summary: you see nettspend while you were roaming the streets of paris for a trip. when you first met you caught his eye in a way that no other fan has. soon enough he finds your social media and tries to shoot his shot.
ugstamp
liked by 66k people
ugstamp Nettspend seen following a new girl on his main account. Fans have figured out that it was the fan he met in Paris. Was she really JUST a fan or something more?
user: wait what he usually doesn’t follow anyone except himself
user: he just ruined his aura 💔💔
↳ user: stfu
user: she’s chopped cheese ngl he can do better
↳ user: like who?
↳ user: like me
user: she is living the dream
↳ user: if ur dream is nettspend following you back we have bigger fish to fry
user: who even is she??
↳ user: she’s just like a niche influencer but supposedly she’s a nepo baby but idk
↳ user: “influencer” just posts picture of herself and her daily life
↳ user: is that not what an influencer is? she has 22k followers so..
view all comments
instagram msgs
y/nusername: hii idk if u meant to follow me or not just lyk <3
nettspend_: yep i did
nettspend_: u left paris?
y/nusername: yess!! i left yesterday to go back to ny
nettspend_: u live in ny?
y/nusername: mhm, my parents have a house in la too so i just alternate
nettspend_: so the rumors are true
y/nusername: lol what rumors?
nettspend_: they saying u have rich parents
y/nusername: i guess so
nettspend_: u a big fan of me?
y/nusername: yea a lil
y/nusername: i like a decent amount of songs
nettspend_: u should come see me
nettspend_: i have a tour coming up would love to see u there
y/nusername: u say this to all ur female fans?
nettspend_: nah just the cute ones
y/nusername: and how many cute fans have u found?
nettspend_: just u ur really bad
nettspend_: but you lmk ma any show u wanna go to igu with backstage tickets
y/nusername: okay well can i go to multiple
nettspend_: damn u wanna see me multiple times?
nettspend_: i could make that work
nettspend_: gotta give me ur number tho
seen
y/nusername
liked by nettspend_, bsfusername, belizekazi, and 54k others
y/nusername au revoir paris
user: this netts new girl?
user: how was it like seeing nettspend irl
↳ y/nusername: he was chill
↳ user: just chill yet he only follows you
user: yall all up in her pussy holy shit
user: what was your favorite part abt ur trip
↳ y/nusername: def the shopping
user: opinion on the nepotism allegations??
↳ y/nusername: omfg yall are overly fanned out yes i have wealthy parents no it’s not an allegation
↳ user: what were they?
↳ user: they own the opium label
↳ user: no tf they don’t carti literally made it himself 😭😭
↳ user: oops mb i was pulling shit out of my ass
↳ user: you weren’t that far off they own epic records which is still fucking insane
view all comments
instagram msgs
nettspend_: so u can post on ig but cant reply back
nettspend_: even after i offered free tickets
nettspend_: that’s wild
y/nusername: omg sorry i thought my message sent
y/nusername: i said fair deal my number is xxx-xxx-xxxx
nettspend_: all good ma but don’t do it again
nettspend_: why u tryna play off how rich u are
nettspend_: ur parents label has people like future and 21 savage signed
a/n: in honor of nettspend maybe replacing nine at summer smash which i ALSO can’t go to so fml i guess. don’t look at the second ss of netts following tew close bc my editing skills are hot garbage 🔥🔥
summary: nettspend sees a girl who seemingly knows all his friends. he thought she was pretty, asked about her, and found out she did nails for half the underground scene and more celebs. one appointment turns into a lot more.
Summary: Your private tape with Nettspend leaks, shocking the internet with the wild contrast to your shy persona.
A/N: This oneshot might be detailed. NOT PROOFREAD
Word count: 2600
TW: MDNI, leaked tape, recording, spanking, praise, degradation, rough sex, dirty talk, food play, submissive!reader, use of daddy, choking (tell me if i forgot some)
{Taglist}
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@RapsAndRumors
#Nettspend’s team is reportedly scrambling after a private video of the rapper and his rumored girlfriend was leaked online early this morning. 🚨
While the 19 years old artist has kept his new relationship relatively low-key, fans immediately recognized the girl from a few rare public sightings and his inner circle's spam accounts. The video, which appears to be screen-recorded from a private archive, has already racked up millions of views across Twitter and Telegram despite copyright strikes taking down major links.
Sources say his management is threatening legal action against anyone reposting the media. Neither Nettspend nor his girlfriend have spoken out yet, and both have currently deactivated their Instagram comments. Thoughts? 👇
Comments
↳ NAHHH I JUST SAW IT LMAOOO HE IS WINNING THO SHE IS BAD ASFF 🔥😭
↳ Wait isn't she the super shy girl that was hiding from the paparazzi at the airport last month?? Oh I know she is losing her mind rn i feel so bad omg 😢
↳ leaks hitting the vault and the bedroom now?? underground scene is cooked
↳ drop the link bro who got it
↳ wait is that a nipple piercing??? i didn't expect that from her at all omg she's full of surprises hidden under those oversized hoodies 😭🔥
↳ if you’re dating a famous rapper this is what comes with it shrug 🤷♂️
↳ she really held the camera herself while he was hitting it from the back 💀 that part had my jaw
↳ I feel so bad for her :( she always looks so shy and anxious whenever the paparazzi catch them together. Imagine waking up and finding out millions of strangers are looking at you like that.
↳ bro when he poured the honey on her i actually gasped 💀
↳ Istg if Nett finds out who leaked this it’s over for them. But fr who has the link?? DM me 👀
↳ she is literally body goals wtf... no wonder he never lets her post on social media he wanted her all to himself
↳ that headboard was fighting for its life 💀 nett was not playing around he really handled that
↳ it’s the contrast for me... she looks so innocent and quiet in public but in the video she was completely different
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[Attachment: 1 Video File — "IMG_8842.MOV"]
Gunner caresses your cheek with his thumb, keeping his other hand steady as he points the phone down at you. The white glare of the recording light reflects in your eyes.
"You look beautiful right now," he says, his voice low and quiet for the camera. "So pretty and so quiet for me."
You look up at him from your spot on the floor, your fingers resting on his knees. You bite your lip, your chest rising and falling as you wait.
"I'm going to make you forget about everything else," he murmurs, tilting the camera slightly to capture the way you look up at him. "I'm going to take your clothes off, put you on the bed, and touch you until you're shaking. And I'm recording all of it so you can see exactly how good you look when you're mine."
He lowers his hand to touch your chin, tilting your head back a little more. He keeps the lens focused right on your face, capturing every shift in your expression.
"Open your mouth for me, baby," he commands quietly.
You open your mouth slightly, your breath hitching as the phone flash catches the movement. Gunner runs his thumb over your bottom lip, keeping the camera perfectly still in his other hand.
"Good girl," he praises, a small, dark smile touching his lips. "So obedient for me tonight."
He pulls his hand back from your face, moving the camera down to track the front of your clothes.
"Take your shirt off," he commands, his voice dropping an octave. "Show me what you're hiding."
You reach down and pull the hem of your shirt up over your head, tossing it onto the floor. You sit there in just your bra, your face flushing under the bright light of the phone lens. Gunner leans in closer, the camera zooming in slightly on your chest.
"You're so perfect, Y/N," he murmurs, his eyes scanning your body through the screen. "Now reach back. Take off the bra."
Your hands shake a little as you reach behind your back, unhooking the clasp. You slide the straps down your shoulders and pull the fabric away, exposing your bare chest to the camera. The bright flash instantly catches the glint of the metal barbell piercing your nipple.
Gunner lets out a low, ragged breath behind the phone. He lowers his free hand to gently trace the skin just above the piercing, making your goosebumps rise.
"Fuck, look at that," he whispers, tilting the phone so the lens captures the exact contrast of his big hand against your pale skin, centering the piercing right in the frame. "You are so fucking hot.”
"Look up at the camera, Y/N," Gunner commands, his fingers lingering on your skin.
You lift your gaze to the lens, the bright light blinding you for a second.
"Tell me whose body this is," he mutters, keeping the phone steady as he records your face. "Say it out loud so the camera hears it."
You swallow hard, your face burning as you look into the light. "It's yours, Gunner," you whisper. "Everything is yours."
"Say it cleaner," he presses, a low chuckle vibrating in his chest. "Tell me exactly what you want me to do to you."
"I want you to fuck me," you breathe out, your voice trembling. "Please."
"Good girl," he murmurs, his dark eyes flashing with satisfaction behind the screen.
He pulls his hand back and stands up, backing away a few steps while keeping the camera focused entirely on you. He frames your whole body in the shot as you sit on the floor.
"Get up," he orders quietly. "Go to the bed."
You stand up on weak legs, walking over to the mattress. The mattress sinks slightly under your weight as you climb onto it.
"Turn around and bend over for me," Gunner commands, stepping closer to the edge of the bed. He holds the phone up high, angling the camera down to capture you from behind. "Put your hands flat on the sheets and arch your back."
He holds the phone steady as he angles the camera down at your lower back. His eyes track the line of your spine down to your underwear, where the thin fabric is already darkened and soaked through from how wet you are.
"Look at that," he mutters, zooming the camera in on the damp patch. "You're dripping just from talking to me."
Without warning, he brings his free hand down, slapping your bare thigh and the side of your hip. The sharp sound echoes in the quiet room, leaving a sudden flush of red on your skin. You let out a small gasp, your hips instinctively twitching up against the sheets.
"Stay still," he commands, keeping the camera locked on the view.
He reaches onto the nightstand, grabbing a couple of the small honey packs he keeps there. With one hand, he tears a packet open with his teeth, never letting the phone drop. He tilts the packet, pouring the thick, gold honey down the center of your lower back, letting it slow-drip down over your skin, right into the crease of your ass and over your panties.
The contrast of the cool honey against your hot skin makes you shudder. Gunner leans down, bringing the camera right next to his face so the lens captures everything from his point of view.
He presses his tongue to your skin, licking the honey off in long, heavy upward strokes. He cleans it off your lower back first, his breath hot against your skin, before his hand moves to pull your panties down past your thighs, exposing you completely to the lens.
"So wet," he growls quietly into the microphone of the phone.
He pours the rest of the honey directly over your clit and into your folds. You whine, your fingers digging into the pillows as he buries his face between your legs. He licks the honey off you with a hard, flat tongue, sucking at your sweet spot and cleaning every drop off your skin until your hips are shaking uncontrollably in front of the lens.
Gunner finally pulls his face away from your wet skin, letting out a heavy breath. He steps back from the bed, keeping the camera perfectly steady and angled down at you as you lay there trembling, completely exposed.
With his free hand, he unbuttons his pants and shoves his sweatpants down his thighs, kicking them away. He grips his length, starting to stroke himself with a fast, heavy rhythm right in front of the lens. The camera catches the exact view of his hand moving over his hard length, positioned right above your arched lower back.
"Look at how hard you got me, Y/N," he growls, his voice thick and rough as he stares down at you through the screen. "You're such a dirty little slut for me. You love having a camera in your face while I treat you like a piece of meat, don't you?"
"Yes," you gasp out, your face buried in the pillow, completely losing your shyness to the heat in the room. "I want it so bad. I'm your dirty girl, Gunner."
"Say it louder," he commands, his pace quickening as he strokes himself right at the entrance of your thighs. "Tell me who runs you."
"You do, Daddy," you whine, your hips involuntarily twitching back, looking for his touch. "Please, Daddy, fuck me. Put it inside me."
"Good girl," he mutters, his jaw clenched as he leans over you.
He positions the phone perfectly, holding it high so the camera captures a clear, unobstructed top-down view of his length pressing against your wet folds. He lines himself up, and with one heavy, deliberate push, he drives himself all the way inside you.
A loud, unrefined scream tears from your throat, your back arching violently as your tight walls clamp down around him. Gunner lets out a deep, ragged groan, staying completely still for a second to let you take all of him. He tilts the phone down, zooming in on the exact point where your bodies connect, capturing the wet friction on video.
He takes two deep, heavy strokes, the sound of skin slapping against skin loud in the quiet room, before he leans down low over your back.
He presses the phone into your hand, forcing your fingers around the grip.
"Hold it," he pants against your ear, his breath scorching your skin as his hands grip your waist with bruising force. "Hold the camera, Y/N. Point it down at your own face. I want you to watch yourself get ruined."
You tighten your grip on the phone, your knuckles turning white as you point the lens back toward your own face. The bright recording light illuminates your flushed skin, your eyes wide and completely glazed over with pleasure.
Gunner doesn't give you a second to adjust. He grips your hips with both hands, anchoring you firmly against the mattress, and begins to fuck you with a brutal, relentless speed.
Every heavy thrust drives him impossibly deep inside you. The sheer force of his movements shakes your entire body, making the camera tremble in your hand as you try to keep it steady. The loud, wet sound of your skin smacking together fills the room, captured perfectly by the phone’s microphone.
"F-Fuck, Gunner," you sob out, your head tossing back into the pillow. You look up into the lens, watching your own mouth hang open as a string of breathless, helpless whines tears from your throat.
"Look at the camera, Y/N," he growls from above you, his voice thick and completely animalistic. He doesn't slow down for a single second, his pace turning harder and faster until the headboard is banging violently against the wall. "Watch how wide you're stretched for me. Tell the camera how hard your daddy is breaking you right now."
"You're fucking me so hard," you gasp into the screen, your toes curling as his thumb presses directly against your swollen clit with every downward stroke. The dual stimulation sends a violent jolt of electricity straight down your spine. "Daddy, please-, I'm going to come."
"Take it," he commands, his fingers digging into your waist so hard they leave dark marks as he drives himself home over and over again, completely relentless. "Take all of it on camera."
Gunner’s pace turns completely frantic, his chest heaving against your back as he drives into you with everything he has left. The friction between you is blinding, and you can feel his body tightening, the muscles in his arms locking up as he reaches his limit.
"Hold the phone steady, Y/N," he chokes out, his voice raw and breathless against your neck. "Don't drop it. Watch this."
You force your shaking fingers to grip the phone, keeping the lens focused right on your face and the wet sound of your bodies slamming together. That final, deep thrust pushes you completely over the edge. A loud, broken scream tears from your throat as your orgasm crashes over you, your tight walls seizing violently around him.
The intense clamping of your body is the breaking point for Gunner. He lets out a loud, ragged groan, burying his face in your hair as his body shudders. He drives himself deep one last time and holds himself there, spilling entirely inside you. The phone captures the exact moment your eyes flutter shut and your head falls back into the pillow, completely spent.
Gunner takes a few ragged breaths, his forehead resting against the back of your neck as the aftershocks of his release subside. Slowly, he pulls his length out of you with a heavy, wet slide. You let out a soft whine at the sudden emptiness, your thighs trembling as your knees sink deeper into the mattress.
Before you can completely collapse against the sheets, Gunner reaches down and takes the phone right out of your weak, shaking fingers.
He stays up on his knees, shifting his position at the edge of the bed. Keeping the camera completely steady and the white recording light shining brightly, he angles the lens down between your legs. He reaches out with his free hand, using his fingers to gently spread your cheeks, exposing your swollen, thoroughly wrecked core directly to the camera.
The bright flash catches every detail. Your cream, mixed with his thick release, is slowly overflowing and dripping heavily down your skin, wetting the dark sheets beneath you.
"Look at that," Gunner mutters into the microphone, his voice incredibly deep, rough, and thick with satisfaction. He zooms the camera in closer, capturing the slow, messy drip. "Look how soaked you are for me, Y/N. Total mess. I completely filled you up, and your pretty little pussy can’t even hold it all."
You hide your face in the pillow, a breathless, embarrassed whimper escaping your lips as you hear his words, your skin flushing red under the heat of his gaze and the camera light.
Gunner lets out a low, dark chuckle behind the phone, admiring the view on the screen for a few more seconds. He tilts the camera up one last time to capture your flushed face and messy hair in the frame before his thumb presses down on the screen, finally hitting the stop button to end the recording.
Summary : Benjamin Poindexter finds his North Star in a sweet librarian who probably should’ve run. Still, she wouldn’t have it any other way.
Pairing : Benjamin Poindexter x Librarian! reader (she/her)
Warnings/tags : North star! Reader, fluff (?), angst, hurt/comfort, obsessive love, unhealthy attachment, codependency, possessive behavior, stalking, morally grey reader, explicit sexual content (no anatomical detail as per usual), sex, orgasm denial, oral sex implied, voyeurism/exhibitionism themes, breeding kink, blip mentioned, conjugal visit, institutional abuse, canon-typical violence, murder, hostage situation, grief, food, pregnancy, towards the end you and Dex are mentioned to have a child called Leo. Dex isn’t the most traditional father in any sense but he eventually does love him for very specific reasons I won’t spoil. Starts two years before Daredevil season 3 and ends during DDBA season 1 (let me know if I missed anything!)
Word Count : 22k (whoopsie)
Requested by : A mix of these requests: X X X ( @faszomiskivan )
Notes : This story spans about nine years, so buckle up! Reader basically takes on Julie’s North Star role in canon, and yes, this story does explain how we get there. Enjoy!
FBI Special Agent Benjamin Poindexter didn’t know what to do with pretty.
He understood attraction in the detached, observational way he understood most things. He understood what people found objectively attractive was symmetry, pleasing aesthetics. He would observe little changes in a room when someone “beautiful” entered it. He went through it like a list: people looked longer, their voices gentled, posture adjusted without realising it. Dex knew how to recognise attractiveness because other people gave themselves away around it, because the world was always telling on itself if you paid close enough attention. But pretty was different when it was you.
Pretty was not supposed to make him forget the next thing he meant to say. Pretty was not supposed to sit under his skin like a fever. Pretty was not supposed to be you a school librarian in a pastel cardigan, with a pencil tucked through your hair and ink on your fingers, kneeling between two shelves while a little boy cried into your blouse because another child had laughed at him for reading too slowly.
Dex was at the school for an FBI community safety outreach visit. Nothing serious, nothing field-critical. It was just one of those public-facing assignments meant to make parents feel reassured and administrators feel prepared. He was supposed to stand beside the principal, nod at the right times, talk about emergency response based on a script made by the Bureau, and leave.
Instead, at the end of the day, he stood near the library doors and watched you lower your voice to soothe a child.
“Hey,” you said softly. “Don’t make yourself smaller because someone else was mean to you.”
Dex went still. The principal kept talking beside him. Something about lockdown protocols, fire exits, parent pick-up procedures, and perhaps thanking him for the visit. Dex didn’t hear any of it. He watched the little boy rub his face with his sleeve, watched you reach into your cardigan pocket and produce a tissue because of course you had one ready, because of course you had walked through life expecting the world to hurt these precious little things and had prepared yourself to help.
“Reading slowly just means you get to spend more time with the words,” you told the boy. “That’s not a bad thing.”
The boy sniffled, and you smiled at him.
Dex felt that smile land in his cold heart, somewhere it had no business being.
It would have been easier if you were only beautiful. That would have been manageable. Uncomfortable, maybe, but manageable. Beauty was a fact. Beauty could be observed, catalogued, eventually put away. You were beautiful in a way that seemed unaware of itself, unpolished and terribly human. The cardigan sleeves falling too far over your hands, the loose strand of hair stuck to your cheek, the worn soles of your cheap flats, you smiling so easily for children who probably forgot to thank you for it.
Dex thought you were gorgeous with an alarmed resentment, as if his own body had betrayed him by noticing before his mind had given permission. Then you looked up at him.
Your eyes met his across the library, and for half a second, Dex forgot what face he was supposed to be wearing. You smiled politely, like he was just another adult in the building, not a man with a gun under his jacket teaching staff how to react in case of a school shooting.
“Hi,” you said. “Sorry, do you need the library?”
The principal brightened. “This is our librarian.”
You gave Dex your name. He repeated it silently once. Then again. Then a third time, because it felt like something he should store somewhere safe, somewhere no one else could touch.
“Special Agent Poindexter,” he said, holding out his hand.
You shook it, and your hand was warm. Dex noticed that there was a tiny paper cut near your thumb.
You were still smiling at him. Not because he was FBI, and not because he was handsome, though he was. You smiled because you were kind.
Fuck. That’s inconvenient.
Pretty made him look, but good made him stay.
That first visit should have been the last. Dex knew that. There was no operational reason for him to return personally. The school’s safety review was a basic one. The principal had his notes, but the follow-up could have been handled by email. A junior agent could have dropped off the printed materials. Anyone could have gone.
But Dex went. That second time, he poked his head to the library, and said hi. You said hi back, right after you told two boys that no, the beanbags were not for wrestling, and yes, you were very impressed by the creativity of the attempt.
Dex couldn’t stop thinking about it for a week.
The third time, he told himself it was because the library’s rear exit needed another assessment. It was technically true. The lock was old, the corridor outside had basically no surveillance, and the staff entrance was too far from the main office. He made it seem like a legitimate concern, when really, it was a neat little justification. Dex was excellent at finding those.
You were reshelving books when he appeared in the doorway, balanced on the tips of your toes as you reached for the top shelf. The hem of your blouse lifted slightly at your waist. It was nothing indecent. Barely anything at all.
Still, his mind went briefly blank.
He cleared his throat.
You startled, turned, and smiled. “Agent Poindexter.”
Dex liked the sound of it from you. That was inconvenient too.
“Sorry,” you added, stepping down. “Am I in the way?”
“No.”
“Good. Because if you were about to tell me my fiction section is a security risk, I might cry.”
His mouth twitched before he decided to let it. “I’ll leave fiction alone.”
“Very generous of the DOJ.” That’s when he realised you were teasing him.
Dex looked at you and thought, you have no idea what a dangerous thing that was.
After that, the visits became a pattern.
Not obvious, because Dex was never sloppy when he could help it. He didn’t go every day. He didn’t stand outside the library staring like some lovesick idiot with no self-control. He knew how to make repeated contact look procedural.
His supervisor barely looked up from the file the fourth time it happened. “Poindexter, you handled the school outreach last week, right?”
“Yes.”
“They’ve got some updated compliance questions. I can send Nadeem.”
Dex immediately shook his head. “I’ll take it.”
His supervisor paused, but Dex kept his face still. “I’m already familiar with the layout,” he said, and what a good excuse that was.
The whole truth was that he had thought about you every day since the first visit. You came to him through triggers. When he saw children’s drawings in a hallway. A cardigan on a mannequin The smell of old paper. A mug with painted stars on it in a café window, because you had one on your desk.
You were good, and you were pretty, and that combination felt less like attraction and more like orientation. As if Dex had spent his whole life moving without a fixed point and then walked into a school library and found one.
So, yes, he came back to the school. And, yes, eventually, he followed you home.
