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pairing: dr. jack abbot x younger resident!reader
summary: You’re used to handling things alone, even if handling them means skipping meals, ignoring problems, and laughing before anyone can see where it stings. Then Jack Abbot starts noticing too much. He pays attention in that quiet, maddening way of his, all dry comments and practical solutions, until calling him your sugar daddy stops feeling like a joke and starts feeling like the only safe label for something you’re too terrified to name.
Because the problem with Jack Abbot isn’t that he wants to take care of you. It’s that you want to let him.
wc: 12.9k
a/n: and here it is, the accidental sugar daddy abbot fic i started over a month ago!! was initially toying with the idea to turn this into a multi-chaptered story but eventually settled on a one-shot instead because i have way too many ongoing fics i need to finish at some point lmao. i really wanted to take the sugar daddy trope and make it feel more grounded and in-character for jack, less flashy billionaire fantasy, more quiet practical care that gets way too intimate before either of you knows what to do with it. not beta read.
warnings: age gap, workplace power imbalance, attending/resident turned sd/sb dynamic, class/money insecurity, possessive/soft dom!jack, semi-public sex, piv, car sex, unprotected sex, creampie, dirty talk, praise kink, mild degradation, biting/marking, daddy kink adjacent, public humiliation, no use of y/n
MASTERLIST
By the third time your card declined in front of Jack Abbot, you were ready to walk into traffic and let Pittsburgh finish what your bank account started.
Not dramatically. Not even with much feeling.
Just a clean, practical exit from the kind of humiliation that made your skin feel too tight over your bones.
The cafeteria at PTMC was too bright for this hour, all hard fluorescent light and polished floors and the faint, permanent smell of fryer oil losing a war against antiseptic. Behind you, the emergency department pulsed on with its usual awful rhythm—monitors chiming, stretchers squealing past, somebody coughing low and ragged, the sound dragging itself through the corridor, Dana Evans barking for someone to move their ass before she moved it for them. It was a living thing down here. Hungry. Overlit. Never satisfied.
You had a wrapped turkey sandwich in one hand, a bruised banana in the other, and that particular, skin-tight shame of being broke in public.
The cashier, who looked as tired as everyone else in the building, tried not to make a face at the register.
“Sometimes it’s the chip,” she said.
“It’s not the chip,” you said, because apparently your mouth had decided the truth was less embarrassing than optimism.
You could feel the line behind you growing restless. A respiratory therapist with a Diet Coke. A med student in wrinkled scrubs whispering urgently into their phone. Dr. Whitaker, gentle-eyed and awkward, staring at the ceiling like he was trying to give you privacy by force of will. Somewhere near the coffee station, Santos was talking too loudly about a procedure she “absolutely could’ve done faster if anyone had let her finish,” and Dr. Mohan was answering in that careful, measured way that made even a correction sound like she’d considered the whole person first.
You shifted the sandwich lower against your palm.
“It’s fine,” you said, already turning. “I don’t need it.”
A hand reached past your shoulder and tapped a card against the reader.
The machine beeped.
Approved.
You froze.
Jack Abbot stood close enough behind you that you caught the familiar edge of him before you looked up—the clean, medicinal bite of hospital soap, the stale warmth of coffee, the faintest trace of sweat under scrubs after too many hours on his feet. He didn’t look at you right away. He watched the cashier print the receipt with the same expression he wore when waiting for labs, jaw set, eyes tired, patience worn thin but not gone.
“Bag?” the cashier asked.
“No,” Jack said.
You stood there with the sandwich in one hand and the banana in the other, suddenly too aware of the bruised peel, the cold give of the sandwich through the cloudy plastic, the line behind you, and Jack Abbot’s shoulder beside yours.
You stared at him. “Seriously?”
He finally looked at you.
Jack Abbot always looked like he’d been awake since the Clinton administration. It should’ve made him less attractive. It didn't. The exhaustion sat under his eyes and in the lines bracketing his mouth, but there was something about him that made tired look like discipline instead of defeat. His hair was a little mussed, his scrubs were creased at the hips, and his stance had that slight adjustment you’d learned to notice after months of seeing him around PTMC—the subtle distribution of weight that came with his prosthetic leg and the old damage he carried without announcing it.
“What?” he said.
You lowered your voice. “You didn’t have to do that.”
“I know.”
“That’s my lunch.”
“Looked like it.”
“You paid for it.”
“Sharp today.”
You huffed, heat crawling up your neck. “Jack.”
That got you the smallest change in his face. Not a smile. He didn’t hand those out recklessly. More like one corner of his mouth remembered humor existed and gave a half-hearted twitch before giving up.
“Eat the sandwich,” he said.
“I was going to.”
“No, you were going to put it back and pretend you weren’t hungry.”
You opened your mouth.
Jack’s eyebrows lifted.
You closed it again.
Behind him, Whitaker looked down at his shoes like they might offer instructions, visibly desperate not to be part of this. Santos, unfortunately, had no such instinct.
“Damn,” she said, appearing at Jack’s shoulder with a coffee she had definitely not paid for recently enough to still be that hot. “Abbot’s buying lunch now? Is this a resident perk, or do I need to almost faint near the muffins?”
Mohan didn’t look up from stirring sugar into her tea. “You would never almost faint quietly enough to qualify.”
“I don’t faint,” Santos said.
“You got lightheaded during central line training.”
“That was low blood sugar and a hostile learning environment.” Santos pointed two fingers toward Jack. “But I’m serious. I want in on the cafeteria patron program.”
Jack looked at her.
Santos looked back.
The silence lasted exactly long enough for her confidence to thin at the edges.
“Or not,” she said, taking a sip of coffee. “Noted. Very selective program.”
Dana passed behind the group with a stack of charts under one arm and a look sharp enough to split sutures. “If any of you are done loitering in my cafeteria like it’s a damn wine bar, I’ve got three beds backing up, a grown adult arguing with registration, a kid melting down in triage, and a Lego stuck in one of their ear canals.”
Whitaker blinked. “Who? Adult guy or kid guy?”
Dana didn’t slow down. “That’s the part that’s gonna disappoint you.”
Santos grinned. Mohan gave a small, resigned sigh. Jack, without looking away from you, said, “Eat.”
Your face was still hot.
The sandwich felt heavier now that it had been purchased by him. Not because it was expensive. It was hospital cafeteria turkey on wheat, overpriced and bland, the cloudy plastic crinkling under your fingers every time your grip tightened. But Jack had noticed. That was the part you didn’t know how to hold. He’d seen the little calculation you’d tried to hide, the quiet defeat of deciding hunger could wait until later, and he’d stepped in with no fanfare. No pity. No soft voice.
Just a card tapped against a reader and a dry order to eat.
“I can pay you back,” you said.
Jack’s eyes dipped briefly to the sandwich and then back to your face.
“Don’t.”
“I don’t like owing people.”
“You don’t owe me.”
“That’s not how money works.”
“It is when I decide I don’t care.”
You gave a small, disbelieving laugh. “That’s very generous of you, Dr. Abbot.”
“Don’t make it weird.”
You should’ve let it go.
You really should’ve.
But the humiliation had already burned off into something else, something warmer and more dangerous, because Jack was standing there with his tired eyes and that blunt, immovable steadiness, and you had never been good at leaving tension alone when you could poke it until it bit.
“Careful,” you said, tucking the sandwich against your chest. “People are gonna think you’re my sugar daddy.”
Whitaker made a strangled sound and turned toward the condiments with the strained focus of a man suddenly invested in ketchup packets, while Santos choked on her coffee hard enough that Mohan closed her eyes like she was choosing patience on purpose. Jack only stared at you, and for one awful second, you thought you’d gone too far.
Then Jack took the receipt from the cashier, crumpled it in one hand, and said, flat as a dead monitor, “People think a lot of stupid shit.”
He walked away before you could answer.
You watched him disappear through the cafeteria doors and into the arterial chaos of the ER, shoulders squared, limp controlled, already swallowed by the work waiting for him.
Santos leaned closer, grin wide enough to be medically concerning.
“Oh, that was not nothing.”
“It was lunch,” you said.
Mohan looked at you over the rim of her cup, thoughtful in a way that made you feel unfortunately examined. “He noticed before anyone else did.”
You pressed the cold sandwich wrapper against your burning face.
Dana shouted from somewhere down the hall, “Santos, if you’re socializing instead of working, I’m assigning you Lego ear.”
Santos snapped upright. “I’m not socializing.”
“Good,” Dana called. “Then you can do it faster.”
You stood there with Jack’s lunch in your hands and tried very hard not to smile.
It would’ve been easier if that had been the end of it.
But Jack Abbot, you learned, was not a man who did anything halfway once he decided it made sense.
He didn’t become flashy. He didn’t start acting like some rich asshole in a bad romance novel, throwing cash around and waiting to be thanked for it. That would’ve been easier to resist, probably. Less intimate, anyway. You could’ve rolled your eyes at that. You could’ve made fun of him. You could’ve called it ridiculous and kept your pride intact.
Jack was worse.
Jack was practical.
He bought your coffee the next morning because, as he put it, “I was already standing there.” He brought you half a container of pasta from the staff fridge because “Robby ordered too much and nobody here understands portions.” He left a protein bar beside your laptop during a night when the waiting room looked like every bad decision in Pittsburgh had agreed to arrive at once. He noticed when your left shoe started peeling at the sole and said nothing, which somehow made you more self-conscious than if he’d pointed at it.
Robby noticed before you did.
Or maybe Robby noticed everything and simply chose when to weaponize it.
It was just after noon on a bad shift, the kind where every hallway seemed to have sprouted a stretcher and every call light sounded like one more thing nobody had enough hands to answer. You were near the nurses’ station, trying to make sense of a scheduling conflict that had three departments blaming each other in increasingly creative language, when Robby came up beside you with a tablet in one hand and a cup of coffee in the other.
His hair was doing that thing where it looked like he’d run both hands through it enough times to qualify as a cry for help.
“Is Abbot feeding you?” he asked.
You nearly dropped your pen. “What?”
Robby glanced toward trauma two, where Jack was leaning over a chart with Dr. McKay, both of them listening while Javadi spoke quickly and carefully, too eager to be casual. Jack’s attention was fixed, but his expression had that faintly skeptical set that made med students stand up straighter by instinct.
“Food,” Robby said. “Coffee. Whatever else he’s pretending is a coincidence.”
“He bought me lunch once.”
“Uh-huh.”
“And coffee.”
“Sure.”
“And maybe pasta.”
Robby’s eyebrows rose.
You narrowed your eyes. “Do you have a point?”
“Not one worth putting in writing.” He took a sip of coffee, then winced like it tasted exactly as bad as he expected and somehow worse. “Just be careful.”
That killed the humor faster than you wanted it to.
Your eyes shifted back toward Jack before you could stop them.
Robby caught it. Of course he caught it. He was annoying that way, all ragged compassion and clinical perception, the kind of man who could call out a hemorrhage, a lie, and a panic attack in the same breath.
“He’s a good guy,” Robby said, quieter.
“I know.”
“That doesn’t mean he’s uncomplicated.”
You swallowed. “I know that too.”
Robby’s face softened by a fraction. It made him look older, which was unfair, because he already looked like the hospital had been chewing on him for years and kept forgetting to swallow.
“Okay,” he said. Then, because sincerity seemed to physically pain him if left unbalanced, he added, “Also, if this turns into some HR nightmare, I’m denying I noticed.”
“There’s nothing to notice.”
“Great. Love that. Very convincing.”
You looked back down at your schedule so he wouldn’t see your face.
Across the department, Jack glanced up.
For a second, through the moving bodies and swinging privacy curtains and fluorescent glare, his eyes found yours.
He didn’t smile.
He just looked.
That was becoming the problem.
Jack didn’t flirt the way other men flirted. He didn’t crowd you with charm or drown you in compliments or make a show of wanting to be watched. He looked at you like noticing was a form of pressure. Like every detail went somewhere and stayed there. The coffee order. The bad shoe. The way you tucked your hands into your sleeves when you were cold. The way your voice got flatter when you were trying not to admit something hurt.
You wished he’d be less good at it.
You wished you liked it less.
The car thing happened on a Thursday.
You were leaving PTMC after a shift that had somehow lasted ten hours despite only being scheduled for eight, which felt like a violation of both labor law and physics. Your head ached from fluorescent lights. Your feet throbbed. The parking garage smelled like wet concrete, exhaust, and old rain, with the city beyond it slick and dark under a spring storm that had rolled in hard after sunset.
Your car made the noise again when you turned the key.
Not the cute noise. Not the “haha, she’s old but reliable” noise.
The expensive one.
A grinding, metallic cough dragged itself out from under the hood, followed by a rattle that sounded like several important pieces had started a fight and nobody was winning.
You shut the engine off immediately.
“Please,” you whispered, resting your forehead against the steering wheel. “Not tonight.”
The car answered by doing absolutely nothing, which was at least better than exploding.
You tried again.
The sound came back worse.
A knock hit your window.
You screamed.
Jack stood outside in the harsh garage lighting, rain clinging to his shoulders, one hand braced on the roof of your car. He looked unimpressed by your survival instincts.
You rolled the window down halfway. “Jesus Christ.”
“No,” he said. “Just me.”
“Do you always lurk in parking garages?”
“Only when cars sound like they’re about to die.”
“It’s fine.”
Jack looked at the hood. Then at you.
“That’s not a fine sound.”
“It does that sometimes.”
“It shouldn’t do that ever.”
You tightened your grip on the steering wheel. “I’m taking it in next week.”
“You’re not driving it until then.”
A laugh slipped out of you, brittle and defensive. “Okay, Dad.”
His expression didn't change, but something in his eyes sharpened.
Your stomach dipped.
Not fear. Not exactly.
Something else.
Jack leaned slightly closer to the open window. “Pop the hood.”
“I don’t need you to—”
“Pop the hood.”
There was a particular tone he used in the ER when people were bleeding, lying, or being stupid about symptoms that could kill them. Apparently, your car had been triaged into that category.
You popped the hood.
The storm pushed rain sideways into the garage, misting the concrete in silver sheets beyond the open level. Jack moved around to the front of your car and lifted the hood, shoulders hunching slightly as he looked inside. He wasn’t wearing a jacket, just dark scrubs under a gray zip-up that had seen better decades, sleeves pushed to his forearms. The overhead light caught the tendons in his hands, the salt at his temples, the hard concentration in his face.
It was obscene, honestly, watching a man become attractive over engine trouble.
He checked something, frowned, checked something else, then lowered the hood with more control than the situation deserved.
“Do not drive this,” he said.
You were already shaking your head. “I have to get home.”
“I’ll drive you.”
“No.”
“Yes.”
“No, Jack.”
He stared at you over the hood. “You got a better plan?”
You did not.
You had forty-three dollars in your checking account, a rent payment looming like an execution date, and a car making noises you couldn’t afford to identify. But admitting that felt worse than standing barefoot on broken glass.
“I can call someone,” you said.
“Who?”
The question was simple. Too simple.
That was the problem with Jack. He had no patience for the decorative lies people used to get through conversations. He stripped things down until you either told the truth or stood there bleeding around it.
You looked away first.
Rain ticked against the garage opening. Somewhere below, an ambulance siren rose and fell, dopplering into the wet city.
Jack’s voice dropped. “Get your bag.”
“I don’t want to be a problem.”
“You’re not.”
“I don’t want you fixing everything.”
“I’m not fixing everything.” He came around to your side of the car, opened the door, and stood back enough to give you room. “I’m stopping you from driving a death trap.”
You didn’t move.
Jack exhaled through his nose, not quite a sigh.
“You can be mad in my car,” he said. “It has heat.”
That was how he won.
Not with softness. Not with a speech.
Heat.
You grabbed your bag and got out.
Jack’s car was clean in the way a person’s car got when they didn’t spend enough time in it to make a mess. There was an old coffee cup in the holder, a folded jacket in the back, a snow scraper on the floor, and a faint smell of leather, rain, and whatever soap he used that always made you think of hospital sinks and his hands.
He turned the heat on without asking. Then, after a second, he aimed one of the vents toward you.
You noticed.
You hated that you noticed.
Neither of you said anything as he pulled out of the garage. The rain blurred the windshield, smearing Pittsburgh into traffic lights and dark brick, ambulance bays and slick streets, the city looking bruised and alive under the storm. Jack drove with one hand low on the wheel, the other resting near the gear shift, fingers flexing once when his leg seemed to bother him.
“You okay?” you asked before you could stop yourself.
His eyes stayed on the road. “Yeah.”
“Your leg?”
“I said yeah.”
“Right. Sorry.”
His jaw worked.
Then, quieter, “Long day.”
That was as much as he usually gave. A door opened an inch, then locked again.
You nodded. “Yeah.”
The wipers dragged water from the glass in steady, tired arcs.
At a red light, Jack said, “Where do you take the car?”
You laughed weakly. “To a mechanic who knows me by name and already looks tired when I walk in.”
“I’ll call someone.”
“No.”
“You don’t know who yet.”
“I know it’s going to involve you paying for something.”
The light turned green.
Jack drove.
You looked at him, incredulous. “You’re not even denying it.”
“Seemed like a waste of both our time.”
“Jack.”
“I know a guy.”
“Of course you know a guy.”
“I’m old.”
“You’re not that old.”
That got you a glance. Brief, sharp, almost amused.
“No?”
“No,” you said, and then because you had apparently decided self-preservation was for other people, you added, “Just old enough to have a guy.”
The corner of his mouth moved.
You felt victorious and doomed at the same time.
“I can handle it,” you said, softer. “The car. I’ll figure it out.”
“I know you can.”
“Then why are you doing this?”
Jack was quiet long enough that you thought he might not answer.
Then he said, “Because figuring it out shouldn’t mean hoping your brakes make it another week.”
Your throat tightened unexpectedly.
You looked out the window so he wouldn’t see it.
The thing about being broke—really, really, broke—wasn’t just the lack of money. It was the math. The constant, grinding math of survival. A sandwich became a calculation. A repair became a catastrophe. A strange noise under the hood became a negotiation with God or luck or whatever indifferent force kept old cars alive for one more day. You got used to making everything stretch until stretching felt like living, and then someone like Jack came along and called it unsafe in that blunt, infuriating voice, and suddenly the whole thing looked different.
Not brave.
Not independent.
Just exhausting.
He pulled up outside your building and put the car in park. Rain ran down the windshield in crooked streams.
You didn’t reach for the door handle.
“Thank you,” you said.
Jack nodded once.
“I mean it.”
“I know.”
“I’ll pay you back if your guy does anything.”
“No.”
You shut your eyes. “Please don’t make me fight you in your car. I’m tired.”
“I noticed.”
“Stop noticing.”
“No.”
Your eyes opened.
Jack was looking at you now, body angled slightly in the driver’s seat, face cut by passing headlights and dashboard glow. Up close, in the dim, the lines around his eyes looked deeper. So did the restraint. He wore it like part of the uniform, like scrubs and a stethoscope and whatever pain he kept filed away under function.
Your voice came out smaller than you wanted. “Why?”
He didn’t pretend not to understand.
“I don’t know,” he said.
It was the first answer he’d given you that didn’t sound like a diagnosis.
That made it worse.
You tried to smile, tried to make the air lighter before it crushed you. “This is getting very sugar daddy of you.”
The joke landed differently in the dark.
You felt it. So did he.
Jack’s eyes dropped to your mouth for half a second. Maybe less. Long enough for your pulse to trip, not long enough to accuse him of anything. Either way, when he looked back up, his face had gone still in a way that made the warm air from the vents feel suddenly too hot.
“You should go inside,” he said.
You nodded.
Neither of you moved.
Then his phone buzzed in the cup holder, snapping the moment clean down the middle. Jack glanced at the screen, saw Robby’s name, and declined the call before typing something one-handed with the resignation of a man who knew better than to leave him unanswered too long.
You opened the door before you could do something stupid, like ask him to come upstairs.
“Night, Jack.”
His hand tightened once around the phone.
“Lock your door.”
You smiled despite yourself. “Yes, Doctor.”
His eyes lifted.
There it was again, that almost-smile. Faint. Dangerous.
“Don’t start,” he said.
You got out before your face could betray you.
The car repair cost eight hundred and sixty dollars.
Jack didn't tell you this.
The mechanic did, because you called behind Jack’s back after getting one text that said, Car’s handled. Pick it up Friday.
Handled.
Like it was a chart. Like it was a consult. Like it was one of the million things at PTMC that needed to be assessed, fixed, signed off, and moved along.
You stood in a supply hallway with your phone pressed to your ear, your grip tightening around the case while the mechanic cheerfully explained that Dr. Abbot had already squared it away.
Squared it away.
You were going to kill him.
Unfortunately, when you found him, he was in the middle of resetting a dislocated shoulder with Robby at the bedside and King handing over medication with careful, focused precision. There was a teenage patient crying, his mother pacing, Dana telling everyone who wasn’t useful to back up, and Jack looking exactly like a man who could not be murdered until after he finished being competent.
You had to wait.
That made you angrier.
By the time he stepped out, stripping off gloves and tossing them into the trash, you had worked yourself into something sharp enough to throw.
“Eight hundred and sixty dollars?” you said.
Jack stopped.
Robby, behind him, stopped too.
Dana looked up from the desk.
Santos, who had the survival instincts of someone convinced she could talk her way out of anything, immediately leaned over the counter.
Jack’s eyes flicked over your face. “Not here.”
“Oh, no, definitely here.”
Robby pressed his lips together and took one very deliberate step backward.
“Coward,” Dana muttered.
“Experienced,” Robby corrected.
Jack lowered his voice. “You called the mechanic.”
“You paid the mechanic.”
“Yeah.”
“Eight hundred and sixty dollars, Jack.”
“Would’ve been more if you kept driving it.”
You stared at him. “That is not the point.”
“That is exactly the point.”
“I told you I didn’t want you fixing everything.”
“And I told you I wasn’t letting you drive a death trap.”
“You don’t get to decide that for me.”
For the first time, something like frustration cracked through his calm.
“No,” he said. “I don’t get to decide everything for you. But I do get to decide what I do with my money.”
Dana made a low sound. “Jesus.”
Santos whispered, “This is better than whatever I was supposed to be doing.”
Mohan, passing with a chart, said, “You're supposed to be working.”
You barely heard them.
Your whole focus had narrowed to Jack’s face, the stubborn set of his mouth, the tension in his shoulders. He looked tired. He always looked tired. But underneath it was something else now, something protective enough to be annoying and personal enough to hurt.
“I can’t pay that back right now,” you said.
“I didn’t ask you to.”
“That doesn’t make it better.”
“It makes it done.”
You laughed once, without humor. “You’re impossible.”
“Usually.”
“You can’t just—” You stopped, aware suddenly of how many people were pretending not to listen. Your voice dropped. “You can’t just keep doing this.”
Jack’s gaze held yours.
“Doing what?”
The question should’ve been innocent, but it wasn’t. Not after the lunches, the coffee, the rides, the mechanic, or the way Jack looked at you like you were a problem he wanted to solve with his bare hands. You stepped closer before you thought better of it.
“You know what,” you said.
For a second, the department moved around you, loud and bright and indifferent, but you and Jack were still.
Then Dana slapped a chart down on the counter hard enough to startle everyone within ten feet.
“Okay,” she said. “As much as I’d love to watch whatever this is turn into a workplace training module, Abbot, bed nine needs you. You—” She pointed at you. “Take a breath before you rupture something expensive.”
Jack’s mouth tightened, but he listened.
Of course he listened to Dana. Everyone did, eventually.
He stepped past you, close enough that his sleeve brushed your arm.
“Friday,” he said under his breath.
You turned your head. “What?”
“Pick up your car Friday.”
Then he was gone.
Santos waited exactly three seconds.
“So,” she said, bright-eyed. “How does one apply for the Abbot scholarship fund?”
Dana pointed at her without looking. “Bedpan in curtain three.”
Santos deflated. “Damn it.”
You hated how badly you wanted to laugh.
By Friday, when you picked up your car, there was a new pair of black nonslip clogs sitting in the passenger seat.
Not fancy. Not wrapped. Just sensible, comfortable work shoes in your size, made for twelve-hour shifts and the brutal, steady wear of the ER. A sticky note was pressed to the box in Jack’s blunt handwriting.
Your old ones were unsafe.
That was it. No apology, no explanation. Just another problem he’d noticed and solved before you could decide whether to be grateful or furious.
You sat in the driver’s seat for a long time, staring at the note, then laughed until your eyes burned.
The fundraiser was Robby’s fault.
At least, that was what you told yourself, because blaming Robby was easier than admitting you had agreed to attend a hospital donor event while quietly hoping Jack would look at you in something other than scrubs.
PTMC held one every year, apparently. A grim little ritual where administrators, donors, board members, and exhausted medical staff gathered in a hotel ballroom to pretend the emergency department wasn’t being kept alive by overworked staff, aging equipment, and the quiet fact that everyone had learned to make do with less. There would be speeches. There would be bad chicken. There would be wealthy people using phrases like “frontline heroes” while nurses calculated how many working monitors the cost of the floral arrangements could’ve bought.
You hadn’t planned to go.
Then Gloria Underwood’s office had needed extra administrative support for check-in, and Robby had said, “It’s easy money. Wear something nice. Try not to let the donors explain healthcare to you.”
You’d said yes before checking your closet.
That was how you ended up in your apartment three nights before the event, sitting on the floor in a towel, surrounded by every dress you owned and the creeping realization that none of them worked. Too casual. Too tight in the wrong way. Too old. Too funeral. Too “college career fair,” stiff in all the wrong places and not nice enough to pass under ballroom lighting. One had a broken zipper. One still had a stain from a margarita incident you refused to revisit.
Your phone buzzed.
Jack:
Car still running?
You stared at the message, then at the graveyard of dresses around you.
You:
yes, dad
Jack:
Don’t.
You smiled despite yourself.
You:
thank you, by the way
for the shoes too
even though you’re insane
Jack:
You going tomorrow?
You stared at the message for a second too long, then looked down at the heap of rejected clothes around your legs.
You:
maybe
Jack:
That means yes.
You should’ve stopped there.
Instead, with the fatal confidence of a woman sitting half-naked on her bedroom floor and losing an argument with formalwear, you typed:
You:
it means maybe now i just need a dress that doesn’t make me look like i wandered into the fundraiser by accident
The reply took longer than usual.
Jack:
Show me.
You stared at the message, suddenly aware of every inch of bare skin the pile of rejected clothes wasn’t covering.
You:
the dress?
Jack:
What else would I mean?
Your face went hot.
You:
don’t ask me that when i’m half naked on my bedroom floor
The typing bubble appeared.
Disappeared.
Appeared again.
Jack:
You have tomorrow off?
You stared.
Then stared harder.
You:
why
Jack:
Answer the question.
There were several smart things you could’ve said.
You said none of them.
You:
yes
Jack:
I’ll pick you up at 10.
Your stomach flipped.
You:
jack
Jack:
10:30 if you’re going to argue.
You:
you don’t even know what i was going to say
Jack:
I’m learning patterns.
You pressed your phone facedown against your thigh and sat there half-dressed and mortified, thighs pressed together, waiting for your body to stop reacting like he’d put his hands on you.
The next morning, Jack arrived at 10:28.
Of course he did.
He drove you to a small boutique outside downtown, the kind of place you would’ve walked past without entering because the window displays didn’t include prices, which meant the prices were rude. Jack parked, got out, and came around to your side before you had fully finished spiraling.
“I don’t like this,” you said as he opened the door.
“You haven’t gone in yet.”
“That’s why I still have hope.”
He gave you a look.
You stepped out, hugging your coat tighter around yourself. “Jack, I’m serious. I’m not letting you buy me some expensive dress.”
“Okay.”
You blinked. “Okay?”
“Yeah.”
“That was too easy.”
“You said some expensive dress.” He closed the car door. “Find a cheap one.”
You stared at him.
He headed for the shop.
“That is not a loophole,” you called after him.
“It’s exactly a loophole.”
Inside, the boutique was too quiet, too soft, too expensive in ways it didn’t need to announce. Pale wood floors, warm lighting, racks arranged with almost insulting confidence, the dresses hanging with more breathing room than your apartment closet could spare. The air smelled faintly of steamed fabric and perfume, and the woman behind the counter looked up with the calm precision of someone trained to know who was buying before anyone spoke.
You hated that. You hated more that Jack didn’t seem to notice.
Or he did notice and simply didn’t care.
He told her what you needed in a few clipped sentences: hospital fundraiser, semi-formal, comfortable enough to work check-in, not black unless you wanted black, shoes optional because you had shoes. He didn't mention size like a man trying to guess or gesture vaguely at your body like an idiot. He looked at you when that part came up and let you answer for yourself.
That tiny bit of respect did something inconvenient to your chest.
The saleswoman brought options.
You rejected the first three.
Jack rejected the fourth before you could come out of the dressing room.
“No,” he said through the door.
You looked at yourself in the mirror, startled. “You haven’t even seen it.”
“I saw the sleeve.”
“You can diagnose a bad dress by sleeve?”
“I’ve diagnosed worse with less.”
You pulled the curtain back just enough to glare at him.
Jack sat in a low chair outside the dressing rooms, one ankle braced carefully, elbows on his knees, hands clasped. He looked absurd there, too solid and worn-in for the soft gold mirrors and velvet hangers, like someone had dropped a combat medic into a room built for silk and champagne.
His eyes flicked to the sliver of dress visible through the curtain.
“No,” he repeated.
The saleswoman, traitor that she was, nodded. “He’s right.”
You shut the curtain. “I hate both of you.”
The fifth dress was the problem.
You knew it before you opened the curtain.
The fabric skimmed instead of clung, soft where it needed to be, structured where it counted. It made you look like you’d meant to be invited. Like you hadn’t spent the week calculating grocery money in your head and pretending exhaustion didn’t count if you kept moving. The neckline was tasteful, but not innocent. The color warmed your skin without washing you out. You turned once in the mirror and felt something low in your stomach shift.
Confidence, maybe.
Or danger.
“Let me see,” Jack said from outside.
“You’re bossy.”
“Yes.”
“You admit that way too easily.”
“I’m old.”
You smiled, then caught your own face in the mirror and watched the smile fade.
This was a bad idea. Not the dress—the dress was perfect.
That was the bad idea.
You opened the curtain, and Jack looked up.
For a moment, he said nothing.
The shop noise seemed to thin around you—the music, the soft movement of hangers, the saleswoman tactfully vanishing somewhere behind a rack. Jack’s gaze moved over you once, controlled enough to be deniable and slow enough to ruin you anyway. He didn’t leer. He didn’t smirk. He just looked, jaw set, eyes catching for half a second too long at your waist, your hips, the neckline of the dress, like the only thing keeping his hands to himself was the fact that you were standing under boutique lights instead of somewhere with a locked door.
His jaw shifted.
Your fingers tightened around the curtain.
“Well?” you asked, because silence was going to kill you.
Jack leaned back slightly, but it didn’t make him look relaxed. It made him look like restraint had become physical.
“No,” he said.
Your face fell before you could stop it.
Then he added, lower, “That’s the problem.”
The words landed low enough to make your stomach tighten. You looked down at yourself, then back at him. “Too much?”
“No.”
“Then what?”
His eyes returned to your face like it cost him effort.
“It fits.”
It was such a stupid answer. Controlled, careful, almost useless—and somehow hotter than a compliment, because you could hear everything he wasn’t saying in the rough edge of his voice.
You stepped fully out, smoothing your palms down the front of the dress because you needed something to do.
“It’s probably expensive.”
“Probably.”
“Jack.”
“You like it?”
“That’s not the point.”
“It’s my point.”
You exhaled, trying to laugh, but it came out thin. “You can’t keep buying me things.”
He stood. Not quickly, not dramatically. Just unfolded himself from the chair and came closer, stopping at a respectful distance that still felt indecent because his eyes hadn’t left the dress, or you inside it.
“I can do what I want.”
“You sound like a nightmare.”
“I’ve been called worse.”
“I’m serious.”
“So am I.”
You glanced toward the mirror, unable to hold his eyes. In the reflection, he stood behind you, hands at his sides, older and tired and steady, and you looked like something neither of you could keep pretending was professional.
The thought went through you too sharply.
You swallowed. “People are going to think I’m exactly what I joked about.”
Jack’s reflection didn’t move. “What’s that?”
You met his eyes in the mirror. “Your sugar baby.”
There. Said out loud in the warm boutique light, with the dress between you as evidence.
Jack’s gaze held yours. Then he stepped closer, just enough that his voice didn’t have to carry. “That what you want this to be?”
Your mouth went dry. The smart answer was no. The honest answer was more complicated, and the answer your body wanted to give had no business being spoken in public before noon.
So you made it worse on purpose.
“I don’t know,” you said, tilting your head. “Depends on the benefits package.”
Jack looked at you for a long second. Then the almost-smile appeared, brief and devastating.
“Change,” he said. “Before I regret asking.”
You spent the rest of the day pretending your hands weren’t shaking.
Saturday night came wrapped in rain and reflected light.
The hotel ballroom looked too clean, too bright, and too expensive for a fundraiser built around people who spent most days trying to keep the whole place upright. White tablecloths. Gold fixtures. Centerpieces too tall for conversation. A stage at the far end with the PTMC logo projected behind the podium, clean and official and nothing like the controlled disaster of the emergency department. Nurses and doctors looked strangely exposed out of scrubs, like actors at the wrong rehearsal. Dana wore navy and carried herself with the same brisk authority she had at the nurses’ station, like the ballroom was just another crowded hallway she intended to get under control. Robby had put on a suit, but he wore it with visible reluctance, one hand already tugging at his tie before the first speech had started.
Dr. McKay arrived with her hair pinned back, already checking her phone for updates about her son. King stood beside her, fidgeting lightly with her bracelet while listening to Whitaker ramble about how strange it was to see everyone with “normal arms,” which he then tried to explain and somehow made worse. Javadi looked polished and nervous, her mother somewhere in the room like a pressure system. Mohan was composed, elegant, and already listening to the opening remarks with the patient focus of someone rationing her tolerance carefully.
Santos wore a sharp dress and confidence like body armor.
“Okay,” she said when she saw you. “I’m going to say something, and I need you not to make it weird.”
“That’s never a good opener.”
“You look hot.”
“Santos.”
“What? I said don’t make it weird.”
Mohan, passing behind her, said, “You made it weird by announcing you weren’t going to.”
Santos ignored her. “Abbot seen you yet?”
You busied yourself with the check-in list. “Why?”
“Because I’m invested.”
“You need a hobby.”
“I have one. It’s being right.”
You were saved from answering by Dana appearing at your side with two badges and a look that missed nothing.
“You doing okay?” she asked.
“Yeah.”
Dana’s eyes swept over your face, then the room, then the entrance where Jack had not yet appeared. “Uh-huh.”
“You too?”
“Me too what?”
“Nothing.”
Dana handed you the badges. “Honey, I’ve worked ER longer than some of these donors have been pretending to care about ER. I know when there’s a thing.”
“There’s not a thing.”
“Then stop looking at the door like you’re planning an escape route.”
You opened your mouth, found nothing useful, and looked back down at the check-in list.
Dana smirked and walked away.
Jack arrived ten minutes late in a dark suit, and something behind your ribs fluttered hard enough that you had to look away.
It wasn’t fancy. That was the worst part. No special tailoring, no flashy tie, no clean magazine version of him. Just a dark suit on a man who looked like he’d rather be elbows-deep in a trauma bay than standing under chandelier light, his hair slightly unruly, his face tired, his posture adjusted in that familiar way. The jacket sat broad across his shoulders. The shirt opened at the collar because of course he looked better slightly undone. There was a roughness to him the room couldn’t soften, something lived-in and disciplined and worn close to the bone.
Robby said something to him at the entrance.
Jack answered without smiling.
Then his eyes found you.
Everything else blurred.
Not fully. You were still aware of the check-in table under your hands, the murmur of donors, Santos whispering “oh my god” somewhere behind you with absolutely no attempt to hide it. But Jack looked at you in that dress, and the rest of the room slipped out of reach for one dangerous second.
He walked over slowly.
“Hi,” you said, which was embarrassing because you knew more words than that.
Jack’s gaze moved over your face first, then the dress, then back up slowly enough that your skin warmed beneath the fabric he’d bought.
“Hi.”
You tried for a smile. “You clean up okay.”
“I was going to say that.”
“You can still say it.”
“No.”
“Too generous?”
“Too easy.”
His eyes dipped again, just once, and something in your stomach tightened before he seemed to remember the room around you. He reached into his jacket and pulled out a folded piece of paper.
You stared. “What is that?”
“Receipt.”
“For the dress?”
“For the car.”
Your stomach dropped. “Jack.”
“Relax.” He slid it across the check-in table with two fingers. “It says paid. That’s all.”
You looked down.
Paid.
Your throat tightened.
“You said you didn’t like owing people,” he said.
“I still owe you.”
“No.” His voice stayed quiet, but something in it made the word feel less like comfort and more like a line drawn in permanent ink. “You don’t.”
You looked up at him, and for a second the ballroom felt too bright, too crowded, too public for the thing trying to break open in your chest.
Before you could answer, Robby appeared beside Jack with the timing of a man either doing you a favor or robbing you of a bad decision.
“Abbot,” he said, “Underwood wants us near the front for the photo.”
Jack’s voice came out clipped. “No.”
“Yeah, that’s what I said. She used the phrase ‘visible leadership.’”
“That makes it worse.”
“I agree.”
Robby looked at you then, eyes flicking once between your dress and Jack’s face. His mouth twitched.
“You look nice,” he said.
“Thank you.”
“Abbot looks like he’s about to be taken out behind the building and shot, but that’s formal for him.”
Jack gave him a look.
Robby clapped him lightly on the shoulder. “Come on, visible leadership.”
Jack didn’t move immediately.
His hand came to rest at the edge of the check-in table, close enough to yours that your fingers could’ve brushed if you shifted an inch.
“Don’t disappear,” he said.
Your pulse kicked.
“I’m working.”
“After.”
Then Robby dragged him away with a level of cheer that was clearly retaliatory.
You watched Jack go and tried to remember how to do your job.
For a while, the event was exactly as awful as promised.
Speeches about resilience. Applause that sounded expensive. Donors talking about “the Pitt” like it was a concept instead of a place where every decision had a body attached to it. Gloria Underwood spoke with smooth authority while Robby stared at the middle distance like a man practicing astral projection. Langdon appeared late and left early, moving through the edge of the room with a smile that didn’t quite reach his eyes. Collins was mentioned by someone near the bar, her name landing with that particular hospital weight of people who had been part of the machinery and then weren’t there in the same way anymore.
You checked people in. You directed donors toward their tables. You smiled until your cheeks ached.
And Jack kept finding you.
Not obviously. Not enough for anyone to call it hovering. But he passed behind your chair and set a glass of water near your hand. He appeared during a lull with a plate from the buffet because “you weren’t going to get one.” He stood beside you while an orthopedic surgeon whose name you immediately forgot talked at you for seven minutes about golf, his presence quiet and solid and just intimidating enough to make the man eventually wander away.
At one point, you leaned toward him and murmured, “This is very attentive of you.”
He didn’t look down. “You looked like you were going to stab him with a pen.”
“I was.”
“Bad idea.”
“Because violence is wrong?”
“Because you’d still have to finish check-in.”
You laughed into your glass.
Jack looked at you then, and the humor in his face faded into something warmer before he caught it.
You saw him catch it.
That was the dangerous part.
Near the end of dinner, a donor with silver hair and a smile like a polished blade cornered Jack near the bar. You recognized him vaguely from the check-in list, one of those names with a foundation attached, the kind of man who spoke slowly because he expected people to wait for the privilege of his point. His wife stood beside him in pearls, looking around the ballroom with faint disappointment.
You were close enough to hear because you’d gone to retrieve extra place cards from the side table.
“Dr. Abbot,” the man said, clapping Jack on the shoulder like they were old friends and not strangers separated by several tax brackets and a moral canyon. “Hell of a turnout. You ER people clean up better than expected.”
Jack’s smile was minimal and false. “We try.”
The man’s eyes shifted to you.
You felt it like cold water.
“Well,” he said. “Some of you more than others.”
Jack’s face changed by degrees. Anyone else might’ve missed it. You didn’t.
“This is—” Jack began.
The man cut in with a laugh. “No, no, let me guess. You’re the resident I’ve been hearing about.”
His wife made a soft sound. Not quite a laugh. Not quite disapproval.
Your fingers tightened around the place cards.
Jack went still.
The man looked pleased with himself, encouraged by his own cruelty. “Abbot and one of his young residents,” he said, eyes moving over you slow enough to make the dress feel suddenly too visible. “People do talk.”
Jack’s voice came out clipped. “Don’t.”
“Relax, Jack. I’m joking.” He lifted his glass slightly, like that made it harmless. “I just didn’t think you were going to start making public appearances with your little girlfriend now.”
The words entered you cleanly: little girlfriend. Not girlfriend—that would’ve been embarrassing enough. Little, like you were an accessory, a midlife crisis in a nice dress, something young and decorative Jack had brought out because he could. Something people could reduce in one glance and one ugly little adjective.
Heat rushed to your face so fast it felt like pain, and still you smiled automatically, hating yourself for it.
“It’s not—” you started, because apparently your first instinct was to make yourself smaller for the comfort of a man who had just insulted you.
Jack’s voice cut through yours. “Don’t call her that.”
The donor blinked. So did you. The room didn’t stop, not exactly—the music kept playing, silverware still clinked, someone laughed too loudly near the stage—but the air around the four of you tightened.
The donor’s smile twitched. “Easy, Doctor. No harm meant.”
“I’m not interested in what you meant.”
Jack didn’t raise his voice or step forward. He simply stood there in his dark suit, tired eyes gone cold, body held in a kind of controlled restraint that made the donor’s hand fall from his shoulder.
“If you’ve got something to say about me,” Jack continued, “say it to me. Leave her out of it.”
The wife looked away first. The donor’s face colored.
“No offense intended.”
Jack’s gaze didn’t move. “You don’t get to decide that.”
Your breath caught.
People were starting to notice. Not enough to make a scene, not enough for anyone to step in, but enough that the space around you felt suddenly brighter. Dana had turned slightly from the bar, her attention fixed and assessing. Robby watched from near the stage, glass lowered now. Even Santos had gone still, the eager curiosity wiped off her face by the look on yours.
You couldn’t stand any of it. Not the attention. Not the humiliation. Not the awful, sharp thrill of Jack defending you like he had any right to. Like he wanted the right.
You set the place cards down.
“I need some air,” you said.
Jack’s head turned toward you immediately. “Wait.”
But you were already moving.
You slipped out of the ballroom and into the corridor, then through a side door onto a covered terrace overlooking the wet street below. The rain had softened to a mist, silvering the railings and turning the city lights hazy. Cold air hit your skin, raising goosebumps along your arms where the dress left them bare.
You gripped the railing and forced one breath in, then out. In, then out. In. Out. It didn’t help. The door opened behind you, because of course it did.
You laughed under your breath because the tears were already gathering hot behind your eyes, making the terrace lights blur at the edges, and you refused to let them fall here—not in the dress Jack bought, not with your hands locked around rain-cold steel, not because some rich asshole had found the ugliest name for what you were already afraid this looked like.
“You shouldn’t have done that,” you said.
Jack let the door close behind him. “Done what?”
You turned on him. “Made it worse.”
“They made it worse.”
“Now everyone thinks I’m exactly what he said.”
His face changed at that, anger tightening somewhere beneath the surface, but not at you. Never quite at you.
“They don’t know what you are.”
Your chest pulled tight.
“And what am I?”
The question came out too vulnerable to take back.
Jack didn’t answer right away.
Mist clung to his suit jacket, darkening the shoulders. Behind him, warm light spilled through the glass door, all gold and soft edges, turning the ballroom into something distant and unreal. Out here, the air smelled like rain on stone, cold metal, wet city streets below. Everything was sharper than it had been inside. The railing under your hands. The damp hem of your dress against your legs. The silence between his breath and yours.
He looked so out of place and exactly right, a man built for crisis standing in the aftermath of one he couldn’t stitch closed.
You hated that you wanted him to say it.
You hated more that he looked like he wanted to.
Instead, he said, “Not that.”
A hard little laugh left you before you could stop it. “That’s not an answer.”
“It’s the one I’ve got.”
“Great.”
Jack came closer, stopping beside you but not touching. The restraint was worse than touch. You could feel him there anyway, the heat of his body cutting through the cold night, the careful space he left like distance could still save either of you.
You stared out at the rain-blurred city. Headlights smeared over the street below. Somewhere, a siren rose and faded, thin and familiar enough to make your stomach twist.
“You bought the dress,” you said.
“Yes.”
“You fixed my car.”
“Yes.”
“You buy my food. You show up. You pay for things before I can even figure out how to say no.”
Something moved in his jaw, but he didn’t interrupt.
“What do you think people are going to call that?”
“I don’t give a shit what people call it.”
“I do.”
“Then tell me what you call it.”
The words took the air out of the terrace.
You looked at him.
Jack’s eyes held yours, tired and dark and unflinching. He wasn’t letting you hide in the joke this time. He wasn’t letting himself hide either. That was the terrifying part. The thing between you had been allowed to live as banter because neither of you had forced it to stand under direct light.
Sugar daddy. Old man. Doctor. Daddy.
All those little names you used to turn intimacy into comedy before it could ask something of you.
Now Jack was standing there asking.
Tell me what you call it.
Your mouth felt dry.
“I call it confusing,” you said.
His expression shifted.
You kept going because stopping felt worse. “I call it you being too good at noticing things I wish you wouldn’t. I call it you making it really fucking hard to feel normal around you. I call it embarrassing when someone says the quiet part out loud and I realize I don’t even know how to defend myself because I don’t know what we’re doing.”
Jack’s hands were still at his sides, but nothing about him looked relaxed.
You swallowed. “And I call it unfair that you get to act like this is all practical when you look at me like that.”
His voice dropped. “Like what?”
You shook your head. “Don’t.”
“Like what?”
“Like you already know what I look like under the dress.”
The words left you too soft, too honest, and Jack inhaled slowly. Neither of you moved while rain whispered beyond the overhang and the ballroom noise pressed faintly through the door, muffled and useless, like it belonged to a different night.
Then he said, rougher than before, “I don’t.”
The words went through you slowly, leaving heat in places they had no right to reach.
His eyes lowered, not all the way down your body this time. Just to your mouth.
“But I’ve thought about it.”
The terrace went silent.
Or maybe your body stopped receiving sound from anything that wasn’t him.
You stared at him, suddenly aware of everything at once: the dress clinging where the mist had touched it, the cold air slipping beneath the hem, the damp railing at your back, the small, charged space between your body and his. Jack hadn’t touched you, but the way he looked at you made it feel like he’d already imagined where his hands would go first. The want in his face wasn’t polished or easy. It looked dragged out of him, unwilling and hungry, like every careful thing in him had finally started losing.
“Jack,” you whispered.
“I know.”
“You don’t know what I was going to say.”
“Yes, I do.”
You stepped closer, just enough to watch his control take the hit.
“What was I going to say?”
His eyes lifted.
“That we shouldn’t.”
The truth of it sat there between you, almost laughable.
You shouldn’t. He shouldn’t. The age gap was there, humming under the surface. The hospital. The money. The care. The fact that everyone seemed to have noticed before either of you had admitted it out loud. The fact that Jack carried enough damage to make most people step carefully, and you were standing there in a dress he bought, wanting him to ruin every careful thing about you.
“You’re right,” you said.
Jack nodded once, like the verdict had been delivered.
Then you added, “That's what I was going to say.”
His eyes sharpened.
You took one more step.
“But it’s not what I want.”
For the first time all night, Jack looked shaken.
Not much. He’d never give that much away in public. But you saw it in the slight part of his mouth, the break in his breathing, the flicker of something raw beneath the restraint.
“Say that again,” he said.
The words nearly undid you.
You lifted your chin because if you were going to tell the truth, you were going to do it with your head held high.
“I don’t want you to stop.”
Jack looked at you for one long, unbearable second, then lifted his hand slowly enough to give you every chance to step back.
You didn’t.
His knuckles brushed your jaw first, careful in a way that made your whole body ache. Not rough. Not yet. Worse than rough, maybe, because he was still holding himself back and you could feel the effort in every inch he didn’t take.
“You’re not my little girlfriend,” he said.
Your chest tightened. “No?”
“No.” His thumb shifted under your chin, tipping your face up by degrees, not forcing you, just making it impossible to look anywhere else. “You’re not little. You’re not a joke. And you’re sure as hell not something I’m ashamed of wanting.”
The words sank through you, hot and low, settling in every place he still hadn’t touched. Jack’s eyes dropped to your mouth and stayed there long enough to make the choice for both of you.
Then he kissed you.
It wasn’t frantic at first.
That would’ve been easier.
It was deliberate, a firm press of his mouth to yours, steady and devastating, like he had finally decided to stop lying but still hadn’t given himself permission to forget where you were. His hand held your jaw; the other stayed at his side, fingers curled tight like touching you anywhere else might finish what the kiss had started.
You made a small sound against his mouth.
That was what broke it.
Jack stepped into you, guiding you back until the rail met your spine, and the kiss turned filthy in one sharp, breath-stealing shift. His mouth opened wider, tongue pushing past your lips to lick deep and slow against yours, wet enough to make your knees weaken, sure enough to make heat pool low in your gut. His breath came rough through his nose, his hand sliding from your jaw to the side of your neck, thumb tucked beneath your chin like he wanted to feel the exact second you stopped fighting him and melted under his palm.
You grabbed his jacket.
He made a low sound, almost a warning.
You pulled him closer anyway.
The rail pressed against your back. Damp air cooled your bare arms. Inside, beyond the glass, the fundraiser glowed on with its speeches and donors and useless flowers, but out here Jack’s body cut off the light, his mouth hot and sure, his hand at your neck keeping you exactly where he wanted you.
When he dragged himself back, he didn’t go far.
His forehead hovered near yours. His breathing was harsher now. So was yours.
“This is a bad idea,” he said.
You laughed, breathless enough that it came out softer than you meant. “You kissed me.”
“I know.”
“So your professional opinion is hypocritical.”
His mouth twitched, but his eyes stayed dark, fixed on yours with a heat that made it impossible not to remember his tongue in your mouth. He looked like he was still tasting you, like he was one wrong word away from dragging you back against the railing and making a mess of that pretty, expensive dress.
“You keep talking,” he said, voice low enough to feel like it belonged between your legs instead of in the open air, “and I’m going to forget we’re still at a hospital fundraiser.”
Liquid heat shot through you, sharp and shameless. You curled your fingers higher into his lapels. “Is that supposed to scare me?”
“It should.”
“It doesn’t.”
Jack searched your face for one last sign that you wanted him to be better than this.
You didn’t.
His thumb dragged once along the side of your neck, slow enough to make your thighs press together under the dress, then he stepped back and opened the door.
“Come on.”
“Where?”
His eyes held yours.
“My car.”
The walk through the ballroom should’ve been humiliating. Maybe it was. You couldn’t tell. Jack stayed close without touching you, which somehow looked worse after what had just happened, like distance had become another form of confession. Your mouth still felt swollen from his, your skin too awake beneath the dress, your whole body lit with the kind of want that made every normal step feel rehearsed.
Robby saw you first, because of course he did. His eyes moved from Jack’s face to yours, then back again, and he lifted his glass slightly—not smiling, just acknowledging the inevitable.
Dana caught your eye from near the bar with one eyebrow raised. Santos looked ready to say something disastrous until Mohan turned her gently but firmly toward the dessert table. McKay glanced over, clocked enough to know better, and immediately pulled Whitaker into a conversation he looked relieved to have guidance for. Javadi watched for half a second too long, then looked away like she’d remembered curiosity had consequences.
Jack ignored all of them.
You loved and hated him for it.
The elevator ride down was worse.
Mirrored walls. Soft music. Your reflection beside his. His shoulder inches from yours. The phantom feel of his hand still on your neck. Neither of you speaking because speech had become a loaded weapon and you were both already wounded.
In the parking garage, the air smelled like rain and concrete again.
Jack unlocked the car.
You stopped by the passenger door, suddenly aware of the line you were crossing. Not the moral one. That had been smudged for weeks. This was more physical. More real. A door. A backseat. His face in the dim garage light, turned toward you with all that want and all that control and all the consequences waiting behind both.
He saw the hesitation immediately.
Of course he did.
“You can change your mind,” he said.
The words loosened something in you.
Not because you wanted to.
Because he meant it.
You stepped closer. “I’m not changing my mind.”
Jack’s eyes searched yours.
“Tell me if I do something you don’t want.”
“I will.”
“I mean it.”
“I know.”
He nodded once.
Then you said, quieter, “Do you?”
His face shifted.
“Do I what?”
“Know what I want.”
The garage seemed to hold its breath.
Jack opened the back door.
“Get in,” he said.
Not loud. Not cruel.
Just low enough to go through you like a match.
You got in.
The door shut behind you, and for one suspended second you were alone in the dark leather backseat with your heartbeat, the rain ticking somewhere beyond the garage, and the reflection of Jack moving around the car in the tinted window.
Then the opposite door opened.
He slid in beside you, too big for the space, too warm, too close. The dome light cut over his face for a second before it faded, leaving him in shadow and stray fluorescent spill. His knee brushed yours. His hand came up, not touching yet, braced against the seat near your hip.
“You still think this is about money?” he asked.
Your breath caught.
You shook your head.
“Words.”
“No.”
“No, what?”
“No, I don’t think it’s about money.”
His gaze dropped to your mouth.
“What’s it about?”
You could’ve said care.
You could’ve said want.
You could’ve said every soft, terrifying thing his hands had been saying for weeks with coffee cups and repair bills and the new shoes you wore until they stopped hurting.
Instead, because you were trembling and stubborn and still you, you whispered, “Your sugar daddy complex.”
Jack’s eyes flashed.
Then he kissed you hard enough to knock your head back against the seat and it was nothing like the terrace—careful and slow and weighted with confession. This was hungry. His teeth caught your bottom lip, tugged, and the sound you made was swallowed by his mouth as his tongue slid against yours, wet and deep and tasting like the whiskey he'd barely touched all night. His other hand found your waist, gripping the silk of the dress, bunching it, pulling you across the seat until your hip hit his and you gasped into his mouth.
"Jack—"
"Don't talk." His lips dragged to your jaw, your throat, the spot behind your ear that made you arch. "Just—let me —"
His hand slid up your thigh, pushing the dress higher, and the leather was cool against the backs of your legs but his palm was hot, rough, callused from years of work and combat and things he never talked about. You spread for him without thinking. He made a sound against your neck—approval, hunger, relief—and his fingers pressed higher, found the wet heat through your underwear, and stopped.
"Fuck," he breathed. "You're already—"
You bit his earlobe. "Your mouth on the terrace did that."
He laughed—a low, broken thing—and his fingers hooked the edge of your panties, dragged them down your thighs. You lifted your hips to help, and he dropped them somewhere on the floor mat, already forgotten, already gone. His hand came back wet.
"Look at me."
You did. His eyes were dark, half-lidded, his breathing ragged. The garage light caught the silver in his beard, the flush rising up his neck, the way his thumb was already circling your clit like he'd done it a thousand times before. He hadn't. But he knew exactly what he was doing.
“I tried to be careful with you,” he said, voice rough, his fingers sliding through your slick folds, gathering, teasing, “I tried so fucking hard. Then I walked in and saw you at that table in the dress I bought you, and I knew I was done.”
Your breath hitched as his middle finger pressed inside you, just the tip, just enough to make your hips buck.
"—and you knew, didn't you?" He pushed deeper, slow, watching your face. "Knew what it was doing to me."
You couldn't answer. His finger was inside you, thick and deliberate, curling, finding the spot that made your vision blur. Then a second finger joined it, stretching, and you heard yourself whimper—high and desperate and not caring who heard.
"That's it," he murmured. "Let me hear you."
He worked you open like he had all night, like the parking garage was empty, like the world had shrunk to the space between his fingers and your cunt. His thumb pressed your clit in slow circles while his fingers pumped—not hard, not fast, just deep and aching, stretching you until you were dripping down his hand, until your nails dug into his shoulder through his jacket.
"Jack—I need—"
"I know what you need."
He pulled his fingers out slowly, deliberately, and you watched him bring them to his mouth. Watched his tongue slide across his knuckles, tasting you, his eyes never leaving yours. The sight of it—this tired, controlled man in his undone suit, licking your wetness off his fingers like it was the best thing he'd tasted all night—made your hole clench around nothing.
"Get on top of me."
It wasn't a question. He was already reaching for his belt, the buckle rasping open, the sound sharp and final in the close air of the car. You climbed over him, the dress bunching around your waist, your knees finding the leather on either side of his hips. His cock was hard beneath his briefs, straining against the fabric, and you reached down and wrapped your hand around it.
He hissed through his teeth. "Fuck —"
He was thick. Hot. The head slick with something that might have been precum, might have been your imagination, but when you stroked him once, slow, his hips bucked into your palm.
"If you keep doing that," he said, his voice strained, "this is going to be very embarrassing for me."
You laughed—breathless, wild—and leaned down to kiss him. "Then stop me."
He didn't.
His hand found your hip, guided you forward, and the head of his cock nudged against your entrance. Wet. Ready. The two of you hovered there, breathing each other's air, and his forehead pressed against yours.
"Tell me you want this."
"I want this." Your voice was barely a whisper. "I want you. Please, Jack—"
He pushed inside you.
The stretch was a shock—full and deep and so much more than his fingers had promised. You gasped, your nails digging into his shoulders, your head falling back as he filled you inch by inch, until you were seated in his lap, his hips flush against yours, his cock buried to the hilt inside your tight, wet heat.
"Fuck," he breathed. "Fuck, you feel—"
He couldn't finish. His hands found your hips, held you there, and for a moment neither of you moved. Just the feeling of him inside you, the throb of his pulse through his cock, the way your body adjusted, accepted, wanted.
Then you moved.
Slow at first—a roll of your hips that made his eyes roll back, a tilt of your pelvis that drove him deeper. His grip tightened on your waist, guiding, and you found the rhythm together: him thrusting up as you sank down, the slap of skin loud in the enclosed space, the wet sound of your bodies meeting.
"Look at you," he said, his voice rough, his eyes fixed on where you were joined. "Taking all of me. Fucking yourself on my cock in a parking garage."
You moaned, riding him harder, the dress bunched around your waist, the silk skin-warm and bunched up. His thumb found your clit again, pressing, circling, and the pleasure coiled tight in your belly, hot and sharp and building.
"The dress," you gasped. "You bought me this dress—"
"I bought it so I could take it off you." He tugged at the strap with his teeth, the fabric slipping down your shoulder, exposing your breast to the dim light. His mouth was on it instantly—hot, wet, his tongue circling your nipple before he sucked, hard, and you cried out, your rhythm faltering.
"Say it again." His mouth against your skin. "Say sugar daddy again and see what happens."
You laughed, breathless, your hips grinding against him. "Sugar daddy."
He bit your shoulder—not hard, but enough to make you gasp—and then his hand was in your hair, pulling your head back, forcing you to meet his eyes.
"Then take what I give you." His voice was low and rough and it made your pussy squeeze around him. "Take this cock like you've been wanting to since I fixed your goddamn car."
You did. You rode him harder, faster, the leather squeaking beneath your knees, the car rocking with the motion, your breath coming in short, desperate gasps. His hand stayed in your hair, his other gripping your hip hard enough to bruise, and he thrust up into you with a rhythm that was pure instinct—hungry, claiming, the restraint he'd held for weeks finally snapping.
"That's it," he growled. "That's my girl. Taking what she needs."
"Jack—I'm close—"
"I know. I can feel you. You're squeezing me so fucking tight—"
His thumb pressed harder on your clit, circling faster, and the orgasm hit you like a wave—sudden and overwhelming, your vision white, your back arching as your cunt clamped down on his cock, pulsing, milking, the pleasure so sharp it was almost pain. You heard yourself cry out—his name, a curse, something that might have been a sob—and he kept thrusting through it, drawing it out, letting you ride him through the aftershocks.
"Fuck—" His voice broke. "I'm going to—"
"Inside me." You grabbed his face, forced him to look at you. "I want it. Please."
He came with a groan that was almost a prayer, his hips driving up one last time, his hand gripping your hip so hard it would leave marks. You felt it—hot and thick, pumping into you, filling you, his cock twitching with each pulse, his breath ragged against your lips. The sensation pushed you into a second, smaller climax, your body clenching around him, drawing out every drop.
For a long moment, neither of you moved. His forehead rested against yours. His breathing was harsh, uneven, mingling with yours in the close air. The car smelled like sex and sweat and the faint, stubborn trace of hospital soap beneath his cologne, and your thighs were slick and trembling, and his cock was still half-hard inside you, and it was the most real you'd felt all night.
Then he laughed.
A low, disbelieving sound, his shoulders shaking against yours. You started laughing too, breathless and giddy, and you kissed him—messy, open-mouthed, tasting salt and spit and the whiskey he'd barely touched.
"Well," he said, pulling back just enough to look at you. "That was—"
"Stupid," you supplied.
"Reckless."
"A really bad idea."
His hand came up to cup your face again, his thumb tracing your cheekbone. "Worth it."
You kissed him again, slower this time, and you felt him smile against your mouth. When you pulled back, you were still straddling him, his cock still softening inside you, and the reality of it settled into your bones like warmth.
"We should probably—" you started.
"Yeah." He didn't move. "In a minute."
His hand found yours on his chest, lacing your fingers together, and the garage light caught the gray in his hair and the tired lines around his eyes and the way he was looking at you like you were the first real thing he'd seen in years.
"I'm not going to pretend this was casual," he said.
"Good," you said. "Because it wasn't."
He helped you clean up with the wet wipes he found in the glove compartment—absurd, practical, so perfectly him—and then he helped you rearrange the dress, his hands careful now, almost reverent, smoothing the silk over your hips like he was putting something precious back together. The fabric was wrinkled now, carrying the memory of his hands, and when you looked at yourself in the window reflection, you saw the flush on your chest, the bite mark on your shoulder, the way your hair had come loose from the careful updo.
You looked like someone who had been thoroughly, completely, indisputably wanted.
He watched you adjust the strap, his eyes following the small, careful movement like it mattered. You sat half-turned against him in the backseat, put back together enough to face the world again, though both of you knew exactly what had happened here. Jack’s hand rested at the back of your neck, thumb moving slowly against your skin, and in the dim garage light he looked less like the man everyone trusted in a crisis and more like someone who’d finally let himself want something he couldn’t triage.
