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⋆.ೃ࿔ goldi — twenty-five⌇she/her⌇land of the long white cloud⌇aquarius⌇infp⌇long-time reader, occasional writer⌇dr. abbot's menace⌇congressman barnes' sweetheart⌇lover girl, man hater⌇ai's biggest opp⌇hungry for more?
current lovers — jack abbot, bucky barnes, steve harrington, andrew cody ♡
currently (re)watching — animal kingdom, the pitt, stranger things, teen wolf, grey's anatomy, skins, criminal minds, taskmaster, modern family, it's always sunny in philadelphia
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, 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
Alternatively, you can read on Wattpad or Ao3!
─── ⋆ 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 4.5 𖤓 — You don't hear from Jack for three days after the kiss. But despite being swamped at the hospital, after he reaches out via text, he doesn't stop. [SMAU]
PART FIVE 𖤓★ — When Jack offers his company in the form of a date to celebrate your book release, he gets to understand the inner workings of your mind a bit more. Unfortunately, it does leave him with an ache he has to tend to using nothing but his own imagination. [7.8k]
PART SIX 𖤓★ — Three months of dating with no label and no real sense of security has you spiralling a bit when Tom demands to meet Jack. And you quickly start to realize that despite your attempts of keeping Phoebe and Jack apart, some bonds form whether you intend for them to or not. [8.2k]
PART SEVEN 𖤓★ — When the double date from Hell roles around, you're left with a new friend while Jack is struggling to come to terms with the type of person Phoebe is stuck with as a father. But despite that, it doesn't stop you and Jack from ending your evening with a bang. [12.2k]
PART EIGHT 𖤓★ — Pizzas, karaoke, movies and a sleepover. All at Phoebe’s request, of course, for Jack to spend Saturday night with them. And when Sunday morning rolls around, she’s got some things that she needs to get off her chest. [7.1k]
PART NINE 𖤓♡ — When Phoebe's field day goes nowhere near as planned, Bella is left to pick up the pieces of your broken heart while Karis goes into labor and Jack and your father have a heart to heart. [10.1k]
PART TEN (FINALE) 𖤓★ — TBA
─── ⋆ BONUS CONTENT ⋆
TBA
─── ⋆ MISC ⋆
#APT.17 (a tag for anything related to this series)
this is genuinely one of the most beautiful, well thought out fics i’ve ever read. it’s truly been an honour to watch read reader’s, phoebe’s, and jack’s relationships unfold. i will definitely be coming back whenever i need a comfort read 🥹
★ˎˊ˗ CONTENT 18+ MDNI fem reader, p in v, praise kink / soft dom dynamics, size kink, pet names (baby, good girl, perfect girl, etc), dacryphilia
MASTERLIST | RULES | INBOX
Jack keeps you wrapped in cotton, even while he’s buried to the hilt.
One broad palm stays splayed between your shoulder blades, a promise that he has you, always has you, while the other wanders, taming fly-aways behind your ear, thumb sweeping the tears that shimmer there before they can cool.
“Easy, angel,” he murmurs, voice steeped in amber nectar. “I know she’s full. Just breathe for me.”
You do your best, but every lungful drags you further down his length, your body desperate for the heavy fill it’s already trembling to accommodate. A needy whimper slips out, fists knotting the sheets, and he soothes you with a gentle kiss against your smile line.
“That’s it,” he praises, hips rocking in a rich, molasses-slow circle that lets you savor every thick inch. “Such a good girl, taking it all — see how beautifully you fit me?”
Tiny wildfires flower through you everywhere at once, heating your cheeks, spilling down your throat, settling low in your belly where desire winds itself tight and shining.
Embarrassment flickers its wings right alongside it, because he’s cooing at you the same way he coaxes patients through vaccinations: gentle, forbearing, inexorable.
“Tell me if it’s too much,” he says, like there exists a universe where you would ask him to stop.
His hand glides the length of your back, fingers pausing in the dip where your spine meets sacrum.
Too much is exactly how you’d describe the feeling of his cock dragging across that spot that makes your vision strobe starbusting colors, but the tenderness in his voice knots something unsteady in your body.
You manage a breathy, “please, don’t stop.”
A contented rumble answers you, and he plants a feather-light kiss on your forehead, right where he’d lay cool fingers to check your temperature.
He resumes that same rhythm. Slow drive in, lingering grind, languid pull out that leaves you aching for the return. The headboard knocks a soft counterpoint, each tap punctuated by his gentle commentary.
“Doing so well,” he croons when your elbows buckle, gathering you up with one flush tug to his chest. “Hold on to me, there you go, honey.”
Jack angles your leg higher, opening you wider for him, and the change steals air from your lungs in one shattered sound.
“Shh,” he hushes, half-smile curving, proud and adoring all at once. “I know. Feels big, doesn’t it? Let me make it better.”
His fingers dip to your clit, and your gasp dissolves into his name. “Jack — s’good.”
The room narrows to the glide of his thumb and the steady ballast of his body.
He kisses the salt at your hairline, murmuring, “Same here, baby. My perfect girl. Let me handle the rest, yeah?”
MARIA NOTE if being babied this hard during sex is wrong, i refuse to be right <3
bitches be like "i love writing fanfiction" and then constantly second guess themselves because what if they're not good enough what if it's cringe what if no one likes it what if people laugh when they see it what if i mischaracterized someone what if i didn't tag it properly what if what if
Summary: After an unfortunate mixup of pain medication and your friend's party substances at Pitt Fest, you're rushed to the Pitt and placed in the care of Jack Abbot. As he oversees your care, you get a little too touchy, and a little too honest.
Word Count: 6.6k
Content: accidental drug use (MDMA), mention of alcohol consumption, age gap (reader is mid 20s), fluff, comfort, a hint of smut (18+ MDNI) - literally like two seconds of thigh riding, mention of ovulation
A/N: listen… I’ve never done MDMA. I did a lot of research, but I had to fudge some stuff for plot. don’t do drugs kids
Pitt Fest was not your idea. When your friend Beth offered you her spare ticket, you waffled at first. You're not really a crowds person, or a partying person. Beth was always the partier in college. But you do like live music, and she pointed out that your top Spotify artist from last year is in the concert lineup.
So you’d caved.
That decision is coming back to bite you in the ass, and bite hard.
It’s hot as balls outside. You’re covered in sweat, which mingles in a sticky and unpleasant mix with the sunscreen you’ve been dutifully applying since the afternoon to avoid frying like an egg. When the sun finally set, you no longer had to worry about the burgeoning threat of skin cancer, but the heat doesn’t break. In fact, it almost seems to get worse, because more and more people arrive to crowd you as night descends and the bigger names with larger fanbases grace the stage.
You’re waiting for Beth outside of the bathroom facilities. She's been ingesting a steady stream of margaritas since sundown, so she leaves you holding the bag, literally. At least it's a nice excuse to separate yourself from the throng of jumping, sweaty bodies gathered by the stage.
It’s nearly two in the morning. You’re hungry. Your feet are killing you. You have a headache from the festival’s sugary cocktails. You’re sweating through the top Beth lent you. And on top of everything else, your ovulation cramps are kicking in like a motherfucker.
Growing desperate, you dig through Beth's bag, searching for the little Altoid tin that she always keeps her pain meds in. At long last, your hands make contact with the metal tin at the bottom of her tote. Nearly crying with relief, you pop an aspirin in your mouth and wash it down with the tepid bottled water you’ve been clutching for the last hour.
Beth's voice rings out from behind you, talking over the din of the nearby DJ set. “What are you doing?”
You turn towards her, and see Beth staring at the tin in your hand. “I have cramps,” you explain, and just as you’re about to shove the tin back in her bag and hand it to her, she grabs your wrist.
“…please tell me you didn’t just take one of those,” she says urgently.
You raise an eyebrow. “Why?”
“Because those are not aspirin, babe.”
Your blood runs cold. Your brain quickly does the math — Beth had told you how much she’s looking forward to meeting up with her rave friends tomorrow for the second night of Pitt Fest. Beth has always been quite the partier. And she often partied with her good friend Molly.
Your eyes widen in horror. “Oh no.”
Pitt Fest, as always, is a huge pain in the ass for the night shift.
Handoff gets messy. There's a shit ton of substance cases, even more of heatstroke. Robby stays longer than he should and snaps at everyone, clearly in his feelings remembering last year’s Pitt Fest. Understandable, yes, but it also makes everyone’s life that much harder when they’re within sniping distance of him.
Needless to say, Jack is already over this shift, and it’s not even halfway done. It doesn't help that his favorite resident happens to have the night off, which deposits his mood firmly in the hospital basement. Which, coincidentally, happens to be the location of the morgue.
Now that Robby has been politely ordered to go the fuck home, Jack feels like he can finally focus on his job instead of doing damage control with the med students. As he walks down the hall, Lena catches his attention from the hub desk.
“We have an ambulance two minutes out with a mid-20s female, collapsed at Pitt Fest,” she informs him. “Probable dehydration, likely drug-related, because, well… Pitt Fest.”
This festival truly is the gift that keeps on giving. Jack cracks his knuckles and eyes the ambulance bay doors. “All right. Let's get ready to receive the party girl.”
A few minutes later, the gurney is wheeled in by two paramedics and received by Lena and Parker. Parker shoots an alarmed and confused look over her shoulder at Jack, who steps forward to supervise.
“Dr. Abbot!"
Of all the things Jack expected to see tonight, this is at the bottom of the list. You're strapped to the gurney, scantily clad and gleaming with sweat, a goofy smile on your face and your pupils blown so wide they nearly swallow your irises.
Jack scrubs a hand through his hair. “You're shitting me.”
This is quite the surprising turn of events.
After Lena sets you up in South 16, Jack discreetly shoos away Parker so he can handle your examination himself. He doubts you would be comfortable with one of your fellow residents seeing you like this, considering your condition and your current state of dress.
Jack closes the door behind him and saunters over to you. His eyes snag on your tight, strappy top, and the strategically placed cutouts baring sections of your midriff and chest. He’s holding onto his professionalism by a thread, especially with the way you’re shifting around on the exam table, causing the hem of your miniskirt to ride up.
He has no choice but to focus up. You need medical attention, not the kind of attention his brain and body really want to give you right now. First, Lena takes your temperature and shows him the number on the display. 100.2 degrees F. It's coming down from what the paramedics recorded in the ambulance, and not so high that he’s still worried about heat stroke. But you’ll need cooling down regardless.
“That’s quite the outfit you got on,” he mutters as he gently raises your chin and shines his penlight into your pupils.
“Do you like it?” you ask, beaming up at him even as you squint. “I borrowed it from my friend. She’s so nice.”
Your pupils are so dilated that your eyes are almost completely black.
“Yup.” Jack clicks off the light and sighs, turning to Lena. “She’s rolling, all right. Let’s get a tox to make sure there’s nothing else to be worried about.”
You don’t seem to even register the pain of the needle prick, but you let out a delighted little hum when Lena smooths a bandage over your arm and adds gentle pressure over top of it.
“That feels good,” you murmur with a lazy smile.
“I bet.” Jack crosses his arms and tries to give you a stern look. “Can I ask what my best resident is doing taking ecstasy at a music festival?”