The first time, he told himself it was because you were the last staff member to leave again and the car park lighting was poor, so he had to make sure you were safe. It had rained earlier, leaving the pavement slick and black. You walked out with a tote bag over one shoulder and an armful of books pressed to your chest, juggling your keys between your fingers.
Dex sat in his car and watched until you pulled out of the lot. Then he followed. He learned the route to your apartment in fourteen minutes. He cleared that you lived in a building with a front door that did not latch unless pulled hard, that the hallway light on your floor flickered, that your window faced the street and your curtains were thin enough to turn your silhouette suggestive when you moved past them with nothing on.
He hated your building immediately. The lock was bad. The street was worse. Your neighbours were careless. The man in 2B smoked on the front steps and watched women walk past like a fucking creep. The laundry room was in the basement. The side gate did not close properly.
Dex catalogued every vulnerability, then sat in his car for twenty-three minutes after your lights went out and told himself this was a reasonable concern.
He was trained to notice risk, and you just had so much of it. You were too open, too trusting, too underpaid to live somewhere safe enough.
He found out about the money without needing to try very hard.
He figured out your exact job title, your district, and salary ranges within twenty minutes. He knew what you could afford, what you probably couldn’t, what your grocery budget looked like if your car needed work or if the school asked you to buy supplies out of pocket again. And you did, apparently. He saw the receipts in your hand one afternoon when you came out of a discount store with construction paper, glue sticks, tissues, and children’s stickers paid for with your own money.
That bothered him more than it should have. It enraged him. Not because you were helpless. Dex didn’t think that. You were competent in the way good people often were, holding ten pieces of a room together while everyone else assumed the room simply stayed whole on its own. But you were tired and stretched thin. You loved your job, the children, the library with its peeling posters and overhandled paperbacks, but love didn’t pay rent.
I could, he thought. Dex could pay your rent without noticing. He could buy groceries without checking his account. He could fix the lock. Replace the car. Put you somewhere safe and close. That’s… a good reason to ask you out, right?
If he ever had the courage.
By the fifth visit, you laughed when you saw him. “Again?”
Dex stopped in the library doorway, because he insisted to the bureau that some of the teachers were security risks. “Again.”
“Should I be worried about the state of our emergency preparedness?”
“No.”
“Should I be worried about you?” That caught him off-guard. Your tone was teasing, but your eyes were warm and curious.
Should I be worried about you?
Yes, he thought. Probably.
Instead, he said, “No.”
You narrowed your eyes in mock suspicion. “I don’t know. Five visits to the school. Either we are extremely unsafe, or you really like laminated evacuation maps.”
Dex looked at the map beside your door. “It’s a good map.”
You burst out laughing.
Dex loved the sound immediately and started to memorise it so he could copy it when you made a joke. More than that, he wanted to be responsible for it. He wanted to know what your laugh sounded like in his car. In his kitchen. Against his mouth.
The thought came so suddenly that his teeth clenched.
You noticed. Your smile softened, and Dex had the devastating impression that you thought you had embarrassed him. “I’m sorry,” you said. “I didn’t mean to make fun of you.”
“You didn’t.”
“Okay.” You tilted your head. “Good.”
Good. The word followed him home.
So did you, though not physically. Not yet. But your image, your voice, the way you said his name after he told you to call him Dex, the way you remembered he took tea plain after seeing him drink it once in the staff room. The way you handed him a paper cup and said, “I made too much,” as if generosity was just something that spilled out of you naturally.
And then there were the guys around you.
He had watched a math teacher who lingered at your desk too long after school, making you laugh over some stupid story about a parent email. A divorced father at pick-up who asked whether you ever took private tutoring work and then smiled in a way Dex didn’t like. A man you met for coffee one Friday evening, two neighbourhoods over, at a café with steamed windows and terrible parking.
Dex hadn’t meant to follow you there. That was a lie.
He had followed you there because you had worn lipstick, the kind you probably put on in your rearview mirror after work, thinking no one would notice.
The date was unremarkable. The man was unremarkable. He wore a blue shirt, laughed too loudly, and checked his phone while you were talking. Dex watched from across the street with his hands still on the steering wheel and felt jealousy move through him.
The man was wrong for you.
He was careless, dull, and too impressed with himself. He made you pay for your own tea. That alone felt like a crime.
You left to do some off-the-clock work, and your date stayed. Dex waited until the man left to use the bathroom, then walked into the café and passed close enough to his table to see the phone he had left face-up beside his plate. He saw a message from someone named Laura lit the screen with a heart attached.
Dex smiled. That was useful.
The next morning, he sent an anonymous message to Laura. The following week, you didn’t see blue-shirt again.
You looked a little sad about it on Monday. Dex hated that. Then he hated the man more for making you sad. Then he told himself it was better this way.
It became easier to scare off your dates after that. All it took was an inconvenient scheduling conflict, a resurfaced truth, a gentle nudge. One man had an outstanding warrant for unpaid fines. One was married. One was simply easy to scare with the right look from the right federal agent in a parking lot.
By the sixth visit to the school, there was no reason good enough to fool anyone but himself.
A “Penultimate walkthrough,” he called it, before the final walkthrough next week.
The principal seemed pleased, though you looked amused. “Penultimate?” you asked when Dex appeared outside the library.
“Yes.”
“Should I be honoured?”
“You should feel secure.”
“I do. The biography section has never been safer.”
He looked at you, and you smiled like you were proud of yourself. Dex couldn’t help but copy that smile back. Your expression changed when you saw it, going still for one second, like you liked him, too.
That day, he walked through the library with you while you pointed out doors and windows and places the children liked to hide during reading hour. This corner was where the overwhelmed ones went. That shelf had the books no one returned on time because they loved them too much. The lamp near the beanbag was too warm if left on all day, but you kept it anyway because the kids said it made the corner feel cozy.
“This is where they go when they need silence,” you said, gesturing toward a little space tucked behind a low shelf. A lamp. A basket of soft toys. Books with soft edges. A handmade sign that read: take a breath.
Dex looked at it.
You had made a place for children to be afraid safely. Of course you had.
“You did this?” he asked.
You shrugged, suddenly shy. “It’s not much.”
Dex looked at you. “It is.”
You met his eyes, and for a moment, the library noise faded behind you.
After that, he wanted to give you things. He wanted to give you better shoes. Better locks. A safer car. A warmer apartment. Groceries you did not buy with mental arithmetic running behind your eyes. A kitchen where your tea sat beside his coffee because it belonged there. A bed you didn’t have to assemble yourself. A life where you did not walk to your car alone. He wanted your life folded into his so completely that you never again had to stand unprotected in the world.
It was raining the day he finally asked.
The sky had turned the school windows grey, and the car park outside shone black under the streetlights. Most of the staff had already left. The corridors had emptied, and you were the last one in the library again.
Dex had lingered through a conversation with the principal he barely needed to have after the final walkthrough. He had checked the same exit twice. He had waited near the lobby until your light was the only one still glowing down the hall.
Then you came out with a tote bag sliding down your shoulder and a cardboard box of donated books pressed against your hip. Your umbrella refused to open, and you stared at it like it had stabbed you.
“Need help?”
You startled, then relaxed when you saw him. “Dex.” You laughed, breathless and embarrassed. “Do you just appear whenever I’m losing a fight?”
“Your umbrella is inside out,” he pointed out, before taking the box from you.
You tried to hold on. “I can carry that.”
“I know.”
“Then why did you take it?”
“Because it’s raining.”
You looked at him for a second, then smiled, soft and helpless and too fond for his sanity.
“Okay,” you said, as if letting him carry a box was nothing. As if it didn’t make a dark and pleased thought settle low in his chest.
He walked you to your car and put the books in the back seat. He noted the old jumper on the passenger side, the stack of overdue returns, the half-empty water bottle, the evidence of your life that was still not his.
You stood beside him under the broken umbrella, rain misting your hair.
You were gorgeous, he thought.
It struck him then in the stupidest way. No analysis or clinical separation. Just so pretty it made him feel young and strange and almost angry with himself.
“What?” you asked, smiling like you could tell he was staring.
Dex could’ve said nothing. He could have smiled, stepped back, wished you a good night, returned to his car, and come up with another reason to see you next week.
Instead, he looked at you and thought of your whole life together. Then he said it. “Have dinner with me.”
Your smile faded into surprise. The rain tapped against the broken umbrella between you. You blinked once. It wasn’t really a question, was it? “With you?”
“Yes.”
“As in…”
“A date.”
Your cheeks warmed. Dex watched the colour rise and tilted his head.
“Oh,” you said softly. Then, after a second, you smiled. “Okay.”
Just like that, he got what he wanted.
—
The first date was dinner at your favourite restaurant, though you couldn’t recall ever telling Dex that.
You paused outside the little place with the handwritten menu in the window, your hand tucked into the crook of his arm. “Oh,” you said, surprised. “I love this place.”
Dex looked down at you, calm as anything. “Do you?”
You laughed. “I come here all the time.”
“I didn’t know that.”
The lie was smooth, but Dex said it with such calm that you accepted it because you wanted to. So you smiled up at him and said, “Then we have similar taste.”
His eyes held on your face. “Maybe we do.”
“Maybe we belong together then,” you joked.
Dex’s brain went to a catastrophic halt.
You didn’t see it from the outside, not really. His face barely changed. Maybe his eyes went a little too still. Maybe his fingers pressed once, carefully, against your hand where it rested on his sleeve.
But inside him, his heart lit up white-hot. Belong together.
You had said it so lightly. Dex heard it like a verdict. Like the universe had leaned down and put a hand on his shoulder and said, yes, that one.
He opened the restaurant door for you and followed you inside with your words still burning through him.
You had no idea he had chosen this restaurant because he had followed you there three weeks before, parked across the street while you sat by the window with two friends and laughed over a bowl of pasta. You had no idea he had watched you order the same thing twice. You had no idea he knew which seat you liked, which dessert you split with your friend and pretended not to want more of, which route you took home afterward, how tightly you held your coat closed when the wind picked up.
But yeah, dinner was great.
The second date was coffee because you were trying to take things slower.
He was already there when you arrived, sitting by the window with your drink waiting in front of the empty chair. Your exact order, right size, right syrup. He claimed similar taste innocently again.
You should have been alarmed. Instead, you chuckled and sat down.
Coffee turned into a walk. The walk turned into him standing beside your car, close enough that your shoulder brushed his sleeve. He looked at your mouth once, then back at your eyes. “Can I kiss you?”
You didn’t even answer. You just stood on your tip toes and kissed him, carefully at first. But his hand came to cup your face, so you made a hum into his mouth and felt him unravel.
When he pulled back, his eyes were dark. You smiled, dazed.
The third date was dinner at his apartment.
He cooked for you, because apparently Dex did everything like it was a mission and feeding you was no exception. His apartment was neat and perfectly arranged, but then you were there with your jacket on the back of his chair and your laugh in his kitchen, and he kept looking at those little disruptions were worth you being here.
The food was good, so you smiled and pushed a little harder. “You’re very good at taking care of me.”
Dex went still, and you could’ve sworn his ears went pink.
After dinner, you kissed him on the couch. That was all it was supposed to be: A kiss.
Yes, maybe Dex made it feel a little too deep. Maybe it was too hungry. Maybe it was a little reckless, considering this was only the third date and you weren't the kind of woman who did things like this. You didn’t tumble into a man’s bed after three dates and let your body make decisions your brain would have to defend in the morning.
Your brain was trying, to be fair. The little voices there had formed a whole committee meeting about it.
This is too fast. This is insane. You have work tomorrow. You barely know him.
Unfortunately, Dex was kissing you, open-mouthed and desperate, his hands tight on your waist, breathing against you like every second of restraint physically hurt him, and your body didn’t seem particularly interested in attending the discussion.
You climbed into his lap because there was nowhere else you wanted to be.
Dex let out a breathy moan when you settled over him, his head tipping back against the couch. His shirt was still on, but you had already pulled half the buttons open, enough to get your hands on skin, enough to feel his chest rise under your palms every time your mouth found his again.
Your skirt was hiked high around your thighs, his fingers trembling at the hem of it.
Dex, who could easily take what he wanted, sat beneath you with his hands on your thighs and waited for you to tell him he was allowed.
You kissed him harder for it.
His mouth opened under yours immediately, wet and so eager that you felt your stomach twist. You threaded your fingers into his hair and tugged once, just to steady yourself, just to feel him closer.
Dex sighed into your mouth.
“Oh,” you whispered, breathless.
His eyes opened, fixed on you. You smiled because you understood then that Benjamin Poindexter liked being told what to do.
He wanted to be good for you. He wanted to earn every sound you made.
You shifted in his lap, and his whole body reacted. His fingers slid higher under your skirt, then stopped again.
“Dex,” you breathed.
His throat worked. “Tell me.”
You leaned down, your lips brushing his as you spoke. “Touch me.”
He obeyed so fast it made you gasp.
Your panties were pulled to the side with clumsy, shaking urgency, his pants shoved down just enough because neither of you had the patience anymore. It was filthy how desperate it was. There was no time for the bedroom, no careful undressing, no pretending this was slower than it was. It was you in his lap, his open shirt under your hands, your skirt bunched around your waist, both of you panting into each other’s mouths like you had been struck by fucking lightning.
He was so intense you expected him to take over. Because he could’ve flipped you under him. He could have pinned you to the couch and made you forget every thought you had ever had. He had the body, he had muscles, he had the skills.
Instead, he looked at you like he needed permission to breathe. “Like that?” he breathed.
You nodded, nails dragging over his chest nodding frantically. “Don’t stop.”
He didn’t.
Dex listened like obedience was devotion, like your pleasure was a commandment, like the only thing in the world that mattered was keeping you exactly like this: skirt up, mouth open, shaking in his lap while he looked up at you like you were holy.
You knew this was too quick. You never had one night stands. Even three dates was way too quick, by your standards.
But his hands were on your waist, his shirt was open, his breathing was breaking, and when you whispered, “Fuck, baby,” he shuddered so hard beneath you that all your remaining common sense died on the couch.
Afterward, you stayed folded against him, both of you warm and breathless, your face tucked into his neck.
Dex’s hand moved slowly up your back, careful now.
You lifted your head enough to look at him. His hair was wrecked. His mouth was red. His eyes were softer than you had ever seen them, though there was still a frightening stillness underneath, satisfied and hungry and already too attached.
You touched his cheek. “I should probably go home.”
Dex went still.
He looked at you from beneath those dark lashes, still flushed, still breathing hard, still beautiful enough to make bad decisions feel like fate. “Stay the night,” he said, trying not to say please.
You swallowed. “I have work tomorrow.”
“I’ll drive you.”
“My things are at home.”
“You can wear something of mine.”
“I need my toothbrush.”
“I have a spare.”
A laugh slipped out of you, helpless and fond. Of course he did.
Dex’s mouth barely moved, and it was always a smile.
He looked at you like he needed you to say yes and hated that you could tell. Like letting you leave after this would physically hurt. Like you had crawled into his lap and accidentally turned yourself into the centre of his orbit.
You should go home. Your sensible little inner committee was banging on the table now.
But Dex looked at you like he was unaware he had puppy dog eyes, and you couldn’t say no to that, right?
So you kissed him once. “M’kay, baby,” you said.
Dex held you tighter then, giving an upbeat little whine as he peppered kisses on your collarbone.
Little did you know, there was no going back now.
—
The next day, Dex picked you up from work, even though you hadn’t asked him to.
He had driven you that morning as promised, his hands on your waist while he kissed you goodbye like he was trying not to follow you into the school library.
You had spent the whole day after that with his shirt on, but it was terribly oversized on you. Still, you managed to make it look intentional under your blazer, tucked and adjusted just enough that no one could tell. You had pinned your hair neatly, put your librarian face on, and acted very normal. Very professional of you, honestly.
Then the final bell rang, the library emptied, and by the time you stepped out of the front entrance with your bag over your shoulder, Dex was already there, waiting by his car with a suit jacket on and badge hidden.
You stopped mid-step. “Oh,” you said, lighting up. Beside you, Jonathan stopped too.
Jonathan, the music teacher. Nice Jonathan. Harmless Jonathan. Jonathan who lived two streets away from you and always carried a canvas tote bag with an embarrassing number of reusable water bottles inside it. He had been walking with you because you didn’t have your car with you and he offered to drive you home because you were both headed in the same direction.
Dex’s grip tightened around his keys.
You were still wearing his shirt, and this man wanted to take you home? Cute.
“Dex?” you called, surprised.
Dex barely spared Johnathan a glance. He came to you instead, handsome in that frightening l way, his attention fixed you that it made the other man feel like background noise.
“What are you doing here?” you asked.
“Picking you up.”
You blinked, then laughed softly. “Why?”
Because you were wearing my shirt. Because I spent all day knowing you were out of sight. Because I don’t like it when you’re not with me.
“Your car’s not here,” he said, and that was reasonable enough, right?
“Oh.” You glanced back. “Jonathan was going to offer me a ride. He lives a few blocks away, so—”
“No.” The word came out flat.
You tilted your head, confused. You tried to recover, sweet thing that you were, turning half toward the man beside you. “Dex, this is Jonathan. He’s the music teacher. Jonathan, this is—”
Dex opened the passenger door. “You’re coming with me.”
Jonathan stopped with his polite smile halfway formed.
You looked at Dex for a second, and your sensible little inner voice probably tried to say something about how this was strange.
Then Dex looked at you, and you melted, because fuck! Some foolish, lovesick part of you found that endearing. He came all this way for me?
“I’ll see you tomorrow, Jonathan,” you said gently.
Dex shut the passenger door after you climbed in and stood there for one extra second, hand still on the handle, the word burning through him. What did that mean?
He got into the car.
The drive started silent. You settled beside him, and Dex saw you cozy up one the corner of his eye and had to tighten both hands on the wheel.
“Tomorrow?” he asked finally.
You looked over. “Hm?”
“You said you’d see him tomorrow.”
A little smile pulled at your mouth. You leaned across the console and kissed his cheek, like you thought jealousy was cute when it came from him.
“We work together, Dex.”
Oh. Okay. Okay. That’s fine, right?
Normal boyfriends were fine with that, right?
Still.
Then, asked if you wanted to come over to his place again because he couldn’t help himself. Because having you in the passenger seat made it feel obscene to let you leave again. Because you were already dressed in his things and smelled faintly like his apartment and he couldn’t understand why the day had to end anywhere else.
You looked down at yourself and laughed. “Dex, I am literally wearing your clothes. I need to go to mine.”
He kept his expression calm, but his fingers went still on the wheel.
You noticed enough to furrow your brows. “I’ve got work stuff to do,” you said. “I’ll call soon, okay?”
He nodded. He could do that. He could be normal. He could drive you to your car and let you go back to your apartment with its bad lock and pathetic hallway light and no trace of him except the marks he had left under your clothes. He could.
He pulled up beside your car outside your building and watched you unbuckle your seatbelt. You said your goodbyes and were halfway out when he blurted out, “I love you.”
You stopped.
Fuck. Fuck!
He had not planned it like that. Not in the car, and definitely not with you leaving. But there it was.
You turned back to him slowly.
For a second, you bit your lip in shock.
It was quick. Too quick to say that. You’ve been going on dates for what? Two weeks?
You supposed he’d been around the school for two months now with the outreach program. But even that didn’t really make sense, right?
So now, your inner committee was no longer holding a meeting. It was pounding on the table, screaming that this was insane, that love wasn’t supposed to arrive between a third date and a school pick-up, that normal people didn’t do this.
But Dex was looking at you like you hung the stars for him.
So leaned back into the car and kissed him. Gently first, then deeper, because his hand found your jaw like he had been waiting for permission to touch you again since the school gates.
“I love you, too,” you whispered.
Oh. Oh.
You left before you could take it back.
Dex watched you wave from your door, hands resting on the wheel, mouth curved in a small, helpless smile he couldn’t seem to stop.
She loves me.
The thought repeated all the way home.
She loves me. She loves me. She loves me.
By the time he reached his apartment, he was still smiling.
Then he opened the door, and the smile vanished immediately because you were not there.
The apartment was exactly the same as it had been that morning, clean and perfectly ordered, but suddenly none of that mattered. The couch was empty. The kitchen was empty. The bed was empty. All those neat, controlled rooms had become useless because you weren’t inside them.
Dex stood in the doorway with his keys in his hand and felt his stomach in him turn over.
You loved him, so why were you not here?
The question sat in his head with terrible simplicity.
You loved him. He loved you. He could take care of you. He had the space, the money, the locks, the discipline. Your apartment was unsafe. Your building was bad. Your neighbours were careless. Jonathan from music lived too close. The world kept touching you and taking from you and making you tired.
Here was safer. Here, it made sense. Here, he could see you.
The thought came fully formed before he knew to stop it.
He could go get you.
He could get in the car. Drive to your apartment. Knock. Tell you that you should change your mind. Tell you the city was unsafe. Tell you your lock was bad. Tell you to pack a bag. Tell you you belonged in his apartment. Tell you until you believed him.
If you said no, he could still bring you back.
He was stronger than you. Faster than you. He was trained. He knew exactly how to move you without hurting too badly. He could overpower you, get you inside his apartment, lock the door, hide the keys, take your phone just for a while. He’d you keep warm. Feed you. Talk to you until the panic passed. He’d do that just until you understood. Because you would understand.
You loved him, so eventually you would understand that this was not cruelty, right? This was not punishment. This was him seeing the truth faster than you did. This was him making the hard decision because someone had to. This was him saving you from all the places that were not him.
It took him an embarrassingly long time to realise that was kidnapping.
Actually, legally, literally kidnapping.
Kidnapping. False imprisonment. Coercion. Felony. It was bad.
“Oh,” he whispered. Then, after a beat, “Shit.”
His breath went wrong. The heat in him snapped into panic so quickly he nearly staggered. He saw himself then, not as a man in love, not as someone protecting his girlfriend, but as exactly the kind of thing you would need protecting from.
No.
No, no, no.
He backed away from the door like it had opened onto a cliff.
He loved you. He loved you. He wasn’t going to make you afraid of him. He wasn’t going to put his hands on you. He wasn’t going to lock you inside his life and pretend that was the same thing as being chosen.
Even if some awful part of him wanted to. Especially because some awful part of him wanted to.
Dex went to the drawer with shaking hands and pulled out the tapes.
Dr. Eileen Mercer’s voice filled the apartment through a soft crackle of static. “Your internal compass isn’t broken, Dex. It just works better with a North Star to guide you.”
Dex sank onto the couch.
North Star.
That was what you were.
Of course you were. You, with your kind heart and your gentle voice and your stupidly good heart. You, making safe corners for children.
He had simply made the catastrophic mistake of falling in love with the star. Which complicated things.