“What?” you asked.
He shook his head.
“Don’t do that.”
“Do what?”
“Look like you’re about to disappear into your own head.”
That almost-smile moved over his mouth, faint and tired. “You diagnosing me now?”
“I learned from a very bossy doctor.”
“He sounds unbearable.”
“He is.”
The quiet settled, full of everything waiting outside the car: the fundraiser, the rumor, the receipt, the repaired car, the shoes, the dress, every careful thing Jack had done before either of you had dared to call it care. You looked down. “I don’t know how to let someone take care of me without feeling like a burden.”
Jack didn’t answer quickly. That made it worse. Better. Finally, he said, “Needing help isn’t the same thing as being helpless.”
Your throat tightened. You hated him a little for knowing exactly where to put the words. You loved him a little for it too.
“Jack,” you said softly.
He waited.
You smiled, small and shaky. “Do I get an allowance now?”
For half a second, he stared at you. Then his eyes closed, and the laugh that left him was quiet, rough, almost unwilling. It felt like winning something no one else got to see. When he opened his eyes, they were warm.
“You get breakfast.”
“That’s it?”
“And your car.”
“Already got that.”
“And the shoes.”
“Also already got those.”
“And whatever else you need,” he said, thumb brushing once at your neck, “if you stop acting like needing it makes you less.”
Your smile faded into something softer. “That sounds an awful lot like a boyfriend.”
Jack looked at you for a long moment, tired and undone and still there. “Yeah,” he said. “I’m working up to that.”
The fundraiser was still waiting upstairs, all polished glassware and polite cruelty, the kind of room where people could turn want into rumor before the night was over. You would have to go back to PTMC after this. You would pass Jack in hallways. You would hear his voice over trauma bays, see his name on charts, feel the weight of every title that should have made this impossible.
But in the backseat, with his thumb moving slowly against your skin, Jack wasn’t looking at you like a mistake, or a risk, or something he’d have to explain away in daylight.
He was looking at you like something worth keeping.
And for what it was worth, you finally believed you were.
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Borrowing this as a reminder. I’m not your mom, I can’t control what you read, but I can remind you *gently* that my blog is a space for adults. You’ll get there too one day. Don’t be in a rush to grow up!
husband!congressman!bucky x wife!diplomat!reader
⤷ matt murdock x reader
summary: one week. that's what you agree to. one week for bucky barnes to prove that your marriage can still work. it should be simple. it never is.
because bucky starts taking up space in your life like he never left, and matt murdock never quite takes up enough. you already know how this should end. the divorce papers have been sitting in your drawer for two months, waiting. but you kept his side of the closet clear. you never put anything on his nightstand. and that, more than anything, is what gives you away.
warnings/tags: SMUT, p in v, semi-public sex, fingering, praise kink, oral sex (f receiving), manhandling, multiple orgasms, overstimulation, spit kink, pussy pronouns, dacryphilia, soft dom!bucky, bucky and reader are privately separated but publicly still married, love triangle (no cheating), second chance romance, idiots in love, avoidant!matt, possessive!bucky, bucky being an emotionally repressed idiot, he's also kind of manipulative at one point but reader chews him out for it trust me, divorce babes, bucky grovelling til his knees are shredded, mutual pining, lots of yummy angst, hurt/comfort, alpine mention, bucky actually works on himself, a man who yearns is a man who earns, eventual happy ending, 18+ MDNI
word count: 28.8k (i think i went crazy writing this)
from maddie: hello and welcome back to yappers anonymous (i mean it, there's so much dialogue in here). anyway, i'm really sorry for taking so long on this. but it's finally here, and i hope the word count makes up for the delay. i have really struggled with writers block while writing this, and i lowkey kind of hate it. but i really really hope you guys don't <3
p.s. i realise the first part was set in december but i couldn't physically write about christmas in april/may so imagine that part one was set in early december and that's why there's no mention of christmas lol
masterlist | series masterpost
The last guest leaves at half past midnight, and then there are no more excuses.
For the past two hours since leaving your office and slipping back into the ballroom like you hadn't just comprehensively undermined eight months of careful separation, you'd had the party. The party, with its noise and its obligations and its endless, mercifully absorbing requirement that you be on. All of it demanding just enough of your attention to make thinking about anything else logistically impossible. It had been, if nothing else, somewhere to put your face.
But now the guests are gone, the house has exhaled down to its bones, and the silence left behind is the kind that doesn't stay empty for long. You can already feel the thoughts beginning to squirm back in at the edges, insistently, like they've been waiting all evening with a numbered ticket and now it's finally their turn.
The whole room is still dressed and gleaming for an evening that was, by every external measure, a resounding success. But you are currently conducting a very focused internal audit of every decision you have made since approximately nine o'clock this evening.
The audit is not going well.
Returning to the party with your husband—ex-husband—Bucky, on your arm like you hadn't just left a significant proportion of your dignity scattered on your desk had been one thing. The way the evening had gone after was quite another.
Bucky had been insufferable, obviously. Warm in the particular way that reads as devoted husband from twelve feet away but as I have won something and we both know it in closer proximity. His arm became a fixed and immovable constant around your waist, metal hand pressing at the small of your back with the patient, territorial certainty of a man who has decided something and seen no reason to discuss it.
Matt had gone. You'd felt his absence around ten minutes in. The particular negative space of someone who has quietly removed themselves without making it anyone's problem. The only remnant of his presence was his champagne flute left half-finished on a windowsill you'd passed on the way to the speeches. You'd stared at it for a moment longer than you should have.
Bucky had noticed your mind drifting, of course. His thumb smoothed over your back - just a small, deliberate pressure that meant I see exactly where you're looking, and I'm still here. Stay. And you had, because the alternative was making a scene at your own event. And also because—well.
Because somewhere between the dinner and the second round of speeches, something had started happening that you hadn't authorised and couldn't entirely stop. You'd caught Bucky's eye over a comment from the Belgian ambassador and he gave you that faint, private smile in return - the shared language you developed years ago.
At one point he’d dipped his head to your ear to murmur something dry about one of the ministers, and you’d had to bite your cheek to keep from laughing. Bucky had looked down at you with those soft eyes he does when he's not thinking carefully enough about his own expression, and you'd looked away first. You were even finishing each other's sentences again without realising.
And by the time the last round of handshakes came, you'd stopped noticing the weight of his hand on your back and started noticing the absence of it when it left. If you clutched at straws, maybe you could convince yourself that this was just eight months of having nobody to lean into. That, and the fact your body had always been significantly stupider than your brain where Bucky Barnes was concerned. But truth of it was quieter and more inconvenient than any rationalisation you could construct: it had felt, humiliatingly, like home.
The audit is really not going well.
“Madam Ambassador.”
Thomas, your chief of staff, materialises at the foot of the stairs. Silent, eternal, and entirely too perceptive. A man who has worked in diplomatic residences long enough to have seen everything and professionally forgotten most of it.
“The last of the staff will be finished within the hour,” he offers. “Will there be anything else tonight?”
You open your mouth.
“That'll be all, Thomas, thank you.”
Bucky's voice comes from somewhere behind your left shoulder, easy and warm in the way of a man who has slipped right back into the domestic machinery of your shared life.
Thomas nods, unperturbed. “Very good, Congressman Barnes. Wonderful to have you back, sir. I've had your things brought up.”
Of course he has.
Because why wouldn't he? Congressman Barnes is visiting his wife, and that is a thing that happens, and the residence's household operates on the reasonable assumptions, none of which were consulted past you.
“Great, thanks Thomas.” You reply, and your voice comes out perfectly steady, which feels like a small miracle. “Goodnight.”
Thomas retreats. And then it is just the two of you, on the landing, in this enormous, beautiful house, at the end of the most profoundly strange evening of what has already been a profoundly strange year. Neither of you speaks for just a beat too long.
“Right,” Bucky says finally.
“Right,” you agree.
You head upstairs, and he follows, and the house closes around you both like it was always going to.
── ⟢ ₊ ☁️ ˚・🖋️ ⊹
The master bedroom is on the first floor, east wing, overlooking the gardens.
It's your favourite room in the house; twelve foot ceilings, original cornicing, sash windows that rattle faintly when the wind comes off the park. It even has an original, working fireplace and enough space that the four poster doesn't overwhelm it, which is saying something.
You have not, in the past eight months, shared it with anyone
The door closes behind you both with a soft, decisive click.
You set your clutch down on the dressing table. He's already shrugging off his jacket, moving through the room with the ease of a man whose muscle memory never got the memo that he left.
Like a man who has lived here. Like the months of absence were a minor administrative detail rather than anything worth adjusting for. Like a man who has decided - and this is the thing about Bucky, this has always been the thing - that simply resuming works better than discussing. That if he just continues, the awkward conversation about feelings never has to be raised.
He reaches up to loosen his tie, that automatic gesture you have watched a thousand times, and then just… stops.
The pause is small. Almost nothing. His hands still at his collar and there's the briefest flicker of something in his expression that looks almost like recalibration. Like a man who has been operating on instinct for the last several hours and has only just now checked in with his frontal lobe to ask if instinct is advisable right now.
You watch him start to process the situation in real time. The room. The two sides of the turned down bed. His coat already laid on his chair. His suitcase placed next to his left side of the bed, because your chief of staff doesn't forget anything, ever, including what side of the bed the Congressman sleeps on.
Bucky’s tongue drags briefly over his teeth. Then he looks up and meets your eyes in the mirror, and the silence that follows has the particular quality of two people clearly thinking about the same three or four things and not willing to be the first to name any of them.
“I can take the couch,” he offers carefully. Gesturing vaguely at the small sofa by the fireplace that is, objectively, six inches shorter than he is.
“Don't be ridiculous, you'll be folded in half,” you object. “I'll take it.”
“You won't fit either,” he points out.
“At least I'm smaller than you.”
“Well,” Bucky sighs flatly, “I'm not letting my wife sleep on a fucking loveseat.”
There it is again. Wife. The word he keeps wielding like a claim, like it still means what it used to. And it still lands the same. You hate that it does.
You hate the warm, stupid, entirely unwelcome thing it does somewhere behind your sternum. Because he's being impossible - he's been impossible all evening - and yet here he is, immovable on the subject of your comfort even while being the singular architect of your discomfort.
“Separated wife,” you correct, sharper than you intend, but one of you has to keep score here and it's clearly not going to be him.
He tilts his head, slow and deliberate, his eyes doing that thing where they get very still and very blue and very focused on your face.
“Didn't seem very separated a few hours ago when you were coming on my—”
“Don't.” You hold up a hand. “Do not finish that sentence in my bedroom.”
“Our bedroom,” he replies, and the audacity of it nearly makes you laugh.
“You haven't lived here in eight months,” you scoff.
“Yeah, well.” He looks around the room with something that might be fondness or might be smugness or might be both. “Doesn't seem to have changed much.”
And that's the problem, isn't it? Because he's right. You haven't changed anything. His nightstand is bare but still his; you've never put anything on it, never colonized that space. Even the closet still has the section you'd never quite gotten around to re-purposing, like some part of you had been keeping it warm. Keeping it ready.
The thought makes you feel pathetic and furious in equal measure.
“Well it's my bedroom now, and I'm telling you not to—” You stop yourself, jaw tight, because getting into this right now, at nearly one in the morning with him half-undressed, is absolutely not happening. “You know what? Fine. We're both adults. We can share a bed again without making it a thing.”
“I wasn't making it a thing.”
“You were absolutely making it a thing.”
“I was making an observation—”
“You were being an ass.”
His mouth twitches. Almost a smile. “Yeah, well. You married an ass.”
“Separated from an ass,” you correct sharply, moving toward your dresser with more force than necessary.
The muscle in his jaw strains. Pops, like he's physically holding something back, biting down on whatever else he was about to say.
“Fine.” He reaches up, resuming the work on his tie, fingers pulling the silk loose with deliberate, practised movements. “We'll be adults about it.”
“Fine,” you echo.
You yank open your pyjama drawer with more violence than it deserves, pulling out the silk set you'd bought months ago in a fit of reclamation. Expensive, modest, and nothing like the worn t-shirts you used to steal from him.
“Great.” The tie slides free. He starts on the top button of his shirt, then the next, movements slow and methodical. You catch yourself watching his fingers work the buttons with that same deft precision they had a few hours ago when they were working you open instead. Christ.
“Fine.” And the second it leaves your mouth you know you've made a tactical error, because—
“You already said fine.”
There it is.
“Well I'm saying it again.” You turn toward the bathroom. “Because we're being adults about this. Mature, reasonable adults who can share a sleeping space without any complications,” you finish firmly.
“Right. No complications.” His voice is dry, but not quite enough to hide the edge underneath. Something that sounds dangerously close to hurt. “We're real good at uncomplicated, you and me.”
You don't bother with a response. Just gather your things and head for the bathroom with all the dignity of a woman who is, essentially, fleeing. There's no other word for it. You're running away from your own husband in your own bedroom, and you both know it.
“I'm taking the bathroom first before I smother you with a pillow,” you announce.
“See, that doesn't sound very adu—”
You slam the bathroom door before he can finish that sentence, and the lock clicks with a satisfaction that's entirely petty and entirely warranted. Behind the door, you hear him huff a laugh. Something that might be fondness disguised as frustration and that particular stubborn amusement he gets when you're both being impossible.
He always claims not to get off on your verbal sparring. You know he's always lying.
Leaning back against the door, you finally let yourself breathe. Your reflection stares back from the mirror, still perfect from three hours of performance.
Except it's not really, is it? Because underneath the dress, you're still wearing the evidence of what you let him do. What you begged him to do.
You reach behind yourself for the zipper, fingers searching low on your back for the tab. The dress is one of those gorgeous, backless nightmares designed by someone who clearly never considered that women might need to undress themselves. Your fingers catch the zip and you pull, but it only moves an inch before jamming.
“Come on,” you mutter, twisting your arm lower. Your shoulder protests. The zip grudges down another half-inch before catching completely on some invisible fold of silk.
You try the other arm. Same failure, different angle.
“Fuck.”
You stare at your reflection. At the reality of your options, which is that you have exactly one and it's terrible.
“Bucky?” You call, quieter than intended, opening the door just enough to suggest he's being granted entry, however reluctantly.
A pause, and for a moment you're not sure he heard you. “Yeah?”
“I need help with my zip. It's stuck.”
You hear him cross the bedroom before the door opens the rest of the way, but he doesn’t step in immediately. There’s a pause, like he’s giving you the chance to change your mind, and then he crosses the threshold.
“Turn around.” It’s not quite an order, but your body responds to it anyway before your brain has the chance to argue. You pivot, presenting your back to him, fingers braced lightly against the edge of the counter.
You feel him step in behind you, close enough that the heat of him registers before anything else does. Your breath stutters, traitorous, and you fix your eyes on your reflection. His hands come into view in the mirror a second later. One settles lightly at your waist, just enough to still the fabric, the other finding the zipper with careful fingers.
His breath grazes the back of your neck as the zip finally gives and slides down, and every nerve ending along your spine lights up. His hands still for just a moment, a beat that lasts slightly longer than it should, and the bathroom is very quiet. For a second, it feels dangerously like the easiest thing in the world to lean back that last inch. To close the distance without naming it. To let instinct run the show again, just for a moment.
But then his fingers flex, and he lets go. He steps back, and the air between you is breathable again.
“Got it.” He clears his throat.
“Thank you.”
“Yeah, of course.” he replies, slightly unsteady, and then he's gone.
You stare at the closed bathroom door for a moment longer before finally forcing yourself to move.
The shower is too cold once you turn it on and step beneath it. But you linger under the spray anyway, letting it work down your shoulders, washing the evidence of the evening - of him - away until the water runs clear. At least your IUD means this is the extent of the cleanup. But sooner than you'd like what little heat there is fades, the old pipes protesting. Damn old house.
You towel off. Perform your entire nighttime routine with robotic habit, because anything else means thinking, and thinking is dangerous right now. Toner. Serum. Moisturiser. You find a loose thread on your sleeve and fiddle with it. You reorganise nothing on the counter and call it tidying.
Eventually, you run out of tasks.
The bedroom is waiting on the other side of the door.
Bucky's sitting on his side of the bed - when did you start thinking of it as his side again? - in nothing but his boxer briefs, scrolling through his phone with the blank expression of a man who is absolutely not reading anything.
He's kept himself in shape. Of course he has. Super soldier serum aside, Bucky's always been disciplined about training.But there’s more weight on him than last time you saw him - broader through the shoulders, softer in some areas. It suits him unfairly well. Fills him out in a way that makes him look less like a weapon and more like a man who’s taking care of himself.
The thought makes something warm bloom in your chest, and your gaze lingers long enough to catch on the scars at his left shoulder, where metal meets flesh. The scars there are unchanged, a familiar map you’d once known by touch rather than sight.
He looks up when you emerge, and his gaze tracks over you with an intensity that makes your skin prickle.
“Bathroom's yours,” you manage.
He slips into the bathroom without another word. You climb into bed, trying to stay as far to your side as physically possible. You shift. Adjust the pillow. Shift again. Can't find the position you normally sleep in, and you’re still awake when Bucky reemerges.
The mattress dips under his weight. You do your best impression of a woman who is already asleep, which would be more convincing if he hadn’t spent the better part of three years sleeping next to you. If he didn't know exactly how your breathing changes when sleep actually takes you. He doesn't call you on it. Just settles back against the pillows with a soft exhale that says he knows exactly what you're doing.
The residence settles around you both. The old Georgian silence, where the radiators tick, the pipes groan, and the old timber relaxes.
You can hear him breathing. Feel the heat radiating off his body across the sheets, your whole right side hyper-aware of it. The bed that felt cavernously large when you slept alone suddenly feels impossibly small. Every nerve insisting on registering his presence with an enthusiasm you find deeply unhelpful.
“We should probably talk,” he states, though there’s not real conviction behind it.
“I'm tired, Bucky.”
A pause. You can practically hear him deciding whether to push.
“Yeah,” he concedes, something resigned in his voice. “Me too.”
He reaches over and turns off his bedside lamp, plunging the room into darkness. The bed shifts as he settles onto his side, facing away from you. And then it's just the sound of his breathing, evening out into an easy slumber.
Which is something. Because for a long time, sleep was a thing Bucky Barnes did badly. You’d learnt that slowly, through observation, the way you did most things about him in the early months. Through the careful cataloguing of details he wouldn't offer freely. The nightmares. The insomnia. The tense stillness that only came from someone forcing themselves to lie motionless, hoping you wouldn’t notice. Which you always did, and pretended you hadn’t.
Because pressing would've sent him retreating behind walls you were only just beginning to see past. So you'd just held him tighter and let him figure out you weren't going anywhere.
Over time his body learnt yours. Your warmth. Your weight beside him. The rhythm of your heartbeat. Something in him that had been braced for decades finally started to let go. He'd started reaching for you in his sleep without waking. Started sleeping past five a.m., then six. Once, memorably, past nine, and he'd surfaced so bewildered by his own rested state that he’d just stared at you like you’d performed some kind of miracle.
It's particularly memorable, your heart unhelpfully supplies, because it’s the exact moment you knew you were in love with him.
He used to say you were the only place he didn't have to be on guard.
Used to.
You'd worried about that, those first few months after you separated. Whether he was sleeping at all in that sterile DC apartment. Whether the nightmares had crept back in without you there. Whether he lay awake at three a.m, every muscle held just a little too tight, waiting for something that never quite came. You'd tried not to feel guilty about it. Failed, mostly.
Beside you, Bucky makes a small sound and shifts.
It's drowsy, unconscious, seeking you out in a way his waking self wouldn’t authorize. His body curves toward yours, closing the distance between you with the same inevitability as a plant tipping toward sunlight. It’s like his nervous system runs through a quick inventory - familiar warmth, familiar scent, familiar body - and just defaults back to you like coming home.
Which is deeply inconvenient knowledge to possess while you're actively trying to remember all the very good reasons you separated in the first place.
His face has even softened in that devastating way where it sheds the mask and just looks like Bucky. The real one. The version that doesn’t belong to the Congressman, or the ex-assassin. The one that you’ve probably spent more time with than anyone else alive.
You are absolutely not thinking about how much you've missed that face. You are not.
Instead, you think about Matt.
The thing is, you don't know exactly what you owe Matt, which is in itself a fairly damning summary of where you'd arrived. Two months. Easy, fun, uncomplicated in the way that things are when neither person is asking too much or offering too much and the arrangement suits them both. You'd liked him. You do like him. He's brilliant and funny and present, in the straightforward way that had felt so startling after months of press releases and assistant-mediated contact.
But he hadn't committed. Neither had you. That had been the point, or at least the operating premise.
So, the question of guilt.
Do you owe Matt anything that would make tonight a transgression? You'd not made promises. The terms, such as they were, had been deliberately unspecified, which had felt like freedom at the time and feels significantly more complicated now.
And, of course, there’s no way he hadn’t heard everything.
That is the part you keep arriving at and then shying away from like a horse refusing a jump, because there is no version of that in which you come off well. Matt Murdock, who can hear a heartbeat from across a room, absolutely heard every single thing that happened in your office tonight. Every word. Every sound. Every moment of two people who were supposed to be separated doing a fairly comprehensive impression of the opposite.
He'd left without saying anything. You don't know whether that makes it better or worse. You suspect worse.
You're going to have to talk to him. You're going to have to talk to him, and you're going to have to figure out what tonight was, and what the past eight months of separation actually mean in practice versus on paper.
You're going to have to stand in front of Matt and have some version of a conversation you cannot currently outline because every time you try to construct the opening sentence your brain just goes quiet and offers you nothing except a replay of Bucky's mouth hot against your throat, and the rough edge of his voice when he called you his pretty wife.
Next to you, Bucky’s forehead comes to rest against your shoulder - tucked against you like something that simply found its way back to where it was always going to end up. Your chest does something you'd really rather it didn't.
You look at the ceiling for a long time, listening to your husband breathe, and try not to think about how natural this feels.
How terrifying that is. How much you've missed it. How angry you are that you've missed it.
Eventually, because the ceiling has offered no solutions and your body has been quietly conspiring with Bucky's for the past twenty minutes, you drift off next to him.
── ⟢ ₊ ☁️ ˚・🖋️ ⊹
You reach for him before you're properly awake.
Your hand finds cold sheets, and the humiliation of that is enough to finish the job of waking you up completely.
For a moment you just lie there, staring at the indent in his pillow, at the covers thrown back on his side. Processing the faint sense of abandonment that has absolutely no right to exist given that you spent half the night wishing he'd spontaneously relocate to a different continent.
The shower in the en-suite isn't running. The dressing room is quiet. He's not here. You lie there for a moment, taking stock of the specific variety of idiot you are. Then you get up.
Twenty minutes later you're dressed and heading downstairs with the grim determination of a woman about to reclaim her life and her sanity. The sound of voices reach you before you make it to the breakfast room. Two of them - your aide's quick, efficient register, and underneath it, lower, Bucky's.
You stop in the doorway.
Bucky's sitting at the table looking unfairly well-rested, already dressed in one of his perfectly tailored suits. Your aide - Caroline - sits across from him, laptop open, notepad beside it, wearing the expression of someone who has been efficiently charmed into full co-operation and hasn't quite noticed yet. Papers are open between them. His handwriting is on some of them.
When you walk into the room, they both look up. Caroline smiles, bright and professional. Bucky's smile is slower, warmer, with an edge of something that makes your spine stiffen on instinct.
“Good morning, sweetheart,” he greets, and you immediately don’t trust his tone. “Sleep well?”
You manage a smile that doesn't reach your eyes. “Fine, thank you.”
“Morning,” your aide adds brightly, already turning the laptop toward you. “Perfect timing actuall—”
“What is all this?” you interject, a little sharper than you intend, crossing to the coffee pot because you need something to do with your hands.
“Just some press co-ordination,” Bucky shrugs, like it’s obvious. Like obviously your time belongs to him whenever he's in town. “We thought it made sense, while I'm here. The Times have been wanting a piece for a while, and with the summit coverage still running there's a window to get some good visibility.”
Your aide nods with the enthusiasm of someone utterly oblivious to the tension crystallizing in the air. “It's perfect actually, I've already reached out to a few contacts. We've got the charity reception Friday, a lunch Thursday that Lord Johnson’s been requesting for months, then the Atlantic Council meeting on Wednesday - that'll be good for photos if you both attend together - then tomorrow—.”
“Wait.” You set your cup down carefully. “Wednesdays I meet with our legal counsel.”
There's a small pause. Your aide's fingers hover over the keyboard.
“Mr. Murdock?” Caroline glances at her notes. “That’s been pushed back,” she says, slightly carefully.
You look at her. “To when?”
“These press things have tight windows,” Bucky interjects smoothly, with an expression of such reasonable, considered sympathy that you could scream. “Visibility with the right people, good for both our offices. You know how it is.” The faintest tilt of his head. “I'm sure Murdock will understand that these things take priority.”
There is a very specific register that Bucky uses when he has already made a decision and is presenting it as a collaborative discussion, and this is unmistakably it.
“Especially,” he continues, and you have to bite your cheek so you don’t say something you’ll regret, “given the transatlantic tensions recently. It's important we present a unified front. As husband and wife.”
The words land exactly how he means them to. A reminder. A claim. You know exactly what he’s doing because he’s not even trying to be subtle.
He's monopolised your entire week, filled every available slot with joint appearances. Between your existing obligations and everything he's just loaded into your schedule, there isn't a single free hour left for the meeting with Matt that you both know isn't really about legal counsel.
“And tomorrow,” Caroline ploughs on, bless her completely oblivious soul, “you'd originally blocked out for paperwork, but the round-table is invitation-only and they specifically requested both of you, so—”
“So you've just... rewritten my entire week.” You hear yourself say. Your smile is so tight it might shatter.
“Optimized.” Bucky corrects gently.
His eyes meet yours across the table, and the look in them is pure, undiluted victory. And the worst part? He's not even wrong. These are important events. You should attend them together. From any objective standpoint, his logic is flawless. Any attempt at protesting would make you look like you're prioritizing the wrong things.
Which is exactly what makes it so infuriating.
“Will there be anything else?” you ask, voice perfectly professional. “I have a meeting I’m already running late for.”
“I think that covers it,” Caroline says brightly. “Oh, the German Ambassador's office called about scheduling a—”
“Send me the details,” you interrupt. “I'll review them later.”
You pick up a croissant from the breakfast spread. Turn to leave.
“Sweetheart?”
You stop. Take deep breath. Don't turn around. “Yes?”
“I was thinking we could have lunch later. Just the two of us. Prep ourselves for the busy week ahead.”
The audacity. The sheer, breathtaking audacity.
You turn back, smile still in place. “Sounds perfect, why don’t you come by my office later?”
“Absolutely.” His smile widens. “It's a date.”
You leave the residence before you turn your private separation into a very public spectacle involving thrown pastries, taking your fury with you to the embassy where it promptly gets buried under the weight of your actual job.
The morning is a blur of meetings that run long and emails that multiply faster than you can answer them. Trade briefings that should take thirty minutes stretch to fifty. Security updates that require your signature on six different documents. A conference call with State that goes in circles for forty minutes before anyone agrees on anything. Your assistant has brought you coffee twice, and both cups have gone cold on your desk untouched.
You're mid-sentence in a response to the German Ambassador's office when there's a knock at your door.
“Come in,” you call, not looking up, assuming it's another briefing packet or someone from the communications team.
The door opens. You register the footsteps, the soft tap of a cane, before the voice.
“Busy morning?”
Your head snaps up so fast you nearly give yourself whiplash.
Matt's standing in the doorway, one hand on his cane, the other tucked into his pocket. His expression is pleasant and unreadable in that way he does when he's being very deliberate about not showing what he's actually thinking.
Fuck.
This would've been significantly easier with some advance notice. A text, or an email, or a calendar invite titled “Discuss Why You Disappeared Into Your Office With Your Supposed Ex-Husband”. Anything that would've given you more than zero seconds to figure out what the hell you're supposed to say right now.
You've walked into treaty negotiations with less anxiety. Those at least came with agendas. Preparation time. The basic courtesy of knowing they were happening before you were actively in them.
“Matt.” Your brain scrambles for words, or literally anything useful. “Hi. I didn't—I wasn't expecting—”
“Noticed your calendar got significantly fuller since yesterday,” he observes mildly, tilting his head. There's no accusation in his tone, but you hear the question underneath it anyway. “Lot of joint appearances suddenly.”
Heat crawls up your neck. You're aware, abruptly, of how you must look - harried, distracted, still half-focused on the email you were writing. “Yes,” you manage. “I'm sorry. I wanted to—I meant to call, I just haven't had a second to—”
“It's fine.” He steps into the office properly, and your heart kicks harder in your chest, whether it’s dread or want, you’re not entirely sure. “It's your lunch break now though, isn't it? We could grab something. Talk about last night.”
Oh god. Suddenly the conference call that went in circles for forty minutes seems appealing by comparison.
“Matt,” you start, but you don't even know where that sentence is going. Because what can you even say? My husband is systematically cutting you out of my life and I'm clearly too much of a coward to stop him?
“I'm not—” He stops, and there's a light sigh before his lips press together in that particular way he does when he's choosing his words carefully. “I'm not trying to make this difficult. I just think we should probably talk about where things stand. Clear the air.”
You scramble find words that don't make this exponentially worse. “It's complicated.”
“Is it?” There's an edge to his voice now, however faint. “Or is it actually pretty straightforward and we're both just avoiding saying it out loud?”
You're trying to formulate something that resembles an answer when you hear the distinct cadence of footsteps you’d recognise anywhere, coming down the hall towards your office.
“There you are, sweetheart.”
Your stomach drops straight through the floor and keeps going.
Bucky appears in the doorway, looking between you and Matt with an expression of polite surprise that would be convincing if you didn't know him well enough to see the calculation behind it.
“Oh, Murdock,” he greets, as though he's only just noticed Matt standing there. “Didn't realise you were stopping by.”
“Congressman Barnes,” Matt turns slightly, angling toward Bucky's voice. “Just thought I'd see if the Ambassador was free for lunch, because it seems like her schedule's quite full.”
“Yeah, it's a busy week,” Bucky agrees easily, stepping into the office properly now. Not quite crowding, but definitely occupying space between you both. “We've got lunch plans actually. Lots to catch up on - isn't that right, doll?”
You're still sitting at your desk, frozen, watching this happen like you're observing it from outside your own body. The air in the office has gone thick and uncomfortable, the silence stretching just a beat too long.
Matt's expression hasn't changed, but you can see the slight tension in his jaw. The way his hand tightens fractionally on his cane; he knows exactly what's happening here
“Right,” you manage finally. “Yes. We're—it’s a working lunch. Coordinating the rest of the week.”
“A working lunch,” Matt repeats, and you can't tell if there's an edge to it or if your guilt is adding subtext that isn’t there.
“You know how it is,” Bucky adds. “Just making sure we're aligned before all the joint appearances. Tedious stuff, really.”
Bucky’s still smiling. Matt's still standing there. You're still trying to remember how to breathe normally.
“Of course,” Matt says after a moment. “I should let you both get to it then.”
“We could reschedule,” you start, but the words feel hollow even as you're saying them. “Later this week, maybe—”
“Your calendar looked pretty full,” Matt interrupts. “But sure. Have your people call my people.”
The formality of it stings more than it should. Like he's already pulling back, already creating space between you that wasn't there before.
“Matt—”
“It's fine.” he assures, though it doesn’t sound fine. It sounds like a door closing. Or maybe you're imagining that too - there's nothing in his voice you can parse clearly. “Really, enjoy your lunch.”
You want to say something else. Want to explain, or apologise, or do literally anything to make this less excruciating. But the words stick in your throat, and Matt's already shifting toward the door into the hallway, and Bucky's just standing there, absolutely not trying to hide his satisfaction.
“Ready to go?” Bucky asks.
“I just need to freshen up,” you reply. “Give me two minutes. I'll meet you downstairs.”
It's a transparent excuse and you both know it. But you need air. You need thirty seconds where you're not feeling like you’re being pulled apart at the seams. You grab your bag and slip out after Matt, turning the opposite direction toward the bathrooms, leaving Bucky alone in your office. Which is possibly the worst decision you could have made, you realise, but you can't exactly turn around now.
Behind you, Bucky watches you disappear around the corner. Waits patiently until your heels clicking fades down the corridor. Then he moves.
Matt's halfway down the corridor when Bucky catches up.
“Murdock.”
Matt stops mid-stride. There's a fractional hesitation where his shoulders stiffen before he turns. His expression has shed whatever careful pleasantness he'd been wearing in your office. What's left is cooler. Bucky stops a respectful distance away, hands loose at his sides. Everything about his posture says this is just two professionals having a friendly discussion.
“I think we should talk,” he begins. “Briefly.”
Matt's expression doesn't change. “About?”
“About boundaries.” Bucky asserts, though his tone is reasonable - almost apologetic, even. Like this is an awkward position he’s been forced into rather than something he’s orchestrating. “Look, I'm going to be direct here. My wife and I are working through things. Trying to figure out what we want going forward. And I think—Well, I think it would be easier if we had some space to do that without other complications.”
Matt tilts his head slightly, and there's something almost amused in the gesture. “And by complications you mean me.”
“I’m not trying to be a dick about this, I'm just asking you to back off for a while. Let us have the space we need as we get back to where we were.” It comes out steady, but Bucky’s heart rate betrays him. That telltale spike that means he’s not being entirely truthful. Matt catalogues the lie for what it is. “It's been a difficult few months, but we're in a good place now.”
“And she's aware of this? The working things out?”
Bucky's jaw tightens. “We're on the same page about what matters.”
“Wow,” Matt scoffs softly, a disbelieving smile pulling at the corner of his mouth. “That’s what you’re telling yourself?”
Bucky goes still, but Matt hears the minute hitch in his breathing anyway. The slight shift in his heartbeat as he re-calibrates, trying to decide whether Matt actually knows something or if he’s bluffing.
When Bucky speaks again, there’s bite to his tone, the pleasantness veneer starting to crack around the edges.
“My relationship with my wife isn't really your concern.”
“It is when I’ve been sleeping with her the past two months.”
Bucky’s mouth pulls into something mean immediately, his expression hardening as the last scraps of diplomacy finally burn off. Any pretence of this being a civil conversation is entirely gone.
“And yet those two months didn’t seem to mean much last night, did they? I hadn’t even been back three hours, that must sting a little.”
The barb lands. Matt's jaw tightens, but he doesn't take the bait.
“You know, if push her into something she doesn't actually want—”
“I know my wife.”
“Do you?” Matt asks, and there's just enough lift in it to make it a real question but not quite enough warmth to make it a polite one. “Because despite what you think, two months ago she didn't seem like someone who was waiting around for you to come back.”
Bucky's hands flex. “Meaning?”
“Meaning she built a life here without you in it,” Matt states, matter of fact. “And sleeping with her and monopolising her calendar doesn’t undo that, no matter how much you want it to.”
That lands differently. Bucky's mouth presses into a thin line as he tries to find his footing again. Tries to figure out how to wrestle the conversation back under his control. But Matt's already turning away, done with whatever this was.
“Next time you want to have a conversation about boundaries, Congressman,” he tosses back over his shoulder, “maybe try having it with her first.”
Then he's gone, footsteps receding down the hallway, leaving Bucky standing alone with the distinct feeling that he didn't win that exchange nearly as cleanly as he'd intended.
He stands there for a moment, trying to sort through what just happened. Matt's parting shot sits uncomfortably in his chest, because that’s what he’s trying to fix, isn’t it? Except maybe Murdock has a point about the method.
He straightens his jacket. Rolls his shoulders back. Whatever. He has lunch with his wife, and Matt Murdock can go back to whatever law firm he crawled out of.
Bucky makes it down to the entrance hall,checking his phone more out of habit than any real interest in the messages accumulating there. When he hears your footsteps on the stairs, he looks up, and something in his chest loosens slightly. At least he has this. This week. That has to count for something.
He straightens as you approach, and there's something careful in the way his eyes track over your face, like he's bracing for whatever mood you're bringing down those stairs with you.
“Ready?” He asks, aiming for casual but it doesn't quite land.
“Do I have a choice?” The question comes with a raised brow. You don’t slow down as you reach him, just brush past toward the door.
“You always have a choice.” He falls into step beside you, hands sliding into his pockets.
“Funny,” you return, pushing through the door without waiting for him to open it. “Doesn't feel like it this week.”
Wisely, he chooses not to argue. Instead, he follows you out into the grey London afternoon, the kind of day where the sky can't decide if it wants to commit to rain or just make everyone miserable with the threat of it.
The walk is silent - not the comfortable kind. Bucky keeps his hands in his pockets because if he doesn't, they'll instinctively search for your waist or the small of your back or some other familiar place they've been gravitating toward for years. And that Velcro instinct to maintain contact feels entirely unhelpful given the current temperature between you.
The restaurant Bucky chose is one of those discreet places where ministers go to have conversations they'd rather not have overheard. The kind with enough distance from other diners that you could have an argument without making it everyone's business. Not that you're planning to argue. You're planning to get through this lunch, get through this week, and then figure out what the hell your life is supposed to look like when your ex-husband stops playing whatever game this is.
You both settle into your seats. Pick up menus you don't really look at. You order a salad you won't finish, and he gets something with chicken. The waiter retreats, and you're left with the silence again, which is starting to feel like a third presence in your relationship. Bucky's doing that thing where he looks like he's about to say something, then doesn't, his jaw working slightly like he's testing out sentences in his head before committing to them out loud.
“Just say it,” you offer eventually, unfolding your napkin with more attention than the action requires.
His eyes snap up, sheepish. “Say what?”
“Whatever it is you've been composing since we sat down.”
He huffs a breath that might be amusement. Looks down at his water glass, turning it slightly on the table, before looking back up at you through his lashes with that rare, almost boyish uncertainty. When he speaks, his voice is quieter than you're expecting.
“I know you're pissed about the calendar.”
“Observant.” The word comes out flat, edged with sarcasm. “What gave it away? The part where I barely spoke to you on the walk over, or the part where I'm sitting here looking like I'd rather be anywhere else?”
His mouth twitches, but he doesn't smile. “I should've asked first.”
“Yes. You should’ve.”
“I didn't think you'd say yes if I asked.”
The honesty of it catches you off guard. You look up, and he's watching you with an expression you can't quite parse. Like he's trying to gauge how much damage control he needs to do, but it's coming off more hesitant than calculated.
“Would you have?” he presses.
“We'll never know now, will we?”
The waiter arrives with water. You both fall silent until he leaves. Bucky exhales through his nose. His fingers drum once against the table before going still, like he's physically stopping himself from fidgeting.
“Look, I know I've been—” He stops. Starts again. “The past year has been shit. And I know that's on me.”
You weren't expecting that. You were expecting deflection, or charm, or strategic redirection. Not this.
“I let the distance grow,” he continues, not quite meeting your eyes. “Got buried in DC and the constant fucking politics of it all. And somewhere in there I stopped picking up the phone. Stopped making time. Started letting my assistant filter everything because it was easier than dealing with how far apart we'd gotten.”
“You suggested the separation,” you point out, voice flat. “You're the one who said no strings, no hard feelings.”
“I know.”
“You made it impossible for me to reach you and then acted like the distance was mutual.”
“I know,” he repeats, and there's something tighter in his voice now. “And I'm not saying that was fair. It wasn't. It was cowardly. But I'm here now.”
“For a week.” You lean back in your chair, arms crossing. “And you got here by hijacking my calendar instead of just asking me to talk.”
“We're talking now.”
You sigh, or maybe it's closer to an exhale of pure exasperation. Your gaze lifts to the ceiling for a brief moment like you're asking for divine patience.
“Bucky—”
“Okay,” he concedes, hands lifting briefly in surrender before he shifts forward, elbows coming to rest on the table. “I know monopolizing your schedule was a shit way to go about it, but I miss you.” He looks down at his hands, then back up at you. “I miss us. I miss you being the first person I want to tell things to. And I want to prove that we can still do this. That I can be here, when it matters.”
The words settle in the space between you, complicated and messy and not nearly enough to fix everything that's broken. It's nowhere near enough.
You want to stay angry. Want to hold onto the fury that's been building since this morning, or since last night, or over the past year, really. But there's something in his voice that sounds like actual regret, and you're so tired of being angry all the time. It's more than he's said in months, and that matters more than it should.
“So this is what, exactly?” you ask, trying to stay firm. “An audition? A demonstration?”
“It's me trying.” It’s a simple confession, like he’s run out of polished answers, and this is all he has left.
The food arrives. You both go quiet while the waiter sets down plates and refills water and does all the small choreographed movements of service. Once he's gone, you pick up your fork without any real intention of eating.
“You hijacked my week, Bucky. You coordinated with my staff behind my back and filled my schedule so I couldn't—” You stop yourself before you finish that sentence, but he finishes it anyway.
“So you couldn't see Murdock.”
“So I couldn't make my own choices,” you correct sharply.
He has the grace to look slightly abashed. Slightly. “Fair enough.”
“Is it? Because from where I'm sitting, it looks like the same pattern. You can't just show up and expect—”
“It’s not—“ He stops, looking for the right words. “Okay. Maybe. But just let me show you I can be present. That we still work as a team.” His voice is steady now, certain. “The rest of it, we can figure that out. Just give me this week, please.”
You should say no. You should tell him that orchestrating your life without your consent isn't how you rebuild trust. That half-apologies that don’t actually contain an apology don't undo eight months of distance. That you can't just paper over everything with joint appearances and pretty words.
But he's looking at you so earnestly that it makes you hesitate. And the treacherous truth is that you're tired. Tired of being angry, tired of navigating this alone, tired of lying in that too-big bed and pretending you don't notice the empty space beside you.
And it would be so much easier to just... let this be easy.
“One week,” you hear yourself say.
Something in his face softens. His posture shifts, only slightly, but you catch it. Relief, maybe. Or victory. Hard to tell which. “Yeah?”
“One week of actually showing up. And then we talk. Really talk. About all of it.” You hold his gaze. “And I mean everything, Bucky. The separation, the distance, why we're even doing this. No more avoiding the hard conversations.”
“Deal.”
The silence that follows is different. Still weighted, but less hostile. More like you're both feeling your way toward something that used to be natural and isn't anymore.
“So,” Bucky says, moving food around his plate. “How bad is Lord Johnson actually going to be on Thursday?”
Despite yourself, you almost laugh. “Unbearable. He's going to lecture you about trade policy superiority while asking for concessions.”
“So exactly like last time.”
“Mhm,” you agree, finally taking a bite of your salad. “Except now he's also upset about the tariffs, so add that to his list of grievances. Plus he's developed this tendency to touch people when he talks. Very hands-on.”
Bucky's eyebrow raises, fork pausing halfway to his mouth. “Should I be worried?”
“About Lord Johnson making a move?” You can't quite keep the smirk off your face. “I think your virtue's safe.”
“I meant about him pawing at you for two hours.”
There's an edge of possession in his tone that should irritate you. Instead it does something warm and stupid in your chest. You take another bite, buying yourself a moment. “I can handle Lord Johnson.”
“I know you can.” He pauses. “Doesn't mean you should have to.”
You shrug. “If he tries it with me, I'm elbowing him in the ribs.”
“I'll back you up. You sneezed, he was unfortunately in the blast radius, these things happen.”
You take a sip of water to cover the fact that you're almost smiling. This is the problem. This is exactly the problem. Two minutes of actual honesty and you're already slipping back into familiar patterns, already falling back into the easy rhythm of banter and knowing looks.
“Morrison might be at the Atlantic Council thing tomorrow,” you mention, trying to redirect to safer ground.
Bucky groans. “He's going to corner me about the infrastructure bill again.”
“Probably. He's been insufferable about it since the committee hearing.”
“Well, I've gotten very good at the diplomatic non-answer.” His mouth curves slightly. “Take it under advisement, appreciate the input, look forward to continued dialogue—”
“You learnt that from me.” You point your fork at him accusingly, though there's no real heat in it.
“I learnt most of the useful stuff from you.” He says it like it's simple fact, but something in his expression has gone softer.
The admission sits there between you, heavier than it should be. You look down at your plate, suddenly very focused on rearranging lettuce.
“You really think this will work?” you ask quietly, not looking up. “This week?”
“I think when we're together, we're still good at this. The partnership part. That has to count for something.”
It's not an answer to the bigger question. But maybe it's the only answer either of you has right now.
You eat in silence for a moment, but it's different now. Less hostile. Almost comfortable. Your phone buzzes. You glance down, it’s another email from Caroline about tomorrow's schedule. When you look back up, Bucky's watching you with an expression you can't quite read.
You eye him suspiciously. “What?”
“Nothing. Just...” He shakes his head slightly, but he's almost smiling. “I missed this.”
“Yeah,” you admit, quieter than you mean to. “Me too.”
And you have, you realise. Not just him - though that's there too, complicated and inconvenient as it is - but this. The ease of being with someone who knows you well enough that you don't have to explain every reference or thought. Who can read your expressions without words. Who makes you laugh even when you're furious with them.
It doesn't fix anything. Doesn't undo the eight months or the separation or the fact that you still haven't actually addressed any of the reasons you split in the first place. But for right now, sitting across from your husband in a quiet corner of a restaurant where nobody's watching, it feels like maybe, just maybe, you can remember why you married him in the first place.
Even if that's exactly the problem.
── ⟢ ₊ ☁️ ˚・🖋️ ⊹
The week unfolds with a momentum you can't quite control, each day bleeding into the next in a blur of meetings that run too smoothly, dinners where the conversations flow too easily, and nights where he sleeps in your bed like it’s the most natural thing in the world.
By Wednesday you're laughing at his jokes again without the bitter edge. By Thursday his hand at your waist feels less like a claim and more like an anchor. The Times runs their profile on your relationship - ‘A Political Partnership That Works’ - pulling photos from the week's events. You're flipping through them absently when the pattern registers. Different events, different rooms, different contexts. But in every frame, Bucky’s eyes are always fixed on you.
Oh.
You save the photos to your phone, which is its own kind of problem.
Matt's name sits in your contacts with no new messages. Of course, you're not keeping score of his silence against Bucky's constant presence. That would imply there’s a competition between them. Which there definitely isn’t.
To be fair, Caroline did mention his office called about rescheduling. You said you'd handle it. You didn’t.
Matt hadn’t chased the issue after that. Which is, objectively, the respectful thing to do. Matt never demands more than you freely offer him, which had once felt refreshingly uncomplicated. Lately, though, you’re starting to wonder if there’s a difference between being understanding and simply never fighting for a place in someone’s life.
Maybe Matt only knows how to want you in situations where wanting you remains easy.
By Friday morning you're walking back from the Canadian delegation breakfast, Bucky's telling some story that has you laughing hard enough that your sides hurt, and for a dangerous moment you forget about the separation. About the ocean's width of distance - literal and otherwise - that usually sits between you. That Sunday he leaves and you have to figure out what any of this actually meant.
But that's fine. You're exceptional at compartmentalizing. You've had years of practice at keeping different parts of your life in separate boxes that never touch. The fact that the boxes are getting harder to keep closed is something you'll worry about later.
Or at least, it should be, because right now you have a meeting that got squeezed into your calendar this morning that you need to prep for. But you can't seem to focus on the sparse notes that Caroline left you because your brain keeps drifting back to the way Bucky’s hand found yours under the table this morning and you let it stay there.
A knock at the door pulls you from the spiral.
“Come in,” you call, straightening slightly in your chair, trying to look like you've been doing something productive instead of staring at the same paragraph for ten minutes.
The door opens, and the distinctive tap of a cane against tile makes your stomach twist before you even look up.
Matt's standing in your doorway. Again. Appearing when you’re utterly unprepared to see him. Again. And you’re going to have to push him away. Again.
If the universe is trying to teach you something by replaying this week until you stop making catastrophically bad decisions, the lesson is lost on you.
“Matt.” You're already half-standing, the words tumbling out before you can stop them. “I'm so sorry, I have a meeting in—” you glance at your screen, at the calendar slot that's starting right now, “—I can't, I have to—”
“I know,” he interrupts, and there's something almost amused in his expression as he steps into the office properly. “I'm your meeting.”
Your eyebrow raises slowly. “You faked a meeting to see me?”
“Well, since your husband's been so thorough about cutting me out of your calendar all week,” he returns smoothly, closing the door behind him with a quiet click, “it seemed like the only way in.”
There's a joke there, light and easy, but underneath it there's definitely an edge. A deserved one, maybe. The guilt that's been sitting low in your stomach all week flares hot and immediate. “Matt, I should have called. I meant to, I just—the week got away from me, and I didn’t mean to disappear—”
“You didn't disappear,” Matt corrects mildly. “You've been very visible, actually. Hard to miss when you're in three different political newsletters looking very much like the devoted political wife.”
The observation lands with enough weight that you have to look away. Matt moves closer, leaning against the edge of your desk with his arms crossed loosely, head tilted in that particular way that means he's cataloguing everything you’re not saying. Your elevated heart rate. The shallow breathing you can't quite control. The tension wound so tight in your shoulders you might snap.
“I know I should've—”
“Should've what?” He interrupts again, but his voices stays gentle. “Called the man you've been sleeping with while your husband's in town making sure everyone knows you're still married?” His mouth quirks slightly. “Can't imagine why that would feel awkward.”
The last part comes with just enough wry humour to take some of the sting out of it. An acknowledgement that yes, this situation is absurd, and yes, you're both aware of it.
“You didn't call either,” you point out, and it comes out more wounded than you intend.
“No, I didn't,” he admits easily. “Didn't want to crowd you when Bucky's been taking up so much real estate in your schedule. Thought maybe you needed space to figure things out.” His mouth curves, voice going warmer. “Besides, seemed only fair to give him a shot, sweetheart. I had you to myself for two months.”
It should feel mature, the way he keeps placing the choice back in your hands. But standing here now, watching him deliberately leave the distance between you intact, you can’t quite ignore the small, ugly part of yourself that wants someone to fight a little harder for you than that.
So you close the distance yourself, drawn by the same gravitational pull that's been there since the first time he walked into your office three months ago. Once again doing the reaching. The pattern recognition occurring here is frankly humiliating.
Your hands find his chest, feel the steady thrum of his heartbeat under his shirt.
“I haven't figured anything out,” you admit quietly, because you suppose he deserves the honesty. “About what this week means, or what I want, or any of it.”
“No?” There's something almost teasing in the question. “The Times seemed pretty convinced you and Barnes are a political power couple for the ages.”
“The Times doesn't know we're separated.”
“Clearly.” His hand comes up, fingers finding your jaw with unerring accuracy, thumb brushing along your cheekbone in a touch that's devastatingly familiar. “Though after this week, I'm starting to wonder if you remember that either.”
The words should sting. Maybe they do. But mostly what you're aware of is his proximity, the heat of his palm against your face, the way your body has started leaning into him without conscious permission.
“Matt—”
“Sorry, I’m not trying to make you feel guilty.” His thumb traces lower, following the line of your jaw. “That’s not what this is.”
“Then what is this?”
“This,” he murmurs, leaning in until his forehead nearly touches yours, “is me reminding you that you have options.”
“I've missed you,” you whisper against his lips.
His free hand comes up to your waist, thumb brushing the curve of your hip through your dress. “Yeah?”
“Yeah.”
You should stop this. Should step back and have the actual conversation about this week and where you stand and all the things you've been avoiding. Should deal with the compartments that are failing to stay separate instead of making everything more complicated.
But his mouth is right there.
You kiss him before you can think better of it, before the guilt can claw its way up your throat and ruin the moment. He makes a soft sound against your mouth, surprise giving way to hunger as he kisses you back.
It's different than kissing Bucky. Where Bucky takes, Matt asks - the tilt of his head a question, the press of his tongue a request. You grant it. Grant all of it. Pour five days of frustration and confusion into the kiss until you're both breathing hard.
“Missed this too,” you gasp between kisses, and he laughs against your mouth.
“Just this?”
“Missed you being a smartass,” you correct, tugging him closer by his tie. “Missed your hands on me—god, I just missed—”
He lifts you then, strong hands gripping your thighs as he spins you both and sets you on the edge of your desk. Papers scatter. You don't care. Your legs open, allowing him to step into the space between your thighs.
“Missed having a conversation that didn't involve diplomatic immunity,” you continue, breathless, as his mouth trails down your neck. “Missed not being scheduled within an inch of my life.”
His teeth graze your pulse point. “Sounds exhausting.”
“It is.” Your head tips back, fingers threading through his hair. “It's—fuck, Matt—”
His hands slide up your thighs, pushing the hem of your skirt higher. The drag of his palms against your stockings makes you shiver.
Your hands find his lapels, pulling him desperately closer. The kiss deepens, his tongue sliding against yours, and for a moment you forget about Bucky and the separation and every complicated thing you've been avoiding.
“You should've booked a longer meeting,” you manage, and it comes out almost playful despite the heat pooling low in your belly.
Matt's smile is absolutely wicked. “Please,” he murmurs against your mouth. “I don't need long to make you come, sweetheart. Just need your legs open and the door locked.”
Heat floods through you at the promise in his voice, your thighs clenching involuntarily. Before you can even respond, his hands are sliding under your ass, lifting you in one smooth motion. Your legs wrap around his waist automatically, gasping into his mouth as he turns and walks you backward.
You don't break the kiss. Can't. Your fingers are in his hair, tugging probably too hard, and he makes this gorgeous rough sound against your mouth that vibrates straight through you. His mouth is hot and demanding against yours, tongue sliding past your lips to taste you properly, and you make a sound into his mouth that's embarrassingly needy.
Your back hits the door hard enough to knock the breath from your lungs, the solid wood catching you with enough force that you gasp into his mouth. Matt pins you there immediately, hips rolling forward, and you can feel how hard he is already, the thick length of him pressing right where you're aching. Your hand scrabbles blindly behind you for the lock, fingers clumsy with want, and when it finally clicks he groans like the sound itself did something to him.
“Fuck yes,” he breathes against your mouth, and his hand slides up your thigh, pushing your skirt higher. When his fingers brush the inside of your thigh you shudder, hips canting forward, seeking more contact. “Been thinking about this all week. Thinking about getting you alone, getting my hands on you—”
His fingers find the edge of your underwear, slipping just beneath the lace to trace along the seam where it meets your thigh. The touch is light, almost lazy, like he has all the time in the world and knows it's driving you insane. You gasp, hips grinding forward, trying to direct his hand where you actually need it, and your head drops back against the door. He laughs softly against your throat.
“God, you're impatient,” he teases, teeth grazing your pulse point. “Already trying to fuck yourself on my hand.”
“Shut up,” you whine, but there's no heat in it, just desperate need.
“Why?” His mouth trails to your jaw, leave wet kisses behind. “I like knowing you want me. Like hearing your pulse race when I touch you here—” His finger traces up the centre of your underwear, dragging slowly through the damp fabric from your entrance all the way up to your clit. The pressure is perfect and not nearly enough, and you can feel how wet you are, how the lace clings to you. “—and feeling you stop breathing when I—”
His fingers finally slip beneath the lace, and the second he actually touches you, feels how wet and slick you are, he makes this broken sound against your mouth that's half-groan, half-curse. Then he's kissing you again, mouth crashing back to yours. Tongue pushing past your lips deeper, harder, needier. Losing that earlier control. His fingers slide through the mess you've made and your hips jerk forward into his hand.
“Fuck,” he breathes against your lips, fingers parting your folds and sliding through the wetness, spreading it deliberately before finding your clit. He circles it with your own slick, and you can feel how soaked you are, how easily his fingers move, and the wet sound of it makes your face flush hot. “You're fucking soaked for me.”
He's not wrong. You are soaked, aching, need clawing under your skin with an urgency that borders on painful. Whether it's because of him or because you've spent five days with Bucky's hand at your waist and his body in your bed, that constant simmering tension winding you tighter and tighter with nowhere for it to go, you genuinely don't know.
Don't want to know.
Your hips roll forward, trying to get more pressure, more friction, more anything. “Then stop teasing and do something about it.”
He laughs, the sound rough and a little desperate. “Yes ma'am.”
His fingers slide lower, one pressing inside you with a slow, deliberate stretch that makes your head thunk back against the door. You bite down on your lip hard, trying to keep quiet, hyper-aware that you're in your office in the middle of the day with your staff just outside.
“Matt—” His name escapes your lips anyway, louder than you intend.
“Shh,” he breathes against your lips, but he's smiling, adding another finger and curling them just right. “Sweetheart, you're gonna get us caught.”
“Your fault,” you gasp, barely above a whisper, hips rocking to meet the thrust of his fingers.
“Fair point.” His forehead presses to yours, breathing ragged. “But you still need to be quiet for me. Can you do that?”
Nodding, you try to stop the moan building in your throat as his fingers work deeper, finding that spot that makes your thighs shake. Your nails dig into his shoulders through his shirt, breath coming in shallow, restrained gasps. But then he curls them again, harder, and the sound that escapes you is too loud, too obvious. His mouth is on yours immediately, swallowing the moan before it can carry.
He kisses you deep and filthy, tongue sliding against yours as his fingers work faster, his thumb finding your clit. The dual sensation is overwhelming, pleasure building fast and sharp. You're making these small, desperate noises into his mouth that you can't control, and he seems determined to catch every single one, kissing you harder each time his fingers make you gasp.
“Matt—please—I need—” you whisper between kisses, the words breaking apart.
“I know,” he murmurs back, and there's something soft in it even as his fingers work you closer to the edge. “Need to come. Need to stop thinking for five minutes.” His thumb circles your clit with perfect pressure and you gasp into his mouth. “Need it to be easy for once, yeah? Just this. Just us. Nothing complicated.”
Yes. God, yes. That's exactly what you need. To not think. To just feel something that isn't guilt or confusion or the weight of every choice you've made this week.
“More,” you gasp.
“So greedy sweetheart.” His thumb finds your clit, circling in rhythm with the thrust of his fingers. “What am I gonna do with you?”
“Fuck me would be a good start.”
He groans, forehead dropping to your shoulder. “Love when you get bossy.”
His fingers slide out of you and the whimper that escapes you is pathetic, your hips moving forward involuntarily, trying to chase what you just lost.But your hands are already moving, shaking as they reach for his belt. You yank at it, fingers fumbling with the buckle in your desperation to get him undone.
You need him inside you, need it with an urgency that's making your hands clumsy and your breathing erratic.
“Condom?” you gasp out, finally getting his belt undone and working on the button of his slacks.
“Wallet, back pocket.”
A breath of relief punches out of you. “Fuck—good boy,” you tease, pulling him into a kiss.
Matt makes this wrecked sound into your mouth, somewhere between a moan and a growl, and his hand cracks down on your ass hard enough to make you gasp against his lips.
“Careful,” he warns, but there's no heat in it, just desperate want. “Keep talking like that and this is gonna be over way too fast.”
You reach around, palm sliding over his ass as you fish out his wallet. The leather is warm from his body heat, and your fingers are still trembling as you flip it open and grab the condom. You tear the foil packet open with your teeth, spitting the scrap of wrapper aside, and then your hand is wrapping around his cock. He's thick and hard in your palm, already leaking, and the groan that tears out of him is absolutely obscene.
“Can't have that,” you murmur, rolling the latex down his length slowly despite how badly you're shaking. You stroke him once, twice, feeling every thick inch, and your thumb swipes over the head. He shudders, fingers digging into your thighs hard enough to bruise.
“Sweetheart,” he grits out, and it sounds like a plea. His hips buck forward into your grip. “Please.”
“Please what?” You're being mean now, hand still working him while he's trying to hold himself together.
“Please let me fuck you before I lose my fucking mind.”
You guide the swollen head of his cock to your entrance and you both go still for half a second, just breathing against each other's mouths. Then he's pushing inside you in one long, smooth slide and the stretch steals every thought from your head. It's almost too much, the thick press of him, and you're making these small desperate sounds you can't control.
“Fuck,” Matt breathes, the words vibrating against your throat where his mouth has landed. You can feel him shaking with the effort of holding still as he lets you adjust to the stretch of him. “You feel—god, you're so wet I can feel it dripping down my—”
You cut him off with a kiss, messy and graceless, and start rolling your hips experimentally. His cock drags against that spot inside you that makes your vision blur. The angle is perfect like this, him pinning you to the door, and each roll of your hips takes him deeper. He meets your rhythm, hands gripping your ass to hold you steady as he thrusts up into you, and you have to bite down on his shoulder to muffle the moan that tears out of you.
Your legs tighten around his waist, heels digging into his ass, trying to pull him impossibly closer.
“That's it,” he groans, setting a rhythm that's slow but deep, each thrust deliberate and devastating. “Take what you need, sweetheart.”
You can barely form words, too focused on the stretch of him filling you, the way your needy cunt is already clenching around him, desperate to pull him deeper. The wet, obscene sounds of him fucking you fill your quiet office as you both pant into each other's mouths, drowning in the sensation of each other. The thick drag of his cock inside you, the press of his body against yours, the heat of your skin under his hands.
Your hand slides between your bodies, seeking more. When your fingers find your clit, it's swollen and sensitive, and just that first brush of contact makes you mewl into his mouth. You're so worked up, so desperate, that even your own touch feels like too much and not enough at the same time. You circle it carefully at first, testing, but the spike of pleasure that shoots through you makes your hips jerk and your walls clench around his cock.
“You sound so pretty like this,” Matt pants against your neck, hips snapping forward. “So fucking pretty when you stop overthinking and just let go.”
Your response is incoherent, something between a moan and his name. The pleasure is building fast, coiling tighter with each thrust, each drag of his cock inside you. Your cunt clenches around him, greedy, desperate, chasing the release that's right there.
“That's it, sweetheart,” he encourages, rhythm getting rougher. “Can feel you getting close. Feel you squeezing my cock. You gonna come for me? Gonna let me feel it?”
You're circling your clit in time with his thrusts and it's almost too much sensation, pleasure coiling tighter in your belly. He shifts slightly and the new angle makes you see stars, a whimper escaping before you can bite it back.
“Yes—fuck—Matt—”
“There?” he asks breathlessly, doing it again, and when you nod frantically he keeps hitting that exact spot. Every thrust drives him deeper and pushes your hand harder against yourself, and you're whimpering with each roll of your hips.