“I didn’t take it on purpose, I swear,” you protest, your eyes widening in a brief panic. “It was my friend’s. I thought it was aspirin, for my cramps.”
“You’re menstruating?” he asks, picking up his tablet and sitting in the edge of the exam table next to you to amend your chart.
You shake your head and say matter-of-factly, “Ovulation cramps.”
His eyebrows shoot up towards the ceiling in surprise.
You continue babbling, unaware of the grenade you just lobbed at Jack. “She tried to get me to throw it up, but I couldn’t because I don’t really have a gag reflex.”
Jack takes a deep breath to prevent his brain from completely short-circuiting.
Your face breaks into a sheepish smile, and you giggle, “Oops. Sorry, that was probably too much information.” Leaning forward on the exam table, you bring your face inches away from his and observe with a sigh, “Your eyes are really pretty.”
From behind him, Jack hears Lena snickering under her breath. He clears his throat and straightens up to standing.
Avoiding Lena's eyes, he instructs her, “Let’s, uh, get her some fluids and cooling packs, huh? Maybe a Saf-T-Pop, too. Keep her mouth occupied, so she won’t say any more nonsense she’ll regret in the morning.”
Lena just shoots him an amused look and heads off to gather supplies. Nurses, he thinks ruefully to himself. They see everything.
Movement and sound draw his attention back to you. You're laid back on the exam table, eyes fluttering closed. And you’re running your hands through your hair, letting out a pleased little noise like the sensation is better than sex.
Jack breathes carefully through his nose. He needs out of this room with you, before this becomes mortifying for everyone involved. His phone buzzes in his pocket, giving him the perfect excuse for escape.
His voice is thin when he speaks, and for a moment, he’s glad you’re too high to notice. “You sit tight, sunshine.”
As he turns to leave the room, your hand catches the edge of his scrubs.
“You’re leaving?” your mouth turns down into a pout, those huge eyes shining up at him. He very nearly gives in, very nearly reaches out a hand to stroke a thumb across your cheek just to hear the kind of sound it would pull from you. But his phone buzzes insistently, so he briefly pats your knee instead.
“I have other patients to see. But I'll be back before you know it,” he assures you, pulling open the door and diving headfirst back into the glorious chaos.
At least it’ll be a convenient distraction from the thought of you, eagerly waiting in south fifteen for him to return.
He shakes his head in disbelief. Ovulation cramps. You’re gonna be the death of him.
An MVA, a ketamine overdose, and a cardiac event later, the Pitt finally slows down enough for Jack to breathe. Enough to check your tox screen and sigh with relief that the MDMA you mistakenly took wasn’t cut with anything. Alcohol is the only other thing in your system, in levels not high enough to be concerning. Although, combined with the ecstasy, it means you probably won’t remember much of this exciting little escapade.
At long last, he manages to find some time to check on you.
In his absence, Lena had set you up with a gown to preserve a little more of your modesty. You’re laying on the exam table amongst the cooling packs, an IV attached to your arm and a Saf-T-Pop in your mouth that’s turning your tongue red.
A smile breaks like sunrise over your face as soon as you see him.
“Hey there, sunshine,” he greets you, approaching you with a little more warmth now that Lena's sharp eyes aren’t here to observe.
“Hi. I missed you,” you sigh.
Jack smirks. “Did you now?”
You nod happily. “Mm-hmm.”
“How are you feeling?” he asks, his gaze attentive, checking you over.
“Cold,” you answer, wrapping your arms around yourself.
He reaches up a hand to feel your forehead. Still warm, but still steadily coming down over time. He’s satisfied enough with your progress. You'll be out of here in no time.
The prospect disappoints him just a little.
“Yeah, your body is having trouble regulating its temperature,” he explains, his thumb stroking delicately along your hairline. “We’ll need to keep these cool packs on you a little while longer.”
Just as his hand retreats, your hand catches his wrist. You press his palm to your cheek, almost nuzzling into it like an affectionate kitten.
“Your hands are so warm,” you murmur, eyelids slipping shut as you revel in the sensation.
The gesture catches him off guard, but he doesn’t pull away. He couldn’t even if he wanted to, and he certainly doesn’t want to.
“Easy there, gorgeous,” he chuckles softly. “I need that hand for doctoring.”
Your eyelids flutter halfway open, and you look up at him with a lazy grin, clearly pleased as punch. “You think I'm gorgeous?”
Jack freezes for a moment. The word had slipped out without him even registering it, familiar and endeared and entirely too revealing.
“I plead the fifth,” he replies, warmth creeping up his neck.
You giggle again. God, that sound does things to his heart that are medically concerning.
“I think you’re gorgeous,” you mumble dreamily.
Jack blinks in surprise.
He’s been a little too fond of you for a while now, been staring a little too long when you brush past him in the halls. And he’s suspected before that it might not be completely one-sided. He sees how you receive his attention and praise differently than the other attendings, how you look at him with more than just the admiration of a mentor. But suspecting it and having it be confirmed are two different things. Especially since you wouldn’t be saying any of this if you were sober.
He tries to laugh it off before his ego can run away with the compliment. “I think you’re high.”
You shrug. “Maybe. But I always think you’re gorgeous.”
Removing his palm from your cheek, you examine it with fascination, running a finger along the deep set lines. “I think about these,” you say thoughtfully. “All the time.”
Jack is a little ashamed at how quickly that comment goes straight to his cock. His favorite resident, fantasizing about his hands, maybe even touching yourself to the thought of them, wishing your own fingers were his—
He drags his free hand over his face and mutters, "Jesus Christ."
“Can I tell you a secret?” You peer up at him again, that goofy, starstruck smile returning. “I’ve got, like, the biggest crush on you.”
Unfortunately for Jack, there is very little time to process this very interesting information before his phone buzzes again. Just beyond the doors, he can hear the familiar sound of what is likely a high-priority trauma heading into the bay. Voices overlapping in urgent tones, gurney wheels on tile floor, grunts and yelps of pain from a patient.
Jack crosses to the door in two steps, and speaks over his shoulder to you. “Hey, baby, I gotta handle something. Stay out of trouble, okay?”
As the door swings shut behind him, he just manages to catch the sound of you happily mumbling to yourself, “He called me baby.”
Which is how he heads into Trauma 1 with a smile on his face, entirely too cheerful for a man facing down a compound femur fracture.
The shift that would never fucking end is almost fucking over. And all Jack can think about is you. You and your moony, lovey-dovey eyes and your wide, childlike smile. You gazing up at him and crooning I have the biggest crush on you. You giggling and telling him point-blank that you’re ovulating.
As he rolls out of yet another demanding trauma, Lena updates him on your condition. You’re rehydrated and back to a normal temperature, pretty much ready for discharge if you can be released to someone who will take care of you. He returns to your room, finding you unhooked from your IV and cold-pack-free, happily set up with another lollipop.
“Jack, you’re back!” you exclaim, and then laugh at your accidental rhyme.
Still rolling, he thinks. He checks his watch. According to your best guess of when you took the ‘aspirin’ in your friend’s purse, it’s been about four hours. You'll be due to start coming down anytime in the next two hours or so. He's due to head out, but he can’t bring himself to go home until he knows you’re leaving in capable hands.
“Hey, sunshine.” He offers you a tired but warm smile. “Seems like you’re in pretty good shape here, and you should be tapering off pretty soon. You got anybody to take you home, keep an eye on you?”
A little crease forms between your brows as you think hard. “I don’t know where my friend went when the ambulance came. And I think my phone died,” you add pathetically, gesturing to the device in your lap and its terminally black screen.
Jack pinches the bridge of his nose. He can’t in good conscience leave you to your own devices, especially when you’ve never taken ecstasy before. At worst, there’s still a chance you could have some kind of reaction. At best, the comedown is sure to knock you on your ass.
He can only think of one thing to do. It's not the best idea. It might not even be a good idea. But his brain is too addled from the long shift to come up with anything better. And you need someone to take care of you.
“Jesus. Okay,” he mutters to himself, then sits on the edge of the exam table, bringing his face level to yours. “Listen up, sunshine.”
You gaze at him intently, attention vacillating occasionally between his eyes and his mouth. Jack has a feeling that what he’s about to say will go in one ear and right out the other. But there’s a chance you’ll retain it, so he says it anyway.
“You're gonna have a pretty serious crash when you come down. All those happy little chemicals that are making you feel good right now?” He gives you a soft little tap against your temple, and you giggle softly. He continues, “They’re gonna go on vacation for a day or two. I don't want you dealing with that on your own. So I'm gonna take you to my place, just to watch out for you until you’re feeling a little more like yourself.”
You’re quiet for a minute, your brain catching up and computing the meaning of what he just said. When it finishes, the lightbulb goes off behind your eyes, and you ask excitedly, “We’re having a sleepover?”
Of course that would be your takeaway.
He chuckles as he helps you to your feet. “That's right. You got it.”
When Jack drapes his hoodie over your shoulders and guides you out of the Pitt to his car, he’s reminded of all the reasons that this is probably a terrible idea.
He sees the watchful eyes and the knowing smirks of the nurses. He sees Parker and Crus snickering behind their hands. He sees Shen counting up his winnings from the betting pool, because he wrote down molly and tripsitter Abbot.
And he feels your hand clinging to his bicep, sees how you gaze up at him with a dreamy expression as he walks you out to his car. He’s knows he’s really going to need to behave himself for a few hours, because there’s a very good chance that you won’t, and Jack doesn’t want to accidentally take advantage of your… impaired judgement.
You spend most of the ride with your face by the cracked car window, feeling the wind on your face, eyes blissfully closed. Jack thanks his lucky stars that he thought to give the apartment a once-over before shift, so he isn’t bringing you into a total mess.
He walks you into his bedroom and gestures to the en-suite. “Bathroom’s there, if you want to take a shower. I'll find you something a little more… comfortable to wear,” he adds, peeling his eyes away from your tiny little shirt and how you’re already fussing with the straps.
As he turns to his bureau to find you a t-shirt, he feels arms wrapping around his middle, your body molding to his back as you embrace him with a sigh. “Thank you for being so nice to me.”
Jack swallows and delicately removes your hands, stepping out of your embrace and ushering you in the direction of the bathroom.
“Go on, then,” he instructs you. “While you’re still upright.”
You barely even register it as rejection, heading towards the shower and wiggling out of your top before Jack even has the chance to close the door behind you. Which he does, quickly and with his eyes glued to the floor.
His instincts were right. He will very much need to behave himself while you’re here.
He busies himself while you shower by changing out of his scrubs and assembling a meal. It's a humble offering — just a couple of sandwiches and frozen french fries heated up in the oven, but it’s better than nothing.
After about twenty minutes, you emerge from the bedroom with damp hair and your face scrubbed clean, clad in one of his t-shirts and a pair of his boxers, smelling like his soap. You lean on his kitchen island with a contented little sigh.
Jack repeats it to himself like a mantra — behave yourself.
“Time to eat something,” he says, sliding one of the plates toward you.
“I’m not hungry.”
“I know. But I'm trying to set you up for success here, so you don’t feel as awful when this is out of your system. When's the last time you ate?” he asks.
