nobody

[warmfrequency]

hinge

captain john price x fem!reader

summary: the lads make john a hinge profile against his will, and to everyone’s surprise, he matches with you within ninety seconds

cw: mdni, fem!reader, age gap (30/43), idk how hinge actually works tbh, john price the feminist, alcohol, insecurities, fluff, smut, oral f rec, piv (14.4k)

John has been irritable for months and it's getting worse.

He knows it the way you know a tooth is starting to rot from the inside, tongue prodding at it every hour. 

On Wednesday, he reamed Johnny out for being three minutes late to the briefing. It was the kind of reaming that had everyone's eyes turned down into their coffees and files while Johnny stood in front at attention, toes squared, ears hot.

John went on and on, red-faced, telling him that his 'admin's a disgrace', and that he'd better 'get a fuckin' grip before you're explaining your timings to your old CO'.

Somewhere in the middle of it — around ‘disgrace’ — John heard himself.

He finished the dress-down anyway. Ending on a firm threat of a year-long inventory assignment.

It was rough enough to watch that when the room cleared out, Simon hung back. He stayed in his seat, leaning back with his arms folded, eyes following John as he aggressively organized his paperwork at the front of the room,squaring stacks that were already square.

"You need somethin', Riley?" John asked, never looking up.

Simon's mouth was twisted beneath his balaclava as he weighed his options. He wasn't especially eager to be John's second victim of the day, but it'd been miserable for weeks with no stop in sight. In the end, he decided to be straight—

"Y'need'a get laid, boss."

John's hands immediately froze.

That unyielding anger came up his chest right on schedule — insubordinate, out of line — and then couldn't quite find his footing in it because the truth was a trapdoor just under him.

His eyes flicked up and across the room, ears warming up just like Johnny's had an hour ago.

"Bloody ornery, you are," Simon went on. "'ave been."

Simon wasn't wrong, John knew that.

The work winds them all too tight — adrenaline that can't be spent, images that don't erase, choices made under duress that keep them questioning at three in the morning. And everyone's got a valve that lets the steam out. Johnny shouts his out at the football. Kyle has somewhere to be lately that he's cagey about, and Simon has whatever Simon has, no one asks.

And John drives home, shuts the door, and the house is quiet, his walls holding all the built-up pressure.

Ten months since his usual I'm-Home-Hookup found herself a steady bloke and stopped answering his calls. He'd told himself the whole time it was casual right up until it ended, when he learned it had actually been load-bearing.

And was that affecting his mood? Maybe.

His eyes narrowed on Simon and his jaw ticked at the hinge. He threw his chin toward the open door.

"Fuck off out've my briefin' room, Lieutenant."

Simon's chair scraped across the linoleum when he stood, sighing through the cloth over his face.

"I jus' think—"

"OUT."

The door clicked shut behind him, and John stood in the silence for a moment.

Then he squared the stacks again.

——

Johnny never volunteers to bring the beer, yet here he is at half seven with a box of glass bottles rattling on his shoulder, grinning under the porch light. Behind him, the headcount runs long by one. Three men when John only agreed to two. Kyle with a canvas bag full of crisps. Simon at the back, hands sunk in his pockets.

"Thought it was just you and Garrick?"

"Aye, well." Johnny shoulders past him into the hall, close enough that their shirts drag. "Simon heard there was football."

"Simon doesn't care about football," John retorts as the rest of them push their way inside.

"I care 'bout football," Simon lies through a simper no one can see, wiping his boots on the mat.

Unfortunately for John, his team is undoubtedly adept at what they've trained in and he doesn’t always catch when there’s fuckery afoot.

Under his nose, in his very own home, Johnny distracts him with talk about the match while Kyle lifts his phone from the side table just beside his elbow. Simon waits an appropriate amount of time before slipping away to the kitchen to guess the passcode, which he manages in one go.

"Gonna have to talk to him 'bout that…" Kyle mumbles as he swipes to the App Store.

"He textin' anyone?" Simon cranes his neck over Kyle's shoulder. "He used t’see tha’ one bird… wot was her name…?"

"Leah," Kyle answers flatly. "Laura?" he second-guesses as he thumbs in the passcode again to approve the install: Hinge Dating App. "M'not lookin' at his texts, mate. Be lucky he doesn't RTU us just for this. Plus, I think he said she started seeing some—"

"—y'know, Cap," Johnny's voice cuts through, a warning for the men in the kitchen. "I can get ye another beer, y'don't have…"

Simon and Kyle glance up from where they've leaned against the counter and freeze when John appears in the doorway, face screwed with suspicion. His eyes flick between the phone in Kyle's grasp and the faces lit behind it.

His initial thought is that the phone's got a nice, durable case, proper practical. His second thought is to start patting down his pockets with his free hand — which all turn up empty.

The room's gone still, a collective held breath to see which way the tension'll break.

"That's my phone."

"It is," Kyle agrees carefully.

Johnny appears at John's shoulder, squeezing past into the kitchen. "Cap, before you start—"

"When'd you nick it?" His eyes accurately settle on Kyle, the slickest of the bunch.

"Doesn't matter when, sir. We just—"

"It matters to me." John puts his empty beer bottle on the table and uses both hands now to pat down his pockets a second time, not quite believing his own team got the drop on him. "Professionally speakin',” he mumbles. 

"Wot really needs addressin' is your passcode," Simon grumbles. "0-0-0-6?"

"Christ," Johnny snickers.

John chooses to ignore them and holds his hand out, palm up. But Kyle doesn't fork it over. Instead, he looks back at the screen and watches the progress ring around the icon close in on itself.

"What're we doin' right now?" John presses, stepping closer.

"Jus' take a seat, boss," Simon suggests, gesturing to the kitchen table just as Johnny yanks a chair out, beaming something mischievous.

John looks at the chair, then looks at Johnny.

"Think I'll stand."

"Suit yourself," Johnny spins the chair around and drops into it, arms folding over the back.

Kyle checks the screen one more time before turning it around. A new little white icon sits on John's home screen, Kyle points at it. John squints to read the little letters beneath it.

"What's Hinge?"

"It's a dating app," Kyle answers and places the phone on the table.

A dating app….

Grown adults sorting through each other like they're shopping. Swipe, tap, Add to Cart. He's heard the lads chat about it for years — the 'ghosting', the games — and always thought: thank god that's not me.

Under the simmering contempt, the idea of typing hello to a stranger who might simply never reply (left on read, whatever ungodly hour of the soul that phrase was invented in) shoots something cold through him.

There's a beat of hesitation before his eyes snap to Simon, the scowl on his face carrying the weight of Wednesday's interaction.

"This is you, then?"

"Team effort," Simon corrects without a flicker of shame.

"It's no' the dodgy kind of app, it's for relationships," Johnny explains. "Says so in their slogan: 'designed to be deleted'. You make a profile, upload a few pics, answer some—"

"I know how online dating works, MacTavish."

Johnny squints. "Do ye, though?"

"You've been rank for months, sir." Kyle tells it plainly. "Whole teams sayin' it."

John feels like he’s been put on a rinse cycle in the wash. His nostrils flare as he snuffs his irritation back down his chest lest he prove them right in his own kitchen. 

"So that's what all this is? A Friday night welfare check?"

"It's no' a welfare check," Johnny defends poorly, voice cracking at a pitch too high.

"It's a bit of a welfare check," Kyle shrugs.

"Right." John reaches for his phone. "Well, thanks for the concern, lads. Truly. Warms the heart."

Kyle slides it just out of reach. "Just give it a shot, sir," he implores. "Try it for the weekend. If you still hate it, I'll delete it and we'll never bring it up again."

John's chin tucks to his chest and he glowers at him from under his deeply furrowed brow. "You'll delete it now," he orders, except these men have never listened to him off the field.

"I could," he agrees, wrestling a smirk. "And you can keep spending your Friday nights with us."

It's meant as a joke. It doesn't land as one.

Because John looks around at the three of them and knows in a few hours their engines will fade down the street and that hulking quiet will pour back in, the one he keeps calling peace. 

So… he pulls out a chair.

Simon pushes off the counter and Johnny's grin pulls wider.

"Go on," John surrenders, falling into the seat with a sigh. He does not look at any of their faces because whatever's on them’s going to make him cross. 

Chairs scrape and Kyle settles down at John’s arm, Simon looms over them from behind, all crowded around the one screen.

The basics go quick — name, age, pronouns. Kyle finds his rhythm working through the questions.

"Drinks? Socially. Smokes…?" Kyle seesaws his head a bit. "We'll say no."

"I smoke cigars," John protests.

"That's a personality trait, not a habit." Kyle scrolls. "Height?"

"Six-two," Johnny says immediately.

"He's six-foot," Simon corrects.

"Aye, and on the app he's six-two."

Kyle selects 6'. "Occupation?"

That one hangs in the air a bit longer than the rest, and John doesn't quite know why. His hands turn palm-up on the table with the question.

"Consultant," Simon offers.

"Civil servant," Kyle tries.

"Military," John answers irritably off the edge of a scoff.

Three sets of eyes come up off the phone — Johnny's eyebrows go high, Kyle's mouth opens to argue, Simon tilts his head just enough, as if to say: if you say so.

"It's not a state secret that I serve," John says, eyebrows pulling close with confusion.

Kyle types it despite whatever he's got hanging on the tip of his tongue. And in the little silence afterward, the obvious question finally comes to mind.

"What've you lot got on yours, then?"

The simple question sends a tidal wave of overlapping chatter and excuses over the table.

"Ah, well—" Johnny starts.

"I actually—" Kyle says, at the same time.

"Different app," Simon adds, under both of them.

"—see, it depends," Johnny goes on, trying to gain volume over the others, "I like to keep the profile fresh. Rotate the pics, the bio—"

"—don't have one," Kyle is saying over the top of him, "because me and Amara are— well, it's not official-official, but it's a thing, so—"

"Been usin' Feeld," Simon finishes.

When the wave recedes, the full picture comes into view: Johnny reinvents himself on a cycle, Kyle has Amara, mentioned now for the first time ever. And Simon—

"What's Feeld?" John asks.

"No," Kyle says before the question has its punctuation, quick and stern, head whipping back and forth. “Absolutely not. We'll talk about that another time."

"It's not for you," Simon adds.

"Right," he mumbles, taking a pull of his beer, settling back against the chair. He inhales and looks off at the window. "M'glad it's amateurs running my love life."

"Enthusiasts," Johnny corrects.

The rest goes quicker.

"What kind of connection?" Kyle reads. "Options are: Long-term. Short-term. Short-term, open to long. Long-term, open to short."

"Short, open to long," John answers without hesitation.

Johnny opens his mouth but Simon glares at him just as quickly through his ragged eyeholes, and he closes it without a word.

His profile photos have to come off the lads' phones since John's camera roll offers nothing but screenshots of maps, car parts, and three random pictures of the K9, Xena, from another unit on base (he’s been trying to snatch her for his own team for months).

He watches the photos of himself go by and it's a strange census, seeing a year of himself entirely through other people's eyes. Makes him queasy, so he takes another bitter gulp to wash the feeling out. 

There's a short argument about the proper order the pictures should be presented, Johnny wins.

After, Kyle starts explaining what a good prompt does, how to choose one. He hardly gets any words out before John's holding his hand out the same way he did half an hour ago.

"I'll do these myself."

This time, Kyle hands the phone over.

The lads drift to the far end of the table to finally give John the space they've neglected to all night. 

Fresh beers are cracked open and a bag of crisps demolished as they fold into their own conversations. The match they’ve been ignoring comes first, then Amara, whom Kyle spends five minutes refusing to elaborate on, and somewhere in there Simon mentions an oddities shop he’s been meaning to stop by.

John sits with his reading glasses on, typing slowly, brows low in concentration.

When he finally sets the phone down, all three of them quickly move behind him.

"So, their profile comes up on screen," Kyle reaches over to demonstrate. "Have a look, read the bio. If you wanna chat to her, tap the heart. If you don't, hit the X, and you'll never see her again. Simple."

The first woman is on a beach holding a cocktail the size of a fishbowl. X.

"Okaay," Kyle drawls, mouth pulling straight. "Sure. Was there a reason, or…"

"No."

The next woman is at a festival covered in glitter and feathers. X.

So is the one after. X.

A woman in her work scrubs. X.

A woman holding a child. X.

A woman in a bikini on a lake (his eyes linger). X.

It's not that they're not lovely. Some of them probably are. But every picture is a performance — arms out, teeth out, look how much fun I am. Advertisements.

"The fish," Johnny mourns as another goes down, a woman on a small boat holding a big trout up. "Cap, she was fishin'. You love fishin'!"

"Wasn't her fish," he grumbles under his breath.

"Whose fish d'you reckon, then?"

"Bloke she cropped out," Simon says, and John tips the neck of his beer toward him.

"Give me criteria," Kyle pleads, both hands on the back of John's chair, gripping with restraint. "I can work with criteria."

"He's calibratin'," Simon says. "Let 'im work it out."

Simon's giving him too much credit. He's not calibrating. He's not reading these women, he's not even really looking at them. Each X is just the whole premise being declined, proof accumulating that he was right about the app all along, and if the profiles run out, well, he tried. Right? The lads witnessed it. He can get back to his peace with a clear—

His thumb stops and hovers, then pulls back to the outer edge of the phone case.

Huh. 

There you are.

Up a trail somewhere, hills of green grass rolling behind you, hood half-blown off, one hand trying to catch it. You're laughing at whoever's taking the picture, smile wide.

John's not sure he's ever seen eyes twinkle before, but that must be what yours are doing, shimmering even under overcast.

You're very pretty.

For the first time, John taps the profile open.

30. Executive Assistant. 4 Miles Away. Short-Term, Open to Long-Term.

Executive Assistant, so you likely work too much. That's familiar to him, something he understands inside-out. 

There's a photo of you in office clothes at what looks like a retirement party, smile an edge more saccharine than the one on the hill.

Another of you criss-cross on the floor, a black and caramel cat stretched out and content in your lap, belly-up. Shirt low cut, cleavage to feast on. He is sixty percent gentleman about how long he looks at it.

And at the bottom:

The best way to ask me out is by: using words.

I recently discovered that: I'm better in person than I am on here.

John huffs an amusement through his nose. He spent more time on his profile than he thinks you spent on yours. Seems like you're tired of the same things he's already tired of, one night in.

Behind him, the lads have gone silent, holding their breath.

John taps the heart and his screen goes bright with a wash of confetti, both your photos ringed together:

IT'S A MATCH!

"Oh, shit, she already matched with you," Kyle cranes his neck closer to inspect.

"Gimme that." Johnny plucks the phone from John's hand. "No way," he scoffs. "Fuckin' fit. A bit young for you, Cap, aye?" He looks at John, then back at the screen like the two won't reconcile in his brain.

"Careful," John warns mildly.

Johnny hands the phone back, muttering something in Scots only Simon could translate.

John doesn't hear much of it anyway. He's already looking at your photo again.

Better in person.

Yeah. He'd bet you are.

"Right, sir," Kyle says. "Now we wait. Midday tomorrow the earliest. Message her any sooner and it reads keen."

"It'd be accurate," he deadpans.

"There's rules, Cap," Johnny says. "No messagin' straight away, no double-textin', keep a wee bit of mystery."

John turns in his chair with a scowl to look up at the three of them.

"So, you're tellin' me a woman says she's interested in you and you… make her wait?"

Silence.

"I mean, when you put it like that…"

"Yeah, s'a bit fuckin' rude, innit?" John derides, turning back around.

He's already typing, screen tipped away.

"Sir," Kyle pleads. "At least let us read it."

"This is a two person conversation, not a five piece."

He presses send and quickly pockets the phone.

——

Four miles away, a phone lights up…

——

Your windows are open to the last of a long evening, warm air breezing through the sheer curtains. You’re finally on the couch. Shower taken, its heat still damp in your skin. A glass of off-dry riesling teeters precariously on the arm, cold from the fridge and sweating through its stemless glass.

Twix is a puddled tortoiseshell furnace against your thigh, one paw twitching through a dream, her purr winding down as she drops deeper. And on the telly, Last Christmas is on. You've seen it a dozen times, that's why you leave it — it's mindless.

The second glass goes down easier than the first, tart on your tongue, blooming warm in your belly and over your cheeks.

Somewhere in the lull, your thumb opens Hinge, a reflex to being bored. You don't really expect anything from it anymore. 

A man holding a fish, sunglasses on. X.

A man whose photos are all group shots. X.

A man who is 6'2" and it's his entire personality. X.

Your thumb knows the rhythm without you.

The next profile slides into view and you pause, thumb hovering.

He's handsome in that sort of rugged, classic way. His beard is salted at the edges, lines beside his eyes creased deep, cheeks faintly rosy. He's mid-laugh at what looks like a Christmas party, red and green tinsel drooping off the beams behind him; head slightly tipped, one heavy hand flat on the table. He's not cackling, you can tell it's more reserved, but it's probably still more than he usually offers.

John. 43. Military. Four miles away. Short-Term, Open to Long-Term.

The one thing you should know about me is: I'm gone a lot for work. But when I'm home, I'm home.

Most men bury the catch in the fine print, but he's leading with it.

You don't know yet whether that's honesty or efficiency. You suspect that with him they might be the same thing.

His second photo is of him on the tailgate of some enormous vehicle, fatigues taut over his thighs, thumbs hooked through his bulky khaki plate carrier, looking up from under the brim of his hat.

Two truths and a lie: I've never seen Star Wars. I have a lie-in every Sunday. I've had tea with a warlord.

The sky is pink with the morning in his third picture. He's thigh-deep in a lake, turned away from the camera entirely. (You're noticing it's a common theme that he does not look at the camera for any photo.) The sunlight catches the breadth of his back and shoulders, cotton molded around muscle.

Don't hate me if I: call instead of text. It's quicker.

You giggle just enough that Twix's ear rotates toward you in reproach.

It's kinda cute when older men put more effort into their profiles.

But the alarm is already going off somewhere in the back of your skull — too good, probably old photos, probably has a wife — it has never once failed to ring. But you're two glasses in, and the heart really costs nothing even if the conversation seems off.

You tap it, and put the phone facedown on your thigh.

On the telly, Emilia Clarke is busy falling for a man you happen to know has been dead the entire film. You mouth one of his lines along with him, not really invested, wine warm in your chest, Twix breathing slow against your leg.

Then your phone buzzes against you once, and you ignore it, because you have rules about lunging for male attention. But then it buzzes again, and, well, you just turn it over to have a look. Maybe it's your mum, you don't know!

HINGE: You and John matched!

HINGE: 1 New Message

You open it.

Evening. Not much good at using the app, but I really wanted to chat to you. How's your Friday night?

You hum to yourself curiously. Not an innuendo or emoji in sight.

i actually volunteer helping the elderly with technology, happy to walk you through it.

friday's been average. wine and a movie on the couch. how's yours?

You put the phone back down and focus on the film, but his reply comes within the minute.

Ouch. Friday's alright. The lads invited themselves round for the match. Still here, unfortunately.

you're messaging me with guests in the house? terrible host.

They invited themselves. Hosting rules don't apply.

What movie are you watching?

You glance at the telly where a dead man is mid-song and weigh lying about it.

You could be watching anything. You could pick something more interesting, something with a deep lesson, educational, historical, something niche to come off cool and worldly.

you're not allowed to judge me.

Judging is sort of my life's work, but I'll do my best.

You snort. Twix relocates to the far cushion in protest.

it's called 'last christmas'. i don't know why it's on in july, but i've probably seen it twelve times. it's good background noise.

The reply takes slightly longer this time. You picture him all big hands, small phone, and then stop picturing him, because that's how it starts.

Twelve times? Must be decent.

it's objectively not. the love interest is dead the entire film lol

Dead?

it's a twist. it's festive!

You and I have very different definitions for "festive". I've got a few questions. But I'll save them.

You smile.

so, your lake photo. did you catch anything that day?

Not a thing.

hours in freezing water for zero fish?!

The fish aren't the point.

do tell, what's the point?

The mist off the water. The quiet. The no one expecting anything from you.

It's the first real answer a man has given you on this app in, like, six months. 

You feel oddly like you've been handed something and should keep your hands still so it doesn't spook.

that actually sounds really peaceful.

i've never been fishing, but i do love nature in the mornings. i have a trail by me that i like to trek early on weekends.

That the trail from your photo?

it is! my best friend actually made me go that day, i wasn't in the mood. complained the whole way.

Doesn't show.

Good photo of you.

Beautiful, actually.

You stare at the screen and feel warmth tickling your nape, sliding lower, molten and slow. 

Every instinct you have reaches for deflection.

oh! thank you. the wind did most of the work lol

No it didn't.

— and he just takes the deflection off you, like being returned something you've dropped. You press the cool curve of the wine glass against your cheek and remind yourself, sternly, that this is a stranger on the internet.

well, for the record your photo's not bad either. handsome smile.

Somewhere past ten, you notice the conversation keeps not ending. 

how long have you been on hinge?

It's my first night, actually.

first night???

Profile's about two hours old.

yikes, so i'm just the practice woman then, huh?

Practice implies I'm planning to do this again.

——

John's still at the kitchen table, reading glasses pushed up into his hair now, beer gone warm at his elbow. The lads have migrated to the living room doorway — close enough to monitor, far enough to pretend they aren't.

He knows they're watching, and he's been watched by better.

What he can't seem to manage is his fuckin' face — it keeps doing things beyond his control, and every time your reply comes he has to reel it back to neutral, and he can tell by the quality of the silence behind him that he's not reeling nearly fast enough.

"He's smilin' again," Johnny murmurs, elbowing Simon in the ribs.

"Shameless," John mumbles, without looking up. "All of you."

He's typing when the floor creaks jus to his left. When he glances up, Johnny has drifted to his shoulder under the pretense of collecting empties.

"Need another, Cap?"

"I need you three feet back, MacTavish," he replies, thumbs tapping away.

A minute later it's Kyle from the doorway, "If she asks about hobbies, don't lead with the cigars. They poll badly amongst females."

"'Females'?" John grimaces, face down, thumbs still at it. "Say it with me Garrick, 'women'."

Then Simon, who hasn't moved or spoken in twenty minutes, asks, "Wot's she sayin', then?"

John rolls his eyes and sets the phone face-down, pushing himself up out of the chair.

"Time to go, lads," he says with an obviously fake smile, gesturing his arm out towards his front door. "Goodnight."

"It's no' even eleven oclock!" Johnny complains.

"Then the night's still young. Go on, fuck off."

They go — bottles gathered, snacks cleaned up, Simon herding Johnny down the hall as he’s still negotiating.

Then their engines fade down the street, and the quiet pours back in, right on schedule. Except tonight it arrives and there's a phone lit on his kitchen table with your name on it, and the quiet — for the first time in a long while — has to wait.

He locks up, kills the TV, then drops into his armchair with the phone already unlocked.

did the football finish? who won?

He glances at the dead telly. Hasn't a clue. 

Couldn't tell you.

omg lol you had ONE reason for guests tonight!

I got distracted.

by what? 😇

I think you know by what.

Nothing comes back for a minute. He pictures you on your couch, that cat beside you, deciding what to do with it — and it occurs to him, mildly horrifying, that he's enjoying this. The wait. The little emoji with the halo, transparently unrepentant. He finds himself smiling at the ceiling like there's something written on it.

anyway!

Anyway.

He'll allow it: retreat granted. There's no rush.

The cat in your photo. Yours?

yes! that’s twix. she's a menace.

Good name.

she prefers men that ignore her.

Then we'd get on fine. I'm very good at ignoring cats.

It goes on just like that: easy.

You ask if he's a morning person and learn he's up at five most days by choice; he learns you consider five the middle of the night.

He talks about the Brecon Beacons — the actual Beacons, the ones he loves, not the ones that nearly killed him at twenty-two. You tell him you've always wanted to go, and he catches himself already planning the route he'd take you. Then quickly chastises himself. 

How's the average Friday held up?

certainly improved

Mine too.

He puts the phone on the arm of the chair and sits in his quiet house, and for once it doesn’t feel so desolate.

——

The following morning he's up at five. He starts drinking his coffee at the counter, looking out the window over the sink, the sorbet summer sky bleeding morning.

He thinks of you before he can stop himself. Asleep, presumably, five being the middle of the night and all. Then he takes the coffee out to his back step for some fresh air.

He wonders if he was any good with the messaging last night. It's the longest he's ever sat with his phone in his hand, period. Let alone chatting with someone. There's no debrief for it, that's the trouble. No one to tell him whether ‘I got distracted.’ read as charming or desperate.

He runs the entire two-hour exchange back over and over and finds no actionable errors, but remains unconvinced.

He goes for his run at six. The route climbs uphill around klick seven, and somewhere on the hill he thinks about your photo, your smile, your mouth. He wonders what you smell like, what you sound like when you're being sarcastic. 

By noon he's under the Land Rover draining the old oil, and he catches himself pondering what you might do on a Saturday. Whether you slept in properly. Whether the cat allows it; he grew up with one himself and knows how demanding they can be when they're ready for a feeding.

He hasn't messaged yet and neither have you.

He couldn't say exactly why he's held off. Something the lads said about being keen, and rules, and mystery lodged somewhere he can't reach to dig it out. He's not normally a man that takes doctrine from Johnny MacTavish, and yet… here he is. 

It's a stupid fuckin' rule.

The afternoon goes long and gets quiet in the old way.

The house at four o'clock has a particular acoustic he knows down to the plumbing, and today, for the first time, he notices himself noticing it. It never used to be so obvious. Years of Saturdays like this one and it took his phone going quiet for half a day to show him the loneliness so plainly.

By the evening he's got Chinese takeaway at the kitchen table, eating it straight from the carton, chopsticks shoveling fried noodles down his gullet while he does the crossword from the morning paper in his head.

That's when his phone lights up for the first time all day, buzzing three times in succession — he absolutely hates how quickly it's in his hand.

spent six hours wedding dress shopping with my best friend. i need a glass of wine and a lie down.

thought of you on the tube home

He reads the second message again.

Thought of you. 

He’d been drafting the same admission since noon and something in his chest going catastrophically hot.

are you still up? i know sundown is bedtime for your generation.

And there's the sarcasm. 

Outside the window, the sun is — he checks — still up. Barely. He's got that going for him, at least.

Just in time. Was about to take my dentures out.

Thought about you as well.

He types the second line fast before he can be a coward about it. If you can say it, he can say it. Fair's fair.

I do have a question now though. It's not your wedding we're shopping for, is it? That'd be proper inconvenient for me.

lol no! maid of honor. today was purely supervisory.

don't really see myself getting married anyway.

the dresses were stunning though!

He’s picking up on a pattern. Three messages arriving like one exhale — the vulnerable thing said flanked with distraction. 

Nothing wrong with that.

Successful trip then? Or is there another six hours coming?

successful! she found it. there were tears and champagne.

what about you, how was your saturday?

He’s had a day spent purposefully not doing the one thing he wanted to do.

Quiet. Nothing worth typing.

hm. sounds like you should ring me then…

He looks at that one for a moment and blinks, the inside of his cheek finds itself between his teeth.

For all their blabbering, the lads did not warn him about this bit. Not that he can't speak on the phone, he prefers it. You're essentially quoting his profile back at him. But he's been thinking about something since roughly the fourth time you crossed his mind today, and a phone call isn't the ask he's been building up to.

Could do.

Truthfully, though. I was just working up the courage to ask you for a drink.

Courage. He's used that word in citations, for men who ran toward gunfire, heroes. Now he’s using it to describe the act of asking a woman on a date, and the genuinely undignified part is that it's regrettably accurate.

Your reply takes a minute. He watches the dots start and stop, and start again. God, he's been shot at with less suspense.

Then your message comes through and it's just a number. Ten digits. It buzzes in his hand once more.

for logistics.

He stares at it for a beat and then he's up out of his seat. Takeaway abandoned, at the fridge with his phone still in one hand, snapping the cap off a beer on the lip of the counter, and then he's out the back door into the garden where the evening's gone navy and the air’s still warm from the day.

He saves your number first. Then he stands there a moment, beer sweating in one hand, thumb over the call button in the other.

——

You’ve just tipped the bottle over your glass when the phone starts buzzing against the counter.

Unknown Number. Local.

“John?”

“Evenin’.”

Fuck. 

His voice lands an octave lower than you were braced for. A honeyed gravel that seeps into your ear and slides thick over your spine, pooling somewhere behind your ribs.

You set the bottle down before you drop it.

“So you actually do ring,” you manage.

“Said so on the profile, I think.”

“I half thought it was a bit.”

“I don’t really do bits.”

“No,” you say through a grin, picking up your glass and drifting toward the couch. You drop your voice into a gravelly impression of him: “You’re a very serious man.”

The laugh that comes down the line is quiet — more breath than sound, warm at the bottom of it, like you’ve caught him somewhere he doesn’t usually go.

“That meant to be me?”

“It’s uncanny, I know.”

The line goes quiet a moment — the good kind, neither of you rushing to fill it — and in it you catch the sounds of his side: a whirl of breeze, the faint ring of a glass set down on iron. He’s outside. You picture a tidy yard with tall dark hedges, a big man pacing slowly with a beer.

“Am I interruptin’ the wine?”

“The wine and I are happy to share the time.”

“Good.” There's a pause that you can hear his smile in. “I have a beer out here. Seemed only fair we’re both suffering the same.”

“Are we having our drink right now? Is this it?”

“No,” he says immediately, unamused even — which is very amusing for you. “This one doesn’t count.”

The speed of his reply sends something fizzing under your sternum. You tuck your feet up under yourself and take a slow sip.

“No?” you tease.

“I had imagined I’d see your face.”

“Been imagining, have you?”

You are very glad he cannot see your face right now. Cheeks warm and strained, you press the cool of the wine glass briefly against them in turns

“Nothin’ mucky if that’s what you’re gettin’ at.”

“Mm, no, 'course not. You’ve been a proper gentleman. Haven’t even thrown me a cheeky pick-up line.”

“I could workshop somethin’ for you if you’d like.”

“No thanks,” you giggle into your glass. “It was a relief when I opened your first message and it wasn’t a riddles-three about your dick.”

You can hear his scoff and recoil on the other end.

“Is that what it’s come to?”

“Unfortunately.”

There’s a short silence you’d swear is him coming to terms with the modern world, and you bite down on a smile.

“Right,” he says, and there's a controlled shift in his voice. “My question...”

Your stomach does a free-fall, nauseating and fluttery, fifteen again on the Detonator at Thorpe Park.

“Mm?” you hum around a sip, deeply casual, a woman entirely unbothered, curled so tight around the phone that Twix doesn’t have a leg to lie on.

“There’s a pub about halfway between us, Lamb & Flag. I’d like to take you for that drink tomorrow. Will you come?”

Then you remember what tomorrow is and sigh, immediately irritated with your whole family.

“Ugh, I want to say yes,” you sulk. “But I’ve got Sunday dinner with my family tomorrow. My mum would hunt me for sport if I flaked.”

“Fair. Wouldn’t want that on my conscience.”

“I could do a weeknight? After work?”

There’s a pause on his end.

“I’d rather not promise you a weeknight,” he admits. “I rarely get away on time, and I’m not startin’ this by standin' you up.”

You go quiet for a beat, you were ready for the usual ‘ahh, well, we’ll figure something out’. But instead got a man mindful of your time; a unicorn, really.

“Also fair. And— and thoughtful.”

“Friday, then?” he tries hopefully, you catch the small lean in his voice.

“Friday’s perfect,” you agree. “It’s a date!”

“It is,” he agrees, smiling.

The conversation should end there but it doesn't.

You learn things no profile has a field for; that he talks slower than he types, that he hm's real low in his throat when he’s considering something, that when you make him laugh it rumbles, so rough at the bottom that you feel at the back of your knees.

Somewhere past the hour mark you stop scrutinizing the call for red flags and just talk, and you only notice you’ve stopped when Twix jumps onto the couch and you realize you’ve been lying down for a while, phone balanced on your ear like you’re seventeen.

Eventually, you yawn.

“Right,” he says, and you can hear him moving, standing up by the way he tries to muffle a stiff groan. “That’s my cue.”

“Aw, no! I’m fine, really.”

“It’s late, love. And you’ve got your family tomorrow.”

“True. And you’ve got… whatever it is old men do on Sundays.”

“Lie-in, according to my profile.”

“Ha!” you bark, vindicated alone in your living room, having forgot about his little 'two truths and a lie'. “That’s the lie, I bet. I don’t think you’ve ever had a lie-in in your life.”

A low sound of amusement rolls down the line. “Goodnight,” he says, declining to confirm.

“Night, John.”

You sit a minute in the amber shine of your lamp after the line goes dead, phone loose in your hand.

——

Sunday morning, you text him at 8:12 AM.

good morning. how was the lie-in?

Wouldn’t know. Been up since five.

the lie confirmed!

He doesn’t dignify it. You don’t expect him to. You grin at your phone while you wait for the kettle to boil.

Your mum will later describe you, over dinner, as ‘suspiciously cheerful’.

The day swallows you — the drive, the roast, your mum’s questions, your brother’s kids. It’s near ten when you’re finally home, shoes off, replying to the last thing he’d sent that morning.

survived. my mum sends her regards to whoever put me in a good mood. her words.

Regards received. Sleep well.

——

Monday morning, John’s at his desk with his coffee going cold because somewhere between the canteen and the walk to his office, his phone buzzed, and it was you and he hasn’t stopped looking at it. 

good morning :) big meeting today. does this say “promote me” or “she tried”?

[ PHOTO ATTACHMENT ]

You, in your hallway mirror — chin tipped, black short-sleeve blouse with a wide collar exposing the smooth skin of your upper chest and collar, grey pencil skirt stretched over the curve of your hips and thighs, one knee bent like you’d just been lowering your foot from fitting on your heel.

His eyes are stuck on the soft-looking flesh just above and between your knees when a rap lands on his door and forces a cough from his throat.

Johnny eases it open with Kyle behind him holding a folder, Simon's behind them both, holding nothing, not even a pretense.

His phone goes face-down on the desk at a compromising speed, shifting to sit up straigher.

Simon’s eyes go to John’s hand over the phone, then to his face before he leans in the doorway with his arms folded.

“Mornin’, Cap. Good weekend?” Johnny asks, falling into the side chair in front of the desk with a theatrical groan.

“Fine.”

“Aye? Do anythin'?” He smiles, waggling his eyebrows. “Anyone?”

“You’ve got thirty seconds to develop a work reason for being in my office, Sergeant.”

It's an empty threat and everyone in the room knows it.

Kyle sets the (empty) folder down and steps back behind Johnny. “How’s it going, sir? Did you have any luck with Hinge?”

John could make them work for it. He’d planned to. But all three of them are standing in front of him trying so hard to look casual it’s a wonder none of them have pulled something.

"Have a date Friday. Drinks."

Johnny is ready to blast out of his seat, but Kyle shoves him back down by the shoulders, digging his fingers into the pressure points on either side of his neck until he relents with a hiss.

"That's great. Same woman or…?"

"The same."

“Good, good, good,” Johnny says, and means it — John can hear that he means it, he can also hear the restraint he's keeping from unloading shite advice.

“We'll stop buy Saturday for the debrief,” Simon says, already turning around, and Kyle picks the folder back up like it had a purpose all along, and they file out the way they came.

"I'm not debriefing you on my date. Don't come!" John calls to them half-heartedly, but the door's already shutting on top of his words. 

He turns the phone back over.

Promote you, he types.

You look lovely.

Your reply comes before he’s picked his pen back up.

well now the meeting feels easy. thank you x

He gets on with his morning, but by noon he suspects he's looked at that damn photo a dozen times.

——

The rest of the week goes standard. Your Tuesday runs long and his Wednesday runs longer, and the messages carry throughout it all. His texts arrive before your morning alarm even sounds, your replies go mid-commute — nothing heavy, just remaining in each other's orbit of interest as Friday chugs slowly into view.

Thursday night, near nine, he rings you, having first texted to ask if he could, which you’re beginning to understand is just how he’s built. It’s a short call by your new standards with him. He only wanted to confirm you’re still on for the pub, but he had you grinning into your pillow until you fell asleep.

———

You leave work at five on the dot, and you’re in front of your open wardrobe by six.

The little black dress comes off the rail first. Goes back. Comes off again. Back. The floral one gets as far as your shoulders before you pull it off over your head and drop it on the bed, where Twix immediately sits on it.

The silky baby blue halter’s been hanging on the door since you bought it. You put it on like you hadn’t already decided and do the tie at the back of your neck twice before the bow sits flat and neat. You pull on some jeans and rummage the closet for your chunky heels. 

You press some strawberry perfume to your throat in the mirror and try to comfort the nerve-ridden woman in the reflection.

“It’s just a pub,” you tell her. 

She doesn’t seem convinced. 

———

The pub is exactly the kind of place you imagine he'd frequent — quiet, all old mahogany and low brass lamps, no telly anywhere. You claim a stool, hook your heel over the rung, and decide not to order anything yet simply because it just feels polite to wait.

You're fifteen minutes early which means you're left alone with your anxieties. 

The last of the sun lies across the bar top in warm stripes, and you trace one with a finger while you wait. 

You’ve done this before, and it almost never goes how the phone promises. There was the guy whose photos were six years out of date. The one who spent both drinks talking about his ex and then sent a payment request for half the tab. The one who, two hours in, hadn’t asked you a single question about yourself. And John has been too good to be true for a week, and you know how that saying ends. Tonight is where you find out how, find out he really is just a man between deployments looking for entertainment and a shag.

