i figured i should probably do a quick intro since there are a lot of new people here now (holy shit 100 followers!!)😭
i write a lot of Phillip Graves content (clearly), mostly character-driven stuff with a mix of angst, tension, and some fluff depending on the day. i would love to branch out into more call of duty characters at some point, but right now i am very much stuck on the Shadow Company train
i’ve been having so much fun writing this series and interacting with you all, so genuinely thank you for being here 🫶
a couple quick things just so we’re all on the same page:
Suggestive Content on this page, so 18+ MDNI
my asks are always open, including anonymous asks. i love getting ideas, prompts, and hearing what you all want to see
my dms are also open if you ever want to talk about the fics, share ideas, or just chat. i genuinely love talking about this stuff and could go on forever about these characters 😭
i try to tag any content warnings when needed
if i’m not comfortable writing something, i’ll either skip it or mention that when i post. i still try to acknowledge asks when i can
i don’t have a strict posting schedule. i’m in graduate school, so i write and respond when i have time
other than that, i’m really just here to write, have fun, and scream about these characters with you all
seriously, thank you again for all the support. it means a lot 🫶
On the off case they need someone to look after Baby for a bit, is Philip gonna go full Philip Graves and interrogate babysitters/nannies and do full totally-not-legal background checks? Or does he trust one of his men?
oh Phillip is an absolute nightmare about this 😭
Most of the time, their son is with family. Phillip’s mom is probably their first call, and there are a handful of people close enough to them that Phillip does not think twice about it.
And honestly? There are a couple Shadows he trusts with his son more than he would trust 99% of professional childcare providers.
Not because they are particularly qualified.
One of them is probably sitting on Phillip’s couch with the baby asleep against his chest while holding the TV remote like:
“Commander, respectfully, I have no idea what I’m doing.”
“You kept three men alive in Kandahar.”
“Three grown men, sir.”
“Same principle.”
“It absolutely is not.”
You politely vetoed bringing in any more operators to watch your son.
An actual babysitter? That is where Phillip becomes unbearable.
You think you are hiring a nice twenty-two-year-old education major for your first anniversary dinner since you had the baby.
Phillip thinks you are granting an unknown civilian unsupervised access to the most important human being on the planet.
“Phillip, she has references.”
“People lie.”
“She’s CPR certified.”
“Good start.”
“She works at the preschool.”
“Means she knows how to fill out an application.”
You slowly lower your phone, suspicion radiating through your bones.
“Did you run a background check on her?”
Phillip does not look up from whatever he is reading on his laptop.
“Define background check.”
“Phillip!”
He finally looks up, the glow of the laptop screen reflected on his face.
“Sweetheart.”
“Was it legal?”
A pause.
“Nothing came back.”
“That was not my question.”
And the worst part is he would never call it an interrogation. He is charming as hell when she arrives.
Southern manners. Easy smile. Offers her some iced tea to drink. Shows her where everything is.
Meanwhile he is casually asking where she goes to school, how long she has lived in Texas, whether she has siblings nearby, what car she drives, how late she is comfortable staying, whether she knows infant and child CPR, if she has ever handled an allergic reaction, and who exactly these references are.
You fold your arms and watch him work. The easy smile, the harmless little questions, the casual follow-ups that somehow get more specific every time. You can practically see Commander Graves pulling on years of intelligence training while pretending he is just being friendly.
Sneaky Bastard.
You eventually touch his arm.
“She’s babysitting him for three hours, not applying to Shadow Company,” you whisper in his ear when she goes to use the restroom.
Phillip smiles, “Just making conversation, Darlin’.”
The poor girl has absolutely been security-cleared. She just does not know it.
But once Phillip trusts somebody, he actually trusts them.
He is not calling every fifteen minutes. He is not watching the cameras from dinner. He is not making his son anxious by acting like something terrible is going to happen the second Mommy and Daddy leave.
He kisses his son goodbye, and walks out the door.
He just happens to know the sitter has no criminal record, three excellent references, a clean driving history, and an ex-boyfriend with a misdemeanor possession charge from sophomore year.
You find that last part out later.
“Why do you know about her ex-boyfriend?”
Phillip takes a sip of his drink, “Due diligence.”
“You are insane.”
“I’m thorough."
“That does not make this normal.”
“No,” he reaches over and takes your hand, “Makes it effective.”
So yes, Phillip will hire a babysitter.
But somewhere in Texas there is a college student who thinks she made an easy $120 watching cartoons with a five-year-old and has absolutely no idea Commander Graves personally vetted her like she was about to receive classified intelligence.
Hiiii! Think9ng about the 4th of July with graves and how would he celebrate? Hope you are doing well and no rush! 🫶🏻
Got to this late as hell, but I'm still stuck rotting in summer humidity rn so it still counts.
-
Oh, the Fourth of July is absolutely one of Phillip’s favorite holidays. Probably second only to Christmas. And everybody knows it.
There is already an American flag flying out front year-round, but sometime in late June Phillip replaces it anyway because the old one is apparently “looking rough,” even though you cannot see anything wrong with it.
He hosts every year without fail.
There is no formal invitation after a while. If you know Phillip Graves well enough to have his address, you know you can probably show up on the Fourth with a cooler and a folding chair and be fed.
Old Marine buddies. Shadows who happen to be stateside with nowhere to celebrate. Contractors he actually likes, but only if they bring foreign cigars to smoke or expensive liquor to drink.
People start appearing before noon and keep coming until the sun goes down.
And Phillip loves it.
The smoker is going before you are even properly awake.
You find him outside at some obscene hour in a pair of old shorts and a T-shirt, hair still sticking up from sleep, coffee steaming beside him while he stands over a brisket like somebody has entrusted him with national security.
By afternoon, the whole property smells like hickory smoke, charcoal, and meat.
Brisket resting beneath foil. Ribs lacquered with sauce. Burgers and hot dogs going on the grill in batches. Sweet corn blistering beside them. Thick slices of watermelon packed into trays of ice.
And Phillip is glued to the grill.
Aviators on. Cold Coors Banquet in one of those little glass bottles sweating on the table beside him.
Tongs in one hand. Spatula in the other. Completely locked in.
Before you have kids, the Fourth is also one of his favorite excuses to get a little drunk with people he trusts.
Phillip has absolutely been drunk before. He was a Marine, for God’s sake. It’s like an Olympic sport to them.
There are stories from his twenties that have been collectively agreed should never reach anybody with access to the internet. He just does not like getting sloppy anymore.
But at home, with nowhere to be and people around him he trusts?
He lets himself go a little.
Two beers become four. Somebody brings bourbon out after dark. Cigars are lit on the patio until you shoo everyone farther into the yard before they make your whole house smell like smoke.
His drawl gets thicker. His laugh gets louder. That sharp edge he usually carries around his shoulders starts melting away.
And he gets unbearably affectionate.
It probably does not help that you dress for the occasion with his sanity nowhere in mind.
A bikini top beneath a thin tank top. Tiny denim shorts Phillip bought for you after complaining yours were too long.
You told him he was a pervert. Then wore them anyway.
And Phillip spends the entire afternoon pretending he is not staring.
You bend over the cooler looking for another beer, sun warm across your bare legs, and Phillip’s spatula just stops moving.
One of his old buddies watches him for several seconds. Then looks toward the grill.
“Graves.”
Nothing.
“Graves.”
Phillip finally glances over.
“What?”
“Your burgers, man.”
Smoke is starting to curl upward.
“Shit.”
By sunset, the backyard has that particular pleasant chaos of a party that has been going on all day.
Half-empty coolers. Wet rings beneath beer bottles on the patio tables. Somebody barefoot in the grass. Country music coming from the speakers near the porch.
Everyone is full enough that nobody is really eating anymore, but Phillip keeps wandering past the brisket and cutting himself another piece anyway.
Then somebody gets the bonfire going, marshmallows, chocolate, and graham crackers complimenting the liquor poured into little red plastic cups. That is where Phillip ends up happiest.
Sunk low in a wide chair near the flames, pleasantly buzzed, with you curled sideways across his lap.
Your legs are thrown over one of his denim-clad thighs, his belt buckle pressing into you whenever you shift. One heavy arm stays wrapped around your middle beneath your tank top, palm spread warm against your bare stomach.
And after enough bourbon, that hand gets a little less innocent.
His fingertips slide lazily along your waist. Up your ribs. Just beneath the edge of your bikini top until you catch his wrist.
“Phillip.”
“Yes, m’dear?”
“We have company.”
His mouth brushes your ear, “I know it.”
“Then behave.”
A quiet laugh rumbles against your neck. “Been behaving all damn day.”
His thumb strokes slowly beneath your shirt.
“You keep wearing these little shorts around me, I oughta get some credit.”
You bite back a smile. His lips skim the spot beneath your ear.
“Been thinking about sending everybody home since you bent over that fuckin’ cooler.”
You immediately turn your face toward him.
“Phillip.”
His expression is all lazy innocence, cheeks warm from the fire and bourbon, blue eyes brighter than usual. He leans closer.
“Could have you upstairs in about thirty seconds.”
“Stop.”
“You asked what I was thinking.”
“I absolutely did not.”
“Could tell you anyway.”
Whatever he whispers next makes you shove your face against his shoulder to hide your laugh. Phillip looks entirely too pleased with himself and he chuckles and caresses the back of your head, kissing your knuckles a few times.
From across the fire, one of his old buddies watches the two of you for a second.
“Graves, quit mauling your wife.”
Phillip does not even bother looking up.
“No.”
You smack his chest. “See? Now people are noticing.”
“They’re jealous.”
“They are not jealous.”
His hand tightens around your waist. “Should be.”
The stories get worse as the night goes on.
Old deployments. Bad tattoos. Barracks nonsense from Camp Lejeune that Phillip has very conveniently neglected to tell you.
At some point, somebody starts telling you about the night a much younger Phillip got drunk enough to accept a bet that he could make it from one second-floor barracks balcony to the third floor without using the stairs.
Phillip immediately cuts in. “Allegedly.”
“I watched you do it.” His friend argues.
“You were drunk.”
“So were you.”
You turn in his lap. “You climbed between balconies drunk?”
Phillip squints into the fire like he is consulting his attorney.
“Made it, didn’t I?”
“That is not reassuring.”
Someone laughs. “Man used to be fun.”
Phillip looks down at you.
Your fingers are playing idly with the hair at the back of his neck, his baseball cap sitting loose over your hair to keep ashes and sparks out of your strands. His hand is still warm beneath your shirt. Your legs are tangled over his, and every time you laugh, you curl a little closer into him.
His mouth tilts.
“I’m having a pretty good time right now.”
That earns a chorus of disgust from the fire. Phillip just grins and tips his beer toward them before dropping another kiss onto your shoulder, taking in the sweet smell of caramelized marshmallows from your skin.
And that is the thing about those early Fourths.
He loves the food. Loves the beer. Loves having old Marines and Shadows around his fire, swapping stories nobody else would understand.
But his favorite part is having his wife in his lap while they do it.
Warm from the sun. A little drunk. His hand hidden beneath her shirt and his mouth against her ear, saying things nobody else gets to hear just to feel her start giggling against his chest.
Every few minutes, his arms tighten around you like he still cannot quite believe this is his life.
Phillip Graves is having an excellent fucking Fourth of July.
But it’s not his favorite.
There is the Fourth when you are pregnant. Really pregnant.
Pregnant enough that the Texas heat has become your personal enemy.
You spend most of the afternoon beneath the porch fan in a loose floral sundress, sandals abandoned somewhere underneath your chair and a cold glass of lemonade pressed against the side of your neck.
Everybody notices.
Not in an annoying way. Just that sweet way people get around a woman carrying the first baby in a close group. People asking about your cravings, hopeful due dates, and offering help in setting up the nursery.
One of Phillip’s older Marine buddies arrives with a tiny MarPat onesie and immediately claims he saw it and “had no choice.”
A Shadow you barely know keeps appearing beside you with bottles of cold water because apparently Commander Graves has assigned hydration detail without telling anyone.
Nobody lets you carry anything. You stand up to bring a bowl outside and three men immediately go:
“Nope.”
“I got it.”
“Mrs. Graves, sit down.”
You stare at them, one hand on your hip while the other presses into your lower back. “Did my husband threaten all of you?”
Phillip calls from the grill without turning around, “Didn’t have to.”
You glare at the back of his head. He grins anyway.
Phillip is still completely obsessed with the food.
The smoker went on before sunrise. The brisket has been discussed so many times throughout the day that you are beginning to feel personally acquainted with it. But now every few minutes he is leaving the grill to check on you.
Bringing another drink. Pressing the back of his hand to your cheek. Adjusting the fan. Making sure nobody stole the shaded chair he dragged outside specifically for you.
Eventually he crouches beside you with a little plate.
A thick slice of brisket, corn cut from the cob because apparently eating it on the cob might be too stressful for you in your condition, and a piece of watermelon with a generous sprinkling of salt, just like you’ve been craving.
“For you, Darlin’.”
You take the plate, grateful for the effort, “Thank you.”
His hand spreads automatically over your stomach. The baby kicks hard enough that Phillip feels it immediately.
His face lights up, “There he is.”
You groan. “Yeah, I’m sure it’s fun for you now. He’s been doing that to me all damn morning.Your son is killing me.”
Phillip rubs his palm slowly over the curve of your belly.
“Our boy’s active.”
“He has been kicking me in the ribs for three hours.”
Another kick. You glare at your stomach.
Phillip looks at the plate. “He’s hungry. Probably smelled the brisket.”
“He is inside my body.”
“Kid already knows good food.”
You stare at him. Phillip is completely serious.
“Not even born yet and he knows his Daddy can smoke a brisket.”
“You are unbearable.”
He grins and bends to kiss your forehead.
“Love you too.”
Then somebody yells from across the yard, “Graves! Ribs!”
Phillip’s head snaps around. “God fuckin' dammit.”
Something about that Fourth stays with him forever.
You hot and swollen and beautiful beneath the porch fan. Everybody teasing him about finally settling down becoming a father. Phillip pretending to be annoyed and feeling old while clearly loving every second of it. His hand returning to your belly every time he passes.
For years the Fourth meant his buddies, good food, cold beer, and whatever pretty little thing his wife chose to wear.
Now he spends the day looking at your stomach and thinking about the next years’ celebrations.
And boy, do those years come quickly when you’re raising a junior version of Phillip Graves.
Eventually that rib-kickin' baby is almost three years old and absolutely terrorizing his Fourth of July cookout.
He is sticky before noon. Watermelon juice down his chin. Popsicle stains across the front of his shirt. Bare little legs grass-stained below his shorts.
At some point one of the Shadows produces water guns, and that is the end of any peace in the backyard.
Phillip stays at the grill. Mostly.
“Careful around here!”
His voice cuts across the yard when his son comes tearing toward the patio with two Shadows chasing him. The kid skids to a stop several feet from the grill.
Phillip points the tongs at him.
“Hot, buddy, remember? You gotta stay outta Daddy’s zone.”
The toddler nods solemnly. Then spins around and shoots one of the Shadows directly in the chest.
The man recoils dramatically. “Damnit, I’m hit!”
Your son screams with laughter and takes off again. Phillip watches them go. The smile creeps across his face before he can stop it.
One of his men lets a three-year-old chase him around the patio furniture. Another crouches behind the cooler pretending to hide. Somebody else is cutting another slice of watermelon into smaller pieces because apparently the first three were not enough.
And Phillip realizes his son has no concept of who these men really are to the rest of the world.
To him, they are family. Uncles. Cousins. Daddy’s friends.
The people who lift him up on their shoulders when he wants to be big and sneak him bites of dessert before dinner when Phillip is not looking.
Men Phillip has bled beside are now being shot with neon plastic water guns by his toddler.
Something about it gets him.
He looks across the yard. You are sitting beneath the shade, laughing at something his secretary said.
And Phillip starts imagining more. Another little blond baby running through the grass.
Then another.
A newborn asleep against your chest while an older sibling plays nearby. Maybe a dog or two tearing around after them.
A backyard so loud he cannot hear himself think. Enough noise to drown out everything ugly he has ever carried home.
Paradise.
Ten kids, his mildly tipsy brain decides.
He could do ten.
Realistically, you would probably murder him somewhere around four.
Still.
He wants a house full.
A yard full.
Little Graves babies everywhere, driving the two of you crazy. His people around the fire. You beside him.
Enough family packed onto this property that there is never an empty chair.
You catch him staring as you walk up next to him, sliding your hand into the back pocket of his jeans.
“What are you thinking about?”
“Ah, nothin’, Gorgeous.”
You give him a disbelieving look, then glance over to where he's looking. His gaze is shifted toward your son sprinting across the grass. Then back to you.
“Could use a couple more.”
“Couple?”
“A few.”
“Phillip.”
“What?”
He turns a burger, “We make pretty babies.”
By the time it gets dark, Baby is exhausted but refusing to admit it. His little fists knead his eyes, mouth wide open in a deep yawn, still stained red from his favorite popsicles.
Then someone brings out sparklers.
One of the Shadows crouches beside him with the box. Phillip spots it immediately.
“Nope.”
The man looks over. “Sir, they’re just sparklers.”
“I damn well know what they are.”
“I was gonna help him.”
Phillip sets down his beer, hands on his hips, “You got kids?”
The Shadow pauses. “No, sir.”
“Then your résumé for this position is looking weak.”
And when the real fireworks start, the three of you end up together on a blanket in the grass.
The first boom rolls over the property. Your son jumps.
Phillip immediately pulls him against his chest, one big hand cupping the back of his head while the other covers one little ear, pressing the other safely against Phillip’s shirt.
“Hey.”
Baby looks up. Phillip kisses his hair gently.
“You alright?”
He nods, but his little fingers stay curled tightly into Phillip’s collar. Another explosion rattles somewhere overhead. His little body flinches.
Phillip holds him closer.
“Yeah,” his voice is soft now, “Sometimes they make me nervous too, buddy.”
Wide blue eyes look up at his dad, “Really?”
“Sure,” Phillip rubs his back, “Loud noises’ll get anybody.”
You catch the way he looks off quietly, knowing the depth to his statement. You move closer until your shoulder rests against Phillip’s.
His free arm reaches around your back and pulls you snug against his side.
Another firework opens above the trees.
Red.
Gold.
White spilling down through the dark.
“Daddy’s got you,” Phillip says it to his son.
But his arm tightens around your too.
And I think that is why the Fourth becomes so important to him over the years.
At first, it is patriotism.
Beer. Smoke. Old Marines getting drunk around a bonfire while his beautiful wife sits in his lap.
Then she is carrying his baby. Then that baby is running around the yard with the same men Phillip once went to war beside.
Every year, the holiday gets a little louder.
A little softer. A little more his. And Phillip looks around at the people filling his backyard and thinks there should always be more of this.
More chairs around the fire. More dogs sleeping beneath the picnic table. More babies running through the grass.
More years where his wife is close enough to touch and everybody he loves knows exactly where to find him.
For a man who spends so much of his life leaving home, maybe that is Phillip’s favorite part.
I feel like this might've been answered in the past, but does baby know about Shadow Company and what his dad does? Philip kept it from reader until they found out themselves but would philip keep this lie for baby since hes too young?
Oh, he definitely knows about Shadow Company.
He just knows about it in the very specific way a five-year-old knows anything about his parents’ jobs. Phillip realizes exactly what that means one Friday evening after you drop your son off for the weekend.
The backpack gets abandoned on the kitchen counter before the front door has even finished closing behind you. Phillip waits until he hears your car pull away before unzipping it, already knowing he will find half the contents of your house stuffed inside.
A little sweatshirt. Two toy cars. A crushed package of fruit snacks. A library book about sharks.
Some construction-paper thing covered in glue and glitter that immediately gets set somewhere safe because God help him if he loses it.
Then Phillip finds the worksheet.
It is folded badly beneath everything else, one corner bent and the paper softened from spending the day shoved inside a kindergarten backpack.
Across the top, surrounded by brightly colored drawings of doctors, firefighters, and teachers, are the words:
WHAT DOES YOUR PARENT DO FOR WORK?
Phillip opens it all the way. His eyebrows pull together.
Most of the page is black crayon.