Because you were supposed to guide him, not belong to him. You were supposed to be fixed above him, untouchable enough to follow. Not in his apartment. Not in his bed. Not wearing his shirt and saying I love you in his car like you had any idea what those words would do to a man like him.
Dex pressed the heels of his hands over his eyes and forced himself to breathe while the tape kept playing through the static.
The apartment was still wrong without you. His hands still shook. The need to leave and get you didn’t disappear just because he had named it correctly. The desire sat there, dark and patient, waiting for him to mistake it for devotion again. But he stayed where he was.
He stayed on the couch with his teeth clenched so hard it ached, listening to the tape like it was the only thing holding him in place.
He loved you. That had to mean something better than possession. It had to.
So Dex sat in the empty apartment and tried, breath by breath, to become the kind of man who could love his North Star without building a sky small enough to trap her.
—
Dex barely made it through the week by hearing your voice through the phone.
You were busy with the school, chaperoning a trip, dealing with children and permission slips and packed lunches and museum gift shops, so he did the good thing, the normal thing. He didn’t show up. He didn’t follow the bus route. He didn’t appear outside your apartment just because he knew you would be exhausted.
Well. Maybe he just did it once, but he didn’t even stop! He just took a quick peek around the block to make sure you got home safe.
After that, he took it one day at a time.
At night, he lay in bed with the phone pressed to his ear and listened to you talk when you called. You told him about the children, the chaos, the little girl who tried to correct the tour guide, the boy who cried because his sandwich got crushed in his bag.
He hated that he couldn't tell if you were warm enough. Hated that you sounded exhausted and he wasn’t there to put a blanket over your shoulders or press his mouth to your temple or make the world stop asking things of you for five minutes. But he behaved.
When you said, “I’m so tired, baby,” he closed his eyes like the world wrapped a hand around his throat.
When you said, “I miss you,” he pressed his fist against his mouth until the feeling passed enough for him to answer normally.
“I miss you too.” An understatement so violent it almost made him laugh.
Then you came back to regular life, and started spending more time with him.
And naturally, you started spending more nights at his place.
It was easy. His apartment was closer to the school. His shower was better. His fridge always had food you liked. Your tea was already in his cupboard. Your toothbrush was still in his bathroom from that first night, and the spare charger by his bed somehow became yours without either of you discussing it.
One night a week became two. Two nights a week became most of the week.
Your laundry ended up in his machine. Your favourite cardigan stayed folded in his bedroom. Your substitute teaching papers got graded at his kitchen table while he made dinner. Your commute became easier because he drove you when he could, and when he couldn’t, he made sure your car had petrol, the tyres were checked, and the weird noise under the hood had been fixed before it became a problem.
It was dangerous, how much easier he made your life.
Dangerous because you were a school librarian on a school librarian salary, and Dex had big boy FBI paychecks and paid for groceries without mentally rearranging the rest of the month around it.
You tried to argue about that once. He looked genuinely offended.
“I should help,” you said.
“You do.”
“I mean with bills.”
“You buy supplies for children who are not yours because no one else will. Let me pay for dinner.”
That shut you up, not because it was fair. But because it was kind. Or because it sounded kind. Or because, with Dex, the difference had started to blur.
Your car made a noise; he had it checked. Your shoes wore thin; a new pair appeared by the door. You mentioned once that you were out of your favourite cereal, and the next morning there were two boxes in his cupboard.
By five months, you were barely at your own apartment.
You still paid rent. You still had mail there. Technically, you still lived there. But most nights, you went home to Dex.
Then one night, while you sat at his kitchen table grading reading logs and wearing one of his shirts under your cardigan, Dex said, “You should move in.”
You looked up. “What?”
“You should move in here.”
He said it so calmly. Like he was pointing out the weather. Like he had not been waiting weeks to say it. Like he had not already measured the space in his closet, looked up your lease date, and made sure there was room for your books.
You felt your inner committee rise from the dead.
Babe. What the fuck. Five months. Are you actually considering this? What’s wrong with you? Huh?
So you pushed back, but not very well.
“Dex,” you said, looking around his apartment. “We’ve been dating for five months.”
“I know.”
“Moving in would be very quick.”
“I know.”
But would it? You were at his kitchen table in one of his shirts, your papers stacked on his coffee table, your mug in his sink, your shoes by his door. Half your life was already there.
Suddenly, Dex leaned down and kissed you before you could keep arguing.
He did it because he had seen men do it in movies when they wanted to calm the woman they loved.
That was how affection started with him, really. He imitated touch. He put a hand on your waist because that was what boyfriends did. He rubbed circles over your hip because that was what loving partners did.
But then you melted under his hands and sighed into his mouth. Your fingers curled lightly into the front of his shirt.
And Dex thought, oh. So that was what it was supposed to feel like.
So after the first time, it no longer felt like pretending. It was no longer fake, no longer a costume he wore to convince you he could be normal.
He liked this. He liked the warmth beneath his palms. Liked the trusting weight of you leaning into him. Liked that touching you made him feel whole. His thumbs kept moving in slow circles at your hips, more because he wanted to than because he remembered he was supposed to.
“I love you,” he murmured.
You closed your eyes like the words had done exactly what he hoped they would. “Dex…”
“You love me too.”
You laughed softly. “That is a terrible argument.”
“It’s my best one.”
Unfortunately, it was.
You hummed, but you were smiling now, and Dex felt his whole chest go warm.
He kissed you again, a little braver this time, still rubbing those gentle circles into your hips like he had finally found a love language that made sense in his hands.
You sighed, and he smiled against your mouth. It surprised him, even after five months, how much he wanted to be good at this.
“Okay,” you whispered.
Dex went very still.
You opened your eyes and looked up at him, soft and doomed and already half his. “Okay, baby. I’ll move in.”
—
People got weird when you told them you had moved in with Dex.
Your friends did that careful-smile thing. Your mother went quiet on the phone before saying, “Already?” like the word had three question marks and a police report attached. One coworker just blinked at you over her mug and said, “Wow. That’s… fast.”
You kept giving the same answers. My lease was ending. His place is closer. It makes sense financially. He takes care of me.
Jonathan was the most obvious about it.
You told him in the staff room, after he was complaining about one of his classes committing recorder-based psychological warfare. “I moved in with Dex,” you said, trying to sound casual.
Slowly, he turned around. “Your fed boyfriend?”
“He has a name.”
“Agent Intense?”
“Dex.”
“Right. Your fed boyfriend.” He stared at you. “That’s so fast.”
You sighed. Here we go again. “My lease was ending.”
“You’ve known him for six months.”
“If you count his school outreach, seven actually.”
“That’s not better.”
You crossed your arms, already defensive. “He’s not bad.”
“I didn’t say bad,” he shrugged, “I think more like… creepy.”
“Jonathan.”
“What? He once looked at me like I was trying to steal you because I offered you a ride home.”
“He’s just protective, that’s all,” you huffed.
“I’m gay.”
“I know that.”
“Does he?”
“He does now,” you said.
“Does he care?”
You opened your mouth and closed it. Because no, Dex didn’t care when you told him. Johnathan was still just another person standing between you and him, platonic or romantic or whatever. Jonathan could have been gay, married, celibate, and allergic to women, and Dex still would have watched him with that flat suspicion the second he stood too close to you.
Jonathan pointed his teaspoon at you. “Exactly.”
Your phone buzzed before you could answer.
Dex: Did you eat lunch?
You smiled and held up the phone like evidence. “See? He’s sweet.”
Jonathan looked at the message, then at you. “Sure,” he said carefully. “Sweet.”
You texted back yes, baby, and when Dex replied within seconds, Jonathan sighed. You ignored him.
After all, Dex cared. That was all.
—
The people who thought the move-in was quick were in for a treat, because one month after you moved into Dex’s apartment, he asked you to marry him in the back seat of his car.
See, you had shown up because summer holidays had made you stupid with missing him. You were bored. You had no school, no library chaos, no children asking where the glitter glue went. Just too much free time and the embarrassing realization that you had become the kind of woman who missed her boyfriend at eleven-thirty in the morning like an addict running out of nicotine patches.
So you brought him lunch and went to his workplace. That was a normal girlfriend thing, right? Except the lunch did not get opened.
Dex had barely gotten the car door shut before you were kissing him, and he had barely made it through the first breath of your mouth before his hand slid under your thigh and dragged you into his lap in the back seat.
“Dex,” you laughed into his mouth.
He made a low and lewd sound into his mouth. Then his hands were on you again, pushing your skirt up around your hips with a little too much force, a little too much need, until the seam gave with an unmistakable rip of fabric.
Dex stared at the torn fabric in his hand with the horrified focus of a man who had committed a federal offence against cotton blend. “I’ll buy you another one.”
“That is not the point,” you chuckled.
“I’ll buy you five.”
You should have been annoyed. But his eyes were black with want, and there was something so obscenely flattering about Benjamin Poindexter accidentally ruining your clothes because he needed you too badly to be careful. So you tightened your fist in his tie and pulled. “Later,” you whispered.
Dex obeyed, because liked it when you pulled him by it. He liked the pressure, the direction, the filthy little reminder that he was still half-dressed for work while you were undoing him in the back of his own car. His mouth opened under yours, hands clamped on your hips like he was trying not to lose the last piece of his mind.
Your inner committee, exhausted from the moving-in situation and still technically on unpaid leave, attempted to return to service.
Babe. This is his workplace. This is a federal garage.
Babe, your skirt is ripped.
Babe, we cannot keep replacing clothes every time this man gets horny and emotional.
Then Dex kissed down your throat and the committee immediately lost quorum.
By the time you were done and either of you remembered he had to go back inside, the windows were fogged at the edges. His hair was ruined from your hands. His tie was loose and crooked. His shirt was open at the collar, your lipstick low enough on his skin that he would need to button all the way up and pray no one noticed. His mouth was swollen.
You sat in his lap, skirt torn and shoved badly back into place, one hand still looped lazily around his tie. “You have to go back in,” you whispered.
His forehead rested against yours. “I know.”
“You look…”
His eyes lifted to yours.
You smiled. “Compromised.”
Dex’s mouth twitched. His thumbs moved on your thighs, circling through the thin fabric of your ruined skirt.
You tugged his tie gently. “I should let you go.”
His hands tightened, only barely.
“Marry me,” he said suddenly, as if he would die if he let you leave without saying it first.
For a second, you just stared at him. Somewhere inside your head, your inner committee walked back into the room, saw the situation, and immediately considered retiring.
Babe, no. Babe, absolutely not. Babe, stand up for yourself!
“What?” you managed to choke out.
“Marry me,” Dex calmly, like the idea had been sitting in him for weeks, waiting for the right opening, and apparently the right opening was you flushed and breathless in his back seat.
“Dex.”
“I love you.”
Oh, for fuck’s sake. Your inner committee sighed so hard the lights flickered.
“I love you,” he said again, quieter. “You love me. We already live together. It gives you legal protection. If something happens to me, you’re taken care of. If something happens to you, they call me first.”
“You are making a case,” you realised, though you shouldn't have been surprised.
He just shrugged. “I don’t see why we shouldn’t get married.”
There it was, the simple Dex logic of it: I love you. You love me. Why wouldn’t we?
It was reasonable if you ignored the fact that he was clearly halfway to losing his mind and had probably been planning this long before he said it out loud. And underneath that, there was the thing he did not say. Because sure, the practical reasons were true. But underneath all that, there was the darker, sweeter logic he kept tucked behind his teeth. If you were only his girlfriend, you could change your mind. You could wake up one morning, decide he was too much, pack a bag, and walk out before he had time to kiss you and remind you how gentle he could be when he was trying. A girlfriend could leave in one terrible conversation. A wife had to take steps.
And Dex loved steps. You’d have to go through lawyers, papers, and waiting periods. A marriage would buy him time, and time meant he could come to you, he could hold your face, and remind you that you loved him as much as he loved you. He would never hurt. But if the law could slow you down long enough for him to convince you that leaving was a mistake, Dex couldn’t help loving that, too.
He didn’t say that, though. He only looked at you with his hair mussed and his mouth ruined and said, “It makes sense.”
Your inner committee made one last brave attempt: Babe. Please. We JUST moved in.
But you banged the gavel at the head of your imaginary table and pouted. But look at him! He’s so hot!
In the real world, Dex was looking at you like you were already his wife, like the ring was only a formality. Then he kissed you, tenderly this time.
“I love you,” he murmured against your mouth.
The committee dropped their clipboard. Fine, you win, they seemed to say, Whatever you say, handsome.
You laughed weakly into the kiss, and Dex pulled back just enough to look at you.
“What?”
You touched his face, thumb brushing over his cheekbone, and felt him lean into it like affection was still new enough to surprise him.
“Yes,” you whispered, hand tightening in his tie. “Yes, baby. I’ll marry you.”
For a second, he looked almost scared by how happy it made him. Then his arms locked around your waist and pulled you close, his face turning into your neck, breath hot and uneven against your skin.
“But you really do have to go back inside,” you whispered with a chuckle.
Dex lifted his head. He looked ruined, happy, and possessive in a way that should have made you run but somehow only made you kiss him again. “I have ten more minutes.”
You giggled and pulled him in by the tie.
Your inner committee walked directly into the sea, never to be seen again.
—
Dex let you pick the rings.
The engagement ring first, because he said you were the one wearing it, so you should love it. Then the wedding bands, including his, even though he tried to act like he didn’t care what his looked like. That lasted until you slid a simple band onto his finger in the shop and watched his whole face go still, almost overwhelmed.
A month later, you married him at the courthouse.
It was too soon for anyone around you to feel truly comfortable about it. Your family came anyway. Your friends came anyway. Even Jonathan, looking like he had accepted his role as the last remaining voice of reason, and still failing anyway. On Dex’s side, there was a couple of coworkers standing near the back in neat suits, polite and reserved, present more like witnesses than family.
Dex had no parents, no siblings, no cousins, no childhood friends with embarrassing stories. No one who could say they had known him when he was young. No one who could reassure your parents he was a good person through and through. Just coworkers, Ray congratulating him as the rest of his coworkers stood on the courthouse hallway while your side filled the room with nervous affection and badly hidden concern.
You saw the way your mother looked at him. The way your friends glanced at one another when they realised there was no one on his side who really belonged to him. It made them uneasy, and because you loved him, you rushed to explain it in your head before anyone even asked. His parents were dead. He grew up alone. It was complicated. He didn't have people the way other people had people.
You said little pieces of that aloud, as if it explained half of it away. Maybe to you, it did. Maybe that was a teeny part of the reason you kept choosing him. Dex had no one, and then he had you. But it was also tender, in its own damaged way. He stood across the room in his suit, eyes finding you every few seconds as if checking that you were still real, still walking toward him eventually. He looked alone until he looked at you.
The problem was not that Dex didn't love you. Anyone with eyes could see that he clearly did. That was half the horror, really.
He loved you devoutly, too much for such a small courthouse. His attention followed you like a sniper scope. When someone hugged you, his eyes moved there. When Jonathan made you laugh, his face soured. When you looked at him, though, everything in him relaxed so completely that even your worried friends had to see it.
The ceremony itself was almost absurdly short, just a few legal words. A few signatures. Then came the ring that he slid on to your finger with a reverence that made your throat ache. His thumb lingered over the band once it was in place, brushing the metal like proof, like possession he was trying very hard to make gentle.
Your family saw it. Your friends saw it. Ray probably saw it too. But no one said anything anymore. They had tried to warn you. They had tried to tell you it was fast, intense, worrying. They had tried to point out all the red flags. But standing there, with Dex looking at your ring like the world had finally given him permission to keep the one good thing he had found, you knew why none of their warnings had worked.
Because you knew they were not entirely wrong. You just loved him anyway.
When Dex kissed you, it was gentle enough to make your mother cry. His hand came to your cheek, and his mouth touched yours like he was afraid of doing it wrong in front of everyone. But you felt the restraint beneath it, the hunger and devotion. The way he kissed you softly because that was what you deserved, even when every dark part of him wanted to hold on harder and bruise and mark his territory.
—
Two years later, Dex was in prison.
Jonathan tried not to say I told you so. To his credit, he really did try. He stood in your apartment after everything went public, arms folded too tightly, mouth pressed into a line while the news tore the FBI corruption apart in digestible pieces. Even family and friends looked at you like this was the ending they had feared from the start.
But you knew better.
Not because Dex was innocent. He wasn’t. You loved him too much to lie about that. He had done terrible things. There were parts of him that had always been hungry for direction, always been too easy for the wrong man to use.
And Fisk had used him perfectly.He had found every fracture in Dex and pressed his thumb into it. The instability, the need to be useful. The desperate, obsessive love Dex had for you.
Fisk kept you in a basement beneath one of his shell properties and let the world mourn you.
That was the cruelty of it: Fisk did not need you dead. Dead was final. Dead meant there was nothing left to use. But alive, hidden in a cold and windowless place? That made you useful. That made you leverage. Fisk could keep your body locked away while giving Dex a grief designed to break him.
So Fisk staged your death. He built the lie piece by piece. He staged an accident, a fire. The reports say that the body burned beyond recognition was yours, and even had an urn with someone else’s ashes in it with your paperwork attached just in case people started asking questions.
Dex believed it, because why wouldn’t he? Fisk made sure every piece fit. Even Matt believed it for a while. Everyone did.
So when Dex found it, he carried the urn like it was alive. He thought he figured out that Fisk was manipulating him, which was correct. He thought that Fisk had killed you, which was false.
He put the ashes in the passenger seat. He drove to the hotel with one hand on the wheel and the other reaching over sometimes, hovering near the metal like it might feel lonely. He talked to it in that broken voice of his, the one he would have been humiliated for anyone living to hear. He told the urn things. He apologised. He told you he loved you.
Then Dex’s spine broke.
And you were found by the cops shortly after, alive. Bruised, starved, shaking under a blanket in the basement Fisk had buried you in, still asking for Dex before your voice had fully come back.
So when they told you he went into surgery under guard, he had fought your way into that hospital room on the only ground no one could deny: you were his wife, his next of kin, his legal family. You should be allowed in, and you eventually got what you wanted.
During recovery, he looked wrong under hospital lights. The tubes and monitors and bandages made him look less like the terrifying thing the news kept replaying. Guards stood by the door. His wrists were shackled to the bed rails, his ankles too. You scoffed at that but couldn’t do anything about it, really.
When his eyes opened, he came back fighting. His hands jerked against the restraints, chains snapping taut with a hard metal sound that made one of the guards shift forward.
“Don’t,” you said quickly. “Dex, don’t.”
His head turned and saw you. Suddenly, thoughts halted to a stop.
You had seen Dex angry. Jealous. Focused. You had seen him desperate in your bed and gentle in your kitchen. You had seen him worshipful, frightening, almost boyish with love.
You had never seen him look like that. Like he was staring at a ghost and trying to decide whether believing in it would kill him.
His mouth parted, but sound came out.
You stepped closer, hands trembling. “Hi, baby.”
Dex’s breath broke. “You’re alive.”
Your chest caved in. “yeah.”
“No.” His voice cracked in disbelief. “No, I saw— Fisk said—”
“I know.”
“You’re alive,” he said again, louder now, almost frantic. “You’re alive. You’re alive.”
“I’m here.”
The chains snapped tight again when he tried to reach for you. Pain tore across his nerves, but he barely seemed to feel it. His eyes stayed locked on yours,wild and terrified, like if he looked away, you would vanish and the whole nightmare would become true again.
“I thought you were dead,” he whispered.
“I know, baby.”
You moved to him before anyone could stop you. Your fingers found his hand where the shackle allowed, careful around the bruised skin. His grip closed around yours instantly, weak but desperate, like even broken he could not help trying to hold on.
Your wedding ring caught the light. It was a reminder that he was still yours, you were still his, and whatever was left of him seemed to collapse under the proof.
“You’re alive.”
—
Dex was incarcerated after he healed enough to be moved.
Not rehabilitated. Not treated. Incarcerated.
They put him in solitary confinement like that could contain him. Like isolation would ever make him better. Like locking him away from voices and faces and human contact would somehow fix a man whose worst injuries had always come from being left alone too long with his own head.
You hated it. So for three years, you fought to get your husband moved somewhere that might actually help him.
Three years of forms, lawyers, psychiatric evaluations, and rejected petitions. Three years of people looking at Benjamin Poindexter and seeing only what he had done, three years of people looking at you, Mrs. Poindexter, as if you were insane because you still loved him. Three years of explaining, again and again, that solitary confinement was not treatment. And Dex had always been dangerous when he was quiet.
Your old school library job no longer paid enough to carry the life Fisk had torn apart, so you took a better job at a public library. It's a better salary, but longer hours. More responsibility. You now had to think about staff rotas, community programmes, council meetings, difficult patrons, funding cuts, late nights under fluorescent lights while you built displays and answered emails with your wedding ring flashing every time your hands crossed the keyboard.
Every other day, you went to the prison.
Sometimes straight from work, your blazer wrinkled, your tote bag full of library paperwork, your lipstick faded from too many cups of coffee. Sometimes on your days off, when you could pretend the visit was the centre of the day instead of an activity squeezed between legal calls and grocery shopping and a life you had never wanted to live without him in it.
Dex always noticed when you were tired before you said it. He noticed when your shoes were new. He noticed when you had cut your hair, even slightly. He noticed when you had skipped lunch and lied about it. Even in prison uniform, even under the dead light of the visiting room, Dex was still your husband in all the ways that made people uncomfortable and all the ways that kept you coming back.
You told him about your days. You told him about the elderly man who came into the library every Wednesday to read the newspaper and complain about the chairs. The little girl who asked for “a book with a dragon but not a mean dragon because mean dragons have bad vibes.” The teenager who pretended not to care about poetry and then checked out three collections when his friends were not looking. You told him about staff meetings, leaky ceilings, broken printers, new shelving systems.
There were visits where he barely spoke. But even then, his eyes stayed on you. Even then, his fingers moved toward yours. Even then, when you said, “Baby,” parts of him came back to the surface.
You kept fighting because he needed help.
Then one afternoon, after three years of pushing against walls that did not move, one finally gave. The blip, after all, freed some space up. Though you really shouldn't celebrate such a tragedy, it was hard to ignore the fact that this time, it worked in your favor. That day, you carried the news into the visiting room.
His eyes moved over your face, your hands, the folder tucked beneath your arm. “What’s that?” he asked.
You smiled, biting your lip, “I have good news.”
You reached across the table. This time, they let you hold his hand. It was a small mercy. His fingers closed around yours immediately, like he could feel the tremor in you and wanted to steady it without frightening it away.
“A facility we applied to reviewed your case,” you said. “It’s looking good. The transfer is pending final approval.”
Dex didn’t move. You kept going before fear could steal the words from you.