It felt good, though. All week. Being excited about something. You’d forgotten the feeling. 

You pick at the hangnail on your thumb until it stings.

You don’t have to wait much longer for him. 

He casts a shadow when he comes through the door. Broad. Tall. Smart olive polo fighting for its stitching across his chest and where it grips into his biceps. He’s tidied his beard in comparison to his photos, hair less kempt in a purposeful way.

He scans the whole room before he finds you and stops looking anywhere else. He smiles tight and restrained, pleasant, but like he’s pacing himself, and by the time he crosses to you, your tongue has gone dry and whatever you’d planned to open with has shriveled away.

“Hey,” he says.

“Hi,” you smile.

He smells clean, a bit like pine and amber, and faintly like there’s tobacco somewhere on his collar.

“You’re early,” he adds, almost pleased.

“So are you.”

“I’m always early.” His eyes drop to the empty bar top in front of you, then come back. “You haven’t ordered?”

You shake your head once, legs shifting to cross. “I wanted— I was waiting for you.”

The lines beside his eyes deepen and he holds out his hand, says your name for the first time, and his hand swallows yours — big and dry and calloused across the palm where yours is soft — and you hold on a beat too long. He doesn’t mention it. You add that to the list of things you like about him, which is getting embarrassing for something four minutes old.

“What’ll you have?”

“Uhm, whatever you’re having,” you decide.

He signals the bartender with two fingers and opens his mouth — and there’s a brief second where he looks at you first, and you notice for the first time that his eyes are blue, and you get stuck, and it seems so does he. By the time he looks back, he’s lost the name of the beer he’s drunk here a dozen times.

“Two of the, uh— the local,” he manages.

You pretend not to notice. He knows you did.

He pulls out the stool beside you, and more of his cologne wafts around you as he sits, turned to face you, legs spread, one knee pointing between yours.

The pints arrive wet from the tap, and for a second neither of you says anything at all. You trace a bead of condensation down your glass.

“Funny, isn’t it,” you offer, sheepish. “We’ve talked every day for a week, and the second we’re actually in front of each other…” You trail off, cheeks warming, eyes fixed on the fizz jumping over the rim of your beer.

“You’re nervous?” he asks, a cheeky lilt on it.

“A bit, yeah. Aren’t you?”

“Not at all.”

You squint at him. “I don’t know if I buy that.”

“Hm.” He takes a sip that lasts a little too long, and the tips of his ears have gone pink.

Your cheeks are doing about the same. You drink your beer — cold, hop-bitter, helping — and let him have his lie. It’s a generous lie anyway. It’s a lie shaped like a man trying, and you’ve been handed far worse shapes.

“So,” you start. “I haven’t asked why you’re even on Hinge. You don’t seem the type.”

“I’m not,” he chuckles, and offers nothing beyond it.

You wait. He just sips his beer. You hike a brow.

“That’s it? That’s your answer?”

“Well, it wasn’t my idea. The lads put me on it.”

“The lads — your guys from work?”

“Yeah.”

“They what, talked you into it?”

“No.” He turns his glass a degree. “They nicked my phone and made the profile behind my back.”

“And what made them do that?”

He takes a moment with that one. He could give you a cover story — you can almost watch him weigh one — but then he doesn’t.

“Their assessment,” he laughs to himself, “was that I’d been… cranky. Needed gettin’ out of the house.”

“Cranky?” you repeat, delighted.

“Their exact words were a bit different.”

“Hm.” You look at him — at ease, half a smile living in his beard, one arm resting along the bar. “You don’t seem cranky to me.”

“Yeah, well. Guess they were right, then.”

Your neck goes hot and you have to look away from him. “Well,” you manage. “They do good work, your committee.”

He huffs into his pint, and lets you recover.

“Okay, next one, then. Military.” You tip your glass toward him. “What do you actually do?”

He sets his beer down and you can see him carefully choosing which door to open. “What d’you want to know?”

“I don’t know. What’s your day look like?”

“Depends on the day. Paperwork, mostly. Meetings.” A beat. “Sometimes we go away.”

“Away?”

“Away.”

“For how long?”

“As long as it takes.”

“Doing…?”

“Whatever they need me to,” he says easily. “S’not me being mysterious. I’d tell you if I could.”

“That must be so strange, though. Having this whole— like, most of your life you can’t talk about.”

“You get used to it.” Then, because you’re still looking at him expectantly, not filling the space the way people usually do: “There’s loads I can say. Ask me what six weeks of rain in a jungle smells like. Or what a month in the desert does to your skin.”

“What’s a month in the desert do to your skin?”

“Nothing good, love,” he answers, shifting to face you better. “The beard’s load-bearing.”

You laugh into your beer, and it makes the next one easier to ask.

“Do you like it? Like, the whole life of it?”

He goes quiet on that one. Longer than he’s gone quiet on anything else you’ve asked. You can see him thinking on it. 

“It’s what I’m best at,” he says finally. And then, mostly to his glass: “It’s all I’ve known, really. Been doin’ it since sixteen.”

You turn that over. There’s a whole life folded up in that sentence and you notice you want to ask about all of it, which is not a thing you’ve wanted to do with a man in a very long time.

The second beers arrive, and the conversation stops keeping to lanes — his lads and your best friend, the wedding in October, the neighbor whose bins are apparently a whole saga. You’re midway through the story of your work feud when a birthday party arrives loud and glittering behind you, and John, without so much as glancing down, reaches down and hooks his hand under the edge of your stool, and pulls.

The whole thing drags six inches across the floor with you on it, your knee sliding neatly between his, close enough now that his voice drops to match the new distance. You’re looking up at him, pulse tapping somewhere that has your thighs pressing together. 

“Go on,” he encourages. “She said what?”

It takes you a moment to find your place, but you go on.

The bar only gets louder from there, the birthday table multiplying, and when a booth opens up in the back corner, John tips his chin at it.

“Go grab that,” he says, turning back to the bar. “I’ll get another round. Want the same?”

“Actually—” and you hesitate out of nothing but habit, out of years of a man’s face going tight when you complicate an order, “—could I do a vodka cranberry this time? I could get the round—”

His brows furrow with something akin to bafflement, brief and genuine. “You can have whatever you’d like,” he says, and suddenly you feel silly, your hand crossing to grip your elbow.

“No—I know. I just—”

“Whatever you’d like,” he repeats, gentler. “And—” he grimaces, like what he’s about to say pains him deeply. “Don’t ever offer to pay on a date with me again. Properly wind me up, that will.”

“S-sorry,” you shake your head, like you can rattle the habit loose.

“None of that either,” his eyes have gone crinkled at the corners, warm all the way through, and he raps two knuckles soft on the bar top like the matter’s settled. “Vodka cranberry. Go, sit.”

“Actually— I’m gonna go freshen up quickly. Two minutes.”

And you go, biting down on a smile, ears hot — embarrassed and looked after all at once, which is apparently a combination that works on you.

The bathroom is cooler than the bar and a quiet that leaves your ears ringing. You reapply some lipgloss and wash your hands and look at yourself in the dirty mirror, buzzing warm at the collarbones, eyes shiny, mouth half-curved.

It’s going well.

It’s going suspiciously well.

And every time it’s gone well before, this is exactly when you started hunting for the catch. So you dry your hands on the rough paper towel and leave before you can start.

He’s in the booth when you come back, settled against the wall side, the last of the evening gone from the windows and the lamp above him glowing gold over the table. Your drink is waiting — pink, iced, a lime wedged on the rim — set neatly across the table at the seat opposite.

You look at the seat opposite.

Then you slide in beside him instead. Your thigh a heated inch from his, reaching across to relocate your drink.

You don’t look at him, but you can tell John’s a bit curious of the arrangement. His arm comes up and settles along the back of the booth behind you, and it oddly feels like it was always going to end up here, his thumb grazing the bare skin of your shoulder. He picks up his beer with the other hand.

“Comfortable?” he asks, low, and with entirely too much satisfaction.

“I am,” you say, and the first sip of the vodka cranberry is cold and tart and sweet all the way down, blooming behind your sternum right where his voice has been landing all night.

The booth is easier than the bar, somehow — closer, quieter, the birthday party more muted — and the talk drifts wherever it wants, his low laugh arriving against your shoulder through the arm behind you. At some point the lull comes; ice softening in your glass, his thumb resting an inch from your shoulder. And maybe it’s the vodka, or the arm, or the running list of things you like about him that you’d need both hands to count now—

“How long ago was your last relationship? Like a real one.”

He takes a deep breath before answering. “Honest answer?”

“Preferably,” you giggle softly, and he smiles — most of it lost in the beard, enough that you wonder if there are dimples under there.

“Longer than what sounds good out loud,” he admits through the pull of it. 

“Say it out loud anyway.”

“I was thirty-two. So, almost ten years ago.”

“Ten.”

“Mm.”

“A whole decade.”

“You can stop countin’ the years to me at any time, love.”

“Sorry, sorry.” You’re grinning. He is too. “It’s just, quite the gap in romance.”

“It went quick,” he says, and it’s a joke, and it’s also not. “What about you?”

“Ended about a year ago, we were together four.”

“Mm.”

“It was fine. Amicable— mostly,” you shrug. 

“Mostly,” he repeats — not pushing, just setting the word down where you can see he heard it.

“Mostly,” you confirm, and leave it there.

The ice ticks in your glass. And the next question’s been sitting in your chest, so you take it out while you’re brave.

“Can I ask something and you not be offended?”

“Startin’ well,” he says, nodding on for you to continue. 

You settle further into the booth and your shoulders press against his warm arm behind you, his fingers brushing over your shoulder. You lean your head back, turned to his face. 

“What’s changed? Between thirty-two and now that you’re trying dating?” You mean just to ask the question, but you find yourself rambling on. “Because if the honest answer is nothing, and this is just— a-a hookup with, like, really good manners, that’s fine. Genuinely. I’d just rather know now.”

“Fair,” he says. “Asked myself the same thing this week.”

“Yeah? And what was the answer?”

“I’m tired of the quiet,” he starts, pausing as his eyes drift away in thought. They come back to you just as quick. “Used to come home to it like a reward. Now it just feels… empty.”

Something in your chest slides sideways.

“So, no. Not a hookup,” he continues with a breath. “But I can’t promise you’d be happy with the alternative either. I can be gone longer than I’m home.” His thumb brushes along your shoulder, once, like an apology.

“Guess I wouldn’t know unless I gave it a go.”

You say it lightly, and the exhale he lets out has a smile riding on it — and something in his shoulders comes down, some held thing you didn’t notice until it let go.

“No,” he agrees, low. “You wouldn’t.”

You’re suddenly aware of the distance between you — or the lack of it. Somewhere between sitting down and the vodka you’ve ended up awfully close: near enough to count the grey threaded through his beard, to catch the beer on his breath, near enough that the light between you has stopped reaching the space. Near enough that you can feel the heat coming off him, and your heartrate has picked up on it before the rest of you has.

His eyes flick down to your mouth. Quick — half a second, there and back — but you catch it, and it lands low in your stomach and stays.

Neither of you leans back.

And the pub carries on behind you — glasses clinking, the birthday table shouting, a till drawer slamming — all of it arriving from somewhere far off and dreamlike.

You move closer. Barely. Imperceptible. Your pulse is in your ears now, drumming out the last of your sense—

“You know,” you say, quiet, pitched for the six inches between you and nobody else, “you can kiss me. If you’d like.”

“Oh, yeah?”

“Mhm,” you grin.

“Well,” he says, matching your volume, low enough that it lands somewhere below hearing, “I was going to be a gentleman about it. Wait til I walked you out.” His gaze drops to your mouth again, slower this time, no secret. “But if you’d rather have it here in the booth, I won’t argue.”

“I suppose I could be patient.”

“Mm,” he says, and doesn’t move.

Somewhere in the world, presumably, time is passing.

His jaw shifts. 

“I’ll go pay the tab,” he decides.

And you’re both up and out of the booth quick, and you watch him stand at the bar with his back to you, shoulders set, and you press one cool knuckle to your own cheek and find it burning.

You two make it out the door.

The night’s gone hazy and July-thick, and you get maybe four steps down the side of the pub with his hand a light at the small of your back before you glance up at him and he glances down.

Whatever was left of patient dies right there on the pavement.

He moves you.

One hand finding your hip, the other your jaw, and then your back meets brick, warm through the thin of your blouse and against your bare shoulders, and his mouth is on yours.

Whatever mindful version he’d planned for the end of his gentlemanly walk out must have been spent in the booth — this is the interest. The kiss opens on a low rumble out of his chest, one you feel travel through his ribs into yours, and his tongue slides against yours, all beer and him, and you grip the front of his shirt with both fists just incase the wall behind you vanishes.

He kisses you thoroughly, his beard catching along your chin, a chafe you know you’ll feel tomorrow. A thigh slots half between yours, not pushing, not touching, but it’s not any less inviting. You could bare down on it, get the friction your body is craving, he’d let you, but you restrain yourself. His thumb strokes a slow line along your jaw in obscene contrast to what his mouth is doing — and it blooms down through you, fervid, liquescent.

He pulls back just far enough to breathe — forehead near yours, both of you loud with catching your breath — and when you open your eyes his are dark.

“Very gentlemanly,” you croon.

“I walked you out first, yeah?” he says, unrepentant.

You giggle against his mouth, and he claims it for himself with one more gentle kiss, and then he steps back a seemly distance, hand smoothing once down over his beard, shoulders resetting, breath evening out, everything going back in its place except his eyes.

“Walk me home?” you ask.

“I drove. I’ll give you a lift.”

You look up at him, all vodka-warm and enjoying yourself. “Well, just so you know, I share my location with my best friend and she knows exactly what pub I’m at, and has your name and photo, so—”

“Good,” he replies, no hesitation. “Smart girl. Keep it that way.” He finds his keys, fishing them out of his pocket. “I’m taking you straight home. You have my word.”

He draws an X over his heart, your lipgloss shining at the corner of his crooked mouth. 

——

The car smells like-new — clean upholstery and faintly of engine oil, everything squared away, nothing rolling around in the footwells.

The drive is short. The radio murmurs. His hand rests easy on the gearstick a few inches from your knee — close enough that you spend two full streets aware of nothing else — and the streetlights slide over him in slow bars, catching the grey at his temple and the small satisfied set of his mouth. 

The kiss is still thrumming under your skin like a struck glass, low in your belly, at the back of your knees — and you catch yourself doing the thing you swore off doing: imagining forward. Him in your doorway. Him in your kitchen on the weekend. Him coming home from wherever away is and it being your door he— 

You look out the window. Four miles has never taken so long.

He pulls up outside your building and sets the handbrake, and the engine idles, and neither of you move.

The dashboard glow makes everything blue. 

You want to ask him up. That's not the question; that got settled somewhere around the second kiss in the alley, possibly earlier, possibly around the moment he walked into the pub, or whatever. But there's the other thing you can't evict from your head: do you really want to sleep with him on the first date?

"So," you say.

"So…”

You look at him — streetlight in the grey of his beard, arm along the wheel, he’s in absolutely no hurry to resolve you.

"Did you have a good time tonight?"

His head turns. There's a beat where he just looks at you, and you watch him physically decide not to make a joke of it.

"Yes. Best night I've had in a while," he says. 

"Would you—" and god, you're thirty years old and your heart is doing this anyway, "—want to see me again? Like this?"

"Was already plannin' to ask you to dinner." A small crease starts at the corner of his eye. "Was workin' out whether to do it now or ring you tomorrow, so I didn't seem overly—"

"Keen?"

"Keen," he confirms, gravely, like the word's been a burden to him all week.

And that lands warm and the relief does something reckless to your mouth, which is that it stops guarding it.

"Okay. Then I'm going to say something, but you can't look at me while I say it."

“Right.” He scrubs a hand over his twitching lips and looks out the windshield, obedient.

"I want to ask you up."

"Mm."

"And I'm having a whole debate about it."

"I can hear it," he says. "Been losin' to the engine for about a minute now."

"Just—,” you sigh, “—shut up." But you're smiling at the dashboard. "It's just— I spent all week wondering if this was a hookup thing for you. And you answered that, and I believe you, I do. But there's this small, paranoid part of me that's like, well, that's exactly what a man would say at the pub, isn't it? And then there's this other, stupider part that thinks if you come up, you'll—" you take a deep breath, your fingers hooking into each other on your lap, and make yourself finish it, "—think less of me. First date and all."

He's quiet for a second, lips pursing. 

“Can I look at you now?” he tries.

“Yeah.”

"You want to know where I'm actually at?"

"Truly just desperate for a man to be honest so I know what headspace to put myself in."

“Alright.” He shifts to face you, wrist still hanging over the wheel. “I want to come up. Badly, if you want some extra honesty.”

The badly goes straight between your thighs.

“Okay,” you manage. “Noted.”

“I haven’t lied to you once tonight. And I’m takin’ you to dinner whether I come up or not.”

“And, like— you wouldn’t think—”

“Think less of you?” He frowns, like the math’s not mathing. “For doin’ the same thing I’d be doing? Together?”

“When you put it like that…”

“For what it’s worth, I’m sat here havin’ a version of the same debate. Been out of this a long time. Didn’t want you thinkin’ that’s all I came for. So if you’d rather I kiss you at the door and drive home, I’ll do that and consider it a perfect evening.”

And maybe it’s the ease of him, the total absence of pressure you’re always braced for on nights like this, that settles it for you. 

“Would you like to come up?”

——

The stairwell smells of somebody's late dinner and warm dust, the day's heat still trapped in it, and you take the stairs ahead of him to the second floor.

John is a gentleman.

John has been a gentleman all night.

John gives himself the length of one flight of stairs off the clock — the sway of you in those jeans, the shift and give of you with every step, the smooth line of your bare shoulders under the halter's little bow — and by the landing he's a gentleman again, and if you felt his eyes like a brand on you, and by the half-smirk you throw over your shoulder you did, neither of you says a word about it.

Your flat smells like you — the perfume he got to know at the pub, but underneath it, clean laundry, a candle burned down sometime this week — and a blur of black-and-caramel bolts across the living room and vanishes down the hall before he can so much as get a look at her.

"That was Twix," you say, her paws still pattering away. "She'll start her background check and circle back."

"Sensible."

And then the two of you are standing in your living room with the whole car’s worth of honesty sitting in the middle of the floor, and you look at him, and look at the kitchen, and say:

"Do you want a drink? I have wine. Or, um. Tea? I might have a beer from—"

"I'm alright," his mouth pulls at one side. 

"Water? I'm gonna have water."

"Then I'll have water," he says like he’s surrendering. 

He watches you go — and he could laugh, not at you, but because he knows exactly what he’s looking at. The two of you agreed in plain English on why he’s standing here, and now you’re in your kitchen filling glasses neither of you want, and wiping down a counter that, from where he’s stood, was already clean. 

So he gives you room. Settles against the arm of the couch, takes a slow lap of your shelf with his eyes — you and a woman he guesses is the October bride, you on a hike somewhere sunny, you and Twix bravely on the balcony — and he wants you the whole time, low and patient, in his back teeth, but doesn’t move on it.

 Your pace. Your move.

You come back with the waters, and hand him his, and hold your own in both hands like you might drop it. He takes a sip, looks at you over the rim of it.

“You’re nervous,” he says.

“Not at all.”

“Mm.” He nods slowly, deeply unconvinced and taking a page from your own book. “Don’t know if I buy that.”

He watches it land, watches the laugh come up out of you before you can stop it, head tipping back, throat bare, and half your nerves seem to leave with it.

He likes that. 

He sets his glass down. Then, gently, he takes yours out of your mid-fidget hands and sets it down too — he tips your chin up with one knuckle, and kisses you.

Easy-like, cold from the water, cranberry still faint on your tongue, your breath catches once against his mouth and then lets go. Your hands slide flat up his chest and stop over his heart — which is going quicker than he’d care to admit, and he feels the exact moment you find it out, the little hum of discovery you make.

When you pull back to look at him, whatever nerves were left in you are gone from your eyes, and they’re twinkly a lot like the first photo he ever saw of you. 

You take his hand off your waist, lace it through yours, and guide him backward toward the short hall.

In your bedroom he finds the tie of your halter at the back of your neck and pauses with the ends between his fingers, silk warm from your body. One pull and it gives, the fabric sighing loose, and he follows it slide down with his eyes first, then his mouth — the slope of your throat, over your shoulder, then the soft skin below your ear that tastes of strawberry perfume and salt. His beard drags over your neck and a shiver flows through you so he does it again, slower. You shiver harder, fingers curling into the front of his polo.

Good.

You tug the hem of his shirt up and he reaches back, pulls it off over his head one-handed, and drops it somewhere he’ll look for later. He unhooks your bra just as easily, and when your palms spread into the coarse hair over his bare chest and down his toned stomach, the muscle jumps under your fingertips, he hears his own breath go rough.

“Okay,” you say, a little wonder in it. “Wow, yeah, that’s….”

“Mm?”

“Nothing. Just— I knew military, just didn’t realize… this much military.”

“Lodging a complaint?” he askes, amused.

“Definitely not.”

The rest goes gradually — his belt, your jeans peeled down warm thighs with his calloused palms flat against your skin the whole way, a hop and a giggle when the denim catches your ankle and he steadies you by the elbow — and then you’re bare in front of him, lamplight pooling gold along your shoulder, your hip, the soft curve of your stomach. He stops with his hands at your waist and looks.

“Say something,” you murmur, half a laugh, shy at last under the attention. “You’re oggling.”

“I am.” His thumbs press slow arcs into your hips. “Give me a minute. Been picturin’ this since Tuesday and I did you no justice.”

You pull him down onto the bed by way of an answer, and the mattress sinks with a soft complaint, and then it’s just skin — so much warm skin, soft everywhere he’s hard, giving under his hands, smelling of perfume and the clean sweat July dampens into everyone.

He stretches out alongside you, one heavy thigh over yours, and takes his time. The curve of your waist. The full weight of your breast, thumb dragging over your nipple until it peaks and your breath stutters. The inside of your thigh, where the skin is finest and the heat pools. You move under his touch the whole time, restless and rising, fingers in his hair, at his shoulders, and the small sounds you make land somewhere at the base of his neck and prickle there.

Then he shifts down the bed, kisses the soft of your stomach, the plush crease of your hip, and looks up the length of you.

“Can I?”

“You— yes,” you breathe, trembling feebly. “Yes, obviously, you don’t have to a—”

His mouth is on you before the sentence ends.

You’re sweet and slick against his tongue, already so wet the first slow lick slides easy, and the sound you make is high and caught somewhere low, thigh twitching against his ear, one hand flying to his hair. He hums — feels you feel it — and settles in. No rush. Long soft strokes of his tongue until your hips learn the rhythm and rise to meet it, then his lips close warm around your clit, sucking gently, and your whole body pulls tight.

“Oh my god— okay— okay—”

“Mm.”

“Don’t be smug—” and your voice climbs off the end of the sentence as he slides two thick fingers into you, curling them, tongue still working, and whatever the rest of that scolding was, he never learns it.

“Could do this all night, sweetheart,” he murmurs against you, and feels the words land in a shudder. Your breathing changes. Your thighs start trembling, your hand fists in the sheets — and he keeps the pace exactly the same until you’re pulling at him. Hair, arm, anything you can reach.

“John— John— come— I want you. Now,” you whine, “Please.”

He comes up the length of you slow, mouth mapping stomach and sternum and throat on the way, and settles over you on one forearm—

"I should've said this in the car," he starts, eyes on yours. "I don't have a condom. Wasn't assuming tonight would end up here."

"I don't have any either. I actually checked the drawer before I left tonight." You push his dampening hair back off his forehead. "I'm on the pill, and I trust you. But I'd still feel better if you pull out. Is that okay?"

He nods assuredly. "Then I'll pull out," he says flat and plain. "You have my word."

"You and your word—" but you're smiling, and then you're not smiling, because he's already moved and taken himself in hand and dragged the head of his cock through your folds, coating himself in you, and notched against your entrance, and the smile falls open into something much, much better.

He pushes in slow, watches your face the entire way — he couldn't look elsewhere if a grenade went off — your brows drawing up, your lips parting around a breath that doesn't finish, your nails biting little crescents into his forearms — and fuck, the feel of you: scalding, soaked, tight enough that he has to stop twice, jaw clenched, sweat sliding at his temple, feeding you his cock an inch at a time and pulling back, then giving you more; the slick easy give of you around him unspooling something in his stomach.

"Talk to me," he murmurs, gravel-low. "Alright?"

"Yes." Your voice has gone breathless and small and blissed. "You're— god—"

"Christ, you’re snug," he exhales shakily, eyes finding yours. “Relax for me, baby. Breathe.”

"I am breath—oh. Oh—shhit—"

John’s seated all the way, hips flush to your backside, and both of you go quiet — a shared beat of stillness, you fluttering around him hot and full, his body coming down, forehead dropping to yours, ten months of silence pulling a sound up out of his chest that he couldn't have stopped if he knew it was coming.

Then you shift your hips, experimental, a slow grind up against him, and that stillness is over.

He moves slowly; long level strokes dragging all the way out so you both feel every hot stretch of the return, your breasts pressing soft against his hairy chest. Your heels slide up the back of his thighs and he budges his hips closer, holding deep and pressing the head of his cock into your furthest wall. Your hands squeeze the meat between his shoulders and his neck as he pushes a small squeal out of you. 

"Right there—right there—right there, don't—"

"I won’t," he murmurs against your jaw. “I won’t move.”

"—okay maybe move a little—"

He breathes something restrained through a smile. "Make your mind up, darling," he grunts. 

“It’s hard to— mmm—think like this,” you half-moan against his cheek. 

“Don’t think, then.”

It’s all your talking that undoes him more than anything, he realizes distantly. He’d forgotten there was a version of this with laughing in it; a version with a woman eagerly gripping him and grinning against his cheek in the second before a moan carries her voice away — and every time you say his name, breathed and broken, something in his chest cinches another notch tighter.

He draws back and drives home again, and whatever you’d been about to answer with comes out as a punched huff.

You don’t think.

He feels the difference in you immediately — your body dropping the manners, hips rising to meet him harder than he’s giving it, heels dragging him in by the thighs on every stroke, a low frustrated sound building in your throat when he keeps the same controlled pace. You’re not asking for anything. You’re taking it in inches, greedy and unaware of yourself, nails dragging down the small of his back, pulling—

“Harder?” he asks against your ear. 

"Yes, please."

He hooks your knee up over his hip and opens you wider—“So polite.”—and gives it to you deeper, his weight behind it, your headboard cracking against the wall. You go loud and lovely underneath him, clutching, slick heat and plush skin and your nails scoring lines down his back that he hopes, viciously, will last long enough to admire.

He works a hand between your bodies, thumb finding your clit, riding the motion you’ve bkth created.

"That's— John— You’re gonna make me come," you sob. 

"I know. I feel you. Squeezin' me like— Christ. Go on—fuck."

He watches it arrive before you do, a shiver running ahead of the wave; your spine arches up off the bed, your cunt clenches around him in long pulsing, aching, waves —  it takes you under, and you pull him with you.  

He holds you, murmuring filth and praise in equal measure against your ear—

How good—

How gorgeous—

You’re mine now, you know that? Hm?—

It’s watching you eagerly nod along with his babbling that finishes him. He lasts maybe ten more strokes on borrowed time, heat gathering alacritous and irrevocable at the base of his groin — and he rears back onto his knees, pulling out of you with a growl that tumbles from his throat, fist working his cock over, soaked with you, spilling hot across your stomach and hip in thick ropes, head hanging, shoulders heaving, your thighs still bracketing his knees.

When he lifts his head, you’re already looking at him.

Glowing down to your chest, lips parted and kiss-swollen, wearing him low on your stomach — and neither of you says anything. Neither of you looks away either. His chest is still heaving. Your knee presses in against his side, and the corner of your mouth starts to curl, and his does too, helpless about it.

He comes down on his side, careful of the mess he’s made of you, one arm heavy across the pillow above your head. The curtain breathes at the window beside the bed and the night comes in and cools the sweat on his back, and he can see your heartbeat going hard at your throat, the rise and fall of your stomach not yet settled. He gently fits his thumb against your pulse, just to feel it going. 

He kisses you, your mouth lazy under his, and then your temple, and the crown of your head, and you make a low, boneless sound and turn your face into his hot neck, and the two of you just lie there breathing each other in, tangled and settling, your finger drawing slow shapes on his forearm.

"John?" Small, against his throat.

"Mm?"

"Would you mind grabbing me a cloth? Bathroom's just across the hall."

He's up before the sentence finishes, annoyed at his own carcass the whole three steps to the door, ten months out of practice and it shows, he used to know this part, the part where he takes care of you before you have to ask.

You bathroom is small and smells of your shampoo, fruity, herbal. He runs a flannel under the warm tap, wrings it out, catches his own eyes in the mirror over the sink — wrecked hair, beard ruined and shiny with your lipgloss. He turns, craning his neck spotting a blooming red scratch coming up nicely at his shoulder.

He comes back and cleans you up properly, kneeling on the edge of the bed, one hand steady at your hip while the warm cloth moves over your stomach — thorough about it, frowning slightly the way he does when he’s concentrating — and you watch him do it propped up on your elbows with an expression he can't quite read and doesn't need to. It's warm, whatever it is. And it’s aimed at him, so.

"You're staring," he says, not looking up. 

"You're tidying me."

"Should've done it before you asked." He folds the cloth, sets it on the nightstand, and stretches out beside you again, this time gathering you into his chest. "Out of practice."

"I'll allow it," you say, magnanimous, settling your cheek against his pec. "The rest was very in-practice."

He huffs into your hair.

Your fingers trail idle through the hair on his chest, down over old pinked scars, and you ask him about them — whether the jagged line at his shoulder hurt, what caused the puckered one under his ribs — and he answers more honestly than he means to, your weight settling heavier against him as the adrenaline drains.

There's a soft thump from the hallway, then, and a moment later a small shape appears in the doorway — sits, tail wrapping her feet, and surveys the wreckage: the trail of clothes, the stranger man in the bed, you draped over his ribs.

She stares at John.

John stares back.

"We have an audience," he says.

You look over him to see your cat, "Twix, John. John, Twix."

Twix holds his gaze a moment longer, supremely unimpressed, then steps delicately over his discarded shirt and exits the way she came and he feels you giggling before he hears it, the shake of it against his chest.

"That went well," you say, overly pleased. 

“Yeah?”

“Mhm.”

"Well, consider me chuffed."

Some comfortable minutes later he feels you surface a little out of the drowse, feels your breathing change, going careful; feels your face arrange itself against his skin before you speak. 

"You don't have to stay, by the way." Light. Smooth as eroded stone, polished by use, he imagines. "If you'd sleep better in your own bed. No pressure either way."

And there it is — the same maneuver from your texts, the honest thing dressed up so you can't be caught caring — except this time he can feel your heartbeat while you run it, quick against his ribs, betraying the whole performance from inside. 

He keeps his hand moving on your arm, slow, so you know nothing's landed wrong.

"I'll head home," he says. "Not because I want to," he clarifies.

“No?” you ask. 

"Believe me. This is about the last place I want to leave." His hand doesn't stop, slow up, slow down, steadying you through it. "I'd like at least one proper dinner between us before I go makin' a habit of your bed."

You lift your head off his chest and look at him — hair wrecked, eyes searching his face for the trick — and he lets you look as long as you need to because there's no trick to be found. He meant it. 

“Alright," you agree. 

“Yeah?”

“Yes. Dinner sounds nice.”

"Mm," he hums, contented. He presses a kiss into your hair and untangles himself, face scrunched with visible reluctance, and dresses while you watch from the bed with the sheet gathered loose around you.

At the door he stops. 

"C'mere."

You come to him in the sheet, and he kisses you properly, one hand cupping your face, thumb at your cheek. You go languid against him. He takes his time. Long past politeness. Long enough that leaving starts to look renegotiable, and he breaks away before he starts. 

"G’night," he says, low, still holding your face.

"Goodnight."

"I'll ring you about dinner tomorrow."

——

The flat is quiet. But it's a different quiet than the one you left this morning and you stand in the middle of it grinning.

Twix reappears at the edge of the counter and stares. 

“I don’t need the lecture, I’m grown,” you tell her and start walking back to the bedroom, you hear her little jump to the floor and her feather steps catching up with you, “I can have sex. I deserve it, even.” You drop into your bed with a sigh. “You’d understand if you still had ovaries.”

[theorist-fox]

when you move, i move

Simon 'Ghost' Riley x f!reader

18+

CWs: smut! medications & side effects, low libido, subtly touches themes of depression. porn is being watched during sex. this is like two smut fics into one lmao

CoD Masterlist | Main Masterlist

"Do you want to watch porn together?"

Never a dull moment with you, he thinks. Always full of surprises. The way you sprinkle excitement and spice in his slow, boring life is the only thing that keeps him afloat.

And Simon can confidently say that this is the least bored he’s ever been with you.

He's learned to school his expression into place; however, not even years of duty can mask the curious quirk of his brow. He shifts on the sofa, propping one ankle over the opposite knee. One arm rests on the backrest of the couch, fingers thrumming against the leather.

Your eyes fall onto his other hand, sitting atop his thigh. 

He nods with his chin. "Run tha' by me again?"

You stand barefoot on the carpet. Loose shorts and an old tank top that has stretched out from one too many washes. The nibble of your lip tells him that you're ready to eat your words as soon as he questions them. The same goes for the way you're tormenting the cuticle on your thumb.

But he's interested. Fucking hell, this is the most intrigued he's been in ages.

"Porn?" He inquires the moment you open your mouth to most likely take everything back.

You close your lips with a pop and look at the ceiling, trying to force the heat collected on your cheeks to dissipate—flow southward perhaps, where it's not a bother but a welcome feeling instead.

But then you clear your throat. Straighten your spine. "Yes, porn."

Simon echoes you, enunciating the word. "Porn."

"Porn."

He nods, the corners of his lips curving in a smirk.

"With me?"

You tongue your cheek, eyes sharp. "Did I stutter?"

He pinches the air in front of his face. "A little."

But he must have taken it a step too far, because you're suddenly rolling your eyes and huffing. 

"Right. I shouldn't have asked—" You mutter, turning on your heels.

Simon's got quick hands. One of them reaches forward and grabs your wrist, pulling you in. You stumble between his legs, big thighs now parted for you to stand comfortably before him. 

His eyes soften, then, only because he can tell you've taken pains to summon the courage to ask him such a curious thing.

Simon rests the back of his head against the couch to look up at you. Instead of finding your eyes, however, he sees your profile—stubbornly, you're forcing yourself to look at everything but him.

"M'sorry, alrigh'?" He rumbles. The tip of his finger finds your jaw, and he gently steers you to face him. "Took me off guard is all."

The line between your brows deepens, sudden worry branching through your features. Though when his finger on your jawline turns into a palm cradling your cheek, you sigh, leaning into his hand.

And as your body softens, your tongue loosens, too.

"I just—" You bite your lip, nibbling at the flecks of dry skin. Once again, your eyes dart around, as if the firmness you need is stuck somewhere in the furniture of the house.

He grounds you again, this time with a light tap of his fingers. 

You rub your forehead in frustration. "Ever since they upped the dosage of my meds, I—we—"

You don't need to finish the sentence for him to understand where you're getting at. 

Yes, you haven't fucked in months. He’d wager it’s been at least two, maybe three, and the last thoroughly satisfying fuck he’s had with you goes back to a couple of days prior to that fated doctor’s appointment. It’s not the longest break, and he’s aware. Fucking hell, before he met you, he could’ve gone years without getting his dick wet. He has gone through years of solitude, in fact.

Though it’s you that he misses. Fucking you senseless. Eating you out. It’s the taste of your skin, not the taste of skin itself. It’s the scent that nestles in the creases of your neck, not the smell of sex.

Most people would say that, in such cases, they don’t remember the last time they had sex. Simon, however, does. He remembers it quite vividly, actually. Nothing can erase from his mind the picture you paint when you’re feeling good—when he’s making you feel good.

He misses it. Misses you. He’s human, after all.

But he likes you with that smile. Likes you proper happy. Likes you healthy, hungry, and then sated. Likes you laughing at jokes, at life. Likes the fight that’s suddenly surged within you. The need for control in a life that left you without it. 

He misses it, true, but he likes you alive.

And nothing will ever change his stance on that.

His other hand brushes your thigh with the back of his knuckles.

“Go on,” he murmurs.

“Well, I—I can’t stop this—” You gesture vaguely at your stomach, as if it’s there where it all festers. “—Sense of guilt. I feel guilty, alright? I—I know you’ll say I shouldn’t—”

“Aye, you shouldn’t.”

“—But,” you interject, pointing a finger at him. “I still do.”

“Love,” he insists, but not unkindly. “Won’t fuck you outta guilt, yeah? You gotta want it.”

“I do!” You whine, lightly stomping your foot against the carpet in frustration. “I swear I do! I just—"

You rip your cheek out of his touch. His hand falls to your other thigh, then, no matter how reluctantly, just to give you space.

“I—I don’t think I remember how to feel like I do anymore,” your voice cracks. “I hate it. I hate how I can’t control it anymore.”

Simon falls still. Stays silent, waiting for you to get to the point of your reasoning. No sense in stopping you when, clearly, you’ve been trying so hard to tell him what feelings have been festering inside you.