You rest your chin on your hand as you think back. “I had… lunch.”
“Thought so.” He puts the plate into your hands and steers you in the direction of the couch with a hand on your lower back. “You and I are gonna eat these sandwiches, drink some water, and watch Planet Earth.”
You gasp in delight and plop down onto the couch. “I love Planet Earth!”
He knows you do. You'd gushed about it being your favorite docuseries at work, and he’d bragged about owning the box set. It had been the first day you and he had really started to bond.
Once the tv is on, it thankfully keeps you occupied. You chew your food slowly, enraptured with the beautiful imagery on the screen. Managing a decent effort with the meal, you eat half the sandwich and most of the fries before you start to lose a little steam.
You abandon your plate on the coffee table, then take Jack completely by surprise as you lean over to lay your head in his lap.
He goes still for a moment, unsure if he should be allowing this. But he doesn’t have the heart to push you away, so he puts his plate aside and lets a hand come to rest on your shoulder.
You sigh happily and snuggle closer.
It's been so long since Jack has taken care of someone like this that he’d almost forgotten what it feels like. How good it feels to be needed. The easy intimacy of sharing a space, sharing a meal, of letting someone melt against you after a long night.
Affectionately, he brushes a stray lock of hair out of your face, and you practically purr in response, leaning into his hand. So Jack keeps doing it, keeps gently stroking his fingers through your hair, preferring to watch your relaxing form instead of the polar bears on screen.
The two of you spend nearly an hour like that, until your breath starts to take on that even, drowsy quality and Jack’s own brain starts calling for rest. He gently eases you off his lap to sit up, takes you by the hand and leads you to bed, already resigning himself to the aching back that a couch nap is going to earn him.
Jack sets you up with a glass of water and the best blankets in the linen closet. As he turns to head back to the living room, your hand grabs his arm, pulling him back.
“Stay.”
Your voice is low and warm. You're sitting up in his bed, his sheets pooled around your knees. Your eyes are dark, tempting, pleading.
Jack knows dangerous territory when he sees it.
Still, your serotonin is due to start dropping any time now, and hurt feelings are only going to be worsened once it does. Jack sits carefully on the edge of the bed, maintaining a few inches of distance, his other hand gently cradling your cheek.
“Sorry, sunshine. Not a good idea.”
You move closer, your gaze fixed firmly on his mouth. “Why?”
Best behavior, Jack.
“Because you’re still tapering off. Plus, I just worked a long shift and I need to sleep.” He takes in a deep breath as he feels your hand slide across his shoulders. “And I've got a feeling I won't be getting much rest next to you.”
In a move so surprising that Jack is momentarily powerless to stop it, you rise up onto your knees and shift to straddle one of his thighs.
“What if I promise to be really, really good?” you murmur sweetly.
Jack knows he should stop you, and he almost does. But then you rock your hips on his thigh, the tiniest little life-ruining movement, and you let out the softest, neediest little sound. Suddenly, Jack is hanging onto his sanity and self control-by a thread. And that thread is fraying rapidly.
“Baby,” he whispers, half warning and half plea. His hands come to your hips, torn between stopping you and spurring you on.
Your hips rock again, more purposeful this time. “Please,” you beg quietly, so close now that your lips just barely brush against his.
For a few shameful moments, Jack forgets about his fatigue and the ache in his leg and he wonders… how morally reprehensible would it really be to just let you get off on his thigh? You’d said yourself that you’re ovulating, probably making you even needier. Fuck, he can feel how badly you want it, wetness soaking through the boxers you’re wearing and Jack’s sweatpants. Would it really be so awful of him to sit passively as you hump his leg to get the relief you’re clearly so desperate for? To take pity on you and let you use him for your pleasure?
But he knows it would be wrong, because he’d be getting off on it even if you didn’t touch him. You're not in your right mind, and he doesn’t want to make you come for the first time when you’re whacked out on MDMA.
Summoning the will from deep inside himself, he stills your hips and eases you off of his thigh, ignoring your whines as he nudges you back onto the pillows.
“It wouldn’t be right. I'm not touching you until you’re sober,” he says firmly.
Jack gets to his feet and tucks the blankets around you. “I’ll see you in a few hours. Wake me if you need anything.” He laughs softly at the pointed pouting look you shoot his way. “Other than that.”
“You’re no fun,” you call after him as he retreats into the living room.
Once the bedroom door is shut behind him, he collapses on the couch and wrestles off his prosthetic, punching a throw pillow a few times to soften it before going horizontal. Even after what felt like the longest shift he’s had in months, he’s unsure how much sleep he’ll actually manage to get knowing you’re in the next room. Probably snuggling one of his pillows as if it’s him, probably squeezing your thighs together until the last of the drugs leave your system.
He groans and rolls over, willing his body and his still half-hard cock to go to sleep.
You wake feeling like death warmed over.
You’re in a bed that doesn’t belong to you, but smells familiar and comforting. Same with your clothes. A few memories make it through the fog, blurry and out of order. Planet Earth. Jack’s hand, warm and pleasant on your cheek. An ambulance ride. Lena ruffling your hair and handing you a lollipop. A shower with a chair and a grab bar and soap that smells like Jack.
You’re at Jack's apartment, you realize with a start.
Checking the time groggily, you observe that you've slept from the early morning until late afternoon. Thank god you’d asked for tonight off as well, anticipating you’d need recovery time after Pitt Fest.
You can vaguely recall the warm, fuzzy feelings you’d experienced last night. In the abstract, at least. Now, you feel mostly guilt and shame and embarrassment and anxiety. How could you have been so stupid?
Sounds of life echo from the kitchen, which means Jack has woken up ahead of you. Your guilt sharpens. Jack is spending his hard-earned downtime taking care of you, because of your own carelessness.
Fatigue clings to your bones as you shuffle to the bathroom. The reflection in the mirror is less than kind. Dark shadows frame your eyes, worse than the usual bags worn by the night shift crew. Your hair is a mess, and you sigh as you comb your fingers through to tame it.
Time to face the music.
You trudge out into the kitchen, where Jack is wearing an apron over a t-shirt and sweats and cooking an omelette, looking awfully chipper for having slept seven hours on the couch. He looks so good that it briefly makes you angry. Fuck him for looking so good, while you look and feel like utter dogshit.
Of course, that annoyance turns to guilt again when he looks up and smiles.
“Hey, lover girl,” he greets you warmly as you lean on the kitchen island. “How are you feeling?”
You rub your eyes and groan, “Like I got hit by a Mack truck.”
He squeezes your shoulder fondly and grabs a plate from an overhead cabinet. “Let’s get some food and water in you.”
“Thank you,” you mutter sheepishly. “I’m sorry about… all this.”
“Don't even worry about it, sunshine.”
Jack hands you a glass of water and starts making you a plate. You accept it with a grimace. “I'm not feeling very sunshine-y right about now. I can't remember half of what happened after I went down at the concert.”
“I hope we’ve learned not to go digging for meds in that particular friend’s purse.” He smirks and sets a plate in front of you. A vegetable omelette and buttered toast. Your appetite hasn’t yet returned to its normal levels, but your doctor brain knows that you really need to eat, so you reach for the toast first.
“Never again,” you vow as you take a bite.
In the light of day and out from under the influence of Beth's ‘aspirin,’ you get a good look at Jack's apartment for the first time as he assembles his own plate. It's not spotless, but it’s generally tidy, and it’s a very nice place. Good furniture, great windows with better blackout shades, a nice floor plan. Its niceness only makes you feel smaller.
You poke at your omelette, stewing. “Jack?”
“Yes?”
“Don't take this the wrong way, but…why am I here?”
He plates his own omelette and leans a hip against the kitchen island. “You’d never taken MDMA before, and I knew you’d be in for a hell of a drop. I didn't want you to be on your own.”
You resist the urge to frown. This whole saga is doing nothing to remedy your tragic crush on him. Did he have to be so nice and caring on top of everything else? It feels a little unfair at the moment.
“That’s… very considerate,” you mumble.
“What can I say? I'm a considerate guy.” He pops a bite of omelette into his mouth with a wink.
A thought occurs to you that briefly makes your stomach turn. “Does the whole Pitt know?”
Jack's expression tells you everything you need to know before he even speaks. “There… might have been a betting pool on the subject. Shen cleaned up.”
You drop your face into your hands. “Awesome. That's really awesome.”
Every single one of your coworkers knows that you spent the night rolling. Tears prick at your eyes beneath your palms, which only worsens your humiliation. The last thing you need right now is to cry in front of Jack Abbot. Even if it’s just because the chemicals in your brain are out of whack, it doesn't make it any less embarrassing.
“Hey.” Jack's hand finds your shoulder again. “Don’t worry about it. They're good people, no one is judging you.”
Despite your best efforts, a mortifying little sniffle slips out at the kindness in his voice.
“Oh, sweetheart,” he murmurs. “Come here.”
You can’t bear to look up, but your breath hitches in surprise when Jack pulls you into his arms. Instantly, your brain begins to quiet, focusing on the steady rise and fall of his chest beneath your cheek, the reassuring weight of his arms around you, the slow arc of his thumb rhythmically stroking your shoulder blade.
It's medicine. Oxytocin and dopamine, feel-good chemicals produced by physical touch, bolstering your brain against the sapped well of serotonin the ecstasy left in its wake. It also makes your heart flutter pathetically in your chest.
He holds you for a long moment, his grip tightening when you finally loop your arms around his waist and return the embrace.
“Thank you for taking care of me,” you whisper, allowing the comfort to sink into your skin and fill your lungs.
“Of course.”
Jack only pulls away when you do, gently swiping a calloused thumb underneath your eye to banish the straggling tear that managed to escape.
“Let’s get comfortable on the couch,” he says, a hand settling on your back to guide you. “You’re still on the comedown.”
You worry you might be overstaying your welcome. But Jack seems to be in no rush to get you out of his apartment, content to let you rot on his couch as long as you need to. Surely he must have better things to do on his night off than take care of you, but he sits sentry at your side without complaint.
After some consideration, Planet Earth is tabled for the time being — even if you’ve seen it before, animal death is sure to bring back the waterworks in your current state. Flipping through channels, you settle on a cheesy mid-2000s rom-com that you’ve seen before and snuggle back into the couch cushions.
Through it all, you feel the comfort of his steady presence, his hand rubbing idle circles on your back, like an IV drip of Vitamin Jack straight to your brain. You give into the feeling, too worn out to fight it, curling into his side. Eventually, you feel a gentle graze at your scalp as he idly plays with your hair. It surprises you for a moment, but you’re not complaining in the slightest. You melt into it, eyes fluttering closed until you’re slipping in and out of a light doze.
Afternoon fades to evening, to dinnertime, to nighttime, to bedtime. Even after your intermittent sleep, your fatigue is still bone deep, and Jack insists you can stay the night. You really try to convince him to let you take the couch, but he refuses, insisting that your body needs proper rest to return to baseline. At the end of the night, he sends you off to bed with a smirk.
When you wake up in Jack's bed for the second time, it’s much less disorienting. It helps that you’re much clearer than you were seventeen hours ago. The clock reads 9:05 am — you have the whole day ahead of you to shower, change, and steel yourself for the humiliation ritual that is bound to be your shift tonight.
