⌕ ꒰ 𝐍𝐀𝐕⋆꒱ 𝚊𝚘𝟹 𝐦𝐚𝐬𝐭𝐞𝐫𝐥𝐢𝐬𝐭 𝚝𝚊𝚐𝚕𝚒𝚜𝚝 𐀔
⤷ 360 bucky barnes x reader
⤷ but kiss me & i might... jack abbot x reader
⤷ jack abbot becomes a pornstar!
Babes, what's going on with "von dutch"? No pressure! Just miss your writing
long story short: don't let hyde behind the keyboard while drunk.
short story long: i wrote most of the fic whilst on holiday + spending 4 days in a field at a music festival, got home, went to edit it, and realised i hated the whole fic the day of posting. so anyway i scrapped it and started all over, it will be posted early this week. thank you for your patience <3
Are you excited for the next episode 🙂↕️ I’m kinda scared ngl
episode two was amazing. hands down, one of the best episodes of the entire show. i'm just suprised hbo was bold enough to run a 2-episode long season. oh well, so glad to have seen my queen finally sit on the iron throne <3
Your lives have always moved in parallel: close enough to touch, yet separated by an irreconcilable distance. Bucky is a prince and you are his sister's lady-in-waiting. But love ignores rank, and so does the kingdom's newest desire-inducing substance.
▸ PAIRING: Prince!Bucky Barnes x Lady-in-Waiting!Reader
▸ WARNINGS: NSFW 18+, dubcon because of sex pollen, so much yearning, slight hurt/comfort, public sex, porn with too much plot tbh, possessive!bucky, degradation, filthy talk that border on dubcon but know that she wants to be there as much as him, breeding kink, insecurities, both virgins, bucky is nasty and a lil mean under the influence, probably a lot of historical inaccuracies
▸ WORD COUNT: 16.1K
▸ A/N: "this will be a short pwp," i say, famous last words. thank you so much to @iamthatonefangirl and @barnesonly for organizing this collab. dedicated to @artficlly in honor of pursuit of jade episode 37 iykyk — i'm gifting you the sex pollen by the stream that we never got <3 hope you enjoy this baby of mine. if you do, please let me know your thoughts (even if they are incoherent) through reblogs, comments, and likes!!
↤ main masterlist | bwat summer masterlist
Princes James Buchanan Barnes has everything he could ever want. A palace fit for the king that he will eventually become. Mountains of jewels that shine brighter than the sun and all the stars combined. Bespoke dress uniforms made from the finest fabrics, adorned with elegant aiguillettes and medals of his valor in battles fought and won. Countless women and men alike throwing themselves at his feet for the opportunity of him even sparing them the briefest of glances.
But the only one he truly wants, the only person he truly wishes to hold, is the one thing he cannot have — and it’s you.
You’ve been destined to become Princess Becca’s helper since you were born. Your mother had served the family for two generations; you were born in the palace, raised in the hustle and bustle of the castle with all the live-in staff. You spent years refining your cooking skills in the kitchen that seemed to function twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week, decades toiling away in the garden with the landscaper to take care of the queen’s prized roses, and occasionally sneaking into the palace library for a quick novel or two when your mother took her eyes off you.
It was a natural pathway for someone who wasn’t born to nobility yet was constantly surrounded by it.
Fortunately, growing up in this kingdom that is governed with kindness and compassion means that there are paths to advancement that you never anticipated, mainly becoming Becca’s lady-in-waiting. The two of you had been raised together, joint at the hip, to the point where you may not even distinguish which of you is the real princess. The king and queen had welcomed you as if you were one of their own.
Of course, you know that it’s far from the truth. Despite their accommodations and generosity, you’ve always known your place in society. There is a reason why Becca is the one covered in silver and gold, while you’re handstitching the holes in your clothes. She’s seated at a table for twelve with a wide array of dishes and pastries all created to her liking, while you join your fellow staff members for a family meal, cramped together in a table meant for half of you.
You’ve always drawn that line, regardless of how many times Becca tries to cross it.
“Come now, you must come with me to Viscountess Romanoff’s ball!” She huffs, stomping her feet as she always does when she does not get what she wants.
You let out a sigh and Becca’s face falls as she prepares herself for your disappointing response. “Princess—” she glares and you bite your tongue, “Becca, that is not my place.”
“Of course, it is! Many ladies-in-waiting go to these balls.”
“Ladies-in-waiting that were born into nobility,” you correct her with a look.
“It doesn’t matter. You’re my lady-in-waiting and I need you there to— to— fix my dress!”
You know it isn’t true — well, it is only true to the extent that Becca may become ridiculously inebriated and has to be stowed away before she can go as far as risk the royal family’s reputation, and you somehow have become the most reliable person for those circumstances.
However, there are many there that will surely keep her on her toes — literally, including her brother.
“Did you hear that? She needs you to fix her dress. You simply have to attend now.”
The interruption brings both of your attention to the door where Bucky is leaning against the doorway, a smirk curled on his lips. His eyes skip past Becca and land on you and — heaven almighty.
He drinks you in, you in your simple gown, yet his sapphire eyes warm all the same. They darken like the evening has arrived far too early and the moon is nowhere in sight. His smile dims slightly, if only for him to clamp down on the inappropriate sound that climbs up his throat.
Bucky has never been good at subtlety.
You drag your eyes away and back to the lady that you’re supposed to be waiting on. The lady who is currently huffing and puffing as she plops down on the sofa with a scowl. “Will you please convince her to come, Buck?”
He steps further into the room. The air is a little heavier, like his presence has sucked all the oxygen out of the space — but only for you. Your fingers twist quietly together in front of you as you force yourself to stand upright, force yourself to keep looking ahead when his arm brushes yours — an inappropriate proximity for a prince and a member of the staff.
Discreetly, you take one step to the side, just enough to put distance that allows you room to breathe, lest you risk Becca suspecting something transpiring between the two of you.
“You should come,” Bucky murmurs. His gaze is warm on your cheek. His blue eyes no doubt soft as they take you in.
You resist and instead address Becca. “That would be unacceptable, Pr— Becca. Please. The crown prince will be in attendance and the viscountess’ staff are more than capable. I’ve met many of them and you will be in good hands.”
“Well, the crown prince would appreciate his ability to drink the viscountess’ liquor supply for the night without worrying about whether his dear sister can control her alcohol,” Bucky chimes in, which earns a roll of the eyes from Becca.
“I can control my drinking, Bucky. Can you control your deviant desires in the presence of all the other women in the ton?”
Your heart skips a beat. A little nick in your chest to draw blood. You can practically hear the smile wipe off Bucky’s face, his face red as he grits his teeth. “You know that’s not true, sister dear. I’ve never once laid a hand on them.”
“Doesn’t mean you don’t try,” Becca shoots right back.
Another scratch, enough to peel back another layer to your bleeding heart.
It shouldn’t — doesn’t — matter. There has never been anything between you and Bucky. He is the crown prince and you were born to be a lady’s maid at best; it was only the queen’s philanthropy and Becca’s friendship that you were granted this promotion.
Bucky is meant to marry a princess from another kingdom, or at the least someone born to a proper, respectable family with titles.
Neither of which is you.
“Rebecca Marie Barnes.” Bucky’s voice is sharp; it slices through the air and straight towards Becca whose face goes cold the moment it lands.
Becca’s lips purse in annoyance. “I’m going to look for a dress for tonight.” Then she’s lifting her dress and stomping away.
You make a move to follow, only for Bucky to swiftly take your hand. You don’t turn. Bucky forces you to when he tugs you towards him, spinning you around so you land against his chest. You’re quick to flatten your palm on it to push yourself away, but instead, he catches your hand and presses it over his heart.
“It’s not true,” he murmurs. “I’ve never once shown any of them any interest.”
Don’t cry. You’d be a fool to cry over a prince. You steel your gaze as you look up at him. “It would be in your right to do so. A crown prince is meant to take a wife.”
Irritation flickers across his eyes. “There’s only one woman I wish to take as a wife but she seems to deny me that right at every turn. What say you to that?”
“A crown prince is meant to take a proper wife. One fit for the ton.”
“I don’t give a damn about the ton.”
“Bucky!” The chiding comes out on instinct, his name sliding on your tongue like water. Habit — one that you should’ve curbed a long time ago if it weren’t for the two of them always insisting that you call them by their names.
Bucky’s face thaws, mouth curving into a delighted smile. You try to extract yourself from his grasp again but fail to do so when he ducks his head, lips brushing the shell of your ear. A shiver snakes up your spine as he drags you closer to him. “I love when you say my name. I’d love it even more if you called me your husband.”
Your traitorous heart slams against your ribs. Foolish desires plague your very being. It’s been decades since you were first introduced to Bucky, ten years since you first defended Becca against Bucky’s teasing, and far too long since you first fell for the crown prince.
It’s not as if your feelings are not reciprocated; Bucky has made it clear from the start that he adores you dearly. Adores you in a way that is far from acceptable for a prince. But your mother has reminded you time and time again that, no matter how intimately acquainted you are with them, you will never be one of them.
And Bucky deserves a partner — an equal. Someone who can stand tall and proud beside him without the risk of gossip and mockery. You would only give him grief and he would certainly bore of you in the future once the thrill of the chase is done.
So you exert more effort this time to push him away. “Prince Barnes, I must ask you to maintain some semblance of decorum. If you’ll excuse me, I have to tend to the princess.” You do a small curtsy, ignoring the flash of pain in his eyes as you walk away.
This is how it’s supposed to be. This has always been your fate.
“You have to try this on. Please? For me?”
It begins as an innocent enough request. Becca was in the midst of selecting her gown for the evening and that meant that you were right by her side, providing her with the necessary words of affirmation for her to make a decision.
These are the most challenging questions that royalty have to deal with. Sometimes you dream of living such a comfortable life, pampered daily with the sweetest of treats and lavishing yourself with the praise of society. However, you know that things aren’t so simple. There are restrictions that come with being part of this family.
You saw firsthand how many classes Becca had to take as part of her education — in addition to the typical academic courses, she had to spend hours learning proper etiquette, how to sew, how to play a musical instrument, how to entertain and host a gathering. They had to prepare her for her future as a wife. While options are limited for women in society, they are practically a straight-line path for a princess who is not in line for the throne.
Her career, her future, her partner — everything is almost pre-destined.
One day, Becca will marry someone. While she dreams of a happily ever after, she also understands the political nature of matrimony. To maintain power, you have to seek power. She may not be here a few years from now when she’s officially married off to extend her father’s reign. Her parents have insisted that they would never force her to marry, but Becca has always had a strong sense of responsibility.
You both admire and hold sympathy for her.
Unfortunately, in this very moment, you would like to push her out of the carriage so you too could make your escape. Somehow, she has managed to rope you into going to the ball — in one of her dresses.
“This is completely inappropriate,” you hiss. “I should not be here.”
“I want you here.”
“Becca,” you exhale deeply, “if your parents knew about this.”
“It’s a masquerade ball! Nobody will know.”
“I’m coming with you! I fear that makes it quite obvious.”
“I’ll tell them you’re one of our very distant cousins — one from a land far, far away.”
You pinch your nose as the carriage rattles, the silk of your glove glides along your skin. Pulling your hand away, you can’t help but look at the delicate fabric on your skin.
When you first tried the clothes on, you could hardly believe your eyes. You didn’t even look like… you. Gone were your well-worn gowns. The tightness of the corset has you a little breathless, but the dress adorned with intricate sequins and embroidery sliding over your body like water. The silver shimmers underneath the moonlight that spills past the curtains of the carriage, white camellias sewn in a river down your shoulder to your waist.
You reach up to tuck your hair behind your ear, only for your fingers to brush over the diamond necklace that Becca has so thoughtfully loaned you. The gems catch light, winking at you as if they’re letting you in on a secret. Then your fingers catch on your mask, a combination of beads and lace trimming, the same flowers framing the corners of your eyes.
In all your life, you could never have even dared to dream of wearing such things. You never imagined that you would be swimming in such luxury.
If your mother could see you now, she would absolutely murder you. She would bury you six feet under before the royal guards could even get to you.
You know that neither the queen nor king would mind, but what would the rest of them think if they knew? What if they found out that you were no more than a girl born into somewhat fortunate circumstances? That your blood was redder than most of them. Common.
A hand lands atop yours. Becca peeks at you with a nervous smile. “Hey, it’ll be fun. You’ve never been to one of these. Please try to enjoy yourself. I promise that nobody will say a thing.”
“What if I stand out? What if they know that I don’t fit in with the rest of them?” You whisper.
Becca squeezes your hand. “If you stand out, it’s because you look far more beautiful than the rest of them. If you stand out, it’s because they are looking at you with envy. You could’ve easily been the diamond of the season.”
Warmth creeps up your neck as the carriage pulls to a stop. You can already hear the music filtering through the entrance; the sound mingles with the fast rhythm of your heartbeat in a symphony that echoes through your mind.
“Showtime,” she beams.
Now, as someone who has been directly involved in the planning, decorating, and organizing of the extravaganzas, you’ve seen your fair share of ridiculously opulent displays. The palace is, after all, renowned for hosting the grandest of balls, bringing together only the who’s who of society. The guest list is selective, both for security and exclusivity reasons. It is the most sought-after invitation of the season. So when you walk into the viscountess’ home, you didn’t think you would be impressed.
However, you have never been happier to be proven wrong. Every inch of this place has been meticulously swathed in a color scheme perfect for the summer. Florals in every shade of the sunset draped across banisters, hanging over the staircase leading down to the dance floor, and standing tall in structures that do not look humanly possible.
Butlers and maids dressed head to toe in fine fabrics float around the room carrying hors d'oeuvres that look more like miniature works of art. Macarons that match the colors of the flower arrangements, tarts with crusts that crumble perfectly on your tongue, bonbons in perfect spheres dusted in cocoa, and fruits plucked from the vines at their ripest, sweetest point.
The stars twinkle above you to complement the tiny candles that string across the railings to illuminate the room, only outshone by the chandeliers with flickering flames hanging above you. Guests in their Sunday bests drift around the room in excited chatter, spreading the newest gossip that will surely make the papers by morning.
Heads turn as you and Becca enter the room and, before you can duck behind her, she’s linking her arm through yours and pulling you forward into the crowd.
“Becca—”
“Breathe, this will be fun. Enjoy the treats and the wine. The viscountess has exceptional taste, she has gathered the best chefs in the kingdom in her kitchen. Mother simply adores visiting her for tea for the food alone.”
Becca walks through the room with the confidence of someone who owns it. Everyone knows her as the princess even hidden behind the mask, murmurs of awe rippling across the crowd. The men pay particularly close attention, eager to get hers. The women speak of her in resentful admiration.
Becca — the belle of the ball. You, her companion.
“They’re looking at you,” she giggles quietly in your ear.
“No, they’re looking at you, Princess.”
“I’ve been in enough of these rooms to know when people are looking at me. While some are focused on me, most of them are keeping a close eye on you.”
“Likely to see when they would have the opportunity to speak to you alone no doubt,” you mutter under your breath.
Becca frowns at you. “Must you be so cynical? You look absolutely stunning. If you gave the room a chance, you’d know how many of them are keen on dancing with you. In fact, why don’t we put it to a test?”
Right as you’re about to ask her what she means, Becca moves away from you, pretending to be drawn by the dessert that appears to be running away from her. Her name leaves your mouth but you don’t get very far when three men approach you. All of them impeccably dressed, all of them handsome — at least, from what you can see with the mask.
“My lady, would you grant me the honor of joining me for a dance?”
Your lips part in surprise, eyes darting around the room to search for the princess. Becca stands off in a corner, grinning proudly to herself as she nibbles on a cream puff. You bite down the urge to curse before politely turning to the men. “My apologies, I should be getting back to my companion. I can’t leave her for far too long.”
You take a step and one of them moves directly in your path. “I’m sure she’ll find the company of others just as pleasant. Please, you must grant each of us a dance. It would be a privilege for us.”
Although you’ve danced before, it’s mostly to help Becca with her training. You have no idea how these dances work during the balls — the coordination, the etiquette. Your heart begins to race as your throat closes in a panic.
“I can’t—”
“One. One song is all I ask.”
“Then mine next.”
“And then me.”
Your chest flares as you search around the room for Becca again but she is nowhere to be found. Your skin begins to burn as your survival instincts kick in. The last thing you need is for these men to notice and question how they’ve never seen you before at such events, and you would have to craft a convoluted fib that you would be forced to maintain.
Just as you are about to deny them again, a hand presses against the low of your back.
“My lady.”
The voice grounds you in a familiar presence. You look up to find Bucky — even through the mask, you’d know it was him. His favorite cologne clings to the threads of his jacket and his hair, thick and styled, is one you can practically feel on your fingertips. Those days spent by the riverbend, his head on your lap as you read him sonnets—
No. This is not the time to be sentimental.
“Your royal highness.” The men stumble over each other to greet him, their energy shifting to nervous jitters as they look amongst each other.
“I believe the point of the masks is anonymity,” he says smoothly. “Now, if you wouldn’t mind, I would like to invite this lovely lady to a dance.”
He doesn’t wait for your answer, he simply takes your hand and whisks you into the crowd. You don’t have time to think about the consequences of this, more relieved that you’ve escaped that sticky situation.
“Thank you,” you breathe out.
“I believe I should be thanking you for this dance,” he grins.
“How did you find me?”
“I could find you even if you were across the world, mon cher.” You roll your eyes and Bucky huffs a quiet laugh. “I don’t think you’re supposed to respond that way to the crown prince.”
“Perhaps if the crown prince didn’t use such predictably embarrassing lines.”
His lips curl again. “I noticed you the moment you walked into the room. Most beautiful woman tonight. Most beautiful woman I’ve ever known, in fact.”
“Haven’t you been taught that dishonesty is unbecoming on a man?” You snip back.
“You wound me,” he gives a little shake of his head, “Out of everyone, you know that you would be the last person I would attempt to bathe in false affirmations. I know you can see through those pretenses.”
“Then why try?”
“Oh ye of little faith. If you wanted praise from me, you could just say so—”
You balk, snapping back in surprise. “That was not my intention!”
Bucky squeezes your hand as he shifts you around the room. It is then that you realize he’s been guiding your movements all along, every one of your steps falling in line with the others around you. He’s always been a good dancer, far better than Becca who had resisted these lessons for the longest time.
“You look absolutely ravishing tonight,” he ducks his head to whisper in your ear. The smell of him infiltrates your senses, his warmth, the brush of his hair against your cheek. “Of course, you could’ve worn nothing at all and you would undoubtedly still be the most fetching person in this room.”
“If I wore nothing at all, then I’m sure I would fetch the eyes of everyone in this room,” you tease with a small quirk of your lips.
Bucky goes momentarily taut, stiff as he spins you and then pulls you in even closer. His hands tighten around you, like he’s fearful you would slip away at any moment. “Thank the heavens you opted for clothing today. I would rather not imagine anyone else seeing you in such a state. I’d have to dramatically increase this kingdom’s beheading rate. If I do that, what kingdom would I have left to rule?”
“Because you’d have to eliminate the witnesses to my humiliation of the royal family?”
“Because I have limited self-restraint when it comes to you.” You cock an eyebrow in question. “I would have to eliminate anyone who has ever seen you in such an intimate state. I’m a tad possessive you see, I’d rather be the only person alive who’s ever seen you in all of your raw beauty.”
Heat flushes along your skin, a sudden rise in temperature that rarely occurs at this time in the evening. “You’ve never seen me in such a state.”
“I would be the first and the last, my dear. I’ve never been very good at sharing.”
“I am not an object to own, your royal highness,” you bite out with a sour curl of your lips.
“You’re not,” Bucky murmurs softly, “but my heart belongs to you and I was hoping that yours to me — and your affection is the one thing I refuse to ration.”
You look up to meet his eyes. Earnest blue eyes that are far too honest for your liking. That gaze that’s dripping with the kind of affection he cannot counterfeit. Your movements nearly falter, your knees suddenly weak, but Bucky holds onto you even tighter.
“Bucky, I—”
Your gaze snags on the view behind him — a line of women watching the two of you, glowering green seeing your frame tucked against Bucky’s. Women who undoubtedly come from near and far in search of a notable husband to match or increase their standing in society. What better catch than a prince?
Instead of investing his time looking for a proper candidate for a wife, he is instead wasting these minutes with you. It’s been three songs, far from appropriate for two acquaintances, suspicious enough that you can hear the whispers of speculation begin to circulate the room. As the song comes to an end, you’re quick to curtsy in front of him.
“Thank you for the dance.”
You whirl around before he can say another word and disappear into the throng, leaving Bucky to be swarmed by women who are far better suited for him.
Becca stands by a corner, having watched all of this transpire. She’s barely paying any mind to the gentlemen suitors around her. When you come around to her, she’s immediately distancing herself and rushing towards you. Her gaze is eager, far too eager.
She’s had at least two drinks then.
“How was it? I saw you out there.”
“It was fine,” you mutter.
“You’ve only had one dance and it was with my brother. Methinks it’s time to expand your registry. How about the Duke? I hear he gets a little bit handsy and a little fun can do no harm.”
After your conversation with Bucky, you seriously doubt that. You would rather avoid this ball turning into a beheading festival tonight — or Bucky ruining his pristine reputation with society when he decides to do an execution in the middle of the dance floor.
Bucky is many things but he is not a liar. Whether he exaggerates is up for debate but that is not a theory you want to test tonight.
“Or shall we have a few more to drink in the meantime? Their champagne is quite lovely. I heard the viscountess had sourced all of the vintages from her favorite year.”
“Ladies.”
Speak of the devil. The two of you find yourselves in front of the viscountess. Even beneath the mask, her vibrant ruby hair is an easy identifier. She is cloaked in a glimmering black fabric with touches of red, breasts pushed up with the tight wrap aroung her waist. Spiders are stitched into her mask, crawling up the sides.
“Lady Romanoff,” Becca cheers, “what a lovely ball you’ve thrown. This is stunning, our chefs simply must learn from yours, otherwise I’d be tempted to sneak a few of those macarons up my sleeve before I leave.”
The viscountess laughs. “Princess, if you desire the macarons, I shall ensure that they are delivered to the palace by the morning. I believe your queen mother is also rather fond of the bonbons I source from France, I’ve already arranged for it to be sent tomorrow and I’ll make sure we include your macarons with that delivery.”
“You are most kind and gracious.”
Then she turns her eyes to you and you freeze. “And I do not believe we’ve met. Your name, dear?”
Your eyes flick to Becca momentarily before returning to her. You should lie. You should give her another name, but the viscountess has been known to be shrewdly intelligent. If you were caught in a fib, you would likely have your tongue cut out. There have been rumors of what she has done outside this kingdom, things that are far from proper; still, nobody has been brave enough to validate any of that gossip.
So you tell her your name.
“And I presume you are the princess’…” she trails off for a second and you go rigid once more, her gaze sharpens a fraction. “…cousin from far, far away?”
“Um, yes! She has decided to do an impromptu visit because she missed me so. I hope you don’t mind my bringing her, my lady.”
Lady Romanoff smiles like she knows — and you have a feeling she does. She simply doesn’t care. After all, she has always danced to her own tune, including how she’s wearing all black tonight that would be typically reserved for funerals.
“Not at all. I hope you enjoy your visit and my ball tonight. I would avoid Lord Smith, he’s in desperate search of a wife and may latch on to the one new face who appears unaware of the reputation of his temper.” Then she laughs.
“Fair advice, Lady Romanoff, thank you,” you murmur.
With one last squeeze of your arm, she brisks away from the two of you. As you follow her movements, you also spot Bucky as he makes his own escape with a few of the gentlemen you’ve seen come around the palace. He turns in time to catch your eye, his mouth curling into a smile as he winks at you from the distance, right as he disappears out the door.
“Now, shall we indulge in more treats?”
You’ve always been a quick study and there are three things that you now understand about the nature of these functions.
The first is to eat your fill — between the champagne and the specially mulled wines, intoxication is a friendly foe that rears its head far too fast. You have to learn to balance properly.
The second is that the marriage market appears dreary. None of the ladies are interested in the gentlemen, no matter how desperately they try. It appears that the women in the room aren’t too afraid of waiting a tad bit longer if it means they could find the one. This means that the gentlemen are far too preoccupied with harassing the help to keep themselves entertained, not that Lady Romanoff tolerates that behavior; she’s kicked out a number of them already.
Last but not least is that Becca is a social butterfly. While you’ve always been familiar with her friendly nature, seeing her out and about like this, crafting budding friendships with every single person in the room, you’re once again reminded of why the two of you were fast friends. Becca has always been more welcoming, conquering all five love languages on top of the three spoken and written ones that she’s already studying. However, following her around, you are also reminded that you are, in fact, not like her and these interactions are beginning to wear you down.
There are only so many ways you can talk about your dress before the discussions start to sound inane.
There are also so many times you can tolerate the way these women look you up and down. What happened to camaraderie? The catty looks are one thing you don’t expect. In your eyes, you’re a nobody who just happened to be playing dress-up thanks to a good friend. However, you can see how you seem from their perspective — close enough to the princess to attend this ball, apparently attractive enough for the crown prince to steal you for more than a handful of minutes.
You swallow the urge to scream, “I’m nothing more than the help!”
“The prince does have peculiar taste, doesn’t he?” One of them comments and you have to resist rolling your eyes, lest you offend her publicly.
“What do you mean?” Becca asks as she nibbles on her third tart of the night.
Expectedly, the girl’s eyes flick to you for a brief second before her lips stretch into smirk. “I assumed he would take a wife by now. Have an heir to continue the lineage. However, it doesn’t seem that anyone in this room suits his preferences. He hasn’t asked anyone to dance yet — and not for a lack of trying from our part.”
“He did have one dance—”
You clear your throat to interrupt Becca. She looks at you quizzically.
God bless her heart. Becca means well but sometimes she misses some of these cues; she’s too trusting, which is why you have to be the exact opposite.
“Apologies, I meant a dance that would count—” she smiles saccharine sweet. “—that would matter. You’re a visiting relative, right?” This question she directs towards you.
All eyes turn to you. The attention has your cheeks burning. “Correct.”
“She’s actually a very dear friend, but she’s practically family. She knows Bucky very well.”
“Is that so?” You don’t appreciate the way the woman’s gaze flashes with something akin to amusement. “Practically a sister then. I don’t believe I recall where you’re from. I haven’t heard anyone speak of you either.”
“I didn’t say.” Your lips twist up in an irritated smile.
Awkward tension falls upon the conversation. Becca looks nervously between the two of you; this cue is far too hard to miss. “That doesn’t matter! What matters is that we are here now. How about we get some lemonade? It’s quite warm here, isn’t it?”
As Becca busies herself with resolving the tension, which is the last thing a princess should be doing, you take this opportunity to slip away from the suffocating atmosphere of the room.
Perhaps the garden can be healing this time of night.
Bucky would rather be anywhere else but here. Let him correct himself — there is exactly one place he would rather be than here and it would be to be back inside. With you. Dancing. Fetching you drinks. Keeping those overly-excited, unworthy vultures away from you.
The moment you stepped through those doors, he knew he was in for a long night of suffering. Time and time again, you’ve rejected his advances. He knows you feel the same way, has felt you leaning into his touch before you would pull yourself away. Your stubbornness has always been endearing, but Bucky yearns for the day when he finally breaks through those walls.
It’s not an if, it’s a when.
Because Bucky has always achieved everything he’s dreamed of and you are his most important one.
However, for now, he is instead subjected to the debauchery of his peers. Dukes, viscounts, and fellow noblemen who have far too much time on their hands to be exploring substances that shouldn’t be explored. Sam is in the midst of lecturing their tight-knit group about this vial he procured while out in the countryside, some fermented liquid that supposedly produces the most vivid, imaginative visions that have you questioning reality.
The others ooh and aah in fascination but Bucky’s eyes continue to stray towards those double-doors where you stand on the other side.
“Your royal highness, I have something that may be of interest to you.”
To that, he does turn with a raised brow.
“I specifically obtained this one for you. I am sympathetic to your cause—” Sam teases and Bucky responds with a withering glare that does nothing to deter his friend. “—and when the time comes and you hope to last, this will be immensely beneficial.”
“His cause is hopeless if he doesn’t do anything about it,” Steve laughs.
“I appreciate your vote of confidence, Rogers. Believe me, it’s not for a lack of trying,” Bucky mutters as he leans back against the stone pillar.
Sam grabs his hand, slips it into his palm and closes his hand around a small tin. “Very potent. I wouldn’t recommend more than a pinchful at a time. A pinchful should last you through an hour, but what a delicious hour it will be.”
He doesn’t know how to tell him that Bucky doesn’t need this sort of chemistry to make him last. Every time he’s near you, his pants tighten like a schoolboy again. Thirteen and realizing that this desire to kiss you isn’t a result of friendship. As he got older, he realized that these urges aren’t those that should be held against his sister’s lady-in-waiting.
Urges that blossomed into far more when he feels his chest constrict, breath stolen from his lungs, whenever he catches a whiff of that perfume. Or how he can’t resist peeking at you from around the corner whenever you sneak into the library, wondering what book has absorbed you this time, how quickly he could read it to spark conversation with you. Or how desperately he tries to make you laugh just to hear that tinkling melody that loops like the nation’s best symphony in his mind.
There are days that Bucky wishes he wasn’t born into this family, that he could be normal, so he wouldn’t be forced upon societal standards that he has no desire to follow. He could pursue you and you wouldn’t constantly put this chasm between you.
But then if he hadn’t been born into this life, then he would’ve never met you. He would have never known what it means for love to consume his very soul, how one person could mean the world to him, to a point where he would give it all up — the riches, the rule — to be with you.
Fate is a funny thing.
“I don’t need this, Wilson,” Bucky grunts as he tries to push it back into Sam’s hands.
Sam raises them. “No, sir. Think of it as an early coronation gift. Perhaps once you can change the rules of the kingdom, you would be inclined to follow them too.”
“Think he’s a jester,” he mutters to Steve with a roll of his eyes.
“In another life, my prince, perhaps in another life,” Sam grins cheekily. “You simply have to breathe it in. Like the usual stuff. Again, very powerful so be careful. Otherwise, you’d be trapped in that state for hours on end and your only relief would be to…”
Bucky’s eyes rise to meet his. Sam only wiggles his eyebrows in response. He makes a face of repulsion. “That’s how you rid yourself of the effects?”
“The more you finish, the lighter the effects will be. However, if you don’t find any form of… relief, then it could last for hours and you’d be hurting everywhere — and I do mean everywhere. It’s the strongest form of desire that can be relieved if you fulfill it.”
Bucky looks down at the tin again. Unassuming. Small. How powerful could this little thing be? He tucks it inside his coat, if only to appease his friend, and lets them resume with the conversation.
By the time they adjourn, Bucky is sufficiently exhausted. All he wants is to go search for you. It’s only been an hour and he already misses you. What a fool he is — if only the kingdom knew that the crown prince’s only weakness is a woman who doesn’t even want him.
As the other men filter back indoors, Bucky moves to follow. That is, until your perfume tickles his senses. You’re outside. He whips around to try and find you but you’re nowhere in sight.
Perhaps this is his chance. The two of you would be in Lady Romanoff’s prized garden, far away from the prying eyes of the palace or the rest of the ton. He looks at Steve and Sam, waves them away. “Go on. I’ll enjoy the fresh air a little bit more.”
“Alright, don’t look too thrilled that all those women inside are waiting for their prince to return.”
Bucky winces. Of course, he’s felt their hungry gazes all night. All of them practically vibrating where they’re standing, fanning themselves a little faster, batting their eyelashes a little more rapidly. He has zero inclination to humor any of them because the one person he wants to dance with is the one who won’t even look at him.
With one final gesture, he begins to prowl further into the grounds, further away from the mansion, to find you.
Little does he know that the tiny tin rattles like a cry against his chest, lid loose as he walks at a pace that’s far from careful.
After exploring the gardens for a bit, you almost wish that Lady Romanoff would adopt you under her wing to understand her excellent taste in design and decoration. The architecture is as old as time. Each brick feels intentionally placed like it’s meant to be part of history. The stream that sits quietly further away from the palace brings a touch of natural life to the otherwise manmade masterpiece.
A boat sits swaying in the gentle evening breeze and you’re half tempted to paddle yourself out to the middle to find some form of peace. However, given how deep it is into nightfall, you assume you’d have to eventually make your way back to find Becca. She’s promised not to touch another drop of champagne for the evening so you trust her to make good decisions.
Just as you turn to begin your journey back to the mansion, the last person you expect is standing before you.
“Bucky, what are you doing here?”
In the darkness, he stumbles towards you, mumbling incoherently. You strain your ears to decipher him but it’s near impossible when his words blur together. He’s clearly intoxicated. You wonder how much liquor Steve and Sam have fed him and lord knows what else.
When he finally stands where the moonlight shines across the concrete, you see the flush that sprawls like an illness across his skin. His breathing is labored and his fingers continue to tug at the collar of his shirt, clawing almost desperately. With his mask long gone, you can see how his pupils are blown wide as they drink in the sight of you, a mix of relief and desire in the constantly shifting shades of his ocean eyes.
He breathes out your name like a prayer when he sees you. “Gods, you look…” he trails off again as he moves towards you, walking side to side as if his legs can’t bear the weight of him.
You catch him before he can topple over, his entire body draped over yours. You thank the heavens that you’ve done enough manual labor in your life that you’re able to prop him up, pushing him up against the wall. Your hands on his shoulders as you frown at him.
He doesn’t smell too heavily of liquor but there are strange particles on his coat that you suspect are the reason why he’s behaving like this. You bite back the urge to scold the crown prince of all people to be more responsible. When you look up at him, he’s looking down at you with a lazy smirk.
“Bucky, what did you take?”
“Y’smell…” he leans forward again, nearly tipping over but his nose ends up buried in your neck. You feel him inhale, deep, before a long, extremely indecorous moan rumbles against your skin. Heat slithers up your spine, pushing your blood south between your legs. “Fuck, you smell so good.”
Biting your tongue, you try to push him back against the wall but he’s faster. His arms wrap around you, holding you tight against his chest as his mouth trails warm against your skin. He whispers your name again — like a promise. “Bucky, please, I can’t help you like this.”
“Need—” he chokes then, whimpering.
“What do you need? Tell me.”
“You.”
You stroke his hair gently as he continues to mumble words you cannot hear against the pulse in your neck. “I know, I’m here. Tell me what you need.” Worry torments your heart as you press the back of your hand against his forehead. “Heavens, you’re burning up.”
“So hot,” he whines, “so, so warm.”
Without removing himself from you, he begins to shed off his tailcoat first, casting it aside. Then his fingers reach for the buttons of his waistcoat, fingers seemingly too uncoordinated to undo them.
“Please. Help,” he pleads.
How can you say no when he asks so sweetly? But at the same time, you really shouldn’t be doing this. “Bucky, this isn’t a good idea. I don’t think you should—”
“Help me.”
Gods, you’ve never been good at saying no to this man, not when he sounds like he’s in pain. Your gloved hands reach towards him as you begin to unbutton him slowly, revealing more and more of the linen underneath. Then Bucky pushes it off his shoulders.
“My shirt next.”
“Bucky!” you gasp, “That’s completely out of the question. I couldn’t possibly.”
“It’s so warm, mon couer. Please.”
He’s never played a fair game, but particularly when he addresses you so charmingly in French. You remember when he first started calling you those terms, practicing the foreign language on his tongue in a way that had you leaning in to listen for more. You asked him what they meant, and he said, “Only the truth.”
My love. My heart. Your heart feels like it’s been lit on fire when you read the translations.
You never questioned it further. Becca always took it as teasing, like Bucky’s being his usual charismatic, mischievous self. But every time he calls you that, you know that it is the truth. A truth you keep contesting for the sanctity of your mind.
Because if you accept that you are his love and that you are his heart, you don’t know how much of your resolve would be left.
And Bucky deserves more than that. He deserves the world, which he already has. You can’t be the reason that he loses all of it.
“We should head back. Becca’s going to be wondering where we are.”
“Becca can be patient,” he murmurs as he finally finds the strength to rip his shirt open, the buttons flying off as the fabric is torn off his body, leaving him bare in front of you. His abdomen ripples with the kind of muscles that come from the hours spent training, the hours you spent watching him practice.
Saliva pools on your tongue and you feel like a dog taught to drool at the sight of its master. You’ve seen him shirtless before, of course — god knows the man loves to be fully exposed to the sun in seasons like this. However, something about him is different this time. He’s practically soaked through his shirt, his body glows with a sheen layer of sweat.
“You have a fever, Bucky. You need help.”
“Need you,” he repeats, clearer this time. His brows then meet in the middle as he looks down at you. He tugs the mask off your face, letting it drop to the floor as he searches your eyes. Deep blue, bluer than the summer sky. “There you are,” he says softly.
Your heart stutters as you shy away from his gaze, his fingers catching your chin to tilt you to face him again. His eyes fall to your lips, your lips separate, sticky with whatever Becca had swiped onto you earlier.
Then he slants his lips over yours and you feel the fireworks explode inside your chest. Bucky’s moan spills down your throat as he kisses you deeper, harder. Ravenous is the only way you can describe it. He’s chasing after your lips like you’re the last drop of water for a parched man. He breathes the air from your lungs, an intimate exchange that has noises you’ve only made in the quiet of your room — alone — rising from your stomach.
It’s everything you’ve ever imagined, and so much more. You spent nights picturing what this could feel like in painstaking detail, hoping that it may happen one day — in the slightest of chances.
But then that anxiety seeps back in, creeping under your skin enough to wake you from this dream.
“Bucky—” He kisses you again, quashing whatever rational thought you’ve only just begun to formulate.
“Tastes so sweet, even better than I thought,” he murmurs. “So sweet, my love. Gods, I could kiss you for days and I’d never tire of it.”
“We shouldn’t—” Your protest once again dies in your throat as Bucky begins to kiss along your jaw, placing a wet trail of fire as he mouths down your neck, counting your racing heartbeat. Your palms flatten against his chest, damp and humid. He’s sweating bullets but you don’t get the chance to interrupt again.
“I need you,” he groans, “lord, I need you.” His fingers catch your hand and press it against his chest. Your heart pushes against your ribs. “You smell so good. I can’t stop thinking about you. Thinking about what it would be like to kneel at your feet, your leg over my shoulder, and bury my face in that pretty pussy of yours.”
A gasp wrenches from your throat as you jerk back. “Bucky, that is— oh my god, that is unacceptable!”
“It’s the truth,” he growls, “I can practically smell you between your legs, your sweetness on my tongue. I want you to press your hips against my face and let me feast like a king. Slip my fingers in there and feel how you resist me, how you act like you don’t want this but you’re dripping all over my fingers.”
The moan that climbs out your chest is involuntary and it’s all Bucky needs before he’s flipping you around and he’s pressing your back against the pillar. A gust of wind blows, providing some semblance of reprieve to the sudden sweltering heat that blankets you. It does nothing to soothe Bucky who looks at you like you’re the perfect prey, skin exposed to him with your hair twisted up like the forbidden fruit.
Bucky isn't a godless man, but in that moment he swears there isn't a higher power who could stop him from having you.
He silently asks the heavens to turn their gaze away from the sin he's about to commit. Because whatever happens next, he won't be seeking forgiveness.
He will only offer his thanks.
He kisses you again, tongue slipping past your lips just as he swallows your surprised sound. His tongue strokes against yours, licking up and pressing against it until you’re trembling against him.
You no longer have authority over your body, how every ounce of energy dissolves into thin air against him, knees nearly sending you crumbling to the ground if it weren’t for his own strength holding you up. One of his hands is ont he back of your neck, keeping you close, and the other on your hip. His mouth continues to move against you as if he’s savoring every inch of you.
Distracted by the taste of him and his seemingly contagious fever, you barely realize when Bucky peels back layer upon layer of your eveningwear. The weight of the fabric pools around your feet with a soft thump. His fingers are frantic as he pushes each piece off your shoulders, leaving you only in your shift and your stay. The corset is tight around your body and Bucky snarls to himself when he can’t seem to untangle the loops.
Then you hear it, the sound similar to clicking tongues as Bucky tears it off your body. When the haze clears just enough for you to realize what’s been done, you shove him away from you, but your power doesn’t throw him very far.
“Bucky, this is indecent. I can’t be—”
“We’re too far past decency, my love.” He stalks back towards you, capturing your lips in a languid kiss that eviscerates your objections into ash. “Beautiful. You had the eyes of everyone in that room tonight. I loathed seeing you surrounded by all those men earlier. Undeserving creatures who think that they have an opportunity with you.”
“I—I wasn’t interested in any of them,” you whine as he works his way down your neck, teeth and lips marking slow, deliberate claims against your skin. Ones that spell out mine.
“I know,” he murmurs against your pulse, smiling as if the answer was never in doubt. “You don’t need to fret. You’re mine. I wouldn’t let them near you. I wouldn’t even allow you to look their way.”
His mouth drags lightly over your skin again. Unhurried, certain.
“Only me. Always me.”
It’s not a question, nor an order. He’s stating a fact. For as long as you can remember, regardless of how many handsome bachelors walk through the palace doors — or even through the staff entrance, you haven’t spared any of them a second glance. Your heart and eyes have always belonged to him.
Bucky takes your hand and gently removes your gloves. He brings your hand up to his lips, placing one gentle kiss after another. First on your wrist, then up your forearm, to your bicep, until he’s on your shoulder. He moves this final layer to the side just enough for him to press wet kisses on your collarbones.
However, despite his attempts to divert your attention away from the actual matter at hand, you can’t help but worry. His temperature is a far cry from normal, you fear what would happen if he weren’t observed and provided the necessary remedies.
“You’re sick, Bucky. Please let me take you back to the palace. Let me fetch your carriage so we can at least summon the royal physician to assess you.”
“No, won’t help,” he grunts, “need to— need to—” and the next word that slips from his lips has your heart slamming against your ribcage— “fuck.”
Your mouth dries and your own desires begin to overwhelm you. This isn’t right. He’s not himself. He’s not in his right mind. What he needs is a doctor and a bed and—
“Sam said,” he exhales harshly, “I need to get it out. To stop this.”
“Get what out?”
“Need to finish.”
Finish. Fuck. Your throat suddenly feels like sandpaper.
He needs to climax.
“Don’t think I’ll be satisfied with finishing once,” he huffs honestly as his hands reach up to cup your breasts. He lets out a little pleased noise as he feels up your soft flesh, the shape of your breasts molding to his hand as he massages them. With only one barrier left between the two of you, it feels as if there’s nothing at all there. “My gorgeous girl with her gorgeous tits. I always knew you’d fit so perfectly in my hands. You don’t know how many times I’ve dreamt of this, putting my hands on them, pinching these lovely pert nipples—” he moans as he tugs on your nipple, electricity coursing through you in a zing straight down to your core. “How it would feel to have my cock tucked in between your tits.”
You don’t have the voice to argue, nor the mind. All you can think about is how delicious it feels for Bucky to be touching you. Your head leans back as your eyes slide shut, your mind lost in the sensations of his touch.
“Please, let me have you, my love. I need— I need you.”
His hand doesn’t wait for an answer, they begin to bunch up your skirt, pinning them against your hip with his wrist as his fingers trail up your inner thigh. You fight against your shudder and he lifts his mouth back to your lips to kiss you, just as his fingertips make contact with your core.
You’re sticky down there already, a mess from the proximity and his scent and his feverish warmth. This is still Bucky — your Bucky — but he’s also different, like all of the chains that have held him back, that have granted him the patience all these years, have been shattered. This is the result of all the times you’ve rejected him again and again and again. All of the times that you have rejected these feelings within yourself.
Now the dam has been destroyed and all those times you’ve swallowed your pride and your wants, they’re finally being released and they completely drown you.
The moon reflects off the water, illuminating Bucky’s face in a shifting series of ethereal colors. Even with the glimmer, his eyes are dark. A fog clouding his judgment. His desire is unwavering. The more you touch him, the more you let him touch you, the stronger the effects of his fever.
If possible, he grows even warmer. His skin practically searing against yours but nothing burns more than his fingers between your legs, the delicate stroke of your lips, moist with the evidence of your lust.
“You’re drenched down here, my sweet girl,” Bucky moans, “is this all for me? Were you thinking of me the same way I was thinking of you?”
“Bucky, please,” you jolt, hips rising when he dips a tentative finger inside you.
It’s almost embarrassing how easily he slips himself in there, aided by the slick between your legs. He pushes a finger in as he gulps down your pleasured sound, a desperate little cry as his fingers stretch out your insides.
You’ve never had anyone else touch you like this. You’ve barely even touched yourself like this; even when left to your own devices with nothing more than your imagination and the lingering scent of Bucky’s cologne on your threads, shame still restricts how much pleasure you allow yourself.
However, out there, with Bucky in control, you relinquish that power to him. You let him determine how much pleasure you experience, how much gratification you can get under his ministrations.
Bucky’s fingers are skilled as they work you open, scissoring you open until your teeth sink into his shoulder. “My pretty girl, look at you. I want to hear you cry for me, want to know how good I make you feel.”
Obediently, your lips split open in a wail that shakes the air.
“Let me have a taste of you,” he murmurs and draws his hand away from you. The loss is almost instantaneous, a sudden chill where his touch had been, but it’s replaced by the fire that burns bright in your gut the moment he drags his wet fingers along his lips. He breathes it in like he’s memorizing the scent of you before he slides his fingers over his tongue. “God, you’re perfect. Sweet, as I expected.”
Then Bucky sinks to the ground and there’s something about the crown prince on his knees before you that has you faltering. Someone whose blood is bluer than the ocean shouldn’t risk scraping his knees for a mere maid — and yet here he is.
“Hold your skirt up for me, sweet girl.”
You want to protest. You want to say no. You want to remind him again that this isn’t a good idea but there’s determination in his eyes that have you whimpering, fingers reaching for the hem of your skirt to reveal yourself to him.
Bucky drags a finger along your slit again, collecting the moisture and wiping it on his tongue with another moan. He leans forward and your eyes slide shut, heart thrumming in anticipation with the steady pulse in your veins. He kisses you slowly at first, making his way up your thigh but his patience is thin and soon enough he’s burying his face between your legs.
His tongue strokes up your pussy, legs still clamped shut in your apprehension. Bucky looks a little irritated when he can’t seem to properly taste you so, with one hand, he holds one of your legs up by the thigh and opens up your leaking cunt to him. He curses under his breath when he sees you glisten in the flickering night.
The stars in the sky blend in with the ones behind your eyes when he finally lays his lips on you. He mouths at you hungrily, like he’s wolfing down his last meal. His tongue presses eager strokes along your walls that have your legs closing in around him again — only for his hand to pry them open once more to grant him access to the nectar between your thighs.
“So sweet, so soft,” Bucky groans against your pussy. His lips suckle eagerly, the lewd slurps ricocheting off the surfaces in this quiet night. In the distance, the music continues quietly, but here — you’re accompanied by the sound of your quickening heartbeat and Bucky’s delighted grunts.
Each time he licks you, he buries himself deeper and deeper, until his nose bumps against your clit and his face glistens with your arousal. Your fingers tangle in his thick hair, damp with the sweat from his fever. When you tug on it slightly, Bucky sticks his face in even deeper, moans even louder.
You can see how his erection only grows underneath his trousers, needy for attention, and yet satisfied all the same by your own pleasure. He tilts his face to reach new angles, his fingers pushing inside of you to keep you full while his tongue flicks that sensitive bundle of nerves.
It doesn’t take you long fall apart, walls closing in around his tongue and his fingers, spasming with your orgasm — the first of the evening.
For a moment, guilt enters your system and you’re forced to look down at Bucky remorsefully that he didn’t even achieve what he set out to do. However, you notice the shaking of his shoulders, a shudder wracking through him as his hips twitch upwards. A pulse down there.
“Y-you finished?”
Bucky nods, unabashed as he comes to a stand. “Do you see what you do to me? Cumming untouched in my trousers like a prepubescent boy who can’t even control himself.”
“I didn’t— I mean, you didn’t even touch it.”
“The mere thought of you finishing around my mouth like I’ve always dreamed is enough for me, my love.” He tucks a loose strand of your hair, one that have fallen loose from your updo, behind your ear. “However, I’m far from done. This fever — I can’t break it without you. I have to have you.”
Again, he doesn’t wait for your permission as he steals the air from your lungs with a passionate kiss. This time, you can taste the sweetness of champagne on his tongue along with something a little more unique. Something that belongs solely to you and now also belongs to him.
“I’ve been leaking for you all night, sweet girl,” Bucky mumbles, “I couldn’t stop thinking what you look like underneath this dress. How soft and supple your body would be. Apparently, everyone else had the same thought. I could see how they looked at you. I should have them all stripped of their titles and banished from the land.”
“Bucky,” you chide, warmth flaming your cheeks. “That would be incredibly rude. Nobody did anything.”
He rolls his eyes as he presses you back against the pillar, reaching down to his pants. You hear the fabric shifting as he holds you up and frees himself. You’ve never seen one in real life before, only those diagrams that Becca likes to tease you with.
And the real thing looks far more intimidating.
It stands upright, a thick vein running along the top as the head strains red. It looks almost as if that line pulses, encouraged by the purplish lines that sit underneath the surface. A new pearl sits at the tip of him, pearlescent as it rolls down the length of his cock, already sticky and stained creamy white from the mess in his trousers. It’s fat and it’s long and you can’t imagine that fitting inside you.
You must’ve voiced your fears aloud because Bucky is then saying, “Don’t worry, mon couer. We’ll make it fit.”
He lifts you up, drawing a squeal from your lips, as he wraps your legs around his waist. The head rests against your entrance, the sight of it already has your pussy drooling over the tip, like it’s preparing for his cock.
“She’s excited to have me,” he muses quietly, “she’s dripping. So eager to have me. You haven’t been filled before, have you? You’ve never had another man touch you?”
You must’ve taken a moment too long to respond, too preoccupied with the incredulity of the situation.
The low roar sounding from Bucky’s chest has you looking at him. Fury claws at his eyes, the usual bright blue shifting darker as he sneers. His hands tighten around your hips. “Has anyone else touched you? Who is it? Is it the stableboy? I’ve seen the way he looks at you. I’ve been meaning to replace him—”
“Bucky, god, no. Nobody!” You pant, “Where would I find the time?”
“You wouldn’t lie to me, would you? I know your good heart would want to protect them.”
Your lips curl. “No, I would have no reason to lie to you.
“Good, because I fear the dire action I would’ve had to take if you told me otherwise.”
“I’m not yours to own, Bucky,” you snap.
“That’s where you’re wrong, sweet girl. You’ve always belonged to me, whether you knew it or not. You’re mine and I’ll kill anyone who even dares to think about you.” Another surprised sound escapes your lips and Bucky only smirks. “This pussy especially. I’ll shape it to the size of me, you won’t ever know pleasure with anyone else. I’ll train her to only please me and only me.”
Before you can admonish him for acting so barbaric, Bucky notches the tip into you. You can already feel the stretch, your pussy resisting the entry of something so… large. So imposing. But he pays it no mind; instead, he uses your own juices to lubricate his entry as he pushes slowly into you, inch by inch.
He drives deep inside of you, swift and merciless the first time, to yank a gasp from your throat. Another expletive leaves his lips as his head rolls back, eyes slamming closed as he relishes in the feel of your cunt wrapping around him.
Your entire body is under a spell, experiencing something otherworldly that no language you know could describe. It burns like you’ve been placed on a stake to be set ablaze, like every atom in your body is being torn apart and rearranged. It’s divine deliverance in the pain, but one that provides you with the kind of relief you don’t expect.
“You feel so—” he chokes as he drags himself out before pushing back in, faster this time, the slide easier. The ache still screams between your legs but you let them fall apart anyway, allowing Bucky to take control over the situation.
His name falls from your lips — this time as a plea, but you can’t tell if you’re begging for him to stop or to go faster. You want to get past the hurt, want to feel the sort of pleasure that you’ve only heard whispers about. But at the same time, a small piece of you relishes in that pain — it reminds you that you’re human, that this is new, that this is real, and that Bucky is right here with you.
“So tight, so fucking wet. You’re completely soaking my cock, sweet girl. I always knew you were meant for me, this pussy was made for me. No one else can ever see you like this, do you understand me?”
Bucky jerks his hips forward, his arms under your knees, hands on your ass as he presses you against the wall. The surface is solid against your spine, holding you upright as he fucks up into you. His grunts are muffled into your neck as he breathes you in, like your scent fuels the fire in his veins.
When you don’t respond, too drunk off the sensations of Bucky driving into you at a pace that has you delirious, he punctuates one thrust particularly hard.
“I asked, do you understand me?”
A sob crawls out of your throat as you nod, tears leaking down your eyes. He doesn’t apologize for your cries, he knows you better than that. These tears are from the overwhelming waves of emotion, the heightened tension that grips your lungs until you can’t seem to find the capability to breathe.
“You feel like heaven, my love. I’ll fuck you to the shape of my cock, until you can’t take anyone else but me — until you won’t even consider taking anyone else. I’ll ensure everyone in this kingdom knows that I’ve defiled you, that you’ve taken my mark on your skin and inside of you. I’ll ensure that you will only be mine.”
The shame settles hard and fast in the pits of your stomach. If everyone could see you like this, pinned outside against a wall by the prince, fucked like a whore in heat with your pussy clamping down around him, you could never show your face again. A desecrated maid who couldn’t keep her legs shut for a prince.
Anyone would be lucky to have him, but no one in their right mind would let even the crown prince take them before marriage. They would rather die than be labeled a slut. A harlot. You would be the bane of your family, no one would speak of you again and you would be banished to the outerlands.
But this is Bucky and even the concept of him keeping you as his dirty little secret only sends thrills through your veins.
“Bucky, you can’t—”
He laughs, dark and sinister. Like the idea of him unable, unallowed to do anything is absurd. “I’m the crown prince, sweet girl. I am the future of this kingdom. What I say goes. If I say you are mine then it is true. No one will come within a foot of you. Not after I’m done with you. I’ll make sure everyone sees the marks of my affection for you. I’ll imprint them in places everyone can see and other places that nobody will ever see.”
His words have your heart clenching in mortification and a humiliating level of arousal. The debasement of your character, the degradation of your morality — apparently none of it means anything if it means you have Bucky between your legs and his cock buried deep inside your cunt.
“I’ve laid my claim on you. No one else will ever touch you. You—” thrust “—are—” thrust “—mine.”
Staying true to his promise, his fingers dig deep into your flesh. Deep enough that you’ll surely carry those bruises with you for some time. The litter of prints on your neck and above your breasts will have to be covered by your high necklines, gowns that would only raise suspicion in the summer.
But most of all — the taking of your virginity, your purity plucked from your hands and placed into Bucky’s — is the kind of mark you will never undo.
Bucky is too lost in his own pleasure, too focused on delivering you to your second peak of the night to recognize the telltale signs of your climax approaching. Your whines crescendoing, the stutter of your heartbeat as your fingers sink into his shoulders. His name spilling from your mouth in an uneven rhythm.
“I will cum in you, sweet girl. I’ll fill you up with so much cum, I’ll have you dripping all the way home, I’ll make sure you’re leaking all over the carriage before I take you again in my chambers. Gods, I’ll tie you to my bed, make sure that you’ll never deny me again.”
Your heart smashes into your chest, threatening to catapult out with his warning. For some godforsaken reason, the idea of being Bucky’s plaything — tied up with no other purpose than to serve his pleasure — has you gasping in desire, your legs closing in around him as you feel your senseless craving crescendo.
“You want that, don’t you? You just want to be my pussy. Keep your legs open, this pretty cunt dripping yours and my cum all over my sheets. My darling girl is nothing but a whore who wants cock to keep her plugged up at all times. You won’t have to worry about a thing ever again.”
“Bucky, please—”
“I’ll breed you until you carry my heir.”
That jars you awake and you’re scrambling, a conflicting concoction of pure, unadulterated want with the terrifying fear of the consequences to follow. “You can’t! Bucky, you have to stop. You can’t get me—” you hiccup, “—you can’t get me pregnant. Your heir has to come from a proper bloodline.”
“I no longer care about propriety and bloodlines. They have kept us apart long enough. I’m the crown prince and, what I want, I get. What I want is you and you alone. Why would I need some uptight, prissy noblewoman who doesn’t know how to cum around her husband’s cock?”
“Bucky!” You gasp as he fucks you hard and fast. His pace is unrelenting and every slide of his cock inside you scrambles every single sensible thought in your mind.
“And I have you — I can feel your pussy choking me. You — while you’re getting fucked outside with the risk of someone finding us. Yet, look at that, you’re squeezing me even tighter, my love. I always knew you were made for me. Every inch of my depravity, you take it even further. You complete me.”
Your stomach coils with something deep and tight, an unknown force set out to subject you to the strongest cut of humiliating pleasure. As a proper woman, you shouldn’t take such words, even from a prince. You shouldn’t stoop so low as to attain this form of high.
However, your mind and your body and your heart do not align. While your rational mind screams at you to put a stop to this, your adoration for Bucky — now forced to surface after years of stomping on it and swallowing it with guilt — and your pure primal need — what many consider to be your purpose — join and meld to push you to keep going.
To chase after this sought-after pleasure that few can even dream about. If the cost of is to reduce your dignity and pride, then so be it.
“And now, I will complete you,” Bucky murmurs sweetly before he shoves himself inside you over and over again until you’re a weeping mess, your legs quaking as your body slides up against the wall with every thrust. Tears leak down your face, destroying Becca’s efforts to make you look beyond yourself.
But all that physical destruction is worth it when your insides are being remade.
With one final thrust, Bucky spills inside you. Warmth coating every part of your walls, thick, clinging onto your skin like it’s marking you with a permanent mess. Your second climax twists inside your gut, rising up to your chest to constrict your lungs as your pussy curls tight around him. His need to complete you is complemented by your own need for the same. Your walls keep him in, trapped, until every single drop is milked from his cock and buried deep inside your cunt.
Bucky doesn’t let up, he fucks into you until he’s groaning sensitive against your neck. His breathing is even hotter than before, each exhale like a furnace in the middle of the desert.
“I’m not done with you yet.”
Those words no longer spark fear, but zealous anticipation.
Then Bucky takes you again — you on your feet, him behind you as he fucks you against the wall, your breasts in his hands to hold him steady as he cums into you again, the milky white seeping out from where you two are joined. But then he misses your face too much so he grabs your chin, turns you to face him, and devours you in a messy kiss that has your teeth clicking almost painfully.
Then he has you laid out over his clothes, your back on the floor, your knees and thighs against your torso, as he fucks deep inside you, promising you that it’ll take this time. That he’ll try as many times as he needs to until his seed takes.
Then you’re on your hands and knees as Bucky pounds into you from behind, his thighs slapping against yours, his fingers reaching around to your clit in intentional circles that have your body quivering underneath him, and he doesn’t stop until you’re cumming around his cock and he’s filling you up with another load.
Then you’re cleaning him up, the taste of his cum and your pussy a more potent substance than all the liquor in the nation combined. The thick liquid spurts down your throat like you’re being fed your dessert, a treat for having done so well.
And again and again and again.
For a while, you forget that Bucky is relentless only due to the poison in his veins, his depraved hunger only exacerbated by the delicious textures of your cunt around his cock. An addiction that he could never suppress.
When both your limbs finally give and enough of the toxins have been excreted — inside you, mind you, the two of you slump down on top of both your clothes. A mess of damp fabrics and fluids that even the best solvents in the kingdom could never remove.
Bucky turns over to you with a groan — the same sound that’s been rattling inside your mind, the same sound that will surely affix to every crevice inside your brain for weeks, if not months — and slumps an arm over your waist.
He nuzzles his face against your cheek, a small chuckle tickling your face. He hums, pleasantly exhausted. You’re a disarray of tangled limbs and gummy skin. You can’t help but laugh too.
“Why are you laughing?” He smiles, leaning down to press a kiss on your bare shoulder. Somewhere along the way, you’ve stripped yourself of your final layer too, leaving you completely nude.
The circumstances are far from believable. If you had told yourself that this was how your night would end, even your wildest imagination couldn’t have conjured up this conclusion. “I can’t believe we’re doing this in the middle of Lady Romanoff’s ball.”
“She would skin us alive if she knew,” he smirks.
“Yes, she would.”
The third, unexpected voice has the two of you jumping, your fingers immediately reach for more clothes to cover you up, at the same time Bucky also drapes his jacket over your body.
Lady Romanoff stands closer towards the land, where the water doesn’t extend. She then approaches, oil lamp in hand. You can’t unriddle whether her expression is contemptuous disgust or unpredicted amusement.
Meanwhile, the two of you are still clad in nearly nothing, only the moonlight to cast shadows that cloak you.
“Lady Romanoff, I apologize profusely. We didn’t mean any disrespect—”
Bucky’s quick to interject. “It was entirely my fault. I have been subjected to… urges that were outside my control. It was a substance, you see.”
His words have your heart palpitating in an uneven rhythm. The words land unexpected sharp, like a piercing wound straight through your beating organ.
Urges that were outside my control.
This was never meant to happen. You and Bucky. This night. All of it is a fever dream. A product of your desires catalyzed by a chemical compound. Bucky never would’ve done it otherwise; the two of you have always run in parallel lines, never meant to intersect.
All of his words — sweet nothings.
Just like this evening.
“I’m fully aware of the substance you speak of, I am frankly surprised that you would be so careless as to consume it at such a public place, your royal highness,” Lady Romanoff muses.
Bucky winces, scratching the back of his ear awkwardly. “I stumbled and the container had been loose. Unfortunately, I was forced to consume nearly all of it — at least, what didn’t end up on my clothing.”
Lady Romanoff only hums thoughtfully. “If I remember correctly, the aftermath to this substance would be a deep sleep. Rather fast, I’m afraid.” This time, she turns to look at you. “I shall set up a room for the two of you — you can enter through the back. Most of my regular staff is gone and I’ll arrange for my lady-in-waiting to prepare it. She is most discreet.”
“We can—” Bucky stops then, seeming caught off guard by the sudden dizzying spell. He sways slightly, words slurring together in a jumbled mess before he falls against you. His breathing even.
“It appears my memory serves me well,” she says, voice tinged with unexpected pride. “Come, my dear.”
As promised, most of the party has dwindled down to a few inebriated guests that Lady Romanoff organizes to be delivered home in their respective carriages. You and Bucky have been set up in a wing far from the prying eyes, this is where they’ve restricted most of Lady Romanoff’s staff, only the trusted are allowed.
Her lady-in-waiting and her most trusted butler had been sent to help carry Bucky back — of course, after you properly dress him. No explanation was provided beyond the crown prince getting “ill from the food”, but you assume that they suspect something else is at play, particularly when you yourself look like you’ve been mauled by a wild beast.
After Bucky has been settled into his room and you’ve been provided your own as a guest, which you insisted against, but Lady Romanoff insisted against your insistence, her staff is sent away. Bucky snores quietly on the bed, he’s been in and out. He was somewhat awake long enough to help the butler walk him back into the mansion, enough to plop himself down on the mattress.