There is a huge boxy vehicle taking up nearly half the sheet, with thick tires and dark windows. Three more rectangles trail behind it in a crooked line.
Beside the first one is a stick figure.
Blond hair. Black clothes. Sunglasses.
Phillip stares at it.
Where the hell had he even seen that?
“Hey, son.”
No answer.
Phillip takes the worksheet into the living room.
His kid is stretched across the rug on his stomach, little socked feet kicking idly behind him while two toy trucks crash repeatedly into the leg of the coffee table.
Phillip lowers into a squat beside him, forearms resting loosely over his knees.
The kid looks up. Phillip holds out the worksheet.
“What’s this, hmm?”
His son gives it half a glance before returning to his trucks.
“We did that at school.”
“Yeah? What’d you draw?”
That gets his attention. He pushes himself upright and scoots closer, one little hand landing on Phillip’s knee as he points proudly at the paper.
“That’s you.”
Phillip looks at the stick figure, “That me?”
“Yeah. At work.”
His son taps the big black rectangle, “And those are your trucks.”
Phillip looks down again.
Your trucks.
For a second, he genuinely cannot figure out where his son got the image.
Then it comes back to him.
A few months earlier, Phillip had been running late.
His weekend. His custody exchange. He had every intention of being out of headquarters before you arrived, and then one meeting became two and some problem overseas landed on his desk twenty minutes before he was supposed to leave.
He had finally called you.
Just bring him here, Darlin’. I’ll take him to my place when I’m done.
You had not been particularly impressed.
Phillip remembers stepping outside to meet you near the edge of the parking lot.
You were standing beside your car with your son perched on your hip, one arm underneath his little legs. Your purse hung from your shoulder, sunglasses pushed into your hair, and your mouth had that tight little line Phillip knew meant he should probably choose his next words carefully.
He had smiled anyway. “Hey, Sweetheart.”
“Don’t Sweetheart me. You said five o'clock."
“I know.”
“It’s five-thirty.”
“Technically, it’s five twenty-seven.”
Your eyes narrowed. Phillip immediately nodded.
“Right. Sorry.”
It was an actual apology, even if the faint smile at the corner of his mouth made you want to kill him. Your son had no idea why either of you cared what time it was.
He was busy looking past Phillip, squirming in your arms.
The motor pool behind him was busy.
A convoy had come in not long before you arrived, and several dark Shadow Company vehicles sat lined up across the concrete, huge tires streaked with road grime and dust. Operators moved around them unloading hard cases, equipment bags, helmets, things Phillip had no intention of explaining to a five-year-old.
The air stinks of exhaust from the diesel trucks. One of the engines was still running, a deep mechanical rumble vibrating faintly through the pavement.
“Daddy, look!” A small hand pointed straight over Phillip’s shoulder, “Your trucks!”
Phillip turned. Then laughed.
“You like em?”
“You have so many!”
By then he had forgotten all about the tension between his parents.
You lowered him onto his feet, and he immediately wandered as far toward the vehicles as your hand around the back of his shirt would allow.
Phillip crouched and caught him around the middle before he could get any ideas.
“Easy there.”
“Can I go in it?”
“Not today.”
His lower lip sticks out in a heartbreaking pout. “Why?”
“Trucks are too busy right now, Bud. Maybe next time, hey?”
He had taken his son’s little hand and walked him inside. Apparently, that was enough.
Months later, when somebody at school asked what his father did for work, that was the picture his brain pulled out.
Daddy standing in front of the big black trucks.
Phillip looks at the worksheet again. Something soft catches in his chest.
“What do you think I do at work?”
His son looks at him like this is obvious. “You’re the boss.”
Phillip’s mouth twitches.
“I’m the boss?”
“Yeah.”
Complete confidence. Phillip nods slowly.
“Well,” he glances back at the drawing, “Can’t argue with that.”
And honestly, that is about the extent of his son’s understanding of Shadow Company.
He has been to headquarters enough times that the novelty has mostly worn off.
Daddy’s office is big, but boring. Daddy sits behind his desk too much. Daddy talks on the phone too much. Everybody always needs Daddy for something.
The chair behind his desk spins, though, and that is significantly more interesting.
Phillip has caught him pushing off the desk with both feet, sending himself around and around until his little face starts losing color.
“Alright. Settle down.”
“I’m not even dizzy yet,” he lies with his whole little chest.
Phillip catches the back of the chair with one hand before another rotation.
“You puke in my office, you’re cleaning it.”
His son has no idea whether that is a real threat.
It is not.
Everybody at headquarters seems to know who Daddy is. That is another fact he accepts without question. People pass Phillip in the hallway and straighten slightly.
“Commander.”
“Morning, sir.”
“Boss.”
The kid just walks beside him with his hand wrapped around two of Phillip’s fingers, because obviously everybody knows Daddy.
A lot of Daddy’s friends dress the same too.
Black shirts. Black pants. Boots.
To a five-year-old, Shadow Company apparently has a very strict dress code.
There are trucks outside. Sometimes there are working dogs passing through with handlers, which briefly become the most important thing happening anywhere in the building.
“Can I pet him?”
“No, buddy. He’s working.”
“But he’s a dog.”
“Gotta let him do his job, Baby.” Phillip looks at the dog, who has not so much as glanced in their direction.
It seems like everyone is always busy at Daddy’s job.
Mostly, though, headquarters is meetings and phones and adults talking about things that make no sense.
The woman outside Phillip’s office improves the experience considerably by keeping candy in her desk.
Phillip knows about it. He pretends he does not.
He also knows exactly how much of Shadow Company does not look like that. That is the part he keeps away.
Phillip is carrying his son through one of the operations areas once, one strong arm tucked beneath the kid’s legs while his son rests comfortably against his chest, tired from spending most of the afternoon following his dad around.
Two Shadows are standing near an open doorway. Phillip hears the story before he reaches them.
“So he comes around the corner firing, and I’m thinking this crazy motherfucker has got about three seconds before Graves…”
Phillip’s hands move automatically. One palm covers each of his son’s ears. He pulls the little blond head snug against his chest as he walks past.
Then he looks at the operator. Does not say a word. Does not need to.
The Shadow sees the child in his arms.
His face changes, “Shit- I mean, Shoot. Sorry, sir.”
Phillip’s eyebrow rises. The man clears his throat.
“So this, uh... very unreasonable gentleman comes around the corner.”
The other Shadow is visibly trying not to laugh. “And then?”
The storyteller looks at Phillip. “There was a… disagreement.”
Phillip keeps walking. Only after they are well down the hallway does Phillip uncover his son’s ears.
The kid lifts his head, “What happened?”
Phillip adjusts him higher against his chest.
“Nothin’, buddy.”
That is the line. His son knows Shadow Company. Phillip has no problem with that.
Shadow Company is an actual business. There are offices and contracts and logistics and security jobs and training and people whose entire workday is probably more boring than anything a kindergartener could imagine.
His son can know Daddy owns a company. He can know Daddy used to be a Marine. He can know people call him Commander. He can know sometimes Daddy has to travel and sometimes Daddy comes home looking more tired than when he left.
What he does not need are the details. Not yet.
The operations Phillip personally joins. The places those cool trucks have been. What was inside some of those cases being unloaded the afternoon his son decided the convoy looked cool.
The conversations that stop when a little boy walks into the room. The doors Phillip never lets him through.
Phillip does not consider that lying. He considers it letting his son be five. Because one day he will not be five.
One day he will be fifteen, sitting alone somewhere with a phone in his hand. He will type Phillip Graves Shadow Company into a search bar.
And Phillip knows exactly what might come back.
Court cases. Investigations. Accusations. Government hearings. Photographs from places his son has never heard him talk about.
Articles with his father’s name sitting beside words that look nothing like the Daddy who made grilled cheese and complained about kindergarten backpacks being full of garbage while humming a George Strait song over the stove.
Maybe he will look at pictures of Commander Graves and wonder how that man fits inside the father he knows.
Phillip knows that conversation is waiting for him. He is not eager for it. But that is a problem for future Phillip.
Right now, his son nudges the worksheet toward him.
“You like my picture?”
Phillip looks down.
The enormous black convoy. The blond stick figure. The ridiculous sunglasses.Phillip reaches out and hooks one arm around his middle, tugging him close enough to press a kiss into his hair.
has either or tried to make the other jealous at all? 👀👀
Oh, absolutely. When you are married, jealousy is almost a game between you.
Not real jealousy. There is too much certainty beneath it for that.
You know exactly whose ring is on Phillip’s finger. He knows who is going home with him. Which means sometimes you can afford to be a little mean about it.
It starts because Phillip has been ignoring you all night. Not intentionally. That almost makes it worse.
It is one of those expensive political events held in a hotel ballroom, all low amber lighting and crystal glasses and men who keep appearing beside your husband because apparently Commander Graves cannot stand still for longer than thirty seconds without somebody needing something.
And Phillip looks unfairly good tonight.
Black tux fitted perfectly across his broad shoulders. White shirt crisp beneath it. Glimmering watch disappearing beneath one cuff every time he lifts his drink. His hair is neat, his jaw freshly shaved, wintergreen gum tucked into his cheek because he has already decided the champagne tastes like shit.
Every time he comes back to you, he touches you. It’s infuriating.
A palm against your waist. A kiss beneath your ear. His fingers brushing your wedding ring while he murmurs, “You alright, beautiful?”
Just enough affection to remind you that he knows you are there. But then somebody says, “Graves,” and your husband is gone again.
Eventually, you catch his wrist before he can disappear, pouting slightly, “Dance with me.”
Phillip glances toward the men waiting a few feet away. Then back at you. His thumb strokes your cheek.
“In a minute, Darlin’,” He kisses your forehead, “Promise.”
Twenty minutes later, you are still waiting. So when another man smiles and offers his hand, you take it.
Phillip notices almost immediately. You feel it before you see him. That awareness prickling across your skin.
When you look over your partner’s shoulder, Phillip is staring directly at you from across the ballroom.
He does not come over. Of course he does not.
One hand sits in his trouser pocket. Bourbon hangs loose between the fingers of the other. His expression remains perfectly composed while somebody speaks beside him.
Only his eyes betray him. Locked on you.
You smile sweetly. Phillip’s eyebrows rise. There is almost a question in it.
Really?
You move slightly closer to your dance partner. Phillip’s mouth curves.
Oh.
He knows exactly what you are doing.
The song is barely halfway finished when the man’s hand settles a little lower against your back.
Nothing inappropriate. Still enough.
Phillip sets down his drink.
Your stomach flips.
He crosses the ballroom slowly, shoulders cutting through the crowd, tux fitting beautifully over a body that suddenly looks much larger now that he is walking directly toward you.
Then his palm settles around your hip.
“Mind if I steal my wife?”
All Southern manners in that honey sweet voice. Warm smile. Not really a question.
A moment later, you are pressed against him.
Phillip’s hand swallows yours. His other arm wraps low around your back, holding you much closer than the dance requires.
You look up into blue eyes glittering with amusement.
“Finally found time for your wife?”
“You’re trouble.”
“You promised.”
“Mm,” His fingers flex against your waist, “So you found yourself a replacement?”
“He asked very nicely.”
Phillip gives you a slow look, one eyebrow raised, “You just couldn’t say no?”
“You looked real busy,” you coo in a sympathetic, mocking tone.
That gets a quiet laugh from deep in his chest. He bends until cigar smoke, bourbon, and his cologne fill your senses.
“Mean little thing.”
You smile, “But you came and got me.”
Phillip looks at you for a beat. Then that smug Graves grin appears.
“Baby, you wanted me watchin’ you so bad you practically put on a show.”
Heat climbs your throat, “That is not what happened.”
“No?”
His palm slides lower, spreading possessively across the small of your back.
“You ask your husband to dance. Husband makes you wait. So you go find the first handsome son of a bitch willing to put his hands on you while making damn sure I can see it.”
Your mouth twitches. Phillip’s eyes darken.
“You wanted my attention, Sweetheart, you could’ve just crawled into my lap.”
“Where’s the fun in that?”
Something shifts behind his expression as he shakes his head and exhales a laugh.
“Alright, Honey.”
You probably should not enjoy the way he says it. Because Phillip gets you back later.
He lets you relax first.
Dances with you again. Keeps one hand on your thigh through dinner. Presses his mouth to your shoulder whenever he passes behind your chair.
Then you catch him at the bar with a beautiful woman.
Phillip is technically doing nothing wrong. That is what makes it unbearable.
He is just being Phillip.
Jacket unbuttoned now, left behind on his chair. Sleeves showing a fraction more wrist. One hand planted casually against the bar as he bends his head to hear her over the music.
She says something. And Phillip fucking smiles.
That warm, wickedly charming smile that once convinced you to give him your number when you knew perfectly well he was trouble.
Then his eyes lift over her shoulder. Straight to you.
His smile deepens.
Asshole.
The woman laughs and touches his forearm. Phillip glances at her hand. Then back at you.
You lift your champagne in a tiny, furious toast.
His tongue presses briefly against the inside of his cheek.
The game lasts maybe another minute. Then he politely excuses himself.
By the time he reaches you, he is visibly pleased with himself.
He says nothing.
Just slides his palm across your lower back and leaves it there for the rest of the reception.
By the time the elevator doors close, you are practically vibrating.
His jacket hangs open now. Tie loosened slightly at the throat. One hand buried casually in his pocket like he has not spent the last hour deliberately driving his wife insane, his eyes glued to the red blinking numbers on the floor indicator as it ticks upwards.
Seven.
Eight.
Nine.
“You enjoyed that.”
“Enjoyed what?” You turn, “That woman practically had her teeth sunk into you.”
His mouth twitches, his head tilting as his eyebrows go up in shock, still watching the elevator numbers count up.
“Oh, now you noticed?”
You scoff, “You are such an asshole.”
“Interesting.”
He finally looks at you. Blue eyes drag slowly down your body.
“Thought we were allowed to make friends tonight.”
Your mouth falls open. Phillip smiles.
“You did that on purpose.”
“Did what, Honey?”
“You know exactly what.”
“Baby, I was-.”
“Flirting-” You interrupt.
“-Networking,” He finishes, “Very important part of the job.”
“Praticically eye fucking.” You mutter with a huff.
Phillip steps closer. The elevator suddenly feels much smaller.
“You danced with another man.”
“You ignored me for an hour.”
“So you punished me?”
“You seemed busy.”
“Yeah.”
He takes another step. His chest nearly touches yours.
“Until some asshole put his hand on my wife.”
Your stomach drops pleasantly. The elevator doors open, finally stopping on your floor.
You barely make it inside the suite.
The door closes behind Phillip and you grab his tie. You pull him down hard enough that his back hits the door when you kiss him.
For half a second he seems surprised. Then Phillip laughs against your mouth.
Low. Breathless. Dangerously pleased.
“Something funny?”
His hands close around your waist, “Nah.”
He turns you so fast your own back meets the door.
“Just wondering where all this was when you were smiling up at your little dance partner.”
His body crowds yours. Broad chest against you. One thigh sliding between your legs. His tie hangs crooked where you have pulled it loose, and a piece of his carefully styled hair has fallen over his forehead.
You grab at his jacket edges, fingers running over the buttons, “Jealous?”
His answer is another kiss. Harder this time.
His hand cups the back of your neck while the other drags your hip against him.
You taste bourbon and leftover cigar smoke. Feel the faint scrape of evening stubble against your chin. The polished man from downstairs is disappearing beneath your hands.
“You looked real pretty out there,” he mutters against your mouth.
“Thank you.”
“Wasn’t a compliment.”
You laugh. His teeth catch your bottom lip.
“You knew I was watching.”
“Maybe.”
“You kept looking at me.”
His mouth moves down your jaw, “Every damn time he touched you.”
Your fingers slide into his hair, “Maybe I wanted you to come get me.”
Phillip stills. Then he lifts his head. The look he gives you sends heat straight through your stomach.
“Yeah?”
You swallow. “You were busy.”
“Not anymore.”
His hands find your thighs beneath your dress and lift.
You gasp, arms wrapping automatically around his shoulders as your legs close around his waist.
Phillip carries you away from the door without breaking the kiss.
His jacket hits the floor somewhere near the entryway. Your shoes disappear somewhere else.
By the time he reaches the bedroom, his tie is hanging open around his neck and your lipstick is smeared across his mouth.
He sets you on the edge of the bed. Then just stands there.
For one second. Breathing hard. Looking at you.
You are hot and shakey, dress pushed high over your thighs, hair already coming loose from whatever careful style took an hour earlier.
Phillip’s eyes move over every inch.
Slow. Hungry. Possessive enough that your pulse kicks.
“You happy now?” you ask.
His hands settle on your knees.
“No.”
Your breath catches. Phillip pushes them apart just enough to step between them.
“Spent all night looking at you in this damn dress.”
His thumbs stroke slowly along the insides of your thighs.
“Then I gotta watch another man put his hands on it.”
“You sound jealous.”
“I am jealous.”
No joke this time. His hands slide higher.
“I know what men think when they look at you,” his jaw tightens, “Because I think it too.”
That hits differently. Phillip bends over you, one hand braced beside your hip.
“I know exactly what that son of a bitch was wondering while he had his hands around my wife.”
His mouth brushes yours, “What you look like when somebody gets this dress off.”
Your fingers curl into his shirt.
“How sweet you taste.”
Another kiss.
“What kinda sounds you make when somebody finally gets you alone.”
Heat burns through you as you suck in a breath, chasing his lips before he pulls away just enough to keep you at a distance. Phillip watches every bit of it happen. Then his grin returns.
“Awe, would ya look at that.”
You shove at his chest. He grabs your wrist and kisses the inside of it.
You huff, “You’re awful.”
“Your fault.”
“My fault?”
“You started this little game downstairs, Darlin’.”
His mouth moves along your wrist.
“Now you got my attention.”
He kneels in front of the bed. Slowly.
His hands slide beneath the skirt of your dress, pushing the fabric higher as his mouth presses against your knee.
Then your thigh.
Phillip looks up at you from between your legs, dress shirt rumpled, tie hanging loose, blue eyes dark beneath mussed hair.
The sight alone nearly undoes you.
“You still mad at me?”
“A little.”
His mouth brushes higher, “Good.”
“Good?”
Phillip smiles against your skin.
“Means I got some apologizing left to do.”
Later, the hotel room is dark except for city light slipping through the curtains. His tux is scattered from the entryway to the bedroom. Your dress is half hanging off the chair.
Phillip is sprawled half over you, hair destroyed, chest bare against your damp skin, one heavy arm wrapped possessively around your stomach while you drag your nails across his scalp sleepily.
His breathing has finally slowed. Every few seconds, his mouth presses another lazy kiss against your stomach.
You trace a finger along the light hair dusting his forearm.
“So who won?”
Phillip does not open his eyes.
“Me.”
You slap at his shoulder lightly with a scoff.
Phillip chuckles and brings your knuckles to his mouth, and kisses your wedding ring.
“But you started it.”
“You ignored me.”
Phillip’s arm tightens around you, rubbing his stubbled cheek against your stomach.
“My mistake,” one last slow kiss against your skin, “Won’t make that one twice.”
Just a random question because im kinda dying to know- do u have a kinda idea in mind on how the ex husband!Philip graves stuff is gonna end up? Is she gonna get back with him? Does she marry someone else?
Also sorry if this is weirdly worded or u dont have an answer and also I love ur work sm.. I just read the one about if their son remembered the divorce and its so well written and as a child of divorced parents I feel REPRESENTED i love your work💖💖
First of all, thank you so much 😭💖 Especially for saying the stuff with their son felt real to you. That genuinely means a lot.
But honestly? I have no idea how this series ends yet😭
I go back and forth constantly.
Part of me desperately wants Phillip and Reader to find their way back to each other because they obviously still love each other, and I think rebuilding the relationship from scratch could be SO good. Give that man another baby RIGHT NOW
But I also understand everyone who is like, “Maam, you divorced that man for a reason.” 💀
There is something really bittersweet about loving someone forever and still realizing you are better apart.
So I genuinely have not decided. I mean, we are at 50k words and they JUST hooked up and ive got at least a few more chapters already drafted.
I’m curious what you guys want though because I have gotten VERY mixed opinions.