You take in a steadying breath, smoothing your hands down your shirt. 

“And I thought, you know, maybe porn can help me. Maybe it can make me horny.”

He nods, urging you to go on. His hands on you, slow and grounding, draw mindless shapes.

“But it’s weird to… get ready for it.” You cinch your shoulders. “I don’t want to watch some porn in the bathroom waiting to get wet only to find you after, because—because it literally takes a walk from the loo to the bedroom that it’s just… gone.”

Simon thinks about it. 

It would be odd, he doesn’t deny that. Doesn’t know what you like to watch when he’s deployed. Then, it feels wrong to look at another person while he’s fucking you. Doesn’t care much about other people and those fake moans, or selfish ones and their plastic performances. 

You’ve got a few videos you both took when drunk or when trying to spice it up a little. Perhaps those? 

He knows he’s got one of you that he can’t get tired of. 

You’re lying on your front as he pounds into you, pretty ass wiggling against his crotch whenever he stops. The phone is propped up on the pillow, its back leaning against the headboard. The shot shows your face first, then the curve of your spine. Your ass pressed to the V of his stomach, bouncing round and soft.

He put the phone there, even as you insisted it’d be better if both of you were in the frame. But he was stubborn, asked to have something to look at when he’s away, and he joked about how he’s not a fan of his ugly mug.

“Can’t have a wank an’ look at this mug now, can I.”

Your face, mainly. That’s what he likes to watch. Brows pulled tight, eyes hooded, mouth agape. White paints the knuckle of his hand as it fists your hair, forcing your head back. Then, there’s you. The uncomfortable and jagged curve of your neck, your tendons bulging at the sides, the veins that branch out from your collarbones and find root at your jawline.

Fuck, the sounds you make. Those strained breaths that stroke your vocal cords like you’re an instrument—moans clipped and sharp, rhythmic with the pistoning of his hips. 

Oh, the groan of your first orgasm. The whites of your eyes eating up your pupils. The curve of your mouth, a pained smile that trembles, unsure whether to cry out or laugh blissfully. 

It’s your voice that brings him back. His eyes focus on you once again, redefining the lines of your shape.

He must have stayed quiet for a bit too long, because the worried look on your face starts withering into something even worse, something like rejection.

“We could watch anything,” you provide nervously, rubbing your palms against your thighs. “Your favourites, maybe? Do you have any? I don’t know, you can take the lead on that—on everything, actually. I—I need to—”

With a frustrated sigh, you run a hand down the back of your neck. “I need to feel like you want to fuck me. I—I want to feel like I want to have sex again. I want to be in control of it.”

Your chest heaves. “Please tell me I’m making sense.”

Fucking hell. It would be odd, true, but fuck odd.

Your brows pinch. “It’s okay if you don’t wa—"

“I got an idea.”

────────────────────────────────────────────

“This isn’t what I had in mind,” you blabber breathlessly.

Simon’s fingers are buried inside you. The video is muted because you asked. 

“Met you halfway, didn’t I?”

His phone sits propped against the headboard, the lower margin hidden beneath the hills and curls of the pillowcase. The light is dim in the bedroom, similarly to how it looks on his phone. He’s got you with your stomach pressed against the mattress, just like in that video. The only thing keeping your head from slipping against the bed is his fist, holding firmly onto your locks.

“But I—” You choke when his knuckles brush your clit. “—I don’t like to look at myself.”

Simon cracks his neck, tilting it side to side. 

“S’porn, innit?” 

You groan. “God, Simon—”

“You asked for my favourite,” he rumbles. “There y’go.”

There’s a slow, accommodating fashion in the movements of his hand. Languid strokes given with two fingers, sometimes slipping out to smear your wetness down your slit, brushing featherlight on your clit. 

“But this won’t make me horny,” you whine, though there’s a telltale weakness in your statement that doesn’t manage to mask the lie.

Greedy eyes eat what his mouth still can’t. The sweat collecting on your temples, the slope of your nose and the curve of your mouth—lips pouting, teeth sinking into the flesh to silence yourself. Shy thing. You’ve never been one, but he reckons there’s nothing wrong with a change of pace, every once in a while.

He parts your folds with his fingers and gulps harshly when the thick sound of your wetness reaches his ears. Proved yourself wrong, there.

“Won’t it?”

He’s kneeling on top of you, knees digging into the mattress on either side of your thighs. The video is not what he focuses on, though. He’s got better things to admire. The angles of your shoulder blades, the indents of your muscles as they tense, and the sweet dip of your spine. Where it hollows and where it ends—two tiny dimples crowning the plump of your ass. 

Fuck you’re a painting, aren’t you?

“Look at yourself,” he drawls, forcing your eyes to the screen with a tug of your hair. “Look at how good you were feelin’, mh?”

The little whine that escapes you matches the clench of your pussy around his fingers. Gladly, he realises that you’re not cutting off the blood flow of his hand, but instead you’re opening up to him, feeling much softer than when he first entered you.

For a brief second, his eyes flicker to the screen.

There’s the pretty curl of your lips as you look up at him, subjecting your neck to bend in an uncomfortable arch, though his face is out of frame. You go a little cross-eyed, right there, as your smirk turns into a beautiful smile—all teeth and wrinkled nose. 

The video keeps rolling, and after a heartbeat, you offer your tongue. From the top of the screen, a rope of spit falls and lands directly on it, and he watches as you drink it down. 

The soft bob of your throat, the delighted grin it follows, the mouthed “thank you”.

Simon’s cock sits above your ass. It hangs heavy with blood and gleaming at the tip, aching to be touched. His balls feel painfully tight, and if he ventures and grinds down between your cheeks, he might finish before this thing even starts.

His fingers switch, moving from inside you to lightly tap at your clit. Deliberately slow, circling around your clit to unsheathe it and leave the most sensitive part to his mercy whenever he glides down.

You suck in a breath.

Gentle touches wake up your body, skin rushing with waves of shivers that tiptoe up your spine. 

“Can—can you do that?”

Simon’s pads slide forward, from your clit to the curls on your pelvis, slipping easily with the wetness collected on his pads. Back and forth, until the tautness in your thighs melts away into the sheets underneath.

“Do what, swee’heart?” 

Shyly, you look up. Your neck cranes backwards in a mimicry of that same painful curve he’s witnessed time and time again.

Your lashes flutter up to him. “Can you spit in my mouth like that?”

And it goes straight to his cock.

Don’t need to tell him twice.

The hand in your hair slowly releases its grip, and by the way your moan comes, breathless and aching, he can tell the sting it left must have added to your pleasure. His fingers grasp your jaw, digging into your cheeks. 

Shifting forward, Simon aligns his mouth with yours from above.

“Open up.”

You blink, doe-eyed and bashful. Lick your lips and nibble at the flakes of dry skin, pondering for a moment, before you heed his order and part your mouth for him, letting your tongue loll down your chin.

Simon’s eyes roll back. 

His throat is parched, and he wonders how the fuck he will spit in your mouth when you managed to dry out his tongue with just a look.

Nevertheless, he summons the strength and purses his lips, letting a rope of spit fall slowly onto your tongue.

He watches your nostrils flare in anticipation. Your brows as they flutter when it lands. How you seem to savour it when you swallow. How you find his face again in your stupor, with your eyes smothered under the dark veil of lust.

His cock grows tighter when you smile.

“Thank you,” you mouth, licking your lips as if you might taste more of him again.

Simon’s left breathless as you repeat your own words, and he has to summon all his strength not to spear you with his cock right then and there. He genuinely wants to pace himself, but you look so fucking appetising that he just craves to have a taste. He should give you time to adjust, space to settle—he shouldn’t devour you with his mouth.

He should, should, should. Should be better. Should be softer. Should be—

I need to feel like you want to fuck me.

Simon’s heart comes to an abrupt stop.

He should, should, should—

—give you more. 

Show you how he wants to fuck you, like you asked, instead of going at a slow, far-fetched pace. He was never one to sit down and have a feast patiently. Simon’s hungry, he’s always been. To merely nibble on supper would feel artificial, plainly wrong.

And above everything, Simon wants you. 

He leans down and smashes his lips to yours. 

The sound of clacking teeth almost swallows your gasp, but the surprise is short-lived—promptly replaced with the same kind of hunger, only delivered more tentatively.

His kiss is hungry and unrestrained. His teeth sink into your lip before launching again, smearing spit down your chin. You taste like you. Of mint and sugar. Herbs from the tea you shared, sweet because of the biscuits you dipped in yours, even as he grimaced at the sight. 

It’s the taste of you. The feel of your skin.

The growing warmth of your cheeks as his stubble irritates them, the slick of your tongue as it dances with his.

Your palm lands harshly at the nape of his neck, grasping blindly until it clutches around a handful of hair. Your fingers wander and grab, nails scratching his scalp and sending shivers down his spine. Now that your hand isn’t supporting your weight anymore, you’re using him as leverage—pulling down his head and further smashing his mouth against yours.

Simon’s hand around your throat tightens just slightly.

“Remember tha’?” He purrs, lips to lips. Then, he steers your face to look ahead, where the video keeps rolling.

And you’re so diligent, following his lead. “Yes.” 

“Mh,” he rumbles. “Felt good, didn’t it?”

The swell of your ass grinds against his cock. Simon kisses his teeth, jaw tight in the effort to keep himself sane.

“Yes.”

His offhand reaches down to the base of his cock. Slaps the head against the curve of your ass once, twice.

“Wanna cum on my cock like that?” He murmurs, reaching down to lick the shell of your ear. You shiver. “Wanna feel like tha’ again?”

You wiggle underneath him, letting out the smallest whine. Shy thing, you. That’s one of the things that has changed. He’s always loved the bite of your teeth, the cut of your tongue. Loved the leash you put on him, how it revealed his need for control for what it truly was—mere, unfettered fear. Shackles he thought were keeping him safe, when they were only locking him up in a cage of his own making.

He recognises that same trait within you, now. Recognises, also, how you’re trying to be rid of it. 

It’s why he’s more than delighted to understand that you're fighting against those chains—forever his clever, clever girl.

He narrowly misses your hand reaching forward to press the buttons on the side of his phone.

Your voice fills the room.

“Oh fuck,” you groan.

Simon’s hand has your hair in a brutal grip, pulling you back until all the phone can record are the angles of your jaw and the sharpness of your collarbones. His chest peeks from above, glistening with sweat and ruddy in blotches.

Your ragged moans are punched out of your lips by the rhythmic snap of his hips. Thrust after thrust framed by the slap of skin and his voice—some raucous, crackling thing that rips from his chest, claws and all.

“Like tha’, pet,” he snarls. “Fuckin’ take it.”

And you nod, sweet thing. You nod dumbly as you smile up at him. Your tits hang and bounce as the raw force of his hold lifts your chest from the bed. One last pull, tight and strong, turns those moans into one sharp yell. 

His grin is unseen but clearly plastered in his tone. “Y’liked that, uh?”

Another tug, another helpless moan. 

“Ah fuck, yer close,” he chuckles. The wet squelches of your pussy ratchet up in volume as he thrusts in, over and over, picking up the pace. “Listen to tha’. Yer gonna cum, love?”

The lower half of his face pops into frame from above, only to land a kiss on the crown of your head.

“Can feel ya getting’ tight.” His lips brush your skin. “Go on, sweet girl.”

Before leaving the grip in your hair. 

“Cum on my fuckin’ cock—"

Your face hits the pillow with a groan that drowns in linen. The phone falls, now recording the ceiling. No one bothers to pick it up again.

“Fuck me,” you heave. “Fuck me like that again, baby.”

Simon has to close his eyes and inhale to get himself back in line.

“Fuckin’ hell.” He kisses his teeth. “C’mere.”

He pulls your head back once again. Kisses you until his lips feel numb. Right beneath him, you keep chanting your plea like he isn’t about to give in already.

“Fuck me, baby,” you mumble to his mouth, on and on without rest. “Please fuck me. I—I want to feel you inside me, please. Please.”

I want to feel like I want to have sex again.

“I want it,” you whimper. “I want you.”

Blood pulses from the base of his cock all the way to the tip. He can feel the shockwaves seizing his limbs when he presses it to your cunt, sliding it up and down your slick until he’s drenched in it.

He kisses your temple. Moves upwards to the back of your head, safely cradling your jaw in his palm.

“Missed it, haven’t ya,” he purrs by your ear. His cock enters an inch. “Feel tha’?”

He’s never been this hard in his life—never been this turned on either. 

You must realise it too. Words fail you, but your voice doesn’t. It crackles through your lips with a moan that shatters on his palm.

“Missed you too, pet.”

He’s barely been inside you, and if he doesn’t truly, really, focus, he’ll ram his cock and come so fucking deep you’ll drip for days.

Suddenly, the thought feels more tempting than wrong. 

“Yer gonna take it, yeah?” He grunts, moving forward with his hips. “Gonna take it like a good fuckin’ girl.”

A pleasing sob. “Please.”

With a groan, Simon gives in.

Not a sound leaves your lips. He can feel them open up against his hand, choking on air, and that is all you yield as he pushes in. The rest tightens into one euphoric knot at the base of his throat, cutting off each intake of air. 

In a swift motion, Simon buries his cock to the hilt, hips flush to your ass. His head collapses against you, mouth to your shoulder, and peppers kisses all over its curve. When he pulls back, the first stroke after months sends his brain into a frenzy. His teeth sink into your neck, growling like the famished beast that he is—

One you tame with your hand in his hair, tightening the grip to settle him.

“Oh my fucking—" Words tumble out of your mouth in a strained whimper. “Fuck it feels so good. Move. Move, please move—”

Simon’s mouth opens against your neck. His tongue licks a path from your thundering heart to the shell of your ear, where he tries to focus. 

It’s the smell of you. The floral of your shampoo and the sourness of sweat. The butter of your face cream and the ginger of perfume.

“I got you, pet,” he croaks, as his heart suddenly ties itself in a knot. “I got you.”

You’re incomparable. Fit like a glove, you do. Adjusting to him in the blink of an eye, already heaving like he stole the air from your lungs—though he’s just started, and considering the desperation of your hands, he reckons you’re far from done, too.

He’s deliberately slow, savouring each second that passes—but sometimes he slips, and thrusts in a little harder. Apologises with his lips down your neck, turning your hiss into the softest sigh. Thumbs your waist with the hand fisting the sheets, also the only thing preventing him from collapsing on top of you. 

You find his fingers and twine them with yours. 

The only sound he hears is the one coming from the video, the screen now flush to the pillow. It fell at some point. He never bothered to check when.

His groans, the slap of skin, your pleas as you come—

“Fuck,” you pant, hissing through your teeth. “Ngh—keep going. God, plea—keep going—”

“Yeah?” His voice purrs. “Fuckin’ feel that—Christ yer dripping.”

Your breath picks up, ricochets in the bedroom as another orgasm stalks closer.

“M’gonna come again—”

“Go on then,” he rumbles. “Do it, love. Cum all over me.”

Abruptly, your fingers reach for his phone and lock it. The echo of your moans is cut short, and so are his grunts. For a second, his tinnitus manages to shroud the lack of sounds.  

But then, there’s the quiet stagger of your breathing that breaches past, poking a hole through the cotton stuffing his ears. The creaking of the bedframe follows. How his movements make the springs moan under his weight. 

The wet of your nose nuzzles his cheek. “I missed you.” 

Your fingers relent the grip in his hair, hand falling down to cup his cheek instead. 

“I missed you.”

It’s said so wistfully that Simon, for a moment, feels entirely out of his depth.

He kisses the shell of your ear before guiding your gaze to point his way. Glossy eyes find him, thinly veiled with gratitude. He almost melts then and there. You got him wrapped around your finger, bow and all.

“I love you,” you say, placing your lips on his. “I love you so much.”

Simon’s chest grows tight.

He can feel those words take hold of his heart. Squeeze it bloody, only to travel southward and tighten around the base of his cock, too. In a stutter, his hips falter, and he has to come to a standstill if he doesn’t want this to end so abruptly.

“Christ,” he mutters, “Yer killing me, pet.”

The smoothness of your teeth brushes his lips as you smile. “Mh. And we don’t want that.”

He buries his nose in the crook of your neck and inhales the flowers, the butter and the herbs. The ginger, the sweat and the biscuits.

“Aye, we don’t,” he sighs.

Your tongue licks a stripe across his mouth. “But I love you.”

Simon groans. “Yer a cheeky fuckin’—”

He pulls back and slams in again, as if to chastise you, but it isn’t received as punishment at all. In fact, it spurs you on—you moan into his mouth and put him under your spell. A chant, continuous, of endless I love yous that peel off the layers that make him.

Simon finally gives in. He’s missed you, too.

He collapses on top of you, punching a gasp from your mouth as your whole body is enveloped by his. His arm snakes under your belly, and you favour him by lifting your hips. The angle has him hit somewhere deeper, and you shatter beneath him. Your throat cracks a groan, soaked by the pillow, and finally, you let go when his fingers find your clit.

“Missed you,” he croaks in your ear. 

His pace picks up. 

“Missed this voice ‘ere.” His mouth latches onto your neck. “Missed yer fuckin’ taste. Missed this fuckin’ cunt.”

Doesn’t care about the strain in his spine and the burn of his calves, not when your moans start growing louder and wetter.

“Fuckin’—” He stutters. “Love ya. Wanna fuck you every day—”

Your slick rolls out of you thick as liquor for each thrust, coating his fingers. Two, at first. Then three, gliding smoothly from side to side over the tight knot of your clit. 

“When yer knackered, when yer cooking, when yer in the fucking shop an’ bend over to pick up some shite—”

“Oh fuck, Simon—keep going—”

“—Fuck, yer made f’me. Naked or not. I always want you. I do.”

“I’m—oh fuck—I’m gonna come—”

And he can fucking feel it. 

“That’s it, pet. Give it to me.”

Your body seizes at first, taut as a bowstring. And then, you bloom. 

Wave after wave, rippling against him with your whole being. Even as cramped as you are, crowded under the weight of him, you fuck him through your ecstasy. Push your ass backwards to ride him for all his worth. 

And Simon is entirely helpless, so entranced by the pulsing of your cunt around his cock that he barely realises how he’s coming, too. It’s all it took, really. To feel you clutch at his hair with your fingers, to have you fight for control—steal it from the tight grip of his hands. 

His teeth sink into the soft flesh of your neck, groaning when his release wrecks him from within. Feels your pulse ratchet up under his tongue, your stutters as they bubble up your throat as you wordlessly beg for him to want you, to love you.

As he silently gives it all to you. All you ask, and more.

Eventually, you fall still. The tightness of your muscles melts. All the effort of your movement turns into mere, occasional twitching as adrenaline leaves your bloodstream.

You’re soft again. Turning your head on the pillow to find him, resting with his cheek right by your side. 

“I missed you,” you say wetly. “I’m sorry.”

Simon brushes his nose against yours. 

He knows how that type of guilt feels—the misplaced one, the one with no reason to be there at all. It festers within your stomach and doesn’t care about the damage it yields, because it’s not how it operates. 

It’s unfounded. Still, he knows words won’t be able to quell the heartache.

But Simon sees what you still can’t. It takes balls to survive a life you don’t want anymore. He knows a thing or two about that. Swam in his own ocean of shit. 

Still, he watched you take control back in your hands. You asked for help and crafted a new life that fits you better and patched the wounds left by the one you once led. You witnessed yourself burst at the seams and decided that it was time to pick up the needle.

That requires an incomparable amount of courage.

Simon knows it well. Still bears the scars to prove it.

“Don’t gotta be,” he whispers. “Proud of ya.”

Your eyes widen. Open the faucet, too. The glittering rim left by your orgasm turns into a river. Tears cascade from the corners of your eyes and branch above the bridge of your nose, down your temple, into your hair.

“For what?” You chuckle dismissively. “Having sex?”

But Simon kisses your nose instead. Offers a lovely smile he hasn’t granted in a while. 

“Yeah,” he concedes, because you need time. “Tha’ too.”

Your giggle is refreshing and genuine, though a bit strangled. He realises only then that you’ve been crushed underneath his weight all this time, so he props himself on his elbows. You sigh, wiggling to turn around in the cramped space between his chest and the bedsheets, until your eyes are aligned with his.

Your lashes are clumped, sticking to one another with dewdrops of happiness. They flutter when you look up at his face.

“Thank you,” you say. “For being here. For being proud of me.”

Always. 

Simon leans down and breathes a kiss on your forehead.

“There ain’t a day that goes by that I’m not.”

[warmfrequency]

ripe

john price x fem!reader, smut (1.3k)

The heat woke you up before John got the chance; the room gone thick with it, fan dead since two in the morning. You awoke in a body that wasn't entirely yours anymore — one leg slung over his thigh, your cheek glued to his shoulder with a film of dried sweat, the sheets kicked to the foot of the bed, twisted into a rope over your ankles.

You could smell the night still on the both of you. Him mostly. Salty, sticky skin, the back-of-the-throat musk of a man who'd just come home off a four month run somewhere he won’t name, fallen on top of you before he'd even got his boots all the way off, worked you over thrice, then slept like the dead in the heat he created without so much as wiping either of you up with a washcloth — his cum and your slick gone tacky between the press of your thighs, pulling at the flesh when you shifted.

Everything ached the way it only ached after him: low in your belly, raw where he'd been, a bruise coming up on the back of a knee from where he'd folded you in half, thick fingers pressed into the meat of it sometime past midnight.

You wanted to get up to finally rinse.

To feel like a person again.

But his calloused hand came down flat on your hip the moment you moved, before your knee had even cleared his leg.

"Where?" is all he managed, voice wrecked and low and gravelly with sleep, the word barely fully formed on his tongue.

"I'm disgusting," you complained, a whisper.

"Mm." His thumb moved across the jut of your hipbone, finding crust of himself there. His eyes hadn't opened yet. The corner of his mouth had, though, dragging up at one side. "Yeah… y'are."

"I'm glad you're happy with yourself," you huffed sleepily.

His hand kept going, palm dragging down over your hip and around the back of your bent thigh, and then up again into the real mess of you, fingers finding where you were still half-open and swollen from last night, slipping through the sticky wet, the pad of his middle finger circling your sensitive entrance. It was too much and not enough at once — the drag of him over flesh that hadn't settled, a wince folding straight into something hotter, your hips pushing into his hand.

He made a sound; pleased, throaty, his brows pulling in for a second.

"Look at that," he murmured against your temple. "Bet you don' even wan' it cleaned up, do you?"

"Shut up," you half-heartedly murmured.

"Mm-mm," he protested.

Then he rolled, the whole heavy heat of him coming over you in one move, knee shoving your thighs apart before you'd even agreed to anything, and the air between your bodies went humid and ripe, his chest sticking to yours, the dense hair on it dragging over your tender nipples. And your body answered him — thighs falling open the rest of the way, some primal part of you glad of his weight, glad to be pinned under it, glad he was solid and here and breathing on you. He braced up on a forearm and looked down at you, cyan eyes cracked open and bloodshot, lashes still gummed together. He looked like hell. But so did you, you were sure, and he was staring down like you were the best thing he'd ever seen.

He spat into his own hand without breaking from your eyes, crude, and reached down between you to slick his cock with it. You spread more open for him, your hands coming up to his back where sweat was gathered at the base of his spine.

He sank all the way in on the first stroke, stretching your sore walls, an obscene wet crackle of air pushing out to make room for him, Your whole body remembered him in one shoved open rush. He dropped his forehead to the side of your neck and let out a long breath through his nose.

"Four months," he rasped, almost to himself, the syllables coming apart as they fell. "Four months this was the only thing in my fuckin' head." Then, against your mouth, the gravel coming back into it, his throbbing cock bumping your cervix, your nails scrabbling over his sweaty skin for purchase: "That's it, dove. You can take it. You can take it, look at you, you've had worse than this off me."

You could hear his grin.

"Since last night?" you managed to get out. "Or— generally?"

A huff against your lips, almost a laugh, his hips not stopping. "Both."

He fucked you like he hadn't slept it off at all, like four months of going without you had only stored it up, his cock dragging thick and deep through the wreckage he'd already made of you. Every push of it pressed the sweat-slick of his furry belly against your clit so you got it both ways at once, inside and out, until your spine wanted to leave your body.

He talked the whole time — clipped, half-swallowed, filth pouring out of him like silver.

"Feel that," he asked. "That's last night still in you, that is. Didn't go anywhere." His teeth caught your jaw, dragged, overgrown beard scratching at your skin. "Gonna add some more to it." A deep grind of his hips that pushed the breath out of you. "Was lying there, every night, in the dark thinking about this. You under me, made a mess of, soaked through and still begging for more. Had to think about something else quick or I'd've embarrassed myself." His mouth is in your ear, hot and foul. "Four months of that. And now here you are. Wetter than the inside of my own head."

"John— you're so—," you couldn't get anything else out before he'd angled up and a moan tore out of you instead.

"Gross? Annoying?" he offered, hips snapping now, the bed knocking the wall, his hand slipping between you and the mattress to cant your cunt to his liking. "Yeah. And yet you're clenched down on me like you've never been happier. Funny, that."

It built faster than it had any right to. You'd stopped being able to do anything but hold on — one hand fisted in the wet sheet, the other clamped to the flexing muscle of his ass, your heels skidding down his back for purchase that wasn't there, every thrust knocking another broken little sound loose from a throat you no longer had any say over. And when you came you spasmed around him with your nails dug into the meat of his shoulders and your mouth open on a noise you'd have been embarrassed by if your brain hadn't been simmered down and reduced to nothing. He cursed and pushed his face into your throat and licked the salt off it, tongue flat against the tendon, groaning into your flesh as you fluttered and squeezed and dragged him over the edge with you.

He spilled deep with a groan you're not sure you've ever heard from him before, and then stayed there. Heavy. Crushing. His heart going hard against your chest, his breath sawing at your collarbone. Neither of you moved — both of you a single disgusting glued-together animal. Roadkill, maybe.

Underneath the slowing wreck of your own pulse, the feeling you'd been fending off since he walked through the front door finally claimed you — he was home. Your throat went tight, and you turned your face into his damp hair so he wouldn't catch the sound that squeezed out of it.

He exhaled a warm gust against your throat, then he dragged his lips to the corner of yours and kissed you — sloppy, tasting of sleep and salt and the both of you mixed past telling each other apart.

[maceoflace-deactivated20260706]

i need you, kinky love

𝔰𝔢𝔯 𝔡𝔲𝔫𝔠𝔞𝔫 𝔱𝔥𝔢 𝔱𝔞𝔩𝔩 & 𝔣!𝔯𝔢𝔞𝔡𝔢𝔯 — a limited list of ser duncan the tall’s kinks / fetishes and how they might play out in your life.

𝔠𝔬𝔫𝔱𝔢𝔫𝔱 ♱ 18+, overall debauchery and filth, dirty talk, public play, mentions of manhandling, mentions of crying.

❦ OVERSTIMULATION

Duncan— may the gods be kind to him— can’t keep himself from finishing within minutes when he’s with you. He gets excited so quickly, his cock is aching in his pants after a mere teasing look from you. It’s no surprise that he can’t contain himself at all once he’s finally buried in your sweet cunt and you’re melting in his hands beautifully.

It happens so often.

His willingness to fuck himself stupid, to feel you milk him dry, saves both of you. He can’t stop himself, even while he’s on the edge of cumming a third time he’s still making you dizzy, guiding you from one position to the next with bittersweet roughness. He feels you claw at his chest as he stuffs you full of every inch. You pant and whine and plead for more, and he finds it hard to believe that he’s eliciting such a reaction out of you when he barely has any sense himself.

“You feel— fuck— y’feel like heaven,” you hear him grunt as your nails catch his skin. He throws his head back, and you know it’s coming.

You know he’s about to fall off again by the way his lips part fully, the way he squeezes your hips under his big palms and deft fingers to lift you up like you’re only an object he’s fucking into.

The angle becomes something more perverse. More primal and animalistic as he flips you onto your tummy and pins you down under him, groaning in your ear over the sound of your mewls. You allow yourself to completely let go once his front is pressed against your back, because now you’re far gone together and that’s how you like it.

❦ SPANKING

“Tell me,” Duncan grits out, eyes trained on every inch of your dejected form, “tell me what you’ve been. No use in bein’ shy now, love.”

You’re draped over his huge lap, tummy pressed against his strong thighs with your bum in the air, skirts pushed up around your waist. Your cheek is pressed against the grass— the smell of lingering rain and dirt grounds you as you tremble.

Maybe you pushed him too far today.

Duncan is sweet. He tries to be as understanding as his heart will allow him to be when you’re difficult, leading with loving whispers and trying to pacify your mean streak with his hands gently. But there are times where you’re too mouthy. Times when you insist on whining and yapping despite the way his eyebrows furrow, his set jaw, and the flare of his nostrils— all quiet warnings that you actively choose to ignore. It’s how you end up thrown over his lap like this, crying and blubbering.

“I’ve been a bad girl, ser.”

“More than bad— you were rotten,” he mutters. His hands rub the swell of your ass before palming your soft flesh. His breath catches in his throat as he spreads you open for a split second, only to see your cunt already glistening— he tsks at that. “You’re going to be good ‘n count each of your lashings, am I understood?”

You nod and sniffle, mumbling a quiet ‘yes, ser’ before he delivers the first heavy handed smack.

❦ SPIT

It all started with some kisses. Sloppy, messy, more tongue and teeth than anything else. You’re dizzy as he takes over your senses— he’s all you can taste, smell and see as he keeps you pinned against his chest and his mouth devours your own with earnest. His tongue rubs over yours purposefully, obviously trying to get you to fall apart and become the whiny thing you are for him sometimes.

You moan his name into his mouth like a prayer that’s only shared between the two of you. Hushed and honeyed over with equal parts desire and affection. When you pull away, there’s a string of your combined saliva keeping your lips connected to his. You’re embarrassed by the sight, bashfully raising a hand to wipe your mouth, but he catches your wrist before you can blink.

Duncan leans in, practically licking up the mixture as his lips crash against yours in another syrupy kiss, huffing through his nose and mounting you to the wall behind you without trying too hard.

“Open your mouth, pretty girl,” he demands softly.

Your knees could give out at the sound of his voice all thick and raspy— your lips part, pink tongue on display as you look up at him with big eyes. His hand cups your jaw in a gentle but firm hold, eyes glimmering with something you’ve only seen in your dirtiest of moments together as he examines your mouth.

Then he’s puckering his lips, only to drop a fat glob of his spit directly onto your awaiting tongue.

❦ DEGRADATION

“You’re disgusting, Duncan—” your words are almost slurred, but the underlying bitterness and anger in your tone is still present.

He pissed you off thoroughly this time. It’s honestly rare that you two argue, but when you do it ends up with him begging you for mercy because his heart can’t handle his lady being upset with him regardless of what happened— you two will get into the details of it all once he’s paid his repentance. You refuse to sit on his cock fully and there’s little he can do about it but throw his head back, squeeze your thighs and feel the messy glide of your soft cunt against every inch.

“I know, m’lady.” He whimpers, eyes half lidded and jaw slack as he stares up at you with reverence, “Gods, forgive me, please.”

“You don’t deserve it,” you spit out, rocking your hips faster to prove a point as he shivers underneath you. You plant your hands on his chest for leverage, bawling the material of his tunic up in your fists as you lean down. His now wild and pleading eyes meet yours as your lips hover over his whilst you speak, “you don’t deserve my grace or my sweetness. You can’t help yourself, you’re unable to keep your hands off of me even after angering me. Have you no shame, Duncan?”

“I’m sorry— I’m so sorry,” he chokes out. He grips your thighs even tighter, and you’re sure his fingers will be leaving behind sore spots for him to kiss later. When he thrusts upwards, the force jostles your body on top of him and knocks a soft gasp out of you, and then you feel it—

Duncan’s thick spend covers your cunt and the bit of his lower stomach that’s exposed, making a mess of his happy trail as he shudders and his chest heaves.

[mintmatcha]

love arranged marriage unfortunately. the idea of being married to a knight who's not even in the city, but away on the front lines. it's a benefit for your family, so they dont even question sending you to his home to await his return...

[mintmatcha]

you meet him three months into the arrangement. He arrives after the sun has already set, his features set strong in the candlelight. His body is heavy with exhaustion and tension, his eyes dull and tired.

you've grown to hate this place, this castle gifted to him for war victories. The halls are barren, the garden yet to bloom. The maids are pleasant, but they keep their distance, as if you'll strike. Maybe your husband is the kind to hit. You wouldn't know.

When he looks at you, it's only in short bursts, his eyes suddenly low. There's a long stretch of silence between you and you consider introducing yourself, but decide against it. He knows who you are.

"The maid is drawing me a bath," he says suddenly and a sick feeling pours over you. This day was always coming, but you aren't sure you're ready to lay under a stranger.

"Am I expected to join?" you ask and his nose crinkles.

"No." He steps back and away. His departure is brisk and driven. You retire for the night by yourself and awake alone. Your husband is set to leave again in a few hours; a few soldiers have already gathered in the front garden.

"Don't you wish to give your new wife a goodbye?" one asks, unaware of your open window. "One night and you've already had your fill? Or has she been filled too much?"

"I refuse to believe she is real!" says another. "What kind of woman has worn down our brute and turned him into a family man? Should we expect a gaggle of children in the upcoming year?"

Your husband growls. "You will leave the poor lamb alone. She suffers enough."

That softens you. Just a bit. You rise from you bed and go to the window, leaning out enough to catch the men's attention.

"Until next time."

He watches you, expression caught between more emotions that you can count, then turns his gaze back to his mount. The two men share a look, wide, wide grins on their faces.

"Until next time," he repeats back.

[mintmatcha]

In his absence, he sends gifts. They are tiny things, sweets and oiled combs and scented oils and a porcelain figure of a cat, aimless in their direction towards you. Just simple niceties he could give to any woman in the world. You imagine he sends one to the lovers he has in every city as well.

(he must have lovers, you imagine. He hasn't touched you; he must be getting his fill with women in other cities, maybe women he actually loves. these are trinkets to keep his wife amused while she wastes away.)

none of the gifts come with a note.

one day a bolt of fabric arrives, yellow and ornate. It's only a small amount, not enough to make a dress, but enough for you to unravel and admire. It's beautiful and clearly expensive, golden threads woven into flowers and vines. Your father was a silk merchant; while you never wore the silks, you can recognize their quality.

the following week, the delicious man rides up on his steeds and presents a letter. The handwriting is rough. Knights that come from the lower class do not have the schooling of highborns; as fair as you know, your husband was born a street rat and worked his way theough the ranks to glory.

-I have been told by my secund that I did not send you enuf fabric for a gown. I do not no these things.

The spelling mistakes screw a smile out of you.

"Wait a moment." You stop the boy before he can leave. "I wish to send something back."

You take your time and use your finest calligraphy, tucking your note in with a handkerchief you had spent the week on. It's fine work-- one that would please even the hardest of hearts.

-Dearest husband,

Please take this handkerchief as a sign of my thoughts.

Your patient and thoughtful wife

A second letter arrives within the week.

-are you cros with me? A scrap of fabric for a scrap of fabric?

The response is what makes you cross. The poor messenger boy has to stay the night while you percolate over a response.

-Dearest, sweetest husband,

A handkerchief is a traditional gesture of affection. I have embroidered the edges by hand, with your last name and your roses, and it smells of my perfume. It is a piece of me for you to carry. If you do not appreciate my kindness or if you think it will turn away your lovers, you may return it. I do not wish it wasted on you.

Your less than patient and less than adoring wife

The poor boy scatters off in the morning and returns a few days later.

tortured wife,

I wil cherish it. I am sory, pour lam. I wil do better.

your loving husband

[quarterlifekitty]

Cw: infidelity, reader is verging on OC here, very light physical description (wears glasses, is shorter than soap)

Regency!AU where you’ve just entered an arranged marriage with John MacTavish, and you’ve already heard whispers from servants and nobles alike about the girls he’s entertaining on the side. You sigh, disappointed but not surprised.

He’s never shown any interest in you. Not during your debut, not in any courting season, and certainly not now that you’re married. Quiet, studious, with no interest in socializing beyond a small circle. If anything, you’ve only ever been an obstacle to him— your desire for quiet and to study the flowers has robbed many a late night garden tryst of its privacy at social galas.

Not to mention your spectacles. He’s never understood some men’s taste for those.

But your family was of no small renown (distantly related to the royal family, some gossiped), and his had connections overseas. The match made sense. Well, to anyone but the people who had met you both.

He’ll admit you’ve piqued his curiosity when you invite him to speak with you privately. You couldn’t mean to confront him regarding his dalliances, could you? Because it wouldn’t do you any good. He needs some kind of stimulation in this dull, countryside manor.

You smile at the maid as she departs, having just set down the silver tea tray and chatted with you for a spell while you awaited your lord husband— late as usual. He’s always found it strange how you keep such a closer rapport with servants of all people.

You stand to greet him as he enters the garden, smiling like you don’t have a care in the world. Sweetly. You tuck a strand of hair back into place. That is, right before you slap him across the face. Hard.

And the poor man, he’s reeling— feels as if the wind has been knocked out of him. Since when could you hit harder than some of his mates? That train of thought ends when you grab him by the lapels and yank him downward to eye level. The fury he sees cannot be overstated.

“You think I care that my man-whore of a husband wants to wet his cock? I don’t. But should you wish to keep your manhood, you’ll do so in private,” you grit out, teeth bared at him. “I’ll not be humiliated by you. I’ll not be the subject of pitying gossip. Do not provoke me. Am I clear?”

