If you are the author of any of these and would like me to remove an entry or tag please lmk!
Please heed any warnings on the fics themselves, you are responsible for your own media consumption. Stay safe and take care!
This is (not) fine by @artficlly (NSFW)
Author's summary: Personal assistant rules: don't crush on Bucky Barnes. Definitely don't misinterpret a flower purchase and spiral into silent heartbreak, and absolutely never *ever* get stuck alone with him in an elevator.
His girls by @/artficlly
Author's summary: Alpine barely tolerates anyone but Bucky, so when she curls up in your lap without a second thought, the team is left reeling especially when it leads to the not-so-subtle revelation that you and Bucky have been sneaking around for months.
My heart went oops! by @myladybelle
Author's summary: You think you’re friends who occasionally kiss, but Bucky thinks the two of you have been exclusively dating for a while now. it only takes one post-mission debrief for the whole team to realise someone’s missed a memo.
Heart First, Sanity Later by @orellazalonia
Author's summary: You, a dangerously chaotic genius with the common sense of a soggy spoon, somehow captures the heart of Bucky Barnes. Despite the constant emotional whiplash, raccoon-related injuries, and deeply cursed inventions, Bucky finds himself falling hard... somewhere between a Capri Sun intervention robot and a vent related rescue.
Temple by @aquaticmercy
Author's Summary: Bucky Barnes is struggling to say 'I love you', so he says other things to make sure you know he cares.
Promise without ceremony by @cheekybarnes
Author's summary: Bucky Barnes gave up on marriage a long time ago. But then, somewhere deep in a storm-soaked safe house, he pulls a bullet from your leg and accidentally proposes in the process.
Bucky Barnes and back scratches by @heldbybarnes
Request: bucky barnes are back scratches? I know it's vague but I also know how amazing you are!
Sticky Confessions by @juniebjonesin
Author's summary: bucky moves into your spare room expecting nothing more than four walls and a place to sleep. instead, he finds floor-to-ceiling bookshelves, sticky note conversations, late-night takeout, and a girl who always puts herself last.
Creamy or Crunchy by @marvelstoriesepic
Author's summary: Bucky joins you grocery shopping to everyone's surprise.
The Pull of Gravity by @jamesbuckybarnesandnoble
Author's summary: Bucky and you get paired on missions and it's like knowing you were always meant to be, but he's shy and emotionally complex.
Sound Check by @/cheekybarnes
Author's summary: Bucky’s never been one for live music or crowded bars—but the first time he hears you sing, he’s ruined for anything else.
Whose Cat Is It Anyway? by @saltyjoy
Author's summary: For the longest time, you thought the cat roaming the tower wasn’t owned by anybody. Then you eventually realize that the “Tower Cat” does, in fact, have a name, and is owned by none other than Bucky Barnes himself, the one team member you aren’t exactly best friends with. After Bucky finds out that Alpine has become fond of you, he starts giving you odd looks and passive-aggressive comments. This leads you to the conclusion that he is jealous of you for taking his cat. However, as time goes on, you come to the realization that it might be the other way around.
The Domestic Clause by @vunblr
Author's summary: Bucky agrees to a discreet cleaning service to tend to his apartment while he’s away. He never expected the care of someone he’d never met to become the gentlest part of his daily life.
Sparks fly by @/mcrdvcks
Author's summary: You were Bucky's neighbor while he was a congressman and staying in New York. When Valentina announces them as the New Avengers, Bucky and the team go with him to pack up his apartment. But then you show up, calling him "James."
Stupidly Lovesick by @/saltyjoy
Author's summary: You want Bucky to be happy, even if that means it breaks your heart every time you see him with Natasha. With the aid of Steve, you two devise a series of plans in order to get them together. What you fail to realize is that Bucky and Natasha are simultaneously devising a series of plans to get you and Steve together, even if it pains Bucky.
"I'm not an easy person to love" by @firingstars
Request: Congratulations on reaching a thousand! Can I request: ♡ “i am not an easy person to love.” “i think i’ve got the hang of it.”
Incoming by @54nboo [multipart]
Author's summary: after two years of you talking into his ear, bucky meets the face behind the voice on the comms after a tricky mission.
Day After Tomorrow by @buckyarchives
Author's summary: enhanced hearing is both a blessing and a curse. eavesdropping, loud music, footsteps and when your sweet neighbor has been coughing her pretty head off all day.
Proof of return by @/cheekybarnes
Author's summary: You die and come back—every time. But when a mission pushes your limits and you don’t return right away, Bucky’s worst fear threatens to finally be true.
Five times he almost did by @/cheekybarnes
Author's summary: Five times Bucky didn't say 'I love you'—and one time he did.
He was chaos, he was revelry by @/mcrdvcks
Author's summary: Bucky tells you to go out and have a day at the mall and get whatever you want. When you only buy a $20 Squishmallow, he has to intervene.
Two sugars by @/mcrdvcks
Author's summary: As the Avengers team medic it's your job to take care of everyone. So why does Bucky feel like he gets special treatment? Surely a medic wouldn't know the exact way he likes his tea.
I hate it here by @/mcrdvcks
Author's summary: You meet Bucky at therapy where Dr. Raynor shares a small office with Dr. Cole. You two slowly connect over mystery books and coffee outings. Until one day you don't show up.
Not even a little by @intrepidacious
Author's summary: The problem of living with Bucky is that he makes it impossible not to fall in love with him. Even though you could list several hundred reasons why it’s a bad idea. And you have.
Right where you left me by @redemptive-truth
Author's summary: After accidentally slipping through a portal into an alternate Earth, she discovers that this world’s version of herself is dead—and that version of herself had an unexpected, mysterious bond with Bucky Barnes
i love when you've been mutuals with people for years so that when they end up with some new fictional guy they lose their mind over you can take one look at the dude and go "yeah you would go crazy about that one." no need to even be in the fandom or anything, you can just Tell.
the same is of course never ever true when it comes to me. i'm unknowable and my attachment to fictional characters follows no pattern whatsoever that could tell you anything about me as a person, no sir.
Max - all pronouns welcome - MCU and Bucky Barnes enthusiast
Multi-Chapter Fics
Re: Stacks (Status: Complete) - Bucky x Librarian! Reader
As Bucky attempts to adjust to civilian life, he finds an acquaintance in his hallmate, you: a sweet librarian with a sunny disposition. That sunshine demeanor just so happens to hide secrets of fear, pain, and a deep-seated belief that you deserve to be mistreated. A tenuous friendship blossoms into something more, as your kindness defrosts Bucky’s frozen heart, and Bucky reminds you that you are worth much more than how the world has treated you.
Restraint and Recklessness (Status: Complete) - Bridgerton AU, Bucky Barnes x Stark!Reader
Sergeant James Buchanan Barnes has returned from the front lines, recovered from a career-ending injury. When he arrives home, he finds that his childhood friend is very much not a child anymore, and has been selected the diamond of the season. How can he hope to court you as a broken man, and with the eyes of the entire ton watching your every move?
Wild Geese (Status: Complete) - Bucky x Farmer!Reader
After the helicarrier crash into the Potomac, Bucky Barnes ran. In rural south Maryland, he stumbles across a quaint little farm and the gentle, sad, yet stubborn woman who tends it. A temporary shelter becomes a soft place to land for Bucky, as he slowly recovers his memory and relearns what it is to be human.
One Shots
Fluff:
Lights, Camera, Action! - Moviestar!Bucky x Rising moviestar!Reader
Your harmless crush on your famous costar, Bucky Barnes, becomes not so harmless and all too embarrassing when the intimacy choreography begins.
Snowfall - Snowplower!Bucky x Reader
During your first winter in Brooklyn, you have a little trouble adjusting to the snow. When an icy sidewalk threatens to take you out, the ridiculously hot snowplow guy comes to the rescue.
Wife You Up Future Congressman!Bucky x Reader
A lovey-dovey moment with Bucky in the kitchen has him overthinking about taking a big step in your relationship.
That's a Wrap! Bucky x New Avengers!Reader
What the hell happened to Bucky’s hair?
Angst:
Hide and Seek - Bucky x Reader
After the dust settles on the final battle of Endgame, Bucky is dodging your calls. When the return of the stones to their timelines goes sideways, it’s time for some long overdue honesty.
Smut (MDNI):
Crawl Home to Her - Best Friend!Bucky x Reader
Summary: When your fiancé fucks up spectacularly, your best friend is there to pick up the pieces. You start to realize what has been simmering under the surface between you all along.
Writer's Block - Bucky x Journalist!Reader
After watching you nearly burn yourself out on an article that you just can’t seem to nail down, Bucky takes matters into his own hands to make sure you rest.
Snowmelt (Sequel to Snowfall) - Snowplower!Bucky x Reader
Your first date with the plow guy - sweet, a little steamy, and definitely headed somewhere sexy by the end of the night.
Bookmarked - Roommate!Bucky x Reader
Take two roommates who drive each other up the wall, add one smutty book with a compelling premise, and watch them nearly kill each other. Or kiss. Or both, and then some.
Breakfast, Lunch, and Dinner - Congressman!Bucky x Reader
Bucky comes home for the weekend after a couple months apart, and he looks absolutely mouthwatering.
All in the Timing New Avengers!Bucky x New Avengers!Reader
Val wants the New Avengers it-couple to make an appearance at a PR event. It is an exercise in restraint for both you and your husband, Bucky. You promise to make it worth his while, and you both make good on that promise
Kiss By Wire Future Congressman!Bucky x Reader
Your boyfriend, the aspiring congressman, is away on a work trip in DC. A late night phone call puts some very interesting ideas in both of your heads.
Take a Byte IT Guy!Bucky x Corporate!Reader
You’ve never called IT before, but you need help setting up your new work computer. The IT guy is really, really hot. And he might be hitting on you.
I binge read all of “The Fifth Kennel” and OMG it was the most beautiful thing ever. The world building felt so realistic and the slow burn was so worth it.
hopefully you’ll feel inspired to revisit them someday. Keep up the amazing work.
💖
Asdf thank you, darling, I'm happy you enjoyed the AU, since it's a theme that may not be everyone's cup of tea❤️
Pairing: Frontiersman!Bucky Barnes x Female Reader
Tags: Western AU. Shotgun Wedding. Strangers to Lovers. Slight Angst. Comfort. Domestic Fluff. Slow Burn. Smut.
Warnings: Reader has Heterochromia. Loss of Virginity. Period-Typical Gender Roles and Expectations.
Summary: She came to White Creek for a teaching position that didn't exist. He needed a wife but never expected to find one like this.
Word Count: 7.6k
Previous Chapter - Masterlist
Her husband.
The word still felt foreign, like a coat that didn't quite fit. Twenty-four hours ago, she hadn't known this man existed. Now she was legally bound to him for the rest of her life.
She set the bucket down carefully, trying not to wake him, and looked around the cabin with new eyes.
It wasn't that it was poor. She'd seen poverty, real poverty, back in the city. Families crammed into single rooms with dirt floors and walls so thin you could hear every cough, every argument, every desperate sound from the neighbors. This wasn't that.
This was just... neglected. A man's space.
She could work with that.
Rolling up her sleeves, she surveyed the damage. The dishes were the most pressing issue. That pile couldn't have accumulated in just a day or two; this was probably a week's worth, maybe more.
She found a large pot hanging near the stove and filled it with water from the bucket, setting it on the cookstove to heat. While she waited, she cleared the table, gathering the pile of work clothes and looking around for somewhere to put them.
The table, once cleared, revealed deep scratches in the wood. Well-used. Well-worn. She found a clean rag and wiped it down, then moved to the chairs, and the counter, working methodically.
By the time the water was hot enough, she'd found a rhythm. Dish by dish, she scrubbed away the dried food, the grease, the evidence of a man who'd been too tired or indifferent to care about such things. The work was familiar, comforting even. Her hands knew what to do, and it kept her mind from wandering to more dangerous territory.
Like the bed against the wall.
Like the man sleeping in it.
----
The light was starting to fade by the time she turned her attention to food.
The pantry -if the rough shelf nailed to the wall could be called that- was sparse. Tins of beans. Some coffee. A sack of flour that had seen better days but was still usable. Salt. A few strips of dried meat that looked like they'd been there since the previous winter.
No eggs. No vegetables. Nothing fresh.
She bit her lip, considering her options. The flour would work. She'd made biscuits a thousand times with… the basic. Plain, simple, but edible.
She found a mixing bowl -miraculously clean, probably because it was rarely used- and set to work. Flour, water, and a pinch of salt. Her hands moved automatically, kneading the dough until it came together, not thinking about the fact that this was the first meal she was making as a wife.
She shaped the dough into rough rounds and placed them on a baking sheet she found hanging on the wall, then slid them into the cookstove. The heat hit her face, and she stepped back, wiping sweat from her forehead with the back of her hand.
The cabin was warm now. Too warm. Between the cookstove and the residual heat from the day, she could feel her dress sticking to her back, her collar choking her again.
She glanced over at Bucky. Still asleep, his chest rising and falling in a steady rhythm that suggested the fever had broken, at least for now.
She unbuttoned the top two buttons of her collar -not as many as last night, but enough to breathe- and returned to her work.
----
The smell must have woken him.
She heard movement behind her and turned to see him sitting up, one hand pressed to his temple, the other braced against the mattress. His eyes were clearer than they'd been this morning, more focused, though he still looked exhausted.
"You're awake," she said, unnecessarily.
He blinked at her, taking in the cleaned table, the lack of dishes piled in the basin, the smell of baking bread filling the cabin.
"You've been busy," he said, his voice rough from sleep.
"I needed something to do." She turned back to the stove, checking on the biscuits. Almost done. "And you needed to rest."
She heard him stand, heard the creak of the floorboards as he moved. When she glanced over her shoulder, he was at the water bucket, drinking straight from the ladle with the desperation of someone who'd gone too long without.
He drank three full ladles before he stopped, water dripping down his chin into his beard. Then he seemed to notice himself -the state he was in- and grimaced.
"I need to clean up," he said, more to himself than to her. "I must smell like a barn."
She felt heat creep up her neck and gestured vaguely toward a tin tub leaned against a wall, without looking directly at him. "I could... heat some water. If you'd like."
There was a pause. She could feel him looking at her, could sense his hesitation.
"That'd be... appreciated," he said finally. "But I can carry the water myself. You've done enough."
"You're still weak-"
"I can manage some pots of hot water." That same stubborn pride from earlier, the need to prove he wasn't completely helpless.
She didn't argue. Just moved aside as he refilled the pot and set it back on the stove, then watched as he dragged the tub from the corner into a space near the fireplace.
It took three pots of hot water and two of cold before it was full enough. By the time he'd finished, she could see the strain in his movements, the way he had to stop and catch his breath between trips.
But he'd done it himself, and that seemed to matter to him.
He stood there for a moment, looking at the tub, then at her, clearly trying to figure out the logistics of this situation.
"I'll just..." She grabbed one of the chairs and turned it to face the wall, away from the tub. "I'll sit here. If you need anything, just... say so."
She heard him exhale. "Thank you."
----
She sat with her back rigidly straight, her hands folded in her lap, staring at the rough logs of the wall while behind her she heard the sounds of him undressing.
The rustle of fabric. The clink of his belt buckle hitting the floor. The soft splash of water as he stepped into the tub.
A low groan that made her face burn.
"Jesus, that's good," he muttered, and she could hear the water sloshing as he settled in.
She kept her eyes fixed on a particular knot in the wood in front of her, tracing its whorls with her gaze, trying very hard not to think about the fact that there was a naked man less than ten feet behind her.
Her husband.
Naked.
She pressed her lips together and focused harder on the knot.
For a while, there was just the sound of water, the occasional splash. Then his voice, quieter now.
"I should have sheets."
She blinked, confused. "What?"
"Clean sheets. For the bed." He paused. "You asked earlier. Or- no, you didn't ask, but you're probably wonderin’. They're in the chest. Bottom drawer."
"Oh." She swallowed. "Thank you."
More water sounds. Then: "There's plenty of bedding. Blankets too. A little old but they're clean. I keep up with that laundry, at least. Even if I don't keep up with much else."
She almost smiled at that. Almost.
"The cabin looks better already," he continued. "What you've done with it. I know it ain't... not what you're used to. City house, probably had separate rooms for everythin'. Proper furniture."
"It's just different. Not better or worse. Just... different," she said quietly.
A pause. Then-
"You don't have to lie to make me feel better."
"I'm not lying." She shifted slightly in the chair, careful to keep her back turned. "My family wasn't wealthy, Mr- Bucky. We had a house, yes, but we rented. And after my parents died, it was just my brother and me, and that meant me doing all the chores. This is just... more of it. In a smaller space."
She heard him move in the water, heard the sound of him scrubbing at his skin.
"Still," he said. "It ain't fair. You comin' all this way, expectin' one thing, and gettin'..." He trailed off. "This."
"Life isn't fair." The words came out more bitter than she intended. "I learned that a long time ago."
Silence fell between them, heavy with things unsaid.
"Can I ask you somethin’?" His voice came carefully, like he was testing the weight of the words before speaking them.
Her stomach tightened. "Yes."
"Are you..." He paused. She heard water drip, heard him take a breath. "Frightened? Of me?"
The question caught her off guard. She opened her mouth, closed it, tried to find the truth in the tangle of emotions she'd been carrying since yesterday.
"I don't know," she admitted finally. "A little, maybe. Not because I think you'll hurt me, but because... I don't know you. And now we're married, and you have every right to-" She stopped, heat flooding her face.
"To consummate the marriage," he finished for her, his voice quiet.
She couldn't speak, so she just nodded.
More water sounds. "I'm not goin’ to touch you tonight."
Her breath caught. "You're not?"
"No." He murmured. "You're exhausted. From the journey, from everythin' that happened, from puttin' this place in order. And I'm sick. Even if it's better than it was. That ain't..." He paused. "That ain't how I want that to happen. When it happens."
When. Not if.
"But it will," she said softly. Not a question.
"Yes." He didn't lie to her, didn't try to soften it. "Eventually. That's part of what marriage is. I won't apologize for wantin’ that with my wife. But not tonight. And not until you're ready. Or as ready as you can be."
She sat very still, processing his words. The directness of them. The honesty.
"Thank you," she whispered.
"Don't thank me for basic decency." There was something almost harsh in his voice. "You've had a shit hand dealt to you these past two days. I'm not gonna make it worse by-" He stopped. Took a breath. "I made vows today. To protect you. Provide for you. I take those seriously, even if everythin’ else about this situation is fucked."
Despite everything, she almost smiled at the curse.
Behind her, she heard him stand, water slicing off his body. She kept her eyes fixed forward, even as every instinct screamed to turn around, to look, just once-
No.
She pressed her palms against her thighs and didn't move.
"I'm gettin’ out now," he said. "I'll be decent in a minute."
She heard his footsteps, wet on the wooden floor. Heard the rustle of fabric as he dried himself, as he dressed.
"Alright," he said finally. "You can turn around."
She did, slowly.
He was dressed in clean clothes. Trousers and a simple shirt, his hair still damp and pushed back from his face. He looked better. Still tired, still pale, but more like a man and less like someone on the verge of collapse.
Their eyes met, and something passed between them. An understanding, maybe. Or just the acknowledgment of what lay ahead.
"The biscuits are probably ready," she said, breaking the moment. "If you're hungry."
"Starving." He moved toward the table, and she noticed he was steadier on his feet than before. "Haven't eaten since yesterday mornin’."
She pulled the biscuits from the oven -golden and imperfect but edible- and set them on the table between them.
They ate in silence. Not exactly uncomfortable but weighted with awareness. Of each other. Of the single bed against the wall. Of the darkness gathering outside the windows.
Of what came next.
----
He hadn't realized how bad it had gotten until he saw it through her eyes.
Or rather, until he saw what she'd done with the place in just a few hours.
Bucky sat at the table, a biscuit halfway to his mouth, and just... looked at his cabin for the first time in God knew how long.
The floor was clean. Actually clean, not just swept when something sticky got tracked in clean. The table under his hands was smooth, wiped down, the wood grain visible again instead of hiding under a layer of grime and sawdust. The basin by the counter was empty -completely empty- the dishes stacked neatly on the shelf above it.
Even the fireplace looked better. She must have swept out the ash while he was sleeping.
It was still sparse. Still rough. But it looked like a home instead of a place where a man collapsed at the end of the day, too tired to care about anything beyond food and sleep.
And the biscuits.
Jesus Christ, the biscuits.
They were simple, just flour, water, and salt, nothing fancy. But they were warm and soft and tasted like something a person made instead of something that came out of a tin. He'd already eaten three and was eyeing a fourth.
She'd done this with almost nothing. No eggs, no butter, no milk. Just the pathetic supplies he kept on hand because cooking felt like a chore he could barely muster the energy for after a twelve-hour day in the woods.
What could she make if he actually gave her something to work with?
The thought came unbidden, followed immediately by a plan already forming in his head. Tomorrow he'd go into town. Get proper supplies. Eggs. Butter. Maybe some bacon. Whatever she needed to turn this place into something that didn't feel like camping.
He took another bite and let himself watch her across the table.
She looked exhausted.
There were dark circles under her eyes. Those strange, beautiful mismatched eyes that he still couldn't quite get used to, not because they bothered him but because they were so striking. Her hair was falling out of its pins again, wisps sticking to her temples and the back of her neck. And that dress-
That fucking dress.
It was made for sitting in parlors and taking tea, not for scrubbing floors and hauling water and cooking over a hot stove. He could see the damp patches under her arms, at the small of her back where the fabric clung. The high collar had to be choking her, especially in the heat of the cabin.
She caught him looking and quickly glanced down at her plate.
"You should bathe," he said.
Her eyes snapped back to his, wide and startled.
"I- what?"
"You should bathe," he repeated, gesturing vaguely at her. "You've been workin’ all afternoon in that dress. You must be..." He searched for a word that wouldn't embarrass her further. "Uncomfortable."
She opened her mouth, clearly about to refuse, then closed it again. He could see her considering it, weighing the desire for comfort against the awkwardness of the situation.
"The water I used is filthy," he added. "I'll need to change it out anyway. Might as well heat fresh for you."
"I don't want to be more trouble-"
"You're not trouble." He said it firmly, meeting her eyes. "You've done more for this place in one afternoon than I've done in a month. Least I can do is heat you some clean water."
She bit her lip, and he could see her wavering.
"You need it," he said, softer now. "I can tell."
That seemed to decide her. She nodded, just once, quick and uncertain.
"Alright. Thank you."
----
It took him longer than it should have to haul out the dirty water and refill the tub.
The fever had broken, but his body still felt like it had been trampled by a logging team. Every muscle ached, and his head throbbed dully with each movement. But he kept at it, pot by pot, until the tub was full again and steam rose gently from the surface.
She'd been sitting at the table the whole time, her hands folded in her lap, watching him work with an expression he couldn't quite read. Guilt, maybe. Or just exhaustion.
"It's ready," he said, wiping his hands on his trousers.
She stood slowly, as if her body were protesting the movement, and walked toward the tub. Then stopped. Looked at it. Looked at him.
The realization of what came next seemed to hit her all at once.
She had to undress.
He saw her hands twist together in front of her.
"I'll turn around," he said quickly. "Same as you did for me. Jus’... let me know if you need anything."
He moved to the chair she'd used earlier, the one facing the wall, and sat down heavily. Behind him, he heard nothing for a long moment. Then, finally, the soft rustle of fabric.
Buttons being undone. Skirts being loosened.
He stared at the wall and tried very hard not to think about what was happening behind him.
Then he heard it.
A frustrated sound, half grunt, half whimper. Followed by more rustling. Then what sounded distinctly like swearing under her breath.
"Everythin’ alright?" he asked, careful to keep his voice neutral.
"Fine," she said, but it came out strangled. "It's just- the damn corset. I can't reach-"
He closed his eyes. Of course. The laces would be in the back. And after wearing it all day, traveling in it, working in it, they'd be pulled tight and probably knotted.
"I can help," he offered, still not turning around. "If you need it."
Silence. Heavy and charged.
"I-" Her voice was small. "You said you wouldn't-"
"I said I wouldn't touch you that way tonight," he corrected gently. "This is different. You need help with your laces. That's all."
More silence. He could practically hear her thinking, weighing her options. Modesty versus the desperate need to breathe properly.
"Alright," she whispered finally. "Please."
He stood, turned slowly.
She had her back to him, her dress already unfastened and hanging open, the corset visible beneath. Her chemise was damp with sweat, clinging to her skin, and he could see the rigid lines of the boning through the fabric. Her hair was falling down now, pinned haphazardly, exposing the nape of her neck.
He took a breath and stepped closer.
"Just the laces," he said quietly. "Nothin’ else."
"I know." But her voice shook slightly.
He reached for the laces, his fingers finding the knot at the bottom and worked at it carefully, trying not to touch more of her than necessary, but it was impossible to avoid completely. His knuckles brushed against her back through the thin chemise. He could feel the heat of her skin, could smell that faint lavender scent mixed with honest sweat.
The knot came loose.
"There," he murmured, close enough now that his breath probably stirred the loose strands of hair at her neck. "That should do it."
He started pulling the laces free, working his way up her back. With each pull, he felt the corset loosen, felt her take deeper breaths as the pressure eased.
"Better?" he asked, his voice rougher than he intended.
"Yes." It came out barely audible. "Thank you."
His fingers reached the top of the laces, and he stepped back quickly, putting distance between them before he could do something stupid like let his hands linger on her shoulders.
"You're welcome," he managed, then turned and walked back to the chair. Sat down. Faced the wall again.
Behind him, he heard the corset hit the floor with a soft thud, heard her sigh of relief.