“I can hear it,” Matt groans into your mouth. “Can hear how close you are—your heart's racing, your breathing, you're right there—please, sweetheart, need to feel you—”
It crashes over you sudden and overwhelming, pleasure ripping through you in waves. You come with a broken cry that Matt catches with his mouth, your cunt clamping down on his cock so hard you're practically strangling it. Your whole body locks up, thighs shaking as the pleasure tears through you in brutal waves. Your fingers are still on your clit, working yourself through it, and you're making these high desperate sounds into his mouth that you can't control.
“Fuck—oh fuck—” Matt groans, fucking you through it, prolonging it until you're gasping and oversensitive. “So fucking perfect—”
He buries himself deep with a final hard thrust and comes with a groan of your name, cock pulsing as he spills into the condom. You can feel every throb, every twitch as he empties himself, and it sends another aftershock through you that makes you clench around him all over again.
For a moment you just breathe together, foreheads pressed close, hearts racing in tandem. Your legs are trembling so badly around his waist that you're not sure they'll hold you when he pulls out. When he does, you both make these raw sounds at the loss of contact.
Slowly, carefully, he lowers you to the floor. Your knees wobble slightly as your feet hit the ground, and Matt immediately steadies you.
“Okay?” he asks softly, thumb stroking your hip.
“Yeah,” you manage, because that's about all your brain can produce right now.
He kisses you again, but when he pulls back there's something careful in it. Almost like he’s making sure it stays just the right side of casual. His hand cups your face briefly - thumb brushing rogue strands of hair from your face.
“Told you I didn't need long,” he murmurs, and you can hear the smile in his voice.
“Smug bastard.”
But even as you say it your brain is already pulling away, cataloguing everything that needs to happen in the next ten minutes. Fix your hair. Cover that mark on your neck. Make yourself look like a composed diplomat instead of a woman who just fucked her boyfriend—situationship? god, you refuse to be a grown woman with a situationship—against her office door while her husband is probably working back home.
What the fuck are you doing?
Your heart kicks up, anxiety spiking sharp and sudden. Matt's thumb stills against your cheek, and you realise he can probably hear it. The way your body betrays every thought before you can even process it yourself.
“Hey,” he says, and there's a question in it. “Where'd you go?”
You open your mouth. Then immediately close it. You don't actually have an answer that won't make this worse.
His head tilts slightly, that listening posture you know so well, and his mouth curves into something small and resigned. Like he's already heard the answer in your pulse, in the shift of your breathing, in all the things your body is telling him that you won't say out loud.
So he steps back, creating space between you, and starts dealing with the condom without another word. He ties it off, wraps it in tissue from your desk, buries it under the papers in your trash bin so it's not the first thing anyone sees. The movements are quick and practised, and somehow that makes it worse.
“I should probably let you get back to it,” he offers, straightening out his clothes. “I'm sure you've got seventeen meetings stacked up this afternoon.”
You stare dumbly, watching him button his shirt, tuck it back in, re-buckle his belt. Everything going back into place like this was just a pleasant interlude in the workday and now it's back to business. He runs a hand through his hair to fix what your fingers messed up, and within two minutes he looks perfectly put together, as though nothing happened.
You catch sight of your reflection in the dark window and you definitely don't look like nothing happened. Your hair is a mess, your lips are swollen, and there's a faint mark on your neck that you're going to have to cover with makeup before your next meeting.
Matt turns away, adjusts his jacket, and something about the ease of it all makes your stomach twist. He's leaving. Of course he's leaving.
He picks up his cane, testing his weight on it, and the gesture is so familiar it hurts. How many times have you watched him do exactly that? Watched him prepare to leave after a late night working at your dining table, after drinks that turned into dinner that turned into more. Always the same smooth transition from intimacy back to separate lives.
He leans in, presses a kiss to your temple that lands somewhere between affectionate and perfunctory. “Don't let Bucky monopolize your entire weekend.”
It's said warmly. Casually, even. Like he's not bothered. Like this is all very uncomplicated and he's very okay with however this plays out.
“Matt—”
“I'll see you later,” he says easily, hand already on the door.
The casualness of it catches you wrong. Hooks into something raw that’s been building this whole week. And that’s what snaps you out of your own head and back into the moment.
“That's it?” The words come out sharper than you intend. “You'll see me later?”
He pauses, hand on the doorknob, shoulders stiffing as he tries to read the edge in your voice. “Are you—is something wrong?”
It’s remarkable, really. The man can hear your pulse spike from three rooms away, can detect the slightest shift in your body chemistry, can read more from your heartbeat than most people get from a full conversation. And yet here he is, still remarkably incapable of reading the room. Superhuman senses, same oblivious male brain.
“You know what, no, nothing's wrong.” You scoff, yanking your skirt down with more force than necessary, already moving towards your desk, trying to put yourself back together. “You're right, I do have a busy afternoon. Thanks for stopping by.”
“Okay, what's actually going on right now?” He asks slowly, like he's genuinely trying to figure this out. “You’re clearly upset.”
“I'm not upset.”
“Your heart rate says differently.”
God, you hate that he can do that. Hate that your body betrays you before your mouth can even form the lie. And if he's going to use those stupidly accurate senses to call you out, fine. You might as well just say it.
“When am I going to see you again?”
The question hangs in the air. Matt's quiet for a moment, and you can see him processing, trying to read the subtext.
“I don't know.” The answer comes after a beat, careful. “When do you want to see me again?”
It's a reasonable question. A fair question. So why does it make you want to scream?
“That's really how you're going to leave this?” You turn to face him, and you know you're being unfair but you can't seem to stop yourself. “I don't know, you tell me, we'll figure it out later?”
His expression shifts, the muscles tightening around his lips even as his posture stays relaxed. “I was trying to make it easy for you.”
“Easy for me or easy for yourself?”
“Both, probably,” he admits, and the ease of his honesty genuinely makes you pause. “You've got a lot going on. Your husband's here, clearly trying to…” The sentence trails off, unfinished, like he doesn’t want to say something he shouldn’t. “I'm trying not to put more pressure on you when Bucky's already doing that.”
“So you're just backing off? Not even going to—” You stop, because fight for me sounds insane and desperate and you're not sure you even want him to fight for you, but the fact that he won't makes you furious anyway.
“What do you want from me here?” Matt asks, and there's the first edge of frustration creeping into his voice. “You want me to demand your time? Tell you to pick me over him? Make this harder for you?”
You open your mouth but nothing comes out, because you don't know. You don't know what you want from him. You don't know what you want from Bucky. You don't know what you want from any of this mess you've created.
“Maybe I just want you to care! ”The words burst out louder than you meant them, and you have to forcibly lower your voice, aware again of where you are, who might hear. “I want you to act like this actually matters instead of just being whatever's convenient when I have a free hour.”
The silence that follows is sharp enough to cut.
“That's not fair,” he says quietly.
“Isn't it? You won't make plans more than a day out. You've never even asked me to stay over.”
“Because I don't know what we are!” His voice spikes, exasperated, and you both freeze for a second, listening for footsteps in the hall. When none come, he continues, quieter but no less intense. “You're still married. He's clearly trying to get you back. You're asking me to push when you've made it pretty clear you don't know what you want, and I'm not going to compete with your husband.”
“There's a difference between not being pushy and not fighting for anything at all!”Your voice cracks slightly on the last word and you hate yourself for it, the vulnerability bleeding through when you're trying to stay angry. You swallow hard, trying to pull it back together. “There's a difference between giving someone space and just letting go without even trying.”
“I'm trying,” he begins, and there's something rawer in his voice now, “to give you space to figure your shit out without making you feel like you owe me something.”
“Maybe I want to owe you something!” You're pacing now, heels clicking sharp against the floor. “Maybe I want you to act like you actually give a damn whether I pick him or not!”
“Of course I give a damn!” It's the closest he's come to raising his voice. “But I'm not going to manipulate you or monopolize your calendar or show up and—” He stops himself. “I'm not him. I'm not going to do what he does.”
“At least he's doing something!”
The words land like a slap. You see it in the way his expression shutters, in the way his hand tightens on his cane.
“Right.” His voice is flat. “Well. At least we know where we stand, then.” He's already turning toward the door. “Clearly I’m not what you need.”
“Matt, I didn’t mean—” You press your palms against your eyes because you can feel the sting of tears starting and you really don’t want to cry right now. “You’re right, I don't know what I need.” Your voice cracks again and you hate it, hate the tears that are threatening, hate how small you sound. “But why does it have to be all or nothing with both of you? He smothers me and you won't even—”
You stop, pressing your hand to your mouth, trying to hold it together. But the tears are coming anyway, hot and frustrated and exhausted, because you've been holding everything in all week and it's too much. It's all too much.
The tap of his cane stops.
For a moment there's just silence, broken only by the humiliating wet sound of you trying not to sob.
“I'm fine.” But your voice does that horrible shaky thing that makes it very clear you are the opposite of fine.
“You're not fine.” He's already moving toward you, and then his hands are on your arms. Warm and solid and gentle in a way that makes your chest hurt worse. “You're crying in your office.”
“Don't—” You try to turn away, humiliation burning hot in your chest because this is mortifying. “I just need a minute. I'm fine, really,” you try again, but it comes out as barely more than a whisper.
“Stop saying that.” His voice has gone impossibly soft, thumb stroking along your forearm. “Come here, please.
You let him pull you in, let yourself press your face against his chest while the tears come properly now. His arms come around you, solid and sure, one hand coming up to cup the back of your head. He doesn't say anything. Just holds you while you shake apart against him, while you soak the front of his shirt with tears that won't stop coming.
“I'm sorry,” you gasp out between sobs. “I'm sorry, I don't—I don't know what I'm doing. I don't know what I want. This whole week has been so fucked up and I can't think straight and I don't—“ Another sob cuts you off.
“Shh. I know.” His hand moves in slow circles on your back, the pressure steady and grounding. “It's okay, just breathe”
“It's not okay.” The words come out muffled against his chest. “This whole week has been—” Your breath hitches. “He's everywhere and you're—and I can't think straight and I keep making everything worse—”
His hand stills on your back for just a moment. “What do you need?”
You pull back slightly, just enough to breathe, and his hands shift to your arms. Steadying but not restraining. His face is tilted toward you with that particular focus he gets when he's listening to everything - your heartbeat, your breathing, the catch in your voice.
“I don't know.” You pull back slightly, wiping at your face with shaking hands. “Maybe I just need a break. From this. From both of you.”
You try to read his reaction, but he doesn’t give anything away. Just keeps stroking your back in those same soothing motions.
“Bucky's going back to DC on Sunday anyway,” you continue, and your voice sounds raw even to your own ears. “Maybe I just need some time. To figure myself out. Figure out what I actually want instead of just—” You gesture helplessly at the general disaster that is currently your life. “This.”
You expect him to argue. To push back. To do something other than what he does, which is nod slowly.
“Okay,” he says quietly, and his thumb comes up to brush away a tear from your cheek. “Yeah. We can do that. You need time, I'll give you time.”
The agreement should feel like relief but instead it just makes you want to cry harder. Because of course he's not fighting this either. Of course he's just agreeing, just stepping back, just giving you exactly what you asked for in a way that somehow feels like losing anyway.
“But—” He hesitates, and something in his tone shifts. Gets more careful. “You might need to explain this all to Bucky too. Since, you know. He thinks you're working things out.”
Your head snaps up, tears still wet on your cheeks. “What?”
Matt's lips purse slightly, like he’s trying to figure out how to phrase it. “He asked me to back off. Said you two were working through things. That you needed space to figure out your marriage without complications.” His mouth twists slightly on the last word. “Meaning me.”
The humiliation of thirty seconds ago transmutes instantly into something else. The tears stop. Everything stops. For a moment you just stare at Matt, trying to process what he's telling you, and then the rage hits like a freight train. “He told you we were getting back together?”
“Not in those exact words, but yes,” he confirms quietly. “He tried to make it seem like he knew where things stood between you. Made it pretty clear he considered me a temporary blip in your relationship.”
“That fucking—” You can't even finish the sentence, fury choking the words in your throat. Your hands are shaking again, but this time with anger.
“We had one lunch,” you say, and your voice has gone cold. “One. Where he apologised for being absent and I agreed to give him one week to prove he could actually show up. That's it. We never—I never said we were working things out.”
Matt's very quiet.
“He told you we were reconciling.” You're not asking. You're clarifying. Making sure you understand the full scope of what Bucky's done. “He told you to back off because we were fixing our marriage.”
“Yeah.”
“And then he filled my entire calendar. And slept in my bed. And touched me like I belonged to him in front of half of diplomatic London.” The pieces are clicking together with horrible clarity. “He decided. Again. He just fucking decided without me that we're working things out and told my—told you to back off like he gets to make those calls for me.”
You're already moving, grabbing your bag, your phone, not even sure what you're doing but you need to move, need to do something with this rage before it burns you alive from the inside.
“Where are you going?” Matt asks carefully.
“Home.” The word comes out sharp and final. “I'm going home and I'm ending this shit right now.”
── ⟢ ₊ ☁️ ˚・🖋️ ⊹
The click of your heels echoes through the residence, each step a punctuation mark to the fury coiling tighter in your chest. You stride through the hallway, past Thomas who takes one look at your face and wisely says nothing, and straight to the study where you know Bucky's working.
He's at the desk - your desk, because apparently he's just moved back into every corner of your life without asking - looking at some papers with a confused scrunch of his nose that would be endearing if you weren't currently fantasizing about throwing something heavy at his head.
The papers hit the mahogany with a slap that makes him jolt upright. For half a second there's just confusion - eyebrows raised, mouth slightly parted on a question that hasn’t formed yet - and then his eyes drop to what you’ve thrown down. ‘Petition for Dissolution of Marriage’ printed across the top in black and white. You watch his face change as he reads the header. Watch the colour drain slightly. Watch his throat work as he swallows.
“What—” He starts to speak, stops to compose himself, and when the words finally come they’re careful, like he already knows the answer and is hoping he's wrong “What’s this?”
“Take a wild fucking guess, Congressman.”
His hand moves slowly toward the papers like they might burn him, fingers hovering before he finally touches them. He flips through, and you know the exact moment he finds the signature page because his whole body goes rigid.
Your finger jabs down at the signature line. “Sign them.”
“What?” He's standing now, the chair scraping back, and there's something raw starting to crack through the careful composure on his face. Something that looks like panic and grief all at once. “Baby—”
“Don't.” You hold up a hand and he actually freezes mid-step. “Don't 'baby' me. Don't use that voice. Don't act like you can smooth this over if you just find the right words.”
“That's not—I'm not—” His hands spread wide in a helpless gesture. “Please, just talk to me. What happened? This morning we were fine, we were—”
“We were what, exactly?” You cut him off, arms crossing over your chest. “Working things out? Getting back together? Reconciling our marriage?”
Bucky's quiet for a moment, and you can practically see him running through possibilities, trying to figure out which particular mine he's stepped on. And then the guilt stats to flicker across his face.
“Oh good,” you say flatly. “You know exactly what I'm talking about.”
His whole posture changes, that familiar stubborn set coming into his jaw that tells you he's not going to back down easy. “If this is about Matt—”
“If this is about Matt?” You actually laugh, and it sounds wrong even to your own ears. “This is about you, Bucky! The fact that you lied and said we were working things out. That you said to back off because apparently we needed space to fix our marriage.”
He's quiet. Won't meet your eyes.
“When exactly were you planning to mention that to me?” Fury makes your voice shake despite your best efforts to keep it steady. “Before or after you finished orchestrating my entire fucking life?”
“I was trying to—”
“I don't care what you were trying to do!” It comes out too loud, echoing off the study walls. “You know, I've had these papers for two months. Two months of looking at them in my drawer, too much of a coward to sign them, because some pathetic part of me still hoped we could fix this.”
Your voice cracks and you have to stop, have to breathe through the anger and hurt tangling in your throat.
“But we can't. Because you don't know how to be in a partnership. You only know how to run operations and make strategic decisions and manipulate variables, and I'm so fucking tired of being a variable in your life instead of your fucking wife.”
“That's not what you are to me! I swear, please—” He runs a hand through his hair, and he’s scrambling, trying to find the words that will fix this. His gaze drifts back to the papers like they might rearrange themselves into something different if he looks hard enough. “Wait, you drew these up two months ago?”
You watch him do the maths. Watch the realization settle across his features, his jaw going tight.
“When you started seeing him.” It's not a question.
“Stop making this about Matt! Stop deflecting. Stop trying to make this about jealousy when this is about you making decisions about my life without me!”
You're pacing before you realise it, unable to stand still. Three steps to the window and back.
“It seems very much to be about him though, doesn't it?” Bucky's voice has gone rough at the edges. He pushes off the desk, takes a step toward you. “You draw up divorce papers the second you start sleeping with him, this whole week goes perfectly fine until you see him again, and now you're in here ready to end our marriage—”
“This week was a lie!” You shout, beyond caring who might hear. “This week was you orchestrating my entire life, filling my calendar, telling people we were reconciling without ever actually asking me if that's what I wanted! Don't you dare act like things were fine when the whole thing was built on you manipulating—”
“—I wasn’t manipulating—”
“—our marriage, making a decision about my relationships without saying word to me!” Your voice rises to stay above his. “I actually had those papers drawn up two months ago because I’d spent the previous six months unable to have a single fucking conversation with my own husband!”
The words are coming faster now, angrier, everything you've been holding in for 8 months spilling out. “Every time I called I got 'he's in a meeting' or 'he'll call you back' and he never, ever did. Because somewhere along the line I stopped being your wife and became an item on your assistant's to-do list that never made it to the top of the pile!”
His head comes up. His eyes are wet with unshed tears when they find yours, jaw locked so tight you can see the muscle jumping. He's trying desperately to hold it together but you watch him start to lose the fight in the way his face crumples, in the painful swallow working down his throat. His hand lifts toward you before he seems to remember himself and lets it drop uselessly back to his side.
“I’m sorry, sweetheart, I know I fucked up, I know I wasn't there, and I'm trying to fix it now—”
“By doing the same thing! By making decisions without me!” Your nails dig into your palms hard enough to hurt, arms rigid at your sides. “Do you not see that? You’re still doing it, Bucky, you're still shutting me out and deciding what's best for us without ever asking me what I want!”
“So what do you want from me?” His desperation bleeds through every word, but it’s far too little, and far too late. “Tell me what you want and I'll do it.”
For a moment you just stand there, looking at him across the desk that's covered in his work, in this life he built without consulting you. You should feel something. Guilt, maybe. Regret. Some echo of the love that used to live in your chest when you looked at him like this. But you just feel exhausted.
When you finally speak, the answer comes out quieter than anything else you've said tonight.
“I want you to sign the papers.”
Your words seem to suck the air out of the room, leaving nothing but the thundering of your own heartbeat in your ears.
“No.” He's shaking his head slowly at first, then faster, like he can physically deny what's happening if he just refuses hard enough. “No, I'm not—I can't—”
“You don't get to say no.”
“Just talk to me!” He begs. “Just talk to me instead of throwing divorce papers on my desk and expecting me to—”
“Talk to you?” You can hear the bitter edge bleeding through your voice, feel it scraping against your throat. “Wow, okay. Like you talked to me before telling Matt to back off? Like you talked to me before orchestrating my entire week? Like you talked to me every time I called and got your pretty little assistant instead?”
“I told you I didn’t sleep with her.”
“Oh my fucking god, congratulations!” Your arms fly up in exasperation. “You want a medal for not fucking your assistant? You want me to applaud your restraint? Let’s not act like you were alone, pining away for me this whole time.”
“At least I didn't parade it in front of you!” The accusation explodes out of him like it's been festering, his face flushing with pain and frustration mixing together.
“We were separated! That was the whole fucking point of the agreement!” Even though your throat is becoming raw from shouting, you can’t seem to stop, months of resentment pouring out of you. “Married in public, free to see other people privately - that’s what we agreed to. Except clearly, neither of us can act normally about it!”
Your voice cracks.
“We're just destroying each other. And I can't do it anymore.”
Your words hang in the air between you. You're both breathing hard, and the study feels simultaneously too small and too vast, like the space can't quite contain what's happening. Then something shifts in his expression as he seems to finally hear what he’s been saying, how he sounds. His shoulders sag inward. The voice that comes out next is barely recognisable.
“I'm sorry.” He drags a hand over his face. “You're right. I'm making this worse. I'm making everything worse. But please, don’t do this, just give me a chance too—”
“I've been giving you chances for eight months. I gave you a chance when you became Congressman without talking to me about it. I gave you a chance this week when you showed up and I let you back in even though you were already making decisions for me. And every time you fucked it up!”
Bucky just stands there, breathing hard, staring at you like you’ve gutted him. His eyes are still wet, tears clinging to his lashes but refusing to fall.
“I love you,” he whispers. “And I know you might not have felt it, and i know it’s not enough, but I have loved you through every stupid mistake I've made, including running for Congress.”
He lets out a breath that sounds like it's been trapped in his chest for months.
“I thought… I thought if I could be someone important, someone legitimate, maybe I'd finally be worthy of you. You've spent your whole career saving lives, negotiating peace, actually helping people. And I'm just—” His voice cracks. “I'm still just the Winter Soldier trying to prove I'm more than that. So I ran for Congress because I thought it might fix me, might fill the hole where my humanity used to be. But instead I just broke us and I’m still as damaged as before. And now I can't—”
His voice fractures completely.
“I can't lose you.”
The confession lands entirely wrong, because this is what you've wanted to hear for months - years, maybe. This vulnerability, this honesty, this real version of Bucky you’ve only ever glimpsed in stolen moments. And it’s too late. Your throat tightens. You have to look away from him because seeing him like this, broken open and bleeding out in front of you, makes something in you want to take it all back. Want to cross the room and hold him and tell him he's not damaged, that he's never been unworthy, that you've loved him through every version of himself he hasn’t.
But loving him has never been the problem.
“You already did, Bucky.” The words hurt coming out. “You can't put that on me - your sense of self-worth, your identity, fixing yourself. That was never my job. I loved you. I loved you exactly as you were, and you never believed me. And now you're telling me you destroyed our marriage trying to become someone you thought I wanted, when all I ever wanted was you.”
Somehow his face crumples further. You have to look away again. When you speak next, your voice is barely above a whisper. Tired and sad and so heavy you can barely get the words out.
“So yes, you're right. You did break us. But not because you weren't good enough, Bucky. Because you never let me love the person you actually are.”
For a moment he just stands there, and you watch all the fight drain out of him like someone pulled a plug. His eyes go distant, almost glassy, and his breathing deepens, like he's shutting something down inside himself. The desperation from moments ago has been replaced by something far more terrifying: quiet resignation. He's finally stopped trying to hold on.
He picks up the pen. His hand trembles badly enough that you wonder if he'll even be able to write, but he manages to grip it, staring down at the signature line for what feels like an eternity. When the pen finally touches paper, the scratch of it against the silence is deafening.
He signs his name. Dates it. Slides the papers across the desk toward you without meeting your eyes.
“There.” His voice is completely destroyed. “If that's what you need.”
You pick up the papers with numb fingers. Stare at his signature like you can't quite believe it's real.
“I'm sorry.” He hasn't moved. Just stands there with wet cheeks and empty hands. “I'm so sorry. For every way I failed you. For not being what you needed.”
“Thank you.” It comes out barely audible. “For the apology. For signing.”
You fold the papers slowly, creasing each edge with deliberate precision because if you think about the mechanics of folding paper you don't have to think about what you're holding.
“I want you to catch the next flight back to DC. Tonight, if you can. I'll have Thomas help you pack.”
“Okay.” He looks lost standing there, like he doesn't know what to do with his hands, with his body, with any of this. “Okay, yeah.”
“And Bucky—” Your voice is steadier now, or at least you're doing a better job of faking it. “Don't call. Don't text. Don't send flowers or letters or try to fix anything. We're done. Let it be done.”
He nods, even though it looks like it's killing him. “Okay.”
There should be something else to say. Some final words that would make this less awful, less final. But you can't think of anything that won't make it worse. So you just turn and walk toward the door, papers pressed against your chest like you need the reminder of why you’re doing this.
“For what it's worth,” His voice stops you at the threshold, and it comes out quiet and defeated. “You're the best thing that ever happened to me. The best thing I've ever had and the worst thing I've ever lost, and I know that's my fault. I know I did that.” The silence hangs for a moment. “I'm sorry. For all of it.”
You don't turn around, can't let him see your face right now.
“Goodbye, Bucky.”
Then you walk out, leaving your husband standing alone in the study, and you don't look back.
── ⟢ ₊ ☁️ ˚・🖋️ ⊹
The wind off the Potomac is sharp enough to sting, cutting through your coat. March in Washington hasn't gotten any more pleasant since you left - still grey, still biting, still full of men in expensive suits having conversations that matter to nobody outside this ten-block radius.
You've been back for two days. Meetings, briefings, a reception last night where you smiled until your face hurt and deflected questions about London with the practised ease of someone who's done this too many times to count. It's fine. Exhausting, but fine. You can do this job in your sleep at this point.
What you can't do, apparently, is stop yourself from scanning every room you enter for a familiar face. Your heart has been doing this annoying thing ever since you landed at Dulles where it kicks up at unexpected moments - half anticipation, half dread. Walking past a coffee shop that he used to go to. Hearing someone laugh in a way that's almost but not quite his register. Seeing a tall, dark-haired man in a suit who makes your stupid heart stutter before you realise it's not him.
You're not looking for him. You're absolutely not looking for him. You're just aware. Hyper-aware, maybe. Of the absence. Of the space where he should be and isn't.
Because Bucky's on Foreign Relations. He should have been at yesterday's hearing. Definitely should have been at the NATO briefing this morning where you spent two hours making small talk with people who absolutely knew you were divorced and were definitely trying not to bring it up.
But he's not here. And the unease that started yesterday has metastasized into something closer to worry, which is absurd because you're divorced and it's none of your business anymore where he is or what he's doing or why he's apparently missing every major political event this week.
Except now it's your last day in DC and you're walking out of your final meeting, and you still haven't seen him. Which is good. That's good. That's what you wanted - to get through this trip without the inevitable awkward encounter, without having to figure out what you're supposed to say to your ex-husband in a professional setting.
He's probably just busy. He's always busy. That's the whole problem, isn't it? Was. Was the whole problem.
You tell yourself it's none of your business. You tell yourself he’s probably had scheduling conflicts, or dozen other reasonable explanations that have nothing to do with you. You tell yourself to get in the car waiting to take you to the hotel and get a good nights sleep before your flight tomorrow morning.
Instead, you hear yourself giving the driver a different address.
You watch DC slide past the window. Familiar streets, familiar monuments, a city you used to know as well as London but feels foreign now. It's been three months since you signed those papers. Six weeks since the divorce was finalised. And he gave you the silence that you asked for, that you needed, that was supposed to make this easier.
It did make some things easier, in a way. You can think about him now without that sharp twist of anger in your chest. Can acknowledge the good parts of your marriage without immediately cataloguing all the ways it fell apart. You've stopped checking your phone obsessively, stopped writing texts you never sent, stopped having imaginary arguments with him at two in the morning.
You've started sleeping through the night again. Started saying “my ex-husband” without your voice catching. Started believing that maybe you could actually do this - be divorced, be separate, be okay.
But you still can't be in this city without needing to know he's alright. Because Bucky Barnes gets under your skin and doesn’t leave. Not really. Not even after divorce papers and three months of silence and all the ways you've tried to extract him from your chest. He's just there, permanent as a scar, and you've apparently made peace with the fact that he always will be.
His apartment is close enough to the Capitol that he could walk if he wanted to, far enough that it didn't feel like living at the office. You'd picked it out together four years ago, back when you thought his Congressional run was temporary and you'd be back in New York within a term. The doorman doesn't recognise you, but he calls up anyway when you give him your name.
The elevator ride to the eighth floor feels longer than the entire flight from London. Your heart is doing that kicking thing again but worse now, harder, because this is stupid and inappropriate and you have no right to be here. But what if something's wrong? Or maybe nothing's wrong and you're being ridiculous. Both options feel equally terrible.
You walk down the hallway on muscle memory, and before you can overthink it anymore, you’re standing in from of 8F. The door opens before your knuckles even make contact with the wood.
Bucky's standing there in jeans and a Henley that's seen better days, hair slightly too long and falling into his eyes. The permanent tension he used to carry in his shoulders has eased, and there's no tie strangling him, no suit jacket making him look like a politician action figure. He looks comfortable in a way you've never seen him look in DC.
He also looks completely shocked to see you.
His eyes go wide, lips parting on what might be your name but doesn't quite make it out.
“Hi,” you manage.
For a second he just stares at you like you might be a hallucination, hand still on the doorframe, body frozen mid-breath. “Hi.”
And then silence. Awful, stretching silence where you're both just looking at each other and you're realizing with creeping horror that you came all the way here without any plan for what you were actually going to say. Now you're just standing here like an idiot while he stares at you and oh god you need to say something, anything—
“I'm sorry. I know I shouldn't just show up, I was in town for meetings and I wasn't going to bother you—” And suddenly you're talking too fast, words tumbling over each other in a way that would be mortifying if you could stop long enough to be mortified. “But you weren't at the Foreign Relations hearing yesterday—which isn't my business, obviously, you don't owe me your schedule…”
Your hand comes up to your neck, fingers pressing against the tension there like that might somehow stop the word vomit. “But then you also weren't at the NATO briefing this morning and I know you're always at those because it's your thing, and I know I have no right to just show up here, and this is probably completely inappropriate—”
Shit, you're babbling. You're fully babbling at your ex-husband who you haven't spoken to in three months while he stands there looking increasingly bewildered. Stop talking. Stop talking right now.
“—but I was getting in the car to go to my hotel and I just kept thinking about how you weren't there and what if something was wrong, and I know I asked for space and this is definitely not space, this is the opposite of space, this is me showing up at your apartment like a complete—”
“I left Congress.”
The words cut through your spiral, stopping you mid-sentence with your mouth still open. Your brain completely flat-lines for a moment and then reboots, and for a second you just stare at him while the information tries to process.
“What?”
“Congress. I left.” He says it simply, like he's commenting on the weather. “About three weeks ago.”
“Oh.”
The word comes out flat and stupid. You blink at him. Process his words. Try to figure out what expression your face is making and whether it's appropriate.
“Oh,” you repeat dumbly, because apparently that's all your brain can produce. “I didn't—I didn't know.”
The silence that follows is excruciating. And you're suddenly extremely aware that you're standing in his hallway, that he's looking at you with an expression you can't parse, and how you've just made a complete fool of yourself by showing up here based on incorrect assumptions about his schedule.
This was a mistake. This was such a mistake.
“Right. Of course.” You take a step back toward the elevator, face hot with embarrassment. “I'm sorry, I shouldn't have—this was inappropriate, I'll just—”
“Do you want to come in?” The question comes out slightly strangled, like it surprised him as much as it surprises you.
It stops you mid-retreat. You look at him and he's watching you with something that might be hope or might be caution or might be both.
“I don't want to intrude…”
“You're not.” He steps back from the doorway, making space. “I mean, you're already here. And I'd like to talk to you, if that's okay.”
You should say no. Should absolutely say no. Should get back in that car and go to your hotel and let this remain a awkward three-minute interaction you can both pretend never happened.
“Okay,” you hear yourself say instead.
You step inside and it hits you how familiar everything still is. Same layout you could navigate blind, same view of the street you used to watch on sleepless nights, same couch you both used to fall asleep on after long nights reading political documents.
But the congressional briefings that used to bleed across every flat surface are gone. In their place are books on the side table - actual books that look read, spines creased, pages dog-eared. The kitchen looks like someone's actually been using it instead of just microwaving leftovers at midnight. It's still the same apartment, but it feels different. Like someone actually exists here instead of just sleeping between eighteen-hour days.
You're standing there trying to process it when you realise Bucky's closed the door and now you're both just awkwardly existing in the same space, six feet apart, neither of you sure what to do with your hands.
But damn, he looks good. That's the thing you keep getting stuck on. The permanent furrow between his brows has smoothed out. His shoulders sit easier. Even the way he's standing is looser, less like a man braced for impact. And he's looking at you like he's trying very hard to be normal about this and failing completely. Like you're something he's not allowed to want anymore but can't quite help it.
You clear your throat, grasping for something to say that isn't we got divorced and you look good and I don't know what to do with that.
“So… Not Congressman Barnes anymore.”
He actually cringes, then huffs out a surprised laugh. “Yeah. Thank god.”
“What happened?” You're trying to keep your voice neutral, conversational, but it definitely comes out more loaded than you intended. “I mean, you don't have to tell me if you don't want to, I don't have a right to—”
“You have a right,” he interrupts quietly, then seems to reconsider. “Or, I don't know if you have a right, but I want to tell you anyway.”
You nod, not trusting your voice.
He runs a hand through his hair, and you watch him gather his thoughts. That little exhale he does when he's trying to figure out how to be honest about something difficult.
“After the divorce—” He stops on the word, like it physically hurts to say. He swallows, tries again. “I did a lot of thinking. About why I ran for Congress in the first place, what I was trying to prove. And I realised I hated it. Hated the politics, the performance, the constant posturing. I was terrible at it, you know I was terrible at it. The only reason I didn't completely implode was because you were there coaching me through it, and once you weren't...” He trails off, shaking his head. “I kept going anyway because I thought that's what I was supposed to do. That quitting would mean I'd failed, or that I was giving up.”
He's looking at his hands now, the flesh one fidgeting against the metal one.
“But you were right. I was doing it for all the wrong reasons. Trying to be someone I thought deserved you instead of figuring out who I actually am.” He lets out a breath. “Not for you, not to prove anything to anyone. Just for me. I'd never done that before.”
He shifts his weight, suddenly looking uncomfortable with how honest that came out, and you have to swallow past the tightness in your throat because that might be the most vulnerable thing he's ever admitted to you.
“So I quit.” He shrugs like it's no big deal, trying to play it off. “And then I started thinking about what I actually wanted to do if I wasn't trying to prove I was more than what Hydra made me.”
He glances up at you then, and there's something almost hesitant in it, like he's trying to gauge your reaction. Like he can’t help that some part of him still wants you to be proud of him even though he's doing this for himself. “Sam's been building something with the Avengers. A new team—”
And he must catch the concern that flickers across your face because he quickly adds, “I'm not fighting; I'm done with that. But I’m going to help with training programs, support systems, trying to make sure the next generation doesn't get chewed up the way we did. Sam suggested it. And for the first time in years something just... clicked.”
You're staring at him, trying to process all of it. The growth. The self-awareness. The fact that he actually heard you, actually sat with it, actually made changes not to win you back but because he needed to be better for himself.
“That's—” Your voice comes out rough and you have to clear your throat. “That's really good, Bucky. I'm happy for you.”
And you are. You are genuinely happy for him. But there's something bittersweet lodged behind your ribs too, something that tastes like why now and why couldn't you have done this when we were still trying and this is exactly what I wanted from you.
“I'm sorry I didn't tell you,” he adds quietly. “I wasn't sure if it was my place anymore, or if you'd want to know. You asked for silence and I was trying to respect that, trying to give you the peace you deserved after everything I put you through.”
God. He's doing exactly what you asked him to do. Respecting your boundaries, not inserting himself into your life, letting you move on. And apparently getting what you want feels a lot like getting punched in the chest, which seems cosmically unfair.
“You're allowed to tell me things,” you manage. “Just because we're divorced doesn't mean I don't care about what happens to you.”
He nods slowly, but doesn't say anything, and the quiet that settles between you is thick with all the things neither of you knows how to say.
You're both still just standing there and you have no idea what you're supposed to do now. No idea what the protocol is for this situation. No idea how to be around him when he looks this good and this different and this much like what you'd needed him to be.
That's when you hear it. A small, inquiring “mrrp” from somewhere behind the couch. A white cat emerges, one blue eye and one green, tail high and confident as she saunters into the middle of the room and sits down to observe you both with feline judgment.
“You got a cat,” you remark, grateful for a distraction.
“Yeah.” Bucky says, and there's something almost embarrassed in his voice. “Her name's Alpine. I got her about a month after the divorce. The apartment was too quiet and I—” He trails off, one hand coming up to rub the back of his neck. “She was at a shelter and she looked at me like she knew I needed someone around and I guess I did.”
The apartment was too quiet because you weren't in it anymore, is the thing he doesn't say. But it hangs there anyway.
Alpine pads over to you with the confidence of a cat who knows she's in charge, and you crouch down automatically, extending your hand for her to sniff.
“Hi there, sweet girl,” you murmur, and she immediately butts her head against your palm, purring like a small motor. Within seconds she's winding between your legs, tail curling around your calf with clear ownership.
“Well, that's it then,” Bucky teases, small smile tugging at his lips. “She's decided you're hers. Good luck leaving, she's very persistent when she wants something.”
The words hang in the air for a second, and you watch his expression shift as he seems to hear what he just said. Like he's just remembered that you leaving is exactly what's supposed to happen. That you have a life that doesn't include him or his cat.
“So, how are things with....” He clears his throat, and you can practically feel him trying to make his voice sound casual and normal. It doesn't work. “How's the boyfriend?”
Your hand stills on Alpine's fur. You look up to find him studiously examining a spot on the wall like it's the most fascinating piece of architecture he's ever seen.
“Matt moved back to New York a few months ago.” You straighten up slowly, Alpine protesting the loss of attention with a small trill. “We ended things. Wanted different things from the relationship.”
“Oh.” Bucky's eyes finally land on you, and there's something complicated happening in his expression. “I'm sorry.”
“No you're not.”
It comes out before you can stop it, and for a second you think you've made it weird again, but then Bucky laughs. It's surprised out of him, genuine and a little helpless, and god you've missed that sound.
“No,” he admits, smile going crooked. “I'm really not.”
The honesty of it sits between you for a moment. Then something changes in his face, the amusement fading into something more vulnerable.
“But I should be sorry,” he continues quietly. “It shouldn't matter what I think. You deserve to move on, to be happy with someone who—” He cuts himself off, looking down at his hands. “Someone who can actually be what you need. And I'll deal with that eventually. I will. I'm just—” Another pause. “I'm sorry that I played a part in screwing that up for you, with Matt. And I’m sorry if the divorce or the complications or just... me... if any of that made it harder for you to have something good.”
The sincerity in his voice makes your throat tight. Here he is, your ex-husband, apologising for potentially ruining your other relationship while also admitting he's not sorry it ended, and somehow it's the most honest you've been with each other in months.
“It wasn't you,” you hear yourself say. “Not directly, anyway. Matt and I… we wanted different things. He wanted easy and uncomplicated, and I'm apparently incapable of either of those things.”
“That's not true—”
“Bucky.” You raise a brow. “I showed up at my ex-husband's apartment unannounced because I got worried when he didn't show up to committee meetings. I think we can agree that 'easy and uncomplicated' is not really my strong suit.”
His mouth twitches. “Fair point.”
“But,” he adds, “you deserve someone who doesn't want easy. Someone who wants all of it - the complicated, the messy, the hard parts. Someone who wants you exactly as you are. Because you show up. Even when you shouldn't, even when it's inconvenient, even when you have every reason not to. You came here today because you were worried about me, because that's just who you are. You care so completely, so deeply, even when it costs you. And you deserve someone who loves you enough to show up for you the way you've always shown up for everyone else.”
The words land like a physical blow, stealing the air from your lungs. Your eyes start to sting and you have to look away, blinking hard against the sudden heat behind them because you're not going to cry in his apartment, you're not.
Except apparently you are, because your vision's already blurring and there's a tightness in your chest that won't ease and when you try to speak nothing comes out but a slightly choked sound that you immediately wish you could take back.
“Hey,” Bucky moves toward you immediately, concern flooding his face. “Shit, no, I didn't mean to upset you.”
You try and recover the situation, aiming for light, but it cracks halfway through. “No, I’m fine, that’s a very—that's nice, that's a really nice thing to say, thank you for the—”
You stop because you're not making sense, because the whole thing is so mortifying you want to sink through the floor.
“Sweetheart, what’s happening?” His hand comes up immediately, thumb brushing across your cheek with a gentleness that makes it worse. He’s so close now that you can see the flecks of grey starting to thread through his hair at his temples. Close enough that you catch the scent of his cologne - the same one you bought him three years ago for his birthday. Close enough that your body remembers what it feels like to fit against his before your brain can stop it.
And god, he still feels like home. Still looks at you like you're something precious. And it's too much, all of it is too much, and the tears that have been threatening finally spill over.
“Don't call me that,” you choke out, but there's no heat in it. “And don't—you can't just—”
The words are getting tangled up with the crying, which is humiliating, but now that you've started you can't seem to stop.
“You don't get to do this,” you manage, and it comes out accusatory and broken at the same time. “You don't get to make all these changes and become this better version of yourself after we're divorced. You don't get to quit the job you hated and figure out what you actually want and get a cat and look at me like that when we're not—”
You stop, pressing your palms against your eyes because maybe if you can't see him this will be easier.
“You're doing everything right and it's too late. And god, I'm here being pathetic, showing up at your apartment because I couldn't handle not seeing you at a meeting. You've moved on, you're this whole new person, and I'm still—”
“You think I could ever move on from you?”
The question stops you mid-sentence. You lower your hands and look up at him, and his face has gone soft and raw and heartbroken in a way that makes your chest cave in.
“I haven't moved on.” His voice drops to barely more than a whisper. “I couldn't move on from you if I tried. You think I got a cat because I moved on? I got a cat because I was so fucking lonely and every time I tried to date, I couldn’t. I couldn’t let anyone else in here. Couldn't stand the thought of someone in this space who wasn’t you.”
He takes a breath that shudders slightly on the exhale, and you can see him fighting to hold himself together.
“I'm not a better person because I moved on. I'm a better person because losing you destroyed me and I had to either figure out who I actually was without you or let it kill me. So I figured it out, because I owed it to myself to be more than just the wreckage of our marriage.”
His thumb continues to trace slow paths across your cheekbone, catching each tear as it falls. The space between you has shrunk to almost nothing. You don't remember either of you moving but suddenly you can count his eyelashes, can see his eyes are wet too.
Your eyes drop to his mouth. His lips are slightly parted, close enough that you can feel the warmth of his breath ghosting across your skin, and you watch him notice where you're looking. Watch the way his pupils blow wider, the way his grip on your face tightens just slightly.
“But god, I’m sorry,” he continues, and his forehead drops to rest against yours. “I'm so fucking sorry for all of it. For running for Congress without talking to you first. For shutting you out instead of letting you help me. For making you feel like you weren't enough when you were always everything.”
“Bucky—”
“I'm sorry for manipulating your calendar and lying to Matt and thinking I could orchestrate our marriage back together instead of just talking to you like a fucking adult.” His other hand comes up to cup your face, both palms cradling you as his thumb brushes your bottom lip “I'm sorry for taking you for granted and not fighting for us until it was too late. I'm sorry—”
You kiss him.
You can't help it. Can't wait another second, can't stand anymore distance between you when he's been standing there saying everything you'd needed to hear for months and he's finally, finally letting you all the way in and you need him closer. Need his mouth on yours more than you need air right now.
He makes this startled sound against your lips, like he didn't dare let himself believe this was actually happening. But then his hands tighten on your face and he's kissing you back, desperate and messy, your face still wet with tears.
“Keep going,” you gasp against his lips between kisses. “Don't stop.”
“I'm sorry for every time I chose my pride over our marriage.” The words tumble out between kisses as he walks you backward, one hand now gripping your waist, the other sliding up to cup the back of your head. “For every time I made you feel small or unimportant or like you were the problem when it was always me.”
You hit the wall with a soft thud, his palm deliberately taking the impact for your head, and his mouth finds your throat immediately, hot and desperate, teeth grazing your pulse point before his lips soothe over it.
“I'm sorry for wasting so much time,” he breathes against your neck, hands finding the hem of your shirt and pulling back just enough to drag it over your head. “For not appreciating every second I had with you. For not telling you every single day that you were the best thing that ever happened to me.”
“Bucky—” You plead, fingers tugging his hair hard enough to make him groan against your skin.
He pulls back just enough to look up at you, chest heaving, lips swollen, eyes blown completely dark, and the desperation on his face mirrors everything coiling tight in your stomach.
“Let me make it up to you,” he pants, mouth already trailing lower, kissing down your throat, your collarbone, your sternum. “Please. Let me get on my knees and show you exactly how sorry I am, sweetheart.”
“Fuck—please, Bucky. Yes!”
His mouth keeps moving lower as he sinks down, lips pressing hot and wet over your stomach. When he reaches the waistband of your skirt his hands slide around to find the zip, tugging it down over your hips.
He peels it down slowly, mouth following the same path, pressing open kisses down your hip, the outside of your thigh, your knee, helping you step out of it carefully but making absolutely no move to take your heels off. For a moment he just stays there, looking up at you from the floor with blown dark eyes.
The sight of him down there looking at you like that makes your breath come out shaky.
“Missed you so fucking much,” he breathes against your inner thigh, lips dragging higher again. “Missed this.” His fingers find the waistband of your panties, peeling them down slowly, and when they're gone his right hand lingers on your calf, squeezing.
“Missed the way you sound when I do this—” He presses his mouth to your clit, barely anything, just enough to make you whine and your hips jerk forward chasing more. “Missed the way you taste. Been so fucking long, sweetheart, I'm gonna make sure you feel every single apology.”
Then he hooks your leg over his shoulder, spreading you wider, the stiletto of your heel digging into his back. He groans against you like he's been waiting months for exactly this, tongue dragging through your folds, tasting every inch of you, before his mouth closes around your clit and sucks.
You're already soaked, embarrassingly so, slick and swollen and desperate, and the obscene sounds he's making against you make your face flush hot. Like he's enjoying this more than you are, which makes the heat pooling in your stomach coil tighter and more urgent.
Your fingers bury themselves in his hair, gripping hard, and the moan that rumbles out of him against your folds is immediate, hips shifting like he can't help it. You tug again, twisting tighter, and he groans louder, like he'd let you pull as hard as you wanted as long as you kept him right there.
His tongue curls and your back arches off the wall with a broken, high little sound, thighs trembling against his shoulders. The heel of your stiletto presses harder into his back as your leg tightens around him.
He teases you mercilessly, knows exactly how to make you chase it. Tongue circling your clit until your hips roll forward without shame, grinding against his face, chasing friction with a desperation that would be humiliating if you had any capacity left to feel embarrassed. Every time you get close he pulls back, mouthing at your inner thigh or the crease of your hip, until you whine with frustration.
“Please—” It comes out wrecked, barely recognisable as your own voice. “Bucky, please—”
He makes this low, pleased chuckle against your folds that you feel everywhere, clearly delighted with himself, and the vibration of it makes you desperately clench around nothing and moan so shamelessly that he does it again on purpose.
His tongue fucks into you and the world goes soft at the edges, thoughts dissolving one by one until there's nothing left but the wet heat of his mouth and the needy little moans you can’t seem to stop making. His nose bumps your clit with every movement, pressure building so deep and overwhelming that you've stopped being capable of anything as complex as forming words.
Just fingers buried in his hair, back arched, existing entirely at the mercy of his mouth.
Then his left hand closes around your standing thigh, metal fingers wrapping around soft flesh. He pulls his mouth away just far enough to speak, his breath hot and damp against your soaked, swollen folds.
“Up,” he rumbles directly into your cunt, and you hear it somewhere distant and unimportant.
Your legs aren't really receiving instructions anymore - you're not capable of much of anything right now, every nerve ending in your body shorting out under his mouth. Too far gone already to manage something as complicated as lifting a leg.
The crack of his metal hand against your ass brings the world back in one sharp snap.
“Up, pretty girl. C'mon.” His voice is rough, amused, unbearably fond. “Can't have gone dumb on my tongue already, sweetheart. I’ve barely even started.”
“Fuck,” you manage.
“There we go,” he murmurs, the deep warmth in his voice is devastatingly attractive. “Good girl. Up.”
His hand guides you this time, helping you move your other leg up and over his shoulder so both thighs bracket his head. Before you can process what’s happening, he rises, straightening to his full height with an ease that makes it obvious how little you weigh to him. How effortless this is. How completely in control he is of the situation. And it makes your stomach swoop.
Your fingers yank his hair on instinct, panic and want tangled together, and the moan that drags out of him reverberates directly against your pussy in a way that makes your whole body shudder.
The wall catches your back. His hands lock around the backs of your thighs, one warm, one cool metal, fingers pressing into your flesh as he pins you exactly where he wants you. His face is buried between your legs and there's nothing below you but six feet of immovable super soldier who has absolutely no intention of letting you go anywhere. The realization of how thoroughly he has you, how completely helpless you are right now, sends a fresh rush of arousal flooding against his mouth that makes him moan his encouragement.
“Fuck— please—Bucky.”
The answering groan he makes against you says he heard it just fine. And then he gets greedy.
His tongue finds your clit and doesn't leave, licking and sucking with a focused relentlessness that has you sobbing. You're soaked, dripping down his chin. Every careful, deliberate stroke of his tongue pulls another helpless mewl from your throat while his hands keep you pinned exactly where he wants you, going nowhere, taking everything he decides to give you.
He learns you all over again like he has all the time in the world. Finds every spot that makes your thighs clench around his head and returns to them, again and again, cataloguing your reactions with the focused intensity of someone who has missed this more than they can articulate and intends to make up for every lost month tonight.
“Taste so fucking good,” he groans into you, the words vibrating against your clit, hips grinding forward against nothing. “Missed this pussy so much. Missed how wet she gets for me. Could eat her all night and never get enough.”
The knowledge that he's this worked up just from going down on you makes another rush of arousal flood against his tongue. Heat spreads through you in waves, the orgasm building each time he seals his lips around your clit and sucks, each time he groans against your folds like he's the one being taken apart. Your thighs are shaking around his head, his name spilling out of you in a broken, continuous stream that you can't stop.
“That's my girl,” he rasps into you, fingers digging into your thighs. “Feel her getting close. Gonna give me what I want.”
You come with a wail, clenching so hard around his tongue that he groans like it's the best thing he's ever felt. His hands remain steady around your thighs as he licks you through every shuddering wave, greedy for every last pulse of it, not pulling back until you're twitching and whimpering and completely wrecked above him.
He pulls back with one last filthy, open mouthed kiss to your cunt that makes you mewl, and then his hands shift, sliding you down his body until your legs wrap around his waist. You can feel how hard he is through his jeans, thick and insistent against where you're still throbbing, and your hips roll forward instinctively.
“Look at you,” he murmurs against your throat, hands gripping your ass, holding you up effortlessly. “So pretty when you cum for me. Did so good.”
You make some soft, wrecked sound against his neck that might be his name.
Then one hand comes up to grip your jaw, tilting your face up to his. His chin is slick with you, lips swollen and pink and kissable. His thumb presses against your bottom lip, dragging it down. “Open that pretty mouth.”
Dazed and pliant, you open your mouth without thinking, too gone to do anything but comply. He leans in and lets a slow string of spit drop onto your tongue, mixed with the slick mess of you.
“Atta girl,” he rumbles, watching your face with a primal satisfaction. “You taste so fucking good, sweetheart - had to let you have some.”
You swallow and he groans his approval, crashing his mouth back to yours before you can breathe. The taste of yourself on his tongue makes you dizzy, fingers twisting in his Henley. Your brain several steps behind your body as he starts moving, carrying you through the dark hallway without breaking the kiss, navigating entirely on muscle memory.
The bedroom is dark. He lays you out across his bed, stepping back to look at you. Spread across his sheets still in nothing but your heels and bra, chest heaving, thighs slick, eyes blown completely dumb. The look on his face makes your stomach flip all over again.
“Been dreaming about seeing you in this bed again,” he says, crawling over you, caging you in with those unfairly big biceps. “Not done with you yet, pretty girl. Not even close.”
Your hands find the hem of his top immediately, fisting the fabric, and he helps you drag it over his head. His dog tags fall forward as the shirt comes off, swinging between you both as he dips back down to your mouth.
Already your fingers are at his belt, clumsy and impatient, fumbling with the buckle while he kisses down your jaw and unhooks your bra before tossing it aside. His mouth finds your nipple immediately, greedy,tongue curling around it, and your hands stutter.
“Bucky—” You're swearing under your breath, hands shaking as you try and fail to get the buckle undone. “Come on, fuck, come on!”
He grazes his teeth against your nipple and your fingers slip entirely.
“Shit, please,” you whine, utterly shameless.
Bucky just laughs against your tits, warm and low, not even slightly helpful. Finally, though, the belt gives, button pops, zip drags down, and you're shoving everything down his hips in one desperate motion as his cock springs free. Thick and hard and heavy between his legs, and your mouth goes dry.
It’s been almost a year since you’ve seen him like this and your eyes drag down his body with a hunger you can't even pretend to hide. You reach for him immediately, needing to touch, needing to feel the weight of him in your hand, but he catches both wrists before you get there, pinning them above your head against the pillow.
“Patience, pretty girl,” he murmurs, hips settling between your thighs, cock heavy against your folds but not where you need him. “We've got time. Not rushing this.”
You whimper, hips lifting, trying to find friction, finding nothing.
He slides his cock through your folds, dragging through how obscenely wet you are, and the feeling of it pulls a broken noise from both of you simultaneously. Slow and deliberate, he teases the swollen head through your slick, catching your clit on the way, and your whole body jerks underneath him.
“Bucky,” you mewl. Your wrists flex against his grip, not really trying to get free, just needing somewhere to put the desperation flooding through you. He drags his cock back through your heat while you clench desperately around nothing, watching your face fall apart with an expression of filthy satisfaction.
“There it is. Look at that pretty little cunt begging for it.” Another slow roll of his hips, cock dragging through the mess of you. “Gonna give it to you. Just want you to ask nice price.”
“Please,” you manage, and it comes out so small and wrecked and needy that his hips stutter. “Please, Bucky, I need—I can't—please—”
He releases your wrists and your hands fly to his shoulders instantly, nails digging in hard, needing to touch him, needing to anchor yourself to something solid while his cock nudges your entrance, barely breaching, just enough to make you clench desperately around nothing.
“Shh,” he coos, hands gripping your hips hard enough to bruise, holding you exactly where he wants you even as your hips try to roll forward chasing more. “I've got you, baby.” The head of his cock presses a little deeper, teasing, and your nails drag down his shoulders as your back arches off the bed. “Always gonna take care of you. You know that.”
He pushes in slowly, and the stretch of him makes your whole body go rigid, nails carving lines down his shoulders that make him hiss as you take him inch by inch. Your walls flutter around him, clenching, trying to pull him deeper even as your body relearns the thickness of him, the weight, the specific fullness that you'd spent three months trying to forget and never quite managed.
“Fuck,” he grits out, hips stilling when he's buried completely, forehead dropping to yours, breathing ragged. “Always so fucking tight. Feel that? Feel how well this pretty cunt fits me?” His hips roll, just slightly, and you cry out. “Feel so perfect around my cock, pretty girl.”
You can't form words. Can only moan and dig your nails deeper into his back and breathe through it, through the overwhelming stretch and heat and the fact that it's him, it's Bucky, it's finally Bucky again after everything.
Then he starts to move.
Long, deep strokes that drag against every sensitive place inside you, his cock splitting you open over and over until you can't remember what it felt like to be empty. The cold metal of his dog tags brushes your chest with every thrust. His hand slides between your bodies, thumb finding your clit, and the dual sensation pulls a needy little wail from you, toes curling in your heels
“That's it,” he breathes against your lips. “That's my girl. Take all of it.”
You drag him back down into the kiss, desperate, one hand tangling in his hair and the other still clawing down his back, needing more of him, needing every part of him pressed against every part of you. He gives it to you, kissing you filthy and deep, hips rolling into a rhythm that's making coherent thought impossible.
“Missed you,” you gasp between kisses, and once it starts coming out you can't stop it. “Missed you so much, I missed you every single day, I tried not to but I couldn't stop, I missed you, I missed you—”
“I know.” His voice breaks on it. “Missed you too, baby. I'm here. I've got you.”
“Don't stop,” you sob against his mouth. “Please don't stop.”
“Not stopping.” His thumb keeps circling your clit and his hips snap forward harder, the wet obscene sounds of him fucking into you filling the dark bedroom. “Not going anywhere ever again.”
The pleasure and the grief and the overwhelming relief of having him back crash into each other all at once and the tears come again without warning, spilling hot down your cheeks. You're coming and crying at the same time, clenching so hard around him that he groans like it's the best thing he's ever felt.
Instinctively you hide your face against his neck with a mewling, broken little sound, as the waves keep crashing through you. His hand finds your jaw immediately, fingers gentle but certain, tilting your face back to his.
When he sees you - eyes wet and glassy, tears tracking freely down your cheeks, kiss-bitten bottom lip caught between your teeth - his expression cracks wide open. His thumb drags slowly through the wetness on your cheek, just looking at you, chest heaving, cock still buried deep inside you.
“Fuck,” he rasps, hips driving deeper, mouth dragging across your wet cheeks, licking away the tears. “Don’t hide from me. Not this. So beautiful when you cry for me like this.”
Another deep thrust punctuates his words and your sob breaks against his throat. The orgasm is almost too much, pleasure cresting so sharp and overwhelming that you're squirming beneath him, trying to get away from it and chase it at the same time. Your hips buck uselessly as his thumb keeps bullying your swollen clit , wringing every last shuddering wave out of you whether your oversensitive body can handle it or not.
“Made you cry too many times for the wrong reasons.” His mouth moves to your other cheek, kissing the wetness away gently even as his hips keep pounding into you. “Never fucking again. Only time you cry because of me now is when I've got you so full of cock you can't fucking think straight.”
Then he pulls back to look at you, pupils blown, taking in your wet lashes, your ruined expression. “That's the only reason I ever put tears on this pretty face again. On my fucking life.”
You're trying to say his name but it keeps breaking apart every time his hips drive forward, dissolving into breathless, helpless sounds against his mouth. But you can’t stop them, can’t control it, can’t do anything other than moan because he just keeps fucking you through every shuddering wave of your orgasm until you’re trembling under him.
You whimper, oversensitive and shaking, hips trying to shy away from his thumb even as your walls keep fluttering around him.
“Can feel her gripping me,” Bucky murmurs, almost to himself, hips still rolling slow and deep. “Feel that? Still so greedy even when you're all fucked out.” His thumb lifts and you exhale in relief, but his cock is still thick and heavy inside you, every slight movement magnified by how sensitive you are. “Got one more in there for me, baby. I know you do.”
Turning your face into his neck, you make a sound that's half-protest, half-desperate agreement.
“C’mon pretty girl,” His voice drops to something low and coaxing, lips brushing your ear. “You gonna give it to me?”
You nod weakly, barely managing it, pliant and soft and entirely his to do whatever he wants with. You'd agree to anything right now. Give him anything. You just want whatever he'll give you, want to stay exactly like this forever, warm and full and completely undone.
The rumble that comes out of him is deep and satisfied. “Good fucking girl.”
The words land low in your stomach even before his hands are moving, even before he pulls out with a groan that you both feel everywhere, even before the cool air hits the slick mess between your thighs. The empty whine that escapes you is involuntary and embarrassing and he hears every second of it.
His hands find your hips, turning you with that easy, devastating strength, flipping you over like you weigh nothing. Your face finds the mattress, and before you can process the change in position his palm is pressing warm between your shoulder blades, urging you down while his other hand slides under your hips, pulling them up to meet him.
You go pliant without resistance, body soft and utterly compliant beneath his hands, brain several steps behind everything. Your cheek presses into his sheets and you can smell him on the fabric, sending a fresh pulse of want through you.
He leans over you, his chest warm against your back for just a moment, and then his hand slides into your hair. Gathers it gently, sweeping it away from your face with a tenderness that's completely at odds with how thoroughly he just fucked you apart. His fingers are careful, unhurried, and you turn your face slightly into his palm like a cat.
“There you are,” he murmurs, low and warm, and you can feel the smile in it. His lips press to the nape of your neck, the top of your spine, each vertebra down between your shoulder blades.
He stays there for a moment, just looking at you. Taking in the slack, cock-drunk softness of your expression. The way your eyes have gone heavy and distant, lashes still wet, lips parted and swollen.
Then the blunt head of his cock presses against your entrance again and you keen into the sheets.
He pushes in slowly, achingly slowly, and the stretch of him at this angle is deeper, fuller, hitting every nerve ending at once. You're so wet and so oversensitive that every inch of him dragging inside you pulls sounds from your throat that you couldn't muffle if you tried.
“Fuck,” he gasps, hands locked around your hips, pulling you back onto him as his last inch disappears inside you. “Look at that. Taking every fucking inch. Good girl.”
He starts to move and your eyes roll back.
It's different like this. Harder, deeper, each thrust rocking you forward into the mattress, his hips snapping against your ass with a sound that fills the dark room, punctuated by his own rough exhales. One hand is splayed across your lower back to keep your hips tilted exactly where he wants them, the other gripping the curve of your hip hard enough you'll have fingerprints tomorrow.
You fist the sheets. It's all you can do. Knuckles white, face pressed into his pillow, breathing in desperate gasps because he keeps knocking the air out of your lungs with every thrust.
“Fuck, baby. Listen to how pretty you are like this.” His voice has gone rough, stripped of everything except want. His cock drags out slow and thrusts back hard, knocking another moan from you. “Hear that?”
You hear it. The wet, filthy sounds of him fucking into you, the slap of skin, the helpless little mewls you can't stop making. His dog tags swing forward with every thrust, cold metal grazing your back. Your face burns hot in the dark.
“C’mon, use your words,” he murmurs, hand smoothing up your spine. “You hear how good this pussy sounds taking me?”
“Yes,” You moan agreement, barely recognizing as your own voice. “Yes, fuck, yes”
His hand snakes around your throat, pulling you back against his chest in one smooth motion like you weigh nothing at all. And god, to him you don't. You’re so light in his hands that he barely has to think about it, and the ease of it sends a sharp pulse through you. You gasp as your back hits his chest, Bucky’s free arm secure around you, while his cock keeps driving up into you, the new angle hitting deeper.
He groans softly against your ear when you clenches hard around him. “Fuck. Knew you’d like that.”
You can’t respond. All that comes out is another needy little sound while your hands scramble desperately for purchase, one gripping his forearm where it rests against your throat, the other reaching back blindly for him. Bucky catches your hand immediately and presses it flat against his lower stomach, holding it there so you can feel every thrust, every flex of muscle as he fucks into you.
“That’s it, good girl. Hold on,” he murmurs approvingly, feeling you squeeze around him again. “Feel what you do to me?”