Your heart is uneasy with worry but Lady Romanoff touches your shoulder. “He should be fine. He has most of it out of his system, I presume?” She cocks an eyebrow. Heat crawls up your neck as you nod. “Then he will recover by morning. He may be weary for a while but he’s in good hands.”
“Thank you for your generosity, Lady Romanoff,” you murmur, “I do apologize for the inconvenience and my… impudence.”
“No apologies needed. I spoke to Wilson and he’s received an earful from me about bringing untested substances — in unsealed containers, at that.” She pauses then turns to you, “You’ve been quite the kind… relative, for a distant one.”
She knows. You know that she knows. She knows that you know that she knows.
This is a mess.
“Yes, I’m rather used to caring for him,” you clear your throat, and then realize what you’ve just said. “In a way where he’s almost like my brother. We grew up together.” And that one isn’t a lie per se.
“I’m sure,” she says with a twinkle in her eye. “Well, take my words with a grain of salt, but I would like to ask you to proceed with caution. You seem to be a smart woman, I’ve seen you with Becca, how you manage to fit right in with society. While I am a romantic at heart, I am also a realist — and the truth is that the challenge will lie with you. As the crown prince, he will be untouched. Unharmed. The realm will protect him before it will protect a woman.”
“I understand that,” you nearly sigh, glancing back at Bucky.
It’s what you’ve always known — your position in society. It’s why you never accepted Bucky’s advances, nor your own feelings regarding him. It’s easier to pretend that it doesn’t exist, that you aren’t in love with the crown prince as a mere maid — even if it hurts.
“But his royal highness is also a good man. I’m sure he will choose wisely,” Lady Romanoff smiles. “Now, please rest. I will arrange for separate carriages to deliver you both home in the morning.”
“I should return now—”
“What you should do is rest,” she presses with a pointed look. “Furthermore, I believe he could use some tending to tonight — in case he wakes or has… remaining urges.”
She’s teasing you, and it’s working because your face feels like it’s been trapped in a heatwave all day. “I’ll make sure he gets through the night and will depart first thing in the morning. I wouldn’t want to inconvenience you any further.”
“No inconvenience. This has perhaps been the most entertaining occurrence this season.” Her eyes are practically twinkling in delight.
Your teeth sink into your bottom lip. “Lady Romanoff, please forgive me for overstepping, but if I could ask for your discretion regarding this matter—”
She waves you off with a reassuring smile. “You need not ask. I understand the position you are in and I would never trouble another woman more than necessary. I also would not enjoy making an enemy out of the palace and I doubt the crown prince would let things slide if anything were to happen to his precious lover.”
Your mouth opens to correct her, she gives you a look that tells you not to even attempt to lie to her. You technically wouldn’t be fibbing.
After all, it was only his urges that allowed him to do such things to you tonight. At the end of the day, you’re still nothing more than a maid — a member of the royal staff. A lover is what you are not.
“Have a good evening, dear.”
“You as well, Lady Romanoff.”
Once she leaves the room, you go to check on Bucky one last time before you move to your own room; it is an adjacent space, connected by a door should you need access to his room. That distance, while small, still feels much too large.
You pull the blanket up higher on his waist, brush the wet strands away from his face as you check his temperature again. His fever has come down plenty, he’s at least broken through it and now he’s simply sweating out the rest.
With that, you pull your hand away and ready yourself to move to your own room.
Except, you don’t get the chance, not when you feel those familiar fingers wrap around your hand before you could move. You whirl around to find Bucky drowsily looking up at you. His eyes glow in the moonlight spilling through the massive windows.
“Stay,” he murmurs.
“Your royal highness, I should return to the chambers Lady Romanoff has provided. If the staff were to return, I wouldn’t want to have to explain the circumstances.”
“How many times have I told you not to call me that?” He says, but there’s no bite to his words, only affection.
You swallow thickly, chancing another look at your door.
“Stay,” he insists again, “please.”
Who are you to deny the crown prince? Your frail heart can’t seem to do that, not when it could be your last evening with him.
So, you slide under the covers when he makes room with a giddy little smile. He tucks you into his chest and kisses the top of your head. “Sleep, sweet girl.”
And for once, you listen to him.
Come morning, the reality of the situation has carved itself deep into your bones. While you wake up in Bucky’s warmth, his arms around you and your legs on top of each other, you know that this is the last part of your dream. The epilogue. This will be nothing more than a memory, maybe even the figment of one.
You swiftly clean yourself up, ensuring that you are properly clothed and presentable before you make your way to where Lady Romanoff had directed you. She is nowhere to be found but a carriage has been arranged to take you back to the palace. The sun hasn’t even risen when you slipped out of bed.
With one last look at Bucky who’s still sleeping peacefully, you take your leave.
You’re back early enough that none of the staff are awake yet, but you also can’t bring yourself to sleep. The gown Becca had lent you hangs by your door quietly, a stark reminder of the evening you thought you had crafted in your mind. You turn over to ignore it.
However, slumber doesn’t find you and so you begin your duties early. The princess’ gown, the tea, everything a lady-in-waiting should do in the palace.
It’s expected that Becca has questions about where you went last night. She was frantic with worry at the thought of losing you somewhere, or if something had happened to you that she refused to leave.
“Lady Romanoff informed me that you and Bucky had returned earlier because he was ill,” she says, forehead creasing with lines, “I apologize that your night was ruined by my brother. I was hoping you would enjoy the remainder of the ball.”
“I enjoyed it plenty already, don’t worry,” you smile. “Thank you for giving me that opportunity.”
“Well,” she eagerly presses, “were there any handsome bachelors that caught your eye?”
Only one and he is the one you certainly cannot have.
“No, I believe we were out there to assess the men for your own relationship.”
Becca blushes, fanning her face. “No, no one of importance.” She’s never been a good liar. “Okay, there was one but Bucky would kill me if I tried. Have you ever noticed how attractive Lord Rogers is? He also has such a kind heart.”
If he had a kind heart, he would’ve stopped Bucky from taking that ridiculous substance, you think bitterly, unfairly.
“I’m sure he is,” you only say.
“How was your evening then? Did you really not see anyone to your liking?”
You smile softly at her. “Princess, even if there were, it would not be my place.”
“That’s rather unprogressive of you! I’m sure there are suitors who would care little about such trivial things.”
Naive, hopeful Becca. This is why you love her.
Before you can respond, Becca perks up and waves behind you. You turn and that’s when you see him — Bucky. He’s crossing the ground with long strides like a man possessed. He’s a man on a mission as he wastes no time at all in closing the distance.
He looks furious.
He also looks an outright mess — shirt unbuttoned, sleeves haphazardly folded, hair sticking up at odd angles. It looks as if he rolled right out of bed at the Romanoff house and came straight here. Here to this garden that you’re walking with Becca.
You have a feeling that that’s exactly what he did.
“Brother, you’re looking much better—”
“You left,” he instead speaks directly to you.
You grit your teeth, doing your best to avoid Becca’s look of utter confusion. “I’m afraid I don’t know what you mean, your royal highness.”
“I thought we’ve established that we’re past that level of formality,” he snaps, “I’m not letting you escape this conversation. If you’ll excuse me, sister dear, I need to have a little chat with this one.” His hand covers yours, none of the gentleness from last night, instead he squeezes it tight like he’s afraid of you slipping away again.
Becca doesn’t follow, she’s too busy gaping and slowly piecing things together.
All the while Bucky is dragging you stumbling and tripping over your own feet towards a more secluded part of the gardens, away from the curious eyes.
You’re trying to pry his fingers off you to make your escape. “Bucky, stop. Stop this.”
He does stop dead in his tracks but he immediately spins around to face you. “No, you stop,” he growls and the sound shoots straight for your chest. “After last night, after everything that’s happened, you simply – what — leave? I woke up and you were nowhere to be found. Lady Romanoff was the one who had to tell me that you departed earlier.”
“I had to return to my duties first,” you say brusquely, “I have responsibilities to tend to, your royal highness. It also would have been inappropriate and highly suspicious if we arrived at the same time.”
“Damn propriety,” he barks, eyes glowering, “I think you should cross that word off your vocabulary after last night.”
Said last night flashes before your eyes, like paintings that could force a priest to pray. You’re warm all over now, the ghost of his touch on your skin, his mouth mapping out every inch of you like he’s memorizing the dips and curves of your body. The feel of his cock, hot and wet, sliding inside you, spilling evidence that took you far too long to clean last night.
Even now, you can almost still feel it dripping down your legs.
“You left,” Bucky presses.
“You weren’t yourself last night. Like you said, they were urges as a consequence of the substance you accidentally took. It was nothing more than a fulfillment of the circumstances.”
He scoffs, “I said that to Lady Romanoff, not to you. I did not want her to hold you responsible for the state we were in. To me, last night was— last night was everything.”
The lump in your throat only grows, tears prick your eyes. He can’t do this. Not now. You’ve made your decision to let that dream go.
“It shouldn’t have happened,” you whisper.
“Shouldn’t have happened?” He echoes, aghast. “Is that regret I hear in your voice?”
“Bucky…”
“Because I don’t regret it. Not a single damn thing. I want you, I’ve always wanted you. I’ve made it very clear that I love you and there’s nothing I wouldn’t do for you. If I had to give it all up, I would — if that meant that I could finally hold you.”
“You can’t say such things!” You hiss, “You are the crown prince!”
“And sometimes I wish I wasn’t! Because it would make this easier, wouldn’t it? You wouldn’t have to restrain yourself every time you speak with me. You wouldn’t have to call me such ridiculous titles when all I want is for you to say my name. Because I know you love me, I know you do. You can’t look at me the way you do and expect me to believe that you don’t feel anything for me.”
Your heart splits down the middle, parts of it chipping away. “I— it doesn’t matter how I feel or what I want. You have a long line of noble ladies waiting for you to make your choice—”
“I’ve already made my choice and damn anyone else who gets in my way. I’ve already had a taste of you, my love. I’m never letting you slip through my fingers again. I’ll speak to my parents—”
“Don’t!” You interrupt. “Please don’t. It’s— it won’t be you who would suffer the consequences. If they know of what… we did, if they know that it goes far beyond the previous evening, it wouldn’t be you they punish. My mother and I…” Your sentence trails off as your voice cracks.
Bucky cups your face, presses his forehead against yours. “I wouldn’t dare let a thing happen to you.”
“It’s not your choice.”
“It is. If they want me to be their heir, this is my choice. They have to make theirs.”
“That’s ridiculous.”
“No, that’s love.”
You swallow thickly as he leans back only slightly, pained like he can’t even bear this amount of distance between the two of you.
“I love you. I love you and that’s a fact truer than the sun that spills light onto this earth. I won’t let anything happen to you. I promise to care for you, to cherish you. I promise to be a man fit for you. I won’t be perfect because god knows nobody in this world could deserve you, but I’ll always try my damndest to make you happy.”
“Bucky,” you breathe out..
“Say yes. Say you’ll be mine. You’ve made me wait all this time. All these years wasted. Don’t let us forego anymore.”
Could you really do this? It would be a risk — not only to you, but to your mother, to the staff. They would be questioned if they’ve ever encouraged your entanglement with the prince. Becca — oh god, what would Becca even think? It would be an incredibly selfish decision.
“Don’t do that,” Bucky murmurs as he tightens his fingers around your face, “don’t think about anyone else. Think about you and what you want.”
You want him. You do.
“You’re mine regardless, sweet girl. I’ll protect you no matter what you decide. My heart is yours.”
“Yes,” you whisper and the answer comes easier than you think, “yes. I’m yours.”
Bucky lets out a wet laugh, blue eyes glistening as he presses his lips against yours. “You’re mine. I’ll protect you, I swear it.”
“I’m scared.”
“I know,” he rasps, “I know. Thank you for trusting me. I promise to do right by you. No matter what happens, know that my entire life is yours. I’d burn the kingdom down before I let anyone lay a finger on you.”
“Becca might get to you first,” you choke out a laugh.
Bucky swipes the tears from your cheeks with the pads of this thumb. “Then maybe I will have to take your protection first.”
“Deal.”
+ sam: my google searches from this are so embarrassing but hey i tried. i havent written bucky in a hot second but this one took me by the throat so i hope you enjoyed it!!! i love hearing thoughts so please share them if you liked it <3
I have a terrible terrible idea for a Barnes x reader or Steve rogers x reader but it’s set in sort of an au where they are chill crime fighting yk like most avengers fics and its new girl style roommate situation 😭 Sam, Steve, Bucky, and reader are rooming together because maybe reader is Nat’s friend or like maybe Tony’s goddaughter, something awful and cliche, and I could probably make it a series. Guys tell me if anyone would want this or stop me from starting it rn 🙏
And yes this was inspired by me reading @houseofhyde Bucky fanfic please go read it 🫶
⭐︎ warnings: nsfw, greece au, fluff, smut, enemies to lovers, banter, arguments, alcohol, manchild player bucky, mean!bucky, john walker back to playing the role of a toxic bf, cheating (not by bucky), jealousy, oral (f!receiving), squirting, overstimulation, reader mentions she's on the pill (no pregnancy), praise, dirty talk, angst, alpine feature, dead rat, miscommunication, insecurities, hurt/comfort
⭐︎ word count: 17.8k
⭐︎ a/n: if you like mamma mia, this fic might be up your alley. this is my contribution for the bwat summer collab hosted by the lovely @barnesonly and @iamthatonefangirl. thank you for taking the time to keep us in check. be sure to check out the other fics in this masterlist! happy brat summer even though it was two years ago
synopsis:
If managing a housing complex in Greece during peak tourist season wasn't hard enough, your stupid, DJ manchild of a tenant, Bucky Barnes, goes one step further to make it even more difficult—that is, until he overhears an argument between you and your boyfriend, John, and decides to prove that he actually cares about you for more than just pissing you off with his loud music.
← previous fic | main masterlist
Oonts. Oonts. Oonts.
It was the same wretched sound all over again.
From where you sat in the complex’s office, the bass emitting from Bucky’s room was thumping and vibrating the very walls around you. The ground shook, and you swore you could see dust and pebbles straying off the ceiling and landing right into your cup of coffee.
There was no one else in the office, so you screamed as loud as you could.
“Keep it down, Barnes!”
But of course, your angry voice was met with even more thumping bass and weird techno noises.
Mumbling curses to yourself, you angrily picked up the office phone—which barely worked—and dialed his number. You pressed the receiver hard to your ear, foot tapping impatiently as you heard it ring once, twice, three times, until finally…
“Hey, you reached Bucky. Sorry I couldn’t get to the phone right now. Please leave your name and number—”
He had left your phone calls unanswered so many times, you had already memorized his voice message word for word.
With another curse, you slammed the phone back down, pushed out of your rolling chair, and stomped your way up to his room.
It was peak summertime, meaning that vacationers were flooding the streets of Greece looking for accommodations, meaning that your rundown complex had available rooms for cheap rent, meaning you had to leave your one-man post just to take care of the obnoxious tenant you should’ve kicked out years ago.
Finally reaching his door, you knocked angrily with a strength that threatened to break the hinges.
“Barnes, open up!” you shouted.
I wanna dance to me, I wanna dance to A. G—
“Bucky! Don’t make me break down this door!”
I wanna dance with George, I wanna dance to SOPHIE.
Christ. What the hell was he playing? Whatever this noise slop was, it felt specifically designed by Bucky himself to give you a headache.
“God, this fucking… fucking asshole—” you cursed to yourself, fishing for your keys in your pocket.
You unlocked his door and pushed it open. Lo and behold, you found him seated in the exact same position you always found him in every time you barged into his room for a noise complaint. Bucky’s music was so loud he didn’t even hear you enter, his focus entirely on his fancy DJ setup and speakers that probably cost more than his rent.
“Bucky!” Your face scrunched as it took every vocal cord in your body to muster the shout.
Bucky whipped his head around to face you, looking very much like a boy who had been caught red-handed watching porn—except this music was much worse than mediocre sex-on-a-screen.
He finally lowered the volume, allowing you the ability to actually hear your own thoughts.
“What the hell are you doing in my apartment?”
You crossed your arms, jutting your hip out as you glared at him with an unpleasant and as equally disappointed frown.
“I tried calling your phone, but it went straight to voicemail. I need you to turn this music down.”
Bucky didn’t react.
He had heard this exact complaint from you more times than he could count. It was always the same routine. You’d yell at him, your body hot from the lack of AC circulation this shitty complex provided, leaving you standing in his doorway in a tank top—no bra—and tiny daisy dukes that left little to his imagination. And once you were done yelling, you’d go back downstairs to your office, and he’d turn the music right back up.
But of course, he always had a knack for making your job much harder than it actually was, purely because he loved seeing you get riled up.
“Oh. Is Georgia from the third floor complaining?” He tilted his head like an innocent puppy, knowing damn well that Georgia was a senior citizen who was legally deaf.
You scrunched your nose, looking even more pissed—which only made Bucky’s smile widen.
“No, but I’m complaining, and that should be enough to get you to shut the hell up—considering I’m your landlord.”
“Aw, but I’m dedicating this song to you.”
You wanted to stomp over to his desk and slap him right across the face to shut him up for good—but dealing with a lawsuit and a restraining order was the last thing you needed when you were responsible for running this shitty complex during peak tourist season.
“I’m not going to argue with you today,” you said, though it sounded like you were trying to convince yourself rather than him. “Soon, this complex is going to be packed with tourists and I need you on your best behavior. That means no loud robot music that’ll scare potential tenants away.”
Bucky flinched, looking offended.
“Robot music?” he scoffed, spinning back in his chair to face his laptop. “And you say this shit every year. Summertime, tourists, rent... but you’re lucky if even one person books a room.”
Your brow twitched. You hated how right he was. “Regardless, I need you to give the music a rest. If I’m not the one complaining, someone else will.”
You were ready to leave it at that. You turned around, your hand gripping the doorknob, prepared to slam the door behind you so he wouldn’t have the space to argue back. But of course, Bucky just couldn’t help himself.
“Whatever you say, sweetheart.”
You spun around so fast your hair whipped across your face. “What the fuck did you just call me?”
Bucky kept his back turned to you. You didn’t even need to see his face to know he was wearing a smug, shit-eating grin.
“My music is harmless,” he muttered, clicking away at his screen. “And who knows? Maybe your future tenants will actually find it entertaining. I might even draw people in.”
“No, it won’t,” you hissed. “You’ll scare people away.”
Bucky shrugged. “Then what the hell am I paying you rent for if I can’t even listen to music in my own apartment?”
The way he said it was so casual, but you knew he had thrown those words out just to pull the pin right out of your heart.
Over the years, you had seen several tenants come and go, break their leases, or even scam you out of money. Taking over the building with little to no hope for business had been completely exhausting, and Bucky—along with Georgia—had been the only loyal tenants you had left.
In reality, the two of them were the ones keeping the place afloat.
You grimaced, facing the door again.
“Just… keep it down,” was all you said, because you no longer had it in you to keep up the fight.
Bucky had kept his promise to keep the music down—but that only lasted about a day. And Bucky being Bucky, if he didn’t have the ability to piss you off one way, he’d make sure to do it another.
You weren’t sure if it was entirely intentional or not, but regardless, it made your skin burn with irritation. While you were talking to a man seated across from your desk, the sound of a girl’s loud laughter echoed right above the office—and it certainly wasn’t the voice of any girl you recognized who lived in this complex.
You smiled through it. As long as you ignored it and didn’t address it, then maybe the man in front of you—who seemed to have every intention of staying here during his months long vacation—wouldn’t notice.
“But yes, as you can see, the building is very close to the beach—walking distance, actually!” You smiled, hands folding primly on the desk in front of you. “And the beaches in Greece are beautiful. I’m sure you’ve seen them while doing your research. You said you like to surf, right? This spot is very convenient for—”
“Haha—you’re so silly, Bucky!”
“I know. But you like it.”
The man in front of you glanced at the ceiling, frowning at the sound of the girl giggling, and you swallowed hard.
“—surfing….”
Instead of answering your question or addressing anything else you said, he kept his focus on the wooden ceiling above him and pointed up. “I take it this place is pretty busy—considering all the noise.”
You gripped your hands tighter.
If you weren’t able to secure this guest, you were going to make sure Bucky got an earful from you after this.
“That’s a good thing, right? Shows how lively Greece is during this time of the year.” You tried your best to salvage the situation, but your own words only gave you secondhand embarrassment.
The man chewed the inside of his cheek, his expression apprehensive. His eyes darted around the office, suddenly taking in the white plug-in wall fan that was making a suspicious whiiiirrr noise, along with the poorly painted window panels you hadn’t gotten around to fixing yet.
“Look, you seem like a nice, responsible, and hardworking young lady, but—” He stood up and started grabbing his bags. “I don’t think this place is right for me.”
“W-wait!” You scrambled from your chair, nearly lunging across the desk just to get him to stop. “We have much quieter rooms on the second floor! Facing the courtyard! You won’t hear a single thing over there, I promise!”
Fuck. What were you even saying? Bucky’s room was on the second floor.
The guy was already heading for the exit, his heavy duffel bag slung over his shoulder. He gave you a tight, sympathetic smile that felt more like a slap to the face before walking out.
“Sir, please! I can offer you a discount on the first month! Ten percent—no, fifteen!”
Your voice was pitching higher in distressed panic, but the bell above the office door gave you a cute and mocking ting! before he pushed it open and stepped out into the burning Greek heat. The door shut behind him, leaving you alone in silence with the stupid run down fan.
Well, almost silence.
Aside from the consistent whirring from the fan, another loud giggle squealed through the floorboards right above your head. Then came the thud of Bucky’s mattress hitting the bed frame.
Your eye twitched as your hands curled into tight fists. The payment that man would have given you had he settled in today—even with a fifteen percent discount—was supposed to be your grocery budget for the next three weeks.
Your sandals were already stomping up the stairs to Bucky’s floor. By the time you shoved the key into his lock, twisted it, and slammed the door open without so much as a knock, you were seeing red.
“Barnes!” you screeched, not even caring that the unknown woman lying in his bed was half-naked.
She squealed and yanked the blanket up to her chest, trying to cover herself, but you didn’t so much as glance at her.
“Bucky, I didn’t know you had a girlfriend!” she yelped, looking at Bucky with wide, terrified eyes.
Well, at least this one had some decency compared to the others. Most girls would look at you with swollen lips and a proud, “gotcha” smile to match. Bucky pushed himself up with a groan, giving you a glare that could have killed you right where you stood.
“She’s not my girlfriend,” he grumbled, wiping his wet lips with the back of his hand. “She’s my landlord.”
“Oh.” The girl’s shoulders slumped in relief—and a part of you wished Bucky hadn’t clarified that, just so you could have kept the upper hand.
“Are you fucking kidding me, Bucky? You scared another potential renter away!”
Bucky didn’t look remotely remorseful. If anything, he looked mildly annoyed that his afternoon had been interrupted. He swung his legs over the side of the mattress, getting up to meet you at the door.
You didn’t even care that he was wearing nothing but a pair of boxers that hung low on his hips—you had walked in on him one too many times to even bother telling him to put on a pair of pants.
“I didn’t do anything,” he said, his voice gravelly from whatever he’d been doing earlier. “I was minding my own business.”
“I’m sorry, but your ‘business’ becomes everyone else’s when you’re being too fucking loud!” you shouted. “I was seconds away from closing a three-month lease, Bucky. Three months! Do you know what I could do with that kind of money right now? I could finally fix the plumbing so the water doesn’t smell like eggs!”
The girl in his bed looked back and forth between the two of you, awkwardly clutching the sheet to her collarbone. “Um… should I leave?”
“Yes!” you snapped.
“No,” Bucky countermanded, running a tired hand through his already tousled hair. “Stay, Eleni. My landlord was just leaving.”
“Like hell I am,” you hissed, crossing your arms. “I swear to God, Barnes. If you keep this up, I’m going to tear up your lease and evict you.”
Bucky huffed a laugh. That was new. He had pushed your buttons enough to unlock a brand new threat—even if it was one you both knew you probably wouldn’t follow through with.
“Yeah, sure. Go ahead and kick me out,” he challenged, stepping closer. “You need me more than I need you, anyway.”
You were seconds away from going ballistic—from grabbing his precious DJ setup and throwing it right off the balcony. Every hair on your body stood up like a threatened cat, and you were ready to tear Bucky Barnes apart in his own room.
You sucked in a deep breath to unleash a litany of curses, and Bucky stood up straighter, bracing himself to return the sentiment right back, until a familiar voice called out from the office downstairs.
“Honey? Are you here?”
Both of you froze. Your accusatory finger hung in midair as your head instinctively turned towards the open door.
Of course. Your boyfriend, John, always managed to show up at the absolute worst timing possible.
“Would you look at that,” Bucky sighed—though you couldn’t tell if it was out of relief or annoyance. “Your knight in shining armor, coming to save me yet again,” he said sarcastically.
You shot Bucky one last lethal glare— forgetting all about Eleni still laying in his bed—and turned on your heel, stomping back down the stairs to tend to your boyfriend. As you hurried down, you flattened your hair and adjusted your tank top, trying to make yourself look somewhat presentable, though it was a lost cause.
“Hi, John,” you said, sounding more tired than endeared as you leaned in to press a kiss to his cheek.
“Hey, you,” he grinned before pulling back to look at you, his expression turning from a smile to displeasure.
“Wow, you look terrible.”
Your boyfriend always had such a way with words.
You sighed, your shoulders slumping in defeat. With John here, you felt like now was the great time to talk about your day, hoping that it’d relief just a tiny bit of stress.
“I look terrible because my day is going terrible. I feel like a hamster running on a wheel that leads nowhere. It’s barely afternoon, and the day is already kicking my butt—”
“Did you hear that I got promoted today?”
You blinked at his blatant interruption. “I’m… I’m sorry?”
“No worries,” he waved his hand with a guileless smile, as if you were actually offering him a sincere apology when, in fact, you were just giving him the opportunity to rethink his interruption. “I said I got promoted. Valentina finally saw how hard I’ve been working and decided to give me the next position up. I’m making double the amount I made before!”
You felt utterly and completely defeated.
Here you were, feeling like a dog that had been beaten to the ground, and the man you proclaimed as the love of your life was flaunting his success. You should have been happy for him, but every sentence that left his lips only felt like a slap to your face.
“I’m happy for you, John,” you said, your voice wavering. You were happy for him—you really were—but John didn’t buy it.
He frowned. “Well…?”
You blinked again, your brows furrowing in confusion. “Well, what?”
“Are you going to take me out to celebrate?”
“Celebrate?” You huffed a laugh, taking his words as a joke. But one look at John’s face told you he was entirely serious.
Your lips twisted right back into a frown, your brows furrowing as dread began to settle in your gut.
“John… look around you. I can barely afford to keep this place running, much less take you out to celebrate your promotion. And besides, you’re making so much more than me now. Wouldn’t it financially make more sense for you to take us out if you really wanted to celebrate?”
You knew the words were blunt and straightforward, but truthfully, you didn’t have it in you to beat around the bush to cushion John’s feelings. You were drowning, and you needed to be honest with your partner.
John sighed, stepping closer and resting a hand on your shoulder.
“Honey, if money was that important to me—then I wouldn’t be with you right now, would I?”
Before you even knew it, you were looking at your partner not with the eyes of a lover—but with the eyes of an enemy.
“Excuse me?” You ripped yourself away from his touch, his hand dropping as you stared at him in utter disbelief. “What the hell is that supposed to mean?”
John let out a long sigh, his classic way of telling you that you were blowing things out of proportion. “I’m just saying, I don’t care about your financial situation. I’m looking past it because I love you. You don’t have to get so defensive.”
You wanted to cry. Your body was so coiled with nothing but rage, and right now, the only person you wanted to take it out on was John.
“Look past it?” Your voice cracked as it began to rise. “You’re looking past the fact that I run myself dry trying to keep a roof over my head with zero support from you? I can’t afford groceries, and instead of asking how I am, you walk in here, cut me off, brag about your money, and insult my business!”
“Oh, here we go with the drama,” John scoffed, throwing his hands up as if he were the victim. “It’s a rundown complex in Greece, honey, not the Hilton. You’re overreacting like you always do—”
“I am not overreacting! You are being incredibly selfish—”
“What’s going on here?”
You were so caught up in the yelling match that you hadn’t even heard the footsteps creaking down the stairs and into the office.
Both you and John turned to find Bucky and Eleni standing by the archway that led to the stairs. Bucky was dressed appropriately this time. By the looks of it, he had no intention of eavesdropping—he was just politely leading Eleni out of the building.
You swallowed hard. What a funny predicament to be in—complaining about Bucky and his noise just minutes ago, only to end up doing the exact same thing.
“It’s nothing,” you mumbled, averting your attention back to John. But John was already looking elsewhere—more specifically, right at Eleni.
“You sure? Sounded like things were getting pretty heated in here,” Bucky said, trying to make a joke that landed flat. “I was just leading Eleni out. You can go right back to tearing at each other’s throats once I escort her out, thanks.”
Eleni had been following close behind Bucky like a lost puppy, looking a little flustered, until her eyes scanned the lobby and landed squarely on the man standing next to you—who was already staring at her.
She froze, her jaw dropping. “John?” she gasped.
The color drained from John’s face, his cocky posture instantly stiffening into a defensive stance. “…E-Eleni?”
You blinked, looking between your boyfriend and the woman who had just been in your tenant’s bed. “Wait. You two know each other?”
Eleni gave you the exact same treatment you had given her earlier. She zipped right past you, completely forgetting about you and Bucky, and folded her arms tightly over her chest. “John, you asshole! You ghosted me after Cabo! You blocked my number and never returned any of my calls!”
The office went dead silent. Aside from the whirring fan, of course.
You felt your heart drop into your stomach. Cabo? John had mentioned going on a ‘business conference’ to Cabo—but that was only two months ago.
No.
He couldn’t have…
You slowly turned your head to look at John, silently pleading to whatever cruel God that was currently tormenting you to just give you a break. You hoped John would deny it, that he would tell this interloper to get lost, even if you hadn’t had the guts to do it yourself when she was upstairs.
But he didn’t. All he did was dart his guilty blue eyes around the room, looking anywhere but at the two women he had wronged.
“John…?” you whimpered.
And under just a smidge of pressure, John folded.
“I’m sorry!” he barked out defensively. “Look—it was a one-time thing, okay? I got drunk with Lemar on the beach, and… we lost track of time, and Eleni came up to me and—”
“Get the hell out.”
John’s shoulders slumped. He reached out for you again. “Honey, you don’t mean that—”
“Get out of my fucking face, John!” you screamed, slapping his hand away.
“Please, just listen to me for one second!” John pleaded, taking another step closer despite your screaming.
“I know I messed up, okay? I know it was a mistake—but look at the bigger picture here! I just got promoted. I’m making double now! I can take care of you. I can fund this entire complex and even… even fix the plumbing smell you’re always complaining about! Whatever you want! You won’t have to worry about a single cent anymore. Just please, don’t throw us away over a stupid slip up.”
Slip up?
Was this what he thought this was?
Years of being together, and his infidelity was just a slip up? A stupid moment of weakness?
You had thought that having a boyfriend—someone who loved you unconditionally—was the one thing you could have to yourself in this cruel world. You and John had your ups and downs, sure, but the idea of being in love was what kept you going.
Now, you felt entirely sick to your stomach—humiliated, exhausted, and broken.
“Stop it,” you choked out, a tear finally spilling down your cheek. You stepped forward and weakly slammed your palms against his chest, trying to push him towards the exit. “Just stop talking. Get out!”
Your hands were trembling, completely devoid of the strength you had wielded against him and Bucky just minutes ago. John barely budged under your weak shove. He sighed, reaching out to grab your wrists to stop you.
“Honey, stop. You’re hysterical right now, just calm down and—”
Before his fingers could even brush your skin, Bucky’s broad frame wedged itself between the two of you. He clamped a heavy hand hard onto John’s shoulder, shoving him back as he used his own body as a shield to protect you.
“You heard the woman,” Bucky gritted through clenched teeth, glaring down at your now-ex-boyfriend. “She told you to get the hell out.”
John stumbled back a step, swallowing hard as he looked up at the much larger man.
He tried to reclaim some of his lost dignity, puffing out his chest. “Hey, man, back off. This is between me and my girlfriend. It’s none of your business.”
“When you’re being that loud, your business becomes everyone else’s,” Bucky hissed. “You have three seconds to pack up your pathetic excuses and get your feet off this property before I throw you off it myself.”
If you weren’t such a fragile mess, you might’ve laughed at the fact that Bucky had just used your exact words to throw right back at John.
John looked at Bucky’s tight fists, then glanced past his shoulder at you, where you were wiping away your tears. He huffed a bitter laugh—he knew he couldn’t win a physical fight against Bucky, but that didn’t mean his pride was going down without a fight.
“Wow. Blew one of your tenants so he could act as your security guard since you couldn’t afford one?” John’s face twisted into an ugly, resentful sneer. “Fine. Keep her. I’m leaving.”
You were too busy sniffling behind Bucky—of all people—to notice that his shoulders were shaking with anger.
Bucky knew he wasn’t a saint, especially towards you, but hearing you get degraded by a man like this—a man you had given your heart to—made him unfathomably angry.
If you weren’t in such a sensitive, vulnerable state, Bucky probably would’ve had this guy pinned to the floor by now.
“While you’re at it, go ahead and take Eleni out with you,” Bucky added, nodding toward the woman dismissively, as if he hadn’t been tongue deep in her mouth just minutes ago. “Sounds like you two have some catching up to do, anyway.”
John muttered curses under his breath as he pushed through the exit, a timid Eleni trailing quickly behind him.
When the door shut, leaving just you and Bucky in the office, he turned around to finally look at you—and his heart broke right there in his chest.
He knew he had said and done things to purposefully get under your skin in the past, but seeing you now, looking so small with your cheeks stained with tears, it made him feel like the worst kind of man, despite not being the one who broke your heart.
“Hey,” Bucky murmured gently, resting both hands on your shoulders and leaning down so he was at eye level. “Are you okay—”
He nearly stumbled back from the impact of you burying your face into his chest.
You gripped his shirt tightly as you broke into the most gut wrenching sob he had ever heard in his life.
Without another thought, his arms came up to wrap securely around your body, holding you close against him. One large palm rested at the back of your head, soothing you with a comforting caress.
Bucky didn’t know what to say.
There had been times when he had almost made you cry out of sheer frustration, yeah, but that was almost. Now with you breaking down in his arms, he hated the very idea of you crying, period.
“Hey, he’s gone, okay?” he murmured against your temple. “You’re okay. You’re okay.”
He didn’t know what else to offer other than a couple of “you’re okays” and the occasional “I’m here.”
“I—I don’t understand—” you whimpered into Bucky’s shirt, which was now damp with your tears. “What did I do to deserve this?”
Guilt clawed at his heart while his teeth caught his lower lip hard enough to draw blood.
He knew your words were also a partial reflection on him and how he’d been treating you—constantly making your job so much harder than it needed to be. He sighed, holding you a little closer.
“Nothing. You did nothing,” Bucky said, his tone gentler than you had ever heard it before. “You don’t deserve any of this. And I’m sorry.”
“Thank you,” you sniffled. “For standing up for me. I… I didn’t know what to do. I’m just so tired.”
Bucky felt like the Grinch—his chest tight as his heart softened with each broken word you cried out.
For the first time since he had moved into your complex, he was hearing a thank you leave your lips. He might have expected it if he ever turned his music down on the first ask, or helped you take out the trash. But not once had you muttered those words to him until now, while you were weeping in his arms and holding onto him like he was the only person you could rely on.
He felt terrible.
He, of all people, didn’t deserve your gratitude.
“Hey, don’t get sappy on me now.” He sighed, caressing your hair again as he rested his chin on the top of your head.
“You’re a strong girl. You’ll be okay.”
As the day bled into the rest of the week, Bucky felt like he was getting whiplash.
One day, you were crying in his arms and seeking his comfort, and the next, it was like you slapped your cold mask back on and went right back to being his personal landlord from hell.
He had made a promise to himself to help you out in small ways—like keeping his mixer at a lower volume, or offering to help paint the window frames. He hadn’t even invited a single girl over since your breakdown. It was selfish of him to think you’d soften up just because he held you while you cried, but you didn’t. Instead, it was the same usual business from you.
“Bucky, turn down your music!”
“Your music is giving me a headache. Lower it.”
“I can’t believe people actually listen to this robot music.”
Today, he had his friends over—Steve and Sam—whom you seemed to detest just as much because of the volume they brought with them.
Sam was lounging in the beanbag chair, his legs sprawled out, while Steve found comfort on Bucky’s bed. All three of them had a cold Mythos beer in hand, taking slow swigs while Bucky focused on mixing a new track on his laptop.
“Turn the music up,” Steve said, gesturing to the monitor with his bottle. “I want to hear how the bass hits on that drop.”
Bucky’s hand hovered over the master volume knob, then hesitated. If he recalled correctly, you had a lot of important calls to make down in the office today. The last thing he wanted to do right now was add more to your plate.
Slowly, he pulled his hand back, leaving the volume exactly where it was. “Nah, it’s loud enough.”
“No way, man. The walls are usually shaking from how loud you play this stuff,” Sam said, furrowing his brows. “Come on. Turn it up.”
Bucky kept his attention glued to his laptop, his hands adjusting everything on his mixer but the volume.
“My landlord is making calls downstairs,” he muttered, trying to sound as dismissive and nonchalant as possible in the hopes his friends would just drop it.
But of course, they don’t.
Steve sat up on the bed, his arms resting on his knees while the green bottle dangled loosely in his fingers. “Hold on. Since when do you care about what your landlord thinks?”
“Especially when it comes to your music,” Sam egged on, that teasing grin spreading across his face.
Bucky felt like he was a cat being cornered. He chewed the inside of his cheek, attempting to play around with the BPM to distract himself, but ended up completely messing up the transition.
“I don’t care what she thinks,” Bucky said quickly, his voice a little too defensive as he clicked aggressively on his trackpad. “I just don’t feel like hearing her run her mouth today.”
“You know, speaking of running her mouth—” Sam pushed himself up on the beanbag chair with a groan. “How did she react when she walked in on you and Eleni? Surely she heard all the noise you two were making, right?”
Steve barked out a laugh, waiting to hear Bucky’s response.
Bucky grimaced at the memory.
Despite them bringing Eleni up, his mind wasn’t on her at all—it was entirely on you and everything that had unfolded that day.
Normally, he’d chug his beer with his track set to the highest volume, laughing alongside Sam and Steve about how you were constantly on his ass, pestering him like a mother. But this time, he recoiled at the way his friends were talking about you.
He didn’t even know how to begin explaining it.
How could he explain that he hadn’t actually slept with Eleni because he’d overheard you arguing with your boyfriend, John? The very same John who got outed for cheating on you with Eleni—the girl Bucky just so happened to have brought home that day.
“We didn’t even sleep together. We were just messing around on the bed, and she came in to complain about the noise,” Bucky muttered with a casual shrug. “That’s it.”
Sam hummed in thought, pausing in the middle of sipping his Mythos. “You know what it sounds like your landlord needs? She needs to loosen up.”
Bucky frowned.
They had no idea what you were going through at all.
“Yeah,” Steve agreed. “Take her to one of your gigs tonight—show her how good your music actually is, and what keeps her rent money coming in.”
Bucky couldn’t picture it. You, loosening up in the middle of a crowded dance floor, actually enjoying the music you constantly complained was nothing but “robot noise.”
“Yeah,” Bucky scoffed. “Like that’s ever going to happen.”
Steve shrugged. “A girl like that wouldn’t be hard to impress. Who knows, maybe she’ll realize the nightlife she’s missing out on here in Greece, ditch her lame boyfriend, and give you a chance instead—”
“Alright, alright, enough.” Bucky waved his hand, spinning around in his chair to glare at Steve. He hated how obvious it was that he cared. “Can we just get back to working on my mix? I need it ready and sounding perfect by Friday night.”
Sam’s brows rose. “Oh, Friday night! That’s the perfect amount of time for you to convince her to come out—”
Bucky groaned, rubbing the space between his brows to soothe his impending headache. “Christ, Sammy. Would you just shut up—”
“Eeeeek!”
Bucky was cut off by a loud, piercing screech echoing from down the stairs—straight from your office. He immediately sat up straight in his chair, his eyes widening.
Steve grimaced. “Jesus. What’s wrong with her now—”
But before Steve could even finish his sentence, Bucky was already throwing himself out of his chair. He lunged out the door and raced down the stairs toward you. As his feet pounded against the creaky steps, his mind scrambled through every worst case scenario.
Had John returned to threaten you?
Was a potential tenant giving you a hard time?
Either way, he was ready to tear them apart. And he didn’t care if Steve or Sam were right behind him to witness it.
“Hey!” Bucky barked, breathless as he rounded the corner into the office. “Are you okay—”
“Oh my god, oh my god, get away! No! Don’t get any closer!” you squealed.
Bucky froze in the doorway, only to find you stranded on top of your desk chair, your legs wobbly as you tried to keep yourself from falling. Your eyes were wide with terror, staring down at the floor. Bucky tilted his head to get a better look at what was going on.
Sitting right at the base of your chair was a stray white cat. Her tail was swishing lazily against the floor, and she was proudly holding a very dead, very fat rat between her teeth.
Bucky’s shoulders instantly slumped as he realized he wouldn’t be throwing hands with John after all—and just how ridiculous this entire situation was.
“Bucky, help me!” you wailed, pointing a shaky finger at the feline. “Get it out! Get it out of here right now!”
“Which one?” Bucky crossed his arms, making absolutely no effort to rush to your rescue. “The rodent, or the cat?”
“The rat, Bucky! Oh my god—she’s getting closer, ew!” You whipped your head toward him, frazzled. “Do something!”
Bucky sighed heavily.
He was on a tight time crunch, needing his mix ready by Friday for a gig at a massive club here in Greece—and now his precious time was being spent trying to wrestle a stray cat.
Then again, he had made a silent promise to himself to start helping you out.
He stepped away from the doorframe and closer to you, making exaggerated shooing motions at the animal.
“Shoo! Go on, get out of here. And take your friend with you.”
The cat looked up at Bucky with big, round blue eyes that perfectly matched his own, let out a raspy mewl, and turned her head right back to you. Wanting to ensure her favorite human accepted the prize, the cat pushed herself up on her hind legs, stretching her paws onto the seat of the chair to drop the limp rodent right at your feet.
“Oh my god, no! Don’t do that! Ew, ew, ew! No!”
You could’ve sworn you saw the dead rat twitch.
Panic completely overrode your system. Without a single thought for your pride or your dignity, you launched yourself off the chair and jumped straight into Bucky’s arms.
Bucky looked up, his eyes widening as he realized what you were doing, but it was already too late to brace himself.
He let out a oomph! as your body collided with his, nearly knocking him right off his feet. With a huff, his arms hooked around your waist and thighs to catch you before you both could hit the floor. He stumbled back, struggling to find his balance as you wrapped your arms around his neck, burying your face into the crook of his shoulder in panic.
He had never expected to find you in his arms again so soon—much less over a damn cat.
“You’re okay,” Bucky sighed, caressing your back. “Look! She’s already taking the rat away.” He reassured, despite the cat not moving a single paw.
You kept your face buried, your fingers tightly bunching the fabric of the back of his shirt. “Is she really? Promise me you’re not lying, Bucky.”
“Buck! We’re coming! Hold on—”
Steve’s voice echoed through the hallway as he and Sam burst through the office doorway in a sprint. Both of them had their shoulders squared and their fists clenched, ready to throw down in whatever fight Bucky had gotten himself into.
But they came to a halt, their eyes wide as they took in the view.
There was Bucky, holding the very woman he claimed to detest so much securely in his arms—bridal style, at that.
“Oh,” Sam chuckled, raising a brow. “Are we interrupting something?”
Bucky’s neck flushed a deep crimson. Even with your body tucked firmly against his, he was focused on the mortification of Steve and Sam drilling their stares directly into the side of his head.
“Get the rat out of the room!” he hissed through clenched teeth.
He tried to speak quietly so he wouldn’t startle you with the word rat, but the attempt obviously failed—because, well… you were right there, and you squealed in response.
Sam didn’t move, his grin only widening. “I don’t know, Buck. Pest control wasn’t really on the itinerary today. What’s the magic word?”
Bucky now understood why you hated his friends so much.
“Sam, I swear to God—”
Seeing that his best friend was about to combust from embarrassment, Steve finally took pity on him.
“Alright, alright, I’ve got it,” Steve reassured, stepping past them. He grabbed a plastic clipboard from your desk, using it like a makeshift shovel to carefully scoop the dead rodent off the chair.
“Ugh, that thing is huge,” Sam pointed out—eliciting another loud squeal from you—as he held the door open for Steve so they could dump it in the trash bins outside.
“Is it gone?” you whimpered into his chest.
Bucky looked down, his eyes softening as he took in the way your nose was pressed directly into his shirt. “It’s gone. I promise.”
With a relieved breath, you gently pushed yourself out of Bucky’s grasp until your feet hit the floor. He hated the sudden, empty space between the two of you.
Trying to bridge the gap you just created, Bucky stepped closer again, resting a warm palm on your shoulder. “Are you alright?”
He spoke so softly, with a gentleness that caught you off guard.
Heat tickled the back of your neck, your heart beating rapidly from the embarrassment of your outburst—and the fact that you had run straight into Bucky’s arms for comfort yet again.
“I-I’m fine,” you stammered, straightening yourself.
Steve and Sam were just about to walk back inside, but they stopped when they saw Bucky leaning down, his thumb now softly caressing your cheek.
They knew their friend had a long track record of being a blatant flirt and a playboy, but never once had they seen him soften up the way he was right now. Exchanging looks, the two of them played it smart and silently agreed to turn around, letting their friend have his chance.
You gently stepped away from Bucky’s touch, letting out a soft sigh at the cat still perched in the middle of the office floor. You hoped averting your attention elsewhere would soothe the awkwardness.
“Why’d you do that, Alpine? Are you trying to scare me to death?” you murmured, kneeling down to give her a gentle pat on her dusty head.
Bucky furrowed his brows. “She has a name?”
“She was a stray hiding near the trash bins a few weeks ago. I ran to the market next door to buy some food for her, and she’s been following me ever since. But I didn’t think she’d stick around long enough to gift me a…” You shuddered at the mere thought. “…a rat.”
He chuckled, kneeling down right next to you to offer the cat a few pets of his own.
“That’s cute,” he murmured. “Look at you, always on top of taking care of things—even the neighborhood strays.”
You let out a small laugh, the sound soft, warm, and genuine against his eardrums.
Bucky felt like his chest was going to explode. You were so close, smiling brightly in a way he almost never saw from you. As the last of your laughter trickled in the air, he realized this was his perfect opportunity.
The atmosphere between you two was soft. Your walls were down, and he could take this conversation exactly where he wanted it to go.
Are you free this Friday night?
Do you want to come see my set at the club? We could even dance together.
I actually named one of my tracks after you.
But you spoke up before he could. “Oh, I almost forgot. I wanted to say thank you.”
Bucky shrugged casually. “The rat was no problem—”
“No, not just for the rat. I meant for everything else,” you clarified, sitting up straight and meeting him in the eye.
“These past few days, I’ve noticed you’ve been… well, on your best behavior.” You offered a sheepish smile as you struggled to find the right words. “You’ve been lowering your music whenever I ask you to, and I really appreciate it. So, thank you.”
Bucky huffed a laugh.
Here you were—showing gratitude just because he was finally giving you the bare minimum. He didn’t deserve you.
“Yeah, well, even if my music isn’t blasting at full volume, it still sounds good,” he joked, flashing you a confident grin.
You rolled your eyes, letting your hands gently pet down Alpine’s spine. She was purring.
“You keep telling yourself that,” you teased back. “I still don’t know how you can listen to music like that all day, much less produce it.”
“It’s not music you listen to all day,” Bucky adjusted his posture so he was a bit more relaxed as he sat on the floor. “It’s music you listen to when the stars are out while strobe lights are blinding you.”
Without even realizing it, he started rambling.
“It’s the kind of music that's meant to make you feel good. To push all the thoughts out of your head, drown out the noise of the rest of the world, and just let yourself loose for a little while.”
You hummed in thought.
For the entire time you’ve known Bucky, you had never bothered to ask about his DJing simply because you didn’t care to.
You’d always figured it was just a stupid hobby he did to piss you off and disrupt your peace—but the way he talked about it now, passionately getting lost in his own words, made you interested to say the least.
“You should come to one of my gigs one day and see what it’s like,” he murmured, his voice sounding far more vulnerable than his usual confidence. “It’ll be fun.”
You blew a raspberry, though you weren’t entirely put off by the idea.
“I appreciate the invite, but look around you, Bucky,” you huffed, letting out a self-deprecating laugh. “This place is running on my bare hands alone. I can’t afford a night off.”
“Then let me help you,” Bucky interrupted, turning his body so he was giving you his undivided attention. “You need help painting the window frames and fixing the plumbing, right? I’ll take care of it.”
You blinked, your eyes widening in surprise.
Bucky… helping you?
This was completely out of character for him. You braced yourself for the catch, waiting for him to follow up with something like, “As long as I can bring home whoever I want, play my music as loud as I want, and get a discount on my monthly rent,” but nothing came.
“I don’t know, Bucky—”
“Come on, sweetheart,” he grinned, that taunting tone creeping back into his voice. “Let someone help you for once.”
You searched his eyes, trying to catch a punchline, but still, there was nothing.
You didn’t quite believe him. You figured this was just his way of tossing you sympathy points to get you to praise him some more, only for him to end up doing absolutely nothing.
So, you just sighed, rolled your eyes, and pushed yourself up off the floor.
“Whatever you say, Barnes.”
To your surprise, Bucky had actually made true to his promise and helped you around the complex.
He was already up most mornings before you even arrived, blasting his music from his speakers. Instead of just fixing the paint on the window panels, he reinstalled new ones and painted them over with the pretty blue you’ve been eyeing.
It made you feel giddy, seeing him in a tank top and jeans that were covered in both dirt and blue paint.
“Morning,” you shouted over the music, setting your cup of coffee down at your desk. Alpine was still here—curled up in your chair. Bucky must’ve let her in.
“You’re already working on the window panels?”
Bucky didn’t hear you at first, sweeping his paintbrush back and forth until he lifted his head in your direction. He reached over to his Bluetooth speaker, lowering his music to a much more appropriate volume for seven in the morning.
“Oh, yeah.” He pushed himself up with a groan. “Thought I’d get started on the easy stuff first.”
He crossed his arms, taking a step back to admire his work. Then, he looked at you for your reaction.
“How… how do you like it?”
You wanted to jump up and down in glee with how beautiful the windows looked. The bright blue color made everything much more welcoming and inviting, but you didn’t want to give Bucky the opportunity to gloat just yet.
“Hm,” you tilted your head. You could feel Bucky growing anxious beside you—though he tried his best not to show it. “I think I want it in a different shade of blue, actually.”
Bucky’s eyes nearly bulged out of their sockets. He raised his hands, about to protest, but you broke down in a laugh.
“I’m kidding,” you said, wiping a tear at his reaction. “It’s perfect. I love it.”
He let out a heavy sigh of relief, but you could still see the grump lines on his face. “Good. Otherwise I would’ve painted your face blue,” he muttered, motioning to the paintbrush.
“Oh? You mean like this?”
You quickly snatched the brush out of his hands, and before he could even process what was going on, you had already swiped a stripe of blue paint over his stubbled cheek.
Bucky stood there, wide eyed. He swiped his thumb over the paint and looked down at his fingers, appalled. But while you were busy laughing in his face, a slow smile cracked across his lips. He suddenly lunged for you, wrapping his strong arms around your body from behind. He hooked the paintbrush back out of your hands, smearing a streak of blue over your face as well.
“Bucky, stop!” you yelled, thrashing in his arms as you just barely dodged the bristles that were tickling your chin with paint. “Stop! I can’t be covered in paint—I have to work!” you argued, despite the breathless laughter breaking in between your words.
“Yeah, well. You should’ve thought about that before you attacked me first, sweetheart.”
From that day onward, your week with Bucky had been filled with more laughter than you’ve had in the entire course of previous months.
Each day was eventful—Bucky was always up early in the morning working on the complex, somehow always managing to find new things to fix, while you arrived with cups of coffee and a bag of treats for Alpine.
During break times, you and Bucky would eat lunch together in his apartment, and he introduced you to more and more of his music.
Every time you two worked, he always had his music playing. Slowly, you started to become fond of it. There were even a few tracks of his that you liked so much, you actually saved them to your own playlist. And every time you asked him for the track title, Bucky would laugh and say, “See? I told you my mixes are good.”
Now, you were sitting on his beanbag chair with your legs crossed, the two of you eating pitas with cold beers to wash them down.
“It’s all about the frequencies,” Bucky said, gesturing to the DJ controller sitting on his desk. He set his beer down, leaning forward as his fingers traced the knobs and sliders. “You’ve got your lows, mids, and highs. If I want to drop the bass out to create suspense before the hook hits, I twist this dial right here.”
He clicked a button, and the beat lost its thump thump, turning into an airy synth. Then, he slid a fader up, and the thumping beat came back in.
“That’s pretty cool. It’s a lot more complicated than I thought.” You leaned your head back against the beanbag, looking up at him with a sheepish grin. “Honestly, I just thought guys up there would bop their heads to pre-made music and pretend like they’re doing something. I didn’t think they played it all live.”
Bucky chuckled, his shoulders shaking as he swiveled his chair to face you. “Surprising, isn’t it?”
He glanced at his desk, then back to you. “Come here,” he nodded his head toward the console. “Try playing something.”
“What?” you said, sitting up straight. “No. Knowing my luck, I’d touch something and it’d break.”
Bucky huffed a laugh.
Who would’ve thought that the very woman who had threatened to throw his entire DJ setup out the window was actually too scared to even touch it?
“Enough of that. Come here, I’ll show you.”
Judging by the look on Bucky’s face, you knew he wasn’t going to let this up. With a reluctant sigh, you pushed yourself off the beanbag chair and walked over to him. He scooted his chair back, giving you the space to step right up to his setup.
You felt your face warm up instantly when he swiveled right back around, locking you between his desk and his lap.
“Sit down,” Bucky instructed from behind you.
You glanced over your shoulder and swallowed hard. His lap was spread, and he was leaning as far back in his chair as possible to make space for you. You wanted to make an excuse, to say you were much better off standing, but you knew Bucky would just fight you on it.
Mustering up your courage, you sat down, pressing your bottom directly into his lap. Bucky didn’t seem to mind it at all—meanwhile, your face was burning like crazy.
“Here,” he murmured, reaching around you to grab your arm. He guided it toward one of the sliders and placed his hand firmly over yours, setting your fingers down gently on the control.
Bucky’s palm was rough and warm against the back of your hand.
He leaned in closer, his chest pressing into your back, and you could feel the rumbly vibration of his chuckle against you.
“Relax,” he murmured right against your ear, his breath tickling your neck. “I’m not gonna bite. Unless you ask nicely.”
You hated him. You really did.
“Bucky, I swear to God—”
Bucky nudged your hand forward, forcing your fingers to slowly push the slider upward. As the fader moved, the track playing through the monitors began to warp.
“That’s the high-pass filter,” Bucky explained softly. He shifted slightly beneath you, adjusting his thighs under your bottom. “Hear how it cuts out the low end? Now, wait for the timer on the screen to hit zero, and slam it back down.”
You did exactly as instructed, yanking it down the second the timer hit zero, and a smile broke across your face at the bass.
“Wow, that sounds pretty good,” you breathed.
Curiosity got the best of you, and you started to play around with the different sliders on your own—creating a whole new funky and out of beat mix. You messed with the distortion and the reverb, and it sounded terrible enough to make you burst into laughter, with Bucky laughing right along beneath you.
You pressed a button, then a beep! noise came after. A red light started blinking at the soundboard.
“You’re recording now,” he said. “Want to sing something?”
“God, no.” You laughed.
Sooner or later, you felt his hands slowly drift from your arms down to your hips. Surprisingly, you didn’t mind his touch one bit. It felt entirely natural. Like his hands were always meant to be right there—guiding you, holding you…
“Come watch me play on Friday,” he murmured gently.
You looked down at him over your shoulder, and your breath caught. Bucky had been staring up at you this entire time. His blue eyes bored right into yours the minute you made eye contact, with no intention to break it first.
“Bucky, I…”
“I can get you in for free—you can skip the line, or come whenever you want. Just take one night off for yourself. You deserve it.”
You chewed your lower lip, feeling apprehensive. You and Bucky had done enough hard work over the last few days to compensate for the rest of the week, essentially clearing your schedule.
Looking into Bucky’s eyes—seeing the blue glimmer with hope just like the Greek ocean does on a sunny day—made it so much harder to say no. He had done so much for you these past few weeks, and the very least you could do was watch him do something he was truly passionate about.
“Fine. But only if you play my favorite tracks,” you said with a teasing smile.
Bucky blinked, as if he hadn’t heard you right.
Then, his lips pulled into the biggest, brightest grin you’d ever seen from him. His grip on your hips tightened before trailing up to your waist. Hell, he’d delete this entire set he had been working on for months if it meant you’d come watch him.
He was so overjoyed with excitement that he didn’t offer any words to prove it.
Instead, he pulled your waist a little tighter, tilted his head up, and kissed you.
You froze, your eyes going wide as his warm lips connected with yours.
You?
Kissing Bucky?
You never thought you would see the day. But the second his slick lips began to dance with yours—the second his tongue pushed past your lips to taste you—it was like all the stress from before this, all the emotional drain from your breakup with John, disappeared in an instant.
“Mmm,” you moaned into the kiss. Your hands flew to the back of his neck, burying into his messy brown hair and giving it a firm tug that made him groan right back against your mouth.
Bucky’s hands slid up from your waist, his large palms smoothing against your ribs and moving to your back to pull you closer against him.
He tasted like the cold beer, but his mouth was intoxicating heat.
Bucky had his fair share of kisses with women—just as you had your fair share of makeout sessions with John. But neither of you had to say a single word to know that this was it. This kiss shared between you two was like no other.
His hands roamed under your tank top, his fingers tickling your lower back as he trailed upward.
Of course, you had no bra on. You never wore one in this suffocating summer heat. That was one of Bucky’s favorite things about you.
Bucky broke the kiss to catch his breath, his head leaning back against the chair to gaze up at you. His eyes flickered down, lifting the hem of your shirt to reveal your smooth belly. He had seen your midriff from a distance whenever you bent over in your office—but never up close like this.
He groaned hungrily, then leaned in, pressing soft, warm kisses to your abdomen.
“A—ah, Bucky…” you mewled, squirming from the ticklish sensation.
He looked up at you with the softest eyes a boy could have, leaning his cheek right against your fluttering stomach. His stubble made you ticklish, but he didn’t pull away.
“I love it when you say my name like that,” he sighed dreamily. “You’re so beautiful.”
Your face warmed and you stammered, avoiding eye contact.
It was clear to Bucky that you weren’t used to receiving compliments, especially not from your no-good ex-boyfriend, John Walker.
But that was okay, because Bucky was here to change that.
“The most beautiful girl I’ve ever seen,” he murmured. You tried to shy away from his compliment again, but his fingers trailed up to your chin, tilting your head down so you were forced to look at him.
“The prettiest eyes, the prettiest smile,” his thumb traced patterns on your bare hip. “And the prettiest lips. God, those lips.”
He leaned in to press his lips against yours once more. Your tongues danced in a warm embrace as he slowly began to undress you, starting with your tank top. His hands eagerly lifted the fabric, breaking the kiss momentarily just so he could pull it over your head before his mouth crashed right back down onto yours.
In between kisses, he would murmur things like, “So beautiful,” and “Mine,” every soft word matching the steady blood flow pumping from his heart and straight to cock.
When his hands found the button of your shorts, you rolled your hips forward, grinding that hot, delicious heat right against the growing bulge in his jeans.
He chuckled raspily against your lips before pulling away, his lips swollen and his chin sheen with exchanged saliva.
“Eager little thing, are you?”
You groaned in annoyance, though it sounded incredibly sexy to his ears.
You worked at his belt, then moved to the button of his jeans. “Take these off.”
Bucky clicked his tongue. His hand caught your wrist, gently prying it away from his pants. “You’ve ought to learn how to say please.”
His arms wrapped securely around your body, lifting you up from the chair so suddenly that you yelped, wrapping your legs around his waist instinctively. He led you quickly over to the edge of his bed, setting your body down and tucking himself right between your thighs.
“Besides,” he breathed, eagerly pulling your shorts down along with your panties and throwing them over his shoulder. “I’m still not done with you. I want to take my time worshiping this fucking body.”
You lay there sprawled out and bare while Bucky was still fully clothed. It was overwhelming, but you didn’t have time to fully process it before Bucky’s head tucked between your thighs, his nose pressing to your base as he inhaled deeply.
“Fuck, you’re dripping already.”
You arched your back, letting out a shocked gasp. “B-Bucky—! What are you—!”
“Relax,” he murmured against your sensitive skin, his hands finding your outer thighs and prying them wider for him. “Just want to taste you, baby.”
Bucky’s tongue swiped flat against your dripping center, the tip of his tongue flicking your sensitive clit. He groaned, letting the taste of you linger on his mouth.
He glanced to look at you between your legs, and the sight of your face—brows pinching together with your bottom lip caught between your teeth—made his cock painfully hard. You lying bare in front of him was an invitation for him to sink his cock into you, but he wanted to savor this.
He tucked his head back down, lapping at your pussy sloppily. His warm tongue would tease your entrance with every flick, before slowly dragging up. He’d press his whole mouth against your pussy, pushing his tongue deep against your clit and dragging his tongue up and down quickly to make you cry out in pleasure.
“Bucky—please, oh god, Bucky—!”
He swirled his tongue around the swollen peak of your clit, sucking it into his mouth with a light tug that had your toes curling around his head.
You were so deprived of intimate touches, never being ate out in a way that Bucky was eating you out, and you already felt like you were about to cum embarrassingly fast.
“Don’t stop, I’m gonna cum—” you whimpered, hand coming up to your mouth to muffle your cries.
Bucky had no intention of stopping.
He doubled his efforts, the sound of his wet tongue squelching against your cunt, lapping at every drip your arousal gave him. He was eager to make you fall apart, to listen to you cry out his name as you came all over his face.
Bucky inhaled sharply as you began riding his tongue with abandon. You were being selfish—chasing your high. He knew you were that kind of woman, to take what you wanted, and fuck, did he love you for it. Especially when you’re riding his face for your own pleasure, not even caring if he could breathe or not.
“Yes, yes, yes,” you moaned, tossing your head. “Fuck me with your tongue, Bucky. I’m gonna cum—!”
Your eyes went wide when you realized you were about to let out more than you could handle. But you couldn’t stop—not when Bucky was pressing his tongue firmly against your clit and holding your thighs down with his strong hands.
“Bucky—wait, I…” before you could warn him, your back arched off the bed into a cry.
