscene, his tongue dipping into the source like a thirsty dog lapping at water.
“Fuck yes…” you hear him hum against you, mostly to himself. Your grip tightens on his hair, unable to rut against his face like you wanted because of his tight grip.
He pulls back for just a moment, completely out of breath, having foregone breathing in favor of inhaling your essence.
“Fuck, baby…” it’s more of a growl than anything, he can’t stop himself, “so fuckin’ sweet…” he groans between licks, his fingers now joining the dance as he slips one slowly inside your weeping hole.
Your breath shudders as his fingers stretch you, the slick sound of it barely masked by the guttural noises he keeps making deep in his throat, ragged and disbelieving, like he’s not sure if this is really happening or if he’s dreaming it.
You can barely process anything anymore, just the weight of his shoulders pressing down between your thighs. The wet heat of his breath ghosts over sensitive skin, the deep inhale as he savors you, the soft scrape of stubble against your sensitive folds.
The room is warm, thick with the scent of sex and sweat and him. It lingers in your lungs, your sheets, the space between your bodies. It clings to the back of your tongue, your mouth dry from hanging open, waves of pleasure rolling over your body.
He moans again, louder this time, and the sound of it curls low in your belly. Your fingers tighten in his hair, holding him against you, like you need something to anchor you while your body threatens to come apart molecule by molecule.
You feel the mattress shift with every move he makes, the dip of his elbows as he begins to fuck you on his fingers, the flex of his forearms, the solid weight of him against your thighs. He’s everywhere.
“Don’t stop,” you whisper, voice barely there. “Please don’t stop.”
You feel him hum against you, wordless and possessive, and the vibration shoots up your spine like lightning. Your body pulses with it. Every nerve frayed. Every muscle drawn tight with the weight of release building behind your ribs like a storm begging to break from the clouds.
He keeps his pace steady and purposeful. Not teasing anymore…. He’s listening to your body the same way he listens to your voice. So attentive and intense, you’re quickly falling apart.
His fingers tighten on your thighs and you realize he’s trembling too. The kind of full-body tremble that only comes when someone is too close to losing control.
“Joel,” you gasp, voice cracking.
He lifts his head just enough to meet your eyes. His lips shine, his beard glistening with your arousal and his face flushed. His breathing is ragged, but his gaze is still steady, anchored to you like nothing else in the world matters.
You nearly throw your head back, but as soon as your eyes break contact with his, “Look at me,” he murmurs, “Right here, baby.” He demands, trailing his free hand up to grip one of your tits in his hand, pinching the nipple which causes your walls to clamp more on his fingers that were coaxing you closer to that edge. He reaches a place you’ve never experienced before. It’s mind blowing, you’re completely gone, lost in the sensations.
Your fingers muss his hair as you practically rut against his face. His eyes flutter closed as he lets you chase that feeling, moaning almost as loud as you, his hips grinding into the mattress like he could get off just by eating you out, god… he can tell you’re so fucking close.
“That’s it…”
The breath leaves your lungs in a broken cry, the world narrowing to sensation, to him, his scent, his breath, his hands, the sound of his voice grounding you through the tremble that overtakes you.
He holds you through it, his mouth chasing the rocking of your hips through the shudders, through the ragged breath, through the sudden heat of tears you didn’t expect, didn’t even realize were falling.
“Shh, s’alright baby” he soothes you as he brings you down from that peak, “You’re so fuckin’ beautiful like this… makin’ the sweetest sounds f’me.”
When you reach for him, you hold his face in your hands as he climbs back up your body.
First thing you know you need is his clothes fucking gone. You unbutton his jeans and unzip them, then follow him as he steps off of the bed to shed his jeans and boxers. His body is broad and warm under your palms, solid in a way that makes you feel safe but your whole body still burns with desire.