Then the rustle of more fabric. The chemise, probably. The drawers.
The splash of water as she stepped into the tub.
And then, quietly, almost too quiet to hear: "Oh, God."
He smiled despite himself. He'd made that exact same sound.
----
She didn't take long. Maybe she was too tired, or too aware of him sitting there, or maybe the water cooled faster than she wanted. But within ten minutes, he heard her stand, heard water streaming off her body.
"I'm getting out," she said.
"Take your time."
He heard her moving around, probably drying herself with one of the towels he'd left near the tub. Then footsteps across the floor -soft, barefoot- heading toward her trunk.
The sound of the lid opening. Fabric rustling as she searched through her belongings.
He kept his eyes fixed on the wall, tracing the same knot in the wood he'd been staring at for what felt like hours now.
"You can turn around now," she said finally, her voice quiet.
He did.
She was standing by her trunk, and for a moment, his brain stopped working entirely.
The nightgown was modest; he could see that objectively. Simple white linen, long-sleeved, high-necked. The kind of thing any respectable woman would wear to bed. Nothing scandalous about it.
Except it only reached just below her knees.
He wasn't a boy. He'd seen women before, more of them than he cared to admit. And, being up here in White Creek, the soiled doves at the saloon would show a man a good time for the right price, and he'd been lonely enough, desperate enough, to take them up on it more than once.
But this was different.
This was his wife. Standing in his cabin in nothing but a nightgown, her hair loose around her shoulders, looking at him with those mismatched eyes that were equal parts nervous and exhausted.
And he couldn't look away.
He dragged his gaze up, forcing himself to focus on her face instead, and found her watching him with wide eyes, her arms wrapped around herself like she was trying to make herself smaller.
"It's all I have," she said quickly, defensively. "I didn't pack for- I mean, I wasn't expecting getting ma-"
"It's fine," he managed, his voice coming out rougher than intended. He cleared his throat. "It's fine. You should... you should get some sleep."
He moved toward the bed, gesturing for her to go first.
She hesitated, looking between him and the bed against the wall like she was trying to solve a complicated problem.
"If you get in first, you'll be warmer. Away from the door," he explained, trying to keep his voice steady and practical. "And I won't have to climb over you if I need to get up in the night."
The logic was sound. Practical. Had nothing to do with the fact that having her between him and the wall meant she'd be protected, shielded, safer.
She nodded slowly and moved toward the bed. He caught that lavender scent again, mixing with the clean smell of soap.
She climbed onto the mattress carefully, moving all the way to the wall side, and tucked herself under the blankets with quick, nervous movements. Then she lay there, rigid as a board, staring up at the ceiling.
He took a breath and followed, settling onto his side of the bed with considerably less grace. His body protested every movement, the fever and exhaustion catching up with him all at once now that he was horizontal.
The mattress dipped under his weight, and he felt her tense beside him.
They lay there in the darkness -he hadn't bothered lighting a lamp- both staring up at the rough wooden beams of the ceiling, carefully not touching despite being mere inches apart.
"Bucky?" Her voice was small in the darkness.
"Yeah?"
"Thank you. For today. For... everything."
He turned his head slightly, could just make out her profile in the dim light from the dying fire.
"You don't need to thank me," he said quietly. "We're in this together now. For better or worse, right? That's what we promised."
She was quiet for a moment. Then: "Right."
He could feel the heat of her body next to his, could hear her breathing, too quick, too shallow. Nervous.
"Try to sleep," he said gently. "You're safe. I promise."
Another pause. Then, so quietly he almost missed it: "I know."
And somehow, despite everything, despite the strangeness of having another person in his bed, despite his aching body and the exhaustion, despite the absolute insanity of the past twenty-four hours, he believed her.
She trusted him. At least enough to close her eyes in the darkness next to him.
It was a start.
----
He woke sometime in the night to find her pressed against his side.
She was still asleep, her breathing deep and even now, the tension finally gone from her body. At some point, she must have rolled toward him, seeking warmth in the cool night air.
Her head rested against his shoulder, one hand lying on his chest. He could feel the weight of her leg thrown over his, the soft fabric of her nightgown bunched up slightly where it had ridden up in her sleep.
He should move, probably.
But he was exhausted. And it felt good -God, it felt good- not to be alone in this bed. To have a warm body next to his, soft and smelling of soap and lavender instead of sawdust and sweat. To have someone who was his.
He closed his eyes and, instead of pulling away, let himself shift slightly closer, deliberately curving his arm around her, drawing her closer against his side. She made a small sound in her sleep -not quite a sigh, not quite a hum- and settled more fully against him.
He'd told her he wouldn't consummate their marriage tonight, and he wouldn't. But this was different. This was getting used to each other. Learning the shape and weight of another person in bed. Small intimacies that would make the larger ones less frightening when the time came.
For now, this was enough.
He tightened his arm slightly around her and let himself fall back asleep.
----
She woke to warmth.
That was the first thing she registered. Warmth all along her side, her front, surrounding her in a way that felt foreign and yet not unpleasant.
The second thing was that she wasn't alone.
Memory came flooding back. The cabin. The marriage. The bed.
Bucky.
She opened her eyes slowly, carefully, trying not to move. Early morning light filtered through the bare windows, gray and soft, casting everything in muted tones.
They were close. Much closer than they'd been when they'd gone to sleep.
Her head was pillowed on his shoulder, her hand splayed across his chest where she could feel the steady rise and fall of his breathing. One of his arms was wrapped around her, holding her against him with a possessiveness that should have alarmed her but somehow didn't.
His other arm was flung above his head, relaxed in sleep.
And she could smell him. Clean, from the bath last night, but underneath that was something else. Something masculine and warm that she couldn't quite name but that made her acutely aware of every point where their bodies touched.
She should extract herself carefully from the embrace before he woke up and found them tangled together like this.
But she didn't.
Instead, she tilted her head just slightly -barely enough to shift her position- and let herself look at him in a way she hadn't been able to since they'd met.
He was handsome. She'd known that already, abstractly, but seeing him like this -relaxed, unguarded, his face softened by sleep- it struck her differently.
The harsh angles of his jaw were still there, visible even through the beard he'd need to trim soon. But his mouth was relaxed, slightly parted, and there was something almost gentle about the curve of his lips.
He looked younger like this. Not quite as worn down by whatever weight he carried during his waking hours.
Though there were lines at the corners of his eyes, faint but permanent, the kind that came from squinting against sun and wind and long days of physical labor. They didn't disappear even in sleep, etched into his skin like a map of the life he'd lived out here.
And there -on his left cheek, just near his sideburn- a small constellation of freckles she hadn't noticed before. Barely visible unless you were this close, but distinct once you saw them.
This man, this stranger who'd shown her more kindness in two days than her own brother had in years, was her husband now.
She started to shift slightly, intending to ease away from him before he woke, not wanting to make things awkward-
And froze.
There was something hard pressing against her thigh.
She went completely still, her breath catching, her mind trying to process what she was feeling.
It took a few seconds -too many seconds- for her to understand what it was.
Heat flooded her face so fast she felt dizzy with it.
She knew what it was, theoretically. She wasn't completely ignorant. Women talked, even if they weren't supposed to. Whispered conversations, giggled innuendos, the kind of things you overheard but pretended you hadn't.
But knowing about something in abstract and feeling it pressed against your leg were two entirely different things.
She didn't move. Couldn't move. Just lay there rigid and burning with embarrassment, her heart pounding so loud she was certain it would wake him.
She squeezed her eyes shut and tried to breathe normally, tried to think of anything else, but her entire awareness had narrowed to that single point of contact and the horrifying realization that this was her life now.
This would be her life every morning.
Waking up next to a man. Dealing with... this.
And eventually -soon, probably- dealing with much more than this.
Her face burned hotter.
----
She needed to move.
Not just because of the mortifying situation with his... with that. But because her bladder was making itself known with increasing urgency.
The outhouse. She needed to get to the outhouse.
But she was trapped between the wall and Bucky's solid, sleeping form. And there was no way -absolutely no way- she was going to climb over him. Not with the state he was in. Not with her nightgown and his...
No.
She looked down toward the foot of the bed. It wasn't far. Maybe if she could just carefully work her way, she could get to the end of the mattress and climb over the footboard without waking him.
It was a plan. Not a good plan, but a plan.
She began to move, slowly extracting herself from his arm with painstaking care. He made a small sound in his sleep but didn't wake, just shifted slightly and settled back into the mattress.
So far, so good.
She started to crawl, trying to distribute her weight evenly so the bed wouldn't creak too much. The mattress dipped and swayed with each movement, the ropes supporting it protesting quietly.
Almost there. Just a few more inches and she'd be able to swing her legs over the ornate iron footboard-
The bed gave a particularly loud creak.
Behind her, she heard him inhale sharply, the sound of someone surfacing from deep sleep.
No, no, no-
She was halfway over the footboard now, one leg already swung over, her nightgown bunched up her thigh as she straddled the iron rail, trying to maneuver her other leg without falling.
"What are you doin’?"
His voice was rough with sleep, confused, and she froze like a rabbit caught in a snare.
Slowly -because there was no point pretending he hadn't seen her- she turned her head to look at him over her shoulder.
He was propped up on one elbow, squinting at her through half-open eyes, his hair sticking up at odd angles. His gaze traveled from her face down to her position: straddling the footboard, nightgown rucked up, one bare leg dangling off the side of the bed.
His eyebrows rose.
"I-" Her face was on fire. "I needed to- I didn't want to wake you, so I thought I could just-"
She gestured vaguely at the footboard, at her current ridiculous position, and immediately regretted it because it only drew more attention to the fact that she was essentially straddling a piece of furniture in front of him.
He blinked at her, still processing.
Then, to her absolute mortification, the corner of his mouth twitched.
"You coulda just climbed over me," he said, his voice still gravelly but with an edge of amusement creeping in. "Would've been easier than... whatever this is."
"I didn't want to disturb you," she said stiffly, trying to maintain some dignity despite her position. "You're still recovering."
"Uh-huh." He was definitely fighting a smile now. "And how's that workin’ out for you?"
She narrowed her eyes at him, then deliberately swung her other leg over the footboard and dropped down to the floor with as much grace as she could muster.
Which wasn't much.
"Fine," she said, tugging her nightgown back down and trying to ignore the way he was watching her with barely concealed interest. "It worked perfectly fine."
"I can see that." He sat up fully now, running a hand through his disheveled hair. Then his expression shifted slightly, and he glanced down at himself quickly, then back at her, and she saw the faintest hint of color creep into his cheeks.
The awkwardness came crashing back.
"I need to-" She gestured toward the door. "The outhouse."
"Right." He cleared his throat.
----
The door closed behind her, and Bucky let out a long breath.
He sat there for a moment, running both hands over his face, trying to wake up properly and also trying very hard not to think about the image now burned into his brain: his wife straddling the footboard of his bed, her nightgown hiked up, naked legs on display-
He dropped his hands and looked down at himself.
Yeah. Still there.
He stood carefully and adjusted himself with a slight hiss. It wasn't comfortable, but it also wasn't going anywhere fast, and he sure as hell wasn't going to do anything about it. It would fade on its own eventually. It always did.
And she was going to have to get used to it anyway.
That was just a fact of marriage, of sharing a bed with a man. More mornings than not, she'd wake up to find him like this. Better to act casual about it now, let her see it wasn't something to be afraid of or ashamed of. Just... part of things.
Part of getting used to each other.
He moved to the chest of drawers and pulled out a clean shirt, shrugging it on and fastening the buttons.
He paused, considering. Should he buy a nightshirt? That was the proper thing now that he was married, wasn't it? Decent men wore nightshirts to bed when they had wives.
Then again... he'd been sleeping in just his drawers -or less- for years now. The idea of wrapping himself up in yards of fabric just seemed ridiculous. And again… she needed to get used to him. Covering up with some foolish nightshirt wasn't going to help with that.
He dragged his fingers through his hair, trying to tame it into something resembling order.
The small mirror -the only one he owned- was inside the bottom drawer. He pulled it out and propped it on the table, angling it to catch the morning light from the window.
His beard had gotten scraggly. Too long and unkempt. If he was going to have a wife now, he should probably look less like a mountain man and more like someone who gave a damn about his appearance.
He gathered his shaving supplies: the straight razor, the soap, the small brush, the basin of water he'd need to heat-
No. The water from last night's baths was still in the tub. Cooled, but clean enough for this.
He was nearly done -just cleaning up along his jaw- when he heard the door open behind him.
He didn't turn, just kept his eyes on the mirror, on the careful work of the blade.
But he could see her reflection as she stepped inside, wrapped in a thick shawl she must have pulled from her trunk before going out. It covered her from shoulders to knees, but underneath he could still see her bare feet against the wooden floor.
And her legs. Christ, even mostly covered by the shawl, he could see the shape of them as she moved.
He dragged his gaze back to the mirror, to his own reflection, and focused very deliberately on the last few strokes of the razor.
She stood there by the door for a moment, clearly unsure what to do with herself.
He cleared his throat, rinsing the blade in the basin.
"Sleep alright?" he asked, keeping his tone casual, conversational. Like they hadn't woken up tangled together. Like she hadn't just witnessed his morning... situation. Like this was all perfectly normal.
Which, he supposed, it would have to become.
He turned slightly to look at her properly. The beard was nearly gone now, just the last few patches along his jaw remaining.
“Yes," she managed, her voice coming out smaller than she intended. "Fine. Thank you."
She was looking at him, in a way that suggested what she saw wasn't displeasing to her.
He almost said something. Almost made some comment about liking what she saw, or asking if the beard had been hiding something worth keeping, but he bit it back.
Too soon.
He turned back to the mirror instead, finishing the last few strokes.
"I'm feelin’ better," he said, wiping the remaining soap from his face with a cloth. "Fever's gone. Still tired, but nothin’ like yesterday."
"That's good," she said quietly.
He set down the razor and turned to face her fully. "I need to return the wagon today. The one Collins lent us. I'll take my horse, tie him to the back so I have a way to get home."
She nodded, not sure what else to say.
“And I'm gonna pick up some provisions while I'm in town," he continued. "Whatever I can carry in the saddlebags. Proper food. Eggs, bacon, and some vegetables. Things you can actually cook with instead of..." He gestured vaguely at the sparse pantry. "Whatever the hell I've been livin' on."
He saw something flicker across her face. Relief, maybe.
"Then maybe this afternoon, or tomorrow if I'm back too late, we can go into town together in the cart." He kept his voice even, casual. "You can pick out whatever else you think we need. For the house. Clothes for you, if you need them. Whatever you want."
The change was immediate.
Her whole body went tense, her shoulders drawing up. She pulled that shawl tighter around herself like it could protect her from what he was suggesting.
Shit.
He should have anticipated that. Should have remembered that she'd be walking into a town that had already decided what kind of woman she was based on Mary's breathless account of finding them on the floor together.
"Hey," he said quietly. "I know it's not goin’ to be easy. Walkin’ into town with everyone knowin’. But you're my wife now. Anyone who has somethin’ to say about it can say it to me." And he meant it.
But he could see it didn't help. She just wrapped herself tighter, looking small and uncertain in a way that made something in his chest tighten.
"What if..." She paused, her voice thin. "What if they don't want me there? What if the shopkeepers won't serve me, or-"
"They'll serve you." His voice was firm, certain. "You're a paying customer. And more than that, you're a married woman. Barnes' wife. That means something out here."
She didn't look convinced.
And honestly? He couldn't blame her. He didn't know what it was like to have people look at you like you were cursed from birth.
She did.
"I don't..." She swallowed hard, and he hated how small her voice sounded. "I don't know if I can face them. Not yet."
He studied her for a long moment. Wanted to push, to tell her that hiding wouldn't make it better, that she'd have to face them eventually.
But he could see the fear in her eyes. The kind that came from experience, not imagination.
"Alright," he said finally. "We don't have to go today. Or tomorrow.” He paused, knowing he had to say the rest. "But eventually, you're goin’ to have to. You can't hide out here forever."
"I know," she whispered. "I just... I need a little time."
He nodded. He could give her that much.
"I'll go alone today. Get the essentials. We'll figure out the rest later."
The relief on her face was immediate, though it was quickly followed by something that looked like guilt.
"Thank you," she managed.
He just nodded and turned back to the basin to finish cleaning up, giving her space to collect herself.
Behind him, he could feel her standing there, wrapped in her shawl, probably thinking she was being a coward.
She wasn't. She was just scared.
But eventually -soon- she'd have to step out of this cabin and face White Creek as his wife.
Whether she was ready or not.
----
She stood there watching him finish at the basin, feeling like the worst kind of coward.
He was being kind. Patient. Understanding in a way she hadn't expected from a man she barely knew.
And she was repaying that kindness by refusing to do the one thing he'd asked of her: to go into town with him and face the people who would be her neighbors, her community, for the rest of her life.
But the thought of it made her chest tight, made it hard to breathe.
She could already imagine it. Walking down the street with him, feeling eyes on her from every direction. The whispers that would start the moment they were out of earshot. Mary's voice, breathy with scandal, telling and retelling the story of what she'd seen.
They were on the floor together. Her dress was half unbuttoned. His shirt off, pants down. And you should have seen the way they looked...
Never mind that it wasn't true. Never mind that nothing had happened, that Bucky had been delirious with fever and she'd been trying to help.
The truth didn't matter. It never had.
What mattered was what people believed. What they wanted to believe.
And they'd want to believe the worst. They always did.
"I should finish dressin’," Bucky said, breaking into her thoughts. He'd finished cleaning up and was drying his face with a towel. "Get the horse ready. Probably won't be back until the afternoon, dependin’ on how long things take in town."
She nodded, not trusting her voice.
He moved past her toward the chest of drawers, pulling out a faded neckerchief. Then he paused, glancing back at her.
"You'll be alright here? By yourself?"
The question surprised her. "Yes. Of course. I'll be fine."
"There's firewood out back if you need it. Well's where you found it yesterday. And..." He hesitated. "Don't open the door for anyone until I come back."
She felt a prickle of apprehension run down her spine.
"Is someone... likely to come?" she asked carefully. "Who usually comes out here?"
He paused in the middle of tying the neckerchief, and she could see him weighing his answer. Deciding how much to tell her.
Finally, he sighed and turned to face her fully.
"I'm gonna be straight with you," he said, his voice level but serious. "There shouldn't be any problems. But everyone in town knows about you by now. About us. And while most of the loggin' crews are decent enough men who, if they want to scratch an itch, go spend their wages on the soiled doves at the saloon..."
He paused, his jaw clenching slightly.
"There might be one or two who get curious. Who think maybe a new woman in town -one they heard spent the night unchaperoned with a man- might be interested in... tryin’ something different than the usual girls."
The words hit her like a bucket of cold water.
They'd think she was... available. Easy. The kind of woman who'd welcome that kind of attention.
Her stomach twisted.
"I'm not sayin’ it'll happen," Bucky continued quickly, seeing her face. "As I said, most of the men around here are decent. They know we’re married now, and they know what that means. But there's always one or two idiots in any group who don't have the sense God gave a mule."
He crossed the space between them in two strides, and before she could react, his hand was under her chin, tilting her face up to meet his eyes.
"That's why I'm tellin’ you, don't open that door for anyone. Not someone with a message, not a friendly neighbor bringin’ pie. No one. You hear me?"
She nodded, unable to speak around the lump in her throat.
"If someone knocks, you don't answer. You don't even go near the door. You stay quiet and wait for them to leave." His eyes were intense, serious in a way that made her chest tight. "And if someone tries to come in anyway, there's a rifle above the door frame. You know how to shoot?"
She shook her head.
"Shit." He released her chin and ran a hand through his hair. "Alright. We'll fix that when I get back. But for today, just... don't open the door. For any reason."
"I won't," she managed, her voice thin. "I promise."
He studied her face for another moment, as if assuring himself she understood the seriousness of what he was saying, then nodded.
"Good."
He finished getting ready in silence, and she stood there feeling the weight of his warning settle over her like a cold blanket.
She'd thought the worst of this situation was the shame. The whispers.
She hadn't considered that some men might see her ruined reputation as an invitation.
Next Chapter
I don't do taglist anymore, please follow @vunblr-archive and turn on the notifications for updates :)
Summary: Three miles from town and a world away from the life she knew, she finds herself relying on a reclusive stranger whose measured distance and iron self-control may not be enough to resist the pull he feels toward her.
Pairing: Thunderbolts!Bucky Barnes x Female Reader
Summary: You try to be quiet so Bucky doesn't hear you.
Word Count: 300
Warnings: Masturbation, longing, very little plot, implied sex, Bucky Barnes (he's a warning, okay?).
A/N: Day 15 of the January Jumble Scribbles Challenge. Prompt: “You’re not as quiet as you think.” ❤️ Not beta read and written on my phone, so any and all mistakes are my own. Divider by the talented @saradika-graphics . Please follow @navybrat817-sideblog for new fics and notifications as I no longer do taglists. Comments, reblogs, feedback are loved and appreciated!
Bucky Barnes had exceptional hearing. You learned that early on when John mocked him in another room and he repeated the words back to him before he put him on his ass. As luck would have it, the super soldier’s bedroom was right next to yours. It had been for months.
And Bucky’s exceptional hearing was the reason why you always moaned his name into your pillow or your hand when you touched yourself.
Like today.
You had your hand in your panties, your cunt dripping wet as you imagined him feasting between your legs. He looked like the kind of man who could eat pussy until you couldn’t see straight. You pictured gripping his hair and making his eyes roll back at your taste, both of you moaning when he swirled his tongue around your clit. He’d be so giving.
So demanding.
You smothered your mouth before you whined, “Bucky…”
He’d make you come all over his face before he split you open on his cock. He’d take you apart over and over. He’d-
“You’re not as quiet as you think.”
Your hand froze, and your eyes went wide when you saw Bucky standing in the doorway. Your heart nearly burst from your chest when he licked his lips and palmed himself through his pants. It had to be a dream. No way was he standing there.
“I…”
Your throat went dry when he strode over and gently took your hand from your panties, your fingers glistening. “Been listening to you for months,” he murmured, bringing them to his mouth and moaning. “I can’t take it anymore.”
You barely recovered from that sight before he leaned down to kiss your lips.
So, no, you weren’t very quiet.
Bucky proved that when the entire floor heard you scream his name.
He'll take care of you. 😌 Love and thanks for reading. ❤️
Pairing: Bucky Barnes x F!Reader and Past Steve Rogers x F!Reader
Words: 4.1k Rating: Mature (No smut)
Tags: Mentions of past cheating and infidelity, pregnancy, angst, foul language, Steve's a dick, Bucky’s a sweetheart
Summary: Your marriage to Steve wasn't perfect but you never thought it would end like this. The man you thought was the love of your life breaks your heart when you find out he's cheating.
Little did you know his best friend Bucky would be there to pick up the pieces and help you believe in love again.
Read Part 1, Part 2, and Part 3 first!
Part 4 of 4 - Karma
Looking at yourself in the mirror you put the finishing touches on your makeup and hair while trying to will away your nervous feelings. But you’re sticking to your guns, you’re going out tonight with Bucky. Specifically going to the same charity banquet that you last attended with Steve the night you caught him with Lydia.
“How’s it going with my best girl?” Bucky calls out from the next room.
“One more minute babe.” You call back with a smile.
This time will be far different from the last time, that’s for sure. This time you’re in a good place, you’re actually happy. Happy about who you’re with, happy you’re about to start a family, happy you got the dream home that you and Bucky wanted. Life is good.
You turn sideways, looking at your swollen pregnant belly in the mirror, rubbing your hands up and down it. You’re amazed you found a formal gown that would fit because you’re due next week. A wider smile appears on your face. “Okay, here we come.” You call out to Bucky.
When you step out of the bathroom you spot Bucky sitting on the edge of the bed patiently waiting for you. His phone goes off but without hesitation he ignores it giving you his full attention. His face lights up when he sees you and he jumps to his feet. “You look gorgeous doll.” He smiles as he strides over to you. He kisses you sweetly while his hands hold your belly. He pauses briefly, his face lighting up a second time, feeling the baby kick against his hand. “Little man agrees. Still, that probably doesn’t mean much coming from me since I always think you look beautiful.”
“It means everything coming from you.” You smile back. Then you straighten out his tie and run your hands down the front of his suit. “You are, as always, extremely handsome.”
“All for you darlin’.” He winks and moves his hands to your face, cupping your cheeks. His face turns more serious. “You know it’s not too late to change your mind about tonight. I can take you out somewhere nice and show up late to this banquet.”
You shake your head. “No I’m good, I promise. But does that mean you’re changing your mind?”
“No of course not. I’m dying to show off my girl. I just know this might be hard for you. I honestly don’t care what anyone thinks about you and me being together. Because at the end of the day, you and I know our truth and that’s all that matters.”
You breathe a sigh of relief at his words. It’s been kept secret from all Shield employees that you and Bucky are together. You’ve stayed away from his work, aside from the one urgent bathroom debacle, and work functions not because of Steve, but because you didn’t want to cause Bucky any grief with rumors that would surely spread.
When the subject of this banquet came up Bucky had assumed you wouldn’t want to go for obvious reasons. He’s required to go for work though. So he was just going to show up make his rounds and then leave. But you surprised him, you told him you wanted to go. You’re done hiding, you want to be wherever he is.
You wrap your arms around his middle and smile at his handsome face. “Good. Because I plan to walk into that party with my head held high knowing that I’m in a much better place than the last time I was there because of you.”
He smiles back at you, then leans down pressing his lips to yours for a loving kiss. “Looks like its our coming out party then.”
“Guess so.” You chuckle, then you feel the baby kick again. “Seems he’s in agreement too.”