Then his hand moves from yours and slides down your stomach, over the curve of your hip, fingers finding your clit once more. You jolt at his touch, a high broken sound tearing out of you, hips lurching forward despite yourself.
“Shh.” His lips brush your ear. “I've got you. Stay still for me.”
You try. You genuinely try. But he's fucking up into you and rubbing your swollen clit simultaneously and the combination is devastating, pleasure crashing through you in waves that make it impossible to do anything except squirm against him and make sounds you'll be embarrassed about later. Your fingers dig into his forearm, nails pressing crescents into his skin, and his breath hitches against your neck.
“Fuck, good girl,” he hisses. “Scratch me up, sweetheart. Let me feel it.”
His fingers work faster and your head drops back against his shoulder, completely gone. Everything is his hands, his cock, his voice in your ear saying things that dissolve into heat before you can parse the words. You're making these desperate mewling sounds with every thrust, fingers scrabbling at his arm, his hip, any part of him you can reach, just needing to touch him, needing to feel him everywhere at once.
“Feel how wet she is,” he murmurs, fingers slipping through the absolute mess between your thighs. “Dripping down my hand. Making a mess of me.” His cock drives deeper and you sob. “So fucking perfect.”
His hand shifts from your throat to your jaw, turning your face toward his, and then he's kissing you.
It’s messy and overwhelming, his tongue sliding against yours while he keeps fucking you hard enough to make you moan helplessly into his mouth. Bucky swallows every needy little sound you make, kissing you deeper every time you squirm against him.
You can barely keep up with it. Head fuzzy, heavy with pleasure, especially with the way he’s still rubbing your clit in relentless slow circles that make your whole body shake harder every second.
“Come for me,” he breathes against your lips. “Want to feel that pretty pussy squeeze my cock again, baby. Can you do that for me?”
“Yes, Bucky, please.”
“So fucking good for me.” The hand at your jaw slides back to your throat, tilting your head back against his shoulder, baring your neck. His mouth finds your pulse point immediately. “Best thing I've ever had. Best thing I've ever touched.” His teeth graze your throat and you whimper, thighs shaking. “The only thing I ever want.”
His fingers press harder against your clit, hips rolling forward in a way that make you tremble in his grip, knees threatening to buckle, the only thing keeping you upright the arm locked around you.
“Fuck—I love you,” he grits out against the back of your neck, and it sounds like it's been tearing at him from the inside for months. “I love you. I love you.” Each repetition punctuated by a thrust that makes you cry out. “Loved you every single day I was without you. Never stopped for a second.”
The words hit somewhere deeper than anything else. Deeper than his hands or his mouth or any of it. Something cracks open in your chest, warm and enormous, and you’re coming again. Harder than before, your whole body seizing as you clench around him so completely that your knees do give out entirely. Just ragdoll weight caught entirely in his arms.
“Bucky,” you cry name in a needy a sob. “I love you too—fuck—I love you so much.”
The confession tears out of you and follows you over with a groan that shakes through his whole body. He buries himself to the hilt, cock pulsing in deep, spilling inside you with your name on his lips.
You’re both breathing in ragged pulls, and if it weren’t for his arms still locked around you, you’d have collapsed onto the bed. His chest heaves against your back, lips pressed somewhere near your temple, and neither of you speaks for a moment.
Eventually, carefully, he lowers you both down to the mattress, turning you over and pulling you against his chest. You lay boneless against him as his hand strokes slowly up your side, over and over, like he can't stop touching you now that he's allowed to again.
“I've got you,” he murmurs into your hair. “I've got you. You're okay. I've got you.”
And for the first time in almost a year, you actually believe it.
You stay like that for a while, neither of you moving, his hand still stroking slowly up your side. The room has gone quiet and warm around you, just his heartbeat under your ear and the city humming distantly outside.
But eventually he shifts, pressing a kiss to your temple. “Stay there.”
A weak sound of protest escapes you when he moves but he's already up, disappearing into the en-suite. You hear water running. When he comes back he sits beside you on the bed, warm cloth in hand.
“I can—” you start.
“I know you can,” he agrees simply, but he does it anyway, cleaning you up with gentle, unhurried hands. Then his free hand strokes down your leg, gently tugging one heel off, then the other, puts them both on the floor.
When he's done he disappears briefly, and then the mattress dips and he's pulling you into him, tucking you against his chest. The duvet settles warm around you both, and his hand starts moving slowly through your hair in soothing strokes.
“Sleep,” he murmurs against your temple, lips barely moving. “I've got you.”
You don't have much choice. Your body is already pulling you under, warm and safe and held in a way you'd spent months trying to convince yourself you didn't miss. His heartbeat is slow and steady under your ear, his chest rising and falling with a deep, even calm that pulls you further under with every breath.
His hand keeps moving through your hair, and the city outside feels very far away, and sleep takes you before you even feel it coming.
── ⟢ ₊ ☁️ ˚・🖋️ ⊹
The blaring of you alarm pulls you up from the deepest sleep you've had in months, and for one blissful, unthinking moment you're just warm. Bucky’s chest rises and falls slowly beneath your cheek. Reality hovers at the edges of your consciousness, waiting to be let in, and you squeeze your eyes shut against it, burrowing deeper into the duvet like that might keep it at bay.
Alpine is curled heavy and purring against the backs of your knees, warm and certain, like she's been there all night. Like you belong here. The thought sits in your chest, complicated and tender.
But your phone doesn’t stop shrilling from the nightstand.
You reach over and fumble for it, managing to silence before Bucky stirs. His arm tightens around you, pulling you back into him with a sleepy, wordless sound of protest, lips pressing somewhere near your hair. But then he goes still.
“…Was that your alarm for your flight?” His voice is rough with sleep, and underneath the grogginess you can here the carefulness.
“Yes,” you reply quietly, but make no effort to move.
The city hums distantly outside the window. Somewhere below, DC is already going about its morning. Up here, in the warm dark of his bedroom, time feels suspended, neither of you quite willing to be the one to break it.
You turn over. His eyes scan your face with an intensity that's so nakedly desperate it makes your chest ache. Like he's trying to memorize your face in case this is the last time he's allowed to be this close. Like he hasn't yet let himself believe last night was real.
“Stay.” The word comes out before he can stop it, blurted and slightly wrecked. His jaw tightens immediately afterwards, like he's bracing for it to land wrong. “Could you stay? I want you to stay. Just—a little longer, or—I know we haven't talked about anything properly yet, I just—” He exhales, slightly pained. “Please stay.”
You look at him for a moment. Let him sit with it a moment longer than necessary, watching the soft, desperate hope on his face exist exist without rushing to meet it, because you find you want to keep looking at him like this for just another few seconds. This new version of him that doesn't hide behind composure when something matters.
It's devastating and wonderful in equal measure, and you want to hold onto the sight of it for a second before you say anything.
“I suppose,” you begin slowly, watching his expression flicker, “I could probably stay a little longer. Get to know this version of you that coaches Avengers and has a cat and apparently owns cookbooks he's actually used.”
The exhale that comes out of him is enormous. Pure relief, pure joy, and the smile that follows it - wide and unguarded and slightly incredulous - is the most beautiful thing you've seen in a very long time. He pulls you in and presses his lips to your forehead, warm and certain.
You let him. Then you pull back gently, hand finding his jaw, tilting his face down to yours.
“But slowly,” you add, and mean it. “We do this slowly. No grand gestures, no orchestrating, no deciding things on my behalf. We actually talk. We work through all of it - the things we broke and the reasons we broke them. We make real effort this time, not just falling back into old patterns because it's easy and it feels good short term.”
He nods. Immediately, earnestly, like every word is being carefully filed away. “Slowly,” he repeats. “Yeah. I can do slowly.”
You raise a brow.
He has the grace to look slightly sheepish. “I can learn slowly.”
You're both quiet for a moment, considering this. You are not, historically, two people who do anything slowly. Your entire relationship has been characterized by intensity and momentum and grand gestures and catastrophic miscommunications. The idea of slow is almost comically foreign to you both.
“I'll come to London more,” he offers after a moment. “My schedule is flexible. I can make it work—I want to make it work. And I know the distance is real, and I know it won't always be easy, but I'd rather figure it out than spend another year without you.”
“And I'll come here too,” you add quietly. “I should've done that more. Made the effort in both directions instead of letting the Atlantic become an excuse.”
“Okay,” he says. “We start there.”
“We start there,” you agree.
And maybe it’s foolish. Maybe you'll look back on this morning and recognise it as just another impulsive decision in a marriage that's always run on chemistry and stubbornness and the particular madness of two people who can't seem to leave each other alone. Maybe the distance will be hard and the conversations will be harder and somewhere down the line you'll hit another wall neither of you knows how to climb.
But when he looks at you like that - open and unhidden in a way he spent years not knowing how to be - it doesn't feel like a mistake. It feels like something you've been working toward through every wrong turn and bad decision and midnight argument. Like the mess of the last year was just the long way round to something you were always going to find your way back to.
“Come here,” he murmurs, and you let him turn you back over, let him pull you into his chest where you fit so perfectly.
The relief of not having a flight to catch settles over you like the duvet itself.
His lips find the curve of your neck, lazy and warm, just the occasional soft press of his mouth against your skin. Just enjoying the fact that he can. That you're here and not leaving and there's nowhere either of you need to be.
Your eyes drift closed, hovering in that soft place between sleep and waking again. Alpine purrs against your feet. You feel more at peace than you have in longer than you can remember. And then, through your sleepy haze, you gradually become aware of his hand.
It's moved without him seeming to notice, fingers drifting down your arm, over your wrist, settling at your left hand. His thumb brushes absently over your ring finger, back and forth, over the bare skin where your ring used to sit. Slow and absent, like he doesn't even know he's doing it.
Your right hand moves to cover his, and he still immediately. A slight tension moving through his chest, like he's been caught at something, like he's about to pull back.
“Ask me again someday,” you murmur into the pillow, half-conscious. “When we're ready.”
The tension bleeds out of him all at once, his whole body exhaling like he's been holding that breath for months. His arms tighten around you and his mouth presses to the back of your neck again.
“I will,” he affirms quietly, against your skin. “I promise you, one day, I will.”
His thumb resumes its slow path over your ring finger, gentle and deliberate now. A quiet promise being made in the dark.
“I love you,” he murmurs into your hair, lips barely moving. “Missed saying that. Missed you hearing it. I love you so much.”
You sink deeper into his arms, into the warmth of him, into the love in his voice, into the particular peace of being somewhere you belong after a very long time of being without it.
You fall back asleep before you can answer. But that's okay, you have time now.
more mads: that's all folks! I really, really hope you enjoyed, like seriously. this fic has both been the bane of my existence and a precious little baby because i do really love these idiots. i hope i gave them a satisfactory ending and that it was worth the wait, and i would absolutely love to know your thoughts via any comments or reblogs! thank you so much for reading :)
taglist: @juniebjonesin @heldbybarnes @love-stucky @badbitchsincebirth05 @phoenix-in-writing @tw1sters @blowingbarnes @sassandscribbles @alpinebarnesworld @sheriff-bodecker @buckybsdoll @gilwm @venigrantrogers @mrsevans90 @rainyapricotcreatorparty @midnightramyeoncravings @catchmeupimgettingoutofhere @krisstyu @itsalltaken - if you would like to join my taglist, please send me an inbox or leave a comment here!
SUMMARY: Jack Abbot is not an overly-neighborly person. He has secret nicknames in his head for most of the people on his floor and actively avoids any and all types of neighbor politics. However, he can’t deny his growing fondness for the single mom and toddler in apartment seventeen. (Nor his burning hatred for your baby daddy).
WARNINGS: this series includes a very chaotic reader with an even more chaotic toddler, mentions of abandonment, parent death, Jack's inability to consider anything good and worthwhile for himself, eventual smut, friends to lovers, mentions of previous abusive relationships, mentions of mental health struggles, miscommunication, age gap (reader is around 27 and Jack is in his 40's), medical inaccuracies and more.
A/N: I am very very excited to share this series and bring it to life. It started as a very random idea that quickly transpired into a huge story in my head within a matter of minutes. It does touch on some potentially triggering topics but warnings will be given in each chapter!
PAIRING: Jack Abbot x Single Mom!Reader
STATUS: Ongoing
─── ⋆ CHAPTERS ⋆
PART ONE 𖤓♡ — Jack Abbot values his routine and structure. Work, SWAT, gym... and for the past six weeks, spending his Sunday mornings admiring the enigmatic single mom who's apartment balcony sits across from his. [3k]
PART TWO 𖤓♡ — A scuffle in the hall causes Jack to accidentally take Phoebe’s wallet to work instead of his. He gains himself a new nickname amongst the Pitt and finally learns a thing or two about you and your daughter. [7.3k]
PART THREE 𖤓 — A trip to the ED, a retirement meal, and a phone call with Robby. One leaves you up close and personal with your neighbor, one has Phoebe spilling secrets like it's an Olympic sport, and another has Jack realizing he's got a fucking crush on the single mom in apartment seventeen. [7.1k]
PART FOUR 𖤓♡ — Phoebe's birthday party consists of four sets of eyes ogling Jack from the second he enters your apartment, screaming children, your mom noticing something rather interesting, and a night on the balcony that changes the trajectory of everything. [8.7k]
PART FIVE — June 5th
PART SIX — June 10th
PART SEVEN — June 20th
PART EIGHT — June 25th
More chapters TBD
#APT.17 (a tag for anything related to this series)
Tag list for this series has grown way too big for me to keep up with so it’s unfortunately CLOSED. You can however follow the #apt.17 tag instead for updates on the series!
No, you see, I wish to be an author. Not in marketing. Or an influencer. I wish to tell my stories, be told I did a fantastic job, and then go back to my hovel to scribble some more. I am delicate of constitution and awkward in crowds.
He's never been good with words. He has to think too hard to figure out what to say, and even then it never comes out right. So why bother try? It's not like he doesn't have two perfectly good hands to work with.
So, when you complain about the window in the living room, how the sun always hits your screen when you're writing, Jack converts the guest bedroom into your office. Though, he also picks up a functioning typewriter as well. Can't have the sun hitting your screen if there's no screen, right?
When you keep stubbing your toe on the same bedpost every morning, Jack buys a protector and puts it on all four.
Every week, it's something new. Something grinds your gears, and Jack makes sure to take care of business. You're hungry? Jack is making you a plate of cut fruit. Your car is making a funny noise? He's getting in there and getting dirty. You're tired after work? Guess who's getting a free massage from their husband!
Sure, it's not easy. You do have a lot to complain about, but Jack does make sure that it's never about the same thing twice.
And when you meet Donnie's baby for the first time and ponder aloud how cute one of your own would be... Well, Jack can make that happen, but you'll have to put the work in too.
SUMMARY ➩ Jack Abbot is the perfect neighbor who is always willing to offer you a helping hand. Until you ask him to take your virginity.
WARNINGS ➩ age gap (reader is early 20s and jack is 50), they have sex and all the things that sex brings along, jack might be ooc
AUTHORS NOTE ➩ Well for once I tried to deliver real smut for you guys so buckle up and leave me some feedback on this one if you like it! NOT PROOFREAD AT ALL and it’s probably obvious so be kind about mistakes lol I wanted to get this to you guys asap!
“I need a favor.”
Jack was used to you asking him for help, had been for the two years since you moved into the apartment directly across from his.
He didn’t mind offering you a lending hand when he saw you struggling to carry your boxes from your small run down car, it wasn’t an inconvenience to collect your mail if you ever had to leave town for a few days, and he really couldn’t complain about having to remind you to get your laundry from the unit down below because it held him accountable too.
It was such a common occurrence, you asking him for a favor, that he wasn’t too surprised to find you at his door. He only gave a soft sigh as you pushed past him to enter his apartment, offering you a lot more patience than he did the newbies at the hospital.
You were always sweet, maybe a little bossy at times, but it gave him some amusement in his otherwise strict routine.
Plus it was admittedly nice to feel needed.
You came to him when your apartment had a leak or your air conditioning went out, knocked on his door whenever it was raining and you’d forgotten an umbrella after locking yourself out, and you even sometimes popped over just to get his opinion on what you should wear out on a random night.
Everybody was always telling Jack he needed a hobby that didn’t involve putting his life on the line, so he rarely told you no and tried his best to brush off Robby whenever he asked what was keeping him so busy lately.
It would be hard enough to explain the dynamic he had with his much younger neighbor but even more so considering you were now standing in the middle of his apartment with a frustrated look on your face, hands on your hips as you tapped your bunny slipper covered foot.
“What is it now?” His voice was gruff and disinterested but you knew well enough that he would do whatever you asked and he was well aware of that too. Still, it helped him just a little to pretend to contemplate it for a second or two first.
“I need you to have sex with me.”
You said it like it was as simple as asking him to come over and check your water pressure, falling out of your mouth casually and landing heavily in the quiet room.
There was no need to pretend this time as he fell into a bewildered silence, raising an eyebrow in your direction and letting his eyes track you as you dramatically sighed and went to flop down on his couch. You’d demanded about a year ago that he got some pillows for it, along with a few other interior design suggestions.
He’d picked up four after his shift that night.
“Please say something.” You were turned around on the couch so you could face him over the back of it, arms crossed as you rested your chin ontop of them.
“I have nothing to say to that.” He shook his head immediately, that stern expression he used on an unruly patient or Robby when he got a little too pushy.
This just made you sigh again, loud and exaggerated as you turned back around to fully lay flat on his couch.
“Why are you even asking me that?” He didn’t want to pry because he knew you well enough by now to know you’d just be encouraged by that but his curiosity got the best of him, circling around to sit across from you on one of the living room chairs.
You didn’t sit up but you turned your head to the side to look at him, a slight frown on your face that he didn’t think was particularly genuine. Your personality was always something Jack admired, not getting a lot of time in his own life to be so bold with his emotions and carefree in the way he spoke and behaved.
He was serious and guarded where you were a walking billboard for spontaneity, coming to him crying about random problems after only half a week of living in the building.
It was mostly endearing but there was the more critical part of him that wondered how lonely you must be to be making friends and finding comfort with some random guy across the hallway, a much older one at that.
Jack knew he had a bit of a hero complex but it typically manifested in a more extreme way, quite literally jumping into battle to save lives or operating on them in their lowest moments. This dynamic with you was a new form of care taking and there’d been a handful of times he’d doubted his own motives.
“Because I have a date next week and I am a complete lost cause when it comes to all things intimacy.” You still had a theatrical flare to your voice, not facing him anymore and instead rambling straight up to his ceiling with your hands gesturing wildly.
He tensed up for two reasons now, one being the mention of a date and the other was your implication you didn’t have any experience.
“But you’ve had sex before.” It came out slowly and half like a question, half like an assumption.
There wasn’t any real reason for him to think that other than his own social expectations. You were gorgeous, one of the prettiest women he’d seen in a very long time, and had a naturally magnetic energy to you that even he couldn’t resist most of the time, platonically but also selfishly deep down, a little more than that.
He’d seen you go on a handful of dates in the last year or two, all guys your age that didn’t seem to know how to pick up a check let alone please you properly.
That’s where Jack’s problem stemmed from.
There had been almost no ulterior motive the first year he had known you, genuinely trying to be helpful and to be a good neighbor. He would get upset when his coworkers would call him anti social or make digs at how unfriendly he was because he hadn’t always been like that and he figured helping out the girl next door was a good first step to getting that part of himself back.
You’d told him after a few months that you had no family on this side of the country, completely starting fresh at a new company you’d applied to on a whim.
It was completely innocent.
Yes, you were undoubtedly beautiful in a way that made his head spin for a second when he first saw you. You had been standing near your car and fighting with a box, both by tugging at it and saying less than kind words in its direction like it could understand you.
Jack had hesitated for a handful of seconds before making his way over and offering to help, feeling this weird pull in his chest when you blinked up at him in surprise and eagerly thanked him.
Once you were in his life, you never left. And he made space for you effortlessly because, quite frankly, he had plenty of it to offer up.
About seven months ago was the first time he had ever seen you with a guy.
He’d been coming home from a long and rare day shift (covering for Robby so he could attend Jake’s graduation), dragging his leg behind him and praying nobody stopped him on the way to his apartment so he could crawl into bed for a few short hours before he had to do it all over again for his own shift.
The only distraction he would have allowed was you but you were clearly busy, standing in the hallway as he got off the elevator and touching the rather small bicep of a guy your age.
Jack hesitated, considered getting right back on the elevator before it could close on him, and then slowly walked to his door.
He had hoped you wouldn’t acknowledge him because his throat was already weirdly tight as he eyed you and the way you stared up at the man (boy, if Jack had to really label it) with that soft and curious expression you always had.
“Jack.” Your voice was full of excitement and he faltered, his key left in his doors lock as he turned to give you an attempt at a polite smile. “Covering somebody again?”
If this had been any other day then Jack would have invited you into his apartment to talk instead of lingering in the hallway. He would have ignored his exhaustion to pair his black coffee with the hot chocolate flavor you liked that he kept in his bottom drawer, complained to you about being tired and listened to you scold him for working too much when he didn’t need to.
But you were in a pretty dress that was clearly on its way to dinner and your date was giving Jack that possessive stare that guys fresh out of college thought was intimidating.
So instead he simply nodded his head and continued to unlock his door.
“This is Asher.” You continued abruptly as he turned his door handled, leaving it cracked as he stopped to look at you again.
He gave you a once over to make sure everything was okay, wondering why you were still insisting on talking to him when you were so clearly meant to be going somewhere else. You didn’t look too uncomfortable but you were watching him back just as intensely so he mentally stored the name and face of the guy anyways, just in case something happened.
“Ashton.” Your date finally spoke and his voice was annoyed and laced with immature bitterness, although slightly valid considering you had forgotten his name.
Your eyes widened, still boring into Jacks, and he smiled a little before giving you a small wave and heading inside.
Jack realized quickly after that encounter that his intentions were a lot less innocent than he had initially thought they were. He’d closed his door before immediately pressing his back against it, listening to the sound of your small heels leaving the hallway as you apologized to your date with a clenched jaw and a pain in his stomach.
The next few dates after that just confirmed what he had already realized from the first one.
He was attracted to you.
Maybe even liked you.
You talked to Jack about almost everything going on in your life, even things he definitely would not have cared about if it came from anybody else, but you never once brought up the dates. At first he had worried you had somehow noticed his weird demeanor that day in the hallway but Jack wasn’t very expressive in general so he figured you must keep that part of your life private for other reasons.
The attraction part was easy to accept mostly, he was only a man and you were clearly gorgeous. Although the age gap was something Jack couldn’t get himself to look past.
You were barely in your early twenties, over half his age younger and overly obviously so. You radiated youth, from your appearance and the way you spoke down to your hobbies and interests.
You were clearly a very young girl and he had felt like a pervert from the moment he saw you outside of that car for the way his body warmed. Jack hadn’t felt much attraction to anybody at all since his wife died, at first out of a lingering loyalty to her that barely faded and then just due to his busyness and his own mental blocks.
That was not a problem when it came to you and he had to give a genuine effort when he was around you to act normal.
You’d come over in tiny sleep shorts or a tight tank top that showed your hardened nipples through the thin fabric, join him for morning yoga in downright sinful leggings and he even was attracted to the stupid bunny slippers you wore.
But you were a young girl and he was a disciplined old man so he barely looked twice in your direction when you were bending over to get mail and he never once touched you, setting boundaries for himself and keeping them.
Which was why it was so hard for him when you slowly shook your head to his question about having sex before.
“What about those guys?” His eyebrows furrowed as he looked at you and you sighed like you were embarrassed, a rare emotion to see from you.
“We barely kissed.” You shrugged and finally sat up from your dramatic position on the couch. “Please Jack, I don’t have anyone else to ask.”
“I’m not sleeping with you.” He said immediately, slightly offended you were seemingly only asking him because you had no other options.
You looked completely dejected now but Jack knew there was no way he could possibly accept this request, for too many reasons but especially because of his own moral code. He also didn’t want to ruin what you’d had going on, enjoying your company on his hard nights and finding himself finally letting somebody in after so many years alone.
“Okay so no sex.” You say softly and you stand up when he does, following him as he walks into the kitchen and leaning against the counter to watch him set the coffee machine settings. “But can’t you show me little things.”
He sends you a sharp look that you return with a gentle pleading smile, bouncing in place a little like you think your cuteness is the answer to everything.
And it just might be because Jack sighs softly and turns his full attention back to you.
“Like what?” He knows him asking for specifics will give you hope and he can see it immediately on your face, brightening and taking a step closer to him that makes him tense.
“Maybe just telling me what guys like?” You suggest softly and the words coming from your mouth make him almost groan, keeping his face flat and emotionless as you speak. “And some kissing lessons.”
“You know how to kiss.” He shook his head at you and went to turn back to his coffee but your hand wrapped around his wrist to stop him, successfully keeping his attention on you. He realized that it might be the first time you’d ever actually touched him, skin against skin. “I’ve seen it.”
His posture tightens as he reminds himself of that fact, easily recalling the vivid memory of leaving his apartment to head to work and finding you coming home from a date and making out with a guy against your door.
You hadn’t noticed him at first but he had slammed his door harder than normal, shamefully intentional.
There’d been a pang of guilt when you jumped in surprise and separated from the guy who looked the douchiest out of all of them but it was hard to feel it when you have him a slightly grateful look on his way to the elevator.
You were blinking at him now, almost like you were realizing something, and he looked away in favor of glancing at the clock on the wall.
“Not a kiss that feels good.” Your voice was more serious now, sounding genuinely disheartened by the conversation and the slow unveiling of your inexperience.
He sighed again, just trying to get rid of the tightness in his chest, before shaking his head firmly and fully turning away from you to fill up his coffee mug.
“I’m not doing it.”
—
Jack thought about your offer for the next two weeks. Obsessively.
He waited to hear you bringing somebody else over, someone who had jumped on the golden opportunity to touch you for the first time when he hesitated. You didn’t seem to go on any dates but he supposed you wouldn’t have told him anyways.
The thought of you experiencing sex with some asshole you met off a dating app, nervous and unsure on what to do without guidance, was eating away at him.
Jack was a fixer, he liked to help you, and he had already accepted the fact that he was extremely attracted to you. It wasn’t like he didn’t recognize the jealously in his stomach everytime he saw you with somebody else, a type of anger he hadn’t felt since he was preparing to go into a real life war.
Subdued by age and a calmer reality now but it was still fresh hot anger that he couldn’t shake no matter how much he tried.
You came to him with this problem, not just for pointers and tips but you had actually asked him to be the one to take your virginity.
Virginity.
Jack couldn’t get the concept out of his head and while he hadn’t necessarily considered himself somebody who would care about that type of thing, especially not as he entered his fifties, it did bring a wave of heat over him whenever he thought about it.
You’d never been touched before outside of a few unsatisfactory make out sessions. You, the pretty girl with downright sinful choices of pajamas that consumed his day to day life so easily after he spent such a long time alone.
He thought about it endlessly until it led to him knocking on your door, a rare switch of the usual dynamic that left him feeling a little awkward before you answered.
The sensation went away when you looked up at him, eyes a little wide with confusion as you silently stepped back to let him inside. It was rare for you to be so quiet but maybe you could tell what he was thinking by the look on his face, maybe you were thinking about the same exact thing.
“I’ll help you.” His voice was gruff and flat, waiting until your door closed behind him before he spoke. Your face immediately lit up but he silenced anything you were going to say with a raised hand, your parted lips closing as you waited for him to finish. “But I’m not sleeping with you.”
You pouted a little at the condition but stepped forward after a few seconds, far too close to him for his sanity but he figured you’d be getting a lot closer soon so he forced his breathing to stay level.
Jack used to consider himself quite smooth, still a natural flirt when he joked around with older patients or teased Robby.
But he was completely thrown off of any existing game when it came to you. He didn’t even know he could still feel this way about somebody, the yearning and lustful feeling having been dormant for a long time before you moved in.
“I’ll take whatever you give me.” Your voice was soft now and he’d never heard you like that, maybe a bit of a whine when you impatiently asked him to help you with something, but never so pleading.
You’d shifted even closer as you spoke and he couldn’t help himself now that he practically had permission, his large and rough hand sliding over your waist to rest on the small of your back.
You sucked in a sharp breath at the feeling and he was suddenly aware of how much fun this was going to be if you were that sensitive.
“Not tonight okay?” He replied and his low tone made your eyes soften, nodding eagerly and hesitantly letting your hands land on his chest in balled up fist. “We can talk about it more later and work out some conditions.”
“You’re giving me rules?” You’d collected yourself enough to finally give him some of that familiar attitude, smiling slightly as you stared up at him. He rolled his eyes but let his hand tighten against your back, moving you forward and just trying to test your reaction to the touch.
You lost your smile immediately, shuffling closer until you were pressed against him as your eyes darted all around his face with surprise. It was clear you didn’t expect him to accept at all let alone this easily, despite his two weeks of contemplation, he wasn’t at all hesitate now.
“You need them.” He retorted and his free hand brushed some of your hair behind your ear, the first time you were ever really touching each other being this intimate was sending another wave of affection through him.
A few years ago, Jack couldn’t even get himself to look at another woman, let alone hold one so gently. Even with the slightly out of the ordinary circumstances, he cared for you and you trusted him and that was all that really mattered in his eyes.
“You’re mean.” You’re whispering it and his head tilts at the sound it, overly fond and curious how you can affect him so much just by changing the tone of your voice. “Kiss me atleast.”
It comes out a demand and his eyebrows naturally furrow at the sound of it, knowing immediately that will have to be one of the rules he gives you when you talk them over.
Manners.
He doesn’t respond for a second but you seem to understand before he even needs to scold you, lips parting in realization before they form a small pout and you unclench your fist so your palm is flat on his chest now instead.
“Please give me a kiss Jack.” You sound sweeter now and he would think it was an act, making fun of him for his sudden silent sternness, if it wasn’t for the genuinely pleading look on your face.
The knowledge that you listen so easily, even when he doesn’t actually say it, overrides his senses so much that he actually does bend down to kiss you.
It’s soft at first which you don’t seem to understand, immediately trying to eagerly make out with him like that’s all you really know. He moves one of his hands from your side to hold under your jaw, applying a little bit of pressure near your throat to indicate he wants you to slow down.
You melt against him at the touch but do as he silently communicates and relax a little bit, still moving your mouth a bit sloppily against his but learning to adapt to his slow and easy pace.
Eventually you get the rhythm down perfectly, lips moving together without anything extra added. You asked Jack to teach you so he was going to do exactly that, starting from the basics.
Your face was completely dazed when he pulled back, instinctively shifting forward to try and kiss him again and making a small disappointment noise when his hold near your throat tightened in warning.
“You asked for a kiss.” He said in a low voice, still close to your face so he could perfectly see the way your widened eyes shifted around his features.
He was a bit mesmerized by the way you looked now, so unlike yourself on any other day. It both made his guilt over being perverse grow and also solidified that he didn’t care how wrong it was as long as you kept looking at him like that.
“Get some sleep.” He waited a few seconds before taking the necessary steps away from you, taking a sharp breath as he turned and left your apartment.
His own door had barely closed behind him before there was insistent knocks on it, his head immediately hanging since he knew exactly who it was.
Your eyebrows were furrowed when he pulled the handle to reveal you in the hallway, standing stiffly and glaring up at him but not making any move to come inside. You shifted in place and let out a huff of annoyance as you seemed to search for the right words to convey what you wanted.
“Can you kiss me one more time?” You eventually settled on the blunt question, shifting closer so you were both halfway in his doorway.
While he had a foot inside his apartment still, you had one in the hallway. It left you standing too close for his sanity, feeling it slip almost entirely again when your small hand landed on his forearm and rubbed softly.
“What’s wrong?” He asked softly, sensing your frustration but not knowing where it was stemming from.
He cupped your face with one of his hands, letting the other rest back on your side. You stared up at him as he took a few slow steps forward, backing you up with each one until your back hit the doorframe and took a soft near gasp from your lips.
“Nothing I just…” You trail off as you pout, scanning over his face and then down his chest until you can’t bend your head anymore to look. “I want one more. Please.”
You added it as an afterthought but it was enough for him, pressing his mouth back against yours.
This time, apparently a very quick learner, you were able to meet his pace right away and your mouths moved softly together. Your arms went around his neck so you could fully cling to him as you kissed deeply, heads tilting and quiet pleased noises rumbling in your throat.
You only got louder when his tongue pressed lightly into your mouth, mostly just to test your reaction but unable to stop himself when you were eagerly matching the actions.
It was sloppy and a little too wet, sounds of your tongues tangling together filling the silent hallway and sending a sharp heat down to his gut. He liked how clumsy you were, growing addicted to the way you seemed to have no idea what you were doing but too desperate to stop yourself and ask him for his help.
Jack knew he liked feeling needed but this was a whole different beast, one that came paired with some light shame.
You weren’t innocent and you knew exactly what you needed to about sex but your body was inexperienced and it was getting clearer by the second, your little gasp when he kissed you deeper and the way you tightened your hold on him everytime he went to pull back and attempt to slow down.
You’re red in the face by the time he manages to get you to stop eagerly kissing him, still instinctively shifting closer when he moves back. He gives you a lighthearted sigh, occupied by the softest smile he can manage so he doesn’t actually hurt your feelings when he presses you back against the doorway with the hand that’s still on your hip.
“Time for bed.” He tries to keep his tone light but it comes out more authoritative than he had meant for it to, most likely driven by the way you automatically started to frown as soon as he held you away from him. “We can talk tomorrow.”
You clearly weren’t happy about that but you surprisingly gave him a soft nod, shifting your body until you were out of his entrance and closer to your own.
He watched you and your dazed face, slightly wobbly on your feet, as you disappeared behind your apartment door with a small wave.
-
Jack had started off his day rough the following morning, barely able to sleep after what had happened.
It was a completely split mixture of wanting you so bad it was driving him to literal insanity and feeling disgustingly guilty for even looking in your direction.
He almost considered calling Robby about it but he really didn’t need to hear the lecture that would undoubtedly come his way about the situation. Plus he figured that whatever Robby knew, Dana knew, and if Dana knew then it was only a matter of time before the entire emergency department was gossiping about Jack Abbot and his young neighbor.
The dilemma was so strong that he had almost completely forgotten about the fact he had told you that you’d talk today, although almost intentional.
He was halfway avoiding having to actually sit down and make this arrangement a reality, still having a hard time believing what had happened last night was even real.
He had just started to get changed for work when the knocking on his door started and he knew it was you immediately, standing still and hanging his head for a few seconds like he figured he could just wait you out.
It didn’t take long for his senses to kick back in and he was pulling on a plain black shirt before making his way over to the door, raising his eyebrows at you when he saw how irritated you looked.
You brushed past him immediately and he lingered with his hand on the door knob for a moment before closing it and preparing himself to face whatever wrath you were about to send his direction.
“You didn’t come over.” You immediately accused, finger pointing in his direction as you stood in the middle of his living room with an angry expression. “You didn’t even text me.”
He was already walking closer to you as you spoke and your defenses naturally crumbled at the proximity, especially when his hands were sliding over your ribs to both hold you steady and let him feel your breathing as subtly as possible.
“You can’t just kiss me like that and then ignore me.” You continue on but your tone is a lot softer now that he’s touching you, already getting that dazed edge to it he had heard last night.
“I didn’t mean to ignore you.” He shakes his head and frees a hand to tuck some hair behind your ear, your features have completely softened now at the movement.
Jack wonders for the first time if you might have feelings for him beyond trust and attraction.
For some reason, he hadn’t really considered the possibility before. You were practically his polar opposite and he had nothing in common with any of the boys you went on dates with.
But now, with you blinking up at him like you were hanging on to his every word, he let himself think it might just be likely.
“I figured you changed your mind.” Your words are a little slurred from the insistent pout you have on your face and he sighs again, gently leading you over to sit on his couch.
Your knees brush together as you scoot closer to him the second he’s settled on top of the cushion, your hand wrapping around three of his fingers and squeezing lightly as you wait for him to respond to your fear of being rejected.
“I didn’t but I want to make sure you understand what you’re asking.” His voice is low and nearing stern, the same tone he uses on the new med students who seem a little more cocky than they are willing to learn. He knows that’s not the case with you, knows you’re desperate for any expertise he can offer you, but he still wants you to pay attention and properly understand him. “There’s other ways for you to do this.”
“What, like other guys?” Your eyebrows furrow like the thought confuses you.
His stomach tightens immediately, sick at the thought of it, but he stiffly nods his head.
You’re shifting even closer immediately and he lets out a breath when you’re leaning over his knee nearly, closer to his face than before and scanning over it again.
“I don’t want another guy Jack. I just want it to be you.” You’re whispering now and he can’t stop himself from pressing a light kiss to your mouth, brief but necessary when his brain processes the lack of distance between you. That makes you smile finally and he suddenly feels very stupid for ever questioning you when you’re making a request like this.
“Tell me why.” He mumbles, easily sliding his hands around your middle so he can tug you over more and into his lap. You kiss him again once you’re settled in his lap, still quick like you’re both using it as punctuation during your conversation. “Why me?”
He wants to hear you give a legitimate reason, to undo the hesitance you gave him when you said it was only because you didn’t have anybody else to ask. That’d been weighing on him more than anything else, the thought that you had just settled for your older lonely neighbor who was clearly willing to help you with anything in spite of himself.
Your next kiss was much longer, deeper as you fully sink down in his lap and move your mouth against his desperately. He’d accept that alone as an answer, big palms rubbing over your back and sides so he can keep pulling you impossibly closer.
Your nose is rubbing against his when you pull back, the sounds of your breathing being heavier now making his head spin with the necessary impulsivity to keep making terrible decisions with you.
“You’d make me feel good.” The answer you’d landed on was much more devastating than he was prepared for, his eyes darkening at how confident you sounded in that fact. “I know you would.”
His hands tightened around your soft skin for a second, needing to take a deep breath to ground himself.
It takes a second for him to reply, tucking his face into your neck and inhaling sharply. You smell as sweet as you always do but it’s intoxicating to have it this close after so long, skin soft under his lips as he kisses you softly.
Your breathing gets shaky, arms looping around his neck so you’re practically hugging him. You’re warm on top of him and making the sweetest noises when he moves along your jaw, shifting in his lap to try and get his attention back on your conversation.
“You’ll do it right?” You ask softly, running your hand through his hair and tugging just enough to make him finally look back at your face. His eyes are dark and unfocused as he stares at your pretty features. “Jack?”
“Yeah honey.” He says back after another long silence, voice deeper than he’d ever heard it as he leans in to kiss you again.
You kiss for a long time, wiggling around in his lap when your tongues tangle together and you get to taste him properly again. It’s addicting for both of you, both of your hands running all over the other’s body like you’re trying to learn every part of it you can reach.
Eventually you’re fully rocking against him from your neediness and it takes a second for him to process it, snapped back to focus when he hears the way your whines are getting higher pitched. A near growl leaves his throat as he grabs your hips firmly, thumbs pressing into the bone so he can stop you from moving on top of him like that.
“Jackie.” You whine desperately, kissing him again and successfully distracting him long enough that you can start humping again.
“Stop baby I have work soon.” He scolds in between the sloppy kisses, lips and chin slightly wet from how uncoordinated you still are.
You make another soft noise and he’s confused for half a second before he realizes it’s because of the pet name, smiling softly from his fondness for you as you hide down in his neck for a second.
“You’re hard now, I can feel it.” You’re whispering right against his skin and a shiver runs over him at the lewd words falling from such a pretty mouth, high pitched and almost innocent voice making the sentence sound so much dirtier than it needed to be.
At first Jack doesn’t think you’re right, knowing himself and his body enough to expect he’s not stirring down there even if he wants you so bad it makes him feel insane.
He’s had issues with it for years now, a deadly combination of his age, his traumas, and the carousel of medications he has to be on for a variety of things he wouldn’t disclose to you out of his own pride. That was the reason Jack had stopped trying to hook up with people years ago, giving up on porn entirely when he’d have to spend an hour trying to get hard before he could even attempt to actually get himself off.
It was in the back of his mind when you’d asked him to help you with this but he figured this was about your pleasure, he wouldn’t need to be hard to get you off especially if he stuck to his guns about not actually having sex with you.
He was sucking in a deep breath to explain this to you in less detail, make sure you understood that he wasn’t hard but it had nothing to do with you or his attraction to you, when you gave a particularly deep and slow roll of your hips.
And the effect was completely undeniable.
A shudder ran over him, eyes dropping to his lap that you were still rocking on top of. Your tiny little shorts were so clearly pressing against the tent in his scrub pants, catching on it whenever you lost the energy to move properly as you let out another needy whine and hid back in his neck.
You were completely unaware of his current mental situation, baffled at how easily you’d gotten him to this state from just some sloppy kissing.
You must’ve thought he was ignoring you because you picked up your head to glare at him, a pout on your swollen lips.
“Sorry sweetheart.” He sighed and kissed you gently, rubbing your sides up to your ribs and coming back down right when he felt the swell of your breast against his fingertips. “I really have to go.”
“Let me suck you off.” You requested easily and his breath caught, nearly choking at how simple you made it sound. “I wanna learn and you’re so hard right now Jackie. Please let me do it.”
“That’s not the point of this.” He shook his head immediately and moved you by your hips so you were sat next to him and no longer settled in his lap, clearly upsetting you as you scrambled up on your knees and gripped his bicep so he couldn’t get off the couch yet.
“The point is to teach me things about sex and I’ll need to know this.” You counter, eyebrows furrowing in confusion at why he’s rejecting you.
He finds it a little amusing that you’re so used to him accepting your requests for things that you’re genuinely lost when he doesn’t immediately fold for you. It’s a bratty habit he should have corrected months ago but he can’t find himself caring too much, liking how dependent you’d become on him.
Jack has to contemplate this because he knows you’re right, stomach turning a little at the reminder that you’re going to use whatever he shows you on somebody else down the line.
That selfishly makes him want to cancel this whole thing and leave you completely clueless, hopefully to the point you decide to swear off sex with other men entirely. But he knows how stubborn you are and how stuck you get on something once it catches your attention, figuring you’d get on a dating app and find some idiot in finance to take your virginity as soon as he put an end to this arrangement.
So he lets you slip to your knees off the couch, taking his hesitance to decline again as a positive sign.
“Wait.” He interjects and you freeze, sighing in annoyance as you prepare for him to give another reason you can’t do it. Instead he pulls one of the pillows off the couch and slides in near his feet, your eyes softening as you shift so you’re kneeling on the plush cushion instead of the floor.
“How do I start?” You ask softly, eyeing the bunched up fabric in front of you with interest. He has to stare at the ceiling for a second, slightly losing it at the sight of you kneeling on his floor between his legs. “Do I have to get you ready?”
“No.” He says it gruffly and you tense again, his tone way sharper than he’d meant for it to be. “It’s… I’m ready baby trust me. Just give me a second.”
That calms you down immediately, enough that you rest your head on his knee as you try your best to be patient. His eyes go back to you at the touch and he watches the way you squirm against the pillow, clearly still riled up from the kissing and maybe even the thought of taking him in your mouth.
“Has it been awhile Jack?” Your voice is ridiculous now, clearly teasing him and developing this soft purr that almost irritates him.
His hand goes into your hair at the sound of it, tightening enough that you lift your cheek off his knee and stare up at him with wide eyes.
“Watch it.” He says lowly, using his free hand to untie his scrub pants as you eye the movement with fascination. Your lips part as you stare at his hand and the way his fingers twist the strings, he has half the thought to make you choke on the digits before you try and take anything bigger but your attitude has left him feeling just as impatient. “We’ve got to work on your manners if you want me to teach you.”
That makes you snap back into focus, frowning at his words and shaking your head as you straighten up on your knees.
“I have manners Jack.” You’re clearly trying to convince him, small hands smoothing over his thighs.
He starts to deny it but he’s cut off when you lean forward to nuzzle against him, face pressing right where he’s currently aching under two layers of fabric. His breath catches in his throat and he instinctively tightens the hand that’s in your hair, mumbling out an apology when you make a pained noise but barely loosening it after.
He feels like he needs to keep it there to have any sort of control in this situation, especially given the way you’re almost desperately rubbing your face on his lap.
“Should’ve told me you were this needy.” He half scolds as he shifts his waistband down lower, waiting for you to notice and pick yourself up just long enough to get his pants down.
You don’t give him long at all before you’re back to obsessing over the sight in front of you, eyes fully dazed now that it’s just his boxers separating you from putting your mouth on his hard length.
You’re clearly trying to be patient in an attempt to prove you have any sort of manners, a little pride rippling through him similar to the feeling he got when you had corrected yourself the other night to politely ask him for a kiss.
“You wouldn’t have done anything about it.” You say softly, not accusatory but confident in it like you know it’s true. You lean forward and kiss against the covered bulge, a groan leaving him. “You’re too good of a guy.”
“Clearly not.” He rasped just as you start to lose that faux patience you’re trying so hard to pretend you have, tugging at the waistband of his underwear and smiling softly when he lifts his hips off the couch without arguing. “And you know I never tell you no sweetheart.”
“Yeah?” You’re still trying to talk to him but now you’re completely lost in the sight of him half naked and sitting there with his legs spread in front of you, too desperate to even be intimidated by the size of him. “You would’ve let me do this months ago Jackie?”
He sighs and tightens his hold in your hair again, bringing you forward until he can feel your breath where he’s most sensitive.
Your eyes flicker up to him and the sight is devastating for how deprived he’s been, a pretty young girl like you sitting so nicely on your knees for the first time ever. He can barely even feel that guilt and slightly sick sensation, knowing how perverted it is that he could probably get off just looking at your face and thinking about the way he’s about to corrupt you.
“Stop talking.” He instructs gruffly and you nod eagerly, eyes back on his length and only now looking a little nervous as you swallow before your lips part in anticipation. “You sure you want to do this?”
“Want it so bad.” You don’t hesitate to answer and your voice is a little whinier, swaying forward like you don’t even realize you’re doing it.
Jack lets you move until you’re right there, eyes locked on your face as you give him a nervous look and try to take him in your mouth.
It’s awkward and you’re tense, expression full of hesitation like you’re waiting for him to tell you how to do it properly but he lets himself bask in this for a few seconds.
He knows it’s sick but he finds you the most beautiful like this, confused and desperate to please him without knowing how to. You go between sucking and licking at the tip of his length and while it feels good, no doubt about that especially after how long it’s been, it’s nothing compared to how clearly inexperienced you are.
Finally, he snaps out of his sick fantasies of watching you embarrass yourself trying to please him, and he decides to actually do what you’d asked and teach you something.
“Relax your jaw baby. Just take what you can okay?” His voice is low and gentle, hand loose in your hair but clenching into a tight fist whenever you brush against his sensitive skin with your teeth on accident or try to overachieve and take him deeper.
You do seem to calm down a little now that he’s finally speaking, shoulders slumping and your eyes fluttering shut as you get used to the feeling of him on your tongue.
You’ve barely taken him at all but he’s transfixed by the sight, perfectly content to sit here and cock warm your mouth until you were ready to move him down your throat.
He watches you closely as you pull back to take a few deep breaths, pouting a little at his length and hesitating before you’re touching him with your hand. It’s all experimental, tugging and feeling the skin against your palm while he grunts above you and tries to control himself.
It’s barely sexual on your end considering how fascinated you are by the new experience but he’s halfway losing his mind knowing this is the first time you’re touching somebody like this.
“I gotta go soon sweetheart.” He says and your eyes finally snap back up to him, turning a little red considering you’d been caught just staring at his length as you touched him. “You can play with me all you want after my shift.”
Now you’re full on blushing but you nod your head obediently and lean back in to take him in your mouth again, a little more confident now as you lick around the head and repeat movements whenever it draws a sound out from him.
Jack can barely stand it and he has to put both hands in your hair to keep himself from fucking up into your warm mouth, groaning from the effort it’s taking and considering telling you to get back on the couch before he goes too far with you too early.
You’re clearly just as impatient because you try to take more of him finally and immediately gag at the sensation, pulling back and frowning up at him.
“Help Jackie.” Your voice is whiny and has a little rasp to it now and he kisses his teeth at the sound, petting your hair back out of your face.
“I can’t help with that baby, you’ve just got to practice.” He tries his best to soothe you but you’re clearly frustrated.
“Can’t you just force my head down?” You’re rubbing his thighs as you speak in that ridiculously bratty voice, wiggling around on the pillow like the thought alone is exciting you.
He wants to say no, wants to tell you why it’s such a terrible idea for him to forcefully fuck your throat right before he has to go to work. There’s a million reasons he should be rejecting you right now but that sick voice in the back of his head is struggling to get the words out, especially when you go back to softly kitten licking at his length to keep him hard.
“Fuck you’re nasty.” He gruffs out and your eyes light up at the words, nodding your head and taking him back in your mouth as you keep trying your best to fit him deeper. “You want me in your throat that bad?”
You can’t talk now but your desires are obvious.
He eyes the way you’re shifting on the cushion below you, adjusting his foot the best he can so it’s between your thighs as you kneel. That seems to make you even more desperate, rubbing against him almost feverishly now as you try to focus on having him in your mouth.
There’s no option to do so when he brings his hands back to your hair, silently showing you he accepts your request when he moves his hips off the couch and keeps your face firmly in place so he can push deeper down your throat.
He feels you gag slightly around him but your eyes roll to the back of your head at the same time and you hump against his foot even faster so he can’t find it in himself to stop, thrusting slowly to make sure you don’t end up getting sick or feeling too sore by the time he’s finished.
Jack knows this is far beyond teaching, he’s not even speaking anymore and instead just using your throat to get himself off but you’re even more eager for it than him and he’d never deny you anything you asked for.
“This tiny little throat.” His voice is nearing a growl as he helps move your head up and down his length, reveling in the way you gag and drool around him. “You’re doing so good baby.”
The praise seems to do it for you more than anything else, rubbing your core against his foot so eagerly that you can barely focus on sucking him off. You’re getting too messy to control yourself, mouth slipping off every few thrust before you whine at the loss and immediately take him back in your throat.
Jack takes pity on both of you, both for his own sanity and because he can’t stop thinking about the fact he’ll need to leave as soon as this is done.
You’re clearly upset when he pulls you off, making a loud noise of disagreement that barely sounds like an actual word and frowning at him when he sends you a stern look and wraps his hand around himself instead.
You seem to forget your anger pretty quickly as you watch him touch himself, hips slowed down to a slow rock against his foot as you stare at his length and the way he’s making himself feel good above you.
Jack has to look away when he comes because he feels pretty close to forcing your head back down and making you swallow it, although half positive you’d actually enjoy that more than him judging by how eager you are to try things.
You’re laying your head back on his thigh while he grunts and curses, tightening his fist and going back to staring at your face just for a brief moment so he has a clearer picture to think about.
It’s quiet in the living room afterwards and he feels an odd sense of embarrassment, a rare vulnerability considering you’re still fully clothed and kneeling on the floor. He fixes one of those problems by effortlessly pulling you up by your arms, settling you back against the cushions.
He stands and pulls his pants up while he does so, knowing he’ll have to shower off before he can go to work and get a new pair of scrubs anyways.
There’s a second of hesitation before he goes to get you some water, leaning over your dazed frame and kissing you softly.
“Was it good?” You ask quietly against his mouth, hand tangling in his hair like you don’t want him to go anywhere without answering you first. “You stopped me.”
“You were perfect.” He answers simply and he means it, would probably feel the same if you had accidentally bit him though.
“I wanted to taste you.” You’re pouting again and every time he thinks he gets used to you, you prove him beyond wrong. He sighs and leans further against you on the couch so you’re fully sinking into the cushion below you.
“Next time.”
It comes out before he can stop it and he fully plans to backtrack but your eyes light up at the idea of him letting you do that again so he doesn’t, letting it linger for a few seconds.
“Not when I have to leave you right after. You won’t like it and I don’t want to hurt you.” He’s talking in the stern and no nonsense way he does at work, trying to make sure you understand even though you’re slowly starting to smile as he speaks and he realizes you’re probably not paying any attention.
“You won’t hurt me Jack.” You whisper and it’s so sweet he almost considers calling in so he can stay with you a little longer. “Not in a way I won’t like.”
That makes him scoff out a laugh, a rare sound from him and you look even more pleased at the noise.
“You don’t even know what you like sweetheart.” He says softly and brushes your hair out of your face, letting both his fingertips and eyes trail down your neck until he reaches your collarbones. “But I’ll show you.”
“You’ll show me?” You’re teasing him now, biting your bottom lip to try and hide your smile to no avail.
“Yeah I will.” He smiles too and kisses you again, a little too soft considering what you actually are to each other.
He eventually manages to get off of you long enough to get you some water, watching carefully as you take a few sips and rubbing your knee when you wince at first. He wants to feel guilty for making your throat sore but he can’t, sick enough to admit he just feels the urge to make you take him deeper next time to see if you’ll really let him.
You’re still laying on his couch when he gets out of his brief shower, having changed his pants and taken a few deep breaths while staring in the mirror to try and get ahold of himself. He needs to switch back to reality for atleast a few hours, become the weathered doctor who doesn’t lose his mind over a pretty girl asking for favors.
You set your phone down on your chest, giving him your full attention as he moves towards the door to tug his shoes on.
There’s no indication you plan to leave before he does but he can’t find it in himself to mind the intrusion, going back over to the couch to give you a kiss on the forehead.
“Staying here?” He says in a low voice and you nod eagerly, eyes locked on his.
He lets himself think about his entire way to work, the image of you being there when he gets home from a hard shift. It had been a long time since he had someone to come home to and having you across the hall was already a gift within itself.
Now you’d crossed a line and if he let himself forget the terms and conditions, the fact you were loosely using him just to end up with somebody else as the actual end goal, then he could pretend for a moment that you were the person he got to crawl into bed with when work was tough.
Despite how much he thought about you during his shift, every moment he wasn’t being bombarded with questions or saving somebody’s life on autopilot, you weren’t actually there when he came back.
He knew it before he even opened the door, confirmed by how neatly the pillows on the couch were placed again and the fact your glass of water was rinsed and put away in the dishwasher.
You’d made it look like you were never even there and he knew you still enjoyed his company, maybe enjoyed the newly added sexual dynamic even more, but that didn’t mean you wanted to comfort him after he lost a patient or help soothe him when his leg was bothering him from standing all day.
Jack had to remind himself of the part he was playing in your life currently and try his best to not be disappointed.
It’s two days until he sees you again and he thinks it’s one of the longest spans you’ve gone without talking in almost a year.
He’s just about to start really acting out of character by banging at your front door and asking if you’re avoiding him when he runs into you downstairs, freezing as soon as he enters the lowly lit laundry room to find you leaning against one of the washers and looking extremely bored.
You’re as beautiful as always, casually dressed in nothing but an old band shirt that hangs off your shoulder and a pair of shorts so small he’s pretty sure it’s just boxy underwear.
You don’t look up when he comes in until his leg slightly catches on the step, accustomed enough to the sound of the light dragging he sometimes can’t stop from happening when he’s extra tired.
It’s a relief to find that you don’t have any awkwardness on your face, no sign of being uncomfortable or upset with him.
Then he figures that might just be worse.
He would just about die if he had done anything that made you want to avoid him but the alternative seems to be that you just didn’t want to speak to him and that makes his chest sting.
There’s nothing but silence and the rattling of the old washer as it rocks back and forth on the cement floor, both of you seemingly having decided to not speak to each other first.
(sorry for the brief awkward spacing tumblr says this is too long)
It’s another five minutes of the now awkward stretch of quiet before you clear your throat, turning to face him where he’s fidgeting with his laundry baskets broken handle just to have something to focus on.
“So I went on a date last night.” You say softly, eyebrows raised like you’re genuinely interested in his reaction.
His stomach turns but it’s a relief to have you looking at him again so he takes it, swallowing hard and racking his brain for a response that’s appropriate.
“How’d it go?” He’s asking out of politeness but he’s silently praying you suddenly decide you don’t want to tell him about it. It wouldn’t even make him feel better to hear it had ended terribly, not wanting you to feel any type of negative emotions even if it technically was in his benefit.
He definitely can’t take any sort of mention of you being with another guy physically. He knows it’s coming eventually, it’s the sole purpose behind why he even gets to touch you, but he’s not ready just yet.
You’re quiet again and he really looks at you now, takes in the silent contemplation on your face and the way you tap your fingers on the metal of the washer for a second before pushing off of it entirely.
Then you’re in his space again and it’s like an instinctive move to cup your face, hand on your waist so he can lightly push you back against the machine he’d been in front of. You touch his chest, lightly rubbing in soft circles, and he wants to sigh in relief if that wouldn’t be so painfully obvious.
“Wasn’t a great time.” You whisper and your eyes are on his lips as you speak.
His eyebrows raise and his hand on your body tightens slightly at the same time he uses his thumb to press under your chin and make you tilt your jaw back.
“Why not?” He hates the thought of getting details but he needs to know some idiot from a dating app hadn’t done anything to hurt you.
You don’t answer right away, just standing there and letting your eyes scan over his features on rotation. You finally let out a small breath like you’re about to speak but it never comes, small hands moving to grip his biceps.
“Did he touch you?” He can’t stop himself from asking even though the question makes his voice come out low enough that your eyes flash with surprise for a second, snapping away from his mouth to meet his stare again like you’re looking for something in it.
You shake your head immediately, squeezing his arms and shifting against the vibrating machine.
He’s kissing you then and he tells himself it’s out of relief, the knowledge that you’re still untouched by anybody except for him instantly making this conversation easier.
You’re returning it right away and he’s pleasantly surprised by how quickly you caught on to the type of kissing he likes, his personal preference. He figures he should eventually tell you that not ever guy was going to like your constant licking into his mouth but for now he lets it be, wants you to be trying to please him specifically and not whoever you’d use these lessons with.
It’s ridiculously cute how desperate you get, only needing a few seconds of your tongue inside his mouth before you’re arching off the machine and making soft noises against his lips.
His hands are all over you as soon as he notices the state of you, sliding down to cup your ass with both palms and tug you tighter to his frame.
That makes you out rightly whimper, clumsily trying to hitch a leg around his waist and sighing in relief when he holds your thigh to keep it there. The wet sounds of your mouths fill the small room, body slightly shaking both from need and from the way the washer is vibrating against your back.
“Missed you.” You whimper it out when he pulls back to let you breathe, kissing down your jaw and tightening his grip on the soft curve hidden under your underwear. “Didn’t call me.”
“Were you waiting for me to call baby?” He asks softly, despite how much it had been bothering him, he would never want to make you feel guilty for not reaching out to him after what you’d done.
You don’t answer so he pulls his head out of your neck to look at your face, seeing the soft frown and the hesitation in your eyes.
“Hey.” He breaths out and pushes your hair back to get your attention fully on him, your body softening and completely leaning against his to the point you’d definitely fall if he took a step backwards. “I wanted to give you space. Let you decide when you wanted to continue this, if you did.”
“I don’t want space.” You counter and it’s a little past bratty but he’s so beyond fond of you that he can’t help but let the corners of his mouth turn up at the sound of it. “You’re supposed to take care of me.”
He’s not sure when your dynamic became this way but he feels it as much as you apparently do, knows it’s his duty to make sure you’re always fine and not needing anything he can’t fix. Now there’s the added element of making you feel good, touching you in ways you’re not used to and showing you what pleasure can be like, and he’s not taking it lightly.
“Then I’ll call.” He say softly and your eyes lock on his as you nod in agreement, his hand cupping your cheek so he can keep you still enough to kiss you briefly. “You want me to chase you and I’ll chase you.”
“Right now I just want you to kiss me.” You whisper and he doesn’t need to hear anything else.
You’re back to kissing and it’s feverish now, more tongue than anything and your hands groping each other anywhere you can touch.
He’s lifting you up off the ground just so he can press himself between your legs and swallow the soft needy noises you let out at the feeling, wrapping your legs tightly around his waist so he can’t pull away at all. You’re pressed back against the metal with his hands under your shirt and wrapped around your frame to make sure you don’t fall, thick fingers splayed out against your ribs.
It’s getting hotter in the room and it’s mostly due to the way you’re whining and trying to roll your hips into him, unsuccessful considering how hard he’s got you pinned back to the washer.
“Jack please.” You pant and pull away from his mouth, tucking into his neck and rubbing your soft cheek against his stubble like a needy cat. “Please touch me. Do anything.”
He’s grunting at the request and gently setting you back down on your feet so he can free up a hand, using it to push your shirt up to your neck. He’s not too surprised to find that you’re not wearing anything underneath and your surprised gasp swallows the sound of his low groan.
You’re whining lewdly when he leans down to press kisses against your skin, middle of your breast first to avoid putting his mouth where you really want it. You’re panting, chest rising and falling under his mouth, and tangling a hand in his ash colored curls to try and steer him where you need him.
He wants to smack your hand away and warn you to be patient but he wants you too bad to try and discipline you right now, letting his mouth latch onto to one of your hard nipples so he can hear whatever noise that brings out of you.
It’s loud and intoxicating, his head spinning a little as he keeps sucking and licking your skin, letting your shirt rest on the top of his head so he can use his other hand to roughly grope your other breast and make sure you’re getting equal attention.
“Oh fuck Jack.” You’re whimpering and trying to hump against nothing, back arching as you whine and hold him to your body like he has any plans of getting away from you. “T-that feels so good.”
“Come upstairs.” His voice is so rough it surprises himself, picking his head off your chest and letting your shirt drop so he can kiss you swiftly.
You frown at the loss of contact, rubbing your nose against his and still lightly petting his hair.
“Why not here?” You ask softly and he gives you a disapproving look that makes you sigh and rest your forehead down against his shoulder for a few seconds while you catch your breath. “It’s too far.”
He thinks for a moment before he’s adjusting his stance to pick you up off the ground, abandoning your laundry and his that both likely need to be switched out soon. He’d gladly let it sit and wash it again later if it means getting you up to his apartment as fast as possible.
You make a small surprised noise and cling to him, arms behind his neck and legs wrapped around his middle and he makes his way up the few stairs towards the elevators.
“Jack your leg.” The sight of the steps seems to remind you of his disability and he’d be more irritated by your worry if it didn’t sound so genuine.
You clearly don’t ever think too much about his leg restricting him, never shying away from asking him to lift heavy things or walk with you down to the store. You don’t treat him like he’s fragile or any less of a man for having limitations and he’s always liked that about you, same way he somehow likes your gentle concern even though it would have bothered him if it was anybody else.