You stumble into the living room, bleary-eyed. Jack is reclined on the couch with a laptop and readers perched on the end of his nose. Ugh, fuck him again for looking so good.
His eyes find yours over the edge of the screen. “Hey there. You sleep good?”
“Mm-hmm,” you reply, stretching. “I'm feeling much better, I think.”
His mouth curves at the corner. “Good.”
Leaning on the edge of the couch, you sigh and glance at the clock on the wall. “I should probably head home soon, get my life together before shift tonight. Would you be able to drive me home?”
“Sure thing, sunshine.”
After you eat breakfast and shower off the cast of bedrotting from the day before, you change back into the clothes you arrived in, which Jack took the liberty of washing for you. As much as you appreciate the gesture, you blanch at the idea of Jack handling your underwear, and try very hard not to think about that mental image.
As the quiet car ride progresses, you ponder your looming fate, mentally preparing yourself for the teasing you’ll get from the nurses and other residents. It's disorienting to not know what you’re walking into, to have been mentally absent for most of it.
You can’t resist the urge to ask anymore. “Was I a total mess?”
He nods, amused. “Yes. But a very cute mess.”
“God, this is so embarrassing,” you groan. “What did I say?”
“Are you sure you wanna know?” he asks with a raised eyebrow.
That makes you pause, glancing at him warily. “…was it bad?”
“You got a little fixated on hands for a while.” Jack pauses, like he isn’t sure how much to reveal, if you’re ready to handle it. “Said you think about mine all the time.”
Suddenly, you feel a bit sick, even though the car is headed in a straight line down the road. If that's just where it starts… if that’s not the worst of it, then what is?
“Oh god,” you whisper in horror.
“You said you think I'm gorgeous,” he continues, voice thick with amusement. “And that you have a big ol’ crush on me. And… you might’ve tried to seduce me a little at bedtime.”
Your cheeks flare hot. This is quite possibly the worst outcome of the situation aside from death. At the moment, death feels preferable.
You stare straight ahead, sinking in your seat and pressing your hands to your forehead to try and keep your brain from exploding. “Excuse me, I'm just gonna open the door and go lay down in traffic.”
He laughs, the sound warm and fond and doing absolutely nothing to temper your embarrassment. “It's okay.”
“It is completely not okay, Jack,” you protest, turning your body away from him and towards the passenger side door, like that will save you from this conversation.
Jack places a hand on your thigh.
All the systems in your brain go down simultaneously.
His palm rests just above your knee, not high enough to be too inappropriate, but it’s intimate. Especially because your choice of garment for Pitt Fest leaves your leg bare and exposed to his touch. Never once does he take his eyes off the road.
“It was flattering,” he says coolly, his thumb rubbing soothing circles over your knee. “And extremely cute.”
He lets the assertion hang in the silence, and he doesn’t move his hand, letting it rest warm and comfortable against the soft skin of your thigh.
After some considerable effort, you remember how to breathe. Once the oxygen makes it to your brain, you manage to peel your hands away from your face and peek sideways at him.
“…really?” you ask, because you need the confirmation. Does Jack Abbot — your mentor, the object of all your desires, and the man who just babysat you through an unwitting MDMA trip — really think you’re cute?
He gives your thigh a gentle squeeze. “Really.”
There isn’t much else to say for the rest of the car ride. Jack keeps his hand on your thigh until he turns down your street and throws the car in park. You try and fail to suppress a smile the whole way, and allow him to walk you up to your building’s front step, palms tingling with anticipation.
“I’d like to do this again sometime,” he says as you unlock the main entrance. “Minus the party drugs.”
You grin up at him, slightly emboldened by the revelations that occurred in the car. “You wanna have another sleepover?”
“Very much.” His eyes crinkle at the edges when he smiles back. “See you tonight?”
“See you tonight.”
You turn to head inside, but Jack catches your elbow. “Hey. One last thing.”
Before you have time to register his closeness, a hand slides along your waist, another cupping your jaw, and Jack is kissing you.
A warm, pleasant feeling floods you from top to toe, a high rivalling the chemical one you’d experienced twenty-eight hours ago. He kisses you like he’s been thinking about it that entire twenty-eight hours. It's tender and hungry at the same time. By the time he pulls away, your lips follow after his and you almost stumble forward into his arms.
You open your eyes and blink up at him, feeling a little dazed and starstruck again.
“Had to wait until you were level,” Jack murmurs. He gives you a lingering peck at the corner of your mouth and descends down the front steps to his car.
I want writers to stop apologizing for “being slow writers” or their work being “not the best”. I’ve been seeing this a lot lately and it’s honestly heartbreaking.
Who made you feel that way? Seriously. Because somewhere along the way, someone did, and I’m beyond sorry you have to feel the need to apologize for 1. being human and 2. being human.
Do not rush. Do not pressure yourself. Do not compare yourself to others. That’s when writing stops being fun. I’m also speaking from experience.
Creativity takes time. I cannot stress this enough. It is not possible to churn out fics on fics on fics to no end or break.
We are human. We only have so much time for this incredible hobby. We have families, jobs, pets, obligations, doctor’s appts, health scares, financial troubles, bad days, good days, distracted days, days where we write like a god, days where it seems we’ll never write again.
None of us will ever be “the best” writer. You don’t need to apologize for that. Fuck, Stephen King has haters and look at his success!!! You can only be as good as you try, and as good as you practice, and as good as you learn.
Stay true to you, writer. Take your time. Enjoy yourself. Focus on being your best, not thee best because no such thing exists.
I love you, fellow writer. We all do!
Be gentle with yourself. I look forward to seeing your work out there. 🩷
a no-touch rule sounds smart on a beach vacation with your secret boyfriend, especially when he happens to be your brother's best friend and twenty years your senior. unfortunately, neither of you is very good at keeping your hands to yourselves.
MASTERLIST | RULES | INBOX
PAIRING jack abbot x robinavitch!reader
WARNINGS 18+ MDNI explicit smut, age gap (reader is late 20s), girly girl reader, reader is robby’s little sister (and reader and jack play in this man's FACEEEE), reader wears sunscreen but no mention of burning/redness/etc, jack applies sunscreen to reader, jack and reader just tease each other all day every day, reader and jack take a shower together!, brief inspection kink mention, flirty!jack abbot, flirty!reader, sexting, lots of pet name usage (baby, doll, sweetheart, honey, etc), munch!abbot, oral (f receiving), reader wears a dress, jealous!abbot, someone mistakes jack for your dad, reader goes along with it soooo lowkey dad!bf jack??? but not really it’s more of just a joke, alcohol mention, tipsy!reader, lowkey some angst, hurt/comfort, miscommunication, p in v, unprotected sex (wrap it b4 u tap it folks), twinkie (creampie is a banned word in this household), light breeding kink, kitchen sex, jack gets punched
WC 9.5k | REQUEST here!
You had no ill intentions when you sought Jack out on the beach. Truly. None whatsoever.
Your conscience was pristine. Clean enough to eat off of, if a person were inclined toward that sort of thing. And Jack would more than likely be inclined toward that sort of thing.
Which is neither here nor there and definitely not the point.
The point is that he happened to be the first available person you spotted who wasn’t elbow-deep in the cooler, manning the grill, hauling folding chairs closer to the water or otherwise occupied in some way that would’ve made your request an imposition.
He happened to be seated in the shade, sand-dusted calves stretched out and both hands conveniently free. You happened to wander over with your sunscreen and your very normal, very defensible need for help reaching the center of your back.
Never mind that your eyes tend to find him first everywhere.
Your first choice, always. In the hospital, in crowded rooms, in Friday-night bars, and now here, on a stretch of beach sand full of towels, melting ice cubes and boozy coworkers.
If Jack is there the geometry of the universe settles.
Noise levels drop. Potential catastrophe politely steps back in line. Statistically, things improve by, what, twenty percent when he’s within arms reach?
The only time Jack’s presence ever seems to tip from reassurance into danger is when Robby is nearby.
Your brother, his best friend, currently planted beside the grill with a pair of tongs in one hand and a beer sweating in the other, wholly unaware of just how intimately you know the man sitting a few yards away from you reading a book.
No idea that you even know Jack beyond hospital stories and holiday small talk. No idea that you’ve counted the freckles on Jack’s torso the way other people count blessings. No idea you know the small mole just above Jack’s hip because you’ve watched it disappear beneath the push of his own thigh when he’s folded you open beneath him. No idea you know how his forearm looks when it flexes beside your head, that raised vein appearing when your heels hook into his back and he grunts your name into his mouth. No fucking idea you know the pale scar on his ribs that becomes your personal tactical obsession whenever he cages you against a doorframe and breathes against your ear, quiet, sweetheart, unless you want your brother to ask questions.
You slip into the little wedge of shade cast by Jack’s umbrella, hip brushing the arm of his chair.
It takes half a second for Jack’s gaze to lift. First to your face, because he is decent, or because he has spent forty-nine years perfecting the performance of decency and can probably do it under sedation.
Then his eyes dip lower, catching on your chest and the heroic and doomed labor of your bikini top, the poor thing doing its absolute best with limited resources and no meaningful administrative support, and for one brief, gorgeous second, Jack Abbot’s whole face goes blank.
You unscrew the sunscreen cap with the patience of a saint and the moral character of someone much worse, pretending you don’t see a thing. It’s easy. You’ve been playing dumb your whole life, and Jack happens to make it especially rewarding.
“Hi, Jack.”
He blinks as though dragged out of a dream he has no intention of describing in mixed company.
The paperback folds around one finger; he swallows civility into a single neutral “Hey,” though his ears are flaming traitors.
You bounce once on your toes just to watch his eyes track the up-and-down movement. “Mind helping me with my back?”
A phantom movement ripples down his arm, the muscle memory that usually ends with his thumb sliding up the tender inside of your knee.
Half-second later he remembers the clause you made him swear to the night before you left, the one you recited while sitting on the edge of his bed in nothing but your earrings and a very serious expression: no contact during this trip. Not in front of Robby. Not in private. Not even the little absent-minded touches Jack was so fond of giving and so terrible at pretending were accidental.
He had listened with the patient, faintly amused face — oh, of course, let’s discuss boundaries — all while his hands were already easing your thighs apart, palm spanning half your quads. “That’s smart, sweetheart,” he had murmured, barely out of his mouth before he fucked you so hard you spent the first two days of this trip remembering him every time you sat down, crossed your legs, climbed stairs, breathed wrong, existed.
Day one started with Robby squinting at the careful, not-at-all-in-pain way you eased into the passenger seat.
“Pull something?” he asked, suspicion crinkling the corners of his eyes.
Jack, loading your suitcase into the trunk, had only said, “She’s fine — just overdid the beach volleyball warm-up.”
Now, beneath the umbrella, he eyes the bottle in your hand.
“You’re asking me to put sunscreen on you while I’m currently under express orders not to touch you,” he clarifies, mouth twitching. “Little contradictory, don’t you think?”
“It’s medicinal, Jack. Doctor-ordered sun safety. That puts it squarely under the ‘acts of basic care’ exemption we definitely agreed on.”