“It’s a secure psychiatric institution. It’s not freedom, I know that. But it’s not solitary. You’d have doctors, actual treatment, scheduled therapy, medication reviews. You wouldn’t be in shackles.”
His face remained controlled, but you knew him too well. You saw the tiny shift in his breathing.
“It’s going to be better,” you whispered. “Okay? Not perfect. Not easy. But better. You won’t be alone in a box, and we get longer visitation hours, okay?”
Dex was quiet for a long moment. Then he nodded once. “That’s good.”
Your laugh came out broken, because part of you still found that endearing. “That’s good? That’s all you have?”
His mouth almost softened, guilty at the thought of offending you. “It’s very good,” he amended.
You squeezed his hand, and for one rare second, the visiting room didn’t feel quite so much like a cage. It felt like a door opening somewhere far away.Then Dex looked up again. “But I hope my request gets approved before I get moved.”
“Request?” You blinked. “For what?”
He held your gaze with the seriousness of a man discussing nothing more important than bills. “A conjugal visit.”
For a moment, your mind simply stopped. “What?”
“A conjugal visit,” he repeated, as if you might not have heard him the first time.
You stared at him. Of course he had thought of that.
In three years of legal petitions, medical reviews, prison visits, and fighting to have him treated like a person instead of a weapon, you had somehow not allowed yourself to think about that part. About being his wife in that way still. About how long it had been since he had touched you without guards and tables and rules between you.Dex had, though.
“Dex,” you said softly, rubbing slow circles on his hand.
“What?”
“You are in solitary confinement.”
“I know.”
“You’re probably not getting approved for a conjugal visit.”
“Probably not.”
His expression didn't change, but he squeezed your hand and your stomach turned over despite yourself. You leaned forward as much as the table allowed. The guard near the door shifted, but you ignored him. You kissed the edge of Dex’s mouth, brief and soft, but still enough to make his breath catch.
“Let’s focus on this, yeah?” you whispered.
His eyes stayed on yours. For a second, the hunger in him quieted, almost obedient. He nodded once. “Okay.”
Your hand stayed in his until the guard told you time was up. Dex didn’t let go until he had to.
—
He got approved. Somehow, Benjamin Poindexter got approved for a conjugal visit.
You read the notice three times in your kitchen, work bag sliding off your shoulder, lanyard still around your neck, your shoes aching from a long day on your feet. The letter was painfully plain and administrative. But it was approved nonetheless.
You stared at it until the paper blurred. “What the fuck?” you whispered.
Because there was no way. There was no reasonable, lawful way that your husband, a convicted killer, a high-risk prisoner, had been granted that kind of access.
You knew then that Dex had done something. Nothing obvious enough to get the request pulled. He might have threatened a guard. Maybe Dex had mentioned a name, a detail, some small piece of information he shouldn’t have known and let them do the rest.
You should have been horrified. Mostly, though, you pressed the paper to your mouth and laughed once, breathless and disbelieving, because all you could think was: That’s how badly he wanted me. That’s how much he loves me.
—
When the day came, you waited in the room alone.
You had done the paperwork, gone through twenty locked doors to get here. You came knowing you had a couple of hours with your husband. And forthe first time in three years, there would be no table between you, no visitor chair bolted too far from his. No guards close enough to hear every word. No one telling you not to lean too far across the table when all you wanted was to touch his face.
A couple of hours was not enough.
You smoothed your hands over your blouse, then over your skirt, then clasped them together in your lap to make yourself stop fidgeting. You had dressed too carefully without really thinking about it. You had a white blouse, a nice skirt, because Dex liked seeing you in skirts. You were wearing the cardigan you were wearing when you met him.
You stared at your wedding ring until Dex stepped inside. For a second, neither of you moved.
He looked different. That was your first thought, blunt and stupid and immediate. He looked different, because of course he did. Years had happened. Prison had happened. Surgery had happened. His hair was shorter. His jaw looked sharper. But he was also bigger.
You noticed from your previous visits, of course, but seeing him a bit closer now, it was evident. His shoulders filled out the plain prison shirt. His arms looked stronger than they had in the hospital, muscle sitting heavy under institutional fabric, like all the recovery and physical therapy and whatever routines they let him have had made him sturdier.
You blinked before you could stop yourself. What were they feeding him?
Dex’s eyes found your face first, gaze locked onto you. For one fragile second he did not look like a prisoner at all.
He looked like Dex. Your Dex. Your husband, seeing you after being forced to miss you for too long.
“Hi,” you whispered.
His mouth parted slightly. When the door closed behind him, the lock turned, and whatever restraint he had used to walk in there like a normal person vanished.
You barely got to stand before his hands were on your face and yours were on his chest, and the first kiss was so clumsy it almost made you laugh. Your noses bumped. His mouth missed yours by half an inch and caught the corner instead. You made a tiny sound, half sob and half laugh, and Dex froze like he had done something wrong.
“No,” you said quickly, already smiling through the sting in your eyes. “No, come here.”
You took his face in both hands and kissed him properly, softly at first. Then again. And again.
These were little, ridiculous kisses. The kind you had imagined giving him in every prison visit where a guard stood too close. You kissed his mouth, the corner of it, his cheek. You kissed the line beside his nose, the skin under his eye, the edge of his mouth again.
Dex stood there and let you love him, as if he couldn’t believe you still did at all.
His hands stayed at your waist, almost uncertain, like after all this time he still didn’t fully trust that he was allowed to hold you without someone telling him to stop. But the longer you kissed him, the more his fingers settled. The more his body leaned into yours. The more the tension in his shoulders slowly started to melt.
“I missed you,” you said between kisses.
Dex’s eyes closed. “I missed you, too.”
“I missed you so much.”
“I know.”
“No, you don’t.” You kissed his cheek again, because apparently now that you had started you couldn't stop. “I missed you in the kitchen. I missed you in our bed. I missed you when I had to fix the shelf myself because you would have been so annoying about doing it better.”
His mouth twitched. “You fixed a shelf?” he asked.
“I tried to.”
His eyes opened with attentive focus you had missed so badly. “What happened?”
“It’s currently leaning.”
Dex stared at you, then he laughed. It wasn’t loudly, or freely. It was small, rough, and almost startled, like his body had forgotten how to make the sound and needed you to remind it.
You broke a little. “Oh,” you whispered, smiling like an idiot. “There you are.”
His expression changed before he leaned in and kissed you again, not clumsy this time. A kiss that said yes, here, I’m here, I came back up when you called.
His arms moved around you properly then, and fuck, he was solid.
You had expected him to feel fragile, because part of you still remembered the hospital bed, the shackles, the bruised skin around his wrists after surgery. But this Dex was heavy and strong under your hands. When your palms slid over his shoulders, you felt muscle there making your stomach drop and go hot at the same time.
Still, he stayed sweet for a little while.
You had both expected the hunger. But before that, there was Dex touching your hair like he had thought about the texture of it more than once. There was you smoothing your thumb over his cheekbone, relearning him up close. There was him pressing his face into the side of your neck and breathing in once like he had been living on memory for years and memory had never been enough.
“I missed how you smell,” he said, voice muffled against your skin.
You laughed. “That’s creepy,” you said, but smiled into his hair anyway.
Your fingers drifted to the back of his neck, then lower, over the ridge of his shoulder. You felt him shiver when your touch found the edge of the scar beneath his shirt. You paused, but he shook his head against you. “It’s okay.”
So you kept touching him gently. Through the fabric first, then at the collar where your fingers could slip just beneath. The scar was there, and Dex’s breathing changed when you traced it. Not with pain, exactly. It felt more… intimate.
“My baby,” you whispered before you could stop yourself.
His hand flexed at your hip. This time, when his mouth opened under yours, the sweetness warmed.His body crowded yours a little more. His hands moved from your waist to your back, then down again.
“You got…” You swallowed, then laughed softly because there was no graceful way to say it. “You got big.”
Dex blinked. For half a second, he looked genuinely confused. Then his eyes dropped to where your hands were spread over his chest. “Big?”
“You know what I mean.”
“I had physical therapy.”
“That is a criminal understatement.”
His mouth twitched again as you dragged your palms over his shoulders, shameless now, because you had earned this. You had earned the right to be stupid about your husband’s arms after three years of prison visits and legal calls and sleeping alone.
“You’re very…” You squeezed his bicep lightly. “Recovered.”
Dex looked at you. “You’re flirting with me.”
You shrugged, but didn’t deny it.
The sound he made was almost an arrogant chuckle.
He kissed you again, and this time there was no mistaking the heat under it. Then, his hands settled on your blouse.
Not grabbing yet, but touching the fabric at your waist, thumbs moving slowly over the buttons as if he had only just realised there was something between his hands and your skin.
You were still smiling when his eyes dropped.
Suddenly, his eyes were fixed on the small gap where one button had loosened, where the fabric had shifted just enough to reveal a flash of black lace underneath.
Dex recognised it at the same time you remembered. “Is that…”
Your face burned hot as you nodded.
It was the black teddy he had bought you for your first wedding anniversary.It was sheer lace at the cups, delicate straps, a low satin-trimmed neckline. Dex remembered the first time you tried it on. You stood at the foot of your bed, pretending not to be shy, while he sat there ruined, looking at you like his brain had briefly stopped receiving oxygen. And now, you had worn it here.
Dex’s thumb brushed the edge of your blouse, right where black lace disappeared beneath it. His eyes darkened. “You wore my anniversary gift under your blouse,” he said.
Your stomach flipped. “When you say it like that—”
“How should I say it?” He demanded, and it was a little mean. But that always did turn you on.
“I don’t know,” you whispered. “Less like you’re about to lose your mind.”
Dex looked back up at you, too focused, too hungry. “I am.”
Oh.
Your hands tightened in his shirt.
The room felt smaller after that, less like a prison facility and more like the bedroom he remembered, the one with your knees pressed into the mattress and his hands shaking at your waist because he hadn’t known a piece of lace could make wanting feel that violent.
His grip settled firmer on your hips. “You have no idea,” he murmured, mouth brushing your ear. “What you do to me.”
Your eyes fluttered shut. There he was. Your husband, touch-starved, breathing against your neck like he had waited years to find out if he could still make you tremble.
You smiled, kind and doomed all the same. “Show me.”
Oh, he had a list.
Dex was undressed before you could blink, all broad shoulders and blown pupils, moving with a focused urgency that made the sterile little room feel suddenly too small to hold him. The white walls, the bolted table, the narrow bed, the chemical-clean smell of the sheets, and none of it stood a chance against the way he looked at you.
He had been counting down to this for years. Every prison visit, every supervised touch, every night alone in a cell had led into this exact moment.
His hands were already on your blouse, quick but not careless, tearing through buttons, ripping them off with a precision that would have been funny if his breathing had not been so rough. The black teddy appeared inch by inch beneath the fabric, lace and satin and memory, and Dex looked ruined.
First on the list: his mouth between your legs.
You understood that the second he dropped to his knees. Dex had barely gotten the teddy off before his hands were already under your skirt, gripping your thighs.
Then his mouth was on you, and every thought in your head broke apart.
“Oh,” you gasped, one hand flying to his hair, the other twisting in the clean white sheet beneath you.
Dex made a sound against you that was almost a groan, almost a laugh. His hands tightened on your thighs, holding you open for him, keeping you there like he was afraid you might disappear if he let go. He was not gentle, like he used to be. He was focused, hungry, and touch-starved enough that every reaction you gave him seemed to make him worse.
“Fuck,” he breathed against you, voice rough and ruined. “You taste so fucking sweet.”
Your whole body went hot. “Dex—”
He didn’t let you finish. His mouth returned to you, and the room became nothing but the wet heat of him, the harsh sound of his breathing, the narrow bed creaking under the way your hips moved despite yourself. The sterile little room had no right to hold something this filthy.
He was still so good, it was unfair.
Dex had always been terrifying when he focused. When he learned something, he learned it completely. And you realised, breathless and shaking, that he remembered everything. Every place that made you gasp. Every rhythm that made your hand tighten in his hair. Every tiny, helpless sound you tried to swallow and failed.
You tried to move back once, overwhelmed, but his hands slid under you and dragged you closer with a low, possessive sound that made your stomach twist.
“No,” he murmured. “Stay.”
So you stayed while he buried himself there like he could spend hours between your thighs if time were not an issue. You stayed while his fingers dug into your skin, while his mouth made you forget the guards outside, the transfer, the years, the ugly world that had kept him from you. You stayed while he took you apart with the kind of devotion that felt less like softness and more like obsession given a mouth.
At some point, you said his name too loudly, and Dex groaned like that was the point.
Of course he wanted them to hear. Of course he wanted the men outside that locked door to know that whatever they thought they had taken from him was still his. You were still his.
When you finally broke, Dex did not stop right away.
He held you through it palms spread over your thighs, breathing you in like the end of the world had tasted sweet and he couldn’t make himself pull away.
Only when you tugged weakly at his hair did he lift his head.
Dex looked up at you like he had just crossed the first thing off a list and still had every intention of finishing the rest.
Number two on the list should have been obvious when he suddenly looked shy.
“Can I ask you something?” he murmured.
Your breath was still uneven. “Dex.”
His mouth pressed briefly to the inside of your knee, like he needed one more second to gather himself. “I want your mouth.”
Oh.
Your stomach flipped so hard you almost laughed. Who were you to deny this man anything?
You slid off the bed and onto your knees in front of him, and Dex went very still.
His hand came to your cheek, careful at first, thumb brushing your skin like he needed to touch you gently before letting himself want. His breathing changed when you looked up at him. His pupils were blown wide enough to make him look almost feverish.
“Baby,” he said, voice rough.
You smiled before giving him what he asked for.
Dex’s hand stayed in your hair, not forcing, not taking. His head tipped back. His throat worked. His eyes squeezed shut and opened again because he seemed to hate missing even one second of you.
He was big in every way you remembered and worse because you had missed him.
Too much, almost. Overwhelming enough to make your eyes water, enough to make your hands press at his thighs when you needed a second, and Dex stopped immediately each time.
His hand softened in your hair. “Too much?” he rasped.
You shook your head, breathless, stubborn, and a little ruined yourself.
Dex looked like that might kill him. Then you kept going, and he fell apart beautifully.
He moaned your name like a warning, like a plea. His hand stayed on your cheek against your cheek, his thumb brushing away the wetness at the corner of your eye with such tenderness that the gesture felt obscene in context.
“You’re perfect,” he whispered, voice breaking. “Fuck, you’re perfect.”
You felt him getting close, and you wanted nothing more than feeling him down your throat, but he pulled back, stopping himself so abruptly you almost protested.
Dex stared down at you, chest heaving, eyes wild, mouth parted like he had just survived something.
You blinked up at him.
He gave a rough little laugh, almost pained. “No,” he said, voice hoarse. “Not yet.”
You smiled slowly. “Not yet?”
His gaze darkened again. He reached down, thumb brushing your lower lip, still shaking from the effort of denying himself.
“I have two more things on the list,” he reminded you, making your thighs pressed together.
Dex helped you back onto your feet with hands that weren’t quite steady, then kissed you so deeply you tasted the restraint he had forced himself to keep.
“Bed,” he murmured against your mouth.
Number three on the list was taking you from behind, of course.
He turned you toward the bed with hands that were still shaking his mouth at your shoulder, your neck, the back of your ear.
He moved slowly at first, because even like this, rough and ruined and half-mad with missing you, Dex was still Dex. He still listened to every breath, every shift of your body, every little sound that told him whether you were overwhelmed or wanting more. The stretch of him made your hands fist in the sheet, your body tensing around the sheer shock of having him again after so long without. His mouth pressed to your shoulder. “Breathe,” he rasped. “I’ve got you.”
He took his time even though you could feel restraint burning through him. The way he cursed softly against your skin when you finally relaxed into him, when your body remembered him properly and pulled him closer.
“Fuck,” he breathed, voice breaking. “You’re so—”
He cut himself off with his mouth against your shoulder, like the words were too much, like saying them would make him less controlled than he already was.
Then he started moving. God, he hadn’t forgotten you, so of course you were loud almost immediately.
The first sound broke out of you before you could stop it, your whole face burning. Dex’s hand tightened at your hip, and the next lewd mewl came worse. He made a low sound behind you, smug and satisfied in a way that made heat crawl up your spine.
You bit down on your own wrist, trying to muffle yourself.
His hand slid up your body and gently pulled your arm away. “No,” he said, voice rough. “I waited three years to hear you.”
Your whole body went hot. “Dex—”
“Let me hear you.”
And then he made sure you did.
He got rougher, hungrier. His body covered yours, his mouth dragging over your neck while his hands held you exactly where he wanted you. The bed creaked under you. The sheet twisted beneath your fists. Your voice filled the room because he kept pulling it out of you, again and again.
At some point, there was a knock on the dorm but unfortunately Dex did not have enough self control to stop.
You looked over your shoulder, cheek pressed flush into the sheets.
The little window opened and a guard looked in. They were worried, you realised. You had been so fucking loud.
The humiliation should have swallowed you whole. Instead, your stomach flipped.
“You okay?” the guard called.
You could barely speak. “Hmmph, Y-yes!” you managed.
Dex’s hand slid over your stomach, keeping you pressed back against him.
The guard moved away when he realised what he was seeing, face red.
The second the shadow disappeared, Dex’s mouth was at your ear. “You liked that.”
You shivered.
“You liked him checking,” he murmured, darker now. “Liked him hearing what I do to you.”
You should have denied it, but you could not bring yourself to lie, Dex made a rough, broken sound against your neck and moved again, deeper into the heat, rougher now because he was jealous, because some stranger had seen even a glimpse of your face like that and Dex couldn’t stand it. He kissed your shoulder hard and held you like he could erase the guard’s eyes from the room by making you forget anything existed except him.
“Mine,” he breathed.
You answered with his name, exactly how he wanted it.
Number four on the list started with him denying you an orgasm.
That was how you knew prison had changed him.The old Dex, the one who melted when you praised him, the one who went doe-eyed and obedient under your hands, had been buried under three of whatever this was.
Dex flipped you over before you could come undone.
Your gasp broke against his mouth as your back hit the narrow mattress, the white sheet twisted beneath you, your body sore in the best, most aching way. You were already too close and he knew it. Of course he knew it. He knew your body like he had studied it for a test he refused to fail.
“Not yet,” he murmured.
You made a helpless little sound, half protest, half plea. Dex’s hand slid up your waist, and he was inside you again in no time.
Oh. you realised, he wanted to look at you when you came. That was all. So sweet. So cute.
But then you felt him twitch, and you realised that he was close before he did. Or maybe he knew, and he was just too far gone to care about anything else.
“Dex—” Your voice caught. “Dex, I’m not— fuck, I’m not on birth control.”
He didn’t stop completely. His whole body stuttered above yours, rhythm faltering, breath punching out of him like you had hit him in the chest.
“Hmph—fuck.” His forehead dropped against yours. “I know.”
Your eyes snapped open. “You know?”
His hand slid over your stomach, possessive, and the sound that left him was almost pained.
“I know,” he said again, rougher. “I know, baby.”
The words should have sobered you, but you loved him, and you loved that he was still above you, still shaking, still so close you could feel every tremor of restraint tearing through him.
“Dex,” you gasped.
“I thought about it,” he said, voice low and wrecked. “Every night.”
Your body went hot. His hand pressed a little firmer over your stomach, not forcing, just holding there like the thought had been living in him for years.
“You in our apartment,” he murmured, words breaking between breathless little sounds. “My wife, wearing my old shirts. Sleeping alone. Fighting for me. Sitting across from lawyers and doctors while I sit in a– hmmphh— a fuckin’ box.”
“Baby—”
“And all I could think was… fuck—all I could think was I should have left you something.”
Your breath caught so hard it almost hurt.
A baby, he meant.
A living tether. Something that would tie you to him in a way no prison door, no court order, no transfer file could undo. And sure, if you were going to leave him, you would have done it already. No court in the world would blame you for divorcing a killer. No friend, no family member, no sane person would call you cruel for walking away.
But you stayed. And fuck, somehow, staying was still not enough for Dex. He needed proof that some part of him could still belong to you permanently.
In his mind, twisted and tender as it was, this was not a trap. It was a gift.
His eyes locked on yours, blown dark and terrifyingly attentive even through the haze.
His mouth was against yours, then your jaw, then your throat, never settling anywhere long enough to be gentle. He kept touching you like he could not decide what he needed more: your face, your waist, your hips, the heat of your body.
“You feel that?” he rasped, voice wrecked as you squeezed him a little. “How bad you want it?”
You did want it, but you could barely answer. Every breath came out wrong, caught somewhere between a moan and his name. Your thoughts had gone useless, scattered apart by the obscene tenderness of his palm resting low and possessive like he was already imagining the seed taking root there.
“Dex—” you sighed, trying to bury your face in his ned
“No, baby.” His mouth brushed your ear, rough and hot, as he pulled your hair back gently to look into your eyes. “Don’t get… shit— shy now. Not after that. N-not after the sounds you’ve been making ‘f me.”
Your face burned, but your hands only tightened on him.
His voice dropped lower, filthier, the words breaking between harsh breaths. “My pretty girl wants something from me, huh?”
Your whole body went hot.
Dex’s palm pressed a little firmer over your stomach. “S-she wants me to leave her with something.” His breath hitched, and for a second his voice almost failed him. “Wants to walk out of here carrying more than m-my… hmm— fingerprints.”
You made a helpless sound.
“There it is,” he murmured. “You like that, fuck! You like thinking about it.”
“Dex-please—”
“Yeah?” His mouth found yours, messy and desperate, before he pulled back just enough to look at you. His pupils were blown wide, his face flushed, his control hanging by a thread he was clearly ready to let snap. “My pretty girl wants my baby, huh?”
Your breath caught so hard it hurt.
Dex saw it the way your body answered before your mouth could.
His face changed, hunger folding into something sickly sweet, almost tender in the worst possible way. “Fuck,” he whispered. “You do.”
Your eyes stung.
You hated and loved how well he knew you all the same.
“Wants something of mine when they t-take me back,” he breathed, mouth dragging along your cheek. “Something they c-can’t put in a cell. Something that— hnghhh — still has me in it.”
You were shaking now, overwhelmed and aching and so far gone that language felt like a thing happening on another planet. Dex was talking to you like he knew exactly where every dark little want lived under your skin, like he had spent three years locked away with nothing but the memory of you and all the ways he wanted to make himself permanent.
“Say it,” he murmured.
You couldn’t, not properly. Dex’s eyes darkened further.
“C-can’t even talk,” he whispered. “That’s okay. I know you.” His thumb moved slowly over your skin. “I know what my wife wants.”
Your breath broke.
His forehead pressed to yours, and for one second, under all that hunger, he was shaking with the effort to hold himself back.