He nods hastily once he re-learns how to move his head. You let go, but not without a slight shove that he sheepishly struggles to recover from. “Good. Now leave me be.”

You proceed to arrange your skirt suitably and sit at the garden table, picking up a cup to sip from, opening a journal and perusing it as if he isn’t even there.

Johnny leaves the garden quietly, retreating to your (scarcely) shared chambers to catch his breath.

And for a week or two, no words reach your ears about his liaisons. It’s a blissful time, but your satisfaction doesn’t last for long.

Because your husband has suddenly become nauseatingly affectionate. Scarcely leaving your side when he has his way, prompting you to sneak him improper kisses, holding your hand so he can kiss his way up your wrist in a most unbecoming way.

More than once, you hear of his former paramours. Humiliated, snubbed by him seemingly out of nowhere when you’d only told him not stick his hands up their skirts in plain view of others. Now he seemingly only has eyes for you, calling you bonnie and darlin and all other manner of sickening pet names. He’s even taken to playfully plucking the spectacles from your face— sometimes to clean them when they fog up from a hot drink, other times to hold them behind his back for ransom while he demands a kiss in exchange for their safe return.

My god, and the vile things he whispers to you when you find yourselves alone. Begging you to let him lift your skirts, to see that cute little cunt and give it a good licking, telling you about how he stroked himself in the bath last night thinking about you, how you should join him tonight—

Worst of all, he’s asking all manner of inane questions. Namely, which room you want to become the nursery.

[toadstreetltd]

hare liver/turtle dove | 7k wc.

BLACKSMITH!SIMON X READER 18+

cw: afab reader, reader can visibly blush, breeding, cucking, scratching, size difference, simon thinks about eating you a lot :)

medieval!au based on this post of mine. your lord husband is letting you down and simon knows he can do something about it

Simon remembers the first time he saw you.

How could he not? You were a stranger in a strange land.

A flower from the south, grown up in warm soil and rich sun. Looking like you lived on fruit and honey, and Simon bet you smelled like it, too. Blackberry jam, and sweet cream, and nectar, he'd reckon. It was the first thought that passed through his head—that he'd like to smell you. Wanted to shove his ruined nose into that soft part in the hollow of your neck, where you were warm and delicate and he could feel your pulse thrumming just beneath, and inhale. He had to get close to anything to get a scent—his nose was mostly scar tissue, burned and singed from coke smoke over and over throughout the years—but he had wanted it.

You stepped out of your vulgar carriage, a little bird, bright and smiling in the bitter, sodden morning, and he had wanted it.

He doesn't know why. Hours in the forge leave him plenty of time to mull thoughts like warmed, spiced wine, but he hasn't yet figured out his taste for sweet things. Finespun things. Things he could crush in his hands like eggshells. He only knew that the sweet things never liked him much. Sweet things were frightened of the large, scowling thing making iron sing among the flames.

Until you.

You looked him in the eye. Smiled at him that day when he stood in the receiving line in the courtyard. You had a flash of teeth for everyone, it was true, but often even those generous with their smiles could never quite find one for Simon. They got lost somewhere, swallowed by his imposing frame. And maybe you didn't know to be afraid, maybe you'd never learned to be wary of mutts in your fair, tempered home, but Simon thought it was something else:

Curiosity. Interest in the beasts bred in the north—because your lord husband certainly wasn't an example of one.

The first son of a first son with a great old name and a castle. His family had lived within its walls for four hundred years, building and defending it in the name of some faraway king Simon couldn't give two shits about, and your mooncalf lord was going to run it all into the mud. He was a dull axe, meek and mollycoddled. Played at war to take the spines of other, greater men. A bare branch, too, Simon figured.

You'd learn all that when he returned from his latest campaign.

Married in absentia for your father's wealth of fighting men, you'd meet your new husband for the first time a month after your arrival. For now, you're alone, a warmblood getting used to the frost. It's no wonder you wander into Simon's forge.

Three days into your residence at the keep, your maids have you dressed for the winter. All wrapped up in a dull-coloured cloak. Hiding you beneath thick fur and delicate embroidery—as if anything could dull what you hold within you. The waifs are too flighty to follow you into Simon's workshop. The smell, the heat, the man within—all of them offend their delicate sensibilities in one way or another. Not you, though. You run to the bellows with no mind paid to the bull hammering metal beside them.

Simon only stops his work when you clear your pretty throat.

"What is your name, ser?" you ask. You're a daisy blooming in the winter muck. Or a weed, sprouting stubbornly where it doesn't belong. Wilting petals sucking sunlight in a smithy.

The only light here is from the fireglow; all else is choked. Coal smoulders in the hearth, belching sulphur and tar into the dense, stifling air. Breezes are throttled the moment they pass the threshold, so there's nothing to kick up the ash and soot—they lie in a blanket over the vices and punches, chisels and swages. Anything in Simon's forge doesn't stay clean for long. Even you, satin eve. Linger, and you'll melt into the walls with all the rest.

"Not a ser, little bird. Just a blacksmith," he says.

He had been mending a mail hauberk ruined in your lord's last battle. Some bannerman had a terrible day, and it was Simon's job to set the chain back right so another soldier could have one more. He sets the armour aside, and the loops of steel shimmer like stars in the firelight. You demand his full attention, and Simon wants to see what you'll do with it.

"My lady," you say, tone polite and proper. You run him a cunning once-over, top to toe, and Simon wonders what you see.

"Not no lady, neither."

"No, blacksmith, I'm a lady—the lady of your liege lord," you remind him with a smirk. As if he needed it. You look the part enough—clean and soft, highborn, grown up never scraping a knee, no doubt. But there's mischief twinkling in your eyes, like a child looking at a stream they want to ruin their boots in.

Simon doesn't know if he wants to stamp out that mischief or if there's something else he'd like to do with it.

He'll have to get closer to find out.

"And what does the lady of my liege lord want?"

"Your name." You're puckish and enjoying it, a smiling imp playing in the tick of your mouth. Even as your neck cranes to look up at him.

He rounds the heavy anvil to stand in front of you. Simon knows he's a big man. Can't forget when he's looking at the tops of people's heads all the time. And he's reminded, often and loudly, by highborns who think their sigils and names make them large. If I were your size, I'd rule the fucking kingdom, they say, and they're right. Simon probably could be a knight if he wanted. A ser. Fight hard enough for a lord who would give him a holdfast and a wife of his own. But he prefers the forge, prefers bending iron to his will to being bent to a lord's.

And if he were some perfumed knight, you wouldn't be here, looking up at him with intrigue.

Mud-madness, maybe. Maybe you want to know what it's like in the dirt.

"Riley," Simon says. He gives you his last, a secret joke just for him.

He's stepped into your space, something that would get him flogged if there were anyone around to see. But it's dark, and warm, and lonely in his poor hovel, and he likes how a little bit of your bravery is sapped away with him so close. Likes to see the uncertainty bleed into the curve of your brow with every notch your fine spine bends.

"Riley the blacksmith." You run a delicate finger on the flat side of a blade Simon was working on earlier, pressing prints into the cooled iron where it rests on the table beside you both. You're pretending now, pretending you're not afraid. But you can't look at him, and Simon can see your chest rise and fall.

"You'll forge a new sword for my husband," you continue. "I've brought good steel from my home for you to use."

"Not some jewelry?" he asks.

You hum. "I have enough jewelry."

"Didn't mean for you."

That gets your eyes back on him. You're affronted at the insult to your perfect lord. You draw yourself to your full height, taking back the measures you shrank. It's still lengths below Simon, and you know it. Simon sees the exact moment you realize just how tall you'd have to grow to match him, so you put another kind of distance between you and him. You glide to the other side of his work table, and when you speak, it's harsh and proud. "No jewelry. A sword, a longsword."

"Why?"

Chin tipped high, shoulders squared; a bead of sweat rolls down your temple. "Because I want for it."

"Used to getting what you want, little bird?" Simon follows your path, but when he steps, you step, and it's a dance. Not the measured steps you were surely taught as a girl, not the proper trips of light to plucked strings. It's a different sort of dance, and it doesn't help you. The only thing it does is get his blood hot.

If it's a chase you're after, you'll get it.

"Yes," you say.

Simon likes how your throat looks when you swallow.

"You don't know what you want," he tells you.

He could show you. In his mind's eye, Simon sees the woods outside the keep. He hears your soft footsteps thumping on the forest floor and the sounds you'd make when he catches you. Can almost smell the frozen leaves tangling in your hair, and the prey-sweat on your skin, and his jaw tingles.

"I do." You circle the table, never letting Simon get within arm's reach. Smart bird, but you sound as petulant as a child.

"And what's that?" he asks.

A table between you and him, and you think it is enough. That's the problem with highborns—they never think the lowbreds are half as bloodthirsty as they are. They think they are the teeth. Think their rank is armour. But what's a title in the mud, and even a worm will turn. That table could be across the room in a second, if Simon had the mind. You stir some creature in him, your furtive steps like the beating of wings. It rises from his chest like bile, that urge to hold you down, stop your movings and twitchings with his weight, feel your muscles flex below him.

Like a hound on a coursing—only what runs is hunted.

"A happy husband," you tell him, and Simon can't remember what the conversation was. He's busy keeping his feet planted, even as you step into the doorway and his every instinct begs him to act. He hadn't even realized you'd circled all the way back to the entrance to his forge, where the cold and daylight await.

"And a sword. By the end of the month, Riley, for his return."

Your scent sits in the air like poppy oil long after you've left.

You come back the next week, a winter rose tucked behind your ear and flakes of snow dusting your crown.

You're a bright thing, too full of life for this unwelcoming keep. Simon keeps thinking you'll wither, that one of these days he'll see you round a corner and you'll be sallow and wet like the rest of the north, but you keep surprising him. He eats his fill of you in glimpses, flutters of your cloak through the keyhole of his doorway, traipsing through the snow with your litter of gamines at your heels. You haunt his nights, his dreams, walking the scorched halls of his mind like a shade of witness, and in them, too, you run.

Simon wakes every dawn before you're caught. Always just around the next bend, soft soles padding on the stone.

Seeing you, then, measures from his wingspan and unaware of the danger dripping drool at your feet, Simon feels of consequence. Feels like a whispered name of a fable, too treacherous to say too loudly, or something may hear. Infamy, that's where Simon's thoughts lead him. Or into the loop of a noose.

Where you got that rose, though, he'd like to know. Crystal ropes of ice line the petal edges. A precious beauty frozen in time, black as liver blood. When he asks, you pluck it from your ear and hide your smirk behind it. "I met a handsome fairy in the wood, and he said he would give me a secret if I gave him a kiss. All I received was this rose," you tell him. Grinning like this is the start of a fun game, like you're the Good Neighbour between the iron oaks.

In your southern home, perhaps, The Folk are just stories. Here, in the unyielding North, people don't have the luxury to laugh at tales. If you're born in the snow, you don't take bargains with a light heart.

"Trading kisses, eh?" Simon grunts. Coke smoke and steam billow around him as he quenches a blade in a pail of water. Metal screams and hisses as it chokes for breath. "What do you want, then? A pair of earrings? I could give you a necklace you'd like."

You come to his side, straining around his torso to watch the steel drown. You're nothing, just nothing beside his great frame. He could bend you as easily as red iron, but your teeth flash with alloyed courage.

"Is that your usual payment, Riley?"

"Give me a kiss, little bird, and you'll get more than a necklace."

Sheltered, highborn lady, whistling in the dark. You don't even know what he's saying. You may have a shade of an idea, words sipped from distant whispers not meant for your ears, but it's like the light that slips through coloured glass. Insubstantial, just a facsimile of the real thing. You're here to catch rays to see what they feel like. To know.

Because you came back—like a moth to a flame, you came back alone to singe your wings—and you don't call for the guards when he drifts into your space. Simon wonders how far he can push you, and how quickly. Cool a blade too fast, and the core bows. Warps. Its edge turns to brittle glass, itching to chip and crack. Heat it too fast, and the steel tempers and softens. Becomes just another useless lump of metal.

He wants you boiling when you come to him, and you will come to him.

You've caught his scent just as much as he's caught yours. Like a doe snuck into his territory, you tease his edges—not wise enough to realize just how threadbare his control is.

For now, he'll let you feel the warmth sitting, perpetually, just underneath his skin. Let you feel your own size as he looms over you. Some birds like their men grizzly, like towering beasts with hard fists and mean jaws—you love it. Simon can see it in the twitch of your chin, the draw of your pupils, the hard spots of heat on your cheeks. Bad luck that you're married to your dim, fallow reed. Frightfully bad luck.

"There you go again," Simon whispers. The tips of his boots touch your fine shoes. Your delicate hands wring together in front of your belly.

"Pardon?"

So mannered, so decent, even as Simon can see your thoughts swimming around your empty head like water wraiths. Just the promise of a kiss below the murk, or a wet grave. He could pluck the pictures from your mind, roll them around his mouth like spit-stones, and he knows what he would taste. Interest, and imaginations, and lilac honey. Sweat and dew. Clotted cream. So virtuous, even as your lips hang slack, and he can see the pink, wet muscle of your twitching tongue.

"You blush when you look up at me," Simon tells you. Lets some scorn, some mockery, flavour the words as they burrow into your ear. "You even know what you're blushin' over?"

Your hand flies to your cheek, cooling away the flush with dancing fingers. An indignant huff puffs from your mouth, and Simon is sure you'd stomp your foot if you had less of a hold on yourself. It almost makes him smile. Do it, he thinks. Give him a reason to take you over his knee. Welts on your ass and three fingers in your cunt would wipe that whiny look off your face, he's sure.

He doubts anyone's ever taught you that lesson—doubts you even know just how hard lessons can be learned—but he wouldn't mind being the first.

"I do know," you puff.

"Know what, little bird?" There's a sparrow, just there, embroidered on your heavy wool cloak. The hours it must have taken to thread it carefully between the weave, the years of practise to accomplish a stitch with such beauty, precision. And Simon could ruin it. Ruin it in a moment. The urge bites at him as he reaches forward to pet the fine fabric between his fingers.

A risk if he's ever taken one. Simon likes his hands. They're rather important to him.

"Why ladies blush." Your voice is just a promise.

"Do you, now?" You're looking at your hem balled in Simon's heavy fist, at the scrapes on his knuckles so close to your belly where you're warm and heaving with breath. "Good little ladies like yourself blush at pretty highborns with flowers in their hair. Why're you blushin' at me?"

You're looking at him like a traveller near a bluff, aware of the drop, feeling the call. One tug, and you would fall into him.

He doesn't get the chance, though. At least, not yet.

The spell breaks, your lady's maid calling your name from the snow, and you take flight—spinning when he, for just a moment, doesn't let your cloak slip from his grasp. Simon knows it's no matter. Your winter rose rests on the cobblestone at his feet, already withering in the heat and choking air. You'll visit him in his dreams again, and maybe he'll see what will happen when you're snared.

Some rabbits chew their foot off. What will you do?

Your milklivered lord comes home clean as spring, and brings disappointment with him.

You try to hide it, but Simon knows. Plucked and preened, you greet him in the courtyard as you were greeted a month before, and present to him the sword Simon forged. The sword with the bloodgutter shaped to the exact curve of your lips, Simon's sickness hammered into the folded iron. The sword your lord can hardly hold upright as his thin arm trembles. Chagrin dusts your tepid smile when his frail hand cups your chin. When he wraps you in his hold, and so much of you is left exposed to the chill.

He's weak, another thing Simon can crush in his palm, but that one, he hates.

And the disappointments only grow, only follow you—dragging behind you like a limp mule slowing down the retinue. Better to cull the lame thing, put everyone out of their misery, but you, the dutiful wife, do try. The servants say you read to him by the hearth in the evenings, and tug him on gentle walks through the wood, and they whisper about the noises he makes as he sweats over you every night. And you glow and simper in the mornings, but he can't keep you happy.

Simplest thing in the world to breed a bird, and your lord is failing.

He's letting you wilt. When more months go by without an heir in your belly, the folk start to whisper. They think there must be something wrong with you. The women make you eat comfrey and daisy, and carve words into the butter you lathe on your bread. They stir hare's egg powder into the tea you choke down. You plant parsley alone in the dawn light, nails cracking in the hard, cold soil, and if you aren't growing soon, you'll be sent away. Back to your father, who may not receive you, or to a lone and quiet convent to dwindle into old age.

Or worse. Much worse can befall a woman who doesn't give her husband a child. You're in a different sort of trap, now.

Simon knows it's not your fault, but he seems to be the only one who does. So he waits—lingers in your periphery for you to work it out for yourself—and it's the dead of night when you come back to him at last. Your lord has just left on another campaign for his king, and you're shivering and washed with the snowfall, standing in Simon's forge. Winter-dimmed, strained in the face and hard around the mouth, but the blustering bellows dance warm, orange light over your skin.

It's what you've needed. Some heat. Should've come to Simon weeks ago. He can press some warmth back into you.

You open your mouth to speak, but Simon hasn't forgotten your last conversation, and it's time you listened to him. "It's because you like blushin' at me, isn't it?" he asks, coming to you where you stand by his work table. "Like lookin' at me. Wonderin' how it would be to have me in your bed and not that tallow-faced lord of yours."

"He's not—"

"He is. Can't even put a baby in your belly." The keep is dark and quiet in the distance. Only the mice are awake. Even though you don't scream when Simon bullies one paw beneath your cloak, planting his palm on your soft stomach, he doubts anyone would hear if you did. "I can do it, little bird. I can give you a pup, and it won't take me no season either."

You grip his forearm like you're going to push him off, but when your nails sink into the scars and mottled flesh there, you hesitate. Something mercenary sits in your gaze, something hard-won and hewn in ice. No more mischief, just purpose.

Simon's a venal man. What's another ware to be sold?

"I need a son," you say at last. Jaw set, shoulders tight.

Simon was never one who needed to be told twice, and he's held long enough. You squeak when he lifts you, hefting you with hands around your ribcage to be set on his worktable, but don't protest when he undoes the clasp of your cloak. Shoves it off your shoulders to find the thin shift beneath. Diaphanous, flimsy—your nipples pebble through the linen. You were probably tossing in bed thinking about this, of coming to him in your night things, wondering what he'll do with you.

Brave thing. You're a conscript yet. Simon can't blame you for your means to an end, and this is as sweet a bargain as he's ever struck.

You run trembling hands over his shoulders, as if picturing a child with his build. "A son, blacksmith," you repeat, as if you can speak it into being.

But that's Simon's job—you only need to lie there and let him.

"I'll give you one. I'll give you three."

Propped in front of him like a dinner plate, eyes round as the moon, gone is your stiff upper lip. Maybe you thought you'd take it like a soldier—get the job done like farm animals and be back to your soft bed within minutes. You don't know, though, what you owe him. What you've done to him in his thoughts. Simon has a score to settle in your flesh, and a hunger in his belly he intends to sate in your sweat. Made him wait, you did. He's going to savour it.

He slips between your legs, bending down and down to bump your chin with his own. You know your pact. He wants his payment.

The kiss you give him is hesitant, cold lips on a warm, scarred mouth. His melted flesh pulls his lips into a permanent sneer, but you don't seem to mind. It's your tongue, first, which presses into his teeth. Your jaw, first, to pop open, expecting. You taste like the first spring day—snow-melt and sunshine, new grass and dripping, shining, icicles—and you hold him like you're going to blow away in the wind. Tugging at him, his clothes, like you're skinning a deer. Folding stripped flesh over itself to get to the warm, wet muscles beneath, still filled with the blood that made them run.

Your shift is insubstantial, so delicate that Simon could shred it like wet paper—so he does. Rips it down the front in one, great sheer to lay bare the body below that he had been thinking of for months. Months. Wondering what you hid beneath your many layers of wool, how your breath would catch when Simon grabbed heavy handfuls of your curves, picturing sooty handprints marring your pretty dress.

You break the kiss to complain, some indignant protest that falls on deaf ears because Simon isn't listening.

He's looking, swallowing the sight of you so he can never forget the way it felt slipping down his throat. The swell of your breasts, the soft roll of your stomach, the plush give of your thighs, knees knocked wide around his hips. Simon's longed for this painting. His muscles cramped with it.

How dare that lord of yours let you walk the halls of the keep. If you were Simon's, really his, you wouldn't be allowed. He would take you to the woods, the vast, unending forests of the North, where no one could ever find you, and he'd tie you to the bed. Make sure the only thing on your mind is the next time his cock will be seated inside you. Drip honey in your mouth and fill your womb with his seed again, and again, and again.

He has half a mind to do it. Take you. Bring you to a place where you could run for lengths and never come close to another heart beating between the trees.

You're halfway to letting him, he thinks. Dropped back into some primal part of your mind as he lays you back, tools clattering to the floor, and latches his mouth to the soft velvet of your breasts. Everything he does, you react as if it is the first time, and Simon wonders. Wonders if he could mark the warm curves of you, sink his teeth in, take a bite and swallow, and if your lord would ever notice.

Limp, pidgeonhearted lord. Wasting you.

He wouldn't waste you. Thoughts catch like fingers on cliff edges, cock swelling, achingly hard, at you so sweet and fictal looking up at him. He'd crack his ribs open, tuck you there, if he could. Make you sip the air from his lungs, breathe when he breathed. Your years of careful comportment, of being hidden in high towers, crumbling in his palm like white ash.

Simon's never wanted anything like this. His stomach aches. He feels washed away, uprooted, by the want—vicious and cruel, rearing now after months of suffocation.

The want to raze and build anew.

Simon has a bed, somewhere—a threadbare nest tucked in some corner—but he likes you where you are, laid out on his table like another thing to be forged, moulded into whatever he sees fit. You move how he wants, pliable as liquid metal, as sweat blossoms in the dips and wells of your body. He could make you, but you let him. You only falter when he parts your legs and dips his head between them, looking like a filly. New to the world on weak knees. Eyes wide, confused, as he kisses your thighs. You rest your hands protectively in a knot below your navel.

It's a near thing, holding back the sleeping creature within himself. The one that howls to devour, claim, own. But things can be owned in other ways—forever changed, tied to him. Something, finally, for himself. Made to keep.

The first brush of lips against your cunt has you squirming, and he has to hold you down. "Is this … necessary?" you ask.

Simon hooks your legs over his shoulders, opening you up more to him, and his mouth waters. He can feel his cheeks tingling as saliva collects, and he can smell you. Finally close enough to really know. Loam, and lye soap, and the tang of dandelion milk. Gooseflesh blooms in the wake of his searching nose.

"Yes," he tells you.

"No wonder I'm not withchild yet, my husband has never—oh." A needless sentence, aborted with a bleat as his mouth descends.

Simon was right.

Blackberry jam—the sweetest thing he's ever tasted.

Even though you run from him. You're prim and proper about it, hiding sighs behind a furrowed brow and the flit of your fingers. Simon doesn't want the Lady; he wants what he knows is beneath, but he knows he's going to enjoy teasing it out of you. You're jumpy, writhing and twitching, swallowing soft hums and hiccups as Simon parts you with his tongue. Sipping nectar from the source, kitten-licks around your pulsing entrance until he finds the sensitive bud at the apex of you and wraps his lips around it.

Soon, other wetness joins his spit, and your hands leave their knot to scratch against Simon's scalp. Gripping his hair at the root, pushing his face into your bucking hips, and it tastes like victory. Your lord is off conquering a strip of land no one cares about, and Simon is here conquering his wife. Simon can feel the rumble in his own chest as he groans into you.

He pulls back, chin wet, to watch his finger disappear inside you, practically sucking him in as you whine. He'd give up breath to keep tasting you, to keep your velvet heat under his tongue and feel you pulsing as you're wrung out, but he has to see. Has to witness the crescent of dirt under his nail, the dark lines in his knuckle sinking in. Watch your stomach as it jumps, and your pretty face twisting up. Your walls flutter around him, giving in to his prodding, his petting, until he can slide another inside. And because he's greedy, Simon's tongue follows too. Muscle against muscle, he could drown in you.

Live forever on only this. On your trembling thighs and plaintive cries, nuzzling his ruined nose against your clit until you shout.

Supine, you thrash, limp limbs tensing and releasing like the crash of waves. Like you're scrabbing for purchase in the dark, and only Simon is there to lead you. "Wait—stop," you mewl, voice high and reedy, and Simon halts—barely. He doesn't ask why, doesn't trust his voice to be anything but a growl, and he doesn't want to frighten you. Not yet. Not when you're teetering on the edge of where he's taking you.

Tears rim your glossed eyes when you catch his gaze down the line of your body. "I don't know what's—I feel—"

Rage and male pride swirl in his chest, a potion he could get drunk on. Ire-honeyed mead his fists could siphon out. Sweet, sweet bird. Poor, mistreated highborn. Simon'll give you a dozen, a score, until you're spent and dazed. Until your eyes can't focus, and the only thing you can say is his name.

"Told you this was necessary, didn't I?" he asks.

You nod, a pout Simon wants to chew off tugging at your lips.

"Then stop whinin'."

You hold his hand through your release, lacing your fingers in his and holding them, locked, to your chest. Your eyes are closed as if in concentration, and Simon can feel your heartbeat against his wrist, thumping in time with your pitiful laments. They pour from your throat as if hooked out, spiralling upward in rungs like a silver-keen melody. It's winsome, how you curl against him, shoulders bowing inward, fingers scrabbling at the singed hair of his forearm. How you clench down on his fingers, still petting inside you, gummy walls pulsing as your muscles tense. Tight as a bowstring, horse tendons dried and twisted, until you're loosed, limp and panting.

Simon's decision is made. It drives into place like a rosehead in his nape, clouted in with your lips on his knuckles. Wrought-iron against bone, muscles making room for rusted metal. Can't pull nails without a fight, not once they've been clenched.

You scrunch your face up when he kisses you afterward, pressing your own taste back into you. He expects you to shy away again. To fawn, coltish and faltering. But you're on him the moment he pulls away, chasing him, sitting up from the table to follow the heat of his torso like you're an early-spring lamb. His tunic, you shove halfway up his chest without a care for the ties, and your nails follow. Clean, shaped things that leave lines in their wake, coaxing Simon's blood to the surface—a red bloom on pale flesh and stark, pink scars. Old burns still holding flame inside him.

Perfect, kept teeth sink into the plush of his chest as you tug at his trousers, paw at him, hard and leaking, straining against the fabric, like you can't wait another moment

—and you're his. Another man's wife, traded to him for swords and arms to wield them, but you belong to Simon. From the moment you smiled at him in the courtyard, you did. And not you nor any man could stop him. You mark bites into his skin like you could chew him living, and Simon thinks about making off with you like a monster in the night. Not Beowulf, but Grendel. But no one is nailing his arm to any wall, not when it can slip around the curve of your back and bring you close to him.

You come readily into his hold, trembling legs locking around his hips, fingers letting blood at the back of his neck, as you're carried. Anywhere. Any flat surface Simon can find so he can sit, can hold you fast in his lap and feel you tense atop his thighs. Let you work yourself full of him as the fire spits.

He doesn't know where he lands. Somewhere hay-filled and dusty. He can't stop relishing the feel of you, better than he could've ever conjured in his rotten mutt mind. So fragile, so soft—your ribs give when he presses his palms into them. A thing to protect, or shatter like overheated glass. Because blood-heavy, aching in anticipation, Simon wants to be cruel. Wants to let free the leash, the vice clamped somewhere in his stomach, and see what crawls out the back of his throat. Pour it into you, let your wrangle or succumb. Plant an ugly seed and watch it sprout.

Simon likes the thought of your lord finding out. Of him stitching it together like piecemeal and coming in the night. Likes the thought of grinding his jaw into the anvil. Making his skull into a fine cup.

You buck clumsily in his lap, hunting for friction. Grinding a wet spot into his trousers because he hasn't even freed himself yet. You cease at a growled command and wait so nicely for Simon to pull himself free and line up, even if your brows furrow at the sight of him.

"It will fit?" you ask. It's vulgar, the sight of him—mean and thick and dripping white globs of seed as his fist tightens around the base of himself—next to you. Shaking thighs and supple flesh, spit and slick dripping down your legs as you hover above. "Riley?"

"Yes, little bird."

"It's only … You're much larger than—"

"M'not him, am I?" He wraps his other paw around your nape, bending your neck to make you stare down between your bodies. The two of you watch together as you slowly sink down on him, the angry, red flesh and veins like bruises pushing inside, just past the lip of his crown. You're too tense to allow anything more, strangling him already; he can hardly breathe. "Look."

Your hands grasp at his shoulders, fingers clawing at the flesh and meat there. Can't do that to your lord, Simon thinks. Your husband is made of bones and twine. He can't take the bruises you want to mould into muscle, can't fill you so full you can't even swallow. Simon can just picture him wheezing over you in your marriage bed, you silent and smiling. Nowhere near the creature Simon's made—the lap dog panting in his hold.

You need him.

Need him to protect you, someone to cover your whole body with his own until you're not even there. Until nothing can find you. Your lord can't make you safe like that. Simon can.

You suck in gulping breaths like a gaping fish as you lower yourself, squeezing him in steadily. It's velvet heat and mouthwatering pressure all around him that make his thoughts dart like wide-eyed hares. Your forehead slides against his, slick with sweat and the mixed putty of settling ash, and he can taste your lungs on his lips. You grind back and forth as you work him in—too fast. Too fervid and impatient, you constrict around him, forcing him in with hurt twisting your pout into a grimace.

"Careful," Simon warns. He moves his grip to your hips to guide you, sliding you up and down his length in slow, shallow dips as you hiccup. "Like this. That's it."

Teaching you how to take him, making you ease him inside because you're too eager to check yourself, choking down pain just to get him in, in—it cracks open something wretched in Simon. It spills like spoiled egg yolk through his chest, dripping through the rungs of his ribcage to dry and split. He wants to pop out every one of your teeth like willow buds and hold them in his cheek. Wants to bite your knuckles into his mouth and feel the bones grind together. He wants. He wants.

You, eyes fastened to the joining of your bodies and none the wiser, spill a warm whine over his mouth. Protesting the pace, you scratch your grievances into his skin.

"Slow at first," he tells you, nipping at the curve of your jaw to quell the ache in his own. "Just this time, little bird."

"No," you complain, pettish and sullen. Sour in your urgency, piqued in your restlessness. "I want—"

"Patience," he murmurs, but he can hear the strain in his own voice. Simon's been patient for months. You can weather a palmful of minutes. It's only a blink of time to get you used to his size. Simon's ox-built in all countenance, so it's steady, patient work, but your muscles give to him eventually. Suddenly, he's seated inside you, fully sheathed and struggling for control.

You're a vice around him, battened down like a garrote. He feels smothered, having to clamp down his insides so he doesn't do something awful.

"Can I move?" you plead, ignorant of the maelstrom happening inside his head, his stomach. You plant sweet kisses on his cheeks, the corner of his mouth, supplicating for movement. Supplicating to be eaten.

Simon rolls your flesh under his palms, hobbling his desire with thin-spun thread. "You think of this when he's inside you? Think about if it were me?" he demands, unable to keep the cruelty behind the ladder of his teeth. "I'll show you."

He starts off blunted, keeping his clip deliriously slow, letting you languish in the feel of him dragging inside you—but that can only go on so long. You cry for him to speed up, to fill you harder, and deeper, more savage, more bruising, and Simon obliges.

And Simon tells himself that this—snapping his hips into you, the head of him grinding against the plug of your womb, bullying himself inside again and again as your eyes roll, hands spasm—is for you. That he's freeing the snare, not tying a new one round your twitching ankle. But it's for him. Because maybe Simon likes sweet things because of the opportunity they promise, the chance of ruin. Nothing sweet lives in the world for long, not without interference, and you have so many lights Simon could snuff out

—or fuel. He could make you burn only for him.

A selfish sort of preservation, like a lover's hands kept in milky jars of vinegar.

His back aches with the strain, that old injury born of being bent over anvils for all his life flaring now as he pistons upward, but he's chasing. His own release and yours, hunting oaths and promises and the feel of you coming apart around him. He tucks you against himself, forearms squeezing your torso into his to lock you in place, but also because he cannot fight the instinct that's telling him to hide you away somewhere warm and dark and that might as well be somewhere beside his liver.

Your skin slides against his, your arms, so much smaller than his own, crushed between your chests so all you can do is huff and squeak as he drives out and in and out again. Rude, crudish squelching sounds dance in tandem with your high cries. Simon shoves your head into the crook of his neck, wanting you close to his pulse hammering there, and tilts the angle of his hips so that your sensitive bud grazes his abdomen with every thrust.

His name is a stunted cry whimpered out between heaving breaths as you clench, but it's not the pulse of your walls constricting around him, or the tender way your muscles run taut as you come, that sets his own release spinning. It's the thought of spilling inside you, filling you full and some part of himself taking root there. Of you, raised on silver and grace and careful comportment, letting yourself be bred by a lowborn smith with only the dirt to call his own. Because only he can—and you want only him to.

A lifetime of prudent rearing, unravelled in seconds. You've left the door open

—and a wolf wandered in.

Simon's body draws tight as his hips stutter, settling finally for just badgering the head of himself against your womb as he floods it with his seed. You thrash in his hold, bucking like an ill-tempered mare, at once running and grinding back on him in your own throes. You shake in his hold like a needle clinging to a pine, simpering out your afterglow into the humid heat of his neck. You're both left panting and sticky, the air in the forge suddenly suffocating.

You try to pry yourself from his arms, to sip cool air instead of the steam between you, but Simon grips you fast. "Can't spill a drop, little bird. You're going to sit here until it takes."

You whine, but settle, nuzzling at the strong cut of his jaw in a sated, satisfied way that makes his chest puff up.

You're very good, listening at last. Sitting there with Simon licking the soot and sweat off your skin until, eventually, he grows hard again, still inside you. So Simon flips you over so you're tucked beneath him and he can finally know what your muscles feel like straining below his, and know how you sound begging him to go slow, please. And he does—take his time, this go. Drives into you slow and hard until drool and tears slip down the side of your face, and you're begging him instead to fill you again.

You pay with a froth-spit kiss, and take your own price with eight red scratches up the curve of his back.

Simon wraps your cloak around your shoulders for you, fastening the cotton tight together up to your chin, and tells you to move quickly and silently when you return to your rooms. He tells you he will burn your shift, but you leave without ensuring it. Instead, Simon folds the tatters carefully and holds the linen to his nose as he closes his eyes—inhaling steady mouthfuls, looking forward to a dreamless sleep. Ragweed pollen, and sunwarmed skin, and the chimney tar he knows he crushed into you like powdered marigold.

He'll keep the shift.

Rage brews in his stomach at the thought of your lord returning, of him putting his spider hands on you, rubbing smooth palms over your growing belly and demanding the world proclaim what a splendid job he did. Simon tamps down the violence clawing at his throat—saves it for later, storing it in the cold cellar of his fists.

Yes, he'll keep the shift.

How else will Simon prove to the little lord that you're not his anymore?

[gimme1margarita]

Out of luck?

Johnny MacTavish x Reader

18+ MDNI! CW Smut ⚠️ Older, gross Johnny, boss's daughter, car sex, 141 office AU pt. 3

Part 1 (Simon x Reader beach fluff and miscommunication)

Part 2 (Price x bratty reader, situationship, smut)

Give a dog a bone. Or: Johnny's older, a little gross, and has all the time in the world tonight to give you the affection you didn't know you craved.

Read me on AO3 🫦

"I don’t understand this party-girl-thing you’ve been doing lately in college but know that tonight is a serious event. I want you on your best behaviour,” your mother, Susannah, was saying as she triple-checked the schedule for the evening was on time—that was the worst part, that she wasn’t even looking at you—her hair getting set into place by pedantic fingers, the hairstylist looking like he’d rather not be in the room for the diluted scolding you were receiving. “Do you understand me?”

“Yes ma’am.” You had to refrain from reminding her that you’d attended this very same event almost every year alongside her.

Her brow twitched at the formality but, just as quickly, she let it go, “go, finish getting ready. I’ll see you down for pictures.”

You nodded and slipped back through the door that connected your rooms in the booked-out hotel.

The building had been buzzing all day with preparations for the benefit your mother’s company was hosting tonight. Nonstop there had been people knocking on her door all day long. She had ducked into your room just to eat her lunch in peace and utter silence before stepping back into the fray.

You were split. One part of you love-love-loved the glitz and glam at no personal expense to yourself, but the rest of you was balanced on the knifes edge of your mother’s patience. Always had been since you started expressing your own opinions.

The two of you shared a tense relationship, to say the least. Not always was it so bad, just…more often than not.

But it was only the two of you tonight with your father called in to perform an emergency surgery, so you nodded and smiled and rolled over.

Like now, the both of you had an arm behind each other’s backs, smiling and leaning your heads towards one another. The picture of the perfect mother-daughter-duo. She’d post it to whatever social media she kept; you’d receive a printed copy to put in a frame forgotten on the windowsill of your breakfast nook of the apartment you didn’t pay for.  

Then after the mini-red carpet, you were roped into introductions.

It was like this every year; photos, introductions, speeches, mingling, mingling, mingling, home. It was rare you found someone you genuinely wanted to share your company with. The people closest in age were employees and they only wanted to kiss your feet at the chance of a promotion.

So, you usually made good friends with a wandering waiter and ogled the bachelors from afar through a prosecco-laced haze.

“Price, so glad you could make it tonight, the two of you look wonderful,” Susannah was saying, offering the man and his partner a polite hug each.