Bucky ever the gentleman, helps you get your coat on. He holds the door open for you. He holds your hand and helps you down the stairs. Opens the car door for you, helping you and your pregnant belly get inside. All the little things some people take for granted, but you surely don’t.
When he gets inside the car he holds your hand as he drives. It’s an hour drive from your new home to the city. Conversation with Bucky comes so easily that your hour drive feels like minutes. Whereas a short drive with Steve felt like hours of painful silence.
You were shocked when Bucky told you Steve signed off on the request allowing him to work from home. Seems a small part of him still has a heart. Now Bucky gets to be home with you and the baby and he won’t miss a single moment of your son growing up.
When Bucky pulls up to Stark Tower he gives your hand a squeeze. “If at any point you want to leave, just say the word doll.”
“I will, I promise.”
“Alright, let’s do this.” He smiles, climbing out of the car, trading places with the valet. Then he opens your door and helps you step out. He takes your hand and laces your fingers together as you walk inside the building together. This time your smile isn’t forced or faked, it's genuine.
Bucky walks around saying his hellos but he still keeps his attention primarily on you. You see different reactions on people's faces as they see you hand in hand with Bucky. Some are shocked, some are confused, and some even appear to be happy for you. They all seem surprised by your pregnant belly though.
You’re not there very long before Tony Stark approaches you. He gives you a forced smile as he leans in trying to keep his words private. “Wouldn’t you agree it’s a slap to the face of my dear friend Steve, you showing up here with Barnes, on top of being pregnant with his baby?”
Bucky’s posture gets tense, he squeezes your hand, but you squeeze it back. “It’s okay Bucky.” You whisper to him. Then look back at Tony. “Well I know I certainly felt the slap to the face when I found out you pimped out your office to my so-called husband and his mistress, essentially encouraging his extramarital affair. I’ve kept that to myself all this time. So, if you want to look down on me, I promise you I can return the favor.”
Tony’s jaw drops. He looks around to see if anyone nearby heard you. “I...I...uh...” He stutters but he can’t seem to muster up an excuse or even a convincing lie on the spot.
“Good talk Tony. Nice seeing you.” You smirk and pull Bucky along with you as you walk away.
Bucky doesn’t even wait until he’s out of earshot before he bursts into laughter. “That was…awesome! Is it weird that I find it sexy how you can be sweet yet threatening at the same time?”
“See nothing I couldn’t handle.” You laugh back. “That kind of felt good too.”
Bucky not shy of public displays of affection pulls you to him for a searing kiss. Happy you’re not afraid to stand up for yourself. “You up for a little dancing?”
“Always. You know I love dancing with you.”
When Bucky dances with you it’s like the world around you disappears. The way he looks at you, the way he holds you, he has so much love in him he just makes your worries melt away. He looks at you like you’re the center of his universe and nothing else around him matters.
So neither of you notices when Steve walks in with a young woman on his arm. Nor the look he gives either of you. He looks as if he was just punched in the gut.
Neither of you notice everyone in the ballroom alternating between watching you and Bucky, to watching Steve and his date.
“I love you so much.” You whisper to Bucky.
He rests his forehead against yours. “I love you too.”
When the song comes to an end you start to notice the pain in your feet. Bucky sees the wince on your face and ever the mind reader he wraps his arm around you and asks if you need to sit for a while. When you both look up to find a good place to sit the two of you finally notice all of the eyes that are on you. “Well this is awkward.” You mutter.
Just as Bucky is about to suggest to maybe leave he sees a friendly face waving you over to their table. “Uh…I guess Clint wants us to join him and his wife. Do you know Clint Barton?”
You roll your eyes playfully. “Do I know Clint? Of course I do.”
When you approach the table, you see Laura Barton and realize she’s in a similar situation as you. She’s sitting with her feet propped up in Clint’s lap, and rubbing her swollen belly. “You let him knock you up again huh?” You tease.
She chuckles at you. “Third and final time. I wish I would have known you were pregnant though, then I could have had a pregnant gal pal to go through this with.”
Bucky pulls a chair out for you and helps you sit down before taking a seat next to you. “Yeah well, I’ve been kind of avoiding Shield for obvious reasons.”
Clint gives you a kind smile and gestures toward the ballroom. “People are surprised, but I promise it’s not in a bad way. It’s so clear that you are actually happy. It didn’t go unnoticed by most people that Steve was bringing you down. Your smiles were clearly forced for that last year or two. So, I’m glad I did the right thing and made that call.”
“Call? What call?” You frown.
Clint looks over at Bucky with a smirk on his face even though you were the one that asked the question, and not Bucky. “Remember the sudden call you got to go to Steve’s office which led you to catching him doing something he shouldn’t have been?”
Bucky’s jaw drops he smacks his palm on the table. “That was you? You’re the one that tipped me off?”
“Yep that was me. Everyone underestimates the security guard.” He chuckles. “Seriously…I see everything.”
“Why…I mean, what made you do that…?” You question, feeling more shocked than Bucky. You never knew someone prompted Bucky to go into Steve’s office the day he caught him with Lydia.
Clint looks at you thoughtfully. “(Y/N) you are the kindest person I know. Steve walks through everyone like we should be grateful for breathing the same air as him. But you, even though you didn’t work at Shield you still took the time to know everyone’s name. You remembered not just my wife’s name but my kids. You’d go out of your way to get to know people. You even gave me some really good advice one day. You were the only one who noticed I was having an off day. I’d had a silly fight with Laura that morning. You told me to buy her some flowers, go home tell her I loved her, and to shut my mouth and listen to what she had to say…”
“Great advice by the way.” Laura adds.
Clint rolls his eyes playfully at his wife. “The point is you’re a good person and I wanted to pay it forward. But I thought it would be weird hearing something so personal and sensitive like that come from me. But I knew you’d listen to Bucky who had obviously been swooning over you for years. So I tipped him off. Seemed the best way to go about it.”
“I wasn’t swooning.” Bucky mumbles.
“You had the heart eyes and everything man. Still do.” Clint laughs
You ignore the side comments and look at Clint feeling like you want to cry. You didn’t realize there were other people that cared so much. “Thank you, Clint. I mean it. That means a lot to me that you cared enough to stick your neck out like that.” Then you look over at Laura who looks like she wants to hug you but you’re both too pregnant to get up right now. “Don’t let this one get away. You got a good one.”
“I know, that’s why I let him knock me up a third time.” She chuckles. Then she points toward Bucky. “Same goes for you though. You got yourself a keeper this time.”
You give Bucky a watery smile. He’s already been rubbing your swollen feet underneath the table without you even having to ask. “I did. I really did.”
The four of you lighten up the conversation after that. You and Laura trade numbers knowing you’re going to need a friend with baby experience. You and Bucky have zero experience with babies so you’re going to be winging it. Plus you’ve always liked the Barton family.
A while later a body takes up the empty chair next to you. Clint narrows his eyes. “Are you lost Lydia?” He says accusingly.
“Lydia?!” Laura gasps having obviously heard the name.
You hold your hands out to halt where this might be headed. “No it’s alright. Lydia and I…we’re not friends but I guess you could say we came to an understanding.” Then you flick your eyes toward Lydia. “So what exactly are you doing here…” Your voice trails off when you see the Cheshire cat grin on her face. That can’t be good. “Oh no, what did you do?”
Lydia shrugs her shoulders. “Well I took your advice. I thought long and hard about what I wanted to do. I decided I could live with my decision and finally made up my mind.”
“Uh huh.” You sigh, waiting for the other shoe to drop.
“I didn’t sign the NDA or take his dirty money. But I decided to do us both a favor and let him run his own name through the mud. And all I had to do was make one phone call.” She grins.
“Oh no, this can’t be good.” Bucky says, tapping you on the hand to get your attention.
You follow his line of sight and see Steve and who you assume is his date. But then you notice a second young woman making a bee line straight toward him with fire in her eyes. “What am I looking at? Who are these girls?” You ask Bucky while watching the sight unfold.
“So the one with Steve is Chastity, his current secretary. The one that looks ready to bring out her claws is Lacey, his previous secretary that Lydia caught him with, who I think he was still seeing.”
The slap Steve takes to the face from Lacey echoes throughout the entire ballroom. As does the second slap from Chastity once she realizes Steve’s been seeing both of them. You could practically hear a pin drop from how suddenly everyone went quiet. Internally you’re hoping Tony is watching. That’s what a slap to the face looks like.
Then you hear the sound of high heels thudding across the floor, and you realize Lydia is no longer sitting next to you. She storms up to Steve giving him his third slap of the evening. “You womanizing pig! Now everyone can see you for what you are. Once a cheater always a cheater! That’s why your wife left you!”
“Oh god.” You groan covering your face. You don’t want to be part of this circus. “Babe…think we can make a quick getaway without drawing attention?” You ask Bucky, your words muffled since your face is still covered.
“Uh…” Bucky mumbles, while looking around for an exit. “I think we’ll have to duck out to the balcony behind us until the coast is clear.”
“I had nothing to do with this.” You whisper to Clint and Laura feeling completely embarrassed. They just wave you off because they already knew that. “Okay, well nice seeing you.” You wave awkwardly.
Bucky then grabs your hand and helps you up while guiding you out to the balcony. When the cold air hits you it causes you to shiver. Bucky immediately takes his suit jacket off and drapes it over your shoulders. Suddenly he tips his head back and chuckles.
“What?” You frown your mind still reeling from what’s going on inside.
He gestures to the balcony and shakes his head with another chuckle. “We’re right back where we started the last time we were here.”
You gasp when you realize what he’s talking about, then you start laughing yourself. “Oh my god we are.” You step closer to him with a smirk, putting your hands on his chest. “But you weren’t lying that night. You’ve done nothing but love me. So, this time I’ll let you kiss me out here.”
“Gotta make up for that lost kiss then don’t we?” He smiles, leaning down and pressing his lips to yours. The kiss starts out slow. But you easily get lost in the kiss and melt into him. He goes to deepen the kiss but a voice rudely interrupts the sweet moment.
“Oh come on, seriously?!”
You and Bucky unlock lips and turn your heads in the direction of the voice and see Steve. He turns away and leans over the balcony. “You two wanna get your hits in too while everyone is at it?”
You take in a deep breath a sigh. You look up at Bucky. “Let me talk to him for a minute?”
Bucky side eyes Steve not liking the idea but he of course trusts you. “I’ll be waiting right inside, okay?”
“Thank you.” You whisper, giving him a quick kiss before he walks away. Then you slowly turn and approach Steve, moving to stand beside him. “What Lydia just pulled…I swear I had nothing to do with that.”
Steve nods his head, still not looking at you. “I know. You and your big heart. I know even after everything if you had something to get off your chest you’d talk to me alone not make a scene.”
“Even though they all have the right to be pissed at you, that’s what happens when you decide to start messing around with younger girls, they’re immature.” You retort, unable to help yourself.
He lets out a humorless chuckle. “Can’t argue that. That’s not even the worst part of my day. The board of directors called for a meeting with me tomorrow. Pretty sure they’re going to ask me to step down. Final round of karma I suppose, taking the last thing I had left, my job.”
“Maybe that’s a good thing.”
Steve finally looks at you, and he’s looking at you like you’re crazy. “How? How is that a good thing?”
You shrug your shoulders. “Look I’m not sure what’s gotten into you. But from my point of view that job, Shield, has caused nothing but grief in your life. Maybe starting fresh with a clean slate is what you need. After you pull your head out of your ass.”
He bites his lip, casting his eyes down. “You always were my voice of reason. I just wished I wouldn’t have stopped listening.” He pauses, taking a deep breath before raising his eyes to meet yours again. “I know this probably won’t mean much, but I feel I at least owe you something. I’m sorry. I’m sorry for everything. You didn’t deserve what I put you through.”
“It does mean something.” You give him a small sad smile. “Maybe there’s still hope for you yet.”
A small laugh escapes him in response. Then he watches as you rub your hands up and down your swollen belly. “You used to look at me a certain way, like you had all the love for me in the world. But now, when I see you with Bucky. The way you used to look at me doesn’t even compare to how you look at him. Even though it hurts to watch, it’s good to see you happy. He’ll treat you the way I should have.”
You feel your eyes starting to fill with tears. This is the most open conversation you’ve had with him in a long time. It’s kind of nice, finally laying the past to rest, some closure. “He does, and he makes me very happy. But that just means that you and I weren’t really meant to be. Your person is still out there, you just gotta pull yourself together and go find her.”
Steve nods his head, his own eyes glossy with tears. “I will. Thank you (Y/N).” Then he turns toward the doorway and calls out. “It’s okay Buck, you can come get your girl.”
Bucky not hiding the fact that he was listening steps back on to the balcony and wraps his arms around you. “We’re good?” He questions Steve.
“We’re good.”
“I’m not good.” You squeal as you lean forward holding your stomach when you feel a sharp pain followed by the wetness between your legs. “My water just broke.”
“Oh god, the baby’s coming!” Bucky gasps.
Steve’s eyes go wide. “I’ll run down and have the valet get your car. I’ll make sure it’s there while you help her down the stairs.” Then he takes off before either of you can respond.
You do eventually make it outside, but Clint ended up coming to help also. Every time a contraction hit you’d squeeze Bucky’s hand with uncontrollable strength he never knew you had. But he’d just grin and bear it knowing the pain you were feeling was worse.
Steve true to his word made sure Bucky’s car was there and ready. Steve and Clint help you in the car as Bucky frantically runs around to hop in the driver’s seat. “Thank you. Both of you.” You say to both men.
Steve gives you what looks to be a bittersweet smile. Then he glances over at Bucky. “Take good care of her.” Then he shuts the door, tapping his hand on the top signaling for Bucky to leave.
“I will.” Bucky says even though Steve is already gone. Then to your surprise Bucky holds your hand even though he’s sure you’re going to break his fingers with the next contraction. “Let’s go meet our son, doll.”
1 Month Later
The sound of soft humming stirs you awake. Slowly blinking your eyes open, in the dim lighting you can see Bucky. He's bouncing your son gently in his arms as he hums softly getting the baby back to sleep. Seeing him with your son always makes your heart swell. He was born to be a father.
“Did we wake you?” Bucky whispers.
“S’alright, I got a couple hours of sleep.” You whisper back.
Bucky walks over to the bed and lays down next to you with little baby James laying on his chest. “He doesn’t want to go back to sleep from the looks of it.” He chuckles quietly.
You lay on your side facing Bucky. Leaning over you give James a kiss on his chubby cheek. Then you give Bucky a kiss. When you pull away you smile at him lovingly. The words swirling in your mind right at the tip of your tongue.
“What’s that look for?” He asks with a curious raised brow.
“Will you marry me?”
Bucky blinks his eyes a few times just staring at you. Like he’s afraid he misheard you. Or maybe he’s dreaming. “Huh?”
You snort out a quiet laugh and lean up on your elbow. “I know you’d never ask me since I’ve already been married once then divorced. I know you’re just happy to be with me. So that’s why I’m asking. Will you marry me?”
A bright smile appears on his face. “Seems you’re good at reading me too. Of course I’ll marry you. I’d roll over there and smother you with kisses but I got a baby on me.”
You smile back at him and scoot closer, crashing your lips against his excitedly. You had no doubt he’d say yes, but that doesn’t make hearing it any less exciting. When you break for air you rest your forehead against his. “I love you so much.”
“I love you more.” He gives you another quick kiss and then chuckles. “So…do I get a ring or what?”
“You are such a dork.” You laugh.
“But I’m you’re dork, forever now.”
“I like the sound of that.” You whisper, wrapping your arm around both of your boys.
Thank you so much for reading! Reblogs and comments are appreciated!
An Archive of Our Own, a project of the Organization for Transformative Works
♡ tags: f!reader, sex clubs, anonymous sex, glory holes, oral sex (m! and f!receiving), masturbation, fingers in mouths, accidental dom!bucky, begging, unsafe sex, pussy/clit slapping, come eating, open ending, possible part two...
♡ word count: 7.4k
♡ synopsis:
You work at a high profile sex club, the kind where tastes are perfectly tailored and privacy is guaranteed...at the steep cost of the membership fee, that is.
Working the glory hole is hardly the most glamorous part of the job. Most times such strict anonymity is less of a kink than it is a mask, a veneer of sensuality for assholes, unfaithful spouses, and people with something to hide.
You don't know his name. You've never seen his face. Sometimes he's consistent like he can't stay away, and other times he disappears for weeks on end. So why can't you get him out of your head?
♡ notes/warnings: i just have a bit of a hc that bucky’s first foray back into sex post-ws would be something where he could stay anonymous and always be in reach of an exit.
anyway! this is not necessarily meant to be a true-to-life depiction of glory holes OR sex work, but for the logistics of this story to work I had to skimp on some accuracy. as per usual, this is all fiction and meant to be consumed as such.
not proof read. enjoy! x
i.
The first time he comes to see you, you’re expecting it to be just like any other night you spend concealed behind a sleek, darkened cubicle wall, a comfortable pillow beneath your knees and an ache in your jaw that you know from experience it’s going to take a day or more to wear off.
It’s one of the less glamorous parts of working at the club, for sure. But lately you’ve enjoyed the privacy of it, the way you can still do your job without having to perform as much.
Not that you don’t still perform in other ways.
When there’s footsteps and a noise cancelled-door clicking shut on the other side, a zipper coming down and a dick popping through the circular cutout in front of your mouth in lieu of a hello, it’s showtime.
The taste of latex isn’t particularly appetizing, but you’ve learned to moan like it’s the best thing you’ve ever tasted. Regardless of what size they are you’ve perfected the little gasp of faux excitement at seeing them for the first time, the contented little sigh when you finally drop your jaw and take them into your mouth.
The barrier keeps them from being too pushy about it too, only able to push themselves so far through the cutout before there’s nowhere else to go regardless of how badly they want to fuck your throat. There are the respectful clients and the sort of insufferable ones, but you rarely ever have one in here that’s bad enough to stand out amongst the monotonous collection of, well. Typically a handful of hardly contained thrusts followed by a drawn out groan, a full condom tied off and hitting the bin on their side of the cubicle and then a curt, silent goodbye.
And you certainly never have any that stand out because of how good they are.
Point is, it’s difficult to surprise you at this point, and even less common to do so in any way that’s pleasurable.
Maybe that’s why he stands out so much.
The nameless, faceless stranger that’d come in toward the very end of your shift, who’d let himself into the cubicle so quietly and easily that it’d startled you at first to even realize someone was there. You’d quickly swallowed your water and set aside the bottle, dabbing a little of the moisturizing gloss over your lips that makes them look more inviting and less like they’ve been fucked several times over today.
You remember him because, unlike most others, he hadn’t walked in naked and hard and already ready to get off. Through the cutout you could see the dark denim covering his hips and thick thighs, one of his hands moving slow as he’d rubbed his palm over himself, the other somewhere out of sight.
Sometimes if they’re shy, you talk to them a little until they’re comfortable enough to undress and approach your mouth. But this guy hadn’t been shy at all—only practiced, patient, intentional. Not at all in a rush.
It might’ve annoyed you with another client, if it’d seemed like they were doing it to tease you instead of for themselves. But this guy hadn’t come in hard, you’d seen him. He rubs himself to hardness in front of you with methodical movements and measured breaths through his nose, the lull of it so mesmerizing from your side of the cubicle that you nearly jump a little when he abruptly moves his fingers to the button of his jeans instead, flicking it open seamlessly and easing down the zipper.
With the denim out of the way, you get an eyeful of black boxer briefs and a more than generous bulge settled between the corded muscles of his thighs. You see all types of different bodies and try to stay indifferent, but you can’t deny that this is the exact type of build of a man you’d go home with at a bar or somewhere else outside of work.
You’d realized in that moment, in the heat slowly gathering between your thighs, just how long it’s been since you’ve done that.
Single handedly, he’d thumbed the band of his boxers down to rest stretched around his thighs. He’d slicked himself with a spit-wet palm and then rolled on the condom just in time for it to catch the first drool of excitement from the tip of his thick cock; the first evidence that he really does want this badly enough to be here.
And who are you to make it anything but worth his time?
You’d clung tight to your regular routine, waiting for him to come to you, making a show of wetting your mouth and sucking lightly on the head before easing your lips over your teeth and sinking down. Your practiced moan was a little less forced this time as his weight settled over your tongue and settled against the back of your throat, the weight and thickness of him just the right size to make you ache in the good way instead of the unsatisfying, inexperienced way.
You’d breathed in deep and pulled off, began to set a rhythm. You kept waiting for the moment he’d grunt at you to go faster or take it upon himself to shove forward until you choked, but—nothing. He’d stayed perfectly still and taken whatever you gave him, the slightly quickening pace of his breaths and the twitches of his cock in your mouth your only benchmarks.
Against all of your previous better judgement, it’d made you want to try even harder to draw a reaction out of him. But you’d denied yourself, kept things at a nice, steadily increasing pace. Bobbed your head and kept your tongue flat before drawing it up again to trace along the veins and divots through the latex, taken him in as deeply as you could and swallowed around him until the hitch in his breathing told you he was likely close.
You’d doubled your efforts then, cheeks hollowed and breathing through your nose as you worked him quicker. Even then it’d taken another minute or two, your tongue flicking out against the sensitive underside of the head, your throat raw with the greedy, perhaps over eager way you’d taken him too deep so many times.
When he finally starts to come, your only signs had been the thud of a fist landing lightly against the other side of the wall and the sudden warmth spreading underneath the latex in your mouth. Noises had fallen from your mouth freely then, content to keep working him until he pulled himself away—which took pointedly longer than it typically does with other clients.
When he eventually had pulled away, you struggled to catch your breath even as his had returned to normal fairly quickly. It was hardly played up for his benefit, the quick rise and fall of your chest completely earnest.
You’d watched with blown pupils as he’d disposed of the condom and tucked himself back into his pants. Then, in a moment of hesitation you hadn’t thought this mysterious stranger capable of, he’d paused for a second before extending a hand toward the cutout where your open mouth still hovered just before the gap.
You shivered at the way he so easily pressed a thumb to your swollen, hot lower lip, still thrumming with pinpricks of soreness from the exertion. Just a soft sweep, but more than you usually allow from a client, especially one you’re unfamiliar with.
The pressure’s there and then it’s gone, and you’re shocked to find yourself tipping forward on your knees and chasing it when it disappears. But the touch seemed to be the only parting you’d get, and you’d blinked heavily as you’d watched him retract his hand and use it to reach for the door instead.
Once he was gone, you’d reached a hand down between your legs to find the seat of your underwear damp enough that the material’s gone dark, and you hissed when your wandering fingers had accidentally touched the aroused bump of your clit underneath it.
You can’t remember the last time that happened either.
ii.
A week passes, and then two. You make yourself forget about your mysterious visitor, half convinced that the things that made you so hot had been nothing but figments of your overworked imagination. The mind can grab hold of the littlest things when it’s starved for touch and intimacy; you’ve experienced that firsthand.
It’s just not usually, you know, you experiencing it.
You can still feel it though, little twinges of the memory from that night. The way you’d spent a few extra minutes in the booth even after you were technically off your shift, just catching your breath. Waiting for your brain to come back online. The way you’d felt hot all over leaving the cubicle and gathering your things from the employee area, walking through the parking lot to your car with your pulse thumping and your palms clammy.
The way you’d fallen directly into bed once you were home alone, high off the ache in your jaw and the hot brand of his thumbprint against your lower lip and chin. Obsessed with the idea of leaning forward and taking that into your mouth too, of getting your lips on every inch of him he’d let you. Of letting him get his on you too.
You’d thought the orgasm that night would get it out of your system, that maybe you were just a little pent up and it’d been too long since you’d indulged properly. But not even that one—or the handful that came after that one—had been enough to scrub the night from your mind. The feeling in your stomach.
So when he comes back, you know it’s him almost immediately. No greeting, just a minute or two of working himself up again before he undoes his pants and steps forward. You wonder, this time, how much of the deliberate build up is for him, and how much of it is for you.
But you’re getting ahead of yourself again.
You don’t make conversation either, because he doesn’t seem like the type. If he’s got some sort of deliberate fantasy he’s neglecting to tell you about, you talking might interrupt it.
(No matter how badly you’d like to, just to remind him that he’s here with you.)
When the tip of his latex covered cock slips through the cutout, you’re more than ready for it. And still you hold back a little, go slow, enjoy yourself a little as you press balmy kisses down the length of him, using a discreetly lubed hand this time to hold him steady near the base.
You listen carefully, counting the inhales and exhales. In—one, two, three, four; out—one, two, three, four. Anticipatory, maybe, but far too calm for your liking. A good starting point nonetheless.
You smear kisses back up toward the tip, stroking your hand idly on the length of him you leave behind. When you reach the head you take a moment to admire it, seeing if he’ll rush you, but he doesn’t. Pleased, you dip down to press a final kiss right to the tip where his excitement is beading on the other side of the clear barrier between you, wishing you could know the taste.
The sweet gesture seems to get to him, the smallest hitch in his breathing made audible in the compact space. You smile a little as you open your mouth and tap the head of his cock right where his thumb had been last time, and then trace it around the curve of your lips like you’re putting on lipstick.
You almost never get to do this with the others. If a guy’s here looking for anonymous sex, chances are he’s far past wanting any flirtatious teasing or gratuitous touches that aren’t geared specifically toward getting him off. But this one—this one lets you, and if anything, it seems to have an affect on him too.
Dipping your chin a little further, you take the thick tip of him into the wet heat of your mouth. You don’t close your lips around him right away, using your tongue to trace the rigid dent of his frenulum and the skin around the tip, manipulating it as gently as you can through the latex. You’re rewarded with yet another almost-gasp and a hot pulse of pre-come joining the slow gathering pool of it inside the condom on your tongue.