“Think I can’t throw you around because of my leg?” He mumbles and you tense in his hold as he walks like you think he might be serious before you’re breathing out a laugh and hiding in his neck.
Jack finally gets back to his apartment, going crazy from the way you’d started to kiss his jaw and whine impatiently in the elevator. Your hands run up and down his arms like you’re marveling at the strength it takes to carry you for as long as he was, making soft needy noises and squirming around.
He can’t even care about the possibility somebody could see him with you, one of the neighbor he’d lived next to for years watching as Jack Abbot carries the much younger girl next door through his entry way as she whines for him to touch her more.
“Calm down baby.” His voice is soft once he gets to his room, setting you down on his bed and taking a few seconds to stare at you as you lay there and pout up at him.
You’re the most beautiful thing he’s ever seen and his gut twists a little at the observation, a mixture of desperate unfamiliar need and the same guilt from before accompanied by a new layer of it.
He thinks of his wife for the first time in a while. He used to spend every waking second with her on his mind but she had naturally started to fade from his mind once he met you, something he hadn’t even noticed until you’d already been living across the hall for a few months.
You’d came over for the first time and asked him to borrow some ingredients, strolling around his living room and eyeballing the photos on his walls while he poured some sugar into a small tupperware bowl for you to take back to your place. You had turned to him with a curious face and asked him where his wife was, obviously confused considering you’d never heard of her before despite how frequently you and him small talked.
That was the first time Jack noticed how little he’d been thinking of her lately, not just in the painful mourning way he’d been suffering through since she passed but in general too.
Now he was waking up in the morning and anticipating the next time you’d knock on his door, focusing on his health again so he could occupy you on your walks and not picking up too many extra shifts at work just incase you needed something and he wasn’t there.
Jack was thinking about her again now as you laid on his bed but only because he couldn’t remember the last time he had wanted something this bad, trying to compare the feeling of you to how he felt in his marriage and still thinking it fell short.
He had loved his wife, undoubtedly, but he craved you in a way that almost felt inhumane.
“You’re being mean to me.” You say softly to break him out of his trance, having zoned out just staring down at you and the way your chest was rising and falling with every deep breath.
“I’m never mean to you honey.” He whispers back and finally moves to lay down with you, hovering over your frame and running a hand from your waist to your ribs as he kisses you softly. “I take good care of you, don’t I?”
It’s a bit mean to throw your words from earlier back in your face, especially as he lets his mouth trail down your neck. You make a whiny noise and grip his shoulders, nodding your head and shifting under him so your legs are spread further.
“Yes Jack yes, you take care of me.” You’re practically whimpering and he feels almost drunk from how easily you get this needy, pausing his soft kisses to shift up on his knees and tug your shirt over your head.
You’re the prettiest sight he’s ever seen and he can’t help himself from bringing his mouth right back to your chest, drinking in the way you gasp and moan while he’s licking and sucking on your nipples. His other hand is softly groping whichever breast he doesn’t have his mouth on at the moment and your backs arching off his bed, scratching his shoulders through his shirt.
“Please touch me.” You’re begging after only a few minutes of the slow torture and he lets out a sharp breath, shifting so he’s more to the side of you than on top.
You’re quiet when he rubs his hand down your chest and over your stomach, rubbing at the waistband of your underwear for a few seconds just to hear the way you pant before he’s smoothing over your thighs.
Your back is basically against his chest as he hooks your leg over his to make sure yours are nice and spread for him, kissing your neck softly when he rubs your hips above your underwear.
You bare your neck for him easily and he’s selfish in the way he marks you, sucking any part of your warm skin he can reach so you’re left purple and red all over. He wants anybody you see for the next week or two to know you’ve been with somebody else, to see the claim he laid to your body even if he doesn’t let things go as far as you want him to take it.
Jack doesn’t need to be asked twice to touch you, big hand leaving your hip so he can fully palm your core.
Your reaction is just the way he had hoped it would be, sharp gasp leaving your lips as you instantly buck up against his touch. You whine desperately when he goes back to rubbing your thigh instead, giving you a second to work yourself up to the point he wants you to be at.
“Jack.” You don’t even sound like yourself now and it’s intoxicating, so pleading and broken. “Please.”
“Please what?” He’s practically whispering, perfectly calm and the direct opposite of how broken you sound just from him lightly touching you.
He moves you so you’re fully between his legs, back against his chest as he cages himself around you to keep you from moving.
You’re practically shaking, whimpering and moving your hips against nothing with the hopes he’ll cave and end up touching you again. You’re distracting to look at, body bare except for the pathetic excuse of underwear shorts you’d been wearing under your shirt, like you’d just been hoping he would be the one to find you in the laundry mat.
He has half the thought to make fun of you for that, make you tell him exactly what you were thinking when you left your apartment wearing so little, but he doesn’t think you could handle him saying much at all right now especially not something so demeaning.
“I’m going to touch you.” He says gently instead and kisses the side of your head, letting his hand go back to groping your chest just to make sure you stay worked up.
Even though he doubts at this point he even needs to touch you for that to happen.
“Yeah yeah.” You’re nodding in agreement, seemingly pleased at his decision as you relax back against him and let him touch you freely.
His other hands back between your legs now, letting you get used to the feeling of somebody touching you where you’re most sensitive. He’s just rubbing back and forth, listening to the way you pant and pulling back whenever you start to try and shift against his hand on your own.
“You’re wet just from that?” His voice is a little mean now but you don’t seem to mind, trying to clamp your thighs around his hand but being stopped by the sharp swat he sends to your skin. You wince but move your foot back to the other side of his leg so yours stay open, pouting softly at the silent punishment. “Answer me when I ask you something.”
“I’m always wet around you.” You admit with an embarrassed tone lacing your words, squirming like you wish you could hide yourself from the way he’s staring down at your body. “Want you so bad.”
“I want you too.” He kisses the side of your head, still rubbing you with just enough pressure to make you feel the friction but not to actually get off. “Gonna make you feel so good, you’ve just got to be patient.”
“Stop being scared to hurt me.” Your voice is shaky but as firm as possible, trying to show him you’re a big girl and can handle a little bit of the roughness he’s so clearly holding back.
It’s obvious in the way he was grabbing your throat your first kiss, moving your body around easily whenever he needed to, and scolding you just enough for you to be able to catch the mean tone seeping in accidentally.
Jack clearly has a darker side to him that he’s not letting you see and it’s obviously frustrating you, wanting to be taken seriously.
“I’ll hurt you if that’s what you want sweetheart but not for your first time.” His words don’t leave any room for argument so you don’t even try, sinking back against his firm chest and letting out a deep breath when he shifts behind you and presses himself forward.
It’s not long before you’re not able to wait anymore and he lets you scramble to tug down your underwear, keeping his fingers lightly rubbing between your folds and watching as you struggle to get the fabric past his insistent hand.
Eventually he lets you pull them off and then he’s right back to touching you, bare this time. You both suck in a breath at the contact and you’re practically laying down from how far you’d slid down his chest, spreading your legs as wide as they can go and whimpering while he touches you.
“Do you touch yourself like this baby?” He can’t help the curiosity, the image of you in your bed trying to get yourself off stuck in his mind now.
You shake your head and frown, trying to twist your neck to look at him but being stopped when he uses his free hand to roughly grip your chin and make you keep your eyes on the way he’s touching you, thumb on your sensitive clit now while you roll your hips the best you can.
“No I…” You can barely think let alone speak, clearly struggling as you make a pained and desperate noise. “I get nervous.”
Jack sighs and collects some of your wetness on his middle finger before finally pressing it against the tightness of your hole, not pushing in just yet but teasing it with light pressure and letting you get used to the feeling.
“When you’re with somebody, they should always be this gentle with you at first.” He’s saying softly, remembering that he’s supposed to be actually teaching you something and not just getting you off because he desperately wants to.
You frown deeply as he starts to talk and he doesn’t really understand why, thinks maybe you’re still being pouty that he won’t get rougher with you.
He tries to distract you by finally pressing a finger inside of you and it seems to work for a second, another gasp leaving you as you instinctively clench around the intrusion. He groans, his length throbbing against your back at the thought of being fully inside you instead of just a finger.
“Fuck you’re tight.” He rasps and buries his face in your hair for a few seconds to try and collect himself enough to keep teaching you something, anything at all so he doesn’t keep letting himself think this is something it isn’t. “They’ll have to really get you stretched before anything okay? You need to remember that baby.”
It bothers him so much he can barely focus, the thought of somebody not taking their time with you. He doesn’t want to picture you with another man in general but especially not in a way that hurts you, leaves you too sore the next morning with nobody to take care of you.
He’s so distracted by his own thoughts that he doesn’t notice your face stiffening at first, body a little tenser against him even though you’re still softly squirming to try and get him to put his finger deeper inside you.
“Jack stop.”
He does so immediately and goes to pull out of you before you’re making a panicked noise and closing your thighs around his hand. He lets you this time, pauses all movements just to wait for whatever it is that you need.
“N-no don’t stop that, god please don’t stop that.” Your voice is breathier now like the thought of him taking his hand away from you makes your chest tighten. “Just… stop talking about anyone else.”
It takes him a few seconds to register that and then his hands moving again, enough for you to relax and spread your legs back open.
You’re both quiet now as he adds another finger, lingering in the weight of your request and what it could mean if anything. He’s half sure you only asked because it was pulling you out of the moment, maybe making you nervous to think about doing this again with actual stakes, but the way you desperately tried to stop him from pulling away lets him pretend it was for another reason.
He’s selfish in the way he touches you now, thick fingers moving in and out of you while you cry and whine, gripping at his forearm whenever it feels like too much. He likes the way your nails dig into his arm when you think you might be close, thighs clenching and shifting when his thumb gently circles your swollen clit and how your lips part in breathy cries of his name.
He especially likes that.
You come with moans of his name filling the room and nobody else’s after you’d specifically asked him to stop mentioning other guys. Jack knows it’s selfish, even a little sick and perverted, but he could probably finish just from hearing that.
He’s throbbing against your back and he’s sure you’d be able to feel it if you were able to focus on anything after coming, body shaking a little as you pant endlessly and fall limb in his hold.
There’s a lot of softness that comes after, kissing the side of your head and being gentle in the way he cleans you up. It’s torture to be between your legs and getting to fully appreciate the sight of you for the first time without be able to touch you more but he doesn’t want to overstimulate you so early on.
He does let himself think about that vividly though, kissing against your thighs and picturing when he’s going to be able to put his mouth on you.
You’re quiet above him, eyes a little tired but still overly soft as you run your fingers through his hair and watch him wipe you down.
Then he’s back ontop of you and kissing you softly, shifting your back so you’re laying back against the pillows and not sitting up. It’s soft and bordering on romantic which makes his chest tighten, hoping you have no plans to leave his bed anytime soon.
“You okay?” He asks quietly against your mouth and he can feel you smiling, still touching his hair with one hand and letting the other drift down to the back of his neck.
“Felt so good.” You whisper back and your voice is a little hoarse from all the whining you’d been doing, nose bumping against his and then rubbing on his stubble for a few seconds. “Can I take a nap here?”
“You can do anything you want.” He says immediately, no hesitation as he gets up to get you one of his shirts and help you get comfortable, jumping at the opportunity to keep you with him just like he wanted.
Jack typically has a hard time sleeping through the night in general so he definitely never naps, needing to be truly past the brink of exhaustion to ever rest.
Yet he finds it to be the most simple thing in the world to crawl into his bed with you after taking off his leg, kissing you for a few more minutes before he’s wrapping you in his arms and tugging you back against his chest. He’s rubbing your stomach softly, hand under the shirt he’s given you, listening intently until he hears your breathing even out and then drifting to sleep right after you.
—
It’s one of the highlights of his decade to get to wake up with you still there, warm and making soft tired noises when you feel him start to stir.
His room is dark now other than the slight illumination coming from the moon outside of his window, casting just enough light for him to be able to watch your eyes flutter open.
You give him a soft sleepy smile and instinctively lean in to give him a kiss.
It’s easy to pretend that you are more than whatever this is when you act like this, mouths moving together sensually as if you have nowhere else you’d want to be.
Jack groans softly when your tongue pushes into his mouth, meeting it eagerly with his own and moving so hes hovering over you. Your hands are on his back, spreading your legs below him to let him slot between them.
He feels like a teenager again from how quickly he gets hard, your soft body under his putting him under some sort of spell. His hips shift and you let out a needy whine, scratching his shoulders lightly like you’re trying to encourage him.
You’re still making out slowly when he starts to thrust down against you, slow rolls of his hips to give you just enough friction to start to get desperate.
You’re tugging at his shirt fabric and he takes only a second to sit up and pull it over his head, back on you immediately and kissing you even more frantically. He’s moving your own shirt up towards your ribs but neither one of you wants to stop long enough to take it off, only able to when you need a quick second to take a breath.
It’s the first time you’ve both been nearly undressed together and he feels the effects of it instantly, your chest pressing against his when he lays back over you. Your skin is soft and hot to the touch, those now familiar soft whines leaving you when he lets his hand knead at your chest again.
“Jack please.” You’re whimpering and he finally stops kissing you in favor of sucking at your neck, bringing those marks from earlier back to the surface. “Can’t you just fuck me?”
He groans at the words and has to tuck his face in your shoulder, still rocking his hips against you even though they stuttered when you said that in that whiny voice of yours.
“Trust me, I want to fuck you so bad I can’t even think.” It leaves his mouth before he can stop it, not wanting to reject you again without making sure you know how badly he wants you.
“Then do it.” You’re begging now and he picks his head up to look at you, eyes wide and a little frustrated like you know he’s going to say no. You gasp when he thrusts down even harder, biting your lip as you stare at each other desperately. “Please Jack? Want you inside me.”
“I can’t baby.” He growls and kisses you to give himself a second to think without you arguing.
You’re quick to forget you were trying to convince him of something because you’re kissing him back deeply, angling your head so his tongue can get further and further inside your mouth.
He has that sick and perverted thought again that he’s coincidentally training you to be the perfect girl for him, kissing in a way he likes and not knowing how else to do it. Jack is selfish and wants everything you do to be for him, wants your body to instinctively move and react how he taught you regardless of who gets you next.
The thought of somebody else makes him want to forget his morals and fuck you like you’re begging him, be the one to take your virginity and fill you up for the first time.
He starts to reason with himself that it would actually be a good thing because Jack would never let himself hurt you in a way you didn’t like, he’d make sure you felt good around him and came so hard you weren’t able to see straight.
There’s nobody else who could fuck you like he could so he’s almost convinced himself that it’s a good idea when your phone rings on the nightstand.
You both stop, you’re completely tense under him and he sighs as he kisses you one more time and rolls off of you.
He lays there on his back as you sit up to grab your phone, screen a little too bright in the dark room and causing you to wince. He stares at your pretty face under the light as you open it up and answer it, not thinking much about the interruption despite the small disappointment he feels.
His hand is on your bare knee and rubbing your skin is soft circles, soothing both you and himself by keeping the contact.
“Hello?” Your voice is as soft and sweet as always, a little confused sounding which makes his eyebrows raise. “Oh Carter.”
Jack tenses up at the sound of a males name leaving your lips, his hand freezing and falling still on your knee. You’re avoiding looking at him as you listen to whoever it is speak on the other line, a deep voice bleeding through the speakers just enough for him to hear but not enough to make out the words.
“Tonight?” Your eyes go to the small digital clock on Jacks side of the bed, having to glance over his body in the process. You meet his eyes just for a second before they’re darting away again and it makes the pit in his stomach grow in understanding. “Of course I didn’t forget. I’ll be ready by nine.”
You’re hanging up after a quiet goodbye and now it’s suffocatingly silent in the room.
You’re still sitting up with your legs crossed under you, avoiding looking at him like you’re not still wearing his shirt and covered in marks he’d given to you. He waits for a minute before he’s sitting up and running a hand over his face, on the opposite side of the bed from you and facing the wall so you can’t see his expression when he finally gets himself to speak.
“You’ve got a date tonight?” He rasps out, trying his best to sound unaffected even though it comes out low and tight.
“I forgot.” You whisper back and you sound further away now, a glance over his shoulder confirms that you’d stood up off the bed and are searching for the shirt you’d shown up in so you can swap out of his. “He’s taking me to some art show downtown.”
Jack stares at you as you move around the room, eyes scanning over your body when you pull his shirt over your head and neatly fold it before putting it on his dresser. It feels really final to watch you change back into your own clothes, turning to meet his eyes and letting out a soft sigh when you see he’s already watching you closely.
He hopes it doesn’t show on his face, doesn’t want to be too obvious that he’s probably about two seconds away from throwing up.
“Carter.” He says simply and now you really stiffen.
You stand there for a few seconds like you’re waiting for something, eyes a little expectant and then full on disappointed when he scoffs and moves to put his leg back on so he can stand up and get out of the room that’s suddenly suffocating.
You leave his apartment and all the warmth goes with you.
He stands in his dark kitchen with regret sitting heavy on his chest, wishing he had stopped you and asked you to stay with him instead.
He isn’t sure if it’s the fear of rejection or his own guilt that stopped him but he knew he couldn’t ask you to do that. You deserved better than him and his baggage, his late hours at work and his dangerous hobbies that he needed to keep himself busy with to not think about the things that sent him spiraling.
He couldn’t imagine forcing you into a life where you had to explain him to your friends and family, ignore the curious and judging looks from his own when they realized just how young you were.
Jack knew you were lonely, it was obvious considering how much time you willingly spent with him and it was bad enough he’d taken advantage of your desperation for connection and nearly slept with you.
He wouldn’t be able to forgive himself if he stopped you from enjoying your youth, having a fun late night in the city surrounded by artsy people your age and not stuck on his couch watching old reruns because he’s too tired after work to properly take you out.
Jack hates himself for thinking all this and then still obsessively wanting you.
So much so that he purposely lingers near his truck right around the time you’d told your date you’d be ready. In his defense, he did actually need a few things from the corner store, so he sat in the parking lot and waited until he saw you come down.
Your date met you at the entrance of the lobby but didn’t take your purse from you or the jacket you were holding, smiled at you politely but couldn’t be bothered to open the door of his car or even wait for you to get in before he did.
It made Jack sick to his stomach all over again, jaw clenched as he sat in the dark interior of his truck and watched you drive off with some asshole only an hour after he’d had you sleeping next to him, panting under him and begging him to fuck you.
Jack decides right then that it all needs to stop, not just the sex lessons but helping you in general. He can’t be that person for you without wanting more, he’s selfish and possessive over somebody that was never supposed to be his and he knows it’s not fair to you.
So he doesn’t answer any of your texts that night, stays quiet in his living room whenever you knock on his door and waits until he hears you leave for work before he goes to check the mail.
He feels terrible for avoiding you but keeps trying to convince himself it’s in your best interest.
Jack is half asleep when the silent treatment finally breaks.
He’d fallen asleep on his couch accidentally, a beer can too many on the table in front of him and the same movie he’d been watching beforehand starting to roll credits. He should have been in bed sleeping after pulling a double at work but he couldn’t stand being in there lately, tossing and turning and trying to catch the faint scent of you lingering on his pillows.
There was a second of confusion, not sure why he had waken up in the first place, until the sharp knocks on his door made him flinch.
He was standing up on autopilot to open it, wincing at how stiff and sore his leg felt from falling asleep with it still on.
Any thought of his pain was gone the second he opened his door and saw your face, tears on your cheeks and your eyebrows furrowed in frustration.
“I need to talk to you.” You said immediately and he ushered you into his apartment, not necessarily wanting to be in an enclosed space with you but recognizing your tearful voice was far too loud to have a conversation in the hallway.
“What’s wrong?” He said softly and takes a few steps towards you on instinct, cradling your cheek and staring down at you when you nuzzle against his touch. “Why are you crying?”
“Because you’re an asshole.” You seem to remember that you’re mad at him because you step away from his touch, pushing his arm back down to his side and storming further into his apartment.
He stands there completely frozen as you toss your purse onto the chair near the couch, your eyes scanning over the beer cans and the obvious indent of where he’d been sleeping.
Then you’re back to looking at him and he knows what he probably looks like to you. The exhaustion is obvious on his face, clothes a little baggier than normal from a lack of taking care of himself and a constant awkward shifting on his leg to keep pressure off of it.
“Why aren’t you talking to me?” Your voice cracks a little and he deflates, taking a few steps closer again even though he doesn’t think you want him to touch you. “Did I do something wrong?”
“What?” His face faces in disbelief at the idea you could ever do anything wrong in general, especially to him. “Of course you didn’t sweetheart.”
“Then why?” Your words are louder now and they linger in the tense air, face pained as you wait for him to answer.
He sighs and runs a hand over his stubble that desperately needs some maintenance, wishes he had the time to plan out everything he wanted to say to you so he doesn’t accidentally fuck it up more than he already had.
“I just… I can’t do it anymore.” He lets his hands fall to his sides with a loud defeated clap and shrugs his shoulders. “I can’t watch you go out with these idiots knowing they can’t take care of you.”
He hopes what he’s trying to say is an obvious to you as it is to him, not able to bring himself to actually voice the fact that he has feelings for you beyond helping out a neighbor.
“You didn’t stop me.” You sound devastated, head shaking like you don’t believe anything he’s saying to you.
You’re not crying anymore thankfully but you look so hurt and disappointed that it makes him physically ache, moving to grab your arm softly and guide you to sit down on the couch with him.
“I waited for you to stop me and you didn’t.” You continue once you’re sitting beside him, legs pressed together in a small amount of addicting content. “Isn’t it obvious by now that I only want to be with you?”
The words hit him so hard that he doesn’t even have time to process them, eyebrows furrowing as the need for more information pushes him to speak.
“Why would that be obvious? The entire point of this was for you to be ready for other people.”
You look a little embarrassed at his sound logic, staring down at your lap where your hands are fiddling with your fingers. He sighs and takes one of them in his, squeezing it softly until you let your gaze drift back up to his.
“I don’t want other people.” You whisper, staring at him with a small amount of hope in your eyes like you’re just waiting for him to understand. “And I don’t want you to be with anyone else either. I just figured… you wouldn’t cross that line without a good reason.”
Jack thinks it’s a little juvenile of a plan but he also knows you’re not wrong. He would have never touched you without the feeling of helping you out with something, no matter how much he had wanted you since the second you moved in.
That little lie was all he needed to get himself through the shame and guilt, the ability to pretend it was for a greater cause and not because he was sick and desperate for a girl half his age.
“Jack.” You sigh when he doesn’t respond for a few seconds, turning so you can face him better and press a soft kiss to the side of his jaw. “Stop thinking.”
“That’s a big ask.” He mumbles back but he gladly turns to give you a real kiss, holding your face in his hand and keeping your mouth against his.
You kiss until you run out of breath, pulling back from him but rubbing your nose against his and letting your small hands grip his forearm desperately.
“Then just be with me for tonight.” You try to reason with him in any way you can, rubbing his arm softly and blinking at him with those big pretty eyes that drive him so crazy.
He stares at you for a moment before he’s standing up off the couch and tugging you along with him, ignoring the little surprised noise you make in favor of lifting you up with his hands on the back of your thighs. You gasp and then giggle softly once he’s got you in the air, arms behind his neck and legs around his middle as he starts to walk you to his room.
“You’re crazy if you think you’re going anywhere after tonight.” He tells you once he gets you settled on his bed, kissing the smile off your face as he climbs over you.
It’s a direct mirror of the other night as you get each other undressed fully this time, kissing the entire time and tasting his tongue deep in your mouth when it starts to get more heated.
“You’re going to be mine.” He says firmly once he’s got you in nothing but your panties, making sure your eyes are locked on his when you hear it. His free hand is all over your body, rubbing from your smooth thigh up to your chest and cupping around your neck for a brief moment while he waits for you to respond. “If I fuck you then you’re mine.”
“I’ve been yours.” You whisper easily, like you didn’t have to put any thought into it.
He falters, hand tightening around your throat on instinct and then releasing the pressure when he sees the way your eyes light up with interest.
“Don’t be nasty baby.” He’s teasing, kissing the corner of your mouth and bringing your leg up so it’s around his waist and he can press himself against you. “Gonna be gentle with you for your first time. You deserve it.”
“I want you to fuck me.” You’re pouting and gripping at him impatiently, running your hand between your bodies to touch his stomach and fidget with the waistband of his boxers. “That’s what I want Jackie.”
“Didn’t ask what you wanted.” He grumbles back, not caring that it comes off a little mean because you whine at the sound of how rough his voice had gotten and he knows you like it.
He’s back to kissing you and it’s filthier than normal, more tongue and spit than anything else.
You’re as vocal as always, whining and begging impatiently when he gets your underwear off and starts to touch you again.
Jack can barely think straight when he’s back inside of you, fingers pushing in easier this time now that you’ve felt the intrusion before and know what to expect. You’re gasping and crying out immediately, unintelligible words that he blocks out in favor of focusing on how you feel when he’s stretches you out.
“Want it so bad.” Your near sob gets through to him and he hisses through clenched teeth at how wrecked you sound already, shushing you softly and kissing your cheeks to try and calm you down.
“I know baby I know.” He’s whispering but you don’t seem to be hearing him, spreading your legs further to try and make space for him to slot back between them instead of using his fingers.
Jack is just as impatient as you but he’s terrified of hurting you too early, although throbbing so hard in his boxers that it’s painful to shift around.
It’s not long before it’s too much prep for both of you and you’re watching him with your chest heaving as he gets himself undressed the rest of the way, leg going on the floor right alongside your underwear that he had slowly pulled down your body before climbing back over you.
Your eyes go down between your bodies where his leg is and he tenses for a second despite knowing you mean well with the concern you have on your face.
“Let me ride you.” You say softly and his chest tightens with that old familiar shame he was still actively working on ridding himself of.
“I can fuck you.” He says gruffly and your eyes flash with regret, pouting a little like you’re worried you’ve hurt his feelings with your thoughtful suggestion. He kisses the expression off your face, a long deep one followed by a few quick pecks to try and ease your mind. “Next time baby.”
He says it both because he knows realistically he has limitations, there will be plenty of nights he’s not able to rail you into his mattress like he wants to, but also because he knows he would die a happy man the second he got to see you bouncing on top of him and desperately trying to get yourself off.
You look like you want to argue but you’re stopped when he’s pushing your legs apart and moving between them, sharp gasp leaving you when you feel his hard length pressing against you finally.
“Fuck Jack.” Your voice is sharp and already a little pained just from the dull sensation of him lining up with your hole, a growl leaving him at the sound of your distress.
“Just relax baby.” He says as softly as he can even though his throat feels tight and raw, kissing you gently to try and get you to calm down enough for him to push in. “You’re too tight sweetheart.”
“I… I can’t.” You let out another sharp cry when he shifts forward, nails digging into his shoulders so deep it makes him wince and lower his head down on your shoulder.
Jack has to use every ounce of self control he can muster to not just fully push himself into you and feel that tight heat he’s getting a taste of, that same sick and selfish part of him that wants you in the first place begging him to just take you already.
Instead he takes a few deep breaths before he’s kissing you with more focus, going back and forth between softly rubbing your side and massaging your inner thigh to try and urge your body to relax and accommodate him.
It’s a torturous ten minutes, especially due to your soft whimpers and the way you cry his name whenever he accidentally moves himself deeper.
Then you’re finally calm enough, bare chest rising and falling with the deep breaths he’d instructed you to take.
“Want you inside Jack.” You’re whining in his ear, clinging to him tightly and almost suffocating him when he immediately takes your queue and pushes in. You tense up again at the brief surge of pain and then let out a satisfied cry when you feel how full you are, clenching around him so ridiculously that he almost needs to pull out to give himself a break despite barely starting.
You’re both too overwhelmed to speak much more once he starts to actually fuck you, deep thrust accompanied by filthy kisses to keep you from waking up the neighbors with how desperately you’re whining for him to keep giving you more.
It’s pure need on both ends, your hips eagerly rocking upwards to try and meet his thrust sloppily while he uses his free hand to roughly push down on your stomach and keep you in place.
“Jackie.” It’s nearly a sob from you now and he can tell you’re close from how much tighter you’d gotten, almost an impossible squeeze for him to keep fucking you through.
He’s grateful you’re so inexperienced because he doesn’t think he’d last long either, not with the way you look as you stare up at him with teary and trusting eyes.
“I know baby you’re doing so good for me.” It’s more of a growl than anything else but he can barely think let alone speak enough to keep encouraging you. “Taking me so well sweetheart.”
“I’m so full Jack.” You whimper and cling to him tighter, nearly pulling him fully down on top of you and knocking him off his balance. “Feels so good.”
You’re stuttering through your sentences and slurring each word, eyes a little dazed in a way that makes him need to squeeze his shut to avoid coming inside you just from that fucked out look you have.
It’s more sweet than heated when you actually do finally reach your peak, holding onto him still and kissing the side of his jaw softly with your face buried in his neck as you squirm and shake your way through your orgasm.
He stays inside of you for as long as he can so you’re not shocked from the sudden feeling of emptiness but you’re squeezing him too tight and he has to pull out as soon as you’re starting to relax. You whimper immediately at the lose and pick your head up to pout at him, eyes panicked like you’re genuinely distressed he didn’t finish inside you.
He shushes you gently and kisses your face over and over, rubbing your side as he lets you fully come back to reality before attempting to clean either of you up or get you dressed.
“Jack.” You’ve got the needy and frustrated tone he loves so much and he knows you’re not dropping it, meeting your eyes with a fond sigh as you glance down at where he’d came instead of inside you.
“Next time.” He promises again and he means it, fully intending to have that conversation with you ahead of time now that he’s got you like this.
Jack isn’t too opposed to the idea of getting you pregnant, not even sure he’s able to with the amount of pills he takes, but he has to push down that thought along with the rest of the sick ones he gets when he looks at your needy eyes.
You smile a little at the loose promise and tuck yourself back into his shoulder, soothing any concern he has about what just happened or how you’re supposed to operate going forward.
He’s undoubtedly the luckiest guy in the world to have you wanting him like this, feeling safe in his arms and desperate for him in the way he’d been for you since the second he laid eyes on you.
Jack was never the type of person to take the duty of taking care of somebody lightly and he doesn’t plan to let you down for even a second, kissing the top of your head softly and letting himself forget about any shame or insecurity just to hold you for awhile longer.
So as a chronically online girlie I've definitely seen the discourse surrounding a Pitt night shift spin-off, and specifically how Noah Wyle doesn't think there's a story there.
*insert Thanos voice here* Fine, I'll do it myself.
What if I told you I was writing a full pilot spec script for a Pitt night shift spin-off?? Because I am, complete with rigorous medical research, detailed outlining, etc. etc. Anyway, the second the draft is done, I'll be posting the fuck out of it!! My thinking is we get enough traction, the writers will have to listen. Plus, at the very least, it's good practice.
Sidebar, if you're new to my page, hi, I'm Jo! I'm an aspiring screenwriter and fiction author and fanfic writer and fangirl making my interests the internet's problem. So anyway, follow me on my journey to become a traditionally published writer and filmmaker :)
And also, stay tuned for The Pitt: After Hours pilot!
ᴋɪɴᴋᴛᴏʙᴇʀ ᴠᴏʟ. ᴠɪ. october 6th, 2025. feat. matthew murdock aka daredevil. catholic guilt turned eroticism. blasphemous prayers. candle wax. incorrect use of holy oil. blindfolding. cockwarming. begging. matt murdock/gf!reader. takes place during the original daredevil series where foggy is happy and alive and not in this but I refuse to grieve him rn.
The words spill from your mouth before you can think twice about it. You're not sure Matt is even still awake. Unlike him, you're not blessed with enhanced senses. Just because he can hear your heart doesn't mean you can hear his. But his breaths don't seem heavy, the way they do when he's down for the count. You take that as a sign.
"What is it, sweetheart?" comes his reply from the dark.
"How do you believe in God?" you ask. The unspoken part of the question is an insecurity you haven't found a means to voice. Does it bother you that I don't? you'd ask, if you were brave.
"I just do," he replies.
You sigh. It's such a simple response, yet it's basically a non-answer. Lawyers. "How can you believe in something you can't see?"
He smiles wryly, and the shadow of amusement on his lips is visible even in the dark. Probably because of the neon sign right outside the apartment. "I can't see anything, honey."
"You know what I mean."
"I'm sure you've heard of Pascal's Wager, yes?"
"Mhm." In other words, what do you have to lose by believing in God?
"I choose to believe in something greater than myself as a means of accountability. Sure, there's the religious upbringing thing, but there's also..." he pauses. "You. And Foggy. And the accident." He gestures faintly at his unseeing eyes. "Those things fell into place so precisely, I have to believe in miracles."
"Well, I don't believe in God," you muse, "But I think something led me to you."
"I think we all have different ways of viewing the world, life. And sure, sometimes we call forces beyond us by different names, but it's all the same, isn't it?"
"It's really sexy when you philosophize, Matthew."
He grins, leaning in to kiss you. His body starts to crest over yours, like a wave about to break. "Mmm, is it?"
Your breath hitches. "You gonna talk theology to me?"
He chuckles. "No, not tonight." But he kisses you with a conviction that feels like scripture, like he's carving divine truth into stone. His tongue parts your lips, and you melt beneath him, whimpering as his teeth pull at your lower lip before he breaks the kiss.
"What's it like?"
"What? Believing in God?"
"Being blind," you clarify.
His voice drops low, getting husky. Matt Murdock has one hell of a sex voice, and it's like an electroshock down your spine when it rumbles out of his mouth. "Would you like to find out?"
A thrill skips through your bloodstream, pooling heat between your legs. You nod into another searing, bruising kiss. He chuckles. "Give me a moment."
He returns a couple of seconds later with one of his ties, a familiar pattern you gifted him last Christmas. Slowly, he fastens it over your eyes, securing it into place behind your head.
You hear him rummaging through a drawer, then the familiar pulse of a lighter as he flicks it on. You can't smell any wax burning, which means he's either an arsonist or lighting a taper candle. You trust him, even if he's left you sexually frustrated and squirming on the bed, waiting.
When Matt finally comes back to your side, he's peppering sweet kisses to your collarbone as he unbuttons your pajama shirt, working it off your arms. You feel the cool air against your nipples before his mouth finds one, sucking the peak between his lips, working you just right as his hand wanders down the slope of your stomach, untying your pajama bottoms with deft fingers. In a single motion, you're naked, the chilly air breezing through your bare lower half. You can feel the wetness pooling between your legs, probably onto the sheets.
"Let the flame that burns symbolize my devotion to you. A reminder that, of the reasons I believe in God, none are as important as the existence of you."
You're grateful for the blindfold, because the sweetness of his words, spoken with such reverence, is enough to take you apart. At this rate, you'll be crying from two different places when he's done with you.
"Despite my inability to see," Matt begins, his voice decadent and sexy and torturous, "I feel other things with increased sensitivity."
There's a small shift in his tone. Still Matt, still hungry, but softer too. You're his own sacrament. "May the light that was lit before us and the Lord remain burning in our hearts eternally." You feel the air shift as he moves something in front of your face. "Blow."
You do.
Then you feel the wax start to drip. You can't see where he holds the candle, but you can feel the path it traces. It's not too hot, not burning you, and the sensation of the warmth landing in droplets on your skin makes your thighs shake.
"So beautiful," he murmurs. "So perfect."
His voice gets further away. A soft thump comes from beside the bed, before hands curl around your knees and yank you to the edge. Cool air fans across your pussy before his hot breath does.
"Jesus," he swears. "You smell so delicious I can practically already taste you."
You gasp, toes curling. He spreads your legs, guiding them over his shoulders.
"I kneel here at your service," he says, pressing a gentle kiss to each of your inner thighs. "I am devoted to you. Bless us, O Lord, and these thy gifts which we are about to receive from thy bounty through Christ our Lord."
His tongue finds your clit, and you coo "Amen" before you can't form words anymore. He devours you with masterful strokes of his tongue between your folds, following the seam of your cunt up and down, applying just the right amount of pressure to your clit. When his nose brushes your clit, his tongue fucking in and out of you, you can imagine his face, feel the warmth of the last of the wax as it dribbles and dries on your tits. When you cum, he drinks it down like holy wine. Keeps working you until you're trembling.
Slowly, his hands come up to your face, untying the blindfold. When it falls away, you find him shirtless, his cock straining against his black boxer briefs. He smiles at you, like he already knows what you're going to ask.
Your eyes fall on the bedside table. At the candles, specifically for wax play, the condoms you haven't used since you got an IUD, the vibrator he's used a few times to obliterate you, and a small bottle of something unfamiliar.
"What's this?" You shake it ever so slightly.
He cocks his head, listening. Then, "Holy Oil."
"What do you use it for?"
"Anointing bodies, for burial mostly, but for guests too."
"Why is it in your sex drawer?"
His mouth splinters into a wry smile. "You're a smart girl, sweetheart."
You blush at his praise, handing him the bottle. "Anoint me then."
He drips a little on your hands, smoothing the droplets across your wrists. He brushes a little on your forehead too, so tender you could cry. Sometimes, Matt's love for you is so loud, even wordless, that it nearly overtakes you emotionally.
"I anoint you for protection," he says, "And to denote you as that which is most sacred to me."
"I love you, too," you whisper.
He kisses you again, spreading you open on the bed once more. When he frees his cock from his boxers, you eagerly spread your legs, hungry for more, but he stops you. The blunt head of his cock smacks your clit, and you groan, but he doesn't move forward, doesn't give you anything more. He waits.
"Matt," you plead.
He shakes his head, shushing you. "Not yet."
"But—"
"I can't see you," he interrupts, "but I can feel you. And I want to feel you properly before I fuck you until you see God."
He's borrowing your turn of phrase, which you uttered the first time you slept together. When you were boneless and spent, and he asked you if you were alright, you said, "Matt, I think I just saw God."
And then he made you find Him again by waking you up with his head between your thighs.
From that moment on, you'd loved him, and you knew he loved you. He could be both the Devil of Hell's Kitchen and Matthew Murdock, the sweet, altruistic lawyer who believed people were good and the divine was reachable. You loved him in every color, every hue.
Slowly, he pushes into you, stretching you inch by inch until he's seated fully inside you, as deep as he can get. You feel him in your lower stomach, plunging all the way to your cervix. Without trying, he's got his cock colliding with all those special, gummy spots that make fireworks explode behind your eyelids.
You gasp as he waits there, feeling, stretching, claiming.
"How could I not believe in God?" he rasps. "When you were fucking made for me?"
"Matt, please—"
He rolls his hips, pulling back before snapping them forward again, and you cry out. Your bodies collide over the sheets, your hands in his hair, raking down his back. He fills you up completely, and you realize he's got a point—the two of you fit together so well it has to be destiny. There's nothing else to it. He pulls one of your legs a little higher, a new angle letting him bury himself even deeper, and you're coming before you even realize it. Matt's thumb strokes your clit, working you through it—no, keeping you in it. Waves of pleasure roll through you in a loop, and you're so high you don't think you'll ever come down. You might be crying, you might be screaming. You don't know, because all you can think and feel is Matthew Murdock.
When he finds his release, following you over the edge and into infinity, he paints your cunt white with hot ropes of his cum. Then, he fucks it back into you before his cock finally softens.
As he redresses you, cleaning you up, tucking you back in, you're sleepy and sex drunk. His gentle kiss to your forehead makes time stop.
"And on the seventh day, she rested," he teases you, pulling the blankets tighter around you. "Just know, when I count my blessings, I name you first."
I think this Kinktober's theme is superheroes and damaged men and honestly? Extremely fair. We've all been there. I'm learning new things about myself, LOL.
pairing | post!tfatws!bucky x fem!reader
word count | 11.3k words
summary | when your boyfriend offers to play the stranger who picks you up at a bar, you expect a little dirty talk—not a full performance, a running camera, and the dirtiest night of your life.
tags | 18+ (MDNI), EXPLICIT SEXUAL CONTENT, unprotected sex, rough sex, established relationship, roleplay smut, manhandling, roleplay sex, filmed sex, degradation/praise, overstimulation, fingering, dacryphilia, multiple orgasms, oral sex (f!receiving), facial, fake cheating, teasing!reader, mean!bucky, flustered!bucky, bf!bucky, bucky is down so bad, smut with feelings, bucky has a cam kink now, horny and in love, porn with the tiniest bit of plot, or no... actually I'm lying, there's really no plot.
a/n | this has been sitting in my drafts since oct, enjoy. inspired by that episode of modern family where claire and phil roleplay strangers in a hotel bar.
likes, comments and reblogs are much appreciated ✨✨
you do NOT need to read the previous parts to read this one
sᴇʀɪᴇs ᴍᴀsᴛᴇʀʟɪsᴛ
divider by @omi-resources
You stood near the end of the counter, one hand wrapped around a sweating glass of something you couldn’t even remember ordering.
The condensation dripped between your fingers, cool and slick, grounding you in the low-lit noise of the bar. Your heel was propped on the brass rail, dress riding up just a little, enough to feel the air against your thigh.
The place was alive tonight. Warm with pressed bodies and old wood, the kind of Friday-night hum that vibrated through your ribs. Neon signs flickered half-heartedly against exposed brick, casting everything in shades of pink and amber.
It wasn’t your scene, not really, but you’d promised yourself you’d try. A little lipstick. A short sequence dress. A half-commitment to pretending you weren’t already imagining the silence of your apartment, the relief of kicking off your heels, the familiar weight of his arms around you when you got home.
But then you felt it.
A gaze sliding over your skin like a warm hand before it even touched you. Your neck prickled. The hair on your arms stood. The strange gravity of someone looking shifted the air around you before you even turned.
Then the voice came from behind your left shoulder, cutting through the bar’s chatter like a blade.
“Didn’t think a girl like you would be here alone.”
You turned.
The man beside you was tall, broad-shouldered under a dark coat that looked expensive in a simple way. His hair was neatly cut, dark, with a hint of grey catching the neon light. Stubble lined his jaw, sharp and clean, his eyes were blue, electric even in the dim haze—and they carried this confidence that bordered on predatory.
You gave him a slow once-over. From his boots to his jaw, letting him feel the weight of your attention. Then, casually, you turned back to your drink. “I’m not alone.”
He didn’t leave. You could feel him smile before he spoke again, the warmth of it bleeding into his voice.
“Boyfriend?”
You nodded.
“Is he here?”
You shook your head, taking a sip of your drink, something citrusy and sweet that burned pleasantly on the way down.
“Then you’re alone.” His voice was soft, like he was stating a fact you’d been trying to ignore.
You huffed a laugh before you could stop it, surprised sound that slipped out like a traitor. You sipped again, buying a second, then glanced sideways at him. “That’s not really how it works.”
He leaned in, close enough that his cologne reached you first; clean, soapy, undercut with something warm and woody. It was good. The kind of scent that made you want to lean closer just to breathe it in.
“Maybe not,” he said, “but I’ve got a feeling your boyfriend doesn’t appreciate you the way he should.”
You looked at him then, skeptical, one eyebrow lifting. “You know my boyfriend?”
“No.” A grin spread across his mouth. “But if he was doing his job, you wouldn’t be talking to me.”
Your lips curved… again, against your will. A small, reluctant acknowledgment that the game was already in play. You shifted, angling your body slightly away, a polite distance that said I’m not interested even as your eyes lingered a beat too long.
He didn’t take the hint. He took a step closer, filling the space you’d left, and the heat of his body wrapped around you like a second skin.
His gaze traveled over your face, not crude, not hungry in the cheap way. Appreciative. Attentive. Too attentive, like he was memorising the curve of your jaw, the way the neon light caught the gloss on your lips.
“I’m flattered,” you said, keeping your tone light, easy. “But like I said—I’ve got someone.”
“Yeah?” His voice dropped, almost a murmur. “Is he here?”
You let out a slow exhale, a half-smile tugging at your mouth. “We’ve been over this.”
He smiled back, smaller this time. A quiet acknowledgment that yes, you had, and he didn’t care.
“You’re drinking alone,” he said, each word placed with care. “Dressed like that. Smiling at me.” He paused, tilting his head, letting the silence stretch. “You don’t strike me as the loyal girlfriend type.”
Your jaw tightened, just a fraction. You turned toward him fully now, elbows finding the bar.
“I’m very loyal,” you said, voice steady. “He’s just not the jealous type.”
He let the word sit, “oh,” slow and dry, laced with amusement. Then, “So he’s a fucking idiot.”
You blinked.
The laugh that escaped you was real this time, warm and surprised, your shoulders loosening despite yourself. You shook your head, a little smile you couldn’t suppress curving your lips.
“That’s one way to put it,” you said.
He tilted his head, eyes catching the soft curve of your smile, and holding it like a prize. A low, appreciative hum escaped him as his gaze dragged down your body, the kind of look that felt like a touch you hadn’t consented to but couldn’t bring yourself to stop.
“You let your girl come out here looking like that,” he murmured, his voice dropping into something rougher, “on her own, with guys like me walking around?” His tongue swept across his bottom lip as his eyes traveled back up to yours. “He doesn’t care. That’s what I’m hearing.”
You didn’t respond. Instead, you brought your glass to your lips, letting the cool liquid slide over your tongue, buying yourself a beat of silence. You could feel the weight of his attention pressing against your skin.
Then he lifted two fingers at the bartender, a lazy, confident gesture.
“Get her another,” he said, without breaking eye contact with you. “Whatever she’s drinking.”
You held up a hand, palm out. “I’m good, thanks.”
“I insist.” His words were soft but firm, and his eyes stayed locked on yours, daring you to look away first. “Your boyfriend can be mad later.”
You tilted your head, letting yourself study him in return. Really look this time. The sharp line of his jaw, the faint scar near his chin, and the barely-there dimple that flickered at the corner of his mouth when his smirk deepened.
He leaned in again, closer now, under the pretense of the music swelling around you. His lips hovered near your ear, close enough that you felt the warmth of his breath before you heard his voice.
“I’ll be honest,” he said, each word a carefully placed stone in the path he wanted you to follow. “I’m not here for the small talk. You don’t want me—fine. I can take no.” A pause. “But if you do… just say the word.”
The new drink landed in front of you, the glass slick with condensation, a thin river of water pooling on the dark wood. You glanced at it, then back at him. He hadn’t looked away once, not even to blink.
You gave him a flat look, but your fingers still curled around the rim of the fresh glass, betraying you. “You’re really pushy.”
He shrugged, unhurried. “I’m direct.”
“Same thing.”
“I’d argue it’s different.” His voice dropped, conversational now. “Pushy guys don’t take no for an answer. I’m just giving you a chance to be honest with yourself.”
You lifted the drink to your lips, more to buy time than anything else. The liquid was cold and sharp, citrus cutting through the warmth blooming in your chest.
“I mean, he can’t be that good,” he casually added, as if commenting on the weather. “You’ve checked your phone three times since I walked in. Not once did it light up with his name.”
Your gaze dropped to your hand, fingers tightening on the glass until your knuckles paled.
“That’s not really any of your business.”
He leaned his elbow on the bar, turning more fully to face you. The corner of his mouth twitched, like he was holding back a chuckle. “It’s a little bit my business, sweetheart,” he said, his voice dropping to a near whisper, “especially if I’m about to spend the rest of my night thinking about those pretty legs wrapped around me.”
Your eyes snapped to his, a jolt of heat lancing through you at the crudeness. You forced yourself to stay still, to keep your expression schooled, even as your pulse hammered against your ribs.
“You always talk to women like this?” you asked, your voice steady, a thin shield.
“No.” He said it simply, without hesitation. “Just the girls who pretend they don’t want it.”
You scoffed, but you could feel the heat crawling up your neck. “You’re an asshole.”
He tilted his head, considering the word like a wine he was tasting. “Confident,” he corrected, a hint of a smile playing at his lips. “And maybe a little desperate.” His eyes held yours, a challenge and an invitation all at once. “Can you blame me?”
His eyes dipped lower for just a second, dragging over the obvious curve of your cleavage, the bare expanse of thigh you’d half-heartedly crossed. When they came back up, his pupils had swallowed nearly all the blue, leaving only a thin ring of color.
“If I were your man,” he murmured, his voice dropping into something gravelly, “I’d never let you out of my sight. Let alone out of the house dressed like this.” A pause, his gaze flicking down again. “That’d only be for me to appreciate.”
You shook your head, a breathy laugh escaping you. “You really think negging my boyfriend’s gonna make me want to fuck you?”
“No.” The word camwe out confident. “But I think you’re already thinking about it. And that’s got nothing to do with him.”
The air between you tightened like a drawn wire. You hated how right he felt. How every time he leaned in, your body seemed to sway toward him, a magnetic pull you couldn’t quite override.
You didn’t meet his eyes right away. Instead, you let your gaze drift to the condensation on your glass, tracing a path through the droplets with your fingertip. Let him sit in his confidence. Let him think he was winning. Even if he kind of was.
“So,” you said after a beat, your voice dropping to a murmur that was almost lost in the pulse of the music, “how exactly would you be better than my boyfriend?”
He didn’t hesitate. Not a flicker.
“I’d actually pay attention,” he said, and his voice had gone quieter, it felt like a secret meant only for you. “I wouldn’t let you walk around looking like this unless it was for me. I’d keep you so satisfied you’d never even remember his name.”
You laughed softly, low and skeptical, a sound that caught in your throat. “That so?”
“Yeah.” The word was a breath, a promise. He leaned closer, and you caught the faint rasp of stubble against his jaw as his mouth hovered near your ear. “I’d learn your body like a map. I’d make you beg without even touching you. I’d ruin every other man for you just by how good I fuck you.”
The words landed like sparks on dry tinder, igniting something low in your belly. You should’ve rolled your eyes. Should’ve told him to get lost, laughed in his face, walked away.
Instead, you turned your head just enough to meet his gaze, your chin lifting in quiet defiance.
“You rehearse this shit, or is it just off the cuff?”
A grin spread across his face. “I can show you if you want.”
You took another sip, letting the cool liquid coat your throat. And then you felt it, his knee, sliding slowly between your thighs, pressing against the inside of your leg with unhurried pressure.
“I think,” you said, lips brushing the rim of your glass, your voice steady even as your skin hummed, “you’re full of shit.”
“I think,” he countered, leaning in so close you could feel the heat of his breath at your cheek, “you’re hoping I’m not.”
And you didn’t say anything for a second too long. The silence stretched, filled with the thrum of bass and the thud of your own heartbeat.
His smile widened, slow and triumphant.
“Just one night,” he said, soft as a murmur. “That’s all I’m askin’.”
You exhaled, the breath shaking just a little. “God, you’re really committed to this.”
His head tilted slightly, eyes never leaving yours. “Could say the same about you, sweetheart.”
Your eyes lingered on him longer than they should have. Longer than was safe. The neon glow from the sign behind him painted his jaw in shades of pink and blue. The way he stood; loose, confident, like he owned every inch of space around him, made your mouth go dry.
You were past the point of denial now. You didn’t even try to cover the way your thighs pressed tighter around his knee every time he leaned in, the way your breath caught when his voice dropped. Every word he whispered, every glance, it was crawling under your skin, planting something hot and unruly inside you.
You let out a slow breath, your chest rising and falling as you held his gaze. Your eyes dropped to his mouth, the slight curve, the faint wetness from where he’d licked his lips, then back up to meet his.
“Fine,” you said softly, the word barely audible beneath the thrum of the bar’s music. “Just one night.”
He didn’t even blink. Didn’t question it, didn’t gloat, at least, not out loud. But the shift in him was unmistakable. His shoulders straightened, his jaw tightened, and that smirk curved at the corners of his mouth. It was a look that said I knew it. I knew you’d break.
Then his fingers wrapped around your hand; big, warm, a little rough, calloused in a way that made you wonder what he did for a living. He pulled you up from your stool in one clean, fluid motion, and you felt the sudden loss of the barstool’s support replaced by the solid heat of his body close to yours.
Your drink was still half-full. Your dignity back at that bar. Didn’t matter.
His hand didn’t just hold yours, it led. Gripped with purpose, not carelessness. His thumb pressed into the soft webbing between your index and middle finger, and you felt the pulse in his palm, steady and strong.
Out of the bar, past the crowd jostling at the door, through the heavy oak door and into the night air that hit you like a slap, cold and sharp after the suffocating heat you’d been sitting in.
The temperature difference made your skin prickle, your nipples tightening beneath your dress. But it didn’t cool you down. If anything, it made everything more electric, more alive.
He glanced back once, just long enough to meet your eyes. In the dim light, you caught the flicker of heat behind his gaze, the tension in his jaw.
The parking lot was mostly empty. You hadn’t even registered which one was his, too busy trying to slow your heart down, too busy wondering what the hell you’d just agreed to.
He didn’t give you time to second-guess it.
Before you could reach for the door handle, he turned you.
One quick, smooth movement, your back hitting the cool metal side of the car with a quiet thud that echoed in your chest. The impact knocked the breath from your lungs, your eyes going wide, your hands flying up instinctively.
Then his hand came up, gripping your jaw, his fingers curving around the bone just beneath your ear. He tilted your face up toward his, forcing your gaze to meet his, and you saw the raw hunger there, barely leashed.
“I’ve been wanting to do this all night,” he murmured.
It was all mouth and hunger and heat, his lips crashing into yours like he’d been holding himself back for hours and the dam had finally broken.
The first contact was almost bruising, a desperate, claiming press that stole your breath and left you reeling. His mouth was warm, tasted faintly of whiskey and salt, and the scrape of his stubble against your chin sent a shiver down your neck.
He kissed like a man who knew what your mouth would taste like. Who’d imagined it in vivid detail, over and over, until now, finally, it was real. His tongue slid in, exploring, tasting, taking, just claiming what he wanted. His fingers held your jaw in place, like he didn’t want you pulling away. Like he didn’t want you thinking.
Your knees buckled.
Your hands flew up, gripping the front of his shirt, the fabric soft but warm, the muscles beneath taut and steely. You fisted the material, trying to anchor yourself to something solid as his mouth moved against yours. His chest was hard against your palms, his heartbeat a rapid drum beneath your fingers.
You weren’t kissing him back at first. You were just trying to keep up. Trying to breathe.
But he didn’t let you. He didn’t give you space to gather yourself.
He licked into your mouth like he was starving, like every second without your taste was agony. A groan rumbled low in his throat, a sound that was equal parts relief and torture, and it vibrated through you, settling somewhere deep in your belly.
His hand slipped from your jaw to the side of your neck, fingers curling behind your ear, tilting your head just slightly to deepen the angle.
The world narrowed to the press of his mouth, the scrape of his teeth on your lower lip, the way his thumb stroked the sensitive skin behind your ear. The cold night air bit at your bare legs, but you barely felt it, all you felt was him, all you tasted was him, all you heard was the wet sound of the kiss and your own ragged breathing.
When he finally pulled back, your lips were swollen, throbbing, wet with the evidence of his claim. Your breath came in short, uneven gasps, your heart hammering so hard you could feel it in your throat.
A thin string of saliva connected your lips, glistening in the streetlight, unbroken until you finally parted them with a shaky exhale.
You didn’t even realize your nails were still digging into his shirt until you felt him exhale against your mouth, a warm, shaky breath that fanned across your sensitive skin.
He didn’t say anything.
Just pressed his forehead to yours. Let you breathe. His eyes were closed, his lashes dark against his cheekbones, his breath still uneven. You could feel the tremour in his frame, the barely restrained hunger still simmering beneath the surface.
Then he stepped back, opened the car door like nothing had just happened and waited for you to climb in.
The elevator ride was barely two floors.
Maybe three. You didn’t know. You didn’t remember stepping inside, didn’t remember pressing the button, didn’t remember the doors sliding shut behind you.
All you remembered was his hand on the small of your back, the firm, pressure of his palm against the curve of your spine, fingers splayed wide, pressing just hard enough to steer you forward.
And when you reached his door, his grip tightened. Those fingers dug into the flesh just above your hip, and you felt the tremour in his arm, the barely restrained tension coiling through his muscles. Like he was already fighting himself not to ravage you in the hallway.
The key turned. The lock clicked.
And the second the door swung shut behind you, it was over.
He was on you.
There was nothing smooth about it. No romantic glide across hardwood floors to a couch you’d never reach. No whispered sweet nothings.
This was fast.
His coat hit the floor before the door fully closed, followed by the jingle of keys dropping somewhere near his shoes. Your purse slipped from your fingers, landing near the entry table with a dull thump you barely registered.
His hands found your hips first. Then your ass, grabbing handfuls of flesh through the thin fabric of your dress. Then your back, sliding up the curve of your spine, fingertips pressing into the muscles on either side. Then your ribs, thumbs brushing the underside of your breasts, and you gasped against his mouth.
He couldn’t decide where to touch first, so he touched everything.
God, his mouth was everywhere too.
At your jaw, teeth scraping along the sharp edge of it. At your throat, tongue dragging hot and wet over your pulse point. At your collarbone, lips sucking a bruise into the hollow just above where your dress dipped. Anywhere your skin peeked out, he was ther.
He was like a fucking bear. Big, warm, all-consuming, surrounding you with heat and muscle and the faint scent of whiskey and leather and male. And you weren’t complaining. Not even a little.
Your back hit the nearest wall with a thud that rattled the picture frame beside you. The impact forced the air from your lungs, and you gasped, head falling back against the plaster. The dress rode up under his grip, the hem bunching around your hips, cool air kissing the bare skin of your thighs.
Your leg lifted instinctively, wrapping around his hip, heel digging into the firm curve of his ass to anchor him to you. He groaned into your neck and the sound vibrated through your skin.
“Mmm,” he muttered against your throat. His lips brushed your pulse as he spoke, teeth grazing the sensitive skin. “Does your boyfriend touch you like this?”
A breathy laugh escaped you, surprised and amused despite the heat flooding your veins. You tilted your head back further, giving him more access, and your fingers tangled in the short hairs at the nape of his neck.
“You really hate that guy, huh?”
He pulled back just far enough to look you in the eye. Dim light from the kitchen filtered through the apartment, catching the sharp blue of his gaze, the dilated pupils, the flush creeping up his neck.
“I think he’s a goddamn idiot,” he said, voice low and rough. “Letting a girl like you walk around wanting this kind of attention. Dressed like this, looking like you do.” His grip tightened, fingers curling into the fabric of your dress. “If you were mine—”
You cut him off with a kiss. It was teeth and tongue and a sharp bite against his lower lip that made him hiss, and then you pulled back, breath short, lips slick.
“But I’m not yours,” you said against his mouth, the words barely a whisper.
And god, the look he gave you.
His eyes darkened, pupils swallowing the blue. His jaw tightened, a muscle ticking near his temple. His right hand came up, fingers curling around your throat as his thumb pressed gently against the hollow beneath your jaw, feeling your pulse flutter like a trapped bird beneath his touch.
“Not yet,” he rasped, the words a low rumble that seemed to vibrate through his chest into yours
He didn’t guide you so much as haul you toward the nearest surface.
One hand clamped under your thigh, fingers digging into the soft flesh, while the other gripped your ass hard enough to make you gasp. The world blurred; a flash of dark cabinetry, the hum of a refrigerator, the faint citrus scent of cleaner, and then your back hit the edge of his kitchen island.
The impact knocked a quiet, breathless gasp from your lungs. The granite was cold against your skin through your dress, a sharp shock against the heat blazing through your body. The edge dug into your lower back, a hard line of pressure that should have been uncomfortable, but it barely registered.
Not with the furnace of his body pressed so close. Not with the way he was already shoving the hem of your dress up your thighs, bunching the fabric with impatient hands, like the dress itself had personally offended him.
“Fuck,” he breathed out. His jaw was tight, a muscle ticking near his temple as his eyes raked down your body. His fingers curled into the hem and yanked it higher, past your hips, past the damp lace of your panties, baring you to the cool kitchen air. “Look at you.”
His voice dropped, as his hands slid under the bunched fabric to grip your bare hips. His fingers dug into the curve of bone, hard enough to leave crescents, and a shiver of anticipation rolled through you at the thought of feeling those marks tomorrow.
“Can’t believe your man lets you walk around like this,” he muttered, shaking his head slowly, his gaze fixed on the exposed skin of your thighs. “Dress so short I can see the curve of your ass with every step you take. Tits practically spilling out, begging for attention. You’re a walking invitation, sweetheart.”
“He trusts me,” you shot back, grinning despite the wildfire racing through your veins.
“He’s a fucking idiot,” Bucky grunted, and then he lifted you like you weighed nothing, hands under your thighs, a single smooth motion that had you gasping as he set you on the cold granite counter.
Your ass met the stone, a jolt of cold against the heat between your legs, and you braced your palms flat on the surface to steady yourself. “Should’ve locked you up before someone else got to you.”
Your thighs spread instinctively to keep your balance, opening yourself to him like a flower turning toward the sun. His eyes dropped between them like he was starving, dress rucked up around your waist, panties damp and clinging.
His hands followed his gaze. Fingertips found the soft inner flesh of your thighs, tracing lazy patterns, goosebumps rising in their wake. His thumbs brushed the edges of your panties, teasing,. His mouth hovered just above yours, close enough that you could taste his breath, warm and slightly sweet with the whiskey from the bar.
“Bet he doesn’t even touch you right,” he murmured, his lips barely skimming yours with each word. “Bet he doesn’t make you beg. Doesn’t know how wet you get from just being told what to do. Does he, sweetheart? Does he know how your body responds to a firm hand?”
You didn’t respond. Your tongue felt thick, your thoughts scattering like leaves in the wind.
His fingers hooked into the crotch of your panties, and he shoved the damp fabric aside with two confident strokes. Then one finger traced the length of your slit, gathering the wetness that had been pooling there since the bar. The sensation made you jerk, a sharp inhale hissing through your teeth.
“Fuck,” he hissed, almost to himself. His eyes were dark, pupils blown wide as he stared at where his hand disappeared between your thighs. “Yeah. This is mine now.”
You clenched around nothing, your body responding before your brain could catch up, a desperate, empty ache blooming in your core.
He leaned in, pressing his forehead against yours, his breath hot and uneven. “Say it,” he whispered. “Say this pussy’s mine for the night.”
A grin tugged at your lips, defiant even now. You dragged your nails up the length of his back, feeling the muscles jump beneath the fabric of his shirt. “God, you’re so full of yourself.”
He let out a low chuckle. His hand slid from your throat to cup the back of your neck, fingers threading through your hair as he dragged you into another kiss, a reclaiming of territory already conquered.
His other hand slipped lower, fingers teasing at your entrance, slick with your own arousal. The tip of his finger pressed in just barely, and then withdrew.