Your orgasm came hot and hard, pleasure suddenly flooding your senses as you felt yourself gush around his tongue. Bucky’s face was drowning with your juices, your puffy cunt clenching around his mouth. Your wet essence trickled down your thighs and stained his bedsheets vulgarly, leaving a wet spot beneath you.
“Oh my god,” you panted, face burning hot as you fought to catch your breath.
Bucky finally pulled away, a smug grin plastered on his face while his chin was dripping with your juice. You watched as he licked his lips, the gesture only making you want to sink deeper into his bed from embarrassment.
“Look at that,” he kneeled back, hand rubbing his hard cock through his jeans. “You made a real mess on my bed.”
Your eyes were shamelessly glued to the way his dick was printed against his pants. It was strained tight against the denim, and you could see the heavy outline of his tip, spurting pre-cum and dampening his thigh with his own juice.
“I’m… I’m sorry…”
Bucky chuckled—a deep, raspy sound that made you clench around nothing.
“God, baby. You’ve got my dick so hard, it hurts,” he rasped, finally pulling his cock out of his pants and kicking the article off the bed. “You already came so much. I don’t know if you can go another round.”
You weren’t sure, either. But with the way he was jerking himself off, that heavy string of pre-cum dangling from his tip, and the way his balls looked so full and desperate for relief, you were determined to go another.
He crawled over you, dragging his tip along your shaking inner thigh and against your entrance, coating himself in your wetness as he probed you.
You were so sensitive, your pussy puffy and aching, yet when he pushed his tip in to test you, your cunt parted for him so easily. You winced, your overworked pussy already fluttering around his tip despite yourself.
“Please, Bucky…” you whined, and it might’ve been the cutest thing Bucky had ever heard. “Put it in. It hurts…”
“It hurts? Aw, baby. But I bet you’re not hurting as much as I am.” He grabbed your hand, guiding it down to his cock. It was so hot, his skin smooth as it twitched under your fingertips. “Feel that? It’s aching for you, baby.”
Bucky grabbed your hips, aligning himself perfectly so he could sink in deeper, pushing his tip past your tight walls until half of his cock was embraced by your warmth.
“Fuck, you’re tight… even after cumming,” he hissed, his face tightening as he eagerly pushed his hips forward to stretch you out. “Like you were made for this.”
Already sensitive, the sudden fullness was overwhelming. A high-pitched gasp tore from your throat as your walls clamped down hard on him, tightening around the middle of his cock where he was thickest.
You whimpered and winced, trying to accommodate him, and Bucky felt his heart soar.
You were usually always so demanding, wound up so tight from constantly being overworked, and now you were wound up tight from his cock bottoming out in your pussy. Each moan and gasp of breath that left your lips made his cock twitch and his balls heavier.
“Those cute little noises—it makes my cock throb so hard,” he groaned.
Once his cock was fully sheathed inside, he started to pick up the pace, his balls slapping against you with wet and obscene smacks. His room—usually filled with the sounds of his music—was now filled with the sounds of your moans, and that was the greatest sound Bucky had ever produced.
He was fucking you so deep, each thrust met with curses and grunts. “So fucking beautiful,” “What a tight little pussy, fuck.” “You’re gonna make me cum so fast. M’already getting close…”
Each moan that left his lips made white spots dance around your vision. He was so deep, you could feel him in your gut. Pressure was building fast in your lower abdomen—a fullness that was equally agonizing and overwhelming.
Bucky’s big body was enveloping yours, his chest pressed into your sweaty one as he rocked his hips sensual and deep. He quickened his pace, in and out, in and out, until he felt his balls clench up.
“Shit, shit—” he gasped into your shoulder. “Not gonna last.”
Your pussy was like a drug. It was addicting, the way you would squeeze and flutter around him. Despite him making you squirt all over his sheets just minutes ago, you were already edging on your next orgasm. He felt every ripple and pulse your cunt had to offer—pumping him with your pussy before you cried out in pleasure so overwhelming, it made you see stars.
“Bucky!” you screamed, “oh my god—I’m cumming again—I can’t—”
Fuck, this was the fastest he had ever came.
“Please tell me you’re on the pill,” he pleaded with a broken voice.
That was essentially your warning that he was gonna cum inside. And when you nodded, that was his invitation to do it.
His entire body coiled up tight as he started pumping you full of his backed up seed. He couldn’t even remember the last time he had sex before you. All that mattered now was that his balls were finally being drained inside the person he wanted to pump them in the most—his precious landlord.
“Shit. I’m cumming, fuck! You’re squeezing me so tight—” he gasped as his body collapsed over you, huffing angry groans as his body tensed—draining every drop of his cum into your overly fucked pussy.
The two of you lay tangled in each other’s sweaty limbs, melting under the shared, musky scent of sex.
While Bucky was catching his breath, he peppered you with wet kisses—to your collarbones, shoulders, neck, and chin.
“You’re so pretty. Could lay with you forever—just like this.”
Who knew that Bucky Barnes, of all people, was the one person you slept with who made you feel more pleasure and adored than John ever had?
Your heart felt too big for your chest, and you felt like you wanted to cry. The way he held you and murmured sweet things to soothe your heart—it all became too much.
A small sniffling sound escaped you before you could stop it, and Bucky caught it immediately. He tilted his head up and looked at you, wide eyed.
“Hey, hey,” he cooed so softly, his palms coming up to caress your cheeks so you would look at him. “What’s wrong? Are you okay? Did I hurt you?”
Bucky was so soft, looking at you with wide, adoring eyes, like you were the only woman in the world and the only one he wanted to be with. It was hard to believe that this was the same man who always made sure to get a rise out of you just weeks ago.
“I’m… I’m okay,” you stammered. “I just… didn’t expect all this.”
Bucky frowned, his touch so delicate as if he were afraid of hurting you.
“I’m sorry—”
“No, don’t apologize,” you interjected gently, your fingers running through his sweaty strands of dark hair so you could see his eyes. “I loved every bit of it.”
He searched your eyes, his brows furrowing with vulnerability as he tried to find the truth in your words. When you held his gaze, showing how sincere you were, his frown tilted back into a sheepish smile—a far cry from his usually smug grins that you always wanted to wipe off.
“Good. Because I don’t regret a single bit of it,” he leaned in, capturing your lips with a wet kiss. “You better come on Friday. Watch me play. Then, after my set, we’ll come back home and make love all over again.”
You grinned at how blatant he was. But lying here with him, soaked up in each other’s essence, it was hard for you to say no.
“Fine. I’ll take your word for it.”
With how busy you were taking care of the complex, Friday night came in the blink of an eye.
Despite living in Greece, on an island notorious for its nightlife, you weren’t a fan of clubbing at all. You were always so busy, elbows deep in the run down housing complex just to keep it afloat—so naturally, you didn’t have anything to wear.
When you had asked Bucky for advice, he told you, “Whether you wear a short skimpy dress or a skirt that goes down to your ankles, I’ll be tearing it off later in bed.”
You had rolled your eyes at that before settling on a dress that was far too short and far too tight for your liking. But you couldn’t be bothered to care, considering the club would be dark and packed enough with bodies that no one would notice your outfit anyway.
You arrived later than you had anticipated, having been caught up with last minute paperwork and calls. By the time you got there, the club was already packed nearly shoulder to shoulder, with colorful neon strobe lights dancing across the crowd.
Your eyes naturally gravitated to the stage, where a familiar—if slightly fancier—DJ setup stood right in the center.
And of course, Bucky was right behind it.
He was manning the mixer, getting lost in his own music while the lights danced around him. One hand was resting on the mixer while the other rested on his headset. He kept his promise of playing your favorite tracks—and you couldn’t help but smile with the way he had everyone dancing in the center.
You felt out of place, standing awkwardly by the bar while everyone danced drunkenly around you. Unlike Bucky, this was not your element at all. But you took the night off, making a promise to yourself, and Bucky, that you would enjoy yourself.
Remembering Bucky’s instructions from earlier that day, “Just go up to the bar, tell them you’re with me, and get whatever you want,” you pushed your way through the crowd to get the bartender’s attention for a drink.
A guy with a slammed expression who looked like he’d been dealing with unruly tourists all night finally looked at you.
“Hey,” you shouted over the music.
“What’ll it be, miss?”
“A double Tsipouro—I’m with Bucky,” you hiked your thumb over your shoulder, pointing at the DJ who was currently mixing your favorite track.
The bartender paused, looking at Bucky on stage, then back at you with an irritated scoff.
“Yeah, like I’ve never heard that one before,” he grabbed a double shot glass, filled it to the brim, and slid it towards you. “That’ll be €8.”
You frowned. You contemplated on arguing back, but the local girls next to you giggled after they eavesdropped on the interaction, and by then, the bartender was already tending to the next person.
With a sigh that felt almost self-deprecating, you downed the shot without a chaser, and tried to enjoy the rest of the night listening to Bucky’s set without letting that interaction get to you.
After a couple of shots—that you all paid for—you went from being buzzed to intoxicated. You were dancing by yourself in the crowd, relishing every bass and beat that Bucky was throwing up on stage. When an unexpected hand came to rest on your lower back, you instantly spun around to tell the guy off.
“Hey, get your hands off—!” but you stopped when you saw Steve standing right in front of you with Sam right next to him.
“If it isn’t Bucky’s landlord,” Sam teased with a tone that brought good intentions, “I didn’t think we’d ever see you here.”
“Did Bucky drag you out tonight?” Steve asked.
With the alcohol bubbling in your bloodstream, you weren’t sure if you hid your flustered expression well.
You had no clue how much Bucky had told his friends about you—how you two were technically a ‘thing’ now, despite not officially talking about it.
“Yeah,” you shouted back. “He wanted me to come out tonight to watch his set. He’s really good.”
“He definitely is,” Steve agreed, then grabbed your hand. “Well, if you’re out here to party, better make the most of it.”
You laughed as Sam and Steve pulled you further into a clearer pocket of the crowd. With the two guys next to you—warding off the other drunk men who tried getting close to you—you actually started to let loose. You were laughing, your chest feeling lighter than it had in months.
During a transition, you looked up at the stage to see if Bucky had noticed you in the crowd yet.
But then your smile faltered, and you realized you were no longer dancing.
A small group of girls—dressed in tight outfits and looking beautiful—had managed to bypass the side security and were now crowding his DJ setup. They were drunk, based on the way they were stumbling and trying to grind on Bucky—who you thought was just trying to focus on his music. But he smiled.
You didn’t know if that was him trying to save face because he was right there, in front of a whole crowd, but from where you were standing, it seemed like he enjoyed every bit of the attention they were giving him.
You looked down, suddenly feeling incredibly self conscious in your dress.
“Don’t worry about that,” Sam reassured you as he continued dancing. “People get on stage all the time, no matter who’s playing. His set is ending soon, anyway.”
Based on Sam and Steve’s expressions, they weren’t soothing your insecurities, but rather assuming you were just expressing concern for a friend’s safety. They didn’t know you and Bucky had a thing going on at all.
You tried to push those thoughts away for the rest of the night, but how could you? Not when every single time you looked up to see Bucky—the person you came out tonight for—he was being smothered by and dancing with half dressed girls.
You tried to get lost in the music, but instead, you were getting lost in your own thoughts.
It was a horrible, familiar feeling.
It was the exact same feeling you had felt with John, who had sworn he only had eyes for you while routinely crossing boundaries, making you feel like you were crazy for caring, and eventually cheating on you. You had promised yourself you would never let a man make you feel that way again.
And yet, here you were.
You thought about the night you and Bucky had just shared. But what was it to him? Just a fun distraction with his landlord? The woman he always swore he hated? Were you just another checkbox on his list—one he sought after simply because you were ‘playing hard to get’ in his eyes?
Bucky was a playboy. His friends knew it. You knew it. And hell, even the only other tenant in the complex—who was deaf, mind you—knew it.
You were the one who had to watch him constantly bring different girls back to his place week after week. You were the one always barging in on them with noise complaints. He was charming, hot, and clearly popular in clubs, and he knew exactly what to say to get what he wanted.
“Just go up to the bar, tell them you’re with me, and get whatever you want.”
And on top of it all, you remembered what the bartender had said.
“Yeah, like I’ve never heard that one before.”
He had heard it before because Bucky had probably used that exact same line on a dozen other girls.
You weren’t special.
You were just the latest girl on his list, foolish enough to believe his sweet compliments after he ravished you in bed—the very same bed he had shared with countless other women.
Tears stung the backs of your eyes, blurring the flashing strobe lights into a messy smear of color. Your throat choked up, your chest tightening so hard it hurt to breathe.
“Hey,” Steve leaned down, noticing your expression. “You okay?”
You couldn’t even answer him. If you opened your mouth, a sob would escape.
You tried to give Bucky the benefit of the doubt—that this was just his job, that he had to put on a pretty smile and perform. But as you looked up and saw him with a drunk smile, leaning closer to a woman who had her hand on his chest and was shouting something in his ear, that was it for you.
“Sorry, I—I… um, I forgot to finish some paperwork that’s due tomorrow morning,” you lied, trying your best to sound steady. “Have fun tonight.”
Steve and Sam offered to take you home, but you couldn’t let them. You needed to be alone.
And that’s exactly what you did.
You took a cab back by yourself, drunkenly stumbling into the complex’s office with only one thing on your mind. It wasn’t because of stupid paperwork or bills. It was to tear up Bucky’s lease.
You shoved the key into the lock with a clumsy hand. Bursting inside the small office, you slammed the door shut behind you.
The office was dark, but sitting right there in the very center was Alpine. The white cat lifted her head from her food bowl, kibble crumbs decorating her white, fuzzy chin as she blinked tiredly at you.
The sight of her made the tears spill over your cheeks. You were intoxicated, heartbroken, and your emotions were at an all time high— looking at the cat you two took care of together only made the anger burn hotter in your already fragile heart.
“Don’t look at me like that,” you choked out, pointing a shaky finger at the cat. “You and your stupid dad. Your stupid, lying, playboy dad!”
Alpine blinked before letting out a mighty yawn for such a small body. Then, she turned her attention back to her food, completely indifferent to your emotional breakdown.
“Yeah, go ahead and eat!” you cried, wiping furiously at your wet face. “Enjoy it, because both of you are packing your bags! He thinks he can just… smile and say the right things, and I’ll just let my guard down and let him in?”
You marched past the cat and stormed over to the filing cabinets. You grabbed the handle of the bottom drawer and yanked it open so hard that it rattled.
“Where is it…” you muttered, your vision blurred by tears as you began rummaging through the folders. You tossed utility bills, maintenance requests, and old plumbing receipts over your shoulder. “Where is that stupid piece of paper?”
You were going to find his lease.
You were going to tear it into a million pieces, throw it in his face, and kick Bucky Barnes out of your complex.
The office door suddenly pushed open, and you jumped at the unexpected intruder who just barged in.
Bucky stood in the doorway, his chest heaving as the moonlight outlined his body from behind. Any other woman probably would’ve seen him as a god, but to you, he just looked like a man spawned from the very depths of hell.
He looked like he had run all the way from the club—but he couldn’t have, not with how fast he got here.
“Why did you come back here?” He panted.
“Get out of my sight,” you mumbled, so quietly that it was like a part of you didn’t want to mean it.
He ignored you, stepping closer as he caught his breath. “Steve told me you left before I could finish my set—said that you had paperwork to do, but that can’t be right. You told me you cleared your schedule just so you could go to the club tonight—”
“Yeah—well, plans change,” you muttered, finally pulling his folder out from the others. You sorted through it until you found his paperwork, gripping it firmly in your hands.
When Bucky stepped closer and realized what you were doing—your fingers positioned in a way that looked suspiciously like you were about to rip it—he stormed over and snatched the paper right out of your hands.
“What the hell are you doing with that?!”
You glared up at him, your head spinning so fast it hurt. “I’m tearing up your lease. I’m evicting you.”
Bucky blinked, his face a mixture of frustration and confusion.
“Are you trying to play with me right now?” He sighed, setting the paper safely on top of the filing cabinet before bending down to try and lift you up. “Come on. Let’s get you to bed. You’re drunk right now—”
You slapped his hands away, pushing yourself up to stand on your own. “What? Get me in bed so you can add me to the long roster of women you fuck?”
“What?” Bucky’s eyes went wide, looking nearly as hurt as you felt just from that accusation alone. “What are you talking about?”
“Don’t think I don’t know!” a sob ripped from your throat, and you hated how weak it made you sound. “You and your notorious record for being nothing but a player who plays stupid music. You know—it makes sense, actually!”
You hiccuped, slurring your words between tears.
“You being a DJ and playing in clubs and all. It’s such a classic tale, isn’t it? How easy it is for men like you to just… pick up women and bring them home in the middle of the night. And I’m always the one cleaning up your messes and kicking them out the next morning,” you laughed at yourself.
You probably looked insane in his eyes, but you didn’t care.
“Now, look at me. I’m the mess, and no one is there to clean me up. I was stupid to think I was different.”
What the hell were you saying?
None of it even made sense to you anymore. All you felt was an overwhelming wave of anger and hurt. Your head was pounding so bad that you just wanted to lie down and sob until there were no more tears left.
Despite every cruel word you hurled at him, Bucky didn’t get angry. How could he? When almost every word you said was nothing but the truth. All the talk about him being a player, blasting his stupid music loud enough to hurt your eardrums—he couldn’t deny any of it.
Except for one thing, and that was you thinking you weren’t different.
With a soft sigh, his shoulders slumped. He stepped closer, moving quietly so as to not startle you like a cat. When he was finally within reach, he wrapped his arms tightly around your body, pulling you close against his chest in a comforting hug.
“I’m sorry,” he muttered gently against your temple, his voice rough. “You saw all those girls huddled around me at the club, didn’t you? I’m so sorry I made you feel like this.”
You jammed your fists against his chest, weak and uncoordinated. But the alcohol had drained all your strength, leaving you hollowed out and drowning in your own tears.
Bucky took every pathetic blow you gave him, and instead of pulling away, he just tightened his arms around you. With a broken sob, you collapsed into his chest, burying your wet face in his shirt.
You hated this. You hated how every time you were upset, Bucky was always right there, comforting you in this very office. And you especially hated that, despite him being the cause of your current distress, you were still seeking his comfort.
One of his large hands came up to cradle the back of your head, his fingers caressing through your hair, while his other arm held you around your waist.
“I’ve got you, baby. Just breathe.”
You were a weeping, hiccuping mess, your shoulders shaking violently as months of built up insecurity and old, unhealed wounds from John came pouring out all at once. You stained his shirt with your tears and ruined makeup, but Bucky didn’t seem to care at all.
He just held you, swaying you slightly from side to side in the quiet, dark office.
“I know what you’re scared of,” Bucky started with a gentle murmur. “You’ve gotten your heart broken, and you’re scared of opening up and getting hurt again.”
He rested his chin on your head with a sigh, looking blankly at the wall with eyes full of regret.
“And I don’t blame you for feeling that way towards me. I’ve been an awful guy to you from the start, and even now, I failed to make you feel secure with me.” He pressed a kiss to your temple, hoping it would help.
“There was no woman that came before you, and I have no intentions of anyone coming after.”
You wanted to believe him, but everything that left his mouth was just noise. Even drunk and vulnerable, you could feel your heart closing on him to shut him out.
You slowly pulled back, your hands pressing against his chest—not out of anger, but out of a desperate need for distance.
Bucky let you go reluctantly, his hands sliding down to rest loosely on your hips, his blue eyes searching your face with a fragile and heartbreaking hope that made it even harder for you to look away.
“I can’t do this, Bucky,” you whispered. “I like you. I like you so much, and I want to love you... but I can’t. I don’t want to get hurt again. I just want things to go back to the way it was before. Me as your landlord, and you as my tenant. That’s it.”
Bucky knew he deserved every ounce of your doubt, but he hadn’t braced himself for the hurt that came with it.
Still, he forced a pained, tight lipped smile, his eyes telling you just how much he was hurting. His hands twitched on your hips, a painful urge passing through him to pull you back, to hold you against his chest and never let you go.
The words I love you rushed to the tip of his tongue, burning to be said. He wanted to shout it, to promise you the world, to prove to you that he was entirely yours.
But as he looked down at your tear-stained face—at the exhaustion and fear written in your eyes, all because of him—he stopped himself.
Even drunk, you still had the strength to look out for yourself. And because he cared about you more than his own need to fix things, he respected your wishes. He wouldn’t use your vulnerability to force a confession on you. He had always been a selfish man, but he couldn’t afford to be one now.
Bucky swallowed hard, a visible lump forming in his throat as he forced the words back down. His shoulders slumped as he finally accepted defeat.
Slowly, his hands dropped from your hips. He took a single step backward, giving you the space you asked for.
“I get it. I’ll leave you alone. But if you’re ever ready to open your heart to someone again—please, let me be that person.”
Bucky kept his word and left you alone.
Yet, there were countless times when he found himself pacing in his room, or lingering just outside your office, waiting to see if you would open your heart to him again. He held onto the smallest bit of hope that the words you had shouted in a drunken blaze were words you didn’t truly mean—that they had simply come from a place of deeply unhealed hurt.
He stayed close, waiting for a knock on his door, hoping you would tell him you were ready to talk. But that knock never came.
Just like him, you also kept your word and went right back to treating him as if he were nothing more than the annoying tenant from the very beginning.
He still helped you around the complex whenever he had the time—entirely on his own insistence. But every time he found himself in the same room as you, you would make up some excuse just to get away from him.
“I need to stop by the store and buy litter for Alpine.”
“Georgia forgot to pick up her mail. I’m going to hand it to her.”
You were like a stone of indifference—not happy, but not angry either. It was starting to get frustrating.
He knew he should have respected your space, but the more you strayed away from him—not only emotionally, but physically—the more restless he grew. Maybe it was the immature side of him creeping in, but he started to take your pleas as a challenge. You wanted things to go back to normal? Back to how things were before his heart fell for you?
Fine. He would make sure to do exactly that.
The next afternoon, the entire building—which had been quiet for the past few days—began to shake.
It was that same, robotic warping noise that always rattled the ceiling of your office. It started with the usual thump, thump, thump, before the bass dropped into the most annoying sound nonsense you had ever heard in your life.
It was Bucky’s music. Except this was nothing like the tracks he knew you actually liked, and it was louder than it had been in months.
For the past few weeks, he had been playing his music through headphones or keeping the volume respectful. But right now, he was blasting it with a vengeance, the aggressive electronic beats making the light fixtures tremble.
You tried to ignore it for ten minutes. You tried to focus on your paperwork, but the relentless oonts oonts oonts was making your teeth rattle and your head pound. You knew exactly what he was playing at. He was trying to get your attention—but you wouldn’t give in. You refused to.
But then, a family of tourists walked past the front of your office. The daughter pointed up at the building, and the mother scrunched her nose, shaking her head in disapproval at the noise.
Shoving your chair back, you marched out of the office and stormed up the stairs.
You banged on Bucky’s door roughly. “Bucky! Turn that music down right now!”
You were furious, but for Bucky, this was the greatest moment of his week. He grinned, pretending not to hear you, and bumped the volume up just a tad louder.
You knocked again, but he ignored it. When you started cursing under your breath—which Bucky thought was the cutest thing he’d heard in what felt like forever, aside from Alpine’s meows—you finally fished out your master keys to unlock his door yourself.
“Do you mind?” you snapped, stepping into his apartment. “I have potential tenants walking past, and your absolute garbage music is running them off!”
Bucky was leaning back in his chair, lazily reaching over to slide a fader down.
“Garbage?” Bucky echoed, the cocky grin on his face not shrinking one bit. “You didn’t call it that when you were sitting on my lap and playing with my mixer, sweetheart.”
Your eyes widened—whether with anger or embarrassment, he couldn’t tell. Either way, he had gotten a reaction out of you, and to him, that was like a man finally finding water in the desert.
“Just turn it down!” you demanded, already turning away and slamming the door shut behind you.
Throughout the rest of the week, Bucky realized he couldn’t hold your attention for more than five minutes with just his music blasting alone.
He was working on a mix—one that wasn’t meant for his club sets, but one that would definitely catch your attention. What was distracting him more, though, was the sound of your giggles echoing all the way from your office.
A tourist had been sitting in there with you. Initially, Bucky thought it was just a potential renter. But as the minutes dragged into over an hour, he realized that the man in question had absolutely no intention of signing a lease. He was trying to get with you.
With the floorboards being so thin, Bucky could hear everything. The guy was a blatant flirt, and you were laughing and giggling cutely at every single word he said, convinced you were just sealing the deal on an apartment.
Bucky, moved by petty retaliation, queued up special track he was working on.
The beat was slower than usual—the exact kind that would have people drunkenly grinding against each other at a club. He dialed a knob, weaving the explicit, unmistakable sound of a woman’s breathless moans right into the track, letting it echo loudly through the thin flooring.
Downstairs, your laugh died in your throat.
Your eyes widened slightly, your jaw hanging loose before a rush of heat flooded your cheeks. The tourist blinked, his charming smile faltering as the loud, provocative audio filled the small office space.
“What an interesting song,” he forced an awkward chuckle. “Didn’t know you had a DJ living in here.”
You sat stiffly in your chair, a storm of emotions thundering in your chest. Embarrassment came first, but right behind it was a wave of shock and a sickening twist of jealousy that nearly choked you.
He brought a girl over? While I'm down here working?
He actually had the audacity to do that after everything he said to you? After he said he’d be your person once you opened your heart again?
“So, anyway,” the tourist continued, oblivious. “Since you’re a local—do you think you could show me some cool spots around here? Maybe we could start with dinner?”
You didn’t even realize how jealous you actually were until that exact moment.
Knowing that another woman might be in his apartment, touching him, making those sounds, made your blood boil and your fists curl tightly under the desk. You thought you were protecting your heart by keeping him at a distance, but hearing this only proved your heart was still hopelessly tied to him.
And right now, those ties were threatening to snap and hit him right in the face.
“Excuse me,” you choked out to the man seated in front of you, abruptly stepping away from your desk.
Every step up the stairs was a stomp accentuated by your anger, the explicit moaning getting louder and more humiliating with every flight you climbed. By the time you reached his door, you were already drowning in an emotional cocktail of rage and heartbreak.
You threw the door open, ready to scream at him and whatever woman he had hidden away in his room.
“What the fuck is your problem, Bucky!”
The door banged hard against the wall as you stormed into the apartment, your chest heaving, your vision tunneling with pure rage. You were so flustered, so blindingly angry, that the words just started spilling out of you before you could even think to filter them. You were desperate to cover up the humiliating jealousy tearing through you, but it only made you sound more unhinged.
“I am trying to run a business downstairs! I just had a guy down there, a potential tenant, and then... then you had to go and bring some woman over and—and do this while—”
You paused, letting your eyes sweep across the room, only to find an empty bed.
“Where is she?” you hissed.
Bucky leaned back in his chair, leg crossing the other as he folded his arms over his chest, looking far too smug for his own good.
“Where’s who?”
Your brow twitched with annoyance. You huffed a stray hair out of your face, waving a hand around the room. “The girl.”
Bucky tilted his head, playing dumb. “What girl?”
“The girl!” you screeched out. “The girl you have over right now—that’s… that’s making all these vulgar and indecent moaning noises because you don’t know how to keep your dick, much less your promises, in your pants for more than a week!”
Bucky’s lips quirked up into a smile.
“I have been keeping both of those in my pants, thank you very much.” He turned back to his screen, his hands hovering over his mixer. “And you mean your vulgar and repulsive moaning noises?”
You crossed your arms tightly over your chest, defensive. “What?”
“Listen to it closely,” he said, slowly amping the volume up. Your soft and breathy moans of pleasure filled the room.
“That’s you.”
Your face twisted. With the heavy distortion overlaid by the beat, you couldn’t tell if he was just pulling your tail or being serious. You didn’t even remember recording anything like that when you played with his mixer.
“Stop playing in my face, Bucky.”
Bucky, still impassive as ever, simply shrugged. “You don’t recognize your own voice?”
Then, a breathy little whine came in that sounded much too familiar. “Bucky, Bucky, oh—”
Your eyes shot open so wide that your pupils stung. That was you, no doubt about it, just remixed in a way that an outsider couldn’t tell.
“That’s you moaning my name, sweetheart,” Bucky said, turning to you again with a smile.
He watched as your once angry posture began to deflate into a look of pure embarrassment. You started to stammer, your eyes darting everywhere in the room that wasn’t him. “I… I—I don’t even remember recording that.”
Bucky pushed himself off the chair with a light groan, sauntering over to you with confidence now that he knew he had the upper hand.
“You pressed the record button yourself when you were playing with my table a few weeks ago,” he explained casually.
Standing in front of you, he lifted his hand to gently caress your cheek. When his palm made contact with your soft skin without you pushing him away, his smile grew wider, and the prideful flames in his heart glowed hotter.
“What’s with that face?” he taunted, his voice low and gravelly in a way that did nothing but make your heart race faster. “After everything I said to you, did you really think I would bring a girl up here? Hm?”
Bucky tilted his head, trying to meet your eyes, which were currently glued to the ground—refusing to give him any attention.
“Don’t tell me—are you jealous?”
He knew the answer, and you did too—you just didn’t want to admit it. Despite you telling him, “No more relationship!” there was a part of you that didn’t want anyone else to have him, as selfish as it might be.
“No,” you lied.
“Okay,” he hummed in amusement. “But I am.”
You scoffed. “What are you on about?”
His eyes trailed the curves of your face—the very curves he had fallen in love with and peppered with kisses just a few weeks ago.
“I’m jealous over the fact that you have a guy downstairs making you laugh, when I haven’t seen a smile from you in days,” he murmured, letting his thumb brush over your lower lip. The sensation made you shudder.
You hated how much you were leaning into his touch. And you hated even more how much you liked the idea of him being jealous over you, just as you had been over the simple thought of him having another woman over.
“I’ve tried so hard to be patient,” he continued. “To wait and see if you’ll open your heart to me again. To see if you’ll finally let your walls down and believe the words I said. But I can’t be patient when there’s a guy down there capturing your attention so easily, when the only way I can get yours is by playing loud music.”
“And you playing a track with my moans in it makes you think you’ll win me over?” You furrowed your brows at him. “If anything, it only pisses me off. You’re distracting me and my customers, and I need you to stop.”
You tried to make yourself sound more furious than you actually felt, but it didn’t translate very well. Bucky simply licked his lower lip before catching it in a subtle bite, making your body tingle all over again.
“I’ll stop,” he promised. “If you give me just one more chance to prove to you how much I care about you and how serious I am.”
You wanted to hold onto your anger, to keep that shield locked up with the key swallowed. But as you stared at him, hearing every sweet word that came out of his mouth, you realized how terribly you missed him.
God, you missed him.
You missed the moments when he would hold you in his arms after every problem, big or small. You missed the stupid afternoons down in the office, when you were supposed to be doing paperwork but ended up doing baseless chores with him instead—with Alpine inevitably scrambling up onto the desk and squeezing right between you two, demanding her own share of the attention. You missed hearing his music up close, sitting right on his lap while he guided your hand with his on the turntable.
You tried your best to keep your face stoic, to force down the screaming of longing in your chest so you wouldn’t cave. But Bucky saw right through you. He watched your shoulders ease up slightly, the way you chewed at your lower lip, and the way you were slowly unlocking that key in your heart.
Letting out a reluctant sigh that sounded like music to his ears, you mumbled, “Fine.”
Bucky’s smile widened.
“But you better not play this track anywhere. Not even to Steve or Sam,” you continued before he could speak, swatting weakly at his chest. “I’ll shoot you dead, Barnes—I mean it. That track is for your ears only.”
Rather than backing off, Bucky reached down and wrapped his arms firmly around your lower waist, pulling you close against him until your hips hit his, making you fluster at the proximity.
“Deal,” he whispered, leaning down even closer. “I’ll delete it if it makes you feel better, but only if I get to make you moan again like that for real—live and in person.”
Your breath hitched as his lips slid down to the line of your jaw, his stubble scraping pleasantly against your skin. Even though you two had been together like this before, the sudden closeness after days of agonizing distance made everything feel brand new, yet exactly right.
It was a feeling that, despite everything, you missed all too much.
“Don’t get your hopes up,” you breathed out as a final and weak attempt at keeping your guard up.
Bucky’s lips hummed deliciously against your neck, his mind already filled with things more than just hope.
“I’ll try.”
if you've made it this far, i hope you enjoyed, and thank you so much for reading! while you're here, might i suggest taking the opportunity to check out the bwat summer masterlist that this fic is part of here!
I do not have a tag list. to get notified for fic updates, please follow @notify-superbassbuck and turn on notifications.
series synopsis. a wolf and a dragon. a queen and a prince. lady stark and aemond targaryen. a marriage should keep them apart. lust draws them together. when one agrees to tutor the other in the many ways of pleasure, a countdown towards their mutual downfall begins. ( each chapter features individual synopses. )
series warnings. canon divergence (the greens win the war), brother-in-law!aemond, stark!reader (though there is no mention of her skin tone, hair colour, etc…) no use of y/n, slow burn, mutual pining, forbidden love, infidelity, sexually inexperienced reader, emotionally stunted aemond, themes of infertility/pregnancy, aegon is a shit husband, angst, fluff, & lots of smut. ( each chapter features individual warnings. )
series wordcount. 65.6k (so far )
a word from hyde. this series features my own reimagining of events pre, during, and post the dance of the dragons, along with my own interpretations of the characters. if you yourself do not like the featured canon divergence or find my portrayal of aemond (or any other canon character) to be ooc, please kindly skip over this series. this series does not have a taglist.
but kiss me & i might...
⤷ jack abbot x nurse!reader ⌇ 23.1k
✶ ― SYNOPSIS. the 5 times jack abbot walks you home + the 1st time you invite him in.
warnings.ᐟ mdni! no use of y/n, night-shift nurse!reader, colleagues to lovers, slow burn, smut (jack pussy pleaser abbot and his big dick, soft dom jack, fingering, piv, unprotected sex, praise, creampie, cum play, cum eating, smothering?, sex against a wall + cowgirl, hair pulling [jack receiving], slight dubcon as they are both tipsy), age gap (reader is early 30s), fluff, pining, longing, workplace romance, mentions of mental health struggles + therapy as consequence of the pittfest tragedy, violence + workplace assault, jack calls the reader kid but it's only as a coping mechanism!!! (he's down bad), one too many references to drop dead by olivia rodrigo, no mentions of jack's late wife or his wedding ring, 1 reference to a scene from the movie fresh. i tried my best to represent jack's life as an amputee as respectfully as possible, deepest apologies if i failed to do so.
ᯓ★ hyde's input. wrote most of this in the hospital, boots on the ground journalism.
𓂃✍︎ dt. huge big fat sloppy wet kiss for miss @pinksplace for popping my beta-reader cherry and reassuring me that this was not straight up buns, no hotdog. your friendship means the absolute world to me, the fact you match my freak is just a bonus. and to my cousin @iamthatonefangirl for telling me to watch the pitt back in february, you helped awaken something in me that had been dormant for months. & to me for continuing my tradition of posting a fic on my birthday, finishing this was my present to myself.
follow @houseofjekyll + turn on notifications to know when i post a new fic!
The first time feels like a fluke.
A rare silver lining of good stroked through the grey devastation that was today; after hours of wading through blood and gore, you at last strike gold.
“You heading off too, kid?” Despite the questioning tone in Jack’s voice, you know it’s an order.
He’s staring down at the park bench, eyes hovering over you and how tightly you’re still clutching that fourth can of beer, zoned out and completely oblivious to how everyone else has already packed up for the night and headed home. Not to sleep, no. It’s doubtful any of you will get much sleep, not after the events of today.
Robby had slipped away first, not without sharing a few final words of wisdom aimed at soothing everybody’s aching soul. Javadi followed soon after, abandoning a half-drunken beer as she went racing off to answer her mother’s beck and call. Mateo, Princess and Samira called it quits together, each heading off in different directions. Even Donnie left eventually, the now empty cooler in tow, his wife waiting patiently for him to crawl back to their newlyweds home and into her arms.
Then there were two.
Abbot and you.
Neither of you dared to interrupt the silence that had rolled in, minds too busy swimming in pools of thought, struggling against violent currents and attempting to escape the deep end.
Moonlight crept through the crevices between the branches above, cicadas came together to sing in disjointed harmony, and the world around you both kept moving, completely oblivious to how your own life had come to a halt. Somewhere between waking up to the screech of your pager and rushing through the doors of the PTMC to find it in a state of chaos, different and bloodier than you’d known it to usually be, you had shutdown.
Jack knew better than to force you out of that state.
He saw himself in your blank stares and the bouncing knees, remembered how it felt to be young, bright-eyed, and finally forced to reckon with how brutal this field could be. He didn’t need to ask to know: this had been your first mass casualty event.
Maybe that’s why he sat with you, the passing of time irrelevant, and let you fester in your shock. Let whatever cracks were forming in your heart deepen, because he knew it was the only way they’d be able to solidify. Let you exist on the periphery of life for however long you needed, his own senses fully intact and ready to watch over your body while your mind drifted elsewhere.
Only when he noticed you stifling a yawn did he act.
Jack, conscious of not startling you, moved slowly. Calmly.
He started with his prosthetic, lifting it off the bench and placing it back down onto the ground before safely attaching it. Then his bag, hands rummaging unnecessarily as though to check everything was in place — he’d already checked before leaving the locker room, but he figured another revision and a few more minutes for you to sit with your thoughts couldn’t hurt. Slinging one strap over his right shoulder, he pushed his frame off the wooden bench and came to a stand, the sickly-sweet gravel of his voice perforating the silence at last.
“Hmm?” Your reply is practically nonverbal, a simple hum. Enough to acknowledge the fact he’s spoken, yet not enough to answer his question.
Hazel eyes zero in on your own, observing how they’re tired, blinking just a little bit too lazily. The beer has warmed your cheeks, sped up your heart, and slowed your mind. Dancing on a tightrope between tipsy and inebriated, the last thing Jack is about to do is send you off home alone.
“C’mon,” he gruffs out, prying the can from your hand and laying it to rest on the bench. He replaces the weight of it in your palm with his touch, thick fingers effortlessly engulfing your own. To his delight, you give way easily, rising to a stand as he tugs you up. “Let’s get you home.”
You attempt some version of, “I’m fine.”
Jack pays it no mind.
Instead, he grabs at your familiar pink duffel bag. Something settles in his chest, dark and sickening, at the sight of dirt staining the bottom of the fabric, ruining your usually polished belongings. How apt it seems, a perfect mirror to how today has the left a smudge on you.
You stare at him all of a few seconds, eyes red. There’s no tears in sight, just the remnants of those that have already fallen. Then, when the older man shifts his weight off his right leg, you finally begin walking.
The journey is slow.
Jack’s unsure if you set the pace to accommodate to him or to put off the inevitable of going up to a lonely apartment, where all that work you’ve done to suppress the storm of emotions building inside you will prove useless the moment you step into the quiet of your home, the furthest place from danger and, yet, where all your troubling thoughts will at last catch up to you.
He thinks he’s better off not knowing, chooses to believe you’re doing it for his sake.
Some of your steps are swayed. The sight of your unsteady feet and teetering body are enough to keep his mind alert, fighting off the exhaustion that threatens to find him soon. This was supposed to be his day off, after all. He was supposed to be catching up on sleep right now, not watching over one of his nurses and worrying himself sick with thoughts of how today’s horrors will linger with you for years to come.
It was supposed to be your day off too, after all.
Neither of you should have been at the Pitt.
One man and a weapon had changed that.
You come to a stop abruptly, catching the doctor off guard and sending his solid frame crashing into your back. Before either of you can stumble too far, Jack’s snaking his free arm around your waist and stabilising you against him.
Maybe it’s the warmth of his palm, large and imposing and seeping through the cotton of your top. Maybe it’s the gentleness behind his touch, the way it anchors your feet to the pavement and silently promises that it- he won’t let you fall. Maybe it’s the weight of today finally shaking your unbreakable self, your arms too weak to keep holding you above water for much longer.
The reason doesn’t ultimately matter.
What matters is you’re finally speaking.
“Did you litter?”
Not exactly what Jack expected you to say.
It startles him for a moment, has him forgetting how today was full of horrors and has him wondering, instead, if you recycle.
It shouldn’t be so easy to picture you, bed head and a wrinkled shirt (preferably one that originally belongs to him), huffing and puffing your cheeks while you shoot around his kitchen, bags scattered along the island as you berate him.
Jack, how many times have I told you. Yellow is for plastic and cans, blue is for paper, green is for glass!
And wouldn’t it be so hard for him to fight back a smile, heart bursting with joy? A lovesick fool, happy to be lectured on the complex recycling system if it means having you, half naked, half awake, frowning at him as soon as you notice the shake in his shoulders.
Sorry, sweetheart. Promise it won’t happen again… And his hands finding your waist, pinning you to the marble counter-top so there’s nowhere for you to run from his mouth, trailing molten kisses up the expanse of your neck, lips lingering just to feel the steady thrum of your carotid pulse, physical evidence that you’re real, and here, and in his arms-
The blaring of a horn pulls Jack Abbot back onto the sidewalk.
You’re still in his arms but his lips are far from your neck and the speed of your heart is testament only to the anxiety speeding through your veins.
“Yeah. Maybe. I- I’m not really sure,” try as he might, he can’t remember if he ever moved your can from the bench. Is it still there now, half empty and waiting for its owner to return? “I’m sure someone’ll throw it away.”
Like you can’t dwell on the thought for too long, you move on, and finally say what’s really been troubling you.
“I don’t know if I-” the words catch on your throat, dry from the beer and raw with emotion. “How do I go back?”
Vague, unspecified.
Jack, with years of becoming fluent in you, understands.
“You find a way.” He wishes he could give you something more helpful, more reassuring. All he can offer you is the truth. “It’ll be hard. Different to how it was before.”
“I don’t think I can-” once more, emotions cut you off.
You’re not crying, not yet.
Stubborn as he knows you to be, steadfast in your need to remain strong until the very end. It wounds him in a way that feels a little too deep for a man who should see you as nothing more than a coworker.
Attending physician. Nurse. Colleagues.
Those are the only three words that either of you should use to describe the other. Jack knows, has known so for years. So, why does he keep having to remind himself?
“I don’t think I belong there, Doctor Abbot. You saw it, I froze. I hesitated. You had to ask me twice for the scalpel, and then- We lost him. If I had just- I should have-”
The hand at your midriff finds your shoulder, turns you around, and then his eyes find yours.
“Stop that, now. That man, he was good as gone when he reached us,” it’s a brutal truth but one that needs to be said. Jack knew it then just as much as he knows it now; that red wristband was destined for peeds. “You could have handed me that scalpel at the speed of light, and it wouldn’t have changed a damn thing, okay?”
You take a steadying breath.
It doesn’t work.
Instead, Jack watches it shake right through your frame. Your eyes drift from his own, like if he stares too long, he might catch a glimpse of every self-blaming thought racing through your mind.
“D’you even realise how many lives you helped save today?” The question comes tumbling out before Jack can stop it, some enate part of himself screaming at him to reassure you, to scramble up all the fractured pieces of you and slot them back together. That’s an attending’s job, right? To keep watch over the crew, to take care of the crew. So what if you’re off-the-clock? “One-hundred and six.”
“I only worked on-”
“Doesn’t matter who you personally worked on. Every one, you hear me?” He gives a squeeze of your shoulder, tells himself it’s because he wants to get you to look at him. If the touch happens to ground him too, it’s a coincidence. “Every life we saved tonight, you had a hand in that. You being there mattered, we couldn’t have done it without you.”
The words settle over you like a blanket, wrapping you in warmth and promising you shelter.
They don’t erase the sadness, don’t make it dissolve into a puddle on the ground, left to be forgotten on the dirty surface of the sidewalk. But they do enough to ease the tension between Jack’s brows and to wipe a layer of uncertainty from your eyes.
Then, unable to help himself, Jack adds, “I know I certainly couldn’t. Can barely intubate without my favourite nurse at my side.”
You laugh, slightly.
It eases something in Jack’s chest, nonetheless.
“Doctor Robby says it’s not right for attendings to play favourites.”
Now Jack is the one laughing.
You take the chance to pry your bag from his grasp, throwing the strap over your shoulder. The first act of Goodnight.
“Yeah, well, come to me again when Robby starts taking his own advice.”
There is no grand goodbye between you.
Just an exchange of fractured smiles, a subtle nod of approval from Jack as you take the first step towards the building’s entrance, and the wave of your hand before you turn fully and dash to safety.
Before you can slip through the crack you make in the building’s heavy door, Jack calls out, “I’ll see you tomorrow, kid.”
Once again, not a question. An order.
The second time is all about convenience.
It’s the last night of your monthly seven-days-on, the kind of shift where the hours stretch themselves impossibly thin and it feels like you’re crawling towards the end, a goalpost that keeps moving an inch out of reach each time you start to feel relief. By the time you officially clock out, shooting off towards the locker rooms before Whitaker can ask you to accompany another patient for a CT or Princess can enquire on any night shift gossip, you’ve worked an extra two hours and the bags beneath your eyes feel so heavy, they may as well be dragging by your feet.
Out of your scrubs, back into clothes that only partially carry the sterile stench of bleach and blood, you busy yourself with cramming things into your bag while trying your best to let Mateo’s generosity down softly.
“It’s fine, really,” even you have to admit that you don’t sound as sure as you mean to be. For a moment, you mull it over, imagine the comfort of letting yourself sit back and relax in the passenger seat of Mateo’s car. The sooner you’re home, the sooner your week off can start, right? Still, something within forces you to decline. He lives on the opposite side of the city and, with gas prices rising and his body’s tank running on empty hours before his next shift, the last thing you want to be is a nuisance. “I don’t mind the walk, gives me the chance to decompress.”
Your fellow nurse looks at you with a level of distrust, doubting the reassuring smile you cast his way.
“Are you sure?” Mateo pushes, dragging his tired body along the lockers until he stands behind yours. His curls, freed at last from the constraints of a hair-tie, peek out from the door. “I really don’t mind taking you. I mean, no offence, but you look like you belong on the set of Night of The Living Dead right now. Don’t wanna send you off just to later find out you tripped over air and wound up back here as a patient.”
Slamming your locker shut and giving his shoulder a shove — with no force behind it and doing little to move the man — you roll your eyes, “I’m fine, dingus.”
“Dingus? What are we, five?”
“I don’t know, you tell me. You’re the one treating me like a toddler.”
“Like a toddler-?! I’m trying to be a good Samaritan. A gentleman!” You dodge Mateo’s hand as it reaches for your duffel bag. “Now quit being stubborn and let me make sure you get home safe-”
Everything happens so suddenly, your brain is forced to compartmentalise every action, step by step, as they unravel.
Mateo reaches for the bag, again.
You dodge it, again.
You glide to the left.
You run shoulder-first into a solid wall of warmth.
And there he is. Jack Abbot, freshly changed out of his scrubs. Hair wet from a shower, an overly woodsy scent clinging to damp skin, black t-shirt stretched a little too tightly over his chest. Despite his attempts to scrub the night away, he’s thrown on the same pair of cargo pants he spent the last fourteen hours rushing around in.
You almost want to chastise his stupidity, until you remember you can’t.
Not only is he your colleague, he’s your senior.
What business do you have telling a man like him to do anything?
“I’ll take her home.”
Never a question, always an order.
Unlike weeks ago, world turned upside down and veins full of sickly beer, you have half the mind to turn him down this time. To inch away from where your body collides with his. To reinforce your grip on the pink strap of your bag. To shake your head and offer a polite, though bashful, smile.
“Doctor Abbot, it’s fine, really! You don’t have to offer me a ride, I really do prefer walking-”
“I’m not offering you a ride,” Jack shuts you up with a pointed look, eyebrows jumping as though he’s daring you to shoot him down again. “Car’s in the garage, something’s up with the exhaust. I’m walking your way anyway, may as well let me keep you company.”
The truth is, you’re not sure why you are so hesitant to accept his offer.
Jack is a good guy, and he’s certainly not a stranger.
You’ve known him since you first stepped foot in the emergency room. Younger and brighter, the both of you. Back then, he was still new. Back then, you were still a student. Time passed, as it tends to do; Jack became a trusted figure of authority, you graduated right into the night shift. Brief exchanges of good morning, good night, and how are you? during the shift handovers blossomed into good job, good call, and I need you with me.
Lena likes to tease you, throwing looks over the top of her glasses every time he saunters up to the nurses’ station, raps his knuckles upon the desk and tilts his head towards whatever room he needs you in.
He likes me because I talk to the patients, is typically your explanation while Lena looks at you otherwise. Keeps them busy while he works.
He likes you because you’re a pretty young thing, Lena never fails to retort between answering the every whim of the staff, like the charge nurse she is. Gives those hazel eyes something to ogle.
“C’mon, are you really gonna run away from a disabled vet?” Jack pushes, shooting you that infamous silver-fox smirk. Damn him and those arms, muscles pulled taut as he crosses his hands over his chest, impatiently waiting for you to give in. “What if I stumble and there’s no one there to catch me? That’ll be on you, kid. Think you can handle it on your conscience?”
“Yeah, imagine you come back next week and find out gramps here split his head open on the curb,” Mateo chimes in from the sidelines, only for the amused expression to melt the moment you pin a glare on him. “What? The man made a good point!”
“Yeah, kid,” you barely have the chance to register how swiftly Jack tugs the duffel out of your grip, staking claim over your belongings and securing himself as a guardian to guide you home. “I made a good point. Now, are you gonna keep me waiting? ‘Cause I’d really like to see the tail end of this place at some point today.”
So you let him walk you home.
Steps less swayed, back more stiff, you try your best not to think about the last time you both walked this path. You, drowning in sorrows; him, swimming effortlessly with his head above the water.
The sun is rising slowly, rays of golden warmth kissing over the city. It’s not enough to fight away the bitter chill of winter, sending your hands diving into the pockets of a flimsy coat, reaching for a warmth they never quite find. Beside you, Jack is unshaken, barely bothered by the way his breath reflects back at him with each exhale.
“You did good today,” Jack says today in place of last night, the true mark of what the night shift does to a person’s perception of the world. Daybreak becomes dusk, while dusk becomes sunrise. Where others prepare to start their daily ritual of adhering to capitalism, you’re crawling into bed and giving in to the sweet relief of sleep. “Calmed that kid right down.”
You know immediately who he’s referring to.
James. A sweet baby boy, barely a day past 6 months, running a fever of a hundred and three, and sporting a nasty ear infection.
Understandably, he had been screaming up a storm.
Unfortunately, a certain patient nursing a headache was screaming even louder, profanities that pleaded for someone to Shut that fucking baby up!
Jack had offered to shut the patient up.
You had a more peaceful idea.
“Oh, uh, thanks,” god, you feel pathetic.
Praise is far from something foreign to you. Patients, colleagues, and friends alike are always firing off at you, sweet words that affirm the simple gestures and quiet good you bring into their lives. Whether it’s through fluffing a pillow, aiding in procedures, or gifting out your time freely; praise always worms its way into your ears.
But this is different.
Jack is different.
Every good job, every well done, every thanks, kid; it shoots right through you. Lightning that electrifies you, takes you from a state of near asystole to tachicardic in as little as the few seconds it takes his lips to shape the words. Your cheeks warm, your palms sweat. Words run from you, leaving you to grab at the few you can manage and stumble over half-formed sentences.
Worst of all, you think he knows.
He has to, right?
A man like him has lived through enough — lived long enough — to recognise the tell tale signs of the effect he has on people. Hardly anyone is immune or safe from his charms, from college kids that wind up in a gurney after having a little too much fun with a fake ID, to elderly women rushed in by their panicking children, afraid a bad cough or a sore back could be the sign of something far more sinister in the aging body.
“How did you know it would work?” It takes you an embarrassing amount of time to realise Jack is talking again, head turned to watch as you walk alongside him rather than focusing ahead. “Flipping him over?”
Right.
James.
The crying baby.
Your peaceful idea.
That’s what you’re both talking about.
“Old wives tale,” you finally answer, mind drifting back to the memory of your quick thinking. The screaming baby, the screaming patient. Your hands, gentle as they picked James up. The questioning look from everyone in the room as you flipped the infant over, face down and hovering a few inches off the basinet. And then, silence. No more screaming baby. “My mum used to do it to me, flip me over when she couldn’t get me to stop. It just, y’know, shocks the system. It’s like flipping a switch, turning the baby off.”
“Huh,” somewhere above, a bird chirps, singing a song of good morning. “I’ll have to remember that.”
And then, before you can think any better or question the possible implications, you open your big mouth, “Why? Thinking of stepping into fatherhood?”
Jack gives you the worst possible answer he could have come up with: “No such thing as too late, right?”
“Yeah, maybe. If you’re a man,” you huff. “I, on the other hand, am running out of time on my biological clock as we speak.”
“Then you should get to work on changing that. If you ever need any help with it, I’m always here.”
He says it so casually, like each syllable doesn’t inch you closer to an imaginary ledge.
But his words aren’t what move you to silence.
It’s the imagery they conjure.
Positive tests and hospital visits.
The cold touch of gel on your belly, the warmth of a hand clasping your own.
Sweat rolling off your skin, limbs tangling with yours upon a mattress.
You have to physically shake yourself out of the… Fantasy? Nightmare? Mortifying hell-scape where you’re envisioning what it would be like to let a very handsome attending bend you over and get you pregnant?
“Oh my god,” you half whisper, half yell. “Doctor Abbot, did you just seriously offer-”
“Oh, you’re a pervert!” he has the audacity to exclaim as he swings your bag and bumps it against your thigh, the mischief in his eye the only thing that gives him away. This is Jack, after all, a notorious and shameless flirt. His words didn’t mean anything beyond making you flustered. “I was just offering up my kind and professional aid, as a healthcare provider and an avid champion behind women’s health.”
Head shaking and shoulders bouncing; you’re caught under the influence of Abbot’s charm. Completely unaware of the false sense of safety he’s lured you into, taking you by the hand and dragging you out to sea, waiting until your feet no longer reach the bottom, and then he let’s go, leaving the currents to pull you under…
In simpler words, he asks you the very thing you’ve been avoiding: “How's therapy going?”
“Good. Great. Yeah, I definitely feel a lot… Better. Thanks,” the words taste bitter on your tongue, bursting out of you with an urgency.
Maybe, you figure, if you say it fast enough, there will be no space to doubt it, no time to notice the lie.
“That’s amazing,” he nods curtly, only for that easy-going lilt on his lips to twist into something a little more sinister, a little more interrogative. “Cause when I spoke to Caleb, he said you haven’t been showing up. You wanna pretend you found someone else, or are you gonna tell me why you’re not using the help that’s there?”
You knew this conversation was bound to happen, from the moment Jack referred you to the PTMC’s trauma specialist, high-strung and hell-bent on fast-tracking your progress to mental wellness.
Jack hadn't known about the nightmares.
Or the sickening doubt.
Or the fact you remember every face you treated that day.
Even then, he knew you enough to notice the shift in your demeanour in the days following the Pittfest tragedy. He knew you enough to pull you aside and introduce you to Doctor Jefferson.
Deep inhale, slow exhale. Eyes focused on the pavement ahead, you finally answer, “I just… I don't like it.”
Jack scoffs.
“Nobody likes therapy.”
“It makes me feel… weak. Like I'm not cut out for this.”
You make it to your apartment building sooner than you expect, despite knowing the exact time it takes to trek from your door to the entry of the PTMC.
Any smarter woman would use it as an escape plan, as an excuse to duck out of a conversation that has you shifting weight from one foot onto the other and searching for anything to look at other than the whirlpools of brown that the doctor has pinned on you.
It turns out, you’re not as smart as you think you are, because your feet remain planted on the ground and there’s a feeling hollowing out your chest at the thought of parting from his side.
You will yourself to strip your bag from his grasp.
“Look, kid, I can’t force you to go. I don’t want to force you.” It would be easier to focus on what Jack is saying, if he didn’t have to sound so distracting. Soft-spoken, deep voice, on the verge of begging at an altar if it will get you to listen. “But I know what this job does to people, how it rots away at us if we don’t cure our wounds. I’ve lived it. I’ve seen it. I don’t want that for you. So just… Try, would you? If not for you, then for the poor old attending who really needs the help of his favourite nurse and her magic hands that manage to soothe even the weepiest of babies?”
Echoes of Mateo’s voice ring in your ear, his overly enthusiastic exclamation of The man made a good point! on loop.
There’s every chance you’ve been damned by some higher power, afflicted to live this life with a particular weakness to the man before you. It’s the only thing that makes sense, truthfully, when you find yourself conceding without a fight.
“Okay.”
How unfair it is, for eyes like that to light up so easily, “Okay?”
“Yeah, I’ll… I’ll give it a try.” This time, there’s no bitter aftertaste to your agreement. Just the cold hard truth on your tongue: you’ll take a step down the path towards help, the path Jack put you on. “Can’t make it any worse, I guess.”
“That’s my girl.”
His words hit you like a sucker punch, straight to the gut and leaving you winded.
You stumble, both on your words and on the stairs, as you bid him goodbye and dash into your apartment building.
Safely tucked away at last, a whole week ahead without the threat of mortifying yourself in front of Jack Abbot.
The fourth time is a matter of protocol.
Jack once heard Dana ask Robby, “is it really a shift in the ED if you don’t end it wanting to quit?”
Today more than ever, he feels an itch to see resignation papers.
Not his own.
Yours.
Wrapped up in the active war zone of a multi-vehicle collision, Jack’s hands, eyes and mind were too focused on the woman actively bleeding out on the table to notice you slipping out of the OR, called upon by the charge nurse.
She needed you to check on a patient.
A favour, quick and simple. That’s all it was supposed to be.
There was never supposed to be a grapple for power. Or the clatter of metal meeting the ground. Or the crack of a skull following suit. Or the sickening sound of someone calling code Hula Hoop, when Jack’s hands are too occupied to run towards the source of violence.
It takes him twenty-eight gruelling minutes to make it free from the trauma rooms.
Jack strips himself of the PPE with haste, gloves and gown practically disintegrating under the force of his need to get out of the room and find out what happened, who it happened to.
He knows the answer is you before Mateo even gets the chance to speak.
Lena is on the phone, barking orders down the line. By the few words he manages to catch through his own deafening panic, the police no doubt sit on the receiving end of her call.
There are other patients to attend to, and other matters that are far more pressing — from an outsider’s point of view — that call for Jack’s immediate attention. He brushes them all aside, near blind to any consequence as something commands his feet across the department floor and straight for Exam Room 3, where the tiniest glimpse of you waits behind glass.
Shen is already tending to you, planted firmly by your bedside while the Pitt’s newest resident, Nazely, runs through your vitals. One of your arms is bent backwards, holding a compress to the back of your head. There’s a spatter of blood down the shoulder of your scrubs, splotches of a deep red staining the grey fabric. If Jack looks at it for too long, he’ll throw up, so his eyes shift to your face instead.
When he finds you smiling, a flood of anger finally collapses the immovable dam within him.
Jack frowns before he can even think to stop himself.
“What the hell happened?” Disgust stains each of his words, bleeding all over the room and stiffening the shoulders of those who potter around you, Nazely and the nurses alike.
Only Shen is unmoved by his outburst, turning to meet him with a deadpan stare and a mocking finger pressed to his lips, before he breathes out a gentle shh. “Watch it, old man, my precious patient’s got a nasty headache.”
There’s a likelihood Shen doesn’t get the chance to witness Jack’s eye roll, as the older man slips right through the gap between your gurney and his fellow attending. Without a word of acknowledgement tossed your way, he pries the cold compress from your fingers, commanding you to drop your arm and yield the task of holding it against your head over to him.
This time, Jack speaks a little softer, “Are you gonna tell me what happened?”
“I don’t know, Doctor Abbot, there’s this thing called HIPPA-”
“John, I swear to-”
“It was my fault,” your voice cuts through the bickering of the two attendings, snapping the heat of Jack’s gaze off of Shen and onto you. The frown lines along his forehead ease ever so slightly, against his will, as you insist on flashing him an even bigger smile than before. “Lena, she told me- warned me the guy was in an altered state of mind. I shouldn’t have- I know better than to turn my back on a patient in that state. But it’s fine-”
Jack starts up immediately, hackles rising on the back of his neck as he takes the stance of a defensive mutt, ready to fight tooth and nail to protect its owner, “It’s not fine-”
“I’m fine, Dr Abbot,” pathetically placid, the brush of your fingertips as they graze his arm is enough to neutralise his outrage, nostrils no longer flaring with each puffed out breath of frustration. “He grabbed me, we tussled, and then I slipped on my own untied shoe lace.”
“And where is he now? This altered patient,” his grip slips slightly on the compress, apologies flooding his tongue at the slight wince the action wakes in you. Ignoring your pain, you take more notice of the hostility in his stance, quirking an eyebrow up at him in a silent question. “Don’t give me that look. I’m a doctor, I want to make sure he’s getting the standard of care he deserves.”
When you try to shrug off his interrogation, Shen finally proves he can do something other than get on Jack’s nerves this evening and unveils the truth, “He took off, slipped out the ambulance bay when they called the code.”
“Son of a-”
“CT’s back,” Nazely, quiet as a mouse, had managed to slip out the room unnoticed, and now shoulder-barges her way back in, carrying your results and cutting off Jack’s foul mouth. “Other than a nasty bump, you’re in the clear.”
It’s not that Jack doubts the intern’s ability as a doctor.
And it’s certainly not that he doesn’t trust Shen.
It just so happens that, when the young resident goes to hand-off your CT scans to one of the attendings, Ellis comes knocking on the door, demanding the input of her most trusted attending.
Jack’s never been more relieved to come in second.
Hawk eyes scan over black and whites images, and only once he’s confirmed with his own two eyes that you truly are in the clear does Jack feel that tension in his shoulders begin to unwind.
In a room that now only houses two, he lets himself stand as close to you as he needs, shifting his stance to keep watch on the doors on either side of the room — a guard dog that can never deny it's nature to protect, even as it nestles into its owner.
He doesn’t quite nestle into you, careful to obey that fine line of decorum that exists between colleagues, between a junior and a senior, between a girl your age and a man as weathered as him. No matter the itch in his palm that begs to be scratched by skin no other than your own, he resists the urge to touch you.
Until you move.
“Where do you think you’re going?”
Puzzled by the sternness in his usually nonchalant voice, you gaze over your shoulder at him, now sat upright and with both legs swung over the other side of the bed, “To finish… my shift?”
And that is how his hand finds your arm, a grasp that is gentle yet firm, allowing him to guide you back into your previous position. In his other hand still sits the ice pack, as he continues pressing it to your head.
“Uh-uh,” the denial is followed by a tsk, as he slips back into Doctor Abbot mode and puffs out his chest, taking on the persona of big, bad, commanding professional who knows exactly what his patient needs. “Your shift ended the moment that head of yours hit the ground. And since that asshole-” a pointed look shoots his way, warning in your eyes. Jack corrects his previous verbiage, “altered patient who did this took off, new protocol says I can’t let you leave hospital grounds on your own. Now unless you know someone kind enough to pick you up at 4 am, I suggest you take the opportunity to get some rest. I’ll come wake you when the morning shift zombies start strolling in.”