Should ex-wife!reader and Phillip get back together??
I recently binged the full series and omfg, this is currently my fav 😛🥹
First vacation after the divorce? I cannot imagine how that went down with baby, would they have stuck it out and went together or would it be like 2 separate trips?
that’s if they go on vacation!!
I think their first real post-divorce “vacation” is Phillip’s sister’s wedding. About a year after the divorce.
Phillip is the best man, their son is the ring bearer, and reader is still very much invited because his sister never stopped considering his ex-wife family.
They travel separately.
Phillip has been at the venue since early that morning, already dressed in his tux and being pulled in six different directions. His sister needs something. The groom needs something. Somebody cannot find the rings. One of the groomsmen has apparently forgotten how cufflinks work.
And somewhere in all of that, Phillip is supposed to get a three-year-old dressed and down the aisle without losing either the child or the rings.
So you bring Baby to him.
Phillip knows she is coming. He does not think much about what that means.
Not until he sees her.
He is standing in one of the hotel suites down by the ballroom where the groomsmen have settled to get ready. The other men have left to sneak some celebratory shots before the event, to which Phillip politely declined. He’s spritzing on some cologne and fixing his cuff when someone knocks.
“Door’s open.” He barely looks up.
Their son comes barreling through first.
“Daddy!”
Phillip squats and catches him automatically, one arm scooping him up against his side.
“There’s my little guy. You ready to-”
Then he looks toward the doorway. And forgets what he was saying.
You are standing there with the little garment bag Baby’s suit came in draped over one arm, your purse over the other shoulder.
Done up for the wedding. Really done up.
Phillip has seen you dressed beautifully hundreds of times. Hell, he married you.
He has zipped dresses up your back. Fastened necklaces around your throat. Watched you sit on the bathroom counter in nothing but your underwear while you curled your hair because you were running late.
But he has not seen you like this since the divorce.
Not for him. Not beside him.
Just beautiful because you are going somewhere beautiful.
And God, you are stunning.
His first stupid thought is that he bought you earrings almost exactly like those once. His second is that whatever dress you picked should be illegal.
Not because it is revealing. It does not need to be.
It fits you. That is enough.
The fabric follows the shape of your waist before falling around your legs, and your hair is done in a way that exposes the curve of your neck Phillip used to kiss while you complained that he was going to ruin your makeup.
He remembers doing exactly that. More than once.
You clear your throat, “Phillip?”
He realizes he has been staring. Their son pats his cheek.
“Yeah.”
His voice comes out lower than intended. You smile slightly.
“You okay?”
No. Not remotely.
Phillip clears his throat, too, “Yeah.”
His eyes betray him and move over you again, “You look…”
Pretty sounds insulting. Beautiful feels too intimate. He settles on the truth.
“Jesus Christ.”
Your brows rise. A laugh escapes you.
“Thank you?”
Phillip finally remembers he is holding a child.
He adjusts your son higher against his side and forces his attention onto the small suit bag in your hand.
“That his stuff?”
“Everything should be in there. Shirt, vest, bow tie, shoes.”
“You packed backup clothes?”
“Of course I packed backup clothes.”
“Knew I married you for a reason.”
Silence.
It happens so fast. The old phrase leaves his mouth before the divorce catches up with it.
Your expression flickers. Phillip’s does too.
He looks down at his son and pretends to inspect the tiny boutonniere pinned to the garment bag.
“Anyway.”
Smooth, Graves. Very smooth.
You hand him the bag. Your fingers brush. That does not help.
Neither does the perfume. It is familiar.
Not the exact one you wore when you were married, but close enough that some deeply trained part of Phillip’s brain recognizes the combination of perfume and your skin before anything else.
He wants to put his hand around your waist. The instinct is immediate.
C’mere.
Let me look at you.
Turn around for me.
Let me see the whole thing, Darlin’.
Instead, he grips the hanger.
“You need me to keep him until the ceremony?”
“Yes. Your sister wants him for pictures with the wedding party.”
“Got it.”
Your son twists in his arms and reaches toward you.
“Mommy looks pretty.”
Phillip looks at you. You smile at Baby.
“Thank you, sweetheart.”
Phillip’s jaw works, “Yeah.”
Your eyes flick toward him. He should stop.
Instead, he says quietly, “Your Mama’s real pretty.”
There is a pause.
Not long. No, long enough.
Your eyes meet his. Phillip feels something pull tight beneath his bowtie.
He used to be allowed to say more.
He used to walk up behind you before events like this, put both hands around your waist, and look at you through the mirror while telling you exactly what he thought of the dress. Usually with enough detail that you accused him of trying to make you late.
Now he is standing three feet away holding your son and trying not to stare at your mouth and the way your lipgloss shimmers in the sunlight from the window.
“You clean up alright too,” you say.
Phillip gives you a faint smile, “Alright?”
You put your hands on your hips, “Don’t push it.”
“Oh, I’m pushin’ it.”
The words come out soft. Your expression changes. Just slightly.
Phillip looks away first. Because his sister is getting married. Because his son needs to be dressed.
Because he has speeches to give and photographs to take and an entire day ahead of him where he will repeatedly have to remember that the beautiful woman sitting with his family is no longer his wife.
He shifts Baby onto his other hip, “You should go. Before somebody comes looking for me.”
You nod, “Okay.”
But neither of you moves immediately. Phillip watches you smooth one hand over your dress.
Nervous habit. He remembers that too. How could he not?
Then you glance toward your son, “Be good for your Daddy.”
“I’m good.”
“Debatable,” Phillip says.
You roll your eyes. And then, without thinking, you step closer and fix Phillip’s bow tie.
His whole body goes still.
Your fingers straighten the fabric at his throat, then smooth the lapel of his tux, picking a loose hair off the expensive fabric.
“There.”
Phillip looks down at you. Close enough now that he could kiss your forehead without moving much at all.
Close enough to remember exactly what it felt like to have you getting him ready while he complained that weddings took too damn long and that he couldn't wait to get you upstairs to your shared hotel suite.
Your hand lingers against his chest for half a second. Then drops.
“There,” you say again, quieter.
“Thanks, Sweetheart.”
Neither of you corrects that one. You leave a minute later.
Phillip stands in the doorway with your son on his hip and watches you walk down the hotel corridor until you disappear around the corner.
“Daddy?”
“Hmm?”
“Mommy looks pretty.”
Phillip looks down at him. A little laugh leaves his chest, but there is not much humor in it.
“Yeah, buddy,” He adjusts the tiny collar beneath his son’s chin, “She sure is.”
And suddenly the hardest part of his sister’s wedding is not the speech, corralling the groomsmen together, or keeping his son from putting the wedding rings in his mouth. It is knowing that in a few hours, he is going to watch you walk into the ballroom looking like that.
And for the first time in years, he will not be the man waiting at the other end for you.
So I’ve spent the majority of the day reading through you masterlist and you’ve made me a Graves fan. I love your characterization of him. It feels organic. It’s painful reading through the divorce but it’s my understanding that finding their way back to each other is the end goal.
Well, until then, those pre and post divorce snippets you give us are so much fun to read. In the chapter where he tells her she’s already moving on and he hasn’t even so much as looked at another woman got me thinking. What if each time a woman flirts with him or outright asks him out he still says he’s taken or he’s married even though he’s not anymore. He just can’t bring himself to do it. But what about after he sees her on the date? Does he try then?
I love everything about your series. It’s fantastic!
First of all, thank you so much. 😭 I am so happy you have been enjoying the series and my characterization of Phillip. And yes, them finding their way back to each other is absolutely the end goal. I could never leave them divorced forever after putting everyone through this much emotional suffering.
Unless… Idk what do yall think? Lemme know.
But I love this idea because I completely agree that Phillip would continue calling himself taken long after he technically is not.
At first, it is probably automatic.
A woman approaches him at a bar while he is waiting for a contact, leans against the counter beside him, and asks if she can buy him a drink.
Phillip barely looks away from the door.
“Appreciate it, but I’m married.”
The words leave his mouth before he even thinks about them. Then his thumb brushes the bare place on his ring finger.
He does not correct himself.
After a while, it stops being an accident.
He knows he is divorced. He signed the papers. He watched you remove your ring, packed part of his life into boxes, and moved into a condo where your side of the bed remains untouched because he still cannot sleep comfortably in the middle.
He just does not feel single.
Single implies availability.
Phillip is not available.
He might not have a wife anymore, but his heart has apparently failed to receive that information.
So when someone flirts with him, he still says he is taken.
Sometimes he says it because it ends the conversation quickly. Sometimes because telling a stranger he is divorced invites questions he has no interest in answering.
Mostly, though, it is because saying, “I’m married,” lets him pretend for half a second that he still is.
One of the Shadows overhears him at a hotel bar once.
The woman leaves with an apologetic smile, and Phillip returns to his drink like nothing happened.
The Shadow hesitates, coughing into his fist before speaking.
“Thought you were divorced, sir.”
Phillip slowly turns his head.
The man immediately regrets speaking.
“Did I ask?”
“No, sir.”
“Then I reckon you oughta keep thinkin’ quietly.”
He turns back toward the bar. Conversation over.
But there is a difference between refusing other women because he still feels married and watching you sit across from another man.
The idea of you dating gets under Phillip’s skin long before he ever sees it happen.
You mention during drop-off that you have plans Saturday night and ask if he can keep your son until Sunday morning. Phillip agrees too quickly.
“Yeah. That’s fine.”
He does not ask what the plans are. He will not stand in your driveway and let you watch him bleed over something you are perfectly entitled to do. But after you leave, the thought follows him into the house.
A date.
It has to be.
By the time Saturday arrives, Phillip has built the entire evening in his head.
You standing in front of the mirror, deciding between two dresses. Reaching for the perfume he bought you. Fastening earrings he once watched you unwrap on an anniversary that apparently belongs to neither of you now.
He imagines the man waiting when you walk into the restaurant.
God, he knows exactly what that man is thinking.
Phillip knows how men look at you when they think he is not watching. He has caught those glances for years. The pause at your legs. The eyes following the line of your waist. The little spark of interest when you laugh and lean closer.
Except now Phillip is not there to meet the man’s gaze and make him remember himself.
The bastard gets to stare.
Gets to sit across from Phillip’s wife and wonder what she looks like beneath her dress.
His ex-wife, he corrects bitterly.
It does nothing to help.
The man is probably leaning in too close, smiling while he tries to figure out whether you are lonely enough to let him touch you. A dog nosing around a door that used to belong to Phillip, sniffing at a life he has no business trying to enter.
And you might let him.
That is the part Phillip cannot get past.
While he gives your son a bath, he imagines someone making you laugh. While he cuts grapes and listens to a serious story about school, he pictures another man watching your lips leave a red print on the edge of your wineglass. While he reads bedtime stories, he keeps losing his place because he wonders whether that stranger has reached across the table yet.
Touched your hand.
Asked how a woman like you is single.
Do you say Phillip’s name?
Do you tell him you were married once, like the two of you are already old history?
Or do you look down at your drink and say it simply did not work out?
After your son falls asleep, Phillip remains beside him in the dark.
The little boy is warm against his side, one fist curled loosely into Phillip’s shirt. This should be enough to steady him.
It is not.
Phillip does not know where you are. He used to always know where you were because you came home to him. Now another man might be walking you to your car.
Phillip knows that moment too.
He knows how the man will slow down beside the driver’s door, dragging out the goodbye while he decides whether to risk it. He knows the way men watch for permission.
Worse, Phillip knows what you look like when you want to be kissed.
The slight lift of your chin. Your eyes dropping to a man’s mouth. That quiet second where you stop moving and wait.
The thought makes something ugly twist beneath his ribs, his heart stuttering and his stomach churning like he’s going to be sick.
What if the man recognizes it? What if he puts his hand on your waist?
What if you let him?
Phillip stands so abruptly the chair scrapes against the floor.
He checks that his son is still asleep before leaving the room and quietly closing the door.
The house feels enormous without you in it.
He opens the fridge and grabs a beer, stares at it, then puts it back in the fridge, closing the door a little too hard.
You are allowed to date. He repeats that to himself until the words lose meaning.
You are allowed to sit across from another man. Let him buy you dinner. Let him make you laugh. Let him think he has a chance at keeping you.
You are even allowed to kiss him.
Phillip grips the edge of the counter.
There is no actual man for him to hate.
No face to study. No background to pull. No flaws to find and quietly use as proof that he is not good enough for you.
Only an empty place beside you that Phillip’s mind fills with someone safer.
Someone kind. Someone who comes home every night without blood beneath his fingernails. Someone you would never have to forgive.
That is what finally wounds him. Not the thought of another man wanting you. Every man with eyes wants you.
It is the possibility that you might look at someone else and realize loving him does not have to hurt this badly.
When you arrive Sunday morning, Phillip searches you before he can stop himself.
Your mouth. Your neck. The expression in your eyes.
You catch him staring.
“What?”
“Nothin’.”
He hands you the overnight bag, “Have fun?”
“It was fine.”
Fine tells him nothing. It tells him everything.
Phillip watches you buckle your son into the car and feels jealousy settle inside him like a sickness.
You might not have gone on a date at all. He knows that.
It no longer matters. His imagination has already watched another man touch his wife.
You are allowed to move on. So is he.
That thought feels less like freedom and more like betrayal.
Still, when a woman asks Phillip to dinner after her contract is renewed with Shadow Company a few days later, he says yes.
She is beautiful. Intelligent. Confident enough not to be intimidated by his money or the men surrounding him.
Exactly the kind of woman people would expect Phillip Graves to date.
He agrees because he is angry. Because he wants to prove that you are not the only person capable of moving forward.
Because some ugly, wounded part of him wants you to hear about it and feel even half of what he felt watching you smile at someone else.
He regrets it before the evening begins.
Phillip sits in his truck outside the restaurant for several minutes with both hands resting on the steering wheel.
He has faced men carrying rifles with less hesitation.
His phone is beside him.
Your contact is still pinned at the top, though the last message between you is only about your son’s school schedule.
For one pathetic second, he thinks about calling.
Not to ask you anything. Just to hear your voice and give himself a reason to leave.
Then his date walks past the windshield toward the entrance.
Phillip gets out.
He tries. He really does.
He holds the door. Pulls out her chair. Orders drinks. Gives her the same polished attention that has convinced politicians, executives, and military officials that they are the most important person in the room.
He is charming because Phillip does not know how not to be.
But none of it reaches him.
She touches his wrist while laughing, and his first thought is that you always touched the inside of it, right beneath his watch.
She orders dessert, and he remembers the way you used to claim you did not want one before eating half of his.
She asks what he does when he is not working.
Phillip nearly laughs.
You would have laughed. You would have told her he works when he is not working.
The comparisons keep coming.
Her smile is not yours. Her perfume is too floral. Her hand feels wrong against his arm.
There is nothing wrong with her. That might be the worst part. She is lovely, and Phillip sits across from her wishing she were someone else.
Eventually, she finishes her drink and sets down her wineglass firmly.
“There’s a woman.”
Phillip’s gaze lifts. It is not a question.
He leans back in his chair, jaw shifting around the wintergreen gum in his cheek.
“There was.”
“That isn’t what I said.”
Smart woman.
Phillip looks toward the window.
Outside, headlights pass over the glass. For a moment, he sees your reflection instead of his own. You sitting beside him in restaurants like this, kicking his ankle beneath the table when his hand wandered too high under your dress.
“Yeah,” he says finally, nodding once with a sigh.
The woman studies him, “Does she know?”
“That I’m here?”
“That you’re still in love with her.”
Phillip’s mouth tightens. “She knows enough.”
Again, not quite an answer.
He pays for dinner and apologizes. Genuinely.
He does not invite the woman home. He does not kiss her goodnight or ask to see her again.
When she leaves, Phillip remains outside the restaurant with his hands in his pockets, watching her car disappear into traffic.
He should feel relieved. Instead, he feels disloyal.
That is the ridiculous part.
You divorced him. You are dating other people. He did nothing wrong.
And yet, when he gets home, he stands in the dark kitchen feeling like he has betrayed his wife.
After that, he does not try again. Not seriously.
He can flirt when the situation calls for it. Phillip is naturally charming, and he knows how to turn it on when he wants information or needs someone to relax around him.
But it is performance.
There is a difference between making a woman swoon and wanting her. Phillip has no interest in crossing that line. Not while he still wakes reaching toward your side of the bed.
Not while your photograph remains hidden in his desk. Not while every version of the future he can tolerate still ends with you coming home.
Seeing you on a date does not make Phillip move on. It makes him briefly attempt to outrun the fact that he cannot.
And then it confirms something he already knew.
The marriage might be over.
His fidelity to you is not.
He still tells women he is taken.
Only now, when they ask where his wife is, his answer is quieter.
When Graves was in hospital and reader was called? What about the opposite post-divorce?
There's some sort of emergency and he's still the emergency contact. You couldn't bring yourself to change it. He appears before you even realize he was called.
violently needing a man to kiss my forehead rn.
-
The emergency contact survives the divorce.
You do not mean for it to.
There are simply too many other things to change. Bank accounts. Insurance. School forms. The names attached to a life that once seemed impossible to divide.
Somewhere in your medical records, Phillip remains.
Then your appendix ruptures on a Thursday night. About a year after the divorce.
You remember the pain doubling you over at work. You remember an ambulance and a nurse asking questions beneath lights bright enough to hurt. After that, everything dissolves into fragments.
A mask over your face.
Someone saying surgery.
Your son’s name leaving your mouth.
Then nothing.
When you wake, the hospital room is dim and unfamiliar.
Rain trembles against the window with the blinds shut and drawn. The monitor beside you glows green, keeping time with the slow mechanical beat of your heart. Your mouth feels stuffed with cotton, and the lower half of your body seems to belong to someone else.
There is a man sitting beside your bed.
For several seconds, you cannot make his face settle into place.
Broad shoulders hunched forward. Black T-shirt wrinkled beneath a jacket. Hands clasped so tightly between his knees that his knuckles have gone pale.
Then he lifts his head, tilting it slightly as you blink sleep from your eyes.
“Phillip?”
The sound of your voice pulls him out of the chair.
“There she is.”
He is squatting beside your bed before you have fully opened your eyes, one hand finding your hair and smoothing it away from your forehead. His face is drawn with exhaustion, blue eyes shadowed and fixed on you like he has been waiting hours for proof that you are still in there.
“Hey, Sweetheart.”
His palm cups your cheek. You turn into it without thinking. Phillip’s breath catches.
“What are you doing here?”
“They called me.”
You knit your brows together in confusion, “Who did?”
“The hospital.”
You frown at him, “Why?”
His thumb brushes slowly beneath your eye. “Still got me listed as your emergency contact.”
“Oh.”
You think about that for a moment. Or you try to. Thoughts are slippery things right now.
Every time you reach for one, it slides somewhere else.
“Our baby.”
He shushes you softly, shaking his head, “He’s alright.”
You relax back into the pillow, releasing a pent up breath.
“He was with me when they called. Dropped him off with my mom before I came here.”
“You left him?”
“With his grandmother,” he corrects gently. “He’s asleep. She told him you had a stomachache and the doctors were helping you.”
“Did he cry?”
“A little.”
Your eyes fill before you can stop them. Phillip’s expression softens.
“Hey. None of that.” He stokes your cheek again when your lip quivers.
“I scared him.”
“You didn’t do anything.”
His voice is certain enough to make it true.
“You’ll be home before he knows what to do with all the attention she’s giving him.”
You stare at Phillip through the haze.
His hair is messy and half pushed back, like he had been running his hands through it while sitting by your bedside. His boots are not properly laced. He is not wearing his watch.
He must have moved quickly.
“How long have you been here?”
He shrugs and rubs his eyes, “Few hours.”
“You came fast.”
“Yeah.”
“Because they called?”
Phillip looks at you strangely.
“Because it was you.”
The medication makes the answer sink deeper than it should. Your eyes drift closed again.
You feel his fingers move over your hair, slow and careful. When you open them, he is still watching you.
“You brought my bag?”
It sits beneath the chair. Your overnight bag, slightly overfilled, but packed nonetheless.
Phillip glances toward it.
“Stopped by your place.”
“You went inside?”