There is, of course, no exemption. But you say it with such polished confidence, such gorgeous little liar convocation, and Jack’s eyes keep distractedly slipping to your cleavage, you figure you might be able to gaslight him into believing otherwise.
Jack tilts in, voice dropping to bedside-manner dark. “Preventive exams are also acts of basic care, sweetheart. I offered to give you one last night. Head to toe. Very thorough. You didn’t seem to keen on the idea. Funny how selective you are with these exemptions.”
He knows perfectly well keenness was never the issue.
Keenness had been present and accounted for, actually, sitting upright in bed with a racing pulse while Jack spent nearly forty minutes vibrating your phone off the nightstand at one in the morning, apparently deciding the no-contact was less a boundary and more a diagnostic puzzle he could brute-force with persistence, semantics, and an irresponsible number of filthy hypotheticals.
How firm is the rule?
You had answered, Very.
Define very.
Jack.
I’m serious. Are we talking legally blinding or more of a strong suggestion?
I can’t sleep knowing you’re down the hall.
I keep thinking about your ass in that tiny fucking bikini.
And your mouth.
And the noise you make when I’m tasting your pretty pussy.
So if "very" has any flexibility, now would be an excellent time to disclose it.
You had flushed at that, instinct dragging your hand south, fingertips tucking beneath the elastic of your pajama shorts, privately checking how much trouble you were in.
Spoiler: a lot. Still, you forced your breathing steady and tapped out the grown-up response you promised yourself you’d give him.
Too risky. Robby’s awake.
Riskier to ignore symptoms.
You seemed flushed at dinner, baby. Could be heat exhaustion.
Standard protocol is immediate evaluation. Full tactical assessment of any sensitive areas.
Better I handle it now than you collapse tomorrow, right?
“The walls here are paper thin. I just didn’t want everyone to hear you,” you murmur, eyes flicking toward the grill where Robby still holds court.
Jack’s gaze drags over your face, patience fraying.
His head cants. “Me?”
An accusation rather than a question.
You bite the inside of your cheek to keep from grinning too hard.
It’s bullshit.
Jack makes sounds in bed, sure, these low rough little things he tries to swallow down into silence, but you are, historically, the problem. You are the one who forgets walls even exist, who gets whiny and breathless, saying his name too sweet and loud.
Still, riling him up is half the fun.
“Mhm. All those grunts you do? Very compromising. You really should work on that. I was just protecting your reputation.”
His mouth tugs into that bare-bones smile, parched and cutting, like a fence post bleached under Georgia sun.
“That’s interesting, doll, because I seem to remember you nearly getting us thrown out of that hotel in Atlanta.” He pauses, eyes steady on yours. “Had to clamp a palm over your mouth halfway through just so the folks next door would quit pounding on the wall.”
You make a thoughtful, entirely disingenuous sound. “I don’t recall.”
Liar, you think, but only to yourself, because the scene is seared onto the backs of your eyelids: big palm, slick with sweat; your own pulse popping under his thumb.
“Convenient,” he says. “Concerning, too. Memory loss at your age.”
The urge to fire back — your age, grandpa — sparks under your tongue, but you swallow it, knowing you’ve already won.
He’s picturing that night, too. You can see it in the way his jaw resets, in the way his fingers flex like they’re aching to reprise the role of impromptu gag.
“Memory loss and melanoma.” Your fingers skim your collarbone, then your shoulder, making a tiny show of your poor exposed skin. “That’ll be on your conscience, and you have so many sins already, Jack.”
Jack’s glare fractures, concern muscling past amusement.
“Turn around,” he orders.
His palm resignedly lands on your back and the first sweep of cool lotion is an instant balm, a hush in every raw, sun-tight cell that’s been screaming since day one of this self-inflicted separation.
Water to a dying flower. Oxygen after a held breath.
The peppermint chill kisses the nape of your neck, then fans outward in broad strokes, each pass ironing the ache right out of your skin.
Three whole days without his hands, seventy-two hours of pretending you didn’t need this, and now his thumbs slip beneath your bikini straps like they own the territory, tracing the warmed skin that’s been begging for him with every salty breeze.
“Missed you,” you murmur under your breath, words a little wobbly and petulant.
He huffs a soft laugh and bends to brush his mouth against your shoulder blade. “Yeah, missed you, too, angel.”
He smooths another cool ribbon down your spine.
You angle yourself towards the grill to allow him better access only to see Robby nudging the spatula at Mateo like a relay baton. Take over, man.
Mateo blinks, grabs the grill tools, and Robby wipes his palms on a dish towel as he starts striding across the sand.
Panic sparks hot in your belly. Abort, abort —
Jack’s fingers press reassuringly at the base of your neck. “Easy.”
Robby arrives, squinting against the glare.
Jack doesn’t miss a beat, straightening just enough to greet him over your head, palms still settling the lotion. “Need a second set of tongs, man? You were talking about that pineapple glaze.”
“Yeah, figured you could baste while I flip,” Robby says, oblivious.
“Sure thing.” Jack rubs the last of the lotion on your shoulder before flicking the cap back on the bottle.
Robby tips his chin at you, hooks an arm around Jack’s neck like a big brother claiming turf. “And watch it, man. Give her an inch and she’ll have you painting her toes next.”
Jack shoots you a wink. “Wouldn’t put it past her, bit on the spoiled side, isn’t she?”
You don’t get to be alone with Jack again until later that evening.
After a twelve-hour gauntlet of being herded from one little duty to the next, karmic punishment apparently being less fire-and-brimstone and more Robby glued to your elbow, Samira asking about plates, Dana hunting for towels.
The house had stayed swollen with noise, doors opening, voices carrying, bodies constantly moving through every room, leaving nowhere private enough to breathe, let alone get a second with your secret boyfriend.
And you would find some sort of humor in it all if it didn’t feel like torture, spending the whole day brushing past Jack close enough to catch bits and pieces of him but never close enough to keep it, catching his stare across the deck and breaking first because if you hold it too long, even for one more second, your face will say everything your mouth has forbidden to.
By the time you get into the shower, you’re wound so tight you feel one wrong move might split you straight down the middle. Steam flattens the bathroom, fogging the mirror in milky layers while condensation beads along the floor beneath your heels.
The water comes down nearly scalding over skin still balmy from the sun, rinsing the day off you in slow, glittering streams. Salt, sunscreen, sweat, sexual frustration, little crescents of sand, all of it spiraling together toward the drain.
You brace both palms against the wall and hiss when the spray finds the tender knot tucked between your shoulder blade and spine.
You don’t have time to decide whether the sting is pleasure or pain because suddenly the door latch is clicking.
You spin, palms crossing over your breasts, ready to apologize for… something (what, exactly? You’re not sure, because last time you checked you weren’t the person barging into an occupied bathroom.)
But then the silhouette resolves into Jack and the apology dies on your tongue.
He shuts and locks the door with a soft snick, arching a brow through the haze.
You hiss under your breath, “What — Jack, what are you doing?”
He doesn’t answer right away. He just looks. His gaze drags leisurely, like a hand down your body, over your breasts, the water-glossed dip of your waist, the slick shimmer on your thighs, then hovering at your bare pussy before climbing back to your face.
He looks utterly unhurried. A man content to feast with his eyes first and speak when the hunger becomes unbearable.
Fire pools low in your belly and you shift, thighs pressing together in a useless bid for modesty. “Seriously, what if someone saw you come in?”
He closes the distance until your breath clouds a small circle on the glass pane between you.
“Just grabbing my razor,” he says, offhand, like you’re the one overreacting as he tips his head toward the shelf behind you. “Promise I’ll be two seconds. In, out.”
You give him a long, squinting once-over, as though you can spot the lie on his skin. He just wiggles his fingers — see? Harmless — so you huff a tiny laugh and shift aside.
“Fine. Two seconds,” you mutter, watching him carefully.
You pull the slider door open.
The instant rush of cooler air leaves gooseflesh in its wake, and Jack’s shoulders seem suddenly much broader than you remember as he steps through.
“Appreciate it, honey.”
He ducks under the spray, and the stall feels two sizes too small.
Jack plants himself in front of you, torso filling your peripheral vision, trunks plastered to powerful thighs.
He doesn’t touch you, but the warmth radiating from his body seems to crowd every spare inch of space.
When his chest rises you feel the ripple in each breath through yours.
“You okay?” His tone drips false innocence as he reaches around you for the razor, the damp fabric of his trunks gliding over the sensitive swell of nerves between your legs in a feather-light pass.
You suck in a harsh breath.
He straightens as if nothing happened, twirling the razor between his fingers, eyes glinting with pleased mischief.
Dick-Face.
Your vision goes momentarily starry, the lost friction leaving you empty.
You rally with a shaky grin. “‘M fine.”
“Mind if I shave in here, then? Better water pressure and keeps the sink hair-free. Know you hate that.”
You squint up at him, water streaking your lashes.
“Jack…” One elongated syllable loaded with I know exactly what you’re doing.
“Relax, angel. Two seconds,” he reminds, though the slight tilt of his hips say otherwise.
He angles the razor at his jaw, drawing the first careful stroke. You watch the silver path he leaves on skin, the way tiny beads of water race after the blade. His face, stripped of stubble in increments, is almost too handsome. Straight nose, freckles you could count, lips made for kissing yours.
He catches you gawking and smirks. “Gonna nick myself if you keep staring like that.”
You tilt your chin, droplets collecting at the curve of your collarbone, mustering your usual sparkle, “Then focus, doctor. I won’t be held responsible for self-inflicted injuries.”
He lets the razor dangle forgotten at his side as he studies you a beat longer. His hand slides forward, knuckles skimming the silky bloom of your hip, then dipping inward to follow the hollow where muscle meets bone.
A shiver flutters through you. He feels it and grins, this slow, predatory spread of lips.
“Focus is a tall order,” he says, thumb brushing a streak of water off your stomach. “Pretty as you are.”
Your breath stutters as his thumb skims lower, and you grab his wrist. “Uh-uh. Hands to yourself, remember?”
“Don’t make me beg, sweetheart.” The husk in his voice slips through you from head to toe. “Because I will, if that’s what you want — say please a thousand times, just to prove how badly I need you.”
Before you can answer, he sinks to his knees.
Once again he doesn’t touch, free hand splayed on the grout, but his mouth hovers near the crease of your hip, close enough that every exhale fans liquid fire over your pussy.
His eyes flick to yours, desperate, waiting for the single syllable that will break every rule you set.
“I can keep my hands to myself, if that’s the rule. Just let me use my mouth, please. Need to taste you, angel.”
“I — Jack, we said —”
Your grip on his wrist feels fragile, ceremonial.
“That a yes, baby? Gotta hear the word.”
Steam curls between your bodies and it’s almost suffocating now, filling up your throat and nose and ears until you start to feel a little dizzy.
Rules clang in your skull — not here, not now — but the week-long ache in your belly chants louder: need, need, need.
You bite your lip hard enough to taste copper, eyes slipping shut.
When they open again, the answer is already there, shining in resignation. “Yes. Please — yes.”
He doesn’t waste another second.