Always a hug for the CEOs.

His partner grinned, lifting a hand which twinkled brightly, “I’ll take any chance to show it off.”

“Oh, congratulations!” your mother cheered, as you gave Mr. Price a polite handshake and smile. He was always nice to you. “Looks like I need to add a toast to my speech, hm?”

Then came Mr. Riley and the woman you could’ve sworn was his secretary just the year before, also with a gently glittering finger, completely wrapped around his arm. The pair couldn’t hide their affection for one another if they tried, it was almost stifling. Your mother shook their hands, her greetings only a little less familiar on account of the man being generally averted to physical touch.

And then the loudest of the CEOs came in grinning from ear to ear as he pulled your mother in for a tight hug, “Susannah! The place looks amazing,” Mr. Garrick cheered, kissing her cheek, the man following him offering a similar compliment before moving to greet you.

“Don’t think we’ve met before,” he said, taking up your hand, “I’m John MacTavish, ye are…?”

“Oh of course, you must’ve missed each other last year,” your mother said, “Johnny, this is my daughter.”

He turned that grin back on you as you gave him your name, eyes quickly skimming the length of you, “lovely to meet ye, hen.” And he kissed your knuckles.

Your lips parted in breathless surprise, eyebrows raising just a hair, “y-you too.”

Taking in your waning composure, he flashed you a wink, eyes dropping back down to the dip of your neckline, before following Mr. Garrick in pursuit of their table. Swallowing, you dared a glance back at your mother, but she was none-the-wiser, busy greeting more people.

Twenty minutes into the speeches and you could still feel your knuckles burning where you’d been kissed. You ran a thumb over them beneath the table as you started to feel a creeping sensation burning the back of your neck. Turning slowly to figure out what was nagging at you—only to lock eyes with Johnny, sat at the table diagonally behind you.

He cocked his head, brow raised. You felt your face warm and turned away again, flagging down a waiter to bring another flute of champagne.

There was something about him, MacTavish, that sent your pulse skittering. Something leather-smooth about him, the dangerous gleam in his grin, how he always found your eyeline—the way he looked at you? It was undeniable. He’d been checking you out all night. You weren’t blind though you were wondering how no one else managed to see it. It felt so blatant,

so openly lustful.

Whenever you found your gaze drifting, caught at your mother’s side in dull conversation, he was there, across the room, swirling the liquor in his glass. Just watching you. His steady fixation.

You couldn’t take it— “I’m going to get some air,” you muttered to no one in particular, edging out of the conversation and ducking into the hallway just outside the hosting space.

Perfect, there was no one there, you could exhale—

“Are ye runnin’ away from me?”

You gasped, spinning around to find Johnny right behind you, “what?”

He took a step forward, you took one back, “are ye runnin’ away from me, hen?”

You shook your head. There was no one around, no one to catch you—to stop you… “No.”

His bottom lip jutted out a little as he dipped his head toward you, pouting, “so why haven’t ye come over to say hi?”

He took another step forward and your back met the wall. Throwing caution to the wind, a little smile trembled over your lips in the face of his scattered grey hairs and tanned, faint crows-feet, “hi.”

One more step and you were completely surrounded, one heavy palm came up to cradle the side of your face, thumb rubbing over your cheek, and he lowered his head to murmur right into your ear, “d’ye want to see my limo, sweetheart?”

Nerves had since taken hold of you during the short walk outside, now inside the back of his limo and already on your knees, you were scrambling for an excuse, “Johnny, I should—I should get back inside. My mother—”

“Is tryin’ to seal a deal with another company. Ye could be in the Artic an’ she won’t realise til tomorrow,” he grunted, his hand tugging on your hair, forcing you to look up at him, “c’mon, ye were doin’ so good.”

“You’re ruining my hair,” you whined, reaching up to pull his hand away, he only tightened his grip and you winced, “Johnny—”

He shifted in his seat, his ruddy, drooling cock glaring at you from between his legs, “ye can go back if yer cunt’s dry…is it?” A mortified whimper escaped you, because you knew without even having to rub your thighs together, that your body had betrayed you. He grinned, “ach, just out of luck t’night, aren’t ye, bonnie?” He ran his tongue over his teeth, eyes dark as he looked down at you, “say ‘ah’.”

Unsticking your tongue from the roof of your mouth, you let it roll out, tasting that salty spill blooming from his tip. With his hand twisted in your hair, you couldn’t move back to make any further pleas, just bracing a hand on his knee as he sank deep into your mouth, tears brimming quickly in your eyes as he hit the back of your throat. God, he was big—thick in a way you hadn’t experienced—your jaw ached, lipstick smudged around the base of him, nose pressed into his trimmed dark hair.

Your nails bit into his thigh, eyes squeezing as you repressed a gag and he groaned, head tipping back, “christ, ye’re well practiced huh? No wonder yer eyes kept wanderin’ all night long. Just—fuck—just beggin’ for it.”

“Mmph—” you spluttered, voice useless with your mouth stuffed full of him. You squeezed his thigh, needing to pull up for air, but he kept you in place, rolling his hips up and practically grinding into the back of your throat. With the edges of your vision turning to static, you swung your fist down on his thigh, finally getting him to pull you up for air, “fuck you—” you gasped out.

“What’s the matter? Bit off more’n ye could chew?” He laughed, dragging a thumb through the spit dribbled down your chin, “gorgeous wee thing. C’mon, get up here,” and he patted his thigh.

And God help you, you leaned into that little glimpse of softness he showed. Clambering into his lap, still teary eyed, thong covered pussy hovering over his wet cock.

Then he pulled you down for a kiss and you were done-for.

He’s all tongue, messy and demanding, twisting inside your mouth and you mewled, feeling like your body’s been set alight. Reeling. You let your weight down onto him and felt him between your legs, hot, twitching against your heat like it knew how close he was. He bit your lower lip, hands gripping your hips and making you grind on his cock, pulling back just enough to say, “take off yer panties, go’an sit on my cock.”

“D’you have a condom?” You asked, panting to catch your breath as you reached down between your bodies, sliding your panties to the side, lips grazing the light stubble on his neck.

“More likely you’ll have a bug than me,” he grunted, brows furrowing over those icy eyes of his.

You scoffed, pulling away from him, “I don’t sleep around like that.”

He raised a brow, voice low as he studied your face, “but ye do sleep around.”

“I’m not a whore,” you insisted, moving to get off his lap but he tightened his grip on your hips, “I’m going back inside, Johnny—”

“Ach, I was just teasin’ lass, c’mon, don’t be like tha’,” he cooed, thumb rubbing a circle on your hip, “what’s it ye want? Need a little stretchin’ first? Scared I’ll hurt yer wee cunt?” You wanted to retort, to continue to pull away, but there was a jolt in your stomach that said he wasn’t entirely wrong—you felt rushed. Slowly, not meeting his eye, you nodded. He tutted, “just say tha’ next time if it’ll save me yer fuckin’ complainin’.” He delivered a swift smack to the side of your ass, “take off your dress and shoes, princess, ye don’t want me to mess ‘em up, do ye?”

A tendril of anxiety curled around your gut, “but—”

“D’ye want to walk back to yer mam with yer cum stained on yer pretty dress?”

You took it off.

“Shoes too.”

Your nose wrinkled, “I thought you businessman types liked to fuck a woman in heels.”

He rolled his eyes, reaching to undo the clasp on your heels for you since you were clearly taking too long, “ye won’t want to be walkin’ in these when I’m done with ye. Gonna have a hard enough time as it is.”

“What’s that supposed to—oh my god, at least give me a warni—oh!” He wrenched your thighs open and had his head between them sooner than you could process, a wad of spit sliding keenly down the seam of your cunt, caught with the drag of his tongue before it could melt over your hole.

Sucking your clit just to see how you squirmed, he pulled away with a wicked grin, “taste bloody good,” before he licked deep into you, the wet muscle making your toes curl behind his back, a high-pitched moan squeezing out of you as your grip tightened on the leather of the seat.

He held you in place with his arms around your thighs, hauled up close against his mouth, nose nuzzling your mound. His tongue curled around your clit, petting over it, and you calf tensed, hand flying into his hair, breath hitching, “oh fuck—”

Never in your life had you come so quickly it surprised even you. Thighs squeezing either side of Johnny’s head as your hips bucked off the seat. When you let him up, his face was flushed and wet but he didn’t seem to care, sitting up and pulling you down with a hand on the back of your neck to steal your breath with a nasty kiss, sure to have removed half the makeup around your mouth and chin, mascara already smudged beneath your eyes.

Somewhere in the middle of it, he hooked a finger—then two—inside you, stroking over that spot that made you whimper into his mouth, nipples tight and sensitive where they brushed against his shirt and tie. “God,” your grip on his shoulders weakened as that already hot coil in the bottom of your stomach trembled. It was a good thing you were sitting—you couldn’t trust your knees not to turn to jelly. Then there was a new stretch that made you gasp, a third finger prodding around the tight seal of your cunt, “fuck—” you pulled away, your forehead dropping to the crook of his neck, “I can’t Johnny—s’too much.”

“Ye can an’ ye will,” he grumbled against your temple, hot breath ruffling your baby hairs, “not gonna leave ye half done, sweetheart.”

You couldn’t fathom how he was making your ruin sound like a favour. “Really Johnny—s’not gonna f-fit—”

But it did. He made it work with another glob of warm spit and an “ach—just need’a take a deep breath an—” you cried out into his shoulder, what little was left of your lipstick smearing on the rich black fabric. “See? Knew ye could do it. If ye cum one more time, I’ll give ye my cock, alright?” He murmured against your skin, kisses turning softer, messier—drunk.

Then he gave you a low, “good girl,” and something fizzled in the back of your mind, molten lava spreading through your chest.

…oh.

Your purse had a new weight to it with Johnny’s number in your phone, clutching to his arm as you waited for his driver to bring the limo around to the front entrance outside. The excuse made all too much sense to your mother, who was always partial to a glass (or three) of rosé after business was done on nights like these. “Gonna call her a cab,” Johnny had said, “see she gets home alright—aye, had too much t’drink.”

All she said was, “hm, thought I told them to limit hers,” before she returned to her conversation, waving the two of you off.

He was on you in a different way in the cab home, all soft, lingering kisses as you fought your exhaustion, eyelids fluttering back awake as you felt his cum seep out into the squish of your thighs, ass tender when you sat the wrong way, toes wet.

—

J M | Yesterday, 11:56pm

] call me when you want your knickers back

[3 attachments]

] or if there’s a second line

] always had strong swimmers

[warmfrequency]

through the plaster | part one

older!captain john price x neighbor!fem!reader

✣ summary | after six weeks of collecting your ever-elusive neighbor’s post, what starts as a polite hallway exchange turns into something hard to ignore. cue: a shared wall, unlocked doors, a broken sink, and whiskey kisses.

✣ wc | 13.4k

✣ cw | mdni, older!price x fem!reader, age gap (20s/40s), divorcée!price, john is fatherly toward reader, fluff, smut, fingering, alcohol, regrettably i have a sick, unyielding need for john to call me ‘duck’ and it has bled through this fic.

masterlist

The rain never falls straight this time of year. It slants, needling sideways through the cramped street your apartment stands, puddles collecting in the dips of uneven pavement. It’s the kind of rain that forces its way into coat collars and boots, into the mortar between old brick.

Your building absorbs it, wears it like a second skin – three stories of weathered red brick darkened to a rust, old windows fogged with condensation, black iron railings shining beneath a sheen of wet. The front steps slope down the middle from decades of traffic, water pooling slick there before trickling down to the gutters. 

Inside, the air carries a musty dampness with it that’s seems to linger even in the summer, smelling like wet wool and old carpet. The stairwell curves upward in narrow turns, paint layered thick on the banister from too many years and too many hands. Every footfall echoes off the walls, some nights you count the steps on your way up. Nineteen.

By the time you reach the second floor, the cold has settled into your bones.

The landing on your floor sits directly outside your neighbor’s flat, the brass 2A tacked there a stark contrast against the black door. The hallway runs narrow and straight to your own door, the dim fluorescents overhead cast a flickering pale glow that never quite reaches the corners. An earth-toned floral runner threads throughout the entire length of the building, its pattern long faded, fibers worn thin and frayed down the center where tenants have passed in and out for years. The white walls that contain it all are scuffed dirty and nicked, marked up by furniture and careless feet.

Your neighbor’s flat is always giving the impression that it might be back on the market.

Most front doors offer some indication of life – a welcome mat, a potted plant, a pair of muddy trainers set to the side.

Not his door, though. Right now, his door offers post.

It began modestly enough, a single envelope resting against the door. Then more joined it as the days passed – thick envelopes, junk, rolled up circulars and magazines that curl at the edges after a few days of being stepped over. The stack grows and grows, leaning against the wood as though it expects, at any moment, to be scooped up by the man whose name is printed on the address line.

You notice his absence before the absurd amount of post clues you in, though. Once you’ve learned his rhythms, his comings and goings are impossible to miss. When he leaves it’s the hurried weight of heavy boots stomping, doors and drawers slamming shut in the early hours. It’s always followed by a melancholy sort of silence, not the daily hush of an empty home, but a stretched quiet that haunts behind your shared wall for weeks on end.

Then when he returns, you’re greeted with the rush of water through the pipes, the pungent curl of cigar smoke creeping through the vents, and the sounds of his TV carrying through the wall until nearly four in the morning.

He’s never introduced himself, never offered you more than a polite passing nod. You don’t know what he does, not really, and until now, you never really gave him much thought. 

And only now because you nearly break your wrist because of him.

Your fingers are aching from grocery bags, your thoughts are already drifting toward dinner, and just as you hit the landing your shoe catches the slick edge of a magazine on the floor. The loss of balance is immediate, and unfortunately, graceless. The hallway tilts, the floor rushes up, and oranges spill across the hall and down the stairs. The carton of eggs bursts open against the carpet with a tragic crack. One of the bags split entirely, spilling its contents in every direction. 

For a long moment you just kneel there, the traitorous copy of ‘Guns & Ammo’ that caused your fall lies beside you, addressed to one: Jonathan Price. An incredulous breath of a laugh escapes you before you bat the cover out of sight. 

You flex your wrist carefully — achey, but it moves. So, you get yourself to your feet and collect your groceries piece by annoying piece, salvaging what you can, muttering to yourself about why you should stick to takeaway as you coral oranges back into the torn plastic bag.

Before heading inside, you bend to straighten the stack of mail beside his door, patting it neatly into the frame so it no longer sprawls across the carpet.

However, the post continues to arrive.

And Jonathan Price continues not to.

As the days pass, the stack inevitably builds thicker. Something about weeks of untouched post just feels wrong. So, when pass his door on your way back from work, on an unconscious whim, you gather his post up and take it inside with you. And you continue to do so, piling it on the table in your entryway, every single day.

Except Sundays. There’s no post on Sundays. 

Six weeks pass in total before, one evening, the pipes in your shared wall suddenly gurgle to life.

You’re standing at your sink, hands submerged in sudsy dishwater when the rush of plumbing vibrates through the plaster with the unmistakable sound of his shower warming up.

You wait until the pipes quiet again before gathering the stack of envelopes and ads. It’s heavier than you expect when you lift it. Thick enough now that it takes both arms to hold it all securely against your chest.

Down the short corridor, you make your way to his door and knock once. The rap lands quieter than you meant it to, swallowed by the heavy wood almost instantly. You hesitate, second-guessing yourself until you lift your hand to try again when there’s a metallic click and the door opens just enough to shroud your neighbor in shadow. For a second, he’s only an imposing shape, but then the light catches him properly as he leans forward a bit.

He fills the frame without even trying. You have to tip your chin just to meet his eyes, this close he’s far broader than any glimpses you’ve caught in passing allowed you to register. He’s thick through the shoulders, forearms corded beneath the long sleeves of a worn grey tee that looks softened from years of washing. It clings where it stretches across his chest, molded to him in dampened patches like he pulled it on too soon after stepping out of the shower.

His jeans are loose everywhere except around his thighs, slung low enough that a strip of black elastic and milky skin catches your attention. Your gaze unintentionally trips over the trail of dark hair that whispers up and beneath his shirt.

You can feel your ears starting to warm before you flick back up to his face, meeting a set of ocean-deep irises ornamented by crinkling lines at the corners, tired purple crescents stamped underneath. His beard is grown out past neat — thick and slightly unruly along his jaw, salt and peppered throughout. 

Steam drifts out lazily from behind him, carrying the clean scent of soap into the corridor — it's mild, fresh, a little spice beneath it all.

His eyes settle on you with a subtle recognition, view slightly narrowed before, almost immediately, dropping to the stack of paper you’re gripping.

“Evenin’,” he says almost cautiously, voice roughened, like it hasn’t been used in a while. Or used too much, maybe.

You clear your throat.

“Hi,” you manage, “I’m next door.” You tilt your head toward your flat, never under the assumption that anyone remembers who you are.

His gaze lifts again, meeting yours. There’s a vague hint of amusement glinting in his eyes, it reaches the corner of his mouth, pulling up.

“I know,” he nods gently, almost encouragingly, like he’s urging you to continue with your spiel. 

You shift the weight of the envelopes and extend them toward him before you can overthink it.

“Right, erm… your post,” you swallow thickly, then proceed to ramble, “It kept piling up. For, like, a long time. And, anyway, I ended up slipping on a magazine a few weeks ago, and then I thought it might be better if someone kept it from takin’ over the hall until you were back.” You inhale through your nose, catching a breath before continuing despite yourself. “And now you’re back, so…”

His eyes widen before he reaches his arms out to takes the heap from you, the simple transfer of weight draws you a half-step closer to him. His fingers brush yours in the exchange — callouses scratching softly, warm. The contact is brief, but it’s also entirely impossible to unfeel.

“You slipped,” he repeats lowly, not accusatory, more like confirming he heard you properly.

“I’m fine,” you assure him quickly. “I just meant… like, it was a lot of post, is all,” your voice tapers off as your mouth starts to feel dry.  

“You’re not hurt?”

You shake your head, “No.”

“You’ve been takin’ it in,” his eyes scan the envelopes before lifting back to you, like he’s quietly calculating something. “All of it?”

“Yeah.” You hesitate, then add quickly, “I knocked once. But no one answered.”

“Yeah, I, uh, had t’work.”

“I didn’t open anything,” you continue, suddenly aware of how that all might’ve sounded. “Obviously.”

He smirks at that, his voice becoming something far smoother than it was when the door first opened. “I didn’t think you had.”

There’s a subtle warmth in his tone now. It does something curious to your pulse. You can feel it tap-tap-tapping just below your jaw.

He balances the pile in one large hand and steps back, widening the door.

Your gaze drifts past him inadvertently and into his flat. It’s uncluttered and tidy – not unlived-in exactly, but lacking the charm that makes a place feel claimed. The furniture is purely functional and dated, the walls bare, the floor impossibly clean, the hardwood shines like it was just buffed. 

“M’grateful for that,” he adds after a beat, head bowing enough to move into your line of vision and catch your eye, smirk still prevalent. 

“It was startin’ to look abandoned,” you babble before you can stop yourself.

“Abandoned,” he echoes, gaze sharpened.

“I just meant— it didn’t look like anyone was coming back.”

Something in his expression settles, one of his shoulders roll. 

“Oh, I always come back, love,” he croons just over a whisper and unhurried, like he knows something you don’t. 

Your cheeks warm and your head can’t decide between shaking and nodding, fingers twirling into the soft threads of your jumper.

“No, yeah, of course. I didn’t mean—”

“I’m John, by the way.”

He adjusts his weight again, shifting back under the shadow behind him. This interaction feels like it should be over already, you’re almost wishing it was, but you give him your name in return. He repeats it back slowly, like he’s testing the shape of it on his tongue. There’s something deliberate in the way he says it, like it’s being filed away somewhere permanent.

“Would y’like to come in?” he nods his head. “Least I can do is make you a cup’a tea.”

You hesitate, a pause small enough to miss if he wasn’t watching for it. He notices your hesitation without pushing it. There’s no persuasion from him, no charm turned up for effect. Just patience, like he already figures you will. 

Your eyes flick from his, past him, and back again. You step inside before you even understand why, just, caution to the wind. Survival instincts at an all time low. But there’s something about him that draws you there. 

His flat smells clean – shower steam still clinging to the air, layered over something warmer. Smoke, maybe. Something musky and grounded that feels likely distinctly his. The door clicks shut behind you.

The place is spare. A brown leather sofa floats in the center of the room, the cushions perfectly aligned as though they’re reset after every use. A low coffee table in front of it holds nothing but a neatly stacked set of coasters and a remote placed dead center.

To the side of the TV, a tall wooden bookcase stands in the corner, books neatly arranged, spines perfectly even, each shelf organized by size. There are no pictures on the walls, no decorative clutter on the tables or mantel. It’s as if you’ve stepped into a hotel, but even they put artwork up. 

John moves toward the kitchen with an ease that wasn’t there in the hallway, shoulders a little looser. You follow, watching him push the rescued post neatly into the corner of the counter — probably the messiest part of his flat now. 

The kitchen is very similar to yours, appliances a little more dated, but just as compact. A short galley space with a small honey oak table at the end beneath the window.

“I meant to put a hold on it,” he says, glancing down at the envelopes. “But I left on such short notice...”

“You travel a lot?” you ask, leaning against the doorway, hands coming together in front of you, fingernails scratching at your palm anxiously. 

He’s already filling the kettle at the sink, water rushing loud for a moment before he shuts it off.

“More than I’d like,” he admits. 

“For work?”

“Yeah.”

The burner on the stove blooms blue beneath the kettle with a soft tick-tick.

“You don’t exactly look like someone who works from a laptop.”

That earns you the faintest chuckle before he fully turns around, resting his hip against the pristine white countertop. 

“No?”

“No.” You shake your head. “You’re gone for long stretches.”

His eyes travel your form, a single brow perking with an interest.

“You keepin’ tabs on me, then?” he asks curiously.

You shrug at that, allowing a small smile to spread.

“Hard not to when you’re the only other person on this floor.”

He offers a short hum then reaches into the cupboard, his shirt riding up with him, you get a peek of his toned tummy as he pulls two mugs down. The ceramic clinks.

“And what d’you do when you’re not monitorin’ me?” He looks at you again just as the kettle begins a low, building thrum. 

Your head tilts involuntarily. “I work normal hours and take it home with me. Watch shit TV and order too much takeaway.”

He tsks before he asks, “Don’t cook?” An edge to his tone that’s not quite judgmental and not quite disappointment, but somewhere in the middle.

“I can,” you defend. “I just don’t always see the point.”

The kettle clicks off and he pours the water slowly over the tea bags, steam rising in soft spirals. “There’s always a point,” he says.

“Do you cook?” you ask after a beat. 

“When I’m home.”

“Which isn’t often,” you add. 

He sets the kettle aside and finally meets your eyes again. “Not often enough,” he agrees, his features softening.

“And when you are?” 

He leans back against the counter again. “When I get home? First few nights are rough. Might get pizza,” he admits casually. 

“Jet lag?” 

The corner of his mouth twitches faintly. “Somethin’ like that.”

“Can’t sleep?”

“Not well,” he shrugs. “Cup’a strong tea helps.”

“Tea?” you quirk a brow. 

“Yeah, it’s almost the only thing that settles me.”

You step further into the kitchen without thinking, drawn in more by his incredibly vague answers. “Settles you from what?”

He bites the corner of his cheek, like he’s assessing how much you’re actually asking for, or maybe how much he’s willing to divulge — which doesn’t seem like much at the moment.

“Lack of noise,” he answers at last, nudging one of his chairs out with his foot, wood stuttering over tile. He gestures to it and you move to sit without question.

He brings your mug, leaning over your shoulder with a large hand placing it right in front of you, you notice a few partially healed scrapes across his knuckles.

“Sorry, don’t have any milk yet. Just got back.” 

“S’alright,” you reply quietly, wrapping your fingers around the ceramic. It’s nearly too hot to hold, but you welcome the burn; the tingle that blooms its way into the soft of your palm.

John doesn’t sit. Instead, he stays leant against the counter across from you, mug resting in hand, watching you take your first cautious sip.

There’s something steady in the way he looks at you. You only came over to deliver his post. You’re still not sure how it turned into this.

“You live alone?” he asks suddenly. 

You pause mid-sip and peer at him over the rim of your mug, lips pursing. “And what exactly do you plan on doin’ with that information, John?”

His eyes widen just slightly before the tips of his ears grow pink 

He exhales through his nose amusedly. “Poor choice’a words,” he concedes, scratching at his beard. “Mind’s still in work-mode.”

“You interrogate people for a living?” you tease, unknowingly.

That has him choking around his tea, forcing down a cough that has him hiding behind the mug as he gathers himself. 

An unbridled laugh slips free before you can stop it, and something in his posture relaxes at the sound.

“Sorry, you okay?”

“Mm,” he nods far more than he needs to. 

“Well,” you turn back to your tea, “I do live alone. But I know how to use a knife, so don't be weird about it.”

He absorbs that quietly, tongue pressing briefly to his cheek, a thoughtful hum low in his throat.

“Right.”

You narrow your eyes and huff. “That’s all I get? Just ‘right’?”

He sets his mug down, gaze lingering on you longer than necessary. “Place next door’s quiet,” he says slowly. “Jus’ wasn’t sure if you had someone in there I hadn’t clocked.”

“But you’ve clocked my noise levels?” you press, unable to help it.

“Shared wall,” he reminds you.

“And?”

“And,” he says, eyes steady on yours now, “it’s good to know who’s on the other side.”

And after that, the conversation slips into something easier. You learn small, unremarkable things about each other, the kind that don’t really feel important at the time. Like how he prefers mornings to nights. That you can’t even make toast without burning it. That neither of you necessarily trust the boiler in the winter time. It’s nothing intimate, not really. But the way he listens makes it feel like everything you tell him is a secret he’s learning, like each answer matters.

Time warps in his kitchen without either of you noticing. The tea cools in both of your mugs before it’s finished, warmth from the kettle fizzles out, and the distance between question and answer shortens. The conversation stretches easily until you glance toward the door and you’re reminded that this isn’t your flat. 

“Well,” you say softly, “I should really let you finish settling in.”

He doesn’t answer immediately. Just watches you stand and carry your mug to his sink.

“I’ve interrupted long enough,” you add with a polite smile.

“Hardly,” he breathes, pushing off the edge, leaving his own mug on the counter in his wake.

He moves to the door with you, pulling it open and leaning against the frame, hand resting loosely on the knob.

You stop halfway into the corridor and turn back toward him. 

“Try to get some sleep,” you tell him gently. 

Something shifts behind his eyes, like he wasn’t expecting you to remember anything he’d said to you. But his silence after that makes you feel like you’ve misremembered things.

“You said it’s harder when you first get back, yeah?”

“Yeah,” he admits, before averting his gaze to the floor. 

“Well, good night.”

“G’night.”

You don’t look back as you step into your flat, but you don’t hear his door close until yours opens. And even then, it takes a second longer than it should.

—————

John can’t sleep.

He didn’t sleep the night before either, despite how heavy his lids were. He laid there on his back, staring up at the slow rotation of his ceiling fan, listening to the quiet eerily settle around him. He thought of you more than he likely should have — the way your skin seemed to glow under his gaze, how your smile pulled the apple of your cheeks up and round, how soft your fingers felt when they brushed his.

Your perfume, too. Fruity, light. How traces of it lingered in his kitchen for so long after you left he couldn’t tell if he was imagining it, if it was something his brain cooked up to fill the silence in your wake.

John really wants to sleep tonight.

But on the other side of that godforsaken wall comes a sharp clatter followed by muffled swearing. Then something else hits the floor with enough force that he sits up before he’s even aware he’s moving. If he closed his eyes he might even believe he’s back on base at this point – and that certainly does nothing to calm his mind.

Another thud. Louder this time.

It’s enough to make him swing his legs over and push himself out of bed. Hurriedly, he steps into the jeans he left folded neatly on an armchair in his bedroom. Boots on but untied, he heads out and down the hall. The sounds grow louder the closer he gets to your door, and though two decades of training have taught him to assess chaos with haste, he can’t quite decipher what he’s hearing.

He knocks once, and the door creeps open a fraction on its own. He frowns instantly, jaw tightening – you’ve left it, not only unlocked, but completely unlatched.

You appear seconds later, rushing forward to pull it open the rest of the way. Your hair is wet, plastered to your temples, chest rising and falling too fast. There’s panic humming under your skin, but John barely registers your appearance at all. His eyes are still on the door a moment longer before they meet yours, and even then, he’s really just thinking about how it was unlocked. 

“You’ve a habit of leavin’ that unsecured?” he asks, voice edged in a tone that’s harsher than he really means.

You blink at him, dazed. “Huh?”

“That latch isn’t decorative, duck.” He nods toward the deadbolt. “I could’ve walked straight in.”

A beat passes where you just stare at him, wheels turning and trying to catch up.

Then, he blinks a few times himself, and he finally sees you. Taking in your appearance, remembering why he’s here in the first place, his spine stiffens.

“What happened?” he asks, sharper now.

“I—uh, the— the sink—” you stammer, eyes squeezing shut briefly before you step back and sweep an arm vaguely toward the disaster behind you.

He shifts his gaze past you and to the kitchen faucet spraying in erratic bursts. Water ricochets off the basin and across the counter, a pot teeters on the sink’s edge, your cabinets are streaked dark where it’s soaked into the wood. The floor has its own shallow tide.

John steps forward without a word, you move aside instinctively. The space narrows as he passes, his arm brushing your chest.

He reaches the counter in, what seems like, two strides, boots squelching across the tile. One large hand clamps around the base of the faucet while the other tests the handle. It jerks violently in response, spraying harder, drenching the front of his white tee shirt.

“Christ,” he mutters.

He bends, reaching beneath the sink cabinet, keeping one hand steady on the fixture to redirect the spray. Water splashes down his forearm, soaks into his denim and leaks into his boots. His cheek presses briefly against the counter edge as he feels blindly for the valve underneath.

Behind him, you start to hover — unsure, a little guilty. He can feel you there. Aware of the way you shift your weight, the tension in your breath. Of the way you’re watching him. Of the fact that your door was unlocked when you were alone. How anyone could have walked in. That thought lodges somewhere unpleasant in his chest.

But there are more immediate and pressing matters at hand, so he files it away for later.

“Did this just start?” he asks, voice echoing faintly in the cupboard.

“Yes. It just— it wouldn’t turn off properly and then it—”

His fingers find the valve and he twists harder, effectively closing off the flow. The spray sputters, the pipes groan and then it all just… stops.

The silence that follows is almost disorienting, going from overstimulation to nothing but a slow drip of water and some breathing.

“Oh my god,” you huff, letting out a shaky exhale. “Thank you— seriously— I… I don't know what I would've done.”

John straightens slowly, bracing his hands against the edge of the sink to center himself. He looks down at his saturated clothes, the faint ripple in the water around his boot as he shifts.

“Drown,” he replies evenly, “by the looks of it.”

You grin, a soft laugh slipping out despite yourself. If you weren’t so exhausted, you probably would’ve snorted. “I was handling it just fine before you showed up, actually.”

His shoulders rise as he slowly inhales. “I’m sure you were,” he answers mildly.

“You don’t sound convinced.”

He glances down at the shallow tide circling his boot, then at the cabinet door hanging slightly crooked from where you must’ve wrenched it open in a panic.

“I’m reservin’ judgement.”

“On account of what?”

He tips his chin toward the floor, shifts his boot as if to prove his point. “On account’ve the evidence.”

You follow his line of vision and heat creeps into your cheeks.

“Okay, so it escalated,” you concede.

A short laugh slips from him before he reins it in.

“So I see,” he replies, this time there’s no hiding the amusement.

You move behind him, water splashing underfoot. “You didn’t have to come over, you know,” you say – saccharine sweetly, John thinks.

“I don’t know. The noise suggested otherwise.”

You cringe. “Was it that loud?”

“I only knocked because it sounded urgent,” tone less teasing now.

“You could’ve ignored it,” you nearly sing-song, the corner of your mouth twitching with the threat of a grin. He could have stayed in his flat, but he didn’t. 

He looks half over his shoulder again.

“Is that what you would’ve preferred?”

“No.”

“Right then,” he murmurs, nodding once. 

You go to take a step forward at the same time he pushes off the counter, reaching for a towel just as he turns toward you, and there isn’t enough space in the kitchen for both of you to correct in time. Your palms land flat against his chest with a wet slap before you can stop yourself.

His shirt is soaked through, the cotton warm and heavy beneath your hands, bonded to the breadth of him in a way that makes it impossible not to feel the shape of what’s underneath; muscle that doesn’t need to flex to be felt. Your palms flatten, pressing, fingers splaying unabashedly as if to test the reality of him. You can feel the steady rise and fall of his breathing under your touch, the heat of him, his solidness, close enough that if either of you leaned even slightly forward there would be no space left between you at all. The thought is tempting.

And John doesn’t mean to look at you the way he is. It isn’t deliberate. But your black tee is no better off than his, soaked through, cotton clinging to the soft curves of your body, outlining you in a way that requires very little of his imagination. The lights catch the damp fabric and he’s tracing swells and valleys he has no business tracing. 

He has to force his eyes upward only for it to snag on a single droplet of water slowly rolling down the column of your neck, it travels over your clavicle and disappears beneath the stretched edge of your collar.

You pull your hands away from his chest once you notice the moment tipping. 

“Sorry,” you exhale, and it breaks the spell.

He steps to the side a full step, creating space deliberately, dragging his gaze upward successfully this time.

“You, erm… you keep a mop?” he asks, voice cracking and a little rough, heel of his hand rubbing his bearded jaw. “Towels, maybe?”

You blink at him once, twice, like your brain needs a second to rejoin your body.

“Yeah,” you manage. “I do.”

You step around him this time with more caution than before, suddenly aware of how narrow your kitchen truly is, how little room there is for any more miscalculations.

“In the hall closet,” you mutter, disappearing around the corner, leaving him alone in the quiet of the kitchen.

The room somehow feels smaller than it did before – not because of the water or the mess, but because something in the air has shifted and neither of you have decided what to do with it yet. John exhales slowly, dragging a hand down over his face as if he can physically wipe the moment away. 

From the hallway comes the muted thud of a closet door, followed by something scraping against drywall and the soft rustle of movement.

“You alright back there?” he calls, voice steadier now, back in control of itself.

“Fine,” you answer, slightly breathless. “Found it.”

When you reappear, you’re clutching a mop in one hand with an armful of towels gathered haphazardly against your chest. You look determined in an endearing sort of way that makes something in his chest yawn. He clears his throat quickly before the feeling can settle into something more dangerous.

“Alright,” he says, stepping toward you and relieving you of the mop before you can protest. “Let’s get this sorted before your floor decides to buckle.”

You look up at him, face scrunching, reaching back out for the handle. “Oh, you don’t have–”

He pulls it out of your reach and sighs. “Humor me.”

He works methodically, soaking up what he can while you kneel beside him and press towels into the worst of the puddles, the fibers darkening beneath your hands. The air smells faintly metallic now, musty from dirty water.

The only sounds for a while are the soft scrape of the mop, the quiet rustle of fabric, the steady rhythm of shared movement in a space that feels too small.

John wrings the mop out over the sink, forearms flexing as he twists the handle and squeezes out the excess water. You have to remind yourself not to gawk at the way his shirt pulls tight across his back, shoulder blades rolling as he moves.

When most of the water has been cleaned up, he crouches to inspect the pipes beneath the sink again. One knee rests against the tile, sleeves pushed higher now, brow drawn together in concentration as he checks the valve with deft hands.

“Cartridge in the tap’s gone,” he mutters, tightening the valve again. “Handle can’t shut the water properly anymore. Maintenance’ll replace it in five minutes.”

“I wouldn’t even know what to tell them,” you sigh, wiping your temple with the back of your wrist and leaving a faint streak of wet there.

He turns to you, blue eyes softening almost imperceptibly. “Just tell ‘em it won’t shut off fully. They’ll know what that means.”

You nod, committing the issue to memory as if it’s more complicated than it is.

He rises and reaches past you to push the window open a few inches, letting a swirl of cool night air slip into the room. It curls around your ankles and lifts the damp edges of your shirt, carrying the scent of wet pavement and the distant hum of traffic.

“Keep it open till it’s dry in here,” he says, brushing his hands together lightly as if to rid them of the last of the mess.

He heads toward the door, and you follow. On the other side of the threshold, he pauses. He peers over your shoulder – to the sink, the cabinet, the open window, the floor – checking each detail like he’s committing it to some internal list. Only after that does he land on you, but he quickly skips to your door, to the deadbolt you hadn’t turned earlier.

He tips his chin toward it. “Lock it properly behind me.”

You follow his gaze, fingers already reaching for the lock. “I will,” you say, trying and failing to keep the smile from pulling at the edges of your lips. “Thanks again. I don’t even know what to say,” you breathe a nervous laugh. 

“Don’t have to say anything,” he shakes his head. “Just… don’t touch it until maintenance comes, yeah?”

“I promise you that I won’t,” you giggle quietly. 

“Good,” he takes a small step backward, eyes lingering for a beat. 

“Night, John,” you murmur. 

“Night.”

You close the door, sliding your latch into place as promised. And on the other side, he waits just long enough to hear it catch.