“Still know the code.”
“You remembered?”
His mouth tightens faintly. “I remember everything about that house.”
Something aches beneath the medication that has nothing to do with the stitches in your stomach.
“What did you pack?”
“Clothes. Charger. Toothbrush. That blue bathrobe you like.”
You blink at him.
“You went through my underwear.”
“I packed three pairs.”
“You looked at them?”
“Had to pick them up, Darlin’,” A small, crooked smile pulls at his mouth, “Did my best to remain professional.”
You laugh, then immediately wince. Phillip’s humor vanishes.
“Easy.”
His hand settles over your side, nowhere near the incision, just resting there as though he can hold the pain still through the blanket.
“You’re not supposed to make me laugh.”
“Wasn’t trying.”
“You’re funny sometimes.”
“Don’t spread that around.”
You smile sleepily.
“There’s my girl,” he whispers softly.
The words come out before he can stop them.
Phillip goes quiet. Your smile fades more slowly.
“You still call me that.”
His gaze drops to the blanket as he works his fingers through his hair, “Sometimes.”
“When?”
“When you’re not around.”
The honesty might have startled you if you were fully awake. Instead, you simply stare at him.
“What else do you call me when I’m not around?”
Phillip gives you a tired look. He chuckles and sighs.
“You’re high.”
“I know.”
“You’re not gonna remember this.”
“Mm, probably not.”
That is why he answers.
“My wife.”
Your heart monitor speeds up by a few soft beats. Phillip notices.
His mouth twists without humor, “Thing’s a snitch.”
“I’m not your wife.”
“No.”
His fingers smooth over the blanket covering your hip, “I know.”
The sadness in his voice is quiet enough that you almost miss it.
A nurse enters to check your vitals. She smiles when she sees your eyes open.
“Good. Your husband must be relieved.”
The word falls heavily into the room. Phillip’s hand stills.
“Ex-husband,” he corrects her.
The nurse looks embarrassed, “I’m sorry.”
“It’s alright.”
He says it too quickly, waving his hand dismissively.
She asks about your pain. Phillip answers before you can.
“She gets nauseous from that medication.”
He knows the dosage you usually tolerate. He knows your blood pressure runs low. He knows you hate swallowing large pills and will insist you can manage anyway.
The nurse leaves. You look at him.
“You still know all my stuff.”
Phillip sits back down with a groan, “Hard thing to forget.”
“You forgot our anniversary once.”
“Missed it,” he corrects, rolling his eyes. “Didn’t forget.”
“You sent flowers.”
“Sent a new car too.”
“You were in another country.”
“Still knew what day it was, didn't I?”
His hand reaches for yours again. His thumb moves automatically over the place where your wedding ring used to sit.
This time, he catches himself.
He begins to pull away. You close your fingers around his.
Phillip’s eyes lift.
You turn your head towards him, eyes lazy and glassy, “Don’t.”
“Don’t what, Honey?”
“Let go.”
Something in his face opens. Only slightly.
He shifts his chair closer until his knee touches the bed.
“They asked me what I was to you, you know.” he says after a moment.
You blink slowly, “Who?”
“The surgeon.”
“What did you say?”
Phillip looks down at your intertwined hands.
“Told him I used to be your husband.”
Used to be.
The words are small enough to fit easily into the room, but they seem to take all the air with them.
“You didn’t have to come.”
“I know.”
He says it gently this time.
“I was on my way before they finished telling me what happened.”
Your throat tightens.
“You had our son.”
“Yeah.”
“You took him to your mom.”
“Yeah.”
“And went to my house.”
“Yeah.”
“And packed my underwear.”
That earns the faintest smile. “Three pairs.”
“You still came.”
Phillip studies you.
“You still called me.”
“I didn’t.”
“Some part of you did.”
You look toward your hands, “I couldn’t change it.”
His thumb stops moving. “The form?”
“Your name.”
Phillip does not breathe. The medication loosens the confession before pride can catch it.
“I kept looking at the little box, and I couldn’t make you nobody.”
His face breaks. Not dramatically. Phillip is too controlled for that, even exhausted.
But his eyes close, and his fingers tighten around yours like the sentence has cut somewhere deep.
“I was never nobody,” he says quietly.
“I know.”
“You divorced me.”
“I know.”
“You were supposed to pick somebody else.”
“I didn’t want somebody else.”
The heart monitor quickens again. Neither of you looks at it.
Phillip leans forward, forearms resting carefully beside you. His face is close now. Close enough that you can see the exhaustion in every line of it.
“I couldn’t get through the doors,” he says.
“What doors?”
“Surgery.”
His voice is rough.
“They took you back, and I couldn’t follow. Couldn’t tell them I was your husband. Couldn’t make anybody tell me more than they were legally allowed to.”
His fingers brush your cheek.
“I can command an entire company,” he says quietly. “I can get a plane in the air in ten minutes and put men anywhere in the world.”
His thumb returns to the bare place on your finger.
“But some nurse asked if I was family, and all I could tell her was that I used to be.”
“You are family.”
The answer leaves you easily. Phillip stares at you.
“You can’t say things like that right now.”
“Why?”
“Because you’re drugged up.”
“So?”
“So you’re gonna wake up tomorrow and not remember giving me things I’ve been trying not to want.”
The truth of it sits bare between you. You lift your hand and touch his face anyway.
His stubble scratches your palm. Phillip closes his eyes and turns into the touch before remembering himself.
“I miss you,” you whisper.
His eyes open. He shakes his head slowly, “Baby…”
“I do.”
“You don’t know what you’re saying.”
“I know you came.”
Your fingers slide behind his neck. Phillip does not move away, but every muscle in him goes tense.
“You always come when I need you.”
“Don’t.”
His voice breaks around the word.
You pull him closer. Your noses brush.
Phillip’s gaze drops to your mouth, and for one suspended second, neither of you remembers the divorce.
You tilt your face. Your lips barely touch his. Phillip inhales sharply.
Then his hand closes gently around your wrist.
“No.”
He draws back only an inch. You frown at him.
“You don’t want to kiss me?”
The question seems to hurt him.
“That ain’t the problem.”
“Then kiss me. Just a little.”
His thumb strokes the inside of your wrist.
“I can’t take something you might not remember giving me tomorrow.”
Your eyes burn. “I’d remember you.”
“Maybe.”
His forehead lowers carefully against yours.
“But I need you to choose me when you’re clear enough to know what it costs.”
The monitor keeps counting your heart between you. Phillip presses a kiss to your forehead instead.
His mouth lingers there, warm and unsteady.
“You scared me,” he whispers.
“I’m okay.”
“You are now.”
His hand cups the back of your head.
“For a few hours, I didn’t know if the last thing I’d ever be to you was your ex-husband.”
You close your eyes. “What are you now?”
Phillip is quiet for a long time.
“The man sitting here.”
“That’s all?”
“For tonight.”
His hand reaches for the blanket, drawing it carefully higher over you. He tucks the edge around your shoulder the way he used to when you were sick, fingertips lingering against your skin.
You catch his hand before he can retreat.
“Stay close.”
“How close?”
The old question makes your chest ache. You move your hand toward the narrow space beside your head.
“Ex-wife close.”
A sad smile touches his mouth. “Don’t know the rules for that one.”
“Make them up.”
Phillip rests his head carefully beside yours, still seated in the chair, his cheek near your temple. One arm stretches across the mattress so you can hold his hand against your chest.
He does not kiss your mouth. He kisses your hair. Your forehead. The corner of your eye when the medication makes it damp.
Every time you drift, your fingers loosen around his. Every time, Phillip closes his hand again.
In the morning, you may remember everything. You may remember only pieces.
The rain. His voice. The almost-kiss he wanted badly enough to refuse.
But when sleep finally pulls you under, Phillip’s hand remains wrapped around yours.
Still your emergency contact.
Still the first man there.
Still loving you carefully enough not to take advantage of the fact that, for one drug-softened night, you forgot you were supposed to stop.
Hii! I was thinking about how Phillip would be at the beach or that kinda vacation.Would he be flirty or...idk.Of course,no pressure or anything.I was also wondering if you were okay since there have been about 6 days since you last posted.Thats all.Bye!!
Oops took me forever to get to this. So sorry! I’ve been posting regularly because of how busy I’ve been with work and grad school BUT I’m back!
-
You wake to Phillip’s work voice.
Low, clipped, and completely out of place in a bedroom washed in warm morning light.
“No. Push it to Monday.”
The balcony doors are open. White curtains drift lazily into the room, carrying the smell of saltwater and flowering vines from somewhere below. Beyond them, the ocean flashes blue beneath the rising sun.
Phillip stands barefoot near the window in nothing but black boxer briefs.
His back is turned to you, one hand holding his phone to his ear while the other rests on his hip. Morning light catches along his shoulders and the old scars scattered across his skin. His hair is still disordered from sleep, curling slightly where it usually lies neat.
“I understand that,” he says. “They can wait.”
You stretch beneath the sheets, watching the muscles in his back shift as he moves.
He looks unfairly good for a man breaking the only rule you gave him for this vacation.
No work before breakfast.
You slide out of bed.
The tile is cool beneath your feet. Phillip does not hear you approach over the voice coming through his phone and the waves breaking outside.
Or he pretends not to.
You wrap your arms around his waist from behind and press your cheek between his shoulder blades.
His entire posture changes.
Only slightly.
His shoulders loosen, and his free hand immediately covers yours where they rest against his stomach.
“I’m still listening,” he says into the phone.
You smile against his back.
His thumb strokes once over your knuckles.
A warning.
You kiss the warm skin between his shoulder blades.
Phillip pauses.
The person on the other end continues speaking.
His hand tightens around yours.
“Go on,” he tells them.
You kiss him again.
Lower this time.
Phillip turns his head just enough to look at you over his shoulder.
His blue eyes narrow.
You give him your sweetest smile.
He covers the bottom of the phone with his palm.
“You gonna behave?”
“You’re on vacation.”
“That wasn’t my question.”
You press another kiss against his back.
“No.”
His mouth twitches.
“Thought so.”
He returns to the call, but instead of moving away, Phillip reaches behind himself and hooks one arm around you. His palm settles firmly over your backside, keeping you pressed against him while he listens to someone explain whatever emergency apparently could not survive until Monday.
You slip your fingers beneath the waistband of his underwear.
Phillip catches your wrist instantly.
He does not turn around.
He does not interrupt the person speaking.
He simply pulls your hand away and holds it flat against his stomach.
You can feel the quiet laugh moving through his chest.
“Careful, Sweetheart.”
The words are meant for you, though the person on the phone goes silent.
“Not you,” Phillip says. “Keep talking.”
You bite back a laugh.
His hand slides slowly up the back of your thigh, fingers disappearing beneath the hem of the shirt you slept in. He squeezes once, almost absentmindedly, like touching you requires no more conscious thought than breathing.
You press closer.
His voice stays calm.
Professional.
But his thumb has begun drawing slow circles against the bare curve of your ass.
“Yes,” he says into the phone. “Send me the revised numbers.”
You kiss the side of his neck.
His head tips slightly, granting you more room before he seems to realize what he has done.
You smile against his skin.
Phillip covers the phone again.
“You got about five seconds to get back in that bed.”
“Or what?”
His gaze drags over your bare legs.
“Or I’m gonna forget there’s somebody on this call.”
“You already forgot.”
His eyes return to yours.
Something hot and amused settles into them.
“Four.”
You step away from him.
Phillip watches as you walk backward toward the bed, his attention slipping down your body without shame.
“Three,” he says.
“You cannot count while conducting business.”
“Two.”
You climb onto the mattress and settle against the pillows, making no effort to pull the shirt back down over your thighs.
Phillip’s jaw shifts.
The wintergreen gum tucked in his cheek gives him away.
He turns toward the balcony again.
“One.”
You lift the sheet over your legs.
“See? Behaving.”
His eyes move over you once more.
“No, you’re not.”
He takes his hand away from the phone.
“Move the meeting. I’ll look at it Monday.”
The person begins protesting.
Phillip stares directly at you.
“Because my wife needs me.”
Your brows rise.
You do not need anything.
Judging by the look on his face, he knows that.
“No,” he continues. “It is not an emergency.”
A pause.
“It better not become one.”
He ends the call and powers the phone off before placing it facedown on the table.
The room goes quiet except for the ocean.
You smile.
“That was very commanding.”
Phillip begins walking toward the bed.
“That right?”
“Very impressive.”
He stops at the foot of the mattress.
“And you were very distracting.”
“I was saying good morning.”
“With your hand in my underwear?”
“I am affectionate.”
“Is that what we’re calling it?”
Phillip catches your ankle beneath the sheet.
You try to pull it away, but his grip tightens just enough to drag you several inches toward him.
“Phillip.”
“Morning, beautiful.”
He bends and kisses the inside of your ankle.
Then your calf.
His mouth moves slowly upward while his hands push the sheet away from your legs.
“That is a very delayed greeting.”
“Was busy.”
“You promised not to work.”
“I promised to try.”
“That is not what you said.”
Phillip climbs onto the mattress, settling between your knees.
“No?” His hands slide beneath the shirt and close around your waist. “What’d I say?”
“You said they could survive without you for three days.”
“They can.”
“They called you before eight.”
“Desperate people.”
“You answered.”
“Moment of weakness.”
His mouth brushes your stomach.
You thread your fingers into his sleep-mussed hair.
“And now?”
Phillip looks up at you.
His hands travel higher along your sides, taking the shirt with them until cool air slips across your skin.
“Recovered.”
He kisses beneath your ribs, lingering there.
Then the center of your stomach.
Then the soft skin just above your hip.
It is unhurried in a way Phillip rarely gets to be at home. No watch on his wrist. No boots beside the door. No vehicle waiting to take him somewhere you cannot follow.
Just sunlight moving over the bed and his mouth wandering wherever it pleases.
“You planned an entire vacation just to stay in the room?” you ask.
Phillip pushes your shirt higher and kisses the skin he uncovers.
“Planned it to get you somewhere nobody can find us.”
“They found you.”
His gaze flicks toward the dark phone.
“Won’t happen again.”
“You sound confident.”
“I own the phone. Can throw it in the ocean if I need to.”
“That seems excessive.”
His mouth curves against your waist.
“You keep touching me like that while I’m trying to work, and excessive is what you’re gonna get.”
You tug lightly at his hair.
“I thought you liked it.”
Phillip rises over you.
One hand settles beside your head. The other remains beneath your shirt, thumb tracing the underside of your breast.
His face is close enough that you can smell wintergreen and coffee on his breath.
“I liked it too much.”
He kisses you.
Not sweetly.
Not at first.
His mouth catches yours with all the focus he had been giving the phone moments earlier. You barely have time to breathe before his hand slides behind your neck and pulls you deeper into it.
Then the edge softens.
The kiss slows.
Phillip brushes his nose against yours before kissing the corner of your mouth, your cheek, the sleep-warm skin beneath your eye.
“Morning, beautiful,” he murmurs again.
You smile despite yourself.
“You already said that.”
“Wasn’t looking at you properly the first time.”
His hand slips around your waist, pulling you against him until there is no space left between you.
“You turned your phone off.”
“Mm-hmm.”
“What if they need Commander Graves?”
Phillip studies your face for a moment.
The teasing in his expression fades into something quieter.
“They get him every other morning.”
His thumb moves over your cheek.
“I spend half my life waking up in rooms without you. They can leave me alone in the one where you’re here.”
The words settle somewhere beneath your ribs.
You pull him down and kiss him before he can see how much they affected you.
Phillip smiles against your mouth anyway.
He always knows.
His arm tightens around you as he rolls onto his back, taking you with him until you are stretched across his chest.
The curtains billow into the room.
His phone stays dark.
Somewhere on the table, the coffee he ordered before you woke grows cold.
Phillip kisses your shoulder, then the side of your neck, his hands moving lazily beneath your shirt.
synopsis: Some arguments don’t end just because the words run out. Some bodies remember what the heart spent years trying to forget. And Phillip Graves has always been a little too fluent in the things you refuse to say.
For half a second, Phillip just stares at you. Not because he does not understand.
Because he does.
Because the word lands between you like permission and punishment at the same time, and for one sharp, breathless second, neither of you moves. Then his eyes darken.
“Say it again.”
Your fingers tighten in his belt. “You heard me.”
“I did.” His voice is rough enough to drag heat straight down your spine. “Still wanna hear it.”
Of course Phillip Graves, who has spent the last week pretending to behave while saying things that made you want to throw your phone across the room, would choose now to make you say exactly what you want.
You should hate him for it. You mostly do.
“Bedroom,” you say again more pointedly.
Something in his face gives.
Not completely. Phillip has too much control for that. Too many years of keeping his expression steady in rooms where men with guns and money mistook confidence for safety.
But you see it. The break. The hunger. The relief.
His hand slides over yours where you have him by the belt, warm and firm, not pulling you off, not stopping you. Just covering your fingers like he has to touch some part of the choice before he lets himself follow it.
“You sure?”
Your laugh comes out breathless and sharp. “You are really committed to ruining the mood.”
His mouth twitches.
“No, Sweetheart.” He steps closer, close enough that your back nearly touches the wall. “I’m committed to not ruining you.”
Your throat tightens, and for one second the heat falters under the weight of all the things he means and all the things he does not get to fix with one careful question.
“Phillip.”
“I know.” His forehead dips toward yours, but he does not kiss you yet, “I know.”
You hate that he does. You hate that his voice has gone soft around the edges. You hate that softness from him feels more dangerous than arrogance.
So you tug him forward by the belt. Hard.
“Stop being sweet.”
His breath catches. His eyes drop to your mouth, “Yes, ma’am.”
Then he kisses you again, and the hallway disappears.
You do not make it there gracefully.
There is no soft music. No slow undressing. No careful walk backward with his hands gentle at your waist and his mouth smiling against yours like this is some romantic reconciliation you can explain in daylight.
This is teeth.
This is his shoulder hitting the wall because you pull him too hard around the corner. This is his jacket getting shoved off one arm, then the other, while he tries to kiss you and argue with you at the same time. This is your back hitting the hallway wall because he gets one hand at your hip and turns you, sudden and controlled, like he cannot decide if he wants to drag you to the bedroom or keep you right there.
“You were an asshole,” you say against his mouth.
His laugh is rough, breathless. “Today or historically?”
You shove at his chest. He lets you, but only enough for his back to hit the opposite wall.
“Do not be cute.”
“I am many things, Darlin’. Cute ain’t one of ’em.”
“You read my text and ignored me.”
You want it to land. You want him to feel it somewhere other than his mouth.
“I didn’t ignore you.”
“You didn’t answer.”
“I was working.”
“You were smiling.”
“Christ.” His hand catches your waist and pulls you back in, hard enough that your breath leaves you. “You still on that?”
“Yes, I’m still on that.”
“She was a client.”
“She was beautiful.”
“So are most people with money and a reason to sit across from me.”
You scoff. “That is supposed to make me feel better?”
“No.” His mouth dips to your jaw. “That was me being honest.”
“You are terrible at it.”
You grab his shirt and yank his mouth back to yours before that tenderness can find a place to sit down.
The kiss turns rough instantly.
Perfect.
Rough is easier. Rough gives your anger somewhere to go. You can bite at his mouth and drag your nails along the back of his neck and pretend the shaking in your hands is fury instead of want. You can pull at the buttons of his shirt like every one of them personally offended you. You can shove him backward by the chest and watch his eyes darken because he likes you mean and mouthy and furious.
He has always liked you like this. That is another thing to hate him for.
“You know what pissed me off the most?” you breathe, dragging him down the hall by his open shirt.
His teeth graze the side of your neck, “What?”
“That I cared.”
His hand flexes at your waist. You feel it. That tiny break. That little crack in the armor.
“I know.”
“No, you don’t.” You push him back again, and this time he lets you steer him into the bedroom doorway. “I stood there with that stupid wine bottle in my hand, watching you charm some woman like I was an idiot for thinking your texts meant anything.”
His expression changes. The hunger is still there, but something else cuts through it.
Pain. Regret. Let him have it.
“They meant something,” he says.
“You say that now.”
“I said it then too. You just didn’t ask.”
“You didn’t answer.”