He leaves no room for debate.
He leaves the room, drawing the curtains and switching off the light.
If Jack were even a modicum more brazen, he’d shamelessly have locked the doors, ensuring you can’t slip away to return to your duties. In the end, he doesn’t have to worry about catching you back out on the floor, as when he checks on you some time after five fifteen, Jack finds you curled into the bed, the ice pack now fully melted and discarded halfway down the foam mattress.
By the time he wakes you, the clock has long struck seven and Robby is breathing down his neck, urging him to open Exam Room 3 back up to actual patients and not just that nurse you like to ogle.
Something in your demeanour has shifted.
Quiet, slow, weighed-down. You don’t walk; you drag yourself to the lockers. Head turned to the floor, body pulled in on itself, voice soft as you bid people good morning and goodbye.
Jack follows in your footsteps, hovering in the periphery of your every move, from your locker out into the street.
You don’t acknowledge him, barely even look at him, yet you yield easily to the way he takes the weight of your bag off your shoulder, slipping it onto his own. And so he gives you your space, walks a few paces behind as you both inch along the path back home — your home.
A shiver forces him to break the silence.
It creeps down your spine, from top to bottom, and settles into your hands, a subtle shake that not even shoving them into the pockets of your coat can quell.
“Wait a second, would you, kid?”
Jack’s never fought so hard to keep his voice soft. Despite his efforts, you startle at the interrupted silence. When your feet pause on the concrete, it’s unclear if it’s because of his request or your shock.
Instead of dwelling on the thought for too long, Jack focuses on his self-assigned task, shrugging his bag off of one shoulder and manoeuvring it to lay against his chest, allowing him to observe the contents as his hand riffles through it. Digging way down past rolls of bandage, a tube of specialised moisturiser, a few odd pairs of compression socks, and various other miscellaneous wonders, his fingers finally happen upon what they’ve been seeking: hand warmers.
“Here,” he starts up, as he hastily rips a packet open and shakes the bag. “This should get the cold out your bones.”
Jack has always prided himself on his rationality. Controlled and composed, with eyes that have payed witness to more horrors than the heart can cope with, it is a rare — if not impossible — feat to catch him sporting a heart rate higher than seventy three.
Watching you envelop the warmer in both your palms, soothing out the shake brought on by early morning chills and the residue panic from your attack, he’s tachycardic.
Months of awaiting the rise of an opportunity — since that second time he walked you home and watched you attempt to hide your skin from the wind’s bite with the flimsy pockets of your coat — buying those hand warmers has at last payed off.
He’s not quite finished digging through his bag.
Untangling the ball that has become of his wired earphones, Jack awaits permission before slipping one bud into your ear, the other into his own. He plugs them into his phone, swipes along his catalogue of playlists, and hits play on the first one that catches his eye. Medicine in the form of music, doctor’s orders.
And just like that, you’re both on the move again. The silence between you now carries a soundtrack, a mixture of eighties rock and seventies funk marking the beat of each footstep. Jack no longer hovers a few paces behind, welcomed back to your side by the short string of wire dangling between you.
Halfway through The Cure’s Just Like Heaven, Jack catches himself entranced in the shape of your lips as they mouth along to each lyric, and it strikes him, then and there, that maybe a moment like this is what inspires a musician to write, to eulogise an emotion through the eternal art of music.
For a man who long ago stopped talking to any version of a god that may exist, walking along by your side, hands brushing occasionally, bodies drifting closer to each other’s orbit; it’s as close to heaven as Jack may ever get.
Jack doesn’t leave you at the entrance to your building.
He holds the heavy door open for you, follows you in. Learning quickly that you live on the third floor, he bites back a comment about how shaky the elevator is, enduring the ride up. Following as you weave through the hall, right down to the end, he keeps quiet as you pause outside a door.
For a moment, he thinks that you’re going to say goodbye. That you’re going to thank him for walking you home, again, even after he’s told you it’s no bother. That you’re going to fish out your keys and slip through the door, starting the countdown on the clock of when he’ll get to see you again, later tonight for another shift in the pitt.
What Abbot isn’t expecting is for you to turn to him, cheek already streaked by a rogue tear, with another dancing on your eyelashes and promising to follow soon.
You take a moment to find your voice, lips parting and delivering the promise of your voice, “I’ve never felt unsafe at work.”
He doesn’t answer immediately, wanting to let your words simmer.
You have other plans.
“But when he-” the crack in his heart echoes the one in your voice, lips trembling over silent vowels as you fail to speak.
Tears roll down like waves, crashing against your chin and dripping onto the neckline of your sweater. And all Jack can do is clench his fist, hold it close to his side as blunt nails tattoo their print into the flesh of his palm. He cannot risk letting his guard slip, risk acting on an impulse you might not welcome.
“I was scared.” You breathe out, like the words you utter are a grave sin, the weight of guilt at last ripped off your shoulders. “Which is stupid, I know. I was fine, it was just a- I shouldn’t of-”
“It’s not stupid,” he interrupts, daring to take a step closer, hands still glued to his sides. “You were attacked.”
Like hearing it spoken aloud clicks something into place, gravity kicks in and you finally come crashing down, waves of tears now aided by a storm of overwhelming emotions. Shoulders shaking, breath stilling, eyes landing on every inch of the hallway but the place he stands.
Jack is no stranger to stomach-churning sights.
He’s withstood the horrors of a war zone, watched bullets hit their marks and shrapnel claim countless victims — his leg, to name one. From the brutality of war to the chaos of an emergency department, he’s bit back the acrid burn of bile at the back of his throat; it comes with each life he fails to save. There are nights where he cannot count the dead on both hands, never mind one. He has reckoned with the missing piece of him, where empty space now occupies the flesh that once extended below his right knee. Perched upon a shower bench, or throbbing with a phantom ache, or soothing vaselines and creams into an angry red stump, Jack learned to endure the pain.
But this — you, breaking down before his eyes, barely a step between you both — brings on a pain like no other, something he can't quite describe.
Cracks are forming in his composure, a trait he wears like armour, threatening to spill onto the dirtied floors of the building's hallway. His fingers slip, no longer balled into fists but pressed flat against the top of his thighs, drumming a nervous rhythm into stained cargo. When Jack tries to clear his throat of the ball forming within, he nearly breaks out in a cough, choking on the comfort he longs to speak into existence.
You interrupt his collapse of self-control.
Two steps is all it takes for your forehead to kiss his shoulder. Dampness overcomes the grey fabric of his shirt, your tears staining it a darker shade. Jack freezes at first, hands unwilling to move beneath the growing fear of touching you wrong, scaring you off. Then, slowly, as the weight of you presses deeper into the crook of his neck, his arms find themselves taking full possession of you, fingers splaying up the length of your spine and pulling you tighter against him.
For a moment, the outside world holds no consequence. Jack is not an attending, you are not a nurse. There's no decade of time between the age of your bodies, nor a quiet though respectful history of admiration between you as coworkers. That acceleration of his heart is not a reason to panic but a reason to rejoice, no fear of any wicked woes from years gone by sneaking back up to remind Jack of troubles past.
No, none of that matters in this moment but you, Jack, and the syncopation of your breathing.
One of his hands finds your hair, equal parts warm as it is large when it cups the back of your head and smothers you closer into his pulse point. Suddenly he’s grateful he reached for the expensive cologne today.
Clearing his throat, Jack attempts to self soothe from the sharp pain in his chest that grows with every sniffle from you, “Fear doesn’t make you any less brave.”
Your reaction is delayed, barely acknowledging the fact he spoke at first, until you’re bursting into a fit of subdued giggles.
While laugher wasn’t exactly what he was aiming for, Jack can’t help but feel like he's succeeded at something.
“Who knew you could be so deep, Jack,” he wrestles with his body at your soft reply, willing himself to not imagine you mentioning deep and his name in a much racier setting, preferably splayed out on the navy of his bedsheets, hair a soft halo that further cements your image as an angel… An angel he wants to commit every carnal sin against.
You move too soon for Jack’s liking, who nearly clings onto your figure until logic kicks in and reminds him how pathetic of an image that would paint. There's a streak of colour down your cheeks, stains where tears have dragged away the subtlest hints of makeup, yet Jack swears he’s never seen you in a prettier light than this: beneath the cold, buzzing light of the hallway, stepping back from his arms with a look in your eyes far lighter than the one you sank into him with.
“Easy on the teasing, kid,” the nickname has never felt more like a lie, sour on the back of his tongue. The last thing Jack Abbot considers you is a kid. Younger? Of course, but nothing short of a woman, in shape and in mind. “I stole that quote from my therapist actually, I’ll have you know.”
Then, for reasons less related to muscle memory than he would dare to admit, Jack shoots a wink in your direction.
Goodbyes exchanged and apologies for wet shirts successfully curved, Jack lingers by your door until he hears you twist the lock shut behind you, a solid frame of wood bringing the abstract divide between you into the world of the tangible.
Right then, right there, still running on that same spike of adrenaline from when he first heard the horrid cries of code Hula Hoop, Jack Abbot is struck over the head with a horrific realisation.
One taste of you in his arms is not enough, and it never will be.
Jack needs more.
The fifth time is a matter of routine.
You’ve always been a fiend for structure; a creature of habit. Doctor Jefferson reckons it’s the perfect trait to balance out the chaos your field of work brings into your life — when you reiterate that explanation to Jack, him retying his laces for the third time in a row and you reshuffling the same stack of papers for a fifth time, the attending is quick to agree.
“Have you seen yourself eat a sandwich?” Jack’s defensive retort comes no sooner than a moment after your hand teasingly swats his shoulder. Unbeknownst to you, the sudden sway he gives has less to do with the force behind your hand, and everything to do with how your touch grips at his soul. “You’re the only person I know that takes the exact same order of bites, every time.”
“Don’t be ridiculous,” your protest is far from filtered through any seriousness, words that are soon followed by an amused snort. “No I do not!”
“Uh yes, you do,” back on his feet and standing straight, Jack’s gaze lowers to meet your own, sitting prudently at your desk and finding any measly task to occupy your hands for five more minutes, if only to continue giving your feet the break they need from running here, there, and everywhere. Force of his own habits, or perhaps a nervous tick, you watch as the attending occupies his hands with the shape of his stethoscope, two fists dangling from his neck as he curls his knuckles and tugs on the object.
With your apparent eating habit now dragged into the spotlight, Jack dismisses himself with nothing more than a cheeky lift of his lips, and a muttered Duty calls! as a set of EMTs come strolling in with a gurney.
The rest of your shift passes in a Jack-less blur, your eyes and ears too occupied as you trail next to Parker.
She had lay claim over you no more than seven minutes into your shift, face lighting up like a Christmas tree at the sight of you strolling out from the locker room, still rubbing the sleep from your eyes as your body familiarised itself with the shape of your scrubs. Without even so much as a hello, Ellis grasped a hand around your forearm and tugged you off towards triage, paying no mind to Jack’s questioning gaze as you both shot right past him. All she offered him was a, “Sorry, Abbot, your girl is mine for tonight.”
Abbot didn’t correct her.
Your girl.
Every part of your psyche is aware it’s a minuscule thing to get hung up on, to feel your stomach fluttering with an unknown anxiety each time you replay the scene; yet it happens all the same.
As you assist Dr Ellis, passing her a scalpel.
As you rip off dirtied gloves and replace them with a new pair.
As you stir sugar into your third coffee of the night, eyes staring blankly ahead while Ellis talks your ear off, venting about her recent misadventures in love.
“And then guess what she said!” Parker’s voice may as well be going in one ear and out the other, because you’re far from listening, eyes too busy following the shape of Abbot as he cuts down the length of a hallway, one of the younger residents glued to his side and pitching their newest case.
Has the casual dominance he wears like another layer of clothing always had this effect on you, firing off error warnings in your mind as you watch him steer his resident out the way of an oncoming gurney — a motion that reads as second nature, not even so much as a moment’s thought running through him before he’s executing the action.
Ellis snaps you out of it, fingers clicking in your face and blinking her back into focus.
“Are you even listening to me?”
“Huh? What?” It’s torture not to let yourself get wrapped up in Jack again as he perches himself across from you both, elbows braced on the nurse’s station and arms straining at the seams of a navy top you swear is purposefully two sizes too small. “Yeah, of course I am.”
“Then guess what she said next,” despite the distrusting glint in her eye, Dr Ellis spares you the humiliation of telling you she caught you staring at her attending.
“Uh… That she’s not ready for a relationship, even though you met on a dating app?”
“Worse!” she exclaims, right as you notice Jack’s hazel gaze meet yours, intrigue practically dripping off his eyelashes with every involuntary blink. “I don’t date Virgos. I mean, can you believe that? The girl is navigating her love life by letting goddamn starry shapes guide her!”
“Hey,” you feign a face of offence, hand clasped your chest as though to shield your heart. “Some of us just like the comfort of fixed compatibility.”
You watch as the betrayal settles over Doctor Ellis, glazing over her already dead-pan stare with a look of pure judgement, “Et tu, brute? Go on then, shove your knife deeper, would you ever date a Virgo?”
“I don’t know. I guess? I’ve never really thought about what signs I wouldn’t date,” you pause, the hairs on the back of your neck standing to attention as a strange sensation of being watched creeps over you. But as you look back over in Jack’s direction, you find him engrossed in his phone. A pitiful feeling dawns over you, baptising your heart with a hollow ache only disappointment can conjure. “Weirdly though, all my exes have been either a Pisces or Gemini. I don’t know what that says about me but-”
You finish on time, for once.
No last minute emergencies, no lingering to help Jack as he squeezes one last case into his already-finished shift, no letting your scrubs overstay their welcome; you pry them off like they are caught ablaze. And then you linger.
Hands occupy themselves with minuscule tasks, organising and rearranging the items in your locker; then unzipping your bag and going through each of your belongings. Eyes take the occasional peek towards the entries of the lockers, and ears perk up each time footsteps grow closer.
It’s only when Jack steps through the door at last, defeat written all over his face, that your mouth moves. First, stretching into a smile, and then forming a few words.
“Rough night?”
Relief ripples his features at the sound of your voice — like finding a streak of sunlight on a rainy day— bringing the tiniest spark of joy back into his sunken eyes, “Thought you’d have gone by now, kid.”
You waver, something about his question feeling accusatory, even if he delivers it in the gentlest of voices.
Why haven’t you left?
A troublesome cat, an unfinished box-set, and a bowl of leftover pasta sit in the confines of your apartment, practically begging you to race home back to them and delve yourself into comfort, that momentary pause to the chaos of the PTMC you struggle to find in the hours between shifts. A few months ago, you would already be a glass of wine deep and settling in for just one more episode of many, far from lingering like a bad scent amongst the lockers. But then again, a few months ago, the road home was a lonely one.
At what point did that seventeen minute walk become the highlight of your day?
Something warm meets your nostrils, dragging your attention across to where Jack now stands, spritzing his sweat-ridden neck with a few pumps of cologne. You don’t mean to notice the bottle has less than a quarter of its amber liquid left. You also don’t mean to reminisce on the first time you saw the bottle, clasped in Jack’s hands. The memory was one you thought would be singular, never once before having witnessed the older man groom himself after a shift.
Instead, it’s become his signature.
Clock out, hit the lockers, drown the stench of bleach with a warm musk, and then…
“Do you have any gum?”
You know this scene all too well, you almost get ahead of the script and answer before he even asks. Fortunately, you manage to play it cool, “Uh, let me check… Yes!”
Jack doesn't need to know that you didn’t really need to check.
And Jack definitely doesn’t need to know that you never used to carry gum, not until the first time he asked.
But does he need to move closer, that cloud of freshly sprayed cologne enveloping you in its arms, just to pluck the strip of gum from your outstretched hand?
Mint blankets over the notes of bergamot and black pepper, and Jack washes away the stale coating in his mouth, jaw wound tight as he crushes the white rubber beneath his molars.
He doesn’t inch away, retreat back to where he once stood. Instead, his hand finds your own, fingers bumping against yours and silently commanding you to relinquish control… Of the strap of your bag, of course, index and middle finger hooking beneath the padded fabric and slinging the bag over his own shoulder.
“You know,” you say, because you have to. If you don’t distract yourself with speech, you’ll drown in those hazel eyes, too close for comfort and, yet, nowhere near close enough. “You should really start bringing your own gum. Or a toothbrush, if you’re that scared of having a bad breath. What if I switch to day-shift, huh?”
Maybe Jack scoffs in disbelief, knowing there’s not a version of reality where you elect to work days. Or maybe the scoff is a way of downplaying his irritation at the thought, possessive over the sheer possibility of losing his girl to the likes of Robinavitch, hot-head extraordinaire with a touch of suicidal tendencies.
Whatever his reason, Jack is quick to mask the original expression on his face with an easy smile, one corner of his lips twisting upwards as he shrugs, “It’s less to do with not wanting a bad breath, more to do with the fact I like being in your debt.”
Frozen in shock, mouth slightly agape and brows furrowing, you barely register as Jack starts to make his way down the hall, snapping out your trance only as he calls your name.
Like a dog called to heel, you scurry off to join his side.
Jack stops informing you that he’s walking you home.
Without fail, every shift, he shows up, steals your gum, invades your space, and takes your baggage hostage, guiding you out of the ER with the ghost of his touch against your lowers back, steering you through the crowd of ailing folks and stopping you from diving in to help.
Conversation is no longer something the space between you demands, a comfortable silence settling in; the wind down of a hectic shift sound-tracked by the sound of a city waking up, the smack of your footsteps hitting the ground, and the occasional exchange of words.
Like today, as you pass by a unit under construction and Jack reads over the sign: a soon-to-open sushi restaurant.
“You ever been to Japan?” He asks, curiosity practically beaming from his eyes.
“Never. You?”
“Once, when I was young-” he hesitates, like he intended to add -er to the end of his word but decided against it. “Would you ever go?”
“To Japan?” He nods. “Yeah, maybe.”
His reply arrives like a confession, gentle and lacking the confidence you’ve come to associate with Jack, “I’ve been meaning to visit again.”
Silence keeps you both company the rest of the way, until your feet come to a halt outside your apartment block. Jack doesn’t intend to follow you to your door, not like the last time. Instead, he shrugs off your bag and helps you slip it over your own shoulder, using those large hands to scoop your hair up, rescuing you from the sharp sting of feeling the strap pull down on it.
Then Jack announces, just as lacking in confidence as the last time he spoke: “I’m not a Virgo.”
You stare at him, blinking slow, letting his words settle into the grooves of your brain and sink down until some part of you starts to make sense of them.
The more he speaks, the clearer it becomes what he’s attempting to say, “Or a Gemini. Not even a Pisces.”
Suddenly, those moments as you stood listening to Dr Ellis’ romantic woes, with the nurses station between you and Jack and fleeting glances snuck between nurse and attending, it all feels less innocent, less casual. More intentional.
Jack had been listening, hanging on to your every word as you entertained Parker and pretended to allow astrology to rule over the romance in your life.
“Just, thought I should let you know,” much to your dismay, Jack’s fleeing quicker than you can chase him, a sheepish smile overcoming his face and a hand reaching up to rub at the back of his neck. “In case you were ever wondering.”
Finally, there is the time where lines blur.
“Come on,” the tell-tale whine of a tipsy Trinity Santos rings out of your phone’s speaker, interrupting an intimate evening for three: you, your cat, and a cheesy horror movie, where the only thing scarier than the lacklustre VFX are the plot inconsistencies. “Even Crash- Ow! Sorry, I mean, even Vic is here!”
The last thing you want to do on your night off is to squeeze yourself into a pair of jeans and spend it in the presence of the exhausted day-shifters, four-drinks too deep for you to ever catch up, no matter how many shots you throw back.
Unfortunately for you, the only thing more convincing than Trinity’s pleading is Whitaker’s tipsy bellow of your name, followed promptly by, “I need a karaoke partner! Santos ditched me for Mel!”
It’s only with a groan that you agree, “Okay. Fine, yeah, whatever. I’ll come. But I’m having an early night! No seven am walks of drunken shame like last time!”
“Don’t worry meemaw, we’ll get you tucked into bed before three, latest,” Santos’ laugh rings down the line, the alcohol coursing through her veins amplifying the humour she already finds so easily in her own words. “Now hurry, the bar closes at eleven, then who knows where the night might take us!”
You enter the bar, already braced and ready for the impact of the Pittlings swarming you, like bees drawn to honey, a tangle of arms wrapping themselves around you. Only as Mel let’s you go — the last to do so — do you notice a figure you had not anticipated.
Dr Robby, sat in all his grumpy glory, greeting you with a tightlipped smile and a single wave of his hand. Before you can even open your mouth, ready to return the greeting, you take a step forward, heel landing in a puddle of spilled drinks, and nearly slip… only to find there’s a presence at your back.
Not touching you, but there; hovering, lingering. A buzz of energy trapped in the minimal space between the small of your back and the warmth of a hand.
“Careful, kid. There’s better ways to fall head over heels.”
Without even having to turn your head, you know it’s him.
You do so, anyway, and welcome in the sight of Jack Abbot clad in a pair of dark jeans, dark boots, and a white button up, sleeves rolled below his elbows and with the buttons undone enough to tease the way his collarbones sit dusted by freckles. Familiarity is in his scent, a cloud of his cologne settling into the atmosphere above your head, and the low lights of the bar catch on his pupils, reflecting warmth.
A million thoughts run through your head: how he’s no doubt come to keep Robby company, how the sleeves of his shirt are practically choking his biceps, how wrong it feels to see him surrounded by the Pittlings, how much of a relief it is to see him.
But all your mouth can manage is an unpleasant, “Why are you here?”
The table’s chatter comes to a pause, all eyes on you two as an exchange of chuckles, whistles, and even a soft ouch crawls its way out of Robby’s lips.
“No! Sorry, I-” hellbent on embarrassing yourself, it seems, you groan as your face dives into the safety of your palms, cheeks hot to the touch. “That’s not what I meant-”
Fingers seize your wrists in a gentle grasp, momentarily soothing over your rapid pulse point before they tug your hands away from your face, putting you back on display to the rest of the bar. All you see is Jack, in front of you, biting back laughter and fighting off a teasing grin.
“I know what you mean,” by the grace of something merciful, he lets go of you, sending your hands dropping back down to your sides. “I swapped with Shen. He needs my Sunday off.”
At the mercy of God, or the universe, Samira puts an end to your humiliation ritual and jumps out her seat, lacing her arm with yours, and drags you off in the direction of the bar, “Let’s get you a drink. Alcoholic, preferably!”
A half hour passes in the blink of an eye, clock striking ten and beginning the countdown to the bar’s closure. You down your first drink - a concoction of fruit juice, and syrup, and cheap liquor. The second is one you treat a little kinder, nursing your glass of vermouth and giving it the attention it deserves, each sip a chance to let the flavours melt into your tongue. By your third, the sweet feeling in your chest is enough to counter the bitterness of any drink, and so you move onto the cheap beer Trinity clings to like a lifeline.
Jack sits furthest from you, alternating between sophisticated sips of a bourbon and gulps from a beer bottle his hand engulfs entirely too easily. Despite the fact he sits knee-deep in conversation with Robby — who has spent most of his night complaining, no doubt, about a recent run-in with Gloria — while you lend an ear and a smile to Dennis as he pleads his case to you on why his friendship with a certain widow is perfectly innocent, the two of you orbit each other.
With eyes that wander, drawn from one side of the table to the other. At first, it’s bashful: whenever you catch him, Jack’s neck snaps his attention right back to his fellow attending. But as the drinks flow and time ticks on, it grows bolder, transitioning into a challenge; hazel eyes pinning your own into a staring contest as they watch you over the rim of his glass. You lose, conceding to whatever force draws your eyes down like magnets to the sight of his Adam’s apple bobbing as he swallows.
With fingers that toy a line between distance and friction. When you reach for the handful of nuts at the centre of the table, Jack’s fingers meet your own in the bowl. The graze is minute, barely a whisper of contact between skin, yet it shakes you to the core. Familiar fingers meet your skin as Jack makes his way around the table, excusing himself with needing a trip to the bathroom. It’s as he passes you that he strikes, a teasing drum of fingertips against your shoulder — mimicking the call of someone searching for your attention — that has your head turning to the right, only to find no one there. By the time you catch onto the fact it was Jack, he’s standing in a queue for the toilets and offering you a challenging raise of his brows. What the challenge is, you don’t quite know yet.
You’re not given the chance to dwell on the thought, not when Santos slams an empty bottle down into the centre of the table and declares, “Time to find out all your dirty secrets. Truth or Drink!”
A chorus of groans echo from the surrounding party, yourself included… Yet you all entertain her all the same, no one daring to challenge her pointed stare as she spins the bottle.
It lands on Mel, whose excitement lasts all of the seven seconds it takes Trinity to dish up a question.
Have you ever tried to break up a marriage?
Mel drinks.
Victim #2, much to Trinity’s delight, is Javadi.
Javadi, who already is nose deep in her glass before a question can even hit the table, slamming her empty cup down onto the table with a sheepish smile.
“Dammit, I was gonna tell Mel to ask about Mateo,” comes Santos’ disappointment.
The younger girl is just as quick to reply, “Why do you think I drank?”
Poor Robby ends up roped into the game next, following in the footsteps of the previous players and drinking instead of answering Javadi’s interrogation, “Do you follow me on TikTok?”
It’s when Dennis takes a swig of his colourful cocktail that Samira groans, surprising the entirety of the table as she throws her head back and exclaims, “Oh my God, you people are so boring! All too chicken to answer!”
Jack seems to take that as a challenge, for when the bottle comes to a halt, neck pointed in his direction after Dennis spun it, his arms remain firmly crossed over his chest.
“Shit. Wow, okay,” the younger boy is startled, no question burning on the tip of his tongue for a man he barely knows. So he settles with something simple, something impersonal, something with no deeper intention behind it to humiliate the man: “When was the last time you lied?”
Jack doesn’t answer immediately.
No, he makes a show out of turning his wrist up to his eyes, squinting as they read of the dials and his face settles into an emotionless expression, “Like… an hour ago?”
Quick as a whippet, Trinity dives at the first chance to investigate, “Who did you lie to?”
“That’s a different question,” Jack fires right back, reaching for the empty bottle to spin.
For some reason, his eyes are pinned on you. Even as the bottle lands on Trinity, they linger on your frame, that same unknown challenge in his stare.
The bar spits you all out at four minutes past eleven, bodies spilling out into the street. It’s chaos, voices of strangers mingling in with those of your coworkers. You’re being tugged each and every other way, a million questions fired in your direction.
C’mon, don’t you agree we should go Downtown?
No, no! We have to head to Passion!
Ew, Passion sucks. Every surface is… sticky.
Can’t we just go anywhere that offers karaoke?
Poor, unsuspecting Dennis is left flinching back in shock as a unified bark of No! comes from all the girls, disgusted eyes burning him for so much as daring to suggest such a thing.
“Wherever you kids are going, it won’t be with her,” Jack, emboldened by the booze in his veins, finally lets that hand of his fully press against your lower back. Your head turns to find him already watching you, amused by your puzzled look. “You’re working tomorrow.”
“So are they!” You exclaim, hand pointing out to the crowd of Pittlings. “They have work sooner than I do!”
“And that’s Dr Robinavitch’s cross to bear. You, on the other hand,” a finger drags down the slope of your nose, taping against the tip as Doctor Abbot leans down to your ear, like you’ll suddenly lose the ability to hear him over the noise of the city streets. “You’re my problem.”
It’s hard to breathe; the night air too cold, too thick, too drenched in Jack’s cologne.
You know his reputation; you’ve been victim to it. Jack Abbot, shameless flirt, tongue always locked and loaded with a comment capable of shaking even the most stable of heartbeats. But this is different.
This is his hands on you, this is his voice claiming some form of ownership over you, this is his stare tearing through the fabrics of your being and embedding itself inside your chest, awakening a kind of warmth that even the hottest Pittsburgh summer day would envy.
“Boo!” It’s Victoria who cries out, cutting right through the budding tension between nurse and attending, one-too-few seconds away from blossoming into something far from the professionalism of colleagues. “You’re leaving already!?”
Your mouth opens, ready to answer.
Jack steals the words right out your mouth, “Yes. I think it’s about time we leave, don’t you agree?”
Spotlight pointed at you, he puts you on the spot for the entire group to watch how you fumble over a simple, “Uh, sure.”
The hand against your lower back sticks to you like a magnet the whole way home.
A journey longer than the one you usually stumble down with Jack by your side. It would have made more sense to hail a cab, any rational adult would recognise that, yet neither of you dare to suggest it. Crowds of drunken fools spill out from bars and invade the sidewalk — the kind of stumbling messes that activate a cynical part of you, wondering just how many of them will wind up in the care of your colleagues before the end of the night — Jack answers their invasion by drawing you closer, footsteps fading to the back of yours as he guides you to walk ahead of him, the burn of his hand reminding you that he’s there, that you’re safe, that no wave of foreign faces is going to sweep you up and drag you away.
Even as you make your way up the stairs to your apartment floor, elevator out of service, Jack lingers a few paces behind, watching your every move.
It’s as your fumbling around in your purse, fingers blindly rummaging through loose change and half-empty lip gloss tubes in search of the keys to your apartment, that Jack takes it upon himself to start spewing revelations.
“It was you,” he says, pauses and, when met with your questioning eyes, glancing back at him over your shoulder, clarifies. “The last time I lied, tonight. It was to you.”
A few seconds pass in silence, and then, “Oh.”
“Shen doesn’t need Sunday off.”
“Oh.”
“I knew you were off tonight.”
“Oh.”
“Oh,” he leans down, enters your orbit and invades you with the knowledge of how solid his chest feels pressed against your back, and how warm his breath feels, brushing against the shell of your ear as it mimics your repetitive exclaims of shock. “‘S that all you know how to say?” Before you can politely beg him to back up, for the sake of your sanity and your fraying willpower, hanging on by a single thread that seems more than eager to snap and unleash the burning in your loins upon the older man, Jack shuffles a few steps back and takes a deep breath — the kind that has his shirt straining against the growing width of his chest. “It’s not the first time I’ve lied to you.”
“Oh- Wait,” Cut off by your own confusion, you spin on your heel a little too quickly and stumble forward, hand inches away from rediscovering the meaning of balance against his chest. “What have you lied about?”
“There we go, finally using that pretty voice properly again,” if you had known this was what a tipsy Jack Abbot behaved like, you would have offered him a drink months ago. Especially with the way his cheeks sit blushing in red, a shy imagery to contradict the growing boldness in his words. “My car was never in the garage. I even drove it to work that day. But you wouldn’t accept Mateo’s offer for a lift, so I figured I’d need a real good excuse to walk you home.”
Clarity washes over you not in repeated waves, but in one single tsunami.
Overwhelming, a wall of emotions flooding over your being. You mentally retrace each step you’ve taken in his company. Each walk home, each careful conversation exchanged between you. Every cloud of worry that hovered overhead, convincing you of a reality where your presence and the act of accompanying you home is nothing but a burden to Jack Abbot, a simple kindness that’s gotten out of hand and now he does not know how to back out of.
But his words bend that reality, until it snaps in half and ceases to exist. Because here Jack is, telling you he orchestrated reasons to walk you home, excuses to linger in your presence after the night shift came to an end and patients are no longer a force that brings you into one another’s proximity.
Jack Abbot wants to be around you. So why on Earth would you part from him now, just because your finger had hooked itself around a keyring?
“Jack,” in the quiet of the hallway, his name echoes off your lips, uttered more intimately than ever before. “Do you want to come in for a drink?”
Your confidence is a case of easy come, easy go; dissipating before you can even wait for a proper reply from the man. Anxious thoughts dialled up and overloading, you turn back to face your front door, shakily shove the key into the door, and unlock something that feels a little more than just your apartment, a point of no return awaiting in it’s premises should Jack choose to accept your offer.
Walking in before Jack can speak, you get your answer with the gentle closing of the door behind you and the clearing of Jack’s throat, swallowing back what may just be a similar ball of emotion swelling within your own.
If you had anticipated Jack Abbot standing in your living room tonight, you would have at least attempted to tidy up.
Then again, if you had anticipated this, there’s other things you would have done differently… You would have made sure you actually had something to offer him to drink, for starters.
“Uh… I don’t have any beer,” you mutter, more to yourself than Jack, one hand holding the fridge door open and the other rummaging through the half-empty shelves, like you might somehow unveil a surprise bottle of anything-worth-drinking. “I can offer bourbon? Maybe? Or I’ve got leftover wine. Might have gone bad though. Shit, sorry, I really don’t have anything to offer.”
Closer than you anticipate, hovering by the entry to the kitchen, Jack rasps a careful, “Just you is fine. ‘S all I’m really here for.”
Like two opposing magnets drawn together by an unseen force, distance becomes null and void as eyes meet and you both inch closer, devouring the space between you with careful steps. Face to face at last with everything that has been brewing beneath the surface of your interactions, you barely squeeze out a whisper of his name before Jack claims your mouth as his prisoner.
Lips lock like shackles, trapping you in place against the older man. Hands find one another’s frames, his large palm staking claim over the back of your neck and tilting your face into the perfect angle for him to deepen the kiss, tongue teasing with a graze over your lower lip, the beginning of a chuckle bubbling in his chest as you answer his touch with a pitiful whine, before he finally licks into your mouth. Your own hands carve out a path for themselves, sliding over the expanse of his broad shoulders, curling around the tightness of his biceps, trailing down his waist to find the worn out leather of his belt, two finger hooking beneath and drawing his body closer — like any space still exists between you.
He lets you move him all the same, walking yourself backwards and dragging him along until your back hits whichever wall sits the closest. Any memory of the layout to the apartment you’ve spent the last five years living in has melted away in the heat of Jack’s mouth, kissing you like he has something to prove and this is the only chance he’ll ever get.
Squeezed flush against one another, no barrier but clothes sitting between, you feel the shape of him pressing into your hip and making you painfully aware of the fact Jack Abbot, the older attending you forced yourself to learn to observe quietly and cautiously from a safe distance, now has his semi-hard cock straining against you. That realisation must run through you too viscerally, for Jack’s soon tearing his mouth away from you.
“Shit- Sorry,” he just about gasps the apology out, lips incapable of drifting too far for too long, a smatter of kisses meeting the edge of your jaw as you feel Jack angle his hips away from you. “Been a while since I last-” He’s cut off by his own groan, reactionary to the weight of your hand landing atop the bulge of his jeans, palming at the length of him in hopes of finding out just how hard he can grow. “And I’ve just been thinking about this, ‘bout you for so long. Just-” greedy mouthed, even his desperate please for apology are interrupted by the drag of his tongue over your pulse point. “Ignore it, I’ll keep myself in check. Don’t wanna come on too strong, scare you off.”
It’s a bit late to retreat now, is what you want to say, with the way your thighs are squeezing together in search of any friction and the cotton of your panties sticks uncomfortably against your folds.
But Jack is blushing enough as it is, tips of his ears as red as you imagine his hair once was, face burning hot as he burrows it deeper in your neck. So you spare him some kindness and settle on the buckle of his belt, choosing direct action over teasing words.
A switch seems to flip at the brush of your fingers as you reach for Jack’s belt, attempt to dive beneath the waistband of his boxers. The older man stiffens against you, in more ways than one, head rising from your neck like a cobra enchanted by the notes of a flute. Thick fingers curl around your wrist, prying your hand from him gently yet accompanied by the disapproving tut only an authority figure could conjure, moments away from teaching you a lesson.
His chastisement isn’t vocal but physical, dragging your wrist up to his mouth and greeting it with the gentlest press of lips, right where your pulse recounts a soliloquy on the affect this man has on you, heart rate spiking. Jack lingers, face turning to brush the tip of his nose against your skin while his eyes slip shut, like he’s drowning himself in the fading notes of your perfume. Then, he jumps right back into action, manoeuvring both your arms above your head and pinning them against the wall.
“No one ever tell you to keep your hands to yourself, sweetheart?” No man’s condescension has ever sounded so appealing, so soft. A softness he pairs with the brush of fingers, his free hand tracing a path for itself down the length of your torso, catching on the waist of your jeans and lingering, only to continue its descent over the shape of your thigh. “‘S okay, I don’t mind being the one to teach you.”
“Doctor Abbot,” you breathe, something stirring in your bones the longer the man stares at you, eyes spilling secrets of every degenerate thought passing through his mind.
“Really?” Jack reclaims your skin with his mouth, teeth scraping over your clavicle before his tongue tastes your flesh, a slow drag of the wet muscle halfway up your neck. Your pulse, a bass drum thrumming against the restraints of your veins, brings him to a pause, luring him into peppering a series of chaste kisses over the spot. All the while, his hand is familiarising itself with the curve of your thigh, fingertips dragging over the seam of your jeans and following its journey north, inching towards your clothed core. “Still calling me that, even while I’ve got my hand between your thighs?”
Maybe the alcohol is clouding your judgement, eradicating any hint of the usual hesitation that has ruled over past encounters like these, leaving you shy and bashful, and far from the kind of person willing to rip their aching desire right out their chest and present it to it’s new owner, heart in hand and lust in eyes.
The unexpected confidence boost has your hips shamelessly rolling into the palm of Jack’s hand as he engulfs the expanse of your core. Breathing stalls as the inseam of your jeans brushes against your lace-covered clit, pulsing with anticipation of whatever the older man plans to do with you.
“You’re beautiful, y’know that?” It’s unfair, hearing such earnest words falling from his lips, a touch of breathlessness to further sweeten the desperation in his voice; all the while one hand tightens it’s grip on your fidgeting arms and the other, firm and steady, undoes the button of your jeans and begins drawing the zip down at an agonizing pace. “Dangerously so. Might have to file a complaint soon, tell the board how inappropriate it is of you to distract me with just a smile while we’re meant to be saving lives.”
A sigh, delicate as silk, robs you of the satisfaction of replying instantly, body too busy accustoming itself to the intrusion of his hand on your skin, explorative touches that dip beneath your waistband and drag slowly through your folds.
Stealing yourself and silencing the part of you that wants to melt into his hand and let him remould you into something new, you eventually manage an amused, “I can always change departments, Dr Abbot. They’re always looking for extra hands with the inpatients.”
“Do that, and I’ll drag you back, kicking and screaming, if I have to.”
Beneath your clothes, the tip of Jack’s middle finger has taken to dipping between the warmth of puffy lips, collecting a dollop of your liquid pleasure, and lathering it over the desperate nub of your clit in gentle circles. His movement is casual, careless, not a hair out of place or a shaking of nerves evident on the man in front of you. Just the hungry eyes of a man in control, ready to take his time tearing you apart bit by bit, in a way only he can put you back together after.
“Fucking soaked,” Jack’s comment feels aimed at his own ears, a passing acknowledgement of your state that you just so happen to hear as he brings a second finger up to lazily play with your clit, all the while the wet patch soaking into your panties grows, no doubt seeping through lace and staining denim. “‘S actually a little pathetic, kid. I’ve barely even touched her and she’s weeping for me.”
Heat burns at your cheeks, the foul nature of the words leaving his mouth bringing you to a confusing state of embarrassment mixed with the headiness of lust, clouding your better judgements and axing whatever part of your brain is in charge of overthinking, just in time to halt a spiral down into the dreaded pits of sleeping with a coworker, a man you’ll have to continue to see nearly everyday, for better or for worse — everything hinges on how tonight ends.
There’s no time to worry about the end when Jack is just beginning.
Those same fingers that teased at your clit dip lower, nestling themselves between your folds. As though shocked by your warmth, you feel more than hear the man groan into your neck, a half-bitten back string of curses parting from his pretty lips.
“Can I, sweetheart?” His plead for permission pulls you out of your body momentarily, mind drawn away as it attempts to recall the last time a man bothered himself with asking before taking. “Need to know how she feels, ‘s all. Can you let me do that, hmm? Let me fill her with my fingers? Promise I won’t ask for more, won’t push my luck. Christ, already know I’m pushing it now, thinking an old man like me has any business messing with a pretty thing like-”
“Yes, Jack!” Cutting off his rambling mouth, your hips keen into the tantalising drag of his fingers through your slit, a back-and-forth motion he’d spent his whole monologue performing idly, with an occasional torturous catch of his fingertips on your entrance, threatening to delve deep only for him to course-correct and set them back on the track up the length of your slit. “Please, God, just- Touch me.”
“Greedy girl,” he tuts, face winding it’s way out from your neck just for his hazel eyes to observe your face as he finally breaches his fingers past your entrance. “Am I not already touching you?”
Replies are lost to the kitchen air, breath knocked out your chest in one foul swoop as he burrows his fingers knuckle-deep. Your lips part, your eyes roll back, and you grind down against his hand, as if by some grace of god he’ll hit some place deeper inside, fingers already pressing against that spot inside you as Jack curls them towards himself, putting the come in come-hither.
The angle is awkward, movement hindered by the tight squeeze of your jeans around his wrist, yet Jack works through the strain, digits pulling out at a slow, agonising pace, only to slip back inside equally as slow. It’s like he’s making you savour the feeling, imbedding every ridge and wrinkle along his fingers and knuckles into your memory, so the next time you find yourself hot under the blanket and struggling to sleep at night, your own hand won’t bring you half the relief.
His fingers fall into a rhythm, a back and forth tease that sets your nerves ablaze and unravels a ball of desire you long ago tossed aside, four weeks into working at the Pitt and telling yourself that those pesky butterflies you felt every time a certain attending crossed your path were nothing but newbie nerves. Marking the tempo of his touch, the repeated squelch of your cunt being filled by his fingers rings out; the deeper he dives, the wetter you grow. Your moans follow along to his beat, a perpetual huff of half-formed whines and hitched breaths, echoes of pleasure that claw their way out your throat and shamelessly sing him a song of praise.
“Ah, ah,” Jack mimics you, hot breath brushing against the shell of your ear as he feeds your moans right back to you in a tone so condescending, you feel your toes curl. “‘S that all you know how to say?”
Those same words and that same mocking tone from the hall have your skin crawling with need. A need to press yourself closer, until all your frayed edges tangles themselves in Jack. A need to fight against the hold of his hand, wrists squirming and fighting for release in hopes of winding your arms around his broad shoulders. A need to give in to the overwhelm, dive head first into the waves of desire that roll over you… So you do.
Jaw slack, toes curled, head thrown back. An orgasm crashes into you with the force of an ocean, sweeping you under and flooding the palm of Jack’s hand with the sticky sweet evidence of how good he’s making you feel.
His fingers fuck you through the experience, lazily curling and stroking the fire, drawing out your pleasure for as long as your body allows him, until a dry sob racks through your chest and tears dance along your lash line, head shaking as you protest the overstimulation.
The retreat of both Jack’s hands, slipping from the waistband of your jeans and relinquishing the grip on your wrists, it does not grant your poor heart respite, a chance to calm the beating it’s delivering against your chest. Instead, he doubles the speed, raising the fingers stained in your own slick and brushing the tips against your lower lip.
“Say ah,” not a question, a demand. Jack is an expert at ordering you around in a manner soft enough, confident enough to have your head reeling and will bending to his every wish.
Under the effect of his darkened gaze and the intoxicating scent of his cologne mixing with the beer on his breath, how can you do anything but let your mouth fall open?
Your first thought is disbelief, running cold down your spine at the unexpected sweetness that coats your tongue; sweetness that melts into a sharp tanginess, giving way to a thirst like no other, glands going into overdrive and wetting your palate. Drunk on yourself, you let your eyes slip shut and your lips wrap around the stretch of Jack’s fingers, a pleased hum bubbling up your throat as his digits apply the slightest of pressure against your tongue, testing the waters of your gag reflex as he slowly pushes himself deeper in your mouth, soaking himself in your spit.
“That’s it, pretty girl,” Jack’s spare hand has found its way down to your waist, slipping over the slopes of your curves and perching itself atop your hip, where he delivers a firm squeeze. “Made a real mess of my hand, ‘s only right you clean it up.”
By the time Jack pulls his hand back, a string of saliva connects his fingers to your lips and a craving is reawakening between your thighs. Afraid to fracture the fragile atmosphere between you and the attending, you choose to lead with action again, one hand grappling at the buckle of his belt while the other begins to hastily drag your jeans down the swell of your ass, skin-tight fabric stubbornly refusing to give way and grant you the freedom of air against your legs.
You only make it so far, barely managing to pry apart his belt when Jack intercepts your desperate touching, hands reclaiming possession over your own and shooing them away. With a pause for consideration, the mental cogs visibly turning behind his eyes, you watch as the attending descends the path of your body, peeling down your jeans along the way. A hiss is bitten back as he bends his knees, one foot planted firmly on the ground the other — his right knee — kissing into the kitchen floor, prosthetic calf laid behind him.
It’s the brush of a breath against your thigh that has you lurching back into your body, ignoring the worried nagging voice that wants to drag him off his knees for the sake of his health and comfort… and instead focusing on the part that wants him off his knees for a far more selfish reason.
“Jack,” your attempt at protesting is pathetic, a well-intended firm call of his name fracturing midway and collapsing into a whine as the man takes to laving his tongue up the expanse of your inner thigh, inching dangerously close to where you can feel your centre throbbing, crying out for him in morse code, desperate for the simplest of touches so long as the one delivering it is the older man currently kneeling on your kitchen floor.
Fingers wind in greying curls, the faintest burn of auburn and copper tickling against your knuckles. You attempt a tug, gentle enough to do no harm yet firm enough to get the point across of what you want: Jack, up and on his feet.
The man does not take the hint, instead he inches further up your leg, nose nuzzling against your mound. Blood rushes in every direction as you witness him pull in a sharp inhale, flooding himself with the intoxicating scent of your would-be pheromones.
“I want to taste you,” he says it with a fire behind his eyes, words impassioned by an animalistic desire; any woman would be mad to not throw herself at him, plead him to take anything and everything from her, however he should please.
Which makes the confusion burning his features more than understandable as he takes in your shaking head and your gentle mutters of no, followed swiftly by, “I need you to fuck me, Jack.”
Hands seek purchase on your hips, grip squeezing a little tighter as he steadies his prosthetic back onto the floor and brings himself back to his standing height. You can see the hesitation, in his eyes and in his fingers, as he slowly continues the undoing of his belt, slow and calculated movements that drag cracked leather free and loosen the clutch his jeans have around his waist.
“Who knew the Pitt’s sweetest nurse could be so demanding?” he muses, like joking might distract you from the cloud of doubt that has so visibly rolled in and settled above you both.
You entertain him, even if only for a moment, “Only when I don’t get what I want. Are you gonna deny me, Jack?”
“So you’re a brat,” bypassing your question, Jack drags the zipper of his pants down and leans his face in, lips brushing against your own with the ghost of a kiss. “Noted.”
His kisses paint a pretty picture of distraction, peppering affection over inches of skin that had spent so long being neglected, you’d nearly forgotten they existed. Over the swells of cheeks, down the slope of a throat, onto the point of a shoulder and back up to the shells of an ear. While your heart wants to sink into the feeling, fall back and let him lather you in every mouthful of affection he can sear against your burning skin, your brain takes the reins of the situation and forces your hands onto his shoulders.
“What’s wrong?” Direct and to the point, you avoid the time-waste of skirting around the subject and confront the change in his demeanour head-on, the sudden hesitancy. A sense of panic licks up your spine, filling your mind with thoughts of Jack regretting having started this, crossing over the safe lines of coworker and marching across into trickier territory. “If you don’t want- I’d understand, okay? If you say it was just the heat of the moment, and the beer, and that you no longer want-”
“What? Baby, I promise this is anything but- Fuck,” Jack practically collapses into the groan that tears out of him, hand falling over his face and pressing into the corners of his eyes as he struggles to get the words out fast enough, a soul-crushing need to put an end to the rejected twinkle in your eyes as you offer him a gentle smile, the kind offered by politeness instead of happiness. Jack hates it on you. “I don’t know how to explain without sounding conceited.”
“Oh-kay,” your confused exclaim melts into acceptance, though your eyes remain sceptical as they trail over the attending’s face, awaiting further explanation. When it doesn’t come, your eyebrows jump, a visual nudge that has Jack finally spilling confessions all over your kitchen floor.
“I’m… Big.”
And cue the laughing track.
Watching as the tips of his ears bleed a bright red, you bite back and swallow down a comment about how his height is a little over average at best. Because when a puppy-eyed Jack Abbot warns you of his size in a manner that implies real danger, the last thing you should do is turn his panic into a joke.
“How big?”
“I don’t know-” Then he cuts himself off, like reality has struck him over the head and he remembers he is, in fact, a medical professional and, though he may never have measured his own endowment, surely he can guesstimate. “Maybe like eight. Inches, I mean. And, um…” what a thrill to see Jack reduced to a mumbling mess, a man so usually consumed by his flirty nature, a charm so potent that it pours off him in rivers, soaking all who wind up in his vicinity. Yet here he stands, barely enough space for a deep breath between you, shyly detailing the heat he’s packing beneath the waistband of his trousers. “I’m- I mean it’s pretty thick, too.”
Silence haunts the space between you.
A sick satisfaction pools in your loins, knowledge renewed on the fact you’re bare from the waist down yet all the power seems to sit in the palm of your hand in this moment, Jack’s fate hanging in the balance of however you choose to react to his assumed shameful confession.
So when all you offer is cocked head and a tongue poking against the inside of your cheek, Jack just about falters into insecurity, seeking validation before you even have time to utter a word.
“I’m not bragging. Or, you know, talking myself up. It’s just- I don’t want to hurt you, or to-”
“Take it out.”
His neck practically snaps as his gaze flies from the floor to your eyes, hazel rings that grown thinner under the enlarging of his pupils, lust bleeding into his stare as he managed a careful, “What?”
“This big dick of yours,” emphasis to your words, you finally let yourself look down and catch sight of him, firm and heavy beneath the confines of dark blue denim. The view of his bulge alone is enough to have your mouth watering, but you can’t let it slip, not when your grip on the reins is finally secured. “Let me see it, Doctor Abbot.”
The switch is instant.
Bashfulness melts away and the cloud of doubt is blown away as a cockiness overcomes Jack’s features, face splitting into a shit-eating grin. Fingers work fast this time, dipping beneath the elastic of his boxers and granting his cock freedom at long last.
No trace of a lie in his words; Jack is big. Uncut, with a rosie red tip that’s already made itself known, glistening with the rogue drops of precum that smear the mushroomed head. At the base sits a bush of hair, groomed enough to show you he cares enough to trim it yet overgrown enough to tell you it’s been a few weeks, silver locks threaded through a valley of dark auburn. Freckles dust his skin in subtle specs, while a vein draws a colourful line up the length of him.
You can practically feel yourself throbbing, calling out for him with each moment that passes, your eyes glued to the phallic shape. Jack, evil incarnate, has the gall to lick a stripe up his palm, hand wrapping around himself and daring to give a slow pump.
“I’m gonna need you to stop looking at me like that,” Jack cuts himself off with a hiss, teeth taking his bottom lip hostage as a chuckle rustles out from the depth of his chest. In that moment, you swear nothing has ever been more attractive than the gentle disapproving shake of his head as he rakes his stare down the shape of you, eyes clinging to where your thighs sit squeezed together, stealing any amount of friction you can find. “‘Else I might cum all over myself like some desperate college kid.”
You reach your hand out, searching for traction and finding it in the belt loop of his trousers, still clinging to his tree-trunk thighs. And thank god for that, for it allows you to tug the man closer, chest to chest, knuckles brushing over the hood of your clit as he works his hand over his cock one last time.
“Then give me a reason to stop looking, Doctor Abbot,” swallowing back any lingering shame or shyness a less hornier version of yourself possesses, you curl a hand over the top of his and stare into pools of hazel as you speak, “Don’t you want to make my eyes roll back?”
Never has a man looked so eager to part your legs, the skin of his knuckles burning white as he takes a hand to the back of one of your knees and hooks it over his waist. Left with no choice but to keep your thighs spread, you indulge yourself by glancing down at the view. Visual sin, erotica live in emotion, Jack guides the blushing tip of his cock up the length of your cunt, soaking himself in your arousal. A mutual gasp echoes out into the kitchen on his second swipe, head catching on your entrance only to be denied easy access, hips rolling only to watch himself press against your clit.
“Don’t care if it hurts,” bordering on lost in lust, you barely register the words as your mouth moves. Jack, on the other hand, clings to every syllable, awaiting whatever salvation they promise to bring him. “Just wanna feel you, Jack. All of you, please.”
“Shh, shh,” his hushing is full of mockery, like the last thing he really wants is to silence the desperate plea in your voice. He does so, unintentionally, by finally lining himself up with your entrance. “Don’t need to beg, baby. I’m gonna give it to you, all of it. Just be sure to cry real pretty for me if it gets too much.”
Something animalistic comes over you as Jack feeds the first inch into your cunt.
The burn is there, the stretch of long-unused walls remoulding themselves around the shape of Jack. But any pain is sweet, the kind that tickles at your nerves and has your heart speeding up, adrenaline activated and intoxicating your bloodstream.
Jack, conscious of the crease between your brows, is tentative, careful. He gives a barely-there thrust, letting himself inch just a little deeper into the pulsing warmth of your pussy. There’s a vein across his forehead that makes itself known, the force of his concentration paired with an accelerating heart rate drawing it to front and centre stage of his face. All it does is make you want him more, deeper, quicker.
Words cease to serve any purpose as the two of you give in to the physical, hands that grasp and pull and anchor themselves atop one another’s skin. You think you breathe some version of his name, but the letters are knocked out of you as your fingers tangle themselves in grey curls and, in the blink of an eye, Jack’s pelvis sits flush against your own, cock buried right to the deep hilt and face collapsed into your own, foreheads exchanging sweat as his temple kisses against yours.
A pitiful whine claws its way from you, suddenly painfully aware of how well Jack fills you, stuffed to the brim in a way no man before has quite achieved. You feel him in your cunt, in your guts, in your lungs with every shaky breath you pull; you are drunk on the attending and the feeling of his cock pulsing deep within your gummy walls.
“Sorry, baby. I’m so sorry,” apologies are overflowing from the fountain of Jack’s mouth, brushing against your cheek in tiny puffs of breath as the older man blesses you with a whimper so pathetic you nearly come undone right then and there, cunt ready to spill all over his throbbing cock. “Didn’t mean to- shit. Wanted to take it slow, ease him in, but god… You’re just so tight. And warm, and- Ahh! And your nails, they- they scrapped against my scalp and you were tugging on my hair and I couldn’t help it, baby.”
How can you even contest or complain, when you feel like a live wire, thrumming with a deadly kind of energy that threatens to burn everything and anything that touches you and isn’t Jack Abbot?
His hips rock back slightly, only for him to fuck back into you, tip to cervix. The leg hooked around his waist tightens around him, holding Jack as close to you as possible. The scene between you plays out with an intensity one could cut with a knife.
Slow and shallow rolls of hips, punctuating each shaken breath you pull and forcing the air out of you in pitiful whines and moans, songs of praise for Jack's viewing pleasure.
Foreheads together, breaths mingling until it’s hard to tell where your exhale stops and his inhale starts. Both nurse and attending, junior and senior, woman and man; whatever title you and Jack may be addressed by, you’re equal measures of the same mess, staining one another with nails that scrape over freckled skin and five o’clock shadows that burn at cheeks.
“Look at you,” Jack marvels, one hand scooping up to cup your face and remind you of how big his hands look — hands you spent weeks wishing would reach for yours during quiet walks home. Yet now one cradles you while the other grips at your body, tilts your hips at angle that drives him just that little bit deeper. “Taking it like a good girl, no whining or complaining that it hurts.”
What really hurts is that he is still moving at an agonisingly slow pace, torturous drags of his thick length along your walls. If you weren’t speechless under effects of his ministrations, you’d maybe find the ability to tell him this.
“You’re just grateful to have something to fill this pussy, huh?” Something catches in Jack’s throat, a fractured groan that raises a sudden alarm. It feels different to previous ones, born from somewhere deeper, more painful in his chest. “If I knew you’d be do eager, I wouldn't have waited this long to come inside.”
You stomach three more measured rolls of Jack’s hips before you cave into the anxious feeling hollowing your pleasure, the wince on his face having grown deeper and more concerning.
All it take is a hand to his shoulder and a barely formed Jack, wait, for the man to tear himself off you, putting immediate distance between you despite the hand that remains on your face, holding it steady as his gaze sweeps over you in search of evidence of your well-being.
“What’s wrong, kid?” Just like that, you watch him slip back into the practised role of a caretaker, Dr Abbot taking centre stage and relegating Jack, the man keen on seeing you come undone at his touch, to the wings. “Did I hurt you? I’m sorry, I told you- Warned you, baby.”
His rambling would be endearing, if you weren't aware of the sudden empty feeling of your cunt clenching at nothing and, worse, the bitten-back wince of pain that pronounces itself across his face as he shifts weight from one foot onto the other.
So you take matters into your own hands to silence his spiralling mind.
Literally into your hand, fingers wrapping themselves around the thick swell of his cock, standing at attention and smearing the evidence of your lust over Jack’s lower abdomen. The reaction is instant: hips bucking into your touch in a stuttered thrust, mouth falling agape and silent as you envelop him in your gentle touch.
“You didn’t hurt me,” quite the opposite, the tight fit of his dick bordering on nothing short of heaven. “But you’re hurting yourself.”
Before Jack can demand a much earned explanation, you trade his cock for one of his hands, threading yourself to him and enduring he can’t let go as you begin guiding him to your bedroom, the gentle jingle of his loose belt slapping against his thigh announcing each step he takes.
Lit only by the silver light of moon, you turn to him as you reach your humble queen size bed and try your hand at that stern yet caring look Jack has mastered — the look that’s held your heart hostage since you first witnessed it directed at you.
“Your leg. It’s hurting,” now you wish you had opted for switching on a light, because you swear you see the subtlest hint of a blush taking over Jack’s cheeks, guilty and caught when he thought he was doing such a good job to mask the dull ache of his limb. “Take it off, Jack. Or at least let yourself rest on the bed, let me do the work.”
Your silver fox puts up little fight, mouth opening and swiftly closing before any empty protest can flee. The mattress squeaks beneath his weight as Jack sits down on the edge, both legs bent at the knee and feet planted on the floor — he makes a conscious effort to keep his boots from touching the small carpet that runs along your bedside, unwilling to taint the cream coloured fur.
As he hunches over, hands peeling back the leg of his trouser to expose the sight of his faux-calf, a fragile quiet befalls you both. You watch entranced as he removes the prosthetic, a practised ritual he performs with the ease of a man who long ago came to terms with the cards that were handed to him. Freed at last, unwinding a strip of bandage from the stump, Jack takes to removing his clothes next, while you take to filing away his previous movements into a part of your mind labelled later, a future in the shape of a question mark, the possibility of some day needing to remove it for him.
There is something decidedly cruel about the sight of Jack Abbot sitting at the edge of your bed, completely undressed and pinning you beneath his stare as his hands now occupy themselves with more nefarious actions, one gripping at his cock and indulging himself in a languid stroke while the other takes claim of the bottom of your shirt, balling the fabric up in a fist as he tugs you close so abruptly, it’s only natural that you slip and tumble into his naked lap.
An awkward repositioning is punctuated by your own nervous laughter, a shy giggle making itself known as you straddle the doctor, the hand between his legs now teasing at your core, dipping into your honeypot just to soak himself in your sweetness before diverting his attention to your clit, pointer and middle finger rubbing an agonisingly slow circle over the nub.
“You’re gorgeous,” Jack whispers, honesty rolling off him in waves as his eyes ravage the newly exposed sight of your naked chest, t-shirt and bra tossed behind you in the blind chaos of falling into Jack. “You know that, right?”
There is urgency in his voice, like his worldview might just collapse if you tell him otherwise, and the desperation is enough to have you giggling all over again, a noise that quickly is intercepted by a gasp, eyes slipping shut as the man welcomes himself to the taste of your flesh, mouth swooping forward to take the right nipple between his lips, “You might have mentioned it before.”
“Then let me mention it again,” mumbled into your chest, he marks the sentence with a kiss to the opposite nipple, “And again,” the next kiss lands back on your right nipple. “And again.”
Both of you groan at the other’s ministrations, your hand threaded back in the silver locks of his hair and tugging at them just sharp enough to have Jack’s hips rutting up into you, bodies searching for the sweet release of friction yet neither of you rushing to give in as you slowly wade into the depths of lust, grinding desperately against one another like a pair of inexperienced college students.
“Jack,” you breathe his name, hand tilting his head back from your chest and granting you the freedom to plant your mouth against him, tongue dipping into the cavern of his mouth, the taste of beer and bourbon still on his lips.
“Hmm,” Jack hums, hand cradling your cheek.
Between you, tensions rise as your folds spread around his cock, rubbing up the length of him as he rocks himself against you.
“Are you going to fuck me,” is all he lets you get out before he drags you in for another kiss. “Or are we going to sit like this all night?”
“I don’t know, feels pretty good to me,” he’s teasing you, enjoying the sight of you growing more and more dishevelled by your own carnal needs, your nails digging into his freckled shoulders. “I wouldn’t mind.”
Sighing with nothing but sexual frustration, you recapture those earlier reins and slip your hand between you both, grabbing at Jack’s cock and lining it up at your entrance, thigh muscles burning as you hover, “Well I would.”
You sink down onto him slowly, eyes incapable of resisting the urge to roll to the back of your skull as you feel that sweet familiar burn of him stretching your walls.
Jack is speechless, but far from quiet, mouth open and singing you the prettiest songs of guttural praise. His hands are on your hips, gripping you in a way that threatens to bruise, all the while you are savouring the flush press of your bodies, your soaked folds kissing the base of his cock with a creamy ring.
When you finally begin to move, a careful raise of hips, you condemn both of you to a world polluted by lust, and pleasure, and the aching need to keep stimulating friction.
The rhythm comes naturally, a slow build-up of you fucking yourself down onto him, stuffing your cunt full to the brim. Jack has given in, handed himself over to you for you to use how you please, while his hands rake over every sliver of skin they can reach. Smoothing over your thighs, grabbing at your waist, pinching at your hard nipples, guiding your mouth down to meet his, a kiss that is more an exchange of breaths than a battle of lips.
A symphony composed entirely of sin, the darkness of your bedroom is set ablaze by the wet slap of skin meeting skin, a squelch punctuating each time he fills your cunt and a new wave of your arousal drips down his thighs and stains your bedsheets.
“This fucking pussy,” Jack speaks like you have personally wounded him, your forehead meeting his shoulder as you let out a squeak, the hands on your waist no longer sitting idle but now guiding you, bouncing you down to meet the upward rut of his hips. “‘S so tight, and warm, and perfect. You’re perfect, letting me stretch this little hole. Taking all of me.”
“Love it, Jack,” You’re babbling into his shoulder, mind turning to unusable mush the faster Jack slams you down on him.
“Love what, kid?”
“Your cock.”
“Yeah?” Oh, the smugness in his voice should be illegal, but you have only yourself to blame. “Who knew my pretty nurse was so good at taking dick. Can’t believe you’ve been holding out on me all this time.”