Your fingers follow the trail of coarse hair leading down to his cock, tentatively taking the throbbing length into your hands. It’s so hard yet soft like velvet, and your hand can’t even wrap around its girth. “Wow…” you hear yourself saying, and he chuckles as your jaw drops open slightly. “You’re so big, Joel, I…”
He cuts you off with a kiss and a groan as your grip tightens around him. He leads you back, laying you down again, crawling onto the bed with you.
Your hand is still around his length, your thumb swiping over the tip and spreading his precum over it.
His moan is loud as he cants into your hand, you can tell it wasn’t intentional, but his inherent need for you is incredibly endearing.
“I need you, baby, need to feel your cunt wrapped around me, ain’t gonna last long, but I need…” His desperation has you gasping into his mouth as his collides against yours, his hand once again gripping your wrist and prying it away from his cock as he breathlessly pants against your mouth.
His lips move against your cheek when he speaks, “still with me?”
Your hands find his hair, running your fingers through the soft locks, then stilling to cup his face between them, “I need you too, Joel, just… want to feel you.”
He hums in approval as your legs wrap behind his legs to pull him closer, “This sweet pussy been achin’ f’me the same way my cock’s been achin’ f’her?” It’s nearly a growl as he shifts lower and settles between your thighs.
All it takes is the gentle press of his thumb against your clit to have you whimpering beneath him again, “yes… ached for you since we met.”
That confession earned a throaty groan, his face burying into the crook of your neck, “that right, baby?”
You nod, helplessly as he grips your thigh and presses your hips open again, grinding his leaking cock over the slick folds of your pussy. He curses under his breath, lining up the mushroom head of his cock with your entrance before he has a sudden moment of realization and a groan of annoyance, “Fuck, I don’t got any condoms, baby… I wasn’t plannin’ on all this tonight. It’s been… it’s been awhile.”
He sounds almost bashful when he admits it, his big, brown eyes look up at you pleadingly, as if he was already begging for forgiveness.
You hands cup his face once again, and you giggle mischievously which causes him to tilt his head in confusion, and it’s the cutest thing you've ever seen.
“What’s so funny, darlin’? Laughin’ at an old man’s demise? Got a perfect cunt beggin’ for my cock and I can’t do a damn thing about it?”
You shake your head and pull him into a sweltering kiss, reaching one hand between the two of you and taking his cock to notch it at your entrance.
“What’re y’playin’ at, darlin’? Temptin’ an old man, naughty girl.”
You shift your hips, the head of his cock sliding into your wet heat and he stifles a groan, pressing his forehead against yours, “fuck, don’t be cruel.”
You whimper at the sheer girth of the head of his cock splitting you open.
“Pussy’s so fuckin’ tight…” but he doesn’t make any move to sheath himself any further, he leans back to gauge where your head’s at and sees you fighting through accommodating him, “Cock’s too big f’you huh? We’ll make it fit. Y’gotta tell me though, gotta talk to me baby,” his large hand soothes down your jaw to your neck, sweeping back any hair that’s plastered to your skin by your sweat.
“S’… a lot.” You manage, your walls contracting and squeezing around him, desperate to accommodate him.
“I know… I know…”
“I… I’ve got an IUD, but I’ve never… I dunno…” His hands envelope your thighs, holding you still. His eyes are glued to the sight between you, the sight of what you thought was the head of his cock was just the tip, not even the full mushroom head.
“Oh shit…” his breath is stuttered and his eyes are shut tight, “alright… alright.. fuck, I should’ve asked.”
Your fingers grip his hair, pulling his mouth back to yours. His grip doesn’t budge, refusing to move at all. You can feel the precum leaking out around the tip of his cock with your own arousal and it’s an intoxicating sensation. He’s so worked up for you, and yet he’s still maintaining some semblance of self-control to ensure you’re prepared for him.
“Please,” you plead, your hand unsure about what to do with themselves as they trail up the muscles of his arms.
“I’m gonna take this slow, alright? Ain’t in a rush… just gotta… take it slow…” for a moment, he leans back, taking your hands into his and placing them against his ribs. “You control it, can y’do that? Go at your pace, tiny little thing, don’t wanna hurt‘cha.”