“But you gotta tell me,” he said, voice raw. “Tell me no and I’ll stop.”
The restraint from him was phenomenal. Your hands slid up to his face, holding him there, forcing him to look at you while you gave him the answer.
“D-don’t you fucking dare stop,” you whispered.
“Yeah?” he asked, like he needed it again, like one yes was not enough to survive on.
“Yes–Fuck! Yes, baby.”
His mouth crashed back to yours, swallowing the rest of your answer, and the room disappeared into heat and the terrible intimacy of choosing this with him. His hand stayed over your stomach the whole time, almost reverent, like the fantasy had become real the second you let him have it.
He kept talking against your mouth, the words coming apart as badly as he was.
How good you were. How much he had missed you. How he had thought about you every night. How he wanted to leave something behind. How you would be going home with him in a way no guard could take from you.
You clung to him through it, nails catching on his shoulders, then his back, then the scar along his spine. Dex shuddered when you touched it, a broken sound leaving him before he buried his face against your neck and held you closer, closer, closer, like he could press three lost years into the space between your bodies and make them disappear.
When he finally came with you, he did it with your name on his mouth and his eyes fixed on yours, like he needed you to see every second of what he was giving you.
His forehead dropped to yours afterward, both of you breathing too hard.
For a while, neither of you spoke. The guards outside were silent. The room was wrecked in small damning ways: twisted sheets, scattered clothes, your blouse half on the floor, the black lace halfway off the bed.
Dex kissed your cheek. Then your jaw. Then the corner of your mouth.“I missed you,” he whispered, and this time it sounded almost broken.
You closed your eyes and held him there. “I missed you, too.”
—
The knock came fifteen minutes later, and you hated it. “Poindexter,” a guard called, “Time.”
Dex was still against you, face buried in your neck, one arm locked around your waist like pretending not to hear it might make the door stay shut. For a second, neither of you moved. His breathing was still uneven against your skin, and your fingers were still in his hair, and the narrow bed beneath you looked absolutely ruined.
Another knock. You touched the back of his neck. “Baby.”
“I know.”
He didn’t sound like he knew. He sounded like leaving you there might kill him.
You both moved in a rush after that, half-dressed and breathless, trying to put yourselves back together before the guards came in. The sheet was twisted. Your skirt was crooked. Your blouse was missing buttons because Dex had been too impatient, so you had to clutch the fabric closed with both hands while smiling like an idiot anyway.
Then the guards stepped in. One of them looked at the bed, then at you, then at Dex. His face went carefully blank.
“Hands,” he said.
You stepped forward before Dex could turn around.
The guard sighed. “Ma’am—”
“One second,” you said.
Dex bent instantly, like he had been waiting for permission. You kissed him once. Then again. Then to his nose, because one kiss was not enough and never would be.
“I love you,” you whispered.
He looked like he might cry. “I love you, too”
Then they cuffed him.
You hated the sound of metal around his wrists. It meant the world taking him back. At the door, Dex looked over his shoulder, and you stood there still holding your blouse together, still smiling, still ruined.
The guard muttered, “Filthy animals,” as they disappeared into the hall.
Then you heard Dex chuckle, low and rough and proud. Like being filthy with you was the best thing anyone had ever called him.
You stood there for a second, and then you laughed under your breath, too.
Because you loved it. You loved being disgusting with him. Loved that the room looked wrecked. Loved that the guards knew. Loved that Dex would carry that insult back to his cell like a compliment, and that you would go home with the same stupid, shameless pride in your chest.
Filthy animals.
Yeah. You smiled to yourself, still holding your blouse together. Maybe you were.
—
You were pregnant.
You found out before the transfer, while Dex was still in prison, still waiting to be moved to the secure psychiatric facility you had spent three years fighting for. For three days, you carried the secret around yourself like a forcefield. You went to work, answered emails, helped patrons at the public library. You smiled politely at everyone while your whole body felt like it had become a locked room with a miracle inside.
When you told Dex, he knew something was different before you even sat down. His eyes went to your face, then your hands, then the way you kept pressing your palm nervously against your stomach. “What happened?”
You laughed once, shaky and soft. “Nothing bad.”
Dex didn’t relax, so you reached across the table and took his hand as much as the cuffs allowed. His fingers closed around yours immediately. “I’m pregnant.” For a second, it was like the whole visiting room lost sound. Then his eyes dropped to your stomach. “What?”
You smiled through the tears already coming. “I’m pregnant, baby.”
The chair scraped back before the guard could stop him.
Dex moved toward you on instinct, cuffed hands reaching for your face, not violent, not thinking, just desperate to touch. The chain between his wrists caught on the edge of the table, but he barely seemed to feel it. His palms found your cheeks, and then he was kissing you across the table like the whole room had disappeared.
“Poindexter,” the guard snapped.
Dex didn't hear him. Or he did, and for one dangerous second, he didn’t care.
You kissed him back, crying into his mouth, fingers gripping the front of his prison shirt because this was your husband, your baby’s father, and he was making this broken sound against your lips.
Another guard came over. “Back. Now.”
They had to pull you apart. Actually pull you apart.
They had one hand on Dex’s shoulder, another on his arm, dragging him back while his cuffed hands strained toward you and yours reached for him across the table. His eyes stayed locked on your face the whole time amazed and almost frightened by the size of what he felt.
The transfer happened not long after.
The institution was better than solitary. You reminded yourself of that every day. He had doctors now. Treatments, structure. He was not locked alone in a box anymore.
But he still was not free. He wasn’t there when your stomach first started to show, but the institution had better visitation rules than the prison, and the first time you came in visibly pregnant, Dex was allowed to touch you. His hand settled over the curve of your stomach so carefully it made your throat ache, like he was afraid the smallest wrong movement might cost him the privilege.
He wasn’t there when the baby kicked for the first time either, but later, during one of those visits, the baby kicked beneath Dex’s palm. Dex went completely still, eyes dropping to your stomach.
Still, he wasn’t there for the smaller, lonelier things. He wasn’t beside you in the maternity shop when you cried because nothing fit right and you wanted him there so badly it hurt. He should have been there making some too-serious comment about proper shoes, back support, and whether the changing room bench was structurally safe enough for you to sit on.
But even then, you told him everything. Every appointment. Every craving. Every scan. Every tiny development you could turn into words and carry to him.
Then Leonard was born. Leo, for short, named for his father.
Dex wasn’t allowed to be there.
That hurt him in a way he didn’t know how to hide. You didn’t know this, but one of the nurses told you he had become erratic after the call came through that you were in labour. Not violent, but frantic, pacing, asking the same questions over and over, trying to negotiate with people who had no authority to give him what he wanted. By the end of it, they had to force a couple pills down his throat so he could just calm down.
So when you finally called, exhausted and crying, with your son against your chest, the silence on the other end felt too careful.
“He’s here,” you whispered. “He’s here, baby.”
Dex didn’t answer right away. For a moment, all you could hear was his breathing, thin and controlled, like he was holding himself together by force. Then, very carefully, he asked, "Are you okay?”
“Yes.”
“Is he okay?”
“Yes.”
You could almost picture him sitting there, hand curled too tightly around the phone, trying to make himself calm enough to deserve hearing this.
“Tell me,” he said.
You told him Leo had blonde hair. You looked down at the baby curled against you, tiny and furious, with pale hair against his head and features that already made your chest ache because there was no denying whose child he was.
“He looks like you,” you whispered.
Dex didn’t answer right away. When he did, his voice sounded stripped bare.
“He does?”
“Yeah, baby.” You smiled through tears, touching Leo’s tiny cheek. “He looks like his father.”
Still, after weeks, then months, then years of hearing about Leo through you, Dex began to know him in fragments.
Children were not allowed inside the institution, so Leo had never met his father. Dex knew him through the stories you told him in visitation rooms, through the photographs you were allowed to bring, through the change in your voice whenever you said his name. You gave him a picture of Leo asleep with one fist tucked under his cheek. Leo with blond hair and your eyes. Leo scowling at the camera in a way that looked so much like Dex it made him go silent the first time he saw it.
But he didn’t love Leo properly yet. How could he? He had never held him. Never felt the weight of him against his chest. Never smelled his skin, never rocked him through a cry, never watched him fall asleep in his arms. Leo was still partly an idea to him, a child made real through your love before Dex could reach him with his own.
But he loved Leo, in a way, because you loved him.
That was easier. You loved that baby, so Leo mattered. Your face relaxed when you spoke about him, so Dex learned to relax around the sound of his name too. And somewhere in the darkest, neediest part of him, he thought he owed Leo his life because he made you stay.
Leo was Dex’s gift to you, because he didn’t want you to be alone.
So Dex loved Leo in the only way he knew how at first: because Leo was yours, because Leo was his, because Leo looked like him, and because Leo kept a piece of him in your life while the rest of him was locked away. He loved him for your sake, before he knew how to love him for his own.
—
Leo was three years old when Vanessa Fisk made Dex kill Foggy Nelson.
He was three, serious-eyed, stubborn in the exact way that made your mother sigh and say, “That’s probably his father,” under her breath. Leo had Dex’s watchful stare, Dex’s unnerving ability to go quiet when he was thinking too hard. But he was still a toddler, so the quiet never lasted long. One minute he would be silently studying the wheels of a toy truck like he was investigating a crime scene, and the next he would be shrieking because his banana had “broken wrong.”
He loved dinosaurs, but only “scary ones.” He refused to wear socks that had seams in the wrong place. He called the moon “the night light” and cried once because you explained he couldn’t take it home. He had Dex’s face in miniature and your habit of talking to himself while concentrating, which meant you spent most mornings watching your tiny blond child line up toy animals on the floor and whisper, “No, no, you go there. No, you not listening.”
You were a good mother. You packed snacks. You remembered nursery forms. You cut grapes in half. You kept emergency wipes in every bag you owned. You sang the same bedtime song three times if Leo asked, even when your throat hurt and your body felt hollow from work and worry and loving a man the world had never stopped punishing.
Dex knew all of that through you. Leo liked peas this week. Leo hated peas this week. Leo asked why cats had no eyebrows. Leo threw a shoe at the wall because bedtime was, apparently, “a bad idea.” Leo had asked about Daddy again.
You and Leo had become the one fragile architecture that kept Dex going. Vanessa understood that because Vanessa Fisk understood devotion, even when it was ugly.
So when she found out about you and Leo, it was over.
She came to Dex with ammo in her metaphorical gun.
This was no way to live, she told him, taking away the meds. Was this what he wanted? To hear about his son in secondhand stories? To let you raise a child alone while other men opened doors for you, helped carry groceries, taught Leo to kick a ball, to ride a bike, to be brave? Raising a child was hard, wasn’t it? You were young. Lonely. Exhausted. Beautiful. How long before someone else started looking less like help and more like a replacement?
Didn’t he want to be a husband? A father? Didn’t he want to come home?
Then, she gave him a photo of you at home, hair tied back, Leo on your hip. How… did she get this photo?
Then she gave him structure: Kill Foggy first. Then he could go to you and Leo.
That was the order of how it went. It was a task, a reward, a way back to the only life he still cared about. And Dex had always been most dangerous when someone took his pain and turned it into a sequence.
So he killed Foggy Nelson. And afterward, when they dragged him back into court, you wanted to see him.
Not because you excused murder. Not because Foggy didn’t matter. But because you were his wife, and you knew that Dex didn’t kill like that out of nowhere.
He wouldn’t simply go on a rampage. He didn’t wake up one day and decide he would burn every bridge that led to you. He loved you too much for that. So you came to the conclusion that someone must've reached into the most frightened part of him, and aimed him again.
You knew that, but the court didn’t care. This time, the court issued an order. It was for your son’s sake, they said. An injunction, no contact. You and Leo were not to be in the same room as Benjamin Poindexter. Not in court, not in visitation, not anywhere a judge could prevent it.
You stood very still when they told you this.
Leo was at home with your mother, probably refusing lunch because the sandwich had been cut into triangles instead of squares.
You didn’t cry. Not when the injunction was read. Not even when Dex was sentenced for the second time. You just listened. Then you got to work.
Because crying would come later, probably in the shower, probably with one hand over your mouth so Leo wouldn’t hear. But right then, there were lawyers to call, motions to file, and records to request. You knew your husband. You knew what manipulation looked like when he was the one pointed like a weapon.
And after court, you went back to Leo. He was sitting on the living room floor in dinosaur pyjamas even though it was the afternoon, blond hair sticking up at the back, one sock on and one sock missing for reasons nobody could explain. He looked up when you came in, toy stegosaurus clutched in one hand.
“Mama,” he said seriously, “Nana said no more crackers.”
You knelt in front of him, your knees cracking with the exhaustion of the day. “Your grandma is probably right.”
Leo frowned like you had betrayed him on a legal level. “I need snacks.”
“You had a snack.”
“I need more snacks.”
“You need dinner.”
He considered that, then lifted the stegosaurus. “Dino needs crackers.”
“Dino can have pretend crackers.”
Leo stared at you with Dex’s eyes. For one awful second, you almost laughed and almost cried at the same time. Instead, you reached out and smoothed his hair down. It sprang back up immediately.
“Daddy has that face too,” you whispered.
Leo blinked. “Daddy?”
You had never lied to him. You told him Daddy was away. Daddy loved him. Daddy couldn’t come home yet. All true, and yet, none of it was enough.
“Yeah,” you said softly. “Daddy.”
Leo looked down at his dinosaur, then back at you. “Daddy like dinos?”
You smiled even though your throat hurt. “I think Daddy would like whatever you like.”
Leo nodded, satisfied by that, and shoved the stegosaurus into your lap. “Then Daddy like this one. He bite.”
You held the toy carefully, like it was evidence. “Yeah,” you whispered. “He bite.”
Leo climbed into your lap after that, all knees and elbows, and you wrapped both arms around him. He smelled like shampoo and the strawberry yoghurt he had somehow gotten on his sleeve. He pressed his face into your shoulder for exactly four seconds before wriggling away again because three-year-olds loved affection on their own schedule.
You let him go. You watched him return to his line of dinosaurs, babbling to himself, head bent in concentration.
You opened your notes app and started another list: Lawyer. Injunction appeal. Facility records. Contact restrictions. Dex’s medication logs. Visitor records.
You could be heartbroken later. Right now, you were Leo’s mother. Dex’s wife. And someone had used your family to turn your husband into a weapon again.
And you were going to find out why.
—
A year later, you were watching the news while Leo played on the carpet.
Not watching, really. You were letting it sit on in the background while you moved through the living room with half your attention split into a dozen places at once. Leo’s sippy cup was on the coffee table. His toy dinosaurs were arranged in a careful little line near your foot. A postcard Johnathan had sent from the Bahamas with his boyfriend on the fridge. There was a basket of laundry on the chair you had been meaning to fold since yesterday, and your laptop sat open on the sofa beside you, full of documents, court filings, old visitor logs, psychiatric reports, and all the research you had been collecting like ammunition.
You had been working for weeks. You had names, dates, transfer notices, facility records, connections that were too neat to be coincidence. You had followed the clues until your stomach turned. Dex was going to be moved into general population, and it was not an administrative error. It was not random. It had the Fisks’ fingerprints all over it, even if she was careful enough never to leave them where a normal person could see.
After all, it hadn’t taken you long to find out about the Red Hook charter. That part had been almost laughably easy. Child’s play, really.
The public library had a stack of old municipal records tucked away in the back, half-forgotten beneath outdated notices and donation forms. Someone had slapped a label on the box years ago — NEEDS TO BE SHREDDED — and then, by some miracle of underfunded bureaucracy, no one ever had.
So you had done the one thing you could think of and sent Matt Murdock an anonymous tip. You didn't give a signature or explanation. It was just enough information to make him look where he needed to look. It was just enough to prove to him that Dex was not acting on his own.
Matt went to see him that morning. You knew because you still had someone inside the prison willing to tell you what the official channels never would. A friend, barely. A contact, more accurately.
Then, that night, the news broke: Benjamin Poindexter had escaped from prison and attempted to assassinate the mayor.
Your husband’s name was on every channel again. Your husband’s face was dragged back into the world as a threat, a headline, a monster with a body count and no context anyone cared to say out loud.
You stood frozen in the middle of your living room, remote in hand, while the news anchor spoke over footage you could barely process. On the carpet, Leo lifted his plastic stegosaurus and made it bite the sofa cushion.
“Rawr,” he said seriously.
You looked down at him and how completely unaware he was that his father had just broken out of prison and tried to kill a man.
Leo was too busy frowning at the stegosaurus with Dex’s whole face in miniature, pale brows pulled together, mouth pressed into a stern little line. “No,” he told the dinosaur, pushing its plastic nose away from the triceratops. “No bully.”
The stegosaurus apparently disagreed, because Leo made it chomp again. Then he gasped, offended by his own storyline. “No. Bully bad.” He picked up the stegosaurus, turned it toward the triceratops, and shook it gently. “You say sorry.”
You stared at him.
Leo bumped the stegosaurus’s head carefully against the triceratops. “Sowwy,” he said in a deeper voice.
Then he made the triceratops pat the stegosaurus on the head. “Okay. Be kind now.”
Your chest tightened so hard you had to sit down.
Leo looked up. “Mama?”
“I’m okay,” you said too quickly.
He stared at you with your own eyes, unconvinced.
You turned the volume down, but not off. You couldn’t make yourself turn it off. You sat there with Leo at your feet and the whole city falling apart on-screen, trying to understand the sequence. Matt’s visit. The transfer. The Fisks. Dex escaping. The mayor. None of it random. None of it was out of nowhere, and you probably were the one to set this into motion the second you gave the anonymous tip.
“Mama,” Leo said again, holding up a toy. “Dino hungry.”
“Dino is always hungry,” you whispered.
“Need snack.”
“Okay,” you said, because your voice was already too close to breaking and arguing with a four-year-old about a plastic dinosaur felt like the one thing you could actually survive. “Let me check what we have.”
You stood and crossed into the kitchen, still listening to the news. The fridge light came on cold and white across your face. You stared into it without really seeing anything: half a punnet of strawberries, Leo’s yoghurt, and Leftover pasta. A little container of cut grapes.
The news anchor said Dex’s name again. Your hand tightened around the fridge door.
You reached for Leo’s yoghurt, then stopped because he had asked for a snack for the dinosaur, not himself, and for one absurd second that distinction mattered enough to make you laugh under your breath.
Then you realised that Leo was… silent. He wasn’t babbling. He wasn’t talking to his toys. Is he okay?
Worried, you looked back into the living room.
Leo was standing in the middle of the carpet, one dinosaur clutched in his hand, his small body frozen in a way that made the back of your neck prickle.
He was waving at the window.
No. Not the window. The fire escape.
Beyond the glass, half-hidden in the dark metal lines of the fire escape, was his father.
Oh.
Little did you know, Dex had already been there for fifteen minutes.
Fifteen whole minutes of being half-hidden in the dark, one hand braced against the cold metal railing while he looked into the life he had only known through your stories. At first, he watched you, moving through the living room with the television flickering against your face, beautiful and alive, one hand absently touching your wedding ring while you tried to hold the world together through the sheer refusal to give up on him.
But when his eyes found Leo, Dex forgot how to breathe.
He knew what his son looked like from photographs. He knew he had blond hair, serious eyes, and that little frown you always said was his. But seeing Leo in person was different. It was jarring, how much he actually looked like him. Leo was now a real person to Dex, sitting cross-legged on the carpet in dinosaur pyjamas, scolding a plastic stegosaurus for biting another toy.
Dex watched Leo make the dinosaur apologise. He watched Leo say that bullying was bad. He watched his son choose kindness with no one guiding him toward it.
Oh. Leo looked like him, but he was good in a way Dex had never been able to be without help. Dex had always needed a North Star, someone outside him to point toward right when his own internal compass spun uselessly in the dark. He would always need you that way, always look to you when the world blurred at the edges and everything started to feel lost.
But Leo did not need a North Star. Leo had one inside him. Leo had a functioning moral compass in a tiny body with Dex’s face and your kindness. Dex’s focus, but not his emptiness. Dex’s intensity, but not his fracture. Dex, if someone had loved him correctly from the start.
And that was when Dex understood that he loved him. And not in the distant, complicated love he had forced himself to. Not just because Leo was yours, or because Leo was his, or because Leo had kept you tethered to him while the rest of the world tried to take him away.
Now, he loved Leo because Leo was a good version of him. Because protecting Leo suddenly felt a lot like self-preservation. Like if Dex could keep this child safe, if he could make sure the world never reached into Leo and broke the compass before it had a chance to grow, then maybe some part of himself could be saved too.
Then Leo noticed him.
Dex saw the exact second it happened. Leo’s head turned, eyes lifting past the kitchen table, past the window, to the dark shape crouched on the fire escape.
For one breathless second, Dex couldn't move. He had been caught. Not by the police. Not by guards. Not by Daredevil. By a four-year-old boy.
Leo didn’t scream. He didn’t cry. Of course not. He was your son, too. He was brave, like you.
He only blinked, then lifted one small hand and waved.
Because Dex didn't want to scare him, because he did not know how fathers were supposed to wave at sons they had never held, Dex lifted his hand and waved back.
That was when you noticed.
And fuck, he couldn’t wait to be in your arms again.
The second you got the window open, Dex came through it, one hand catching the frame, the other already reaching for you. The sniper rifle was still strapped across his back, cold against the warmth of your apartment.
You barely had time to say his name before his hands were on you.
He pulled you into him so quickly your feet left the floor, spinning you half across the living room with a strength that startled a laugh out of you before it broke into a sob. His arms locked around your waist, your hands flew to his shoulders, and then his mouth was on yours. The kiss was clumsy in the way only grief and longing could be clumsy. He kissed you like every locked door, every court order, every year stolen from you both had narrowed into this one second.
He tasted like blood and rain.His lip was split. One of his teeth was missing. There were stitches along his forehead and dirt at the edge of his chin, but he was here. Your husband was in your living room with his body against yours and his hands on your back like he was trying to convince himself you were not another trick his mind played against him.
“I missed you,” you breathed against his mouth.
Dex made a broken sound and kissed you again. “I missed you.”
“No, baby,” you whispered, laughing and crying at the same time as you pressed kisses to his mouth, his cheek, the corner of his cheekbones, the scar you’ve yet to trace there. “I missed you. I missed you so much.”
His forehead dropped to yours. For a second, he just held you there, eyes closed, breathing you in like he had forgotten the world. His fingers moved at your waist, not quite gripping, not quite letting go, that old helpless need in him trying so hard to be gentle and failing only because there was too much feeling in one body.
Then a small voice behind you said, “Mama?”