He dives in like a man reprieved from drought. Three days and three nights and water turned to wine in his tongue. He presses it flat, dragging through your folds until your knees threaten to buckle.
The first targeted flick to your clit punches a helpless cry out of your throat and the second has you clawing for purchase on the handlebar to your left.
Jack mumbles something that feels like so sweet against you, vibration sparkling up your spine, then seals his lips and sucks hard, alternating pressure in prodding intervals.
You don’t think you’ve ever gotten to that blissful edge so fast before, seconds away from splintering, vision tunneling as pink and blue stars flare behind your lids.
It all comes crashing down when a brisk tap-tap-tap cuts through your near-climax.
Jack freezes, mouth still full of you and hot on your cunt but now motionless, eyes snapping up to meets yours. Beautiful eyes with pupils blown.
Santos’s voice filters through: “Whoever’s in there, hurry up!”
The pulse that was about to break erupts into silent, aching stasis instead. You bite your fist, whole body trembling on the cliff-edge he’s left you hanging from.
You choke back a whimper and call, “Be out in a sec!”
And like you said, you would find some sort of humor in it all if it didn’t feel like pure fucking torture.
Jack tries to remind himself that he has, by every measurable standard, survived worse things than this.
War, for one. Heat that cooked straight through the soles of his boots, nights sawn open by rotor blades and gunfire. The terror of deciding who needed his hands first when everyone needed them at once.
He lost a leg and learned how to walk again, then somehow went back to medicine because apparently nearly dying had not cured him of the instinct to run toward other people’s emergencies. He has cracked chests, led resuscitations, talked shaking interns through their first patient death, spent his free time embedded with SWAT because golf had always seemed both dull and something he wouldn’t thrive at.
He knows pressure. He understands discipline. He has built an entire life around refusing to be governed by fear, pain, adrenaline, or lesser impulses.
None of those facts seem to feel reassuring right now as he watches you from across the bar.
You’re burrowed into the center of a brand-new constellation of people you just met, telling one of your well-worn stories with the same sparkling conviction you gave it the first time, chin tipped up, bracelets chiming as your hands sketch the scene into the air.
Jack knows every beat.
Knows when your eyes will widen, when your mouth will pull into that scandalized little O, when you will pause just long enough to make everyone lean closer before delivering the line that sends the table into laughter.
And they do lean closer. Even the bartender’s polishing rag pauses mid-swipe.
That is the thing about you. You make strangers feel chosen. Make a whole room feel handpicked, lit from within, as if you opened the door just for them and meant it. Then you’ll drift away, leaving them there in the aftershocks, still facing the space you occupied like worshippers after the god has already one.
Jack knows exactly how dangerous that is because he has made that mistake himself.
More than once.
Sat across from you and read too much into every smile, every soft little lock of your focus, every gooey, honey-thick stretch of your attention. Mistook being seen by you for being chosen.
And then life, perverse as ever, let him be chosen after all. Let him earn the real thing.
Which only makes watching other men bask in the counterfeit version feel worse.
The feeling metastasizes when one of the men catches the opening after your final line and moves into it, all expensive veneer-looking teeth and effortless posture, bending toward you as though the room has naturally made space for him there.
He says something Jack cannot hear over the bass, punctuates it with a small, self-satisfied shrug, and wears the expression of a person who thinks being near you is already a kind of accomplishment.
Jack studies him.
Young. Smooth. Unscarred, at least where the world can see. A body that has probably never needed to be negotiated with before something as simple as walking barefoot across a beach. No prosthetic to strap on before dawn, no phantom pain flaring where flesh ends, no inventory of what still works and what must be accommodated.
He looks right beside you. No one would glance twice, no one would do the math. Robby could clap him on the shoulder, laugh at his jokes, maybe even approve.
Certainly wouldn’t have to excavate a grave under the rental deck.
Jack counts that as strike three.
“Jack.” Robby’s voice breaks across the table, dragging him back by the collar. “Tell ‘em I’m not making this up.”
Jack blinks, wrestles his gaze off you, and pretends he’s been part of the conversation all along. Dana and Baran blink back at him.
“You’re usually making something up,” he says and it earns Victoria’s laugh, though he hasn’t the faintest idea what improbable tale he’s just failed to corroborate.
It seems to be enough of an answer for Robby though, because he laughs too, his hand thumping Jack’s shoulder hard enough to slosh the liquor.
Jack drinks anyway, holds the bourbon like a tongue depressor to his worst instincts. Swallows. The burn chars every jittery nerve that wants to turn around and see if Mr. Linen Shirt is still siphoning oxygen out of your orbit.
But he wants to know. Wants to know whether the man has moved closer, whether you’re still smiling, whether Jack is about to make a decision that leaves the bastard sipping his own drink through a wired jaw.
He shouldn’t go that far. Healing hands and all. But he can make exceptions.
He lets boredom rasp across his tongue as he clears his throat. “Your sister know those guys?”
Robby looks over on reflex. Jack doesn’t move. Doesn’t need to. Robby’s face will tell him everything. “What guys?”
“Dunno. Thought one of ‘em looked familiar.”
Robby squints past the crowd.
“Nope. Don’t think I recognize any of them.” Robby decides, pushing a tired breath through his teeth, knuckles rasping over two-day stubble. “She does this everywhere she goes. Draws attention like wildfire. I swear, half my blood pressure medication is because of her.”
Jack’s arteries would corroborate that, but he lets the confession smolder unheard behind the rim of his glass.
“Well, can you blame ‘em? She looks like that.”
And Dana’s comment is the invitation he’s been waiting for. Lets him gorge on the sight without raising suspicion.
The little dress, the glossed-up lips, the endless stretch of your legs under the bar light. Your hair falling loose around your shoulders, your face animated as you talk, every feature sharpened by laughter into something almost indecently alive.
A cherry-red straw clacks against your teeth when you sip your rum punch, each drag leaving a perfect lipstick crescent on the plastic rim.
You are beautiful in every standard category and several highly specific ones Jack suspects may exist solely to inconvenience him.
“Don’t mean she needs a swarm,” Robby grumbles, waving his bottle at the cluster around you. “She treats everybody like they’ve known her ten years, then acts shocked when half the room starts trailing after her. And somehow I’m the prick when I tell ’em to give her some space.”
“I don’t mind being the asshole,” Jack pipes up. Across the table, Dana’s attention narrows, and Jack realizes, half a beat too late, that he may have sounded a little too willing. So he adds, “If you’re tired of the job, I mean.”
Robby snorts. “You’d scare the hell of ‘em.”
“That’s generally the point.”
He lifts his bourbon before the thought can show on his face, lets the rim conceal the faint tightening at the corner of his mouth.
Robby, thankfully, is already smiling, visibly seduced by the prospect of outsourcing his least charming brotherly obligation.
“Be my guest,” he says. “Tell her I sent you.”
Jack tips his glass, drains what remains, then taps the rim against the tabletop.
Signal received. Assignment accepted. He doesn’t need to be told twice.
By the time he is halfway across the room, you’ve already noticed him.
Your eyes flare with a brightness he can feel from here, and whatever polished little nothing Mr. Smooth is feeding you dies unattended between one word and the next.
He keeps talking anyway, poor guy, unaware that you’ve left the conversation without moving an inch. By the time Jack reaches the bar rail, your attention has funneled to one point, him, and nothing else.
It stirs something dormant in him, the same dark pull he felt in the shower, his pants suddenly tighter, less cooperative. He sees exactly what he would do without the table of coworkers and one eagle-eyed best friend behind him.
He would hook a hand around the back of your neck, pull you flush to his chest, and kiss every little thought clean out of your head. Kiss you until the gloss smeared, until your lipstick feathered over his mouth, until your lips went swollen and every polished stranger nearby understood, without needing it explained, who had put that dazed look in your eyes.
Instead, he leans one forearm against the bar and says, pleasantly, “You drinking enough water, sweetheart?”
“I could be persuaded to drink more.” Your lips curl around the straw again, eyes fixed on Jack with a private little shine.
The younger man follows your attention to Jack and gives him an affable nod. “Man, your dad’s on top of it. Mine would’ve let me dehydrate out of spite.”
Jack nearly coughs up his previously swallowed drink.
He can feel every one of his years arrange themselves in descending order between you. The gray at his temples. The scars. The apparently paternal concern over your fluid intake.
Fuck’s sake.
He parts his lips to correct the record, a dry little execution already waiting on his tongue, but you beat him to the trigger.
“Oh, he’s the best,” you gush, peering at him sideways. “Always checking on me. Sunscreen, hydration, curfew. Super over-protective.”
Jack gives you a long, level look, one that says he knows exactly what you’re doing and plans to deal with it later.
“She keeps me busy. Full time job, most days,” he finally says, playing along.
And it is a full-time job.
Just not remotely in the way this poor kid is imagining. You are a twenty-four-hour on-call position with no protected sleep and an astonishingly generous benefits package.
You need to be kissed before he leaves the room, touched whenever he passes within arm’s reach, listened to with grave concentration while you explain some internet drama involving some show he’s never watched and a man named Sincere he will never meet.
Then there is the other hunger, the one that wakes beside him already stretching toward his body, that has you squirming into his lap after dinner or whispering again against his mouth when any reasonable person would be asleep.
Jack is always on his toes with you, anticipating needs you have not articulated yet, figuring out whether a pout means hungry, horny, tired, or all three braided together.
It is exhausting in the way a life worth living is exhausting.
He has never minded work when the work matters, and taking care of you has become the most selfish labor he has ever loved.
The younger guy clears his throat, trying to recapture the momentum. “Anyway, like I was saying about the jet-ski tomorrow —”
“Actually,” Jack interrupts, “we’ve got to get back. Curfew, you know.” He aims a polite nod at the man, who now looks decidedly dejected, then drapes a guiding hand along the back of your stool in perfect over-protective-father form. “Appreciate you keeping her company.”
Your mouth twitches around the straw. Jack can already tell you’re going to make him suffer for this. The prospect improves his mood considerably.
He starts to walk you back to the table, when he spots Robby, who’s laughing much too loudly at something the new intern just whispered in his ear.
The girl is angled toward him, smiling with that shy, pleased little tilt people get when they think they’ve successfully surprised him, and Robby, miracle of miracles, looks genuinely interested.
That is information worth preserving. Worth interrogating later, too.
But for now he takes that opportunity for what it is and herds you into a corner out of view.
As soon as you’re tucked between a stack of surfboards and the dim EXIT sign, his fingers close over the curve of your backside, giving a quick pinch.
A startled “hey!” pops out, alcohol-loose and breathy, and you bat at his knuckles.
He catches your wrist, holding it against his chest as amusement darkens his gaze. “You’re testing me, angel. Missed me so much you had to start getting other men’s attention just to see if I’d come take you back?”
“Missed who? The pervert or the overprotective dad?”
Jack clicks his tongue and leans in until the tips of your noses nearly touch, crowding the joke right back into your mouth.
“Hated every damn second of that. Couldn’t lay a finger on you while that kid flirted his ass off. And you knew exactly what you were doing. Wanted to see how fast you could make your old man lose his cool?”
“Thought you liked being challenged?” You tilt your chin, lashes dipping. “Besides, you’d been ignoring me all night. What was I supposed to do, sit there looking pretty for no one?”