————————

Two days after the flood, you’re stepping out of your flat, tote bag sliding off your shoulder, phone unlocked in your hand, half-reading an email you should have responded to last night, when your hear the creek of John’s door opening at the same time, stealing your attention.

He’s standing there with his keys still in the lock, coat on but open. There’s a faint flush in his cheeks likely from being outside, a takeaway coffee balanced loosely in his free hand.

There’s a split second where you both recalibrate. He blinks a few times as you walk in his direction, taking his keys out and slipping them into his coat pocket, foot planted to hold his door from shutting. 

“You alright?” he asks, tone casual, like nothing unusual has ever happened between you.

“Yeah,” you reply, equally steady. “Are you?”

He nods once. “You get your sink sorted?” he asks as you drift toward the staircase. 

“Oh, yeah. Landlord sent someone ‘round yesterday.”

“Any good?”

You huff a faint laugh. “Very enthusiastic about pipes. Less enthusiastic about fixing them.”

He scowls slightly. “They fix it?”

“Yes,” you say. “Apparently I ‘over-rotated the cartridge.’ Which sounds a lot like something you say to avoid admitting it was old.”

“It means you forced it.”

“I did not force it,” your jaw falls open slightly in offence. 

“You forced it,” he repeats dryly. 

“It was an old tap!” you insist.

He studies you for a second, eyes glinting with an admiration for the way you stand your ground over something so inconsequential. 

You reach the the stairwell landing, passing by him closely as you take the first step down, hand on the banister, turning sideways to keep him in your sights. 

“You call straight away?” he asks casually enough that it should feel that way, but there’s something in his tone that’s almost challenging. “Or did you try fixin’ it again yourself?”

“I called straight away.”

“Good girl,” he replies absently, the words folded so naturally into the rhythm of the conversation that they almost disappear. Almost.

Your breath hitches quietly, every nerve inside of your body coming alight with a current that zips up your spine, tingling the base of your neck before spreading through your jaw until every bit of flesh above your neck begins to glow. Your belly tightens with a molten fever that begins to reach places far lower than it should.

He’s not even looking at you, he just adjusts the lid on his coffee like he hasn’t altered the chemical composition of the air between you.

“Off to work?” he continues mildly, eyes flicking to yours.

You clear your throat, steadying your voice before you answer.

“Y-yeah.”

“Right,” he says, as if concluding the world’s most ordinary exchange. “Have a good one.”

You nod once, adjusting the strap of your bag higher on your shoulder, mouth running dry.

“Yeah, you too,” you manage as he pushes his door open and steps inside. 

He glances once more from the doorway, offering a tight line of a smile before the door closes and separates you.

——————

The sun’s an orange yolk dropped into the cradle of a purpling sky. You’re halfway home from the office when you notice the liquor store’s neon sign buzzing red against the early dark.  You slow on the sidewalk, hands tucked into your coat pockets, breath fogging in front of you.

There’s no obligation, of course. He saved you from your untamed sink because that’s just the kinda guy he is. But the memory of it, of him, has lingered with you for days now, slipping in uninvitedly while on calls with clients, during meetings with your boss, fingers flexing unconsciously against your thighs as you remember the solidness of his chest beneath them that night.

The distraction was at its worst today, with John’s ‘good girl’ chanting like a feverish prayer that only the devil themself could’ve conjured and stitched into the back of your skull – his voice, the bass of it, reverberated between your ears for so long you found yourself wishing the vibration would travel lower.

He looks like a whiskey man, you decide.

Inside the store, the air smells like cut cardboard and oak, a little dusty. You wander longer than you should, reading labels you can’t pronounce, lifting one bottle after another, circling the aisle with the indecision of someone pretending to know what she’s doing. Your shoes stick faintly against the hardwood as you pace.

The clerk notices your hesitation eventually.

“Need a hand?” he asks.

“I’m just looking for something… smooth,” you decide, though it comes out more like a question than an answer.

He nods as if he’s heard that a thousand times before and points you toward three options just in front of you. You choose the one priced in the middle, not too expensive, but enough to be considered a gift, you think. You carry it to the counter with an anxious flutter beneath your ribs.

The building’s stairs feel longer tonight. Each step echoes louder than the last, paper bag crinkling in your grip with every movement. By the time you reach your floor, your pulse has climbed into your throat. You pass his, going to your own door first, stepping inside just long enough to set your purse down on the table and search deep into the pit of your gut to find some bravery. 

You could leave it at his door with a note, you consider.

But you won’t, because that’s not really what you want to do, is it?

The hallway between your flats feels like it begins to narrow with you in it, the overhead light flickering ominously as it always does. His door is only a few steps away, and yet the walk toward it feels more like a trek.

John hears your door before he hears the knock.

The old building carries sound in that way old buildings do. Your door opening and closing is a sound he’s come to recognize now. The soft chime of your keys too, because everyone’s keyring sounds different, the jingle is unique, yours are no exception.

So when the knocks come a few seconds later, he already knows it’s you. 

He stands at his kitchen counter, rag still in hand, his heartbeat behaving in a way it hasn’t outside of work in a number of years. He doesn’t know how, in less than a week, he’s gone from not knowing your name to timing his morning coffee run with when you leave for work just to get a glimpse of you, to catch the scent of your perfume in the stairwell.

By the time he reaches the door, he’s aware of the way his shoulders square on their own, the way his hand smooths over his beard, the way his fingers rake through his hair before he turns the handle.

And when he finally opens the door, you’re right there. It takes him half a second too long to draw in a full breath. 

Your work coat is still on and hanging open at the collar, the fleece folding over just enough to reveal that hollow at the base of your throat that he just can’t keep himself from finding every time you’re in front of him. Your cheeks are glowing from the stairwell, clothes still carrying the cold, hair slightly mussed from the wind, perhaps.

“Hey,” he breathes, voice getting caught in the folds of his chords enough to crack on its way up. 

You lift the brown bag in response, that crooked little smile he’s starting to recognize appears like you can’t quite decide whether to commit to it or not.

“A thank you,” you present it to him, the base of it resting in your hand precariously.

His eyes land on the bag and then return to your face.

“Should I be concerned?” he asks with a teasing lilt.

You step closer to the door, holding it out for him to take.

“It’s just whiskey, John,” you giggle and instantly wish you could take back the hyenic sound that leaves you.

He takes it from you and peers into its depths, letting out a low appreciative whistle.

“That’s… very generous.”

“I didn’t know what you liked,” you admit, aware of how exposed this feels, almost embarrassing now with how slick your neck is beginning to feel. “The man at the store said this one was smooth. I figured that was safe.”

He studies you for a moment in a way that warms your skin even more beneath your coat. Like he’s weighing your intention behind the gesture.

“Be a shame,” he starts, moving to the side of the doorway, “to let it sit unopened.”

“You invitin’ me in?” you ask, aiming for lightness and landing somewhere breathless instead. 

This was the idea, wasn’t it? That he would invite you in? So why do you want to run back down the hall now?

“I am,” he nods. “If you’d like.”

He opens the door wider, and when you step past him the air changes in that way it always does when you cross into someone else’s space. Not just in temperature, but in atmosphere and energy – the smells change, the lights change, the sounds change.

He puts the whiskey down on his entry table, holding his hand out while he asks for your coat. You shrug out of it so he can hang it on the hook beside the door. 

You quickly notice, however, it doesn’t smell like soap tonight.

It smells like food.

Butter and garlic and something a little smoky, like an iron pan that got a little too hot on the burner. There’s rosemary in there somewhere, you think. It makes your stomach rumble a little, suddenly aware that you left work on a granola bar and a few cups of lukewarm coffee.

“Oh…” you murmur before you can stop yourself, gaze drifting into the kitchen. “Were you eating?”

“Was about to. Just finished cookin’.”

You look closer this time, there’s a plate on the counter with a steak resting in its own juices, some mash beside it still holding the groove of the spoon, green beans piled neatly on the side.

It looks good, but you instantly feel guilty.

“I’m sorry,” you apologize, taking a small step backward toward the door. “I didn’t mean to interrupt. I can come back.”

He exhales a faint huff of amusement from behind as he slips around you, his hand brushing along the small of your back as he passes toward the kitchen. “You didn’t interrupt anything.”

“I did,” you insist, following behind him now like you're being pulled. “You were literally about to eat.”

“And you were ‘literally’ about to go home and order takeaway,” he counters mockingly without even looking.

You stop short in the threshold, a hand finding rest on your hip. “Excuse me?” you scoff.

At the counter, he looks over his shoulder, one brow lifting. “Let’s not pretend.”

He’s still faintly smiling as he reaches for a knife.

“I wasn’t,” you lie, though even to your own ears it sounds a bit defensive. You were definitely planning on ordering palak paneer for the third night in a row.

“S’that why I see Indian outside your door every night? I thought it might be becomin’ part of the decor…”

Your mouth falls open despite the grin yanking at your edges. “First of all, that’s, like, borderline stalking.”

“Shared hallway,” he replies entirely unapologetic.

“Second of all,” you continue, undeterred, “sometimes it’s Italian.”

He hums thoughtfully. “Right. A woman of culture then.”

He slices into the steak with an adept sort of ease, cutting it into even strips before he reaches into the cupboard to bring down a second plate. It takes a moment before what he’s doing dawns on you.

“John,” you step further into the kitchen, hand reaching out before pulling it back. “You don’t have to feed me.”

“I know,” he says, back still turned. “But I reckon you’re hungry…. So, have a seat.”

He transfers a few pieces of steak to the second plate, adds another spoonful of mash without asking whether you want it, then nudges a few green beans alongside it.

“I didn’t come to eat your dinner,” you continue your weak protest. 

He doesn’t wait for you to say anything else, he just slides the plate along the laminate countertop towards you and then tips his head to the small table by the window.

“Sit,” he says, not too firmly, just with an expectation that you will.

And you do, which is something you’ll have to dissect later.

You hesitate half a second before taking the plate and floating toward the chair. You lower yourself into it, perched on edge stiffly, feeling a little unsure of yourself despite having sat here before. 

You can feel John notice your tentativeness, a quick sideglance from him as he finishes up pricks at the hairs on your arms.

“Sit comfortably,” he corrects pointedly, as though amending the first instruction. His voice is low and even, commanding even when he isn’t trying to be.

Heat creeps up your spine, but you reposition anyway, scooting back until your shoulders touch the wooden stiles, tucking one leg beneath the other. Only then does he set a fork and knife beside your plate, fingers brushing yours in the exchange. He places a glass of water in front of you too, condensation pooling around the base of it almost instantly, leaving a ring that distorts the grains in the honeyed wood. 

He grabs his own plate and sits across from you.

The table isn’t very large, you become acutely aware of that very quickly. Beneath it, his knees hover close enough that you can feel the warmth radiating from them. If you extended your leg any further, it would press against his without any effort.

“There,” he murmurs, voice quieter now, eyes lifting to yours across the small space. “Eat somethin’ proper for the first time this week, will ya.”

You take a bite mostly to busy your hands. The mash is still warm, butter melted into salty pockets. The steak all but melts between your teeth, tender in a way you’ve never managed to get it yourself, seasoned simply and perfectly and with the confidence of someone who has never once second-guessed himself over a pan.

“This is so good, John,” you say, before you’ve even fully swallowed. “Like — really good.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah.” You nod, watching one brow lift. “And not ‘I’m being polite’ good. Actually good.”

“Mm. High praise from such a cultured young duck,” he replies, dry as anything.

“I don’t just hand it out willy-nilly,” you say primly, the tips of your ears tingling.

That draws a soft breath of laughter from him. “No, of course not,” he agrees. “You don’t strike me as the type.”

“And what type is that?” you ask before you can stop yourself. 

“Stubborn,” he answers, a little too easily, eyes steady on yours.

You tilt your head. “Think you’ve got me all figured out then?”

“It’s kind of my specialty,” he says. “Believe it or not.”

“Is it?” you press. The fork turns between your fingers in thought, like you might actually learn something deeper about him right now. “And what else have you figured out?”

He considers you for a moment. “That you ask a lot of questions.”

“I’m curious,” you say. “There’s a difference.”

“Is there?”

“Yes.” You lean forward slightly, elbows finding the table. “Asking questions means I’m interested. Asking a lot of questions means I’m very interested.”

Something shifts in his expression at that, a subtle recalibration, like he hadn’t expected you to say it so plainly. His eyes hold yours for a beat before he glances down at his plate, the corner of his mouth doing something restrained and infuriating.

“Careful,” he says, low and easy.

“Maybe I don’t see what there is to be careful about.”

He looks at you again then, and there’s something in his eyes that is slightly too warm to be neutral.

“No,” he says, almost to himself. “I don’t suppose you do.”

You hold his gaze, refusing to be the first one to look away, even as the back of your neck starts to prickle pleasantly. Eventually, he picks up his fork again, and you take it as a small victory.

“So,” you say, after a moment, tilting your head like the thought has only just occurred to you. “How long have you been holding out on me like this?”

He glances up. “Holdin’ out? On you?”

“Yeah.” You gesture lightly at your plate. “I’ve been living next door to this for how long, exactly?”

“Fourteen months,” he answers, immediately and without blinking, like the number was already sitting on the tip of his tongue.

Taken aback, your hand goes slightly clammy around your cutlery. Less than a week ago you were fairly certain he barely registered your existence.

A faint exhale of amusement leaves him at your silence, eyes dropping briefly to his plate. “Didn’t realize I was under an obligation to feed you.”

“I think, legally, you are now,” you counter, recovering.

He studies you over the rim of his glass as he takes a sip of water, eyes narrowing slowly. “Are you always this demanding?”

“When properly motivated.”

He nods once, like he’s filing that away somewhere. 

“You like to cook?” you ask then, watching him.

“I do.”

Frustrated, you drop your fork and knife down with a little more force than intended, the sound of it clattering, ringing out in the small kitchen. His head snaps up at you.

“That’s so vague,” you whine almost indignantly. “Why are you always so vague?”

John sits back slowly now, arms crossing over his chest, fingers tucking beneath his beefy biceps, pushing them out to strain against the sleeves of his shirt. His head tilts, forehead creasing with many lines. “I’ve answered every question you’ve asked me,” he says, tongue licking over his canine behind closed lips. 

“You’ve responded to every question,” you correct. “It’s not the same thing.”

Something twitches at the corner of his mouth.

“Men and their refusal to elaborate,” you mutter, rolling your eyes before landing back on your dinner.

“I’d argue it’s more like ‘women and their refusal to be satisfied’,” he returns mildly.

“How can I possibly be satisfied, you give me nothing to work with!” You can feel yourself getting animated now, leaning forward again, and beneath the table your knee presses into his without you even noticing.

He notices, though. And he makes no move to change it. 

“Every time I ask you something real you just— you do this thing where you answer juuust enough to qualify and then you stop. And I can see you stopping, John, I can physically see it!”

That gets you a real laugh, fuller than you’ve heard from hin before, it’s gravel-deep and a little raspy, the lines at the corners of his eyes deepening as his teeth show just long enough to catch. It dissolves the tension so suddenly you almost feel cheated out of it.

“Alright, alright,” he placates, reining himself back in, still smiling faintly. “What d’you want to know?”

You blink at him, recalibrating your attitude. “Oh, now you want to cooperate.”

“Ask your question before I change my mind.”

You study him for a second, aware that this is a small window of opportunity that may not open again given his track record.

“Okay,” you say carefully. “What do you actually do? Not ‘I work,’ not ‘I travel’.  What do you do?”

He exhales slowly through his nose, his smile fading into something more straight lined. His thumb traces an idle line across the back of his knuckle, back and forth across those healing scrapes.

“Special forces,” he admits. “That’s— that’s about as much as I can give you.”

The answer gives your pause. You’re not particularly surprised by it, somewhere in your gut you already knew. So you absorb the information quietly. It reframes him in a way, things you’ve already half-noticed about him like his posture and his stillness, the way he speaks, the way he gives these subtle orders that you never know how to read.

“Okay,” you settle on simply, his answer still swimming around in your head like disconnected puzzle pieces slowly attaching to one another. 

He looks at you like he expected more. “Okay?”

“Okay,” you repeat, shoulders shrugging smally. “Thank you for telling me.”

Something in him settles before he picks up his fork again, and for a moment you eat in a comfortable quiet, only the soft scrape of cutlery filling the room.

“Does that bother you?” he asks eventually, without looking up.

“No,” you answer honestly. “Should it?”

“Some people find it… complicated.”

“I imagine the right people don’t.”

He looks at you then, eyes shifting from his plate cautiously, something unreadable flickering across his face before he glances away again.

Outside the window beside you, the sky has gone fully dark, the glass reflecting an image of the kitchen, the two of you small and warm inside of it.

“How old are you?” he asks suddenly, like he’s been holding the question back for a while. Your eyes snap over to him again.

“Twenty-six,” you tell him. “How old are you?”

A puff of air exhales slowly from between his lips. “Old enough to know better,” he murmurs to himself, which, again, is not an answer.

“Know better than what?”

He doesn’t reply to that either, just looks at you with that steady expression he has, the one that makes the back of your throat go dry and the tops of your thighs squeeze.

And it’s now, in the quiet of his kitchen, under the gaze of blue eyes, that you realize he is perfectly aware of  what he’s doing to you. And probably has been for longer than he’d even admit.

“You’re insufferable,” you inform him pleasantly.

“You’re not the first to think so,” he agrees, unbothered.

Afterwards, you insist on helping with the dishes despite his objections.

“You’re stubborn,” he says.

“You like it,” you push. 

John sighs like it pains him as he hands you a dish towel. 

There’s something about the domesticity of it that feels intimate. Standing hip to hip in the narrow galley, light above the sink draping you both in a golden curtain, him washing and you drying, neither of you talking very much but not minding the quiet either.

He passes you a glass and his shoulder brushes yours as he reaches past you to set a fork in the drying rack, neither of you move away afterward. The inch that used to be between your arms stays closed now, pressed to each other.

“D’you do this often?” he asks.

“Dry dishes in strange men’s kitchens?”

His mouth twitches. “Yes.”

“No,” you hum through a smile. “You’re the first.”

“First strange man or first time drying his dishes?” He reaches past you again.

“First time drying his dishes,” you chuckle. “Jury’s still out on the other one.”

He makes a sound that might be a laugh, low, suppressed, eyes crinkling as he keeps his gaze on the sink. 

When the last dish is done and the towel is damp in your fingers and the tap has gone off, the kitchen settles into a silence that buzzes with something unspent. John dries his hands and leans back against the counter, looking at you in an unhurried sort of way.

“C’mon,” he says, tilting his head toward the living room.

——————

He moves to the sideboard where the whiskey is waiting and you drift naturally toward his bookcase, drawn there by the same restless energy that’s been humming under your skin all evening. It’s something to do with your racing thoughts while he’s occupied with the bottle.

“Am I allowed to snoop,” you ask, fingers already trailing over the spines of his books, “or are there rules?” squinting at a title, tipping the text out of line to have a brief look at the cover. You look back at him. 

“There are always rules,” he replies, glancing up from the glasses in front of him.

“Naturally,” you murmur, and return to it.

It’s mostly as you remember from that first night in his flat — books arranged by size, spines perfectly even — but you look more carefully this time, now that you know more about the hands that arranged them. History, mostly. A few novels with cracked spines that suggest they’ve actually been read rather than kept for show. A dog-eared paperback in a language you don’t recognize, the cover worn soft at the corners.

There’s a small brass compass that sits at the end of one shelf. A scattering of foreign coins too, silver and copper that don’t match anything in your wallet, currencies from places you probably couldn’t even find on a map.

You lift one, turning it over in your palm. It’s smooth from handling, warm from the ambient heat of the room.

“You’ve got coins from everywhere,” you observe.

“Habit,” he says from behind you. You can hear the quiet glug of whiskey meeting glass.

“Of picking them up?”

“Of keeping them.”

You set it back carefully, exactly where it was. “Why?”

“I don’t know,” he admits, and then he pauses, thinks about it. “Reminds you where you’ve been,” he says. “When everywhere starts to look the same.”

You turn that over for a moment, looking at the small scattered collection with different eyes now.

“That’s either very philosophical or very sad,” you decide.

“I think it’s a bit of both, no?”

You glance over your shoulder at him. He’s watching you with an almost smile. He holds out a glass toward you and you cross the room to take it, your fingers closing around the cool curve of it, pressing over his fingers in the exchange.

“The books,” you say, nodding back toward the shelf. “Have you read all of them?”

“Most of them.”

“Which ones haven’t you?”

“The ones that were gifts,” he says, after a thoughtful pause.

You don’t push that one. Just let it sit between you as you both settle onto the sofa — you first, then him, and the distance he leaves is careful and deliberate and already smaller than it probably should be, honestly. 

“You’re very minimal,” you say, cradling the glass in both hands.

“You’ve mentioned,” he says before taking a tight-lipped sip. 

“I’m saying it again.” You tilt your head. “Does it ever feel lonely?”

Something moves across his face — not offense. More like the question landed somewhere real and he wasn’t quite expecting it to. “Sometimes,” he says, which is more than you expected him to give you.

“But you keep it this way anyway.”

“Easier when you’re never sure how long you’ll be back for.”

You look at him for a moment, this big, careful, frustratingly guarded man, and you feel the particular ache of understanding someone just enough to know how much you don’t.

“That’s a very lonely way to live, John,” you say not unkindly, just honestly.

His jaw shifts. “Maybe,” he concedes, and the word is low and a little rough at the edges.

You take your first cautious sip of whiskey. The burn blooms along your tongue and spreads slow and deep into your chest, and your eyes sting just slightly at the corners. A small cough escapes despite your best efforts to hold it back. 

He watches you over the edge of his own glass, amusement soft in the lines around his eyes. “It’ll settle,” he assures you gently. 

“That’s what everyone says right before it doesn’t,” you answer, though you take another sip anyway, slower this time, letting the heat spread rather than fighting it.

A low chuckle leaves him at that, and something about the sound in the dim room makes the space feel smaller, the careful distance between you on the sofa somehow already less than it was a moment ago. You’re not entirely sure which of you is responsible for that. 

Outside the window the city carries on in its distant, indifferent way — the low hum of traffic, the occasional sweep of headlights across the ceiling — and in here the lamp burns warm and the whiskey is settling into your chest exactly like he said it would and the space between your knee and his thigh has quietly, incrementally ceased to exist without either of you making a conscious decision about it.

You look at him to find he’s already looking at you. His eyes are very blue even in the dim light of the room. Ocean deep and sparkling with amber flecks from the lamp, carrying something unguarded for the first time, simmering on the surface. 

“You’re staring,” you say softly.

“Am I.”

It isn’t a question though, not the way he says it. His glass rests loose in his hand, and he makes no effort whatsoever to look away.

“You are,” you nod, the edge of your mouth quirking as you look back into your glass.

His thigh is solid and warm against your knee. And you can smell him this close. Dish soap and whiskey, something musky and spicey, something you’ve decided must belong distinctly to him.

Your pulse is conducting itself with an embarrassing lack of composure that you hope, without much conviction, isn’t visible.

He reaches up toward your face and, regrettably, you flinch gently. Certainly not because you want him to stop, you just weren’t expecting it. And John seems to register that, he pauses instantly when you do. His hand flexes slowly in the air beside you, palm opening unhurried and safe, like an apology before he continues his gingerly movement forward and tucks a strand of hair back from your face. His knuckles just barely graze the line of your jaw as his hand drops.

It was such a small thing, barely anything at all, and yet your whole body responds to it like a held breath finally releasing, like something that has been wound tight behind your ribs all evening just gave way.

“Still think I’ve got nothin’ to say for myself?” he murmurs.

All you can manage in a small shake of your head, your fingers twisting into the wrinkled fabric of your skirt. 

The corner of his mouth lifts. And then his eyes drop to your mouth and stay there. He doesn’t pretend otherwise, and you feel the intention of it like a change in pressure, like what the air does in those calm minutes before a storm. 

John moves slow enough that you see it coming and still aren’t ready. He leans inward just a fraction, almost imperceptible. It’s the kind of movement that could mean nothing, that could be dismissed totally if you were inclined to do so.

But there is nothing incidental about the way he’s looking at you, and nothing accidental about the way the distance between you continues to melt. He stops short, just close enough that all either of you would need is the smallest shift and there would be nothing left between you at all.

There he waits, close enough you can feel his breath, close enough to admire the freckle on his nose. He’s infuriatingly patient and unbearably still, like a man who has made his intentions very clear and is now perfectly content to let you decide what happens next. In the span of a single held breath, you learn he isn’t going to close the gap.

So you do.

Your mouth meets his and he kisses you carefully. Like he’s learning the shape of you. One large hand comes up to cradle the side of your face, his thumb resting at the curve of your jaw, and the touch is so steady that something in your chest just — gives. It comes loose like a knot that’s been tied tight all evening finally being pulled free, its tension unraveling all at once, its ribbon fluttering to floor with an exhale that he swallows. 

The whiskey is warm on his lips, a faint sweetness beneath the heat of him, and it mingles with the warmth already blossoming in your chest. 

You feel him reach, it’s followed by a soft clunk of his glass setting on the table. Then you feel his hand on yours, prying your cemented fingers from your own cup so that he can place it beside his. All the while his lips continue to capture yours, his beard scratching at your chin when he tilts to deepen it.

Your newly freed hand finds the front of his shirt. Fingers curling into the soft of it like you need something solid to hold onto while the world around you tilts ever so slightly off its axis.

He pulls back, and for one terrifying second you think it’s over, your eyes open, but he’s only paused, his thumb tracing a slow arc along your jaw. His eyes open to find yours and they are blown dark, grey and navy, pupils fighting for space with his irises.

“Alright?” he murmurs lowly, the word barely more than a vibration between you.

“Yes,” you breathe embarrassingly quick, which makes the corner of his mouth curve, and then he comes back to you and this time he’s a little less careful.

His hand slides from your jaw into your hair, fingers curling at the nape of your heated neck, the kiss deepens by degrees, his tongue pushing through to sweep along yours like a tide coming in high.

Your fingers tighten more in his shirt, closing into a fist that twists the cotton tight across him. You can feel the heat of him through it, and it’s so much better than the memory from that night in your kitchen, so much realer, and something akin to lava in your belly responds to the realness of it in a way you feel all the way down to your thighs.

When his other hand finds your neck, the pad of his thumb traces the line of your jaw until he finds your pulse just below it, pressing into it until a soft squeak escapes your throat and he’s grinning against you. 

You push into him without thinking about it, closing whatever distance is left between your bodies, your free hand finding his jaw, scratching through the short coarse hair of his beard. He makes a low sound against your mouth that you feel at the back of your teeth, in the base of your throat, in places further south than either of those.

The hand at your neck slides slowly, tracing down over your collarbone, your shoulder, coming to rest at your waist, fingers pressing in through the fabric of your blouse with a firmness that makes your thighs press together. He pulls at you just enough to 

communicate something without saying it, and you follow.

Swinging one leg over him, your pencil skirt rides up over your thighs as you stretch across his wide lap, it bunches just under your hips, leaving a salacious bit of fabric between his zipper and the thin lace covering your center. 

You pull back just far enough to look at him, to catch your breath, lips swollen, chin chapped. His hair is slightly displaced, your doing. His mouth is bitten-red, also your doing. 

His hands are warm and heavy on your hips, fingers pressing into the fat of them.

“Hi,” you say softly, which is an absurd thing to say and you know it the moment it leaves your mouth.

Something like amusement crosses his features and he reaches up to tuck a strand of hair back from your face for the second time tonight.

“Hi,” he says back, voice rough with restraint.

But not too much because then his hands are sliding from your hips to the backs of your thighs, calloused palms grazing across your skin.

“Okay?” he asks, thumb tracing that slow arc against the inside of your knee.

“Very,” you manage.

The corner of his mouth pulls up and his hands begin, with absolutely no hurry whatsoever, to move.

He kisses you again, slower this time, deeper, no longer learning. His hands move from your thighs to your waist, sliding under your blouse, palms meeting hot skin.

You press into him greedily, hips shifting forward, chasing something instinctive, a feeling so insistent it makes you rock again, and then again, and you feel him — solid and unmistakable — beneath you, the heat of him coming through the denim. The breath that attempts to leave you hitches in your chest and sticks there. 

His hands tighten at your waist and you roll into it again, his jaw tightens and he exhales a groan into your mouth. 

The kissing gets away from both of you quicker than you can even keep up with it. His hand climbs your back, fingers spreading wide between your shoulder blades, pressing, pulling you closer until your chest is firmly to his and your back is arched like a bow.

Your fingers fist his hair and then his beard and the warm column of his neck, touching everything you can reach.

You pull back from his mouth, breathing unsteadily, your forehead tipping toward his.

“John,” you breathe, and it comes out lower than you intend.

“Mm,” he answers, his lips finding the hinge of your jaw, the soft patch just beneath your ear, and your eyes close.

“I want—” you start.

“I know what you want,” he whispers against your neck, and you can feel the curve of his mouth against your flesh as he says it.

Your fingers tighten in his hair. Your hips shift again, more pointed this time, and his breath comes out slow and controlled through his nose in a way that tells you it’s costing him his currency of composure.

“John.” More insistent now, your hand fitting between your bodies, fingers crawling to his belt, making yourself clear.

He pulls back to look at you, eyes steady, his hand catching your wrist gently before you get any further.

“Easy,” he says, low. His thumb strokes across your pulse point once before he pulls your hand aside.

“I want—”

“I know what you want,” he says again. “But, not tonight,” he finishes, tone on the edge of pleading.

You make a sound of frustration that dissolves as his hands slip to the backs of your thighs and up, kneading the flesh of your exposed backside.

“Here’s what’s gonna happen,” he starts, very quietly, like he’s telling you a secret, his eyes holding yours with a steadiness that makes your stomach drop toward the floor. “You’re gonna stay right where you are.” His fingers trace the hemline of your underwear, just enough to make you very aware of where they are and where they are not. “And I’m gonna take care of you.” He takes a pause, eyes searching around your face. “Properly.”

Your bottom lip catches between your teeth and you nod. 

“Yeah,” you breathe. “Okay.”

“Okay,” he echoes softly. “Lean back, duck.”

He helps shift you back to give himself enough space to get a look at you, to soon fit his hand between your already spread thighs.

He doesn’t look anywhere else, only your face, as he gingerly slides his big hands the length of your thighs, his thumbs pressing into the meat inside on their way up until they hit the hot crease that meets your core. 

You look down at his hands, your own finding purchase on his wrists — he doesn’t seem to mind. He moves one to your hip, the other descends, the heel of his palm pressing against your lace. He takes his time, moving in excruciating circles, like he’s learning the shape of you through fabric first. You try very hard not to come apart immediately but it's a losing battle from the start given how long it’s been since anyone has touched you like this.

Your head falls back with a soft, helpless sound and your hips push into the pressure, chasing it, making your own friction. 

“There she is,” he murmurs, and you can hear the smile in it.

“John,” you whimper, hips rocking, asking for more without words.

He answers by hooking a finger into the hem of your underwear and pulling them aside. He traces through your folds at a pace that makes your thighs tremble. You can hear your slick separating around his digits, you try not to think about how embarrassing it is to be this wet.

“Look at me.”

And it’s hard. It’s hard to lift your head back up, to meet his wrecked gaze, but you do. You can feel the blood rushing around your cheeks, the whiskey bubbling under your skin. 

When he finally — finally — plunges one thick finger into the well of you, your whole body folds, your forehead dropping to his. Your hands move to his shoulders, finger nails digging half-moons through his shirt and into his skin. 

“Good?” he asks, low.

“Yes,” you manage, “yes, please—”

He works you open slowly, one finger and then, after he’s made you wait, two. And the stretch of it, the fullness of it slipping in beside his index, pulls a moan from you that bounces off every surface in the room.

He finds a rhythm that unravels you. He pushes deep, until each knuckle is nestled into your heat. He moves them, curls them, pumps them achingly slow until you are completely and utterly lost, rocking into his hand, face buried in his neck, panting. 

The tension builds inside of you like a spring, coiling tight and hot. Your breathing goes ragged and your grip tightens.

And then, when you’re already spinning, when there’s nothing left in you capable of forming a coherent thought about anything, he turns his head, his lips at your temple. 

“This is why you came ’round, yeah?” The words drop like molten silver into the shell of your ear. “This is what you wanted?”

You can’t answer him, and he knows that, so you just press closer, and let the last of it break over you in a long, consuming wave that starts somewhere deep and radiates outward until you feel it in your fingertips, your jaw, the backs of your knees, and up the length of your spine. Your walls pulse around him, and you can feel how damp it’s all left you in his hand. 

You stay where you are, forehead against his shoulder, your breathing coming back to you. His free hand moves in a slow idle path up and down your back.

You lift your head eventually and look at him.

There’s a warmth in his expression that’s more unguarded than anything you’ve seen from him all night, his careful composure worn down, and it does something to your chest that has nothing to do with what just happened and everything to do with who he is.

“That was—” you start.

“Yeah,” he agrees, before you’ve finished.

You laugh softly at that, and he almost does too, that almost-smile making an appearance.

Outside a car passes, headlights sweeping briefly across the ceiling before disappearing.

“I should go,” you say, which is true, but it’s also a little bit of a shame.

He doesn’t argue with you. He nods once, and the arm around your back loosens.

You clamber off of his lap with less grace than you’d like, your skirt fighting with you before it sits correctly again. You feel him watching you fix yourself with a composure that you find deeply unfair given that he’s largely responsible for the state you’re in.

“Not a word,” you warn, without looking at him

“I wasn’t gonna say anything,” he croons in a tone that suggests he absolutely was. He reaches for his long forgotten whiskey and takes the last of it down in one gulp. 

You smooth yourself out, retrieve your shoes from where they’ve ended up beside the coffee table, and carry them with you to the door. He stands, straightening his shirt, and you notice with some indignation that he looks entirely unruffled. Like the last hour happened to you very specifically and left him more or less untouched.

“Ready?” he asks.

You huff a small laugh, and find you’re unable to look him in the eye, your face turning to your bare feet on his rug.

“You don’t have to walk me,” you say. “It’s literally a hallway.”

“But I’m going to,” he says, and moves to the door anyway.

The corridor is dim, the floral runner threadbare underfoot. You count the paces between your doors. It’s nine. 

At your door you turn back to face him.

He’s standing just behind you, hands tucked into his front pockets. 

“Thanks for dinner,” you say.

“Thanks for the whiskey,” he returns.

“Yeah, that— It was good.”

“It was,” he agrees, and you both know neither of you are talking solely about the whiskey.

“Night, John,” you say softly.

“Night, duck.”

You turn and let yourself in, the door swings shut behind you, and you stand in the dim of your own flat for a moment just… breathing. Just letting this electric air calm around you.

Your coat is still on his hook. You’ll get it tomorrow.

On the other side of your door, John doesn’t move immediately. He stands where he is and waits. Waiting for the click of your deadbolt to slide home.

But it doesn’t come.

He even waits another moment, just in case, gives you the benefit of the doubt, which he notes is more than past events warrant.

He exhales slowly through his nose, tips his head back briefly toward the ceiling, and turns back around.

Three steps, his hand finds your door handle, turns it, and the door swings open without resistance, which is exactly what he was afraid of.

You’re in the entryway still, back against the wall in thought. You turn your head to the side when the door opens, eyes going wide, lips parting with confusion.

He leans against the door frame, arms crossing slowly over his chest, looking at you with the hard expression of a man who is being very patient. His chin is tucked and his forehead creased three times over. 

“I—”

“Second time,” he says over you. “Second time I’ve found that door unlocked.”

“I was literally ten seconds behind you—”

“Doesn’t matter.”

“Nothing was going to—”

“Doesn’t matter,” he says again, the same way.

You look at him for a moment, shoes still in your hand, and he looks back, and you let out a breath through your nose that is not quite a sigh and not quite a laugh and is mostly a concession.

“Fine,” you say.

“Lock it,” he says. “Tonight and every night. Are we clear?”

“We’re clear,” you mutter.

He holds your gaze a beat longer like he’s making sure the message has actually taken root this time, and then he nods once and pushes off the door frame.

“Good night,” he says, pulling your door closed from the outside.

You stand there in your entryway listening. You can hear him waiting, the impatient shift of his weight against old floorboards.

You reach out and turn the deadbolt.

Then all that’s left to hear are his retreating footfalls heading back down the hall to his own door.

You stand there, fingers still on the lock, a smile pulling at the corners of your mouth.

[silverlullabies]

teeth in tender flesh.

brendon park x emma nolan. 18+ MDNI. predator/prey dynamics. possessive behaviors. power imbalance. god complex. love at first sight if the person in "love" was a predator

The pen is blue.

That's the first thing that Park notices. Not her- not yet- just the pen, extended towards him in a small hand that's visibly shaking, a cheap ballpoint with a chewed cap and the logo of some medical supply company stamped along the barrel in white sans-serif font.

It appears in his peripheral the way most things below his sight line appear: as an interruption. (Everything is an interruption, considering his size, bigger than most, the kind of man that makes other men feel small in comparison, that makes rooms rearrange themselves around the fact of him the way villages rearranged themselves around the thing in the mountain that takes their livestock and their daughters and has never once been satisfied-)

It's a minor obstacle in the space between where he's standing at the nurses' station computer, pulling up imaging for a pre-op check that's already twelve minutes behind because radiology can't seem to run on the same clock as the rest of the damn hospital.

"I-I saw you looking for one. You looked like you needed it."