A chord is winding inside you, drawing tighter and tighter as Jack continues to bounce you down on his cock, pausing every few thrusts to let you savour the full stretch, grinding up and biting back laughter as you greet him with the whites of your eyes.
“Holding- ahh! Out?” Your walls flutter around him as you feel yourself closer to the edge of an orgasm.
“Yeah, sweetheart, holding out,” a kiss lands on the side of your head, as though Jack is incapable of not showering you in as much physical affection as possible. “Ignoring all my flirting, never giving me a sign that you want me just as much as I want you.”
“Flirting?!” Head out from his shoulders, you gaze down at him in disbelief, refusing to take the blame for why it has taken so many months for the pair of your to wind up here, naked and desperate and staining your sheets together. “How was I supposed to know? You flirt with everyone- Jack!”
His name is more shriek than moan, tearing out of you as his fingers press themselves to your clit and send you head-first into an orgasm.
Jack fucks you through it, slower rolls of his hips stretching out your state of euphoria and granting him a longer view of your mouth spewing profanities and your eyes rolling back and your hips bucking atop him, both fleeing from and feeding into his touch.
A sudden bang interrupts the scene, cutting your bliss short and forcing you to swallow back a moan.
Frozen in place, fingers to your clit and cock half-way buried inside, Jack’s wide-eyed gaze watches you with a questioning glance. Silence isn’t given the chance to settle fully between you, as soon another sound — from the same direction as the bang — echoes through your bedroom.
“Hey! Keep it down, some of us are trying to sleep.”
Jack is the first to react, laughter shaking his shoulders. His head tilts back, disbelief gripping him in its clutches. Collapsing back onto your bed, he drags you down with him, sweaty chest pressing to sweaty chest. You follow him into laughter too, your own muted chuckles spilling into his neck as you shyly bury your face away, mortified by the thought of one of your neighbours hearing you and Jack.
Apparently, it has the opposite affect on him.
Because instead of crippling mortification, Jack has already begun rutting back into you, shallow thrusts that he somehow manages to deliver, despite the fact his cock already fills you to the brim. Nerves aflame from a ruined orgasm, your body is quick to submit to him, hips tilting to welcome him deeper, back arching into his body. But the moment your lips dare to part, a chastisement is quick to follow, a disapproving tut coming from the man beneath you.
“Shh,” despite his hushing, he makes no attempt to slow his thrusts, the very cause of your fracturing sanity, mouth no longer in control of the noises you let out. Neighbours be damned, you would happily dare any of them to feel the sweet release of Jack stretching them out and not turn into raving banshees. Well, not quite so happily, for you are very quickly growing not only fond but possessive of the attending. “I know, kid, I know. Feels good, right? So good you just wanna scream, don’t even care if someone hears?”
Whether you realise it or not, you nod along to his mockery, desperate please for more, please, just like that, Jack proving his point perfectly: you don’t care.
The only thing you can do is feel him, all of him.
“That’s it, let it out,” he croons, faux sympathy in his voice while he cups your face and swipes away at a tear, the overwhelm of feeling so full and so close to cumming for a third time finally getting the better of you. Tear gone, the hand on your cheek drifts down to cover your mouth, smothering you into silence, muffling the shriek you let out as his hips grow sloppy, desperate, fucking you deeper, harder, faster each time, his own orgasm creeping over the horizon. “I’ll take you to my place next time. ‘S a detached bungalow, can be as loud as you need to be. And, god, I plan on giving you reasons to be loud, put you in every possible position, make you cum so many times you lose count.”
Every moan and groan and whine of his name that leaves you is muffled by the heavy palm of his hand… Which turns out to be a blessing in disguise when a third and final orgasm collides, head first, right into you, leaving you a mess. As you writhe and wriggle, one of the muscles in your calf cramping as your toes curl and your body pulls itself taut, Jack is fighting his own personal battle, hips stilled and limiting the friction as much as possible while you fall apart atop him.
Fingers tangled in his hair, face engulfed by his heavy hand, thighs squeezing around his hips; the image of you cumming is the kind that pushes a man to pick up a paint brush, all in the hopes of memorialising the art in motion onto canvas. Jack can barely focus on you, however, eyes squeezing shut as he steadies his breathing and struggles to hold back a flood.
“‘M gonna cum, baby,” Jack strains out, pulse near visible along his jugular as his heart rate shifts into overdrive. “Need you to lift these pretty hips off me or else- ahh!”
The whimper you pull from him is damn near heartbreaking, right from the gut and full of a fractured sincerity. Unwilling to so much as let him finish any thought of pulling out, never mind his sentence, you’ve staked your claim, shook your head, and cemented yourself flush atop him, cock stuffed to the brim and left no choice but to spill into the pulsing heat of your walls.
Hot, thick ropes of Jack’s cum flood your pussy, painting a pearly white mess inside of you. Overflowing and with nowhere else to run, you feel the unmistakable stickiness of his cum, now mixed with your own orgasmic bliss, leaking out of you and staining both your skins in the act. Breathless and minds drifting far away from the physical plane, you crash down atop Jack, overstimulated and overspent, and drift into the comfort of his arms enveloping you, holding your sweaty figure against his own in an embrace that says stay without uttering a single syllable.
Frozen in time, the pair of you remain glued to one another. Your breathing falls in sync, each rise of his chest matching perfectly with your exhale, and a gentle rocking remains between your bodies, an invisible stream of desire that ebbs and flows, manipulating Jack into rocking up into you and teasing you into grinding down to meet his movements, in spite of the teeth clenching sensitivity tingling at your skin.
You are the first to move, a careful rise from his chest. Already softened within you, his cock slips out of you and you pull a breath in through a grimace. The muscles in your thighs have turned to mush, more unstable than jelly, and so it is nothing short of a miracle to feel Jack’s steady touch settle itself on your hips, hands supporting the dead-weight of your lax body and guiding you to hover over his lower abdomen. You quickly realise he has less than pure intentions, as you watch satisfaction creep back into his pupils when a string of his cum dribbles out from your cunt and drips down onto his skin.
Admiring the picture you paint over his lower stomach, Jack has the nerve to mock the tired whine he coaxes from you as fingers swipe through the white mess and slip between your folds, feeding his spend right back into your walls.
Back hitting the mattress before you can protest, you struggle over a gasp and a barely stringed together sentence while the attending slips down the length of your body, pausing only when his head reaches your thighs.
“What are you doing?”
“What’s it look like?” Jack, with reflexes quick enough to match his wit, intercepts your legs before they can crush his head between them, your hips bucking and your heart unsure whether you are trying to chase after or run from the teasing stripe he licks up your cunt. “You cleaned your mess, now let me clean mine.”
Your heads hit the pillow as the Sun hits the horizon.
By nine, birds chirp by the windowsill and sunlight cuts through the sliver in your curtains, forcing your half-asleep form to retreat into the safety of Jack’s chest. He answers your cry for help instantly, arms pulling tighter around your waist as he continues to venture through a land of dreams, lips parted in the softest snore.
By noon, the city is awake. Cars honk their horns, voices fill the streets, doors slam from floors above and below. But in your apartment, not a creature stirs, bodies clinging to one another and sleep with equal fervour. If you drift left, Jack soon follows. If Jack flips onto his front, your palm is quick to flatten itself over his back. Magnets connected by an unseen force, the pair of you toss and turn beneath wrinkled bedsheets.
By four, the bathroom mirror is fogged. You are a nervous wreck contained behind the nervous smile of someone who is trying their best to be supportive despite the shampoo stinging at your eyes and the grown man you are supporting against your frame. Unwilling to let you drag one of your leather dining chairs into the cubicle, Jack had insisted he would be fine to shower standing, so long as you kept him company.
By six, your apartment is empty. Clad in the familiar shapeless clothing that is sure to keep you comfortable throughout your shift, you’re struggling to find the right time to ask Jack to hand you your bag back, too used to his habit of prying it out your hands to even notice he had done so as you both departed from your front door. No choice but to throw on last nights clothing, Jack is silent at your back, one arm pulling you against him as yet another neighbour slips into the confines of the elevator — freshly fixed yet sending a shiver down your spine with each shake it gives in its descent down to the ground floor.
By some miracle, you make it out onto the street.
Which maybe, now that the fresh air hits your cheek, you are beginning to lament. Because this is it, the point of no return; where you go one way and Jack will go the other, trailing home to enjoy the rest of his night off while you no doubt will spend your entire shift dreading where the events that transpired between you — the stolen kisses, the lustful whines, the rolling hips — leave you both standing.
Taking your bag from him seems like the correct first move to make towards goodbye, but when you reach your hand out, Jack answers your silent plea with his empty one threading itself into your hold, fingers entwined in a manner so perfectly it has you reminiscing on how your bodies lay atop your mattress.
The attending has already tugged you halfway down the street before your mouth catches up with your feet, choking out a dumbfounded, “Where are you going? You’re off today.”
“So?” Jack barely offers you a bothered shrug of his shoulders, glancing back at you with a look in his eyes so warm, you worry you might just melt into the asphalt. “That doesn’t mean I can’t walk you to work.”
+ extra hyde!
· this fic was meant to be short, believe it or not... my first proper fic of 2026, yippee!
· olivia, girl... never stop making albums for me to cry to.
· pov: jack abbot, the biggest flirt who turns into a bumbling idiot when faced with the person he actually wants:
waited until I was at my laptop so could properly wax poetic about this fic
first of all, consider your big sloppy wet kiss returned WITH TONGUE... I am not just so lucky to know you and be your friend but also to have gotten the pleasure of reading this!!!! I should have known better because it is you, but truly nothing prepared for the excellence when I opened that link.
my sweet girl this pic is an absolute masterclass at subtle tension, from the way you gently built up their connection until the gravity of what's between them was impossible to ignore.
Brief exchanges of good morning, good night, and how are you? during the shift handovers blossomed into good job, good call, and I need you with me.
this was when I knew I was screwed because just like this relationship and bond already felt lived in, like I was lucky enough to pick up the book just as it's getting good. Which is insane because you bring it full circle at the end just for me to feel like it's only just starting.
Speaking of the end.... THE REVEAL HE WAS LYING not just about Shen but about his car. oh man. oh man. I had to stop and literally take an inhale because it sent me to the moon.
Nevermind the absolute delight that was the smut, I'm sorry but the way you masterfully wield the pen of cliterature should be studied. I haaven't been this wet reading a fic since the vocal economy. I think sometimes writers get into this space (at least I do) of feeling like a fic has to have smut to be engaging and you can tell! But here? oh my god it felt inevitable. Like I was going to die if these two didn't bump uglies and boy did you did deliver.
Him pushing himself and standing for too long? she's pulsing.
Him being embarrassed about being big? she's throbbing.
His hand over my mouth telling me how he's gonna take me to his bungalow? SHE MEOWED. OUTLOUD
anyway house of Hyde, you have done it again. How lucky are we
✶ ― SYNOPSIS. fleeing from a messy situationship, you embark on a journey to travel across the globe and discover the hidden beauties earth has to offer. you find the rarest beauty of all in him, bucky barnes. honey eyed, smooth-talking, and capable of working just about every job under the sun. as you continue to crash into him with every country you travel through, a chilling thought starts to take hold of your heart: is fate pushing you together, or is something darker chasing you? this fic is part of the bwat summer collab !
warnings .ᐟ mdni! no use of y/n, vacation/backpacking au, romcom au but make it a thriller too, stalker!bucky, strangers to unethically sourced lovers, smut (dubcon, sex via coercion/manipulation, piv, dacryphilia, blowjob, cum eating, spit swallowing, mirror sex, pussy slapping, tummy bulge, recording sexual acts, implied panty stealing, creampie), stalking, creepy behaviour masked as romantic, bucky is a major loser he just hides it well, harassment (from a character that isn't bucky), descriptions of scars and an anxiety attack. the reader in this fic is pretty much dense and trusts a man too blindly. if you don't enjoy reading that, no worries, this fic just isn't for you. see you in the next one <3
ᯓ★ hyde's input. this entire fic is a joke that went too far. thank you to the amazing @barnesonly & @iamthatonefangirl for organising this collab, ily both so dearly <3
disclaimer. instead of possessing a bionic arm in this au, bucky is a survivor of a burn injury along his left arm. i have tried to handle the subject as respectfully as possible, sincerest apologies if i did not succeed at that.
follow @houseofjekyll + turn on notifications to know when i post a new fic!
TRAVEL&co kiosk, between gates 31/32 & gates 33/34.
An overwhelm of options can paralyse choice.
Bursting from the metal confines of the display stand, a rainbow of pamphlets cry out for your attention, each more desperate than the last to be picked off the shelf and purchased. Titles in bold, italics, underlined; every old trick in the book, intended to capture the eye, stands before you.
Top 20 Tourist Stops in East Asia.
DOs & DONTs of Hostel Living.
HIDDEN GEMS: a Guide to Rural Sight-Seeing.
Trust your gut, you can practically hear your mother’s voice in your head, guiding you to put your faith in something arbitrary. While her motherly advice is typically welcome, this time the thought leaves an acidic taste in your mouth that lingers, souring your expression and becoming the root of your furrowing brows.
Your gut has unfortunately been a source of misery as of late, leading you down the regretful path of trusting a man, putting all your patience and hope in his ability to change, eventually, for you. What a selfishly naive belief, to think you could change fate, scrub the mould off a man’s heart and bring him back to the land of the feeling. No affection that requires you to humiliate yourself is ever worth it, and god have you learn it the ugly way: tears dripping onto the carpet beneath your knees, chest heaving for breaths, and his lame-ass excuses, I’m just not ready for commitment, baby.
More the fool you for believing a man pushing thirty, incapable of holding down a job, and still riding the high of his days as the high school quarterback could ever face something as challenging as putting a label on the months of ‘messing around’ you both had been partaking in. Now here you stand, suitcase checked in and a one-way boarding pass in hand, frozen before the overwhelming display of travel books one of the airport’s many kiosks has to offer, and hellbent on placing as much distance as possible between you and that man.
A last minute decision, filling the neglected well of spontaneity in your life. Your parents had thought you mad, your friends had insisted on keeping you company. With both groups of protesting figures in your life, you put your foot down and demanded the solitude you craved. After all, you can’t exactly embark on a solo-trip around the planet with someone by your side — even if that someone is your mother or closest friend.
But maybe loneliness is not all it’s cut-out to be. You’d give up everything just about now to have someone to help pluck out the right pamphlet, something sure to serve you not just your first stop but for the entirety of your travels.
“You’re looking at stand like it owes you a debt.”
At first, you think you’re hearing things, brain so desperate for validation it’s taken to imagining company. Then something moves in your peripheral and you’re struck with a sight that feels like something the universe has sent directly to mock your battered and bruised heart: a man.
Not just any run-of-the-mill man, but a man made of blue eyes, sharp cheeks, and a smile so pearly-white you feel you’re staring into the mouth of a predator, inches away from sinking it’s canines into your delicate skin and devouring you whole… But no beast looks like this, enchanting and handsome in a manner that has you questioning where this stranger has been hiding from you all along — until, of course, you remember you’re in an airport and it’s likely this man is merely passing through your city, a temporary stop on his journey to who-knows-where.
Is it too late to change your flight?
“And now it seems the debt is mine,” the stranger lets out a chuckle at his words, wolfish smile stretching wider along his cheeks and making you painfully aware of the creases that mark the skin around his eyes — evidence of a life well-lived, the wrinkles of happiness. They only serve to make him all the more enticing to stare at, a deer caught in the glow of a very beautiful headlight. “Any chance I can pay it off with a little advice?”
Why has it taken you so long to realise the man is talking to you?
A scramble for breath, for words, for something that won’t deepen the embarrassment already scorching your cheeks, you muster a sophisticated, “Huh?”
… and instantly wish the linoleum flooring would spontaneously drop to reveal a sinkhole big enough to swallow you.
“Here, let’s go with,” the man drags out his word, bending at the waist as he leans forward, arm reaching down to pluck something from the stand. You barely have time to admire the way he fills out his trousers, jeans clad skin tight against the swell of his ass, before his spine has straightened and he’s waving a booklet in your face. “This sounds pretty useful, don’cha agree?”
The tiniest twang of an accent kisses your eardrum, scratching an itch you hadn’t even been aware of until now. You almost feign mishearing, just for a chance to hear the stranger repeat himself. But your eyes are drawn downwards, towards the title in his palm, and all hope of feigning ignorance flies out the door.
The Wise Traveller: navigating safety as a solo-travelling woman.
Hackles rise, an old reflex from the days you payed your gut any mind. Your mouth dries, and your eyes widen slightly, and you’re suddenly reminded of the fact this stranger is a man, mankind’s greatest predator.
“How do you know I’m travelling alone?” The question is a bite, one you deliver before sense can tell you better.
By the way the man’s smile falters, a minuscule tremble in the corners of his mouth, your hostility was unexpected. Nevertheless, the man makes no attempt to impose his presence on you, shoulders slouching in on themselves and dampening the height he holds over you.
“I don’t know how to explain it,” his words are sheepish, almost, a twinge of embarrassment painting a rosy streak over his cheeks. A hand winds its way up to the back of his neck, a self-soothing method you know far too well, fingers rubbing over skin. “You just… have the look. I’m really sorry miss, I didn’t mean to make you uncomforta-”
“It’s fine,” a mixture of shame and guilt has you cutting him off, eyes shooting back to the display and making a hasty decision to pick up the first guide they land on. “Thanks for the advice, but I’m all caught up on safety. This is what I was looking for.”
An Idiot’s Guide to Germany. It sits pretty in your hold, thin enough to read before the plane descends back onto solid ground, and completely useless to you.
But the man in front of you doesn’t need to know Germany is far from your destination.
So you scurry off, ready to put the embarrassing interaction in your rear-view mirror and re-vowing to yourself to put an end to interactions with men that make you want to claw out your skin — whether the fault be theirs or your own — and shoot off in search of the till. But something halts you on your way, turning on your ankle to face the beautiful stranger once more. He’s watching you with an endearment in his eye that makes your guts tangle in knots, sickly butterflies flying the nest and spreading through your body.
Men can be so unfairly pretty sometimes, especially when built like the model-esque figure before your eyes.
“Have a safe flight!” And with this final and only attempt at politeness, a last-ditch effort to salvage a conversation your own paranoia has already butchered, you shoot off to pay for a travel guide that will soon make a home for itself at the bottom of your bag, never to be kissed by the light of day again.
Paying for your unwanted good and stuffing it into your purse, your pursuit of escaping as swiftly as possible is hindered by the sudden tap of a finger on your shoulder, coaxing you to glance over your shoulder and find the same beautiful stranger, smile still plastered across his million-dollar face and sporting a plastic bag in his grasp, extended out to you and awaiting your acceptance.
“Please,” the blue-eyed man presses, plastic rustling in his grasp. “I’m sure you’re a smart girl, and that you’re more than capable of keeping yourself safe. But I have a little sister and- Well, it just wouldn’t sit right on my conscience to not do my part in keeping a woman safe.”
You accept his offering, fingers looping through the holes of the bag, because it feels cruel to deny him, to send him off with his tail tucked between his legs and his well intentions stomped all over the floor.
The man excuses himself, rushing off who knows where as you begin your own journey towards your assigned departure gate. Only as you settle in to the exhausted queue of antsy passengers, desperate to start their holidays or return to their families at last, do you take a peak into the plastic bag.
There it sits, just as you expect, The Wise Traveller.
Before you can think better of accidentally advertising to your fellow travellers your vulnerable state of solitude, the booklets is in your grasp and you’re flicking through the opening pages. Blue ink, smudged by the press of pages, catches your eye; an inscription from your handsome stranger.
There’s no such thing as being too careful.
Stay safe, be wise, & enjoy your trip.
- Bucky
Dragon Crest Mountain, Thailand.
The view from the top of the world is beautifully depressing.
Beautiful because the horizon stretches below you, curves and edges of green treetops and mountainous terrain. An infinite expanse of mother nature’s art painted shamelessly over the canvas of the Earth, unmarred by the hands of man nor the wheels of machines.
Depressing because, despite the view, your mind is elsewhere; enthralled by visions of tangled sheets, and bruising touches, and tear-filled tissues.
With the fellow hikers that surround you moved to silence by the ethereal view, no chattering mouths can muffle your ears from the buzz coming from your bag. A familiar pattern of three, buzz buzz buzz, you can easily picture the screen lighting up with his name, treacherously innocent for a man who masks the Devil behind his shy smile and his careful caresses.
You groan, louder than intended, and surrender with an apologetic smile towards the group of elderly women shooting daggers in your direction. Your frustration cannot be helped, really. It is utterly and entirely justifiable, given the texts staring back at you from the screen in your hand, freshly fished out your bag and clasped within your sweat-dampened grip.
DONT REPLY!! (tony) — 10:48 you'll never guess who i ran into today, honey.
DONT REPLY!! (tony) — 10:48your mother, she said your flight landed safely!
DONT REPLY!! (tony) — 10:49 i'm glad but i can’t help wishing you were here. my bed isn’t the same without you.
Psychological warfare.
That is what this is, the manipulative moves of a man who knows all the right words to say at the worst of times. How can he speak of missing you, when he couldn’t even appreciate you when you were right in front of him, nothing short of begging him to need you as much as you needed him?
Still, your ex-situationship’s messages worm themselves into your mind, planting seeds of doubt into your dignity and sanity. Your thumb swipes up on the screen before you can think better of it, the lingering muscle memory of a lovesick fool who at last has felt the exhilarating rush of hearing from the man who makes your usually rock solid heart feel like it is made out of glass.
It wouldn’t hurt to reply, surely. It would be the polite thing to do. After all, you and him are friends. Good friends, with years of history outside of the sultry looks exchanged atop mattresses. And he just wants to know you’re okay, right? A perfectly human reaction to having the person you spend nearly every day beside suddenly up and leave, bags packed with a one-way ticket and a declaration that you are going to see what else the world has to offer, both the good and bad.
Just as you type the opening letters to a calculatedly casual reply, another message enters the chat, lighting a fire in your chest and flooding your mouth with the bitter taste of anger.
DONT REPLY!! (tony) — 10:53 but it’s okay. take your time. i’d rather you work through your little hissy fit first.
Scoffing before you can help it, you hastily switch off the phone and shove it back into your bag, eyes rolling and mouth curling with a snarl as you mutter, “Rich coming from a man who cries every time his shitty team loses.”
The remedy to the ugly feelings swirling up a storm in your chest lays ahead, dragging your eyes back out to the view of the world at your feet, a vastness that manages to make yourself, and consequently your troubles, feel minuscule and unimportant. You can cry a thousand times about a man who will never change his ways nor mature beyond the mindset of a frat-boy, and the Sun will still do her job regardless of your pain: rising, falling, and blessing the lands with her warmth.
And so, ultimately, no matter the heartbreak locked behind your phone screen, you are truly a girl who is going to be okay. Maybe not today, or tomorrow, or in any recent days that follow. But at some point, as you jet from country to country, checking off box after box on your bucket list, and nourishing your well of experience, you will feel your phone buzz with a notification and the last thing on your mind will be the hopeful dread of it being from Tony.
Something flashes in the corner of your eye.
Startled, your shoulders jump as you turn, just in time to be blinded by the obnoxious flash of a camera, shutter snapping shut as the camera’s owner takes a picture. Sight still blurred by the blinding white light, you faintly make out the shape of a dark haired man, camera still raised at shoulder height.
“Oh, sorry,” you stumble over the apology, too busy trying to shuffle out of the lens’ way. “Let me just- I can move, so you can get the full-”
The cameraman chuckles and the sound runs right through you, a visceral reaction stirring within as you feel the hairs on the back of your neck rise and your palms grow sweaty. It’s like you know that laugh, the deep chortle that has an uptick in pitch at the end, itching at a particular spot in your ear.
“No, no, it’s fine- Don’t move!” The man, amidst his laughing, exclaims with a panic that manages to freeze your fleeing feet. Camera back to his face, he points it unmistakably at you and clicks capture, flash firing in your eyes again. “Sorry, sorry! It’s just- Wow.”
Doing your best to not show your confusion — though a part of you is painfully aware of the awe in the stranger’s tone, and the Tour Guide name tag dangling from his lanyard, and the curious American twang voice — you settle on a tightlipped smile, polite enough to gift a stranger yet not void of the utter confusion coursing through your veins.
“Sorry, gosh… You must think I’m some kind of creep,” the man continues his spew of apologies, shaking his head as he lowers the camera and let’s it drop, strap tightening around his neck and halting the device from crashing to the floor. “I normally ask before I, you know, take pictures of the tour guests. But the sunset was hitting you perfectly, and you looked so candidly peaceful, and I didn’t want to ruin the picture by making you… Aware. People get awkward when they know a camera is watching them.”
“Oh, yeah, that’s-” whatever words awaited at the end of your sentence are lost to space and time, as the cloudiness finally drifts, no longer obstructing your line of sight, and you find yourself face to face with eyes so blue, you would have to be an idiot to forget them. “Bucky!?”
Taking on the role of confused bystander, the blue-eyed man is now the one shooting you a tightlipped smile, a questioning gaze skimming over the length of you. You swear you can almost see the cogs turning in his brain, like he is actively trying to replay any memory that features your face.
When it hits him, it is a visible recollection, one that sends his mouth stretching into a full-blown smile and has you embarrassingly aware of how white his teeth are, canines glinting under the shine of a lowering sun.
“Hey, I remember you!” Connection established, he takes a step closer to you, lowering his voice in an attempt to not interfere with the quiet solace the rest of the hikers are seeking. The dampening of volume is not enough to deafen the excited recollection in his voice. “Kiosk Girl! Wow, this is- How was Germany?”
“What?” Mouth moving quicker than mind, you let your confusion rule over your sense before you are struck over the head with the rest of the scene that unfolded at the kiosk stand. The staring at pamphlets, the interruption of a handsome stranger, the offer of a survival guide. Your defensive denial, the awkward reach for a booklet all about a country you weren’t even travelling to, the gift of the survival guide, inscribed with the handsome stranger’s name. “Germany, right. Yeah, uh, it was great. Bit cold but-”
“Cold, in June? Strange,” Bucky, now even closer than moments before, is staring down at the camera, back in his hands and flicking through a series of photos. Photos of you, bated in hues of orange and purple, staring out to a blanket of greenery, sundress trapped in motion by the rustling of a warm breeze. “I always heard the weather was good there this time of year.”
Like a glass of cold water splashing over your face, the man’s words are enough to leave you shaken, the ice-cold embarrassment that soon melts into the shame of lying — and lying badly, of all things — to someone with a smile as earnest as his.
Too deep now to back out, you nod and commit to your deceit, praying you live long enough to someday forget this interaction ever happened, “Yeah, they- Well, the locals said it was a fluke. Global-warming, you know, changing the natural order of the world.”
If there is a higher being watching over your interactions, it is made of cruelty and spite, for only a creature made of all things not-nice would thrust you into a position where you embarrass yourself in front of a beautiful stranger not once, but twice — the same stranger, too. Incidents weeks apart, yet the burning sensation of bile biting at the back of your throat is just the same as the one you felt in the airport, rushing away to pay for the neglected German guide you had shamefully abandoned on the plane.
Bucky, the stranger who has unknowingly become the agent behind your most embarrassing moments in recent times, is none-the-wiser to your internal panic, nodding in acceptance of your explanation and shifting focus over to the camera in his hand.
“I’m sorry, again, for taking this without asking. I didn’t mean to scare you,” is it fair for a man to look so effortlessly good, one hand reaching up to push a set of overgrown brown curls from his forehead, hooking one particular long strand behind his ear? Rarely a fan of long locks on a man, there is something about the way he wears his head of hair, dishevelled yet, strangely, not a hair seems out of place, falling perfectly in a way that frames his sharp features. His voice fills your ears again, pulling focus down to his rosebud lips. “But, uh… If you don’t hate the pictures, I can pass them along to you.”
“If I don’t like them? Are you kidding?” Overcompensating for your frazzled nerves, your enthusiastic display as you glance down at the photograph burnt into the camera’s screen is hopefully enough to atone for your earlier sin of lying. “These are- Wow! I mean, are you a professional photographer? You should be photographing models, not working here as a tour guide-”
And now you are just overdoing it.
Because, truth be told, the picture is not even that good. You are barely in focus, the background is more pixelated than one would hope, and there is an intruding figure in the corner, the sandal-clad foot of a man who had been standing off to the side.
“You really think so?” Bucky drinks in your praise, cheeks glowing a rosy hue as he basks in your eager praise. Men really are so simple at their core, happy to believe they are overqualified in a skill they barely have at the slightest of celebration. “I was just messing with the lens, didn’t think I’d even do that good… Oh, but, actually-”
He pauses, hesitation on his face as he mulls over a thought.
You encourage him to speak his mind, eyebrows furrowing as you question him with your gaze.
“It’s just, I completely forgot, we’d have to exchange phone numbers if you’re wanting me to pass the photos on. Which I totally understand if you’re not comfortable with! I mean, I’m a man, and I’m a stranger, and-” Like he is aware of his own mouth racing off ahead of him, Bucky draws his tongue back in and tries to settle a little composure into himself, straightening his shoulder and clearing his throat. “Or we could meet somewhere in a few days, if you want a printed copy of it. Would Wednesday work for you?”
The shake of your head comes swiftly, shooting his offer down, “Sorry, I leave for Tokyo on Tuesday. But I don’t mind! Exchanging numbers, I mean.”
To the outside, you must sound like a pair of mumbling, stumbling fools. Sentences barely cohesive and rarely uninterrupted by a hum or a haw, thoughts actively unravelling as you both speak them into existence.
But a part of you can’t help feeling a certain wave of charm roll over you, an endearment that clutches at your heart and has you wondering how a man with a face like that could ever sound unsure of himself.
“Oh, in that case…” and Bucky has already taken to digging through his back-pocket, slipping a black phone into his grasp. You watch him press the power button, only to be met with the familiar sign of a dead battery: black screen, white charger symbol. “Shit, sorry. Do you mind if I type my number into your phone? Mine’s dead as a dodo right now.”
It would be rude to say no. And, really, what other choice do you have? Other than, of course, to suddenly change your mind and decide you don’t want the mediocre picture, but then that would require you to be rude. Besides, it’s not like you weren’t going to end up having his number anyway, what difference does it make if he types it in?
Your hands are scouring through your bag, searching for the familiar green of phone case well-past its sell-by date — with more bumps and scratches along its surface than a reckless teen’s first car — when you feel the violation of his stare wandering into the contents of your bag.
It doesn’t take long for you to both zero in on a familiar booklet, tucked neatly into an inner-pocket and seemingly sporting a few dog-ears.
“You kept it,” he notes, gaze still glued to The Wise Traveller, and the comment almost makes you hurl — because it’s like he knows you abandoned the other guide you purchased that day.
“Uh, yeah,” your reply comes a little more breathless than you would like, as you try not to think too hard about the engraving along the inside of the pages, the very place you had first learnt his name. “Figured you were right, back in the airport. Can’t be too careful these days.”
Then it hits you.
You’ve not even told this stranger- Bucky your name.
Here you are, a fool fumbling over words at the sight of his pretty face, freely handing over your phone for him to pluck into his own grasp and begin swiping over the screen, and you’ve yet to once offer him the appropriate politeness of sharing your name.
Only, as you finally give it up and introduce yourself, you’re met with a reply that from any man less attractive would have had you running for the hills: “Oh, I know!”
As though he can feel your wide eyes, watching him with a measured caution, Bucky is quick to fire into a chuckle and shake your phone in your direction, screen opened on your contacts and brandishing your name along the top.
“It says it right here. Cute name, by the way. Makes sense for a pretty girl like you,” thumbs swipe across your phone, numbers punched into a new contact. Meanwhile, Bucky continues to make small talk, with a smile on his face you have quickly decided comes far too easily to him — surely no one is that happy, all the time? You’re almost certain if you peel back the complex layers of reasoning behind his grin, you’d find customer service at the root of it all. “Is it any good?”
Too focused on studying his more-than-good looks, it takes you a moment and one too many slow blinks to realise he’s back on the topic of the safety guide, “Oh, uh, Yeah. It’s great. Very… safe, you know?”
Here you go again, lying for the sake avoiding the awkward conversation where you tell the very stranger — very kind stranger, mind you, who has extended you nothing but a show of good faith, a man so used to playing the role of big brother that he could not stop himself from instilling some level of safety into a lonesome woman — that you had not opened the book he had gifted you beyond that pages of his footnote. All those apparent dog-ears? Wrinkles in the book’s corners, a result of shoving the poor thing and crushing it amongst the other contents of your bag.
“Can’t be that good, surely,” guilt coats the back of your throat. You swallow it down and keep your focus on Bucky, who has finished inserting his contact details and now balances your phone between two fingers, awaiting your eventual acceptance of it back into your grasp. “Pretty sure you just broke rule number one.”
“I- What rule?”
Like a wind-up toy, Bucky clears his throat and recites with practised ease, “Never tell a stranger your travel plans.”
Your whole world goes still.
A heart that no longer beats. Lungs that no longer inflate. Hands that run cold with a nervous sweat.
Birds chirp in the distance, the noise louder than ever before. Voices, muffled as though you are submerged in water, swirl around you in an unidentifiable cluster — men, women, children; every one more monotone than the last.
It’s his laugh that pierces through the threatening haze of quiet, throaty and inviting, tickling at your own humour despite the fact you can’t seem to pinpoint what exactly is so funny about this situation.
Maybe this Bucky guy is just a little awkward, the type to fall back on laughter when he feels stifled by silence.
You don’t get the chance to investigate your sudden theory any further, for the duties of a tour guide seem to catch up to him at last. The flock of older women have swarmed him like vultures, each trying to get him to help them focus the binoculars that dangle from their necks. Before they can fully sweep him away, the handsome stranger offers you one last grin and some parting words.
“Have fun in Tokyo!”
Bondi Beach, Australia.
Like any true, modern day feminist, the last thing you enjoy doing is agreeing with a man… But Anakin Skywalker certainly made some good points against sand.
It is coarse, it is rough, it is irritating, and it does get everywhere.
Right now, it’s wedged between your hallux and index toe, irritating the skin with each step you take, grinding against the toe post of a sandal and driving the bothersome granules deeper into you. So, it’s safe to say you dive at the first sight of respite, just about throwing yourself into an empty bar stool.
Pearl Waves Beach Club is certainly a sight to behold.
A beacon of white, with floor to ceiling length windows that look out towards golden sun and aqua waters, and an overwhelming aura of wealth and excess that makes you feel less than adequate, wandering through the air-conned space clad in a burgundy two-piece bathing suit, a hastily tied shawl around your waist, and shoes that announce your every move with a harsh slap against marble flooring that echoes out into the tranquility of the beach club.
None of that matters now that you’re nestled in a seat, the lingering dampness from the ocean that still clings to your bikini bottoms now wetting the dark leather beneath it. The sticky residue of suncream has mixed with your sweat, creating an uncomfortable film atop your body, and salt has embedded itself into your scalp, doing its best into coercing you to scratch at and relieve the pinch in your skin. Despite all that, you feel nothing short of blessed, covered in the tell-tale stains of someone who has spent the better half of their day strewn upon a sandy beach and basking in the sun’s radiance, like if you lay there long enough, you will eventually evolve and gain the skill of photosynthesis.
“Well, well, look what the cat dragged in.”
Barely believing the vision unravelling before your very eyes, you blink twice before making a show out of rubbing your knuckles against closed eyelids. Sight readjusting to the brightness of the beach club, you find your eyes have far from deceived you: there, making his way up the length of the bar, with a dishtowel tossed over one shoulder and a pearly-white grin plastered along a clean-shaven face, is none other than your handsome stranger.
“Oh my-” Cutting yourself off before you can fully form the words, you gape at him in shock, pointer finger aimed at his direction as though you are accusing him of something — like the crime of running into you for a third time on your trip around the globe, or the more unforgivable sin of daring to look better with each run-in. Even now, the luscious locks you had admired back in Thailand chopped and traded in for a far shorter, more polished slick of dark hair, held in place by a lick of hair gel, he looks better than ever. There’s only one issue- “James?”
That is what sits engraved into his golden name tag, clipped to a black button up that sits stretched a little too tightly around his forearms.
Following your line of sight, chin near pressed to his sternum as he looks down at his chest, Bucky — or James, or whatever his name is — is flooded with a wave of red, embarrassment burning at the apples of his cheeks and the tips of his ears.
“Afraid my name’s not actually as cool as something like Bucky,” his hands plant themselves on the bar, as the man positions himself directly across from you over the counter top.
Try as you might, you can’t resist the invisible magnet that draws your attention down to his arms, bare in a way they never have been before. While you want to follow the trail of veins that dance up the length of each forearm, you instead find yourself staring where politeness says you shouldn’t.
Because where you expect to find skin as golden as the one along his right arm, you find a story of pain instead. Splotches of pink paint the otherwise white skin with colour, with a shine that does not match the typical look of flesh. Where some spots appear unnaturally smooth, other flecks of tissue appear sunken in, visual marks of trauma along his left arm.
Catching yourself as you blatantly stare, regret making impact with your chest, you force yourself to meet those aqua eyes of his, watching you with the patience of someone who is beyond used to the rude — even if well intentioned— stares.
“I don’t know if cool is the right word for Bucky,” opting for diffusing with humour, you tease your handsome stranger. Though, really, maybe he is no longer a stranger. With how often fate seems to be driving you together, maybe it’s time you consider him an acquaintance. “Sounds like the stage name for one of those horses, you know? Make some noise, folks, for Bucky the Bucking Bronco!”
Mouth contradicts hand, as James struggles to contain his amusement, pouring out of him in melodies of laughter. All the while he grasps at something dramatic with his palm, colliding over where his heart sits beneath layers of cotton and flesh and bone, clutching as though you have freshly driven a dagger into him.
“Harsh! Call me a loser next time, why don’cha?” There it is again, that lilt of an accent, curving over the man’s words as he feigns offence. Palms up in defeat, Bucky shakes a chuckle out himself before pinning you under his intense stare, “Go on, tell old Loser McGee over here wha’cha want, before they kick you out for harassing an innocent bartender.”
A familiar overwhelm befalls you, leaving your stomach feeling like a led balloon as you fix your attention on the boards behind Bucky, where options upon options, upon options lay scribbled in chalk. Brands of liquor, strains of beer, every cocktail under the sun; they all sit compiled in a list so overflowing with choice, it paralyses you once again.
“I,” you drag out the sound, mouth paused and agape while you try to pick something, anything to drink… Before ultimately confessing, “Have no idea. There’s too much to choose from.”
“You’ve got a real problem making decisions, you know that?” You are almost taken aback by Bucky’s brash declaration. No matter how true it may be, you never expected the man made up of bashful smiles and shaky words to just come right out and say it like that, no tact in his choice of words that could soften the blow of reality. “Between here and that kiosk, I’m starting to worry about how you’ve been getting by without me on the rest of your trip.”
While you might have tuned your gut out nearly two months ago, she has a nasty habit of screaming her way back into the forefront of your mind. And right now, she’s screaming a tale of seduction, one where she is trying her best to convince your sharper senses that there is a flirtatious undertone behind the way Bucky cocks his head and tilts one side of his mouth up into a smirk, just waiting on your response to his teasing.
A bad habit that doesn’t die at all, apparently, you give in to the noise of your gut and try reach a place of equal footing, arms crossing over your chest and subtly squeezing your nylon clad breasts closer together, deepening the line of your cleavage.
“You don’t have to worry, James,” elbows kiss the cold of the bar counter as you shuffle closer and lean against it, ignoring the bolt of electric heat that shoots down your spine as you notice blue eyes lower from your face and fall right into your cross-armed trap. “The world’s full of handsome strangers eager to help a girl like me decide.”
“Is that so?” There’s a tick in his jaw, which you swear you witness him clench, only for him to distract you with the sight of his back muscles, straining as he turns and begins reaching for various colourful bottles you barely recognise. “Then let me be the one to decide for you today, hmm?”
An unmeasured amount of time pases with his back turned on you and your eyes attempting to peak over his shoulders, catching glimpses of how he chops at fruits, and measures liquids, and grabs at ice. Everything culminates in a grand finale of his hands grasping at two metal cups, one jammed into the other as he begins to shake, and shake, and shake.
Bucky is nothing short of peacocking, dazzling you with easy flips and twirls of the shaker, each toss more riskier than the last. Braced for breath, you half expect him to fail any moment now, make a fool of himself and send the contents of the cups spilling all down the front of him.
Surprisingly, this does not end up being the case.
Instead, you watch him turn with a smug, satisfied grin and lay a colourful concoction in front of you, decorated with a handful of fruit and a sprinkle of mint leaves.
“What’s this?”
“Don’t ask, just drink,” Bucky encourages you, two fingers pinched around the neck of the straw and guiding it to your waiting mouth. Just as you wrap your lips around the plastic, an angry yell breaks out from the opposite end of the bar, where you spot a red-faced, uniform-clad man glaring daggers at your handsome stranger- No, acquaintance's* direction. “Oh, shoot… I’ve gotta go, that’s my manager. Enjoy!”
Before disappointment at the sight of him racing off down the bar can solidify itself in your chest, you feel a rush of relief as you witness him come face-to-face with his manager — who you almost swear you witness rip Bucky’s name tag clean off his shirt — for the moment you take a sip of his cocktail, something in your stomach turns…
It might just be the most disgusting thing you’ve ever tasted.
Therme București, Romania.
“I have a new nickname for you,” your declaration is half-slurred, on account of your face being nose deep in the headrest of a massage table. “Buck-Of-All-Trades.”
A laugh you’ve grown too familiar with echoes over the zen playlist that has been filtering out of a speaker for the past thirty minutes. Incense burns in one corner, while a glass door that has long ago steamed up with the heat of the room sits on the opposite side. Melting into PVC leather, you are naked with nothing but a thin, pristine white towel to cover your most delicate areas. And, with knees that squeeze into your waist with every smooth roll of his hands along your oil-slicked back, is your handsome acquaintance.
Weeks and miles away from the events upon the Australian beach, you had walked into your much anticipated massage with one thing in mind, an apology given by a staff member after a forty minute wait: “The original masseuse you booked with has fallen sick, so we have matched you up with one of our newer experts. Thank you for your patience!”
Had you admittedly been a little frustrated? Well, yes!
Had that very same frustration evaporated the moment you watched Bucky step into the room, hair a little fluffier than before and sporting a five o’clock shadow? Well… Yes!
“Hmm, how so?” Like he is trying to torture you, there is a certain strain of exertion in James’ voice, a sound that pairs with the relaxing roll of his palms up the length of your back as perfectly as red wine goes with steak.
“Because,” half the word collapses into a breathy sigh as you feel the tips of his fingers press into a knot. One third of the way down your spine, burrowed beneath the point of your right shoulder blade, he sniffs it out like a police dog sent to find drugs. “Every time I see you, you have a new job.”
You leave out the part where this is the first one you’ve witnessed him be good at.
In a way, you’ve grown fond of that less-than-perfect photograph he captured of you on Dragon Crest. With a view so ethereal, it would be selfish to think anything as cheap and measly as a camera could dare capture it in all it’s glory.
And his cocktail, though far from drinkable, had certainly looked beautiful, brandished all over your Instagram story and paired with the perfect caption: Custom cocktail from a handsome bartender <3
Tony definitely had not reacted well.
You happily left his messages on read, his demands for your return abandoned to the void of your chat.
“That’s not a very nice nicknames though, doll,” a tut comes from behind you, and it takes just about every inch of will you own inside your body to not raise your head and glance back. The fear of not surviving the sight of Bucky, thick thighs spread and arm muscles rippling under his repeated touching along your naked back, is what really holds you in place. “Ain’t the rest of that sayin’ meant to imply I have no real skills? Master of none?”
With a dismissive wave of your hand and a relaxed shh, you sink deeper — if that is even possible — into the massage table, swallowing back a pleasured moan as his thumbs begin working at the knot.
“You men are all the same,” you mumble before you can think better of it, sighing as you close your eyes and visualise a montage of Tony and all his nagging words. “Can’t just take a damn compliment, always gotta turn it into an argument.”
“‘S that so?”
“Yes, that is so.”
Like he feels your breath hitch at a particular pressure, he reinforces it, thumb pressing right where you need him to, “You’re speaking from experience, I take it.”
A groan fires out of you, half because you are frustrated under the reminders of Tony that swirl around in your mind and half because there is an embarrassing rush of blood shooting straight for your core with every roll of his fingers, a slow pulse making itself known between your legs that practically begs you to grind down into the hardened leather. But you don’t, because you can’t.
Because that would be wrong.
Because that would violate Bucky’s trust and safety as a professional.
Because he would feel it the moment you even dare try, his own groin all but resting against your lower half.
“Too much experience,” you manage a response, finally. “My ex-boyfriend… Actually, I can’t even call him that. But anyway, he was the worst.”
“Oh yeah?” He passively replies with the very words you want to chant as his fingers skim and find another knot to undo, unknowingly undoing other parts of you too.
“Y-yeah,” you sigh, shoulders rolling back as you squirm and try to get comfortable, despite the slick forming between your thighs. “He used to argue with me, all the time. And he wasn’t afraid to get mean with it.”
“What a jerk.”
“Yeah, he is a jerk,” much like your body needed the physical therapy of steady hands loosening all your muscles, your mind is basking in the healing nature of finally trashing a man who had made you feel so inadequate, you had to run halfway across the earth just to escape your scorned heart. “Do you know-” a rhetorical question, for poor Bucky has absolutely no idea who you are talking about, “He couldn’t even drive 10 minutes to come pick me up once? My clutch broke and I had no way to get to work, and he complained when I asked him for a favour. He literally works down the street from me!”
“Jesus, darling,” he follows it up with a low whistle, just in time to cover up the faintest huff of a moan pushed from your mouth. “No wonder you’re so tense, dealin’ with boys like that.”
As good as the validation feels, to have a voice outside of your head paying testament to your woes and sympathising with your troubles, you are still plighted by the cruel torture of thinking too much about Tony at once. And, so, you cut the conversation short, drag it someplace else.
“What’s your story, then?”
Hands pause along your back, mapping over the skin like Bucky is searching for the next tweak to undo in your spine. Finding one quicker than you expect, he sinks his touch back into you and matches your question with his own, “Who says I have a story?”
“Oh, come on,” the effect the massage is having on you grows harder to suppress with each passing moment. “You don’t travel the world, working every job under the sun, and not have a story!”
Mask slipping a little too far, a moan crawls its way from out your chest. It is nothing dramatic, a simple hum of affirmation, a noise that says yes, keep going without you needing to part your lips.
“Okay, okay, I’ll give you my story,” Bucky is likely paying you some kindness, refusing to acknowledge the noise that just left you.
Never have you been more relieved to be in his presence. Then again, the more you think about it, his presence tends to be accompanied by relief: saving you from choosing at the kiosk, sparing you from the silence of the mountain, rescuing you from the threat of dehydration at the bar.
You catch the next hum before it can make too much noise, a subtle squeeze of your thighs relieving the burn between your thighs if only for a moment.
“I was a smart kid but I never really had any direction in life. No big burning passion, you know?” You nod into the headrest, then nearly laugh as you imagine what you must look like from his point of view right now. “So when my friend Steve showed up one day and told me he was enlisting in the military, it was like the universe handed me a task. I mean, when I say this kid was scrawny, I mean he looked one gust of wind away from being swept away to the land of Oz.”
Laughing is a mistake that only leads to a broken moan, his thumbs once again pressing just right.
“Stop that,” Bucky scolds softly, reinforcing the pressure behind his touch like he is trying to coax you into letting the noise fully form, let your pleasure perforate the calm room. “‘S just you, me, and the incense in here. I promise no one’s gonna judge you, so sing your little heart out. Let’s me know I’m doing a good job.”
Latch unlocked, permission granted; it’s embarrassing how quick you are to obey. Hypnotised by his words, you find your lips parting with permanence, throat relenting and becoming a vehicle for your pleasure, the zen playlist quickly becoming a backing track to your gentle moans.
“There we go. Isn’t that nice? Lettin’ loose, letting yourself feel good?” When had his hands reached so low, fingertips dancing along the hem of the white towel strewn along your lower back? “I quickly learned I liked the military. I was good at it. The routine, the demanding physicality, the yes, sir, yes and all the other stupid things they make you chant.”
It damn near gives you whiplash how easily James slips back into relaying his story to you, voice void of a previous layer of sultriness and now coated by something more careful, something practised. The monotony of a story told one too many times and perfected to hit all the right story beats to keep his listener engaged.
“But then there was an accident,” for the first time since he planted himself atop your back, the hitch in your breath is caused by something other than his tender touch. Memories of his left arm, scar tissues wrapped around him like vine, suddenly hits you. “I pissed some guys off, got one too many push ups handed to them by pointing out their misdemeanours to our superiors. I don’t remember how the prank was actually meant to play out but, next thing I know, I’m waking up to my bed sheets on fire and the feeling of death clawing up my arm. And that was that. A month in hospital, many more months in physical therapy. I quit the military, so did Steve.”
It feels selfish to moan right then, but Bucky only seems to light up at the sound, massaging deeper into the tissue of your back, relishing in your vocal praises.
“Then,” his pause is for dramatic effect. “I just sat and felt sorry for myself. For months. It was more excruciating than the pain, that boredom. It felt like I lost my life, even though I was still alive and fully intact, save for the scars left behind by the fire. And… I don’t know. There’s really only so long you can do that before you have to get up and go. Do something again. I just decided to do everything. Everywhere I want to go, I go. Every job I want to try, I apply. What’s the worst thing that can happen? I get rejected? I guarantee that’s less pain that what’s going on in my arm.”
Though your reasons are far smaller, far less visible, the scarring along your heart feels seen by Bucky’s words.
The massage finishes far sooner than you would like.
Bucky at last gets a chance to dismiss himself from you without some outside source dragging him away, giving you just enough time to suspect there’s hesitation in his voice, as he draws out his goodbye before exiting the massage room and leaving you to re-dress.
Bones turned to jelly, heart a little lighter too, you’re too blissed out to care that your underwear has gone missing, no longer stuffed neatly into the pocket of your trousers.
Nonno Gio’s Cooking Class, Italy.
You realise too little too late that you’ve fallen for a tourist trap.
Because Nonno Gio, who you expect to embody the essence of Italy, turns out to be a middle-aged American man who seemingly has watched one too many episodes of The Sopranos. A golden chunk of chain sits clasped around his bright red neck, and his accent is plucked right out of New Jersey.
It’s a little too hard to lament the loss of a few hundred euros, however, while watching your cooking partner whisk away at a selection of dry and wet ingredients… Particularly because the cooking partner in question is your handsome friend — yes, he has received an upgrade in titles — Bucky.
“We seriously need to stop meeting like this,” had been his version of a greeting, shoulders shaking and mouth laughing with disbelief as he watched you saunter up to the very cooking station he had been assigned. “It’s starting to get creepy.”
“Creepy?” You echoed, throwing an apron over your head, at last standing by his side. “If me stalking you all across the globe is creepy then, sure James, I’m creepy!”
Taking charge, Bucky leaves you to laugh at your own silly joke while his hands grasp at the strings of your apron. Pulling the fabric flush against your front, guarding the pretty pale yellow of your sundress from any dusting of flour or splashes of liquid, he threads the strings into a tight bow and punctuates the action by smoothing his hands over your hips, undoing a ruffle that has formed along your waist.
The entire class is a practice in patience, a way to prove to yourself just how good your ability to endure has become.
Because Bucky is an example of visual torture.
Floppy hair that falls over his eyes as he concentrates on chopping onions, a single tear slipping down his cheek. You take a deep breath and force your hands to focus on your own task, instead of brushing the locks from his face.
Muscles that ripple beneath the confines of a white shirt, sleeves rolled up to his elbows and light cotton sitting loose around his bicep, just see-through enough to grant you the view how toned they are. He kneads at the pizza dough, meanwhile you need three stabilising breaths to calm your less than kitchen-friendly thoughts.
Sharp cheekbones, one side sporting the delicate swipe of flour staining his tanned skin, right where he foolishly wiped away an invisible bit of lint without fully washing his hands. You want to laugh at the sight, or to lick the pad of your thumb and swipe the powder away, but you are too busy reeling from those same flour-covered fingers grasping at your chin, tilting your eyes up to meet his blue ones, and smudging your own cheek with flour.
“There,” he mutters, cool as a cucumber and nowhere near as affected as you. “We’re matching, Now we look like a real team.”
It’s after you both ship off your pizza into the specialised oven, with Bucky insisting you both grasp at the peel and feed your wonky masterpiece, possessing a shape closer to a square than a circle, in together, that you finally feel yourself lose the ability to trap your tongue, mouth flying off to speak your thoughts before you can swallow the words back down.
“This might sound insane, so feel free to call me crazy,” is always a promising, stable way of starting a sentence. It is truly a miracle the handsome man entertains your wording with an endeared smile. “But I feel like there is a reason behind why we keep running into each other. Like… Like the universe is pushing me in your direction, you know? I mean, what are the chances?”
Silence.
The other members of the cooking class chatter around you both, but you don’t hear them, too focused on the fragile bubble that surrounds you and Bucky.
“You’re crazy,” straight to the point, monotone voice and deadpanned stare. It’s safe to say James does not give you the answer you were expecting… At least not immediately. But then the tension on the surface of his face cracks and he breaks out into an easy smile, something similar to relief swimming in the pools of his eyes. “But I’m glad you said it, ‘cause I’ve been thinking the same thing. For a while now.”
Despite the hazard lights flashing from within your gut, screaming warnings at you to not repeat previous mistakes, to not hand a man the ability to make a fool out of you, you take a leap of faith and pray this time you don’t wind up weeping with your knees pressed into the floor — there’s not even a carpet to soften the blow this time.
“I leave for France tomorrow,” this time, you share your plans knowing full well it is the number one rule in The Wise Traveller not to. You justify this violation of safety with the fact Bucky is no longer a stranger. He is your friend, right? “I’ll be in Bordeaux. You know, in case you’re struggling to pick where you’re going next. I wouldn’t mind the company.”
Thankfully, Bucky is better at cooking than he is at mixology, and when the pair of you tuck into your less-than-authentic Italian pizza, you’re suddenly thankful you fell for Nonno Gio’s tourist trap.
How else would you have (possibly, maybe) scored a friendly date in Bordeaux?
The nightclub’s name is far from an exaggeration: you can feel the bass infiltrating your heartbeat.
Or maybe it’s not the bass, but adrenaline; kicking in and raising your heart rate.
The straps of your heels dig painfully into the skin around your ankles, rubbing them raw and no doubt drawing blood to the blistered surface. Every hurried step forces you to tug down the hem of your dress, riding up under the force of your strides. Sweat stings at your eyes and bodies swarm all around you, swaying out of tune to a DJ who loves his job a little too much, despite the fact he can barely succeed at a simple cross-fade into the next track.
At the very least, you suppose, the DJ is playing the club classics, the records that never fail to get a crowd screaming out the lyrics at the top of their lungs. It’s his only saving grace.
Safety lays ahead, a beacon of light shinning from where the exit to the club sits, new bodies spilling into the venue while all you want to do is escape.
A hand around your wrist halts you, drags you back with a squeal before you can dive out the doors.
You don’t have to turn to know it’s him, the very same stranger who has been harassing you for the past half hour, unwilling to take the hint of your side-eyes and disapproving glares as he attempted, time and time again, to grind up against you on the dance floor. While at first you had tried to flee subtly, it quickly became obvious that rejection was not something the bull-headed man took well.
The moment your footsteps had sped up across the floor, he began pursuing after you.
And now he’s caught you, a wriggling fish trapped in the painful hook of his hand. He wastes no time, another set of fingers reaching to roughly grab at your face, tilt your face up to his, and-
A scuffle ensues, one that you seem to be trapped in the middle of; a tug of war where one hand is dragging you towards your pursuer and another two, more careful, are prying you backwards.
Two trumps one, without a doubt, but not without the aid of a third set of hands, this time clamping down around the assailant’s wrist in a painful grip and ripping the unwanted hand off of you, arm twisting unnaturally as your third defender pins the stranger’s hand behind his back. Through the shock of it all, you barely register the other four hands dropping their grasp from you, nor the pair of security that grapple with the man responsible for your shaky hands and jackhammer heart.
You manage to concentrate enough to notice him, however, relinquishing his hold of the stranger to his fellow bouncers and approaching you with the caution of a scared lamb, blue eyes wider than ever before as they frantically search over your body for signs of injury.
“Are you okay? Does anywhere hurt?” Bucky — like every time before — looks better than the last time you saw him. Beard fuller, hair softer, worried face a reflection for the swirling neon lights around you both. Dressed from head to toe in black, a splash of white sits across his chest in the bold shape of SECURITY. “See, doll? This is why you need to be more careful, hmm. Where’s that guide I bought you?”
Tuning out the condescension, filtering it through a part of your brain that registers his words as only the worried rambling of someone concerned about their friend, you take to answering his first questions instead.
“I’m fine,” your voice sounds miles away to you, lost in the crowd along with the rest of the drunken fools. The buzz of alcohol has long simmered away within you, nothing but a static flatline remaining that leaves you tasting bile and wanting your bed — not the bed in your hostel, your bed, back home, where the sheets still smell like Tony. “Just my wrist hurts.”
That is enough to kick Bucky into gear, and the next thing you know, you’re sat outside the club atop a plastic chair, ice pack pressed to your skin, a jacket wrapped around your shoulders, and Bucky crouching by your feet.
A soft crack rings out into the Grecian night as he twists the lid off a bottle of water, offering it up to your lips and gifting an approving nod as he watches your throat bob, swallowing down a few sips.
“Your taxi should be here in ten minutes,” Bucky keeps his voice to barely a whisper, afraid to startle you. If you weren’t still so shaken, or stewing in a frustration towards him you thought you had got over weeks ago, you would laugh and point out the still very audible thump of Greece’s shittiest DJ entertaining the masses back inside the club. “I’m sorry… About that man. He’s been- Dealt with. Banned for life, no doubt, that’s what usually happens with-”
“Why didn’t you come?” Your question seems to hurt him more than the pain in your wrist, eyebrows furrowing and gentle smile slipping into an almost pout. “I waited. I thought I would hear from you. But you never came, and I explored Bordeaux alone.”
Knees kissing the dirtied ground, Bucky leans closer and perches his hands on your naked thighs, inches from where your dress rests around your legs, “Did you want me to come?”
“I told you I would be there.”
“That’s not the same as asking me to go,” he kisses those pearly teeth with a hiss, adjusting his grip on your legs and glancing over his shoulder, like he’s waiting for a taxi to finally pull up to the club’s entrance. Is he that desperate to see you leave? “I know you’re used to snapping your fingers and getting what you want, but I’m not that easy. Gotta use your words, baby. I can’t read minds, can only do as much as you ask of me.”
Intoxicated by his cologne, by the alcohol in your veins, by the sudden waft of cigarette smoke blown your way from bystanders to the left, there is suddenly only one question on your mind for Bucky… What a shame you speak it out loud.
“Would you kiss me?”
No further questioning is needed.
Bucky moves lazily, hand reaching up to grasp at your cheek. A thumb swipes over the swell of it, before steady fingers press your head to tilt it down to give him easier access to your mouth, pushing up from the ground to take possession of you.
His lips are soft, pressing carefully against your own. Bucky lets you take the lead, moving at whatever pace you set. At first slow, tentative, memorising the shape of his mouth against yours. And then desperate, lips widening with each smack and tongues reaching to taste each other.
Car horns blare, strangers chatter, and the bass continues to thump obnoxiously under the command of the DJ, but none of that matters right now. All that matters is Bucky, kissing you with equal fervour, groaning into your mouth as you sigh against him. The taste of mint hits your tongue, remnants of gum he had long ago chewed.
Your own wandering hands ruin the fun, gliding down the stretch of his black top and hooking two fingers beneath his belt, dragging him closer as you mutter, “There’s a spare bed back at my hostel.”
Disappointed does not even begin to cover what you are feeling when Bucky pulls back, head shaking and hands grasping at your wrists, prying your touch from off of him. Before you can feel the shame of rejection, though, he’s pressing a gentle kiss to your cheek and offering you an apology.
“I’m not the kind of guy who sleeps with a girl in your state, doll,” his hands take to tightening his jacket around your shoulders, a sudden gust of wind filling the night with a chill that runs right through you. You shiver for a whole other reason, however, when Bucky’s breath hits the shell of your ear as he mumbles into it, “Besides, I want you remembering every second of our first night together, not some drunken blur.”
Your taxi arrives quicker than you would like.
Bucky walks you over to it, holding the door open for you all the while he spills out directions in Greek to the driver. Only as he goes to slam the door shut do you remember the weight of his jacket around your shoulders, hand shooting out to pause the door.
“Wait! Here, your jacket,” you drunkenly exclaim, trying to unwind yourself from the warmth of him around you.
But Bucky is already shaking his head, hands insisting on tightening the fabric back around you, “Where are you going next, after Greece?”
You answer without hesitation, because Bucky is not a stranger.
He’s not even a friend.
He’s a man you almost just dragged to bed.
“Portugal.”
“Okay then. Give it back to me in Portugal,” with a slap of his hand atop the roof of the car, Bucky throws you one last grin before shutting the door on you, a single promise kissing your eardrums and setting your heart aflame the rest of the drive back to your hostel: “I’ll call you!”
Prisioneiro do Mar Hotel, Portugal
Bucky keeps his promise.
Calls you the next morning, arranges to meet with you in Portugal, wishes you a safe flight and even tells you that you looked beautiful the night before, even if deep-down you know you looked a mess after your run-in with the handsy stranger.
It is you who messes up this time.
“Bucky, I’m so, so sorry,” your apologies are almost as frantic as your hands, riffling through another suitcase and dumping piles upon piles of your clothing onto the hotel room floor.
The entire room is a mess, clothes strewn across just about every surface imaginable and every cupboard has been pried apart — even the safe lays with it’s door wide open, showing off your collection of jewellery to any wandering eyes.
How fortunate that the only other eyes in the room are Bucky’s, who stands by the foot of the bed and is trying his best to soothe your panic.
He’s not doing a very good job.
“I swear to you, I packed it. I remember packing it!” You, admittedly, are not the most sound of mind in this moment. A weight sits on your chest, heavy heart making every breath feel harder. Sweat gathers at the base of your neck, dampening the licks of hair at the back of your head. And, no matter how hard you try not to think about, memories of Tony are running on repeat in your mind. “God! I’m such a fucking idiot- I… How do you even lose a jacket?!”
Tearing through another bag, you’re none the wiser to Bucky as he inches closer to you, weaving his boot clad feet through empty spaces in the floor that don’t possess your clothing, unwilling to stain your pretty dresses with his footprint.
Your cheeks are overrun by tears in the blink of an eye. Angry, rotten little things that track rivers down your skin and drip all over the open bag you are kneeling over. Soft hands meet your shoulders, cradling them just as they begin to shake under the violent sobs that rack through your chest.