You nod with a trembling bottom lip and he tuts in sympathy. “S’gonna be alright, take as much time as y’need… m’not goin’ anywhere… just right here in this tight little pussy… at whatever pace you want me. Can y’say ‘yes sir’ to let me know y’understand?”
And that tore something open in you, your jaw went slack and you pulse around the first few centimeters of him.
“Oh y’like that huh… alright,” he chuckles lowly to himself and resumes his grip on your thigh.
“Yes… sir,” you manage, your eyes wide and blown out as you take in this monstrously sized man and the tip of his cock barely even breaching your entrance, feeling so full already and there’s… holy shit, so much more to go.
You feel and see his cock twitch at that and a low groan involuntarily rips through his vocal cords, “yeah… just like that, my good girl,” he rubs gentle circles into your thighs, leaning over you until your wrists had more pressure to push against him if needed.
“M’gonna start now, Y’know what to do?”
Your lips quiver with anticipation and nerves but nod your head. Your voice is weak but you know what you have to say, “yes, sir.” Which earns you another throaty groan.
“Lessen up on your grip when you want me to go deeper, s’all at your pace…” he repeats, although you already know what to do.
Fuck, you were bristling with anticipation. All you wanted to do was have him bottom out inside you, but you knew it would hurt like hell all at once, and you’d certainly never taken any man of his size.
You’d had a boyfriend who you’d gotten the IUD for, but you broke up with him before you’d even had a chance to put it to any use. You really weren’t sure what to expect, especially a huge cock and a metal, t-shaped contraceptive stuffed in your uterus.
You know Joel’s cock is bigger than what you have going on inside you, and you’re certain he’ll find your cervix and potentially feel your IUD. The concept is embarrassing for some reason, but you also know how thrilling it is to have someone who cares so much about making you feel good and comfortable. So you know no matter what, it will be okay.
Without another moment’s hesitation, you ease on your grip against his chest, just slightly. The head of his cock slowly eases in, accompanied by Joel’s ragged breathing as he watches with rapt attention, “So warm ‘n perfect, the head’s in baby— doin’ so good f’me…”
There’s sweat on your brow from the sheer intensity of it all, your thighs tremble beneath his grip, your eyes searching his demeanor to gauge if you’re disappointing him with how slow you’re going.
He feels you staring and looks up at you, a cheeky grin on his face turns to a moan as you squeeze around the mushroom head, “fuck.” He can’t help his reaction as you lessen your grip again and slide in one centimeter at a time, your nails biting into his chest in desperation.
He feels so fucking good but so fucking much all at once. You feel a tightness and a pinch if you let too much in at once, but you’re finally finding a rhythm with him as he gently nudges more inside. He supports his weight on either side of you and lets your legs relax, hovering over you and keeping his hips steady for your guidance.
“Y’doin’ so good f’me, sweetheart, so proud of you,” He croons softly against your soft, wet lips, licking into your mouth with complete adoration, “touch that pretty little clit f’me… can y’do that? It’ll help, promise.”
You nod eagerly and slide a hand between your bodies, your velvety walls massaging the head and shaft of his cock as you work your fingers over that swollen nub of nerves.
“God, could cum jus’ like this, feels so fuckin’ good ‘round me.”
Your other hand splays along his ribs, continuously letting him inch further and further in, until finally— with a final grunt and prolonged groan from both of you, his hips meet yours.
“Oh shit… fuck fuck… such a good fuckin’ girl… look at that…” his eyes are locked onto your lower abdomen, and surely enough what a sight to behold… there’s a bulge in the shape of his thick cock through your lower belly.
“What a sight, didn’t even know that was possible,” his jaw is agape as he thrusts his hip forward just slightly as you grip loosens on his chest and the bulge moves along with his thrusts… “oh, you’re trouble… that’s fuckin’ hot as hell seein’ my cock so deep inside ya like that.”