His mouth tightens, “No,” he says. “I didn’t.”
You hate that he does not argue. You hate that he just takes it. It makes you want to hit him and kiss him and cry, all at once.
So you choose kissing because at least that does not require words. You grab his shirt and pull him into the bedroom with you. He kicks the door halfway shut behind him.
Not closed. Neither of you has the patience for that.
The backs of your knees hit the bed. You sit hard, pulling him with you, and Phillip catches himself over you with one hand planted beside your hip. His shirt hangs open. His hair is mussed. His mouth is red from yours.
He looks ruined already. You want him worse. His eyes flick down your body, then back to your face.
“I ain’t taking anything you don’t hand me.”
The line lands hard enough to shut you up. For one second, the room goes still.
His hands stop at your waist. His fingers spread there, warm and steady, asking without pushing.
You swallow. Then you lift your arms.
He pulls your shirt over your head and tosses it somewhere behind him. The air touches your bare skin, cool enough to make you shiver, but Phillip is looking at you like the whole room has gone up in flames.
He does not move. He just looks.
You hate the memory in his eyes. The hunger. The awe. The grief sitting under both, like looking at your body means looking at every year he lost access to it.
“I know you don’t want sweet.” His voice is rough, almost angry with himself. “I am trying so goddamn hard not to be.”
“You are failing.”
His eyes drag over you again.
“Yeah,” he says. “I am.”
His mouth lowers to your chest, and the first kiss he presses there is not sweet enough to let you run from it. It is hot. Open. Almost desperate. He kisses you like he is angry at himself for needing to, like every inch of you is proof that he never moved on and he cannot believe you are letting him touch you again.
“Missed this,” he mutters against your skin.
“Missed your mouth when you’re mad at me. Missed your hands in my hair. Missed the way you act like you hate being looked at when you know damn well you deserve to be stared at.”
Your fingers twist in his open shirt. You shove him back, but he catches your wrist and kisses the inside of it before you can pull away.
“Don’t make it pretty,” you say, voice shaking. “I mean it.”
His eyes lift to yours, “I don’t know how to touch you and make it ugly.”
Your throat tightens.
No, absolutely not.
You yank him down by the shirt and kiss him hard enough to hurt.
His restraint snaps a little after that.
His hands are less careful, less slow, gripping your hips as he pushes you back onto the bed. He follows you down, mouth on yours, knee pressing between your thighs, body heavy enough over you to make your breath catch. Your fingers shove his shirt off his shoulders. He shrugs out of it, and you are hit all at once with the sight of him bare again.
Older. Harder. A bit broader in the chest. Some extra muscles up by his shoulders and biceps.
Still unfairly gorgeous. Still built like he was designed to win fights and ruin your common sense.
There is a scar near his ribs that was not there before. You touch it before you can stop yourself. Phillip goes still.
“What happened?”
He presses his lips together tightly, calculating his words, “Work.”
You look up at him. He gives you nothing else. Of course he gives you nothing else.
Of course even half naked in your bed, breathing hard above you, he still has locked rooms inside him.
Your fingers press against the scar.
“Later,” he says quietly.
You almost laugh. Later.
Like that is something the two of you have earned. Then his hand covers yours against his ribs.
“Not now.”
Now is not for all the damage you have not seen. Not for every story his body collected while yours was learning how to live without him.
Now is for this.
For your hands at his belt. For the sharp inhale he takes when your fingers work the buckle loose. For the way his eyes darken as if that tiny metal sound has been living in his dreams.
He gets your bra off with less grace than he probably wants. One strap catches. You curse. He laughs under his breath. You smack his shoulder.
“Do not laugh at me while you’re undressing me.”
“Sweetheart, I am a gentleman.”
“You are on top of me with your pants undone.”
His grin flashes. “Multifaceted.”
You hate that you laugh like you used to. You hate that he hears it more. His face softens immediately.
“Do not,” you warn, “You are not allowed to look pleased.”
“What?” His mouth lowers to your breast. “You laughed.”
“So?”
“So I missed that too.”
Then his hot mouth closes around your nipple, and the next thing you say breaks apart into nothing.
He groans like it hurts him, one hand sliding behind your back to pull you closer. His tongue moves over you slow and hot, then less slow when your hand fists in his hair. His teeth graze carefully, just enough to make your hips shift beneath him.
The bastard smiles against your skin, “You still like that.”
You pull his hair. His breath stutters hard, lashes fluttering shut over those blue eyes.
That wipes the smile off his face.
Good.
You are about to tell him so when he sits back on his heels, hands sliding down your sides, over your stomach, to the waistband of your pants.
His eyes come back to yours, and the check-in is there again, steady under all the heat.
“Don’t make me regret this,” you whisper.
His face changes. Something serious. Something almost wounded.
“I would never.”
You believe him. That scares you more than anything else.
So you lift your hips.
He gets the rest of your clothes off with an impatience that makes your stomach twist. Not careless, but desperate. Like part of him is afraid one of you will come to your senses if he takes too long. His hands shake once at your waistband, and when you notice, his mouth hardens like he hates being caught wanting this much.
You catch his wrist. He looks up at you. For one second, all that cocky polish slips.
There he is.
The man under the money and the charm and the watch and the drawl. The man who drove across town for French toast and missed the birth of his own child. The man who left. The man who came back. The man who is looking at you now like your bedroom floor has turned into holy ground and he has no idea whether he is allowed to stand on it.
You release his wrist.
“Condom?” he asks, voice rough.
The word lands between you like cold water over hot glass.
For a second, all you can do is stare at him.
Real life. Of course.
Of course reality would find a way to shove itself between you now, with Phillip half-undressed over you and your body still arching toward him like it has no sense of self-preservation.
“I don’t have any,” you say.
His eyes flicker. Fast. Dark. Not smugness. Not exactly. Something that looks almost like relief before he crushes it down.
“No?”
Your face gets hot for an entirely different reason.
“No.”
His thumb drags once along the inside of your wrist, slow and absent, like he needs something to do with his hand while that information settles.
No condoms. No box in the drawer. No foil packet in the bathroom cabinet. No evidence of anyone else standing where he is standing now.
“Don’t look like that,” you say.
His eyes come back to yours. “Like what?”
“Like you’re pleased.”
“I’m trying real hard not to be.”
“At least lie.”
“I told you I wasn’t doing that anymore.”
You hate him. You hate him so much your chest hurts.
Then he says, lower, “I haven’t been with anybody. You know, since…”
Your breath catches. Just like that, the room changes again. The words are not romantic. Not dressed up. Not offered like a prize.
A fact. A clean, brutal fact laid between you because he thinks you deserve to know.
“I’m not saying it to make you feel bad. I’m saying it because it’s true.”
You look away.
Of course he is choosing now, while your clothes are on the floor and his body is one bad decision away from yours, to be honest in the exact way that cuts.
Your voice comes out smaller than you want. “I’m still on birth control.”
His face changes. Just slightly. But you see it.
Still.
That one word gets under his skin.
“Still?” he asks.
You hate how quiet he sounds.
You hate that he knows when you started. After the baby. After the doctor told you your options while you sat on crinkly paper in an exam room, tired and sore and trying not to cry because Phillip was not there and you were furious at yourself for wanting him to be.
You swallow, “Yeah.”
Phillip’s mouth tightens.
He looks like he wants to say something tender. You cannot survive tender right now.
“Don’t.”
His eyes hold yours.
“I wasn’t.”
“You were.”
A breath leaves him, almost a laugh, almost a wound.
“Yeah,” he admits. “I was.”
For one second, he does not move.
That is somehow worse.
Phillip Graves, who has spent the last ten minutes kissing you like restraint is a language he forgot, stops with his body shaking over yours because some decent part of him still insists on giving you one last open door.
“You sure?” he asks.
You stare up at him.
His mouth is swollen. His hair is a mess. His breathing is uneven. He looks wrecked and furious about it, like wanting you this much is an insult he intends to take personally.
You should say no. You should be smarter than this.
Instead, your hand slides to the back of his neck.
“I said I don’t want slow right now.”
His eyes darken, “No,” he says, voice low. “You didn’t.”
Then his mouth is on yours again, and there is nothing left between you but yes.
He kisses you like he has been trying not to for years. Not days. Not since breakfast. Not since the parking lot. Not since the first text that made you smile like an idiot over your coffee. Years.
It is in the way his hands finally stop hovering and close around you with purpose. In the way he drags you higher on the bed like he needs all of you under him before the world changes its mind. In the way his mouth leaves yours only because there is too much of you and he cannot seem to decide where he needs to be most.
Your jaw. Your throat. The curve of your shoulder. The center of your chest, where your heart is beating too hard, too fast, giving you away with every breath.
“Still smell so good. Always so soft,” he mutters against your skin, his lips dragging across you. “God, I missed you.”
His mouth moves lower, hot and open and reverent in a way that makes your back arch before you can stop it. His hands slide over your ribs, your waist, your hips, like he is reacquainting himself with a place he once had memorized and never stopped dreaming about.
“Still gorgeous,” he says, voice rough, “Just as gorgeous as the first time I saw you.”
“Stop.”
“No.” He lifts his head enough to look at you, hair falling slightly over his forehead, mouth red from yours. “I really can’t.”
That should not hit the way it does. It should sound like a line. Maybe from another man, it would.
But Phillip says it like the words are being pulled out of him unwillingly. Like every inch of control he has left is already busy keeping his hands careful and his voice from breaking entirely.
“I have been around you for months,” he says, low and almost angry, “watching you walk away from me, watching you bend over to tie our boy’s shoes, watching you stand in the sun at those damn Little League games in those little jean shorts like you had no idea what you were doing to me.”
Your whole body goes hot, “Oh my God.”
“No, you asked for honesty.” His mouth drags along your jaw. “You know how pretty you look in sunshine, Sweetheart?”
“Phillip.”
“Had to go home and jerk off in the shower like a damn teenager more times than I care to admit right now because I could smell your perfume in the breeze.”
You slap a hand over your face. He laughs, rough and breathless, and kisses the inside of your wrist.
“It was,” His mouth brushes yours, “deeply humbling.”
“You poor baby,” you coo with a laugh.
“Mean little thing.” His eyes darken. “Always were.”
You should not like that.
You do.
He kisses you again, and you bite his bottom lip hard enough to make his breath catch. For one sharp second, you feel it.
Power.
Not the fragile kind from a text message. Not the pretend kind where you make a joke and wait for him to answer. This is real. His body over yours. His breath uneven. His control thinning with every second you keep your teeth on his mouth.
Phillip groans. “There she is.”
You shove at his chest, but he catches your wrist and pins it beside your head.
Not hard. Not trapping. Just enough.
Enough to make your pulse slam.
“You are so smug.”
“No.” His lips skim your cheek. “I’m grateful.”
He says it against your mouth, and then he kisses you again before you can decide whether you want to punish him for it.
The kiss turns rough.
Fast.
Your free hand slides into his hair, pulling hard enough to make his head tilt back. His eyes flash, and you feel the reaction move through him, hot and immediate. He likes it. Of course he likes it. Phillip has always liked you mean, always liked your mouth sharp and your hands less gentle than you pretend they are.
“You keep doing that,” he says, voice low, “and I’m going to forget I’m trying to behave.”
You laugh, breathless. “You were never behaving.”
“I was trying.”
“You were texting me from a cold bed asking what I was wearing.”
His mouth curves. “And you answered.”
“I mocked you.”
“You answered,” he repeats, smugger this time.
You pull him down and kiss the look off his face. It works for maybe half a second.
Then he rolls, sudden enough to make you gasp, and you are on top of him.
Phillip lands on his back against the mattress, hair mussed, eyes dark, chest rising hard beneath you. His hands slide immediately to your thighs, warm and possessive, thumbs pressing into the soft skin there.
For one second, you just stare down at him.
He looks up at you like this is where he has wanted to be all his life.
That is not fair. Nothing about this is fair.
“What are you doing?” you ask.
His mouth curves, “Letting you keep yelling at me.”
Your pulse jumps.
“From here?”
“No.” His grip tightens on your thighs. His eyes drag down your body and back up again, darker when they reach your face, “From up here.”
You do not understand for half a second.
Then you do.
Heat punches so low through you that your thighs tense beneath his hands.
“There it is.” His voice is rough with satisfaction. “That look.”
“You are insane.”
“Probably.” His hands slide higher, firm and coaxing. “Come here.”
Your mouth goes dry. He cannot possibly mean that.
He is looking at you with the same unbearable focus he has in a boardroom when he has already decided how the negotiation is going to end. Only now he is lying under you, shirt gone, belt half undone, mouth swollen from kissing you, telling you without a flicker of shame that he wants your body over his face.
“You have lost your mind,” you say.
“Darlin’, I lost my mind over you years ago. Keep up.”
Your stomach flips. You do not move. Phillip’s expression softens just enough to make the air dangerous.
“You are so fucking annoying.”
“I know.” His hands urge you higher. “Come sit on my face and tell me about it.”
The words nearly stop your heart. For a second, all you can do is stare at him. Phillip just looks back.
Smug. Hungry. Completely serious.
Then your body moves before your pride can save you.
You crawl up the bed, knees bracketing his shoulders, heart hammering so hard you can feel it everywhere. His hands stay on your thighs the whole time, guiding without forcing, palms hot against your skin. You hover above him, suddenly too aware of yourself, too exposed, too close to the edge of something you cannot joke your way around.
His mouth brushes the inside of your thigh. Soft at first. Then not.
Your breath catches.
“Don’t get shy on me now,” he murmurs.
“I am not shy.”
“No?” His mouth moves higher. “Then sit.”
“Phillip.”
“Sweetheart.” His voice drops. “I said sit.”
The command goes through you like lightning. You lower yourself slowly, still holding back, still trying to leave space between want and surrender.
Phillip does not allow that for long. His hands tighten on your thighs, and he pulls you down to his mouth. The first stroke of his tongue makes your spine go rigid.
“Oh, fuck.”
Phillip groans under you, deep and rough, like the sound alone nearly undoes him. His fingers dig into your thighs, not enough to hurt, just enough to anchor you there as his mouth opens against you, hot and wet and devastatingly sure.
Your hands fly to the headboard, “Phillip.”
He answers with his tongue. Your head drops forward. The room tilts.
This is obscene.
This is worse than obscene.
This is Phillip lying under you like he belongs there, mouth buried between your thighs, hands gripping you like he has no intention of letting you retreat. This is his hair brushing your skin. This is the rough scrape of his jaw. This is the sound he makes when your hips twitch against him, like he is the one being ruined.
You try to lift away. His hands tighten.
“Don’t you dare,” he says, muffled against you.
The vibration of his voice makes your whole body jerk.
“Bossy,” you gasp.
He drags his tongue over you again, slow and filthy, and you nearly lose your grip on the headboard.
“You started it.”
“I hate you.”
He laughs into you. The sensation punches straight through your hips.
“Keep arguing,” he mutters. “I like hearing you run your mouth.”
“You are such an asshole.”
His mouth closes over your clit.
Your next word dissolves into a moan. Phillip’s grip flexes.
“There,” he says, voice rough and messy. “That’s better.”
You should be embarrassed.You hate that you're not.
Or maybe you are, but heat swallows it too quickly to matter. Your hands tighten on the headboard. Your hips rock despite you, chasing the pressure of his mouth, and Phillip groans like you have just given him exactly what he wanted.
“Fuck,” he breathes. “Missed this too.”
Your eyes squeeze shut, “Do not say that right now.”
His tongue circles your clit, then flattens over it until your thighs shake around his head.
“I’m trying to be mad.”
His laugh is low and wicked. “You’re doing terrible.”
You look down at him.
Big mistake. Huge mistake.
Because Phillip is looking up at you from between your thighs with dark, ruined eyes and a mouth slick from you, and the expression on his face is pure satisfaction. Not just smugness. Not just lust.
Reverence.
That is what nearly breaks you. He looks like he could die happy right there..
“Stop looking at me like that,” you breathe.
His mouth curves against you, “Make me.”
You move your hips in spite before you can think better of it.
His eyes close. A sound tears out of him, rough and pleased and so intensely male it makes your stomach clench. His hands slide to your ass, pulling you tighter against his mouth, and he eats you like he has been waiting years for the privilege.
The headboard knocks once against the wall because your grip slips and your body rocks forward.
The sound startles a breathless laugh out of you.
Phillip groans. “Again.”
“You are depraved.”
“About you?” His tongue presses into you, and your laugh turns into a broken gasp. “Absolutely.”
You try to keep arguing. You really do. You tell him he is smug. He hums. You tell him he is impossible. He sucks your clit into his mouth until your thighs shake. You tell him he talks too much for someone currently using his mouth for better things, and he pulls back just enough to say, “Quit distracting me.”
Then he drags you back down, and every thought in your head scatters. The pressure builds fast.
There is no room to hide from it like this. No way to turn your face away. No way to pretend your body is not answering him with humiliating honesty. You are over him, open and shaking, and Phillip is beneath you, hands firm, mouth relentless, groaning every time you rock against his tongue like your pleasure is doing something to him too.
Your thighs start to tremble. His hands tighten.
“There it is,” he says, voice wrecked. “Come on, Sweetheart.”
Even now, you have to argue. You try to form words telling him to fuck off.
Phillip laughs, breathless and dark, then seals his mouth over you again.
The orgasm hits hard.
It snaps through you so suddenly your whole body locks. Your hands clamp down on the headboard. Your hips rock against his mouth as pleasure tears through you, hot and sharp and blinding, and Phillip holds you there through every second of it.
He does not let up until you are shaking so hard you have to push at his forehead.
“Enough,” you gasp.
Immediately, he releases you. No argument. No teasing.
Just his hands sliding down your thighs, steadying you as you sag forward, breathless and trembling.
For one second, you hover there, trying to remember how your body works. Then Phillip kisses the inside of your thigh.
Once. Then again. Too tender. Too grateful.
You move off him before it can ruin you completely. He sits up after you, mouth wet, hair destroyed, eyes so dark they look almost black. The sight of him nearly does you in. You point at him, breath still uneven.
“Do not say anything.”
His mouth curves. “No, ma'am."
You should be done. You should be exhausted. You should be sane.
Instead, you look at his mouth and feel heat gather again immediately. The smile fades from his face, replaced by hunger so sharp it almost scares you.
He reaches for you. This time, you go.
He pulls you into his lap, and your mouth crashes against his. You taste yourself on him, and the intimacy of it burns through you, shameful and hot and impossible to pretend around. His hands slide over your back, down to your hips, holding you tight as you grind against him.
He groans into your mouth.
“Fuck,” he breathes. “I need you.”
Your hands go to his jeans, pushing them down with his boxer briefs, “Then stop talking.”
His grin flashes for half a second, then disappears when your hand wraps around his cock. The sound he makes is worth every bad decision that brought you here. His head drops to your shoulder, breath hot against your skin, and his hands flex on your hips.
“Darlin’.”
There is warning in it. Want. Need. A little plea buried under all that command.
You stroke him once, slow and firm. His hips jerk into your hand.
“Still smug?” you whisper.
His laugh is broken against your heated skin. “Less.”
“Good.”
He catches your wrist before you can do it again, eyes sharp on yours, “You are so bossy.”
“You like me bossy.”
You shove him onto his back. His eyes flash.
There. Better.
You crawl over him, knees on either side of his hips, and for a second, his hands settle on your thighs again, warm and reverent. His eyes move over you like he is trying to memorize the sight, like this is something he has dreamed so many times he is terrified reality will punish him for touching it.
He kisses you back, but his hands are already moving, guiding you beneath him again. He rolls you onto your back carefully, then settles between your thighs, and the weight of him there steals the air from the room.
This is different.
This is not his mouth. Not your anger turned into movement. Not you above him with your hands on the headboard and his mouth between your thighs.
This is the line. He feels it too.
You know he does because his expression changes completely. The last of the smugness slips away. The cocky, charming, maddening man who can talk his way through anything goes quiet with his body pressed to yours and his cock heavy against your slick heat.
He lowers his forehead to yours. His breath shakes.
“Sweetheart.”
The pet name comes out rough. Almost broken.
He reaches between you, wraps a hand around himself, and guides the head of his cock through your wetness. The first brush against your clit makes your hips jerk. Phillip groans.