The voice is... small. Not quiet, exactly. Quiet implies intention, implies someone modulating their volume to match their environment. This is just... small, takes up no space at all, exists in the narrow column of air in front of him and doesn't attempt to travel any further.

Park looks down.

She's short. That's the second thing. Short enough that the angle between his eyeline and hers is steep enough to change the shape of her face- foreshortening the bridge of her nose, widening the size of her eyes, turning her her upwards gaze into something that looks less like eye contact and more like looking up. (The way a child looks up. The way something small looks up at something large and doesn't think to be afraid yet because it hasn't learned yet what large things do to small things that don't run when they should.)

Her scrub top is too big. A size, maybe a size and a half, the neckline sitting too wide on her frame, exposing the ridge of a clavicle that reminds him of a bird's bones. Hollow. Breakable. He thinks about how easily things that are built like her come apart, and the thought comes sudden, unbidden, a flicker of currents jumping between axons and dendrites, the briefest neural spark that should fizzle and die the way all intrusive thoughts should fizzle and die, should dissipate into the white noise of a busy shift and a surgery at two and twelve minutes of lost time he can't get back.

But it doesn't fizzle. Something dark in the back of his mind reaches out and snatches the dying flicker before it goes cold, closes a fist around it, drags it forward through the folds of gray matter and settles it into his conscious thought like coal in a nest of kindling. Something ancient and starved and holy in the worst way, living in the unlit nave behind his sternum, breathing slow, fed on small things for years. The thought grows teeth. Opens its eyes. Looks out through his and sees her standing there with her too-big scrub top and her bird bone clavicle and likes what it sees.

He thinks- more strongly now- about how easily things that are built like her come apart. How little force it would take. How she probably doesn't even know that about herself, probably never tested the boundaries of her own construct, never had anyone grip her hard enough to find out where the give is. She's walking around inside of a body she's never been shown the limits of, and something about that untested quality makes the back of his mouth water.

(He thinks about how those hollow bones would look spread out and trembling under his weight, stretching that tiny frame until her belly showed the ridge of him dragging back and forth inside her, until the give in her body became the only thing keeping her intact.)

(He thinks about the deer.

He was sixteen, hunting alongside his father in the Alleghenies, early November, the air cold enough to see his breath and the light coming through trees in long amber shafts that made the frost on the ground look like something out of a painting. The deer walked out of the tree line, a doe, young, standing in the clearing maybe fifteen yards from where he crouched in the brush and looked at him with huge, dark, liquid eyes that contained absolutely no understanding of the danger it was in. No fear. No wariness. No flicker of ancestral recognition that the shape in the shadows was a shape to run from. It just looked at him with the dumb, trusting curiosity of a thing that had never been hunted and therefore didn't know it could be.

His father whispered take the shot.

He didn't take the shot.

He went back the next morning. And the next. And the next. He brought grain, left it at the edge of the clearing, sat in the brush and watched the doe find it and eat it and lift its hard and look towards the place where he was hidden with an expression that was almost... grateful. Devotion of it indistinguishable from worship if you didn't know which one of them was the god and which was the sacrifice.

By the seventh day it walked right up to the grain and stood there, chewing, close enough that he could see the individual lashes framing those huge dark eyes, close enough that if he'd extended his arm fully he could have touched the velvet flat of its nose.

He didn't touch. Not that day.

His father asked him what he was doing. He said he was practicing patience. His father looked at him for a long time and didn't ask again.)

Her badge is clipped to the breast pocket: EMMA NOLAN, RN. EMERGENCY MEDICINE

The badge is clean and the photo looks like it was taken this week, the eager, unweathered headshot of someone who ironed her scrubs for picture day.

Her pockets are full. That's the third thing that does something to the inside of his chest that he recognizes immediately and doesn't bother to suppress. Both front pockets of the scrub top are distended, stuffed to capacity with supplies- pen lights, hemostats, a folded reference card, alcohol swabs, a roll of tape- and she offered him a pen. The absolute, guileless, unironic earnestness lands in the space behind his ribs that most people assume is empty and isn't. (There's something housed there. Something with stone walls and no windows and an altar that has never once been clean.)

She's brand new. He can smell it. Bright eyed, overprepared, hopelessly convinced that the distance between the classroom and the floor is a gap she can bridge with enthusiasm and color coded notes with textbook knowledge that has never once been pressure tested- walking into a building full of people who've had the softness ground out of them and expecting healthcare to be like the brochures. Expecting the job to be what their professors told them it would be. Expecting the people to be kind.

He looks at Emma Nolan and her clean badge and her bird bone clavicles and his teeth ache; a real, physical throb in his jaw, deep in the hinge where the masseter anchors to the mandible, the dull pressure of a bite that hasn't happened yet but wants to- involuntary and grandular.

(He wants, vicerally, to sink her between his jaws, feel the whole of her caught in the cage of his bite, the fine bones and the thin skin and the rapid, hummingbird pulse, to close down slowly enough that she'd feel every degree of increased pressure and understand, in the shrinking space between his teeth, that the only thing keeping her intact his his decision to not bite down all the way. That the structural integrity of Emma Nolan is not a fact. It's a favor. One he can revoke.)

He swallows and the ache doesn't leave. It just settles, migrates from his jaw into the back of his throat, takes up residence somewhere behind his soft palate.

Not here, not now. The thought doesn't come with urgency. It comes with the patience of something that has a den and a long winter and is in absolutely no rush because the thing it's watching doesn't know it's being watched and there's a specific pleasure in that- in the looking, in the having looked, in the accumulation of details that the source of the details doesn't know are being collected. Has been collected for the past thirty seconds and already has more details in it than she'd be comfortable knowing about.

He takes the pen.

Their fingers don't touch. She's holding it by the very end, maximizing the distance between her hand and his. Polite. A deeply ingrained, reflexive politeness, someone who was raised to be considerate of other people's personal spaces. Who says excuse me when passing by one person in an otherwise empty hallway. Who holds open doors for people thirty feet behind her. Who has probably never once in her life taken something from someone without saying thank you.

(He wonders what her thank you would sound like with his hand around her throat and his cock buried deep in her cunt. Resting on the column of her neck with his thumb against her pulse while she says it, so he could feel the words in her larynx before they left her mouth. Feel the vibration of her gratitude hum against his palm while he fucks her open, dragging every inch of his heavy shaft along her walls until he's grinding right up against her cervix, carving himself so deep inside of her, she'll feel him for days.

He bets she'd still say it. He bets she'd look up at him with those too big eyes, glassy and lust drunk now, lips parted and trembling, and moan a soft breathy "thank you" while he's fingers tighten on the carotids just enough to make her head spin and her pussy clench around him like a fist. The kind of girl who'd find something to be grateful for in the grip that's killing her.)

She's smiling at him.

It's a terrible smile. Not because it's unattractive- her face is good, open and symmetric, a mouth slightly too wide for the rest of her features in a way that makes every expression she produces disproportionately loud- but because it's real. Completely, recklessly, almost offensively real. No calculation. No armor. No awareness that the man she's smiling at has been described by three separate residents, in three separate interviews, as the reason I changed specialties.

She doesn't know who he is. Or she does know, in the abstract way that new graduates know things- a name on a directory, a face in an orientation packet- but the knowledge hasn't translated into the wariness it should produce. The knowledge hasn't reached her body yet. Her shoulders are open. Her weight is forward, on the balls of her feet, leaning towards him slightly, the posture of a person who moves towards other people instead of away from them because the world hasn't yet taught her that some people you move towards are the reason the lesson exists.

He wants to teach her.

The want is there, fully formed, sitting in his chest since the moment she extended a shaking hand with a cheap pen and looked up at him like he was a person and not what he actually is. Because she is smiling at him the way she would smile at anyone else. She has one smile and it costs her nothing and she has no idea- no framework, no instinct- that giving it to him is different than giving it to anyone else. That most people in this building are furniture and she is the first thing he's looked at in months.

He wonders how long it would take to make her stop smiling.

Not by being cruel. That would be too easy. He could do that in a sentence, in a comment. He could wipe that smile off her face in four seconds and she'd probably apologize for having it.

No. He wonders how long it would take to make her stop smiling at other people. To make the smile something only she does for him. To hollow out the indiscriminate generosity of it and reshape it into something specific, something that only activates when he walks into a room, that only exists on her face the way a reflex exists, involuntary and entirely dependent on the right stimulus.

He wants to be the stimulus. He wants to be the only one. Not by earning devotion but by salting the earth around every other altar until there was nowhere left to worship but at his feet.

The thought doesn't alarm him. He settles alongside the others- the bird bone clavicle, the overstuffed pockets, the voice that doesnt take up space- and it fits. Like the space was always there. Like he's been carrying the space of this particular want for a long time and she just walked into the hallway and filled it.

"I'm Emma," she says. "I just started today. Not just here. I mean this is my first- I'm a new grad, so everything is kind of my first-"

She's rambling. He watches her realize she's rambling. Watches the precise second she hears herself, the little spark of realization in her eyes, the flush that darkens the warm brown of her cheeks, deepening the skin below her ears and across the bridge of her nose into something richer, bilateral bloom, embarrassment heat he can see against her cheekbones until even the press of her lips looks swollen with embarassment.

She swallows and he watches the delicate tendons in her throat shift, flex beneath smooth skin, a subtle bob that makes his cock twitch and fuck, his mind goes straight to imagining putting his teeth on that tendon, the points of his canines resting in the shallow valley between the sternocleidomastoid and the strap muscles and holding. Holding until she stops talking. Holding until the rambling dies and her breathing hitches and stops and the only sound is the pulse he can feel hammering against his mouth.

He wonders if she would go still, frozen, every voluntary muscle locked, the ancient mammalian hardware taking over and telling her body that thing with its teeth on her throat might lose interest if she doesn't move.

(He imagines sliding two thick fingers between her lips right then, pressing down on her tongue until she gags, teaching her the only safe place for her words is wrapped around his knuckles while he finger-fucks her throat open, to make her drool and to make her apologize for the drool. The thought makes his cock throb so hard he has to shift, to keep it from pressing visibly against his scrubs.)

"Sorry," she says. "You probably don't care about any of that."

She apologized. She apologized for talking to him. For taking up space in his day. For the crime of existing in his vicinity with her shaking hands and her big eyes and her pockets full of supplies. She apologized like its second nature, like she moves through the world with sorry always on the tip of her tongue, making herself smaller, tucking herself into corners, the perpetual apology of a person who was taught that her presence is an imposition and never questioned the lesson.

He thinks: who taught you that.

He thinks: I want to meet them. I want to shake their hand. They did all the groundwork and they don't even know what they built.

Because that's what she is. Groundwork. A foundation already poured. Someone- a parent, a teacher, some formative cruelty she probably doesn't even remember- already taught Emma Nolan that the correct response to authority is deference. That the correct response to taking up space is apology. That the correct posture in the presence of someone who matters more than her is small. All that training, all those years of learned submission, and nobody bothered to teach her what it looks like from the other side. Nobody told her that making yourself small in front of certain predators isn't safety. It's an invitation.

He should respond. The social contract of this interaction requires it- a name, a thank you, a dismissal. This is a five second exchange. He's has millions of them.

He stands there with her pen in his hand and he looks at her and the thing in the dark of his brain, the thing living behind his sternum isn't opening one eye anymore. It's on its feet. It's pacing.

She's still looking up at him. The embarrassment hasn't faded. Her eyes are brown and in this kind of lighting they look almost black. Wet. Not crying-wet. Just the general shine of eyes that still react to things. Eyes that haven't been dulled by decades of fluorescent lights and administrative indifference. Eyes that feel things still and show the feelings and don't know that showing is giving and giving is losing and she's been losing since she walked over here.

He can see everything in those eyes. He can see the nervousness and the eagerness and the desperate, aching hope that she's making a good impression, and beneath it all, buried so deep she probably can't even name it, he finds the think he's actually looking for: the need. The need to matter to someone who matters, to be singled out, to be chosen, to have someone look at her the way he's looking at her right now and make her feel like she's the only person in the building.

She has no idea that need is a door. And she just showed him exactly where the handle is. That she is looking up at him with the same eyes as the deer. The same absence of understanding. The same willing to stand in the open and be looked at by something she should be running from.

"Thank you," he says. He clicks the pen. "Emma."

He says her name and watches what it does to her face the way he watched the doe's ears rotate towards the sound of his footsteps- a full body orientation towards a stimulus she should be flinching from and instead leans into. Her mouth opens slightly, a millimeter of space between her lips that she's not aware of producing. Her pupils dilate.

She doesn't know what any of that means. She doesn't know that her body just handed him a blueprint, that every involuntary response she's produced in the last ninety seconds is a map he's drawn of her. A map that shows him every unlocked door and unlocked window in the architecture of Emma Nolan, and she assembled it for him herself. Handed it over with a pen and a smile. Free of charge.

"Thank you for the pen, Emma," he says again, and he lets her name sit in his mouth a beat longer than necessary. Lets the second syllable land softer. Watches the softness hit her nervous system like the grain in the clearing.

She lights up. The smile comes back, wider now, and she ducks her head- a small, deferential, instinctive motion that exposes the back of her neck.

The back of her neck.

He looks at it. The fine hairs at her nape. The knobs of her cervical spine pressing against skin so thin he can see the vulnerable hollow at the base of her skull. She's showing it to him. She doesn't know she's showing it to him. She ducked her head because she's pleased and this is what pleased looks like on a body that hasn't learned to guard itself, and the back of her neck is right there, six inches from his hand, close enough that if he reached out and set his palm against the nape and squeezed-

She'd make a sound. A small one, startled, and he wants to hear that sound. He wants to file it along side every other response her body has produced in the last ninety seconds and then spend however long it takes learning which ones he can produce on command.

(He imagines setting his palm flat, fingers splayed wide, on the back of her skull until her cheek is smushed into his mattress, ass up high, her knees forced apart by the width of his thighs as he pushed his cock into the silk of her cunt. Hand locked on her nape the whole time, pinning her there, using the leverage to pull her back on his cock again, again, little muffled cries vibrating against his palm as her pussy flutters and clenches around the stretch of him-)

He doesn't reach out.

He gives her a nod- brief, professional, a nod that anyone watching would read as a senior physician acknowledging a new staff member and nothing more.

"Welcome to PTMC," he says.

She beams, full wattage, the kind of smile that uses every muscle in her face and crinkles the corners of her eyes and makes her look even younger than she is, which is already too young, which is already so young that thing in the back of his brain hums in delight. Delight in the guarantee, that this will be easy, that she will come willing, a lock he's already been handed the key to, that the gap between who she thinks he is and who he actually is will shorten until she she walks into the door he holds open for her and the door closes behind her and she realizes there's no handle on the inside.

She turns and walks towards the Pitt, her pigtails bouncing. Her too-big scrub top shifts on her shoulders with every step, exposing the nape of her neck and then covering and then exposing it again. He watches the rhythm of it. Bare skin. Cotton. Bare skin. Cotton.

She pulls something from her pocket. Another pen. Of course. Of course she has more pens. Of course she came prepared for every possible scenario except the one she doesn't know she's in.

He clicks the pen twice. It makes a tinny, unsatisfying sound that he's going to hear for the rest of the day every time he reaches for his breast pocket and feels the outline of a ballpoint he didn't buy.

He thinks of mythology- every religion, every dead civilization that scratched it's fears into cave walls and temple stones- of the offering. The first fruits. The unblemished lamb. The thing you bring to the feet of something vast and indifferent and lay down with trembling hands because you don't understand what it is, you just know it's bigger than you and the only way to survive in its proximity is to give it something. To feed it. To prove that you know your place in the hierarchy of the living and the thing at the top of the hierarchy is not you.

The offering is never for the god's benefit. Gods don't need pens. Gods don't need lambs, or the grain, of the wine poured into dirt. The offering is a transaction- worshippers buying the illusion of safety, and the god accepts because the acceptance is what keeps them coming back. Keep accepting and they keep giving. Keep taking the small things and eventually they'll give you the big things. Their harvest. Their firstborn.

Their throat.

Emma Nolan walked across a room full of people who knew better and she held out a ballpoint pen to something she mistook for a man, and she smiled her full, reckless smile, and she said you looked like you needed it.

An offering. Brought to the altar on trembling hands by a girl with bird bones and Bambi eyes who doesn't know the predator she walked up to. Who thinks the warmth she felt when he said her name was kindness. Who has no framework, no mythology, no ancestral memory whispering to her that thing smiling back at her from behind the altar has never once in its existence been kind. That it has only ever been patient. And that patience, in a god, is not a virtue.

It's a hunting strategy.

He thinks about the deer again. The clearing. The mist. The huge dark eyes and the absolute absence of fear. He didn't shoot it that morning. He sat in the brush and he watched it graze and he let it walk back into the tree line on its own legs and he came back the next day and the day after that until the deer stopped flinching at the sound of him and started walking towards the brush instead of away from it.

You looked like you needed it.

Yeah.

He did.

(Park puts the pen in his breast pocket. Accepts the offering.)

He can be patient.

[niccolites]

DREAM A DIRTY DREAM

JOHN PRICE X FEM!READER, SEVERANCE AU

CHAPTER 1/2, 4.2K

TAGS - Extremely Dubious Consent, Power Imbalance, Manipulation, Boss/Employee Relationship, Abuse of Authority, Explicit Sexual Content

SUMMARY - Every day starts like this. The end and the beginning are blurred together. You step into the lift and halfway up you inhale, hairline fracture splitting open and engulfing you - and you are coming back down again. Time has passed and you haven’t lived it.

You live in this office, aware that there is a version of you that lives upstairs, outside, in the beyond. You don’t know this other version of yourself, you don’t know what happens in all those hours in between your existence. There is only Here and the Work that you do.

-

or: the one where you are a severed employee and your boss takes advantage of the two versions of you. SEVERANCE AU

read on ao3 here

CHAPTER ONE: I AM SOME

You step in the elevator to leave, feeling the upward pull and blink - suddenly it’s a new day. You’re in different clothes and the elevator is going down.

Every day starts like this. The end and the beginning are blurred together. You step into the lift and halfway up you inhale, hairline fracture splitting open and engulfing you - and you are coming back down again. Time has passed and you haven’t lived it.

You live in this office, aware that there is a version of you that lives upstairs, outside, in the beyond. You don’t know this other version of yourself, you don’t know what happens in all those hours in between your existence. There is only Here and the Work that you do.

The doors part and you step into the pristine white hallway, smooth green carpet. Muscle memory drags you forward, making the turns until you reach the office space that you live in.

Four cubicles sit in the middle, one of your coworkers already sat, tapping away at his keyboard. You murmur a good morning and get one in return before you sit down, switching your monitor on.

You don’t know what the codes mean that you look at everyday, but you know how to sort them the same way that you know how to walk and talk and breathe. There isn’t anything for you to work on beyond this, although you haven’t been here that long. You kept track of the days in the beginning, little lines on your sticky pad before you stopped. One of your colleagues has been here for years and your little lines don’t change your fate.

The rest of you coworkers filter in and you settle in to work, the room filled with the gentle sounds of keyboard clicking and the roll of the mouse. Coded words are in front of you and you didn’t know what they meant when you first started, and you don’t know now, but you’re able to sort them somehow. Your mind goes soft and malleable and the numbers feel different until you can categorise them. Not as good as your colleagues can, but not bad at all. The Work is Important, and you understand it when you look at your screen, even if you start to forget when you look away.

Every day is like this. Every day, one of your coworkers will get up for some coffee and tut over the jug. All of the cups are the same, and you will always choose the one with the chip on the handle. Marked, just for you.

Every day is the same. The cool fabric of your silk blouse against the line of your spine, smooth as it rasps against your skin. You don’t move more than you need to, always so still if it weren’t for the movement of your hands. A fluttering butterfly over your keyboard.

Then, almost every afternoon before lunch, the same -

-

“Can I speak to you?” Mr Price asks, his hands on his hips. You hesitate, immobile for a second and his eyes tighten.

“Yes, of course,” you rush to say, switching off your monitor and standing. No one looks at you as you follow Mr Price out of the room, your heels clicking on the floor.

White walls give way to more white walls as you walk along. Each turn is identical but familiar, dread building as you get closer and closer to that sudden black door at the end.

Mr Price is silent, and you watch the line of his back beneath his white shirt. There will be a blazer in his office, but you’ve never seen him wearing it.

There’s a lot that you don’t know about Mr Price. He’s your manager, and you know that when he rolls up his sleeves, you’ll see coarse hair that runs down his forearms. You know how he clears his throat when he’s impatient and how to distinguish between his polite smile and his annoyed smile when he speaks to your coworkers.

At least you know what your colleagues like and dislike. You know what disappoints Mr Price, but you don’t know what would make him pleased.

He is different from you and your coworkers in some untouchable way. You feel like a trapped bug in a glass, but he’s the one who made you and the glass and the countertop beneath you. He feels like something more than you are, which may be why you make yourself follow him so neatly. Feet echoing his steps, in unison.

He opens the door to his office and you filter in after him, hand trembling around the door handle as you close it.

He sits behind his desk, and blinks up at you, hovering near the door. That trapped bug again, smacking itself against the glass over and over again - fruitless escape. You understand the feeling even though you’ve never seen a bug and don’t know how you know what that is.

“I have some files that I need to sort through this morning, if you’d be able to help me out?” he tells you. You can only see the back of his monitor, the gap in hard plastic, the faint glow of the heart of a machine. It flickers, disappears and is back again.

“Of course, sir,” you nod, eager to please. You step toward the filing cabinet, so close to the door. Solace in increments, counted in the steps it would take you to leave.

“It’s the digital files,” his voice drawls behind you and you pause. Pivot. Feet drag against the carpet but you know better than to take too long to turn around and approach him.

The door may as well be a mile away. You hover next to his desk and blink, eyelashes stuck and peeled apart as you look at his computer. The empty home screens looks back at you, pixels wavering before solidifying. No files open.

He reaches up, slides a hand around the curve of your hip. His hand is a hot brand, you can hear the rasp of his palm against the cotton of your skirt. You are clay, formed into a shape in his hands, cold until you are warmed.

You stare at his computer, the screen blank. You remember you had reached for the mouse once and he’d clucked his tongue, sharp and annoyed. Displeasure is like a ripple effect, dragging you under.

You know better now.

You take a steadying breath and lower yourself on your knees. Squeeze in between his spread thighs and his desk.

You’ve never seen a body of water, but you know how to drown.

-

Your coworkers are no solace, whenever Mr Price comes for you. Their heads are lowered in supplication when he requests you in his office. You are the sacrifice for peace in the workplace.

You don’t blame them. You make it so easy for everyone. You stand and leave at Mr Price’s request and then you return and go out of your way to make sure that no one thinks that you have any resentment for their inaction.

You wonder how long you will be here. You used to step into the lift and dream of the nothingness in that split second where you become someone else. But every morning you are alive again, always awake. One of your colleagues fell asleep by accident at his desk and is reprimanded, but you cannot get the idea out of your head.

You crave the unconsciousness, the thought of being away from here and experiencing something like a dream is like a fever that takes hold of you.

You don’t say anything about it. Not that you’re expressly forbidden from discussing how you wish you weren’t here, but it’s cruel. The only thing that you always know is that you are down here, and the dream of being upstairs is like a hangnail that you keep pulling on until it rips and exposes your ugly desire for a life that you used to live but have forgotten.

-

There’s one day that Mr Price doesn’t call on you at all. The clock ticks closer and closer to 5 and you watch the door behind you, nervous. Like you’ve done something wrong.

You finally get up to leave and he still doesn’t show. You stand in the hallway, steps hesitant. Trail all the way to the elevator and wait, like he’ll jump out. The test failed, you know that you should’ve waited. You should’ve volunteered to go through to his office, just as you’ve been trained.

You take a step towards the elevator. Nothing.

You step inside and press the button to go up, your hand shaking. The doors close in slow motion, but no one jumps out, no one confronts you.

You exhale, feel the familiar pull as your head gets rocked back and you know you’re gone but you never left and the elevator is coming back down. A new day, a new set of clothes.

You inhale, and the lift ricochets to a stop. The doors part and Mr Price is standing there.

There’s a strained line between his brows, although his tone is even when he greets you good morning. He turns and you follow without him asking you to, the line of his shoulder lessening but only just.

Straight line and then a right - you reach his office and he steps inside, and you follow, closing the door behind you.

He clearly doesn’t have time for you to linger by his door because he’s still standing when you turn around and you jump before you catch yourself.

He blinks at you and you imagine this must be what wild animals look like - men in suits but with sharp teeth and the sound of his spit as his mouth parts. “Go to the desk and pull your skirt up,” he tells you, voice strained.

Your hands shake and you chance a glance at the door, see his hand on the handle. The sight of his knuckles piercing through his skin as his grip tightens under your gaze. Squeak of metal and you turn.

Your knees knock but you’re more afraid of what will happen if you don’t hurry. You’d worn trousers when you first started working here, you remember. Not for months though, now it’s always skirts and dresses, dainty heels that pinch your feet.

Hemlines are easy to pull up, so you do and place your hands flat on his desk.

Mr Price comes around and you jump when he touches you, his hand rough as it curves around your hip and the flesh of your backside. Usually he sits for a moment, watches you undress. This time he doesn’t pull his hand away, though the other is working his belt, you can help the clink of the metal.

There is something impatient in the press of his fingers, harsh as they slide down towards your belly.

Nothing built up about the glide of his cock through your folds, heat against your back as he leans over to grab the lube off of the corner of his desk.

You can hear the click of the bottle cap, then the wet schlicking sound as he wraps it around his cock. The press of the head against you, the heat of the back of his palm as he twists it before bringing it back down.

He’s never actually had sex with you. It feels like a line that you wobble on, an invisible barrier. The head of cock brushes your clit and you feel your thighs tense as he groans, his hand pulled up to catch on your hole before he pulls back again.

There’s a heat in your belly, tense and cross, made worse by the lewd sound of him beating himself off with you on display like this. You’re ashamed but you also want him to grind against you for longer than a few beats, anything to kindle enough heat that you could get off on it.

Later, approaching the elevator, you’ll be irritated by the injustice in it. How he’s allowed to get off while you sit, bent over and wet and nothing being done about it.

In the moment, your face hot, you listen to him groan and then feel him come, wet strips on your cunt and over your thighs.

He presses against your hole again, just enough that you can feel it gather there. A pretty sight if his appreciative sigh is any indication when he pulls back.

You wait, trembling as he stands behind you, his hands on your backside, framing his masterpiece. His hands are cool, you’re burning up. The memory of a memory of lying down when you’re ill before it’s gone and you’re left on your own again, shaking as you still support your weight on your legs.

Mr Price whistles and you flinch, making him chuckle as he pats your arse fondly. “You can head back to your desk now,” he tells you, offering you a tissue. There’s a sardonic look in his eye when you snatch it from his grasp and turn to walk away, trying to find some level of dignity.

You wipe your thighs down in the bathroom, shivering as you pat around your cunt.

You could get yourself off, quick and efficient, here where there are no eyes on you. It feels like giving something up so you come out of the stall and scrub your hands in the sink instead.

Back at your desk for the rest of the day, irritable and on edge. There is a bright bulb in your computer and it blinks at you, knowing everything about you, even things that you don’t know yourself.

In the lift, a second before you feel the pressure built and crack your skull in half, you wonder why Mr Price won’t just fuck you the way he seems to want to.

Then you’re cracked back into place, the elevator dragging you down. You wince as you step out of the lift, an ache between your legs that embarrasses you.

You sit on a cushion all day and Mr Price doesn’t summon you into his office again, although you can feel his attention on you as he checks in with another one of your colleagues.

There are incomprehensible numbers on a screen but you feel his eyes on the side of your head and they click into place. The roll of your mouse beneath your palm, numbers feeding into themselves like a snake that you’ve never seen.

He doesn’t call you into his office that day and you get more work done than ever even as a headache throbs in your temple. Rhythmic, like the ticking of the clock on your wall.

-

Today, you feel tired. Your eyes itch as soon as you step out of the lift. You must not have slept well last night and you grit your teeth at the spike of annoyance that you feel as you must deal with the consequences of that.

The bright overhead lighting digs into your retinas until they burn. You yawn enough to make your eyes water, coding in front of you blurring and becoming nonsensical. You blink, and imagine that you have slept before you open them again. An addictive thought that makes you you blink more than usual just to chase the feeling.

One of your coworkers leaves a mug of coffee on your desk for you, and then pats you on the shoulder when you almost cry when you thank them.

You’re sitting in the breakroom, laughing at something someone has said when Mr Price arrives and you’re beckoned away.

The room goes silent, and you leave your mug of coffee to get cold as you follow him out of the room.

“How are you today?” Mr Price asks in the hallway, walking beside you for once. It startles you, your hands flitting nervously before you settle them down. His head is tilted down toward you, eyes still as he waits.

“Fine, sir,” you say, wilting when he raises an eyebrow. You turn your head back to your shoes, the slow steps as they sink into the thin carpet. “A little tired, but nothing that some caffeine won’t help.” A weak laugh that he only hums in return at.

He steps into his office and you close the door behind you. He settles into his chair, his arm against his desk and he rests his temple against his fist. You feel more watched by him than when anyone else looks at you, as if he was seeing more than anyone else does. Standing, fully clothed, his gaze alone strips you naked and vulnerable.

You shuffle uncertainly and you see his pupil flex. “Do you have somewhere to be?” he asks, lifting his head to fold his arms and regard you straight on.

“No, sir - unless you mean me to be,” you reply, all in one breath. You hate yourself for being so appeasing but you see the breath that gusts out of him, his eyes briefly closing. A horrible thrill in you at the sight - you are good at pleasing him even as it makes you sick. Perhaps because it makes you feel sick - you’ve never felt a desire that hasn’t also made you feel warped and distorted.

He opens them again, and you’re caught in his line of sight again. “Come here,” he says and you step toward him, lightly stepping around his desk.

He swivels his chair, his legs spread as he looks up at you. There’s a bulge between his legs, caught in the fine line of his trousers, but you don’t look down at it. He sits up and grasps your hips, tugging you forward to stand between his thighs. Even sitting, he feels so much bigger than you, ridiculously broad in his leather chair.

Your hands catch yourself on his shoulders before you pull them back with a quick apology. He doesn’t acknowledge it, staring at his hands as he rounds the curve of your hips. You can hear the rustle of fabric as he smoothes his hands up from your hips, to your waist and up to the curve of your breasts.

He slides them back down, looking up at you. “Take your shirt off,” he tells you, and your hands are instinctive, immediately coming up to unbutton your blouse and tug it off of your shoulders.

You place it on his desk and he groans at the sight of your bra. You look down and you can see it, a dark green to match your shirt, lacy with a jewel in the middle.

He slides his hands back up, rough against your bare skin and you shiver. He cups your tits in his hands. A terrible image - your delicate bra and his hairy hand, and the mean way that he squeezes until you squeak.

He tugs one of the cups down so he can swirl his thumb around your nipple. You squeeze your thighs together, hands flexing as you resist the urge to catch his wrist.

“You’re killing me,” he murmurs, and you’re not certain that he’s speaking to you. You tremble, uncertain if you should say anything.

He leans forward and sucks your nipple into his mouth and you squeak, clenching your fists hard to prevent any further sound. The warm circle of his mouth, the heat of his tongue. You think of your own mouth, soft and wet when he requests it. This is hard, the bristles of his beard scratching your breast and leaving you feeling prickled and raised.

He pulls back and thumbs over where he has left your nipple wet in the cold air. You stay quiet, even when he gives you a parting pinch that makes you exhale sharply. “That will be all,” he says, leaning back in his seat.

You fix your bra and pull your shirt back in and leave, hot in the face and humiliated.

You force yourself to focus for the rest of the day, even though you can feel his attention on you, as physical as a hand around the back of your neck. You turn around to check but there are only white walls and green carpet, clean cut and separate.

-

You don’t know how Mr Price feels about you. You suspect that he must hate you, his face fierce at times when he’s above you.

Then there are times like now, with your hands wrapped gently in gauze with his hands, his head lowered as he tightens the end and tucks it away.

There are medics on this floor, you remember when someone twisted their ankle and they appeared. As if they had been pulled out of the wall, uniform given flesh, sprung into action.

When you cut your hand on the edge of the printer - a loose piece of plastic that had jutted out of the side and sharpened into a point - no one had been allowed to make the call for a medic.

Mr Price brought you to his office, and you sat in the chairs across from his desk. He sat on one himself, something that you’ve never seen before. He’s still bigger than you, but less formidable than he is behind his desk.

“I don’t need to bother you, I can get a medic,” you say now, and quieten down when he turns his hot gaze to you.

Satisfied that you’re silent again, he lowers his head back down to your hand. “You should be more careful,” he tells you, voice low with an order. You swallow and nod. He doesn’t smile, his face still severe as he looks back down at your hand.

He smooths his fingers over the bandage, making sure it’s firm and won’t slip. You watch the side of his face. The harsh line of his nose, the bristle of his moustache, the soft sweep of his eyelashes - perhaps the only soft thing about him.

You’re not allowed to touch him as he hasn’t requested you to, so you reach up and smooth a finger over your own eyelashes. They’re coated in mascara, but they’re just as delicate.

“Be more careful, otherwise I’ll write you up for recklessness,” he tells you, pulling his hand back and taking the warmth with him.

“Yes, sir,” you murmur and he regards you for a moment, dark eyes squinting before he dismisses you with a nod.

You stand up and walk back to your office on shaky legs.

A couple of your coworkers fuss over you before you reassure them and you all sit back down and get back to work.

There’s mascara staining your fingers, but you rub your fingers together and rub it away. Thinned out until it’s gone, like it never happened.

-

The next day, the bandage is gone. The only proof of the incident is an angry red line across the side of your palm.

Mr Price has you come into his office and he inspects the cut himself. It’s not even sore anymore, but he makes you tuck your hands behind your back while you sit under his desk. Your wrists flex when he slides his cock into your mouth, but you keep still and let him slide all the way back into your throat.

He cups his hand around the back of your head so you don’t pull back and catch it against his desk. But mostly so he can push you down further, eyes watery when he asks you to look up at him.

He comes with a mean throb, but he’s kind enough to let you catch your breath with your head leaning against his thigh, his prick against your cheek, wet with spit.

Your hands are numb when you stand up, but you keep them curled into your chest, hidden from sight. There’s no wound for him to poke and prod at, but you feel the harsh line of it anyway, worse now than when you first stepped into his office.

His eyes glint with knowing but he blinks and they’re flat again before he dismisses you.

You turn and leave, head to the bathroom and stare at yourself in the mirror. You look placid, polite. You wonder if you’ve ever been comforted when you cry in your other life. You want to smash the mirror up and carve words into your skin. Something crude, unlike you, if you know who you are.

You can imagine it, the same bleeding cut that you already have, but again and again until it spells out a message for yourself. GET ME THE FUCK OUT OF HERE.

Your fingers twitch with the itch to write it, your skin is so smooth and perfect. You could rip it open, expose the red rot beneath it.

You smile instead and you look like someone else - insipid, sweet, ditzy.

You go back to your desk and your nails are sharp as they click on the keyboard. No one says anything but no one meets your eye either. Your reflection in the rounded computer screen, half covered in code. Your eyes are red and your lips are stretched, teeth wet and sharp. Someone new.

-

You step into the elevator only to step out of it. There’s something in your pocket but you don’t check, because there has never been anything in your pocket.

Mr Price greets you at the doors when they open and you make yourself smile at him.

You walk along behind him, the straight line and then the turn into his office.

Mr Price opens the door and you file in behind him, head lowered. The door closes with a click.

[silverlullabies]

Always The Last

Or, Simon “Mr-Steal-Your-Girl” Riley; Simon “if you won’t take care of your girl, I’ll do it myself” Riley

Part One | Part Two

Ghost knows it’s you the second he sees you.

He isn’t looking for you. He’s never allowed himself that. He’s doing what he always does in public: sitting back from the table, spine to a solid surface, letting the others make the noise while he watches the room. Exits. Hands. Posture. Glassware. The usual.

Then the door opens and something in him goes very, very still.

You step in out of the streetlight, head ducking automatically, like you’re apologizing for existing.

He knows it’s you the way a sentence knows its missing word. Knows you before his brain catches up to catalog the evidence: the tilt of your head, the careful way you hold yourself at the edges of spaces, the specific quality of your stillness that he’s constructed from stolen glances at texts and the shape of Price’s voice when he says she.

There’s no doubt in him. You match the dossier in his head too perfectly.

You’re not the exuberant weather system sitting a few seats down from him. You don’t move like you own the air. You move like you’re grateful the air lets you pass through.

Big, careful eyes. Thumbs hooked nervous in the strap of your bag. The way you hover just inside the threshold for half a breath, like you’re giving the world a chance to tell you that you’ve misread the room before you commit.

Yeah. It’s you.

You’re smaller than he imagined. Or maybe the world is just larger around you, the way it gets around people who’ve learned to make themselves fit in the margins. You’re wearing something simple: a coat that’s seen a few winters, boots with salt stains at the ankles. There’s nothing remarkable about you in the way the woman beside Price is remarkable, no shine or weight to pull the room’s attention.

But still, Simon can’t look away.

Your face does something that stops his heart. It opens. That’s the only word for it. You step inside and your expression unfolds, and the love that moves across your features is so naked, so undefended, that he feels it land in his chest like a bullet he didn’t know was coming.

You’re looking at Price. You’re happy. 

The dog in his ribs whimpers, tucks its tail between its legs.