When he seems to be getting used to your exploration, you finally close the ring of your lips and covered teeth around him and suck, and his breathing stops altogether for a second or two.
Your tongue pulses against him, learning his shape. You know better now, know to savor it more.
So you do—taking him down inch by inch, drawing it out and bobbing back again before you sink down further. He’s thick, stretching your jaw wider the more you take, and when the tip of him nudges against the tightness at the back of your throat, he gives a single, helpless twitch forward until you’re stuffed full.
You feel more than hear him freeze and start to pull back, but your raspy moan makes him falter. You’ve been at this for a while today, and most guys just like to sit back and let you do all the work. Which—sometimes that’s better, and you like having the control. But sometimes…
Sometimes, if they’re respectful, you wouldn’t mind being the one who gets to sit back while they take what they need.
You pull off of him and lick your lips, giving a quiet but intentional whine as you scoot toward the cutout, drop your jaw, and stick out your tongue.
A muttered curse follows your actions, gravel and deeply masculine, and you’re caught between a grin and damn near begging for it when his hand reaches down to fist his cock, pumping it a few times before he steps forward as far as he can get and feeds it to you all over again.
He pauses just inside of your mouth like he’s forgotten something, and then you hear a quiet rap of his knuckles on the other side of the wall. You can’t frown with him in your mouth but you make a noise, and he grunts and repeats the noise more firmly this time.
And—oh, you realize; he’s giving you a way to say no.
You still hold enough power with the wall between you to just be able to pull back if it’s too much, but the gesture is so unexpected and contrastingly sweet that your eyes threaten to sting.
You raise your hand and tap two knuckles right up against the spot he’d done it on the other side. Another quiet grunt follows, more approving this time, and then he starts to move.
Slow at first, starting out like you had. He pushes past the ring of your lips tentatively at first and then deeper, a little more firm, until he’s once again pushing at the back of your throat. You swallow around him and he twitches again, then pulls all the way back out to give his first true thrust.
The moan it works out of you this time is shaky and muffled, your sore muscles rejoicing at being able to do nothing more than hold your tongue out and cover your teeth accordingly. His movements are just as precise as the rest of him seems to be, a measured in-out-in-out that holds the same form even if the rhythm changes here and there. You stop attempting to anticipate it eventually, your mind drifting. In—one, two, three, four; out—one, two, three, four.
You make yourself appreciate the little details this time through half lidded eyes, the twitch of hidden muscles in his hips, the strength in the hand that’s wrapped around himself, the thick gathering of dark chocolate curls nestled at the base of his cock. It fills in some of the gaps that you shouldn’t be thinking about in the first place, like what the rest of his body looks like, if he’s got hair in other places too, on his arms and across his chest, if the hair on his head is the same color as what’s in front of you now.
Your eyes close completely then as he fucks your mouth harder, your knuckles falling from the wall and slipping in between your legs instead.
You don’t typically get off with clients, and if you do, it’s more of a performance than anything else. But there’s no harm in it now, when he can’t see you and he has no idea what you’re doing. It’s not like you aren’t allowed to.
There’s spit gathering around your lips and sweat beading at the back of your neck as your knuckles fight through the band of your pants and into your underwear, the tip of your fingers making a slow, indulgent circle around your clit before dipping lower.
A whimper gets caught in your throat as you drag a finger through your slick and tease it into yourself, your thighs tense and cunt clenching eagerly around it. You hear him stutter through a gasp again even though his rhythm doesn’t falter, your noise evidently more audible than you’d thought it would be.
You try to go slow, try to move in a way that doesn’t make it obvious what you’re doing—and just how wet you are while you do it.
You fail. There’s no way to fuck yourself with them without a little noise, and he picks up on it almost immediately. The idea of being caught in the act makes your face burn delightfully with hot shame, your stomach full of butterflies as you abandon discretion and slip a second digit in beside the first so you can grind down on them while you suck his cock.
The cubicle gets warm quickly. You’re panting around his thick length, struggling to keep up the act of coquette when you’re so aroused. The only thing that’d make it better was if he could touch you without the wall in the way, if he could press a hand to the back of your head and take over completely while you focus on how fucking good it feels to ride your fingers while your mouth is stretched wide and thoroughly defiled.
His thrusts lose some of their meticulous control, and you come back to yourself a little when a ghost of a groan almost makes it to your ears. You grind against your hand as you start to move your mouth over him again, meeting him halfway as he gets close.
It’s far past the time for modesty. Tears have begun to leak from the corners of your eyes, your lips swollen and hot, spit dripping down your chin inelegantly. You can’t keep from making noise now, little gasps and moans all fractured and buried underneath the weight of his cock where it kisses the back of your throat on each greedy thrust forward.
Just when you start thinking you might not be able to take much more, his heavy balls hitting your chin and your hand working yourself frantically between your thighs, he goes still, exhales a strangled groan, and spills into the condom in your mouth.
You refocus for a second, trying to make it as good for him as possible. He’d been able to keep fucking your mouth for a minute or so before he got sensitive last time, so you suck lightly, reminding your jaw how the muscles work again, and mouth lewdly at where the latex keeps you from tasting him.
But when he begins to pull himself back, you panic.
The whine you let out is something you’ll vehemently deny ever happening, but it accomplishes your ultimate goal: getting him to stay a moment longer.
You lick your stinging lips and drop your forehead to rest just above the cutout in the wall, panting openly and visibly as you try to manage words.
“Please,” you gasp, hips rocking frantically on your fingers, your clit grinding against your palm. “Please, wait, I’m—”
This isn’t about you. He could just leave, if he wanted, and he wouldn’t be any different than any other client who only really cared about their own pleasure.
Instead, you jerk at the pressure of that thumb back on your chin, swiping through the mess of spit and leftover lip balm, pushing it back onto your tongue with careful, assessing precision.
The first word he ever says to you is nothing but a rumble of authority and simple syllables, lighting you up and splitting you open right down the middle.
“Come.”
You’re helpless but to obey, your body nearly convulsing as your hips override any logic, humping frantically against your hand and fingers until you’ve worked yourself through the aftershocks, his thumb hooked possessively around the back of your teeth so your noises spill out uninhibited and his.
His digit slips away while you catch your breath, and you have to cut yourself off from asking him for anything else. You’ve already pushed for too much, probably.
You don’t say thank you, and he hasn’t improved on his goodbyes since the last time you saw him either. The door of the cubicle slicks shut as calmly as it’d opened earlier, and you lean your temple against the separating wall and slump to your side with a smile on your face and your hand still between your legs.
One, two, three, four—you try again, but it keeps getting jumbled and mixed up, completely overridden by that one mouthwatering, evasive order.
Come.
iii.
“Don’t touch yourself,” he says when he closes the cubicle door behind him.
It’s presumptuous and a little arrogant, but you’re so stunned to hear that voice again after three more weeks that you can’t do anything but bite down on a grin and agree.
He fucks your mouth again this time, much more confident this time with your two-tap rule in place. It’s rough and a little too fast to savor anything properly, but it leaves your mouth pleasantly pouty and your head in a daze, so you can hardly complain. Even if you are disappointed that it’s over so soon. Maybe he’s in a rush tonight.
But he doesn’t rush to leave when he’s disposed of the condom and tucked himself back into his undone pants. He reaches for you with that hand instead, and this time you’re alert and prepared for it, pressing a coy kiss to the print of his thumb when it meets skin.
“Now,” he murmurs, rough enough around the edges that it makes you shiver.
Without waiting for further permission, you spread your bent knees and slip your hand underneath your underwear.
You’re wet like usual when it’s him, like an unintentional Pavlovian reaction. You whimper a little at the first press against your clit, the nerves thrumming and oversensitive with denial. You allow yourself a few more quick rubs before tracing them over your entrance, remembering how filthy it’d felt the last time when he could hear you fucking yourself with them.
One goes in easy, your body sinking down on the slow stretch as you exhale. You bear down on it, rocking a little to open yourself up, and then rise up on your knees enough to start pumping it in and out.
“Slow,” he rasps. “Like this.”
His thumb leaves your mouth and his other fingers replace it, tracing the open ring of your lips with two rough fingers before slipping them easily inside and onto your tongue. He holds them there for a minute until your lagging brain seems to catch up, and you shiver openly when you realize what he wants you to do.
It’s a little quick, but you still adjust your one digit into two between your legs, gathering as much wetness as possible before slowly tucking the second in alongside the first.
You moan around the ones inside your mouth, thick knuckles keeping it from being able to close properly—just like your cunt. You clench desperately around them, waiting for further instruction despite the overwhelming need to take.
He pulls out of your mouth slowly, and you mimic the motion with your fingers. He holds them there for a beat before tucking them deep again, and you shudder. If you close your eyes and pretend, you can imagine the hand between your legs is his, too.
After a handful of lazy thrusts into your mouth with his fingers, he switches his movements, pausing again to make sure you’re still paying attention. His fingertips inch in a little further, tickling the spot in the back of your throat where his cock had been earlier and bringing fresh tears to your eyes as you try not to gag on them. Your own digits sink into your cunt obligingly.
Then, at the back of your tongue, you feel his two fingers begin to curve and press down.
It forces your throat open, makes you tremble around the intrusion as you let him explore and instruct. With a shaky breath you curve your own fingers up as if to meet him on the other end, and it feels like a livewire when the tips of your digits brush against your spot.
You do choke then, momentarily overcome with the sensation, and he pulls his fingers back. It leaves a wet, sticky trail of spit on your chin and your lower lip as you gasp in air, and it almost physically hurts to have to pull your own fingers out of your cunt in retaliation.
You’re beginning to understand the game a little better now.
You tilt forward again, eager to show him you can take it this time. The shape of his fingers is already more familiar now, easier to relax around when you try again. Your own slip back inside your cunt, but you’re careful to keep them straight and shallow until he does otherwise.
When his curve, yours curl deliciously. When his knuckles bump against your teeth yours spread to stretch yourself open. When he tests the limits and pushes you just that much further, you squeeze your eyes shut and breathe steady through your nose, just pleased to be able to fuck yourself that much deeper.
When his pace quickens, it’s almost a shock. You squeak when he abruptly takes his fingers away from you, tipping forward a little and having to catch yourself, not realizing how much you’d been leaning into him. He braces his fingertips right at the center of your reddened mouth and traces around your lips for a minute, and you do the same to your cunt, the featherlight touch so close to where you need it making heat lick up the back of your spine.
“Please,” you whisper.
He doesn’t give in right away. Instead he makes you purse your lips flush against his thumb like you’re kissing it, and then carefully, deliberately, he begins to rub in small circles.
Your own thumb moves up to your clit, following along like you’re connected to him. It’s a different feeling than fucking yourself, obviously, and it only makes you burn even hotter—his thumb is smearing your spit around just like the slick you’re rubbing around your clit, each fleeting press in toward your tongue a teasing dip inside your cunt.
And then, without warning, your mouth is spread open again around two of his fingers, and this time he seems intent on finishing the job.
You moan loudly around him, putting the sound proof walls of the cubicle to the test as you stuff yourself full again. He gives you no time to adjust anymore, already fucking you steady and quick. He uses a variety of the moves he’s already shown you, pushing in deep and curling them, spreading them wide and rubbing, every touch so achingly confident that your body goes quiet and just listens.
With your head held still by his digits you can’t ride your hand the way you might have otherwise, can only hold your bent, subtly trembling thighs apart so your wrist and fingers have enough room to try and keep up. You’d gone slow enough earlier that nothing aches or threatens to lock up yet, but you find yourself racing toward the crescendo of release nonetheless.
You can feel the press of his other two folded knuckles against your chin, the grip of his thumb on the opposite side when he presses in. Everything is so wet, depraved, your mouth and your eyes and your cunt, an endless loop of noise and feeling.
He feels it when you start shaking if the sound you make isn’t obvious enough, each of your muscles aching from the inside out for your orgasm. You clench down hard on your fingers just as your throat spasms around his, caught right on the precipice.
“C’mon,” he grunts, low and sharp. “Do it.”
It’s hardly top tier dirty talk. It should be the sort of thing that makes you roll your eyes, that, if this were a real hookup, you’d demand a little more respect.
But this isn’t a regular hookup. You’re body is tied up taut like a bowstring, caught between your frenzied fingers and his calloused, steady ones, the novelty of it too much to handle.
It drives you crazy, the simplicity of him; the way he doesn’t bother promising anything he can’t just readily and thoroughly deliver.
He’s not acting, and neither are you.
Your orgasm feels like it’s been pulled straight from the tips of his fingers. Your own scramble to obey when his pull out to rub hard and messy at the seam of your trembling lips again, spit smeared everywhere, your clit beating in time with your heartbeat as you rub yourself at the same dizzying frequency, prolonging the pleasure.
Cheek dropping against the cubicle wall, you go lax as the last of it unravels and your muscles finally relax. You’d really worked yourself up this time, already feeling a twinge in your calves and your inner thighs, but you think the masochistic side of you will undoubtedly enjoy the reminder when you’re at home.
His fingers take their time withdrawing, touch turning jarringly gentle again as he wipes at your jaw and lips as if his hand isn’t just spreading the mess around further. But the sentiment is nice, the tenderness of it precisely what you want after an orgasm.
You turn a little, pressing into his palm when he presents it to you. You shouldn’t, you think hazily. There’s too much risk here, just enough space for him to reach in and wrap that hand around your throat if he ever wanted to. It wouldn’t even be difficult in your current state.
But the soft touch continues, holding still while you fit what you can of your jaw into his palm in a gesture of neediness that surprises even you. When you have some of your wits back you force yourself to let him go, tilting to press a final damp kiss to the heel of his hand before it slips back through the cutout and disappears.
It feels like more of a loss than it should.
“Thank you,” you tell him, voice stripped and spacey, the sentiment a little too raw.
There’s nothing but the slight clearing of a throat from the other side a moment later, and then the lock clicking open and closed just as softly.
You turn to the side and collapse flat onto the pillow with your back against the wall, your head dropped to rest against your knees.
What the hell have you gotten yourself into?
iv.
It’s been a month since he last came back, and you’ve been aching for him ever since.
Your breathing comes in pants, forehead tacky with sweat you’ve worked up carrying out the plans he’d had for you. You’ve already come once, your hand between your legs while he fisted his cock until he finished, and you’d been shocked and then filled with heat when you peeked through the cutout again to find him still hard.
Had that been the case every time?
And now—now you’re on your hands and knees, one hand shoved down so you can curve three fingers into yourself without cramping your legs while you listen to the slick noise of him jerking himself off on the other side of the wall.
“I wish—I wish you could touch me,” you sigh against the pillow, your brian-to-mouth filter shut off somewhere after your first orgasm.
The sound of him touching himself slows and then eventually stops, your own hand slowing in acknowledgement.
He clears his throat. “Y’want that?”
It comes out a moan. “Yes.”
There’s a tense, brief silence, and then his voice returns.
“Stand up. Turn around. Bend over.”
You freeze, your hand stilling completely and your eyes opening toward the wall in front of you.
There are so many reasons why you should say no. This isn’t an area of the club meant for that sort of touching, and yet, you can’t fight your body’s reaction to it.
Your teeth sink into your lower lip as you consider it, sitting up and using a towel to wipe off your hand to bide your time. You swallow.
You could always tap twice on the wall, and he’d leave it alone.
But God. You don’t want to.
“Just—” you start, trying again when your voice gives. “Just your fingers?”
“F’that’s what you want,” he says.
You push yourself to a stand on shaky legs, careful about ever letting your face be seen through the cutout. You hadn’t even bothered undressing your lower half earlier but you do it now, slipping your bottoms and underwear down your legs and off to the side.
You turn then, facing the opposing wall and sucking in a breath. You kick the pillow across to the other side so you’ll have something to put your palms on if you need it, then carefully walk your feet apart until your cunt is at the height of the cutout—just exactly where your mouth usually is.
Hands braced on the opposing wall, you step back until your heels hit the sleek black wood, the backs of your thighs slowly pressing into it until you’re completely on display, your wet folds and sensitive clit nestled inside the circle and exposed to the cool air on the other side.
The silence is nerve wracking. Your pulse quickens at the mental image of him looking his fill, your muscles tensed in preparation for a touch you know better than to try to predict.
You listen for his breaths, and only make it up to one, two— this time before a sharp exhale cuts through the quiet again.
“Oh,” you jolt when one of his fingers traces up the line of your folds, then immediately push yourself back for more.
He hisses in a breath behind you, rubbing two of them all the way from your clit down to your ass and back again when the cutout stops him from going further. “This always how slick you get when you’re suckin’ me off?”
“Yes,” you moan, reaching back to hold yourself open with one hand. “I’m so wet for you.”
The noise he makes lands somewhere between a groan and a growl, and settles directly in between your legs. You gasp when his fingers trail up and one slips inside of you, one of his much thicker than one of yours.
“So fuckin’ tight,” he grunts, rocking it slowly in and out, deeper and deeper still.
You brace your one free hand on the wall in front of you for some semblance of balance, your eyes squeezed shut and brow furrowed in concentrated pleasure. With your mouth wide open you can’t help how loud the sounds are, the way he pushes them from you with each next confident thrust of his finger.
You’ve wanted this since that first night, fantasized about it in this cubicle and in your bed at home, while you’re doing perfectly mundane things and your mind drifts. None of it touches the real thing, the firm, hot weight of actual digits inside of you, of his soft noises over your shoulder, of knowing that he’s watching.
He finger slips in and out of you at a steady pace, curving slightly as it learns you from the inside. You’re glad for the primer but you’ve been using three of your fingers, and even in this position, one just isn’t going to be enough.
If you’re doing this, might as well ask for what you want.
“More,” you request breathily, and he obliges seconds later.
He pulls out of you completely, gathering more of your wetness on his fingers before going back in with two. And—yes, that’s much better, fuller, the stretch exhilarating.
He can get a better angle like this, can fuck you a little quicker and aim for all the right places. When he curls his fingers down against your spot and rubs with digits so much longer and heavier than yours it feels like he’s got you wrapped around his fist, every nerve in your body dancing with pleasure.
You hear him curse distantly. “C’n you come like this?”
“Probably,” you admit.
Your mouth opens again, but you force it back shut while he keeps fucking you. This is enough. You shouldn’t, you really fucking shouldn’t, but every member of the club has to submit clean test results periodically, and he’s proven himself to be at least somewhat trustworthy, and—
“Your mouth,” you beg suddenly. “Please, can I have—?”
When he drops to his knees, it’s audible.
His fingers slip out of you and spread your folds apart with two slick fingers, and then there’s a stubbled, angular jaw and a pointed chin, a slick and smooth tongue latching onto your cunt and taking.
“Fuck,” you cry, grappling at the wall in front of you as your eyes roll back. “Oh, fuck.”
Your hips shove back against the cubicle wall as far as they’ll go, as if you could force yourself any closer to him through the wood. He meets you halfway, lowering down to mouth noisily at your clit while his fingers slip inside of you again.
“Taste so sweet,” he marvels, pulling back to spit on your cunt before he takes your clit into his mouth again and sucks.
“Please,” you whimper. “Please, please—”
“Needy little thing,” he huffs, something adjacent enough to a chuckle to make your blood run hot. “Get a tongue up your cunt and that’s the only word you know, huh?”
You’re pretty sure it’s a rhetorical question, but you can’t answer anyway. Your throat’s gone tight, your mouth wrenched open and wishing for a name to mouth the syllables of, your vision hazy as you push back against his mouth.
You wonder if he’d get his hands on you if he could. If he’d pull you down by the hips and make you ride his face, if he’d flip you over and get your mouth around his cock again while he ate your cunt like he was starving for it.
Because that’s what he’s doing—with all of the lack of decorum you’ve been showing him the last few times, with spit and desperate noises and greedy fingers, with a mouth made to make you fall apart.
He pulls his fingers out of you and you can hear the slick sound of him jerking off again through the haze, moaning at the thought of him using your wetness to do it. A second later it’s all background noise compared to the way he shifts up to switch the position a little; his fingers rubbing your clit as his tongue slips inside your cunt with the same ease his fingers had paved out for him minutes before.
Your hand smacks against the wall for balance, legs shaking as you choke down an overwhelmed sob. “I’m—fuck, I’m close, I’m—” you break off with a high pitched whine, wishing you could reach back and get your fingers in his hair. “Don’t stop, please.”
He growls against you, shoving his face in as far as he can while his fingers fly over your clit beneath his chin. His tongue is so hot and slick and deep inside of you, and you’re so distracted by it that you’re wholly unprepared for the whitehot flash of pleasure when he peels back to land a wet slap against your clit and then dive back in to taste the fruits of his labor.
You’re fairly certain you scream, every last remaining ounce of energy in your body going toward keeping you upright as you tremble through the strongest orgasm you think you’ve ever had.
He works you through it diligently, and you vaguely register a deep groan that signals he’s likely come too. It makes you shiver and bear down on him again, and he moans appreciatively as he taps his fingers against you a few more times in cruel, sweet parting.
It takes you a moment to reacquaint yourself with gravity, to remember to keep your face hidden as you collapse onto the pillow just beside the cutout again. For a moment there’s only the two of you catching your breath, and then he beckons you back over.
“Gimme your mouth again.”
The thoughtless obedience should be alarming, but you can’t bring yourself to care when you feel this good. You roll onto your knees on the pillow, scooting up until you can bring your mouth right up to the wood where your cunt had just been.
It makes you flush hot, but you open for him anyway when he smears three fingers, all wet and sticky with your release, over your chin and the seam of your lips.
“Suck,” he says gruffly, slipping them into your mouth and onto your tongue. When you finish flicking your tongue against his knuckles, he adds, “Swallow.”
It feels like losing a limb when he withdraws. You watch his hand pull back and then your eyes catch on the outline of his body behind it, at where his shirt is rucked up and his pants are still undone, his cock finally beginning to go soft just beneath where his release is muttered all across his lower stomach.
In for a penny.
“Yours,” you rasp through the cutout, uncaring of if he can tell that’s it’s a plea or not. “Want yours.”
His hand pauses mid-air for a second, and your eyes track the moment he decides.
His fingers dip toward his waistline, dragging through the dense hair above his cock and under his navel to collect the still fresh strings of white clinging to his tan skin and making your mouth water. He lifts them toward your lips like he doesn’t really believe that you want it, and you’re thoroughly pleased to prove that you do.
You settle into position the way you always do, willing and eager, your mouth open and aching for whatever he deigns to give you.
v.
Your heart rate is still easing back into range when you muster up the courage, figuring that if you don’t do it now, you’ll lose your nerve altogether.
“There’s a room you can book,” you tell him through the cutout, your fingers teasing the edge of the wood. “We could—do this without a wall in the way sometime.”
He doesn’t leave immediately, which probably would have been the worst case scenario. You can’t remember ever being worried that you would push a client too far, but you feel the presence of it with every carefully presented piece of your offer.
The silence stretches. There’s shuffling, the scratch of his denim being pulled back up, the clanking of his belt.
“If it’s the anonymous thing, we have workarounds for that,” you add, trying not to sound too hopeful.
There’s a small, wry laugh. “Like what.”
“I could wear a blindfold,” you offer. “Or you could wear a mask, if you—”
“Blindfold,” he cuts you off abruptly. “Y’can—just the blindfold.”
You nod even though he can’t see it, taking your lip in between your teeth.
“You—you’re coming back, right?”
The question makes it out of you before you can think better of it. The air in the cubicle crackles, still warm and humid, tense with anticipation.
It hits you now just how much power you’ve given him over you. How much, even if he doesn’t really mean it and you never see him again, you long to hear him say—
You hear the front door rattle from your place in bed. Instead of getting up, you stay curled in your spot, reading from your phone. You hadn’t gotten up since you got home, and you didn’t intend on moving for the rest of the night.
“Welcome home,” you call, looking up as the bedroom door clicks open. Bucky’s already shedding his layers, shrugging off his jacket and undoing his belt.
“Hi, baby,” his voice melts into something soft at the sight of you. Something so domestic about coming home to you sprawled in bed made his heart warm. “How’s your day?”
“Mm,” you drop your phone, stretching out. “‘S fine, already blocked it out.” You kick the blankets off your legs. “Got home, showered, threw some laundry in.”
“Riveting stuff,” he chuckles, tugging on a pair of sweats. You admire the carved lines in his broad back as he searches for the remote.
“What about you?” You watch as he crawls into bed, clicking through channels. Your legs fall apart for him, where he easily makes his bed.
Bucky grumbles to himself, reprocessing several points in the day that he found unsatisfactory. “Same shit,” he steals a pillow by your elbow and carefully slots it beneath your hips as he manoeuvres you to his preference.
“A man of many details, as always,” you giggle, lifting your hips as he tugs down your underwear.
“‘It’s over now,” he hums, calloused hands sliding beneath your thighs to hook them over his shoulders. “I’m where I wanna be,” his soft breath tickles your core, making you shiver. Sharp blue eyes catch your gaze, a warm smile creasing his eyes.
You hear the tv click on, then his hands wrap back around your thighs. You blush, your stomach turning from the easy way Bucky takes what he wants.
He presses a firm kiss to your cunt, then lowers himself down with a hum.
Your back arches instinctively, your body sensitive to the stimulation. Bucky’s warm tongue strokes a line down your center, a wet sound following as he spreads you open. Your head falls back against the pillows, your eyes squeezing shut.
Your fingers curl in the sheets at your side, trying to keep quiet as Bucky settles into his favorite routine.
For as long as you can remember, you’ve given yourself over to him in every sense of the vow. It took him a long time to start taking from you without asking, but as the days- then weeks- passed, it came easier.
And then one day, he was just pushing you around, molding you between his hands whenever he wanted.