“Yeah,” he murmured against your mouth, the word a breathless, cocky whisper. “And you’re about to let me prove it.”
His fingers were still between your thighs, barely moving now. Just resting there. A lazy pressure that kept you teetering on the edge of desperate, your hips twitching involuntarily against his palm.
Every time you tried to grind down, he pulled back just enough to deny you, a cruel little game he played with the patience of a predator.
His other hand trailed up your side, slipping beneath the rumpled dress to brush the curve of your waist. His fingertips traced the ridge of your ribs, then swept higher, grazing the underside of your breast with a featherlight touch that had your spine arching.
And then he murmured, voice low and wrapped in velvet, “You ever been filmed before, sweetheart?”
Your breath caught. Lodged somewhere in your throat like a stone.
Your body said yes before your brain even processed the question, your thighs tensed, your nipples tightened, a fresh pulse of heat bloomed between your legs. But your mouth hesitated. A flicker of uncertainty crossed your face.
“Filmed?” The word came out breathless, barely audible over the thudding of your heart.
“Mmhmm.” His voice was soft now, coaxing. His lips ghosted over your jaw as he spoke, hot and teasing. “Wanna see how goddamn pretty you look like this. Want to watch you later—legs spread, begging for it, that messy little sound you make when you cum. You ever seen yourself like that, honey?”
You couldn’t answer. Your mouth was dry, your pulse hammering so loud you could hear it rushing in your ears.
He kissed your neck, his lips parting against your skin. Then his teeth grazed the sensitive tendon just below your ear, a sharp little pressure that made you gasp.
His hand stayed between your legs, just touching, his palm pressed flat against your cunt, fingers slick and still, the heel of his hand grinding lazily against your clit. Keeping your blood hot. Keeping you pliant.
“C’mon,” he whispered, the word a hot puff of air against your throat. “Let me keep it. Just for me. I won’t show anyone.” A pause. His lips brushed the hollow of your collarbone. “Just wanna remember how you sounded when I made you cum. Just wanna have something to jerk off to when you go back to that sorry excuse for a boyfriend.”
Your lips parted. Your heart was in your throat, beating against the base of your tongue.
He pulled back just enough to look at you—and fuck. Those eyes. Half-lidded, dark as sin, glittering with something between hunger and tenderness.
This was for him. Just because he wanted to own this moment. To freeze it, preserve it, revisit it whenever he pleased.
“Please,” he added, the word a low murmur that crawled down your spine. “Let me watch you fall apart. Let me have something to remember you by when you’re gone.”
And just like that, you broke. You nodded once, a small, jerky motion that felt too fast and too slow all at once.
The look on his face turned downright pleased. A slow, wicked grin spread across his lips, pleased and satisfied.
He stepped back, pulling his hand from between your legs deliberately slow that bordered on cruel. The absence was sharp, almost painful—you whimpered, a soft, instinctive sound that slipped out before you could stop it.
He heard it. His lips parted like he might say something, but instead he just let out a low chuckle, his eyes gleaming.
“Good girl,” he murmured.
He reached into his jeans pocket and tugged out his phone. The screen blazed to life, casting cold light across his angular features. He swiped it awake with one thumb, eyes never leaving yours.
You stayed on the counter. Legs spread. Dress bunched up around your hips, the fabric twisted and forgotten. Panties still pushed to the side, damp and useless.
But before you could process what came next, he handed you the phone.
“Hold this,” he said. “Keep it steady. And don’t stop filming until I say so.”
The weight of the device settled in your palm, the screen angled toward him. Your fingers trembled, but you gripped it tight.
His hands slid under your thighs, palms warm and calloused against your skin, and he pulled you to the edge of the counter with a single, effortless motion.
“You’re really gonna let me eat you out on camera?” he muttered. His thumb brushed the inside of your thigh, pressing hard enough to leave a mark. “Look at you. Spread open, holding the phone, panting for it like a bitch in heat. What would your boyfriend say if he saw this, huh?”
A shiver rolled through you. You let out a shaky breath as you leaned back on your elbows, your legs falling open even wider.
“He doesn’t need to know,” you murmured.
He groaned, a deep, guttural sound that vibrated through his chest, through the air between you, through your bones.
“No, he doesn’t.” Bucky’s voice dropped to a whisper. His hands gripped your thighs, thumbs pressing into the tender flesh where your legs met your hips. “But I will.”
He lowered his head, his breath hot against your slick skin.
“Now keep that camera steady, sweetheart. I want to see your face when I make you forget your name.”
And then he was on you.
His tongue hit you like a brand. It dragged from the slick entrance of your cunt all the way up to your clit in one long, agonizingly slow stroke, tasting you like he was savouring every inch. The flat of his tongue pressed firm, parting your folds, and when he reached the top he circled once, lazy, before dipping back down.
You gasped. Your back bowed off the counter, your spine curling like a struck wire. One hand scrambled for the edge of the granite, fingers scrabbling for purchase, while the other fought to keep the camera steady, pointed directly down at him, at the way his mouth was devouring you.
He moaned into you.
A deep, guttural sound that vibrated through your clit, through your thighs, through the aching core of you. Like he was the one being pleasured. Like your taste was the only thing that could satisfy him.
“Goddamn,” he muttered against your flesh, his breath hot and damp. His tongue flicked out, lapping at your clit with a lazy stroke. “So fuckin’ sweet. Sweetest thing I’ve had in my mouth in months.”
He pulled back just enough to look up at you, eyes dark, lips glistening and chin slick. The camera caught every detail.
“Bet he doesn’t even taste you, does he?” His voice was a low, rasping cruel whisper. “Bet he just shoves it in and pumps away like a jackrabbit, leaves you lying there wet and wanting.”
You couldn’t answer. Couldn’t form a single word. Not when his mouth wrapped around your clit again, sealing tight, and he sucked, once, hard, a sharp vacuum of pleasure that punched a cry from your throat. Then he eased, softening into slower licks, his tongue tracing figure-eights around the swollen bud.
Your thighs trembled, clamping around his head. He didn’t seem to mind. He moaned again, the vibration traveling straight through your cunt and up your spine.
“Bet he doesn’t even know how to touch you here—” His metal thumb pressed into the soft, sensitive spot just beside your entrance, the cool metal a shocking contrast against your heat. “—or how wet you get just from a little attention. Look at you. Dripping. Making a mess all over my face.”
You whimpered. A high, broken sound that felt torn from somewhere deep in your chest.
His metal hand slid up your thigh, the cool vibranium tracking a path of goosebumps across your flushed skin. Then, without warning, two fingers pushed into you. A slick, effortless slide that made you gasp again.
He didn’t pause. Didn’t give you time to adjust. He just pumped them in and out, a steady rhythm that matched the circling of his tongue. His fingers crooked, searching, and when they found that spongy spot inside you, he pressed hard and held.
You didn’t mean to make the sounds you were making.
They poured out of you like confession, gasping, keening, helpless little moans that you couldn’t hold back. Your head fell back, your hips lifting off the counter, chasing his mouth and fingers like you’d lost all sense of self-preservation.
“Look at you,” he murmured against your wet skin, his lips brushing your clit with every word. “So desperate for someone who isn’t even your man. Fuck, he must be so boring.”
You whimpered, your hips grinding against his face.
His fingers curled again… just right, hitting that spot that made stars burst behind your eyelids. His tongue never stopped. It circled and flicked and pressed, relentless.
“You think about this?” he went on, “When you’re lying next to him at night, do you think about someone else doing this to you? Someone who actually knows how to use his mouth?”
You shook your head, trying to deny, but your body betrayed you, your hips rocking faster against his hand.
“Yeah, you do,” he said, and he laughed, a low, breathless sound against your cunt. “You think about it all the time. I think you’d let me do anything just to feel good for once. I think you’d let me fuck you right in his bed while he’s at work, and you’d still smile like a good girl and kiss him goodnight.”
His fingers fucked into you, slow and steady, his tongue circling your clit in tight, focused strokes that left no room for thought. The pressure built in your belly, impossible to ignore.
“You close?” he asked, his voice hoarse and knowing.
You nodded, a frantic, jerky motion. Too far gone to pretend. Too far gone to care.
He lifted his head just enough to meet your eyes. His lips were glistening, his jaw slick, his pupils blown wide and black. And then… smirking, that wicked curve of his mouth, he glanced toward the camera.
“Let’s show him, yeah doll?” he murmured, his voice dropping to a conspiratorial whisper. “Let’s show him how you cum for someone who actually knows what he’s doing. Let’s give him something to think about tonight.”
And then he sucked your clit again—hard—while his fingers pumped faster, deeper, curling with ruthless precision.
“Oh fuck, fuck, fuck—”
You came.
It was raw. Violent. Your hips jerked off the counter, your thighs clamping around his head like a vise. The sounds that tore out of you were ragged and broken, a string of curses and pleas that blurred into incoherence.
Your vision went white, your whole body seizing, and he didn’t stop. His tongue kept stroking, his fingers kept pumping, fucking you through every last wave of pleasure until you were twitching and shaking, oversensitive and gasping.
He groaned against your clit, like he loved it. Like he was drinking it down.
You barely had time to catch your breath. Barely had time to register the aftershocks still rippling through your thighs before he was climbing up your body, his lips slick with your release, his chin wet, his eyes dark with something animalistic.
His hand snatched the phone from your trembling grip, like a predator claiming his prize. The other hand clamped around your thigh, fingers digging into the soft flesh as he dragged you toward the edge of the kitchen island.
He angled the phone down, the camera aimed directly at your cunt, glistening, swollen, still slick from his mouth. Your dress was bunched around your waist in a crumpled mess, and your panties were long gone, ripped off somewhere between the counter and the floor.
“Gonna let me fuck you now?” His voice was a mocking drawl that made your toes curl. “Even though you’ve got a boyfriend waiting at home? Probably wondering where his sweet little girl is.”
You blinked up at him, still dazed, still floating on the aftershocks of your orgasm. But you played along. You nodded slowly, your lips parting, your eyes half-lidded. Like a good girl. Like a stupid little slut who’d already crossed every line and couldn’t find her way back.
You watched like a hungry bitch in heat as he unbuckled his belt, the metal clinking loud in the quiet kitchen, and shoved his pants down his thighs with one hand. His cock sprang free, slapping against his stomach with a wet sound that made your mouth water. The head flushed dark, already slick with pre-cum.
Your voice didn’t work anymore. All the clever retorts, the smart mouth answers—gone. Your legs parted on pure instinct, your hips tilting up in silent invitation.
He clicked his tongue.
“Such a dirty girl,” he murmured, his voice dropping to a cruel whisper. “Cheating on your boyfriend like this. Letting a stranger stretch your pretty pussy open in his kitchen. On his counter. While he films it.”
He positioned himself at your entrance, just the head pressing, teasing, not pushing in yet. Your breath hitched. Your whole body trembled.
“Tell me what you are,” he said, the camera still fixed on where he was about to enter you.
“I’m—I’m a dirty girl—”
“Louder.”
“I’m a dirty girl.”
“And?”
“And I—I want you to fuck me.”
He smiled, satisfied.
And then he pushed in.
Thick and slow. Letting you feel every filthy inch as he sank into you, stretching you open inch by inch. The burn was exquisite, a sharp, delicious ache that made your jaw drop and your eyes roll back. You clenched around him, too sensitive, already fucked-out from his mouth, and he groaned, an animal sound that vibrated through his chest.
“Fuck,” he breathed, his hips seating flush against yours. “Tight little thing. Feels like you were made for this. Made for my cock.”
He pulled back just enough to look down at where you were joined, angling the phone to capture every detail, the way your cunt gripped him, the slick shine of his cock as he dragged out, the desperate flutter of your muscles.
And then he started to move.
His hips dragged back and slammed in again with bruising force. The first thrust punched the air from your lungs. The second made you cry out, loud and raw, your voice cracking in the empty kitchen.
He groaned harder at the sound.
“Look at that,” he rasped, his voice wrecked with pleasure. He angled the camera down again, zooming in on where he split you open. “Fuckin’ made for it, huh? Look at how pretty she takes it.”
He shifted his weight, lifting one of your legs onto his shoulder, the angle changed, deeper nowand your back hit the counter hard as he picked up the pace. The slapping sounds filled the room.
“You gonna cum for me again?” he asked, breath ragged, the phone still steady in his grip. “Gonna cum on this cock like the fucking slut you are? Let your boyfriend watch it later? Think he’d wanna see what a whore you are when no one’s watching?”
Your eyes rolled back. Your mouth hung open, drool threatening to slip down your chin. You didn’t answer. Couldn’t.
He slapped your clit, a bright flare of pain-pleasure that made you jolt.
“Answer me.”
“Yes—yes, fuck, I—please—”
“Please what?”
“Please let me cum—I need—”
He thrust harder, faster, the angle punishing. His free hand pressed down on your lower belly, making you feel every inch of him inside you.
“Look at the camera,” he commanded, his voice a growl. “Look at it and tell him who’s making you feel this good.”
You forced your eyes open, found the lens, stared into it with glassy, tear-streaked eyes.
“You,” you gasped. “You’re making me—”
“That’s right. Me. Not him. Me.”
He lowered his mouth to your ear, still fucking you, his breath hot and ragged.
“Now cum for me. Cum for the camera. Let everyone see what a good little slut you are.”
The orgasm hit you like a freight train, sudden and impossible to stop. Your back arched off the counter, your walls clamping down around him in pulsing waves, a broken cry tearing from your throat. He didn’t stop. He fucked you through it, groaning as you tightened around him, his hips stuttering as he chased his own release.
“That’s what I thought”
He pulled out suddenly, an abrupt emptiness that made you gasp, your body clenching around nothing, desperate to keep him. The whine that escaped your lips was pathetic, high and needy, and you didn’t even have the shame to swallow it.
But Bucky didn’t give you a second to recover. His metal hand clamped around your wrist, yanking you upright before your head stopped spinning.
“Up,” he ordered, his voice tight and ragged. “C’mon. Up, baby. I’m not done with you.”
Your legs were jelly. Your bones had turned to water. But he hooked his hand under your thigh and lifted you off the island like you weighed nothing, sliding you down until your bare feet hit the cold tile floor.
Your knees buckled immediately. You were shaking, ruined, still dripping down your thighs in sticky trails, your dress bunched around your waist, while he steadied you with a hand on your hip.
“You’re a mess,” he muttered, not even pretending to hide the pride in his voice. His metal fingers traced the curve of your hip, leaving goosebumps in their wake. “Bet he’s never fucked you dumb like this, huh?”
Your head fell back against his shoulder, eyes fluttering, lips parted. But he didn’t let you stay there. He spun you around, grabbed your hips, and bent you over the counter like a doll, your tits pressing flat against the cold marble, your cheek smushed against the cool stone, your legs spread wide before you even realized what he was doing.
The camera was still rolling. And he aimed it directly at your ass, at your dripping cunt, at the mess he’d made of you.
“There we go,” he rasped, his voice a rough purr behind you. “Much better view. Look at that, fuckin’ dripping for me. Like a little faucet.”
You gasped as his hand came down right across your ass cheek. The crack echoed in the kitchen, and your skin bloomed with heat instantly. Your hips bucked forward, pushing your tits harder against the marble.
“Stay still,” he grunted, his metal hand pressing into the small of your back, pinning you down. “Be good and take it. Don’t make me tell you twice.”
And then he was sliding back in.
No teasing. Just one sharp, deep thrust that punched the air from your lungs. He filled you completely, the angle brutal, the stretch exquisite. Your mouth fell open on a silent scream.
He didn’t wait. He started moving immediately, punishing strokes that made the counter shake. His hand clamped onto your hip, fingers digging into the soft flesh, holding you open for him.
“Fuck, baby—so tight like this,” he groaned, his voice strained, wrecked. “Like you’re trying to milk me dry.”
He leaned over you, his chest pressing against your back, his mouth at your ear.
“Bet he’s never seen you like this. Fucked out. Bent over. Filmed like a little slut.” He punctuated each word with a thrust, driving them into you along with his cock. “What would he say if he saw this video? Huh? If he watched you beggin’ for my cock with your makeup running, your pretty little pussy creamin’ all over me?”
Your only answer was a broken moan. Your hands scrambled uselessly across the marble, searching for something to hold onto.
He grabbed a fistful of your hair, yanking your head back, arching your spine, keeping you exactly where he wanted you. The stretch in your neck sent a shiver down your spine.
“What would he say, huh,” Bucky panted, fucking into you harder now, the slapping sounds wet and filthy, “if he saw how much you love it? If he saw that look in your eyes—that fucked-out, starved look you get when I’m deep inside you?”
Your third orgasm was building, coiling low in your belly, your pussy aching with overstimulation. The marble was digging into your hips, leaving red marks on your skin, and you didn’t care. You wanted more. You wanted him to break you.
“Say it,” he grunted, snapping his hips faster, his hand wrapping around your throat from behind to pull your head even farther back. “Tell the camera what you’re doing.”
You choked on a sob, tears welling in your eyes.
“—Cheating,” you gasped, the word torn from your throat. “I’m cheating on him—fuck, fuck—please don’t stop—”
He groaned like he could’ve fucking died from how good that sounded.
“That’s it, baby. Say it again. Let the whole world know what a filthy little whore you are.”
You were already crying, tears slipping down your cheeks from sheer overstimulation, your body trembling as you struggled to hold yourself up on your elbows. Each thrust sent a fresh wave of pleasure-pain through you, your clit rubbing against the marble with every movement, building that pressure higher and higher.
“Say it again,” he growled, his cock buried deep inside you. “Tell me what you’re doing.”
“—Cheating,” you whispered again, breathless, voice cracking. “I’m cheating on him.”
“Can’t hear you.”
“I’m cheating on my boyfriend,” you moaned, choked and messy, the shame in your voice only making it hotter. “Letting some stranger fuck me in his kitchen.”
He groaned, his hips stuttering for just a second, his grip tightening on your throat.
“God, you’re perfect. Fucking perfect. Say my name.”
You didn’t even think. The word fell from your lips like a prayer.
“Bucky—”
The sound of skin slapping against skin echoed through the kitchen. Your body rocked against the marble with every brutal thrust, your tits sliding across the cold surface, nipples dragging against the stone, your breath fogging the counter in ragged clouds as he fucked you faster.
The hand on your throat dropped down your body to between your legs, metal fingers finding your clit with brutal precision. He rubbed you in rough, tight circles, no gentleness, just enough pressure to make your vision blur.
“Wanna cum again for me, baby?” he panted behind you. “Wanna cum on a stranger’s cock while your boyfriend’s out there probably textin’ you right now, askin’ if you’re okay?”
His fingers pinched your clit and you cried out.
“Answer me.”
“Yes—fuck, yes—”
“Use me,” you begged, the words torn from somewhere deep, broken and desperate. “Please, just use me. I don’t care—I don’t care about anything—just fuck me—”
That did it.
He slammed in harder, faster, his groans turning into guttural snarls, his hips slapping against your ass with a force that left your skin stinging. His metal fingers on your clit were relentless. You were babbling words that made no sense, just sound and breath and need, your voice cracking as that third orgasm tore through you like lightning striking bone.
You clenched down so hard his rhythm stuttered.
“Oh fuck—fuck, doll—”
He pulled out suddenly, just in time, the loss of him leaving you gasping and empty. His hand left your clit and wrapped around his cock, jerking himself with messy, desperate strokes, the camera aimed down at the mess he’d made of you.
“On your knees,” he barked.
You dropped without hesitation.
Your knees hit the cold tile with a dull thud, your body limp and pliant and ruined. Your makeup was smudged into dark raccoon circles around your eyes. Your lipstick was blurred. Your thighs were still slick with your multiple releases, sticky and gleaming under the kitchen lights.
You looked up at him through wet lashes, lips parted, chest heaving, every inch of you screaming used.
He pointed the phone down at your face, capturing every detail.
“Jesus fuck—look at you,” he panted, his voice hoarse, wrecked. His grip on his cock was tight, the veins standing out against his skin. “Fucking look at you. Makeup ruined. Hair a mess. Cum drippin’ down your thighs. And you’re still lookin’ at me like you want more.”
You blinked up at him slowly, your tongue sliding across your lower lip, tasting the salt of your own sweat. The corner of your mouth lifted… just enough to tease. Just enough to let him know that yes, you wanted more. You wanted everything.
His breath hitched.
That was all it took.
He groaned deep from his chest, his hips snapping forward as he jerked himself harder… and then he came.
“Fuck—fuck—”
Thick, hot ropes hit your lips. Your cheek. Your tongue.
You didn’t flinch. Didn’t look away. Just let it land wherever he gave it, your mouth open like a fucking invitation, your eyes locked on his the entire time. One streak landed on your chin, another across your nose. You held still like a good girl.
He moaned like he was in pain, his chest heaving, his arm trembling as he kept the camera steady. His other hand milked the last drops out, stroking his tip right against your tongue, smearing the rest across your bottom lip.
“Gonna remember this forever,” he muttered, his voice barely above a whisper. “The way you look right now. On your knees. Covered in my cum.”
You swallowed what landed in your mouth. The taste of him, salt and heat and something musky, spread across your tongue.
You held eye contact… and then licked your lips. Slow. Sweet. Like you savoured every drop. Your tongue swept across the mess on your cheek, your chin, collecting every trace of him.
And then you smiled and winked at the camera.
He groaned again. His arm dropped. The phone nearly slipped from his fingers.
“Fuck, baby,” he whispered, his voice wrecked. “You’re unreal. You’re fucking unreal.”
He took a shaky step back, running his free hand through his hair, his chest still heaving.
“Get up,” he said, softer now. “C’mere. Let me kiss you.”
You were barely dried off when he dragged you into bed, still flushed in the cheeks, towel hanging low on his hips, clinging to the sharp cut of his waist. He flopped onto the mattress with a grunt that vibrated through the sheets and immediately reached for you like a heat-seeking missile.
You allowed him to wrap himself around you, his chest warm and damp against your back, arm tight across your middle, legs slotting in behind yours like puzzle pieces.
He was trying to hide. Burying his face in the curve of your neck, breathing slow and deep like he could disappear into your skin. And despite being genuinely so fucked out after three orgasms, your thighs still aching and your core still humming, you couldn’t help yourself.
“‘Gonna remember this forever,’” you murmured, pitching your voice low and rough, mimicking him. You dragged the words out, dramatic and breathy. “God, baby. The drama. Are you sure you’re not secretly a director?”
He groaned The kind of groan that started in his chest and rolled out like thunder. He dragged the covers over both your heads, cocooning you in darkness and warmth, like it might smother the shame.
And you.
“Shut up,” he muttered, his voice muffled against your shoulder.
You laughed, the sound swallowed by the blanket fort. Your body shook against his, and he tightened his grip in response, pulling you impossibly closer.
“You were so into it,” you continued, turning your head just enough to speak into the darkness. “Like, really committed. Tell me, what are you gonna do with that video? Are you planning an OnlyFans debut? Get some extra cash to spoil me with?”
He squeezed your waist in warning,, deliberate press of his fingers into your soft skin. You ignored him completely.
“I personally think we’d make a lot of money,” you said, your tone almost dreamy. “With your dick and my tits, we’d be famous in no time. Think of the branding. Think of the content.”
He lifted his head just enough to find your ear. “Please,” he said, low and gruff, “shut up and let me spoon you into silence.”
You hummed, basking in victory.
“You were so serious,” you whispered into the quiet. “The dirty talk? You’re gonna start submitting audition tapes to PornHub next, aren’t you? I can see it now—‘James.B.B, 107, 6’2”, specializes in roleplay and cum facials.’”
He groaned again, but it was quieter now.
You could feel his smile against your skin. He was trying not to let it show,but you knew it was there. Just like the soft kiss he pressed behind your ear, his lips lingering.
“You’re never letting me live this down, are you?” he muttered, his voice warm and entirely fond.
You turned in his arms, shifting until you faced him. The blanket still draped over your heads, cocooning you in shared heat and the faint scent of sex and soap. His whole body was relaxed in that way he only ever got after sex, the tension in his shoulders finally dissolved.
You smiled up at him, your fingers tracing the line of his jaw, the stubble rough against your fingertips. You kissed his nose.
“Not a chance, stranger.”
He rolled his eyes, but the corner of his mouth twitched. And then he kissed you anyway, a kiss that tasted like contented surrender. His hand slid up your spine, fingers splaying across your shoulder blades, pulling you closer until there was no space left between you.
He pulled back just enough to rest his forehead against yours, eyes closed, breath evening out.
You laid there for a long, quiet minute, his arm slung heavy across your stomach like an anchor, his breath slowing behind your ear into that deep, rhythmic cadence that meant he was drifting.
The warmth of his body curved around yours, the sheets tangled around your legs, the faint hum of the city through the window, it was almost enough to lull you under too.
Almost.
Which is exactly why you struck.
“Okay,” you said, your voice sweet as honey. “Give me your phone now.”
He tensed immediately. His arm tightened across your stomach, and you felt the shift in his breathing.
“...No.”
You twisted in his grip, frowning, propping yourself up on your elbow to look at him.
“James.”
He sighed, like it physically pained him to hear his name on your lips in that tone. The sound dragged out, full of protest, and he pulled the pillow over his face.
You didn’t let up. You tore the blanket off both of you, sitting up fully, then turned to face him with the kind of look that told him exactly where this was going. A look that said I’m not asking.
“I just want to see how I looked,” you cooed, letting your voice go syrupy and coaxing. “For science.”
“You looked perfect,” he muttered from beneath the pillow. “You don’t need to see it.”
“Oh, but I do,” you teased, already reaching past him toward the nightstand where he’d abandoned the phone. “Because someone got real creative with angles tonight. I wanna see what Christopher Nolan-level filth you captured.”
He tried to pull you back down under the covers, his arm snaking around your waist, but you fought dirty. You squirmed, laughed, dug your elbow into his ribs until he grunted and loosened his grip. There was some wrestling until you finally managed to straddle his hips, pinning him down, and snatched the phone from the nightstand.
“Aha,” you declared, waving it like a trophy. “Siri, show me the porn.”
He groaned from beneath the pillow. “You’re a freak.”
“You love it.”
You unlocked the screen with his passcode, your birthday of course, and found the video right there in his most recent gallery. It wasn’t buried in a folder, wasn’t hidden behind a password.
“Jesus Christ, you didn’t even try to hide it,” you murmured.
You tapped play.
The sound alone was enough to make you both flinch.
Your own moan filled the room, echoing off the walls. The video opened on a shaky shot of the kitchen island, granite cool and sleek under the dim light, your legs splayed wide, his hand wrapped around your thigh.
You looked down at him slowly. His eyes were squeezed shut, the pillow still half-draped over his head, his cheeks flushed dark. For a guy who had fucked you within an inch of your life thirty minutes ago, he looked deeply, profoundly embarrassed.
“Oh my god,” you said, pausing the screen on his face. There he was… eyebrows furrowed in concentration, hair a wild mess, that filthy, knowing smirk curling the corner of his lips. “Who is he? Why is he so serious? Is this an Oscar campaign? A sizzle reel for his breakout role in Eat Pray Fuck?”
“Stop it,” Bucky mumbled.
But you kept going.
“Look at you. Sergeant Pornstar. All intense and broody. Grunting like you’re about to break the fourth wall and fuck the audience too.”
He peeked out just enough to glare at you, one blue eye visible above the edge of the pillow, very unamused. You leaned down and pressed a kiss to his cheek.
“You’re so hot when you’re pretending not to be a freak.”
He huffed, but his ears were pink. The tips of them, visible above the pillow, turned the colour of a ripe strawberry.
You tapped further into the video, scrolling through the shots. Paused again. Leaned in closer to the screen.
“Wait—” You squinted. “Did you zoom while you were inside me?”
He huffed, and buried his face in the pillow like he could escape through the mattress.
“You did. Oh my god, you adjusted the focus on my ass. You framed the shot like it was a nature documentary.”
“Stop watching it,” he moaned.
“Never. I’m gonna turn this into a gif. A screensaver. My new phone background. Every time I get a text, I’ll see your constipated orgasm face.”
That did it.
He moved faster than you expected. The phone flew out of your hand, skidding across the bed, and he tackled you back down onto the mattress, his weight pressing you into the pillows.
It didn’t hurt. Not with him laughing into your neck, his breath hot and uneven against your skin as he tried to wrestle the phone out of your reach. His fingers fumbled against yours, and you shrieked as he pinned your wrist above your head, still laughing, still muttering, “You’re the fucking worst,” and “I hate you so much right now.”
He got the phone eventually.
And as he pinned you to the bed with both wrists above your head, his body draped over yours, sweat-slick and smiling, he leaned down and kissed your cheek. A whisper of lips against your skin.
“I’m deleting that video first thing tomorrow,” he mumbled, his voice fond.
You smiled up at him, your chest rising and falling against his.
“Sure you are, Sergeant,” you whispered, your eyes glinting in the dim light. “Right after you jack off to it one more time.”
He collapsed beside you with a huff, his body sinking into the mattress like it weighed twice what it did, limbs heavy and warm as he pulled you into his chest. His arm slung around your waist, fingers splaying across the curve of your hip, his face pressing into the crook of your neck as he exhaled a long, tired breath.
The kind of breath that said finally, peace.
He was wrong.
“So,” you whispered against his collarbone, “since I let you pick this time, I get to choose the next roleplay.”
He sighed again
You ignored it completely.
“We could do the delivery guy thing,” you murmured, a yawn stealing the edge off your words. “Like, you show up with a package and I answer the door in just a towel, dripping wet, all innocent and flustered. And you’re just standing there, all stoic, but you have to fuck me on the spot. Right there against the doorframe. Package forgotten on the mat.”
He didn’t respond. His breathing was slow, like he was trying to will himself into unconsciousness.
So you kept going.
“Or—or we could do the ‘I’m your best friend’s girlfriend’ angle,” you said, your voice dropping into a dreamy cadence. “You’re not supposed to want me. But you catch me in the shower at a party. The bathroom door’s cracked open, and instead of leaving, you just… watch. Then you step inside, still fully dressed, and pin me to the tile.”
“No,” he mumbled, the word muffled against your skin.
Before you could continue, he rolled on top of you, his body a warm, solid weight pressing you into the mattress. His mouth found yours, a kiss that was clearly meant to shut you up. His tongue swept against your bottom lip, and for a moment you let yourself sink into it.
But only a moment.
You broke the kiss with a soft, teasing hum. “What about the corrupt cop thing?” you whispered, your lips still brushing his. “You pull me over on some empty road at midnight. I’m nervous, hands shaking as I hand you my license. And you shine your flashlight in my face, look me up and down, and tell me I was speeding. Then you lean down, voice low, and tell me there’s only one way I can get out of the ticket.”
He kissed you again. Harder this time. A grunt built in his throat, muffled against your mouth, his hand sliding up to cradle your jaw, his thumb pressing against your cheek like he could physically hold your words in.
You chuckled against his lips.
“Ooooh. Or the one where I’m drunk and stumbling out of a party,” you said, your voice breathless. “You’re the older guy who tells me to get in the car. You drive me home in silence, but I fall asleep in the passenger seat, my head lolling against the window. So you carry me inside, and tuck me into.”
He buried his face in your neck, his breath hot against your pulse point, his lips pressing a kiss to the hollow of your throat. “Go to sleep, please,” he muttered.
“—but I wake up,” you continued, your fingers threading into his hair, “and you’re standing in the doorway. Watching me. And I’m so grateful. So vulnerable. So willing—spread out on the bed in nothing but his oversized shirt, legs parted just enough, looking up at you with those sleepy, trusting eyes. And then you just… take what you want.”
His whole body shuddered against yours. His hips pressed into your thigh, and you felt the unmistakable stir of interest against your skin. His cock, already half-hard from the images you’d painted, twitched as if responding to your words directly.
“You’re gonna kill me,” he muttered, the words rough, as he pressed lazy, open-mouthed kisses along your jaw, down to the curve of your neck.
You hummed, “I think you like it.”
He didn’t answer. He just pulled you tighter, his arm wrapping around your waist like a vise, his other hand sliding under your head to cup the base of your skull. He kissed your temple, then closed his eyes.
“No more talking,” he whispered.
You grinned against his chest. “Not even the professor one?” you teased. “Where I’m failing your class and you offer extra credit in the form of—“
“I will gag you.”
You snorted, the sound warm and muffled against his skin.
“That’s a yes, then.”
He groaned again, long and suffering. But you felt it, the curve of his lips pressed against your hair, the soft exhale of a smile he tried to hide.
And eventually you let him fall asleep. Wrapped around you, his body a shield of warmth and muscle, his breath evening out into the deep, slow rhythm of rest. His cock still twitched against your thigh every few minutes, a stubborn reminder of all the images you’d planted in his head.
You smiled into the dark, your fingers still tangled in his hair, and finally let yourself drift.
a/n | i fear i would let bucky barnes film me with an iphone 7 in a kitchen with bad lighting and call it art.
summary: you have a sex dream about your attending that leaves you hot, flustered, late for work, and completely off your game. then things go from bad to worse when gossip spreads and the entire emergency department finds out—including dr. robby.
notes: i honestly haven't been this excited or motivated to write in forever, and i just really hope it doesn't suck. this one feels a little different, kind of like... it just flowed? my writing feels less mechanical, i think? i don't know, i feel like i've been stuck in a rut and even though this isn't perfect, it feels like i finally enjoy writing again. i put so much love into this and tried so hard to get the characters right, i just really hope you guys enjoy! please, please let me know what you think!
warnings: more sitcom than drama (just let them have a good day, i beg you), swearing, italics, reader can drive, medical descriptions, blood, medical procedure descriptions (it's not super graphic though), most definitely incorrect medical information (my friend is a doctor, i am not), implied age gap but never specified, very likely incorrect tagalog (i'm sorry in advance), reader doesn't know tagalog, implied smut but nothing explicit, reader gets injured (and stitches), and making out (on shift, lol, nothing graphic but still, mdni please).
word count: 12763
You wake all at once.
Not slowly, not gently, but with one sharp inhale like you’ve surfaced from deep water.
For a second you don’t know where you are. Your room is too warm, the air too heavy, every inch of your skin flushed and slick with sweat. Heat clings to you, your heart pounding wildly in your ears, sheets twisted tight around your legs, and for one disorienting moment you swear you can still feel him—warm hands, breath close, the dizzying pull of something forbidden and overwhelming.
The echo of his voice follows you up from sleep, low and wrecked and impossibly real.
Dr. Robby.
Your stomach flips.
“Fuck,” you mumble into your pillow, already mortified, already knowing your brain has crossed a line it absolutely shouldn’t have this time.
Because it didn’t feel like a dream. It still doesn’t. Fragments flash behind your eyelids—the way he touched you, his voice softer than you’ve ever heard it, the teasing burn of stubble where he shouldn’t have been close enough to touch.
You roll onto your back and drag both hands over your face, groaning quietly as awareness settles in piece by piece. Your pulse refuses to slow, every nerve still humming like your body missed the memo that none of it actually happened.
You stare at the ceiling.
“…You have got to be kidding me.”
This wasn’t random. Not by a long shot.
It was him. Your attending. The stubborn, overworked, infuriatingly competent man who makes unresolved emotional baggage look hot. The man you have to see in barely two hours.
A small, helpless sound escapes you as you roll onto your side again, squeezing your eyes shut.
This is a problem.
A very real, very immediate, absolutely unprofessional problem.
And yet, you still don’t move. You lie there too long, cheeks burning despite the fact that no one else can see what you’re replaying in your mind. Warmth lingers beneath your skin, pooling low in your belly as you let yourself remember every phantom touch. Every whispered word. The look in his eyes as he’d settled between your legs and—
BEEP. BEEP. BEEP.
You bolt upright, your hand flying out to find your phone.
You’re still hot, still flushed and sticky. Still half-dreaming about Robby and his goddamn hands—but now? Now you’re late. Horribly late. Because that alarm isn’t your wake-up alarm—it’s your backup alarm. The one that goes off when it’s time for you to leave for work.
“Fuck!”
You throw the covers back and rush into the bathroom. You strip quickly out of your damp sleep shirt, tossing everything on the floor before stepping into the shower without even waiting for the water to warm. Which is exactly what you need, you remind yourself as you hiss beneath the cold spray.
Fifteen minutes later, you’re standing in front of the mirror in your black scrubs, trying to fix your hair and will the colour to drain from your cheeks. But it’s stubborn. Bright. Hot to the touch and utterly telling.
“Jesus Christ,” you sigh, squeezing your eyes shut for a second too long.
A second you don’t have.
With a deep breath, you turn, grab your bag, and sling it over your shoulder, wondering whether running to the hospital might actually be quicker than your usual commute at this time. Traffic is never great—you never truly know which route will get you there fastest—but now you’re about to hit peak hour.
You spend the entire drive trying to think about literally anything other than the dream—patient charts, upcoming shifts, whether your stethoscope is in your bag or your locker—but your thoughts keep slipping sideways, traitorous and vivid.
So vivid.
Stop thinking about his hands.
Stop thinking about his voice.
Stop—
You groan softly and turn the radio up louder.
It doesn’t help.
By the time you pull into the hospital parking lot, you’re almost twenty minutes late. You slam your car door shut, hike your bag higher on your shoulder, and practically run toward the ER doors.
“Woah,” Donnie says, quickly stepping out of your way. “Someone’s in a hurry.”
You don’t reply. You just keep going until you hit central, then slow to a hurried walk—head down, eyes fixed on your feet, praying everyone is already too busy to notice you.
“You’re late,” Dana says.
You stop mid-step, more out of habit than intention.
“Yeah, I’m sorry. I—”
“Shit, hon, you okay?” She steps around the desk, peering over her glasses. “You look like you’re burnin’ up.”
You step back before she can press a hand to your forehead.
“I’m fine, I swear.” You keep backing up. “Just my—my car’s A/C isn’t working and I’m a little warm. That’s all.”
You know she doesn’t believe you. This is Dana you’re talking to, not some brand-new, bright-eyed RN. Dana can see through any and all bullshit, and by the look on her face, she isn’t buying this at all.
“I’m fine,” you say again, forcing a smile before turning sharply on your heel.
Only to turn right into something solid.
Warm. Tall. Unmoving.
“Shit, I—”
You look up.
And your entire nervous system shuts down.
Dr. Robby.
“Sorry,” you blurt instantly, stepping back so fast you nearly trip over your own feet. “I didn’t see—I mean, I was looking, just not—”
His hand is still wrapped around your elbow, grounding you in place, and for one terrible second all you can think about is how close he is. How close he’d felt last night. How real it feels right now.
His eyebrows lift slightly, confusion flickering across his face. “You alright?”
“Yes,” you say too quickly. “Fine. Totally fine.”
You are not fine.
Your face feels nuclear, and you’re suddenly aware of everything at once—his height, his proximity, the way his sleeves are pushed up, the fact that he’s looking directly at you like he’s trying to figure something out.
His head tilts slightly.
“You’re late,” he says, not unkindly.
“I know.”
Neither of you move for a moment.
You can feel your pulse in your throat. Your chest. Lower.
“I—I’m gonna—”
You don’t even finish before you turn away, hurrying down the hall toward the lockers. Every inch of your skin feels like it’s on fire—and every thought in your head is so wildly inappropriate for where you are right now you feel like you might throw up.
“Damn.” Santos appears beside you, her eyes flicking between your face and the tablet in her hands. “Either you’re febrile or you just did something really embarrassing.” She tucks the tablet under her arm. “What gives?”
You shoot her a flat look as you key in the code to your locker. “Nothing gives. I’m fine.”
She snorts. “Sure. That tone is really selling it.”
You take a deep breath and turn toward your locker, shoving your bag inside before unzipping your jacket and shrugging off. You stuff that in too—then sling your stethoscope around your neck, shut the door, and turn back to your fellow R2.
She looks concerned now, brows drawn as her eyes track over your face and neck.
“You’re seriously flushed,” she says. “Are you sure you’re feeling okay?”
“I’m fine.” You turn and start walking back toward central. “Just running late, okay? Now can I start my shift before—” You stop yourself, his name catching somewhere in your chest. “Before I have an attending down my throat for slacking off?”
God. You could have chosen better words.
“Okay, whatever,” Santos mutters, holding her tablet out again. “Sorry for caring.”
She gives you a sarcastic little eye roll before veering off around the other side of the nurse’s station and ducking into one of the active patient rooms. You watch after her for a second before a voice across the room steals your attention.
He’s on the other side of central, nodding along while Mohan and Whitaker brief him on a patient—and looking entirely too hot for seven-thirty on a Monday morning beneath harsh fluorescent lights.
“Stop it,” you whisper to yourself, pausing at the nurse’s station to collect a tablet.
“Stop what?”
You startle, head snapping toward the man suddenly beside you.
“Jesus Christ, Dr. Abbot,” you sigh. “Are you trying to get me admitted for a heart attack?”
The corner of his mouth twitches. “You already look halfway there.”
You roll your eyes. “Okay, I get it. I’m red and I’m sweaty—can everyone please stop commenting on it now?”
He chuckles. “Sorry. Didn’t realise you’d already been bullied about it.”
You sigh again and turn your attention to the board, tipping your head back to read it.
“Why are you still here, anyway?” you ask.
“Wanted to see my favourite resident,” he says. “You sure you don’t want to come back to nights?”
You huff a laugh through your nose. “I love you, Abbot, but nights aren’t for me.” You glance across the nurse’s station, where Dana and Robby are now discussing the latest incoming trauma. “I just miss Dana too much.”
Abbot snorts. “Dana?”
You look back at him. “Yes. Dana.”
Amusement flickers across his face. “You sure?”
“Yes,” you say, too quickly. “I mean, who—what else would—”
“Doctors,” Javadi interrupts, stepping in front of you both. “Sorry to interrupt, but could I get a second opinion on a patient in South Twenty-One, please?”
Abbot nods, glancing at you. “I’ll go. You settle in.” The corner of his mouth lifts a little higher. “Maybe check in with your attending.”
Then he turns and walks away with Javadi at his side.
You stare after him—eyes wide, pulse racing, wondering what the fuck he meant by all that.
You’ve always suspected Abbot might be a mind reader, but that? That was something else. Too knowing. Too dangerous. And now you need to figure out what the hell he thinks he knows.
“Doctor,” Perlah calls from behind the desk. “Could you check on Central Twelve? She’s still complaining of pain after morphine and Zofran.”
You turn to her, shaking your head as if that might knock your thoughts back into place. “Uh—yeah. Of course. Central Twelve, heading there now.”
She gives you a curious look, brows drawn, but you turn away before she can ask any more questions.
On your way to C12, you pull up the patient’s chart—seen by Whitaker about half an hour ago—and double-check the morphine and Zofran doses she received. You pause just outside the room, drawing a deep breath and reminding yourself that you are at work. You don’t have time to be flustered. You don’t have time to worry about what Jack Abbot may or may not know. And you definitely don’t have time to obsess over the imaginary rasp of Robby’s beard against your thigh that you can somehow still feel.
When you push the door open and step inside, you’re the picture of professionalism. You offer the patient a polite smile, introduce yourself, and start the routine checks that feel more like second nature than work.
After the exam and a brief conversation, you order two more milligrams of morphine, review the labs Whitaker sent, and make a note to check back in fifteen minutes. Then, still intent on avoiding your attending, you bury your nose in your tablet and move on to the next patient waiting in South Sixteen.
Pressure-like chest pain. Diaphoretic, no shortness of breath. Initial ECG normal. Labs pending.
“Alright, Mr. Mullens,” you say, squirting a pump of sanitiser into your palm. “We’re going to get some scans done so we can get a better idea of what’s going on. If the pain gets worse before then, let us know.”
The man nods. “Thank you, Doc.”
You smile, stepping out into the hallway. “I’ll be back soon to check in.”
As soon as you turn around, you look for Robby, making sure you’re not about to run into him again. Literally.
You spot him all the way across central, walking with Santos toward the North hallway. Good. You’re safe. And if all goes well, maybe you’ll manage to avoid him for the entire day. Maybe you won’t have to come face to face with the face you can still see buried between your legs.
Fuck.
Your pulse kicks, heart beating too fast as you remember the way his eyes had watched you in your dream. It’s almost too much. Even the phantom memory of it is making you breathless.
God. If it ever actually happened, you might pass out.
“Why would you even think of that?” you mutter to yourself, stopping at the nurse’s station.
When you finally look up, Perlah and Princess are watching you closely, speculation sparkling in their eyes.
“Sobrang pula ng mukha niya,” Perlah murmurs.
Princess nods. “Hindi lagnat ’yan.”
Perlah lowers her voice even more. “Sa tingin mo ba may kinalaman ito sa crush niya?”
They both laugh quietly, turning away from you as if it isn’t you they’re gossiping about.
“Malinaw,” Princess says.
You give them both a tight smile before glancing up at the board, searching for something suitably distracting and far away from nosy nurses and unfairly attractive attendings.
You’re just about to head back toward the South hallway when a gurney crashes through the ambulance bay doors.
“Trauma Two!” Dana calls. “Robby!”
Abbot is already moving, meeting the paramedics halfway and guiding the gurney toward T2.
He points at you as he walks. “With me.”
“Shit,” you mutter, dropping your tablet on the desk and jogging over.
“Thirty-two-year-old male, MVC, restrained driver,” the paramedic says. “Front-end collision, airbags deployed. No LOC. Increasing shortness of breath during transport. Breath sounds decreased left side.”
“Let’s get him on monitor,” Abbot says, moving to stand opposite you at the head of the bed. “On my count.”
Robby steps in at your side, like he always does—close enough that you feel him before you see him.
His arm brushes yours.
Your stomach flips.
Focus.
“One. Two. Three,” Abbot counts.
You transfer the patient from gurney to trauma bed, and Santos starts cutting away clothes.
“Two large-bore IVs,” Abbot tells Jesse. “Trauma labs. Portable chest X-ray.” Then he looks at you, brows raised. “Breath sounds?”
“Oh—uh—” You fumble with your stethoscope, pressing it to each side of the patient’s chest. “Diminished on the left.”
You reach for the patient’s neck, fingers steady despite the noise around you.
“Trachea midline.”
Abbot nods, then turns to Santos. “Let’s get ultrasound.”
“BP holding?” Robby asks.
The sound of his voice sends goosebumps racing along your arms—and you shiver before you can stop yourself.
“Pressure’s 118 over 76,” Jesse replies. “Stable.”
Robby glances at you, brows drawn. “You okay?”
You nod quickly, without looking up. “Never better.”
“Absent lung sliding on the left,” Santos announces.
“Likely pneumothorax,” Abbot says, looking at Robby.
“Sats dropping,” Jesse calls. “Eighty-nine.”
Robby nods once. “Okay. We’re putting in a chest tube.”
“Chest tube tray. Twenty-eight French. Left side,” Abbot orders.
You try to move out of the way, but Robby’s hand catches your elbow—and you can’t help but look up. His dark eyes meet yours with an intensity you’ve never noticed before, and suddenly your lungs forget how to work.
“You’re up,” he says. “I’ll walk you through it.”
You know there’s no time to argue. You know you can’t. Shouldn’t. This is your job. And it’s not like you could say no to this man even if you wanted to.
You swallow. “Okay.”
Robby nods, then looks at Jesse. “Alright, let’s get some lido. Sutures ready. Hook up suction.”
You turn back to the patient, watching Abbot position the left arm above his head while Jesse preps the area—chlorhexidine swab, sterile drape. The rustle of sterile gowns and the snap of gloves fill the room as you pull on your own and push a pair of protective glasses up your nose. Then you grab the lidocaine from the tray and lean over the patient’s left side, steadying your hand as you guide the needle in.
The room is quieter now—save for the steady beeping of the monitors—chaos narrowing into focus as everyone watches you sink the needle into the patient’s skin.
“A little deeper,” Robby murmurs.
Your breath catches, but your hands stay steady.
You can feel him just behind you, leaning close, his warmth bleeding through your scrubs and setting your whole body on fire.
“Now find the rib,” he instructs. “Stay above it.”
You discard the needle onto the tray and start feeling ribs, counting down until you find the space.
“Scalpel,” you say, refusing to take your eyes off the spot your fingers found.
Jesse places the scalpel in your hand, and without hesitation, you cut a three-centimetre incision.
“Good,” Robby murmurs.
Your pulse thrums beneath your skin.
“Clamp,” you say, your voice almost breaking.
Jesse takes the scalpel from your hand, replacing it with a curved clamp.
You insert the clamp, pushing past muscle layers, and begin to spread. It feels forceful. Too much. Invasive, even though you know this is exactly what you’re supposed to do.
Robby steps closer. “Commit to it.”
His hand covers yours to adjust the angle, add pressure—until you feel the pop. And it takes every ounce of your self-control not to react. Not to whimper at the very normal, very professional way your attending is guiding you right now.
“Now sweep,” he says, so close you can feel the warmth of his breath against your cheek.
You insert your finger into the space, confirming entry into the pleural cavity and checking for adhesions—then nod. You don’t dare turn your head as you hold your hand out for the tube. He’s too close, too warm. You can smell the faint scent of soap on his skin even over the antiseptic and metallic tang in the air.
“Inserting tube,” you say, more to yourself than anyone else.
You start guiding the tube in—slow and controlled—feeling every millimetre of movement.
Until it stops.
Too much resistance.
“Up,” Robby says, his hand covering yours again. “Aim higher.”
He adjusts your wrist slightly, guiding the pressure.
You swallow hard and nod, hoping no one else can hear your uneven breathing—but knowing Robby definitely can.
He helps you apply more pressure, firmer now, angle corrected, and the tube starts moving again.
“That’s it,” he murmurs. “Good girl. Keep going.”
Your brain short-circuits.
Heat floods your face. Your chest. Lower.
His voice echoes from your dream. Breathless. Panting. Words whispered against your skin.
Fuck. Now is not the time.
You tighten your grip on the tube and push.
Then—
A rush of air.
“Air return,” Abbot says, a hint of pride in his tone. “Now secure it.”
Robby steps back, and you hear the snap of his gloves coming off.
“O2 sats climbing,” he announces.
“Cool,” Santos says, grinning at Abbot’s side. “I’m doing the next one.”
You barely look up. You can’t. Your whole face feels like it’s on fire. You've never blushed this hard before. You’ve never been this hot in your life. And you’ve definitely never been this horny in the goddamn trauma bay.
“You good to finish up?” Robby asks Abbot.
Abbot nods.
From the corner of your eye, you see Robby step toward the door, glancing over his shoulder with a small, impressed smile.
“Nice work, Doctor.”
You don’t reply. You just nod, lips twitching with a soft smile as you keep your eyes on the patient.
As soon as you finish suturing and securing the tube, you step back, tearing off your gown and gloves as if that’ll somehow give you a reprieve from the heat beneath your skin. Jesse takes your place beside the patient, nodding along to Abbot’s orders while he and Kim start cleaning up.
You shove your gown, gloves, and glasses into the biohazard bin and head for the door without looking back—which is exactly why you don’t notice Santos trailing you.
“That was so cool,” she says, startling you.
“Jesus,” you mutter. “Don’t sneak up on me like that.”
She frowns. “Sneak? I was right behind you. It’s not my fault you’re all weird and jumpy today.”
“I’m not—” You glance across central to make sure Robby isn’t somewhere in your path to the ambulance bay. “I’m not weird and jumpy.”
Santos scoffs. “Right. And I’m not behind on my charting.”
You don’t bother arguing with her. You just keep walking—and she follows. All the way through the ER and out to the ambulance bay, where you stop just before the curb and draw a deep breath. It isn’t nearly as refreshing as you’d hoped, but a break from the fluorescents is always welcome.
“Okay,” she says, folding her arms. “What is with you today? You’re never this off. I’ve seen you perform procedures you’d only read about without a single assist from the attending. And I know you’ve done a chest tube before.”
You don’t answer. You don’t even look at her. You just tip your head back and stare at the roof of the ambulance bay, wondering whether it might collapse and save you from this conversation.
“And on that note,” she goes on, “Dr. Robby knows you’ve done a chest tube before, so why the hell was he being so patient? I swear he’s got a soft spot for you. Javadi pointed it out a few weeks ago and I honestly don’t know how I missed it. I mean—has he ever yelled at you?”
You finally look at her, brows drawn. “I—uh—no, I don’t think so.”
“Exactly,” she says, stepping closer. “And please tell me I heard wrong, but did he say good girl to you back there?”
As soon as she says it, your cheeks burn with renewed intensity. You can feel your heart in your throat, beating out of rhythm and way too fast for someone who is definitely not in a life-or-death situation.
And Santos notices—because of course she does.
Her eyes go wide. “Oh my God. This totally has something to do with Dr. Robby.”
“Shut up,” you mutter. “It’s not—”
You stop yourself, squeezing your eyes shut and pinching the bridge of your nose.
Santos isn’t going to let this go. You know her. She’s too inquisitive, too nosy, and there’s not nearly enough chaos today to distract her.
“Okay, fine,” you sigh, looking up, face burning. “I had a sex dream about him and now I can’t stop thinking about it.”
She stares at you for a second.
“A sex dream?”
You nod miserably.
Her mouth twitches—then she snorts.
Not a polite laugh. A full, startled snort she tries—and fails—to muffle behind her hand.
“Oh my God,” she says. “I knew you had a thing for him, but a sex dream?”
“Would you stop saying it?” you hiss, glancing nervously around the empty ambulance bay.
She laughs a little harder. “Was he good?”
“Oh my God,” you mutter, dropping your head into your hands. “I regret everything.”
“Hey,” she says, still laughing as she drops a hand on your shoulder. “For what it’s worth, I’m pretty sure he’d go there if you asked.”
Your head snaps up. “If I asked?”
She shrugs. “Why not shoot your shot?”
“Because he’s my boss!”
“He’s your attending,” she says. “Technically, Dr. Underwood is your boss. Dr. Robby just supervises you.”
You shut your eyes again and draw a deep breath, trying to steady your pulse.
“Okay,” you say, squaring your shoulders. “I’m done with this conversation. I’m going back to work, and you’re not telling anyone what I just told you. Okay?”
She mimes zipping her lips. “I’m a vault, I swear.”
You nod. “Good.”
Then you turn and start walking back inside, trying not to conspicuously check for Robby on your way to the nurse’s station. Santos is still at your heels, still wearing an amused grin as if your humiliation is her exact brand of humour.
“One more question,” she says, stopping beside you as you grab another tablet from the rack.
You sigh. “What?”
She leans in. “Did he say ‘good girl’ in the dream too?”
Your pulse jumps.
“Goodbye, Dr. Santos,” you say, turning quickly on your heel.
“I’m taking that as a yes,” she calls after you.
You ignore her, turning toward S16 to check on your chest pain patient.
“Hey, Mr. Mullens,” you say as you push back the curtain. “How are you feeling?”
The older man sits up a little. “I’m okay.”
“Good.” You pull up his chart on your tablet. “The pain hasn’t gotten any worse?”
He shakes his head. “No.”
“That’s good to hear,” you say, quickly flicking through his lab results. “Your first labs look reassuring, but we’ll repeat them in a couple of hours just to be safe.”
You glance up, and he nods.
“Thank you, Doctor.”
You smile softly. “If the pain gets worse, or if you start having trouble breathing, press the call button.”
“Will do.”
You offer him one last nod before tucking your tablet under your arm and squirting a pump of sanitiser into your palm as you exit the room.
The second you step into the hall, you take a deep breath, finally feeling like your lungs remember how to work. Like your pulse might finally be settling into something resembling a normal rhythm. Like maybe—just maybe—you can survive the day if you stay distracted with work long enough not to think about last night.
About his voice—low and rough in your ear, whispering something you can’t quite remember.
Except the way it made your spine arch.
Or the moment he’d braced his hands on either side of you, his head dipping just enough that you could feel the warmth of his breath before he—
“Doctor.”
You jerk slightly, heat rushing straight back into your face as the memory evaporates.
“Sorry—what?”
Whitaker, now standing in front of you, clears his throat. “Nothing. I just—you looked a little out of it.”
You shake your head and turn toward central. “Yeah. Sorry. I’m a little off today.”
He nods, falling into step beside you. “Santos mentioned.”
Your head snaps toward him. “Santos mentioned what?”
“Just that you were out of it today,” he says quietly, staring at the floor.
You stare at him. “And?”
He shrugs, but it’s stiff. “And nothing.”
You stop at the nurse’s station and drop your tablet on the desk.
“I swear to God, Whitaker, if she told you—”
“She didn’t tell me anything,” he says, clearly panicked now. “I—I’ve got to go check on a patient.”
Then he’s gone, hurrying off toward the South hallway.
Fuck.
You told Santos barely ten minutes ago and she’s already told Whitaker?
So much for being a vault.
“What’d I tell you about swearin’ on God, little lady?” Dana asks, peering over her glasses from the other side of the desk.
You sigh, resting both forearms on the counter. “Sorry. Rough morning.”
“Tell me about it,” she says, glancing down at her tablet. “Sprained ankle in North Four wants an MRI and a wheelchair escort to the parking lot. Psych hold in B2 tried to climb out the bathroom window. Ogilvie ordered the wrong labs and blamed the computer. And someone—” she pauses, squinting toward where McKay is assessing a patient, “—keeps leaving half-empty coffee cups everywhere like we’re running a café instead of an emergency department.”
You huff a quiet laugh.
“And we’re only on hour two,” she adds, looking back up at you.
“Lucky us,” you mutter.
She sets her tablet down and slides her glasses off, folding them into the breast pocket of her scrubs.
“What’s with you, hm?” She leans in. “First you’re late, then you run out of trauma like you’re about to pass out. That’s not like you, kid.”
You shrug. “Just a little off today.”
She watches you for a second, her eyes narrowing just a fraction. She’s not stupid. She knows there’s more to it than that—but Dana isn’t the type to push.
She hums quietly.
“Alright,” she says. “I’ll pretend I believe that.”
You give her a small, appreciative smile as you push off the counter. “Love you, Dana.”
She just shakes her head, the corner of her mouth lifting as she glances back down at her tablet. “Yeah? Then check on North Four for me and see if you can get ‘em discharged.”
You nod. “North Four, on it.”
You start to turn away, then stop yourself and swivel back toward her.
“Hey—uh—is Abbot still here?” you ask.
“No, he left right after the MVC trauma,” she replies without looking up.
“Oh.”
“Why? You need him?” she asks. “I’m sure whatever you need, Dr. Robby can—”
“No,” you say quickly. “Nope. I’m good. Totally fine. Don’t need anything at all.”
You hug your tablet to your chest and start turning away again.
“Everything’s fine!”
You don’t dare look back. You just keep walking toward the North hall, completely missing the sceptical look Dana sends after you—and the confused look on Robby’s face as he glances between the two of you.
On your way to N4, you pull your phone out of your pocket and tap on Dr. Abbot’s contact, typing quickly.
So much for saying goodbye to your favourite resident.
Then you hit send and tuck your phone back into your pocket.
You’re not actually offended. Not really. This is the ER. People barely have time to finish a sentence, let alone say goodbye.
You’re just… nervous.
Nervous because Abbot thinks he knows something—and you need to figure out what that is before he decides to say something to Robby and make this whole situation infinitely worse.
You stop outside N4 and take a deep breath—your hundredth deep breath of the morning. You can do this. This is the easy part. The patients. The work. The familiarity of what you do every day. You just need to focus on this for the next twelve hours and definitely not the way you can still feel the weight of his hand on your hip, steady and certain, holding you exactly where he wanted you as he—
“Nope,” you tell yourself out loud. “Absolutely not. Focus.”
You shake your head as you step into the room and slide the curtain back, greeting the patient with your practiced mask of cool, calm, and collected. You manage to convince them they don’t need an MRI, since their ankle is only sprained, but you do get Ahmad to escort them out in a wheelchair—and now you owe him ten bucks and a bagel tomorrow morning.
Then you move on to the next patient. And the next.
The next few hours pass by in a blur of minor catastrophes. A migraine that melts away with the standard cocktail of Toradol, Reglan, and Benadryl. A Lego piece extracted from a three-year-old’s nose while Whitaker distracts the squirming patient. Three stitches in the eyebrow of a man who swears he doesn’t drink before 10AM—even though you can smell the alcohol on his breath. An overworked woman with chest pain that turns out to be a panic attack. A teenager with a swollen knee and a devastated look on his face when you suggest he might be benched for the rest of the season.
And at half past noon, you step into C9. Mid-thirties, right lower quadrant abdominal pain, nausea, mild fever—what you can already guess is appendicitis.
“Hi, Ms. Park, how are you feeling?” you ask, squirting a pump of sanitiser into your palm.
She winces. “Not so good.”
“It says here you’re having abdominal pain, nausea, and a bit of a fever,” you say. “When did that start?”
She nods. “Early this morning. Four, maybe.”
You set your tablet on the cart, grab a pair of gloves, and drag a stool beside the bed. “Mind if I take a look at your abdomen so I can get a better idea of what’s going on?”
She nods and tips her head back against the pillow, hands falling either side as you start palpating her lower abdomen. It doesn’t take more than a few presses for her to hiss and lift a hand, trying to push you away.
“Sorry,” she says, voice strained. “It hurts a lot.”
“That’s okay.” You scoot back and rise from the stool, peeling off your gloves. “I’m going to order a CT scan to take a better look, and we’ll give you something for the pain and something for the nausea in the meantime.”
You step around the bed and grab your tablet off the cart.
“A nurse will come in shortly to start fluids too,” you add. “You’re probably a little dehydrated if you haven’t been able to eat or drink much this morning.”
She looks at you with wide eyes. “I don’t know if I want a CT. Isn’t that a lot of radiation?”
“It’s a relatively small amount,” you reply evenly, “and it’s the best way for us to see what’s going on inside your abdomen. I can assure you, it’s very safe.”
“I try to avoid unnecessary radiation,” Ms. Park argues, shifting uncomfortably. “Is there another option?”
“Ultrasound can sometimes help, but it’s not always reliable in adults,” you say. “A CT scan will give us the clearest answer.”
She hesitates, eyes dropping to her lap. “Well—could I please speak to the doctor in charge?”
You open your mouth to reply when someone steps in beside you. Tall. Solid. Close enough to make your pulse skip and your stomach take a nosedive.
“You are,” Robby says, arms folded. “She’s the physician managing your care right now, so we’ll follow her recommendation.”
You step to the side, nearly tripping over nothing, clutching your tablet to your chest.