“Fuck,” he breathes. “You’re so wet.”
“Shut up.”
His mouth brushes yours. “You gonna pretend that’s not for me too?”
“I hate you.”
“No, you don’t.”
You want to argue. You really do. But then he presses against your entrance, and every word in your head scatters.
He does not push in right away. He holds there, shaking slightly, eyes fixed on yours with a kind of restraint that looks painful.
“Tell me yes,” he says.
You swallow. Your hands slide up his arms, over the tense muscle of his shoulders, around the back of his neck.
“Yes.”
His jaw clenches, “Again.”
“Please, Phillip.”
Something in him snaps.
He pushes into you slowly at first, one inch, then another, and the stretch hits so deep your eyes squeeze shut. Your nails dig into his shoulders. His body goes rigid above you, his forehead dropping to the curve of your neck as a sound tears out of him, low and raw and almost helpless.
“Goddamn,” he groans against your skin. “Goddamn it, Darlin’.”
Your breath catches on a broken sound.
It hurts a little. Not badly. Just enough to remind you how long it has been since you’ve felt the weight of him. Enough to make you grip him tighter. Enough to make the fullness of him feel less like memory and more like consequence.
Phillip stills immediately. “Too much?”
Your laugh is shaky and breathless. “Do not make me like you right now.”
His mouth presses to your shoulder. “Because I can wait.”
The stupid, awful decency of that almost makes you cry. You turn your face into his hair, breathing in the clean scent of his shampoo before you can stop yourself.
“No.”
“You sure?”
“Yes.” Your legs tighten around his hips, “Move.”
He lifts his head. His eyes find yours, and the look there is so intense it nearly splits you open.
Then he starts to move.
Slow at first, like he is fighting himself. Like every thrust has to pass through a wall of restraint before he lets himself have it. His jaw is clenched. His hands grip the sheets beside you. His eyes keep moving over your face, checking every breath, every wince, every little involuntary sound that slips past your mouth.
It is unbearable. It is perfect. It is not enough.
You dig your nails into his back, “Phillip.”
His control slips. Just enough. The next thrust is harder, deeper, and your back arches off the bed. Both of you freeze for half a second. Then Phillip’s eyes darken.
“Oh,” he says, voice low. “There it is.”
“You sound proud.”
“I’m trying not to sound grateful.”
Your throat tightens, “Stop making it emotional.”
A rough laugh breaks out of him, almost pained. “Babydoll, I’m inside the woman I never stopped loving. I don’t know how the hell you expect me to make that casual.”
Fuck.
You shove at his chest, but he catches your hand and pins it beside your head again, fingers threading with yours.
“Do not say things like that.”
“When do I get to say them?”
“Never.”
“That ain’t gonna work for me.”
“It worked for two years.”
His face changes. Pain flashes sharp and quick before he buries it under heat.
“No,” he says, voice low. “It didn’t.”
Then he kisses you, and the next thrust punches the breath from your lungs.
The headboard hits the wall again with his next thrust.
Louder this time. After that, the pace breaks open. Not cruel. Not careless.
But rougher, harder, fueled by all the things neither of you can say without bleeding. The mattress shifts under you. The headboard knocks steadily against the wall, once, twice, then again, and you bite down on his shoulder to muffle the sound that leaves you.
Phillip curses under his breath, “God, Darlin’. Do that again.”
“You would like that.”
“I like everything you do to me.”
Your body clenches around him. He feels it instantly. His head drops, a groan tearing out of him against your throat.
“Oh, you liked that.”
“Shut up.”
“You did.”
“Shut up.” You say it with a light laugh this time.
“You can be mad about it later.” His mouth brushes your ear. “Right now you’re gonna take me.”
The words send heat snapping through your stomach.
You hate him for it. You hate the way your body listens. You hate the way your legs tighten around him, pulling him deeper like betrayal has muscle memory.
Phillip’s hand slides under your knee and presses your thigh higher, opening you more. The angle changes, and the next thrust hits so deep you see stars.
Your mouth opens on a silent gasp.
“There,” he says, voice rough with satisfaction. “Right there?”
You shake your head because you are stubborn and stupid. He does it again. Your nails drag down his back. His laugh breaks apart into a groan.
“Liar.”
“You’re an asshole.”
“I know.”
“You talk too much.”
“You missed my mouth.”
“I missed when you used it for better things.”
His eyes flash. Then his mouth is on yours, swallowing whatever sound you make when his hand slides between your bodies and his thumb finds your clit.
You jolt under him, “Oh, fuck.”
“There’s my girl,” he purrs against your mouth.
You grip his wrist, but you do not pull him away. He notices. Obviously.
“Too much?”
“No.”
“Good.”
His thumb circles slowly at first, then firmer when your hips chase the pressure. He keeps fucking you through it, deep and rough and steady enough that every breath comes out broken. His body covers yours completely, chest to chest, skin slick with heat, his breath everywhere. Against your mouth. Your jaw. Your throat. Like he cannot bear to be more than an inch away from any part of you.
You are surrounded by him. Phillip above you. Phillip inside you. Phillip’s voice in your ear, low and ragged, saying things you cannot survive.
“Missed this perfect body.”
“Phillip.”
“Missed how you feel under me.”
“Don’t.”
“How you sound when you quit fighting me.”
“I’m still fighting you.”
His laugh is rough against your ear. “Barely.”
You turn your face away, but he follows. Not forcing. Never forcing.
Just there. Relentless.
“Thought about this every night,” he says, his hips driving into yours hard enough that the headboard bangs again. “Every damn night, Sweetheart. Thought about your legs around me. Your nails in my back. Your mouth telling me to shut up like you weren’t taking every inch of me.”
Heat tears through you, “Phillip, please.”
“I know.” His mouth drags along your jaw. “I know. You don’t wanna hear it. But I want you to know what you did to me.”
You laugh once, broken and breathless. “What I did to you?”
“Yeah.” His hand tightens on your thigh. His voice drops, rougher, deeper. “You think I walked out of here and got free? You think I signed those papers and stopped wanting my wife?”
The word hits like a blow.
Wife.
Your eyes sting immediately, “I’m not your wife.”
“No.” His forehead presses to yours. “But you were. And my body didn’t get the message.”
Your nails dig into his shoulders. His pace falters for half a second, then turns rougher, like the truth cost him and he has to put the pain somewhere.
“Missed you so bad it pissed me off,” he groans. “Missed this bed. Missed your skin. Missed you waking up mad because I was breathing too loud. Missed your cold feet. Missed the way you fit right in my heart like the Lord above made you mean just to keep me humble.”
“Shut up,” you whisper, but there is no bite left in it.
His hand comes to your jaw, “Look at me.”
“No.”
“Look at me, Sweetheart.”
“No.”
His pace slows just enough to make you desperate. You glare at him.
“That is manipulative.”
His mouth curves, but his eyes are blown wide and wrecked.
“Effective though.”
“I hate you.”
“No, you don’t.”
He thrusts deeper, thumb still moving between you, and your whole body tightens.
“No, you don’t,” he repeats, softer now, rougher. “You hate that you still love me as much as I love you.”
The words break something open. Your eyes burn immediately.
“Fuck you.”
“I know.” His forehead drops to yours, peppering kisses on your cheekbone. “I know, Darlin’.”
The fight comes back hot and vicious because it has to. Because if you let that sentence sit in the room, if you let him be right while he is inside you and looking at you like that, then something in you will crack so wide you will never get it closed again.
“You left,” you say.
His face tightens, “I came back.”
“You always came back after.”
The words hit. You feel them.
He stills for half a second, buried deep inside you, breathing hard through his nose. Then his mouth presses to yours.
Not a kiss. Not really. More like he has to put his apology somewhere and knows better than to say it again.
“I know,” he whispers.
The words shake. So does he.
Your anger falters.
No. Absolutely not.
You dig your nails into his shoulder, “Move.”
His eyes search yours.
“Sweetheart.”
“Move, Phillip.”
The way his name comes out of your mouth does something to him.
You see it happen. His control slips again, and then he gives you what you asked for.
Rougher this time. Less polished.
Less careful at the edges, though still careful with you. His hips drive into yours with enough force to make the bed creak. The headboard cracks harder now, again and again, a rhythm loud enough that some distant, rational part of you thinks you are going to have to explain a dent in the wall later.
You do not care.
His hand tightens on your thigh. His mouth drops to your neck, and he groans into your skin like this is hurting him too.
Good. You want it to hurt him. You want him to feel every year of it.
Every night you slept alone. Every appointment he missed. Every time you had to explain Daddy was working. Every holiday split down the middle. Every time he walked back into your life smelling like cold air and danger and money and had the audacity to look like home.
You want him to feel it. You want him closer.
Both things are true. That is the problem.
Your hands slide over his back, pulling him down until his weight is heavier over you. Not crushing. Just enough. Enough to make you feel held and trapped and chosen and ruined.
He shudders.
“Fuck,” he breathes against your ear. “You feel so good.”
You turn your face into his shoulder.
“So do you,” you whisper before you can stop yourself.
Phillip stills for one dangerous second. Then a sound leaves him that you have never heard before.
Low. Wrecked. Almost wounded.
His hand slides under your back and pulls you tighter against him in a way that sparks nostalgic memories of hugs goodbye, and when he moves again, it is harder and messier, like that tiny confession snapped the last thread keeping him civil.
“Say that again.”
“No.”
“Please.”
God. Please.
That word out of Phillip Graves’ mouth is a weapon. Your whole body clenches around him. His groan is immediate, helpless.
“Oh, fuck.” His mouth brushes your ear. “You like hearing me beg?”
“You are not begging.”
“No?” His breath is ragged. “Feels damn close.”
Heat rushes through you so hard your vision blurs.
He kisses beneath your ear, then your jaw, then your mouth, but he cannot stay there. He keeps dropping back to your neck, breathing hard into your skin, groaning every time your body takes him deeper.
“Feels like coming home,” he says, voice breaking at the edges.
Your chest cracks, “No.”
“Yes.” His forehead presses to yours. His hips keep moving, hard and deep, the headboard still creaking behind you. “I know you don’t want me to say it. I know. But it does. You do.”
Your eyes burn. “You don’t get to call me home.”
“I know.”
“You left home.”
His face twists. “I know.”
There it is again. The wound. The thing neither of you can stop touching.
His rhythm breaks for half a breath, pain crossing his face, and you are suddenly so angry you could cry.
So you kiss him. Hard. Furious.
You kiss him because if he apologizes again, you will fall apart. You kiss him because he is inside you and over you and saying all the right things too late. You kiss him because you still love him and you are so fucking mad about it you do not know what to do except drag him closer.
Phillip answers with everything. His hand moves between you again. His thumb finds your clit, slick and firm, and your body jolts.
“Come on,” he says, voice ragged. “Let me have you.”
“You already have me.”
The words slip out before you can stop them.
Phillip freezes. So do you. For one terrible second, the room vanishes. His eyes lock on yours, and whatever he sees in your face nearly ruins him.
Then his jaw clenches. “No,” he says, rough and low. “Not yet.”
Your breath catches. He moves again, deeper, harder, like he is trying to make a promise with his body because his mouth has already done too much damage.
“Not until you say so,” he says against your ear. “Not until you hand it to me. I know.”
Your throat closes. You cannot answer.
You cannot do anything except hold on while he fucks you like he loves you and knows that is the problem.
The pressure builds fast now.
Your body is already oversensitive from his mouth, every stroke of his thumb pulling you closer to the edge, every thrust hitting deep enough to make your thoughts fall apart. The sounds leaving you are too honest. Broken little gasps. His name. Half curses. A breathless “don’t stop” that makes Phillip curse so hard against your shoulder you nearly come from that alone.
“I won’t,” he says. “I won’t. I’ve got you.”
No. Too much. Too much.
But you cannot tell him to stop because you are too busy shaking beneath him, too busy chasing the pleasure rising hot and bright through your body.
“Eyes on me,” he says.
You shake your head. He murmurs your name.
“Eyes on me.”
You open your eyes. The moment you do, something in his face breaks.
“There you are,” he says, voice nearly gone. “God, there you are.”
Your body goes tight around him. His jaw clenches.
“That’s it. Fuck, that’s it. Cum for me.”
“I can’t,” you whine.
Because even now, you have to argue. Phillip lets out a breathless laugh that sounds almost like a sob.
“Mean little thing.”
“Asshole.”
“Come on, Darlin’.” His forehead presses to yours. “Let me have it. Please.”
‘Please’ does it.
The orgasm hits hard enough to knock the breath out of you.
Your back arches. Your nails dig into his shoulders. Your legs tighten around his hips as pleasure rips through you hot and sudden, wiping out the room, the fight, the years, everything except Phillip’s body moving through it with you and his voice in your ear, wrecked and reverent.
“That’s it,” he says. “I’ve got you. I’ve got you.”
No. You hate him. You love him. You do not know how to survive either one.
Phillip follows a second later.
He tries not to. You can feel it. The last desperate thread of restraint, the way his body goes rigid above yours, the way his breath catches and his hips stutter as if he is trying to hold himself back from one more dangerous intimacy.
Then your name breaks out of him. Raw. Low. Ruined.
He comes inside you with a groan buried against your neck, his body shuddering over yours, one hand gripping the fitted sheet beside your head until it rips free from the corner, the other hand still holding your thigh like he cannot stand to let go yet.
The intimacy of it hits a second later.
Hot. Deep. Impossible to pretend around.
His breath is ragged against your skin. His weight is heavy over you for one shaking moment before he catches himself on his forearm, careful even now, even when he is wrecked. His mouth presses once to your shoulder.
Then again. Like he cannot help it.
Like he is saying thank you with every place his lips land because thank you would be unbearable out loud.
For a while, neither of you moves. The room is too quiet. That is the first thing you notice.
Not the bed. Not the clothes on the floor. Not the dull ache in your thighs or the heat still fading under your skin.
The quiet.
Just you. Just him. Just the thing you have finally done.
Phillip eases out of you carefully, and the loss of him is immediate enough that you hate yourself for noticing. He shifts beside you, reaching for the throw blanket at the end of the bed and pulling it over both of you without a word.
You should move away. You should get up. Find your shirt. Go to the bathroom. Say something cutting. Build the wall back brick by brick before he mistakes the wreckage for an invitation.
You do none of those things.
Phillip lies back against the pillows, breathing still uneven, and somehow your body moves before your pride can stop it. You curl toward him, not quite on purpose, not quite by accident.
His arm comes around you slowly. Carefully. Like even now, especially now, he knows not to assume.
You let him.
You let him pull you against his chest, your cheek resting over his heart, one of your legs tangled with his under the blanket. His skin is hot beneath your palm. His heartbeat is still racing.
For a minute, you just listen to it. Hard. Alive. Here. Then your eyes drift to the tattoo over his heart.
Darling.
The word is inked into his skin like a secret too permanent to hide. You have seen it before, of course you have, but not like this. Not with your cheek on his chest and your body still aching from him. Not with his arm around your back and his breath still uneven in your hair.
Your finger traces the letters before you can stop yourself.
D. A. R.
Phillip goes very still beneath you. You stop. His hand covers yours gently, keeping it there. His thumb brushes over your knuckles.
Your throat closes.
No.
No, no, no.
You try to breathe through it. You really do.
But all the fight is gone now. All the heat. All the anger you could turn into teeth and hands and sharp words. There is nothing left to hold the wall up. Nothing left between your ribs but exhaustion and want and the terrible ache of lying on the chest of the man you still love while his tattoo says he never stopped loving you either.
The first sob slips out quietly. Small. Humiliating.
Phillip’s arm tightens immediately.
“Hey.”
“No.”
“I know, Sweetheart.” His hand moves over your hair, slow and steady. “I know.”
The second sob is worse.
You press your face harder into his chest, like if you hide there, maybe the crying will not count. Like if he cannot see your face, he will not know how completely you have fallen apart.
But he knows.
Phillip knows your anger. Your silence. The way you sharpen your voice when you are hurt. The way you turn your face away when something lands too close to the truth.
And this, too. He knows this. Even after two years. Even after everything.
“I hate this,” you choke out.
His mouth presses to the top of your head.
“I know.”
“I hate you.”
“I know.”
You make a broken sound against his chest, half laugh, half sob, and his arms tighten for one second before loosening again.
“You are so fucking annoying,” you whisper.
“I know.”
“Stop saying you know.”
“Alright.”
A beat. Then, softer, “I’m here.”
That makes you cry harder. Because he is.
Because that has always been the problem.
When Phillip is here, really here, fully in the room with you, he is almost impossible not to love. He is warm and solid and careful in the exact ways that ruin you. He knows when to run his mouth and when to shut it. He knows how to make you laugh even when you hate him. He knows how to touch your back like he is not trying to claim anything, only keep you from shaking apart.
When he is here, you remember why you married him. When he is gone, you remember why you left.
Your fingers curl against his chest, right beside the tattoo.
“I’m so tired,” you whisper.
His hand slows in your hair. “I know.”
This time, you do not tell him to stop saying it. Maybe you are too tired. Maybe you need him to know.
Maybe both.
For a while, he just holds you.
No clever line. No smug little drawl. No careful argument disguised as comfort.
Just his arm around your back, his mouth against your hair, his heartbeat under your cheek. Eventually, your breathing starts to even out.
The tears do not stop entirely, but they slow into something quieter. Something more embarrassing, somehow. The kind of crying that comes after the storm, when the body realizes there is nothing left to fight and collapses under the weight of being safe.
Your hand drifts lower.To the scar near his ribs. New. Or new to you, rather.
You touch it again, more carefully this time. Phillip’s hand stills on your back.
“Where did this come from?”
He is quiet long enough that you think he might not answer. Then his chest rises under your cheek.
“Germany.”
Your fingers pause. The word lands cold in the room.
“What happened?”
His thumb resumes its slow path over your shoulder, like he has to keep touching you to get through the story.
“Convoy got boxed in on the way to exfil. Supposed to be clean. It wasn’t.”
Your stomach tightens. Phillip’s voice is even. Too even. That is how you know it was bad.
“We took fire from the front first. Then the side. Driver got us through the first block, but the second vehicle got hit.”
You lift your head enough to look at him. His eyes are on the ceiling. Not because he is ignoring you. Because he is somewhere else.
“You went back,” you say.
His mouth twists faintly, “Had a man pinned in the second vehicle.”
“Phillip.”
“Wasn’t heroic,” he says immediately.
You stare at him. That gets his eyes back to yours, “It was stupid.”
“That sounds more like you.”
A small breath leaves him. Almost a laugh, “Yeah.”
Your fingers rest near the scar, “This?”
“Piece of metal from the door. Maybe a round clipped the frame first. Hard to say. Vest caught what mattered, but that went under the plate.” He looks down at your hand on his ribs. “Bled a lot. Looked worse than it was.”
You stare at him. He glances at you. Then sighs.
“Alright. It was pretty bad.”
Your chest squeezes, “When?”
His jaw shifts. “Last year.”
Last year.
While you were packing lunches. Folding little socks. Signing school forms. Sitting at the kitchen table after bedtime, pretending you did not sometimes still check the news when there was an international incident you did not understand.
Last year, Phillip had been bleeding somewhere far away, and you had not known.
“You didn’t tell me.”
His face goes quiet. “No.”
“Why?”
He looks back at the ceiling. For a second, he is somewhere else again. Not in your bed. Not under your blanket. Not warm and bare beneath your hand. Somewhere hot and loud and far away from you.
Then he blinks, and he is back.
“Because you weren’t mine to call anymore.”
The words settle between you.
Soft. Awful. Your throat closes.
“I almost did,” he corrects. “When they were patching me up. I was high as hell on pain meds and meaner than a snake, apparently. Kept asking for my phone. Said I needed to call you.”
Your fingers press lightly against his chest, “Who did you call?”
His mouth curves without humor, “My mom.”
“Oh.”
“She yelled at me so loud the medic could hear her through the phone.”
Despite yourself, you laugh. It comes out wet. Phillip’s smile flickers.
“I was so high off my ass I could barely understand half of what she was saying. Kept asking for you. Kept telling her I needed to talk to you.”