It went through him all at once, the way a person remembered fire after touching a flame. His hands stayed on you, but his whole body locked up, breath caught, eyes opening with a kind of fear you had never seen in him.
Because no, Benjamin Poindexter had no defence against a four-year-old boy in dinosaur pyjamas.
Slowly, you turned in his arms to see Leo stood in the middle of the carpet with one sock missing and his stegosaurus tucked under one arm. His round little face was serious, sleepy, and curious. He looked much like Dex, it made your chest hurt, but he was smaller, untouched by every cruel thing that had made his father into a weapon.
“Mama,” Leo asked, pointing the dinosaur toward Dex, “who’s this?”
Dex’s breath hitched, you felt it under your palm.
For a moment, you couldn’t answer. You had imagined this introduction a hundred different ways over the years. Maybe in a supervised visitation room. Or through a phone call. Maybe one day in some future where paperwork finally gave way and Leo was old enough to understand more than he should have to. You had not imagined Dex standing in your apartment with a rifle on his back, blood at his mouth, wanted by half the city, looking down at his son like the universe had placed his missing pieces in a boy that looked like a mirror.
You swallowed.“Leo,” you said softly, voice shaking. “This is Daddy.”
Dex inhaled like the word had gone straight through him.
Leo blinked up at him. “Hi daddy,” he repeated, testing the shape of it.
Dex was still trying to keep himself held together with force and habit and whatever discipline had survived. But a foreign emotion moved across him as you felt your own eyes fill again.
“Hi, Leo,” he whispered. His voice was wrecked.
Leo studied him with the grave suspicion of a child encountering an adult who looked both interesting and badly assembled. His eyes moved over Dex’s face. Then his little brows pulled together.
“Your teeth is missing,” Leo said.
You made a small sound, half laugh, half sob.
Dex blinked at him. “What?”
Leo took one step closer, stegosaurus still tucked under his arm like backup. “Your teeth is missing. Are you okay?”
And that was what broke him.
Not the years he had lost. Not even the word Daddy, though that had nearly taken his knees out. It was the concern in his son’s voice, the immediate, unprompted softness. The way Leo saw something wrong and, instead of flinching from him, asked if he was okay.
Dex lowered himself slowly to one knee, as if sudden movement might shatter the moment.
The rifle shifted against his back, so violently out of place beside your son’s little bare foot on the carpet. Dex seemed to realise it too. His hand moved as if to take it off, then stopped, uncertain, afraid to do anything too fast with Leo so close.
“I’m okay,” Dex said carefully.
Leo looked unconvinced. “Mama has plasters.”
Dex looked up at you.Your hand went to your mouth, and you cried properly then, because Leo had no idea what he was offering. No idea that his father had come through the window carrying a weapon and a history no child should have to understand. No idea that asking about a missing tooth and suggesting a plaster was the kindest thing anyone had said to Dex all year.
Dex looked back at him, and saw a person. A tiny person with Dex’s hair and Dex’s nose and Dex’s mouth, but he was human, in the way he never was. He was kind.
Leo was everything Dex had wanted to be and never knew how. Leo was a good version of him.
For the first time in Dex’s life, he looked at someone smaller than him and thought, with stunned humility, that he might have something to learn.
From his son, his better self.
Leo tilted his head. “You want Dino?”
Dex looked at the stegosaurus like it was sacred.
Then he held out both hands, slowly, carefully, letting Leo decide.
Leo stepped closer and placed the dinosaur into his palms.
Dex took it as if it weighed more than the rifle on his back. As if this battered little plastic toy had more power to undo him than any weapon ever made.
“Thank you,” he whispered.
Leo nodded, satisfied by the manners, then moved closer. His small hand lifted and patted Dex’s cheek, not quite where the scar was, gentle in the imprecise way of toddlers trying their best.
Dex’s eyes snapped to yours. There was panic there. Wonder. A silent, helpless question: What do I do?
You sank down beside them, one hand on Leo’s back, the other reaching for Dex’s face. “You’re doing okay,” you whispered.
Leo patted him again, then leaned forward and, with the sudden trust only children could offer, pressed himself into Dex’s chest.
Dex stopped breathing. Then, slowly, so slowly it made your heart ache, his arms came around your son.
Leo fit against him like he had always belonged there, his same-colored hair tucked beneath Dex’s chin. Dex held him as if the whole room might punish him for wanting it too much, as if any wrong movement would prove he didn;t deserve this.
You watched his hand spread carefully over Leo’s back. The same hand that had hurt people. The same hand that had held weapons. That same hand that now shook from the effort of touching his son gently enough.
Leo looked up from Dex’s chest. “Are you cold?”
Dex swallowed. “A little.”
Leo considered that, then turned to you. “Mama, Daddy need blanket.”
You laughed through tears. “Yeah,” you whispered. “Maybe he does.”
Dex closed his eyes.
His face bent toward Leo’s hair, and for a second he didn’t quite kiss him, He only breathed there, close enough to smell the child he had made and never held. Shampoo. Crackers. Life. His son smelled like life.
When Dex opened his eyes again, they were wet. He looked at you over Leo’s head, and the room seemed to fold around the three of you.
“I missed everything,” he whispered.
You moved closer, pressing your forehead to his shoulder, one hand covering his where it rested on Leo’s back. “You’re here now.”
It was not enough, you both knew that. It was nowhere near enough.
But Leo wriggled in Dex’s arms and said, “Daddy, Dino hungry,” with the complete seriousness of a child who had accepted this new adult into his world and immediately assigned him responsibilities.
Dex looked down at him. Then at the dinosaur. Then back at you, for instruction. You tilted your chin like, go on.
“What does Dino eat?” he managed.
Leo gasped, scandalised that his own father didn’t know. “Crackers.”
Dex looked at you, and you nodded, so he also nodded, “Okay.”
Dex knew now that he was meant to love Leo because Leo was his second chance in miniature.
And Leo had no idea his father would burn the world to keep him safe. Because in the end, that's what makes him a good man, right?
—end.
Extra note : I keep getting distracted from my Dex x reader / ex!Bucky fic, but I promise it’s on its way. In the meantime, my immediate thought after writing this is a sequel where Reader and Dex finds out Leo has powers (is a mutant) and that’s why Dex starts killing anti-vigilante task force. Because he wants to protect his son. (No promises, but let me know if anyone’s interested!)
Dex taglist : @itsdynotdaddy @diabolicallydownbad @doesanyonereadthis @meicore @pixie2k5 @bibiishin @starlitflora @pearlstiare @glorybeat @stardustworlds @castawaybarnes @supervampireflame @not-the-teen-witch @billybonesxx @ultimatewolverine @treetrees-world-of-imagiation @bitch-spaghetti-o @lostinthes4uce @cotton-eee @weallhaveadestiny @awesome-badass-cafeteria-sauce @moonbug333 @yujyujj @mattdexx @lostfallenangelsblog @bloomsberryfairy @flimsysquid @abbotfan @leonetta2014 @ficcharsimpsblog @odairtrqsh (Let me know if I missed anyone. If you want to be added, please ask/messege! it gets lost in the comments sometimes!)
summary: you and gunner had been dating off and on for a while but 6 months ago he finally put a label on things. everything was smooth sailing- until it wasn’t. he gets caught with his ex… after lying to you. will he be able to win you back?
tw 4 entrie series: obsessed!nettspend x model!reader, reader is unattached and uninterested, nett is golden retriever coded lowkey, weed mentions, mentions of eating disorders, thats all for now!
smut, oral (f receiving), slight orgasm denial if you squint rlly hard..let me know if i missed any :3 not proofread
gunner had only had you inside of his apartment for twenty minutes and you were already half naked, legs spread open with him between them.
you glanced down at him, only really being able to see his mop of blonde and black hair as he kissed down each of your legs. starting at your inner thigh and slowly making his was down to your ankle on each leg.
he went back up your legs, his focus now on your inner thighs as he slowly went back and forth between each leg kissing sloppily. “gunner come on, don’t have time for this.” you gripped his hair, pulling his face into your pussy causing him to grunt against you. the pain of you pulling his hair turning him on even more than he already was.
gunner finally started working his tongue against you, sucking and licking against just the right spot. consistently finding your clit, in response you moaned out loudly and pulled his hair tighter.
his blue eyes rose up your body, meeting yours as he pulled back slightly and inserted a finger into your hole, pumping in and out a few times. “you like that y/n?” his voice deep with lust. you nodded, too focused on the pleasure to speak.
he pulled completely away causing you to whine, tears prickling your eyes from how close you were to an orgasm. “i asked if you liked it y/n.”
you rolled your eyes “obviously i fucking like it gunner, dont piss me off right now.” gunner laughed at you in response “don’t get pissy ma, i just wanted to know i’m doing good.” he didn’t give you time to respond before he dropped back down and started eating you out again.
he sucked and licked harder and sloppier than before quickly pushing you to your orgasm. he held your legs open as you went stiff, making sure to lick up every last drop.
finally he pulled back, smiling up at you his lips glistening slightly with your juices as you tried to collect your breath. “your legs are shaking, you know that right?”
a stank look took over your face “shut the hell up gunner. or i’ll never let you breathe near me again.”
he licked his lips, the taste of you still on them
Summary: After a text breakup, you and Gunner, reunite at the AMAs. A tense confrontation leads you both back to a hotel room, where a painful conversation about your incompatible lives dissolves into intense, emotionally charged, and rough makeup sex
A/N: This is the final chapter, and I'm finally letting go of Blades & Bass. I absolutely loved writing this fic, and I hope you all enjoyed reading it as much as I enjoyed creating it! Also, this chapter is not proofread, and there’s a REALLY LONG SMUT ahead.
{Taglist}
TW: MDNI, Porn with Plot, Oral Sex, P in V, Angst, Make-up Sex, Begging, Praise , Dirty Talk, Leg-Locking (tell me if i forgot some)
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It had been a few days since the Met Gala, and your boyfriend had already warned you that he’d be incredibly busy prepping for Rolling Loud.
Now, the day of the festival had finally arrived, and you still hadn't heard a single word from him. You couldn't be there with him in Orlando because you were stuck in New York shooting some campaigns.
On the night of his set, you decided to tune into the livestream. Even if you couldn't talk to him directly, you figured it would still be nice to watch him perform.
Looking at the screen, the crowd was absolutely massive and deafening; you had never seen so many people gathered in one place. It was in that exact moment that it truly hit you just how big of an artist he really was.
He had dyed his hair red, just like he told you he would, but your heart pinched the moment you saw a girl all over him on stage.
You knew they were background dancers, that they were literally paid to be there and you usually weren't the jealous type. But after not talking to him for days, suddenly seeing him being so touchy with a girl shaking her ass right against him made you feel some type of way.
You didn't know why, but it made you feel incredibly sad. Maybe it was because it reminded you of how you two first started talking, how completely incompatible your two worlds actually were, and how much you missed out on by never being in the same city.
It made you realize just how much effort this relationship took, and how much more it was going to require in the future. You just knew you didn't want to live like this for the rest of your life.
You watched him for a few more minutes before closing your laptop and heading to bed. Sleep wouldn't come, though. Tossing and turning in the dark, you finally poured your heart out in a text message and hit send at three in the morning.
Y/N: i really didn't wanna do this over text but i've just been staring at the ceiling for hours and i need to get this out.
watching your rolling loud set tonight just hit me so crazy. you looked amazing and im so proud of you fr, but seeing you up there just reminded me of how completely different our worlds actually are. having zero news from you for days just to tune into the live and see you like that... it just made me realize how much this distance is actually hurting me.
i feel like we're constantly playing catch up and trying to force two lives together that just don’t fit. the effort this takes is so heavy, and honestly gunner, i don’t think i want to live my life like this. i don't want to always be the one waiting in a different city while you’re living in a whole other universe.
i love you so much and i meant everything i said in the car the other night, but i don't think we can do this anymore. we need to break up. please don't call me, i just really need some space to breathe right now. goodnight.
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You knew he wasn’t going to let you go that easily. He called you a hundred times, but you never picked up. Eventually, your manager got so tired of seeing his name pop up on your screen every time you were in a photoshoot or on the ice that she took matters into her own hands and blocked his number.
You didn't even realize it at the time, since you were way too busy training and doing everything you could to keep your mind occupied.
To top it all off, it was just announced that you would be hosting the American Music Awards in Las Vegas this year. Your life had changed so drastically over the past few months; you weren’t just an Olympic gold medalist anymore.
__________________________________________
@rapteatv
Are Nettspend and Y/N Over?! 💔 Over the Weekend, the Former "It-Couple" Arrived Separately at the AMAs and Completely Ignored Each Other All Night
Fans are convinced that rapper Nettspend and Olympic gold medalist Y/N have officially called it quits after a very tense night at the American Music Awards in Las Vegas.
While Y/N was booked as a host for the evening, Nettspend was also in attendance, but the two did not walk the red carpet together. Throughout the entire event, eyewitnesses noted that the pair didn't interact once, completely avoiding each other in the crowd and backstage. This comes as a massive shock to fans who last saw them looking incredibly close during the Met Gala after-party season.
Comments
↳ yeah it’s over... nett looked so down the whole night and she didn’t even look in his direction while she was on stage hosting
↳ did anyone see him in the crowd while she was presenting? he literally looked like his dog died omg they definitely broke up
↳ she deleted the pics of them on her page too yall... yeah it’s confirmed bye 💔
↳ wait bc he looked so miserable on the red carpet too?? like he did NOT want to be there at all.
↳ they are 100% broken up. nett didn't even smile once when the camera panned to him during her opening monologue 💀
↳ the silence is deafening. usually he’s posting her on his story or something
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Leaving the AMAs, you walked out to your van. Suddenly, someone shouted your name. You turned around and saw Gunner running after you.
"Y/N, wait!"
"Leave me alone, Gunner," you said.
"Wtf do you think you're doing?" he asked, catching up to you.
"I told you to leave me alone in that text, didn't I?"
"Yeah, without letting me talk," Gunner said, shaking his head. "I called you the last few weeks. Every day, every hour, but you blocked my number."
"I didn't block your number," you replied, looking around. "And be quieter, I don't want to cause a scene."
"Yes, you did," he insisted. "I keep ending up on your voicemail."
"Just get in the van," you whispered, pulling open the door. "I don't want people seeing us like this."
Gunner didn’t argue. He climbed in right behind you, and he slammed the door shut, telling the driver to head straight to your hotel. The interior of the van went quiet, save for the hum of the engine as it pulled away from the venue.
"I didn't block you, Gunner. Seriously," you said, turning to face him in the dim light. "I haven't even looked at my phone like that. My manager must have done it because you were blowing it up while I was working."
Gunner let out a frustrated breath, running a hand through his red hair. "I don't care who did it, Y/N. You broke up with me over a text message while I was in the middle of a festival. You think I was just gonna let that go?"
"What did you want me to do?" you asked, your voice dropping. "I sat there watching your live. You hadn't texted me in days, and then I see you on stage with girls all over you. It just made me realize how messy this all is. Our lives don't fit."
"That was a performance," he said, turning his head to look at you, his eyes dark. "You know how this shit works. It doesn't mean anything. The only person I wanted to be with was you, but you didn't even give me a chance to explain before you completely cut me off."
"It's not about the girls, Gunner. It's not even about the performance," you said, shaking your head as you looked out the window at the passing Las Vegas lights. "I know what background dancers are. It’s the fact that I had to find out what you were doing by turning on a livestream. You vanished for three days. It made me realize that when we're apart, I don't exist in your world, and you don't exist in mine."
"That's not true," he muttered, his voice cracking slightly.
You turned back to look at him, and the words died in your throat.
Gunner was staring down at his hands, his broad shoulders tense, but his chest was heaving. In the dim light of the van, you saw a tear slip down his cheek, catching the glare of the streetlamps outside. Then another one followed.
He didn't try to wipe them away. He just sat there, the tough, stoic persona he held for the rest of the world completely shattering right in front of you.
"I was just overwhelmed, Y/N," he choked out, his voice thick and trembling as he finally looked up at you, his eyes completely bloodshot. "The festival, the album prep, the label pushing me... I locked myself away because my head was spinning. I wasn't trying to ignore you. I was just trying to survive the week so I could get back to you."
He let out a shaky breath, a ragged sob escaping his throat as he reached out, his hand trembling as he gripped your wrist.
"Please don't do this," he whispered, the tears now streaming down his face. "I can't do this without you. Don't leave me."
You looked down at his hand gripping your wrist, your own chest aching as you watched him cry. You had never seen him like this. It broke your heart, but it didn't change the reality of the situation.
"Gunner, look at us," you said softly, your voice breaking as you gently pulled your hand away from his grip. "We’re already falling apart, and it’s only been a few months. If we keep doing this, we’ll never be happy."
He wiped his eyes quickly, shaking his head in denial. "We can fix it. I’ll change things. I’ll text more, I’ll call you every hour, I don't care-"
"It's not just about texting, and you can't just stop doing your job," you interrupted, a tear finally escaping your own eye. "Your career is exploding right now. Mine is too. We both have to give 100% to our work, which means we have nothing left to give to each other. We're just going to keep hurting, waiting for the next text, getting insecure, and crying in the back of cars."
You looked out the window as the van finally pulled up to the entrance of your hotel.
"I love you enough to know that we’re just going to destroy each other if we keep trying to force this," you whispered, turning back to him one last time. "We both deserve to be happy, Gunner. But we're never going to find that happiness together."
"I'm not saying I don't want you in my life forever," you said, your voice softening as you looked at his tear-stained face. "But right now? With everything going on? We just can't be together. We need to focus on ourselves."
"I don't care about right now, Y/N," he said, his voice raw as he shook his head stubbornly. "I can't just let you go. I'm not gonna sit back and just watch you become some stranger I used to know. I can't do it."
The van came to a complete stop in the hotel's private underground parking garage. The driver cut the engine, leaving the two of you in a heavy, suffocating silence.
You looked at Gunner, whose eyes were still red and desperate. You couldn't just leave him crying here, and you didn't want to cause a scene in the lobby if he followed you.
"Fine," you sighed, rubbing your temples. "You can come up. You can stay for an hour or two so we can actually finish this conversation properly. But that's it."
He nodded quickly, wiping his face again as he followed you out of the vehicle. You both kept your heads down, slipping into the private elevator that led straight to your suite. Neither of you said a word until the heavy oak door of your room clicked shut behind you.
You tossed your purse onto the entryway table and kicked off your heels, finally letting out a breath you felt like you’d been holding since the AMAs started. Gunner stood near the edge of the living area, looking completely out of place.
"You really think we’ll never work?" he asked, his voice barely above a whisper as he broke the silence.
"I think we're trying to build a house in a hurricane, Gun," you said, turning to face him. "How are we supposed to be a normal couple when we barely see each other?"
"We don't have to be a normal couple," Gunner said, his voice dropping an octave, thick with desperation. Before you could even reply, he crossed the room and dropped heavily to his knees right in front of you.
Your breath hitched. You froze, staring down at him.
He wrapped his arms around your thighs, burying his face into the fabric of your outfit. His shoulders shook as he held onto you like you were his only lifeline. "Please, Y/N. I’ll do whatever you want. I’ll fly to New York every single weekend, I don’t care if I don’t sleep. Just don't give up on me. I'm begging you."
Looking down at him, a sudden, conflicting rush of heat flooded your veins. There was something intensely overwhelming about seeing him like this. This was the same guy who just an hour ago had thousands of people screaming his name, the guy who acted completely untouchable under the festival lights and now he was on his knees, completely at your mercy, begging just to keep you.
The sheer vulnerability of it, mixed with the lingering adrenaline from the night, made your stomach flip in a completely different way. Your heart was pounding, and a heavy, familiar ache started to settle between your thighs.
Gunner tilted his head back, looking up at you through his long eyelashes. His eyes were still wet, but as he felt the shift in your posture, his gaze darkened. He noticed the way your breathing had turned shallow, the way your fingers twitched against your sides.
"Y/N..." he whispered, his hands slowly sliding up from your thighs to your hips, his grip tightening as he pulled your body closer to his face.
"You’re too good for me, I know it," Gunner murmured, his voice a low, raspy purr against your skin that sent a sharp shiver straight down your spine. His hands stayed firmly gripped on your hips, anchoring you to him. "You're a gold medalist, you're the biggest thing in the world right now, and I’m just... I'm nothing without you, Y/N."
He pressed a soft, lingering kiss to your bare thigh, just below the hem of your outfit, making your knees instantly go weak. You had to rest your hands on his shoulders just to keep your balance.
"Look at you," he whispered, tilting his head up to look at you with complete, unfiltered devotion. "You look so beautiful tonight. You ran that whole show. Everyone in that venue was looking at you, but now you're here with me. Please tell me I still have you."
He began to trail slow, agonizingly hot kisses up your thigh, his thumbs tracing tight, deliberate circles into your hips. Every word out of his mouth was laced with raw desperation, but the way his touch grew entirely confident told you exactly what he was doing. He knew the effect he had on you. He could hear your breath catching, could feel the slight tremble in your legs.
"You're perfect," he praised, his voice dropping to a gravelly whisper as his lips brushed against the soft skin of your inner thigh. "Every single part of you. I'll spend the rest of my life making it up to you if you just let me stay. Let me remind you how much you mean to me, Y/N. Please."
Your fingers tangled in his red hair, tugging slightly as a soft gasp escaped your lips. The contrast of his tear-stained face and the dark, heavy hunger in his eyes was completely overwhelming, completely erasing any thoughts of the distance, the texts, or the breakup. All you could focus on was the intense heat pooling between your legs and the way he looked up at you like you were his entire world.
He didn't waste another second. Slipping your clothes out of the way, Gunner guided you back until you were pressed against the edge of the entryway table. He stayed on his knees, his hands sliding under your thighs to lift your legs onto his shoulders, opening you up completely to him.
When his tongue first made contact, a sharp, involuntary gasp left your throat, your fingers instantly gripping the edge of the wood behind you. He was relentless, using the same fierce, obsessive energy he gave everything else in his life to completely unhinge you. He swirled his tongue around your sweet spot, pacing himself perfectly, knowing exactly how to make your hips twitch in desperation.
"I hate you," you choked out, your head tossing back as a wave of intense pleasure rushed through you. "Gunner, I swear to God, I hate you so much for doing this right now."
He paused for a fraction of a second, looking up at you with a dark, completely shameless smirk on his face, his lips wet and glistening. "I know you do, baby," he murmured. "You hate how much you need me. You hate that no one else can make you feel like this."
He dipped his tongue back down, tracing a long, wet line all the way up before focusing entirely on your clit, sucking it into his mouth. You let out a loud moan, completely forgetting about the hotel walls or the fight you had just had.