More than anything, you are embarrassed to be causing such a scene, especially when Bucky seems so unaffected by the loss of his jacket.
“Hey, hey,” his voice is practically a gentle coo, while his hands are dragging your body upright off the floor and forcing you to face him. “No need to cry, doll.”
“I know, I’m sorry,” this apology comes with a fresh wave of tears. At the very least you’re able to laugh, even if only a little, at your mess of a state, painfully aware that your understanding of his words does not pair well with the tears tracking down your cheeks. “I just- I can’t help it- Can’t stop them from falling. Think it’s some- Trauma response, or something.”
Breathing becomes a struggle as your chest pulls tight, lungs squeezing out every drop of air you attempt to feed them with. All the while, Bucky watches you with caring eyes, a pout nearly overcoming his pretty lips while he tries help you syncopate your breathing with his, hand pressing your own to his chest and forcing you to feel every strong inhale and easy exhale he makes.
“It’s just Tony. I remember it, this one time,” you speak in fragments, stretches of sentences huffed out with each breath, a little less shaky than the last under Bucky’s guidance. “I lost one of his shirts… Or he left it at someone else’s apartment, one of his other fuck buddies. Anyway, he didn’t react well. He was screaming at me, for hours, calling me useless, and stupid, and- God. Sorry, this just-”
“Stop apologising,” Bucky wipes away a tear before it can even fall, lets it stain his finger while he continues to soothe it over your cheek, big blue eyes commanding you to relax under their stare. Far away from Tony, he wants you to remember where you are: in a hotel room, in Portugal, with him. “Don’t have to worry, doll. ‘M not gonna yell at you.”
You thank him softly, let yourself lean forward and collapse into his arms, emotional exhaustion taking grip of your soul as your forehead meets his shoulder.
Bucky holds you like you are made of porcelain, hands barely daring to fully cup at your body as you press yourself against him.
When he hums, you feel it run right through you.
“‘Cause I know you’ll make it up to me, won’t you? I can trust you to make it right, can’t I?”
Nodding a little too frantically, nervous energy still coursing through your veins, you pull back just enough to look him in his darkening eyes, “Of course! There’s a mall not far from here, we can go and find a replacement for the jacket.”
But you’re not even finished talking when Bucky starts to shake his head, one hand flattening itself atop your shoulder and applying pressure. You’re already halfway to the floor when you realise the man is guiding you onto your knees, heartbeat beginning to pick up for a whole other reason than some stupid, misplaced jacket.
“That jacket was one of a kind, baby,” his statement confuses you. You could have sworn it carried a label from H&M on the inside. Or had you misread it, mistaken a luxury brand for something a little more familiar to you? “You don’t seriously think some small town mall’s gonna have anything worth apologising with, do you?” You shake your head without even realising, too busy watching the way his spare hand has fallen over his belt. “No, exactly. ‘S better you put your money where your mouth is instead, give me a proper apology.”
The entire act of his fingers undoing his belt, while the others slip from your shoulder and travel up to flatten themselves atop your scalp, bitten fingernails scrapping over the roots of your hair, it feels like the antithesis to everything you’ve ever enjoyed before.
With Tony, things were fast-paced yet fairly vanilla. He never wanted to draw out the experience, make his movements linger until you find yourself on the very precipice of needy, mouth watering at just the sight of a happy trail.
Which is exactly the state you’re in now, watching with anticipation as the man towering over you unthreads his belt and loosens the button of his jeans. The sound of a zip being undone fills the hotel room, reverberating off the walls of your skull and having a Pavlovian effect over you, thighs involuntarily squeezing in search of friction at the thought of what Bucky hides beneath his quickly-disappearing layers.
As it turns out, he’s hiding a lot. More than you expect.
You’re no expert in size, guesstimating that he’s definitely an inch or two over what most men possess. The tip of his cock is an angry red, crowned by a bead of pre-cum dripping from the slit and slipping over the curve of a mushroomed head. While you’ve never been a great aficionado of the male genitalia, something in you feels entranced, suddenly more than willing to sit here all day and just study the shape of Bucky.
Unfortunately, you are barely granted a few seconds to admire before the hand on your head is pulling you forward, closer, until you have no choice but to part your lips and make space for him.
“There we go,” Bucky, eyes more overblown by pupil than the pretty blue you have grown accustomed to, sighs out with guttural relief, head falling back as his hips give the smallest of juts forward into your mouth, feeding himself deeper. “God, don’t you just look gorgeous, huh? Pretty lips stretched round my cock, shit. Gonna need to relax your jaw.”
Caught under his spell, you’re left with no autonomy to stop yourself from obeying his every command, jaw falling lax and tongue flattening itself beneath the weight of his dick as he gives another roll of his hips, this one a little deeper and teasing at your gag reflex. This seems to delight the man, eyes lighting up momentarily as you choke on the beginning of a gag.
“Now, you want to make it up to me, don’t you?” Your attempt to nod just makes him laugh, biting back a groan as he feels your tongue drag over the underside of his length. “Then what I need you to for me is just sit there, keep your mouth open, and let me use your throat. Can you do that for me, doll?”
This time, you don’t try to nod. Instead, you hum affirmatively around his tip, relishing in the slight wave of power you feel as his eyes roll back and he instinctively thrusts into your mouth.
He starts with careful movements, barely-there rolls and ruts that press his cock a little heavier against your tongue with every one he makes. Tears still drying into your skin, it’s hard to tell if the slight salty tang invading your tongue is from you or him, precum mixing in with your excess of saliva.
The wetter your mouth grows under the invasion of him, your cunt rushes to match, slick turning your panties sticky and uncomfortable as you shift weight from one thigh to the other. A friction that Bucky cruelly cuts off, a disapproving tut coming moments before he nudges one foot between your legs and forces them apart, leaving nothing but the cool air of the hotel room to kiss your soaked underwear, a feeling so uncomfortable, it has you wishing you could peel them off.
“Uh-uh, no,” Bucky protests at the way your eyes squeeze shut, a pleasured pain shooting through your throat as he slowly begins to fuck deeper into your mouth. With deeper, faster is always soon to follow, until barely a moment or two seems to pass between the gargled sounds of his head hitting the back of your throat, forcing spit to slip past the corners of your lips and to drip down your chin, spilling all over the pretty colours of your blouse. “Want you watching me, doll. Want those pretty eyes on me when I fill this-ngh. This fucking tight throat.”
Bucky does as Bucky says, hot ropes of salty, thick cum spurting out to coat the back of your throat, tainting your mouth in a pearly whiteness that mixes with your spit, a messy string of fluids connecting your lips to his cock even as he pulls it free from your lips.
Before you can think too long, notice how he’s not even softened after spilling his seed all over your tongue, you’re busy being pulled back onto your feet and forced to welcome Bucky back into your mouth, this time his own tongue meeting yours. He hums in approval, swallowing back the flavour of himself all over your mouth, physical evidence of how easily he has claimed you as his.
So easily, you’ve barely even realised.
“Keep your mouth open,” Bucky mutters, thumb swiping over your lower lip and invading your mouth, pressing down on your tongue as you watch Bucky feed a string of his own spit onto your taste buds. Thumb retreating and pushing up against your chin, forcing your teeth to knock together, his instruction is simple, “Swallow.”
How you get from the messy floor to the messy bed, you’re not sure.
You’re even less sure how you wind up naked in the blink of an eye, panties tugged off by Bucky with an almost disapproving look, like the sight of them offended him.
Planted directly across from the bed stands a full length mirror, angled perfectly for you to watch as Bucky, his large frame engulfing you from behind, guides your thighs to part and puts your soaked cunt on display both of you to watch in the reflective glass, chest heaving so hard your breasts bounce with each breath.
Never have you felt so desperate, so warm, so in need of someone to put you out of your misery and give you the satisfaction of their touch. And Bucky seems to be aware of this, for he is torturing you, dragging lazy fingers down the stretch of your thighs and laughing in a way that is nothing short of mocking as a shiver runs through you and you squirm.
“Knew you’d be like this,” he’s talking more to himself than you, thumb ghosting over your clit and quickly evading as you attempt to grind down on the feeling. “Such a needy, desperate little thing. Perfect for me, aren’t you?”
You’re mid-nod when you’re forced into a pathetic yelp of, “Yes!” as Bucky’s palm slaps down against your cunt, nerve-tingling pain than soon melts into pleasure.
“When I ask, you answer, okay?” Three fingers rub at the raw skin of your cunt, two more slaps having preceded his warning. “Verbally, properly. You understand?”
You almost nod, until you think better of it, “Yes, Bucky.”
“Good girl,” his simple praise should not send your heart into arrest. But then maybe there is a lot about this situation that should not be playing out the way it is. “Now, eyes on the mirror, doll. Want you watch as I spread you open on my cock.”
Eyesight trained forward, you see the brief flash of his fingers lining his dick up against your wet hole, before he thrusts right in to the hilt and steals the air right out your lungs. One hand by your hips, the other wraps around the front to grasp at one of your tits, large hand staking claim over the entire swell of it and giving a teasing squeeze. It is hardly comfortable, pressing against the breast tissue, yet you find yourself enjoying it all the same, back arching into his touch.
Between your legs, visual sin is on display, a repeated back-and-forth motion of Bucky dragging his cock out of you a little further each time, light catching on the way your arousal clings to him in a wet sheen, before he buries himself back inside. At the base of your abdomen, right where your untrustworthy gut should sit, a shadow lingers beneath your skin, the faintest shape of him pushing up against your flesh.
“Look at us, doll,” ditching your breast, his hand grasps at your chin, stabilising your attention back on the mirror after you let yourself tilt your head back against his shoulder. “Do you like what you see? I’m everywhere, taking over you. Aww that’s it, cry all pretty for me again.”
Tears are slipping down your cheeks, overwhelm overcoming you at his words, his touch, his stare. Bucky really is everywhere, consuming you and grounding you all at once, a steady figure at your back that the universe sent you, no doubt an apology for whatever the hell Tony was.
“Bucky,” his name has never sounded so pathetic, falling from your lips in the shape of a whine, toes curling against his calves as he deepens the angle of his thrusts. Once again, the deeper it goes, the faster it grows, the soft echo of skin slapping against skin beginning to play out in the room.
“I know, baby, I know. We look so pretty, don’t we? Here,” you almost whine when one of his hands abandons you, but he silences you with the other diving between your legs, thumb effortlessly finding your clit and gifting it some much needed attention. “Take some pictures, doll. Told you I want our first time to be memorable, so go on and give us something to look back on.”
Your first thought isn’t that his phone is no longer black like you remember, this one red and sporting scratches along the back.
People change phones all the time, right?
Besides, who has time to notice silly details, when Bucky is back to touching you all over, both hands claiming parts of your skin?
Screen already unlocked, you try your best to steady your shaky thumb, guiding it up to the Recent Apps tab and attempting to press the camera icon… But Bucky just so happens to deliver a particularly spine-arching thrust, tip budging right against the spongy spot inside you that has you seeing stars, and your thumb presses on a familiar purple square before you can stop it.
And then your heart stops.
Bucky stops too, physically coming to a halt as he registers what exactly you’re staring at on his phone screen, “Well, shit.”
There, on his screen, sit two profile icons hovering over the same spot on a Life360 map: your picture, and Bucky’s.
And, try as you might to convince yourself, you know you never granted him permission to your location, never even got a notification of him attempting to befriend you on the app.
Bile stings at your throat. Your stomach drops to your knees. And, much to your own disappointment, your cunt pulses around his stilled member, buried inside you.
“There, that’s the solo-traveller look you asked me about,” Bucky somehow seems unshaken by your discovery, chuckling with near satisfaction as he watches your eyes focus back on the mirror ahead of you, stare wide and mouth paralysed with… “Fear, like you don’t know what to do with yourself.”
“James, what the hell is-”
“Shh,” he hushes you with both his mouth and his hips, grinding the head of his cock against you. Despite the situation at hand, you cannot deny the way your body physically reacts to him, walls squeezing around his cock and a moan slipping through the cracks of your frowning lips. “Thought we weren’t going to yell at each other, doll.”
“That was before I found out you’ve been stalking me!”
“Stalking is a little harsh. Watching over you sounds nicer, don’t you think?” He asks, like the wording drastically changes the result of his actions. Both hands are on your hips now, tilting them as he continues earlier ministrations, a slow roll of his own that are meant to distract you from the gut-wrenching revelation. “You were so eager to hand over your phone in Thailand, remember? You were practically begging me to add you on Life360. Bet you just wanted that comfort of knowing someone responsible was watching over you, huh?”
Did you beg? Had you mentioned the app to him at any point?
Months past, so many things happening between then and now, you are struggling to remember. Maybe Bucky is telling a version of the truth you’ve simply forgotten.
“We both know how bad you are at asking for what you want, baby. Was it so wrong of me to help you?” Warmth pooling in your spine, you barely even register the way you begin to wind back against him, bodies moving in perfect, effortless harmony as he begins fucking you properly again. “Could see it, how badly you wanted me but you just wouldn’t dare ask. Was it so wrong of me to give us a little man-made fate?”
That word almost pulls you out his trance, memories of how vulnerable you had felt confessing it back to him Italy flooding back in. And all along it had just been him, not the universe, following in your footsteps and manipulating your encounters.
Like he can feel the shadow of doubt creeping back over you, Bucky reinforces his sweet talking, mouth momentarily latching onto your earlobe and delivering a gentle scrape of teeth that forces you to listen.
“I mean, think of everything I’ve done just to have you, doll. Think of how far I was willing to travel, just for the chance to see you,” the worst thing is, it’s working. You can feel your resolve slipping, will giving into him the closer you’re moved towards the crescendo of your orgasm. “Meanwhile, Tony couldn’t even drive 10 minutes down the street for you. Is that what you think you deserve, baby? Someone who puts no effort into being yours?”
You give a nod, or a shake, or a something of your head, teeth clamping down on your lower lip as finally the first waves of your orgasm roll over you. Thighs shaking, yet he holds you steady against him.
Could you be steady, with him? Is that something Bucky can bring you?
No more crying on carpeted flooring, no more questioning where you stand in someone’s life, no more waking up to find your late night companion already gone.
“When I ask, I expect answers.”
You swallow back the ball in your throat, force away the doubt and the fear and the panic, and give into the warmth of his hands.
The same hands that orchestrated your fate, placed you in one another’s path. Isn’t that what you had been waiting for all along, to be chosen by someone?
“No,” the moment the two letter word leaves you, you feel him spill into your womb, groaning loud and proud into your ear. “I think I deserve you, Bucky.”
Bodies move languidly, collapsing into one another atop the bed, clothing strewn all around you from your earlier worries.
Your head meets Bucky’s chest, where a heart beats rapidly beneath the confines of flesh and bone.
His left arm curls around your naked body, dragging you impossibly closer. You cringe ever so slightly as you feel his cum spill out onto your inner thigh, all the while Bucky’s hand soothes the top of your head, lulling you to let yourself relax into him and let your eyes slip shut, accepting the way he cages you in.
“You do, baby. Deserve all of me. And you can have that, if you let me have all of you.”
+ extra hyde!
· guys i'm being so fr, do not do anything the reader did in this fic. y'all are too precious to wind up being the subject of a netflix documentary.
· and before anyone comments that the reader has no self respect... well, yes! that is the plot. subject is very much aware <3
· no but why did any of my friends encourage me to write this silly fic??
✶ ― SYNOPSIS. fleeing from a messy situationship, you embark on a journey to travel across the globe and discover the hidden beauties earth has to offer. you find the rarest beauty of all in him, bucky barnes. honey eyed, smooth-talking, and capable of working just about every job under the sun. as you continue to crash into him with every country you travel through, a chilling thought starts to take hold of your heart: is fate pushing you together, or is something darker chasing you? this fic is part of the bwat summer collab !
warnings .ᐟ mdni! no use of y/n, vacation/backpacking au, romcom au but make it a thriller too, stalker!bucky, strangers to unethically sourced lovers, smut (dubcon, sex via coercion/manipulation, piv, dacryphilia, blowjob, cum eating, spit swallowing, mirror sex, pussy slapping, tummy bulge, recording sexual acts, implied panty stealing, creampie), stalking, creepy behaviour masked as romantic, bucky is a major loser he just hides it well, harassment (from a character that isn't bucky), descriptions of scars and an anxiety attack. the reader in this fic is pretty much dense and trusts a man too blindly. if you don't enjoy reading that, no worries, this fic just isn't for you. see you in the next one <3
ᯓ★ hyde's input. this entire fic is a joke that went too far. thank you to the amazing @barnesonly & @iamthatonefangirl for organising this collab ily both so dearly <3 brat dividers by @/barnesonly
disclaimer. instead of possessing a bionic arm in this au, bucky is a survivor of a burn injury along his left arm. i have tried to handle the subject as respectfully as possible, sincerest apologies if i did not succeed at that.
follow @houseofjekyll + turn on notifications to know when i post a new fic!
TRAVEL&co kiosk, between gates 31/32 & gates 33/34.
An overwhelm of options can paralyse choice.
Bursting from the metal confines of the display stand, a rainbow of pamphlets cry out for your attention, each more desperate than the last to be picked off the shelf and purchased. Titles in bold, italics, underlined; every old trick in the book, intended to capture the eye, stands before you.
Top 20 Tourist Stops in East Asia.
DOs & DONTs of Hostel Living.
HIDDEN GEMS: a Guide to Rural Sight-Seeing.
Trust your gut, you can practically hear your mother’s voice in your head, guiding you to put your faith in something arbitrary. While her motherly advice is typically welcome, this time the thought leaves an acidic taste in your mouth that lingers, souring your expression and becoming the root of your furrowing brows.
Your gut has unfortunately been a source of misery as of late, leading you down the regretful path of trusting a man, putting all your patience and hope in his ability to change, eventually, for you. What a selfishly naive belief, to think you could change fate, scrub the mould off a man’s heart and bring him back to the land of the feeling. No affection that requires you to humiliate yourself is ever worth it, and god have you learn it the ugly way: tears dripping onto the carpet beneath your knees, chest heaving for breaths, and his lame-ass excuses, I’m just not ready for commitment, baby.
More the fool you for believing a man pushing thirty, incapable of holding down a job, and still riding the high of his days as the high school quarterback could ever face something as challenging as putting a label on the months of ‘messing around’ you both had been partaking in. Now here you stand, suitcase checked in and a one-way boarding pass in hand, frozen before the overwhelming display of travel books one of the airport’s many kiosks has to offer, and hellbent on placing as much distance as possible between you and that man.
A last minute decision, filling the neglected well of spontaneity in your life. Your parents had thought you mad, your friends had insisted on keeping you company. With both groups of protesting figures in your life, you put your foot down and demanded the solitude you craved. After all, you can’t exactly embark on a solo-trip around the planet with someone by your side — even if that someone is your mother or closest friend.
But maybe loneliness is not all it’s cut-out to be. You’d give up everything just about now to have someone to help pluck out the right pamphlet, something sure to serve you not just your first stop but for the entirety of your travels.
“You’re looking at stand like it owes you a debt.”
At first, you think you’re hearing things, brain so desperate for validation it’s taken to imagining company. Then something moves in your peripheral and you’re struck with a sight that feels like something the universe has sent directly to mock your battered and bruised heart: a man.
Not just any run-of-the-mill man, but a man made of blue eyes, sharp cheeks, and a smile so pearly-white you feel you’re staring into the mouth of a predator, inches away from sinking it’s canines into your delicate skin and devouring you whole… But no beast looks like this, enchanting and handsome in a manner that has you questioning where this stranger has been hiding from you all along — until, of course, you remember you’re in an airport and it’s likely this man is merely passing through your city, a temporary stop on his journey to who-knows-where.
Is it too late to change your flight?
“And now it seems the debt is mine,” the stranger lets out a chuckle at his words, wolfish smile stretching wider along his cheeks and making you painfully aware of the creases that mark the skin around his eyes — evidence of a life well-lived, the wrinkles of happiness. They only serve to make him all the more enticing to stare at, a deer caught in the glow of a very beautiful headlight. “Any chance I can pay it off with a little advice?”
Why has it taken you so long to realise the man is talking to you?
A scramble for breath, for words, for something that won’t deepen the embarrassment already scorching your cheeks, you muster a sophisticated, “Huh?”
… and instantly wish the linoleum flooring would spontaneously drop to reveal a sinkhole big enough to swallow you.
“Here, let’s go with,” the man drags out his word, bending at the waist as he leans forward, arm reaching down to pluck something from the stand. You barely have time to admire the way he fills out his trousers, jeans clad skin tight against the swell of his ass, before his spine has straightened and he’s waving a booklet in your face. “This sounds pretty useful, don’cha agree?”
The tiniest twang of an accent kisses your eardrum, scratching an itch you hadn’t even been aware of until now. You almost feign mishearing, just for a chance to hear the stranger repeat himself. But your eyes are drawn downwards, towards the title in his palm, and all hope of feigning ignorance flies out the door.
The Wise Traveller: navigating safety as a solo-travelling woman.
Hackles rise, an old reflex from the days you payed your gut any mind. Your mouth dries, and your eyes widen slightly, and you’re suddenly reminded of the fact this stranger is a man, mankind’s greatest predator.
“How do you know I’m travelling alone?” The question is a bite, one you deliver before sense can tell you better.
By the way the man’s smile falters, a minuscule tremble in the corners of his mouth, your hostility was unexpected. Nevertheless, the man makes no attempt to impose his presence on you, shoulders slouching in on themselves and dampening the height he holds over you.
“I don’t know how to explain it,” his words are sheepish, almost, a twinge of embarrassment painting a rosy streak over his cheeks. A hand winds its way up to the back of his neck, a self-soothing method you know far too well, fingers rubbing over skin. “You just… have the look. I’m really sorry miss, I didn’t mean to make you uncomforta-”
“It’s fine,” a mixture of shame and guilt has you cutting him off, eyes shooting back to the display and making a hasty decision to pick up the first guide they land on. “Thanks for the advice, but I’m all caught up on safety. This is what I was looking for.”
An Idiot’s Guide to Germany. It sits pretty in your hold, thin enough to read before the plane descends back onto solid ground, and completely useless to you.
But the man in front of you doesn’t need to know Germany is far from your destination.
So you scurry off, ready to put the embarrassing interaction in your rear-view mirror and re-vowing to yourself to put an end to interactions with men that make you want to claw out your skin — whether the fault be theirs or your own — and shoot off in search of the till. But something halts you on your way, turning on your ankle to face the beautiful stranger once more. He’s watching you with an endearment in his eye that makes your guts tangle in knots, sickly butterflies flying the nest and spreading through your body.
Men can be so unfairly pretty sometimes, especially when built like the model-esque figure before your eyes.
“Have a safe flight!” And with this final and only attempt at politeness, a last-ditch effort to salvage a conversation your own paranoia has already butchered, you shoot off to pay for a travel guide that will soon make a home for itself at the bottom of your bag, never to be kissed by the light of day again.
Paying for your unwanted good and stuffing it into your purse, your pursuit of escaping as swiftly as possible is hindered by the sudden tap of a finger on your shoulder, coaxing you to glance over your shoulder and find the same beautiful stranger, smile still plastered across his million-dollar face and sporting a plastic bag in his grasp, extended out to you and awaiting your acceptance.
“Please,” the blue-eyed man presses, plastic rustling in his grasp. “I’m sure you’re a smart girl, and that you’re more than capable of keeping yourself safe. But I have a little sister and- Well, it just wouldn’t sit right on my conscience to not do my part in keeping a woman safe.”
You accept his offering, fingers looping through the holes of the bag, because it feels cruel to deny him, to send him off with his tail tucked between his legs and his well intentions stomped all over the floor.
The man excuses himself, rushing off who knows where as you begin your own journey towards your assigned departure gate. Only as you settle in to the exhausted queue of antsy passengers, desperate to start their holidays or return to their families at last, do you take a peak into the plastic bag.
There it sits, just as you expect, The Wise Traveller.
Before you can think better of accidentally advertising to your fellow travellers your vulnerable state of solitude, the booklets is in your grasp and you’re flicking through the opening pages. Blue ink, smudged by the press of pages, catches your eye; an inscription from your handsome stranger.
There’s no such thing as being too careful.
Stay safe, be wise, & enjoy your trip.
- Bucky
Dragon Crest Mountain, Thailand.
The view from the top of the world is beautifully depressing.
Beautiful because the horizon stretches below you, curves and edges of green treetops and mountainous terrain. An infinite expanse of mother nature’s art painted shamelessly over the canvas of the Earth, unmarred by the hands of man nor the wheels of machines.
Depressing because, despite the view, your mind is elsewhere; enthralled by visions of tangled sheets, and bruising touches, and tear-filled tissues.
With the fellow hikers that surround you moved to silence by the ethereal view, no chattering mouths can muffle your ears from the buzz coming from your bag. A familiar pattern of three, buzz buzz buzz, you can easily picture the screen lighting up with his name, treacherously innocent for a man who masks the Devil behind his shy smile and his careful caresses.
You groan, louder than intended, and surrender with an apologetic smile towards the group of elderly women shooting daggers in your direction. Your frustration cannot be helped, really. It is utterly and entirely justifiable, given the texts staring back at you from the screen in your hand, freshly fished out your bag and clasped within your sweat-dampened grip.
DONT REPLY!! (tony) — 10:48 you'll never guess who i ran into today, honey.
DONT REPLY!! (tony) — 10:48your mother, she said your flight landed safely!
DONT REPLY!! (tony) — 10:49 i'm glad but i can’t help wishing you were here. my bed isn’t the same without you.
Psychological warfare.
That is what this is, the manipulative moves of a man who knows all the right words to say at the worst of times. How can he speak of missing you, when he couldn’t even appreciate you when you were right in front of him, nothing short of begging him to need you as much as you needed him?
Still, your ex-situationship’s messages worm themselves into your mind, planting seeds of doubt into your dignity and sanity. Your thumb swipes up on the screen before you can think better of it, the lingering muscle memory of a lovesick fool who at last has felt the exhilarating rush of hearing from the man who makes your usually rock solid heart feel like it is made out of glass.
It wouldn’t hurt to reply, surely. It would be the polite thing to do. After all, you and him are friends. Good friends, with years of history outside of the sultry looks exchanged atop mattresses. And he just wants to know you’re okay, right? A perfectly human reaction to having the person you spend nearly every day beside suddenly up and leave, bags packed with a one-way ticket and a declaration that you are going to see what else the world has to offer, both the good and bad.
Just as you type the opening letters to a calculatedly casual reply, another message enters the chat, lighting a fire in your chest and flooding your mouth with the bitter taste of anger.
DONT REPLY!! (tony) — 10:53 but it’s okay. take your time. i’d rather you work through your little hissy fit first.
Scoffing before you can help it, you hastily switch off the phone and shove it back into your bag, eyes rolling and mouth curling with a snarl as you mutter, “Rich coming from a man who cries every time his shitty team loses.”
The remedy to the ugly feelings swirling up a storm in your chest lays ahead, dragging your eyes back out to the view of the world at your feet, a vastness that manages to make yourself, and consequently your troubles, feel minuscule and unimportant. You can cry a thousand times about a man who will never change his ways nor mature beyond the mindset of a frat-boy, and the Sun will still do her job regardless of your pain: rising, falling, and blessing the lands with her warmth.
And so, ultimately, no matter the heartbreak locked behind your phone screen, you are truly a girl who is going to be okay. Maybe not today, or tomorrow, or in any recent days that follow. But at some point, as you jet from country to country, checking off box after box on your bucket list, and nourishing your well of experience, you will feel your phone buzz with a notification and the last thing on your mind will be the hopeful dread of it being from Tony.
Something flashes in the corner of your eye.
Startled, your shoulders jump as you turn, just in time to be blinded by the obnoxious flash of a camera, shutter snapping shut as the camera’s owner takes a picture. Sight still blurred by the blinding white light, you faintly make out the shape of a dark haired man, camera still raised at shoulder height.
“Oh, sorry,” you stumble over the apology, too busy trying to shuffle out of the lens’ way. “Let me just- I can move, so you can get the full-”
The cameraman chuckles and the sound runs right through you, a visceral reaction stirring within as you feel the hairs on the back of your neck rise and your palms grow sweaty. It’s like you know that laugh, the deep chortle that has an uptick in pitch at the end, itching at a particular spot in your ear.
“No, no, it’s fine- Don’t move!” The man, amidst his laughing, exclaims with a panic that manages to freeze your fleeing feet. Camera back to his face, he points it unmistakably at you and clicks capture, flash firing in your eyes again. “Sorry, sorry! It’s just- Wow.”
Doing your best to not show your confusion — though a part of you is painfully aware of the awe in the stranger’s tone, and the Tour Guide name tag dangling from his lanyard, and the curious American twang voice — you settle on a tightlipped smile, polite enough to gift a stranger yet not void of the utter confusion coursing through your veins.
“Sorry, gosh… You must think I’m some kind of creep,” the man continues his spew of apologies, shaking his head as he lowers the camera and let’s it drop, strap tightening around his neck and halting the device from crashing to the floor. “I normally ask before I, you know, take pictures of the tour guests. But the sunset was hitting you perfectly, and you looked so candidly peaceful, and I didn’t want to ruin the picture by making you… Aware. People get awkward when they know a camera is watching them.”
“Oh, yeah, that’s-” whatever words awaited at the end of your sentence are lost to space and time, as the cloudiness finally drifts, no longer obstructing your line of sight, and you find yourself face to face with eyes so blue, you would have to be an idiot to forget them. “Bucky!?”
Taking on the role of confused bystander, the blue-eyed man is now the one shooting you a tightlipped smile, a questioning gaze skimming over the length of you. You swear you can almost see the cogs turning in his brain, like he is actively trying to replay any memory that features your face.
When it hits him, it is a visible recollection, one that sends his mouth stretching into a full-blown smile and has you embarrassingly aware of how white his teeth are, canines glinting under the shine of a lowering sun.
“Hey, I remember you!” Connection established, he takes a step closer to you, lowering his voice in an attempt to not interfere with the quiet solace the rest of the hikers are seeking. The dampening of volume is not enough to deafen the excited recollection in his voice. “Kiosk Girl! Wow, this is- How was Germany?”
“What?” Mouth moving quicker than mind, you let your confusion rule over your sense before you are struck over the head with the rest of the scene that unfolded at the kiosk stand. The staring at pamphlets, the interruption of a handsome stranger, the offer of a survival guide. Your defensive denial, the awkward reach for a booklet all about a country you weren’t even travelling to, the gift of the survival guide, inscribed with the handsome stranger’s name. “Germany, right. Yeah, uh, it was great. Bit cold but-”
“Cold, in June? Strange,” Bucky, now even closer than moments before, is staring down at the camera, back in his hands and flicking through a series of photos. Photos of you, bated in hues of orange and purple, staring out to a blanket of greenery, sundress trapped in motion by the rustling of a warm breeze. “I always heard the weather was good there this time of year.”
Like a glass of cold water splashing over your face, the man’s words are enough to leave you shaken, the ice-cold embarrassment that soon melts into the shame of lying — and lying badly, of all things — to someone with a smile as earnest as his.
Too deep now to back out, you nod and commit to your deceit, praying you live long enough to someday forget this interaction ever happened, “Yeah, they- Well, the locals said it was a fluke. Global-warming, you know, changing the natural order of the world.”
If there is a higher being watching over your interactions, it is made of cruelty and spite, for only a creature made of all things not-nice would thrust you into a position where you embarrass yourself in front of a beautiful stranger not once, but twice — the same stranger, too. Incidents weeks apart, yet the burning sensation of bile biting at the back of your throat is just the same as the one you felt in the airport, rushing away to pay for the neglected German guide you had shamefully abandoned on the plane.
Bucky, the stranger who has unknowingly become the agent behind your most embarrassing moments in recent times, is none-the-wiser to your internal panic, nodding in acceptance of your explanation and shifting focus over to the camera in his hand.
“I’m sorry, again, for taking this without asking. I didn’t mean to scare you,” is it fair for a man to look so effortlessly good, one hand reaching up to push a set of overgrown brown curls from his forehead, hooking one particular long strand behind his ear? Rarely a fan of long locks on a man, there is something about the way he wears his head of hair, dishevelled yet, strangely, not a hair seems out of place, falling perfectly in a way that frames his sharp features. His voice fills your ears again, pulling focus down to his rosebud lips. “But, uh… If you don’t hate the pictures, I can pass them along to you.”
“If I don’t like them? Are you kidding?” Overcompensating for your frazzled nerves, your enthusiastic display as you glance down at the photograph burnt into the camera’s screen is hopefully enough to atone for your earlier sin of lying. “These are- Wow! I mean, are you a professional photographer? You should be photographing models, not working here as a tour guide-”
And now you are just overdoing it.
Because, truth be told, the picture is not even that good. You are barely in focus, the background is more pixelated than one would hope, and there is an intruding figure in the corner, the sandal-clad foot of a man who had been standing off to the side.
“You really think so?” Bucky drinks in your praise, cheeks glowing a rosy hue as he basks in your eager praise. Men really are so simple at their core, happy to believe they are overqualified in a skill they barely have at the slightest of celebration. “I was just messing with the lens, didn’t think I’d even do that good… Oh, but, actually-”
He pauses, hesitation on his face as he mulls over a thought.
You encourage him to speak his mind, eyebrows furrowing as you question him with your gaze.
“It’s just, I completely forgot, we’d have to exchange phone numbers if you’re wanting me to pass the photos on. Which I totally understand if you’re not comfortable with! I mean, I’m a man, and I’m a stranger, and-” Like he is aware of his own mouth racing off ahead of him, Bucky draws his tongue back in and tries to settle a little composure into himself, straightening his shoulder and clearing his throat. “Or we could meet somewhere in a few days, if you want a printed copy of it. Would Wednesday work for you?”
The shake of your head comes swiftly, shooting his offer down, “Sorry, I leave for Tokyo on Tuesday. But I don’t mind! Exchanging numbers, I mean.”
To the outside, you must sound like a pair of mumbling, stumbling fools. Sentences barely cohesive and rarely uninterrupted by a hum or a haw, thoughts actively unravelling as you both speak them into existence.
But a part of you can’t help feeling a certain wave of charm roll over you, an endearment that clutches at your heart and has you wondering how a man with a face like that could ever sound unsure of himself.
“Oh, in that case…” and Bucky has already taken to digging through his back-pocket, slipping a black phone into his grasp. You watch him press the power button, only to be met with the familiar sign of a dead battery: black screen, white charger symbol. “Shit, sorry. Do you mind if I type my number into your phone? Mine’s dead as a dodo right now.”
It would be rude to say no. And, really, what other choice do you have? Other than, of course, to suddenly change your mind and decide you don’t want the mediocre picture, but then that would require you to be rude. Besides, it’s not like you weren’t going to end up having his number anyway, what difference does it make if he types it in?
Your hands are scouring through your bag, searching for the familiar green of phone case well-past its sell-by date — with more bumps and scratches along its surface than a reckless teen’s first car — when you feel the violation of his stare wandering into the contents of your bag.
It doesn’t take long for you to both zero in on a familiar booklet, tucked neatly into an inner-pocket and seemingly sporting a few dog-ears.
“You kept it,” he notes, gaze still glued to The Wise Traveller, and the comment almost makes you hurl — because it’s like he knows you abandoned the other guide you purchased that day.
“Uh, yeah,” your reply comes a little more breathless than you would like, as you try not to think too hard about the engraving along the inside of the pages, the very place you had first learnt his name. “Figured you were right, back in the airport. Can’t be too careful these days.”
Then it hits you.
You’ve not even told this stranger- Bucky your name.
Here you are, a fool fumbling over words at the sight of his pretty face, freely handing over your phone for him to pluck into his own grasp and begin swiping over the screen, and you’ve yet to once offer him the appropriate politeness of sharing your name.
Only, as you finally give it up and introduce yourself, you’re met with a reply that from any man less attractive would have had you running for the hills: “Oh, I know!”
As though he can feel your wide eyes, watching him with a measured caution, Bucky is quick to fire into a chuckle and shake your phone in your direction, screen opened on your contacts and brandishing your name along the top.
“It says it right here. Cute name, by the way. Makes sense for a pretty girl like you,” thumbs swipe across your phone, numbers punched into a new contact. Meanwhile, Bucky continues to make small talk, with a smile on his face you have quickly decided comes far too easily to him — surely no one is that happy, all the time? You’re almost certain if you peel back the complex layers of reasoning behind his grin, you’d find customer service at the root of it all. “Is it any good?”
Too focused on studying his more-than-good looks, it takes you a moment and one too many slow blinks to realise he’s back on the topic of the safety guide, “Oh, uh, Yeah. It’s great. Very… safe, you know?”
Here you go again, lying for the sake avoiding the awkward conversation where you tell the very stranger — very kind stranger, mind you, who has extended you nothing but a show of good faith, a man so used to playing the role of big brother that he could not stop himself from instilling some level of safety into a lonesome woman — that you had not opened the book he had gifted you beyond that pages of his footnote. All those apparent dog-ears? Wrinkles in the book’s corners, a result of shoving the poor thing and crushing it amongst the other contents of your bag.
“Can’t be that good, surely,” guilt coats the back of your throat. You swallow it down and keep your focus on Bucky, who has finished inserting his contact details and now balances your phone between two fingers, awaiting your eventual acceptance of it back into your grasp. “Pretty sure you just broke rule number one.”
“I- What rule?”
Like a wind-up toy, Bucky clears his throat and recites with practised ease, “Never tell a stranger your travel plans.”
Your whole world goes still.
A heart that no longer beats. Lungs that no longer inflate. Hands that run cold with a nervous sweat.
Birds chirp in the distance, the noise louder than ever before. Voices, muffled as though you are submerged in water, swirl around you in an unidentifiable cluster — men, women, children; every one more monotone than the last.
It’s his laugh that pierces through the threatening haze of quiet, throaty and inviting, tickling at your own humour despite the fact you can’t seem to pinpoint what exactly is so funny about this situation.
Maybe this Bucky guy is just a little awkward, the type to fall back on laughter when he feels stifled by silence.
You don’t get the chance to investigate your sudden theory any further, for the duties of a tour guide seem to catch up to him at last. The flock of older women have swarmed him like vultures, each trying to get him to help them focus the binoculars that dangle from their necks. Before they can fully sweep him away, the handsome stranger offers you one last grin and some parting words.
“Have fun in Tokyo!”
Bondi Beach, Australia.
Like any true, modern day feminist, the last thing you enjoy doing is agreeing with a man… But Anakin Skywalker certainly made some good points against sand.
It is coarse, it is rough, it is irritating, and it does get everywhere.
Right now, it’s wedged between your hallux and index toe, irritating the skin with each step you take, grinding against the toe post of a sandal and driving the bothersome granules deeper into you. So, it’s safe to say you dive at the first sight of respite, just about throwing yourself into an empty bar stool.
Pearl Waves Beach Club is certainly a sight to behold.
A beacon of white, with floor to ceiling length windows that look out towards golden sun and aqua waters, and an overwhelming aura of wealth and excess that makes you feel less than adequate, wandering through the air-conned space clad in a burgundy two-piece bathing suit, a hastily tied shawl around your waist, and shoes that announce your every move with a harsh slap against marble flooring that echoes out into the tranquility of the beach club.
None of that matters now that you’re nestled in a seat, the lingering dampness from the ocean that still clings to your bikini bottoms now wetting the dark leather beneath it. The sticky residue of suncream has mixed with your sweat, creating an uncomfortable film atop your body, and salt has embedded itself into your scalp, doing its best into coercing you to scratch at and relieve the pinch in your skin. Despite all that, you feel nothing short of blessed, covered in the tell-tale stains of someone who has spent the better half of their day strewn upon a sandy beach and basking in the sun’s radiance, like if you lay there long enough, you will eventually evolve and gain the skill of photosynthesis.
“Well, well, look what the cat dragged in.”
Barely believing the vision unravelling before your very eyes, you blink twice before making a show out of rubbing your knuckles against closed eyelids. Sight readjusting to the brightness of the beach club, you find your eyes have far from deceived you: there, making his way up the length of the bar, with a dishtowel tossed over one shoulder and a pearly-white grin plastered along a clean-shaven face, is none other than your handsome stranger.
“Oh my-” Cutting yourself off before you can fully form the words, you gape at him in shock, pointer finger aimed at his direction as though you are accusing him of something — like the crime of running into you for a third time on your trip around the globe, or the more unforgivable sin of daring to look better with each run-in. Even now, the luscious locks you had admired back in Thailand chopped and traded in for a far shorter, more polished slick of dark hair, held in place by a lick of hair gel, he looks better than ever. There’s only one issue- “James?”
That is what sits engraved into his golden name tag, clipped to a black button up that sits stretched a little too tightly around his forearms.
Following your line of sight, chin near pressed to his sternum as he looks down at his chest, Bucky — or James, or whatever his name is — is flooded with a wave of red, embarrassment burning at the apples of his cheeks and the tips of his ears.
“Afraid my name’s not actually as cool as something like Bucky,” his hands plant themselves on the bar, as the man positions himself directly across from you over the counter top.
Try as you might, you can’t resist the invisible magnet that draws your attention down to his arms, bare in a way they never have been before. While you want to follow the trail of veins that dance up the length of each forearm, you instead find yourself staring where politeness says you shouldn’t.
Because where you expect to find skin as golden as the one along his right arm, you find a story of pain instead. Splotches of pink paint the otherwise white skin with colour, with a shine that does not match the typical look of flesh. Where some spots appear unnaturally smooth, other flecks of tissue appear sunken in, visual marks of trauma along his left arm.
Catching yourself as you blatantly stare, regret making impact with your chest, you force yourself to meet those aqua eyes of his, watching you with the patience of someone who is beyond used to the rude — even if well intentioned— stares.
“I don’t know if cool is the right word for Bucky,” opting for diffusing with humour, you tease your handsome stranger. Though, really, maybe he is no longer a stranger. With how often fate seems to be driving you together, maybe it’s time you consider him an acquaintance. “Sounds like the stage name for one of those horses, you know? Make some noise, folks, for Bucky the Bucking Bronco!”
Mouth contradicts hand, as James struggles to contain his amusement, pouring out of him in melodies of laughter. All the while he grasps at something dramatic with his palm, colliding over where his heart sits beneath layers of cotton and flesh and bone, clutching as though you have freshly driven a dagger into him.
“Harsh! Call me a loser next time, why don’cha?” There it is again, that lilt of an accent, curving over the man’s words as he feigns offence. Palms up in defeat, Bucky shakes a chuckle out himself before pinning you under his intense stare, “Go on, tell old Loser McGee over here wha’cha want, before they kick you out for harassing an innocent bartender.”
A familiar overwhelm befalls you, leaving your stomach feeling like a led balloon as you fix your attention on the boards behind Bucky, where options upon options, upon options lay scribbled in chalk. Brands of liquor, strains of beer, every cocktail under the sun; they all sit compiled in a list so overflowing with choice, it paralyses you once again.
“I,” you drag out the sound, mouth paused and agape while you try to pick something, anything to drink… Before ultimately confessing, “Have no idea. There’s too much to choose from.”
“You’ve got a real problem making decisions, you know that?” You are almost taken aback by Bucky’s brash declaration. No matter how true it may be, you never expected the man made up of bashful smiles and shaky words to just come right out and say it like that, no tact in his choice of words that could soften the blow of reality. “Between here and that kiosk, I’m starting to worry about how you’ve been getting by without me on the rest of your trip.”
While you might have tuned your gut out nearly two months ago, she has a nasty habit of screaming her way back into the forefront of your mind. And right now, she’s screaming a tale of seduction, one where she is trying her best to convince your sharper senses that there is a flirtatious undertone behind the way Bucky cocks his head and tilts one side of his mouth up into a smirk, just waiting on your response to his teasing.
A bad habit that doesn’t die at all, apparently, you give in to the noise of your gut and try reach a place of equal footing, arms crossing over your chest and subtly squeezing your nylon clad breasts closer together, deepening the line of your cleavage.
“You don’t have to worry, James,” elbows kiss the cold of the bar counter as you shuffle closer and lean against it, ignoring the bolt of electric heat that shoots down your spine as you notice blue eyes lower from your face and fall right into your cross-armed trap. “The world’s full of handsome strangers eager to help a girl like me decide.”
“Is that so?” There’s a tick in his jaw, which you swear you witness him clench, only for him to distract you with the sight of his back muscles, straining as he turns and begins reaching for various colourful bottles you barely recognise. “Then let me be the one to decide for you today, hmm?”
An unmeasured amount of time pases with his back turned on you and your eyes attempting to peak over his shoulders, catching glimpses of how he chops at fruits, and measures liquids, and grabs at ice. Everything culminates in a grand finale of his hands grasping at two metal cups, one jammed into the other as he begins to shake, and shake, and shake.
Bucky is nothing short of peacocking, dazzling you with easy flips and twirls of the shaker, each toss more riskier than the last. Braced for breath, you half expect him to fail any moment now, make a fool of himself and send the contents of the cups spilling all down the front of him.
Surprisingly, this does not end up being the case.
Instead, you watch him turn with a smug, satisfied grin and lay a colourful concoction in front of you, decorated with a handful of fruit and a sprinkle of mint leaves.
“What’s this?”
“Don’t ask, just drink,” Bucky encourages you, two fingers pinched around the neck of the straw and guiding it to your waiting mouth. Just as you wrap your lips around the plastic, an angry yell breaks out from the opposite end of the bar, where you spot a red-faced, uniform-clad man glaring daggers at your handsome stranger- No, acquaintance's* direction. “Oh, shoot… I’ve gotta go, that’s my manager. Enjoy!”
Before disappointment at the sight of him racing off down the bar can solidify itself in your chest, you feel a rush of relief as you witness him come face-to-face with his manager — who you almost swear you witness rip Bucky’s name tag clean off his shirt — for the moment you take a sip of his cocktail, something in your stomach turns…
It might just be the most disgusting thing you’ve ever tasted.
Therme București, Romania.
“I have a new nickname for you,” your declaration is half-slurred, on account of your face being nose deep in the headrest of a massage table. “Buck-Of-All-Trades.”
A laugh you’ve grown too familiar with echoes over the zen playlist that has been filtering out of a speaker for the past thirty minutes. Incense burns in one corner, while a glass door that has long ago steamed up with the heat of the room sits on the opposite side. Melting into PVC leather, you are naked with nothing but a thin, pristine white towel to cover your most delicate areas. And, with knees that squeeze into your waist with every smooth roll of his hands along your oil-slicked back, is your handsome acquaintance.
Weeks and miles away from the events upon the Australian beach, you had walked into your much anticipated massage with one thing in mind, an apology given by a staff member after a forty minute wait: “The original masseuse you booked with has fallen sick, so we have matched you up with one of our newer experts. Thank you for your patience!”
Had you admittedly been a little frustrated? Well, yes!
Had that very same frustration evaporated the moment you watched Bucky step into the room, hair a little fluffier than before and sporting a five o’clock shadow? Well… Yes!
“Hmm, how so?” Like he is trying to torture you, there is a certain strain of exertion in James’ voice, a sound that pairs with the relaxing roll of his palms up the length of your back as perfectly as red wine goes with steak.
“Because,” half the word collapses into a breathy sigh as you feel the tips of his fingers press into a knot. One third of the way down your spine, burrowed beneath the point of your right shoulder blade, he sniffs it out like a police dog sent to find drugs. “Every time I see you, you have a new job.”
You leave out the part where this is the first one you’ve witnessed him be good at.
In a way, you’ve grown fond of that less-than-perfect photograph he captured of you on Dragon Crest. With a view so ethereal, it would be selfish to think anything as cheap and measly as a camera could dare capture it in all it’s glory.
And his cocktail, though far from drinkable, had certainly looked beautiful, brandished all over your Instagram story and paired with the perfect caption: Custom cocktail from a handsome bartender <3
Tony definitely had not reacted well.
You happily left his messages on read, his demands for your return abandoned to the void of your chat.
“That’s not a very nice nicknames though, doll,” a tut comes from behind you, and it takes just about every inch of will you own inside your body to not raise your head and glance back. The fear of not surviving the sight of Bucky, thick thighs spread and arm muscles rippling under his repeated touching along your naked back, is what really holds you in place. “Ain’t the rest of that sayin’ meant to imply I have no real skills? Master of none?”
With a dismissive wave of your hand and a relaxed shh, you sink deeper — if that is even possible — into the massage table, swallowing back a pleasured moan as his thumbs begin working at the knot.
“You men are all the same,” you mumble before you can think better of it, sighing as you close your eyes and visualise a montage of Tony and all his nagging words. “Can’t just take a damn compliment, always gotta turn it into an argument.”
“‘S that so?”
“Yes, that is so.”
Like he feels your breath hitch at a particular pressure, he reinforces it, thumb pressing right where you need him to, “You’re speaking from experience, I take it.”
A groan fires out of you, half because you are frustrated under the reminders of Tony that swirl around in your mind and half because there is an embarrassing rush of blood shooting straight for your core with every roll of his fingers, a slow pulse making itself known between your legs that practically begs you to grind down into the hardened leather. But you don’t, because you can’t.
Because that would be wrong.
Because that would violate Bucky’s trust and safety as a professional.
Because he would feel it the moment you even dare try, his own groin all but resting against your lower half.
“Too much experience,” you manage a response, finally. “My ex-boyfriend… Actually, I can’t even call him that. But anyway, he was the worst.”
“Oh yeah?” He passively replies with the very words you want to chant as his fingers skim and find another knot to undo, unknowingly undoing other parts of you too.
“Y-yeah,” you sigh, shoulders rolling back as you squirm and try to get comfortable, despite the slick forming between your thighs. “He used to argue with me, all the time. And he wasn’t afraid to get mean with it.”
“What a jerk.”
“Yeah, he is a jerk,” much like your body needed the physical therapy of steady hands loosening all your muscles, your mind is basking in the healing nature of finally trashing a man who had made you feel so inadequate, you had to run halfway across the earth just to escape your scorned heart. “Do you know-” a rhetorical question, for poor Bucky has absolutely no idea who you are talking about, “He couldn’t even drive 10 minutes to come pick me up once? My clutch broke and I had no way to get to work, and he complained when I asked him for a favour. He literally works down the street from me!”
“Jesus, darling,” he follows it up with a low whistle, just in time to cover up the faintest huff of a moan pushed from your mouth. “No wonder you’re so tense, dealin’ with boys like that.”
As good as the validation feels, to have a voice outside of your head paying testament to your woes and sympathising with your troubles, you are still plighted by the cruel torture of thinking too much about Tony at once. And, so, you cut the conversation short, drag it someplace else.
“What’s your story, then?”
Hands pause along your back, mapping over the skin like Bucky is searching for the next tweak to undo in your spine. Finding one quicker than you expect, he sinks his touch back into you and matches your question with his own, “Who says I have a story?”
“Oh, come on,” the effect the massage is having on you grows harder to suppress with each passing moment. “You don’t travel the world, working every job under the sun, and not have a story!”
Mask slipping a little too far, a moan crawls its way from out your chest. It is nothing dramatic, a simple hum of affirmation, a noise that says yes, keep going without you needing to part your lips.
“Okay, okay, I’ll give you my story,” Bucky is likely paying you some kindness, refusing to acknowledge the noise that just left you.
Never have you been more relieved to be in his presence. Then again, the more you think about it, his presence tends to be accompanied by relief: saving you from choosing at the kiosk, sparing you from the silence of the mountain, rescuing you from the threat of dehydration at the bar.
You catch the next hum before it can make too much noise, a subtle squeeze of your thighs relieving the burn between your thighs if only for a moment.
“I was a smart kid but I never really had any direction in life. No big burning passion, you know?” You nod into the headrest, then nearly laugh as you imagine what you must look like from his point of view right now. “So when my friend Steve showed up one day and told me he was enlisting in the military, it was like the universe handed me a task. I mean, when I say this kid was scrawny, I mean he looked one gust of wind away from being swept away to the land of Oz.”
Laughing is a mistake that only leads to a broken moan, his thumbs once again pressing just right.
“Stop that,” Bucky scolds softly, reinforcing the pressure behind his touch like he is trying to coax you into letting the noise fully form, let your pleasure perforate the calm room. “‘S just you, me, and the incense in here. I promise no one’s gonna judge you, so sing your little heart out. Let’s me know I’m doing a good job.”
Latch unlocked, permission granted; it’s embarrassing how quick you are to obey. Hypnotised by his words, you find your lips parting with permanence, throat relenting and becoming a vehicle for your pleasure, the zen playlist quickly becoming a backing track to your gentle moans.
“There we go. Isn’t that nice? Lettin’ loose, letting yourself feel good?” When had his hands reached so low, fingertips dancing along the hem of the white towel strewn along your lower back? “I quickly learned I liked the military. I was good at it. The routine, the demanding physicality, the yes, sir, yes and all the other stupid things they make you chant.”
It damn near gives you whiplash how easily James slips back into relaying his story to you, voice void of a previous layer of sultriness and now coated by something more careful, something practised. The monotony of a story told one too many times and perfected to hit all the right story beats to keep his listener engaged.
“But then there was an accident,” for the first time since he planted himself atop your back, the hitch in your breath is caused by something other than his tender touch. Memories of his left arm, scar tissues wrapped around him like vine, suddenly hits you. “I pissed some guys off, got one too many push ups handed to them by pointing out their misdemeanours to our superiors. I don’t remember how the prank was actually meant to play out but, next thing I know, I’m waking up to my bed sheets on fire and the feeling of death clawing up my arm. And that was that. A month in hospital, many more months in physical therapy. I quit the military, so did Steve.”
It feels selfish to moan right then, but Bucky only seems to light up at the sound, massaging deeper into the tissue of your back, relishing in your vocal praises.
“Then,” his pause is for dramatic effect. “I just sat and felt sorry for myself. For months. It was more excruciating than the pain, that boredom. It felt like I lost my life, even though I was still alive and fully intact, save for the scars left behind by the fire. And… I don’t know. There’s really only so long you can do that before you have to get up and go. Do something again. I just decided to do everything. Everywhere I want to go, I go. Every job I want to try, I apply. What’s the worst thing that can happen? I get rejected? I guarantee that’s less pain that what’s going on in my arm.”
Though your reasons are far smaller, far less visible, the scarring along your heart feels seen by Bucky’s words.
The massage finishes far sooner than you would like.
Bucky at last gets a chance to dismiss himself from you without some outside source dragging him away, giving you just enough time to suspect there’s hesitation in his voice, as he draws out his goodbye before exiting the massage room and leaving you to re-dress.
Bones turned to jelly, heart a little lighter too, you’re too blissed out to care that your underwear has gone missing, no longer stuffed neatly into the pocket of your trousers.
Nonno Gio’s Cooking Class, Italy.
You realise too little too late that you’ve fallen for a tourist trap.
Because Nonno Gio, who you expect to embody the essence of Italy, turns out to be a middle-aged American man who seemingly has watched one too many episodes of The Sopranos. A golden chunk of chain sits clasped around his bright red neck, and his accent is plucked right out of New Jersey.
It’s a little too hard to lament the loss of a few hundred euros, however, while watching your cooking partner whisk away at a selection of dry and wet ingredients… Particularly because the cooking partner in question is your handsome friend — yes, he has received an upgrade in titles — Bucky.
“We seriously need to stop meeting like this,” had been his version of a greeting, shoulders shaking and mouth laughing with disbelief as he watched you saunter up to the very cooking station he had been assigned. “It’s starting to get creepy.”
“Creepy?” You echoed, throwing an apron over your head, at last standing by his side. “If me stalking you all across the globe is creepy then, sure James, I’m creepy!”
Taking charge, Bucky leaves you to laugh at your own silly joke while his hands grasp at the strings of your apron. Pulling the fabric flush against your front, guarding the pretty pale yellow of your sundress from any dusting of flour or splashes of liquid, he threads the strings into a tight bow and punctuates the action by smoothing his hands over your hips, undoing a ruffle that has formed along your waist.
The entire class is a practice in patience, a way to prove to yourself just how good your ability to endure has become.
Because Bucky is an example of visual torture.
Floppy hair that falls over his eyes as he concentrates on chopping onions, a single tear slipping down his cheek. You take a deep breath and force your hands to focus on your own task, instead of brushing the locks from his face.
Muscles that ripple beneath the confines of a white shirt, sleeves rolled up to his elbows and light cotton sitting loose around his bicep, just see-through enough to grant you the view how toned they are. He kneads at the pizza dough, meanwhile you need three stabilising breaths to calm your less than kitchen-friendly thoughts.
Sharp cheekbones, one side sporting the delicate swipe of flour staining his tanned skin, right where he foolishly wiped away an invisible bit of lint without fully washing his hands. You want to laugh at the sight, or to lick the pad of your thumb and swipe the powder away, but you are too busy reeling from those same flour-covered fingers grasping at your chin, tilting your eyes up to meet his blue ones, and smudging your own cheek with flour.
“There,” he mutters, cool as a cucumber and nowhere near as affected as you. “We’re matching, Now we look like a real team.”
It’s after you both ship off your pizza into the specialised oven, with Bucky insisting you both grasp at the peel and feed your wonky masterpiece, possessing a shape closer to a square than a circle, in together, that you finally feel yourself lose the ability to trap your tongue, mouth flying off to speak your thoughts before you can swallow the words back down.
“This might sound insane, so feel free to call me crazy,” is always a promising, stable way of starting a sentence. It is truly a miracle the handsome man entertains your wording with an endeared smile. “But I feel like there is a reason behind why we keep running into each other. Like… Like the universe is pushing me in your direction, you know? I mean, what are the chances?”
Silence.
The other members of the cooking class chatter around you both, but you don’t hear them, too focused on the fragile bubble that surrounds you and Bucky.
“You’re crazy,” straight to the point, monotone voice and deadpanned stare. It’s safe to say James does not give you the answer you were expecting… At least not immediately. But then the tension on the surface of his face cracks and he breaks out into an easy smile, something similar to relief swimming in the pools of his eyes. “But I’m glad you said it, ‘cause I’ve been thinking the same thing. For a while now.”
Despite the hazard lights flashing from within your gut, screaming warnings at you to not repeat previous mistakes, to not hand a man the ability to make a fool out of you, you take a leap of faith and pray this time you don’t wind up weeping with your knees pressed into the floor — there’s not even a carpet to soften the blow this time.
“I leave for France tomorrow,” this time, you share your plans knowing full well it is the number one rule in The Wise Traveller not to. You justify this violation of safety with the fact Bucky is no longer a stranger. He is your friend, right? “I’ll be in Bordeaux. You know, in case you’re struggling to pick where you’re going next. I wouldn’t mind the company.”
Thankfully, Bucky is better at cooking than he is at mixology, and when the pair of you tuck into your less-than-authentic Italian pizza, you’re suddenly thankful you fell for Nonno Gio’s tourist trap.
How else would you have (possibly, maybe) scored a friendly date in Bordeaux?
Super-Bass Club, Greece.
The nightclub’s name is far from an exaggeration: you can feel the bass infiltrating your heartbeat.
Or maybe it’s not the bass, but adrenaline; kicking in and raising your heart rate.
The straps of your heels dig painfully into the skin around your ankles, rubbing them raw and no doubt drawing blood to the blistered surface. Every hurried step forces you to tug down the hem of your dress, riding up under the force of your strides. Sweat stings at your eyes and bodies swarm all around you, swaying out of tune to a DJ who loves his job a little too much, despite the fact he can barely succeed at a simple cross-fade into the next track.
At the very least, you suppose, the DJ is playing the club classics, the records that never fail to get a crowd screaming out the lyrics at the top of their lungs. It’s his only saving grace.
Safety lays ahead, a beacon of light shinning from where the exit to the club sits, new bodies spilling into the venue while all you want to do is escape.
A hand around your wrist halts you, drags you back with a squeal before you can dive out the doors.
You don’t have to turn to know it’s him, the very same stranger who has been harassing you for the past half hour, unwilling to take the hint of your side-eyes and disapproving glares as he attempted, time and time again, to grind up against you on the dance floor. While at first you had tried to flee subtly, it quickly became obvious that rejection was not something the bull-headed man took well.
The moment your footsteps had sped up across the floor, he began pursuing after you.
And now he’s caught you, a wriggling fish trapped in the painful hook of his hand. He wastes no time, another set of fingers reaching to roughly grab at your face, tilt your face up to his, and-
A scuffle ensues, one that you seem to be trapped in the middle of; a tug of war where one hand is dragging you towards your pursuer and another two, more careful, are prying you backwards.
Two trumps one, without a doubt, but not without the aid of a third set of hands, this time clamping down around the assailant’s wrist in a painful grip and ripping the unwanted hand off of you, arm twisting unnaturally as your third defender pins the stranger’s hand behind his back. Through the shock of it all, you barely register the other four hands dropping their grasp from you, nor the pair of security that grapple with the man responsible for your shaky hands and jackhammer heart.
You manage to concentrate enough to notice him, however, relinquishing his hold of the stranger to his fellow bouncers and approaching you with the caution of a scared lamb, blue eyes wider than ever before as they frantically search over your body for signs of injury.
“Are you okay? Does anywhere hurt?” Bucky — like every time before — looks better than the last time you saw him. Beard fuller, hair softer, worried face a reflection for the swirling neon lights around you both. Dressed from head to toe in black, a splash of white sits across his chest in the bold shape of SECURITY. “See, doll? This is why you need to be more careful, hmm. Where’s that guide I bought you?”
Tuning out the condescension, filtering it through a part of your brain that registers his words as only the worried rambling of someone concerned about their friend, you take to answering his first questions instead.
“I’m fine,” your voice sounds miles away to you, lost in the crowd along with the rest of the drunken fools. The buzz of alcohol has long simmered away within you, nothing but a static flatline remaining that leaves you tasting bile and wanting your bed — not the bed in your hostel, your bed, back home, where the sheets still smell like Tony. “Just my wrist hurts.”
That is enough to kick Bucky into gear, and the next thing you know, you’re sat outside the club atop a plastic chair, ice pack pressed to your skin, a jacket wrapped around your shoulders, and Bucky crouching by your feet.
A soft crack rings out into the Grecian night as he twists the lid off a bottle of water, offering it up to your lips and gifting an approving nod as he watches your throat bob, swallowing down a few sips.
“Your taxi should be here in ten minutes,” Bucky keeps his voice to barely a whisper, afraid to startle you. If you weren’t still so shaken, or stewing in a frustration towards him you thought you had got over weeks ago, you would laugh and point out the still very audible thump of Greece’s shittiest DJ entertaining the masses back inside the club. “I’m sorry… About that man. He’s been- Dealt with. Banned for life, no doubt, that’s what usually happens with-”
“Why didn’t you come?” Your question seems to hurt him more than the pain in your wrist, eyebrows furrowing and gentle smile slipping into an almost pout. “I waited. I thought I would hear from you. But you never came, and I explored Bordeaux alone.”
Knees kissing the dirtied ground, Bucky leans closer and perches his hands on your naked thighs, inches from where your dress rests around your legs, “Did you want me to come?”
“I told you I would be there.”