And what he wanted most was to come home from work, watch his favorite show, and eat your pussy.
Bucky shakes his head slowly, pressing closer until you feel his nose brush your clit. His slow tongue lazily strokes through your folds, then dips back down to your core. You gasp as he flutters the muscle against your entrance, only to drag it back up, spreading your wetness.
“Shh,” he shushes you quietly, his voice muffled against your cunt.
You press your knuckles to your lips, nodding stupidly. “Sorry,” you choke. He pecks a soft kiss to your clit, wordlessly telling you it’s okay. His eyes stay on the tv, his attention entirely on the storyline playing out before him. His mouth on your pussy is almost an afterthought, something sweet to keep him busy as he enjoys his show.
He takes it easy on you for the first few minutes, barely touching your clit. You just lay there and take it, body lax and mind numb. You don’t pay attention to the tv, and if you’re honest, you don’t even know what this show is about.
Any time you’ve tried to follow along you end up spacing out, trembling and panting.
Bucky chuckles softly between your legs, his gaze fixed on the screen. You whine softly at the feeling. His deep voice vibrating against your core, his soft breath, his smile as he pulls back to comment. He takes a breath, then blows gently on your cunt, glancing down to watch as you soak the bedsheets.
He hums in satisfaction before dipping back down to lap it up. You moan into your fist, your thighs clenching around his head. He groans softly at the muted sound, and gently sucks your clit between his lips.
You release a choked sound, your body seizing up from the direct stimulation. Your first orgasm comes fast and hard, leaving you writhing as he coaxes you through it.
But it doesn’t end there, it never does. He strokes the flat of his tongue over your throbbing clit, soothing you from the overwhelming release. Then, he drags it back down through your folds, circling your core.
Your hand finds his, wrapped around your thigh. He tangles your fingers together, grounding you without the need for words. He glances up at you, sparing you his attention as his tongue pushes inside you. You squirm, squeezing his fingers. He smiles with his eyes, then looks back at the tv.
Your eyes roll shut, your toes curl tight. You take a slow breath, calming your racing heart as he takes what he wants.
You lay there, swallowing choked whimpers and muffled whines, listening to him quietly laugh at the tv and noisily eat your cunt. That initial oversensitivity comes and goes, coiling tight in your gut with every drawn out orgasm. You’ve lost count, like you always do. Your body goes lax, your legs hang helplessly over his shoulders.
You rock your hips into his face, then shy away when he gently suckles on your clit. You clench around nothing, only for him to flutter his tongue against your entrance.
Overstimulated tears drip down your cheeks as you silently take it, your body craving more and more, even with how sensitive you really are.
The screen flashes, and Bucky pulls back with a humiliatingly slick sound. “Fuckin’ ads…” he grumbles, releasing your thigh to grab the remote. Your fingers stay locked with his other hand, though your grip is increasingly loose as time passes.
Bucky glances up at you, a fond smile teasing his wet lips. He scatters gentle kisses along your thighs and center, adoration flooding his system at the sight of you. His lips latch onto your clit, his tongue circling torturously. You squirm, your lashes fluttering.
He chuckles, the sound shooting straight through you.
You look up in time to see another episode load up. Your eyes roll back in defeated pleasure.
summary: You work at a mental institution filled with some of the most dangerous and deranged people. Your patient Bucky becomes dangerously fixated on you.
word count: 18.7k+
pairing: patient!bucky barnes x fem!psychiatrist!reader
notes: this is for stan-o-ween! i needed a ~spooky~ fic and wanted to try something a bit different. a tad bit inspired by born, madly & born, darkly by trisha wolfe, a dark romance duet! i even fear that this is like... way too dark and just too much but i wrote it and it's going to be put out so i don't cry about wasting hours/days on this fic so i don't even care if no one reads it
this is dub-con/non-con - if you do not like DO NOT READ! i am not responsible for your media consumption. if you send me a message or ask saying it offended you or you were uncomfortable i will tell you that you shouldn't have read this because the warning(s) were made clear.
warnings/tags: dub-con/non-con - 18+ only!!!, dark!bucky, inappropriate psychiatrist and patient relationship (or really just bucky being manipulative), dark sexual fantasies, mentions of violence and trauma, mention of reader blushing (as a manipulation tactic, not necessarily as a physical trait), implied stalking, smut, handcuffs, marking, fingering, oral (f&m!receiving), mention of hand in hair, unprotected piv, overstimulation, thigh fucking, slight cum play, breeding kink, very slight aftercare... well, not really more like vague threats, uhhh i didn't know how to end this fic so yeah here it is
it's-tober! masterlist | stan-o-ween masterlist
The orderly’s keys rattled against his belt as he unlocked the heavy door to the interview room. The hinges groaned like something out of an old horror film, the kind you’d half-watched on a rainy night as a child, before burrowing under the blankets. The smell of the asylum clung to everything—bleach, old stone, rust, and something faintly sour that never really scrubbed away no matter how much disinfectant the janitorial staff poured into the cracks.
You adjusted the file in your hands, more for something to do than because you needed to. The paper inside had already been read through twice, your pen marks underlining words that were almost clinical in their emptiness: violent outbursts, manipulative tendencies, acute paranoia, possible PTSD, resistant to treatment. Each phrase felt sterile compared to the whispered warnings from colleagues who had looked at you with a mixture of pity and unease when they learned you’d drawn this particular assignment.
He was already sitting at the table when you entered, cuffs clamped around his wrists and linked to a bolted chain that allowed him just enough movement to rest his forearms on the scarred wood. His hair fell in uneven strands that framed his face, his jaw dark with stubble. He didn’t look up when the orderly shut the door behind you and left, but you felt his awareness all the same—like the air itself had shifted to acknowledge your presence.
“Sergeant Barnes,” you began, your voice steady but quieter than you intended. The metal chair scraped as you sat down across from him. His head lifted at last, and blue eyes fixed on yours. They didn’t blink often.
He smiled faintly, the kind of expression that wasn’t warm but deliberate. “Doctor.” The word stretched out, like he was tasting it.
You nodded, keeping your hands folded neatly on the folder so he couldn’t see the slight tremor in your fingers. “I’ll be meeting with you regularly. Our goal is to understand what you’ve been experiencing, and to see what steps might help.”
“Steps,” he repeated, his voice low, threaded with an accent buried under decades. “Steps where? Out of here?”
“Steps toward treatment,” you clarified. Neutral, professional.
That was when he leaned forward, the chains clinking softly. He didn’t break eye contact. “You smell like lilacs.”
The clinical script in your head faltered. It was an odd observation, inappropriate, but his tone wasn’t mocking—it was almost contemplative. “That’s not relevant,” you said, sharper than you meant.
He smirked, leaning back just enough to make the chair creak. “It’s relevant to me.”
You took a slow breath and flipped open the file. “Your previous psychiatrist noted that you refused to engage in structured conversation. You spoke in fragments, and at times refused to answer questions. I’d like to try again, if you’ll allow it.”
His eyes flicked to the open folder, then back to you. “She wore red lipstick. Thought it made her look older. More serious. She stopped wearing it after I told her it made her look like she was trying too hard.”
Your chest tightened. There was no note about that in the file. “How do you know that would be important to her?”
His smile widened just slightly, but it wasn’t pleasant. “People tell you who they are when they think you aren’t listening. I listen.” His gaze dropped to your hands, still folded neatly. “You bite your nails. Not lately. You’ve been trying to stop. Two weeks now?”
You curled your fingers in against the folder without thinking. The urge to defend yourself warred with the instinct to redirect the session, keep the upper hand. He hadn’t seen you outside of this room—he couldn’t have. Was he guessing, or was it some uncanny perception? “You notice small things,” you said, trying to bring control back into your tone. “That can be a strength.”
“Or a weapon,” he countered, his voice quiet again. He tilted his head slightly, like a predator measuring the reach of its prey. “I know more about you already than you know about me. That makes you nervous.”
Your pen tapped once against the paper before you forced it still. “What makes me nervous is when a patient avoids direct questions.” You looked up at him firmly. “Would you like to tell me why you’re here?”
He chuckled, the sound low and humorless. “You tell me. You’ve got the file. The doctors who came before you decided what I am.” He leaned forward again, closer than before. The chain pulled taut. “What do you think I am?”
For a moment, the room felt too small, the walls too close. You remembered the orderly’s warning glance before the door closed. Dangerous. Manipulative. He was trying to unsettle you. Still, you met his stare. “That’s what I’m here to find out.”
His smile thinned, sharp as glass. “Then I look forward to our sessions, Doctor. I think you’ll enjoy them more than you expect.”
The clock on the wall ticked loud in the silence that followed. Somewhere down the hall, a door slammed. His eyes never left you, not even as you stood, signaled for the guard, and the lock turned again. And even as you left, you felt it—the sense of being studied, catalogued, remembered.
The second time you saw him, the asylum felt heavier. It wasn’t just the damp chill of stone walls or the flickering bulbs in the hallways—it was the knowledge of him waiting, somewhere behind a door, replaying the way he’d looked at you the first time.
You’d told yourself not to think about it afterward. You’d gone home, poured a glass of wine you barely touched, sat on your sofa with a book that you never opened. But even then, it had felt like his eyes were still on you, cataloguing every flick of your fingers against the page, every sigh, every unfinished swallow. The thought had burrowed under your skin: He shouldn’t know. He couldn’t know. So how did he?
Your colleagues had noticed something. You caught the sideways glances in the break room, the muttered “brave” and “reckless” when your name was paired with his on the assignment list. One older psychiatrist had cornered you, his hand heavy on your arm. “Barnes isn’t like the others. He gets under your skin. That’s his game. Don’t play it.” You’d nodded, thanked him, and promised you knew the boundaries. But even then, part of you had bristled at the warning, as if he was questioning your competence instead of his danger.
Now, walking the long corridor toward the interview room, the sound of your heels echoed louder than usual. Two orderlies flanked the door, and when you nodded, they opened it with a glance that said everything they didn’t say aloud: good luck.
Bucky was waiting. He always seemed to be waiting. His posture was deceptively casual, chair angled back slightly, chains pooled loose around his wrists. He raised his head the moment you entered. No smile this time. Just that relentless stare. “Doctor,” he greeted, voice low.
You shut the door behind you, nodded at the guard who lingered just a moment longer than necessary, then took your seat. “Sergeant Barnes.”
“You didn’t sleep well,” he said, almost immediately.
You froze with your pen halfway out of your pocket. “Excuse me?”
His lips curved, faint, deliberate. “Your eyes. Tired. Coffee before you came here—two sugars, no cream. You only do that when you need the caffeine more than the taste. Means you didn’t sleep.”
It was nothing he could have witnessed. You felt a prickle race up the back of your neck. “You can’t know that.”
He tilted his head, studying you. “I notice things. It’s what kept me alive. Noticing. You’d be surprised what people give away.” His gaze lowered to your hands again. “Even you.”
Your fingers curled around the pen too tightly. “This session is about you,” you said firmly.
“Everything is about me now,” he countered, quiet but assured. He leaned forward, the chain taut. “You’ve been thinking about me.” The denial rose on your tongue, sharp, professional. But he kept talking, his words a blade sliding between your ribs. “You went home after last time. Poured yourself a drink, tried to read something, couldn’t focus. You replayed what I said about the lilacs, didn’t you? Wondered how I knew. Wondered if I’d been near you without you noticing.” His eyes gleamed, satisfaction curving his mouth. “You wondered if I could be right outside your door.”
The pen snapped against the paper as you slammed it down, voice tight. “That’s enough.”
His laugh was soft, humorless, echoing in the small room. “Touched a nerve.”
You forced yourself to breathe, to sit straighter, to let the silence linger long enough for control to return. “Tell me about the night terrors,” you said finally, forcing the conversation back to the file in front of you. “Your previous doctor noted you reported vivid dreams.”
He didn’t answer right away. He let the silence stretch until you looked up, and then he said, “Dreams aren’t the problem. Waking up is.”
“Explain.”
“You wake, and for a moment you don’t know where you are. You reach for something—someone—that isn’t there. Your chest feels like it’s being crushed, your lungs burn, your body begs you to believe it’s all real. Then you realize it’s not. And you’re alone.” His voice dropped, barely above a whisper. “You know what that feels like, don’t you?”
The words slid under your skin like ice water. “This isn’t about me,” you said, more brittle than you intended.
He smiled again, slow, certain. “But it could be.”
The orderly outside coughed, the faint sound of movement reminding you there were other people within shouting distance. That reminder steadied you. “That’s all for today,” you said, closing the file with finality.
He didn’t protest. Didn’t move. Just watched you stand, watched the guard unlock the door, watched you leave. But just before it shut, his voice followed, curling after you like smoke, “sweet dreams, Doctor.”
You kept walking, even though your pulse hammered in your ears. And all through the rest of the day, no matter how many files you reviewed, how many colleagues you nodded to in the hall, the words stayed with you.
Sweet dreams.
---
The rain had been relentless all morning. The kind of storm that rattled the barred windows of the asylum and left the halls reeking faintly of damp stone. You sat at your desk with his file open, the pages already softening at the edges from the number of times you’d turned them. There was a note from administration at the top in neat, block handwriting, consider termination of sessions if patient continues to escalate.
You traced your thumb along the margin where you’d written observations after your last meeting. He knew too much. Not just about his environment, but about you. That wasn’t in the manuals, wasn’t covered in your training. The textbooks didn’t explain how to handle a patient who seemed to look through you like glass.
Still, you signed your name on the attendance sheet, and when the orderly opened the door, you walked in. Bucky was already there. He always was. He sat with his chair angled slightly away from the table this time, his cuffed wrists loose in his lap. The posture was a show—you could tell. It was carefully chosen to look unguarded, almost lazy, but the line of his shoulders was taut. He turned his head toward you when you entered, eyes catching the weak fluorescent light. “Doctor,” he said softly.
You set the file down. “Good morning.”
He chuckled under his breath, leaning forward until the chain rattled against the table. “Is it?”
“Do you want to tell me why it isn’t?”
For a long moment, he just stared at you. Then his voice dropped into something almost conversational, intimate, as though you were two people speaking in confidence instead of psychiatrist and patient. “I dream about blood,” he said. “The weight of it. Not nightmares, not really. More like… memories with teeth.” He looked down at his hands, flexing the one still covered in faint scars. “I remember their faces. Not all of them. Just enough. Screaming, choking, going limp. And I liked it.”
The air left the room. You were careful not to move, not to flinch. “You liked it.”
He lifted his gaze back to yours, unblinking. “You’re supposed to say I didn’t. You’re supposed to tell me it was conditioning, that I wasn’t in control. But I was. At least part of me. You can’t take that away from me.”
You inhaled slowly. The words were deliberate, crafted to provoke. “Why do you want me to take it away from you?”
A sharp laugh burst from him, humorless and low. “Because if you say I wasn’t in control, then I get to walk around thinking I’m not a monster. And if you don’t…” His smile spread, thin and sharp. “Then I know exactly what I am.”
“Which do you want to be?” you asked, steadying your voice.
His eyes narrowed, the smile lingering. “Which would you rather I be?”
The question caught you like barbed wire. It was manipulative, designed to entangle, but some part of you felt the trap tighten around your ribs anyway. You forced your gaze down to the notes in the file. “This isn’t about me.”
“It’s always about you.” His voice softened, coaxing. “You come here, sit across from me, ask your questions with that careful tone. But you’re listening. Really listening. The others—they just want to put me in a box, shove me full of pills until I drool. You want to understand.”
“That’s my job,” you said.
He leaned forward, closer, the chain pulling taut. “No. It’s more than that. You need to understand me. You want to know how deep the rot goes. You want to know if you can fix me.”
The silence stretched. The rain battered harder against the windows. Finally, you asked, “and can I?”
His mouth curved, slow, deliberate, like a knife sliding free from its sheath. “No one fixes me, Doctor. But you… you might be the one I let try.”
Your pen dug into the paper, the ink pooling in a sharp dot before you forced yourself to keep writing. “Tell me about Hydra,” you said, redirecting before the weight of his words could sink too far. “Tell me about what they made you do.”
His smile didn’t fade, but his eyes changed. Darkened. “They stripped me down. Took away my name, my memories, my choices. Left the shell. You want to know what it feels like to stop being a man and start being a weapon?”
“Yes,” you said.
His stare burned into you, unflinching. “It feels like being fucked by ghosts. Every time you blink, there’s another one inside you, another command, another hand on the trigger. You don’t even know where you end and they begin. And then they’re gone, and it’s just you. With blood under your nails and no excuses.” The words made your throat tighten, the pen nearly slipping in your hand. And then, softer, more insidious, “sometimes I wonder what command I’d follow if it came from you.”
Your pulse jumped hard enough that you prayed it didn’t show in your face. “That’s not appropriate,” you managed.
He smiled, wolfish now, tilting his head. “That’s not a denial.”
The orderly’s knock on the door broke the moment, sharp and sudden. You blinked, tearing your gaze away, closing the file too quickly. “That’s all for today.”
But as the guards came in to unchain him, he didn’t move his eyes from yours. His voice followed you out, low and almost gentle, “you could tell me to do anything. Anything at all. And I would.”
The door shut behind you, and for a long time, you just stood in the hall, the storm hammering against the building as though it wanted in.
---
The lights buzzed overhead with their usual sickly hum, the pale fluorescence tinting everything in the asylum to the same washed-out shade of grey. You’d grown used to it, but sitting across from him it was suddenly oppressive, like the bulbs themselves bent lower, dimming the air between you.
He was quiet when you entered this time. No greeting, no smirk. Just a steady gaze as you set the folder on the table and sat down. His posture was too still, his hands folded neatly in his lap—an imitation of calm, you realized, rather than the thing itself.
You clicked your pen and began, “I’d like to continue where we left off. You said Hydra took away your choices. That you felt like a weapon.”
His eyes flicked down to your hands, then back up. “That bother you? Hearing me say that?”
“Why would it bother me?”
“Because you want to believe you can talk me into being human again. You want to believe your voice is enough to overwrite years of programming.” His mouth twitched in a humorless smile. “Like a magic spell.”
You let the silence hang, writing a note you didn’t need to. He leaned forward. The chains rattled, but the sound was soft, almost intimate. “You ever think about control?” he asked.
Your pen stilled. “Control?”
“Yeah.” His voice was low now, coaxing. “How much of it you really have. Over yourself. Over the people in this place. Over me.” He tilted his head, and the fluorescent lights caught on his eyes, making them gleam faintly. “Do you think you control this room?”
“Yes,” you said carefully.
He smirked, leaning back, the chair creaking under him. “Then tell me to do something.”
Your chest tightened. “This isn’t—”
“Tell me.” His voice was firm now, almost a command. “Tell me to do something simple. Anything. Say it.”
You hesitated, pulse spiking against your throat. Every professional instinct screamed that you should redirect, shut the suggestion down. But your mouth betrayed you before you could stop it. “Sit up straighter.”
For a moment, his expression didn’t change. Then, deliberately, he slid his shoulders back and straightened, spine rigid, chin lifting. The movement was slow, measured, exaggerated just enough to show that it was no real obedience—it was a performance. “See?” His voice was a near whisper. “You could tell me to do worse than that. You could tell me to get on my knees, to beg. You could tell me to wrap these chains around your wrist and drag you across the table. And I would.”
The room shrank, air pressing tight against your lungs. “That’s not appropriate,” you said, your voice sharper than intended.
He laughed, quiet and dark. “But it’s true. You don’t believe in control, Doctor. You believe in power. Difference is, power doesn’t ask permission.”
You gripped the pen tighter, fingers aching. “You said before you dream about blood. Do you dream about power, too?”
His eyes narrowed, studying you, and then he spoke with a soft kind of certainty that felt worse than shouting. “I dream about you.”
Your heart stopped.
“In the dark,” he went on. “Your face at the edge of the light. The sound of your voice when you try to keep it steady. I see your hands—always your hands. Holding the pen, the folder, the little twitch of your fingers when you’re nervous. And I dream about what else those hands could do.”
Your throat worked, but no words came out. He smiled, sharp and slow.
“You think I don’t notice how you avoid touching this table? Like it’s dirty. Like if you keep your hands on the file you’ll stay safe. But I see it. I see the way you sit straighter when I get close, the way you hold your breath.” He leaned forward again, the chain taut. “I see you, Doctor. Better than you see yourself.”
The silence was unbearable. Your pulse thundered in your ears, the rain from outside pattering against the window like a metronome. Finally, you forced your voice into the space between you. “Do you think these confessions help you?”
His smile dropped into something flat, colder. “They help me remind you who I am. And who you could be.”
The orderly knocked at the door. The sound made you jump. He saw it. Of course he did. “That’s enough for today,” you said quickly, snapping the folder shut.
The guards entered, stepping behind him to unchain his cuffs. He didn’t resist. Didn’t even move his gaze from you. As the door swung shut, his voice followed, quiet enough that it felt meant only for you. “Next time, tell me something you’ve never told anyone. Fair’s fair.”
The door locked, the bolts sliding into place. But you walked the corridor with the weight of him pressing against your back, his words burrowing under your skin where no lock could reach.
---
The storm had passed, leaving the asylum damp and eerily quiet. The hall smelled of bleach and wet concrete, the kind of sterile rot that never quite left the walls. You sat at the table first this time, file open, pen ready, spine held deliberately straight. You told yourself the posture was for control.
When the door opened, he entered with the guards, his cuffs already fastened. He didn’t look at them. He looked only at you, eyes locking the moment the threshold was crossed. A faint curl of a smile touched his mouth as he sat down, the chain scraping against the table. “You came back,” he said softly.
“It’s my job,” you replied.
He tilted his head, studying you. “That’s what you tell yourself.”
You wrote the date at the top of your notes page, ignoring him. The scratch of the pen was loud in the silence. “Did you think about what I asked you?” His voice cut through the quiet. “About telling me something you’ve never told anyone.”
You didn’t look up. “This is not about me.”
“It is now.”
His certainty pressed against your ribs. You inhaled slowly, kept your eyes on the file. “We’re here to talk about your experiences. Your memories. You’ve mentioned dreams, nightmares, memories with blood. Today, I’d like you to tell me what you feel when you wake.”
He leaned back, smirk widening. “Cold. Alone. And hard.”
Your gaze flicked up despite yourself, and the deliberate spark in his eyes told you he’d been waiting for it. “That’s not appropriate,” you said evenly.
“But it’s true.” His voice softened, coaxing. “You want truth, don’t you? Isn’t that why you keep coming back, no matter what the others say? You want me to bleed the truth out for you.”
“Truth is not the same as provocation,” you countered.
“Provocation is just truth with teeth.” He leaned forward, chain rattling. “You want me to bare mine? I’ll do it. But you’ll owe me.”
“Owe you what?”
“A piece of yourself.”
The silence stretched, taut. His stare didn’t waver, didn’t soften. Finally, you said, “what do you want me to tell you?”
He smiled faintly, victorious. “Something small. Something soft. Something human. Not your resume, not your degrees. Something real.”
You shifted in your chair, the file heavy in your lap. “Why?”
“Because it’s the only way you’ll ever understand me. You can’t stand behind that glass forever. You want me to confess? Then you confess too.” His voice dropped lower, intimate. “You show me your pulse, I’ll show you my knife.” Your throat tightened, words caught behind your teeth. He saw it, of course. His smirk deepened. “You’ve never been married,” he said suddenly.
You blinked. “That’s not—”
“You don’t wear a ring. No tan line. You don’t talk about anyone waiting for you at home. You go back to an empty apartment, don’t you? One glass of wine, sometimes two, maybe a book you don’t finish. You fall asleep with the TV still on so you don’t have to hear how quiet it is.”
Your chest went tight, your hand gripping the pen too hard. “That’s enough.”
But he leaned closer, the chain taut, his voice low and certain. “You hate being alone. That’s why you’re here. That’s why you keep walking back into this room, even when you should run. Because you’d rather sit across from me than your empty walls.”
The pen tip dug into the page, bleeding ink into a black dot. Your mouth was dry. “And what do you get out of this?”
He smiled, sharp as a blade. “Everything. Every look, every twitch of your hands, every word you won’t say. That’s my confession. I want you, Doctor. Not the way they think, not as some project to fix. I want to get inside your head the way you’re trying to get inside mine.”
Your pulse thudded, loud enough you swore he could hear it. “That’s not therapy,” you said.
He leaned back finally, but his eyes stayed on you, gleaming. “Who said I wanted therapy?” The orderly knocked on the door, the sound like a gunshot in the silence. You closed the file too quickly, stood too fast. The guards entered, unshackling him. As they pulled him to his feet, he bent his head closer, voice pitched just for you. “Bring me something next time. Not a file. Not questions. Something of you.”
The guards led him away, but his words lingered like smoke in your lungs, burning long after he was gone.
---
The room felt warmer than usual when you stepped inside, though the air vents hummed the same dull current overhead. You told yourself it was in your head. You told yourself a lot of things these days.
Bucky sat where he always did, cuffed at the wrists, but he looked different this time—slouched in a posture almost lazy, legs spread, chin tilted slightly as though he’d been waiting not just minutes but hours for you. His mouth curved faintly when he saw you, as though he’d been expecting you to arrive exactly like this. “Doctor,” he drawled.
“Sergeant Barnes.”
“You look tired again.”
You set the file down, deliberately not acknowledging the comment. “We’ll begin with your last statement. You said you wanted to get inside my head. Tell me what that means.”
His gaze slid slowly down your figure, then back up, unhurried, deliberate. “Exactly what it sounds like. You think you’re the only one who gets to dig? You think I don’t notice how you cross your legs when you sit, like you’re making a barrier? Or how you keep your hands folded on the folder, like it’s a shield? You think I don’t see the pulse in your throat when I lean forward?”