Your eyes have been transfixed on something else entirely, on the sight of his large hand covering so much of your body as he braces himself to look between your bodies. His large hand is splayed against your ribs, leaning back so he’s more on his knees again, one hand still bracing beside your head. He pulls his hips back slightly, experimentally thrusting back inside of your dripping heat.
“Feels so big, Joel…” you don’t know how loud you’ve been whimpering until you feel his cock pulse inside of you and his eyes find yours again.
“Good?” The hand splayed on your ribs trails down to your hipbone, his thumb extending and brushing against your clit which causes tremors to run through your body and another prolonged groan from Joel.
“Yes… yes sir, so so good.”
He hums his approval and leans over you to press a sweltering kiss to your swollen lips, the vibration coursing through your veins and to the very place his thumb is circling as he begins to rock his hips shallowly against yours.
Joel’s thumb circles that tender spot, his touch confident but patient. Every motion is deliberate, like he’s memorizing what makes you arch, what makes your breath catch in your throat.
Your fingers twitch against his chest again, the weight of him pressing into you in all the right places. You feel everything. His chest hair against your breasts. The flex of his muscles as he works himself against you. The creak of the mattress. The humid heat between your bodies. The overwhelming stretch and incessant burn that still hasn’t faded even though he’s fully seated inside you. You can feel the tip of him pressing against your cervix and every time he bottoms out it’s a delicious sting you’re slowly growing accustomed to.
He groans low, one of those guttural, broken sounds that seem to come from somewhere deep in his ribs.
“You’re takin’ me so damn well, baby…” he murmurs, voice thick with awe and restraint, like he’s in pain from holding back. He presses a kiss to your shoulder, then to your collarbone, his lips open and trembling against your skin. “Shit. Can feel every part of ya.”
You exhale shakily and slide your hands up his arms. He’s burning under your palms. Sweat-slicked, muscles flexing, heartbeat pounding hard enough you can feel it in your fingertips.
Your voice comes out small, unsteady. “Your heart is pounding.”
“Feel like it’s gonna break outta my chest,” he breathes back. “You got no idea what y’do to me.”
Joel shifts just enough to brace his forehead against yours again, noses brushing. The sound of both your ragged breaths fills the space between. That raw intimacy, the knowing, it sits between your ribs and makes your chest feel tight.
“Gonna cum f’me? Can feel ya tremblin’ ‘n y’legs are twitchin’ and tensin’ ‘round me, let me feel y’let go.” He draws back further now, easing back into your stretched pussy as his thumb works your clit mercilessly. Each time he pulls further back, until he’s fucking into you as gentle but as rough as he can manage, chasing your high and chasing his own.
Your moans come out as sobs, it’s so fucking much and so good, and you know you’re about to cum as soon as that beautiful ridge of his cock rocks over that spongey spot inside of you.
“Don’t, don’t stop, yes yes yes,”
“Right there, huh, that’s it” His eyes are glued to every expression on your face as you teeter on that edge of euphoria. In any other circumstance or any other mindset you might get insecure about the unfiltered show of emotions on your face but you don’t care, if anything you’re happy to bear your soul to him as he brings you as close to heaven as you can possibly be on earth.
He doesn’t stop, he doesn’t speed up and he sure as hell doesn’t stop the circles on your clit or change his angle because you said don’t stop and that means keeping up exactly what he’s doing no matter what and he’d rather die than lose that wave of pleasure you’re about to ride around his cock.
Before it can even register in your mind, you’re gone, babbling incoherent nonsense in some semblance of his name as your walls milk his cock in the most intense orgasm you’ve ever experienced.
He chokes out a moan as the massaging of your silken walls have his balls tightening, “fuuuuck, baby… gonna cum, where’d’ya want me?” He desperately hopes you let him stay inside. It’s already the most intense orgasm he’s ever had and he’s only teetering on the edge.
“Yes… inside, please, cum inside me, Joel.” You’re still riding out the last waves of pleasure as he finally lets go, his balls emptying inside you as he rocks his hips against yours with deep, guttural grunts of finality.