"Look at you, crying about a breakup but soaking wet for me," he muttered against your skin, turning his praise dirty as he felt your body begin to tremble. "You're so good for me, Y/N. Tell me it's mine. Tell me this pretty little pussy belongs to me and no one else."
"Gunner, please..." you whined, your toes curling as his fingers suddenly slid inside you, matching the fast, wicked rhythm of his tongue.
"Say it, baby," he growled, searching your face as his thumb worked your clit, pushing you right to the absolute edge. "Tell me you're not going anywhere."
"Fuck you," you gasped out instead, your voice breaking as you shook your head. You gripped his shoulders, trying to push him away or force him closer, you didn't even know which but you refused to give him the satisfaction of hearing those words. "Fuck you, Gunner."
The moment the words left your mouth, his tongue stopped completely. He pulled back just enough to look up at you, his fingers staying still inside you, holding you completely hostage right on the edge of a cliff.
The sudden loss of friction made you whine out loud, your hips instinctively twitching forward to look for his mouth, but he didn't budge. His eyes were entirely dark now, the vulnerability from before replaced by a stubborn, dangerous heat.
"What did you just say to me?" he asked.
"I'm not saying it," you breathed, glare matching his despite how badly your legs were shaking. "You don't get to just cry and then command me. Put your mouth back down there."
"No," he growled, a frustrated, angry smirk tugging at his lips as he tightened his grip on your thighs, locking you in place. He was getting mad now, too, the tension between you two snapping into pure aggression. "You think you run everything? If I don't get what I want, Y/N, you definitely aren't getting what you want."
"Gunner, I swear to God, I am right there," you yelled out, your hands bunching into the fabric of his shirt. "Don't do this."
"Then tell me," he challenged, leaning in close until his hot breath fanned against your wet skin, teasing you without actually touching you. "Tell me you're mine and you're not leaving. Otherwise, we can just sit here like this all night."
You stared down at him, your chest heaving, absolutely furious at how easily he could manipulate your body against your own will. The contrast was maddening, just minutes ago he was weeping at your feet, and now he was using the sheer weight of your own arousal to back you into a corner.
"You are an asshole," you choked out, tears of pure frustration pricking the corners of your eyes. Your hips gave a pathetic, involuntary twitch, practically begging for the friction he was withholding.
"I don't care," Gunner muttered, his jaw clenched as he stared right back up at you. His fingers inside you twitched just enough to make you gasp, but he held back from giving you any real relief. "Say it, Y/N. I’m not playing with you."
The tension in the room was suffocating. You wanted to push him off, to scream at him to get out of your hotel room and out of your life, but the ache between your thighs was entirely consuming. Every instinct in your body was screaming at you to just give in to get what you needed.
"Fine!" you cried out, your fingers digging so hard into his shoulders that your nails left red marks through his shirt. "I'm yours! Fuck, Gunner, I'm yours, okay? Just please-"
The victory in his eyes was instant and feral.
"Good girl," he growled against your skin.
He didn't make you wait another second. Gunner buried his face back between your legs, his tongue striking against your clit with a hard, heavy rhythm that made your vision instantly blur. At the same time, his fingers started driving inside you with a rough, punishing speed, hitting your sweet spot over and over again.
You completely lost control. A loud, unrefined scream tore from your throat as your orgasm crashed over you, your entire body seizing up as you clamped tightly around his fingers. Gunner didn't stop, swallowing your moans and driving you deeper into the climax until your legs were shaking so badly they could barely stay on his shoulders.
Gunner finally pulled his mouth away, panting heavily as he looked up at you. His lips were shiny, and his face was flushed from the heat of the moment. He wiped his mouth with the back of his hand, a dark, satisfied grin spreading across his face.
"Fuck, Y/N," he growled, his voice incredibly deep and rough. "I swear to God, I've never tasted pussy so good in my entire life. You're so fucking sweet."
Hearing those words out of his mouth while your body was still trembling from the aftershocks of the orgasm sent a fresh jolt of heat straight to your stomach. You didn't want to talk anymore. You didn't want to think about the distance, the drama, or tomorrow. You just needed him inside you.
Reaching down, you grabbed him by the collar of his shirt and pulled him up. He stumbled up from his knees, his eyes locked onto yours as you wrapped your arms around his neck.
"Bed. Now," you breathed against his lips.
Gunner didn't hesitate. He hooked his arms under your thighs, lifting you effortlessly off the entryway table. You wrapped your legs tightly around his waist, burying your face in his neck as he carried you down the short hallway into the bedroom. He tossed you onto the plush mattress, immediately following you down, but before he could pin you beneath him, you rolled him over.
You pushed against his chest, forcing him onto his back. Gunner let out a low, gravelly laugh, his hands instantly finding your hips as you straddled his waist.
"Oh, so you're taking control now?" he teased, his dark eyes scanning your face, full of arrogant satisfaction.
"Shut up," you muttered.
You quickly reached down to rid him of the rest of his clothes, your hands shaking with impatience. Gunner watched you, his jaw clenched, his thumbs digging into your hips as he lifted his hips to help you. When he was completely bare beneath you, his length was thick and waiting, pressing hard against your thigh.
You didn't make him wait. Shifting your weight, you aligned yourself and slowly lowered your hips, taking him all in at once.
A loud, ragged groan tore from the back of Gunner's throat, his eyes throwing back as his head hit the pillows. "Fuck, Y/N... you're so tight," he gasped, his grip tightening on your hips until his knuckles turned white.
You threw your head back, a breathless sigh escaping your lips as you filled yourself with him. Once you settled against his hips, you began to move, lifting yourself up and sliding back down in a slow, agonizingly perfect rhythm.
Gunner’s hands guided your movements, his fingers bruising your skin as he pushed your hips down harder, meeting every single one of your strokes with a heavy, upward thrust. The anger from your fight turned into pure, unadulterated friction, the bed squeaking against the wall as you rode him in the dim light of the hotel room.
You leaned forward, your hair falling around your face like a curtain as you looked down at him. The power dynamic had completely flipped.
Before he could pull you down into a kiss, you brought your hand up to his neck. Your fingers wrapped firmly around his throat, squeezing just enough to cut off his breath.
Gunner’s eyes flew wide open, a sharp gasp catching in his chest. But instead of pushing your hand away, his grip on your hips tightened. A dark, wicked grin spread across his face, his chest heaving under you as he leaned up into the pressure. He absolutely loved it.
"Look at you," you whispered, your voice dropping into a mean, mocking tone as you kept riding him, your pace turning hard and relentless. "You're pathetic, Gunner. A second ago you were literally crying on your knees, begging me like a dog."
Gunner let out a choked, raspy laugh, his throat vibrating right against your palm. "Yeah? Tell me more, baby," he wheezed out, his eyes locked onto yours, completely unbothered by the insults. If anything, it was turning him on even more.
"You think you can just show up and fix everything with your mouth?" you sneered, slamming your hips down against his, making him groan loudly. "You’re so fucking selfish. You think the whole world revolves around you and your music, but right now you're just a joke."
"I am," he choked out, playing along completely, his hands sliding up your torso to rest over your heart. He let out another breathless laugh, his white teeth flashing in the dim light. "I'm your joke, Y/N. Do whatever you want to me."
"Shut up," you snapped, tightening your grip on his neck for a second before letting go, leaving the faint pink imprint of your fingers on his skin.
The sudden release of air made him gasp, his head tossing back onto the pillow as you kept up the punishing rhythm. Even when you were being mean, even when you were letting out all your anger on him, Gunner just lay there taking it with a smug, obsessed smile, entirely content as long as you were riding him and calling him yours.
As you continued to drive down against him, Gunner’s gaze stayed locked onto yours, heavy and completely entranced. He brought his hand up, tracing his fingers over your jaw before sliding two fingers straight between your parted lips.
"Bite down," he rasped, his voice rough and breathless.
You didn't hesitate, clamping your teeth down onto his fingers as you kept up the relentless rhythm. The taste of him mixed with the friction between your thighs sent a shuddering wave of heat straight to your core. He watched your eyes flutter, a satisfied chuckle vibrating in his chest as you sucked on his fingers, entirely caught up in the control you thought you had over him.
But in a split second, the dynamic shattered again.
Gunner suddenly gripped your waist with force and twisted his body. Before you could even register what was happening, you were flipped onto your back, the mattress absorbing your weight as he pinned you beneath him. The sudden shift left you breathless, your hands instinctively coming up to push at his chest.
"My turn," he muttered, his eyes dark and completely feral.
Before you could open your mouth to complain, his large hand came up, wrapping firmly around your throat. He didn't squeeze hard enough to hurt, but the heavy, authoritative pressure instantly cut off your speech, forcing your head back into the pillow.
"You had your fun talking shit, Y/N," he growled, a wicked, dominant smirk flashing across his face. "Now shut up and take it."
You glared up at him, your chest heaving as you tried to twist out from under him, your lips parting to yell at him but the words died in your throat. Gunner lifted your legs, pinning them high against his chest, and drove himself inside you in one deep, punishing stroke.
A broken gasp left your lips against the pressure of his hand. The sheer depth of the movement was overwhelming, hitting your sweet spot so perfectly that your brain short-circuited. Any anger, any desire to fight back or complain, completely evaporated.
He didn't give you a second to recover. Gunner began to fuck you with a fast, heavy, relentless pace that had the headboard slamming against the wall. Every time you tried to gather your breath to say something, he hit the perfect angle, sending a jolt of pure pleasure straight up your spine that turned your complaints into high-pitched, helpless whines.
"Yeah, that's what I thought," he whispered, leaning down so his lips brushed against your ear, his hand maintaining just enough pressure on your neck to keep you completely pinned. "Can't say a fucking word now, can you?"
The friction between you was blinding, the heat in the room rising until neither of you could think straight. Gunner’s pace turned frantic, his breath hitching as his body tightened completely over yours. You could feel the contractions starting deep inside you, the tension building to a point that felt almost unbearable.
"Y/N... I’m gonna go," he gasped out, his voice raw as he tried to shift his weight back. "I need to pull out, baby, let me-"
"No," you whined, completely lost to the pleasure.
Before he could slide out, you threw your legs around his waist, locking your ankles together behind his back with all your strength. As an athlete, your grip was ironclad. Gunner let out a ragged groan, trying to pull away, but you arched your hips up to meet him, burying him as deep inside you as possible.
That was the breaking point. Gunner’s head fell into the crook of your neck as his body shuddered violently, spilling himself inside you. At the exact same moment, your own orgasm crashed over you in intense, heavy waves. You cried out, your fingers digging into the muscles of his back as your walls clamped tightly around him, pulling every last drop out of him.
For a long minute, the only sound in the room was the heavy, synchronized panting of both your chests. Gunner collapsed against you, his forehead resting against yours, his skin slick with sweat.
Slowly, the fog of adrenaline began to clear, leaving behind the quiet, heavy reality of the two of you tangled together in a Vegas hotel room.
Gunner leaned up slightly, his eyes soft and completely vulnerable again as he looked down at you. He reached up, gently brushing a stray piece of hair away from your damp forehead. Then, he leaned down and pressed a soft, lingering kiss to your lips.
"I love you," he whispered against your mouth, his voice thick with emotion. "I swear to God, Y/N, I love you so much."
You looked up at him, your chest aching with that familiar, painful warmth. Despite the distance, the fights, and how messy your worlds were, looking at him right now made everything else fade away.
"I love you too," you breathed, wrapping your arms around his neck and pulling him down for another kiss.
The youngest line of Targaryen Princelings had arrived in Ashford just as the sky had began to turn a milky lilac, signalling the plunge of the sun - and the rise of the moon, the last before the morrow’s joust.
The majority of them, for the most part.
Daeron (drunken, and considerably late, but still present), Aemon, Aegon, and-
“Where the fuck are The Twins?” Daeron uttered, stumbling across the cobblestones of Ashford’s square, intoxicated and disgruntled.
“I’m fucking late by hours, and they still haven’t shown their faces? Surely they must be the least-favourites now, Father - what a lousy impression.”
Daeron continued to jest and ramble, a wobble in his step that made the kings’ guard lurch forward, anticipating that whenever the drunken Targaryen swayed a little too sharply left, he’d topple over.
Prince Maekar winced at the sight of his eldest, dismissing his behaviour and signalling with a wrist-flick to the guardsmen to haul the murmuring, rambunctious princeling to his temporary chambers within the castle.
He then turned to Baelor, a curl to his lip - his tone was levelled, but pointed - a father who had dealt with the unruliness of his spawn aplenty, and who had yet to control it.
“I must locate my sons.” He grits, yet somehow maintaining his curt expression, “It seems they have gone awry along the way. Again.”
Baelor snorts, leaning in to level to his younger brothers’ ear.
“Check the local whorehouses.” He chuckles at his brothers’ dilemma, “-Thy sons be cursed with fleshly desires, brother - for they are only two and zero.”
Maekar sneers, before beckoning the reigns of his palfrey be handed back to him - pardoning himself as he remounts the horse, internally promising himself to clout both of his sons’ round their proud ears for this diminishing first impression towards the Ashfords.
⊹ ࣪ ﹏𓊝﹏⊹ ࣪ ˖
“Come, Locket!”
You ignore the first call of your name, for you had just lined your Cupid’s bow intricately in deep red lacquer, and you were determined to apply the same precision to the bottom.
“Locket!” Another shrill beckoning, to which the rise in shrillness and urgency makes you flinch - a blur of red now across your chin like a dribbling rivulet of flesh blood.
You looked like you’d been pelted in the teeth.
For the sun had not fully set yet; the sky only just beginning to turn from a dusty pale lavender into a deep, velvety bruising of deep purple - it was not nightfall. Your shift had not yet started, so why were you being called for?
What did the Bawd want?
“Gods, Marge! You’ve corrupted my visage!” You whine, now frantically trying to scrub the staining lacquer off of your chin, to no avail.
“- I look like a drunken crone most foully!”
Marge - The Bawd; brothel keeper alongside her husband - the bastards that took sixty percent of your earnings and fed you stale bread and corked wine, but happened to be the only brothel owners in miles - burst in, all flouncing skirts and greying hair curled into ringlets like sausages.
Her eyes crinkled deeper at your bewildered expression towards her flurrying urgency - for the business wasn’t to resume for the evening for at least half the hour.
“You have not heard?” She gawked, swiftly licking a finger - similarly to how a toad would dart out its lengthly tongue to swat a swamp fly - and pinching your stained chin between her fingers.
“The Dragon Princelings,” she began, roughly rubbing with her saliva-dampened, calloused pad of her thumb at the stubborn lacquer remnants on your skin, “They’re in Ashford.”
“Targaryens? In Ashford?” You chuckle, amidst trying to shimmy away from the Bawd’s grasp, “What business do they have here? Drought of cider, maybe?”
“The Jousting, silly girl!” Margie reprimanded, managing to somewhat scrub off the cosmetic stain from your flesh, and the contact felt as if she were near searing your skin off.
The Jousting. Of course.
Pleased with her work against your face, she stepped away from you, now squirming at your vanity, clasping her clammy, aged hands over her skirts.
“- They’re here.”
Ah.
You click your tongue against the roof of your mouth, tickled by this newfound realisation.
“The Targaryen princes dabble in the whorehouses of Ashford?” You grin, resuming your application, “Who would’ve thought. I deemed that family to be full of vice - disdainful toward women that aren’t their sisters, cousins, or daughters of lords.”
A stinging clip to the shell of your ear elicits a sudden whelp from you, a warm ache pulsating there. You pivot, glaring.
“Hush! You darest speak treason within these vaults? Fie upon it, they may overhear!” Margie fumed, plump cheeks swollen with fury at your apparent blasphemy.
“Your foul words be treason most dire.”
You bite your tongue, jumping muscles clenched between teeth as you bit back your petty venom, for Margie was right - it was definite suicide, speaking the way you were now knowing that descendants of Dragons were in your vicinity.
You slowly turn away again - fingers dipping into another cosmetic ointment, lavender elixir that softened the flesh of your face.
You ignored the gentle burning sensation that you’d grown familiar to, as the subtle blush it elicited upon your cheeks was the desired look.
“They beseech fair maidens. ‘Tis early, yet you must tend to them.” The Bawd continued, now pressed to your back, fingers raking roughly through your auburn curls, knotting them - to which you try to lean away.
“I shall attend unto them when I be in a state for it.” You respond cooly now, undoing her damage to your hair by patting it down.
“Hear me now. You shall not keep them waiting - depart.”
She orders, and you scowl - raising from your vanity stool, rickety Oakwood legs scraping against splintering floors.
Margie follows you out of the room and towards one of the private, curtained-off lounge areas - a hand resting on your exposed slope between your neck and shoulder.
“Verily. They shall mint for us coins of great weight!” She excites, eager for the weight of aplenty royal currency to weigh her dirty pockets down.
“I am told one of the Twins hath a peculiar fondness for maidens of fair complexion and tresses of flame.”
“- I shall grant him most righteous satisfaction, then.” You deadpan, descending the stairs - swallowing the bile that rose upon hearing of the Dragon Princelings’ combined reputations, and how you were to be their pliant fantasy for the night.
“Your Graces,” Margie announced once you’d reached the landing, you on her arm like some sort of impressive cattle to auction, “- One of my finest girls.”
Against the plain plastered walls of the brothel, the Twins were almost fluorescent, expecting.
Stark against the dreary wooden beams and the unadorned stone, they were like some seraphic premonition - fine, leather-sheathed, platinum-haired fallen angels, with demeanours that deceived, and undeniable features that deceived even further.
It were like you’d been struck fatally around the skull - been stroked by death momentarily and visited by heaven’s prophets - and in a suffocating haze, you saw doubles of a beautiful creature, so striking in appearance they could easily pass as being sculpted by the gods firsthand.
Their main difference that kept you firmly grounded that you were not hallucinating seemingly impossible beauty in a double of a young man being the drastic lengths of their hair.
Immediately upon bestowing their sight upon you, one, of a slighter height and of shorter hair upon observation, lightly elbowed the other in the ribs through their dark dressing.
Followed by a velvety murmur of something along the lines of,
“She’s yours.”
A sharp nudge in your own side snapped you back to reality from your absorbing trance - from Margie, who was silently urging you to address the two Princes of the Blood properly.
You curtsy, and internally curse at yourself at the slight tremor in your form.
“Your Graces.” You greet, eyes adhered to the ground, as the thought of meeting theirs nauseated you - the jesting confidence you’d flaunted so proudly earlier as you snickered at their mention had dissipated. You may as well be a ruddy puddle at their boots now.
On the right was Aerion Targaryen. Appearing slim, but you knew not to be deceived by this - you’d heard of his combatting skills, the aggression in his hands.
Average height, but nonetheless stunning. Cropped short was his hair, spun like glass that was almost an iridescent silver, like liquid moonlight, or liquidised coin.
It were styled like scales, tufts styled in little outlets that stuck out slightly, like bristling dragon scales. How fitting.
His eyes were of a dark violet, like those of the tart berries you’d find deep in the forest, tangled amongst thorns. Set in silken, pale unblemished skin like freshly-set snow.
His face was sculpted and imperious - a high brow, defined cheekbones, and a straight nose.
Contrary to the rumours that circulated the man’s’ flamboyant sense of fashion, he seemed to have toned himself down - to keep his lustful endeavours more subtle, unseen in the night.
He were dressed in a shrouding black cloak, lined with what appeared to be a deep red satin lining, long dragging sleeves, clasped with silver joiners, in the shape of claws.
His Twin, to the left - the one who Aerion had nudged for his alleged, assumed fondness toward wenches of your appearance, was Hollis.
He appeared equally as Targaryen, as beautiful - but his name was unlike. You could’ve questioned it, but that thought was of no value to you, and could cost you your tongue.
He was taller, but built similarly. Slender, yet you knew he was of to be of similar temperament and physical strength of his boisterous counterpart. Not to be underestimated, as if Targaryens were ever to be.
His eyes were of paler violet, though - similar to the milky, dewy lavender skies during a newborn sundown. Like rows of tender, delicate violets from the most fertile soil.
Crystalline locks that were almost a trademark to their name, unlike his brothers, were lengthly; draped across his chest - pin-straight, obviously styled, the front, face-framing strands appearing to be braided back, emphasising his features in the candlelight.
He appeared far more androgynous than his twin in that way, a regal elegance to him that was softer when side-by-side to his prickly brother.
The more you gaped like some entranced commoner, you discovered more and more slight differences between the two.
An aquiline nose he had, compared to Aerion’s button-esque, straight one, yet their defined high-set cheekbones were the same.
Skin of ivory perfection, like a chiselled slab of marble that you swore, like most of their attributes, captured and absorbed any near light source, an ethereal glow to them that you were sure made yourself appear blemished and dull.
A fae look he held himself, to which Aerion’s constrained - he were more like a dragon, of course. You’d heard he believed he thought were one stuck in a humanoid form.
His attire consisted of the same cloak, except his lining was a silken onyx, like beneath his clothing were a stolen fraction of a shimmering, summer-nights sky - clasped by gold, instead of his brothers’ silver adornments.
A little more humble compared to Aerion’s adornment choices, if that were even possible for a Targaryen to achieve - maybe an insulting term, but it were true.
The following interactions were swift; transactional.
The sound of jingling, aplenty coin being tossed into the hands of one of the brothel owners beside you, and a jolt to your spine as you are ushered toward the paying brother, who’d staked his claim on you for the evening.
“Locket, see The Prince to the chambers.”
And so you did, still avoiding either of their watchful gazes as you bowed, heart beating in your throat like some hunted hare - pupils dilating with a concoction of newfound fear, and adrenaline at what was to come.
You’d entertained drunken bastards, low-lords, snaking husbands and the odd traveller that was easy on the eye, but never a Prince - and you could feel the scrutinising glares of your Bawds’ expectations weighing heavily on your shoulders.
Upon your ascent back up the stairs to your designated quarters, The Prince was following after immediately - he kept his distance, at least five steps behind you, but his presence was hefty, and you felt as if you were to trip and tumble with every step upwards.
You hadn’t dare peer over your shoulder.
“Have fun, brother.” You heard Aerion whistle at the bottom of the stairs playfully, “Play nice. Gods know I shall not.”
There was no response, and you were unsure whether that was to be of further concern, or not.
Your chambers were large, and plainly common. Devoid of any luxurious decoration or any shred of personality, solely meant to contain only one thing - the most extravagant aspect being the guaranteed clean bed linens.
The door groaned closed behind the two of you - followed by the grating clunk of the metal latch being closed, sealing your fate with the Dragon’s spawn, confined like cornered prey between four bland walls.
A singular candle on the windowsill illuminated the room, thin canopy curtains rippling gently in the nighttime breeze through the barely-open window.