“Uh—Dr. Robby, this is Ms. Park,” you say quickly. “Thirty-five, right lower quadrant pain since early this morning. Nausea, no vomiting, low-grade fever at triage. Tenderness at McBurney’s point. I’ve ordered labs and a CT abdomen to rule out appendicitis.”
Robby nods once. “That sounds appropriate.”
Ms. Park sighs.
“Alright,” she says, a little more pleasantly now. “If that’s what you recommend.”
She doesn’t even look at you as she says it—her eyes stay fixed on Robby, softening in a way that makes you briefly consider poking her appendix again.
Not that you can blame her.
Your gaze flicks to Robby, wondering if he’s noticed the sudden change in demeanour—or the way she’s practically making heart eyes at him.
But he isn’t looking at Ms. Park.
He’s looking at you.
You clear your throat, quickly glancing back down at your tablet. “Uh—that’s good. Great. I’ll finish the orders now, and a nurse will be by shortly with some pain relief.”
Ms. Park gives you a brief nod before turning back to Robby with a smile that makes you want to roll your eyes. Robby just nods, squirts a pump of sanitiser into his hand, then steps out of the room—and you try not to follow too closely.
You slide the curtain shut before turning into the hall, half expecting Robby to be gone—but he isn’t. He’s still standing there, holding his tablet in one hand while the other scrubs at his jaw in that mildly anxious way it always does.
“Nice work in there,” he says without looking up.
Heat floods your face.
“Thanks,” you say with a tight smile. “And thanks for backing me up.”
He glances at you over the top of his glasses.
“You had it handled.”
You clutch your tablet to your chest. “Well—uh—thanks anyway.”
Then, before you completely lose the ability to function, you turn on your heel and start down the hall—but not fast enough to miss Dana’s voice.
“Careful, Robinavitch,” she says dryly. “You’re hovering.”
“I supervise,” Robby mutters.
Dana hums.
“Uh-huh. I’ll pretend I believe that.”
Hovering?
You tighten your grip on your tablet as you hurry down the South hall, pretending you know where you’re headed.
Robby wasn’t hovering. He was just doing his job. Right?
He hovers around every resident and med student.
It’s not like he was—
You shake your head.
No—Dana’s just teasing. It’s her thing. It’s practically her love language.
You stop short when you reach the end of the hall. Elevator ahead. Restrooms to your right.
Nowhere else to go.
“You okay, Doctor?” McKay asks, stepping out of the ladies’ room.
You blink. “Uh—yeah, I just—”
You’re not sure what excuse to use now—standing in the middle of the hall, staring at the elevator, white-knuckling your tablet like you’re one bad patient away from a psychotic break.
“You look like you’re buffering,” she says, the corner of her mouth twitching. “Why don’t you take a break?”
You shake your head. “I don’t need a break.”
Her brows lift as she gently places a hand on each of your shoulders, turning you back the other way. “Alright. Well, why don’t you go sit down and catch up on your charting?”
She starts guiding you slowly back up the hall.
“Charting,” you echo, a faint frown forming between your brows. “Yeah. That’s a good idea, actually. I haven’t done much all day.”
She nods. “See? I’m full of good ideas. And you are seriously concerning me today.”
You give her a look. “I’m fine. Everyone is just being—”
“Caring?” she offers.
You roll your eyes. “Overbearing.”
She shakes her head, laughing quietly as she steers you toward the nurse’s station.
“Here,” she says, pulling out a chair in front of a vacant computer. “Sit.”
“Yes, ma’am,” you mutter, dropping down at the desk.
She steps behind you, pushes the chair in, then leans over your shoulder.
“Good girl,” she murmurs.
Your entire spine locks.
“What was that?”
McKay straightens, already grinning.
“Charting,” she says lightly, tapping the monitor. “Try it.”
“But—you just—”
She laughs under her breath, already backing away.
“Finish your notes, doctor. You don’t want to have to stay late.”
Then she’s gone, shaking her head again as she disappears back toward triage.
You sit there for a few seconds longer than you should, staring after her while your brain desperately tries to reboot.
“Fucking Santos,” you mutter, finally turning back to the computer.
“You called,” Santos says, appearing on the other side of the desk.
Your eyes snap up. “You.”
Her brows lift. “Me?”
“Yes,” you snap. “You’ve been telling people.”
She tries—and fails—to suppress a smile.
“Not technically.” She leans forward, resting both forearms on the counter. “I only told Huckleberry, but McKay overheard. Can you blame me, though? It’s the most interesting thing to happen around here today.”
“Yes,” you hiss. “I can blame you. And I will blame you if—”
You stop, your eyes flicking past her to where Robby has just stepped out of C8, chart in hand and head bowed. Santos frowns for a second before following your gaze over her shoulder.
She snorts. “Oh my God. You can’t even function.”
“Who can’t function?” Whitaker asks, stepping up beside Santos.
You drop your head into your hands and sigh. “Great. They’re multiplying.”
Santos leans closer. “Hey, what’s the song that plays in your head whenever he walks past? Is it, like, SexyBack, or more… Like a Prayer?”
Whitaker snorts softly, his cheeks turning pink.
You glare at Santos. “Neither.”
“You’re right.” She nods thoughtfully. “I can practically hear the Careless Whisper sax playing in your mind right now.”
Your eyes go wide as you snatch a pen off the desk and lob it straight at her—but she dodges it easily.
“Wow,” she says, still laughing. “I’m on fire today.”
“Is that so, Dr. Santos?”
You recognise the voice before you even see him—because of course you do. You dream about that voice.
“That would mean you’ve caught up on all your charting and discharged your patient in North One?” Robby asks as he steps up beside Santos.
Her grin drops. “Uh—yeah. Actually, I was just on my way to North One.”
Her eyes slide back to you as she pushes away from the desk, lips pressed tight to keep herself from laughing.
“Dr. Whitaker,” Robby says. “Are you hovering?”
Hovering?
Whitaker glances up. “Oh—uh—no. I was just finishing some orders.”
“Good. You can finish them on your way to discharging South Twenty.”
Whitaker nods, barely even glancing at you as he grabs his tablet off the desk and turns toward the South hall.
Then Robby looks at you, holding up the pen you threw at Santos.
Your pulse stutters.
“Think you lost this,” he says, leaning forward to drop it on the desk.
“I threw it,” you blurt.
He hesitates, the corner of his mouth twitching before he turns away.
“I know.”
You watch him go until he turns a corner and disappears—then you look down at the pen.
“Fuck,” you sigh, pinching the bridge of your nose. “I need today to end.”
You slide the pen aside and force your attention back to the computer—to the cursor blinking patiently beside the single word you’d managed to write since sitting down.
Right.
Charting.
You manage exactly four more words before you’re interrupted again—something about your abdominal pain patient in Central Nine.
With a sigh, you push away from the desk, grab your tablet, and head for C9.
After confirming Ms. Park does indeed need an appendectomy and contacting Garcia for a surgical consult, Dana stops you in the hall to ask if Mr. Mullens can be discharged from South Sixteen. Then Javadi grabs you to present a calf laceration that you end up supervising while she sutures it, and after that Whitaker calls you in for a second opinion on a dizziness patient in North Five.
The hours start to blur together. You bounce from one room to another, just barely finishing your notes in between patients and med students and reviewing labs. By the time you finally make it back to the desk again, you’ve almost—almost—forgotten about why your heart is still beating a little too fast.
“Back to charting?” Princess asks.
You nod. “The never-ending task.”
She gives you the same quiet, speculative smile she gave you this morning.
“You seem off today,” she says.
“I’m fine,” you mutter. “Just tired.”
“And red,” she adds before turning away.
You frown, pressing a hand to your ridiculously hot cheek as you turn back toward the computer. If this keeps up, you’re more likely to end the shift as a patient than a doctor.
With a small sigh, you scoot your chair closer to the desk and pull the chart back up. Your eyes flick to the corner of the screen, to the little clock telling you that you only have a few hours left. A few hours to finish your charting, discharge a couple more patients, and keep avoiding Dr. Robby. Then you’re free. Then you’ve got at least eight solid hours to sort yourself out before you’re back here tomorrow.
Just as you position your fingers over the keyboard to start typing, your phone vibrates in your pocket—and your pulse jumps.
Abbot.
You quickly pull it out, swipe up, and open the notification.
Sorry. Too busy mourning the loss of my status as your favourite attending.
Your stomach drops.
What the fuck is that supposed to mean?
You stare at the text for an unreasonable length of time—heart pounding, face burning, thoughts racing. Abbot definitely thinks he knows something. Something he shouldn’t know. Something he’s probably very wrong about. Something you need to figure out and shut down immediately.
Before he decides to say something to Robby about whatever it is he thinks he knows.
“Hey,” Dana says, stopping on the other side of the desk. “Thought you were working?”
You clear your throat. “Uh—yeah. Sorry. Got distracted.”
Her brows lift. “Distracted, huh? That’s exactly what we want in emergency medicine.”
Then she shakes her head and walks away.
You tuck your phone into your pocket and turn your attention back to the chart in front of you. The chart of exactly five words—the first of many unfinished charts standing in your way of going home on time.
And today is not a day you want to stay back.
Your fingers hover over the keyboard again, eyes flicking over the few words already written. It takes a minute—probably longer than it should—but eventually you remember how to do your job and start typing.
The ER fades into background noise—monitors beeping, nurses chatting, the rumble of beds rolling past—and for the first time all day, you feel focused. Steady. Until—
“Robby,” Dana calls, “can you come over here for a sec?”
Your fingers slow over the keys—and against your better judgment, you glance up.
“Mrs. Alvarez,” Robby says fondly. “What brings you here?”
Your brows draw together as you study the older woman sitting on the bed. She looks familiar, and Alvarez rings a bell, but you can’t quite place it.
“Perlah,” you say, without fully looking away from the woman. “Who’s Mrs. Alvarez?”
“She used to work here,” Perlah replies. “She was the night shift charge nurse before Lena. Partially retired a couple years ago, but she’s covered a shift or two since then.”
You tilt your head. “Oh.”
“She probably asked for Robby,” Princess chimes in. “She always had a soft spot for him.”
Perlah tries to muffle her laughter. “Katulad ng ibang kakilala natin.”
Princess laughs behind you, but the sound barely registers. You’re too captivated by the scene unfolding in front of you. The very normal, very professional interaction that is hardly out of place in an ER—yet for some reason, it feels like you’re watching an adult film made specifically for you.
Mrs. Alvarez’s bed is parked up against the wall—a sight that would normally remind you to look for patients to discharge, but right now that’s the furthest thing from your mind.
Robby has pulled a stool up beside her, leaning in while she talks, forearms resting loosely on the bed rail. He nods along as she explains what’s wrong, his expression soft, his posture relaxed. There’s absolutely nothing obscene about it—but your pulse is still racing.
There’s just something about the way he listens—really listens—that makes it difficult to look anywhere else. That makes it difficult not to envy Mrs. Alvarez right now.
“Let’s take a listen,” he says after a moment, voice low and steady.
Your stomach does a strange little flip.
It’s such a normal sentence. Completely harmless. Totally professional. You’ve probably said the same thing yourself at least three times today. But hearing it in that voice—calm, warm, just rough enough at the edges to carry across the department—does something deeply unhelpful to your concentration.
He slips the stethoscope from around his neck, the tubing sliding through his fingers with the kind of easy familiarity that only comes from years of doing the same motion over and over again. The movement is quick, practiced, almost absentminded.
Still, your eyes follow it.
They follow the way he leans forward, one hand bracing lightly against the mattress while the other presses the diaphragm of the stethoscope gently against Mrs. Alvarez’s chest.
“Deep breath for me.”
Your pulse stutters.
Because suddenly—unhelpfully, vividly—you remember exactly how those hands felt in the dream.
The same steady fingers. The same calm voice, dropped just a little lower when he leaned close enough that you could feel the warmth of his breath near your ear.
His hand had been wrapped around your wrist—firm but careful—guiding your hand above your head and pinning it against the pillow.
“Hold still,” he murmured.
The memory is sharp enough that for a second you can almost feel it again. The weight of his body pressing into the space between your knees, the quiet authority in his voice when he spoke, the way his fingers tightened against your skin just enough to keep you right where he wanted you.
Your hands had curled into the bed sheets as his lips traced the line of your jaw, his voice dropping again—softer now, almost thoughtful.
“Look at me.”
Your breath had caught in your throat when you did.
Because he was watching you the same way he watches patients—calm, focused, completely absorbed—except the attention felt different in the dream. Slower. Heavier. Like he was studying every reaction you gave him and deciding exactly how much more you could handle.
Your pulse had started racing the second his gaze dropped to your mouth.
It wasn’t subtle.
Just a brief shift of his eyes—thoughtful, almost curious—but the heat that followed it made your stomach tighten.
His thumb found its way back to your jaw, tracing slowly along the curve of it as if he were considering something. Following the line of your chin as he tipped your head back just slightly beneath his hand.
You hadn’t realised you’d stopped breathing until his fingers stilled.
“Breathe,” he said quietly.
The word brushed over your lips.
You remember the way your chest rose when you obeyed him—slow, unsteady—and the way his gaze followed the movement before drifting back to your mouth again.
God.
The corner of his mouth had lifted slightly then, like he’d noticed exactly what he was doing to you.
Like he wasn’t in any hurry to stop.
His hand slid from your jaw to the side of your throat, fingers warm against your skin, thumb resting just beneath your chin as if he were holding you there—not tightly, just enough that you stayed exactly where he wanted you.
And the entire time he watched you with that same quiet concentration.
Like this was just another thing he was very, very good at.
“Hey,” Santos says, appearing beside the desk. “Your abdominal pain in C9 just went upstairs.”
You blink at her. “Already?”
She shrugs. “Garcia signed off.”
You nod once, shifting awkwardly in your chair as you turn back toward the computer, trying very hard to ignore the heat pooling low in your belly.
“You good?” Santos asks, as if you haven’t been asked that enough today.
You clear your throat, eyes flicking briefly back to Robby and Mrs. Alvarez. “Yeah. Fine.”
She follows your gaze, the corner of her mouth twitching.
“Wow,” she says. “You’re down bad.”
You glare at her. “I’m charting.”
“You’re drooling.”
You quickly lift a hand to your mouth, swiping at the corner.
Santos grins. “Well, it depends who you’re asking, because if you ask—”
“Santos,” you warn.
She laughs. “Come on. It’s just a joke.”
“Isang biro?” Princess says, smiling. “Walang nakakatawa sa paraan ng pagtitig niya kay Robby.”
Your stomach drops.
You might not understand Tagalog, but you sure as hell know what that last word was.
“Santos,” you say, slowly rising from your chair. “How many people have you told?”
She presses her lips together sheepishly. “Again, technically? Just Huckleberry.”
“And—and I haven’t told anyone,” Whitaker adds quickly.
“Ano ang pinag-uusapan nila?” Perlah says behind you.
Princess shrugs. “May alam lang na sikreto si Santos.”
Your eyes widen. “Santos, I swear—”
“Relax,” she says. “They’re not talking about the dream. They were talking about your staring.”
Princess steps forward. “A dream? What dream?”
You bury your face in your hands. “Oh my God.”
“Wait,” Perlah says. “Did she have a dream about—”
Santos smirks. “Yep.”
“Oh,” Princess gasps. “That’s why she’s been so weird today.”
Perlah snorts.
Princess mutters something else in Tagalog that makes them all laugh again.
“Oh my God, Santos!” you say again, louder this time. “I’m just trying to get through the day without my attending finding out I had a sex dream about him and you’re telling the entire emergency department?”
Silence.
Perlah is staring at you.
Princess is staring at you.
Whitaker looks like someone has just pulled the fire alarm inside his head.
And Santos—
Santos is very carefully not looking at you anymore.
“What?” you snap. “No more jokes?”
No one answers.
Instead, Princess’s eyes flick slowly past your shoulder.
Whitaker clears his throat.
Santos presses her lips together, the corners twitching like she’s fighting for her life not to laugh.
“What?” you repeat, glancing over your shoulder.
And there he is.
Your attending—standing just a few feet from the nurse’s station, tablet still in one hand, glasses sliding slightly down his nose as he looks at you over the top of them.
Your stomach drops so violently it feels like all your organs have fallen out of your body.
He clears his throat.
Once.
“Alright,” he says evenly. “Back to work.”
That’s all it takes.
Perlah and Princess busy themselves on the other side of the nurse’s station.
Whitaker rushes off toward triage.
Santos lingers just long enough to give you a look that promises she will never let this go before she slips away too.
And then it’s just you.
And him.
He doesn’t say anything for a moment. Just adjusts the tablet in his hand, pulls his glasses off, folds them into the pocket of his scrubs, and turns away.
And as he steps away, you could almost swear you see the faintest twitch at the corner of his mouth.
Almost as if he’s fighting a smile.
But that would be ridiculous, right?
It takes an embarrassingly long time for you to remember how to move.
How to function.
You can feel Perlah and Princess watching you. Waiting for you to do something other than stare at the spot your attending had been standing when you announced your sex dream about him to the entire department.
God.
This has to be some kind of HR violation.
Robby is probably on his way to find Dana right now so she can tell you to go upstairs and talk to someone about misconduct. If you’re not fired, you’ll be transferred.
Or worse—night shift.
You gasp and fumble for your phone, pulling it out of your pocket.
Abbot's message thread is already open when you swipe up and start typing.
What’s that supposed to mean?
Then you hit send and tuck your phone away again.
It’s a ridiculous thought, but maybe if you can talk to Abbot and explain that this was all just one giant misunderstanding, maybe he can convince Robby not to hate you for it. Maybe he can convince Robby to let you finish your residency at PTMC without it being painfully awkward for both of you.
Because as funny as this is to Santos and the nurses, you’re not so sure Robby will see it that way.
Not when you’ve let it affect your work.
Not when you just embarrassed him—and yourself—in front of the entire emergency department.
You draw in a slow breath and grab your tablet off the desk.
All you can do now is your job.
All you can do for the next hour is avoid Robby and pray Abbot will hear you out when he comes back on shift.
You turn deliberately toward the North hallway and pull up the lab results for Whitaker’s dizziness patient, keeping your eyes fixed on your tablet as you walk.
The department hums around you like it always does—monitors beeping, beds rolling past, nurses calling out vitals—but you can still feel eyes on you. Whether it’s the nurses or the med students, or even a patient who overheard your outburst, you know you’re being watched.
Whispered about, probably.
But if you don’t look up, it doesn’t count. Right?
By the time you circle back to central, Mrs. Alvarez has already been discharged, which you take as a small mercy. Then you duck into South Fifteen to check on a teenager with a sprained ankle who is mostly interested in whether he can still play soccer this weekend. After that it’s a quick review of labs for a chest pain patient in Central Ten—normal troponins, thank God—and a brief stop at the nurse’s station to sign off on discharge instructions Dana has already printed.
None of it requires you to look up very much.
Which is ideal.
You spend the next half hour moving steadily from room to room—listening to a set of lungs for a persistent cough in North Three, answering a worried daughter’s questions about her father’s blood pressure in South Twenty-Two, and checking a set of repeat vitals on a dehydration case Princess flagged earlier. Every task is perfectly ordinary. Completely routine.
And through all of it, you make a very conscious effort not to look for your attending.
Not that you’re avoiding him.
Obviously.
You’re just… busy.
You still see him, though—across the hall, talking to patients, nodding along while med students present. He doesn’t look up. Never looks at you. Just keeps walking, keeps working, keeps nodding.
Like nothing happened.
And somehow, that’s worse.
You’re on your way back from dropping discharge paperwork at the front desk—walking a little slower than you should as you wonder how long until the end of your shift—when McKay calls out from triage.
“Hey, you busy?”
You stop mid-step. “Always. What’s up?”
“Can you grab me a suture kit?” she asks. “I’m out in here.”
“Of course. What size?”
“Four-oh nylon. Whatever's closest.”
You nod. “On it.”
“And maybe send a med student to grab more from supply,” she calls as you walk away.
You don’t reply. You just duck into Trauma One—thankfully empty—grab a kit, then call out to Ogilvie on your way back, telling him to go get more suture kits for triage as soon as he’s free. You don’t even wait for him to answer, but you do hear him turn to a nurse and ask where supply is.
You wedge your tablet under one arm as you head back toward the triage bay. With the kit held against your chest, you start peeling back the sterile packaging—since you know McKay’s already halfway through cleaning whatever it is she needs to suture up.
You’re just being helpful.
But the plastic seam is stubborn, and just as you turn into the bay the wrapper gives with a jerked tear—and the scalpel slides free.
You shift to catch it, but the blade grazes the inside of your upper arm before you can pull away.
“Oh—shit.”
It’s not dramatic. Just a sharp sting at first, and for a second you assume it’s nothing more than a scratch.
Until the warmth starts to trickle down your arm and drip from your elbow.
“Damn,” you sigh, watching a small droplet of blood hit the floor.
McKay glances up, eyes going wide. “What the hell happened?”
She quickly takes everything out of your hands, and you lift your arm to inspect the damage.
“Scalpel slipped.”
McKay winces. “That’s going to need stitches.”
Ignoring the confused patient still sitting in the triage chair, she grabs a wad of gauze off the cart and presses it against your arm.
“Hold this,” she says. “I’ll go get someone to take over here, then we can—”
“It’s alright,” a familiar voice says from somewhere behind you. “I’ll deal with this.”
Your stomach drops.
“Oh.” McKay glances over your shoulder, the corner of her mouth twitching. “Thanks, Dr. Robby.”
Fuck.
You turn slowly, one hand still clamped over the gauze on your arm.
He’s already so close—barely half a step away—and you have to tip your head back to look up at him.
“Let me see,” he says, voice low.
You hold your arm out obediently.
His fingers brush yours as he peels back the gauze, and your pulse jumps.
“Alright.” He nods once, something indistinguishable flickering across his face. “That needs stitches.”
Before you can respond, his hand closes lightly around your wrist, guiding your arm back toward your side as he turns you with him.
“Come with me.”
The touch is brief, professional—but when his hand shifts to the small of your back to steer you out of triage, the warmth of it makes your heart stutter out of rhythm.
“Dana,” he calls, walking quickly through central. “What’s open?”
Dana looks up from the desk just as the two of you pass. Her gaze flicks from the gauze on your arm to Robby’s hand still resting lightly at your back, and something sharp and knowing slides into her expression immediately.
“Central Eleven just got cleaned,” she says.
Robby nods once. “Thanks.”
Dana’s brows lift just a fraction as she watches the two of you step into the room, like she’s just connected several very interesting dots.
You move automatically toward the bed, trying not to feel disappointed when Robby’s hand leaves your back. He shuts the doors on both sides of the room, then slides the curtain closed—and every move makes your heart rate climb higher.
“Lay back,” he says.
Your whole body flushes with heat as you adjust yourself on the exam bed, trying desperately not to think about the other circumstances in which he might give you that instruction.
He rolls the stool beside the bed and reaches for your arm, turning it out gently.
His fingers are warm as he removes the gauze.
You try not to think too hard about his fingers.
“It’s a clean cut, at least,” he says after a second.
You nod. “Sharp blade.”
Like he didn’t already know that.
He releases your arm long enough to pull on a pair of gloves and gather what he needs from the tray beside the bed. You watch him move around the room with that same quiet efficiency that has been ruining your concentration all day—steady hands, calm voice, not a hint of hurry even though the department outside the door is probably chaos.
“Come a little closer,” he says, almost absentmindedly—as if he doesn’t know what saying something like that is going to do to you.
You shift against the mattress while he lifts your arm again, angling it under the exam light.
He’s so close now you can hardly breathe. You can feel his breath against your cheek, his warmth bleeding through the thin fabric of your scrubs, every touch careful as he starts cleaning the cut.
The antiseptic stings enough to make you tense.
“Easy,” he murmurs, steadying your arm. “It’s not that bad.”
“I’m aware,” you say quickly. “I do actually work here.”
“Yes,” he says mildly. “I’m aware of that too.”
You risk a glance at him then—and immediately regret it.
He’s standing now, leaning close enough that you could count every fleck of grey in his beard. Close enough to notice the way his glasses have slid slightly down his nose while he concentrates on the wound. His fingers move with careful precision as he prepares the needle driver, completely focused.
Completely calm.
Completely unaware that your brain is still stuck somewhere between the nurse’s station and a very inappropriate dream.
“Hold still,” he murmurs.
Your stomach flips—and when you squeeze your eyes shut, that exact moment from your dream flashes through your mind again.
The lidocaine burns for a second when he injects it, and you suck in a breath before you can stop yourself.
“Breathe,” he says automatically.
God.
If he could stop with the direct quotes from your dream, maybe you would actually be able to breathe.
You clear your throat, staring stubbornly at the wall now while he begins the first stitch.
“Try to relax,” he adds quietly.
You let out a short, incredulous laugh. “I’m trying.”
His hands pause for the briefest moment.
Then he glances up at you over the rim of his glasses.
“You of all people should know better than to open a suture kit while walking.”
You let out a small, embarrassed breath and shift slightly on the bed while he works, trying not to react every time the needle passes neatly through the edge of the cut.
“Sorry,” you mutter. “It’s been a weird day.”
“Mhm.”
The sound is absentminded, the same one he makes when a patient is explaining symptoms he already understands. His attention stays on your arm while he ties the knot and reaches for the next stitch, movements calm and precise, like this is the most ordinary thing in the world.
“You seemed a little distracted earlier,” he adds after a moment.
Your stomach tightens.
“Busy department.”
He hums again as he adjusts your arm slightly.
“Not exactly what I meant.”
You stare at the ceiling again, your pulse racing dangerously fast.
“It’s not unusual, you know,” he says after a moment, his voice calm and thoughtful as he works. “There’s actually quite a lot of research on it. In high-stress environments people’s subconscious tends to latch onto someone they admire rather than… straightforward attraction. It’s a way of organizing all that pressure—long hours, constant adrenaline, the need to trust the people around you.”
He pauses briefly to adjust the stitch.
You feel like you’re about to throw up.
“Hospitals are particularly good at creating that kind of dynamic,” he goes on. “Everyone’s exhausted, everyone’s relying on each other, and if there happens to be someone who seems steady in the middle of all that—someone people look to when things go wrong—it’s very easy for admiration to blur into something else.”
Another small pause, the thread tightening neatly under his fingers.
“It’s rarely intentional,” he adds, quieter now. “Most of the time the person experiencing it doesn’t even realise what their brain is doing.”
You finally look at him. His face is barely inches from yours, close enough that you can see the faint crease between his brows while he concentrates on the last stitch, all of his attention focused on closing the cut.
“Wait,” you say slowly. “So… I—I’m not fired?”
His hands still for the briefest moment before he glances at you, genuine confusion flickering across his face.
“Fired?”
You swallow. “For… you know. The thing I said. Out there. To the entire department.”
He huffs a small laugh—barely a breath.
“Why would you be fired?” he says mildly. “Embarrassing yourself in front of the nurses isn’t exactly grounds for termination.”
Your face burns.
He sets the needle driver down and reaches for the scissors, his tone settling back into that same calm, matter-of-fact rhythm.
“You shouldn’t have let it distract you from your work, though,” he continues. “That’s the only part I was concerned about. But one off day doesn’t suddenly erase an otherwise solid record.”
You stare at him.
“Concerned?”
“Mhm.”
He snips the suture, then reaches to adjust your arm slightly under the light, examining his work.
“First you were late,” he says, almost absently. “You were flustered during the chest tube. You’ve been avoiding traumas all day—” His eyes meet yours briefly. “And your attending. You’ve barely caught up on your charting, and you’ve unintentionally encouraged the nurses’ gossiping.”
Your stomach drops.
“Not to mention,” he adds, just a little drier now, “the pen you threw at Dr. Santos for—what? Teasing you, I presume.”
Your brain short-circuits.
Because suddenly, Dana’s voice echoes through your mind.
Careful, Robinavitch. You’re hovering.
Hovering?
Like the way he’d stood so close while you placed that chest tube. The way his hand had settled at your back when he guided you out of triage.
Why was he even there to begin with?
Santos’ voice cuts through your mind next.
I swear he’s got a soft spot for you.
I’m pretty sure he’d go there if you asked.
And suddenly the entire day looks… different.
Not like an attending keeping an eye on his resident.
Like a man trying very hard not to make it obvious he was paying attention to you.
Robby smooths the edge of the dressing over the sutured cut, pressing it down carefully as he glances back up at you.
“Keep that dry for the next—”
And that’s the moment your brain finally catches up.
Before you can talk yourself out of it, your hand shoots out and grabs the front of his scrubs, fingers bunching the fabric at his chest as you pull him the few inches closer.
Then you kiss him.
It’s not graceful.
It’s barely even planned.
Just a quick, impulsive press of your mouth against his—warm and startled and over almost as soon as it begins.
For half a second, he doesn’t move at all.
“Oh—fuck. I—”
You drop his shirt like it’s suddenly on fire and lean back on the bed, horrified.
“I’m so sorry,” you blurt. “I don’t know why I just—”
The apology dies halfway through, because Robby hasn’t stepped away.
He hasn’t leapt back, shocked or offended. He’s just… there.
Where he was when you grabbed him—close enough that you can still feel his warmth, with one hand resting lightly near your arm where he’d been finishing the dressing. For a second he simply watches you, studying your face with the same quiet concentration he uses when he’s working through a diagnosis, like he’s trying to decide whether the last thirty seconds actually happened.
Your pulse is hammering.
“I shouldn’t have—” you try again.
His hand lifts.
The movement is slow, deliberate, and before you can finish your sentence his thumb and forefinger settle lightly around your chin, tilting your face upward just enough that you have to look at him.
Your breath catches.
He hesitates for the briefest moment, his gaze moving across your face as if he’s still weighing the decision.
Then he leans in.
The first contact is firmer than you expect—his mouth warm and solid against yours, the faint scrape of his beard against your skin as he adjusts the angle. His glasses are still on, the frame nudging the bridge of your nose when he shifts closer. His nose bumps yours before he tilts his head, finding a better position.
For a second it’s almost restrained.
Then it isn’t.
His grip on your chin tightens a fraction as he deepens the kiss, tipping your head back against the pillow while he leans over you. The change is sudden enough that your hands catch the front of his scrubs again without thinking. The fabric bunches in your fingers as he moves closer, the pressure of his mouth shifting—slower now but more certain, like he’s stopped pretending he’s about to pull away.
The beard you’d been trying not to notice all day brushes your cheek again when he moves, softer than you expected, and when his teeth graze your lower lip for half a second the sound that escapes you is embarrassingly honest.
He exhales quietly through his nose against your skin.
Not stopping.
If anything, the opposite.
His free hand comes down beside your shoulder on the mattress to brace himself as he leans over you, the movement tilting your head back further while his mouth finds yours again—deeper this time, the rhythm of it suddenly practiced enough to make your stomach flip.
Like this is something he hasn’t done in a while.
But definitely knows how to do.
And the entire time his thumb stays lightly under your chin, holding you exactly where he wants you while he kisses you like he’s still trying to decide whether this is a mistake—and losing that argument by the second.
You barely notice when he shifts closer again, the movement subtle but unmistakable, his hand tightening slightly against the mattress beside you as if he’s about to lean in further, about to let himself forget the door, the department, the fact that this is an exam room in the middle of a shift—
The curtain whips open.
“Been looking for you, Robinavitch—”
Abbot stops dead.
For half a second no one moves.
You’re still on the bed, Robby bent over you, your hands fisted in the front of his scrubs while his hand is still braced beside your shoulder.
Abbot’s gaze flicks from your grip on Robby’s shirt, to Robby’s face, to the dressing he’d just placed on your arm.
His eyebrows climb slowly toward his hairline.
“Well,” he says after a beat. “I wish I could say I'm surprised, but…”
Robby straightens immediately.
Not panicked. Not flustered.
Just very, very still for a second before he adjusts his glasses and steps back from the bed like he’d simply been finishing a routine procedure.
“Jack,” he says evenly.
Abbot folds his arms, the corner of his mouth already curling upward.
“Michael.”
The silence stretches just long enough for the humiliation to fully settle in.
Abbot glances at you again, then back at Robby.
“Should I come back later,” he asks mildly, “or are you two… just about done here?”
The heat that floods your face is instantaneous, and you slide off the bed so fast you nearly fall.
“Don’t get it wet for twenty-four hours, stitches out in a week unless there’s redness, swelling, drainage, fever—I know the drill,” you ramble, slowly backing toward the door.
Robby has already turned back to the tray, calmly disposing of the suture needle like none of this is remotely unusual. Only the faint redness creeping up the back of his neck gives him away.
Abbot doesn’t move. He just stands there, arms folded, with a look of deep theatrical satisfaction on his face.
“This,” he says pleasantly, “is exactly what I meant, by the way.”
Your stomach drops.
“What?”
His brows lift.
“Your text.”
Your eyes widen.
Abbot tilts his head, studying you for a moment before glancing toward Robby again.
“I mean, honestly,” he adds. “I leave you two alone for what—ten hours?”
“What day shift does is none of your business, Dr. Abbot,” you mutter, trying to slip past him.
Abbot’s mouth twitches.
“Oh, I wouldn’t say that,” he says. “It seems very much like my business now.”
You snort, the sound escaping before you can stop it.
“Don’t be jealous,” you say, glancing over your shoulder as you step out the door. “He’s still your boyfriend.”
Behind him, Robby drops the gauze into the bin and gives a quiet shake of his head, laughing softly despite himself.
“That’s my girl,” he murmurs.
Abbot’s eyebrows shoot up.
“Your girl, huh?”
Robby scrubs a hand over his beard and turns away.
“Shut up.”
You’re not sure you were supposed to hear that last bit—but it makes your heart race anyway.
The second you step into the hallway, the emergency department crashes back in around you—monitors beeping, nurses calling for labs, a stretcher rattling past that you have to dodge. Almost like the last fifteen minutes never happened at all.
“Hey, Doc,” Princess calls from the nurse’s station. “North Five, dizziness patient’s daughter is looking for a doctor, but Whitaker’s stuck in chairs.”
“And Javadi needs you in South Seventeen,” Perlah adds. “Something about a rash.”
“Oh—and imaging’s back on your sprained ankle kid,” Santos says. “He’s asking when he can get out of here.”
You nod. “Uh—right. Okay, yeah. I’ll just—”
“Hey,” Dana cuts in, appearing beside you. “You okay? How’s the arm?”
You blink down at the fresh dressing like you’d almost forgotten about it.
“Oh. Yeah. It’s fine.”
She studies it for a second before her gaze drifts up to your face—and her brow lifts.
“Uh-huh,” she says slowly.
You frown. “What?”
“Nothing,” she says lightly, starting to walk away. “Just thought that looked like beard burn.”
She gives a small shrug, then glances back over the top of her glasses.
“But I know my doctors are far too professional for that.”
Your entire face goes hot.
You open your mouth—then close it again, because there is absolutely nothing you can say to that without making it worse.
Santos leans across the desk at the nurse’s station, squinting at your face.
please go and educate yourselves about everything that trump is doing. ice agents are going out and ripping families apart, killing innocent people, kidnapping people, raping women, etc.
if you support ANYTHING that is happening in the world right now don’t ever interact with my account and block me. you are not welcome here.
children are being KIDNAPPED and held in facilities for simply just existing. if you can reason with the people who are doing said things you actually need to choke.
my entire heart goes out to the families that are experiencing such violence. please educate yourselves and spread the word because i don’t see enough people speaking up about this.
The elevator ride up to the cardiothoracic floor felt twice as long as usual, which was saying something considering PTMC’s elevators already moved like they were being powered by exhausted interns manually hauling ropes somewhere above the ceiling. You stood near the back corner with your coffee balanced carefully in one hand and your work bag hanging off your shoulder, staring numbly at the glowing floor numbers while two surgical residents beside you whispered frantically over pre-op notes for a valve replacement later that morning. Normally you would have jumped in by now, offered reassurance or a correction or at least some sarcastic remark to cut through the tension, but your head was still back in your apartment three hours earlier with Robby standing barefoot in the kitchen in gray sweatpants and a wrinkled black t-shirt looking just as angry as you felt.
“You don’t get to decide what’s reckless for me,” you had snapped while shoving containers of untouched leftovers around in the fridge harder than necessary.
“And you don’t get to pretend you’re invincible because you’re good at your job,” he had fired back immediately. “You scared the hell out of me yesterday.”
“Oh my God, Robby, I’m a surgeon. I take risks every single day.”
“And I’m an ER attending who watched you nearly pass out after a fourteen-hour surgery because you forgot to eat again.”
You had laughed then, sharp and humorless. “You know what? I really don’t need another father.”
The second the words left your mouth, you saw it hit him. Robby had gone completely still, jaw tightening hard enough to flex beneath the stubble on his face. It should have ended there. One of you should have backed down. One of you should have apologized.
Instead he grabbed his keys from the counter and said quietly, “Fine,” before walking out of the apartment while rain hammered against the windows hard enough to shake the glass.
The elevator dinged. You blinked hard and stepped out into the hallway, immediately greeted by the familiar controlled chaos of the surgical floor waking up for the day. Nurses moved quickly between stations, monitors beeped steadily in patient rooms, and somewhere down the hall a resident was already getting torn apart by Dr. Alvarez before seven-thirty in the morning. Normal. Everything felt painfully normal while your chest still ached with unresolved anger.
“Okay, either somebody died or you and hot ER doctor finally murdered each other.”
You looked up to find Sara leaning against the nurses’ station with a chart tucked under one arm and an eyebrow raised knowingly at you. Sara had worked with you for almost four years now, which unfortunately meant she knew your moods almost as well as Robby did.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” you muttered.
Sara snorted immediately. “Sweetheart, you walked past me without insulting my coffee order. That’s how I know it’s bad.”
You sighed tiredly and dropped your bag beside your office chair before rubbing both hands over your face. “We had a fight.”
“A bad one?”
“The kind where you replay it in your head in the shower and think of twelve better comebacks.”
“Oh, definitely bad then.”
Despite yourself, your mouth twitched slightly. Sara softened a little at that.
“What happened?” she asked more gently.
You hesitated because saying it out loud suddenly made it feel stupid. Small. Embarrassingly human compared to the life-and-death decisions both you and Robby made every day.
“He thinks I push myself too hard,” you admitted finally. “I think he’s being overprotective and controlling. We both said things we shouldn’t have.”
Sara made a face. “Ah. The classic ‘I love you so much I’m going to become incredibly annoying about your well-being’ fight.”
You dropped heavily into your chair. “He compared me to one of his trauma patients yesterday because I skipped meals during surgery.”
“Oof.”
“Exactly.”
“But,” Sara said carefully while setting down a stack of charts, “did you skip meals during surgery?”
You glared at her.
Sara lifted both hands immediately. “Okay, okay. Not taking sides. I enjoy living.”
You leaned back in your chair with a long exhale, staring up at the ceiling tiles. The worst part was that underneath all the anger sat the unbearable truth that Robby had not been entirely wrong. Yesterday’s surgery had been brutal. Nine hours on your feet during a complicated aortic reconstruction and by the end of it your vision had briefly blurred badly enough that one of your fellows noticed. Robby had happened to see you afterward downstairs in the ED grabbing crackers from a vending machine with shaking hands and that had apparently been the final straw for him. Still. He did not get to talk to you like you were fragile.
“You know what’s irritating?” you said quietly. “He does this thing where he gets calm when he’s angry.”
Sara barked out a laugh. “That man weaponizes disappointment like a Catholic mother.”
“Exactly.”
“And what did you do?”
You paused. “I told him I didn’t need another father.”
Sara’s expression immediately shifted into horrified sympathy. “Oh no.”
“Yeah.”
“Oh, honey.”
“I know.”
The guilt hit fresh all over again because you knew about Robby’s father. You knew exactly how complicated that wound still was for him, even after all these years. You had aimed for the softest part of him because he had found yours first. That was the ugly reality of loving someone long enough to know precisely how to hurt them.
Before Sara could say anything else, one of the residents rushed toward you holding a tablet. “Dr. Y/L/N, they moved your ten o’clock up. Patient’s crashing labs just came back.”
You straightened immediately, slipping back into work mode with practiced ease even while exhaustion still dragged at your bones. “Show me.”
Sara watched quietly as your expression sharpened into focus while reviewing the chart. It always amazed people how quickly you transformed once patient care entered the equation. The warmth softened into steel. The exhaustion disappeared behind precision. It was one of the things Robby loved most about you. Which somehow made this all hurt worse.
As you stood and started walking briskly toward pre-op, Sara called after you carefully, “You know he’s probably miserable too, right?”
Your steps faltered just slightly. Because that was the problem. You knew. You knew Robby was probably downstairs right now pretending to chart while drinking terrible coffee and snapping at med students because he hadn’t slept either. You knew he was stubborn enough not to text first after a fight this bad. You knew he would still show up outside an OR instantly if someone told him you got hurt. You knew if your pager went off right now for an emergency consult in the ED, both of you would fall into step beside each other like muscle memory no matter how angry you still were. And honestly, that might have been the hardest part of all.
******
By two-thirty that afternoon, the storm outside had worsened enough that rain battered the ER ambulance bay doors in violent waves, turning the entire emergency department gray with reflected light and soaked paramedics. You had just finished dictating post-op notes from your morning surgery when your pager vibrated sharply against your hip.
ED CONSULT. TRAUMA TWO. POSSIBLE AORTIC INVOLVEMENT.
Your stomach sank immediately. Not because of the case. God knew you had handled worse. But because Trauma Two belonged to Robby today. For one brief, childish second, you considered calling one of the other attendings downstairs instead. Alvarez. Walsh. Literally anyone else. But the moment passed just as quickly because a patient with a potential thoracic aortic injury did not give a damn about your relationship problems. So you shoved your tablet under your arm, grabbed your coat, and headed toward the elevator with your jaw tight enough to ache.
The ED was chaos when you arrived. It always was during storms. The waiting room overflowed with coughing patients and soaked families while somewhere down the hall a psych patient screamed obscenities loud enough to echo off the walls. Nurses moved quickly between bays, residents clustered around computer stations trying not to drown, and over all of it sat that familiar underlying tension of emergency medicine operating three disasters away from collapse at all times. You barely made it through the ambulance bay doors before hearing Robby’s voice.
“Pressure’s dropping again. Start another unit and somebody call CT back because if they lose my scan again I’m walking upstairs and haunting radiology personally.”
The sound of him hit you physically before you even saw him. You hated that. You hated that your body still recognized him instantly even when you were furious with him. Then you turned the corner into Trauma Two and there he was.
Robby stood near the bedside in black scrubs with a trauma gown half untied around his waist, dark hair damp from either rain or sweat, beard heavier than usual after what was clearly a bad night of sleep. He looked exhausted. Irritated. Beautiful in the deeply unfair way he always managed to be while commanding a room full of terrified people.
His eyes lifted the second you walked in. The shift in his expression lasted less than a second. Surprise. Relief. Then the careful neutral mask dropped back into place so quickly you almost wondered if you imagined it.
“Cardio’s here,” one of the residents announced unnecessarily.
“Obviously,” Robby muttered without looking away from the patient monitor.
You ignored the comment and stepped toward the bed where a man in his forties lay pale and semi-conscious beneath warming blankets, bruising spreading darkly across his chest from the steering wheel impact.
“What’ve we got?” you asked professionally.
“High-speed MVC,” Robby answered flatly. “Hypotensive on arrival. Chest pain. Unequal upper extremity pressures. FAST negative.”
You reviewed the scans quickly while one of the nurses adjusted the patient’s oxygen. “CT?”
“Pending because radiology’s apparently run by raccoons.”
One of the interns choked back a laugh.
You kept your face carefully blank while flipping through images. “Has anyone started esmolol?”
Robby’s jaw flexed slightly. “Not yet. I wanted imaging confirmation before tanking his pressure further.”
You looked up finally. “If this is a dissection, waiting is dangerous.”
“And if it isn’t, dropping his pressure prematurely could destabilize him.”
The room went subtly quieter. Not silent. Nobody outright stopped moving. But nurses slowed slightly. Residents suddenly became deeply interested in charts. Everyone within earshot felt the tension immediately because this was not how the two of you usually worked together. Normally consults between you flowed almost seamlessly. You challenged each other constantly, yes, but with trust underneath it. This felt sharp. Controlled. Wrong.
You stepped toward the monitor. “His mediastinum’s widened.”
“And his systolic’s barely ninety.”
“You called me down here for a reason, Robby.”
“I called cardio because trauma protocol requires cardio.”
That landed exactly how he intended it to. Clinical. Cold. Deliberately impersonal. You stared at him for a beat too long. Robby still would not fully meet your eyes.
Fine. Fine. If that was how he wanted to play this today, you could do it too.
“Start the esmolol,” you told the nurse evenly. “Low dose. Prep OR two.”
Robby folded his arms. “I disagree.”
You looked at him sharply. “Excuse me?”
“I said I disagree. We need imaging confirmation before we move him upstairs.”
“And if he crashes while we wait?”
“And if he arrests because you overcorrected his pressure?”
The nurse holding the medication looked back and forth between both of you like she was watching her divorced parents argue at a soccer game. Normally one of you would have softened by now. Normally Robby would have pulled you aside quietly and discussed options without turning it into this bizarre territorial stand-off. But you were both angry enough to keep pushing.
“You know,” you said tightly, “not every disagreement is a personal attack.”
Something flashed hard across Robby’s face then.
“No,” he said quietly. “But apparently concern is.”
The words hit like a slap. You felt several nearby residents suddenly discover urgent reasons to leave the room. Your pulse jumped instantly because there it was. Finally. The real fight underneath the medical disagreement.
You lowered your voice dangerously. “This is not the place.”
“Then maybe stop bringing it here.”
“Oh, that’s rich coming from you.”
“Doctors,” Dana interrupted carefully before either of you could escalate further, “radiology just confirmed CT’s open.”
Thank God. You looked away first, stepping back from the bedside while trying to shove your emotions somewhere deep enough not to interfere with patient care. The patient came first. Always. Even when your chest felt hot with anger and humiliation.
“Fine,” you said curtly. “Scan him. If I’m right, he goes straight upstairs.”
Robby nodded once. “Transport now.”
The team moved quickly after that, pushing the bed toward CT while monitors rattled and rain thundered outside the ambulance bay. You stayed behind long enough to finish entering preliminary surgical notes before finally realizing the room had emptied almost completely.
Except for Robby. Of course. He stood near the supply cart pretending to review labs on the computer screen, though you knew him well enough to recognize avoidance when you saw it. The silence stretched heavy between you. You should have walked out.
Instead you heard yourself say quietly, “You embarrassed me in there.”
Robby exhaled slowly through his nose before finally turning toward you. Up close he looked worse than you realized. Dark circles under his eyes. Exhaustion pulling at the corners of his mouth.
“You embarrassed me first,” he replied just as quietly.
Your throat tightened despite yourself. “I didn’t mean what I said this morning.”
His eyes flickered finally to yours then away again almost immediately. “Yeah,” he said. “Well. You still said it.”
The hurt underneath his calm voice made your anger wobble unexpectedly. Before you could answer, another trauma alert sounded overhead. Robby’s entire posture shifted instantly back into attending mode. You watched the emotional walls slam back into place in real time.
“Robby—”
“I have to work,” he said, not cruelly but not softly either. “We’ll talk later.”
Then he brushed past you toward the trauma bay doors, shoulder grazing yours for less than a second. The contact was brief. Accidental maybe. But it still sent that awful familiar warmth through your chest because even angry, even hurt, your body still knew him. And somehow that made everything worse.
******
By the time your final surgery ended, the storm outside had settled into something relentless and heavy, rain pouring down the hospital windows in silver sheets that distorted the city lights into blurred halos. You should have gone home hours ago. Every muscle in your body ached with exhaustion, your neck stiff from hours bent over an open chest cavity while trying to repair a catastrophic mitral valve rupture on a seventy-three-year-old man who coded twice on the table. The surgery itself had technically been a success, but barely. The patient remained unstable in recovery and your hands still carried that faint residual tremor of adrenaline that always came after cases where death stood close enough to breathe down your neck.
The second you stepped out of the OR, the emotional exhaustion hit harder than the physical kind. Because usually after cases like that, you found Robby. Sometimes intentionally. Sometimes accidentally. But eventually one of you always gravitated toward the other. Maybe it was coffee in an empty hallway at two in the morning. Maybe it was him standing silently in your office doorway while you dictated notes. Maybe it was you slipping into the back corner of the ED just long enough to steal five minutes beside him while trauma alarms screamed around you. The point was that after hard days, your nervous systems reached for each other automatically.
Today there was only distance. You stripped off your surgical cap slowly while walking down the hallway, exhaustion dragging at your bones hard enough to make your vision blur briefly.
A nurse passed you with a sympathetic smile. “Rough one?”
You huffed quietly. “You have no idea.”
Technically you meant the surgery. Unfortunately your brain supplied Robby’s face immediately afterward anyway. You made it halfway toward your office before abruptly changing direction. You could not sit under fluorescent lights another second. Your chest felt too tight. Your skin felt too hot. So instead you shoved open the side exit near the surgical wing and stepped beneath the small overhang outside the hospital doors.
Cold air hit your face instantly. Rain hammered against the pavement so hard it bounced back upward in misty waves, soaking the edges of your scrubs almost immediately despite the shelter overhead. Thunder rumbled somewhere far off across the city while ambulances flashed red and white against the wet parking lot below.
You leaned heavily against the brick wall near the doorway and closed your eyes. Just a minute. You only needed one minute where nobody needed anything from you. No residents asking questions. No family members begging for reassurance. No monitors alarming. No pretending you were perfectly composed while your chest quietly cracked open underneath your ribs.
Your hands shook slightly when you rubbed them over your face. The surgery should have gone smoother. You kept replaying moments in your head. The bleeding complication. The delayed rhythm recovery. The moment you genuinely thought you were going to lose him on the table. Rationally you knew the outcome was good considering the circumstances, but surgeons carried ghosts differently than other people. Every complication lived somewhere inside you afterward whether you wanted it to or not.
“You’re gonna get pneumonia standing that close to the rain.”
Your eyes opened immediately. Of course. Robby stood just inside the doorway behind you holding two paper cups of coffee, his trauma jacket thrown over his scrubs and his hair slightly flattened from humidity. He looked exhausted too. More than exhausted honestly. Drained in that particular way emergency physicians looked after fourteen straight hours of absorbing other people’s disasters. For a second neither of you spoke.
The tension between you had changed shape since earlier. It still hurt. You were still angry. But exhaustion had sanded down some of the sharpest edges.
“You stalking me now?” you asked quietly.
Robby huffed softly through his nose, stepping beside you under the overhang. “Sara said you disappeared after surgery.”
Your chest tightened unexpectedly. “You asked about me?”
“I always ask about you.”
The answer came so naturally that it hurt. Rain crashed loudly around both of you while silence settled again. You stared out at the parking lot instead of looking directly at him because eye contact felt too dangerous right now. Too intimate.
“How’d the case end?” Robby asked after a minute, his voice gentler now.
“Stable-ish.”
“That bad?”
You nodded once. “He arrested during closure.”
Robby went still beside you. Not dramatically. Most people would not have even noticed it. But you knew him too well not to recognize the immediate shift into concern.
“You okay?” he asked quietly.
There it was. That stupid soft voice he used only with you. The one currently ruining your life.
You swallowed hard before answering. “I’m tired.”
Robby handed you one of the coffees without a word. Your fingers brushed briefly against his and both of you froze for the smallest fraction of a second. Even after a year together, touching him still did things to your nervous system that felt deeply unfair.
“Did you eat today?” he asked carefully.
You closed your eyes immediately. “Robby.”
“What? It’s a valid question.”
“You do realize this is part of the reason I’m still mad at you, right?”
“I know.”
You finally looked at him then. Rainlight reflected softly across his face while tiredness pulled at the corners of his eyes. God. He looked terrible. Which probably meant you did too.
“You look awful,” you muttered.
To your surprise, one corner of his mouth twitched slightly. “You always say the sweetest things to me after fights.”
A reluctant laugh escaped you before you could stop it. Tiny. Brief. But real. Robby’s expression softened instantly at the sound like his body physically could not help responding to it. That almost made you angry all over again because how dare he still look at you like that after this morning.
“You scared me yesterday,” he admitted suddenly, staring out into the rain instead of at you. “That’s what this was really about.”
Your fingers tightened slightly around the coffee cup.
“You were shaking,” he continued quietly. “You looked exhausted and dehydrated and still tried to brush it off like it was nothing. I know you’re good at what you do. I know you’re one of the best surgeons in this hospital. But sometimes it feels like you run yourself into the ground and expect everyone who loves you to just watch it happen quietly.”
The sincerity in his voice cracked something painfully open in your chest. Because underneath all the frustration sat the awful truth that Robby loved loudly. Constantly. Fiercely. Even when it came out wrong. Even when it turned into overprotectiveness or frustration or arguments in kitchens before sunrise.
You stared down into your coffee. “You don’t get to talk to me like I’m fragile.”
“I know.”
“You don’t get to make decisions for me.”
“I know.”
“You really pissed me off today.”
That finally pulled his eyes toward yours fully. “Yeah,” he said softly. “You pissed me off too.”
The honesty of it settled strangely warm between you despite everything. Rain thundered harder overhead. Somewhere nearby ambulance sirens wailed through the storm. The hospital doors opened briefly behind you as staff rushed past, but neither of you moved away from the other.
After a long silence, Robby spoke again. “You know I’m not trying to control you, right?”
You swallowed. “I know.”
“And you know I don’t think you’re weak.”
“I know that too.”
“Then why’d you say it?”
There it was. Finally. The real wound. Your chest tightened immediately because you knew exactly what he meant. Not the fight itself. Not the overworking argument. The father comment.
You looked away first. “Because I knew it would hurt you.”
Robby absorbed that quietly. No defensiveness. No anger. Somehow that made it worse.
Finally he nodded once, staring back out at the rain. “Okay.”
The softness of that nearly undid you.
“I’m still mad at you,” you whispered after a long silence.
That finally made him smile faintly. Tired. Sad. Familiar. “I know.”
“And you’re still being annoying.”
“I know that too.”
You shook your head slightly, exhausted affection threatening dangerously at the edges of your anger. Then a trauma alarm sounded faintly inside the hospital and both of your heads turned automatically toward the doors at the exact same time. Instinct. Muscle memory. Shared purpose.
Robby sighed quietly. “Duty calls.”
You nodded once. Neither of you moved immediately though. For one suspended moment in the cold rain-drenched darkness, you simply stood beside each other shoulder to shoulder beneath the hospital overhang with unresolved hurt sitting heavy between you and love sitting even heavier underneath it.
******
The blowout happened just after midnight. Which honestly made sense because nothing good ever happened in hospitals after midnight. That was the hour where exhaustion stripped everyone down to their sharpest instincts and ugliest tempers. The hour where emotions stopped wearing professional disguises. The hour where people either became unbearably tender or absolutely brutal. Tonight, apparently, you and Robby had chosen brutal.
You were halfway through updating charts in the surgical ICU when your pager went off again.
URGENT ED CONSULT. POST-MI DISSECTION. FAMILY REFUSING SURGERY.
Your stomach immediately dropped because of course it was him again. You closed your eyes briefly before grabbing your tablet and heading downstairs. The elevator ride felt suffocatingly quiet while fluorescent lights buzzed overhead and rain continued hammering the hospital windows hard enough to sound almost violent now. You had been awake for nearly twenty hours. Your patience sat somewhere near hell.
The ED looked worse than it had earlier. More crowded. More exhausted. Nurses moved with that particular drained efficiency that only happened late into disaster shifts while attendings barked orders across overcrowded bays. Somewhere a child cried inconsolably. Somewhere else somebody screamed for pain medication.
You found Robby in Trauma Four speaking quietly with an older woman while a resident hovered nearby clutching scans against his chest. The second Robby saw you enter the room, something complicated flickered briefly across his face before flattening immediately back into professionalism.
“This is Dr. Y/L/N,” he told the family calmly. “Cardiovascular surgery.”
The patient lying in the bed looked terrible. Mid-sixties. Pale. Diaphoretic. Blood pressure barely holding despite multiple drips. You reviewed the scans quickly and immediately understood the urgency. Type A dissection. Massive. Time-sensitive.
“He needs surgery now,” you said carefully to the family. “Without intervention, this becomes fatal very quickly.”
The patient’s wife looked terrified. “But he already had a heart attack this week.”
“I know,” you said gently. “But right now surgery is his best chance.”
The patient himself looked between you and Robby with exhausted fear. “What are my odds?”
You hesitated because honesty mattered. “The surgery is high-risk.”
“How high-risk?”
You glanced at the scans again. “Given the extent of the dissection and recent cardiac damage? Very.”
Robby shifted beside you. “But without surgery—”
“He dies,” you finished quietly.
The room fell heavy with silence. You watched the wife grip her husband’s hand harder while tears gathered in her eyes. This part never got easier. The medicine itself you could handle. It was the hope. The bargaining. The impossible decisions handed to terrified families at one in the morning under fluorescent lights. That was the part that hollowed people out.
Finally the patient whispered, “I don’t know if I can survive that operation.”
You crouched slightly beside the bed so he would not have to crane his neck upward at you. “I won’t lie to you. It will be hard. But if you were my family member, I would still recommend surgery.”
The wife looked at Robby then. “What would you do?”
Robby paused. And that pause changed everything. Tiny. Barely noticeable. But you saw it immediately.
“You need to understand the risks fully,” Robby said carefully. “Even getting him to the OR could destabilize him.”
Your head snapped toward him instantly. What the hell was he doing? The patient’s wife started crying harder immediately while confusion spread across the resident’s face beside you.
“Dr. Robby,” you interrupted evenly, “the dissection is actively extending.”
“I know.”
“Then we do not have time for this.”
His jaw tightened slightly. “We also don’t pressure families into decisions.”
The implication landed like gasoline on open flame.
You straightened slowly. “Excuse me?”
“I’m saying they deserve realistic expectations.”
“And I’m giving them exactly that.”
The tension in the room thickened instantly. Nurses stopped moving quite as quickly. The resident holding scans suddenly looked like he wanted the earth to swallow him whole.
You stared directly at Robby now. “You called me down here for surgical evaluation.”
“And I’m asking you to acknowledge the patient may not survive transport.”
“He definitely won’t survive without intervention.”
“That doesn’t mean bulldozing consent.”
Your pulse spiked instantly because there it was again. That subtle criticism buried beneath his tone. Not loud. Not openly disrespectful. Somehow worse because of how controlled he stayed while saying it.
You stepped closer to him. “If you have a problem with my recommendation, say it clearly.”
Robby’s eyes finally locked fully onto yours. Exhaustion and frustration burned there openly now. “Fine. I think you’re pushing surgery because you cannot tolerate losing.”
The words hit like a physical blow. The room went dead silent. Even the monitor alarms suddenly sounded distant beneath the roaring in your ears. You stared at him in genuine disbelief because that was not just unfair. That was cruel.
“You do not get to say that to me in front of a patient,” you said quietly. Dangerously quietly.
“And you don’t get to act like fear is irrational here.”
“Fear is not irrational. Delaying treatment is.”
The patient’s wife looked horrified now, eyes darting between both of you while the resident practically stopped breathing altogether.
Robby ran a hand tiredly over his face. “Jesus Christ,” he muttered. “You always do this.”
“Do what?”
“You turn every disagreement into a battlefield.”
You actually laughed then. Sharp. Disbelieving. “That is rich coming from you.”
“At least I’m not pretending my ego isn’t involved.”
Something inside your chest snapped hard enough to physically hurt.
“My ego?” you repeated softly. “You think I’m recommending surgery because of my ego?”
“I think you hate feeling helpless.”
“And I think you’re so terrified of failing people that you’d rather give up before the fight even starts.”
Robby flinched. Barely. But enough. Too far. You knew it immediately. The words hung ugly and irreversible between you while hurt flashed openly across his face for the first time all night. Because there it was. The thing underneath all of this. Robby’s worst fear. Not being enough. Not saving enough people. Carrying every death home beneath his skin until it poisoned him slowly from the inside out. Before either of you could say another word, a new voice cut sharply through the room.
“What the hell is going on in here?”
Chief of Surgery Dr. Brennan stood in the doorway looking exhausted and furious in equal measure. Apparently someone had finally called for backup before you and Robby burned the entire ED to the ground. Nobody answered immediately.
Brennan looked between both of you once before immediately understanding far more than he probably wanted to. “Outside. Now.”
You and Robby followed him into the hallway like scolded children while the entire nearby nursing staff suddenly became deeply fascinated by literally anything else.
The second the trauma room doors shut behind you, Brennan rounded on both of you. “Are you two out of your goddamn minds?”
Neither of you spoke.
“You are attendings. In front of patients. In front of residents.” He pointed between both of you sharply. “I do not care what personal nonsense is happening here. You do not pull this in my emergency department.”
Heat burned hard beneath your skin. Not embarrassment exactly. Worse. Shame.
Brennan looked at the scans in your hand. “What’s the recommendation?”
You answered immediately. “Emergency repair.”
Robby folded his arms tightly. “Transport risk is extremely high.”
“Is surgery survivable?” Brennan asked you directly.
“Possibly.”
“And without surgery?”
You and Robby answered simultaneously.
“He dies.”
Silence followed.
Brennan exhaled heavily through his nose before nodding once. “Then surgery gets offered. Fully informed consent. Family decides.” He looked at Robby. “You good with that?”
Robby’s jaw flexed hard. “Yes.”
Brennan looked at you next. “You?”
“Yes.”
“Great. Then both of you figure your shit out before I schedule mandatory couples therapy in conference room B.”
Despite everything, one of the nearby nurses snorted loudly.
Brennan pointed at both of you again before walking away muttering, “Jesus Christ. I swear to God doctors are worse than teenagers.”
Silence settled heavily after he disappeared. You and Robby stood beside each other in the hallway without speaking while rain battered the windows nearby and overhead pages echoed through the department.
Finally you whispered without looking at him, “That was low.”
Robby swallowed hard beside you. “Yeah.”
“You know exactly what surgery means to me.”
“I know.”
“You know I care about these patients.”
“I know that too.”
Your throat tightened painfully. “Then why would you say that?”
Robby closed his eyes briefly before answering. “Because I was angry.”
There it was again. The ugly truth of loving someone deeply enough to know exactly where to cut. You nodded once slowly, fighting the sudden burn behind your eyes because you absolutely refused to cry in the middle of the emergency department.
“Congratulations,” you whispered. “You got me back.”