“You know that isn’t how it is. I’ve been following the rules you set, angel. Your rules.”
“Yeah, well, last night kind of blew those up, don’t you think?” You lean closer. “The line’s already smudged. Seems silly to keep pretending we can still see it.”
“Trust me, sweetheart, I’ve got no attachment to that line. I’ve wanted my hands on you from the second I saw that dress.” He leans closer, voice dropping into something meant only for you. “But you’d better mean it. You don’t get to rile me up all night and then act surprised when I collect.”
Your eyes flick toward the neon Restrooms sign, then back to him, lashes heavy. “Meet me by the bathroom in sixty seconds. If you’re late, I’m starting without you.”
One quick sweep confirms the coast is clear.
“Bought and paid for, angel. Be there in fifty-nine.”
You giggle, turning on your heel with a bounce that sets your dress fluttering. He tracks every inch as you stroll off, head cocked like you know he’s staring; the last thing he sees is the curve of your ass rounding the corner.
He waits just long enough not to make it obvious, then starts toward the hall, pulse already ticking off the seconds.
Fifty-eight. Fifty-seven.
“Jack.”
Shit.
Dana catches him mid-stride. When he turns, she is watching him over one lifted brow, empty glass raised loosely in her hand. “You getting another round?”
His gaze flicks toward the corridor before he can stop it. Mistake. Dana follows it, then looks back at him.
“Wasn’t planning on it,” he says.
“Could’ve fooled me. You look like you’re on a mission.”
And what can he say to that?
Yeah, Dana, good eye. I am on a mission to follow my girlfriend into a seedy beach-bar bathroom and fuck the living daylights out of her before Robby notices either of us are gone. By the way, she is his little sister and young enough that, from a distance, strangers apparently assume I helped raise her.
So Jack does what any sensible man would do under pressure.
He lies.
“Just gotta take a leak.”
Dana lets out a low hum, the kind that says she believes exactly none of him. “Sure.” And Jack thinks that’s it, but suddenly she shakes her head. “Just do yourself a favor and be careful.”
“Careful about what, exactly?” Irritation flicks hot across his scalp, mostly because it coats the thin, unfamiliar ache of fear.
She tips her chin, eyes dull with shift-long exhaustion, offering him nothing but that tired little smile that says You already know.
“Don’t make me say it out loud.” Her gaze dips toward the restroom sign, subtle enough that anyone else would miss it. Jack doesn’t. “I don’t care about the sordid details. But secrets like this don’t stay contained forever. People get hurt when they come out.” Her expression softens by a fraction. “And she has more to lose than you do.”
He doesn’t get the chance to answer before Dana slips past him, already lifting two fingers toward the bartender and calling for another round.
She has more to lose than you do.
Jack knows that. Or at least, he should’ve.
He is established. Difficult to shame in any lasting way. People already know who he is, have decided what sort of man he is, and most days he can live with that.
You, meanwhile, are still being decided. Every room you enter is another jury, every mistake fresh evidence for peers and others alike.
And men tend to survive a scandal differently.
Jack might lose Robby, take a hit to his reputation, become the subject of a few whispered conversations at work. Then the weeks would pass, another crisis would arrive, and people would remember he was useful.
The world permits men to outlive their mistakes.
It does not extend women the same courtesy.
You would be remembered through it, reduced to it. People would search backward through every bright smile and short skirt as if the proof had always been there, call you foolish where they called him weak, promiscuous where they called him lonely.
Even the people defending you would talk as though you needed defending from your own decision.
Jack suddenly feels sick because Dana is right, and because somewhere along the way he let himself pretend the risk belonged equally to both of you.
Half his, half yours. Fair.
It never had.
Jack lets the sixty seconds expire and stays exactly where he is, rooted with his hands by his sides and the first honest understanding of what protecting you might actually require.
Tonight, when you go looking for Jack, your intentions are not merely ill.
They are terminal. Premeditated. Your conscience is nowhere to be found, certainly not sparkling, certainly not clean enough to eat off.
Whatever small moral voice usually lives in you has been smothered beneath a white-hot blend of anger and a bruised ego, two things currently holding hands and skipping merrily through your bloodstream.
The house has only just begun to settle after several hours of drunk postmortems, everyone still riding the bar’s momentum and apparently determined to delay sleep through sheer noise pollution alone. Somebody had thrown up in the upstairs toilet, although nobody was admitting to it and Whitaker had somehow staggered into Jack’s room and passed out starfished across his bed, fully clothed, one shoe still on, leaving Jack exiled to the downstairs couch.
It’s almost completely dark when you creep down the stairs.
A small lamp glows beside the sofa, casting a little island over Jack and the book open in his hands.
The rest of the room dissolves into shadow, cluttered with the aftermath of everyone else’s good time: cups lined along the coffee table, half-empty glasses, plates abandoned with crusts and smears of dip.
You ghost past him without a glance, feet soundless on the hardwood.
Only when he murmurs, “Can we talk?” do you pause, but only long enough to throw a breezy, “Later — busy,” over your shoulder.
Jack pushes off the sofa, trailing you a step. “Busy with what, exactly?”
Busy making your life a living hell, you think, scrubbing dried food from a plate. Busy returning the favor. Busy ensuring he experiences even a fraction of the private humiliation you swallowed in that bar bathroom, standing beneath a flickering light panel while sixty seconds stretched into two minutes, then five, your invitation curdled into foolishness.
And when you had finally emerged, Jack was back at the table with the others, but every stiff line of him betrayed where his attention really was. Fresh drink in hand, barely touched. Shoulders set. Gaze locked on the corridor.
He had chosen not to come, but he had not stopped watching.
Jack would sooner lose his other leg than abandon you tipsy in a strange bar, and even furious, you knew that. He had been keeping vigil over the door, tracking who went in, who came out, waiting for your face to appear. But that garnered no brownie points from you.
When you approached, confused and annoyed and still stupidly hopeful, he had only leaned close enough to breathe, “Later,” against your ear.
As if it were of no significance. You were of no significance.
You snatch up another abandoned cup and tip its watery remains into the sink.
“This,” you say. “Some of us respect shared spaces.”
“Mm. At two in the morning?” Jack leans one hip against the counter, arms folding over his chest. When you dont stop, he adds, “All right. Scoot over. I’ll help.”
Jack has never encountered a mess, emotional or otherwise, that he did not believe could be improved by putting his hands on it. A wound, a crisis, a woman mad enough to scrub ceramic like she means to erase the glaze. Same instinct. Reach. Steady. Fix.
You turn before he can.
Dishwater slips from your fingers in clear little tracks, the oversized sleep shirt grazing high over your thighs as you square yourself toward him.
“No, thank you.” Your gaze stays fixed on his. “I’ve learned I can manage without help.”
He comes closer, and closer still, until your damp fingers have nowhere sensible to go except flat against the edge of the sink.
“That’s very independent of you, honey,” he says. “Always loved that about you.” His hand lands beside your hip, bracketing you in. His gaze searches your face, lightening at the edges. “But I don’t think we’re talking about dishes anymore, are we?”
You tip your chin up, refusing to let the gentling in his eyes sand down your irritation. “No, we’re not. We’re talking about you saying one thing and doing another. Apparently promises are more of a loose suggestion when they’re coming from you.”
“Give me a chance to explain, sweetheart.” The words slip out on a breath, softer than the rattle of the faucet. “You can be mad after. Hell, you probably still will be. Just hear me out first.”
You do not want to hear him out.
Explanations are unpredictable things, doors that open both ways, and you already have the sickening suspicion that whatever is waiting on the other side will hurt worse than not knowing.
Because yes, objectively, Jack failing to follow you into a bathroom means very little.
No fidelity breached, no grand betrayal, no concrete proof of anything beyond bad timing and worse communication.
But the small flutter in your stomach does not care about what your mind tries to litigate away.
It knows this feeling. Knows this small retreat before someone leaves, the subtle cooling, the moment affection starts becoming obligation.
Maybe he has simply had his fill of you. Maybe the novelty wore off and now you are no longer the bright, entertaining little thing he wanted to sneak around with, only a woman who talks too much and needs too much and has begun expecting permanence from something built in shadows.
And maybe now he has seen enough of the real thing to know he cannot imagine building a life around it.
So you do not give him the chance.
“Nothing to explain,” you say, seizing the sponge and escaping the cage of his arms for the opposite counter.
You start cleaning with theatrical diligence, collecting bottles, stacking plates, wiping crumbs into your palm as though the fate of the rental deposit rests entirely on you.
But you did not come downstairs to rescue countertops. You came because you need proof that Jack still wants you.
Any kind of proof. Emotional, physical, desperate, selfish. You would take whatever he gives you.
And if you cannot bring yourself to ask whether he still sees a future with you, then you can at least find out whether he still wants to put his hands on you.
So when you bend to retrieve a fallen fork from the ground, you let the hem of your sleep shirt climb unchecked over the backs of your legs until it bares you completely, exposes that you are wearing no underwear, your thighs parted just enough for Jack to see every soft, private inch you left uncovered for him.
Cool air brushes your pussy.
His stare burns hotter.
“Jesus Christ, honey.” The words leave him rough and disbelieving, dragged up from the well below his throat. Behind you, the counter creaks faintly beneath the sudden weight of his hands. “What the hell are you doing?”
You count to one before straightening.
You turn with the fork still balanced between two fingers, arranging your face into its sweetest approximation of confusion.
“Don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Right,” he murmurs. “Must’ve imagined the whole thing.”
You drop the fork into the sink with an accusing clatter. “Probably. Memory goes with age, remember?”
He steps in behind you before you can turn away, chest brushing your back, one palm flattening over your stomach while the other slides beneath your shirt.
His knuckles skim the soft inside of your thigh, then settle exactly where you’re naked.
“Yeah,” he growls against your ear. “Didn’t imagine a damn thing.”
A whimper threatens and you bite it back so hard your jaw aches. In that stilled heartbeat the fight drains out of your muscles and your body answers him first, arching back, begging in the only language it trusts.
But the panic bubbles back up in fiery waves.
“Please don’t,” you say, and the plea is not the one he expects.
Jack’s hand freezes.
You close your eyes.
“If you’ve changed your mind about me, just say it.” Every word hurts your throat. You turn your face just enough for him to see what the anger has been hiding all night. Fear. “If you don’t want me anymore, then don’t touch me like you do. Don’t make it harder than it already is.”
Jack’s hand vanishes so abruptly from beneath your shirt, your knees dip with the loss.
Then he’s turning you, big palms framing your cheeks, thumbs parked just under your cheekbones. Your own slick glosses his knuckles. He tips your chin up so you can’t look anywhere but straight into the brown storm of his.
“What the fuck are you talkin’ about, baby?”
Your mouth opens, but what escapes first is a wet, hitching breath.
The tears rise fast, flood-waters breaching the levee before you can blink them back, Jack’s outline smearing into watercolor.