Your hand stills over his ribs. Phillip’s throat moves.
“And she said, ‘Well, whose fault is that, Phillip?’”
The room goes quiet.
Not empty. Not comfortable. Quiet like a bruise. He gives a small, humorless breath.
You sigh, “That sounds like Della.”
“Yeah.”
The quiet returns. Not empty this time. Comfortable.
You look at the scar again.
A year ago. He could have died a year ago, and you would have found out from someone else. His mother, maybe. Or a lawyer. Or some calm stranger using Phillip’s full name like that would make it easier to hear.
The thought makes your stomach twist.
Phillip must feel your hand tense because his fingers cover yours.
“I was okay, Honey.”
“You have a scar in your ribs.”
“I said I was okay. I didn’t say I was pretty.”
You glare at him. He smiles faintly.
There he is again. Annoying even wounded.
You press your palm flat over the scar.
“I would have come,” you whisper, “If you had called me.”
The words are out before you can stop them. Phillip goes still beneath you.
You close your eyes.
God. Why did you say that? Why would you give him that?
His hand comes up slowly, covering yours against his ribs.
“I know,” he says.
This time, the words sound different. Not smug. Not knowing.
Grateful.
You lift your head. His eyes are on you, soft in a way that hurts.
“I know you would’ve,” he says.
Your face crumples before you can stop it. He pulls you back into his chest immediately, and you let him. You let him hold you. You let your forehead press into his shoulder. You let the second wave of tears come, quieter this time, but deeper.
“I hate that I didn’t know,” you whisper.
His mouth presses to your hair.
“I hate that you were hurt somewhere and I was just here.”
“You were raising our son.”
The words hit with devastating gentleness.
You squeeze your eyes shut, “Don’t make it noble.”
“I’m not.” His voice is rough now. “I’m saying you were doing the most important thing either one of us had to do.”
Your hand grips his side. “You should have been here too.”
“I know.”
No defense. No argument. No charm. Just that.
I know.
The silence after is enormous. But for once, you do not move away from it.
You lie there against his chest, skin cooling, tears drying, his hand moving slowly along your spine. Your bedroom is wrecked around you. Clothes on the floor. Sheet twisted at your hips. The headboard probably crooked from the wall. Your phone somewhere downstairs, waiting in the kitchen with normal life and all the ordinary things that do not care that your entire world just cracked open.
Phillip holds you like he is afraid to breathe wrong. You do not know what to do with either one. As his fingers trace your bare spine lightly and sweetly, your eyes betray you and start to drift shut, body melted against his as he starts to hum softly under your cheek.
Then his phone rings.
The sound cuts through the room, sharp and ugly and too loud. Your eyes flash open and you jump, your heart pounding at the intrusion.
Phillip’s whole body changes beneath you. Not slowly. Not gently. Instantly.
The man under you disappears for half a second, replaced by something trained and alert and fully awake. His arm moves from your back, cradling you closer, palm snug against the back of your head.
But then his body shifts. You lose the warmth of him so suddenly you nearly flinch as he sits up and reaches for his jeans on the floor.
The empty space where he was feels humiliating. Your chest goes tight.
Of course. Of fucking course.
You sit up too, dragging the blanket against your naked chest, hair messy around your face, your body still sore and warm and stupidly open from him.
“Wow,” you say, voice rough from crying. “You fuck your ex-wife and now you run to your work phone?”
Phillip’s head snaps toward you. For half a second, something like hurt crosses his face. Then he sees the screen. His expression changes.
“It’s not work,” he says.
The room goes cold. Your fingers tighten around the blanket.
“What?”
Phillip answers before the next ring can finish.
“This is Phillip Graves.”
His voice is different. Not Shadow Company voice.
His Dad voice.
Controlled. Calm. Awake in a way that makes your stomach drop. He listens. You sit very still.
The blanket is clutched to your chest. Your heart is suddenly too loud. Your phone is downstairs in the kitchen, exactly where you left it when Phillip came back from school drop-off and the fight swallowed the morning whole.
Phillip’s eyes cut to yours.
“They tried calling you,” he says quietly, covering the receiver for half a second.
Your stomach falls through the bed, “Shit, my phone is downstairs.”
He nods once, already listening again. You don't hear the other side of the conversation.
“Yes, ma’am,” A pause. His jaw tightens, “No, I understand.”
Another pause. Your hand goes cold around the blanket.
Phillip’s eyes flick to yours again. “We’ll be there.”
He hangs up. For one second, he does not move. Neither do you.
The bedroom is wrecked. The sheets are twisted. Your clothes are on the floor. His shirt is still open. The tattoo over his heart is half visible. Your tears are still drying on your face.
And suddenly none of that matters.
“What happened?” you ask.
Phillip is already reaching for the rest of his clothes, “They need us at the school.”
Your pulse kicks hard. “Why?”
His jaw flexes, “They wouldn’t give details over the phone.”
He looks at you then. All the heat is gone from his face now. Not replaced by fear, exactly. Dad calm. The kind that means there is no room for panic because something needs handling.
“They said we need to come in.”
The room goes silent. Your phone is still downstairs. Your clothes are still on the floor.
Phillip Graves is half-naked in your bedroom, your body still aching from him, his name still sitting warm under your tongue.
i hope this hasnt already been asked but what do you think graves would do about reader uncovering certain aspects of his job that he’s unable to put in a neat little bow? + manipulative graves in general if you’re willing to write it🙏 love your work!!
Oh, absolutely.
Once you find out what Shadow Company really is, Phillip stops pretending his work is harmless.
He tells you when he is leaving for a contract. He takes calls around you. You know where headquarters is, recognize some of the Shadows by name, and understand that his company does much more than guard buildings and escort important people.
But knowing Shadow Company exists is not the same as being allowed to see all of it.
Phillip is still very careful about which parts of his life reach you.
The cleaner pieces are yours.
His polished office. The motor pool. Contract dinners with his palm resting low against your back. The men grinning when you visit because Commander Graves becomes noticeably easier to deal with once his wife is sitting on the corner of his desk.
The real darkness stays somewhere else.
You walk into his office while he is reading a report. The page disappears beneath another folder before you get close enough to see it.
“What was that?”
“Work.”
“What kind of work?”
Phillip leans back in his chair, wintergreen gum shifting in his cheek as his eyes move slowly over you.
“The kind that can wait.”
He holds out one hand.
“Come here, Sweetheart.”
And annoyingly, sometimes you do.
He draws you between his knees, hands settling around your hips before you can reach for the folder again. His mouth brushes your stomach through your blouse, then the curve of your waist.
“You are distracting me.”
“Am I?”
“You know you are.”
His lips press just beneath your ribs.
“Seems like you’re still thinkin’ pretty hard.”
That is the thing about manipulative Phillip.
He rarely tries to convince you that you imagined something. He knows you are too intelligent for flimsy lies, and he respects you too much to risk one you could unravel later.
Instead, he redirects you.
He gives you something true, warm, and familiar to hold instead.
A hand around your waist. A kiss against your temple. His thumb tracing the edge of your wedding ring. His full attention turned on you so completely that the rest of the room seems to disappear beneath it.
“What was in the file?”
“Nothing prettier than what’s standing in front of me.”
“Phillip.”
“What?” His hand slides beneath the hem of your blouse, warm palm spanning your side. “You want me to lie?”
He does not lie about loving you.
That is what makes it dangerous.
The affection is real. The way his face softens when you enter a room is real. When he notices you have skipped lunch, he genuinely cares. He really does want to feed you, spoil you, and spend the evening with you tucked against his side.
He can manipulate you without faking his love.
Most of the time, his love is the tool he uses.
You hear him end a phone call with a quiet, “Handle it.”
When you ask what that means, he looks at the cold coffee beside you.
“You haven’t eaten.”
“That is not an answer.”
“No,” he agrees.
He catches your hand and pulls you down into his lap. One arm circles your waist while his mouth finds the soft place beneath your ear.
“But it is a problem I can fix.”
“And the other problem?”
His lips pause against your skin.
“Already handled.”
He says it so smoothly that it takes a second for the words to settle.
Phillip knows exactly how charming he is.
He knows what the drawl does to you. He knows the unfair advantage of rolled sleeves, expensive cologne, wintergreen on his breath, and his hand resting high on your thigh beneath his desk.
He knows that if he kisses you slowly enough, you will sometimes let the question go.
Not because you are foolish.
Because you missed him. Because he is your husband. Because his fingers are drawing lazy circles against your skin and his mouth is smiling against yours like kissing you is the only honest thing he has done all day.
Sometimes you pull away first.
“I know what you do.”
Phillip watches you for a moment.
“You know some of it.”
“Because that is all you let me know.”
His jaw shifts.
“Yeah.”
He does not think you are delicate.
Phillip has watched you argue with him too many times to believe that. He loves your backbone. Loves that you can look Commander Graves in the eye and tell him he is full of shit.
What he believes is that there are certain things you should never have to carry.
Interrogation footage.
Photographs taken afterward.
Casualty reports bearing his signature.
The sound of him calmly deciding what happens to someone who has become a liability.
He knows those things would follow you home.
He knows you would remember them while he slept beside you. You would watch his hands button his cuffs in the morning and picture what those same hands had done days earlier.
Phillip cannot stand that.
He wants you to know he is dangerous.
Some possessive, vain part of him might even like that you know.
But he does not want you studying the danger long enough to decide it makes him monstrous.
“Are you worried I can’t handle it?”
“No.”
“Then why won’t you tell me?”
Phillip looks at you quietly.
His hand rises to your face, fingertips brushing along your cheek before he tucks your hair behind your ear.
“Because I like the way you look at me.”
The answer is soft enough to take the fight out of you for one terrible second.
His thumb traces your cheekbone.
“You still look at me like I’m the man who comes home to you.”
“You are.”
“Yeah.”
His mouth twists faintly.
“I’d like to keep it that way.”
That is the part he rarely admits.
Protecting you also protects him.
Your opinion of him. Your tenderness. The private life he returns to after doing things that would look unforgivable beneath the warm lights of your kitchen.
He can live with you knowing there is blood on his hands.
He cannot bear the thought of you seeing exactly how much.
“You think I would stop loving you?”
Phillip goes very still.
His hand slides to the back of your neck, but he does not pull you closer. He just holds you there, blue eyes searching your face.
“I think there are things love shouldn’t have to survive.”
Then he kisses your forehead like he regrets saying it.
That is how he rips your heart out with it.
Not by claiming you are innocent or fragile.
By letting you see, for one small moment, how frightened he is of becoming something you cannot love.
Phillip also understands that control does not require force.
Most of the time, it looks almost tender.
He closes the laptop when you enter.
He turns a photograph facedown.
He steps into your path with both hands finding your waist and guides you away from a conference room as naturally as if the two of you are dancing.
“This meeting isn’t for you, Babydoll.”
“You mean you don’t want me in there.”
His mouth brushes your temple.
“Same result.”
“Phillip.”
He kisses the corner of your mouth.
Then the other.
Then your lips, slow and warm, until your fingers have curled into his shirt and you have forgotten which room you were trying to enter.
When he pulls away, his nose brushes yours.
“You’re shameless.”
“Married you, didn’t I?”
Occasionally, the Commander slips into his voice.
A calm no.
A hand covering a file before yours reaches it.
The quiet certainty of a man accustomed to being obeyed.
That is when you remind him you are his wife, not one of his operators.
And Phillip always adjusts.
Not necessarily by giving you what you want.
Usually by changing tactics.
The command disappears from his voice. His shoulders loosen. His hand leaves the folder and finds your waist instead, drawing you between his knees.
“I am not one of your men.”
“I know.”
“Then stop ordering me around.”
His mouth presses against the center of your palm.
“My men are easier.”
“That is not flattering.”
“Wasn’t meant to be.”
He kisses your ring.
“You’re the only person in this building I can’t order out of my office.”
“You lock the door behind me.”
“That’s different.”
“How?”
His smile brushes your knuckles.
“Usually gotta kiss you first.”
By the time he stands, he has already taken your purse from the chair.
“You are throwing me out.”
“I’m taking you to dinner.”
“You are staying here.”
“Twenty minutes.”
Phillip settles the strap over your shoulder himself, carefully pulling your hair free from beneath it. His palms slide down your arms before settling around your waist.
“To do what?”
“The kind of work you married me without wanting details about.”
“That is incredibly manipulative.”
“Yeah.”
He kisses your forehead.
Then your cheek.
Then your mouth, lingering just long enough to make your hands settle against his chest.
“You still want Thai?”
You glare up at him.
“Yes.”
“Knew you’d see reason.”
“You are impossible.”
“And yet.”
His eyes drop pointedly to your ring.
You shove lightly at him, but Phillip catches your wrist, laughing as he kisses you again and walks you backward toward the door.
He lets you closer than anyone else.
You know where he goes. You know what he carries. You know the men around him call him Commander and would follow him into hell if he asked.
But proximity is not the same as access.
Phillip gives you Shadow Company beneath flattering light.
The polished office. The expensive vehicles. The loyal men laughing over drinks after a successful contract.
The uglier pieces remain behind locked doors.
And when one of those doors cracks open, Phillip is already there to close it.
Usually with a smile.
Often with his hands on you.
Always with enough charm that you are halfway to dinner before you realize he never answered the question.
“You charmed me out of your office.”
Phillip pauses with one hand on the door.
“Did I?”
“You put my purse on me.”
“Helpful.”
“You kissed me.”
“Seemed like you needed it.”
“I did not.”
His smile turns soft.
It is worse than the smug one.
“Sure you didn’t.”
He cups the back of your neck and kisses you once more, slow and thorough, before easing you into the hallway.
“Twenty minutes, Sweetheart.”
The door closes.
A second later, the lock turns.
You stare at the frosted glass.
“Asshole.”
His voice comes through the door, muffled but warm.
First of all I just binged like all of your writing and I cant get enough. Please never stop because I'm in love with your posts.
PLEASE I can't stop thinking about you saying their baby was made on the hood of Phillip's truck. Any updates on you showing us what happened 👀 I'm hungry for daddy phillip graves
What a coincidence....
This is my first time actually posting smut, so bear with me.
18+ below the cut.
He is home before you expect him.
No call. No warning. Just the sound of his truck turning into the long gravel drive, tires grinding over stone, and your heart stuttering before your brain can catch up.
You are already moving when the screen door slams behind you.
The warm spring air catches the skirt of your sundress as you hurry down the porch steps. Phillip is barely out of the truck when you reach him, mirrored sunglasses still on his face and one hand resting on the open door.
“Hi,” you breathe.
It comes out like a laugh.
His face changes immediately.
The hard, tired edges soften. His mouth curves, and his arms open just in time for you to throw yourself into them.
“There’s my pretty girl.”
Then your feet leave the ground.
Phillip lifts you effortlessly, one arm locked around your waist and the other braced beneath you as your legs wrap around his hips. You laugh into his neck, squeezing him hard enough that he lets out a low grunt.
He smells like heat, dust, and the faint metallic trace of wherever he has been. His shirt is wrinkled, sleeves shoved above his forearms, stubble darker along his jaw than when he left.
“You’re back.”
His hand slides into your hair, gripping gently at the base of your skull.
“Yeah, Darlin’.”
Then he kisses you.
There is no easing into it.
His mouth covers yours like he has spent the entire month thinking about exactly this, the kiss hot and almost clumsy with hunger. His fingers tighten in your hair. The arm beneath you pulls you closer until your chest is flattened against his.
You kiss him just as desperately.
All the nights alone, every brief message and cold stretch of sheets, come rushing out through your hands as they grip the back of his neck.
Phillip groans into your mouth. “Missed me?”
You barely pull away far enough to answer.
“So much.”
His jaw tightens. The teasing in his face slips for half a second, revealing something rawer underneath.
“Yeah,” he murmurs. “Me too.”
Then his mouth is on yours again.
He shuts the truck door blindly and carries you around the front of it, boots grinding through the gravel. Your thighs meet the warm hood, but he keeps an arm behind you, lowering you carefully despite the urgency in the rest of him.
“Phillip,” you laugh against his lips. “The house is right there.”
He kisses the corner of your mouth.
“Long driveway.”
“That is not an answer.”
“No neighbors.”
“Still not an answer.”
His hands slide down your sides, gathering the light skirt of your sundress.
“House is too far.”
“It is twenty feet.”
“Exactly.”
You try to roll your eyes, but his mouth moves down your throat, teeth grazing the skin below your ear.
Your head tips back before you can help it.
Phillip smiles against your neck. “That’s what I thought.”
He slides you off the hood, hands firm on your waist as he turns you gently, palm spreading across your stomach as he guides you over the front of the truck. The metal is warm beneath your hands, the late sun sinking behind the trees lining the drive.
His body closes in behind you immediately.
Solid. Hot.
One hand settles firmly at your hip while the other disappears beneath your skirt.
His fingers find the waistband of your panties,a groan coming from his chest as he feels the soft fabric between his calloused fingers.
“Been wearin’ this around the house all day?”
He hooks his fingers beneath the fabric and draws it slowly down over the curve of your ass. He kisses the back of his teeth and shakes his head with a sigh.
“Goddamn.”
“Do not start.”
“Baby, I am way past started.”
The panties catch around your thighs.
“Step.”
You lift one foot, then the other. Phillip pulls them free and tucks them into the back pocket of his jeans.
You glance over your shoulder.
“Seriously?”
“Been gone a month.”
“You live here.”
“Still want a souvenir.”
“Pervert.”
“You knew that when you married me.”
The toe of his boot nudges your ankle.
“Open up.”
He pushes your feet slightly farther apart, leaving you exposed beneath the lifted skirt. The warm breeze moves over your skin.
Phillip goes quiet. You feel his gaze dragging over you. His hand smooths up the inside of your thigh, unhurried now, until his fingers find you already wet.
He exhales hard through his nose. “Look at that.”
Your cheek presses against your folded arm.
“Phillip…”
“How long you been like this?”
“Since you got out of the truck.”
“Liar.”
His fingers circle your clit lightly. Your hips twitch.
Phillip hums, pleased.
“Bet you’ve been thinkin’ about me all month.”
You bite your lip. His touch firms.
“Haven’t you?”
“Yes.”
“Thought so.”
His fingers work slow, maddening circles, giving you enough to make your thighs tighten without taking you anywhere close to what you need.
You wait for the sound of his zipper. Instead, you hear his boots shift in the gravel.
Then his breath brushes the back of your thigh.
Your whole body stiffens.
“Phillip?”
His mouth presses the back of your thigh softly.
“Stay right there.”
The first stroke of his tongue between your legs tears a cry from your throat.
Your palms slap against the hood, the sound echoing down the empty drive.
Phillip pulls back.
“Watch the truck.”
You twist enough to glare at him where he kneels behind you.
“You cannot be serious.”
“Very expensive paint.”
“You are on your knees in the dirt.”
“I have my priorities."
His mouth returns to you before you can answer. Your hand flies back into his hair as your back arches.
Phillip grips your hips and pulls you toward him, burying his face between your thighs with a hunger that makes your knees threaten to fold.
He is not patient now.
He follows every movement your body makes, tongue dragging through you while his fingers knead the soft flesh of your ass and hold you open for him.
A month of separation is in every rough breath against your skin.
Every low groan when you press back against his mouth.
Every flex of his hands when your fingers tighten in his hair.
“Fuck,” you gasp.
Phillip hums against you.
The vibration sends heat twisting sharply through your stomach. You rock back harder, chasing the pressure.
He takes it greedily, one hand palming himself through his jeans while the other keeps you exactly where he wants you.
Your breathing becomes shallow. Your thighs begin to shake.
“Phillip, I’m close.”
You feel his smile. Then he pulls away. The loss tears a furious groan out of you.
Phillip rises behind you, breathing hard. He wipes his mouth with the back of his hand, gaze moving over you with shameless satisfaction as he licks his lips.
“Not yet.”
“You asshole.”
His palm travels slowly up your spine.
“Save that first one for me, Gorgeous. I’m feelin’ selfish after being gone from my wife for so long.”
You hear his zipper. The rustle of denim. Then the heat of him pressing against the back of your thigh.
You push your hips toward him. Phillip catches them and holds you still.
“Easy, there.”
“A whole month.”