Your jaw tightened, but you didn’t look away. “That’s not what this is about.”
“Then what is it about?” he murmured. “Because it doesn’t feel like therapy anymore. Feels like foreplay.”
The word hit the air like a slap. You froze, pen halfway between your fingers. “That’s inappropriate.”
He smiled, slow, dangerous. “So you keep saying. But you never walk out.”
You forced the pen to move, scratching a note you didn’t even read. “You said Hydra made you into a weapon. Did they also make you into this?”
His eyes darkened, the smile fading. “No. This is mine. This is the part they couldn’t take. The hunger. The way I look at you and imagine—” He broke off with a low laugh, shaking his head. “No. You don’t want to hear that.”
“Tell me,” you said, though your voice came out lower than intended.
He leaned forward, the chain clinking as it pulled taut. His voice dropped with it, dark and intimate. “I imagine what you’d sound like if you stopped pretending. If you let go of that polished doctor’s voice and just… gasped. Moaned. Begged.”
Your fingers clenched around the pen hard enough to ache. “That’s not—”
“Appropriate?” he finished for you, smirk curving again. “You’re going to keep saying that until you believe it. But you don’t believe it now. Not really. You’re picturing it. You can’t stop.”
You inhaled sharply, tried to redirect. “You said you want me to confess something. What would you want me to confess?”
“That when you leave this place, you don’t think about the other patients. You think about me. About the way I talk, the way I look at you, the things I could do if these chains weren’t here. You go home and you sit in your quiet little apartment, and you wonder if I’m right. If I’d make you scream or if I’d make you whisper.” The pen slipped, clattered against the folder. His eyes flicked down to the movement, then back up, satisfaction sharp in his expression. “Do you know what my nightmares really are?” he asked softly.
“What?” you managed.
“They’re not about Hydra. Not about blood. They’re about you walking away.” He leaned closer still, so close the chain strained. “They’re about you deciding not to come back. That’s worse than anything they ever did to me.”
Your chest tightened. “You don’t know me.”
“I know enough.” His voice was velvet and steel, quiet but unyielding. “I know you’re the only one who sees me, not the weapon, not the file. I know you’re the only one who makes me feel alive. And I know that if you told me to get down on my knees right now, I would.”
The silence stretched, your pulse loud in your ears. You swallowed hard, forced the file closed. “That’s all for today.”
He didn’t move, didn’t look at the guards when they entered. His eyes stayed locked on you, his smile faint and chilling. “You’ll think about it tonight,” he said, his voice so soft it barely reached. “And when you do, it won’t feel inappropriate. It’ll feel inevitable.”
The door locked behind you, but the echo of his words followed like breath on the back of your neck.
---
The air in the room felt heavier every time you came back. You noticed it before you even sat down: a thickness in the silence, like someone had turned the oxygen down a notch. You told yourself you were imagining it. That it was just your own heart rate, your own anticipation.
Bucky was already there, as always, hands cuffed, posture deceptively loose. He didn’t smile this time, didn’t even greet you. He just watched you as you closed the door behind you, eyes following the movement of your fingers on the knob, the sweep of your coat as you sat down. “You’re late,” he said quietly.
“By two minutes,” you answered, opening the file.
He tilted his head. “Two minutes is a long time in here.”
You ignored the comment, wrote the date at the top of your notes. “We’ll continue where we left off. You said your nightmares were about me walking away.”
“They still are,” he said. His voice was flat, but underneath it was a tremor of something else—anger, or need, or both. “I wake up and I can’t breathe. Feels like you’ve been ripped out of me. I sit in this cell and I think about what I’d do if you stopped coming.”
“That’s not a healthy attachment,” you said evenly.
His lips curved faintly. “You think this is about health?” He leaned forward, the chain sliding across the table. “Do you think I’d let anyone else see what I tell you? You’re not just a doctor anymore. You’re a confession booth. You’re a church.”
“I’m not your priest,” you said, though your voice came out lower than intended.
“No,” he murmured. “You’re something else.”
The silence stretched, taut. You made yourself ask, “tell me what you dream about besides me walking away.”
His eyes darkened. “You really want to know?”
“Yes.”
He leaned in, his voice dropping to a whisper that filled the space between you. “I dream about you walking in. Only this time you lock the door behind you. Only this time you put the key on the table and slide it toward me.”
Your fingers tightened on the pen. “That’s not reality.”
“It could be,” he said softly. “You keep telling yourself it couldn’t, but you’re picturing it right now. You’re picturing how it would feel. My hands on you. My mouth at your ear. You’d still be telling yourself you’re in control even when you’re on your knees.”
“Stop,” you said, your voice sharp.
He smiled faintly. “Why? You’re shaking.”
“I’m not.”
“You are.” His eyes flicked to your hands, your throat. “You always do when you’re turned on.”
Your heart lurched, heat flooding your face before you could stop it. “This is inappropriate.”
He chuckled, low, dark. “We’re past that word. You don’t come back here for appropriateness. You come back here because you like the edge. You like sitting across from the thing you’re supposed to be controlling and wondering if you could survive it.”
You forced the pen to move, wrote something—anything—on the paper. “Tell me about Hydra,” you said, grasping at the clinical like a life raft.
His expression didn’t change, but his voice softened. “They taught me a lot about pain. About power. About taking what you want. They taught me how to read people, how to find the cracks. You’ve got cracks, Doctor. Beautiful little cracks all over you. I think about sliding my fingers into them.”
Your breath caught. “Enough.”
“You keep saying that,” he murmured. “But you never leave.”
He leaned closer, so close the chain went tight with a metallic snap. His voice was a whisper against the hum of the lights. “Do you know what I think about when I’m in my cell at night? I think about your voice. The sound it would make if I pressed you against a wall. The way you’d gasp if I put my hand around your throat. I think about how long it would take before you stopped telling me to stop.”
The air felt thin, your lungs too small. “You don’t get to fantasize about hurting me,” you said, but your voice wasn’t steady.
He smiled, wolfish now. “It’s not about hurting. It’s about showing you what you want. You want someone who sees you. Someone who doesn’t flinch. You want someone who can take all the darkness you hide and swallow it whole. That’s why you’re here.”
“That’s not why I’m here.”
“Then why are you?” You opened your mouth, but nothing came out. He sat back slowly, the chain relaxing, his gaze still locked on you. “Tell me something true,” he said. “Tell me something no one else knows. You don’t have to say it out loud. Just think it. I’ll see it in your face.”
You swallowed hard, gripped the pen until your knuckles whitened. “This session is over,” you said.
He didn’t resist when the guards came in, but his eyes stayed on yours. His voice followed, soft and sure, “you’ll think about me tonight. You’ll touch yourself, and you’ll hate yourself for it. And then you’ll come back.” The door closed behind you, but you still felt him, like a shadow pressed against your back.
---
The room felt different today, and not just because you’d decided it would. You had prepared for this session differently—grounding exercises before entering, controlled breathing, and a plan to shift the power dynamic. You’d even changed your seating; instead of sitting directly opposite him, you’d placed your chair at a slight angle, an old tactic meant to reduce confrontational energy and reclaim some control. When the door opened, Bucky’s eyes went first to the new position of the chair. He smiled without teeth. “Clever.”
You kept your tone even. “Take your seat.”
He obeyed, though the way he did it made it feel like he was humoring you. He sat with his legs slightly apart, the cuffs slack but still present, metal glinting under the fluorescent lights. His gaze stayed on you as you opened the file.
“Today we’re going to use a new approach,” you said. “You’ll answer questions. Directly. Yes or no.”
He tilted his head, amused. “A game of truth.”
“A structured session,” you corrected.
“Truth,” he repeated softly, as though savoring the word.
You held his gaze. “Do you understand?”
“Yes,” he said, a little too easily.
“Do you want treatment?”
He smiled faintly. “No.”
“Do you want to get better?”
“No.”
“Do you want to hurt me?”
The smile widened, slow and deliberate. “Yes.”
Your pulse thudded once, hard, but you kept your voice even. “Why?”
“Because it would make you look at me the way you should.”
You noted it, pen moving steadily. “Do you want to kill me?”
He paused, eyes narrowing slightly. “No.”
“Do you want to control me?”
“Yes.”
“Do you think about sex with me?”
His expression shifted—his head tilted, eyes darkening, the faintest curve of his lips. “All the time.”
“Describe it,” you said flatly.
For a moment he just watched you, the silence thick. Then his voice dropped low. “I think about you on your knees in this room. Not dressed like you are now. Nothing between my hands and your skin. I think about your hair in my fist. Your breath against my thigh. The sound you’d make when I—”
“That’s enough,” you cut in sharply, but your voice wasn’t as sharp as you’d hoped.
He smiled slowly. “You wanted me to say it. You’re writing it down, but you’re picturing it too.”
You inhaled through your nose, forced the pen to keep moving. “Do you understand that this behavior reinforces your confinement?”
He chuckled softly. “Do you understand that you’re blushing?”
“I’m not,” you said automatically.
“You are.” His eyes flicked down, back up. “Your throat, your cheeks. Every time I talk about you in my mouth, you color up like a candle.”
You shifted the angle of the questioning. “When you imagine control over me, what do you actually want? Physical domination? Emotional submission?”
“Yes,” he said simply.
“That’s not an answer,” you said.
“It’s the only answer,” he murmured. “I want you bent. Not broken. Bent. I want to see you stop pretending you’re untouchable.”
You straightened your spine, flipped to a clean page. “Do you imagine me consenting?”
His eyes stayed on yours. “Sometimes.”
“Do you imagine me resisting?”
A small pause. “Sometimes.”
“What’s the difference?”
He smiled faintly, leaned forward until the chain went taut. “How you sound.”
Your stomach clenched. “You’re projecting.”
“I’m confessing,” he said, voice velvet and steel. “You wanted confession, Doctor. Here it is.”
You set your pen down deliberately. “I want to try something else. A visualization exercise. Close your eyes.”
He raised an eyebrow but obeyed, lids lowering. “Alright.”
“Imagine yourself in a safe place,” you instructed. “Describe it.”
His lips curved faintly. “You’re there.”
“That’s not what I asked.”
“That’s what’s there,” he murmured. “A room. Small. Concrete walls. No cuffs. You standing over me, keys in your hand. You tell me what to do. I obey. And then…” He chuckled low. “Then you stop telling me what to do.”
You clenched your fingers against the folder. “Do you ever imagine hurting yourself?”
“No.”
“Do you ever imagine hurting others?”
“Yes.”
“Who?”
His eyes opened again, sharp, unblinking. “Anyone who touches you.”
Your throat worked, but you forced the next question out. “Do you think that’s normal?”
He smiled faintly. “I think it’s inevitable.”
The silence stretched. The pen trembled faintly in your hand. Finally you closed the file. “This session is over.”
He leaned back slowly, the chain relaxing, but his eyes never left yours. His voice followed as the guards came in. “You’re getting good at the games,” he murmured. “But games end. You’ll come back. And one day, you’ll stop asking questions and start answering.” The door shut behind you with a heavy clang, but you walked down the corridor feeling his voice still against your ear, like a promise you hadn’t agreed to but couldn’t shake.
---
The corridor to the interview room was quieter than usual. The storm had cleared overnight, leaving a grey morning behind. The wet smell of the concrete mixed with disinfectant, and every footstep echoed back at you like a countdown.
You’d spent most of the night building a plan. The techniques you’d used so far had kept you above water but hadn’t changed the current. He was always setting the tempo; you were reacting. Today would be different. Today you’d try something new. When you entered the room, the chair was already in place for you. You didn’t sit right away. You stood for a moment, file in hand, looking at him.
Bucky sat at the table in his usual posture—but not slouched. Upright. His wrists cuffed but resting loosely on the table. He didn’t greet you this time. He just watched, like a predator clocking a shift in the wind.
You set the file down, drew the chair out, and sat at an angle again. “Good morning.”
“Morning,” he said softly.
You opened the file, but you didn’t look at it. “I want to try something new today.”
He tilted his head, eyes narrowing slightly. “New how?”
“Less clinical.” You made your voice steady. “More human. You’ve told me a lot of things. Violent things. Fantasies. But I don’t really know you. Not as a person. I’d like to.”
Something flickered in his expression—surprise, maybe, or amusement. “You want to know me?”
“Yes.”
His smile was small, slow. “Finally, a real question.”
You nodded. “Tell me about something before Hydra. Before all this. Something real. Not blood. Not training. Something you miss.”
For a moment he didn’t answer. Then he leaned back, eyes going distant. “Brooklyn,” he said quietly. “Summers on the stoop. Smell of hot asphalt and cheap beer. Steve’s laugh when he still had a voice. The sound of a ball game on a radio from somebody’s window.”
Your pen moved automatically, but your gaze stayed on him. “That’s good. Keep going.”
He looked at you again, eyes sharp now. “You like that? You like me soft?”
“I like you human,” you said simply.
He chuckled low. “You’re good.”
You shifted in your chair, kept your tone calm. “This is how we move forward. This is how treatment works. If you want me to help you, you have to let me see the man, not the weapon.”
That was when his expression changed. The faint smile flattened, his eyes hardening. “Treatment,” he repeated.
“Yes,” you said. “We can discuss options—”
The chair screeched against the floor as he surged forward, the chain clanging taut between his wrists and the table. It happened so fast you barely saw it—one moment you were speaking, the next his body was lunging across the narrow space, the chain snapping like a leash at full stretch.
Your chair tipped back a fraction as you scrambled to move, your file sliding to the floor. His metal fingers slammed down on the table hard enough to leave dents, his face inches from yours. The guards outside banged on the door but hadn’t yet come in. His voice was low, raw. “Don’t say that word to me.”
“Treatment?” you managed.
“Like I’m sick,” he growled. “Like you’re going to fix me. You’re not. You’re mine.”
You forced yourself to stay seated, to breathe evenly, though your heart thundered against your ribs. “Sit back, Sergeant Barnes.”
He didn’t move. The chain rattled as his hands flexed. For a moment you thought he’d pull the whole table toward you. “You think you’re in control,” he said, voice dark. “You sit there with your little notes, your soft voice, like you’re safe. But I’ve been planning every second you’ve been in this room. Every inch between us. Every breath you take.”
The door clanged as the guards burst in, shouting. Bucky’s head turned slightly at the noise, just enough for one of them to grab his shoulder. Another moved for his arms. He didn’t resist, not really—but he didn’t step back either, not until he’d said what he wanted to say. “You’re not going to fix me,” he said, voice dropping to a whisper meant only for you. “You’re going to break first.”
The guards dragged him back, forcing him upright. He let them, a faint smile curving his mouth again, like the whole outburst had been a rehearsal. As they pulled him toward the door, he looked back at you once more. His eyes had gone cold again, but his mouth moved around words you almost didn’t catch. “You wanted to know me,” he murmured. “Now you do.”
Then he was gone, the door slamming shut behind him.
You sat alone at the table, your pen on the floor, your notes scattered, the dents in the wood glinting under the harsh light. And in the ringing silence, you could still feel the heat of his body leaning over you, the metallic snap of the chain, the whisper of his voice like a bruise under your skin.
The corridors of the asylum felt longer on the walk back from the interview room. The guards didn’t speak; they just watched you from the corners of their eyes. Everyone always did after a breach. It was a ritual here: an incident, a debrief, a whisper network.
You forced yourself to keep your steps even, even though your hands still trembled. The pen was still on the interview table; you’d left it behind without realizing it.
Dr. Milton was waiting at your office door, a heavyset man with thinning hair and the permanent expression of someone who’d seen too many things. He shut the door behind you as soon as you stepped in. “Sit down,” he said. You did, setting the file on your desk with hands that didn’t feel like your own. “You were warned,” Milton said quietly. “Barnes isn’t like the others. He’s not an ordinary sociopath. He’s disciplined. Strategic. And you’ve been feeding him.”
“I haven’t—” you started.
He cut you off with a raised hand. “You have. You’ve given him attention, proximity, stimulation. And now he’s testing the perimeter. You saw what he did today? That wasn’t him losing control. That was him demonstrating it.”
You pressed your palms against your knees, forcing them still. “He’s a patient.”
“He’s a predator,” Milton said, his voice hard now. “You’re not here to rehabilitate him. You’re here to contain him. Don’t forget that.”
He left before you could answer, the door clicking shut behind him.
For a long time you sat at your desk, staring at the empty space where the file sat. Your heartbeat still hadn’t settled. You thought about his eyes inches from yours, the heat of his body across the table, the dents in the wood. Don’t say that word to me. His voice had been low, almost a growl, but there’d been something else under it, too—something almost like hurt.
You didn’t remember walking to your car. You didn’t remember the drive. But when you blinked you were home, key in the door, apartment dark and silent around you. You turned on the lamp by the couch and stood in the living room, still wearing your coat, staring at nothing.
The apartment felt smaller tonight. The walls closer. The hum of the refrigerator too loud. You dropped your bag on the counter and went to the bathroom, gripping the sink. Your reflection in the mirror was pale, eyes rimmed with fatigue.
You thought about what Milton had said. Predator. Containment. You thought about the way Bucky had leaned across the table, how his face had been inches from yours, how he’d said you’re mine like it was a simple fact.
And then, before you could stop yourself, you thought about his other words. His promises. His fantasies. The way his voice had dropped when he described what he’d do if you stopped pretending. You closed your eyes, pressed your palms against the cool porcelain of the sink.
You’re picturing it right now. You’re picturing how it would feel.
The memory of his voice curled through you like smoke. Your stomach flipped. Heat pooled low, shame mixing with something you didn’t want to name. You forced yourself away from the mirror, back into the living room. You poured a glass of wine but didn’t drink it. You sat on the edge of the couch, staring at the clock on the wall. The second hand ticked loud, loud enough that you could imagine it was footsteps in the hall.
In your head, you heard him again.
They’re not about Hydra. Not about blood. They’re about you walking away.
Your phone buzzed on the coffee table. A text from an unknown number:
Sweet dreams, Doctor.
Your chest tightened. No one outside the asylum had that nickname for you. You stared at the message, waiting for it to disappear, for it to turn out to be a wrong number. It didn’t.
You locked the phone, set it down. Your hands shook. You told yourself it was a coincidence. A prank. But when you looked toward the window, you swore you felt eyes on you from the street below.
Later, when you finally lay down, you left the light on. Sleep came in fragments. Dreams came in flashes: his voice at your ear, his hands at your throat, the snap of the chain going taut. You woke at 3:17 a.m. with your heart racing, the sound of rain against the glass, and the faint smell of metal on your skin that shouldn’t have been there.
You sat up, hugged your knees, stared into the dark. And you thought, not for the first time, that maybe Milton was right—maybe you weren’t containing him. Maybe he was already here.
---
The interview room had changed. The chair you usually used was bolted now, a subtle but unmistakable shift. The guards who escorted you didn’t speak but their eyes said everything: this was containment, not treatment.
You walked in with the file tucked under your arm, the pen already between your fingers like a weapon. Bucky sat at the table with both wrists cuffed and chained lower, the links shorter than before so he couldn’t lean too far forward. He still looked relaxed, but the set of his shoulders told you he hated the new restrictions.
He raised his eyes when you entered. This time, there was no smile. Just that steady, deliberate gaze that felt like fingers on your skin. “Doctor,” he said quietly.
“Sergeant Barnes.”
“They’ve tightened the leash,” he murmured, glancing at the chain. “Does that make you feel safer?”
“It makes everyone safer,” you replied.
“Not you.”
You sat down across from him, your posture deliberately straight, the file opening with a crisp snap. “We’re continuing our sessions. But with new parameters.”
He tilted his head, almost amused. “Parameters.”
“You’ll answer my questions. Directly. No provocation.”
“And if I don’t?”
“Then the session ends.”
He smiled faintly, slow and deliberate. “You’re learning to threaten me. I like that.”
You wrote the date at the top of the notes, forced your hand to stay steady. “Let’s start with last week. The outburst. Why did the mention of treatment trigger you?”
He leaned back slightly, the chain rattling softly. “Because you said it like you could fix me.”
“I want to help you.”
His gaze sharpened, his voice dropping low. “You want to understand me. That’s not the same thing.” You tried a new tactic: silence. You let it stretch, pen poised but unmoving, eyes steady on his. People hated silence. They filled it. Bucky didn’t fill it. He stared back, expression unreadable. Then slowly, deliberately, he leaned forward until the chain stopped him, eyes still on yours. “You missed me,” he said softly.
“I’m your psychiatrist,” you said evenly.
He smirked. “You’re my obsession.”
“That’s not healthy,” you countered.
He chuckled low. “Stop talking like a textbook. You don’t sound like that when you’re home.”
Your pen twitched. “And how would you know how I sound at home?”
His eyes glinted. “You hum. You don’t even realize it. Little broken bits of songs. You did it Tuesday night while making tea.” You froze. He smiled faintly. “You left your blinds half-open. I know your kitchen light now. I know the way you tilt your head when you’re reading. I know which window is your bedroom.”
“Stop,” you said sharply.
“Why?” His voice was quiet but relentless. “You like being seen.”
“That’s a violation.”
“That’s a confession,” he said.
Your heart pounded, but you forced the pen to move. “Tell me what you want from me,” you said, trying another new tactic: direct confrontation.
His expression didn’t change, but his voice did—softer now, darker. “I want to watch you unravel.”
“That’s not going to happen,” you said firmly.
He smiled faintly. “It already is.”
You shifted, crossing your legs, pen scratching furiously on the paper. “Do you fantasize about harming me?”
“No.”
“Do you fantasize about controlling me?”
“Yes.”
“Explain.”
His eyes gleamed. “You walk in here wrapped in rules, in coats, in professionalism. I want to take each layer off. Slowly. Until there’s nothing left but you.”
“That’s not reality.”
“That’s inevitability,” he murmured.
You set the pen down, trying a final tactic: empathy. “I think you’re lonely,” you said softly. “I think all of this—the threats, the fantasies—is about connection. You’ve been hurt. You’ve been used. You don’t know how to want someone without trying to own them.”
For a moment, something flickered in his expression. A crack. A shadow of something softer. But then it was gone, replaced by that slow smile. “You’re good,” he said quietly. “But you’re not safe.”
The guards shifted at the door. The tension in the room was palpable.
You stood, closing the file. “That’s all for today.”
He didn’t move. He just watched you, eyes following you to the door. His voice followed, soft, low, like a promise, “soon, you won’t leave until I tell you.”
The door shut, but you walked the corridor with the sense of him pressed against your back, as if his words had weight and hands and were already on your skin.
---
It started quietly that night, the way most bad dreams do—with something ordinary. You were in your apartment, lights dim, rain whispering at the windows. The clock on the wall ticked softly. You were making tea, humming without realizing it.
Except it wasn’t quite right. The air was heavier than it should have been. The light from the lamp flickered. The hum of the refrigerator slowed down, like someone dragging a fingernail across a record.
You turned, mug in hand. The kitchen was empty, but the apartment felt occupied. That sensation—of being watched—pressed against your back like a hand. You set the mug down on the counter and looked toward the hallway. It was dark there. Darker than it should have been. A heavy kind of dark, the kind that eats the edges of things. “Hello?” you said softly.
Nothing.
You stepped toward the hall. The boards under your feet creaked like they were further away than they actually were. When you reached the hall, the apartment was gone. The walls were concrete now, damp and grey, lined with pipes. The hum of the refrigerator had become the hum of fluorescent lights. Somewhere in the distance, a chain rattled.
You looked back over your shoulder. The kitchen was gone too. Just a long corridor, doors on either side, closed and numbered but without handles. A shadow moved at the far end of the hall. You told yourself to wake up. You even tried to move your fingers the way you’d practiced in college when you’d read about lucid dreaming. But your fingers felt heavy, like they weren’t yours.
The shadow moved closer. A man’s silhouette. Broad shoulders, dark hair falling across his forehead. “Where are you going, Doctor?” His voice echoed, low, dark, familiar.
Your stomach lurched. “This is a dream,” you whispered.
He laughed softly. “Is it?”
You started to run, but the hallway stretched as you moved, every step landing in slow motion. The doors on either side began to rattle, as though something inside them wanted out. You reached the end of the hall and found a single door ajar. Dim light spilled through the crack. You pushed it open and stepped inside. It was his cell.
The bed was there, the table bolted to the floor, the single high window. The air smelled like metal and damp concrete. But the cuffs were empty on the table. You turned to leave but the door slammed shut behind you.
You spun back, heart hammering, and found him there. Not the chained version from your sessions. This Bucky was unbound, standing in the center of the room. His hair was damp, clinging to his temples, his blue eyes fixed on you. “You keep coming here,” he murmured. “Even in your sleep.”
“This isn’t real,” you said, though your voice was shaking.
He stepped closer. “You think you can study me, write your notes, go home to your quiet little apartment. But I’m already there.”
You backed up until your spine hit the cold wall. “Wake up,” you whispered to yourself. “Wake up.”
He kept moving, slow and deliberate. “I told you I dream about you. Did you think you wouldn’t dream about me?” When he reached you, he lifted his metal hand and placed it against the wall beside your head. The cold radiated through the concrete. His body was a breath away from yours. “Say my name,” he said softly. You shook your head. His smile was faint, dark. “Say it.”
You forced your mouth open. “Bucky.”
He leaned closer, his breath brushing your ear. “That’s better.” His flesh hand came up, fingers curling around your chin, tilting your head up. “You’ve been thinking about this,” he murmured. “The edge. The danger. Me.”
“No,” you said, but it sounded like a lie.