Your high-pitched whimpers and sweat consume him as he buries his face into the crook of your neck, he can’t help but lap up the saltiness dripping down your skin, everything about you is intoxicating.
He slowly comes to a stop inside you, half-collapsing on top of you, his cock still pulsing, the final streams of cum coating your walls.
Your hands find purchase in his hair, holding him to you, your fingers soothing down his back and up his neck and he swears he’s died and gone to heaven.
You’re peppering tired kisses to his forehead and the top of his head and he hums, trying to rein himself back in.
He stays inside you long after the last tremors have faded.
Neither of you speaks. There’s only the sound of his breathing slowing against your collarbone, your heartbeat finding its rhythm again beneath the weight of his chest. Your skin sticks where you’re pressed together. Your bodies are slick, fever-warm, and soft with spent adrenaline.
His hand finds yours where it’s still nestled in his hair. He wraps his fingers around your wrist, just to hold it in place. Keep it close. Keep you close.
“Still with me?” he asks eventually, voice gravelled and low, like he hasn’t caught his breath yet.
You nod, nuzzle into the sweat-damp curls at his temple. “Mhm. Floatin’ a little.”
A quiet hum of satisfaction rumbles through him. He kisses your shoulder again. A few seconds later, the back of your hand. Then your jaw.
“God, sweetheart. I don’t think I’ve ever,” he murmurs against your skin, and the praise sinks deeper than it should, ‘that was…”
He trails off, because whatever he’s about to say feels like too much, too fast. Instead, he slips a hand between your bodies, gently brushing the hair back from your face. You’re glowing and flushed, and when he sees the way your lashes flutter, fighting to stay in the moment, he smiles.
“Yeah… it really was,” you reply, completely understanding what he was entailing.
He laughs gently in exasperation, pressing his lips against yours again and sealing the moment before pulling away and slowly easing his softening length out of you with a soft hiss, immediately missing the warm sheath of your body wrapped around him.
Your fingers thread through his hair again, slowly combing through the damp curls at the base of his neck and massaging lightly. He’s quiet while he watches you, studying your face as if to memorize it, like maybe this moment could dissolve if he lets it out of his sight.
“Y’okay?” he murmurs eventually, thumb brushing over your cheekbone. “Did I… was that too much?”
You shake your head earnestly, cupping his face in your palms as you lead his eyes to yours, “you’re fucking perfect.” You say with a sweet smile, earning a groan from the man still half-collapsed on top of you.
“You’re a sweet talker with a dirty mouth, darlin’.” He presses a kiss to your cheek and steps off of the bed, giving you a once over and letting out a low whistle of appreciation just to watch you roll your eyes at him.
“I could get used to this sight y’know,” he hums to himself as he disappears into your bathroom.
You take a moment to catch your breath, the reality of Joel finally being in your apartment settling in as you catch his frame rummaging around your bathroom and quickly cleaning himself up before returning with a damp washcloth in his hand.
“I could too,” you mean it more than you’ve meant anything in your life, and you weren’t someone who was light with your convictions. You know at that very moment that this is it for you, he’s it. The thundering in your chest as he cleans you up and proceeds to wrap you in his strong arms with light kisses to wherever his lips could reach solidifies that conviction into your own personal truth.
You are his, and he is yours.
You both couldn’t deny that string of fate that seemed to pull you together, and now the tethers that would keep the fires within your souls stoked and roaring.
It was simple, and it was everything.
୨୧ ⏔⏔⏔♡⏔⏔⏔ ୨୧ ୨୧ ⏔⏔⏔⏔♡⏔⏔⏔⏔ ୨୧
I’ve put too much stress on myself to on making these into some form of linear parts; I will probably change them to have titles so it’s easier to navigate! Once again, never expected to have so many parts of this, but I know these have taken over my other fics when I am able to write so whatever! We take what we can get 🫡🙂↕️
As always, more to come!
Taglist as requested (please let me know if you want to be added/removed!): @white-wolf-buckaroo @streamermattsgf @somedayheaven