“That’s not the same as asking me to go,” he kisses those pearly teeth with a hiss, adjusting his grip on your legs and glancing over his shoulder, like he’s waiting for a taxi to finally pull up to the club’s entrance. Is he that desperate to see you leave? “I know you’re used to snapping your fingers and getting what you want, but I’m not that easy. Gotta use your words, baby. I can’t read minds, can only do as much as you ask of me.”
Intoxicated by his cologne, by the alcohol in your veins, by the sudden waft of cigarette smoke blown your way from bystanders to the left, there is suddenly only one question on your mind for Bucky… What a shame you speak it out loud.
“Would you kiss me?”
No further questioning is needed.
Bucky moves lazily, hand reaching up to grasp at your cheek. A thumb swipes over the swell of it, before steady fingers press your head to tilt it down to give him easier access to your mouth, pushing up from the ground to take possession of you.
His lips are soft, pressing carefully against your own. Bucky lets you take the lead, moving at whatever pace you set. At first slow, tentative, memorising the shape of his mouth against yours. And then desperate, lips widening with each smack and tongues reaching to taste each other.
Car horns blare, strangers chatter, and the bass continues to thump obnoxiously under the command of the DJ, but none of that matters right now. All that matters is Bucky, kissing you with equal fervour, groaning into your mouth as you sigh against him. The taste of mint hits your tongue, remnants of gum he had long ago chewed.
Your own wandering hands ruin the fun, gliding down the stretch of his black top and hooking two fingers beneath his belt, dragging him closer as you mutter, “There’s a spare bed back at my hostel.”
Disappointed does not even begin to cover what you are feeling when Bucky pulls back, head shaking and hands grasping at your wrists, prying your touch from off of him. Before you can feel the shame of rejection, though, he’s pressing a gentle kiss to your cheek and offering you an apology.
“I’m not the kind of guy who sleeps with a girl in your state, doll,” his hands take to tightening his jacket around your shoulders, a sudden gust of wind filling the night with a chill that runs right through you. You shiver for a whole other reason, however, when Bucky’s breath hits the shell of your ear as he mumbles into it, “Besides, I want you remembering every second of our first night together, not some drunken blur.”
Your taxi arrives quicker than you would like.
Bucky walks you over to it, holding the door open for you all the while he spills out directions in Greek to the driver. Only as he goes to slam the door shut do you remember the weight of his jacket around your shoulders, hand shooting out to pause the door.
“Wait! Here, your jacket,” you drunkenly exclaim, trying to unwind yourself from the warmth of him around you.
But Bucky is already shaking his head, hands insisting on tightening the fabric back around you, “Where are you going next, after Greece?”
You answer without hesitation, because Bucky is not a stranger.
He’s not even a friend.
He’s a man you almost just dragged to bed.
“Portugal.”
“Okay then. Give it back to me in Portugal,” with a slap of his hand atop the roof of the car, Bucky throws you one last grin before shutting the door on you, a single promise kissing your eardrums and setting your heart aflame the rest of the drive back to your hostel: “I’ll call you!”
Prisioneiro do Mar Hotel, Portugal
Bucky keeps his promise.
Calls you the next morning, arranges to meet with you in Portugal, wishes you a safe flight and even tells you that you looked beautiful the night before, even if deep-down you know you looked a mess after your run-in with the handsy stranger.
It is you who messes up this time.
“Bucky, I’m so, so sorry,” your apologies are almost as frantic as your hands, riffling through another suitcase and dumping piles upon piles of your clothing onto the hotel room floor.
The entire room is a mess, clothes strewn across just about every surface imaginable and every cupboard has been pried apart — even the safe lays with it’s door wide open, showing off your collection of jewellery to any wandering eyes.
How fortunate that the only other eyes in the room are Bucky’s, who stands by the foot of the bed and is trying his best to soothe your panic.
He’s not doing a very good job.
“I swear to you, I packed it. I remember packing it!” You, admittedly, are not the most sound of mind in this moment. A weight sits on your chest, heavy heart making every breath feel harder. Sweat gathers at the base of your neck, dampening the licks of hair at the back of your head. And, no matter how hard you try not to think about, memories of Tony are running on repeat in your mind. “God! I’m such a fucking idiot- I… How do you even lose a jacket?!”
Tearing through another bag, you’re none the wiser to Bucky as he inches closer to you, weaving his boot clad feet through empty spaces in the floor that don’t possess your clothing, unwilling to stain your pretty dresses with his footprint.
Your cheeks are overrun by tears in the blink of an eye. Angry, rotten little things that track rivers down your skin and drip all over the open bag you are kneeling over. Soft hands meet your shoulders, cradling them just as they begin to shake under the violent sobs that rack through your chest.
More than anything, you are embarrassed to be causing such a scene, especially when Bucky seems so unaffected by the loss of his jacket.
“Hey, hey,” his voice is practically a gentle coo, while his hands are dragging your body upright off the floor and forcing you to face him. “No need to cry, doll.”
“I know, I’m sorry,” this apology comes with a fresh wave of tears. At the very least you’re able to laugh, even if only a little, at your mess of a state, painfully aware that your understanding of his words does not pair well with the tears tracking down your cheeks. “I just- I can’t help it- Can’t stop them from falling. Think it’s some- Trauma response, or something.”
Breathing becomes a struggle as your chest pulls tight, lungs squeezing out every drop of air you attempt to feed them with. All the while, Bucky watches you with caring eyes, a pout nearly overcoming his pretty lips while he tries help you syncopate your breathing with his, hand pressing your own to his chest and forcing you to feel every strong inhale and easy exhale he makes.
“It’s just Tony. I remember it, this one time,” you speak in fragments, stretches of sentences huffed out with each breath, a little less shaky than the last under Bucky’s guidance. “I lost one of his shirts… Or he left it at someone else’s apartment, one of his other fuck buddies. Anyway, he didn’t react well. He was screaming at me, for hours, calling me useless, and stupid, and- God. Sorry, this just-”
“Stop apologising,” Bucky wipes away a tear before it can even fall, lets it stain his finger while he continues to soothe it over your cheek, big blue eyes commanding you to relax under their stare. Far away from Tony, he wants you to remember where you are: in a hotel room, in Portugal, with him. “Don’t have to worry, doll. ‘M not gonna yell at you.”
You thank him softly, let yourself lean forward and collapse into his arms, emotional exhaustion taking grip of your soul as your forehead meets his shoulder.
Bucky holds you like you are made of porcelain, hands barely daring to fully cup at your body as you press yourself against him.
When he hums, you feel it run right through you.
“‘Cause I know you’ll make it up to me, won’t you? I can trust you to make it right, can’t I?”
Nodding a little too frantically, nervous energy still coursing through your veins, you pull back just enough to look him in his darkening eyes, “Of course! There’s a mall not far from here, we can go and find a replacement for the jacket.”
But you’re not even finished talking when Bucky starts to shake his head, one hand flattening itself atop your shoulder and applying pressure. You’re already halfway to the floor when you realise the man is guiding you onto your knees, heartbeat beginning to pick up for a whole other reason than some stupid, misplaced jacket.
“That jacket was one of a kind, baby,” his statement confuses you. You could have sworn it carried a label from H&M on the inside. Or had you misread it, mistaken a luxury brand for something a little more familiar to you? “You don’t seriously think some small town mall’s gonna have anything worth apologising with, do you?” You shake your head without even realising, too busy watching the way his spare hand has fallen over his belt. “No, exactly. ‘S better you put your money where your mouth is instead, give me a proper apology.”
The entire act of his fingers undoing his belt, while the others slip from your shoulder and travel up to flatten themselves atop your scalp, bitten fingernails scrapping over the roots of your hair, it feels like the antithesis to everything you’ve ever enjoyed before.
With Tony, things were fast-paced yet fairly vanilla. He never wanted to draw out the experience, make his movements linger until you find yourself on the very precipice of needy, mouth watering at just the sight of a happy trail.
Which is exactly the state you’re in now, watching with anticipation as the man towering over you unthreads his belt and loosens the button of his jeans. The sound of a zip being undone fills the hotel room, reverberating off the walls of your skull and having a Pavlovian effect over you, thighs involuntarily squeezing in search of friction at the thought of what Bucky hides beneath his quickly-disappearing layers.
As it turns out, he’s hiding a lot. More than you expect.
You’re no expert in size, guesstimating that he’s definitely an inch or two over what most men possess. The tip of his cock is an angry red, crowned by a bead of pre-cum dripping from the slit and slipping over the curve of a mushroomed head. While you’ve never been a great aficionado of the male genitalia, something in you feels entranced, suddenly more than willing to sit here all day and just study the shape of Bucky.
Unfortunately, you are barely granted a few seconds to admire before the hand on your head is pulling you forward, closer, until you have no choice but to part your lips and make space for him.
“There we go,” Bucky, eyes more overblown by pupil than the pretty blue you have grown accustomed to, sighs out with guttural relief, head falling back as his hips give the smallest of juts forward into your mouth, feeding himself deeper. “God, don’t you just look gorgeous, huh? Pretty lips stretched round my cock, shit. Gonna need to relax your jaw.”
Caught under his spell, you’re left with no autonomy to stop yourself from obeying his every command, jaw falling lax and tongue flattening itself beneath the weight of his dick as he gives another roll of his hips, this one a little deeper and teasing at your gag reflex. This seems to delight the man, eyes lighting up momentarily as you choke on the beginning of a gag.
“Now, you want to make it up to me, don’t you?” Your attempt to nod just makes him laugh, biting back a groan as he feels your tongue drag over the underside of his length. “Then what I need you to for me is just sit there, keep your mouth open, and let me use your throat. Can you do that for me, doll?”
This time, you don’t try to nod. Instead, you hum affirmatively around his tip, relishing in the slight wave of power you feel as his eyes roll back and he instinctively thrusts into your mouth.
He starts with careful movements, barely-there rolls and ruts that press his cock a little heavier against your tongue with every one he makes. Tears still drying into your skin, it’s hard to tell if the slight salty tang invading your tongue is from you or him, precum mixing in with your excess of saliva.
The wetter your mouth grows under the invasion of him, your cunt rushes to match, slick turning your panties sticky and uncomfortable as you shift weight from one thigh to the other. A friction that Bucky cruelly cuts off, a disapproving tut coming moments before he nudges one foot between your legs and forces them apart, leaving nothing but the cool air of the hotel room to kiss your soaked underwear, a feeling so uncomfortable, it has you wishing you could peel them off.
“Uh-uh, no,” Bucky protests at the way your eyes squeeze shut, a pleasured pain shooting through your throat as he slowly begins to fuck deeper into your mouth. With deeper, faster is always soon to follow, until barely a moment or two seems to pass between the gargled sounds of his head hitting the back of your throat, forcing spit to slip past the corners of your lips and to drip down your chin, spilling all over the pretty colours of your blouse. “Want you watching me, doll. Want those pretty eyes on me when I fill this-ngh. This fucking tight throat.”
Bucky does as Bucky says, hot ropes of salty, thick cum spurting out to coat the back of your throat, tainting your mouth in a pearly whiteness that mixes with your spit, a messy string of fluids connecting your lips to his cock even as he pulls it free from your lips.
Before you can think too long, notice how he’s not even softened after spilling his seed all over your tongue, you’re busy being pulled back onto your feet and forced to welcome Bucky back into your mouth, this time his own tongue meeting yours. He hums in approval, swallowing back the flavour of himself all over your mouth, physical evidence of how easily he has claimed you as his.
So easily, you’ve barely even realised.
“Keep your mouth open,” Bucky mutters, thumb swiping over your lower lip and invading your mouth, pressing down on your tongue as you watch Bucky feed a string of his own spit onto your taste buds. Thumb retreating and pushing up against your chin, forcing your teeth to knock together, his instruction is simple, “Swallow.”
How you get from the messy floor to the messy bed, you’re not sure.
You’re even less sure how you wind up naked in the blink of an eye, panties tugged off by Bucky with an almost disapproving look, like the sight of them offended him.
Planted directly across from the bed stands a full length mirror, angled perfectly for you to watch as Bucky, his large frame engulfing you from behind, guides your thighs to part and puts your soaked cunt on display both of you to watch in the reflective glass, chest heaving so hard your breasts bounce with each breath.
Never have you felt so desperate, so warm, so in need of someone to put you out of your misery and give you the satisfaction of their touch. And Bucky seems to be aware of this, for he is torturing you, dragging lazy fingers down the stretch of your thighs and laughing in a way that is nothing short of mocking as a shiver runs through you and you squirm.
“Knew you’d be like this,” he’s talking more to himself than you, thumb ghosting over your clit and quickly evading as you attempt to grind down on the feeling. “Such a needy, desperate little thing. Perfect for me, aren’t you?”
You’re mid-nod when you’re forced into a pathetic yelp of, “Yes!” as Bucky’s palm slaps down against your cunt, nerve-tingling pain than soon melts into pleasure.
“When I ask, you answer, okay?” Three fingers rub at the raw skin of your cunt, two more slaps having preceded his warning. “Verbally, properly. You understand?”
You almost nod, until you think better of it, “Yes, Bucky.”
“Good girl,” his simple praise should not send your heart into arrest. But then maybe there is a lot about this situation that should not be playing out the way it is. “Now, eyes on the mirror, doll. Want you watch as I spread you open on my cock.”
Eyesight trained forward, you see the brief flash of his fingers lining his dick up against your wet hole, before he thrusts right in to the hilt and steals the air right out your lungs. One hand by your hips, the other wraps around the front to grasp at one of your tits, large hand staking claim over the entire swell of it and giving a teasing squeeze. It is hardly comfortable, pressing against the breast tissue, yet you find yourself enjoying it all the same, back arching into his touch.
Between your legs, visual sin is on display, a repeated back-and-forth motion of Bucky dragging his cock out of you a little further each time, light catching on the way your arousal clings to him in a wet sheen, before he buries himself back inside. At the base of your abdomen, right where your untrustworthy gut should sit, a shadow lingers beneath your skin, the faintest shape of him pushing up against your flesh.
“Look at us, doll,” ditching your breast, his hand grasps at your chin, stabilising your attention back on the mirror after you let yourself tilt your head back against his shoulder. “Do you like what you see? I’m everywhere, taking over you. Aww that’s it, cry all pretty for me again.”
Tears are slipping down your cheeks, overwhelm overcoming you at his words, his touch, his stare. Bucky really is everywhere, consuming you and grounding you all at once, a steady figure at your back that the universe sent you, no doubt an apology for whatever the hell Tony was.
“Bucky,” his name has never sounded so pathetic, falling from your lips in the shape of a whine, toes curling against his calves as he deepens the angle of his thrusts. Once again, the deeper it goes, the faster it grows, the soft echo of skin slapping against skin beginning to play out in the room.
“I know, baby, I know. We look so pretty, don’t we? Here,” you almost whine when one of his hands abandons you, but he silences you with the other diving between your legs, thumb effortlessly finding your clit and gifting it some much needed attention. “Take some pictures, doll. Told you I want our first time to be memorable, so go on and give us something to look back on.”
Your first thought isn’t that his phone is no longer black like you remember, this one red and sporting scratches along the back.
People change phones all the time, right?
Besides, who has time to notice silly details, when Bucky is back to touching you all over, both hands claiming parts of your skin?
Screen already unlocked, you try your best to steady your shaky thumb, guiding it up to the Recent Apps tab and attempting to press the camera icon… But Bucky just so happens to deliver a particularly spine-arching thrust, tip budging right against the spongy spot inside you that has you seeing stars, and your thumb presses on a familiar purple square before you can stop it.
And then your heart stops.
Bucky stops too, physically coming to a halt as he registers what exactly you’re staring at on his phone screen, “Well, shit.”
There, on his screen, sit two profile icons hovering over the same spot on a Life360 map: your picture, and Bucky’s.
And, try as you might to convince yourself, you know you never granted him permission to your location, never even got a notification of him attempting to befriend you on the app.
Bile stings at your throat. Your stomach drops to your knees. And, much to your own disappointment, your cunt pulses around his stilled member, buried inside you.
“There, that’s the solo-traveller look you asked me about,” Bucky somehow seems unshaken by your discovery, chuckling with near satisfaction as he watches your eyes focus back on the mirror ahead of you, stare wide and mouth paralysed with… “Fear, like you don’t know what to do with yourself.”
“James, what the hell is-”
“Shh,” he hushes you with both his mouth and his hips, grinding the head of his cock against you. Despite the situation at hand, you cannot deny the way your body physically reacts to him, walls squeezing around his cock and a moan slipping through the cracks of your frowning lips. “Thought we weren’t going to yell at each other, doll.”
“That was before I found out you’ve been stalking me!”
“Stalking is a little harsh. Watching over you sounds nicer, don’t you think?” He asks, like the wording drastically changes the result of his actions. Both hands are on your hips now, tilting them as he continues earlier ministrations, a slow roll of his own that are meant to distract you from the gut-wrenching revelation. “You were so eager to hand over your phone in Thailand, remember? You were practically begging me to add you on Life360. Bet you just wanted that comfort of knowing someone responsible was watching over you, huh?”
Did you beg? Had you mentioned the app to him at any point?
Months past, so many things happening between then and now, you are struggling to remember. Maybe Bucky is telling a version of the truth you’ve simply forgotten.
“We both know how bad you are at asking for what you want, baby. Was it so wrong of me to help you?” Warmth pooling in your spine, you barely even register the way you begin to wind back against him, bodies moving in perfect, effortless harmony as he begins fucking you properly again. “Could see it, how badly you wanted me but you just wouldn’t dare ask. Was it so wrong of me to give us a little man-made fate?”
That word almost pulls you out his trance, memories of how vulnerable you had felt confessing it back to him Italy flooding back in. And all along it had just been him, not the universe, following in your footsteps and manipulating your encounters.
Like he can feel the shadow of doubt creeping back over you, Bucky reinforces his sweet talking, mouth momentarily latching onto your earlobe and delivering a gentle scrape of teeth that forces you to listen.
“I mean, think of everything I’ve done just to have you, doll. Think of how far I was willing to travel, just for the chance to see you,” the worst thing is, it’s working. You can feel your resolve slipping, will giving into him the closer you’re moved towards the crescendo of your orgasm. “Meanwhile, Tony couldn’t even drive 10 minutes down the street for you. Is that what you think you deserve, baby? Someone who puts no effort into being yours?”
You give a nod, or a shake, or a something of your head, teeth clamping down on your lower lip as finally the first waves of your orgasm roll over you. Thighs shaking, yet he holds you steady against him.
Could you be steady, with him? Is that something Bucky can bring you?
No more crying on carpeted flooring, no more questioning where you stand in someone’s life, no more waking up to find your late night companion already gone.
“When I ask, I expect answers.”
You swallow back the ball in your throat, force away the doubt and the fear and the panic, and give into the warmth of his hands.
The same hands that orchestrated your fate, placed you in one another’s path. Isn’t that what you had been waiting for all along, to be chosen by someone?
“No,” the moment the two letter word leaves you, you feel him spill into your womb, groaning loud and proud into your ear. “I think I deserve you, Bucky.”
Bodies move languidly, collapsing into one another atop the bed, clothing strewn all around you from your earlier worries.
Your head meets Bucky’s chest, where a heart beats rapidly beneath the confines of flesh and bone.
His left arm curls around your naked body, dragging you impossibly closer. You cringe ever so slightly as you feel his cum spill out onto your inner thigh, all the while Bucky’s hand soothes the top of your head, lulling you to let yourself relax into him and let your eyes slip shut, accepting the way he cages you in.
“You do, baby. Deserve all of me. And you can have that, if you let me have all of you.”
+ extra hyde!
· guys i'm being so fr, do not do anything the reader did in this fic. y'all are too precious to wind up being the subject of a netflix documentary.
· and before anyone comments that the reader has no self respect... well, yes! that is the plot. subject is very much aware <3
· no but why did any of my friends encourage me to write this silly fic??
also dying to know your thoughts on the new house of the dragon episode !!!
heartbroken. next question.
(spoilers below the cut)
in all seriousness, i feel a lot of conflicting emotions about the new episode + season so far.
there was so much about the episode that i loved: the glimpse at tessarion, the northern bannermen arriving, jace & baela <3
the last one in particular, i love. i was so happy to see baela included in the battle of the gullet! as much as the outcome of that battle breaks my heart (i miss my son... give me back my son) i love that final shot of jace and how perfectly it matches to artwork from the books. truly a 10/10 on-screen adaptation of it.
i also would like to say i think, while her blind faith in alicent is lowkey annoying, they are setting up rhaenyra's descent into madness perfectly. she was whimsy-maxxing throughout episode one, until they heard about the battle, and i think that belief she had in alicent is going to deepen her hurt and (hopefully) bring on rhaenyra the cruel in full-swing
my only real issue with the episode is the show's insistence on setting up poor rhaena to be hated. as someone who read fire and blood before house of the dragon started, it's been frustrating to see the unnecessary plot changes the show-runners have made throughout the seasons. i feel like in season one, there was a tasteful amount of changes that enriched the plot (ie. rhaenyra and alicent's friendship) but, ever since season two, it seems the writers just change things for the sake of changing, without any thoughts on how that will impact the future of the show.
between the exclusion of characters like nettles and maelor, and the changes to characters' storylines that just set the actors up to be hated by fans, i'm growing a little disillusioned by the show. i'll definitely continue watching, because i do think the show is good, but i'm just going to start viewing it as the show-runners' fanfiction, instead of an actual adaptation of grrm's work.
sorry i'm such a yapper, but thank you for asking! what were your thoughts on the newest episode??
hi hyde ! im not sure if this is considered as criticism, and i hope it isnt, but i sent something similar to someone else and their response wasnt the best, so i hope this causes a different reaction.
your work is honestly one of the things that excites me or causes me to have the will to read and write myself. ive been in a slump as of recently, but you, more or less, have helped with that by just writing. and your responses to asks!!! theyre hilarious and so genuine. my week has been ass, yet you found a way to make it somewhat better without even knowing.
your writing inspires me and has the effect of detail and action all at once without focusing too much on the other. i guess thats what you studied (i think?? im assuming 😓), so it makes sense why it would be literally perfect to read. but even then, theres a flair of you. even outside your work and just setting boundaries; theres a heavy respect for that since youre putting limits and spreading personal experience to others in ways theyve hurt you and your friends.
this may seem ridiculous or simply unnecessary to say, so i deeply apologize for possibly wasting your time with this, i just have been following and reading your work for a while and felt like saying all this :,)
hey, anon bestie <3 i've reread this ask quite a few times ever since you sent it and, honestly?? i'm just baffled by the beginning of it. i'm finding it so difficult to understand how anyone could have a response to this that is anything but thankful. if the original ask you sent them was anything like this, please know there is nothing about it that i personally consider to be criticism. i hope you're okay, despite that persons reaction. perhaps they misunderstood your intentions (unfortunately this happens a lot when it comes to text).
anyway... on to the actual message of your ask... i'm genuinely at a loss for words. this is beyond sweet.
my week has been ass, yet you found a way to make it somewhat better without even knowing.
i'm so sorry you had a shit week, but i'm so glad i could make it better in any way.
i guess thats what you studied (i think?? im assuming 😓)
you guessed correctly! i'm currently getting a double degree, and one of those degrees is in creative writing!
theres a flair of you.
while everything you've said already means so much, this means the most. this is really such a nice thing to be told, to have someone recognise pieces of me in my writing, without really knowing me. it's like being told others recognise the little glimpses into my soul that are sprinkled all throughout my writing. thank you.
i promise not a single word in this ask was unnecessary or ridicoulous, and i am really sorry anyone has made you feel this way. thank you for sending this, it really means a lot. ily <33
I dont even know if you do requests, but I just finished reading one of your Bucky Barnes one shots and I am IN LOVE with your writing.
So just to drop an idea for you... female reader with a humiliation kink, she gets edged and then overstimulated by Bucky, just wants to be used and humiliated by him... and perhaps he has a thing for eating it👀
Just a thought, love your works, about to go binge read more of them:)
i don't really do requests (because i am unfortunately already plagued by far too many wips) but!!! i can definitely try incorporate this into a fic at some point!
thank you so much for sending an ask, i'm so happy you like my silly fics <33
but kiss me & i might...
⤷ jack abbot x nurse!reader ⌇ 23.1k
✶ ― SYNOPSIS. the 5 times jack abbot walks you home + the 1st time you invite him in.
warnings.ᐟ mdni! no use of y/n, night-shift nurse!reader, colleagues to lovers, slow burn, smut (jack pussy pleaser abbot and his big dick, soft dom jack, fingering, piv, unprotected sex, praise, creampie, cum play, cum eating, smothering?, sex against a wall + cowgirl, hair pulling [jack receiving], slight dubcon as they are both tipsy), age gap (reader is early 30s), fluff, pining, longing, workplace romance, mentions of mental health struggles + therapy as consequence of the pittfest tragedy, violence + workplace assault, jack calls the reader kid but it's only as a coping mechanism!!! (he's down bad), one too many references to drop dead by olivia rodrigo, no mentions of jack's late wife or his wedding ring, 1 reference to a scene from the movie fresh. i tried my best to represent jack's life as an amputee as respectfully as possible, deepest apologies if i failed to do so.
ᯓ★ hyde's input. wrote most of this in the hospital, boots on the ground journalism.
𓂃✍︎ dt. huge big fat sloppy wet kiss for miss @pinksplace for popping my beta-reader cherry and reassuring me that this was not straight up buns, no hotdog. your friendship means the absolute world to me, the fact you match my freak is just a bonus. and to my cousin @iamthatonefangirl for telling me to watch the pitt back in february, you helped awaken something in me that had been dormant for months. & to me for continuing my tradition of posting a fic on my birthday, finishing this was my present to myself.
follow @houseofjekyll + turn on notifications to know when i post a new fic!
The first time feels like a fluke.
A rare silver lining of good stroked through the grey devastation that was today; after hours of wading through blood and gore, you at last strike gold.
“You heading off too, kid?” Despite the questioning tone in Jack’s voice, you know it’s an order.
He’s staring down at the park bench, eyes hovering over you and how tightly you’re still clutching that fourth can of beer, zoned out and completely oblivious to how everyone else has already packed up for the night and headed home. Not to sleep, no. It’s doubtful any of you will get much sleep, not after the events of today.
Robby had slipped away first, not without sharing a few final words of wisdom aimed at soothing everybody’s aching soul. Javadi followed soon after, abandoning a half-drunken beer as she went racing off to answer her mother’s beck and call. Mateo, Princess and Samira called it quits together, each heading off in different directions. Even Donnie left eventually, the now empty cooler in tow, his wife waiting patiently for him to crawl back to their newlyweds home and into her arms.
Then there were two.
Abbot and you.
Neither of you dared to interrupt the silence that had rolled in, minds too busy swimming in pools of thought, struggling against violent currents and attempting to escape the deep end.
Moonlight crept through the crevices between the branches above, cicadas came together to sing in disjointed harmony, and the world around you both kept moving, completely oblivious to how your own life had come to a halt. Somewhere between waking up to the screech of your pager and rushing through the doors of the PTMC to find it in a state of chaos, different and bloodier than you’d known it to usually be, you had shutdown.
Jack knew better than to force you out of that state.
He saw himself in your blank stares and the bouncing knees, remembered how it felt to be young, bright-eyed, and finally forced to reckon with how brutal this field could be. He didn’t need to ask to know: this had been your first mass casualty event.
Maybe that’s why he sat with you, the passing of time irrelevant, and let you fester in your shock. Let whatever cracks were forming in your heart deepen, because he knew it was the only way they’d be able to solidify. Let you exist on the periphery of life for however long you needed, his own senses fully intact and ready to watch over your body while your mind drifted elsewhere.
Only when he noticed you stifling a yawn did he act.
Jack, conscious of not startling you, moved slowly. Calmly.
He started with his prosthetic, lifting it off the bench and placing it back down onto the ground before safely attaching it. Then his bag, hands rummaging unnecessarily as though to check everything was in place — he’d already checked before leaving the locker room, but he figured another revision and a few more minutes for you to sit with your thoughts couldn’t hurt. Slinging one strap over his right shoulder, he pushed his frame off the wooden bench and came to a stand, the sickly-sweet gravel of his voice perforating the silence at last.
“Hmm?” Your reply is practically nonverbal, a simple hum. Enough to acknowledge the fact he’s spoken, yet not enough to answer his question.
Hazel eyes zero in on your own, observing how they’re tired, blinking just a little bit too lazily. The beer has warmed your cheeks, sped up your heart, and slowed your mind. Dancing on a tightrope between tipsy and inebriated, the last thing Jack is about to do is send you off home alone.
“C’mon,” he gruffs out, prying the can from your hand and laying it to rest on the bench. He replaces the weight of it in your palm with his touch, thick fingers effortlessly engulfing your own. To his delight, you give way easily, rising to a stand as he tugs you up. “Let’s get you home.”
You attempt some version of, “I’m fine.”
Jack pays it no mind.
Instead, he grabs at your familiar pink duffel bag. Something settles in his chest, dark and sickening, at the sight of dirt staining the bottom of the fabric, ruining your usually polished belongings. How apt it seems, a perfect mirror to how today has the left a smudge on you.
You stare at him all of a few seconds, eyes red. There’s no tears in sight, just the remnants of those that have already fallen. Then, when the older man shifts his weight off his right leg, you finally begin walking.
The journey is slow.
Jack’s unsure if you set the pace to accommodate to him or to put off the inevitable of going up to a lonely apartment, where all that work you’ve done to suppress the storm of emotions building inside you will prove useless the moment you step into the quiet of your home, the furthest place from danger and, yet, where all your troubling thoughts will at last catch up to you.
He thinks he’s better off not knowing, chooses to believe you’re doing it for his sake.
Some of your steps are swayed. The sight of your unsteady feet and teetering body are enough to keep his mind alert, fighting off the exhaustion that threatens to find him soon. This was supposed to be his day off, after all. He was supposed to be catching up on sleep right now, not watching over one of his nurses and worrying himself sick with thoughts of how today’s horrors will linger with you for years to come.
It was supposed to be your day off too, after all.
Neither of you should have been at the Pitt.
One man and a weapon had changed that.
You come to a stop abruptly, catching the doctor off guard and sending his solid frame crashing into your back. Before either of you can stumble too far, Jack’s snaking his free arm around your waist and stabilising you against him.
Maybe it’s the warmth of his palm, large and imposing and seeping through the cotton of your top. Maybe it’s the gentleness behind his touch, the way it anchors your feet to the pavement and silently promises that it- he won’t let you fall. Maybe it’s the weight of today finally shaking your unbreakable self, your arms too weak to keep holding you above water for much longer.
The reason doesn’t ultimately matter.
What matters is you’re finally speaking.
“Did you litter?”
Not exactly what Jack expected you to say.
It startles him for a moment, has him forgetting how today was full of horrors and has him wondering, instead, if you recycle.
It shouldn’t be so easy to picture you, bed head and a wrinkled shirt (preferably one that originally belongs to him), huffing and puffing your cheeks while you shoot around his kitchen, bags scattered along the island as you berate him.
Jack, how many times have I told you. Yellow is for plastic and cans, blue is for paper, green is for glass!
And wouldn’t it be so hard for him to fight back a smile, heart bursting with joy? A lovesick fool, happy to be lectured on the complex recycling system if it means having you, half naked, half awake, frowning at him as soon as you notice the shake in his shoulders.
Sorry, sweetheart. Promise it won’t happen again… And his hands finding your waist, pinning you to the marble counter-top so there’s nowhere for you to run from his mouth, trailing molten kisses up the expanse of your neck, lips lingering just to feel the steady thrum of your carotid pulse, physical evidence that you’re real, and here, and in his arms-
The blaring of a horn pulls Jack Abbot back onto the sidewalk.
You’re still in his arms but his lips are far from your neck and the speed of your heart is testament only to the anxiety speeding through your veins.
“Yeah. Maybe. I- I’m not really sure,” try as he might, he can’t remember if he ever moved your can from the bench. Is it still there now, half empty and waiting for its owner to return? “I’m sure someone’ll throw it away.”
Like you can’t dwell on the thought for too long, you move on, and finally say what’s really been troubling you.
“I don’t know if I-” the words catch on your throat, dry from the beer and raw with emotion. “How do I go back?”
Vague, unspecified.
Jack, with years of becoming fluent in you, understands.
“You find a way.” He wishes he could give you something more helpful, more reassuring. All he can offer you is the truth. “It’ll be hard. Different to how it was before.”
“I don’t think I can-” once more, emotions cut you off.
You’re not crying, not yet.
Stubborn as he knows you to be, steadfast in your need to remain strong until the very end. It wounds him in a way that feels a little too deep for a man who should see you as nothing more than a coworker.
Attending physician. Nurse. Colleagues.
Those are the only three words that either of you should use to describe the other. Jack knows, has known so for years. So, why does he keep having to remind himself?
“I don’t think I belong there, Doctor Abbot. You saw it, I froze. I hesitated. You had to ask me twice for the scalpel, and then- We lost him. If I had just- I should have-”
The hand at your midriff finds your shoulder, turns you around, and then his eyes find yours.
“Stop that, now. That man, he was good as gone when he reached us,” it’s a brutal truth but one that needs to be said. Jack knew it then just as much as he knows it now; that red wristband was destined for peeds. “You could have handed me that scalpel at the speed of light, and it wouldn’t have changed a damn thing, okay?”
You take a steadying breath.
It doesn’t work.
Instead, Jack watches it shake right through your frame. Your eyes drift from his own, like if he stares too long, he might catch a glimpse of every self-blaming thought racing through your mind.
“D’you even realise how many lives you helped save today?” The question comes tumbling out before Jack can stop it, some enate part of himself screaming at him to reassure you, to scramble up all the fractured pieces of you and slot them back together. That’s an attending’s job, right? To keep watch over the crew, to take care of the crew. So what if you’re off-the-clock? “One-hundred and six.”
“I only worked on-”
“Doesn’t matter who you personally worked on. Every one, you hear me?” He gives a squeeze of your shoulder, tells himself it’s because he wants to get you to look at him. If the touch happens to ground him too, it’s a coincidence. “Every life we saved tonight, you had a hand in that. You being there mattered, we couldn’t have done it without you.”
The words settle over you like a blanket, wrapping you in warmth and promising you shelter.
They don’t erase the sadness, don’t make it dissolve into a puddle on the ground, left to be forgotten on the dirty surface of the sidewalk. But they do enough to ease the tension between Jack’s brows and to wipe a layer of uncertainty from your eyes.
Then, unable to help himself, Jack adds, “I know I certainly couldn’t. Can barely intubate without my favourite nurse at my side.”
You laugh, slightly.
It eases something in Jack’s chest, nonetheless.
“Doctor Robby says it’s not right for attendings to play favourites.”
Now Jack is the one laughing.
You take the chance to pry your bag from his grasp, throwing the strap over your shoulder. The first act of Goodnight.
“Yeah, well, come to me again when Robby starts taking his own advice.”
There is no grand goodbye between you.
Just an exchange of fractured smiles, a subtle nod of approval from Jack as you take the first step towards the building’s entrance, and the wave of your hand before you turn fully and dash to safety.
Before you can slip through the crack you make in the building’s heavy door, Jack calls out, “I’ll see you tomorrow, kid.”
Once again, not a question. An order.
The second time is all about convenience.
It’s the last night of your monthly seven-days-on, the kind of shift where the hours stretch themselves impossibly thin and it feels like you’re crawling towards the end, a goalpost that keeps moving an inch out of reach each time you start to feel relief. By the time you officially clock out, shooting off towards the locker rooms before Whitaker can ask you to accompany another patient for a CT or Princess can enquire on any night shift gossip, you’ve worked an extra two hours and the bags beneath your eyes feel so heavy, they may as well be dragging by your feet.
Out of your scrubs, back into clothes that only partially carry the sterile stench of bleach and blood, you busy yourself with cramming things into your bag while trying your best to let Mateo’s generosity down softly.
“It’s fine, really,” even you have to admit that you don’t sound as sure as you mean to be. For a moment, you mull it over, imagine the comfort of letting yourself sit back and relax in the passenger seat of Mateo’s car. The sooner you’re home, the sooner your week off can start, right? Still, something within forces you to decline. He lives on the opposite side of the city and, with gas prices rising and his body’s tank running on empty hours before his next shift, the last thing you want to be is a nuisance. “I don’t mind the walk, gives me the chance to decompress.”
Your fellow nurse looks at you with a level of distrust, doubting the reassuring smile you cast his way.
“Are you sure?” Mateo pushes, dragging his tired body along the lockers until he stands behind yours. His curls, freed at last from the constraints of a hair-tie, peek out from the door. “I really don’t mind taking you. I mean, no offence, but you look like you belong on the set of Night of The Living Dead right now. Don’t wanna send you off just to later find out you tripped over air and wound up back here as a patient.”
Slamming your locker shut and giving his shoulder a shove — with no force behind it and doing little to move the man — you roll your eyes, “I’m fine, dingus.”
“Dingus? What are we, five?”
“I don’t know, you tell me. You’re the one treating me like a toddler.”
“Like a toddler-?! I’m trying to be a good Samaritan. A gentleman!” You dodge Mateo’s hand as it reaches for your duffel bag. “Now quit being stubborn and let me make sure you get home safe-”
Everything happens so suddenly, your brain is forced to compartmentalise every action, step by step, as they unravel.
Mateo reaches for the bag, again.
You dodge it, again.
You glide to the left.
You run shoulder-first into a solid wall of warmth.
And there he is. Jack Abbot, freshly changed out of his scrubs. Hair wet from a shower, an overly woodsy scent clinging to damp skin, black t-shirt stretched a little too tightly over his chest. Despite his attempts to scrub the night away, he’s thrown on the same pair of cargo pants he spent the last fourteen hours rushing around in.
You almost want to chastise his stupidity, until you remember you can’t.
Not only is he your colleague, he’s your senior.
What business do you have telling a man like him to do anything?
“I’ll take her home.”
Never a question, always an order.
Unlike weeks ago, world turned upside down and veins full of sickly beer, you have half the mind to turn him down this time. To inch away from where your body collides with his. To reinforce your grip on the pink strap of your bag. To shake your head and offer a polite, though bashful, smile.
“Doctor Abbot, it’s fine, really! You don’t have to offer me a ride, I really do prefer walking-”
“I’m not offering you a ride,” Jack shuts you up with a pointed look, eyebrows jumping as though he’s daring you to shoot him down again. “Car’s in the garage, something’s up with the exhaust. I’m walking your way anyway, may as well let me keep you company.”
The truth is, you’re not sure why you are so hesitant to accept his offer.
Jack is a good guy, and he’s certainly not a stranger.
You’ve known him since you first stepped foot in the emergency room. Younger and brighter, the both of you. Back then, he was still new. Back then, you were still a student. Time passed, as it tends to do; Jack became a trusted figure of authority, you graduated right into the night shift. Brief exchanges of good morning, good night, and how are you? during the shift handovers blossomed into good job, good call, and I need you with me.
Lena likes to tease you, throwing looks over the top of her glasses every time he saunters up to the nurses’ station, raps his knuckles upon the desk and tilts his head towards whatever room he needs you in.
He likes me because I talk to the patients, is typically your explanation while Lena looks at you otherwise. Keeps them busy while he works.
He likes you because you’re a pretty young thing, Lena never fails to retort between answering the every whim of the staff, like the charge nurse she is. Gives those hazel eyes something to ogle.
“C’mon, are you really gonna run away from a disabled vet?” Jack pushes, shooting you that infamous silver-fox smirk. Damn him and those arms, muscles pulled taut as he crosses his hands over his chest, impatiently waiting for you to give in. “What if I stumble and there’s no one there to catch me? That’ll be on you, kid. Think you can handle it on your conscience?”
“Yeah, imagine you come back next week and find out gramps here split his head open on the curb,” Mateo chimes in from the sidelines, only for the amused expression to melt the moment you pin a glare on him. “What? The man made a good point!”
“Yeah, kid,” you barely have the chance to register how swiftly Jack tugs the duffel out of your grip, staking claim over your belongings and securing himself as a guardian to guide you home. “I made a good point. Now, are you gonna keep me waiting? ‘Cause I’d really like to see the tail end of this place at some point today.”
So you let him walk you home.
Steps less swayed, back more stiff, you try your best not to think about the last time you both walked this path. You, drowning in sorrows; him, swimming effortlessly with his head above the water.
The sun is rising slowly, rays of golden warmth kissing over the city. It’s not enough to fight away the bitter chill of winter, sending your hands diving into the pockets of a flimsy coat, reaching for a warmth they never quite find. Beside you, Jack is unshaken, barely bothered by the way his breath reflects back at him with each exhale.
“You did good today,” Jack says today in place of last night, the true mark of what the night shift does to a person’s perception of the world. Daybreak becomes dusk, while dusk becomes sunrise. Where others prepare to start their daily ritual of adhering to capitalism, you’re crawling into bed and giving in to the sweet relief of sleep. “Calmed that kid right down.”
You know immediately who he’s referring to.
James. A sweet baby boy, barely a day past 6 months, running a fever of a hundred and three, and sporting a nasty ear infection.
Understandably, he had been screaming up a storm.
Unfortunately, a certain patient nursing a headache was screaming even louder, profanities that pleaded for someone to Shut that fucking baby up!
Jack had offered to shut the patient up.
You had a more peaceful idea.
“Oh, uh, thanks,” god, you feel pathetic.
Praise is far from something foreign to you. Patients, colleagues, and friends alike are always firing off at you, sweet words that affirm the simple gestures and quiet good you bring into their lives. Whether it’s through fluffing a pillow, aiding in procedures, or gifting out your time freely; praise always worms its way into your ears.
But this is different.
Jack is different.
Every good job, every well done, every thanks, kid; it shoots right through you. Lightning that electrifies you, takes you from a state of near asystole to tachicardic in as little as the few seconds it takes his lips to shape the words. Your cheeks warm, your palms sweat. Words run from you, leaving you to grab at the few you can manage and stumble over half-formed sentences.
Worst of all, you think he knows.
He has to, right?
A man like him has lived through enough — lived long enough — to recognise the tell tale signs of the effect he has on people. Hardly anyone is immune or safe from his charms, from college kids that wind up in a gurney after having a little too much fun with a fake ID, to elderly women rushed in by their panicking children, afraid a bad cough or a sore back could be the sign of something far more sinister in the aging body.
“How did you know it would work?” It takes you an embarrassing amount of time to realise Jack is talking again, head turned to watch as you walk alongside him rather than focusing ahead. “Flipping him over?”
Right.
James.
The crying baby.
Your peaceful idea.
That’s what you’re both talking about.
“Old wives tale,” you finally answer, mind drifting back to the memory of your quick thinking. The screaming baby, the screaming patient. Your hands, gentle as they picked James up. The questioning look from everyone in the room as you flipped the infant over, face down and hovering a few inches off the basinet. And then, silence. No more screaming baby. “My mum used to do it to me, flip me over when she couldn’t get me to stop. It just, y’know, shocks the system. It’s like flipping a switch, turning the baby off.”
“Huh,” somewhere above, a bird chirps, singing a song of good morning. “I’ll have to remember that.”
And then, before you can think any better or question the possible implications, you open your big mouth, “Why? Thinking of stepping into fatherhood?”
Jack gives you the worst possible answer he could have come up with: “No such thing as too late, right?”
“Yeah, maybe. If you’re a man,” you huff. “I, on the other hand, am running out of time on my biological clock as we speak.”
“Then you should get to work on changing that. If you ever need any help with it, I’m always here.”
He says it so casually, like each syllable doesn’t inch you closer to an imaginary ledge.
But his words aren’t what move you to silence.
It’s the imagery they conjure.
Positive tests and hospital visits.
The cold touch of gel on your belly, the warmth of a hand clasping your own.
Sweat rolling off your skin, limbs tangling with yours upon a mattress.
You have to physically shake yourself out of the… Fantasy? Nightmare? Mortifying hell-scape where you’re envisioning what it would be like to let a very handsome attending bend you over and get you pregnant?
“Oh my god,” you half whisper, half yell. “Doctor Abbot, did you just seriously offer-”
“Oh, you’re a pervert!” he has the audacity to exclaim as he swings your bag and bumps it against your thigh, the mischief in his eye the only thing that gives him away. This is Jack, after all, a notorious and shameless flirt. His words didn’t mean anything beyond making you flustered. “I was just offering up my kind and professional aid, as a healthcare provider and an avid champion behind women’s health.”
Head shaking and shoulders bouncing; you’re caught under the influence of Abbot’s charm. Completely unaware of the false sense of safety he’s lured you into, taking you by the hand and dragging you out to sea, waiting until your feet no longer reach the bottom, and then he let’s go, leaving the currents to pull you under…
In simpler words, he asks you the very thing you’ve been avoiding: “How's therapy going?”
“Good. Great. Yeah, I definitely feel a lot… Better. Thanks,” the words taste bitter on your tongue, bursting out of you with an urgency.
Maybe, you figure, if you say it fast enough, there will be no space to doubt it, no time to notice the lie.
“That’s amazing,” he nods curtly, only for that easy-going lilt on his lips to twist into something a little more sinister, a little more interrogative. “Cause when I spoke to Caleb, he said you haven’t been showing up. You wanna pretend you found someone else, or are you gonna tell me why you’re not using the help that’s there?”
You knew this conversation was bound to happen, from the moment Jack referred you to the PTMC’s trauma specialist, high-strung and hell-bent on fast-tracking your progress to mental wellness.
Jack hadn't known about the nightmares.
Or the sickening doubt.
Or the fact you remember every face you treated that day.
Even then, he knew you enough to notice the shift in your demeanour in the days following the Pittfest tragedy. He knew you enough to pull you aside and introduce you to Doctor Jefferson.
Deep inhale, slow exhale. Eyes focused on the pavement ahead, you finally answer, “I just… I don't like it.”
Jack scoffs.
“Nobody likes therapy.”
“It makes me feel… weak. Like I'm not cut out for this.”
You make it to your apartment building sooner than you expect, despite knowing the exact time it takes to trek from your door to the entry of the PTMC.
Any smarter woman would use it as an escape plan, as an excuse to duck out of a conversation that has you shifting weight from one foot onto the other and searching for anything to look at other than the whirlpools of brown that the doctor has pinned on you.
It turns out, you’re not as smart as you think you are, because your feet remain planted on the ground and there’s a feeling hollowing out your chest at the thought of parting from his side.
You will yourself to strip your bag from his grasp.
“Look, kid, I can’t force you to go. I don’t want to force you.” It would be easier to focus on what Jack is saying, if he didn’t have to sound so distracting. Soft-spoken, deep voice, on the verge of begging at an altar if it will get you to listen. “But I know what this job does to people, how it rots away at us if we don’t cure our wounds. I’ve lived it. I’ve seen it. I don’t want that for you. So just… Try, would you? If not for you, then for the poor old attending who really needs the help of his favourite nurse and her magic hands that manage to soothe even the weepiest of babies?”
Echoes of Mateo’s voice ring in your ear, his overly enthusiastic exclamation of The man made a good point! on loop.
There’s every chance you’ve been damned by some higher power, afflicted to live this life with a particular weakness to the man before you. It’s the only thing that makes sense, truthfully, when you find yourself conceding without a fight.
“Okay.”
How unfair it is, for eyes like that to light up so easily, “Okay?”
“Yeah, I’ll… I’ll give it a try.” This time, there’s no bitter aftertaste to your agreement. Just the cold hard truth on your tongue: you’ll take a step down the path towards help, the path Jack put you on. “Can’t make it any worse, I guess.”
“That’s my girl.”
His words hit you like a sucker punch, straight to the gut and leaving you winded.
You stumble, both on your words and on the stairs, as you bid him goodbye and dash into your apartment building.
Safely tucked away at last, a whole week ahead without the threat of mortifying yourself in front of Jack Abbot.
The fourth time is a matter of protocol.
Jack once heard Dana ask Robby, “is it really a shift in the ED if you don’t end it wanting to quit?”
Today more than ever, he feels an itch to see resignation papers.
Not his own.
Yours.
Wrapped up in the active war zone of a multi-vehicle collision, Jack’s hands, eyes and mind were too focused on the woman actively bleeding out on the table to notice you slipping out of the OR, called upon by the charge nurse.
She needed you to check on a patient.
A favour, quick and simple. That’s all it was supposed to be.
There was never supposed to be a grapple for power. Or the clatter of metal meeting the ground. Or the crack of a skull following suit. Or the sickening sound of someone calling code Hula Hoop, when Jack’s hands are too occupied to run towards the source of violence.
It takes him twenty-eight gruelling minutes to make it free from the trauma rooms.
Jack strips himself of the PPE with haste, gloves and gown practically disintegrating under the force of his need to get out of the room and find out what happened, who it happened to.
He knows the answer is you before Mateo even gets the chance to speak.
Lena is on the phone, barking orders down the line. By the few words he manages to catch through his own deafening panic, the police no doubt sit on the receiving end of her call.
There are other patients to attend to, and other matters that are far more pressing — from an outsider’s point of view — that call for Jack’s immediate attention. He brushes them all aside, near blind to any consequence as something commands his feet across the department floor and straight for Exam Room 3, where the tiniest glimpse of you waits behind glass.
Shen is already tending to you, planted firmly by your bedside while the Pitt’s newest resident, Nazely, runs through your vitals. One of your arms is bent backwards, holding a compress to the back of your head. There’s a spatter of blood down the shoulder of your scrubs, splotches of a deep red staining the grey fabric. If Jack looks at it for too long, he’ll throw up, so his eyes shift to your face instead.
When he finds you smiling, a flood of anger finally collapses the immovable dam within him.
Jack frowns before he can even think to stop himself.
“What the hell happened?” Disgust stains each of his words, bleeding all over the room and stiffening the shoulders of those who potter around you, Nazely and the nurses alike.
Only Shen is unmoved by his outburst, turning to meet him with a deadpan stare and a mocking finger pressed to his lips, before he breathes out a gentle shh. “Watch it, old man, my precious patient’s got a nasty headache.”
There’s a likelihood Shen doesn’t get the chance to witness Jack’s eye roll, as the older man slips right through the gap between your gurney and his fellow attending. Without a word of acknowledgement tossed your way, he pries the cold compress from your fingers, commanding you to drop your arm and yield the task of holding it against your head over to him.
This time, Jack speaks a little softer, “Are you gonna tell me what happened?”
“I don’t know, Doctor Abbot, there’s this thing called HIPPA-”
“John, I swear to-”
“It was my fault,” your voice cuts through the bickering of the two attendings, snapping the heat of Jack’s gaze off of Shen and onto you. The frown lines along his forehead ease ever so slightly, against his will, as you insist on flashing him an even bigger smile than before. “Lena, she told me- warned me the guy was in an altered state of mind. I shouldn’t have- I know better than to turn my back on a patient in that state. But it’s fine-”
Jack starts up immediately, hackles rising on the back of his neck as he takes the stance of a defensive mutt, ready to fight tooth and nail to protect its owner, “It’s not fine-”
“I’m fine, Dr Abbot,” pathetically placid, the brush of your fingertips as they graze his arm is enough to neutralise his outrage, nostrils no longer flaring with each puffed out breath of frustration. “He grabbed me, we tussled, and then I slipped on my own untied shoe lace.”
“And where is he now? This altered patient,” his grip slips slightly on the compress, apologies flooding his tongue at the slight wince the action wakes in you. Ignoring your pain, you take more notice of the hostility in his stance, quirking an eyebrow up at him in a silent question. “Don’t give me that look. I’m a doctor, I want to make sure he’s getting the standard of care he deserves.”
When you try to shrug off his interrogation, Shen finally proves he can do something other than get on Jack’s nerves this evening and unveils the truth, “He took off, slipped out the ambulance bay when they called the code.”
“Son of a-”
“CT’s back,” Nazely, quiet as a mouse, had managed to slip out the room unnoticed, and now shoulder-barges her way back in, carrying your results and cutting off Jack’s foul mouth. “Other than a nasty bump, you’re in the clear.”
It’s not that Jack doubts the intern’s ability as a doctor.
And it’s certainly not that he doesn’t trust Shen.
It just so happens that, when the young resident goes to hand-off your CT scans to one of the attendings, Ellis comes knocking on the door, demanding the input of her most trusted attending.
Jack’s never been more relieved to come in second.
Hawk eyes scan over black and whites images, and only once he’s confirmed with his own two eyes that you truly are in the clear does Jack feel that tension in his shoulders begin to unwind.
In a room that now only houses two, he lets himself stand as close to you as he needs, shifting his stance to keep watch on the doors on either side of the room — a guard dog that can never deny it's nature to protect, even as it nestles into its owner.
He doesn’t quite nestle into you, careful to obey that fine line of decorum that exists between colleagues, between a junior and a senior, between a girl your age and a man as weathered as him. No matter the itch in his palm that begs to be scratched by skin no other than your own, he resists the urge to touch you.
Until you move.
“Where do you think you’re going?”
Puzzled by the sternness in his usually nonchalant voice, you gaze over your shoulder at him, now sat upright and with both legs swung over the other side of the bed, “To finish… my shift?”
And that is how his hand finds your arm, a grasp that is gentle yet firm, allowing him to guide you back into your previous position. In his other hand still sits the ice pack, as he continues pressing it to your head.
“Uh-uh,” the denial is followed by a tsk, as he slips back into Doctor Abbot mode and puffs out his chest, taking on the persona of big, bad, commanding professional who knows exactly what his patient needs. “Your shift ended the moment that head of yours hit the ground. And since that asshole-” a pointed look shoots his way, warning in your eyes. Jack corrects his previous verbiage, “altered patient who did this took off, new protocol says I can’t let you leave hospital grounds on your own. Now unless you know someone kind enough to pick you up at 4 am, I suggest you take the opportunity to get some rest. I’ll come wake you when the morning shift zombies start strolling in.”
He leaves no room for debate.
He leaves the room, drawing the curtains and switching off the light.
If Jack were even a modicum more brazen, he’d shamelessly have locked the doors, ensuring you can’t slip away to return to your duties. In the end, he doesn’t have to worry about catching you back out on the floor, as when he checks on you some time after five fifteen, Jack finds you curled into the bed, the ice pack now fully melted and discarded halfway down the foam mattress.
By the time he wakes you, the clock has long struck seven and Robby is breathing down his neck, urging him to open Exam Room 3 back up to actual patients and not just that nurse you like to ogle.
Something in your demeanour has shifted.
Quiet, slow, weighed-down. You don’t walk; you drag yourself to the lockers. Head turned to the floor, body pulled in on itself, voice soft as you bid people good morning and goodbye.
Jack follows in your footsteps, hovering in the periphery of your every move, from your locker out into the street.
You don’t acknowledge him, barely even look at him, yet you yield easily to the way he takes the weight of your bag off your shoulder, slipping it onto his own. And so he gives you your space, walks a few paces behind as you both inch along the path back home — your home.
A shiver forces him to break the silence.
It creeps down your spine, from top to bottom, and settles into your hands, a subtle shake that not even shoving them into the pockets of your coat can quell.
“Wait a second, would you, kid?”
Jack’s never fought so hard to keep his voice soft. Despite his efforts, you startle at the interrupted silence. When your feet pause on the concrete, it’s unclear if it’s because of his request or your shock.
Instead of dwelling on the thought for too long, Jack focuses on his self-assigned task, shrugging his bag off of one shoulder and manoeuvring it to lay against his chest, allowing him to observe the contents as his hand riffles through it. Digging way down past rolls of bandage, a tube of specialised moisturiser, a few odd pairs of compression socks, and various other miscellaneous wonders, his fingers finally happen upon what they’ve been seeking: hand warmers.
“Here,” he starts up, as he hastily rips a packet open and shakes the bag. “This should get the cold out your bones.”
Jack has always prided himself on his rationality. Controlled and composed, with eyes that have payed witness to more horrors than the heart can cope with, it is a rare — if not impossible — feat to catch him sporting a heart rate higher than seventy three.
Watching you envelop the warmer in both your palms, soothing out the shake brought on by early morning chills and the residue panic from your attack, he’s tachycardic.
Months of awaiting the rise of an opportunity — since that second time he walked you home and watched you attempt to hide your skin from the wind’s bite with the flimsy pockets of your coat — buying those hand warmers has at last payed off.
He’s not quite finished digging through his bag.
Untangling the ball that has become of his wired earphones, Jack awaits permission before slipping one bud into your ear, the other into his own. He plugs them into his phone, swipes along his catalogue of playlists, and hits play on the first one that catches his eye. Medicine in the form of music, doctor’s orders.
And just like that, you’re both on the move again. The silence between you now carries a soundtrack, a mixture of eighties rock and seventies funk marking the beat of each footstep. Jack no longer hovers a few paces behind, welcomed back to your side by the short string of wire dangling between you.
Halfway through The Cure’s Just Like Heaven, Jack catches himself entranced in the shape of your lips as they mouth along to each lyric, and it strikes him, then and there, that maybe a moment like this is what inspires a musician to write, to eulogise an emotion through the eternal art of music.
For a man who long ago stopped talking to any version of a god that may exist, walking along by your side, hands brushing occasionally, bodies drifting closer to each other’s orbit; it’s as close to heaven as Jack may ever get.
Jack doesn’t leave you at the entrance to your building.
He holds the heavy door open for you, follows you in. Learning quickly that you live on the third floor, he bites back a comment about how shaky the elevator is, enduring the ride up. Following as you weave through the hall, right down to the end, he keeps quiet as you pause outside a door.
For a moment, he thinks that you’re going to say goodbye. That you’re going to thank him for walking you home, again, even after he’s told you it’s no bother. That you’re going to fish out your keys and slip through the door, starting the countdown on the clock of when he’ll get to see you again, later tonight for another shift in the pitt.
What Abbot isn’t expecting is for you to turn to him, cheek already streaked by a rogue tear, with another dancing on your eyelashes and promising to follow soon.
You take a moment to find your voice, lips parting and delivering the promise of your voice, “I’ve never felt unsafe at work.”
He doesn’t answer immediately, wanting to let your words simmer.
You have other plans.
“But when he-” the crack in his heart echoes the one in your voice, lips trembling over silent vowels as you fail to speak.
Tears roll down like waves, crashing against your chin and dripping onto the neckline of your sweater. And all Jack can do is clench his fist, hold it close to his side as blunt nails tattoo their print into the flesh of his palm. He cannot risk letting his guard slip, risk acting on an impulse you might not welcome.
“I was scared.” You breathe out, like the words you utter are a grave sin, the weight of guilt at last ripped off your shoulders. “Which is stupid, I know. I was fine, it was just a- I shouldn’t of-”
“It’s not stupid,” he interrupts, daring to take a step closer, hands still glued to his sides. “You were attacked.”
Like hearing it spoken aloud clicks something into place, gravity kicks in and you finally come crashing down, waves of tears now aided by a storm of overwhelming emotions. Shoulders shaking, breath stilling, eyes landing on every inch of the hallway but the place he stands.
Jack is no stranger to stomach-churning sights.
He’s withstood the horrors of a war zone, watched bullets hit their marks and shrapnel claim countless victims — his leg, to name one. From the brutality of war to the chaos of an emergency department, he’s bit back the acrid burn of bile at the back of his throat; it comes with each life he fails to save. There are nights where he cannot count the dead on both hands, never mind one. He has reckoned with the missing piece of him, where empty space now occupies the flesh that once extended below his right knee. Perched upon a shower bench, or throbbing with a phantom ache, or soothing vaselines and creams into an angry red stump, Jack learned to endure the pain.
But this — you, breaking down before his eyes, barely a step between you both — brings on a pain like no other, something he can't quite describe.
Cracks are forming in his composure, a trait he wears like armour, threatening to spill onto the dirtied floors of the building's hallway. His fingers slip, no longer balled into fists but pressed flat against the top of his thighs, drumming a nervous rhythm into stained cargo. When Jack tries to clear his throat of the ball forming within, he nearly breaks out in a cough, choking on the comfort he longs to speak into existence.
You interrupt his collapse of self-control.
Two steps is all it takes for your forehead to kiss his shoulder. Dampness overcomes the grey fabric of his shirt, your tears staining it a darker shade. Jack freezes at first, hands unwilling to move beneath the growing fear of touching you wrong, scaring you off. Then, slowly, as the weight of you presses deeper into the crook of his neck, his arms find themselves taking full possession of you, fingers splaying up the length of your spine and pulling you tighter against him.
For a moment, the outside world holds no consequence. Jack is not an attending, you are not a nurse. There's no decade of time between the age of your bodies, nor a quiet though respectful history of admiration between you as coworkers. That acceleration of his heart is not a reason to panic but a reason to rejoice, no fear of any wicked woes from years gone by sneaking back up to remind Jack of troubles past.
No, none of that matters in this moment but you, Jack, and the syncopation of your breathing.
One of his hands finds your hair, equal parts warm as it is large when it cups the back of your head and smothers you closer into his pulse point. Suddenly he’s grateful he reached for the expensive cologne today.
Clearing his throat, Jack attempts to self soothe from the sharp pain in his chest that grows with every sniffle from you, “Fear doesn’t make you any less brave.”
Your reaction is delayed, barely acknowledging the fact he spoke at first, until you’re bursting into a fit of subdued giggles.
While laugher wasn’t exactly what he was aiming for, Jack can’t help but feel like he's succeeded at something.
“Who knew you could be so deep, Jack,” he wrestles with his body at your soft reply, willing himself to not imagine you mentioning deep and his name in a much racier setting, preferably splayed out on the navy of his bedsheets, hair a soft halo that further cements your image as an angel… An angel he wants to commit every carnal sin against.
You move too soon for Jack’s liking, who nearly clings onto your figure until logic kicks in and reminds him how pathetic of an image that would paint. There's a streak of colour down your cheeks, stains where tears have dragged away the subtlest hints of makeup, yet Jack swears he’s never seen you in a prettier light than this: beneath the cold, buzzing light of the hallway, stepping back from his arms with a look in your eyes far lighter than the one you sank into him with.
“Easy on the teasing, kid,” the nickname has never felt more like a lie, sour on the back of his tongue. The last thing Jack Abbot considers you is a kid. Younger? Of course, but nothing short of a woman, in shape and in mind. “I stole that quote from my therapist actually, I’ll have you know.”
Then, for reasons less related to muscle memory than he would dare to admit, Jack shoots a wink in your direction.
Goodbyes exchanged and apologies for wet shirts successfully curved, Jack lingers by your door until he hears you twist the lock shut behind you, a solid frame of wood bringing the abstract divide between you into the world of the tangible.
Right then, right there, still running on that same spike of adrenaline from when he first heard the horrid cries of code Hula Hoop, Jack Abbot is struck over the head with a horrific realisation.
One taste of you in his arms is not enough, and it never will be.
Jack needs more.
The fifth time is a matter of routine.
You’ve always been a fiend for structure; a creature of habit. Doctor Jefferson reckons it’s the perfect trait to balance out the chaos your field of work brings into your life — when you reiterate that explanation to Jack, him retying his laces for the third time in a row and you reshuffling the same stack of papers for a fifth time, the attending is quick to agree.