He spoke first, which had shocked you initially - usually, these transactions are wordless. Straightforward. Verbal foreplay is rare, and had unnecessary sentiment - usually, you’d be thrown onto the bed by now, and put to work by man’s overwhelming greed.
“Locket? That is your name?”
His voice were of low octave, slightly mocking - you were not of enough significance to be taken seriously, obviously.
You slowly turn now, arms curling behind yourself to begin to loosen the ribbons of your dress, saving time.
“For tonight, Aye.”
You nod timidly, and it took almost all of your composure and willpower to hold his eye - irises like bouquets of fresh lavender, like the ointment you’d massaged into your flesh earlier, minus the delicate connotations associated with the flower - for Targaryens were anything but.
His lips parted, as if he were to ask Why, for he had that jurisdiction - the privilege, the ability to question, tracing you.
His curiosity was satiated when his eyes settled on your breastbone - the silver pendant that rested there between your shoulder blades, on a thin chain. Locket.
Instinctively, your hand raised, fingers cupping and curling over the warmed metal resting against your flesh as if it were your only way to defend yourself - for it felt as if he were reading past the metal jewellery, and straight into your soul.
You cleared your throat. He hadn’t followed with anything else, just watched - like he were playing with his food, or figuring out how to prepare it.
The candle flickered and sputtered, casting dancing shadows across the expanse of the room, amber lowlight licking at his features, haloing you as you had your back to it.
“What service may I render thee, my Grace?”
You speak wearily, trying to stick to your script. You’d done this a thousand times before with men of similar intimidation - of denser frame and muscle, but the breed of blood than ran through his veins and bled through his features diseased you with an untameable shiver.
His brow heavies, for a moment - creasing his pale skin, and even the thoughtful contortion of his features did not detract from his effervescent, celestial beauty.
And then, it had began to play out just as any other night of work. It were back on its rails, and you felt as if you had recovered some sense of direction in the situation.
Or so you thought.
“Get on the bed, onto your back.”
And you adhered.
Letting go of your protective hold upon your necklace where you’d harvested your whoring alias and resuming to remove your articles of clothing as you approached the bed.
Until, the ribbon had bunched and tangled mid-removal - and you faltered, your fingers now desperately trying to untangle the material, growing more panicked by the second.
The Prince watched, deft fingers working at the clasps of his cloak - you reprimanded yourself for not offering to take it from him the second he’d stepped through the door, but he didn’t seem bothered.
He hadn’t even glanced down at the material to make sure his fingers were in the right direction to unclasp each glinting golden adornment.
For he was undoing them with such ease, such blasé that reinstated your confidence in the fact that the Targaryen Twins most definitely dabbled in lustful misdemeanours late at night as plenty as the rumours they had carried across the streets.
The exorbitantly-calibered fabric fell around him with a hefty clunk, most likely the metal clasps colliding with the hardwood floor - in the stillness of the air, you jumped at the sudden noise.
He stepped over the pool of dense, rippling fabric that you were sure cost the equivalent of your yearly coin intake like it were a pile of horseshit - heavy boot against wood, slow, methodical. Towards you.
You let him impede towards you with an almost alarming lack of urgency, like he were amused by the fact that each step he took closer, your demeanour fractured - like a trembling skeletal leaf in a bitter winter wind.
He is mere inches from you now, when he motions with a dismissive nod for you to turn, your back facing him.
Based off of what you’d heard, if he were anything of similar nature to his twin, this would be where he were to probably impale you with some dagger - indulge in some masochistic urge the bloodline seemed to carry like it were some amusing accessory, wreaking carnage.
“You are trembling.” He observed, a decorated smugness to his tone, like it were something he were used to experiencing in his wake, amused at your unease, “Does a chill seize you?”
He jests, and suddenly a gentle tug jolts you backwards, almost stumbling backwards into his chest - he is undoing your dresses, untangling your messes for you, presumably with the same ease as he did his own cloak.
Amidst doing so, he lowers his lips to your ear.
“- Or are you wracked by fear?”
Your own lips part to defend yourself, to conjure an excuse to your cowardice when you were being paid to offer a professional service.
It was then where you feel him place a kiss behind your ear - taunting, chaste.
He follows by slotting a hand around the nape of your neck, lifting it to guide your coiled auburn hair away from its obstruction over the back of your corset, letting it fall over your shoulder.
“Do you tremble at the thought of what I might do to you?” He queries, although he already knows the answer.
He lulls the searing jolt of adrenaline mixed with the deep-set dread within you that his provoking rhetorical questions evoked from you by licking at the same stripe of skin he’d kissed prior, skin now fully exposed there after tidying your hair away to the other shoulder.
You were practically vibrating at the expense of his words beneath his tongue, to which he laughs - short, and expectant.
Like this were a sadistic ritual he partook in to fill the void of boredom that came with being a waiting heir, with plenty of time to waste.
Another pretty thing disintegrating in the crosshairs of royalty built upon unmistakeable beauty and unrelenting cruelty, unravelling.
And he, like the rest of his predecessors, revelled in your unravelling - wrapping the fibres of you around his fingers like some pliant thread to weave into an intricate tapestry - a consequence of power and influence that bought him a level of gratification that left him lightheaded, similar to being on the battlefield.
He were to experience this with the jousting tournament on the morrow, and he were to experience it with you, right now, until he deemed himself satisfied - and you, spent.
He withdrew, continuing to unlace you - painfully slow, deliberately dragged out - like he were watching a dove flapping frantically within the confines of a cage, and he had the power to release you, and was in no hurry.
“I am not like my brother.” He attempts to reassure, although the statement is still somewhat ominous, “I seek no gratification through grievous harm like he.”
The sound of delicate ribbon slinking and whipping through eyelets in its undoing, of fingers brushing against satin, bumping against the structural boning.
“- Nor do I desire to leave you in dread, or bereft of spirit.”
With this, your dress corset loosens and gapes loosely around your torso, to where he uncases it from around you - letting it drop to the floor, your skirts now loose also, draping low on your hips - begging to be drawn down also.
You deliberately wore little undergarments - as in your line of work, they were considered inconvenient, time-wasting obstacles that obstructed paying customers from what they wanted. Time wasters.
So you were bare before him now, as your thin linen underdress had slipped off of your shoulders and been gently tugged away with your corset.
His fingers dip, tracing the groove of your spine that ended between the dimples of your lower back.
“Yet, if you’d grant me leave..”
He continued silkily, hands raising to rest on either of your collarbones - lightly massaging, rolling slowly back and forth, rolling faint bone beneath flesh against his palm like he were tenderising you for his usage - running them slowly along the slopes of your shoulders, and settling each hand to cup your glenohumural joints.
You’d anticipated his sentence, heart like a jackhammer beneath your skin - but the close never followed.
Maybe he’d decided it be more amusing to keep you in the dark regarding his intentions - to keep you oblivious and trembling at his expense.
You face him now, cheeks flushed, lashes heavy as you still evade his gaze - tend to his watchful violets, and through a dry throat, you utter;
“- You say you are not cruel..” You begin, and your eyes are immediately forced to meet his own as you follow your wrist that was now victim to his grasp.
He raised it to his lips like it were some bountiful chalice of fine wine, licking at the pulse point there as if he were finding the most lewd, obscene ways to study your heart rate.
The gently sucks at the fragile skin there, tongue tracing the rivets where veins pulsated beneath the film of flesh - and you go lightheaded, a small gasp leaping from you.
“… But I have heard of the shamefalle deeds you and your brother have committed in saundry realms.”
The licking suction then turns into a testing, soft scraping bite of teeth snagging against skin - dull nipping as the corners of his mouth twitched upwards.
“Have you now?” Hollis chuckles darkly, “- How do these “deeds” pertain unto my manner of behaving towards women in their privy chambers?”
You break away from him; for a second, forgetting that he is a prince - of royalty, where everything and everyone is expected to break and bend under his will if it was what he wanted.
But it was too late, you’d already withdrawn - instead, you use your brief escape as a way to make over to the bed, pulling down the remainder of your clothes - now entirely bare.
“The ferocity does not solely reside in thy outward acts and pastimes, my Prince.” In an attempt to save face, you purr the last part - in the same way that would make any man paying for your services melt, “ ‘Tis in thine very blood.”
You follow his initial orders now, easing yourself down onto the mattress - stale linen rough against your skin as you shimmy upwards, exposed and on your back.
You sit up on your forearms when you reach your desired position, and slowly - just as he were moving, you parted your legs for him, as he stood at the foot of the bed.
He looks now as if he were a starved man after a pilgrimage with the duration of many relentless moons at the sight of a banquet the size of a kings’ celebratory feast.
“You speak with such assurance of my temperament as if you are acquainted with my ancestors; not rumours.”
The sound of boots being unlaced, and thudding against the floor. Then, you watch as his fingers - while he is still un-looking, pull his over shirt, then his chemise off of his torso - discarding them.
He circled the bed now, settling at the side of the mattress - a dexterous hand now hooking over your knee, caressing the skin of your inner thigh.
He looked shirtless how you’d expected - lean, polished flesh that rippled with aplenty muscle, a fine dusting of white-blonde hair that looked like shredded glass sprinkled atop powder-white complexion.
Whenever the candlelight caught him, it was like his body refracted the light - shimmering the way morning dew would off of the smooth, waxy leaves of wildflowers in the nearby meadows.
Most of his torso was concealed to you as of right now, though - as his trailing hair cut off just past his ribs, cascading snowdrifts of braids and - with the damp air of the ran-down brothel, gradual waves, not so pin-straight and maintained as it were styled to be before.
As he craned over you, his platinum locks - with their waves, now reminding you of the gushing lake whenever it would freeze over and glaciate in the harsh Ashford winters - brushed against your bare thighs, tickling the skin.
Absentmindedly, he tucked the escaping braids that had loosened from the gathering at the back of his hair behind his ears - a gesture he surely did a thousand times a day as his hairstyle wore away with daily wear, but that made you entrap your bottom lip between your teeth.
It was cruel of the Gods to manufacture generational vessels of evil and make its casings so sickeningly-pretty.
Maybe as an apology, to ease the impact of the carnage they wreak upon the people - to justify their rotten cores, sweeten their corruption.
Or, maybe it was to further mock you, and everyone else.
Maybe these people truly were given the upper hand undeservingly, and their desire to take and take and take and rarely provide had somehow earned them the rights to look the way they did, too - why not let them obtain every form of power, including that of ultimate beauty?
For you could only imagine being crumpled at the hands of a Targaryen, and having their faces be the last image of reality looming over you before you die - a blessing to bestow firsthand, but a burning curse that’d haunt you in the afterlife, knowing you died at the hands of the house that had everything, and still did whatever they could to obtain more.
“You did quake with fear on my account,” He recalls, chin now resting upon your knee, hand roaming closer towards your core, “- And now, you are suddenly.. bolder and more profane.”
You hum at the sensation of his advances, watching his hands pinch and scrape and caress your flesh, tendering to an inclining intensity as he travelled further.
“- Mayhap this does dwell within your blood too, as my.. “cruelty” does?”
He speaks coherent, confident sentences, although his expression is distant now - distracted, eyes transfixed between your legs as he peers over.
Even a somewhat-human, Targaryen Prince is easily susceptible to lust - just as you, and any other common-man is.
That is something, that in this moment, certified his humanity, and in a twisted way, comforted you. For now, he had the same raw, informal urge eclipsing his eyes as any man did when he were paying to be between your legs.
He was still in his braies and chausses, you’d noticed.
“Shall we see if we can taste it?” He invites, and before you can respond, he’s already between your legs now - silver-white locks stark, pearly against even the clean, fresh bed linens, in silken pools like spilling, honeyed milk.
You yelped, as he’d yanked you down to the edge of the bed - he’d somehow settled at the foot of it, knees on the hardwood floor, unbothered - arms hooked behind your calves like he were reigning in a rowdy animal.
Lips latch to your inner thigh - and he bites.
It feels like punishment for your words, each inclining nip a little firmer and sharper than the last - canines puncturing skin, and you wonder if the Targaryens have some special set of teeth as yet another semblance to the Dragon they spend their existence priding themselves to.
Maybe, if he took your breathy snipes to heart as his hot-headed brother surely would, you’d find yourself strung up and hung on the morrow before the jousting even were to begin.
“What temerity do you harbour in your veins.. that has you speaking like this to a Dragon Prince?” He whispers, “Does valour weigh heavy in your blood, as malice does mine?”
At the immense attention to your ever-growing sensitive area close to your core, your back cranes upward, and you reach for anchor - which, when your body decides that clawing at the mattress isn’t enough, you grasp at his hair.
And Gods, he fucking groans.
Long and gravelly, his strokes on your skin immediately slowing, mellowing - you’d satiated the Dragon princeling working between your legs momentarily, stunning it briefly with the incapacitation of fuelled touch.
Who knew Targaryens liked hair-pulling? Bratty - actually, very in character.
You came to at the sound, immediately raising your hand as if to withdraw and profusely apologise - maybe even plead for forgiveness to keep your head, to promise to never touch the assets of something, someone you are so direly inferior to that an unwarranted touch could be an act of high treason in itself.
But, it spurred him on, instead of offending him - as this seemed to jolt him into action properly, mouth now working on your core.
Between laps of you - one hand firmly on your thigh, keeping your legs parted for his insertion, the other grasping for your hand that wasn’t in his hair,
He secures your hand in his own, bringing it down to his mouth, the motion alone single-handedly straightening you out, forcing you to sit up so it could reach his mouth that sat low between your legs.
“You said you didn’t want to cause me harm..” You gasp out, fingers curling into his hair, braids wrapped around your fingers like the finest, softest rope confining you to him, “yet you speak of bloodshed.”
“I ask to sample thy most rightful blood,” He defends innocently, and his words muffle and vibrate through you between laps of his tongue, “- Thou may deny me, though.”
Who are you to deny a Targaryen? His sex-drunken words must be some sort of trap, and maybe your severed limbs were this goal from the start.
You let out a damning whine at the sensation of him latched onto you - tongue working almost as intricately and with direct intention as their fiery attitudes and quick wit.
Hollis took your lack of retort as a need to proceed, briefly detaching himself from you to lick at your fingers.
You should’ve anticipated that the Targaryen Princelings would be skilled with their sharp tongues - you’d seen them, pouty and spitting venom at past jousts you’d been touring around to pleasure the attendees.
Dragons are described as to have long, forked tongues designed to “taste” the air, hiss menacingly, and channel their fire.
- And it sure felt as if that is another reptilian attribute Hollis Targaryen possessed.
Taking your middle and pointer fingers into his mouth, sickened by you - he lapped at them, tongue twisting between the two digits, teeth snagging every now and then.
His other hand had snaked from around your calf to work on your core in the others’ absence, even slightly inserting the tip inside of you, to which you cried out, even at the minimal feeling.
Too distracted now by his fingers coaxing slowly into you, you were unsuspecting - until a sharp pain pierced through the tip of your own finger, similar to when you’d accidentally impale yourself with an embroidery needle.
He’d impaled your fingertip within his mouth with his canine - you wouldn’t be surprised if he were also bearing impeccably sharp, curved, blade-like teeth for tearing flesh as their reptilian counterparts had.
He said he did not mean to cause grievous harm, but he never denied not being cruel.
Either way, you valued your tongue, and you did not protest when aggression eventually had made its way into the chamber.
You’d suspected it, and he had fulfilled - you just would’ve assumed he’d taken to you with a dagger, rather than his teeth.
But Targaryens are animalistic, and you should’ve known.
Play nice, brother. Gods know I won’t.
Aerion’s warning rattled off the walls of your skull as you welcomed the burning, dulling pain in your fingers, that his circling tongue was easing - dare you say, like an apology, though you knew that was unlike.
You wondered which one of the poor whores had landed herself with the arguably more-madden twinned prince a few rooms down - what horrors he were unleashing onto her.
Maybe, you were grateful that this was the extent of the violence for now - that he wasn’t pushy, and that you were enjoying it.
His mouth released your fingers with an explicit, wet sound - and as anticipated, a small crimson bead had angrily headed the afflicted tip of your finger.
Pleased with his work, Hollis lowered your own, now bleeding hand to your heat.
“Touch yourself, dove.” He purred now, and you did - circling your most sensitive area with the exact finger he’d mildly mutilated, smearing your gore all over yourself, for his pleasure.
“Hollis..” You whined, attempting to keep up with the pace he was pleasuring you with - hips stuttering, you hadn’t even computed you’d referred to the Princeling as his first name.
Comedically on queue, outside of Hollis’ pleased noises and your own moans, you’d heard a muffled “Aerion!” From down the hall.
Even during bedding, the twins seemed to compete.
His princely impatience was evident now, as he’d grown tired of merely watching you smear your blood all over yourself - swatting your hands away and out of his way so he could taste this new mixture of your slick and your gore himself.
Fingers now hooking inside you, he lowered himself to taste.
“Fuck,” He breathes out, drinking you and your bleeding fluids in like it were the heaviest liquor, the sweetest cider after a parching summers’ day, “You’re sweet, so fucking sweet.”
Your fist was still full of his soft, ribboning silver mane - woven around your fingers, keeping it from draping over and into his face.
The first, and definitely last time you were to ever touch the hair of a Targaryen. A privilege that only a scarce amount of people were ever able to boast, all while keeping all of their dignity and limbs.
You were sure to finish soon, but he wasn’t ready. Not yet.
Feeling you clench around his digits desperately, back arching, tugs at his hair becoming more erratic, he stopped.
Standing, he raised from the edge of the bed, stepping onto the mattress to kneel over you.
The Targaryens loved trophies. Whether it were in battle from conquest, or in the bedroom - they wanted to take their ruin in, indulge in their damage.
You, disappointed at the loss, were basically squirming beneath him like a dove clipped of its wings - eyes screwed shut, chest hollowing, your body tremors with pending release.
Your fiery auburn locks were splayed beneath you now, coiling inferno nesting your pretty head - stuck out in all directions like a blur of flame, skin hot to the touch.
This was why he loved red hair. Anything resembling fire, he adored - especially if it involved a fair woman, for a halo of silken hair resembling it, mussed and fierce at his ruin paired with supple, soft skin - it made Hollis carnal.
He drank you in, pale violet eyes feasting upon you - glaciated over like he’d been fighting sword to steel all day, and been told he’d won.
“Nũhor nyke perzys.” He whispered, finger lifting to push gently at the plush of your bottom lip, your mouth agape as you heaved in need below him.
High Valyrian - a tongue of which your blood was not supreme enough to speak, that you could never learn; nor comprehend.
My fire.
You watched as he withdrew his hand, now unbuckling himself, beginning to free himself - the fine, barely-there hair that trailed from his abdomen to below his belt - the way his abdominal muscles flexed beneath the spitting candlelight, hair brushing your raised knees as you braced for him.
How, when you’d managed to muster the strength to open your eyes and let your pupils refocus, you saw the slight reddened tinge to his lips - your blood, to which he darted out his tongue and lapped it away, momentarily glancing to your pricked finger and back down to your heat - as if to debate asking you to conjure up more of you for him to consume.
“Aerion, fuck!” The same shrill female voice wailed from the end of the hall - and then, a clatter of objects sounded, maybe a bed leg breaking or a stool toppling over - to which both yourself and Hollis both grinned.
The brief flicker of amusement you felt quickly dissipated though, when you watched him paw himself slowly through the strain of his garments, teasing his release.
Holy shit, you were about to ride a Dragon. Seriously.
Hollis were about to lower himself down to meet you once more - hover his blood-smeared lips over your own, to join your lips for the first time tonight - a different level of burning intimacy he’d yet to allow you, but you so desperately wanted to experience.
Until—
“Hollis!”
A masculine, aged voice belted through the halls - to which the Princeling cursed to himself, stilling - detaching away from you.
An older man burst through the door - knocking the rickety piece of wood off of its latch and hinges as if it took the same low level of energy as flipping the page of a book.
He had the same hair as Hollis and Aerion, dressed in the same finery, the same eyes - just a tad more indigo, more stern and syrupy under the lowlight, boring through wrinkled skin - equally as fierce.
He bared his teeth at the sight.
On queue, a shirtless, rather disgruntled-looking Aerion sauntered in behind the older man, looking as smug as ever, even parading around half-decent.
At the realisation of what was happening, you attempt to raised a forearm over your exposed breasts to cover yourself before the Princes - plural - as if your job title, your manner upon this bed, beneath the Prince alone hadn’t stripped you of enough dignity.
Hollis - despite being chastised publicly by his furious father, without looking at you, still managed to swat away your arm over your chest, a faint smile strung across his mouth, that you could only see the corner of.
“Father.” Hollis greeted, wetting his lips, craning his head ever so slightly to glance at you - as if he were making sure you were still there, shivering beneath him.
Prince Maekar looked as if he were about to lurch at his son and drag him out of the brothel by some invisible collar.
“Īlon ikso leav. now.”
We are leaving. Now.
And so, he followed - reluctantly.
He didn’t even look twice before leaving you there sprawled across the bed, padding out of the door - still, somehow, looking as untouched and rejuvenated as ever, his hair the only giveaway, as it was slightly more voluminous and unruly than usual.
A rather petrified looking maid then scrambled into the room, giving you another fright - only to quickly gather the scattered clothing left behind from the Prince, not even addressing you before she scurried out of the room with the same haste.
The last thing you heard was several sets of heavy footsteps down the hollow staircase, and Aerion’s boyish laughter.
Gods, you hoped that insolent, fair-faced mutt gets his shit ruined at the Jousting on the morrow - his twin, however, you wished less so.
The fantasy was disappointingly short-lived, and now you were riled-up and left in a cold, empty bed - forced to fill the void by inviting in another most probably less-attractive, less-important customer who’s tongue won’t work half as impressive as the Targaryen Princeling’s.
But that was the type of transaction you were to expect, and ultimately deserved.
But what you didn’t realise what just how long the Targaryens were to be stationed in Ashford, and how the lands limited facilities - including brothels - made you susceptible to playing a heavy hand in the Dragon Prince’s dirty habits.
You’ll be beneath the wings of the Dragon once again, soon - and this time, he’ll finish the job - as no Targaryen leaves a conquest unfinished, unfulfilled, or undefeated.
༺𓆩༒︎𓆪༻
A/N
wow. hello.
I’ve been on a bit of a hiatus, for lots of reasons that I’ve spoke about but I don’t want to keep boring you guys by repeating lol.
anyway, been obsessed with bratty little Aerion Targaryen and AKOTSK and wanted to channel that into 2tumblr, because sometimes we need crazy concepts to keep shit alive!
anyway, let me know what u think as always - I hate writing smut, can u tell lol???
dededos
kianamaiart
turnnoffyourmind
baratheonpilled
areudirty
romaincrisis
snowghoul