Then you walked away before he could answer because if you stayed another second, you might have either kissed him or shattered completely. And honestly, at this point, you were not sure which outcome would be worse.
******
The rain had not stopped by the time your shift finally ended sometime after three in the morning. If anything, it had worsened, pounding against the hospital windows with relentless force while thunder rolled low across the city like distant collapsing buildings. The entire hospital felt exhausted now. Quieter. The strange hollow stillness that settled over medical centers in the dead middle of the night after too many emergencies and too little sleep.
You should have gone home immediately. Instead you sat alone in the darkened physician locker room staring numbly at your phone for nearly ten straight minutes while your damp hair clung coldly to the back of your neck. Your fight with Robby replayed over and over in vicious little loops inside your head. His face when you accused him of giving up on patients. The hurt in his voice when he admitted you had embarrassed him. The way both of you kept reaching for the worst possible thing to say because hurting each other suddenly felt easier than admitting how terrified you both were underneath it all.
You were so tired of being angry at him. That was the problem. Anger required energy and you had none left. What remained underneath it was worse. Love. Stubborn, humiliating, relentless love that refused to disappear no matter how badly the two of you wounded each other sometimes. Your phone buzzed suddenly against your thigh.
Robby: I’m in the parking garage.
That was it. No apology. No explanation. Just a statement. Your chest tightened instantly. For one brief second you considered ignoring him entirely. Making him wait. Making him hurt a little longer the way you had hurt all day. But even as the thought crossed your mind, you were already standing and reaching for your bag.
The elevator ride down to the garage felt strangely intimate in the middle of the night. Empty hallways. Dimmed lighting. Rain rattling against the concrete structure outside while exhaustion pulled heavily at your limbs. By the time the elevator doors slid open onto level three, your pulse had climbed painfully high.
You spotted his car immediately. Robby sat behind the wheel with one arm draped across the steering wheel and his head tipped back against the seat, eyes closed. Rain streaked across the windshield in silver rivers beneath the parking garage lights. He looked exhausted beyond words. Completely wrecked by the day.
Something inside your chest softened instantly against your own will. You climbed into the passenger seat without speaking. The door shut heavily behind you, cocooning both of you inside the quiet hum of rain and engine heat.
For a long moment neither of you said anything. Robby finally opened his eyes slowly and looked at you. Really looked at you. His gaze moved over your tired face, your damp hair, the dark circles beneath your eyes. There was so much emotion sitting openly in his expression now that the fight had finally burned itself down to ash.
“You look exhausted,” he said quietly.
You let out a tired laugh. “You said that this morning too.”
“Yeah,” he murmured. “Turns out I was right.”
Despite yourself, your mouth twitched faintly. Silence settled again, heavy and intimate inside the dim car. Outside, thunder cracked loudly enough to vibrate faintly through the vehicle.
Then Robby said quietly, “I’m sorry.”
Your breath caught slightly.
He swallowed hard before continuing. “What I said downstairs about your ego was cruel and unfair and I knew it the second it came out of my mouth.” His jaw tightened. “You fight harder for your patients than almost anyone I’ve ever met. I know that.”
You stared down at your hands because hearing him say it hurt almost worse than the argument itself.
“I wanted to hurt you back,” he admitted softly. “That’s the truth.”
The honesty of it cracked something open inside your chest.
You nodded slowly. “I know.”
Robby rubbed tiredly at his face before looking back at you again. “And you were right too.”
Your eyes lifted to his immediately.
“I hate feeling helpless,” he said quietly. “I hate watching people die when I can’t stop it. And sometimes when it comes to you…” He exhaled shakily. “Sometimes I get scared enough that it comes out wrong.”
God. There he was. Finally. No walls. No defensive sarcasm. Just Robby stripped raw and exhausted and painfully sincere.
Your throat tightened instantly. “I shouldn’t have said the thing about your father.”
“No,” he whispered. “You shouldn’t have.”
Pain flashed briefly across his face again and guilt hit you hard enough to ache physically.
“I’m sorry,” you whispered immediately. “I was angry and I wanted to wound you because you’d already gotten under my skin and I knew exactly where to aim.” Your voice shook slightly now. “I’m sorry, Robby.”
He stared at you for a long moment. Then very slowly, he reached across the center console and slid his hand against your jaw. The contact nearly undid you.
Your eyes fluttered shut immediately as his thumb brushed softly across your cheekbone. Such a gentle touch after a day spent tearing each other apart.
“I don’t know how to fight with you,” he admitted quietly. “Every time we do this, it feels like somebody’s peeling my ribs open.”
Emotion climbed hot and painful into your throat.
“You think I enjoy it?” you whispered.
Robby shook his head once, eyes locked on yours now. “No.”
The air inside the car felt unbearably charged suddenly. Heavy with exhaustion and unresolved want and relief. You had spent the entire day wanting him and being furious at him simultaneously. Every sharp glance across trauma bays. Every accidental brush of shoulders. Every moment where your body still instinctively reached for him even while your pride screamed not to.
Now there was nothing left between you except inches of space and rain hammering violently around the car.
Robby’s hand slid slowly into your damp hair at the base of your neck. “Come here,” he whispered.
That was all it took. You kissed him hard enough to make both of you gasp. The collision felt desperate immediately. Months of familiarity mixed with the rawness of the fight until neither of you seemed capable of kissing carefully anymore. Robby made a rough sound low in his throat as you grabbed fistfuls of his jacket and pulled yourself across the center console toward him.
“Jesus Christ,” he breathed against your mouth. “I missed you today.”
The confession wrecked you instantly because he had been right there all day. Across hallways. Across trauma bays. Across operating rooms. And somehow you had still missed him with an ache so deep it felt physical.
You kissed him again before he could say anything else, angry and relieved and aching all at once while rain thundered against the roof overhead. Robby’s hands slid firmly along your waist, pulling you fully into his lap despite the awkward angle between the seats.
“You drove me insane today,” you muttered breathlessly against his mouth.
A faint laugh escaped him before he kissed you again harder. “Yeah?”
“Yes.”
“You were pretty terrifying yourself, sweetheart.”
The familiar nickname after a day without it nearly melted your spine. Your fingers curled tightly into the front of his damp t-shirt while his mouth moved hot and slow against yours now, the anger finally dissolving into something deeper and heavier and infinitely more dangerous. The kind of kissing that came from knowing each other too well. From memorizing every sigh and every weakness over a year of loving someone completely.
Robby’s forehead pressed against yours as both of you breathed hard in the dim car. His hands stayed anchored firmly at your hips like he physically needed proof you were still here.
“I love you,” he whispered suddenly. Fierce. Immediate. Like he could not hold it inside another second. “Even when you make me insane. Even when we fight like this. I love you so much it scares the hell out of me sometimes.”
Your eyes burned instantly. You kissed him again softer this time, your hand sliding against the tired stubble along his jaw.
“I love you too,” you whispered back. “Even when you’re an asshole.”
Robby huffed a quiet laugh against your lips before pulling you closer again, kissing you deep and slow while rain poured endlessly around the car and the entire exhausted city slept somewhere beyond the parking garage walls.
******
By the time you and Robby finally made it back to his apartment, the storm had settled into something almost violent. Rain lashed hard against the windows while thunder rolled low enough to shake faintly through the walls of the building. The city outside had disappeared behind sheets of gray and reflected streetlight, leaving the apartment wrapped in dim amber lamplight and exhaustion so deep it felt stitched into both of your bones.
The second the apartment door shut behind you, the silence changed. Not awkward anymore. Not angry. Just intimate in that fragile way things became after emotional devastation.
Robby dropped his keys onto the kitchen counter with a tired clatter before immediately turning back toward you like he physically could not help himself. His hands slid slowly up your arms beneath your damp coat sleeves, grounding himself in your presence. You could still feel the residual adrenaline humming beneath his skin.
“You okay?” he asked quietly.
The question nearly made you laugh because the answer was obviously no. You were exhausted. Emotionally shredded. Running on caffeine and stubbornness and approximately forty minutes of sleep. But he asked anyway because this was who Robby was at his core. No matter how ugly things got between you, concern always came back first.
“I’m okay now,” you admitted softly.
His eyes searched yours for a long moment like he was checking whether you actually meant it. Then finally he nodded once and leaned down to press a slow kiss against your forehead. The tenderness of it hurt worse than the fighting had.
You exhaled shakily against his chest and suddenly became acutely aware of how disgusting you felt. Your skin still smelled faintly like antiseptic and surgical smoke. Your hair had dried into rain-damp waves around your shoulders. There was probably dried blood somewhere on your shoes.
“I need a shower,” you mumbled tiredly.
Robby’s mouth brushed softly near your temple. “Yeah,” he murmured. “You do.”
You pulled back slightly then, shrugging out of your coat while exhaustion dragged heavily at your limbs. Robby took it from you automatically before his eyes flicked downward suddenly.
“Hey.”
You blinked. “What?”
He caught your wrist gently and lifted your hand between both of you. Surgical marker still streaked darkly across your skin and fingers from the valve repair earlier. Tiny smudges of purple-black ink clung stubbornly near your knuckles and along the heel of your palm despite multiple scrubs throughout the day. You had not even noticed it was still there. Robby stared at your hand quietly for a second before something in his expression softened almost painfully.
“You’ve still got marker on you,” he said quietly.
You huffed tiredly. “Occupational hazard.”
But instead of letting go, Robby guided you silently toward the kitchen sink.
“Robby—”
“Sit.”
The gentle firmness in his voice made something warm unfurl low in your chest. Too tired to argue, you climbed onto the edge of the counter while he grabbed a washcloth and soaked it carefully beneath warm water.
The apartment felt impossibly quiet around both of you except for rain hammering against the windows and the faint hum of the kitchen lights overhead.
Robby stepped between your knees afterward and took your hand again. Neither of you spoke. He cleaned your skin slowly. Carefully. Warm water and soap worked against the stubborn surgical ink while his thumb occasionally brushed softly along your palm to steady your hand. The intimacy of it nearly destroyed you. After an entire day spent slicing each other open emotionally, here he was gently washing evidence of surgery from your skin like something sacred. Your throat tightened unexpectedly.
Robby noticed immediately because of course he did. His eyes lifted briefly toward your face. “Hey.”
You shook your head once, trying to blink back the sudden sting behind your eyes. “I’m just tired.”
“No,” he said softly. “You’re not.”
That did it. Emotion cracked through your chest so suddenly you had to look away from him entirely.
“Seeing you pull away from me today hurt worse than the actual fighting.” Your voice came out quieter than intended. Raw. “In the trauma room. Outside after Brennan stepped in. You looked at me like…”
You swallowed hard.
“Like you didn’t know how to reach me anymore.”
Robby went completely still. Then very slowly, he set the washcloth aside and moved closer until his forehead rested gently against yours.
“I was trying not to touch you,” he admitted quietly. “That’s why I looked like that.”
Your breath caught slightly.
He closed his eyes briefly. “I was so angry with you and all I could still think about was touching you.” One of his hands slid slowly along your thigh where you sat on the counter. “Do you know how insane that made me feel?”
Heat curled instantly low in your stomach. Robby opened his eyes again and looked wrecked by the honesty of it.
“You were standing there yelling at me in Trauma Four and all I could think about was the fact you hadn’t eaten enough and your hands were shaking after surgery.” He laughed softly without humor. “I hated you for about five minutes today and still wanted to take you home.”
Your pulse jumped hard at the confession.
“You didn’t hate me,” you whispered.
“No,” he admitted immediately. “I didn’t.”
The space between you disappeared again after that. Robby kissed you slowly this time, exhaustion and tenderness melting together beneath the storm outside while your fingers slid into the damp curls at the back of his neck. The kiss deepened naturally after a few breaths, all lingering heat and relief and familiar hunger that neither of you had managed to kill despite trying your absolute hardest all day.
His hands moved carefully along your waist beneath your shirt, warm palms against tired skin. You felt him exhale sharply when your legs opened instinctively around his hips, pulling him closer between them.
“Christ,” he murmured against your mouth. “You have no idea what you do to me.”
A quiet laugh escaped you. “That’s funny considering you nearly started a war in the emergency department.”
Robby groaned softly against your lips before kissing you harder. “Yeah, well. Apparently emotional regulation isn’t my strongest quality when it comes to you.”
“You think?”
He smiled faintly then, tired and devastatingly handsome at once. The kind of expression that always melted your spine because nobody else got this version of him. Nobody else got the softness underneath all the sharp edges. Your hands slid beneath the hem of his t-shirt slowly, palms moving against warm skin and the tension in his back muscles. Robby’s breathing immediately roughened.
“You’re exhausted,” he whispered even while pulling you closer.
“So are you.”
“Yeah.” His mouth brushed your jaw slowly. “Still want you anyway.”
The honesty of it sent heat spiraling through your chest. You kissed him again deeply, fingers curling against his shoulders while thunder cracked loudly outside the apartment windows. Robby made a low sound against your mouth before lifting you carefully off the counter like it was instinct by now. Your legs wrapped automatically around his waist while he carried you down the hallway toward the bedroom with one hand secure beneath your thighs and the other pressed firmly against your back.
The room stayed dim except for stormlight filtering weakly through the curtains. Clothes ended up abandoned carelessly across the floor somewhere between kisses and exhausted laughter and soft apologies murmured against skin. Nothing rushed. Nothing frantic anymore. Just two people who had scared each other badly enough to suddenly need reassurance in every touch.
Later, long after the storm should have lulled you both to sleep, you lay tangled together beneath the blankets with your head resting against Robby’s chest while rain continued tapping softly against the windows. His fingers moved lazily through your hair while your leg remained thrown over his waist like you were unconsciously trying to anchor him there beside you.
“I really thought I fucked this up today,” he admitted quietly into the darkness.
You tilted your head slightly against him. “What do you mean?”
Robby hesitated. “After Brennan pulled us apart.” His hand tightened faintly against your back. “You looked at me like you were done.”
Your chest ached immediately.
“I could never be done with you,” you whispered.
He exhaled shakily against your forehead like the words physically relieved something inside him.
“I hated that we spent all day apart while standing ten feet from each other,” you admitted softly. “It felt awful.”
“Yeah,” he murmured. “It did.”
Silence settled comfortably after that. Warm. Heavy. Safe again.
Then after a minute, Robby’s lips brushed softly against your hair. “Still think I’m overprotective?”
You smiled tiredly against his chest. “Still think I’m impossible?”
His quiet laugh vibrated beneath your cheek before his arms tightened around you completely.
“Yes,” he whispered. “But I love you.”
******
You woke sometime near dawn to the sound of rain still tapping softly against the bedroom windows and the steady warmth of Robby asleep beneath you. For one disorienting second, you forgot everything. The fight. The emergency department. Brennan practically threatening to lock you both in separate corners of the hospital. Then memory returned slowly in pieces while pale gray morning light filtered through the curtains.
Robby slept on his back beside you with one arm still wrapped securely around your waist like even unconscious he refused to let you drift too far away. His hair was a mess against the pillow, his face softened completely by sleep in a way almost nobody else ever got to see. Without the constant sharpness of the ER weighing him down, he looked younger somehow. More vulnerable.
Your chest tightened painfully. Because the father comment had stayed with you all night no matter how many times he kissed you afterward. No matter how many apologies had already passed between you. That one still sat ugly and unresolved beneath your ribs.
Carefully, trying not to wake him immediately, you shifted upward against him until your cheek rested over his bare chest. His heartbeat thumped steadily beneath your ear. Warm. Familiar. Safe. God. You loved this man so much it scared you sometimes.
Your fingers drifted slowly across the light scattering of chest hair beneath your cheek before your mouth followed instinctively, pressing soft sleepy kisses against warm skin. One near his sternum. Another just beneath his collarbone. Robby stirred faintly beneath you with a low sleepy sound in his throat.
You smiled softly against his skin and kissed him again slower this time. His hand slid automatically along your back without even opening his eyes yet.
“Mm,” he murmured roughly, voice thick with sleep. “This a dream?”
A quiet laugh escaped you. “Depends.”
One brown eye blinked open slowly before the other followed. The second he focused on you stretched half on top of him, something warm and wrecked crossed his face immediately.
“Hey,” he whispered.
“Hey.”
His hand moved lazily along your spine beneath the oversized t-shirt you had stolen from him sometime during the night.
“What time is it?”
“No idea.”
“Good.” His eyes drifted shut again briefly while his palm settled low against your back. “Then we’re not doctors right now.”
The sleepy sincerity of that almost broke your heart. You shifted higher against him until your thighs settled carefully on either side of his hips beneath the blankets. Robby’s eyes opened fully then, attention sharpening slightly as he looked up at you straddling him in the soft gray light. His hands slid instinctively to your hips.
There it was again. That immediate response to each other. Even exhausted. Even emotionally bruised from yesterday. Your fingers brushed gently through the hair near his temple before you leaned down to kiss his collarbone slowly. Then again.
Robby exhaled quietly beneath you, fingertips tightening faintly against your hips. “You’re being very sweet for somebody who verbally assaulted me in Trauma Four.”
You groaned softly against his skin. “Don’t joke yet. I’m trying to be emotional.”
A sleepy smile tugged at his mouth. “Sorry. Continue.”
You lifted your head enough to look at him fully then and immediately the humor softened out of both of you.
“I’m really sorry,” you whispered.
Robby’s expression gentled instantly because he knew exactly what apology this was. Your hands slid slowly across his chest while you swallowed hard.
“What I said about your father…” Your voice wavered slightly. “That was cruel. I knew exactly what it would do to you and I said it anyway because I was angry.”
Robby stayed quiet beneath you, listening carefully. Tears burned unexpectedly behind your eyes and you hated how quickly they arrived because exhaustion always stripped your emotions raw.
“You are nothing like him,” you whispered fiercely. “Nothing. You love too loudly to ever be anything like him.”
Something in Robby’s face cracked open at that.
Your fingers curled softly against his chest. “You take care of people. You stay. You show up every single day for everyone you love even when it destroys you sometimes.” Your voice dropped smaller. “And I used the worst thing I could think of against you because I wanted to hurt you back.”
Robby’s hands tightened more firmly around your hips then, grounding both of you.
“I’m sorry,” you whispered again. “I’m so sorry, baby.”
The endearment nearly undid him visibly. You bent slowly to kiss his chest again, lingering near his heartbeat while your hips shifted unconsciously against his beneath the blankets. Robby inhaled sharply at the movement, his fingers flexing hard against your waist.
“Jesus,” he murmured roughly.
But your focus stayed on him. On the apology. On the vulnerability of this moment.
You kissed slowly up the center of his chest toward his throat before whispering against his skin, “I love you so much.”
Robby’s eyes shut briefly like the words physically hit him.
“I know we fight hard,” you continued softly. “But I never want you questioning whether you’re loved by me. Ever.”
That finally did it. Robby sat up suddenly enough to make you gasp softly as his arms wrapped tightly around your waist. One hand slid into your hair while the other anchored firmly at your lower back, holding you against him like he physically needed the closeness.
“You’re killing me,” he whispered against your mouth before kissing you hard.
The kiss turned heated almost immediately. Not frantic like the parking garage. Something deeper now. Slower. Intimate in a way that came from emotional honesty instead of adrenaline. Robby kissed you like he was still trying to absorb every apology and every confession straight from your lungs.
Your hips rocked instinctively against his again and the rough sound he made into your mouth sent heat spiraling low through your stomach. His hands gripped your hips harder now, guiding the movement once before his forehead dropped briefly against yours.
“You have got to stop doing that if you want me to think coherent thoughts,” he muttered hoarsely.
A sleepy laugh escaped you before you kissed him again. “No.”
“Cruel woman.”
“You love me.”
“Unfortunately.”
You smiled against his mouth right before Robby suddenly shifted beneath you. In one smooth motion he rolled you onto your back against the mattress, his body settling heavily between your thighs while the blankets tangled around both of you. Your breath caught instantly.
Robby hovered above you with messy curls and sleepy eyes and bare skin still warm from sleep. He looked devastating like this. Completely unguarded. One of his hands slid slowly along your thigh beneath the oversized t-shirt while his mouth moved against your jaw.
“You know what the worst part about yesterday was?” he murmured against your skin.
Your fingers slid into his curls automatically. “What?”
“I couldn’t touch you.”
The raw honesty in his voice sent another wave of heat through you.
Robby kissed slowly down your throat. “You were standing five feet away from me all day and I kept thinking about this.” His hand tightened gently against your hip. “About getting you alone. About hearing you laugh again. About you looking at me like you are right now instead of like you wanted to kill me.”
A quiet sound escaped you as his mouth brushed your collarbone. Robby looked back up at you then, blue eyes softer now beneath all the heat.
“I love you too,” he whispered. “Even when we’re terrible at this sometimes.”
Your hands framed his face immediately. “We’re not terrible at it.”
“No?”
You shook your head gently. “We just care too much.”
Something unbearably tender crossed his expression before he kissed you again slow and deep while rain continued falling softly outside and dawn crept gradually across the room around both of you.
Summary:
How you wound up going to a broom-closet of a bar with your attending resident in the first place remains a mystery to you - even as he's making a clumsy show of unlocking his apartment door three hours later.
Tags/Warnings:
SMUT 18+, p-n-v, co-workers to lovers, mild age-gap, mutual attraction (and awkwardness), drunken shenanigans, power imbalance, messy, hand k!nk, signed-and-certified-eater John Carter, un-BETA'd
WC:
4k +
A/N:
alright i chewed this all out in aproximately 72 hours so there is a highly likely chance of grammatical/spelling errors throughout this. i bid thee, good reader, to forgive any of my mistakes and simply enjoy the read <3
“Ordered and signed, he’ll be up in radiology within the hour.”
You receive an appreciative nod and a gentle clap over your shoulder. A father and his seven-year-old son sporting a likely tibial break. They’ve been in the limbo of the waiting room for four hours so far and the boy—Andy—has been antsy since only the second, his fidgeting worsening by the hour. You’ve been worrying about his movement destabilizing his leg, and thus have been attempting to speed up their treatment as best as you can.
“Thank you, doctor,” the father—Jerry—says, his red cheeks puffed up with the spread of his smile.
“Of course, sir. The quicker I can get Andy here patched up the quicker you both can head home and get some rest.”
You offer Andy a quick pat on the head, a smile to Jerry, and head down the hall. This was your nineteenth patient today, and the least stressful. Aiding in the resuscitation of a twenty-year-old coming out of a 6-car accident with a metal pipe in his side seems to make every other patient seem like they have a case of the common cold.
It's easier now. Eight months in and several MCs later, most of your work feels light by now. It only catches up to you once in a while. Days like today, when it’s not possible to save everyone as easily as you can help a little boy with a broken leg. You can still recall the heavy weight in the air today when the monitor’s long, deafening flatline remained despite best efforts. Hell, you can still recall that same weight the first ever time you lost a patient. It never really leaves you—or anyone for that matter.
After expelling the spiral your thoughts attempt to guide you down, you settle things with the front desk and ready your charts for the attendant taking over for the night-shift. You say your goodbyes. Everyone is in good spirits by now, and you wonder how long it will be before you’re seasoned enough to be ever so slightly less bothered by these things.
It's on your way to the front entrance—currently your exit for the night—you find yourself trailing behind John Carter. The first time you've seen him in half a day.
It’s not that you’ve been avoiding him since the loss of the patient. Really, it’s not. You’ve been busy trying to stay busy all day, only having really found yourself within ten feet of John when you needed to brief him on an incoming patient. And regardless of that, John is always crammed. At least as long as you’ve been an attendant. It’s rare to catch a moment with him, even on normal days. When you do catch him, he’s usually brief. Stiff, almost. You often wonder why you don’t get to have as much of the John Carter you see interacting with the rest of the team.
By no means, is it because you like him. You’re just curious. Nothing more.
(You don’t let yourself spiral down all on your own accord thinking about all of the time you’ve spent with him on your mind. All of the thoughts that’ve passed through your head, on and off the clock, about the man. His hair. His eyes. His hands…)
But now, as you shoulder past him to hurry out the doors, you find yourself being followed after by quick footsteps.
“Hey,” John exhales your name as he gently guides a hand around your arm to slow you down.
You look up at him. It’s the first time you’ve been this close in weeks. Maybe ever, actually, now that you think about it, since you’ve never noticed the way that he hangs over you slightly when he’s at full posture. His hand feels huge around your arm.
The two of you stare at each other. For a long moment, you wonder which one of you is supposed to speak next.
“Yes?”
You, it seems, after nearly a fourth of a minute of awkward stillness between you both.
John exhales, heavy and followed by a soft grunt. He looks down briefly, like he’s forgotten what exactly he wanted to say—if he even knew in the first place. His hand then retreats from your arm hastily.
“I just wanted to tell you that you did great,” he finally says, looking up, rocking himself a bit. His eyes are heavy. The wear on him painted around his eyes, translucent purple and green, make his irises seem darker. In the corner of your view, John’s wrist twitches upward before it goes limp at his side once more. “I know you don’t really want to hear that given—well, given what the result was, but you did. You did great.”
“Everyone did,” you say, mentally contemplating why it is you can never take a compliment single-handedly. “I couldn’t have handled it without the extra support.”
He’s smiling. Or, at least you think it’s a smile. It’s thin, tight. Doesn’t look very ‘smile-like’. More of a zipper-like line.
“Yeah,” he then sighs, nodding to himself. His shoulders are pulled back taught, like he’s trying to take an invisible deep breath.
The air, crisp and cold, nips at your ears in a gust. You look around you, at the mist rising from the roads and the fog forming along the edges of your view.
“Thank you, John,” you finally say, a soft, tired smile offered along with it as you focus back on him. Maybe, you think, to try making things less stiff between you.
His chest deflates—silent—before he looks up at you, chin down, like his neck is chained to the ground. You hadn’t even noticed he’d looked away.
It’s right about now you think about your first day in rotation at County General for some odd reason. The moment you first met John Carter. You think about every time since that day John has looked at you like he is now; like he’s holding something back just behind his teeth. From across desks and rooms, hovering over you as you read a chart to him. You start to re-think every decision you’ve made in these eight months to remain a good, policy-abiding student who doesn’t think things she’s not supposed to about residents above her station who look at her like that. The millionth time you’ve wondered what might happen if you were to just pretend that you didn’t know any better.
“Hey if—"
“Look I just wanted—”
You both hang the last of your words out silently at the same time, staring at one another. A soft laugh passes between both of you, the shuffling of feet. You wonder if he’s also trying to figure out what to say now.
John sighs through his teeth, shoving his hands into his coat pockets forcefully. “Look, I know you’ve had a long day and you’re probably wanting to be a thousand feet away from anything related to work, but, uhm—”
You think, briefly, as John is still your superior, that he seems like a lost puppy sometimes.
“Yes?”
He licks his lips briefly, tongue bouncing out past the patch of dark brown hair above his mouth. Shamefully, you don’t quite have the willpower not to watch. His feet rock him back and forth for a moment before he shrugs and expels a huff.
“Have you ever been to Melody’s?”
This is new.
You stare at him for a moment, stunned, maybe, at the unfathomable possibility that John Carter just stealthily asked you out. Is that even what that was?
“No,” you say, breaking away from your frozen state, a smile slowly forming on your lips. “No, not lately.”
He smiles back, and this time it actually does look like a smile.
“Would you—”
“Yes,” you say when his voice catches on itself.
“If you want, we can take—”
“Your car. I took the L.”
John laughs softly, hands already digging through his pockets. A hand reaches out in what you assume is the direction of his car. “It’s—this way.”
You nod, shuffling your hands into your coat, and start walking in the general direction he offered. He trails behind for a few moments, then speeds up a little and moves past you once he seemingly registers that you don’t exactly know which car to stop at.
It quiet as you both get into John’s car. You flop into the seat as he presses a few buttons on the dash. A gentle blast of warm air hits your face and legs. You steal a quick glance at him, but he doesn’t look at you.
The drive is also quiet, with only the hum of the radio playing songs you’ve already heard a thousand times. John keeps his eyes on the road mostly. You only notice him looking at you once or twice in the time it takes to pull into the small parking lot jointed with a small, postage-box-sized building.
Despite the size, you think it looks somewhat appealing, if that’s even the right word. The warm light of the orange sign out front glows against the wet sidewalk. You can hear chatter from inside. It seems like the sort of place that’s been there since the beginning of time.
“Well—” John quietly says, coming up beside you “—it’s nicer than it looks on the inside, trust me.”
“I trust you.” You smile, and jut your head toward the door. “C’mon, give me the tour.”
With a downturned smile, John hurries to the door and opens it, leaning his back against it as you head inside, watching you with soft, laser-focused eyes as you try to ignore the tingle forming in your stomach from the look. You accidentally take notice of his hand resting low on the door, the veins strong and prominent, knuckles flush.
Looking around the bar to distract yourself from the thoughts bubbling up in your mind of those hands and what you’re sure they can do, you notice immediately how warm it is. The lights, the air, the crowd; it’s all bathed in a gentle warmth that makes you feel like you’ve been missing out on something you didn’t even know existed. The chatter is louder inside, but still sits low in volume. Everything feels cozy. You turn to John, who still has his eyes locked onto you, like he’s gauging your reaction.
“Cozy,” you voice, and he smiles bright and proud.
“Cozy,” he echoes, gesturing towards an empty booth. “You wanna go get some drinks? I’ll find a booth?”
“What’s the order?”
“Just some scotch. On ice.”
Scotch, you think, saying nothing as you nod and turn toward the bar. A couple minutes wait and a quick conversation with the bartender later, you take two full glasses back to the booth John has secured for the two of you.
You sit his glass in front of him first, taking a deep sip from your own drink as you sit down across from him. He watches you closely as you do.
Once again, you find yourselves in silence, no words passing between you for a long while as you both take alternating-sized sips from your respective drinks. Mostly, you both just take turns looking around the bar, back at the other, then back around the bar again. You don’t know what to talk about; you have a million questions for John, of course, but you have no idea where you should start.
You decide to start with the most obvious after what seems like an eternity of silence.
“John,” you begin, now starting your second glass. You glance to the two glasses in front of John. Hope that both of you have had just enough to drink that the awkwardness between you will fade. “Why did you bring me here?”
He looks up from his drink briefly. With his eyes locked back down at the table, he clears his throat and sits his glass down. “Truthfully?”
“Yeah.”
“I don’t really know,” he says with a chuckle. His fingers flutter against the table. “Why did you say yes?”
Now it’s your turn to chuckle. “Don’t really know,” you say.
Both of you share another laugh. The air feels lighter now that you’ve somewhat addressed the main question of the night. Maybe, also, because of the empty glasses sitting on the table.
It becomes easier to ask things as the drinks come, and by the third glass, you’ve moved next to John in the booth. It all flows freely the longer you’re there—questions and answers, all of it coming out in hushed tones between the two of you joined with soft giggles between words.
You pretend not to notice the small touches on your arm. The feeling of your knees grazing each other. The looks John spares at you when his eyes aren’t glued to the table.
It’s in the midst of your haze that you find the tab paid off, your coats collected, and your feet taking you alongside John’s uneven steps toward the exit.
You reach his car. John plops against the side of it, sighing, looking down at his feet. “I can’t drive,” he says, giggling, cheeks red and shiny.
“Probably not,” you reply. The cold air comes out in white as you speak, but your insides are warm and mushy, so you don’t notice.
“I live close.” He turns his head to you. “Just a couple blocks.”
“Your car?”
“The owners’ll keep it safe,” he shrugs off. “Know ‘em well enough.”
You don’t have to contemplate, but you pretend to anyway. A moment or two passes before you nod, much too soon to actually seem like it took you time to decide. You understand why you chose to become a doctor rather than an actress. “Okay.”
The decision is made between the two of you, and yet you still somehow can’t fathom how it is you wind up standing much too closely to John as he makes a clumsy show of unlocking the door of his apartment.
You don’t notice the layout or the décor. If not because the alcohol in you relieves you of the desire to care, than because you’ve suddenly closed the gap between John and yourself that you hadn’t previously realized was bothering you until just the moment you felt the soft skin of his lips against your own.
And yes, maybe it’s because you’ve always liked him. Maybe since the first day, even. You can’t find it in yourself to think about it any more than that.
His hand circles around the small of your back, fingers tight around you. You feel his beard gently scratch against your cheek as your mouths make a messy attempt at centering a kiss. It’s softer than you’d have thought. You like it just as much as you figured you would.
There’s a bump, and you realize you’ve been backed up against a wall. Your head is being cradled by John’s other hand, his fingers entangled in your hair, thumb gently padding against the skin behind your ear. His kisses are soft; messy, desperate even, but still so, so soft. A gentle tap of his tongue against your bottom lip has your mouth parting open for it. He takes the opportunity. The slide of your tongues together has you weak in the knees.
“You’re so beautiful,” he murmurs into your mouth. “Fuck, you’re beautiful.”
You gently pull on his neck, shift a knee against him. The hand he has on your back quickly shifts to grab at your ass and lift your weight up onto him, the wall offering support. Automatically, your legs hook over his hips. You think you hear John make a low rumble in his throat as his hands tighten around you.
“Been waiting—” a kiss “—all night for—” another “—this.”
You hum. One of your hands drags through John’s hair, gently twisting around the ends and tugging. A tease. A play. A test.
This time, the sound that forms in his throat is a quiet, needy whine that makes your stomach flutter. You squeeze your legs around him, feeling his hips buck against you.
“John.” His name is drawn out from your lips as he takes a solid hold onto your body and backs away from the wall. There’s a sway as he treads through his apartment, uneven steps caused by the movement of your bodies against each other. Before you know it, you’re being laid out onto a plush mattress wrapped in soft sheets.
He's between your legs in a flash. Shoulders propping your legs up. Hands wrapped around the tops of your thighs. You notice, only with the scratch of his beard against the insides of them, that you’re missing your pants. You then recall taking them off just before your back hit the bed, rather efficiently, and decide that it wasn’t that important to remember—so long as they’re off now.
This, of course, is easy to do this when John’s mouth is tracing over your panties. There are much more important things to consider at the moment than the exact mechanics of how you removed your clothes.
Your hands find his hair once more. Tangle and tug at it as his tongue aids in the wetness forming in the thin fabric keeping you contained. His fingers press into your thighs. You stare, fascinated by the flexing of his hands and the way his tendons roll over his knuckles.
“My girl,” he whispers against you, sending a chill up to your chest. “You’re my girl.”
His lips press kisses over every ridge of you. Every crease. You feel the tease of his tongue, frequent between them. “Love how you taste.”
You whine, squeezing his head with your thighs, trailing your hand down to his and squeezing his fingers too. “John,” you say, seemingly reduced to a single-word vocabulary.
“Yes, baby,” he answers. “So good. You’re so good for me. Gonna fuck you so nice.”
And it’s that—the confirmation—that spikes your nerves and send a thrill through you. There’s heat pouring through every blood vessel in your body. You want it now, now, don’t want to wait. John has your legs in a vice with his arms and you can’t break free. Can’t wiggle your way around the wait.
“I know,” he says. You can’t tell if he’s saying it with sympathy or to tease you even further. “I know baby.”
His fingers slide down to the hem of your panties, teasing the elastic band. You’re hopeful for a moment as he tests a finger under it, sliding along the edge without dipping in too far. You wiggle some more. He doesn’t budge. Just keeps playing with your patience.
“So pretty,” he whispers, and at this point you’ve decided he must be patronizing you. The way his hands and his words tease you. Every move and every syllable feels tailored specifically to drive you wild.
Then finally, after what seems like a millennium of taunting you with is ghostly touches, he repositions himself between your thighs—sliding down your panties as he does. You feel a breath of relief escape you, a shudder down your arms and back as he returns, mouth hot, tongue searching. The hair of his beard tickles somehow. Your legs go taut as his lips encircle your clit and then the world might very well start to implode. Your eyes close on their own accord, and they don’t open again for a long time. Long enough for John to have drawn out two, maybe three, orgasms from deep inside you that’ve left you loose and warm all over before he finally pulls away, panting.
He trails kisses up your stomach, over your ribs and breasts. His beard is damp. His mouth is rambling your name. You feel his fingers tracing lightly over your sides, inching your wrinkled shirt up your body before tugging it away from you completely. It’s quickly replaced by his weight on top of you. His bare chest pressing against your own.
Your hands grab at his face and drag his mouth back to your own. There’s no hesitation when you dive past his lips with your tongue, and you’re greeted with a low moan pushing past his throat as a reward.
You hear him fiddling with his belt. The recognizable sound of it clinking to the floor. Anticipation builds in your bloodstream as you wait, still pressing messy kisses against his lips and chin.
Then you feel him. The guided weight of his cock pressing against you, just as promising as you’d assumed it’d be. You suck in a breath of preparation. He smiles against your lips.
“You ready?”
Humming, you nod, tug at his neck, but he doesn’t budge.
“Are you ready?” he repeats, firmer. You realize he wants words that are far too distant from you at the moment to come naturally.
“Yes,” you’re able to pant. For good measure, you tug a little on his ear. “Hurry up.”
“Hey now.” He tsks. “I thought I was supposed to be in charge here.”
It gets you to laugh, relax a little, and right as you do, he’s pressing deep into you, slow. Sinfully slow. You gasp as he fills you to the hilt, as you stretch around him to make room.
“Fuck.” His forehead drops to your chest, his breath hot and heavy against your skin. “Jesus fucking Christ.”
You smile, petting his hair. His hips buck forward then draw back, driving even deeper moments later, drawing another gasp from your chest.
You don’t know how long he’s inside you. How long he bucks back and forth just right (so right, you wonder exactly how closely he paid attention to detail when learning about female anatomy) to send shockwaves through your nerves. Maybe it’s minutes. Maybe hours. You don’t care either which way. Both of you are coming undone in each other’s arms, body’s flushed and slick with sweat. His hair is sticking to your chest as he keeps going, well past his own release. You can feel his fatigue growing, but it doesn’t bother you at all. You just keep your legs wrapped around his waist, your hands in his hair, and your lips on his forehead. He’s panting heavier now, muttering sweet, sweet words into your skin, sounding just a little delirious.
“John,” you finally say, realizing just how stubborn he’s being. You pet his hair even more gently, then trace the outline of his ear.
“No, no, I wanna stay.”
“John,” you say again. “John, you’ll have to pull out eventually.”
He makes a strangled sound, like a pouty little whine. You want to laugh at him, but you don’t think that will help, so instead you press a kiss to him sweaty temple.
“Atta boy,” you whisper, unable to help yourself. The feeling of his bottom lip jutting out against your skin is unmistakable.
“I’m too old for you to call me that,” he huffs, lifting his head from your chest to shoot a playful glare down at you; he’s never looked more ridiculous.
“You’re not that old.”
“I’m too old.”
“For what?”
“For you,” he answers, lifting a hand to trace around your brow. You eye it, savoring how his fingers feel against your skin.
“Shut up.” You crane your neck up a little to peck the tip of his nose. “I’m a big girl.”
He’s smiling, so you know he’s not being entirely serious. Not entirely, since you’re certain that you both are aware of the professional limitations to your relationship.
Professional limitations you’re not currently concerning yourself with.
“You’re a big girl,” he echoes. His nose nudges against yours for a moment before he drops his weight back onto you, face pressing down into the crook of your neck.
…
You only realize you’ve both fallen asleep when slivers of orange morning light start to shine down onto your face.
Lifting your head, mildly confused, it takes a moment for you to recognize your surroundings as someone else’s room. Another moment for you to remember that the ‘someone else’ this room belongs to is John Carter.
You quickly sit up, searching for him, but the room is otherwise empty. There’s a chair in the corner of the room you notice has a set of folded clothes on it. Your clothes. A smile forces its way onto your face.
Hurrying to get up and dressed, the sound of metal clinking and food cooking in the other room begins to fill the empty space.
Once you’re decent, you make your way out of the bedroom, peeking your head through the open door.
He’s right there in the kitchen. As soon as you’ve entered the living space, his eyes rise from the stove to center onto you.
“Morning,” he says, quiet, subdued. His hand continues to stir through a pan sizzling in front of him.
“Good morning.” Your ankles cross as you lean against the doorframe.
“You sleep okay?” he asks.
“Yeah, really good.” You point a thumb back towards the bedroom. “Your bed’s really comfy.”
“Thank you.” He smiles, looking back down. “I’m glad.”
“You cook?”
You have no idea why that’s what you decided to say.
“I try to cook.”
“This place is still standing. I’d say that’s successfully cooking.”
Both of you laugh softly, then go silent simultaneously as the sizzling sounds fill the space.
Once the food is ready and you both begin to eat, the awkwardness builds. Part of you wants to die a little bit more by the minute.
You don’t know what to say, and it seems that John doesn’t know what to say either. What can you say now? It happened. It was great. You want it to happen again. And again. And again. You’re not sure how you’re supposed to say that without having to bring up the whole student-doctor-relationship-regulations-thing, so you stay quiet and just eat the breakfast you’ve been offered. You also find yourself wondering if this breakfast is some kind of weird apology.
It’s hard to know what will happen from here. It’s Sunday. Neither of you work until tomorrow. That leaves twenty-four hours for last night’s events to truly sink in before you both have to go back to work, probably pretending that nothing happened.
But, then, as you both eat, you notice John stealing brief glances at you. You notice the small, teasing pull at the corner of his mouth when you both glance up from your plates at the same time. It leaves something warm and comforting in your chest. Something that makes the awkward silence less awkward. Maybe something that will build and grow into something more.
You think you've always secretly known Carter can't stand you for the same reasons you can't stand him.
Tags/Warnings:
SMUT 18+, dialogue heavy, there's a buildup okay, enemies to lovers, workplace romance, you're both kinda dummies so, technically idiots in love, mild age-gap, forced proximity, lowkey submissive-and-breedable Carter, (consensual) manhandling, hickeys/love bites, dry-humping, oral (fem-receiving *cheers*), John is a WHORE and I will not be taking criticism about it, not BETA'd
WC:
4.5 k
Author's Note:
This idea came to me in several parts that I smashed together into a single one-shot so if it seems a little plot-lazy, that’s why. I'm also only on season 2 of ER, so canonical inconsistencies are highly likely. Please remember that I am human, so if you notice any mistakes – no you didn’t. I hope you enjoy and have a lovely day/night <3
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“As I already said, John, I gave it to you two hours ago.”
You look up from the chart in your hands to glare at him. Carter shoots the same, spiteful look right back down at you; he hates when you call him John in that tone, especially because that usually means you’re trying to be a hard ass.
“Well, I don’t know what to tell you. It’s. Not. There.” Every word is punctuated with irritation and a tilt of his head while he follows close at your heels as you try to get away from him. He’s become good at trying to cancel out every move you make lately.
“Well, someone must’ve fucked up something,” you say, smiling tightly at Carol as you pass her while ignoring her glance up at John trailing behind you, as well as the quirk in her lips when she looks back down at her work. She always does that.
“Hm, I wonder who that could’ve been.” He puts a hand onto his chin, feigning a look of puzzlement that does absolutely nothing to hide the patronization.
It’s moments like these, on other days you’ve had this exact conversation with the resident nearly word for word and certainly insult for insult, that you wonder how you’ve yet to be restrained from taking a swing at him—right across his stupid face.
“Would you both shut up?” Susan breaks the thick air hovering between the two of you, slapping a folder against Carter’s chest. “Carter,” she looks up at him, turns to you, repeats your name with the same tone of voice, then briefly spares him another glance, “please, try to act like grown-ups during the hours you’re working at a hospital?”
She leaves you both standing there defiantly. John expels a heavy huff in your direction, looking down at the file, then back at you. “I didn’t tell you to leave it on my desk.”
“Oh, Jesus,” you exhale, turning away from him without sparing another glance. You’re lucky to leave the conversation with both of your eyes still in their sockets, with how much you’ve been having to roll them. Sometimes you think John wakes up some days with the sole purpose of being dissatisfied with everything you do.
And on days like today, when that seems to be the likely case, you’re usually better off just avoiding him—which, to be fair, is what you usually do.
Unfortunately, today you just can’t seem to get away from him.
“I need another line in,” he tells you as he passes you in the hall. “Room five.”
You’re already on your seventh IV of the hour…
“I want the you to get the labs for Kelson, Morris, Martin, and Alan ordered, and make it quick.”
You already have two sets waiting…
Eventually you just end up switching some of your assignments with other attendants, just to get a few minutes away from his constant barking. It’s usually not this bad. It’s never this bad, you have to say. Sometimes even, horrified as you are to admit it, he’s not all that miserable to be around—only, of course, as long as someone else is with you both and neither of you actually have to be alone with each other. You’ve never had to spend more than five minutes alone with Carter since your first day. Haven’t even cared to wonder if you could even possibly stand it, either, as the chances of that actually happening have been dwindling day by day.
Of course, it would be just your luck that you’re at work on the day the possibility swings wide open like a door on loose hinges.
You hear your name said loudly over the hallway bustle after another hour of bickering between collisions throughout the area, Carter’s immediately following. Susan is standing stiff with a clipboard in her hands, though her face looks rather proud for someone who sounds so pissed.
Carter gets to her just as you do. Both of you glance at each other with equally narrow eyes.
“Alright kids,” Susan begins, “let’s for, just a short while, play nice so we can get our work done, hm?” She smiles between you both. “There's a supply closet that needs its inventory taken.”
“Inventory?”
You both say the word at just the same time, just as baffled. You veer your head at him, and just as you do so, his head is already turned at you.
“Yes. Inventory. Maybe you’ll both learn to work together for once.”
And you know that’s not what she means. You and Carter can work together just fine. Hell, you’re one strange, hell of a pair when you’re not being so stubborn. With patients, you flow around each other like you’re both on tracks, knowing where to and not to move to get things done efficiently around one another. During procedures you’re on the same wavelength, too. You both have the same laser-focus that pulls through when you need it. If you didn’t despise each other, you might just make a good team.
So, as you crowd yourselves into the miniature-home-sized supply closet while trying not to stir up dust, you try to figure out what this is really about. To understand Susan’s mindset when she made the decision to lock the two of you up (metaphorically, as the closet you find yourself in doesn’t even have a lock) for however long it’ll take to log all of this.
At the very least, it’s a break from the bustle of the ER. It’s a busy day and Susan has found someone to cover for both of you for the hour—the least she could do as an apology for locking you up with Carter in the first place. That nearly makes this worth the hassle. Nearly.
After all, the small, subdued smiles and giggles from the direction of the front desk were not lost on you as Susan gave you both the ‘briefing’, and you’re betting they weren’t lost on John either. The more you question this ‘assignment’, the less happy you are with the lot of them.
You know about the rumors. The generic ones that always come in workplaces when there are two people who are even somewhat relative in age and disposition. No one ever says anything when Carter is barking tailored orders at you. When he’s looking at you sternly while, at the same time, giving you positive feedback on a patient or decision of yours’. No one does anything but stare and smile behind their hands, and of course, that’s plenty to get the general idea of what’s going on in everyone’s heads.
You’ve ignored it, thus far. You pretend it’s not that big of a deal to you because really, it shouldn’t be. They’re just rumors. The result of low-maintenance days around the wing with nothing much else to do but wonder why you and Carter look at each other like that while just less than shouting at each other at the same time.
“Count?” Expelling the thoughts of it all from your mind, you look up from the clipboard Susan gave you to John, who’s leaning up and over one of the shelves into a tub on the top. “What’re we working with?”
“Uhm… sixty—no. Fifty-seven.” He puffs out his cheeks and drops his heels back down to the floor. “It’s uh, it’s fifty-seven.”
You nod. Another box checked. One less reason to spend any more time in this sauna.
This is part of the level that no one bothers to do any work on. It’s air conditioning has been out for months. Another reason, you’ve noted, to be pissed off at Susan.
Carter, somehow, must be thinking the same thing, because he plops down onto the floor next to you with a hand over the back of his neck. “Fuck, I thought they fixed the air.”
“Not here, apparently. Susan has us working out of the sixth layer of Dante’s inferno.”
He laughs. It’s sudden, quiet, but a laugh nonetheless. A genuine laugh at something you said. There’s a first time for everything, it seems. “Ah, could be worse.”
“You think?”
“Sure,” he says confidently, looking at the palm of his sweaty hand before looking up at you, “I could be in here with Benton.”
Snickering involuntarily, you fold your arms around the clipboard and hug it to your chest. “I though you liked Dr. Benton?”
Assuming that statement is true, considering John has never actually told you this himself.
“Course I do. He’s the best resident I’ve ever worked with. Hell of a guy,” he confirms, looking down at his feet, then quickly looking back at you with an intensity that feels like he’s piercing right through to your soul. “I just can’t stand to be around him sometimes.”
You hum. Know that feeling.
It’s his words that make you start to think you understand why you and John behave towards each other the way you do. Because you’re not immune to knowing that somewhere, deep down, you admire John. Honestly, it’s the only reason you can stand being around him as much as you can. He knows what he’s doing when it comes to doin his job. Caring, compassionate, and attentive to every patient. Smart, too, you know. Might not always seem smart, but he is. Capable. He's really not all that terrible, at least as a doctor. You don’t hate him. Not at all unfortunately. As much as you’d like to be able to, you can’t.
A silence settles over you both. Some unknown reason prevents you from speaking up about the eleven categories you still need to take inventory of, so in silence you both remain for a long time.
“Look,” he says, finally breaking through the quiet haze filling the room. Your name falls off his tongue with a sigh, then he hangs his head down, tapping his knee with his thumb. “You know, I’m not—I’m not hard on you just to be an asshole. Right?”
“Sure.”
He chuckles—the kind that tells you your answer exasperated him—and looks up at the dim ceiling light. “I’m not,” he repeats, looking up.
After a moment of dragging out your silence, you nod, resigning your stubbornness to the backseat. “I know, John.”
Impulse bids you to add on a little bit of a dig to the end; just as a force of habit, really. Doesn’t make you any less of an asshole, you want to joke, but don’t. Strange.
“Good.”
Another stretch of silence, this one louder with the presence of your mutual inner thoughts than the previous.
It’s not that this is some incomprehensible revelation. You had figured (or, possibly just hoped) that John wasn’t just being an asshole to you for no reason. You’ve had other mentors; one’s that are sweet on you, one’s that are hard on you, and one’s that fall somewhere in the middle of the spectrum. John is strange in that sense. Even if he’s less than sweet about it, he has always challenged you for the better. You know at the end of the day, it’s helped you to make improvements in your work and education. It’s kept you entertained, for sure. All of the bickering and snide comments and little jabs at each other’s work ethic that are never truly more than a way to annoy the other.
And maybe that’s why you’ve always tried to follow it all with a grain of salt and an equally hard-ass response. It’s irritating on the worst days; something close to fun on the best.
“You’re gonna be a great doctor.”
John’s voice is quiet, softening the unfathomably sudden weight of his words.
You quickly look at him. He’s already staring back at you, eyes gentler than you think you’ve ever seen them.
There’s a stillness you can’t seem to break from holding you right where you are. You feel your eyes drift over John’s face. You’ve never been so close to him before. Never been able to get a proper look at his features. When he’s not being such a jerk, he’s actually pretty handsome. (Only when he’s not being a jerk, you have to specify to yourself, otherwise you’d have to admit that you’ve always known he’s handsome.)
“Thank you.” It comes breathless from you, without much thought. You’re not sure what else you could’ve possibly said, anyway.
John nods, looking away, shoulders stiff. His lips press tight together, chin dimpling. You never noticed it did that before.
It goes on for too long; the stillness. You watching John. John watching his hands. Neither of you seem capable of moving, you’re sitting there for so long.
“We should probably—”
“Yeah,” you confirm, thankful he was the one who decided to press play again. “Probably.”
And yet neither of you stand. The stillness continues, now with confirmation you definitely should be doing something else.
John sighs. Runs a hand over the back of his neck. You try not to notice the way his arms stretch out or the ridges of the veins flowing underneath the skin.
“John—”
You stop, as that’s as far as your thoughts got before you started speaking.
He sighs again, heavier this time, expectant. It makes you feel like you’ve made a mistake.
“I’m sorry.” You shake your head at yourself, backtracking. “I don’t know what—”
“It’s alright.” His hand shoots out to gently touch your shoulder, only for a moment, before he withdraws. “You’re fine, it’s just… I’m—”
“Yeah, I know,” you say. You understand that you’re both thinking the same thing. “Resident.”
John’s shoulders droop down with a puff as he says your name again quietly, more to himself, it seems.
“John, it’s okay. I shouldn’t have… We should just get back to work.”
You stand up and go to start sifting through bins once more, but you feel a tug on your arm. Suddenly his warm fingers are wrapped around your wrist, thumb against your pulse point.
And then he’s pulling gently on your wrist, wordless. You follow his lead and inch your feet closer to him. It feels awkward, standing there while John stays crouched down on his feet below you, and it immediately feels even more awkward when he drops his forehead against your knee.
“… John?”
You stare, totally stunned, as he rolls his cheek over your leg with a groan. He starts shaking his head, like he’s answering a question he’d asked himself in his mind.
“I shouldn’t be doin’ this.”
“You’re not doing anything, John,” you say, trying to sound comforting.
“Aren’t I?” He looks up at you, eyelashes casting a shadow over his iris. “And, please, stop that,” he adds, scrunching up his face.
“Stop what?”
“Calling me that.”
“Your name?”
“Yes.”
Huffing, you bend your knees and drop down to be at his eye-level. He watches closely as you do, every move you make tracked by his eyes.
“I like your name,” you say.
“Nobody likes my name.”
“Do you just enjoy neutralizing everything I say or is there some sort of bet going on that I’m not aware of?”
“I do not—”
You tip your head a little at him, eyebrows standing tall.
John presses his lips together. For a moment he stays that way, then in a sudden burst, he laughs softly and nods.
“I do, don’t I?”
“Often.”
You’re both smiling, and it’s almost possible for you to forget how you got to this point in the conversation in the first place. Almost.
It gets quiet suddenly. So very quiet. Both of your smiles start fizzle out, but your eyes remain locked on each other. The heat of the room becomes much more noticeable in the silence. You notice the thin sheen of sweat over John’s forehead, the way his hair sticks to it in thin, long spikes. His cheeks are pinker than usual.
“John,” you murmur. Suddenly, your eyes are focused on his lips.
“I told you to stop that,” is his response, a smile repositioning his lips ever-so subtly. “Seriously, I hate it.”
“John,” you repeat in the tone you know very well he hates. You’re not sure what you’re trying to achieve now, but it is still fun nonetheless.
A huff blows out from his nose, but the smile remains, so you keep going. Or, at least, try to.
“J—”
You don’t get the satisfaction of finishing his name. Before you can, your tongue is being held incapacitated by John’s lips. His hands are gripping your hips, and all you’re able to do is sink into it. Your legs go useless under you, body giving way. John’s chest cushions what would be your fall, his hands pulling you flush against him.
And then his lips are cruelly dragged away from yours. It causes a quiet whine to escape you. A whine which only slightly makes you want to die from embarrassment.
John whispers your name with a sigh. His head shakes, and he starts to say something, but you don’t give him enough time to make any sense before you’re catching his lips back into a kiss to stop him from continuing. He doesn’t complain about it at all, just tightens his hands over your hips and scoots a knee between your thighs.
“We can’t be doing this,” he tries.
You just hum, kissing, kissing, and kissing him some more between every attempt he makes to change your mind—maybe to change his own mind, too.
“I shouldn’t—”
“Please stop talking,” you manage to get out between kisses, firmly enough that you hope he understands this is an alternative measure to get your point across rather than to gently smack him like part of you wants to.
John grunts, squeezing your hips, and nods.
Smiling at his silent agreement, you sift your hands through his hair, down the back of his neck, nails scraping lightly over the skin above his collar as you trail all the way down to his shoulder blades. You’re able to feel the muscles flexing across his back through his shirt.
You don’t think about things you should; not the possible (and likely) repercussions there could be on both of your careers if this is to go on or the fact that this supply room has no lock, not the fact that you’re not actually supposed to like John according to your own strict set of personal rules. All you’re thinking about in this moment is the desire you have to find out what John’s skin feels like under these clothes.
So, you start tugging. Lifting John’s shirt out from under the waistband of his pants. The movement of your bodies makes it a little difficult, but you still manage to get it off quicker than you thought you would, and the second his chest is bare your hands glue themselves to it. His skin is softer than you’d thought it’d be. Covered in a layer of thin fuzz and not much else. As you skim your hands over his chest, he migrates his lips down your neck. Sliding his teeth over your skin. Suckling along the ridges that aren’t hidden by your own scrubs.
He's getting handsier by the second. The grip he has on your hips is tightening, loosening, then tightening again even more. Teeth, scratching a little more with every pass over your neck.
Eventually, he seems to get frustrated with the barrier between his lips and your skin, and suddenly your shirt is being torn off of you and thrown to the corner of the room. He’s back on you in an instant, too. Back to sucking on your skin, almost certainly leaving little red spots all over you, which should bother you, considering you are still at work and, given the circumstances, will look very suspicious once you leave this room—but it doesn’t. At the present moment, all you want is to be marked up by John in every possible area, visible or not.
And he’s delivering on that desire just fine on his own, leaving marks all along your body; over your shoulders, down your neck and down your chest, reaching the plush skin available in two slivers above your bra cups. He seems to like it there especially. Spends plenty of time pressing his face into your chest, breathing you in.
“Thought about this,” he then says, muffled into your skin. “Thought about this a lot.”
You don’t necessarily register the importance of this statement. Just nod and smile, pet the top of his hair. “Me too.”
He groans, sliding his hands up your back. His teeth graze the edge of your bra strap. You wonder, briefly, if he’d be able to undo the clasp with his teeth.
“Want you,” he murmurs suddenly, slightly crazed. “Want my girl.”
Oh.
Your own craze follows, hands grasping and gripping all over him in desperation. Your teeth find his ear, gently clamping down. A grunt punches out of him as his hands smack down over the curve of your ass, fingers digging into the plush skin through your pants.
“Yes, John—fuck.”
You feel the shape of a smile against your breast. His breath his hot and heavy. The sensation of the sweat on his skin mixing with your own makes you shiver.
“My baby,” he says, and you only now realize he’s been whispering to you this whole time. Rambling words that dilute themselves against your skin. “You’re my baby. My girl. All mine, all mine.”
Shit. You’ve heard some of what the other ladies around the unit have had to say about John. You’ve known, at least in theory, that he has the notion of a reputation with women. But Jesus, you weren’t expecting this. Not the rambling of a man deprived or the desperation in his touch. You’ll have to remember to wonder if he’s like this with every girl or if you’re getting special treatment—some other time though, as you’re plenty content focusing on the needy man devouring you in the present moment.
Before you know it, you’re on your back. You don’t question how you got there; all that matters is that John is on top of you with his knee pressing up between your legs and his hands pinning you down to the floor. You moan into his mouth as he digs his knee against you just right, sending a wave of heat up your body.
“Like that?” He sounds eager. So desperate to please.
“Yes, baby. Right there.”
“Like that,” he repeats, satisfied. In the midst of all of this depravity, you find yourself thinking that he’s kind of adorable.
One of his hands disappears, so you break away from where your lips are attached to his neck to search for it and return it to where it belongs on your body.
You’re somewhat torn from this thought when you find it: pressing palm-down onto the tent in John’s pants in a rough rhythm. It works alright there, you suppose, listening to the quiet whimpers pouring from John’s throat as he grinds his hand down on himself.
“Touching yourself, baby?”
“Mhm.” He licks his lips right up against your skin.
“You gonna come?”
“No… want you to…”
You smile, kissing his nose. He shudders, shoulders tight. You feel it shoot down through him to where his knee is still pressing against you.
“Then make me come, baby.”
He lets out all of the air in his lungs, shoulders going loose, body nearly collapsing on top of you. His skin seems to be getting hotter by the minute.
It's only a few more moments before he’s slipping your pants off and tossing them out of sight. His hands hitch up your thighs and then he’s there, lapping at your wet slit and pressing his nose against your clit.
He doesn’t disappoint you. Not one bit. It seems that his… knowledge… of the female anatomy does him well in many aspects of life. He knows just where to suck. Where to gently slide his tongue against to make your back arch off the floor.
You don’t know how long he’s on you for—only that by the time he finally drags himself away you’ve come at least twice and your legs feel weak. He pants against the inside of your leg, face damp, kissing you between heavy breaths. His fingers stroke over the tops of your thighs, gentle circles, easing you down from your orgasm.
“S’okay baby,” he coos. His lips come down to press a kiss to your stomach, the side of his face coming soon after to rest on you. You feel his body relaxing, so you find the top of his head and gently brush your fingers through his hair. He sighs, the corners of his mouth curling up. You never thought you’d be able to know when he’s smiling just through the sensation of it.
You lie there together, just long enough to catch your breaths and to cool off—hard to do in the room now steaming with the additional heat of your bodies. You don’t feel compelled to speak, and he seems to feel the same. Things remain quiet, nothing but the sound of your shared breathing filling the space.
The eventual process of getting your clothes back on is… interesting. It’s not silent. Not very verbal either, though. You both take turns bumping your shoulders against each other, snickering when fabric won’t go smoothly over a head or a button won’t poke through a hole. It feels light; the weight of your fake-distain for one another has lifted and you’re now free to enjoy each other’s presence. Despite this, neither of you will actually talk. Really talk. No actual words pass between you until you’re both dressed and standing next to each other awkwardly, looking around the small room, looking at the work you still need to get done.
For some reason, it’s then that it finally occurs to you that this truly had nothing to do with inventory.
“You don’t think that Susan—”
“Probably,” he replies before you can finish, looking up from where he’s been staring at his feet.
You sigh, place your hands on your hips, and drop your chin. For a moment you think about what to do now, then try: “Do you think we should—”
“Finish?”
“Yeah.”
“Yeah, probably.” He nods. “She’ll send us right in again if we go back with unfinished paperwork.”
“Probably,” you say, but add: “Wouldn’t be the worst thing, though.”
Both of you smile at each other simultaneously.
“No, it wouldn’t be.”
“But we have work to do,” you say solemnly, a faux frown tugging on your lips.
“But… we have work to do,” he repeats, his smile weakening. “Right.”
“So we should get to it, then.”
“Yeah. We should.”
The smile he returns in response to your own makes it easier to be unsurprised when it takes another hour before you’ve finished taking the inventory, and another thirty minutes before you both emerge from the closet—messy hair, hickeys, and all.
The looks you both get once you return to the unit tell you there are likely to be several bets coming to an end today. You can’t bring yourself to pay it much mind; you just care about the piece of paper folded up in your pocket with an address written messily in blue ink.