He chuckled low. “Liar.” You tried to push him away, but your arms wouldn’t move. They felt like they were encased in concrete. His hand slid from your chin to your throat, not squeezing but resting there, his thumb brushing over your pulse. “You feel that?” he asked. “That’s what control sounds like.”
“Stop,” you whispered.
“You don’t want me to,” he said. He bent his head closer, his lips almost touching your ear. “Soon, you won’t wake up.”
Your heart thundered. “Wake up,” you whispered to yourself again.
“Wake up,” he echoed, his mouth curving. “Or don’t.”
He pressed closer, the weight of his body pinning you lightly against the wall. His hand at your throat wasn’t squeezing but you could feel the strength there, the threat of it. His mouth brushed your jaw, not a kiss but a promise.
You jerked awake with a strangled gasp, sitting bolt upright in bed. The room was dark, the rain whispering against the window. Your heart was hammering. For a long time you sat in the dark, your palm pressed to your throat where his thumb had been in the dream. The skin there was warm, but you swore you could still feel the cold edge of metal.
On the nightstand, your phone lit up with a new text from the same unknown number. No words this time. Just an image: a concrete wall, grey and damp, with a handprint pressed into it.
---
The asylum was humming with its usual unease when you arrived the next morning. The air smelled faintly of bleach and damp fabric, like it always did after a storm. Staff moved through the halls with their clipped steps, clipboards clutched close, their eyes sliding over you but not quite meeting yours. Word of the incident had traveled. It always did.
You went through security as you always did—bag checked, coat hung, file folder pressed against your ribs like armor. The guards didn’t say anything, but one of them, a younger man with a shaved head, gave you a glance that lasted too long. A warning, or pity.
By the time you reached your office, you were already tightening your shoulders against it. You opened the door, flicked on the light, set the folder down on your desk.
And froze.
There was something on your chair. A folded piece of paper. Crisp, clean, resting directly where you would have sat. Your hand hovered before you picked it up. No one was supposed to have access to your office without keys. Security was strict. Files were checked out and logged. But the paper was there, simple as breath.
You unfolded it with slow, careful fingers. Inside was a single line, written in neat block letters:
You hum when you’re scared. I like that one the most.
Your chest tightened. You folded the paper again, shoved it into the desk drawer, locked it. You didn’t tell anyone. You should have. You knew you should have. But the thought of handing it over to Milton or the guards made something inside you coil tighter. If you gave it up, you’d be admitting he’d gotten past the locks. Past the rules. Past you.
When you saw him later that day, he didn’t say a word about it. He sat with his hands folded, cuffs gleaming, eyes calm and steady. But when the silence stretched and you forced yourself to meet his gaze, the corner of his mouth lifted, just slightly. Like he knew you were carrying his words in your pocket.
The gifts didn’t stop. The next came at home. You walked into your apartment after a long day, dropped your keys on the counter, and there it was: a book lying on the table. You knew you hadn’t left it there. An old copy of Dracula, worn at the edges, the spine cracked. Inside, a bookmark pressed between two pages—a scene where Mina writes about feeling watched. In the margin, a neat, sharp hand had written: She wanted it too.
You slammed the book shut, your stomach flipping. Your locks were intact. No windows broken. No sign of forced entry. But the book was there, solid and undeniable. That night you called maintenance, asked for new locks. The man who came the next day installed them without comment, but you swore you saw the faintest smirk tug at his mouth when you asked if they were “secure.”
By the third gift, you couldn’t keep it to yourself. You came into your office one morning and found a single lily lying on your desk. White, perfect, dew still clinging to the petals as though it had just been cut. No note this time. Just the flower. Your stomach clenched. Lilacs, he’d said once. He’d smelled lilacs on you that first session. Now it was a lily—stark, pure, funereal.
Milton walked past your office just as you were staring at it. He stopped, frowned. “What’s that?”
You swallowed. “A flower. Someone must have—”
“No one should be in here,” Milton said sharply. He stepped inside, looked at the lily, then back at you. “Barnes?”
“I don’t know,” you said quickly.
He studied you for a long moment, then his voice dropped. “He’s gotten into your head.”
You looked down at the lily, at the pure white of it, at the way it seemed almost obscene against the stack of sterile files. “Maybe he always was.”
Milton picked up the flower, snapped the stem, and tossed it in the trash. “You need distance. Or you’re going to drown in him.” When he left, you sat alone, staring at the trash bin. The lily lay bent, crushed, but still beautiful.
That night, you dreamed again. Only this time there was no corridor, no doors, no transition. You were just in your apartment. The lights flickered. And Bucky was there, sitting in your chair like he belonged in it, metal fingers tapping against the armrest. “I told you,” he said softly, “I’ll always bring you something.”
When you woke, there was nothing in the room. But on the nightstand, where you were certain there had been only your lamp and your phone, there was a small piece of folded paper. You opened it with shaking fingers.
Soon you won’t have to wake up alone.
---
The asylum corridors had always been sterile, humming with fluorescent light and faint bleach, but lately they felt hostile. You noticed it in the way the guards lingered longer outside your office. In the way staff lowered their voices when you passed. In the way Milton’s eyes followed you like he was waiting for you to collapse.
But it wasn’t them you noticed most. It was him. Every time you entered the interview room now, he was already watching. Sometimes with that faint half-smile, sometimes with nothing at all, but always steady, like he had been waiting for you specifically. “Morning, Doctor,” he said one day, his voice low, conversational, as though the chains didn’t exist. “Blue dress today. You haven’t worn that one in a while.”
You glanced down before you could stop yourself. He was right. You hadn’t worn it in months. You made your voice firm. “We’re not here to discuss my clothing.”
He smirked. “You put it on for me, though. Didn’t you?” You ignored him and wrote the date, your handwriting tighter than usual.
At home, the intrusion became subtler—or maybe you were simply starting to notice what had been there all along. One evening you came back late, coat damp from the rain, and found your apartment exactly as you’d left it. Almost. The lamp by the couch was turned an inch to the left. A book you’d left on the coffee table was open, spine cracked to a random page. You told yourself you might have done it, might have forgotten. But when you closed the book, a note slipped out.
It was short, written in the same neat block letters as before:
You should eat more. Skipping breakfast isn’t good for you.
Your stomach dropped. You hadn’t eaten that morning. You hadn’t told anyone. You crumpled the paper and shoved it in the trash, then immediately dug it back out, smoothed it flat, and locked it in your desk drawer at home. You told yourself you’d bring it to Milton. But you didn’t.
By the third week, you were jumpy. Every knock on your door, every footstep in the hall, every shadow under the streetlamp outside your apartment window—you flinched at all of it. At the asylum, you tried new tactics: grounding exercises, silence, even simple rapport-building techniques. One day you tried to take control by leaning forward first. “You said you wanted me to know you,” you said. “Tell me something real. Not fantasy. Not control. Something from your childhood.”
Bucky studied you for a long moment. Then his mouth curved. “Your aunt’s maiden name is Carroll. Your father worked in insurance. You moved to the city when you were eight.”
Your pen froze on the page. “That’s not about you,” you said, though your voice wasn’t steady.
“No,” he said softly. “It’s about how much I already know about you. More than you know about me.” He leaned forward until the chain tightened, his voice low. “Tell me something real, Doctor. Or I’ll keep leaving pieces of you on your desk until you admit you’re mine.”
That night, the gift wasn’t in your apartment. It was in your car. You slid into the driver’s seat after leaving the asylum, file clutched tight in your hand, and saw it immediately: a single Polaroid lying on the passenger seat. Your chest tightened as you picked it up. The picture was grainy, dim. It was your building. The window to your bedroom, lit from within. On the back, written in those same block letters:
I like the way you look when you read in bed.
Your throat closed. You dropped the Polaroid like it burned.
Sleep stopped coming easy. When it did, the dreams came back. Always the same walls. Always the same corridor. Always him. Sometimes cuffed, sometimes not, but always moving toward you with the kind of certainty that made you feel like running was pointless. One night you dreamed of being back in the interview room. You sat at the table with your pen and file, and when you looked up, the cuffs were gone. He was across from you, leaning forward, his hand sliding the file away from you like it was a toy. “Stop pretending you want to save me,” he murmured. “Say what you want.”
In the dream, you did. You told him you wanted him. And he smiled like he had been waiting for it all along. You woke up sweating, your sheets twisted around you, the echo of his laugh still in your ears. On the nightstand, where there had been nothing when you went to bed, there was another note.
You’re almost ready.
By the time you arrived at the asylum the next morning, you were trembling with exhaustion. Milton stopped you in the hall, his face hard. “You need to step back,” he said. “Barnes is escalating. He’s not safe. And you’re compromised.”
You swallowed. “I’m fine.”
“You’re not.” Milton’s voice dropped. “He’s in your head. Everyone can see it.”
You tried to protest, but the words tangled. Milton shook his head. “One more incident, and I’ll pull you off his case. Permanently.”
You walked away before he could see the way your hands shook. But in the interview room, when you sat down and opened the file, Bucky looked at you with that slow, knowing smile, and you understood something you hadn’t wanted to admit:
You were already his case.
---
The storm came back with a vengeance that night. You could hear it even inside the asylum—rain slashing the walls, wind clawing at the windows, thunder rolling so low it rattled the pipes in the floor. The lights flickered once, twice, and then the entire building went black.
The sudden silence was worse than the storm. The hum of the fluorescents gone. The steady drone of the security fans cut off. For a moment, the only sound was the rain hammering against the concrete and the faint, too-close sound of your own breath.
The emergency lights didn’t come on. They should have. But they didn’t. Staff voices called in the halls, radios sputtered static. You caught one guard saying “generator’s down” before the words blurred into noise. Someone shouted for flashlights, someone else cursed.
You were already moving down the corridor toward the patient wing. Your pulse was hammering, but you told yourself it was procedure—make sure high-risk inmates were secure, check doors, and confirm locks.
Bucky’s cell was halfway down the block. The hall was pitch-dark. You used your own small flashlight, the beam thin, bouncing off concrete, throwing long shadows. Every door looked the same, steel reinforced with narrow viewing slots. When you reached his cell, you lifted the flashlight, shining it inside. Empty. The bed was there. The table. The chains bolted to the wall. But no Bucky.
Your throat went dry. You flicked the light across the room again, heart hammering. Empty. Absolutely empty. “Shit,” you whispered. You spun, hand fumbling for the radio clipped to your belt. Static only. No voices. No signal. “Shit,” you said again, louder this time.
That was when you felt it.
A breath against the back of your neck. You froze. The flashlight trembled in your hand. You didn’t want to turn. Every part of you screamed not to. But you did.
Too late.
An arm snaked around your waist, the other clamping over your mouth, pulling you back into a body that radiated heat and strength. The flashlight clattered to the floor, beam spinning uselessly across the concrete.
“Miss me?” Bucky’s voice was low, right against your ear. Calm. Almost amused.
You thrashed immediately, shoving at his arms, twisting, trying to stomp back at his shin, but his grip only tightened. His flesh arm crushed your torso against him; the metal hand at your face was unyielding, cold against your skin.
“Easy,” he murmured. “Stop fighting.” You shoved again, desperate, nails digging at the band of muscle around your ribs. He grunted but didn’t loosen. “I said stop.” His voice sharpened, the steel underneath flashing through.
You tried to scream into his palm, but it came out muffled, pathetic. He laughed softly, the sound curling hot in your ear. “That’s cute.”
You twisted harder, nearly broke free for a breath, but he caught you by the wrists, spun you, and slammed you against the wall. Not hard enough to knock you out—but hard enough that your breath left you in a gasp.
Your wrists were pinned above your head in his metal grip, his body close enough that you could feel every line of him against your back. “You think you can run?” he murmured, breath rough now, chest rising against you. “You’ve been running since the first day. But you came back. You always come back.”
“Let me go!” you hissed, voice ragged.
He chuckled, low and dark. “No.”
You tried to kick backward, catch his shin, but he only laughed again, dragging you away from the wall. His grip didn’t falter. You fought every inch, heels digging into the floor, but he was relentless.
He pulled you toward his cell. The door was open. The locks that had been shut when you’d looked in were now unlatched, hanging uselessly from the frame.
Your heart thundered. “No—”
“Yes.”
He hauled you inside, the shadows swallowing both of you. You clawed at his hands, your voice breaking as you tried to scream again, but his body dwarfed yours, his strength absolute.
When you saw where he was dragging you, your stomach dropped. The bed. The cuffs bolted into the frame. “No—stop—”
He shoved you down onto the mattress, the metal frame groaning under the weight. His flesh hand pressed your chest down as he snapped one cuff around your wrist with the other. The sound of it closing was deafening in the dark.
You twisted violently, tried to pull free, but the restraint held fast. “Stop fighting,” he said again, firmer now. “You’re mine. You’ve always been mine.”
You snarled, kicking up at him, but he caught your ankle easily, pinning it against the mattress. His body loomed over yours, his breath ragged now, matching yours. The second cuff closed around your other wrist. Cold, unyielding, locking you to his bed.
For a moment, he just stood there above you, breathing hard, staring down. The shadows cut across his face, eyes gleaming with something raw and hungry. Then he leaned close, his lips brushing your ear. “Now,” he whispered, voice a promise and a threat all at once, “you’re not going anywhere.”
The frame of his bed was cold beneath your back, the thin mattress no buffer at all against the steel. Your chest rose and fell fast, breath shaking, your arms stretched above you and tethered wide.
Bucky was still standing over you, his shoulders rising and falling with his own breath. His hair clung to his forehead in damp strands, a mix of sweat and rain. The storm outside pounded against the barred window, thunder rolling in low and long like a warning drum.
“Stop fighting,” he said again, voice lower now, roughened from exertion. He braced a hand on the bed by your hip, leaning down until his face was a few inches from yours. The smell of him—sweat, metal, the faint tang of something darker—filled your head. “I told you what would happen if you kept running.”
You yanked at the cuffs, twisting your wrists hard enough that the metal bit into your skin. “Let me go!”
He chuckled, soft but dangerous, his eyes flicking down your body and back up to your face. “You still don’t get it. You’re not here because I let you be. You’re here because you came back. Over and over. And now—” he dragged a knuckle slowly down your sternum, not hard enough to hurt but enough to make you shudder “—now I’m done waiting.”
You thrashed again, trying to get a knee up, but his hand slid to your thigh, pressing it back down against the mattress. The metal arm shifted, catching your other leg when you tried to kick, pinning you open. “Stop,” he said again, this time a growl against your ear. “Stop fighting.”
“No—”
His metal fingers wrapped gently but unyieldingly around your jaw, tilting your face up to his. The cold of the vibranium contrasted with the heat of his flesh thumb brushing over your pulse. “You think I don’t like it?” he murmured. “You think I don’t like watching you try?” He leaned closer, until his lips were at your ear, his breath warm against your skin. “But we’re past trying now. You know it. I know it.”
He shifted, his body coming over yours, caging you without even needing the cuffs. His weight was held just enough to keep you pinned without crushing. One of his knees slid between your thighs, prying you open by inches.
You bucked against him, wrists straining against the cuffs, but it only made the metal creak and your skin burn. He caught your chin again, made you look at him. His eyes were dark, but not wild—steady, intense, like a tide pulling you out. “Look at me,” he ordered quietly. “Look at me while you fight.” You did, even though your heart was hammering, your breath ragged. “That’s it,” he murmured. “That’s the look. That’s what I’ve been waiting for.”
His hand left your chin and trailed down, slow, deliberate, fingertips skimming the collar of your blouse, tracing the line of fabric as though mapping it. His metal hand stayed braced above your head, gripping the bedframe, anchoring him.
Outside, thunder cracked. The emergency lights flickered once, then died completely, plunging the cell into a dim blue darkness from the storm beyond the bars. The only illumination came in flashes, lightning strobes that cut across his face and the gleam of his metal arm.
He bent closer, his mouth a breath away from yours, voice a low growl threaded with something like a promise, “now stop running.” His palm flattened against your stomach, sliding upward a fraction, the heat of it stark against your skin. “Or don’t,” he whispered. “It just makes it better.”
You yanked at the cuffs again, wrists aching, chest rising and falling fast. You felt the mattress shift under you as he settled his weight more fully, knees braced on either side of your hips, caging you completely. The sound of the rain on the window and the thunder outside blurred with the sound of your own pulse.
“Say my name,” he murmured, lips brushing your jaw. “Say it while you’re still fighting.” His mouth descended, aiming for yours, but you jerked your head aside, jaw clenching. Your heart hammered. His lips brushed your cheek instead, hot and insistent, stubble scraping your skin as he murmured, “still fighting? Even now?”
You twisted away again, baring your teeth, refusing the kiss. A dark, pleased sound rumbled in his chest. The metal hand slid from the bedframe and caught your chin, steel fingers unyielding as they guided your face back to him, thumb pressing against your lower lip, prying it open. “Look at me,” he ordered again, voice molten and low. “I said look at me.”
You glared up, jaw aching, breath coming fast—but he only grinned, leaning in so close you could taste the heat of him. His mouth crashed onto yours, not gentle or coaxing, but hungry, claiming. You tried to twist free but he held you there, tongue sliding past your lips, swallowing the start of a protest. Your defiance was fuel to him; he devoured it, teeth scraping your lower lip until you gasped, the sound muffled against his mouth.
His flesh hand moved to your throat, palm warm as it circled the column of your neck. He squeezed—not enough to cut off breath, but enough to claim, to hold you steady. “Keep fighting,” he whispered against your mouth, breath hot. “Let me see how much you want to lose.”
He kissed you again, deeper this time, the weight of his body shifting, chest pressing yours into the thin mattress. His hips slotted against you, the hard line of his cock a promise through the thin fabric. Your legs kicked uselessly beneath him, but he only rocked his hips, grinding down until you felt the heat of him, thick and aching, through both your clothes.
He dragged his mouth from yours to your jaw, then lower—lips and teeth marking a trail along your neck, finding the place where your pulse pounded wild. He nipped there, sucking until you whimpered, the sound escaping before you could choke it back.
“Mine,” he said, lips brushing the new bruise as his hand slid down, gripping the buttons of your blouse. You tried to buck him off, arching your back in defiance, but he pinned your hips, the metal hand slipping to your jaw again to hold you steady.
One by one, he popped the buttons open, slow and deliberate, baring your chest to the cold air and the heat of his gaze. Lightning flickered again, and you saw his eyes devour you—greedy, wild, possessive.
He bent to your collarbone, kissing, then biting, leaving marks in his wake. His teeth grazed your skin, followed by the slick heat of his tongue, soothing the sting. You writhed, wrists aching, and he just growled softly, his hands everywhere—stroking, gripping, exploring every inch of newly revealed flesh.
His mouth closed around your nipple, tongue circling, sucking until it peaked and you gasped, arching into the touch despite yourself. He lifted his head, breath ragged, lips glossy with spit. “You taste fucking perfect,” he growled, then bit down just hard enough to make you whimper again, pain blooming bright and hot under his mouth.
You turned your head away, panting, refusing to look at him. He grabbed your throat again, turning your face back, eyes burning. “No hiding,” he snarled. “You want to fight? Fight. But I’m not letting you go.”
His metal hand slid lower, cold against your ribs, slipping beneath your skirt, pushing it up inch by inch. His palm cupped your thigh, squeezing hard, thumb pressing bruises into your skin as his mouth claimed your lips again, bruising and relentless.
You tried to twist away, but the cuffs held you wide, the bed unyielding beneath you, his body a cage. He kissed you harder, tongue invading, swallowing every protest, every moan. When he finally broke away, your breath was ragged, lips swollen and tingling from his rough attention.
He stared down at you, his hair shadowing his eyes, chest heaving. “You don’t get to hide from me,” he said softly, a threat and a promise both. His hands moved lower, peeling the rest of your blouse off, exposing you to the dark and to him.
“Keep fighting,” he whispered, voice thick with hunger, “and I’ll just mark you up more.”
His mouth returned to your skin—biting, kissing, licking, each mark a declaration. Your body arched, torn between defiance and a pulse of want that you tried, desperately, to deny. Lightning flashed, painting the room in stark relief, the silver of his arm gleaming where it pressed between your thighs, cold and merciless as he spread you open. “You’re not going anywhere,” he repeated, his lips dragging lower, mouth hot and hungry as he tasted his way down your body. “You’re mine now.”
He pressed your skirt higher, bunching it around your hips, then slid his hands—flesh and metal—down to your knees. His palms urged your legs wider, baring you to the chill air and the heat of his gaze. You bucked in the cuffs, wrists aching, but he only smiled, holding you open, drinking in every involuntary shudder and the flash of anger that lingered behind your eyes.
His mouth descended, tracing a path from your knee up your inner thigh, pausing to nip at the sensitive skin there until you jerked, a choked sound tearing from your throat. “That’s it,” he murmured, lips pressed to the softest part of you. “Let me hear you.” His stubble scraped rough, tongue soothing the sting in a pattern that left your skin tingling and raw.
He mouthed up, his nose nuzzling the edge of your panties, breathing deep, the warmth of his breath making you squirm. You turned your head away, refusing to look, but the hand at your thigh squeezed, metal thumb digging a warning into the soft flesh. “Eyes on me.” You ignored him, breath coming in short, angry bursts, but when you didn’t obey, he hooked his thumb under the thin cotton, dragging the fabric aside with a single, patient motion.
Cool air licked over you. Then his mouth was there, hot and wet, tongue flat against your folds as he licked a broad stripe up the length of your pussy, groaning low and hungry against your skin. “Fuck, you taste—” his words cut off as he buried his face deeper, tongue circling your clit, lips sealing around it as he sucked, slow at first, then with building pressure.
You twisted in the cuffs, a desperate little gasp ripping from your lips. He didn’t let up, the metal hand pinning your thigh, his flesh fingers spreading you wider, holding you perfectly open for him. His tongue was relentless, lapping through your slick, tracing every line and dip until your hips bucked against his mouth, searching for escape or for more, you didn’t even know anymore.
He groaned again, the sound vibrating against your clit, and you felt the deep answering throb all through your body. His mouth was hot and possessive, his teeth grazing just enough to make you shiver, then soothing the spot with soft, slow licks that threatened to undo you completely. Every time you tried to pull away, he followed, locking you down tighter, eating you like a man starving.
“Let me hear you, doc,” he growled, lifting his head just enough that his breath teased across your soaked skin. “Let them all know who you belong to.” Then he dove back in, tongue swirling, two fingers sliding inside you without warning—thick, relentless, curling to hit that spot that made your whole body arch off the mattress, a ragged, involuntary moan bursting from your chest.
“N—ah, f-fuck—!” Your thighs trembled, legs trying to close, but the grip of his hands and the cuffs at your wrists left you nowhere to go, nothing to do but take every hungry, punishing lick he gave you. His tongue flicked and circled, his fingers thrusting slow and deep, drawing out every wet sound from your cunt, every tremor from your core.
He watched you with hooded eyes, lips slick with you, drinking in every shiver, every gasp, every filthy, unguarded noise. “Look at you,” he murmured, voice wrecked and triumphant. “You can fight all you want, but your body already knows who owns you.”
He leaned in, mouth sealing over your clit as he sucked, fingers pressing up, unrelenting, until the tension coiled so tight in your belly it felt like breaking. “Come for me,” he growled into your skin. “Now.”
And when the pleasure finally broke, crashing through you—hot, unstoppable, loud—you screamed, the sound echoing off concrete and steel, your body thrashing under him as he held you pinned and open, feasting on every shudder and sob that ripped free.
He licked you through every aftershock, savoring the taste, then finally lifted his head, lips swollen, eyes wild and greedy. He crawled up your body, pressing a filthy, possessive kiss to your mouth, making you taste yourself on his tongue.
He didn’t bother undressing himself; his clothes stayed on, rough fabric scraping against your bare thighs as he braced over you, knees spread between yours. His cock strained the front of his pants, pressing hot and thick right where you ached for friction. He dragged the head of it through your slick folds, coating himself with you, grunting in pleasure at the way you whimpered and tried to close your legs—even though he had you pinned, nowhere to go.
“Look at you, fuck,” he rasped, grabbing your jaw in one callused hand, forcing your head back so you couldn’t look away. His other hand slid between your bodies, pulling his cock free just enough to push the head against your entrance, stretching you as he thrust in slow and unyielding. “So fucking wet for me. Don’t pretend you didn’t want it.”
You writhed beneath him, every inch a live wire, wrists aching in the cuffs. He held you pinned, his cock forcing you open, inch by thick inch. The first thrust burned, made you gasp, but he didn’t pause; he bottomed out, groaning as he filled you to the hilt, hips grinding down, pelvis pressed to yours.
You twisted, fighting against the grip he kept on your face, your voice breaking, “N—let go—!”
He just smirked, rolling his hips, grinding deeper. “Why would I let you go when you sound like that?” His metal hand slid down, bracing your thigh wide open, thumb digging into the soft flesh. He drew back and fucked you hard—slow at first, making you feel every ridge, every stretch, every time your cunt gripped and fluttered helplessly around him.
His mouth dropped to your throat, biting hard, leaving fresh marks beside the others. “You hear that?” he growled, voice muffled by your skin. “That’s you. That’s what you sound like when you’re mine.”
The rhythm picked up—harder now, desperate, each thrust shoving you up the bed, making the cuffs rattle and the mattress squeal under your hips. Your skirt bunched higher, the thin cotton soaking up your slick, panties stretched and useless where he’d pushed them aside. Every time you tried to twist away he just fucked you harder, pinning you down, chest pressed to yours, breath hot at your ear.
You clenched around him, every thrust driving a whimper or gasp from your lips, but he shushed you with a kiss, tongue forcing your mouth open, stealing the sounds right out of your throat. “Keep fighting,” he panted, biting your lower lip, “keep fucking fighting. Feels better when you try—ngh—” His cock slammed deep, grinding, the head rubbing right where you needed it, drawing a sharp, broken moan from your chest.