“Have you seen yourself eat a sandwich?” Jack’s defensive retort comes no sooner than a moment after your hand teasingly swats his shoulder. Unbeknownst to you, the sudden sway he gives has less to do with the force behind your hand, and everything to do with how your touch grips at his soul. “You’re the only person I know that takes the exact same order of bites, every time.”
“Don’t be ridiculous,” your protest is far from filtered through any seriousness, words that are soon followed by an amused snort. “No I do not!”
“Uh yes, you do,” back on his feet and standing straight, Jack’s gaze lowers to meet your own, sitting prudently at your desk and finding any measly task to occupy your hands for five more minutes, if only to continue giving your feet the break they need from running here, there, and everywhere. Force of his own habits, or perhaps a nervous tick, you watch as the attending occupies his hands with the shape of his stethoscope, two fists dangling from his neck as he curls his knuckles and tugs on the object.
With your apparent eating habit now dragged into the spotlight, Jack dismisses himself with nothing more than a cheeky lift of his lips, and a muttered Duty calls! as a set of EMTs come strolling in with a gurney.
The rest of your shift passes in a Jack-less blur, your eyes and ears too occupied as you trail next to Parker.
She had lay claim over you no more than seven minutes into your shift, face lighting up like a Christmas tree at the sight of you strolling out from the locker room, still rubbing the sleep from your eyes as your body familiarised itself with the shape of your scrubs. Without even so much as a hello, Ellis grasped a hand around your forearm and tugged you off towards triage, paying no mind to Jack’s questioning gaze as you both shot right past him. All she offered him was a, “Sorry, Abbot, your girl is mine for tonight.”
Abbot didn’t correct her.
Your girl.
Every part of your psyche is aware it’s a minuscule thing to get hung up on, to feel your stomach fluttering with an unknown anxiety each time you replay the scene; yet it happens all the same.
As you assist Dr Ellis, passing her a scalpel.
As you rip off dirtied gloves and replace them with a new pair.
As you stir sugar into your third coffee of the night, eyes staring blankly ahead while Ellis talks your ear off, venting about her recent misadventures in love.
“And then guess what she said!” Parker’s voice may as well be going in one ear and out the other, because you’re far from listening, eyes too busy following the shape of Abbot as he cuts down the length of a hallway, one of the younger residents glued to his side and pitching their newest case.
Has the casual dominance he wears like another layer of clothing always had this effect on you, firing off error warnings in your mind as you watch him steer his resident out the way of an oncoming gurney — a motion that reads as second nature, not even so much as a moment’s thought running through him before he’s executing the action.
Ellis snaps you out of it, fingers clicking in your face and blinking her back into focus.
“Are you even listening to me?”
“Huh? What?” It’s torture not to let yourself get wrapped up in Jack again as he perches himself across from you both, elbows braced on the nurse’s station and arms straining at the seams of a navy top you swear is purposefully two sizes too small. “Yeah, of course I am.”
“Then guess what she said next,” despite the distrusting glint in her eye, Dr Ellis spares you the humiliation of telling you she caught you staring at her attending.
“Uh… That she’s not ready for a relationship, even though you met on a dating app?”
“Worse!” she exclaims, right as you notice Jack’s hazel gaze meet yours, intrigue practically dripping off his eyelashes with every involuntary blink. “I don’t date Virgos. I mean, can you believe that? The girl is navigating her love life by letting goddamn starry shapes guide her!”
“Hey,” you feign a face of offence, hand clasped your chest as though to shield your heart. “Some of us just like the comfort of fixed compatibility.”
You watch as the betrayal settles over Doctor Ellis, glazing over her already dead-pan stare with a look of pure judgement, “Et tu, brute? Go on then, shove your knife deeper, would you ever date a Virgo?”
“I don’t know. I guess? I’ve never really thought about what signs I wouldn’t date,” you pause, the hairs on the back of your neck standing to attention as a strange sensation of being watched creeps over you. But as you look back over in Jack’s direction, you find him engrossed in his phone. A pitiful feeling dawns over you, baptising your heart with a hollow ache only disappointment can conjure. “Weirdly though, all my exes have been either a Pisces or Gemini. I don’t know what that says about me but-”
You finish on time, for once.
No last minute emergencies, no lingering to help Jack as he squeezes one last case into his already-finished shift, no letting your scrubs overstay their welcome; you pry them off like they are caught ablaze. And then you linger.
Hands occupy themselves with minuscule tasks, organising and rearranging the items in your locker; then unzipping your bag and going through each of your belongings. Eyes take the occasional peek towards the entries of the lockers, and ears perk up each time footsteps grow closer.
It’s only when Jack steps through the door at last, defeat written all over his face, that your mouth moves. First, stretching into a smile, and then forming a few words.
“Rough night?”
Relief ripples his features at the sound of your voice — like finding a streak of sunlight on a rainy day— bringing the tiniest spark of joy back into his sunken eyes, “Thought you’d have gone by now, kid.”
You waver, something about his question feeling accusatory, even if he delivers it in the gentlest of voices.
Why haven’t you left?
A troublesome cat, an unfinished box-set, and a bowl of leftover pasta sit in the confines of your apartment, practically begging you to race home back to them and delve yourself into comfort, that momentary pause to the chaos of the PTMC you struggle to find in the hours between shifts. A few months ago, you would already be a glass of wine deep and settling in for just one more episode of many, far from lingering like a bad scent amongst the lockers. But then again, a few months ago, the road home was a lonely one.
At what point did that seventeen minute walk become the highlight of your day?
Something warm meets your nostrils, dragging your attention across to where Jack now stands, spritzing his sweat-ridden neck with a few pumps of cologne. You don’t mean to notice the bottle has less than a quarter of its amber liquid left. You also don’t mean to reminisce on the first time you saw the bottle, clasped in Jack’s hands. The memory was one you thought would be singular, never once before having witnessed the older man groom himself after a shift.
Instead, it’s become his signature.
Clock out, hit the lockers, drown the stench of bleach with a warm musk, and then…
“Do you have any gum?”
You know this scene all too well, you almost get ahead of the script and answer before he even asks. Fortunately, you manage to play it cool, “Uh, let me check… Yes!”
Jack doesn't need to know that you didn’t really need to check.
And Jack definitely doesn’t need to know that you never used to carry gum, not until the first time he asked.
But does he need to move closer, that cloud of freshly sprayed cologne enveloping you in its arms, just to pluck the strip of gum from your outstretched hand?
Mint blankets over the notes of bergamot and black pepper, and Jack washes away the stale coating in his mouth, jaw wound tight as he crushes the white rubber beneath his molars.
He doesn’t inch away, retreat back to where he once stood. Instead, his hand finds your own, fingers bumping against yours and silently commanding you to relinquish control… Of the strap of your bag, of course, index and middle finger hooking beneath the padded fabric and slinging the bag over his own shoulder.
“You know,” you say, because you have to. If you don’t distract yourself with speech, you’ll drown in those hazel eyes, too close for comfort and, yet, nowhere near close enough. “You should really start bringing your own gum. Or a toothbrush, if you’re that scared of having a bad breath. What if I switch to day-shift, huh?”
Maybe Jack scoffs in disbelief, knowing there’s not a version of reality where you elect to work days. Or maybe the scoff is a way of downplaying his irritation at the thought, possessive over the sheer possibility of losing his girl to the likes of Robinavitch, hot-head extraordinaire with a touch of suicidal tendencies.
Whatever his reason, Jack is quick to mask the original expression on his face with an easy smile, one corner of his lips twisting upwards as he shrugs, “It’s less to do with not wanting a bad breath, more to do with the fact I like being in your debt.”
Frozen in shock, mouth slightly agape and brows furrowing, you barely register as Jack starts to make his way down the hall, snapping out your trance only as he calls your name.
Like a dog called to heel, you scurry off to join his side.
Jack stops informing you that he’s walking you home.
Without fail, every shift, he shows up, steals your gum, invades your space, and takes your baggage hostage, guiding you out of the ER with the ghost of his touch against your lowers back, steering you through the crowd of ailing folks and stopping you from diving in to help.
Conversation is no longer something the space between you demands, a comfortable silence settling in; the wind down of a hectic shift sound-tracked by the sound of a city waking up, the smack of your footsteps hitting the ground, and the occasional exchange of words.
Like today, as you pass by a unit under construction and Jack reads over the sign: a soon-to-open sushi restaurant.
“You ever been to Japan?” He asks, curiosity practically beaming from his eyes.
“Never. You?”
“Once, when I was young-” he hesitates, like he intended to add -er to the end of his word but decided against it. “Would you ever go?”
“To Japan?” He nods. “Yeah, maybe.”
His reply arrives like a confession, gentle and lacking the confidence you’ve come to associate with Jack, “I’ve been meaning to visit again.”
Silence keeps you both company the rest of the way, until your feet come to a halt outside your apartment block. Jack doesn’t intend to follow you to your door, not like the last time. Instead, he shrugs off your bag and helps you slip it over your own shoulder, using those large hands to scoop your hair up, rescuing you from the sharp sting of feeling the strap pull down on it.
Then Jack announces, just as lacking in confidence as the last time he spoke: “I’m not a Virgo.”
You stare at him, blinking slow, letting his words settle into the grooves of your brain and sink down until some part of you starts to make sense of them.
The more he speaks, the clearer it becomes what he’s attempting to say, “Or a Gemini. Not even a Pisces.”
Suddenly, those moments as you stood listening to Dr Ellis’ romantic woes, with the nurses station between you and Jack and fleeting glances snuck between nurse and attending, it all feels less innocent, less casual. More intentional.
Jack had been listening, hanging on to your every word as you entertained Parker and pretended to allow astrology to rule over the romance in your life.
“Just, thought I should let you know,” much to your dismay, Jack’s fleeing quicker than you can chase him, a sheepish smile overcoming his face and a hand reaching up to rub at the back of his neck. “In case you were ever wondering.”
Finally, there is the time where lines blur.
“Come on,” the tell-tale whine of a tipsy Trinity Santos rings out of your phone’s speaker, interrupting an intimate evening for three: you, your cat, and a cheesy horror movie, where the only thing scarier than the lacklustre VFX are the plot inconsistencies. “Even Crash- Ow! Sorry, I mean, even Vic is here!”
The last thing you want to do on your night off is to squeeze yourself into a pair of jeans and spend it in the presence of the exhausted day-shifters, four-drinks too deep for you to ever catch up, no matter how many shots you throw back.
Unfortunately for you, the only thing more convincing than Trinity’s pleading is Whitaker’s tipsy bellow of your name, followed promptly by, “I need a karaoke partner! Santos ditched me for Mel!”
It’s only with a groan that you agree, “Okay. Fine, yeah, whatever. I’ll come. But I’m having an early night! No seven am walks of drunken shame like last time!”
“Don’t worry meemaw, we’ll get you tucked into bed before three, latest,” Santos’ laugh rings down the line, the alcohol coursing through her veins amplifying the humour she already finds so easily in her own words. “Now hurry, the bar closes at eleven, then who knows where the night might take us!”
You enter the bar, already braced and ready for the impact of the Pittlings swarming you, like bees drawn to honey, a tangle of arms wrapping themselves around you. Only as Mel let’s you go — the last to do so — do you notice a figure you had not anticipated.
Dr Robby, sat in all his grumpy glory, greeting you with a tightlipped smile and a single wave of his hand. Before you can even open your mouth, ready to return the greeting, you take a step forward, heel landing in a puddle of spilled drinks, and nearly slip… only to find there’s a presence at your back.
Not touching you, but there; hovering, lingering. A buzz of energy trapped in the minimal space between the small of your back and the warmth of a hand.
“Careful, kid. There’s better ways to fall head over heels.”
Without even having to turn your head, you know it’s him.
You do so, anyway, and welcome in the sight of Jack Abbot clad in a pair of dark jeans, dark boots, and a white button up, sleeves rolled below his elbows and with the buttons undone enough to tease the way his collarbones sit dusted by freckles. Familiarity is in his scent, a cloud of his cologne settling into the atmosphere above your head, and the low lights of the bar catch on his pupils, reflecting warmth.
A million thoughts run through your head: how he’s no doubt come to keep Robby company, how the sleeves of his shirt are practically choking his biceps, how wrong it feels to see him surrounded by the Pittlings, how much of a relief it is to see him.
But all your mouth can manage is an unpleasant, “Why are you here?”
The table’s chatter comes to a pause, all eyes on you two as an exchange of chuckles, whistles, and even a soft ouch crawls its way out of Robby’s lips.
“No! Sorry, I-” hellbent on embarrassing yourself, it seems, you groan as your face dives into the safety of your palms, cheeks hot to the touch. “That’s not what I meant-”
Fingers seize your wrists in a gentle grasp, momentarily soothing over your rapid pulse point before they tug your hands away from your face, putting you back on display to the rest of the bar. All you see is Jack, in front of you, biting back laughter and fighting off a teasing grin.
“I know what you mean,” by the grace of something merciful, he lets go of you, sending your hands dropping back down to your sides. “I swapped with Shen. He needs my Sunday off.”
At the mercy of God, or the universe, Samira puts an end to your humiliation ritual and jumps out her seat, lacing her arm with yours, and drags you off in the direction of the bar, “Let’s get you a drink. Alcoholic, preferably!”
A half hour passes in the blink of an eye, clock striking ten and beginning the countdown to the bar’s closure. You down your first drink - a concoction of fruit juice, and syrup, and cheap liquor. The second is one you treat a little kinder, nursing your glass of vermouth and giving it the attention it deserves, each sip a chance to let the flavours melt into your tongue. By your third, the sweet feeling in your chest is enough to counter the bitterness of any drink, and so you move onto the cheap beer Trinity clings to like a lifeline.
Jack sits furthest from you, alternating between sophisticated sips of a bourbon and gulps from a beer bottle his hand engulfs entirely too easily. Despite the fact he sits knee-deep in conversation with Robby — who has spent most of his night complaining, no doubt, about a recent run-in with Gloria — while you lend an ear and a smile to Dennis as he pleads his case to you on why his friendship with a certain widow is perfectly innocent, the two of you orbit each other.
With eyes that wander, drawn from one side of the table to the other. At first, it’s bashful: whenever you catch him, Jack’s neck snaps his attention right back to his fellow attending. But as the drinks flow and time ticks on, it grows bolder, transitioning into a challenge; hazel eyes pinning your own into a staring contest as they watch you over the rim of his glass. You lose, conceding to whatever force draws your eyes down like magnets to the sight of his Adam’s apple bobbing as he swallows.
With fingers that toy a line between distance and friction. When you reach for the handful of nuts at the centre of the table, Jack’s fingers meet your own in the bowl. The graze is minute, barely a whisper of contact between skin, yet it shakes you to the core. Familiar fingers meet your skin as Jack makes his way around the table, excusing himself with needing a trip to the bathroom. It’s as he passes you that he strikes, a teasing drum of fingertips against your shoulder — mimicking the call of someone searching for your attention — that has your head turning to the right, only to find no one there. By the time you catch onto the fact it was Jack, he’s standing in a queue for the toilets and offering you a challenging raise of his brows. What the challenge is, you don’t quite know yet.
You’re not given the chance to dwell on the thought, not when Santos slams an empty bottle down into the centre of the table and declares, “Time to find out all your dirty secrets. Truth or Drink!”
A chorus of groans echo from the surrounding party, yourself included… Yet you all entertain her all the same, no one daring to challenge her pointed stare as she spins the bottle.
It lands on Mel, whose excitement lasts all of the seven seconds it takes Trinity to dish up a question.
Have you ever tried to break up a marriage?
Mel drinks.
Victim #2, much to Trinity’s delight, is Javadi.
Javadi, who already is nose deep in her glass before a question can even hit the table, slamming her empty cup down onto the table with a sheepish smile.
“Dammit, I was gonna tell Mel to ask about Mateo,” comes Santos’ disappointment.
The younger girl is just as quick to reply, “Why do you think I drank?”
Poor Robby ends up roped into the game next, following in the footsteps of the previous players and drinking instead of answering Javadi’s interrogation, “Do you follow me on TikTok?”
It’s when Dennis takes a swig of his colourful cocktail that Samira groans, surprising the entirety of the table as she throws her head back and exclaims, “Oh my God, you people are so boring! All too chicken to answer!”
Jack seems to take that as a challenge, for when the bottle comes to a halt, neck pointed in his direction after Dennis spun it, his arms remain firmly crossed over his chest.
“Shit. Wow, okay,” the younger boy is startled, no question burning on the tip of his tongue for a man he barely knows. So he settles with something simple, something impersonal, something with no deeper intention behind it to humiliate the man: “When was the last time you lied?”
Jack doesn’t answer immediately.
No, he makes a show out of turning his wrist up to his eyes, squinting as they read of the dials and his face settles into an emotionless expression, “Like… an hour ago?”
Quick as a whippet, Trinity dives at the first chance to investigate, “Who did you lie to?”
“That’s a different question,” Jack fires right back, reaching for the empty bottle to spin.
For some reason, his eyes are pinned on you. Even as the bottle lands on Trinity, they linger on your frame, that same unknown challenge in his stare.
The bar spits you all out at four minutes past eleven, bodies spilling out into the street. It’s chaos, voices of strangers mingling in with those of your coworkers. You’re being tugged each and every other way, a million questions fired in your direction.
C’mon, don’t you agree we should go Downtown?
No, no! We have to head to Passion!
Ew, Passion sucks. Every surface is… sticky.
Can’t we just go anywhere that offers karaoke?
Poor, unsuspecting Dennis is left flinching back in shock as a unified bark of No! comes from all the girls, disgusted eyes burning him for so much as daring to suggest such a thing.
“Wherever you kids are going, it won’t be with her,” Jack, emboldened by the booze in his veins, finally lets that hand of his fully press against your lower back. Your head turns to find him already watching you, amused by your puzzled look. “You’re working tomorrow.”
“So are they!” You exclaim, hand pointing out to the crowd of Pittlings. “They have work sooner than I do!”
“And that’s Dr Robinavitch’s cross to bear. You, on the other hand,” a finger drags down the slope of your nose, taping against the tip as Doctor Abbot leans down to your ear, like you’ll suddenly lose the ability to hear him over the noise of the city streets. “You’re my problem.”
It’s hard to breathe; the night air too cold, too thick, too drenched in Jack’s cologne.
You know his reputation; you’ve been victim to it. Jack Abbot, shameless flirt, tongue always locked and loaded with a comment capable of shaking even the most stable of heartbeats. But this is different.
This is his hands on you, this is his voice claiming some form of ownership over you, this is his stare tearing through the fabrics of your being and embedding itself inside your chest, awakening a kind of warmth that even the hottest Pittsburgh summer day would envy.
“Boo!” It’s Victoria who cries out, cutting right through the budding tension between nurse and attending, one-too-few seconds away from blossoming into something far from the professionalism of colleagues. “You’re leaving already!?”
Your mouth opens, ready to answer.
Jack steals the words right out your mouth, “Yes. I think it’s about time we leave, don’t you agree?”
Spotlight pointed at you, he puts you on the spot for the entire group to watch how you fumble over a simple, “Uh, sure.”
The hand against your lower back sticks to you like a magnet the whole way home.
A journey longer than the one you usually stumble down with Jack by your side. It would have made more sense to hail a cab, any rational adult would recognise that, yet neither of you dare to suggest it. Crowds of drunken fools spill out from bars and invade the sidewalk — the kind of stumbling messes that activate a cynical part of you, wondering just how many of them will wind up in the care of your colleagues before the end of the night — Jack answers their invasion by drawing you closer, footsteps fading to the back of yours as he guides you to walk ahead of him, the burn of his hand reminding you that he’s there, that you’re safe, that no wave of foreign faces is going to sweep you up and drag you away.
Even as you make your way up the stairs to your apartment floor, elevator out of service, Jack lingers a few paces behind, watching your every move.
It’s as your fumbling around in your purse, fingers blindly rummaging through loose change and half-empty lip gloss tubes in search of the keys to your apartment, that Jack takes it upon himself to start spewing revelations.
“It was you,” he says, pauses and, when met with your questioning eyes, glancing back at him over your shoulder, clarifies. “The last time I lied, tonight. It was to you.”
A few seconds pass in silence, and then, “Oh.”
“Shen doesn’t need Sunday off.”
“Oh.”
“I knew you were off tonight.”
“Oh.”
“Oh,” he leans down, enters your orbit and invades you with the knowledge of how solid his chest feels pressed against your back, and how warm his breath feels, brushing against the shell of your ear as it mimics your repetitive exclaims of shock. “‘S that all you know how to say?” Before you can politely beg him to back up, for the sake of your sanity and your fraying willpower, hanging on by a single thread that seems more than eager to snap and unleash the burning in your loins upon the older man, Jack shuffles a few steps back and takes a deep breath — the kind that has his shirt straining against the growing width of his chest. “It’s not the first time I’ve lied to you.”
“Oh- Wait,” Cut off by your own confusion, you spin on your heel a little too quickly and stumble forward, hand inches away from rediscovering the meaning of balance against his chest. “What have you lied about?”
“There we go, finally using that pretty voice properly again,” if you had known this was what a tipsy Jack Abbot behaved like, you would have offered him a drink months ago. Especially with the way his cheeks sit blushing in red, a shy imagery to contradict the growing boldness in his words. “My car was never in the garage. I even drove it to work that day. But you wouldn’t accept Mateo’s offer for a lift, so I figured I’d need a real good excuse to walk you home.”
Clarity washes over you not in repeated waves, but in one single tsunami.
Overwhelming, a wall of emotions flooding over your being. You mentally retrace each step you’ve taken in his company. Each walk home, each careful conversation exchanged between you. Every cloud of worry that hovered overhead, convincing you of a reality where your presence and the act of accompanying you home is nothing but a burden to Jack Abbot, a simple kindness that’s gotten out of hand and now he does not know how to back out of.
But his words bend that reality, until it snaps in half and ceases to exist. Because here Jack is, telling you he orchestrated reasons to walk you home, excuses to linger in your presence after the night shift came to an end and patients are no longer a force that brings you into one another’s proximity.
Jack Abbot wants to be around you. So why on Earth would you part from him now, just because your finger had hooked itself around a keyring?
“Jack,” in the quiet of the hallway, his name echoes off your lips, uttered more intimately than ever before. “Do you want to come in for a drink?”
Your confidence is a case of easy come, easy go; dissipating before you can even wait for a proper reply from the man. Anxious thoughts dialled up and overloading, you turn back to face your front door, shakily shove the key into the door, and unlock something that feels a little more than just your apartment, a point of no return awaiting in it’s premises should Jack choose to accept your offer.
Walking in before Jack can speak, you get your answer with the gentle closing of the door behind you and the clearing of Jack’s throat, swallowing back what may just be a similar ball of emotion swelling within your own.
If you had anticipated Jack Abbot standing in your living room tonight, you would have at least attempted to tidy up.
Then again, if you had anticipated this, there’s other things you would have done differently… You would have made sure you actually had something to offer him to drink, for starters.
“Uh… I don’t have any beer,” you mutter, more to yourself than Jack, one hand holding the fridge door open and the other rummaging through the half-empty shelves, like you might somehow unveil a surprise bottle of anything-worth-drinking. “I can offer bourbon? Maybe? Or I’ve got leftover wine. Might have gone bad though. Shit, sorry, I really don’t have anything to offer.”
Closer than you anticipate, hovering by the entry to the kitchen, Jack rasps a careful, “Just you is fine. ‘S all I’m really here for.”
Like two opposing magnets drawn together by an unseen force, distance becomes null and void as eyes meet and you both inch closer, devouring the space between you with careful steps. Face to face at last with everything that has been brewing beneath the surface of your interactions, you barely squeeze out a whisper of his name before Jack claims your mouth as his prisoner.
Lips lock like shackles, trapping you in place against the older man. Hands find one another’s frames, his large palm staking claim over the back of your neck and tilting your face into the perfect angle for him to deepen the kiss, tongue teasing with a graze over your lower lip, the beginning of a chuckle bubbling in his chest as you answer his touch with a pitiful whine, before he finally licks into your mouth. Your own hands carve out a path for themselves, sliding over the expanse of his broad shoulders, curling around the tightness of his biceps, trailing down his waist to find the worn out leather of his belt, two finger hooking beneath and drawing his body closer — like any space still exists between you.
He lets you move him all the same, walking yourself backwards and dragging him along until your back hits whichever wall sits the closest. Any memory of the layout to the apartment you’ve spent the last five years living in has melted away in the heat of Jack’s mouth, kissing you like he has something to prove and this is the only chance he’ll ever get.
Squeezed flush against one another, no barrier but clothes sitting between, you feel the shape of him pressing into your hip and making you painfully aware of the fact Jack Abbot, the older attending you forced yourself to learn to observe quietly and cautiously from a safe distance, now has his semi-hard cock straining against you. That realisation must run through you too viscerally, for Jack’s soon tearing his mouth away from you.
“Shit- Sorry,” he just about gasps the apology out, lips incapable of drifting too far for too long, a smatter of kisses meeting the edge of your jaw as you feel Jack angle his hips away from you. “Been a while since I last-” He’s cut off by his own groan, reactionary to the weight of your hand landing atop the bulge of his jeans, palming at the length of him in hopes of finding out just how hard he can grow. “And I’ve just been thinking about this, ‘bout you for so long. Just-” greedy mouthed, even his desperate please for apology are interrupted by the drag of his tongue over your pulse point. “Ignore it, I’ll keep myself in check. Don’t wanna come on too strong, scare you off.”
It’s a bit late to retreat now, is what you want to say, with the way your thighs are squeezing together in search of any friction and the cotton of your panties sticks uncomfortably against your folds.
But Jack is blushing enough as it is, tips of his ears as red as you imagine his hair once was, face burning hot as he burrows it deeper in your neck. So you spare him some kindness and settle on the buckle of his belt, choosing direct action over teasing words.
A switch seems to flip at the brush of your fingers as you reach for Jack’s belt, attempt to dive beneath the waistband of his boxers. The older man stiffens against you, in more ways than one, head rising from your neck like a cobra enchanted by the notes of a flute. Thick fingers curl around your wrist, prying your hand from him gently yet accompanied by the disapproving tut only an authority figure could conjure, moments away from teaching you a lesson.
His chastisement isn’t vocal but physical, dragging your wrist up to his mouth and greeting it with the gentlest press of lips, right where your pulse recounts a soliloquy on the affect this man has on you, heart rate spiking. Jack lingers, face turning to brush the tip of his nose against your skin while his eyes slip shut, like he’s drowning himself in the fading notes of your perfume. Then, he jumps right back into action, manoeuvring both your arms above your head and pinning them against the wall.
“No one ever tell you to keep your hands to yourself, sweetheart?” No man’s condescension has ever sounded so appealing, so soft. A softness he pairs with the brush of fingers, his free hand tracing a path for itself down the length of your torso, catching on the waist of your jeans and lingering, only to continue its descent over the shape of your thigh. “‘S okay, I don’t mind being the one to teach you.”
“Doctor Abbot,” you breathe, something stirring in your bones the longer the man stares at you, eyes spilling secrets of every degenerate thought passing through his mind.
“Really?” Jack reclaims your skin with his mouth, teeth scraping over your clavicle before his tongue tastes your flesh, a slow drag of the wet muscle halfway up your neck. Your pulse, a bass drum thrumming against the restraints of your veins, brings him to a pause, luring him into peppering a series of chaste kisses over the spot. All the while, his hand is familiarising itself with the curve of your thigh, fingertips dragging over the seam of your jeans and following its journey north, inching towards your clothed core. “Still calling me that, even while I’ve got my hand between your thighs?”
Maybe the alcohol is clouding your judgement, eradicating any hint of the usual hesitation that has ruled over past encounters like these, leaving you shy and bashful, and far from the kind of person willing to rip their aching desire right out their chest and present it to it’s new owner, heart in hand and lust in eyes.
The unexpected confidence boost has your hips shamelessly rolling into the palm of Jack’s hand as he engulfs the expanse of your core. Breathing stalls as the inseam of your jeans brushes against your lace-covered clit, pulsing with anticipation of whatever the older man plans to do with you.
“You’re beautiful, y’know that?” It’s unfair, hearing such earnest words falling from his lips, a touch of breathlessness to further sweeten the desperation in his voice; all the while one hand tightens it’s grip on your fidgeting arms and the other, firm and steady, undoes the button of your jeans and begins drawing the zip down at an agonizing pace. “Dangerously so. Might have to file a complaint soon, tell the board how inappropriate it is of you to distract me with just a smile while we’re meant to be saving lives.”
A sigh, delicate as silk, robs you of the satisfaction of replying instantly, body too busy accustoming itself to the intrusion of his hand on your skin, explorative touches that dip beneath your waistband and drag slowly through your folds.
Stealing yourself and silencing the part of you that wants to melt into his hand and let him remould you into something new, you eventually manage an amused, “I can always change departments, Dr Abbot. They’re always looking for extra hands with the inpatients.”
“Do that, and I’ll drag you back, kicking and screaming, if I have to.”
Beneath your clothes, the tip of Jack’s middle finger has taken to dipping between the warmth of puffy lips, collecting a dollop of your liquid pleasure, and lathering it over the desperate nub of your clit in gentle circles. His movement is casual, careless, not a hair out of place or a shaking of nerves evident on the man in front of you. Just the hungry eyes of a man in control, ready to take his time tearing you apart bit by bit, in a way only he can put you back together after.
“Fucking soaked,” Jack’s comment feels aimed at his own ears, a passing acknowledgement of your state that you just so happen to hear as he brings a second finger up to lazily play with your clit, all the while the wet patch soaking into your panties grows, no doubt seeping through lace and staining denim. “‘S actually a little pathetic, kid. I’ve barely even touched her and she’s weeping for me.”
Heat burns at your cheeks, the foul nature of the words leaving his mouth bringing you to a confusing state of embarrassment mixed with the headiness of lust, clouding your better judgements and axing whatever part of your brain is in charge of overthinking, just in time to halt a spiral down into the dreaded pits of sleeping with a coworker, a man you’ll have to continue to see nearly everyday, for better or for worse — everything hinges on how tonight ends.
There’s no time to worry about the end when Jack is just beginning.
Those same fingers that teased at your clit dip lower, nestling themselves between your folds. As though shocked by your warmth, you feel more than hear the man groan into your neck, a half-bitten back string of curses parting from his pretty lips.
“Can I, sweetheart?” His plead for permission pulls you out of your body momentarily, mind drawn away as it attempts to recall the last time a man bothered himself with asking before taking. “Need to know how she feels, ‘s all. Can you let me do that, hmm? Let me fill her with my fingers? Promise I won’t ask for more, won’t push my luck. Christ, already know I’m pushing it now, thinking an old man like me has any business messing with a pretty thing like-”
“Yes, Jack!” Cutting off his rambling mouth, your hips keen into the tantalising drag of his fingers through your slit, a back-and-forth motion he’d spent his whole monologue performing idly, with an occasional torturous catch of his fingertips on your entrance, threatening to delve deep only for him to course-correct and set them back on the track up the length of your slit. “Please, God, just- Touch me.”
“Greedy girl,” he tuts, face winding it’s way out from your neck just for his hazel eyes to observe your face as he finally breaches his fingers past your entrance. “Am I not already touching you?”
Replies are lost to the kitchen air, breath knocked out your chest in one foul swoop as he burrows his fingers knuckle-deep. Your lips part, your eyes roll back, and you grind down against his hand, as if by some grace of god he’ll hit some place deeper inside, fingers already pressing against that spot inside you as Jack curls them towards himself, putting the come in come-hither.
The angle is awkward, movement hindered by the tight squeeze of your jeans around his wrist, yet Jack works through the strain, digits pulling out at a slow, agonising pace, only to slip back inside equally as slow. It’s like he’s making you savour the feeling, imbedding every ridge and wrinkle along his fingers and knuckles into your memory, so the next time you find yourself hot under the blanket and struggling to sleep at night, your own hand won’t bring you half the relief.
His fingers fall into a rhythm, a back and forth tease that sets your nerves ablaze and unravels a ball of desire you long ago tossed aside, four weeks into working at the Pitt and telling yourself that those pesky butterflies you felt every time a certain attending crossed your path were nothing but newbie nerves. Marking the tempo of his touch, the repeated squelch of your cunt being filled by his fingers rings out; the deeper he dives, the wetter you grow. Your moans follow along to his beat, a perpetual huff of half-formed whines and hitched breaths, echoes of pleasure that claw their way out your throat and shamelessly sing him a song of praise.
“Ah, ah,” Jack mimics you, hot breath brushing against the shell of your ear as he feeds your moans right back to you in a tone so condescending, you feel your toes curl. “‘S that all you know how to say?”
Those same words and that same mocking tone from the hall have your skin crawling with need. A need to press yourself closer, until all your frayed edges tangles themselves in Jack. A need to fight against the hold of his hand, wrists squirming and fighting for release in hopes of winding your arms around his broad shoulders. A need to give in to the overwhelm, dive head first into the waves of desire that roll over you… So you do.
Jaw slack, toes curled, head thrown back. An orgasm crashes into you with the force of an ocean, sweeping you under and flooding the palm of Jack’s hand with the sticky sweet evidence of how good he’s making you feel.
His fingers fuck you through the experience, lazily curling and stroking the fire, drawing out your pleasure for as long as your body allows him, until a dry sob racks through your chest and tears dance along your lash line, head shaking as you protest the overstimulation.
The retreat of both Jack’s hands, slipping from the waistband of your jeans and relinquishing the grip on your wrists, it does not grant your poor heart respite, a chance to calm the beating it’s delivering against your chest. Instead, he doubles the speed, raising the fingers stained in your own slick and brushing the tips against your lower lip.
“Say ah,” not a question, a demand. Jack is an expert at ordering you around in a manner soft enough, confident enough to have your head reeling and will bending to his every wish.
Under the effect of his darkened gaze and the intoxicating scent of his cologne mixing with the beer on his breath, how can you do anything but let your mouth fall open?
Your first thought is disbelief, running cold down your spine at the unexpected sweetness that coats your tongue; sweetness that melts into a sharp tanginess, giving way to a thirst like no other, glands going into overdrive and wetting your palate. Drunk on yourself, you let your eyes slip shut and your lips wrap around the stretch of Jack’s fingers, a pleased hum bubbling up your throat as his digits apply the slightest of pressure against your tongue, testing the waters of your gag reflex as he slowly pushes himself deeper in your mouth, soaking himself in your spit.
“That’s it, pretty girl,” Jack’s spare hand has found its way down to your waist, slipping over the slopes of your curves and perching itself atop your hip, where he delivers a firm squeeze. “Made a real mess of my hand, ‘s only right you clean it up.”
By the time Jack pulls his hand back, a string of saliva connects his fingers to your lips and a craving is reawakening between your thighs. Afraid to fracture the fragile atmosphere between you and the attending, you choose to lead with action again, one hand grappling at the buckle of his belt while the other begins to hastily drag your jeans down the swell of your ass, skin-tight fabric stubbornly refusing to give way and grant you the freedom of air against your legs.
You only make it so far, barely managing to pry apart his belt when Jack intercepts your desperate touching, hands reclaiming possession over your own and shooing them away. With a pause for consideration, the mental cogs visibly turning behind his eyes, you watch as the attending descends the path of your body, peeling down your jeans along the way. A hiss is bitten back as he bends his knees, one foot planted firmly on the ground the other — his right knee — kissing into the kitchen floor, prosthetic calf laid behind him.
It’s the brush of a breath against your thigh that has you lurching back into your body, ignoring the worried nagging voice that wants to drag him off his knees for the sake of his health and comfort… and instead focusing on the part that wants him off his knees for a far more selfish reason.
“Jack,” your attempt at protesting is pathetic, a well-intended firm call of his name fracturing midway and collapsing into a whine as the man takes to laving his tongue up the expanse of your inner thigh, inching dangerously close to where you can feel your centre throbbing, crying out for him in morse code, desperate for the simplest of touches so long as the one delivering it is the older man currently kneeling on your kitchen floor.
Fingers wind in greying curls, the faintest burn of auburn and copper tickling against your knuckles. You attempt a tug, gentle enough to do no harm yet firm enough to get the point across of what you want: Jack, up and on his feet.
The man does not take the hint, instead he inches further up your leg, nose nuzzling against your mound. Blood rushes in every direction as you witness him pull in a sharp inhale, flooding himself with the intoxicating scent of your would-be pheromones.
“I want to taste you,” he says it with a fire behind his eyes, words impassioned by an animalistic desire; any woman would be mad to not throw herself at him, plead him to take anything and everything from her, however he should please.
Which makes the confusion burning his features more than understandable as he takes in your shaking head and your gentle mutters of no, followed swiftly by, “I need you to fuck me, Jack.”
Hands seek purchase on your hips, grip squeezing a little tighter as he steadies his prosthetic back onto the floor and brings himself back to his standing height. You can see the hesitation, in his eyes and in his fingers, as he slowly continues the undoing of his belt, slow and calculated movements that drag cracked leather free and loosen the clutch his jeans have around his waist.
“Who knew the Pitt’s sweetest nurse could be so demanding?” he muses, like joking might distract you from the cloud of doubt that has so visibly rolled in and settled above you both.
You entertain him, even if only for a moment, “Only when I don’t get what I want. Are you gonna deny me, Jack?”
“So you’re a brat,” bypassing your question, Jack drags the zipper of his pants down and leans his face in, lips brushing against your own with the ghost of a kiss. “Noted.”
His kisses paint a pretty picture of distraction, peppering affection over inches of skin that had spent so long being neglected, you’d nearly forgotten they existed. Over the swells of cheeks, down the slope of a throat, onto the point of a shoulder and back up to the shells of an ear. While your heart wants to sink into the feeling, fall back and let him lather you in every mouthful of affection he can sear against your burning skin, your brain takes the reins of the situation and forces your hands onto his shoulders.
“What’s wrong?” Direct and to the point, you avoid the time-waste of skirting around the subject and confront the change in his demeanour head-on, the sudden hesitancy. A sense of panic licks up your spine, filling your mind with thoughts of Jack regretting having started this, crossing over the safe lines of coworker and marching across into trickier territory. “If you don’t want- I’d understand, okay? If you say it was just the heat of the moment, and the beer, and that you no longer want-”
“What? Baby, I promise this is anything but- Fuck,” Jack practically collapses into the groan that tears out of him, hand falling over his face and pressing into the corners of his eyes as he struggles to get the words out fast enough, a soul-crushing need to put an end to the rejected twinkle in your eyes as you offer him a gentle smile, the kind offered by politeness instead of happiness. Jack hates it on you. “I don’t know how to explain without sounding conceited.”
“Oh-kay,” your confused exclaim melts into acceptance, though your eyes remain sceptical as they trail over the attending’s face, awaiting further explanation. When it doesn’t come, your eyebrows jump, a visual nudge that has Jack finally spilling confessions all over your kitchen floor.
“I’m… Big.”
And cue the laughing track.
Watching as the tips of his ears bleed a bright red, you bite back and swallow down a comment about how his height is a little over average at best. Because when a puppy-eyed Jack Abbot warns you of his size in a manner that implies real danger, the last thing you should do is turn his panic into a joke.
“How big?”
“I don’t know-” Then he cuts himself off, like reality has struck him over the head and he remembers he is, in fact, a medical professional and, though he may never have measured his own endowment, surely he can guesstimate. “Maybe like eight. Inches, I mean. And, um…” what a thrill to see Jack reduced to a mumbling mess, a man so usually consumed by his flirty nature, a charm so potent that it pours off him in rivers, soaking all who wind up in his vicinity. Yet here he stands, barely enough space for a deep breath between you, shyly detailing the heat he’s packing beneath the waistband of his trousers. “I’m- I mean it’s pretty thick, too.”
Silence haunts the space between you.
A sick satisfaction pools in your loins, knowledge renewed on the fact you’re bare from the waist down yet all the power seems to sit in the palm of your hand in this moment, Jack’s fate hanging in the balance of however you choose to react to his assumed shameful confession.
So when all you offer is cocked head and a tongue poking against the inside of your cheek, Jack just about falters into insecurity, seeking validation before you even have time to utter a word.
“I’m not bragging. Or, you know, talking myself up. It’s just- I don’t want to hurt you, or to-”
“Take it out.”
His neck practically snaps as his gaze flies from the floor to your eyes, hazel rings that grown thinner under the enlarging of his pupils, lust bleeding into his stare as he managed a careful, “What?”
“This big dick of yours,” emphasis to your words, you finally let yourself look down and catch sight of him, firm and heavy beneath the confines of dark blue denim. The view of his bulge alone is enough to have your mouth watering, but you can’t let it slip, not when your grip on the reins is finally secured. “Let me see it, Doctor Abbot.”
The switch is instant.
Bashfulness melts away and the cloud of doubt is blown away as a cockiness overcomes Jack’s features, face splitting into a shit-eating grin. Fingers work fast this time, dipping beneath the elastic of his boxers and granting his cock freedom at long last.
No trace of a lie in his words; Jack is big. Uncut, with a rosie red tip that’s already made itself known, glistening with the rogue drops of precum that smear the mushroomed head. At the base sits a bush of hair, groomed enough to show you he cares enough to trim it yet overgrown enough to tell you it’s been a few weeks, silver locks threaded through a valley of dark auburn. Freckles dust his skin in subtle specs, while a vein draws a colourful line up the length of him.
You can practically feel yourself throbbing, calling out for him with each moment that passes, your eyes glued to the phallic shape. Jack, evil incarnate, has the gall to lick a stripe up his palm, hand wrapping around himself and daring to give a slow pump.
“I’m gonna need you to stop looking at me like that,” Jack cuts himself off with a hiss, teeth taking his bottom lip hostage as a chuckle rustles out from the depth of his chest. In that moment, you swear nothing has ever been more attractive than the gentle disapproving shake of his head as he rakes his stare down the shape of you, eyes clinging to where your thighs sit squeezed together, stealing any amount of friction you can find. “‘Else I might cum all over myself like some desperate college kid.”
You reach your hand out, searching for traction and finding it in the belt loop of his trousers, still clinging to his tree-trunk thighs. And thank god for that, for it allows you to tug the man closer, chest to chest, knuckles brushing over the hood of your clit as he works his hand over his cock one last time.
“Then give me a reason to stop looking, Doctor Abbot,” swallowing back any lingering shame or shyness a less hornier version of yourself possesses, you curl a hand over the top of his and stare into pools of hazel as you speak, “Don’t you want to make my eyes roll back?”
Never has a man looked so eager to part your legs, the skin of his knuckles burning white as he takes a hand to the back of one of your knees and hooks it over his waist. Left with no choice but to keep your thighs spread, you indulge yourself by glancing down at the view. Visual sin, erotica live in emotion, Jack guides the blushing tip of his cock up the length of your cunt, soaking himself in your arousal. A mutual gasp echoes out into the kitchen on his second swipe, head catching on your entrance only to be denied easy access, hips rolling only to watch himself press against your clit.
“Don’t care if it hurts,” bordering on lost in lust, you barely register the words as your mouth moves. Jack, on the other hand, clings to every syllable, awaiting whatever salvation they promise to bring him. “Just wanna feel you, Jack. All of you, please.”
“Shh, shh,” his hushing is full of mockery, like the last thing he really wants is to silence the desperate plea in your voice. He does so, unintentionally, by finally lining himself up with your entrance. “Don’t need to beg, baby. I’m gonna give it to you, all of it. Just be sure to cry real pretty for me if it gets too much.”
Something animalistic comes over you as Jack feeds the first inch into your cunt.
The burn is there, the stretch of long-unused walls remoulding themselves around the shape of Jack. But any pain is sweet, the kind that tickles at your nerves and has your heart speeding up, adrenaline activated and intoxicating your bloodstream.
Jack, conscious of the crease between your brows, is tentative, careful. He gives a barely-there thrust, letting himself inch just a little deeper into the pulsing warmth of your pussy. There’s a vein across his forehead that makes itself known, the force of his concentration paired with an accelerating heart rate drawing it to front and centre stage of his face. All it does is make you want him more, deeper, quicker.
Words cease to serve any purpose as the two of you give in to the physical, hands that grasp and pull and anchor themselves atop one another’s skin. You think you breathe some version of his name, but the letters are knocked out of you as your fingers tangle themselves in grey curls and, in the blink of an eye, Jack’s pelvis sits flush against your own, cock buried right to the deep hilt and face collapsed into your own, foreheads exchanging sweat as his temple kisses against yours.
A pitiful whine claws its way from you, suddenly painfully aware of how well Jack fills you, stuffed to the brim in a way no man before has quite achieved. You feel him in your cunt, in your guts, in your lungs with every shaky breath you pull; you are drunk on the attending and the feeling of his cock pulsing deep within your gummy walls.
“Sorry, baby. I’m so sorry,” apologies are overflowing from the fountain of Jack’s mouth, brushing against your cheek in tiny puffs of breath as the older man blesses you with a whimper so pathetic you nearly come undone right then and there, cunt ready to spill all over his throbbing cock. “Didn’t mean to- shit. Wanted to take it slow, ease him in, but god… You’re just so tight. And warm, and- Ahh! And your nails, they- they scrapped against my scalp and you were tugging on my hair and I couldn’t help it, baby.”
How can you even contest or complain, when you feel like a live wire, thrumming with a deadly kind of energy that threatens to burn everything and anything that touches you and isn’t Jack Abbot?
His hips rock back slightly, only for him to fuck back into you, tip to cervix. The leg hooked around his waist tightens around him, holding Jack as close to you as possible. The scene between you plays out with an intensity one could cut with a knife.
Slow and shallow rolls of hips, punctuating each shaken breath you pull and forcing the air out of you in pitiful whines and moans, songs of praise for Jack's viewing pleasure.
Foreheads together, breaths mingling until it’s hard to tell where your exhale stops and his inhale starts. Both nurse and attending, junior and senior, woman and man; whatever title you and Jack may be addressed by, you’re equal measures of the same mess, staining one another with nails that scrape over freckled skin and five o’clock shadows that burn at cheeks.
“Look at you,” Jack marvels, one hand scooping up to cup your face and remind you of how big his hands look — hands you spent weeks wishing would reach for yours during quiet walks home. Yet now one cradles you while the other grips at your body, tilts your hips at angle that drives him just that little bit deeper. “Taking it like a good girl, no whining or complaining that it hurts.”
What really hurts is that he is still moving at an agonisingly slow pace, torturous drags of his thick length along your walls. If you weren’t speechless under effects of his ministrations, you’d maybe find the ability to tell him this.
“You’re just grateful to have something to fill this pussy, huh?” Something catches in Jack’s throat, a fractured groan that raises a sudden alarm. It feels different to previous ones, born from somewhere deeper, more painful in his chest. “If I knew you’d be do eager, I wouldn't have waited this long to come inside.”
You stomach three more measured rolls of Jack’s hips before you cave into the anxious feeling hollowing your pleasure, the wince on his face having grown deeper and more concerning.
All it take is a hand to his shoulder and a barely formed Jack, wait, for the man to tear himself off you, putting immediate distance between you despite the hand that remains on your face, holding it steady as his gaze sweeps over you in search of evidence of your well-being.
“What’s wrong, kid?” Just like that, you watch him slip back into the practised role of a caretaker, Dr Abbot taking centre stage and relegating Jack, the man keen on seeing you come undone at his touch, to the wings. “Did I hurt you? I’m sorry, I told you- Warned you, baby.”
His rambling would be endearing, if you weren't aware of the sudden empty feeling of your cunt clenching at nothing and, worse, the bitten-back wince of pain that pronounces itself across his face as he shifts weight from one foot onto the other.
So you take matters into your own hands to silence his spiralling mind.
Literally into your hand, fingers wrapping themselves around the thick swell of his cock, standing at attention and smearing the evidence of your lust over Jack’s lower abdomen. The reaction is instant: hips bucking into your touch in a stuttered thrust, mouth falling agape and silent as you envelop him in your gentle touch.
“You didn’t hurt me,” quite the opposite, the tight fit of his dick bordering on nothing short of heaven. “But you’re hurting yourself.”
Before Jack can demand a much earned explanation, you trade his cock for one of his hands, threading yourself to him and enduring he can’t let go as you begin guiding him to your bedroom, the gentle jingle of his loose belt slapping against his thigh announcing each step he takes.
Lit only by the silver light of moon, you turn to him as you reach your humble queen size bed and try your hand at that stern yet caring look Jack has mastered — the look that’s held your heart hostage since you first witnessed it directed at you.
“Your leg. It’s hurting,” now you wish you had opted for switching on a light, because you swear you see the subtlest hint of a blush taking over Jack’s cheeks, guilty and caught when he thought he was doing such a good job to mask the dull ache of his limb. “Take it off, Jack. Or at least let yourself rest on the bed, let me do the work.”
Your silver fox puts up little fight, mouth opening and swiftly closing before any empty protest can flee. The mattress squeaks beneath his weight as Jack sits down on the edge, both legs bent at the knee and feet planted on the floor — he makes a conscious effort to keep his boots from touching the small carpet that runs along your bedside, unwilling to taint the cream coloured fur.
As he hunches over, hands peeling back the leg of his trouser to expose the sight of his faux-calf, a fragile quiet befalls you both. You watch entranced as he removes the prosthetic, a practised ritual he performs with the ease of a man who long ago came to terms with the cards that were handed to him. Freed at last, unwinding a strip of bandage from the stump, Jack takes to removing his clothes next, while you take to filing away his previous movements into a part of your mind labelled later, a future in the shape of a question mark, the possibility of some day needing to remove it for him.
There is something decidedly cruel about the sight of Jack Abbot sitting at the edge of your bed, completely undressed and pinning you beneath his stare as his hands now occupy themselves with more nefarious actions, one gripping at his cock and indulging himself in a languid stroke while the other takes claim of the bottom of your shirt, balling the fabric up in a fist as he tugs you close so abruptly, it’s only natural that you slip and tumble into his naked lap.
An awkward repositioning is punctuated by your own nervous laughter, a shy giggle making itself known as you straddle the doctor, the hand between his legs now teasing at your core, dipping into your honeypot just to soak himself in your sweetness before diverting his attention to your clit, pointer and middle finger rubbing an agonisingly slow circle over the nub.
“You’re gorgeous,” Jack whispers, honesty rolling off him in waves as his eyes ravage the newly exposed sight of your naked chest, t-shirt and bra tossed behind you in the blind chaos of falling into Jack. “You know that, right?”
There is urgency in his voice, like his worldview might just collapse if you tell him otherwise, and the desperation is enough to have you giggling all over again, a noise that quickly is intercepted by a gasp, eyes slipping shut as the man welcomes himself to the taste of your flesh, mouth swooping forward to take the right nipple between his lips, “You might have mentioned it before.”
“Then let me mention it again,” mumbled into your chest, he marks the sentence with a kiss to the opposite nipple, “And again,” the next kiss lands back on your right nipple. “And again.”
Both of you groan at the other’s ministrations, your hand threaded back in the silver locks of his hair and tugging at them just sharp enough to have Jack’s hips rutting up into you, bodies searching for the sweet release of friction yet neither of you rushing to give in as you slowly wade into the depths of lust, grinding desperately against one another like a pair of inexperienced college students.
“Jack,” you breathe his name, hand tilting his head back from your chest and granting you the freedom to plant your mouth against him, tongue dipping into the cavern of his mouth, the taste of beer and bourbon still on his lips.
“Hmm,” Jack hums, hand cradling your cheek.
Between you, tensions rise as your folds spread around his cock, rubbing up the length of him as he rocks himself against you.
“Are you going to fuck me,” is all he lets you get out before he drags you in for another kiss. “Or are we going to sit like this all night?”
“I don’t know, feels pretty good to me,” he’s teasing you, enjoying the sight of you growing more and more dishevelled by your own carnal needs, your nails digging into his freckled shoulders. “I wouldn’t mind.”
Sighing with nothing but sexual frustration, you recapture those earlier reins and slip your hand between you both, grabbing at Jack’s cock and lining it up at your entrance, thigh muscles burning as you hover, “Well I would.”
You sink down onto him slowly, eyes incapable of resisting the urge to roll to the back of your skull as you feel that sweet familiar burn of him stretching your walls.
Jack is speechless, but far from quiet, mouth open and singing you the prettiest songs of guttural praise. His hands are on your hips, gripping you in a way that threatens to bruise, all the while you are savouring the flush press of your bodies, your soaked folds kissing the base of his cock with a creamy ring.
When you finally begin to move, a careful raise of hips, you condemn both of you to a world polluted by lust, and pleasure, and the aching need to keep stimulating friction.
The rhythm comes naturally, a slow build-up of you fucking yourself down onto him, stuffing your cunt full to the brim. Jack has given in, handed himself over to you for you to use how you please, while his hands rake over every sliver of skin they can reach. Smoothing over your thighs, grabbing at your waist, pinching at your hard nipples, guiding your mouth down to meet his, a kiss that is more an exchange of breaths than a battle of lips.
A symphony composed entirely of sin, the darkness of your bedroom is set ablaze by the wet slap of skin meeting skin, a squelch punctuating each time he fills your cunt and a new wave of your arousal drips down his thighs and stains your bedsheets.
“This fucking pussy,” Jack speaks like you have personally wounded him, your forehead meeting his shoulder as you let out a squeak, the hands on your waist no longer sitting idle but now guiding you, bouncing you down to meet the upward rut of his hips. “‘S so tight, and warm, and perfect. You’re perfect, letting me stretch this little hole. Taking all of me.”
“Love it, Jack,” You’re babbling into his shoulder, mind turning to unusable mush the faster Jack slams you down on him.
“Love what, kid?”
“Your cock.”
“Yeah?” Oh, the smugness in his voice should be illegal, but you have only yourself to blame. “Who knew my pretty nurse was so good at taking dick. Can’t believe you’ve been holding out on me all this time.”
A chord is winding inside you, drawing tighter and tighter as Jack continues to bounce you down on his cock, pausing every few thrusts to let you savour the full stretch, grinding up and biting back laughter as you greet him with the whites of your eyes.
“Holding- ahh! Out?” Your walls flutter around him as you feel yourself closer to the edge of an orgasm.
“Yeah, sweetheart, holding out,” a kiss lands on the side of your head, as though Jack is incapable of not showering you in as much physical affection as possible. “Ignoring all my flirting, never giving me a sign that you want me just as much as I want you.”
“Flirting?!” Head out from his shoulders, you gaze down at him in disbelief, refusing to take the blame for why it has taken so many months for the pair of your to wind up here, naked and desperate and staining your sheets together. “How was I supposed to know? You flirt with everyone- Jack!”
His name is more shriek than moan, tearing out of you as his fingers press themselves to your clit and send you head-first into an orgasm.
Jack fucks you through it, slower rolls of his hips stretching out your state of euphoria and granting him a longer view of your mouth spewing profanities and your eyes rolling back and your hips bucking atop him, both fleeing from and feeding into his touch.
A sudden bang interrupts the scene, cutting your bliss short and forcing you to swallow back a moan.
Frozen in place, fingers to your clit and cock half-way buried inside, Jack’s wide-eyed gaze watches you with a questioning glance. Silence isn’t given the chance to settle fully between you, as soon another sound — from the same direction as the bang — echoes through your bedroom.
“Hey! Keep it down, some of us are trying to sleep.”
Jack is the first to react, laughter shaking his shoulders. His head tilts back, disbelief gripping him in its clutches. Collapsing back onto your bed, he drags you down with him, sweaty chest pressing to sweaty chest. You follow him into laughter too, your own muted chuckles spilling into his neck as you shyly bury your face away, mortified by the thought of one of your neighbours hearing you and Jack.
Apparently, it has the opposite affect on him.
Because instead of crippling mortification, Jack has already begun rutting back into you, shallow thrusts that he somehow manages to deliver, despite the fact his cock already fills you to the brim. Nerves aflame from a ruined orgasm, your body is quick to submit to him, hips tilting to welcome him deeper, back arching into his body. But the moment your lips dare to part, a chastisement is quick to follow, a disapproving tut coming from the man beneath you.
“Shh,” despite his hushing, he makes no attempt to slow his thrusts, the very cause of your fracturing sanity, mouth no longer in control of the noises you let out. Neighbours be damned, you would happily dare any of them to feel the sweet release of Jack stretching them out and not turn into raving banshees. Well, not quite so happily, for you are very quickly growing not only fond but possessive of the attending. “I know, kid, I know. Feels good, right? So good you just wanna scream, don’t even care if someone hears?”
Whether you realise it or not, you nod along to his mockery, desperate please for more, please, just like that, Jack proving his point perfectly: you don’t care.
The only thing you can do is feel him, all of him.
“That’s it, let it out,” he croons, faux sympathy in his voice while he cups your face and swipes away at a tear, the overwhelm of feeling so full and so close to cumming for a third time finally getting the better of you. Tear gone, the hand on your cheek drifts down to cover your mouth, smothering you into silence, muffling the shriek you let out as his hips grow sloppy, desperate, fucking you deeper, harder, faster each time, his own orgasm creeping over the horizon. “I’ll take you to my place next time. ‘S a detached bungalow, can be as loud as you need to be. And, god, I plan on giving you reasons to be loud, put you in every possible position, make you cum so many times you lose count.”
Every moan and groan and whine of his name that leaves you is muffled by the heavy palm of his hand… Which turns out to be a blessing in disguise when a third and final orgasm collides, head first, right into you, leaving you a mess. As you writhe and wriggle, one of the muscles in your calf cramping as your toes curl and your body pulls itself taut, Jack is fighting his own personal battle, hips stilled and limiting the friction as much as possible while you fall apart atop him.
Fingers tangled in his hair, face engulfed by his heavy hand, thighs squeezing around his hips; the image of you cumming is the kind that pushes a man to pick up a paint brush, all in the hopes of memorialising the art in motion onto canvas. Jack can barely focus on you, however, eyes squeezing shut as he steadies his breathing and struggles to hold back a flood.
“‘M gonna cum, baby,” Jack strains out, pulse near visible along his jugular as his heart rate shifts into overdrive. “Need you to lift these pretty hips off me or else- ahh!”
The whimper you pull from him is damn near heartbreaking, right from the gut and full of a fractured sincerity. Unwilling to so much as let him finish any thought of pulling out, never mind his sentence, you’ve staked your claim, shook your head, and cemented yourself flush atop him, cock stuffed to the brim and left no choice but to spill into the pulsing heat of your walls.
Hot, thick ropes of Jack’s cum flood your pussy, painting a pearly white mess inside of you. Overflowing and with nowhere else to run, you feel the unmistakable stickiness of his cum, now mixed with your own orgasmic bliss, leaking out of you and staining both your skins in the act. Breathless and minds drifting far away from the physical plane, you crash down atop Jack, overstimulated and overspent, and drift into the comfort of his arms enveloping you, holding your sweaty figure against his own in an embrace that says stay without uttering a single syllable.
Frozen in time, the pair of you remain glued to one another. Your breathing falls in sync, each rise of his chest matching perfectly with your exhale, and a gentle rocking remains between your bodies, an invisible stream of desire that ebbs and flows, manipulating Jack into rocking up into you and teasing you into grinding down to meet his movements, in spite of the teeth clenching sensitivity tingling at your skin.
You are the first to move, a careful rise from his chest. Already softened within you, his cock slips out of you and you pull a breath in through a grimace. The muscles in your thighs have turned to mush, more unstable than jelly, and so it is nothing short of a miracle to feel Jack’s steady touch settle itself on your hips, hands supporting the dead-weight of your lax body and guiding you to hover over his lower abdomen. You quickly realise he has less than pure intentions, as you watch satisfaction creep back into his pupils when a string of his cum dribbles out from your cunt and drips down onto his skin.
Admiring the picture you paint over his lower stomach, Jack has the nerve to mock the tired whine he coaxes from you as fingers swipe through the white mess and slip between your folds, feeding his spend right back into your walls.
Back hitting the mattress before you can protest, you struggle over a gasp and a barely stringed together sentence while the attending slips down the length of your body, pausing only when his head reaches your thighs.
“What are you doing?”
“What’s it look like?” Jack, with reflexes quick enough to match his wit, intercepts your legs before they can crush his head between them, your hips bucking and your heart unsure whether you are trying to chase after or run from the teasing stripe he licks up your cunt. “You cleaned your mess, now let me clean mine.”
Your heads hit the pillow as the Sun hits the horizon.
By nine, birds chirp by the windowsill and sunlight cuts through the sliver in your curtains, forcing your half-asleep form to retreat into the safety of Jack’s chest. He answers your cry for help instantly, arms pulling tighter around your waist as he continues to venture through a land of dreams, lips parted in the softest snore.
By noon, the city is awake. Cars honk their horns, voices fill the streets, doors slam from floors above and below. But in your apartment, not a creature stirs, bodies clinging to one another and sleep with equal fervour. If you drift left, Jack soon follows. If Jack flips onto his front, your palm is quick to flatten itself over his back. Magnets connected by an unseen force, the pair of you toss and turn beneath wrinkled bedsheets.
By four, the bathroom mirror is fogged. You are a nervous wreck contained behind the nervous smile of someone who is trying their best to be supportive despite the shampoo stinging at your eyes and the grown man you are supporting against your frame. Unwilling to let you drag one of your leather dining chairs into the cubicle, Jack had insisted he would be fine to shower standing, so long as you kept him company.
By six, your apartment is empty. Clad in the familiar shapeless clothing that is sure to keep you comfortable throughout your shift, you’re struggling to find the right time to ask Jack to hand you your bag back, too used to his habit of prying it out your hands to even notice he had done so as you both departed from your front door. No choice but to throw on last nights clothing, Jack is silent at your back, one arm pulling you against him as yet another neighbour slips into the confines of the elevator — freshly fixed yet sending a shiver down your spine with each shake it gives in its descent down to the ground floor.
By some miracle, you make it out onto the street.
Which maybe, now that the fresh air hits your cheek, you are beginning to lament. Because this is it, the point of no return; where you go one way and Jack will go the other, trailing home to enjoy the rest of his night off while you no doubt will spend your entire shift dreading where the events that transpired between you — the stolen kisses, the lustful whines, the rolling hips — leave you both standing.
Taking your bag from him seems like the correct first move to make towards goodbye, but when you reach your hand out, Jack answers your silent plea with his empty one threading itself into your hold, fingers entwined in a manner so perfectly it has you reminiscing on how your bodies lay atop your mattress.
The attending has already tugged you halfway down the street before your mouth catches up with your feet, choking out a dumbfounded, “Where are you going? You’re off today.”
“So?” Jack barely offers you a bothered shrug of his shoulders, glancing back at you with a look in his eyes so warm, you worry you might just melt into the asphalt. “That doesn’t mean I can’t walk you to work.”
+ extra hyde!
· this fic was meant to be short, believe it or not... my first proper fic of 2026, yippee!
· olivia, girl... never stop making albums for me to cry to.
· pov: jack abbot, the biggest flirt who turns into a bumbling idiot when faced with the person he actually wants:
Also I just love the fact that Jack cannot keep his mouth shut in the best way like spewing out his star sign, that he lied, that he didn’t actually have his car in the garage, just so so good!!
2087
baratheonpilled
izzy806
yousharknotpass
dailybridgerton