You take another step, already smiling, mouth shaping around a word that hasn’t arrived yet, and then your eyes track past Price’s shoulder to the woman tucked against him. To the proprietary ease of her posture. To the hand she’s resting on his forearm like it belongs there.

Laswell is talking, her voice cutting through the noise, ”…how did Price propose then? Go on, tell us…”

Ghost’s jaw locks. He knows what’s coming before it lands. He can see the trajectory, the inevitability of it, the way something thrown, arcs before it drops.

The woman beside Price, his fiancée- Jesus Christ- lifts her hand again and the ring catches the light. “He did it in the garden,” she says, laughing. “With this ridiculous bouquet- ”

The change is immediate. Seismic.

Your face doesn’t crumble. It empties. All that light, that unguarded joy, just…drains. Like watching a glass tip and spill in slow motion, inevitable and obscene. Your eyebrows pull together, confusion first, then something sharper. Your lips part but nothing comes out.

He watches you see the ring and you go so still he could mark the exact second your nervous system shuts down everything that isn’t critical.

Freeze response. Textbook.

Your head shakes. Just once. A tiny movement, barely there, the kind of denial that happens below conscious thought. No. This isn’t real. I’m seeing it wrong.

But you’re not.

The table erupts in warm, affectionate chaos. Someone claps. Someone else catcalls. Price ducks his head with that sheepish grin he gets, the one that says aw shucks while his ego preens.

Ghost doesn’t move. Can’t. His body has turned to stone.

Because he’s watching you die standing up.

Your hand comes up to your chest, slow, uncertain, like you’re checking for a wound you can’t quite feel yet. Your mouth shapes a word he can’t hear. Could be no. Could be please. Could be nothing at all, just your body trying to make sound while your brain goes to static.

You’re shaking your head again, sharper now, faster, and he knows that gesture too. He’s seen it in mirrors at night when sleep won’t come and the past gets loud. This can’t be happening. I’m wrong. I misunderstood.

But you didn’t.

He sees the exact moment it locks into place. When the confusion hardens into certainty and the certainty detonates. Your shoulders curl inward like you’ve taken a hit. Your breath catches, he sees it in the hitch of your chest, the way your lips press bloodless.

Your eyes sweep the table one more time. Desperate. Searching for an exit that doesn’t exist, some explanation that will reorganize the world back into something that makes sense.

There isn’t one.

Price is laughing. He’s laughing, hand on his fiancée’s knee, looking every inch a man who’s chosen well and knows it. He doesn’t see you. Doesn’t feel the weight of your gaze, the freight of your devastation landing on him like ash.

He has no idea you’re there.

The dog in Ghost’s chest bares its teeth. His hands curl into fists beneath the table, slow and deliberate, nails biting into his palms to keep the rest of him locked down. The want to move, to stand, to cross the room, to step between you and this, is so violent it tastes sour.

But he doesn’t. Can’t. Not here. Not now. Not without a plan.

You step backward. It’s not a decision, just a body trying to escape a trap. The bell jingles again, thinner this time, and you’re gone.

Just like that.

The door swings shut and you’re erased. The table doesn’t notice. Price doesn’t notice. The noise swells back into the gap you left, laughter and clinking glasses and someone ordering another round, and the world continues like you were never there at all.

Ghost stares at the door. His pulse is a hammer. His breathing is too controlled, the kind of controlled that comes before violence, and he has to force his hands to unclench one finger at a time.

He thinks about you walking out into the cold with your chest caved in and no one to catch you. He thinks about the text you probably sent hours ago- have a good night, be safe- still sitting in Price’s phone, unread or ignored. He thinks about you going home to an empty flat that still smells like him, still has his coffee mug in the sink, still holds the shape of a life you thought you were building.

He thinks about the way you looked at Price before you saw the ring. Like he was the sun and you’d been cold your whole life.

The woman beside Price leans in, pressing a kiss to his jaw, and Ghost has to look away before the leash snaps.

“You alright, mate?” Soap’s voice, closer than expected.

Ghost blinks. Turns his head a fraction. His face is a mask. Always is. “Fine.”

Soap’s eyes narrow, because Soap is a pain in the arse who notices things, but he doesn’t push. Just claps Ghost on the shoulder and turns back to the conversation.

Ghost doesn’t hear another word.

He’s already making lists. Cataloging. Planning.

He waits exactly forty seven seconds after you vanish into the night. Enough time for the door to stop swinging, for the laughter inside to swallow your absence whole, for his own pulse to settle into a low drum.

“Smoke,” he says to the table, the word a flat stone dropped into the river of noise. It’s not a request. His chair scrapes back, a sound like a bone resetting.

Soap glances up, eyes sharp, but Ghost is already turning, a wall of shadow detaching itself from the light. He doesn’t look at Price. Doesn’t dare. The image of your emptying face is branded behind his eyelids, and if he looks at the man now, the leash will snap. He pushes through the door, and the cold air slaps him.

He spots you immediately, halfway down the block, a small, hunched silhouette moving like a leaf caught in a drain’s current. Not running. Drifting. Defeated already.

He follows. Not close. He keeps a buffer of shadow and pavement between you, a man who knows how to tail a mark without becoming a presence. Your hand is pressed to your sternum, as if holding your heart in place. He matches his stride to the limp rhythm of yours, a silent, stalking guardian.

You find the bus shelter. A cage of damp metal and streaked glass. You sink onto the bench, folding in on yourself, and he watches from the mouth of an alley, a statue in a bomber jacket. You don’t cry. You just sit, staring at nothing, while the city peels its glowing advertisements around you. You look like the ghost of your own life.

The dog in his ribs whines, pressing against the cage of bone.

He moves then, not toward you directly, but at an angle, as if his destination just happens to be the same slice of wet pavement. His boots are quiet on the concrete. 

He stops a polite ten feet away, leaning against the shelter’s side, his broad back to the brick. He doesn’t look at you. He digs into his pocket, pulls out a crumpled pack, taps one free.

The scratch of the lighter is loud in the damp quiet. The first drag burns, sharp and familiar. He exhales a plume of smoke that the wind carries away instantly.

Only then does he turn his head, just enough to see you in his periphery. You’re watching the coal of his cigarette, a tiny, dying star in the gloom.

“Rough night?” he asks, his voice a low rasp, sandpaper over gravel. It’s not really a question.

You flinch, just a little, as if remembering you’re not alone in the universe. You look at him, your eyes huge and liquid in the reflected streetlight. You don’t answer.

He taps another cigarette from the pack, holds it out between two fingers. An offering. A bridge. “Looks like y’need it more than I do.”

A beat of hesitation. Then your hand, pale and trembling slightly, reaches out. Your fingers brush his as you take it. Cold skin. A static shock jumping the gap.

He leans in with the lighter, cupping the flame against the wind. In its sudden, intimate glow, he sees everything: the salt tracks you haven’t wiped, the bruised look under your eyes, the way your lips are bitten raw.

You inhale, cough a little, then settle. The smoke leaves your mouth in a shaky sigh. “Thanks.”

He grunts, shifts his weight, goes back to looking at the street. “Man trouble,” he states. Another non question.

A wet, humorless sound escapes you. It’s almost a laugh. “Something like that.” You take another drag, your voice softening to a whisper the wind almost steals. “Found out my boyfriend is engaged. To someone else. Tonight. In there.” You jerk your chin back toward the pub, a world away.

He lets the silence sit. Lets the words curdle in the air between you. You stare at the glowing end of your cigarette. “It’s like… you know when you’re a kid, and you’re always the last one picked? For everything? You think, maybe as an adult, it’ll be different. That someone will finally… choose you.” Your voice cracks on the last word. “Turns out, you can be chosen for the team and still not be on the roster.”

The metaphor is perfect. It lands in his chest. 

He thinks of the dossier in his mind, the quiet life you’ve built, the way Price talked about you like a precious, secret thing. A thing he kept in a drawer.

“What are you gonna do about it?” Ghost asks. His tone is neutral, like he’s asking for the time.

You laugh again, a hollow, broken sound. “Nothing. I’m not… I’m a coward. I’ll probably just… go home. Delete his number. Try to forget how stupid I was.” You say it like you’re reciting a punishment you deserve.

The dog snarls. Coward. He shoves it down, muzzles it. The word doesn’t fit you. What he saw in your face wasn’t cowardice. It was annihilation.

“Could do nothing,” he muses, taking a slow drag. “Clean. Easy. Lets him win.”

You look at him, curious now through the pain.

“Could also key his car,” he continues, voice still that low, casual rumble. “Sugar in the gas tank. Classic. Practical. A nuisance.”

A startled, wet sniff from you. Not quite a laugh, but close.

“Could tell his fiancé,” he offers, watching a taxi splash through a puddle. “Post the evidence online. Burn both his worlds down in the same match.” He says it with no malice, just the calm assessment of a strategist.

“That’s… violent,” you whisper.

“Is it?” He finally turns his head fully to look at you. In the half light, his eyes are dark pits, but his expression is oddly still. “He made a promise to her. He made a home with you. He’s living in the lie. You’d just be turning on the lights.”

You hold his gaze for a long moment, then look away, shaking your head. “I couldn’t.”

He shrugs, a massive, slow movement. “Then there’s the fun option.”

“Fun?”

“Send him a wedding gift. From the two of you. Something tasteful, but personal. A set of knives with your initials engraved. A photo album of your best moments. Let him explain that to her on the morning of.” He says it so deadpan, so utterly serious, that it takes you a second.

Then you make a sound, a choked, surprised giggle that bubbles up through the tears and the hurt. It’s raw and real and it hooks something deep in his gut, yanking hard. The dog in his ribs doesn’t just sit up; it rolls over, exposes its belly. The feeling is terrifying and warm.

“You’re terrible,” you say, but you’re smiling, just a little. A fragile, broken thing, but a smile.

“I’ve been told,” he murmurs, and the corner of his own mouth- usually a grim, flat line- ticks upward for a millisecond. A rare event.

You finish your cigarette, stubbing it out on the wet metal bench. “I should… go. Try to walk this off.” You stand, unsteady.

He nods, straightening from the wall. “Keep the pack.” He holds out the crumpled box. “Might need another.”

You hesitate, then take it. Your fingers don’t brush this time. “Thank you. For the smoke. And the… talk. And the terrible, terrible ideas.”

“Any time.” The words are gravel in his mouth. He means them more than you can know.

You offer one last, wan smile, then turn, shoving the cigarette pack into your coat pocket. He watches you walk away, your shoulders a little less hunched, your steps a little more certain. You don’t look back.

He stays until you turn the corner and are swallowed by the night; only then does he pull out his phone. The screen illuminates his impassive face. A simple mapping app opens. A single, pulsing red dot appears, moving slowly away from him. South. Toward the river- your aunt’s house, he’ll later find out.

He’d palmed the wafer thin tracker while lighting your cigarette, slipping it into the cellophane of the pack with a sleight of hand born of a thousand darker operations. It’s not about trust. It’s about logistics, about needing to know where you are, filling in the empty blanks in the dossier in his mind, starting out with where you live and what your name is. 

It’s a plan beginning to breathe.

He drops his own cigarette, grinds it under his heel, and melts back into the shadows from which he came. The pub, Price, the laughter- it’s all background noise now. His focus is on the glowing dot, on the woman carrying his silence in her pocket, walking home to a ruin that is no longer hers alone.

***

The information comes to him in clean, orderly packets, filed away in the silent vault of his mind. He learned your street, your flat number, the fact your window faced a brick wall but you kept a pot of resilient herbs on the sill anyway. He learned your name- something that made the dog in his ribs wag its tail when he imagined attaching the name Riley to it. He learned your work schedule, the grocery store you preferred, the route you took on evening walks when the silence in the flat grew too thick to breathe.

Every new detail was a treasure offered to the dog in his ribs. You hum when you cooks. Tail thump. You rereads the same fantasy novels when you’re sad. A happy whine. You still haven't changed the locks. A low, protective growl that vibrated through his sternum. The dossier grew, rich and textured, a map of a life built in quiet corners. The lead in his chest grew taut, a constant, physical pull in your direction.

For six weeks, he maintained the perimeter. He was a shadow in a parked car three streets over, a silhouette in a opposite building’s window at dawn, a presence felt but never seen. He watched you move through the world with that careful, apologetic grace, your loneliness a scent he could now trace on the wind. The dog paced, impatient, nails clicking against the bone of his resolve. Close enough to watch, but not to touch. 

The rule was beginning to chafe.

The break came on a Tuesday, damp and grey. The dog tugged, hard and insistent, a final, definitive yank on the leash. Enough.

He planned it like a mission: minimal variables, clear objective. The cafe you visited every Tuesday after your therapy appointment (he knew about that, too). He arrived first, chose a table with a clear view of the door and a solid wall at his back. He held a newspaper he didn’t read, a prop in a play with an audience of one.

His stomach flipped with nerves when you entered, shaking rain from your hair, that same slight hesitation at the threshold. Your eyes scanned the room, passed over him, then snapped back, and his heart ricocheted off his rib cage. A flicker of recognition, then confusion. The man from the bus shelter. The one with the terrible ideas and the quiet voice.

He let a moment pass, then looked up as if sensing a gaze. He gave a small, neutral nod- I see you, but I won’t intrude- and returned to his paper. The choice was yours, even if his throat suddenly felt dry and his palms sweaty.

He felt the moment you decided. A soft inhale, then the shuffle of your boots on the tile. You appeared at the edge of his table, holding your mug like a shield.

“Hi,” you said, your voice a little rusty from disuse. “Um. From the… the rainy night.”

He lowered the paper slowly. “Right.” He gestured to the empty chair opposite him with his chin. “Join me. If you like.”

You did, lowering yourself into the seat as if it might collapse, and something loosened under his skin. A few minutes of brittle silence passed, filled by the hiss of the espresso machine and the murmur of other lives.

“So,” he began, stirring his black coffee with a deliberate slowness so you wouldn’t see the way his fingers trembled. “Did you ever key the car?”

The question was so blunt, so devoid of social preamble, that it startled a genuine laugh from you. It was a better sound than he’d imagined. Clearer. “No. No keying.”

“Sugar?”

“No sugar.”

“Photo album?”

You shook your head, a real smile touching your lips. “I’m afraid I went with the coward’s option. Nothing. Radio silence.” You looked into your tea. “Deleted everything. Pretended he was a ghost.”

He’s the ghost, Ghost thought, the irony a bitter pill. I’m the one who’s real. “Clean break,” he said instead. “Sensible.”

“It feels less sensible and more… pathetic.” You sighed, wrapping your hands around the warm mug. “I just couldn’t face it. The drama. The confrontation. Seeing him… with her.” You glanced up at him, your big, careful eyes searching his. “Does that make me weak?”

“No.” The answer was immediate, absolute. “It makes you someone who’s had to swallow too many broken things already. Your throat gets sore.” He’d meant to say something less revealing, but the truth slipped out, sandpapered raw.

You stared at him, and for a terrifying second, he thought he’d shown too much of the dog’s teeth. But then your shoulders relaxed, just a fraction. As if he’d named a pain you thought was yours alone.

He steered the conversation then, with the subtle skill of a man used to directing focus away from himself. He asked about your job, the parts you liked. He asked about your hobbies. He asked what you were reading.

And you, trained by a lifetime of being the listener, kept trying to hand the spotlight back. “What about you? What do you do?” you’d ask.

“Contract work. Boring,” he’d deflect. “Tell me about the book. The dog in the story- is it loyal?”

“You travel a lot?” you’d probe later.

“Here and there. You said you walk by the river… is it better in the morning or at night?”

He was a wall, gently but firmly reflecting every question back to you. It was a novel experience. You’d start a sentence, pause, expecting to be interrupted, to be tuned out. He’d just wait, his gaze steady and patient, until you found the words again. He watched you slowly unfold, like one of the flowers he’d seen you buy from a market vendor (he knew about that, too). Tentative, colorful, surprising yourself.

You talked about your fear of large parties, your secret love for terrible baking shows, the way you wanted to learn how to fix a dripping tap but didn’t know where to start. Ordinary things. Sacred things. The dog in his chest was lying on its back, paws in the air, utterly disarmed.

The cafe emptied and refilled around you. The light through the window shifted from grey to a pale, watery gold. You were mid-sentence, explaining why you preferred pencils to pens, when you glanced at the clock on the wall and gasped.

“Oh my god. It’s been three hours.” You looked at him, mortified. “I’ve been talking for three hours. I’m so sorry.”

“Don’t be.” He meant it. They were the three most peaceful hours of his life. A silent, sun dappled clearing in the middle of a war zone. “I wasn’t keeping track.”

“I should… I should let you go.” You began gathering your things, flustered.

He saw the opening, a door about to swing shut. The dog whimpered. Now.

“Before you do,” he said, his voice deliberately even, unconcerned. “Might be good to have a number. In case you ever decide to pursue one of those terrible ideas. Or… need a second opinion on a dripping tap.”

You froze, your hands on your scarf. You looked at him- really looked- searching for the angle, the hunter’s glint you were so accustomed to. You found only steady, calm patience. A wall, yes, but one you could lean against.

A slow, shy smile bloomed on your face. It was the most beautiful weapon he’d ever been struck by. “Okay,” you said softly.

He handed you his phone and watched you type in your number. Your name appeared on the screen, that soft beautiful name, now in his official possession. The leash in his chest went slack with a profound, almost painful relief.

He saved it, then sent a quick, generic text to your phone so you’d have his. Your pocket buzzed. The connection was made. A live wire, humming between you.

“I should…” you said again, standing.

He stood with you, a courtesy that made you blink. “Take care of yourself,” he said.

“You too. And… thank you. For the company.”

He nodded, watching you walk out into the fading afternoon light. You didn’t hunch your shoulders. You didn’t look at the ground. You held your head a little higher.

He sat back down, alone at the table, and allowed himself one deep, shuddering breath. In the quiet of his ribs, the dog was ecstatic, spinning in happy, frantic circles. He placed a mental hand on its head, not to chastise, but to soothe.

Easy, he thought, a silent command to the wild joy within him. Patience. We have her number now. We have time.

Don’t scare her off.

[toadstreetltd]

medieval blacksmith!simon. many thoughts.

watching you kiss the sword of your lord husband before he struts off to shout orders from the back lines of whatever battle he’s spurred on that day. a gesture of good luck on the blood gutter simon forged to match the exact curve of your lips. a little dove with her mouth on the cold metal he made.

watching you grow more sad and frightened the longer time goes on without that lord of yours putting a baby in you. it’s not your fault he’s a weakling. simon’d get the job done. easiest thing in the world to stuff a dove full and wait for it to take. if the matter were in simon’s hands, you’d be on your third by now.

so, he does take it into his own hands. for your sake, of course. too long without an heir and people start to whisper. he sneaks into your chambers when your lord is off mongering and tells you he can give you what you want. and you play the shy and wide-eyed lady, but you’re not so demure once you’re bouncing on his cock. nails digging into the meat of his shoulders. begging for more, begging to be bred.

your stupid lord comes home to you barefoot and glowing, none the wiser that that’s simon’s pup inside you. he made sure of it. many times. and he can’t wait to do it again.

because how does the saying go? an heir and a spare.

and maybe a few more for good measure.

[rawme-price]

Thinking about how price treats his younger partner during valentines...

You're a young, flighty thing. Halfway to an impressive degree, though you love price, he knows the prospect of marriage makes you tense up. He's old, and definitely old-school in some respects. Price imagines he'll have to wait a few years to get that wedding night with you.

But when valentines rolls around, price decides it would be a perfect day for a little honeymoon recital.

"C'mon, lovie, it'll look stunnin' on you." Coos into your neck, holding white lace underwear against your pelvis as you stand in the mirror. You smile at the fact it's soft, of course john skipped all the usual lingerie stores because their lace was itchy. "It's silk, had it custom made for you."

It's that same white lace that sits under your clothes all throughout dinner. John's hand rests heavy on your thigh the entire night. The food is amazing, but all price can think about is that pretty white lace.

Like a preview into your wedding night, john lays you out in his bed, hands petting over the lace like a beast pawing at food. Seeing you wrapped in such delicacy has his cock aching in his briefs. "So pretty for me, dove. So sweet and pliant for yer old man, hm?"

Price takes his time with you, pretending it really is your wedding night.

He kisses you until you're gasping, thighs rubbing together. Until you're wrapping a calf around his torso and whining "please john?"

Even then, he takes a moment to admire how nice his tip looks leaking pre all over your white lace. His cock tapping it with a kiss of that translucent liquid each time he twitches. "Fuck– gonna make you feel good, yeah? Show you what all these years of experience mean–"

God, does he. Price fucks you intense and hot with desire, driven by that pretty white lace. With his cock splitting you open, chest hair slick with sweat, he gasps "ahh–! Call me husband, sweetie, please– call me–"

It's embarrassing, and you feel a bit silly pretending to be married to your boyfriend, but any hesitation is quickly forgotten when he begins to mouth at your neck. "Mm! John! John, my husband, yeah? Fuck, right there– my beloved husband–"

With a sound you've never heard from him, price spills into you, pulling out hallway to cover the lace he pulled aside.

Fuck...if this is what a simply lace does to him, you shudder to think what your actual wedding will be like.

[sugarroott]

Birdie on Board - part 3 - yes - wrd 2.3k Series Master List - please see ML for warnings - part 2

They’d been on the water for two weeks straight and wherever he had taken them, it was cold. Not a normal cold. Not the average temperature that sends a chill down your spine with the passing breeze. It was seeing your breath with each exhale cold. It was brain numbing, blood slowing, freezing cold. Triple layered socks she stole from his belongings and she still couldn’t feel her toes. Even after surrounding herself with all the coverings he had, her body was vibrating. So she knocked. On the tips of her toes, wobbling on his desk chair, stretched as far as she could to get two good knocks in before nearly losing her balance. She rushed right back into the bed trying to retain as much heat as she could but frail figures aren’t designed to stay warm. She heard his boots first. Harsh thuds above her, the echo of him approaching helped her anticipate exactly when that door would fling open. 

“Hi,” she squeaked, peeking out from the furs just enough to see him. They’d seen each other, but Captain Price had been busy up above. Most of their interactions had been quietly in passing when he’d come for a fresh set of clothes, when he’d bring her the hot slop they dared to call dinner, or after hours when his crew had hid themselves away for the night. Always exchanging a few moments of conversation that ended with a smile or a chuckle. Never anything more than what she was willing to give. Every interaction was easy, natural. The unlikely pair had settled into their own little world of mutual respect. His eyes softened instantly, looking at the ruby red lips that were now a corpse shade of blue. All the life drained out of her in a matter of hours as the night came to. 

“Christ,” he muttered, eyes searching for a way to help. Always helping, she noticed. Her, his crew, anything anyone needed the captain would manage. The little bird also made a mental note, he had no one to take care of him. She hadn’t seen him take a single break since she’s been on board. He made time to check in, but he never came in to rest. 

“I need you,” she said, teeth chattering and tapping the space she created just for him. 

“I reek of fish and piss love you don’t want-”

“Yes I do.” She forced a smile as she sat up but the cold rippled through her when her robe slipped open just a bit. The harsh air stealing what little warmth she had left. She slumped back down immediately, pulling her coverings tighter, eyes peeking out just above the mix of silk and fur. “Please lay with me.” The fabric muffled her request but all he really needed to hear was the please. 

He toed himself out of his boots, biting off his gloves, stripping himself down of his first layer of heavy fabric before turning. His hands rested on his belt, eyebrow raised to offer the silent question. How comfortable had his little bird become? She nodded, watching him slowly peeling out of yesterday’s clothes. Each layer stripped seemed to relax him a bit more. A deep sigh in between like he welcomed the cold to soothe his aches. All the way down to his britches and her heart stopped. They hadn’t made it this far. She hadn’t seen the years of work scarred into his skin. The ragged edges of cuts that never healed quite right, the contorted flesh from burns. Her eyes trailed everything. The taut muscle and broad shoulders, strength held tight in every part of the burly man she had come to adore. His beard a scruffy mess from the wind, small shards of ice still dangling from his eyelashes. Admiring him like he was a work of art and opening the blanket for him to slip in with ease. The heat was instant. The comfort of him, even if he did stink, seeped into her skin and already had her mind focused on something other than her freezing cold toes. 

“I’ll get you something decent when we get to port,” he said with his hands trailing the hem of the very same robe he’d stolen her in. He’d offered her anything from his wardrobe but he didn’t have much and he was the one working. So she kept herself in satin and sheets. “Then you can come up, wander about.” 

“I can go up there?” 

“Of course love, I could teach you to sail if you’d like.” 

Her eyes went wide but so did her smile, curiosity shifting her in closer by an inch. She knew she wasn’t a prisoner. Prisoners aren’t usually waited on hand and foot. Escorted to the bathroom late at night so no one else would see her. Offered different books to keep her busy and sips of sweet red wine as she pleased. Princess treatment some might say, but the rules were unclear. Where she could go, what she could do, what he was getting out of this arrangement of quiet comfort and company.

“When we dock…” She trailed off, a bit too embarrassed to ask. She could hardly think about him returning to a different place of women and pleasure, let alone speak it. “Would you, will you be, are you going to go-” 

“I have everything I need right here.” He hushed, slipping a warm hand over her hip. It wasn’t intentional but her fabric split open just a bit. She’d gotten careless with her ties the more comfortable she got, letting it settle on herself naturally instead. The rough callouses of his palm caught on the satin and her skin peeked right out at him. He didn’t need to touch her, not really, not unless she wanted him to. This was it for him. Softness that is far from what he did but certainly what he craved. She was everything and then some. Gentle, loving, interested in both who he is and what he does. A willingness to touch, be close, and an underlying need that matched his burning desire for more. 

“I want you to know me,” she whispered, taking a deep breath of courage as she shifted closer to him and further out of her robe. It wasn’t exactly an invitation, but it was the only thing his flighty little bird knew. His eyes caught her breasts first. Perfect and perky, pebbled nipples hard enough to cut diamonds, the cold coating her skin in a blanket of goosebumps that made his hands move. Caressing her skin to do his job and make all that cold go away. She hummed, the sensation tickled to her core and her body rolled naturally into him. Hands that were worn and warm, so gentle, careful. Always so careful with his flighty little bird. “I would just like to know that you’ll only know me, as I would only know you.” Her hand found his cheek, ghosting her thumb across the ice shards, brushing down on his beard, doing what she could to sort him back out. Her eyes wandered up. Locking onto the settled sea resting in his irises. Calmness, sureness, strength, all of it took over him and he spoke. 

“Marry me.” No question, no grand proposal, just two words of promised absolution. A tightening grip to her hip that pulled his little bird that much closer. She didn’t know how to be so close. Where to put her hands, her freezing cold feet, her body exposed and bare brushing against his skin that felt like fire on ice. He helped with that. Guiding her hand to rest against the wild hairs on his chest. Gently pulling her knee until her leg draped comfortably over him. Adjusting himself just enough to tuck her under his arm and snake it around to hug her tight. Her heart rate slowed with each breath, her mind relaxing into the steady beat thumping against her cheek. 

“Yes.” She leaned up just enough to place a gentle kiss to his sternum. His grip fell like he couldn’t quite believe it just before squeezing tighter than he ever had before.

She learned a lot about him that night. Mainly that he missed his bed far more than he let on. He was out like a light in less than a breath, snoring like a grizzly bear entering hibernation. He talked too, mumbles that were mostly incoherent, but she found it endearing. His body was without a doubt built to cuddle. His hands remained decent, but his grip never once eased throughout the night. 

He didn’t move an inch, but she did. Claiming his warmth as her own and drifting closer and closer. Her soft skin that reeked of him cuddled over top of him like a second blanket. He woke to the sound of seagulls culling out the port hole, a single ray of golden light slowly creeping up the blankets that hid her from the waking world. He didn’t want it to end, but the sounds above were causing her to stir. Arms tightening around his neck with her yawn, nose nuzzling at his pulse point where her lips placed a kiss. Her weight fell right back into him when her mind registered he was still there, the release of her deep breath came with her returning to sleep. Lips parted just barley, eyes rolling back under her eyelids, head drifting off his shoulder as she resettled. He couldn't fathom how she was so relaxed. Skin to skin like this was something they did every night. No care for the scent of fish guts that clung to him, unphased by the rough pads on his hands, his snoring, the tickle of his beard ghosting across her face when he snuggled in to return a kiss to her temple. She felt it, hummed her good morning, and yet again inhaled all of the ickiness he offered like it was her favorite perfume.

“Sounds like the boys have us tied off,” he grumbled, making sense of the dysfunction they were hearing up above. 

“I’m nervous to meet them,” she muttered, slipping off to his side. He released his grip, arms open to let her go but she resettled once she had a clear view of his face. “They yell an awful lot up there.” Her eyes flicked up and he chuckled. A sound that rumbled like thunder and her face went pink. His body rolled closer, his nose found hers and nuzzled against it with his nod in agreement. She leaned in, naturally, searching, but the sweet old man pulled back before her lips could get any closer. 

“I need to get up there or they’ll be yelling in here.” He didn’t hesitate, not a single second wasted she noticed. He had to fight to control his face when he saw frustration take over hers. The longest break she’d seen him take was the one he’d taken last night. A forced rest that seemed to do him well too. He had pep in his step, yanking up his dirty pants before she’d even pulled herself up from the warm indent of his body she’d been living in. She kept searching for the reason for his rush but he never seemed to have one. He just moved, constantly. Steps above, steps below, unable to settle with her for more than a few minutes at a time. 

“Thank you for staying with me," she said quietly, slipping back into the pink fabric that went discarded throughout the night. A twinge of something in her tone that made him turn back. 

“Think you could get used to it?” He slugged on his coat, eyebrow raised, waiting for the second guessing. No second guessing, not a chance. She nodded, a smile that spread wider with each glance he gave her in favor of the buttons he was making sense of. “Good,” he huffed, opening the door to a sharp breeze. 

“Wait!” She said, tying her robe at her hips, rushing the door before he could shut it behind him. 

“Could you…could we…I was hoping maybe-”

“Spit it out love.” 

“I’d like it if you kissed me goodbye,” she sighed, eyes down, unsure why he didn’t just do it himself. She’d given him every chance before she’d agreed to be his wife, he took none of them. He kept distance, mindful of her space, too mindful. 

He sucked his teeth, letting his tongue slip out just enough to trace over his bottom lip. Hours stood between him in those soft lips of pink and his little bird was going to have to learn some patience. Two steps and he was crowding her space. Walking her back until her knees gave to the mattress. “First time I touch these lips,” he grumbled, words drenched with lust, thumb ghosting over the plump lips now chapped like his from the cold. “They’ll be mine.” His eyes locked on hers, icy orbs so filled with devotion it had him considering he might not be worthy to touch them at all. She sighed, disappointed, desperate, craving something new and exciting. Admiring his chivalry that had her head over socks. He did kiss her forehead, both cheeks, her chin, anything but her lips until she was smiling again. Mumbling the farewell she was searching for into her temple and adjusting her robe to be perfectly closed. The door clicked shut and he lingered, hand on the knob, his smile splitting his face to the point his cheeks ached. You’d think he’d be used to it by now but no. The fluttering in his stomach that made him borderline queasy, the heat in his cheeks that now hurt constantly because his lips couldn't help but turn up when he entered the room. All of it still felt foreign. He didn’t dwell on it too much, he tried not to, but every few minutes her smile bounced around his mind. Her smile, her eyes, the lingering tickle of pretty plump lips pressing against his skin.

The things he never thought he’d get, all his.

divider: @pagedgaps

[sharkyeon]

masterlist

⤷ cw: smut, age gap(reader is in their early 20’s), missionary, fraternization, spit(just once), breeding kink.

john price who was hesitant to approach you at first, knowing about your little crush on him that soap always teased him about.

“lil bonnie has a crush on ya’ cap, why not date the sweet thing ay?” he’ll chuckle amused, patting price on the back as he puffs out a smoke.

“i’m not datin’ a kid” he grumbles unamused, putting out his cigar as he stands to leave.

scoffing at the thought as he walked through the mess, you definitely are a cute young thing. all eager and obedient every time you were needed for something.

all soft and pliant, the plump of your ass and the fat on your hips making him wonder how good it would be to fuck you raw hold you close.

but it’s.. unprofessional, really. not only is he twice your age but it would also be fraternization. an old bloke like him with such a cute thing to breed go out with, feeling all the judgmental stares as he holds you by the waist.

“cap? hello?” he’s suddenly startled by your voice, grumbling under his breath as he rubs his face. definitely out of surprise and not because his cheeks were flushed.

“christ kid, what did ya need from me?” he grumbles annoyed, trying hard to focus as he stares down at your cute figure.

eyes staring at him so intently, cheeks rising with every raise of your lips, and god that smile. holding a folder between those soft hands of yours, your nipples lightly peeking over your dress shirt.

it was taking every ounce of him to not take you right here and now. “i just needed you to approve this for the next batch of supplies coming in, it would be really nice if you could do it” you mumble shyly.

john price was a patient man, but seeing a sweet little thing be so shy and needy for him was too much. he couldn’t let you suffer alone now, could he?

well that’s what he believed right now, hands pushing your knees to your chest as pistons his thick cock into you. thumb holding down your tongue as you whined for him, cock drunk as all you could think about was his thick girth splitting you open.

sobbing from pleasure as he spits into your mouth, tongue lapping at your tears before giving you a deep kiss. planting wet kisses on your collar, rutting deeper into you as he sucks on your nipple.

“fuck, mactavish was right. i should just breed ya full and put a nice ring on that finger yeah?”

i love old man price, he’s so yummy (i might write fauxcest?)

was gonna specify his smell, but some ppl don’t like smoking and i don’t really want ppl uncomfortable. kinda awkward bc i used to smoke lol.

pervy roomate könig will be posted tomorrow! it ended up longer than i expected and i have a few more oneshots otw so i wanna post at least 2 tgt tomorrow :3

hope you guys enjoy!!

[softsnarl]

(18+, Simon Riley × fem!Reader)

cw: smut; established romantic relationship; domesticity; dirty talk; Simon sounds like a dying elk when he comes

Simon doesn’t make much noise the first few times you sleep together.

He’s controlled, deliberate—deep breaths through his nose, low grunts muffled against your neck, the occasional growled “fuck” when you clench around him just right. You come hard anyway, because even quiet Simon is intense, but you always wonder what it would take to really unravel him.

It takes months.

It takes nights spent learning every scar on his body, mornings where he wakes up tangled in your sheets and doesn’t immediately reach for his mask, quiet admissions over tea about things he’s never quite told anyone but his therapist.

It takes you telling him—out loud, firmly, no room left for doubt—that you’re his, that you’re not going anywhere, that you want all of him.

The first time he truly lets go, you’re on your back beneath him in the dark of your bedroom, legs hooked over his broad shoulders, his fat cock buried so deep it feels like he’s in your throat.

You’ve been teasing him all day—little touches, filthy texts, wearing nothing but his hoodie and panties around the flat—so he’s already frayed.

You roll your hips just right and whisper-whine, “Let me hear you, Si. Please.”

Something snaps.

The sound that rips out of him is raw, animalistic—half groan, half roar, and loud enough to rattle in your chest. His head drops to your shoulder, strong hips slamming forward, and then he doesn’t stop making noise.

And to someone who gets off on sounds, it’s pure, heavenly filth.

Every thrust drags another wrecked sound from his throat; deep, guttural moans that vibrate against your skin, rough growls when you tighten around him, broken curses growled right into your ear.

“Fuck—fuck—tight little cunt—so fuckin’ good—”

He’s loud, shameless, voice cracking on your name like it hurts. When you rake your nails down his back he actually whines—a desperate, needy sound you’ve never heard from him before—and drives into you harder, the bedframe knocking against the wall in a steady, obscene rhythm that makes your eyes roll back into your skull.

You feel him lose the last of his restraint when you clench deliberately and gasp, “Love how you sound, Si. Ngh... love knowing it’s me—”

Simon lifts his head, eyes wild and dark, and the noise he makes then is pure filth: a long, drawn-out groan that sounds like it’s being torn out of him, ending in a gravelly: “Gonna fuckin’ come—gonna ah fill you up—”

And he does—hips stuttering, cock pulsing deep inside you as he roars your name against your neck, loud enough that you’re half-sure the neighbors heard. The sound alone tips you over, and you come clenching around him, sobbing his name into his shoulder.

After, he doesn’t go quiet again.

He collapses on you, still twitching, breath ragged, but even spent he’s vocal—soft, rough praises growled against your skin.

“Christ… you ruin me, pet.”

“Can never get enough of you.”

“Sound so fuckin’ pretty when y’take me.”

From that night on, once the trust is absolute, Simon is unashamedly loud and proud about it.

Not performative—never that. Just raw and unfiltered. The man who barely speaks in public will growl filth in your ear like it’s the only language he knows when he’s inside you. He moans like a dying elk (deep, hoarse, loud, and utterly wrecked) every time you ride him slow. He whimpers—actually whimpers—when you suck him off and look up at him through your lashes, moaning softly around his meaty cock.

And every time, without fail, he presses his sweaty forehead to yours afterward and rasps, voice hoarse from shouting your name:

“Only for you. Only ever this loud for you, baby,” he’ll grunt every time.

And you believe him; feeling it in your bones every time he loses himself in you. Loud, filthy, and completely, irrevocably yours.

[ ᴄᴏᴅ ᴍᴀꜱᴛᴇʀʟɪꜱᴛ ]