He shifted, angling his hips, one hand slipping down to rub circles against your clit, merciless and fast. The pleasure punched through your body, white-hot, shattering the last of your control.
You came with a strangled cry—legs shaking, cunt pulsing tight around his cock as he kept fucking you through it, hips snapping, fingers never stopping on your clit. The pleasure was overwhelming, sharp and endless, making you sob and gasp, every nerve lit up.
He didn’t stop, didn’t let up, riding your orgasm out with brutal precision, hips never faltering. When you tried to squirm away, he just pressed you down, fucking you until you were shaking and soaked, the cuffs creaking with every helpless jerk of your arms.
And through it all, he never came—just kept you pinned and open, marking you with every thrust, every bite, every growl of your name in your ear. His cock throbbed deep inside you, thick and hot, but he denied himself the release, focused only on wringing every last cry and tremor from your body.
When you finally collapsed beneath him, raw and trembling, he leaned down, pressing a filthy kiss to your jaw, lips curling in a satisfied smirk.
He didn’t release you. Instead, he leaned over, eyes dark and sharp, hands spreading over your chest and belly, holding you down as he rutted slow against your thigh. “Not done,” he growled, voice low, lips brushing your ear and jaw. “Want your mouth on me.”
Before you could answer, he moved—kneeling over your head, knees braced on either side of your shoulders, his bulk and presence blocking out everything but him. His cock was swollen and leaking, the tip flushed, slick with your arousal. He gripped the base and tapped it against your lips, smearing a line of salty precome. “Open,” he ordered.
You clenched your jaw, turned away, but his metal hand slid under your chin, fingers cold and strong as they forced your face up. “Don’t make me ask twice.” He pressed forward, cock sliding along your lips, and when you tried to bite, he just laughed—a deep, savage sound—and wedged his thumb between your teeth, prying your jaw open. “That’s it. Wide.”
He guided himself into your mouth, thick and insistent, groaning as your lips stretched around him, the taste of him filling you. His hips rocked slowly, pushing deeper, the head of his cock hitting the back of your throat. “Fuck, that’s good. Take it.” His flesh hand tangled in your hair, holding your head steady, as he fucked your mouth with slow, unhurried thrusts, dragging out the slick wet sounds, the choke and swallow of your throat.
You tried to twist away, but the cuffs held your arms above your head, body pinned under his weight. His metal hand slid down, tracing your cheek, thumb stroking the corner of your mouth as he watched himself disappear between your lips. “Such a pretty mouth, doc. Bet you never thought you’d be here.” He pulled back, letting you gasp for breath, spit slicking your chin, then thrust in deeper, making you gag, drool sliding down your neck. “That’s it. Take it. Let me feel you fight.”
While he rocked into your throat, his other hand drifted down between your legs, fingers finding you slick and sensitive. He stroked your folds, teasing your clit, then shoved two fingers inside you, curling and thrusting in rhythm with his cock, forcing you to moan around him, every sound vibrating up his shaft. “Gonna make you come again like this,” he snarled, hips snapping harder. “Wanna feel you choke and shudder, wanna fuck your throat while you come on my hand.”
You squeezed your thighs around his arm, trying to squirm away, but he only fingered you harder, the heel of his hand grinding your clit, his cock filling your mouth, choking you with every thrust. The air was thick with the sounds and the desperate, helpless whimpers that spilled out as you lost the rhythm of your breathing, your body betraying you, hips rolling up into his hand.
“Look at you, fuck,” he grunted, pulling back just long enough for you to gasp, air and spit flooding your lips, then slamming forward again, cock hot and heavy and unforgiving. “Such a mess for me. You like being used, don’t you? Say it—ah, fuck—say you’re mine.”
You tried to speak, but he kept you full, only more muffled sounds escaping. The pleasure built fast, shame and need tangled as his fingers drove you wild, his thumb never leaving your clit, his cock stretching your throat until tears prickled in your eyes.
The orgasm hit hard—tight and sudden—your body shuddering around his hand, pulse racing, cunt gripping his fingers as your mouth and throat fluttered helplessly around his cock. He fucked you through it, not letting up, his own breath ragged, hips slowing only when you finally collapsed, spent and gasping, drool and spit slicking your lips and chin.
He pulled out, cock glistening, one hand stroking your cheek. He pressed his forehead to yours, voice still hungry but gentle now, his thumb tracing your lip. “Not finished with you, doc,” he whispered, “but you take me so fucking well.”
He pulled back from you, your legs sprawled and trembling from the last brutal wave he’d forced from you. He knelt between your thighs, palms pressed possessively to your inner knees, spreading you wider—your skirt bunched around your waist, panties still only dragged to the side, the cuffs at your wrists tight enough you felt their bite in every throb of your pulse.
His cock was still out, hard and flushed, glistening from being buried in your mouth and from the mess he’d made of you. The air was thick with sweat and storm, a low thrumming energy in the dark.
He dragged you a few inches down the bed, grip strong and certain, until your thighs bracketed him perfectly. He held your legs wide, savoring the sight—his jaw flexing, lips parted, eyes locked on your face. “Look at you. All fucked out and still trying to glare at me.” He spat in his hand and stroked himself, slow and deliberate, the thick head of his cock nudging the inside of your trembling thigh.
The rough fabric of his pants scratched your sensitive skin as he settled between your legs, pressing your thighs together around him. “Hold still,” he growled, guiding his cock into the slick heat of your thighs, sliding the shaft along your soaked folds, the head catching on your clit with each drag. “Gonna use you just like this.”
His metal hand slid up, cold and firm, clamping over your knee to keep your thighs squeezed tight around him. The pressure forced every pulse of your cunt against his cock, slicking him up, every thrust making obscene, wet sounds as he fucked the soft flesh between your legs. Your breathing stuttered, your body betraying you with another sharp pulse of pleasure as his cock ground just right, the head nudging your swollen clit again and again.
Bucky grinned down at you, breath hot and ragged. “You feel that? That’s how wet you are for me. You wanted this—you wanted every fucking inch.” He pushed harder, rutting between your thighs, the roughness of his uniform scraping your skin, his cock sliding faster, wetter, hotter every second.
The hand not pinning your leg moved between your bodies, two fingers shoving back inside you, curling mercilessly as he fucked your thighs, stretching you wide while he worked your body in rhythm. The pressure, the friction, the slick grind of his cock against your clit—all of it coiled tight, so tight you couldn’t hold back another desperate moan.
He leaned in, lips brushing your ear, voice raw: “Come again. Right now. Squeeze my fingers, let me feel it.”
He worked your cunt, fingers pressing and stroking, the head of his cock gliding up and down, every thrust bumping your clit. You sobbed, shaking, your body spasming as another orgasm ripped through you, thighs clamping hard around him, cunt clenching on his fingers as you cried out, the cuffs rattling above your head.
Bucky didn’t stop—he growled, his own pleasure cresting as he fucked harder between your slick thighs, squeezing your legs around him until with a rough, choked gasp, he came, cock throbbing hot against your skin, spilling messily between your thighs and over your cunt, marking you with every pulse. His breath came heavy and wild as he shuddered through it, grinding until there was nothing left but the slow pulse of the storm and the filthy heat between your bodies.
He pulled his fingers from you slowly, dragging them up to your mouth and smearing your lips with the taste of yourself and him. “Good girl,” he murmured, thumb pressing between your lips, watching your mouth part for him. “Take it all. Every fucking drop.”
Bucky stayed between your legs, his palms dragging up your trembling thighs, slow and lazy, as if he had all night to enjoy you. His gaze flickered up to your face, and a crooked, knowing smile spread across his lips.
You swallowed, pulse rabbiting in your throat. You tried to summon your voice, tried to wrestle your breathing into something that sounded like authority, like you still had a shred of power left. “Bucky. Listen to me. You don’t have to—”
He cut you off with a low laugh, leaning over you until his face was right above yours, his hair hanging in your eyes. “Don’t have to what, doctor?” He dipped down and pressed a kiss to your cheek, then your jaw, rough and taunting. “Don’t have to make you beg? Don’t have to keep you cuffed?”
You tried again, shaking, “You’re not thinking straight. This isn’t you—”
His lips crashed down on yours, swallowing the words, tongue pushing past your lips, hot and insistent, filling your mouth before you could protest. His metal hand cupped your jaw, angling your head just the way he wanted, the cold steel forcing your mouth wide. He kissed you hard, tongue fucking into you, devouring every attempt at speech and turning it into ragged moans.
You tried to keep talking, words muffled against his mouth, “you can’t—ah, Bucky, let me—let me go—!” but he just growled, lips dragging along your tongue, claiming you deeper, swallowing every desperate syllable. Every time you tried to speak, he just kissed you harder, relentless, wet and possessive. His tongue traced the roof of your mouth, circled your teeth, played with the soft, shuddering muscle of your own tongue until you couldn’t do anything but gasp into him.
He pulled back just far enough to speak, breath ghosting your lips. “Keep talking,” he taunted, a dark glint in his eyes. “I love feeling you try to fight with your mouth full.”
He kissed you again, tongue plunging in deep, teeth scraping your lower lip until it throbbed, then sucking it into his mouth. The taste of him was everywhere—his cock, your own slick, the sweat and salt of the storm around you. He devoured every word, every whimper, every attempt at reason.
You squirmed, wrists aching, but the cuffs just rattled uselessly. Your thighs clenched as he pressed his hips down, grinding the sticky mess of his spend against your cunt, smearing it all over your skin. “You keep thinking you can talk your way out of this?” he murmured against your lips, a smirk in every word. “Maybe I should fill your mouth with something better than arguments.” He pressed two fingers into your mouth, pushing past your lips, making you suck them clean. “Go on. Show me you can be good for something.”
You glared up at him, spit slicking your chin, but he just pushed his fingers deeper, tongue lapping at your lips before he bit you again, kissing you until your head spun.
“Bucky, you have to let me—” he just cut you off with another filthy, devouring kiss, tongue plunging deep, making you choke on the taste of yourself and him. You kept talking, trying to reason, voice breaking around his tongue. “You don’t have to—please, Bucky—let—let me go, you can’t—”
He grinned against your lips, biting hard at the corner of your mouth, words curling dark and rough in your ear, “why should I ever let you go? You look so fucking pretty like this—open, ruined, mine.”
His cock, still rock-hard, nudged at your thigh, leaking against your skin as he rutted slow between your trembling legs, grinding his mess against your slick, swollen folds. The sensation made you shudder, moaning into his mouth even as you tried to bite back the sounds. “Keep talking,” he taunted, voice dropping to a growl, “I want to feel you try to say no while I’m tasting you.”
He dragged his tongue down your neck, kissing you until you went limp for a second, breathless, only for your body to tense again when he shifted, bracing one knee on the bed, the other hand palming your belly—pressing down, holding you flat. His lips brushed your ear, his teeth grazing the shell, then his words dropped low and dirty, a promise that made your whole body jolt.
“Maybe I should just fuck you full,” he whispered, voice hoarse with want, “breed you so you’re marked as mine for good. Have you dripping for days, walking out of here with my come inside you, everyone knowing who fucked you open like this. Would you fight me then? Or would you beg for more?”
You shook your head, but the denial came out ragged, helpless—caught between defiance and the pulsing ache of want. He ground his cock against you, teasing your entrance with the thick, slick head, letting it slip up and catch on your clit, rolling his hips until you gasped again. “Say you want it,” he taunted, lips catching yours, his tongue fucking deep, filthy, until your protest was nothing but a muffled moan. “Say you want me to breed you. Make you mine for real.”
His words lit something molten in your belly, shame and need twisting tighter. You shook again, half sobbing, half cursing, but he just kissed you deeper, tongue pushing between your lips, swallowing everything, not letting you look away.
“You’re not going anywhere, doc,” he groaned, fucking his cock through your folds again, threatening to push inside, “not until you give me everything. I want you dripping. I want you ruined. I want everyone to see you and know I did this—marked you from the inside out.” He sucked a bruise high on your throat, lips dragging down to your chest, hands never softening their grip. “You’ll take it,” he growled, tongue flicking over your nipple, teeth scraping. “Every drop. You’ll take it all, and then you’ll still beg for more.”
He devoured your mouth again, hips grinding, his cock poised at your entrance, his words a low, dangerous promise between filthy, breathless kisses: “You’re mine. And by the time I’m done, you’ll never forget it.”
You shook your head, tears prickling at your eyes, every breath trembling. “No, Bucky, don’t—”
He caught your jaw, turning your face to his, eyes burning into you. “No more running,” he breathed, voice rough as gravel. “You want me to stop? Say it. Mean it. Or else I’m going to keep you like this all night.”
His mouth crashed down on yours, devouring, tongue forcing your lips wide as he kissed you breathless, swallowing every protest, every moan. When you tried to speak, he fucked his tongue deeper, sucking on your tongue until you were gasping, voice ruined, heat pulsing between your legs.
He broke away, breath hot on your cheek, his words curling filthy and low in your ear. “You’d look so good bred full of me, doc. My come dripping down your thighs, so everyone knows you’re mine. Maybe I should just keep fucking you until you take it all—until it’s inside you, leaking out, marking you where nobody else can touch.”
He pressed his cock against you, the head sliding inside, slow, stretching you until you couldn’t do anything but moan and jerk in the cuffs, the sounds spilling raw and desperate as he filled you, every inch driving his claim deeper.
Bucky fucked you steady and deep, each thrust grinding into your core, pelvis slapping your ass as he set a rhythm meant to push you over, again and again. His mouth stayed at your ear, voice all threats and promises: “That’s it, sweetheart. Take it. Take all of me—let me breed you. Let me make you mine forever.”
Your legs tried to close, but he forced them wide, his metal hand gripping your knee, holding you open as his cock pistoned in and out, thick and relentless. You felt him everywhere—filling you, stretching you, every stroke sending sparks up your spine and down to where his fingers pressed bruises into your flesh.
He reached down, thumb working your clit in tight, brutal circles, his hips pounding faster as you broke apart, body clenching tight around him, crying out as your orgasm tore through you, wet and shattering. He never stopped, rutting through your climax, cock dragging every tremor from your wrung-out body.
With a guttural groan, he slammed deep, cock throbbing as he finally let himself go, pulsing hot inside you, filling you so full you felt the slick drip down your thighs with every last grind of his hips. His breath stuttered out as he collapsed over you, mouth biting your throat, grinding the claim in with one last roll of his hips.
He stayed there, pressed tight to your body, his come leaking out, the cuffs biting your wrists, your body so used you felt you’d never be empty again.
His voice was low, dangerous, as he nuzzled the shell of your ear: “You’re mine, doc. Now, tomorrow, forever. No one else will ever have you.”
He didn’t move for a while. His breath stuttered against your skin, forehead pressed to the hollow of your throat, hands gripping you tight as if the world might drag him away. You could feel the shape of him inside you still, the warmth of his come pooling between your thighs, marking you just as thoroughly as his bruises.
When he finally lifted his head, his face hovered above yours—hair wild, cheeks flushed, eyes soft and hungry both. The storm had left the cell almost black, but every flash of lightning painted his expression in sharp, unforgettable lines. He cupped your jaw, thumb brushing your cheek, gentle for a heartbeat as he looked at you like he’d never get enough.
“You did so good,” he murmured, kissing your eyelids, the bridge of your nose, his lips softer now, dragging tenderness through the rough aftermath. “So fucking good for me. Didn’t think you could take it, did you?”
Your voice was little more than a hoarse, ruined whisper. “You… you didn’t have to—”
He shushed you, gentle. His thumb pressed your lips until you stopped talking, until all you could do was shiver as he laid kisses down your cheek, the corners of your mouth, your jaw. His fingers stroked soothing patterns down your ribs, thumb catching on the raw lines where your wrists had pulled hard against the cuffs.
Then his touch changed, shifting from gentle to possessive. His metal hand traced the curve of your thigh, squeezing hard, pressing into the bruises he’d left behind, the cold a jarring shock to the warmth of your flesh. He dipped his fingers between your legs, swirling through the mess he’d left, then dragging his hand up, smearing it over your belly, marking you all over again.
“Look at you. Look at what I’ve done,” he said, voice low, somewhere between wonder and cruelty. He made you meet his eyes, the look in them making you want to flinch and melt all at once. “So fucking pretty with my come dripping out of you. With my marks all over you. No one’s ever going to touch you again without knowing I was here first.”
You tried to look away but his grip on your chin tightened, not enough to hurt but enough to make clear you weren’t going anywhere. His mouth slanted over yours, kissing you slow, deep, stealing every breath you had left. He gentled again—fingers carding through your hair, his body curling around you, heavy and sheltering and immovable.
“You’re safe here,” he murmured, pressing his forehead to yours, voice thick with something like devotion. “As long as you stay mine.”
But the cuffs stayed locked. His arms curled tighter around you, the heat of him sinking into your bones, and when you tried to shift, tried to test your freedom, his hand moved to your throat—light but warning, a reminder of every edge you’d just been pressed over.
His words were soft, almost loving, “go on. Rest. You’re not leaving until I say so.”
Outside, the storm rolled on, the world reduced to darkness, to heat, to his body and his claim and the ache of being owned so completely.
And you knew, as you drifted on the edge of exhaustion, that this was both the promise and the threat: he could be so gentle, so soft, until the next time he wanted to break you open all over again.
female x reader, lowkey high key self-insert, true blood so like, yah know. Sex, cussing drugs, etc. This part is SFW tho.
“I can’t believe you convinced me to come here,” you tell your friend, Shelly. She couldn’t look more thrilled, bouncing on her toes with excitement.
“Oh, come on, you fit in better than I do!” she says, grinning.
You can’t argue with that. When she told you about this place, you’d gone with your usual trad goth look, aiming for something straight out of the ’80s. If vampires weren’t sensitive to scents, you would have even smelled like it. You’d reluctantly ditched the hairspray, though, opting to tease and bobby pin your hair to tame the monster a bit.
“Your pretty pink dress makes you look like absolute bait,” you mutter at her, rolling your eyes.
“That’s. The. Point,” she says, tapping the tip of your nose before wiping her finger on her dress. You shake your head, regretting that you hadn’t set your makeup better. It would have helped against her endless poking.
“Shelly, this doesn’t feel like a good idea,” you try once more, eyeing the glowing red sign that reads “Fangtasia.” The place looks more like a glowing red coffin. You like the idea of death, sure—but not speeding toward it.
“Pussy,” she says, giving you a gentle shove before striding toward the entrance.
A blonde woman dressed in what you’d call vinyl death couture stands by the door. She looks Shelly over before turning her gaze on you, her eyes lingering a moment too long.
“ID,” she says, her tone both curt and bored.
You already have it out, handing it over. She looks between your ID and your face a few times before finally handing it back. As you tuck it away, you shiver in the evening breeze.
“You caked that on,” she remarks. “Almost thought it was a fake.”
You tilt your head to look up at her. “It was fun,” you reply, a teasing glint in your eye. “Dead things always look the prettiest.” She gives the faintest smile, though she clearly doesn’t want to. After checking Shelly’s ID, she unclasps the rope and lets you both inside. Shelly goes first, and you follow close behind.
“I thought this was a bad idea,” she taunts, grabbing your arm and pulling you toward the bar.
“It is,” you say, emphasizing your words. “I like to admire dead things from a distance. This isn’t distance—this is asking for it.” She rolls her eyes.
“If I knew you were going to be such a buzzkill, I would have brought Monica.”
“So she could run screaming?” you ask. “She would’ve left you in the dust before you even met the babe at the door. So far, she’s my favorite.” With a sigh, you sit at the bar.
“Maybe you just need a drink or two.”
It doesn’t take long for Shelly to get wasted. You tell the bartender to stick to Coke for you, since you’re the designated driver. While Shelly dances with a lively crowd—some of whom might be vampires—you lift your hand from your drink for a sip, observing the room. There are only a couple of places untouched by the feverish energy: the bar, and the stage. You find yourself drawn to the figure sitting on what can only be described as a throne, curiosity simmering.
Then his eyes snap to yours, and you feel yourself flinch.
“Shit,” you whisper, quickly looking away to focus on Shelly again, who’s lost in her drunken haze. But adrenaline starts pulsing through you, heat pooling at your core. This is bad. Whoever he is, you don’t want his attention. A maniac sitting on a throne? Definitely not ideal. Standing quickly, you dig some cash out of your pocket.
“Girl,” you hear someone call behind you. You stop, clutching a crumpled hundred as you toss it on the counter.
“I know you heard me,” she says, her tone laced with irritation. “Eric wants to see you.” You turn to face her, recognizing the woman from the door.
“Eric?” you ask, confused. A smirk plays at her lips.
“The guy in the spotlight.” She sidesteps you, placing a hand on your back and giving a light shove toward the throne. Reluctantly, you go along, not wanting to resist and risk a scene. You glance back at Shelly one more time to make sure she’s still visible in the crowd, then turn your gaze forward.
Eric’s short blond hair and fitted leather jacket look tailored to him, emphasizing his regal air. His piercing eyes feel as though they’re cutting right into your soul. With a few more steps, you reach him.
“Bow,” the woman orders. You look between her and Eric, but neither of them seems willing to let you ignore the command. Gathering your courage, you grip the edge of your skirt and offer a curtsey. When you look up, their eyes are still on you.
“That was…” his voice slides under your skin, soft and dangerous, “acceptable.” He beckons you closer with a slight motion of his hand. The threat in his eyes is stronger than your urge to run, so you obey. He sighs, reaching out to grab your wrist, yanking you forward until you’re practically against him. Your hand clutches the backrest of his chair as your leg slips between his. When you try to pull back, his grip holds firm, the music fading into the background as the air around you thickens.
“Did you come here to die, or do you have a better reason for tempting me?” he asks, his gaze unwavering.
“No,” you manage to reply, your voice barely above a whisper.
“Sit.” You take a shaky breath. “Down,” he orders. You hesitate, glancing at the empty seat beside him, then back at him.
“Where do you think?” he says, his voice unyielding. Trembling slightly, you lower yourself onto his lap, nearly bridal style. He releases your wrist but drops his hand to your inner thigh, making you jump at his touch.
“Such a jumpy little one,” he muses, a glint of amusement in his eyes. “Don’t you like it when they struggle?” he asks, directing the question to the woman beside him. Slowly, you wet your lips, trying to find your words.
“Eric,” you say his name, and his eyes return to you. “Did I… do something wrong?” you ask, your voice wavering slightly.
He tilts his head, studying you. “Did you know you smell like cinnamon?”
“N-no. I didn’t,” you stammer, struggling to keep your expression calm.
“I wanted to see if Pam here was exaggerating.” His tone is casual, laced with amusement. “Turns out, her sense of smell is as sharp as ever after 200 years.” His gaze darkens as he looks at you. “I think I'll have a taste now, unless you plan to resist.” He tilts his chin down, fangs extending. “You’ll let me taste you, won’t you?”
You swallow before replying, “I… would rather you didn’t.”
He pauses, his fangs retracting just as quickly. A smirk curls at the edge of his lips.
“I think I’ll keep this one,” he says, turning to Pam.
“Bill already has one that can’t be glamoured. Do we really need another?” she asks, not even sparing you a glance, her attention on the crowd.
“There are other ways of controlling people, Pam,” he replies, still watching you. You shift your gaze back to the crowd, uneased by the number of eyes on you, but quickly turn back to Eric. He raises a brow, bemused.
“What?”
“I’d rather look at you. I don’t like crowds,” you murmur, averting your eyes to the chair’s upholstery.
Eric studies you with unsettling intensity, his hand still on your thigh. “Not fond of crowds, are we?” he murmurs, the faintest hint of a smile tugging at his mouth. “Then you must know how much attention you’ve brought upon yourself by sitting here, in my lap.”
Pam rolls her eyes, though a glint of satisfaction lights them. “So dramatic, Eric. Can’t you smell how frightened she is? Try not to break this one, hmm?” she teases, flicking her fingers dismissively.
Eric ignores Pam, his grip tightening slightly. “If you’re so anxious,” he murmurs, “you’re welcome to leave… but I’d rather you didn’t.”
There’s no mistaking the dare in his eyes, daring you to flee and daring you to stay all at once. His fangs remain hidden, but his focus on you is unwavering, as though he’s savoring the tension with each flicker of unease across your face.
“Tell me, why shouldn’t I taste you right now?” His thumb moves slightly against your thigh, a small, menacing caress. “I’m curious about your answer.”
Eric’s gaze narrows as he studies you, his expression unreadable. His fingers trace an idle line along your thigh, each touch setting your nerves alight. "And yet," he murmurs, "you're here in my lap. Strange for someone without a death wish, don't you think?"
The itching feeling of a lie slipped under your skin.
“That was a lie. You don’t think I have a choice.” you pointed out. “I don’t want you to try me, because I don’t have a death wish,” you said honestly. Pam laughed.
“Then why are you here girl?”
“Because, Shelly, has a death wish.”
“The woman in pink?”
“Yes, the one woman wearing pink in the entire club.” you sighed, bringing your hands up to scrunch them into your hair.
You swallow, his words challenging yet chilling, and feel your heart race as the room seems to close in.
Pam smirks. "She’s stubborn. Careful, Eric, the last one who played with fire got burned."
He chuckles, low and dangerous, before his gaze locks onto yours again. "Oh, I don’t mind the flames." His voice drops to a whisper, a hint of thrill beneath the menace. "But be careful—if you stay, you might find yourself begging to be burned.”
You hold his gaze, unsure if he’s testing your courage or daring you to run. But as the music fades into the background and the world around you falls away, you realize you’re not sure which choice is safer. Or which you even want.