“I don’t know,” you hiccup, which is not true at all. You know too much. “You left me there. And then you acted like I was being dramatic for expecting you to show up when you said you would.” Your fingers curl around his wrists, not pushing him away, just holding on. “And maybe it’s not about that. Maybe it’s about how easy it would be for you to wake up and realize I’m not… serious-person material. I’m fun, I know that. I’m pretty and I make you laugh and I’m good in bed, but that’s not the same as being someone you actually want a life with.” Your lips tremble. “People always like me better at first.”
Immediately his face caves, all the structure in it imploding: brows hitching, mouth parting, a stricken slackness that makes him look ten years younger and infinitely more breakable.
“Don’t say that,” he says, too sharp at first, then immediately dampens. “No, sweetheart. I’m sorry. Say whatever you need to say. I’m just…” He shakes his head, jaw tight, eyes shining with something close to a fear that matches yours. “I hate that I made you feel like that.”
His hands slide from your face to your shoulders, holding you there as if he needs you to understand this with your whole body.
“You are serious to me. More serious than anything I’ve let myself have in a long time.” He exhales shakily. “You think I don’t picture a life with you? I picture it constantly.”
You just stare, lungs cinched tight, tears marooned mid-cheek as though gravity’s on pause. The room narrows to the pulse thudding in your ears.
“You’re… you’re serious about me?”
Jack makes a quiet, wounded sound. His hands come back to your face, thumbs stroking the wet tracks beneath your eyes.
“Christ, baby. Yes. Of course I am.” He bends closer, as though proximity might help drive the truth into you. “I don’t know how I let you believe otherwise… I didn’t follow after you tonight because I got scared for you, not of you. I should have told you. I should have found you, explained, apologized. Instead I left you alone with your worst thoughts. That was cruel, even if I didn’t mean it to be. Please let me fix it.”
Another hiccup rattles through you as you try to process the words at face-value. “Scared for me how?”
“Because if this blew up, I didn’t want you caught in it.” He says it simply, like there is no question which of you matters more. “I don’t give a damn what people think of me, baby. I care what it does to you.”
You shake your head inside the cradle of his hands.
“I don’t care what people think either. I don’t care about any of it.” Your voice snags, but you push through. “I love you, Jack. That matters more.”
His eyes close for half a second, like the words are almost too much to take standing up.
When they open again, he kisses you senselessly soft, both hands still holding your face as though you might vanish.
He kisses you once, twice, a third time, each one a little messier than the last.
“Love you too, baby,” he whispers, lips brushing yours. “Love you so much it scares the hell out of me.”
The brine of your tears slick the seam of your mouth. Jack doesn’t flinch, drinks it in like proof of living.
You surface for one ragged sip of air, barely enough, your lips still grazing his, fists knotted in his shirt like ballast against weightlessness.
“You mean it? You’re really serious about me?” you whisper again, softer this time, almost shy with it.
Jack lets out a low, guttural sound and grazes the corner of your mouth.
“So serious, honey.” Another kiss, deeper now, his hands sliding from your face to your waist, pulling you flush. “Want to put a ring on that pretty little hand. Want a house with your clothes everywhere and your shoes in places I’m gonna trip over.” His mouth finds yours again, swallowing your gasp before he adds, rougher, “Want a kid, if you want one. You want a baby with me, angel?”
“Yes, please, Jack.”
The words are still warm in the air when he fits his mouth to yours, a groan vibrating through both of you.
His palms squeeze your waist, then lift, your stomach swooping as he sets you on the cleared stretch of counter. Cool laminate kisses the backs of your thighs, shocking against the furnace heat of him stepping between your legs.
Your sleep-shirt scrunches between his hands, creeping, creeping, until the hem gathers at your hips and you’re bared to him again.
“Yeah?” he murmurs against your lips. “You’d give me that?”
You nod so eagerly the room tilts, fists in his collar, yanking him closer. “Anything.”
“My perfect girl,” he breathes, kissing you again, softer now, as if the tenderness makes what follows any less filthy.
His hand slips beneath the gathered cotton at your waist, fingers gliding south until one settles between your folds. He drags the wetness up in a lazy sweep, humming appreciation that burns brighter than the touch itself.
“And what’s all this, hm?” he asks, studying your face while his finger toys idly with your clit. His eyes darken, attention dropping to where his hand disappears between your legs. “You sittin’ here imagining me filling you up with a baby, sweetheart?”
Your hips lift helplessly into his hand, chasing pressure he has no intention of giving you yet.
“No teasing,” you whimper, breath breaking around the words. “Please, Jack. I need you inside me.”
Jack swears under his breath, hand leaving your clit only long enough to undo his pants. The zipper drops. Fabric loosens. Then he is back between your thighs, dragging the thick head of his cock through your folds once, twice, gathering the wetness you have made for him.
The sight of him nearly makes you stupid.
It has only been a few days, which is nothing, really, barely enough time for a normal person to miss anything, but your body has become accustomed to him, used to the heavy stretch of his cock at least once a day, sometimes twice when neither of you has somewhere to be.
You’re practically drooling, inner muscles fluttering around emptiness while he takes his sweet, sweet time wetting himself in what you’ve made for him.
You shift on the counter, thighs widening of their own accord, a needy sound slipping free when the head catches against your entrance and pulls away again.
“I know, honey. I know.” His voice roughens as he traces the head up your inner thigh. “Should’ve given you what you needed hours ago.”
Then he finally does.
He braces one hand at your hip and pushes forward in one long, steady stroke, the thick head breaching you first, then every heavy inch following.
Your cunt flutters, welcoming, molding around him until there’s no space left unexplored.
The counter shudders with the low sound that tears out of both of you.
The inexorable pressure sutures the empty ache that’s haunted you, stuffing it full until there’s no room for jealousy, no space for worst-case scenarios.
There is only Jack.
Your thighs cinch hard around his waist, heels gouging into the backs of his legs like spurs demanding more.
He doesn’t stop until pelvis meets pelvis, forehead thunking against yours while both of you gasp as if you’ve sprinted a mile in the sand.
He retreats a heartbeat’s width and your walls seize around him, possessive. He curses under his breath.
“This tight little cunt missed me, didn’t it?” he asks, already driving back in.
He starts pumping into you at a saint’s tempo, each drag of his cock thick and thorough, his hips grinding flush against you at the end of every thrust.
Your arms lock around his shoulders as your body rocks with him, bare thighs trembling against his sides.
Pleasure gathers everywhere at once, starting at your pussy and climbing until your whole body feels tuned to the rhythm of his hips.
You try to tell him that. Try to say yes, missed you, feels so good, but what comes out is a breathless spill of syllables, half his name and half a sound you would be embarrassed by if your brain were still capable of embarrassment.
His hand slips between your bodies, two fingers finding your clit.
“You’re mine, aren’t you? All mine,” he growls, cock still working inside you. “And I’m yours. Never gonna be anybody else’s, you hear me?”
Your answer is a helpless chain of nods and breathy mewls, but he isn’t satisfied with that.
He catches your jaw, thumb pressing your cheek until your eyes snap to his.
“Look at me. Hear me.”
“Y-yes, Jack… yours — love you, love you s’much,” you babble.
“Love you, angel.” He presses a kiss to your trembling lips. “Want me to fill this pretty pussy up? Want me to leave every drop inside where it belongs?”
“Yes, please. Need it — need you — m’so close.”
The first warning licks up your spine. A trembling in your calves, nipples pebbling hard against your shirt.
Pleasure stacks in breath-stealing layers, so heavy it feels like quicksand pulling you under.
Jack’s tells flare with yours. His hips snapping hard, hands tightening on your waist until his knuckles blanch.
Sweat beads at his hairline, drops down to your skin, and your walls clamp down in greedy pulses, each flex beginning for the flood he’s a second away from letting go.
“Keep looking at me,” Jack pants, curling a hand from your waist to the back of your neck. “Need to watch you fall apart.”
“Can’t — can’t hold it,” you whimper, thighs shaking.
“Don’t hold a damn thing,” he growls. “Give it to me, come on, baby.”
The quicksand finally liquefies and the world folds to white noise.
Jack breaks with you, a strangled — fuck — on your lips, thrusts turning short as he empties himself in thick bursts.
You cling to one another, quake for heartbeat after heartbeat, until the tremors fade into breathless, boneless warmth.
When Jack’s breathing finally steadies, his mouth roams in slow increments. First your collarbones, up the column of your throat, over the quiver of your lips.
He eases back only to reach for a paper towel, thumb already swiping at the mess seeping down your thighs.
“Don’t,” you plead, catching his wrist. “Wanna keep it.”
Jack huffs a low laugh before moving to kiss away your protest. “Sweetheart, you’re not making it five steps up those stairs with that sliding down your legs.”
Even as he says it, he dabs gently between them.
The light friction has your hips ticking forward, little whimpers breaking free.
“Sensitive, huh?” he tuts.
“Thought you wanted to put a baby in me?” you argue.
Jack’s thumb circles your thigh. “Oh, I plan on it — but not until there’s some extra hardware shining on your hand. One thing at a time, yeah?”
Old-fashioned as he is, you probably should’ve expected that.
Jack Abbot is the kind of man who still opens doors, calls restaurants instead of booking online, and apparently requires jewelry before intentional procreation. There is probably a proper sequence filed away in that stubborn head of his: ring, vows, house, baby.
You find, to your own surprise, that you do not mind the order at all.
You tap his chest with a teasing finger and dopey smile. “I can live with that. I do love shiny things, after all.”
What he does not tell you is that the shiny thing already exists, hidden in his sock drawer, waiting for the right moment.
You won’t find that out for another two months, until after the two of you finally sit Robby down and tell him everything, until after Jack takes one clean punch to the face without even trying to dodge it, because fair is fair, and until after Robby’s anger burns itself down into something survivable.
By the time Jack slips the ring onto your finger, his lip is healed, your brother is calling him Jack instead of Dick-Face (you can’t be sure where he learned that insult from), and the future no longer feels like something borrowed.
It is yours.
MARIA NOTE this lowkey was supposed to be like 1k words and the ideas just kept flowing and it turned into a full psychological case study on why making ur brother's best friend jealous is both a terrible idea and, unfortunately, very effective. also jack saying ring first, baby later made me briefly black out. hope u enjoyed!! <3
“I can keep my hands to myself, if that’s the rule. Just let me use my mouth, please. Need to taste you, angel.”
i am on the floor actually. trust jack to find a loophole in the hands off rule 🫦
“I don’t care about the sordid details. But secrets like this don’t stay contained forever. People get hurt when they come out.” Her expression softens by a fraction. “And she has more to lose than you do.”
dana !!! my mama bear !!! pointing out the double standards and how it will blow back onto reader so much worse than him…thank you for including this because yeah society is not forgiving towards woman in these situations and jack needed a reminder of that (and i’m so glad he took the warning seriously)
“Want a kid, if you want one. You want a baby with me, angel?”
what a stupid fucking question jack (i think you’ve jumpstarted my ovulation)
What he does not tell you is that the shiny thing already exists, hidden in his sock drawer, waiting for the right moment.
i’m—
another delectable masterpiece from mariasont 🙂↕️🙂↕️
what they don’t tell you about being a writer is that returning to a long fic you haven’t touched in a while means rereading 50k words first because you don’t actually remember your own fics that well
filled with pivotal formative comments @goldiwrites - Tumblr Blog | Tumgag