“I know.”
He drags himself slowly through your wetness, deliberately making you feel how close he is without giving you what you want.
“You poutin’?”
“No.” You lie.
His palm lands lightly against your ass. Your body jolts.
“Sound pouty.”
“Fuck you.”
His grin presses into your shoulder.
“Lord, I’m tryin’.”
He curls a hand around your shoulder and draws you partially upright, turning your face toward him. His eyes are darker now, the blue nearly swallowed by hunger. His thumb moves across your lower lip.
“You need somethin’?”
You nod, pushing back against him. Phillip’s grip tightens, denying you the movement.
“Ask.”
“Phillip, please.”
“That sounded real pretty.”
His mouth hovers over yours.
“Wasn’t what I wanted, though.”
Heat burns across your cheeks. Phillip watches it happen, smile slow and insufferable. He clicks his teeth.
“What do you call me when you want somethin’ real bad?”
You glare at him. “Phillip.”
His eyebrows rise. “You can do better than that.”
Your pride lasts another second.
“Come on, Daddy.”
Phillip’s expression changes instantly. Not surprise.
Satisfaction.
Deep and hungry.
“There she is.”
“Please, Daddy.”
His thumb brushes your lip once more.
“That’s my girl.”
He turns you forward again, guiding your cheek down onto your arm. His palm settles at the back of your neck, holding you gently in place while his other hand positions himself behind you.
The head of his cock presses against your entrance.
Your breath catches. Phillip feels it.
“Breathe, Baby.”
“You’re taking too long.”
“Waited a whole month to get back inside you.” His voice drops, rough against your ear. “I’m gonna take as long as I damn well please. Now breathe and let me in.”
He pushes forward. The first stretch steals the response from your tongue. Your fingers spread across the hood, nails scraping faintly over the paint as your body tightens around him.
Phillip stops. His grip trembles at your hip.
“Nice and slow. Don’t wanna break you.”
You shift backward, trying to take more. He groans through his teeth.
“Fuck, don’t do that unless you want me to lose what little patience I got left.”
You do it again.
Phillip’s head drops against your shoulder.
“Mean little thing, aren’t ya?”
He presses deeper. Slowly.
Each inch forces your body to remember him, the fullness almost overwhelming after a month apart.
His palm moves over your hip, up your side, across your spine. He touches you like he cannot settle on one place, like every part of you has been missing from his hands.
“Atta girl,” he breathes. “There you go.”
He sinks fully into you.
Both of you go still.
The quiet of the property settles around you. Insects buzz in the grass. The truck ticks softly beneath your palms as the engine cools.
Phillip folds over your back. His chest presses against you, one arm braced beside yours. The chain beneath his shirt slips forward, cool against your shoulder.
His forehead rests against the back of your neck.
“Goddamn.”
The word leaves him broken.
You reach behind you. Phillip catches your hand and threads your fingers together, pressing your joined palms flat against the hood.
“Missed you,” he says, kissing the back of your neck.
You squeeze his hand. “Missed you too.”
He pulls out slowly. Your body clenches around him, resisting the loss.
Phillip groans.
“Yeah. Don't want me goin’ anywhere, do you?”
Before you can answer, he drives back into you. The first thrust forces a cry from your lips. The second pushes your hips against the truck.
Phillip’s arm circles your waist, anchoring you to him.
“I’ve got ya.”
He finds a rhythm. Deep. Deliberate.
Each stroke drags almost completely out before filling you again. His body stays pressed close to yours, chest covering your back while his mouth moves along your shoulder.
He talks against your skin. Low, breathless words slipping out between rough groans. He never could stop from running his mouth, especially when he's sinking into your dripping pussy.
“Been thinkin’ about this.”
His hips roll into you.
“Whole damn month.”
Another thrust.
“You have any idea what you do to me?”
You can only moan. Phillip laughs softly, although the sound is strained.
“Look at you. Already can’t talk.”
His hand sweeps over the curve of your ass, spreading you open so he can watch himself disappear inside you.
The sight pulls a curse from him, his teeth sinking into his lower lip as he bites back a noise.
“Fuck, Baby.”
He thrusts harder.
“So damn pretty takin’ my cock. So fuckin’ tight around me.”
Your ears are buzzing until you can no longer hear his curses. You blindly reach back and grip his thigh, desperate for something to ground you. The denim is rough beneath your palm, the muscle flexing with every movement.
Phillip covers your hand briefly with his.
“Hold on, Sweetheart.”
His pace builds.
The truck creaks faintly beneath you, every sharp thrust moving your body over the hood. Phillip keeps one arm locked around your waist, dragging you back into him every time.
His control frays slowly. First in his breathing. Then in the way his fingers tighten against your skin.
Then in the rhythm of his hips, smooth precision giving way to something rougher and more desperate.
He sinks into you like he has been trying to get back here since the second he left.
“Fuck, I missed this.”
His mouth presses against your neck.
“Missed you under me.”
Another thrust.
“Missed this perfect body.”
His hand slides over your stomach.
“My perfect wife.”
Your body tightens around him. Phillip’s rhythm stumbles.
“Jesus Christ.”
A breathless laugh escapes you. His teeth graze your shoulder.
“You think that’s funny?”
You clench around him again, sucking his cock deeper.
Phillip’s head tips back and chokes.
“Fuck.”
His hand grips your hip hard enough to leave marks.
“That what we’re doin’?”
You push back into him. He meets you with a sharp thrust that steals your breath.
“Good girl.”
The praise rolls through you. Phillip notices the way your body reacts. Of course he does.
His mouth curves against your skin.
“There it is.”
He changes the angle, lifting your hip slightly as he drives into you again.
The next thrust strikes deep enough to turn your entire body rigid.
Your hand slips on the hood. Phillip catches you.
“There?”
You nod desperately, choking on your own words as you moan.
He repeats it. Your knees weaken.
“Yeah? Right there, pretty girl?”
“Yes.”
His voice turns smug despite the ragged edge in it.
“Found it.”
He keeps the angle, pressing into the same spot again and again until your breathing breaks apart into helpless sounds, voice high and desperate.
Phillip’s fingers slide up to your jaw, turning your face toward him.
“Look at me.”
Your eyes flutter, tongue wetting your lips as you struggle.
“C’mon now. Keep those pretty eyes open for me.”
“I’m trying.”
“I know you are, Baby.”
He kisses you.
The angle is awkward and hungry, his tongue sweeping into your mouth as his hips continue moving behind you. The steady rhythm stutters the second you pull his hair.
Phillip groans into the kiss. You do it again.
His hips slam into yours. The truck rocks beneath you.
“Easy on the paint,” he mutters the reminder against your lips.
You gasp out a laugh. “You’re fucking me against it.”
“Yeah.” He bites lightly at your lower lip. “Real nice view too.”
“You’re ridiculous.”
“And you love me.”
His mouth moves along your jaw.
“Love me, don’t you?”
“Yes.”
His arm tightens around you.
“Yeah?”
“I love you.”
The words pull a rough sound from deep in his chest.
“Love you too.”
His next thrust is harder.
Then another.
His hands move greedily now, over your waist, your stomach, your ass, touching everything he has been deprived of for a month.
He cannot stop talking.
“Look so good.”
His palm smooths down your back.
“Feel even better.”
His hips drive forward.
“Christ, missed how tight you get.”
He presses his face into your neck. Your thighs tremble as if responding to him.
Phillip laughs breathlessly. “Just like that.”
His hand slides between your thighs. The first touch against your clit makes your legs buckle.
His arm catches your weight.
“I’ve got you.”
His fingers begin moving in firm circles while his hips keep their deep, punishing rhythm.
Your cheek drops against your arm. Phillip’s mouth stays beside your ear.
“You been touchin’ yourself while I was gone?”
You gasp. His fingers do not slow.
“That a yes?”
“Yes.”
“Thought about me?”
“Mhm.”
His voice drops into a rough purr. “What’d you think about?”
“This.”
His hips roll deeply into you.
“My hands?”
His fingers press more firmly. You moan.
“My mouth?”
Your body clenches around him. Phillip’s groan fractures into a laugh.
“Hell of an answer.”
The pressure builds rapidly. His fingers circle you faster, each movement matched by another deep thrust.
He sighs, making the noise he makes when his brain is working through a problem.
“Why didn’t you call me?”
“You were working.”
“Would’ve answered.”
“You would not.”
“Would’ve found a way.”
His mouth brushes your ear.
“Could’ve talked you through it.”
The image sends a fresh wave of heat through you. Phillip feels your reaction. His smile presses into your skin.
“Yeah. You like that idea, don't ya’?”
You can barely form words now, lip pinched between your teeth as you fight to stay upright. His hand keeps working you.
“Could’ve had you in our bed, fingers between your legs, listening to me tell you exactly what to do.”
“Phillip.”
“That’s alright, Darlin’,” His breathing catches, “Next time.”
He presses deeper, his voice turning rougher as his control slips further.
“I’ll take care of you.”
Your hand flies back into his hair, desperate for purchase. Phillip groans.
“Fuckin’ missed that.”
You pull him tighter against your neck.
His teeth scrape your skin as he sinks his teeth into your shoulder.
Your legs begin to shake.
“I’m close.”
“I know,” His arm tightens around your waist, holding you securely against him, “Can feel her.”
His hips lose their rhythm whenever your body clenches. Phillip sounds nearly as wrecked as you feel now, every word pushed out between ragged breaths.
“Come on, Baby.”
Your fingers tighten in his hair. Your voice comes out high and anguished.
“Daddy.”
The title slips out without thought. Phillip’s entire body reacts. His hips drive into you hard enough to force a cry from your throat.
“There she is.”
His voice breaks around the words. His mouth presses against your temple.
“Say it again.”
“Daddy.”
“My good girl.”
He does not ask again. He does not need to.
His fingers work you faster. His body crowds closer, the solid heat of him covering you while his own restraint finally begins to collapse.
“Fuck, Baby. I’m right there,” His forehead drops heavily against your shoulder, “Daddy’s right there with you.”
Your breathing fractures, “Phil.”
“I know.”
His hand flexes across your stomach, pulling you back onto every desperate thrust.
“I’ve got you.”
The pressure winds tighter. Your body locks beneath him. Phillip’s voice turns into a rough rasp against your skin.
“Give it to me.”
You cry out, moans punched out of you loosely and sloppily.
“Let me feel it.”
The tension snaps.
Your entire body convulses against him, orgasm rolling through you in hard waves. Your knees give, but Phillip is already holding you, one arm locked around your waist as he takes your weight.
“There you go,” His voice is wrecked, “That’s my girl.”
Your body clenches around him. Phillip curses against your shoulder. His rhythm breaks completely.
“Fuck.”
He drives into you once more, holding himself deep as his own release catches him. His body goes rigid behind yours, a ragged groan tearing from his chest as his grip becomes almost needy, his cum driven deep inside you.
For several seconds, neither of you moves.
Phillip stays folded over you, chest heaving against your back. His forehead presses into the curve of your shoulder, one hand tangled with yours and the other spread low over your stomach.
His heartbeat pounds against you. The quiet driveway slowly returns.
The breeze. The insects in the grass. The soft ticking of the truck beneath your hands.
Phillip presses a lazy kiss to your shoulder. Then another.
“Goddamn.” His voice cracks on the last syllable exhaustedly.
You laugh weakly. “Very romantic.”
“Thought so.”
His thumb strokes your stomach. “Missed you.”
“You’ve said that.”
“Gonna keep sayin’ it.”
You close your eyes, sinking beneath his warmth.
Then the realization arrives. Slowly.
His zipper.
The urgency.
No pause.
No foil tearing.
Your eyes open.
“…Holy shit.”
Phillip hums weakly against your shoulder. “Hmm?”
You push yourself higher on the hood.
“Phillip, we didn’t…”
The words trail off.
His mouth stills against your shoulder.
For one suspended second, neither of you moves. His chest remains pressed to your back, breath warm against your damp skin. The arm around your waist stays firm, holding you upright, while his other hand rests low over your stomach.
The truck ticks beneath you as the engine cools.
A breeze moves through the trees lining the drive, lifting the rumpled hem of your dress. Gravel shifts softly beneath Phillip’s boots as he adjusts his stance.
Then his body goes still.
“Oh.”
The quiet realization clears the last of the haze from your head.
“We didn’t use anything.”
“No,” he says slowly. “We didn’t.”
His palm remains exactly where it is.
That unsettles you more than if he had pulled away in alarm.
You push yourself upright, and Phillip moves with you immediately. He eases back carefully, one hand gripping your waist when your knees threaten to buckle. The loss draws a faint hiss through his teeth, but he keeps his attention on you.
“Easy.”
He fixes his jeans before smoothing the skirt of your sundress down over your hips. His palms drag over the wrinkled fabric, straightening it with an unexpected gentleness after everything that just happened.
Then he turns you around.
Your back settles against the warm hood. Phillip steps between your knees, one hand still holding your waist while he removes his sunglasses with the other. He hooks them into the open collar of his shirt, finally giving you a clear look at his face.
There is no panic there.
His cheeks are flushed, hair disordered from your hands, blue eyes still dark with the remains of the last few minutes.
But he does not look sorry.
“You’re awfully calm,” you say.
Phillip’s thumb moves slowly over your waist.
“Still processing.”
“You don’t look worried.”
He studies you for a moment, gaze moving over your face before dropping to where the skirt of your dress rests between you.
His hand drifts back to your stomach.
Not possessively.
Almost thoughtfully.
“I’m worried you’re worried.”
“That is not an answer.”
“No.” His palm spreads over the fabric. “Guess it isn’t.”
The evening feels suddenly quieter. The buzz of insects in the grass seems louder now, along with the rustle of leaves overhead and the faint creak of the truck settling beneath your weight.
Phillip looks down at his hand.
“We’ve talked about trying.”
“Eventually.”
“I remember.”
His thumb traces a slow line beneath your navel.
“This would be a strange way for eventually to happen.”
The corner of his mouth lifts.
“Would be on brand for us.”
Despite yourself, you let out a small laugh.
Phillip looks up immediately, expression softening at the sound.
“You wouldn’t regret it?” you ask.
“No.”
The answer comes before you have fully finished the question.
Phillip seems to realize how quickly he said it. His fingers flex once against your stomach, and some of the easy confidence fades from his face.
“I might be scared,” he admits. “Probably would be.”
“You?”
He gives you a look.
“I know how to deal with people shootin’ at me. Babies seem considerably less predictable.”
Your mouth twitches.
“But no,” he continues, quieter. “I wouldn’t regret it.”
You rest your hand over his.
His skin is warm beneath your palm, knuckles scraped and faintly bruised from wherever he has been. The sight of your hands together over your stomach makes your chest tighten.
Phillip watches your expression carefully.
“You want me to move?” he asks.
You shake your head. His shoulders loosen slightly.
You stay there for a moment, tucked between him and the truck while the last light fades through the trees.
“We do have the whole weekend,” you say eventually.
Phillip’s gaze lifts sharply to yours.
“We do.”
“And neither of us has anywhere to be until Monday.”
His hand slides around to the small of your back, drawing you closer between his thighs.
“No, ma’am.”
You trace the open edge of his collar, gathering the nerve while the last light slips between the trees.
“Maybe we could actually try.”
Phillip goes completely still. For once, there is no clever response waiting.
“You mean that?”
You nod. “I’m nervous.”
“That ain’t the same as no.”
“No,” you agree. “It isn’t.”
Something bright breaks across his face before he can hide it.
Phillip cups your cheek and kisses you slowly, one hand warm against your back while the truck continues ticking beneath you.
When he pulls away, his forehead remains pressed to yours.
“You sure?”
“I’m sure.”
His eyes drop to your mouth.
Then the familiar, dangerous little smile returns.
“The whole weekend?”
“You are already pushing it.”
“Sweetheart, I just got home.”
He bends and lifts you from the hood before you can protest, one arm beneath your knees and the other around your back.
You grab his shoulders.
“I can walk.”
“Could’ve fooled me.”
“Phillip.”
He starts toward the porch, boots crunching over the gravel.
“My panties.”
“Keeping ’em.”
“You live here.”
“Need somethin’ to remember the first attempt.”
You stare up at him.
“The first attempt?”
Phillip’s grin widens as he shoulders open the screen door.
soo i saw it in one post that you headcanon graves as a man who would like to spoil his partner, but since he's a very ambitious guy, do you think he'd still kinda want someone that comes from some good money/someone close to his level? like do you think these things matter to him, or could he be supportive of someone that's still trying to build themselves a life, maybe someone in a vulnerable position compared to him or the women he dated; a woman thats still new in her career, a woman that wanted to go back to school, an immigrant woman etc- can he love a somewhat vulnerable person? because the man himself is a powerhouse ahah
if you'd like to share an opinion on this 🫠
Oh, I love this question.
I do think Phillip likes someone who has backbone, ambition, and a sense of self, but I do not think that automatically means they have to come from money or be on his exact financial level.
Honestly, I think he would get bored with someone who was just rich and polished and agreeable.
Phillip is a powerhouse, absolutely, but I do not think he needs a partner who can “match” him dollar for dollar. That man has enough money. He does not need you to impress him with your bank account.
What would matter more to him is whether you have drive. Whether you have grit. Whether you are trying.
Like, if you are new in your career, going back to school, rebuilding after a rough period, starting over in a new country, or just trying to make something of yourself, I do not think he would look down on that. If anything, I think he would respect the hell out of it.
Because Phillip is ambitious, yes, but I also think he understands survival. He understands having to claw your way into a better life. He understands wanting more and being willing to work for it.
So could he love someone vulnerable compared to him?
Yes.
But I do not think he would love helplessness.
That is the distinction.
He could absolutely love someone who needs support. Someone who is still building. Someone who does not have it all figured out yet. Someone who is scared but still showing up. Someone who lets him help without making that help their entire identity.
He would want to provide. He would want to make life easier for you. He would want to be the reason you can breathe a little, sleep a little better, apply for that program, quit the job that is killing you, take the risk you were too afraid to take alone.
But he would not want to own you.
At least not in the ugly way.
I think Phillip’s version of spoiling someone is very tied to pride. He likes knowing he can take care of what is his. He likes the nice dinners, the pretty clothes, the paid bills, the car handled, the tuition covered, the “don’t worry about it, sweetheart, I’ve got it” of it all.
But I think he would be most attracted to the part of you that still wants to stand on your own feet.
He does not need you to be powerful in the same way he is.
He needs you to be real.
He needs you to have a spine.
He needs you to be able to look at him, this rich, dangerous, overconfident man who is used to getting his way, and still say, “No, Phillip. That is not what I want.”
That would do more for him than a trust fund ever could.
So no, I do not think he needs someone from “good money.”
I think he would do just fine with someone still building their life.
Maybe especially then.
Because Phillip Graves loves a project, and I mean that affectionately and dangerously. Not in the sense that he wants to fix you like you are broken, but in the sense that once he believes in you, he is all in.
You want to go back to school?
He is already asking what the application deadline is.
You want to change careers?
He is asking what the plan is and who he needs to call.
You are scared you are behind everyone else?
He is looking at you like that is the stupidest thing he has ever heard and saying, “Behind who?”
And if you try to tell him you do not want to be a burden, he would hate that.
Because to him, helping you is not a burden.
It is a privilege.
It is also, unfortunately, an ego boost.
Because of course it is. This is Phillip.
He likes being the man who can say, “I’ll handle it,” and actually mean it. He likes being capable. He likes being useful. He likes knowing that his presence in your life made something easier, safer, better.
But the important part is that he would still respect you.
He might spoil you. He might support you. He might open doors you did not even know existed.
But he would never want you small.
Not really.
Phillip Graves does not need a woman who comes from power.
He needs a woman who can survive standing next to his.
Just wanted to let you know that I LOVE the Phillip Graves x ex-wife!reader series and I think you’re a very talented writer. I wish you all the best keep writing it honestly helps my day go by easier and it keeps my mind at ease ( ◠‿◠ )
This is so incredibly sweet, thank you so much 🥺 It genuinely means the world to me that this little series can bring you comfort and make your day a little easier. I’m so grateful you’re reading and loving it. I promise there’s more Phillip and ex-wife drama coming soon 🤍
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